Misquoting Jesus: Reviewed

I am still working through the book but I thought I'd take the time to go through some of what I have read and my thoughts on this interesting book.

Introduction
I really liked how Erhman begins: with himself. He tells the audience where he comes from and what things in his life had lead him to the point he is at now. I like this because it gives us a chance to see some of the presuppositions a person comes to the table with, which is important because everyone comes to the table with some presuppositions that can negatively or positively influence one's arguments.
One of the interesting things you will find out about Dr. Ehrman is that he became a "born-again" Christian after hearing the Gospel from a guy named Bruce as a sophomore in High school. He recalls that he had always felt an 'emptiness' as a teen, but when he had his 'born-again' experience, he felt as if the emptiness was filled. Read what he has to say:

"There was a kind of loneliness associated with being a teenager; but, of course, I didn't realize that it was part of being a teenager--I thought there must be something missing."
"Bruce was a completely winsome personality--younger than our parents but older and more experienced than we--with a powerful message, that the void we felt inside (we were teenagers! All of us felt a void!) was from not having Christ in our hearts." p.3

For me, this is very telling. I always find it strange when someone makes a universal statement ike that. I'm 22 and I can recall my feelings as a teenager and I don't once recalling a sense of "loneliness" nor "a void." in my life; and by all accounts I should have. I'm from a family of divorce. My parents split when I was young enough to not truly realize what was going on, but old enough to realize something was wrong. But hey, maybe I'm just the exception to the rule, I can accept that, but maybe there's something to the loneliness teenagers feel. Maybe as we get older, we try to fill that void with things and they work for a little while and then we have to find something new. Americans are infamous for this mentality. I think C.S. Lewis said it best:

“A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing."

More to come later!!

In View of God's Mercy...

So I had a long, but very awesome day yesterday. I met with the amazing Tori Lane in the morning at the Crosspoint House on George Mason's campus. We were meeting to walk around the campus and try to get a feel of the people there. First off, I have to say the campus "feel" is quite different from JMU. When one walks around JMU's campus, you can't help but notice that about 8/10 people wear some sort of JMU clothing: hoodie, shirt, pants, hats, jersey, bracelet, backpack, etc. As Tori and I walked around the campus, we would have be lucky to see more than maybe 7 out of the 500 students we must have passed by wearing some sort of GMU apparel. Part of the reason for that is the sheer amount of student who don't live on campus. There are 34,714 students who attend the school, but a very large amount do not live on campus. Another contributing factor to the seeming lack of identity that the students have with GMU is it's location in Fairfax. Fairfax is a hustle and bustle and it's identity overrides the GMU presence. In a place like JMU, Harrsionburg IS JMU. H-burg becomes a virtual ghost town when the students leave in the summer. Not Fairfax though. Another thing that caught us was the very high diversity of ethnicities present on campus. This made us pretty excited, because we both came from schools that seemed pretty whit bread. Diversity is a great thing!

Now, with all of this in mind, why were we there? Both Tori and I have caught the vision of God brought to us by Mike Bradley to reach the George Mason Campus for our Savior. We want to disciple, create community, serve and give students the tools necessary to be a thriving participant in the body of Christ through local churches both in college and after college. Romans 12 says this:

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."

In view of our saving, loving, just, mighty, patient, incomparable God and all that He has done, we cannot help but go out telling and teaching others of Him. I will keep all of you updated on this thing as it gets moving and going. I'm pumped, aren't you?

A New Direction

God has been doing some awesome stuff in my life the past few months. My internship at Manassas Baptist has been just awesome and I have learned so much there. Unfortunately, it looks like I will not be there much longer. Leaving that church will be hard, especially because I have developed relationships with the kids. But God is leading, and I know that the only thing I can do is follow because I want to be with Him every step of the way. So, that leads me to some other updates.

