Tag Apologetics

Faith: A Practical, Living Teacher

Todd R 1 Comment
Photo by Thomas Somme on Unsplash

Years ago, I saw a drawing of a child suspended in the air, clutching the string of a single balloon, with the caption: “Faith isn’t faith until it’s all you’re holding on to.”  It was a very simple picture, but it made me think: Where does this kind of faith come from?  A faith that turns intellectual trust into action, especially potentially dangerous action?

One way is that we can learn it from others.  I’ve read a lot of Christian apologetics – or writings in defense of Christian faith.  Writers such as Josh McDowell and Ravi Zacharias were held in reverent awe by many in my college years, the logic being that “if someone that smart can be a Christian, it must be reasonable to believe!”  While there is definitely value in learning from others, there is also the hazard of learning to trust our teachers (instead of our Teacher).  Then when they fall, it hurts us personally and can damage our witness.  We know what ended up happening to Ravi Zacharias[1].

There is also the testimony of the Bible.  In the book of Hebrews, chapter 11 chronicles the faith of many in the Bible, and Hebrews 12:1 calls these our “cloud of witnesses.”  We can learn a lot from these people, but they don’t just teach us facts about God.  The writer of Hebrews adds that because of these witnesses, we should “lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”[2] He is our Lord, and these witnesses tell us to follow Him, not just be able to describe Him.

One of the best lessons on this comes from G.K. Chesterton, who is well-known for his arguments in defense of the reasonableness of Christianity.  However, near the end of his book Orthodoxy, he says that he has a better idea: “And that is this: ‘that the Christian Church in its practical relation to my soul is a living teacher, not a dead one. It not only certainly taught me yesterday, but will almost certainly teach me tomorrow.’”  Apologetics is not about winning arguments, but about growing our ability to trust Him and learning to explain that to others.

While we can learn from others and from the Bible to build up our faith, what God has done for us personally is the best testimony because it is the most real to us.  Everything else is hearsay, as they say in court.  We are all learning to let Him tell us where to go and what to do.  To discern not only His truth, but His will, in the testimony of modern apologists and in the Bible.  To make our own Ebenezers, or memorials to His faithfulness to us when we’ve acted in faith in Him, even if it meant holding on to nothing else.  Therefore:

“Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!
Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!” – Psalm 34:8

The best way to know that He is good is to try for ourselves, even when it’s hard or doesn’t make sense.

[1] If you don’t know, after Ravi died it was revealed that he had inappropriate relationships with massage therapists and others.  A once-influential ministry ended up in tatters, and some of Ravi’s followers ended up embarrassed and wondering what to believe.
[2] Hebrews 12:1b-2

The Gospel is About a Who, not a How

Todd R 1 Comment

In chapter 9 of John’s gospel he records a story of Jesus healing a man who was born blind.  In John’s story, Jesus made some mud out of saliva and dirt, then put the mud on the man’s eyes.  Then Jesus tells the man to go wash off the mud in a pool.  When the man does this, his blindness is gone!

Because this man was born blind and had begged in the temple area for years, the miracle was hard to deny as a claim that Jesus was the Messiah, but many of the people put their focus on the wrong question: the how of the miracle.  Four times in the chapter someone asks how the man’s eyes were healed, as if the method of the healing was the important part.  Some of “The neighbors and those who had seen him before” asked “how were your eyes opened?” [1]  Then some Pharisees asked the man how he was healed.  In both cases, the man formerly blind explained what Jesus had done.

Then, because Jesus had healed the man on the Sabbath and because practicing medicine on the Sabbath was against traditional Jewish regulations, the Pharisees asked, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?”[2]  The Pharisees kept looking for an explanation.  A scientific or natural explanation.  Perhaps this wasn’t the same man who was born blind.  So they found his parents, “and asked them, ‘Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?’”[3]

The better question is who healed the man born blind, but the Pharisees didn’t want to deal with that question.  They had already made up their minds that Jesus wasn’t from God.  So, they focused on the how, on the method.  People still do this today, as Warren Wiersbe wrote: “We want to understand the mechanics of a miracle instead of simply trusting the Savior, who alone can perform the miracle.”[4]

Modern people want scientific explanations because they think nothing exists outside of scientific understanding and when something doesn’t fit that worldview it is denied or explained away.  We want to fit miracles within our pre-existing understanding of the world.  And when we can’t, we resist any way we can.  In the case of the Pharisees and Jesus, “they cast him out.”[5]  Anything to avoid the real question: who is this person who can do things that don’t fit into our narrow view of the universe?  Comparing John’s gospel to modern events, we see this is nothing new.