A couple of weeks ago, I e-mailed a pastor (Dave Waters of Sunset Hills Baptist in Alexandria) asking him if their church needed help with their youth group (I had heard that they were looking for a part-time youth guy). He e-mail me back with, "We have things covered." I e-mailed back with "ok! God speed!" (these e-mails were longer and more detailed, but those are the basics). A couple of days later, I received an e-mail from this pastor again, saying that he wanted to meet and have lunch. So, we met and things went really well. I turns out that although they were kinda set, they are a bit unsure about the future. So we talked and got to know each other (for only three hours). He told me that if in praying about this He feels that God is wanting us to move forward, we will. The next morning, I got an e-mail saying "let's move forward."
Amy and I had dinner with Pastor Waters and his wife. It was a great meeting. Afterwards, Amy seemed fairly excited about this job. For me, that was a good confirmation. I felt that God was leading us this way, but to see Amy get excited is always a good sign! Later that week, I got another e-mail saying that we should take the next step and I will be meeting with Sunset Hills deacons next Thursday. I am very excited about all of this, but I need all of your prayers! Pray that I continue to focus on God's leading and that I honor Him every step of the way.
There are some other things that are moving as well. In talking with Pastor Bradley during marriage counseling, I have learned about a new ministry starting up on George Mason's campus. Most of this is still in the works and I think some aspects will be a struggle, but God will provide. Please pray for this ministry and for everyone involved in it. I will talk about it more later.

Now, on to some things I will be covering in upcoming posts. I just started reading Bart Ehrman's book "Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why" and I want to go through this book on the blog, so be on the look out for my thoughts on the Introduction, coming sometime next week!

Hey all

Sorry I haven't written a blog post in a while. Life can easily become very crammed and it can be hard to sit down and write. I won't be able to write a long post, but I do want to update everyone on some things in my life.
I started working at Manassas Baptist Church almost three weeks ago and things seem to be going great. I am getting to know the kids and the staff, which has been awesome. I will need everyone's prayers as I begin to really start zonign in on some full time ministry opportunities for the fall and also for everything I will be apart of this summer!
Amy and I are doing great and the wedding day is approaching ever faster (which I am so totally pumped about!!)
Other than that, things are pretty sweet. I got a new phone plan so now I can text! WOO-HOO!

As for this blog...I think I will do one last post concerning the existence of God. I want to cover the Moral Arument and Jesus. After that, I think I want to do some posts on historical research on Scripture. I think it will be quite interesting!

The Existence of God: The Teleological Argument

The Third Argument: the Teleological.
(Teleological= telos [end, purpose]+logia [science, study]= "the study of purpose." So this argument has to do with the end purpose of things around us, usually the Universe/Nature.)

This probably the most widely known argument out of the ones I have presented. It comes in many-a-shape and form. It is even used in the Bible (Rom. 1:20)! A form of this argument is sometimes called 'The Argument from Design.'

William Paley forms the argument thus:
1. Human artifacts are products of intelligent design.
2. The universe resembles human artifacts.
3. Therefore the universe is a product of intelligent design.
4. But the universe is complex and gigantic, in comparison to human artifacts.
5. Therefore, there probably is a powerful and vastly intelligent designer who created the universe.

Ok. So where to start on this one. Let's start with a quote from an awesome dude named G.K. Chesterton, "So one elephant having a trunk was odd; but all elephants having trunks looked like a plot." So, let's look at the premises:

The first premise: Human artifacts are products of intelligent design.
If it really needs to be said, this is a VERY uncontroversial argument. If it was made by a human, it had some degree of intelligence behind it.

The second premise: The universe resembles human artifacts.
This is where much controversy arises. To say that the universe resembles human artifacts seems somewhat to be subjective and explanations of certain resemblances can be quite convincing, but the fact remains that there are resemblances to the appearance of intelligence behind the universe. The whole argument, I think, resets on this one premise. How do we go and provide support for this premise? Well, I don't think that there is any true way to provide an evidence that is irrefutable (as one of my good friend's always says, 'There are good arguments for really stupid things.'), but I do believe that there are strong evidences that can be provided.

Okay, so the first support I want to provide is from the Fine-Tuning argument (another form of a teleological argument). This argument states that, "the fitness of the universe for life either involves a series of staggering coincidences, or is the result of intelligent design" (taken from here). For example, George Wald, a Nobel Prize winning biologist, said, "When it comes to the origin of life, we have only two possibilities as to how life arose. One is spontaneous generation arising to evolution, the other is a supernatural creative act of God. There is no third possibility." Scientists have been able to determine that in order for life to even have the possibility of arising in the universe, at least 34 parameters must just so, or else our universe would never produce life (or it would be so unlikely that it is considered not possible), more info here.

The third premise: Therefore the universe is a product of intelligent design.

Again, this really depends on if whomever you are talking about accepts the second premise. If they do accept the second premise, then it follows that intelligent design is behind the universe.

The fourth premise: But the universe is complex and gigantic, in comparison to human artifacts.

This follows pretty nicely. I mean, nothing we humans have ever created has even come close to the complexity and size of the universe and nothing we create ever will.

The fifth premise: Therefore, there probably is a powerful and vastly intelligent designer who created the universe.

This is the very logical conclusion of the understanding of these premises. Remember, the strength of this argument relies on premise 2.

Something I want to say here is that while I think this argument is strong, I do not think that it is unbeatable. The strength of the argument for God's existence is not in one argument alone, but rather in all of the arguments together. So, that being said, take this argument and put it together with the others that you have amassed and use them to tell other about Him.

Grace and Peace be with you.

A Little Break...

So I decided to take a little break from the arguments to do some more devotional type stuff.

I recently went though this passage in a class I'm taking and just thought I'd share some of my thoughts on these beautiful verses written in 1 John 4: 15-19.

"Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God."

We live in a time and place where claiming an absolute statement on truth is considered ridiculous. Spiritual and cultural relativism is rampant and people are under the impression that even if there is a singular divinity out there somewhere, that there cannot possibly be one way. Here, John reaffirms the Truth that Jesus is the only way to be in connection with God.

"We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him"

A lot of times, people want to understand this verse as saying "Love is God." Notice, though, that John does not say this. Love is a description of God.

"By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world."

What is the 'this' that John mentions here? 'This' is referring to our relationship and connection to God through abiding in Jesus, which in turn allows us to abide in God allowing love to be perfected in us.

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love."

When we love, we are not to fear what others think about us, what people may do to us, or even fear messing up. When we have this kind of fear, we are living as if we are still apart from God. We are to be living with reckless abandon in the way we love God and others! Don't confuse this fear with the 'fear of the Lord' that we find in the Hebrew Scriptures-that is a correct fear in respect and loyalty, but never a paranoid fear that God is 'out to get us.' That fear is reserved for those who stand in opposition to God, but we are called to cast out that fear by bringing the Good News of God's forgiveness!

"We love, because He first loved us."

We love God and people not because we are so awesome and intrinsically good, for we surely aren't. We love because it is a response to the love that God has shown us and continually gives to us.

I hope this was a nice little break!

May the Lord God bless you and keep you in His heart for all time. Grace and Peace be with you all in the gracious name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

The Existence of God: The Ontological Argument

The Second Argument: the Onotological argument.
(Ontological= ontos [being]+logia [science, study]; so this word means "the study of being," which would mean this argument comes from the study of being.)

1. God is the entity than which nothing greater can be thought.
2. It is greater to be necessary than not.
3. God must therefore be necessary.
4. Hence, God exists necessarily.

First formed by Avicenna, a Muslim philosopher, and more familiarly by St. Ansalem of Canterburry in 1077-78.

I really like this argument. Not because it is the most convincing argument, no, it really doesn't have to much sway on people. The argument is an a priori argument, meaning it is an argument made independent from experience, and in a culture that lives by experience ("I'll believe it when I see it") the ontological argument is more of a novelty than anything. I like this argument because one of the best objections to it is made like this:

1. The creation of the world [universe, everything] is the most marvelous achievement imaginable.
2. The merit of an achievement is the product of (a) its intrinsic quality, and (b) the ability of its creator.
3. The greater the disability (or handicap) of the creator, the more impressive the achievement.
4. The most formidable handicap for a creator would be non-existence.
5. Therefore if we suppose that the universe is the product of an existent creator we can conceive a greater being — namely, one who created everything while not existing.
6. Therefore, God does not exist.

Richard Dawkins has a similar argument against the ontological argument in The God Delusion, and frankly, this is laughable. Number 4 says, "The most formidable handicap for a creator would be non-existence." So, how can one conceive of a non-existent being? It's logically inconsistent because "being" implies existence: one cannot have being when non-existent because being is uneqivoically linked to existence, plain and simple. The "non-existent creator" is just a cheap ploy to side step the logical outcome of this argument. Even if one could conceive of a non-existent creator, a greater being would be the one who creates then brings itself into existence, but we can all see how this is just silly.

Ther is another form of the Ontological argument worth mentioning, but I will not go into it on the blog because it is very technical and frankly...I don't understand all of it! This argument is presented by Alvin Plantinga (one of the foremost philosphers in recent times and a strong Orthodox Protestent Christian). What I will do is provide a link to this argument, here.