However, if Jesus is who He said He was – God the Son – no miracle should be unbelievable because God has absolute control over His own creation.  If Jesus is God, He exists outside of our universe and so obviously can’t be explained by using scientific laws that describe this universe.  But we continue to resist.  When people want to avoid dealing with their God, they still stick to the “how” question to avoid the more important question of “who.”

If you’re struggling to understand the miraculous stories of the Bible, make sure you’re asking the right (“who”) questions.  If you’re talking to an unbeliever having the same struggles, make sure they’re asking the right questions, because: If Jesus is who God is, every how is possible, including the greatest miracle: the salvation of anyone who would believe in Him.  And, Jesus can heal anyone who is blind to this reality.

[1] John 9:8-10
[2] John 9:16
[3] John 9:19
[4] Wiersbe, Warren.  Be Alive (John 1-12) (1986).  P. 143
[5] John 9:34

Broken, But Not Beyond Repair

Todd R 1 Comment
Actual disaster footage. Viewer discretion advised.

A doctor friend of mine said there’s an inside joke that “if you put two bones alone in a room together, they’ll find each other.”  I heard this after breaking my left collarbone in the summer of 2011.  Even when I was young, I wasn’t a great athlete, but I did always hustle.  So after a decade of not doing much athletically, I joined my work softball league and thought at least I would try hard and have fun.  But when I hit a weak ground ball to the shortstop and decided to “hustle,” disaster saw its opportunity.  The fields we played on were poorly maintained, with holes where the hitters stand.  Instead of doing the smart thing and stopping after I tripped in this hole, I tried to keep running (because hustle!) and soon ended up falling hard on my shoulder with a loud snapping sound.  The picture above is my actual X-ray from that night.

This isn’t a great memory, but it’s also a reminder of the miracle of healing. I had the option of surgery or just letting it grow back together, and I chose letting it heal.  However, it didn’t “just” get fixed. It was by design and no accident.

My collarbone was broken clean through, with the two sides of the bone not even touching any more.  I could feel them moving around independently.  When I think about the millions of “decisions” the cells in these bones, interacting with the tissue around them, had to make to do something they’ve never done before, I have to be convinced something beyond my own anatomy and genetic history was at work.  An impersonal evolution may have never seen these bones break in just this way before, so how did the bones know what to do?  I certainly wasn’t aware of telling these bones what to do.  They didn’t “just” fix themselves.

I can only credit the creative power of my Maker, along with David, who wrote:
“For you formed my inward parts;
            you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
            my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
            intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
            the days that were formed for me,
            when as yet there was none of them.” – Psalm 139:13-14

Everyday Miracles
Miracles happen every single day in every human body, yet we often miss them or refuse to call them miracles.  Maybe we do that because calling them miracles would mean we have to give credit to the power behind the miracle, and we’d rather not.  Ever since Adam and Eve looked at God’s good creation and decided they’d rather make their own decisions, mankind has persisted in acting like bones that would rather grow apart than follow their Creator’s design.  As a result, the world is broken into billions of personalities that don’t know how to connect, that don’t know how to knit agape love into the trillions of decisions they make, and interactions they have, each day. 

We all have a choice in every moment: do we “just” do whatever we think is best and expect the right outcome to “just” happen, or do we look at nature and think that maybe the Person who knows how to make bones fix themselves knows how to guide our lives to the best outcome.

Our heavenly Father wants to knit us together once again, in a world that isn’t broken and where we aren’t broken.  None of us are beyond repair, and our Maker will restore us if we let Him.  Every human being in history has been bad at love, except One, and He is calling to every one of us to trust Him.  “Just Do It” is not a good motto.

“Many are the afflictions of the righteous,
            but the LORD delivers him out of them all.
He keeps all his bones;
            not one of them is broken.” – Psalm 34:19-20

Faith Takes More Than Proof

Todd R 1 Comment

When writing his gospel, John had an objective in mind.  As he wrote in John 20:31, he was recording Jesus’ miracles and signs “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.”

What was John’s objective?  To persuade anyone reading “that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.”

In the same book, John says that many were not convinced by miracles:
“But although He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in Him, that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke: “Lord, who has believed our report?  And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” – John 12:37

John says this failure to convince was intentional on God’s part and a fulfillment of prophecy.  John claims to be a first-hand witness of many miracles performed by Jesus, climaxing in the resurrection of one Lazarus, who was apparently dead for so long that “there is a stench” (John 11:39).  John spends a lot of time setting the scene — many people had gathered to comfort Martha and Mary, the sisters of the deceased — pointing out that Lazarus had his own tomb, which indicates he was probably affluent and well-known – and so on.  This miracle was to be very public.  The result when Lazarus came out?  John says many believed in Jesus, but many others did not believe, and some even saw Him as a threat – resulting in His crucifixion.