So, that's basically all I want to say concerning this.

The Existence of God: Cosmological Argument

So here is the first argument: the Cosmological Argument or the Uncaused Cause Argument.

The Classic way to form the Cosmological argument:

1. Every finite and contingent being has a cause.
2. Nothing finite and contingent can cause itself.
3. A causal chain cannot be of infinite length.
4. Therefore, a First Cause (or something that is not an effect) must exist.

The Kalam Cosmological argument:
1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The Universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the Universe had a cause.

Some of the earliest forms of this argument were made by Plato and Aristotle in ancient Greece. Thomas Aquinas used this argument, although he formulated it a little differently, in his Quinquae Viae a.k.a Five Ways (in his Prime Mover and First Cause arguments). Now, what I like about this argument is that it is an a posteriori argument, meaning it is an argument which is based in part on experience. Also, it is an easy argument to understand, especially the Kalam version. This argument is used most frequently by William Lane Craig. I really like how he uses it.


Let's talk about the first premise: Whatever begins to exist has a cause. We know that it would be rather silly and quite impossible for an ice cream truck to just pop into existence in my living room (or any atoms for that matter). Things just don't pop into existence on their own accord. If they begin to exist, there MUST be a cause--something to bring them into existence. This is fairly intuitive and not so controversial.

On to the second premise: The Universe began to exist. This is where most people find problems with the Kalam Cosmological argument. So, there must be additional arguments to support this premise. the first argument is akin to the third premise of the older cosmological argument (A causal chain cannot be of infinite length) and is stated as:

1. An actual infinite cannot exist. -Don't let me lose you here, let me define what an actual infinite is. William Lane Craig gives this example of what an actual infinite is and how it cannot exist. Imagine a bookcase with an infinite number of red books and an infinite number of green books (obviously they are equal in number). Now suppose you take away all of the green books. What are you left with? An infinite number of red books. So, infinity divided by two is still infinity. So, therefore, because the universe could not have existed for an actual infinite amount of time, it must begun at some finite time in the past.

So the supporting argument is thus:
1. An actual infinite cannot exist.
2. A beginningless series of events is an actual infinite.
3. Therefore, the universe cannot have existed infinitely in the past, as that would be a beginningless series of events.

Now, it must be said that God does not fit into the category of an "actual infinte." Actual infintes are WITHIN time, "For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things have been created through Him and for Him" (Colossians 1:16). God is 'outside' of time (an interesting article, although it may be borning to some of you, on this: Eternal God: A Study of God without Time by William Lane Craig). This idea was formalized by Augustine of Hippo but can be plainly seen in Scripture:

"Before the mountains were born Or You gave birth to the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God." Psalm 90:2

"Even from eternity I am He..." Isaiah 43:3

"who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To Him {be} honor and eternal dominion! Amen." 1 Timothy 6:16

"Listen to Me, O Jacob, even Israel whom I called; I am He, I am the first, I am also the last." Isa 48:12

And finally the third premise: Therefore the Universe had a cause. If the first two premises are true, then this conclusion necessarily follows. This is where one would introduce the idea that God is this "Uncaused Cause" for the Universe. Obviously this doesn't "prove" God's existence, rather it points to it. There is no one argument that "proves" God. Even if it convinces some that there is a God, it doesn't prove the Christian God or even that this Divine being can be known. I would say that at the least, this argument does provide evidence that there is an "eternal something" but more likely it is a Someone, for why would an impersonal entity create a universe that has the potential of personality?


That's all for now...please leave some comments so I know what you all are thinking! Love you all. May the Grace and Peace of our Lord be with you.

good website to check out:
http://www.carm.org/apologetics/apologetics/cosmological-argument

Does Satan Exist?

This is a deviattion from my "existence of God" theme, but, let's just run with it.

I just wanted to see what people's thought were on this subject...I watched the Nightline debate "Does Satan Exist?" with Pastor Mark Driscoll and Annie Lobert vs. Bishop Carlton Pearson and Dr. Deepak Chopra (So sounds like he should be a rap artist).

So, does Satan exist? Why is this even an important question? Thoughts?

The Existence of God: Why provide Arguments?

So I want to explain some of the traditional arguments for the existence of God. I'll be doing this through a series of blogs with the title of "The Existence of God." As Christians, we should strive to defend our faith, "always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence" (1 Pet. 3:15, NASB).

Now, I just want to put a little disclaimer here. As a Christian, I know that no amount of argumentation can convince an individual of the existence of God. The question of God's existence is left up to the individual and God (whether He exist or not). Although I believe that sufficient evidence (that is an understatement) exists for one to assert God's existence, I do not believe that God's existence can be forced upon anyone. It must be accepted by an individual because God has given us the freewill to accept or deny Him.

The arguments I will cover are:
The Cosmological Argument
The Teleological Argument
The Ontological Argument
The Moral Argument
The Transcendental Argument

Oxford

So I am now about four days removed from the single most amazing trip I have ever been on. As many (that is three) of you who read my blog, I went to Oxford, England last week for spring break to bring the Euangelion (Good News) of Christ to those studying and wandering through Oxford. God did amazing, amazing stuff there. I just wanted to share a little story from this trip with all of you that really made an impact on me.


It was at the end of our sharing time on Thursday and Sarah and I just had an amazing conversation with a girl named Amile (I think that's how it's spelled). She and Sarah made a great connection and she was very close to praying with us, but she wanted to think about all we discussed more, so Sarah and I got her info (to stay in contact) and went on our way. Sarah and I were totally pumped by the amazing conversation we just had, and were a tad hesitant to have another conversation, just in case the next one we had was horrible (we didn't want to spoil the amazing conversation we just had). We decided that we should still look for people to talk to (it what Jesus wants us to do, right?) so we began hitting up some more of the coffee shops.
We were having a hard time finding people to talk to. You see, the whole day we were never hesitant to talk to people. God always pointed someone out to us and we just went for it, but now we were being hesitant. We went to a coffee shop on the third flour of a book store on the intersection of Magdalen (pronounced 'Mawdlin,' just so they know who the tourists are.) Street and Cornmarket Street. We climbed up the stairs and sat down in the coffee shop. No one stuck out to us. Everyone was busy. So sat there for a while and got up to leave, then Sarah turned around like someone was talking to her and immediately approached a girl.
The girl we started to talk to was a Christian from the US. She looked tired and like something was on her mind, like something was weighing her down. We just tried to encourage her and asked if we could pray for her about anything. It turned out that she has some sort of condition that agitates her feet, knees and neck giving her intense headaches. So, both Sarah and I went over to her (Sarah sat down next to her and I knelt down on my knees) and we placed out hands on her and prayed for God to do something amazing. We finished the prayer and she was crying a bit and told us how this was just what she needed and how someone had told her that God had a surprise for her in Oxford. Sarah perked up and said that her parents had told her that she may be a part of a healing. The girl asked us to pray for her again because her feet and knees were hot. We didn't hesitate, we both laid our hands on her (mine on her knees) and we both prayed for healing of her body and spirit. The girl was crying a bit (not sobbing or anything) and after the prayer she was just like, "wow. that was amazing. Thank you so much. I really, really needed this." And then she said something that I will always remember: "God really does love me, doesn't He?" Wow.
To think that God has me go to Oxford for that. I thought I was going to be a debater, someone battling it out with some of the most intelligent people in the world, holding up the banner of Theism against the flags of Atheism. To think that God would use me in this way, it just wasn't in my plans. Just amazing.
Sarah and I walked away from that just speechless before our God. I didn't know what just happened, and I kept thinking, "What an amazing God I serve. Do I even realize his awesomeness? So I even realize what kind of movement I am apart of?" This movement of God that doesn't just battle the intelligent but heals the sick and restores the soul. A movement that stretches to all walks of life, all people, everywhere. A movement with a God so loving, He sent His Son, not just to save us from Hell, but to give us ZOE (vibrant life as opposed to "bios", mechanical life). Our God is amazing.

'nuff said.

I suck at blogs...

So I'm trying to find exactly what the heck I want this blog to be about. Is this about ME? A diary of sorts? Or is this a soapbox upon which I can stand and shout my own proclamations of discontent with things, ideas and people? It's rather interesting to do this. Part of me thinks it would be cool to chronicle my life (well, the parts of it I wish to share with the possibility of any who wants to, reading it...), but the other part of me wants to get on that soapbox and shout! Is there any reason it can't be both? Maybe. I dunno.