So John, writing for the specific purpose of creating belief, tells us the ultimate miracles are not enough to generate belief in everyone.  “Proof” does not always convince, and those who disagree hold their beliefs as strongly as those who agree.   Whatever your beliefs, have you ever been frustrated when someone just won’t come around to your view, no matter what you said?  Would you be more frustrated if you were told that any argument you could make wouldn’t be good enough?

Some deny miracles because of a purely naturalistic worldview where the supernatural is not allowed in.  Miracles do not exist, and never did.  In this view, mankind was created through an unknowing process of natural selection and is a type of animal, although perhaps a special animal.  These people have just as much conviction as I do.  I could argue against those views, which really are what G.K. Chesterton called a “dogma of materialism” because proving it would require disproving every claim about a supernatural occurrence that any human has ever claimed.  This is, of course, impossible.  The dogma of materialism is a matter of faith, however much proponents of evolution and other “scientific” ideas claim overwhelming evidence and vast consensus.  It takes faith to fill in the gaps in the evidence.  Those who disagree with me are obviously willing to accept these gaps.

On the other hand, we have the oral and written testimony of many people reporting many supernatural things over the centuries.  This includes John’s records of many first century miracles.  However, John also testifies that a man raised from the dead was not enough to convince the skeptics on the scene.  This man, Lazarus, even became the target of death threats, because he was evidence that threatened the well-being of those who made their living off the established religion.

There is more to proof than meets the eye.  There is more to life than cold reason.  People have reasons for believing what they do and acting how they act, and the Apostle Paul says “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood…”  (Ephesians 6:12).  Therefore, nothing I can write, do, or say is guaranteed to convince anyone, but I take heart that Chesterton also wrote: “When I fancied that I stood alone I was really in the ridiculous position of being backed up by all of Christendom.”


If you are a Christian – what argument can you make that is better than raising a man from the dead, then following that up by raising yourself from the dead?  If Jesus couldn’t convince everyone, the best anyone can do is follow Peter’s advice to “in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.” – 1 Peter 3:15-16

What are the reasons for the hope that is in you?

The Last Enemy is Death

Todd R 2 Comments

In life there are many difficult questions, and two of the hardest are also common objections to Christianity: 1) Why doesn’t God do anything about the evil in this world? and 2) Why do bad things happen to good people?

However, the Bible does not leave Christians without hope in the face of these questions.

First, part of what God is doing about the evil in this world is the fact that everyone dies.  The Bible teaches that every bad thing in this world is a result of sin – people deviating from God’s purposes – and that because of that sin the world is cursed[1].  Not only do people hurt each other, but the creation itself, including human nature, is not in its ideal state.

Death was not originally part of this world, but came in to the world as a result of sin and is a constant reminder of it.  In Genesis chapter 5, there is a genealogy from Adam to Noah.  The phrase “and he died” is repeated over and over again and is a reminder that this world is not perfect.  God created a consequence for the sin of mankind: death.  While the Bible doesn’t explain why there was a snake in the garden or why Adam and Eve sinned, it does describe what God is doing about it.  When we ask why bad things happen, we acknowledge that bad things exist, that they shouldn’t exist, and that they can happen to anyone.  God isn’t doing nothing about the evil in the world – we all die and that is part of the judgment.

So, the two objections to Christianity (Why doesn’t God do anything about the evil in this world? and why do bad things happen to good people?) end up being contradictory because part of what God does about the evil in this world is that bad things (death) happen to everyone.

However, the Bible teaches that there are two deaths: a physical death and a spiritual death.  In the first, our soul is separated from our body and our body dies.  In the second, our soul is separated from God eternally and our soul dies but exists forever away from God’s presence and blessings.  A second thing that God is doing about the evil in this world is that the first death is universal, but the second death is not.

Fortunately, judgement and death aren’t the only things God is doing about sin.  What does this mean?  Note the second half of God’s curse on the serpent from Genesis 3:15 –

“I will put enmity between you and the woman,
            and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
            and you shall bruise his heel.”

Who is being bruised here?  In the last phrase, Satan is injuring Christ through the crucifixion, but it’s described as a wound to the heel because it is not fatal.  Jesus was raised to life eternal.  On the other hand, Christ shall bruise the head of Satan – a fatal blow that he will never recover from.  This was determined from the beginning.

While judgement comes to all in physical death as a result of sin, through Christ there is a way out from spiritual, eternal death.  Jesus has paid the price for our sin and has conquered eternal, spiritual death as a result.

“The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” – 1 Corinthians 15:26

Praise God!

[1] See Genesis 3:19 and 3:22