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Is religious belief just a matter of cultural conditioning?

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‘If you were born in Saudi Arabia,’ the argument goes, ‘you would probably be a Muslim.  If you were born in the Bible Belt of the US, you would probably be a Christian.’  Conclusion: religious belief and commitment are conditioned by one’s culture and environment.  Truth, evidence, reason and personal decision have nothing to do with it.

But the argument cuts both ways.  A person born in France, for example, would probably be a secularist rather than either a Muslim or a Christian.  …

The good shepherd

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‘The good pastor…models his ministry on the good shepherd,’ writes John Stott in The Contemporary Christian (pp 280-290).  As such, he has the following characteristics:-

  1. The good shepherd knows his sheep, Jn 10:3, 14f.  He will know them by name, and he will know them personally and intimately.
  2. The good shepherd serves his sheep, Jn 10:11.  This is in contrast to false shepherds, who serve themselves, Eze 34:2; June 12.  It may be unrewarding, sacrificial work, but he is following Jesus’ example in doing it.
…

To what are we called?

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We are called to

  1. fellowship with Jesus Christ, Mk 3:14; Jn 17:3; 1 Cor 1:9;
  2. freedom, Gal 5:13;
  3. peace, Col 3:15;
  4. holiness, 1 Cor 1:2; Rom 1:7; 1 Pet 1:5; 1 Thess 4:7; 2 Tim 1:9;
  5. witness, 1 Pet 2:9;
  6. suffering, 1 Pet 2:20f; Jn 15:18,20;
  7. glory, Heb 3:1; 1 Pet 5:10; Rom 8:17.

(Stott, The Contemporary Christian, 133f)…

Prescriptions for depression drugs double in decade

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It is a well-known fact that prescriptions for antidepressants have double over the past ten years.

I’ve been reading a short article in the Daily Mail (June 30, 2017).

Various reasons have been put forward to explain this, and there’s probably truth in many of them: many women, for example, are struggling with the pressures of trying to raise a family, hold down a job, and look after ageing relatives.

Another factor may be that mental health conditions are more frequently recognised these days, and there is less of a stigma attached to seeking help.…

Mystery

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In everyday usage, the word ‘mystery’ suggests ‘something that is difficult or impossible to understand or explain’ (COD).

Unfortunately, this usage is too readily imported into discussions about what the word means in its biblical context.

So let’s take a look.

In the OT, the word ‘mystery’ only occurs in the Aramaic part of the book of Daniel (Dan 2:18–19, 27–30, 47; 4:9), where the word rāz is rendered mystērion in the LXX.  In that context, the word refers to God’s hidden plan which revelation and the unfolding of events are in the process of making known.…

‘The Sin of Certainty’ – 7

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‘God Wants You Dead’, exclaims the title of chapter 7 of Peter Enns’ latest book.

Many of us, says Enns, feel doubt creeping up on us, and then start to feel guilty about it.  So we fight it.  And then, when we find that the doubt won’t go away, we end up living lives of ‘quiet and wretched desperation’.

But doubt is not the enemy of faith, but only the enemy of certainty.  In fact, doubt is the friend of faith, because it takes us away from the security ‘knowing what we believe’ and towards trust.  …

‘The Sin of Certainty’ – 6

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If we limit faith to correct thinking, we find ourselves unprepared and ill-equipped for what life throws at us.  But faith-as-trust enables us to listen to our ‘uh-oh’ moments, and even to grow and mature in our walk with God.

What do we do, for example, with the God of the Bible, with his impatience (Gen 6-9) and violence (Deut 20:10-18; Rev 14:14-16)?  How is this any better than today’s ideologically- and religiously-motivated violence?

What do we make of the world-view of the Bible, so completely different from what we now know from modern science?  …

Christ – the true God

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He is

  1. ‘the truth’, Jn 14:6 – who leads us into the truth and delivers us from error
  2. ‘the true God’, 1 Jn 5:20 – the object of our worship
  3. ‘the true bread’, Jn 6:32 – who gives us lasting nourishment and satisfaction
  4. ‘the true vine’, Jn 15:1 – we are to abide in him and be fruitful
  5. ‘the Holy and True’, Rev 3:7 – let us be holy and true to him
  6. the ‘true light’, Jn 1:9 – who lightens our way through a dark world
  7. ‘the true witness’ – Rev 3:14 – let us attend to his words

(Adapted from Naismith, 1200 Scripture Outlines, p194)…

‘The Sin of Certainty’ – 5

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OK, so Peter Enns anticipated the objection I raised in response to chapters 3 and 4 of his book.

In chapter 5, he acknowledges that some people might think that some of the psalms, Ecclesiastes, and Job are exceptions to the rule.  They express doubt, it might be argued, but the rest of the Bible promotes assurance.

Perhaps, responds Enns, but not assurance about what we believe, but whom we trust.

Enns pleads that he is not opposed to ‘knowing’, but, rather, he is opposed to ‘preoccupation with correct thinking’.…

‘The Sin of Certainty’ – 4

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The book of Ecclesiastes goes even further than the psalms in representing this point of view.  Life – the life that God has given us – is a sick joke (Eccle 1:13-15).  We run around in circles, and have nothing to show for it, for it all ends in the absurdity of death (Eccle 3:19-21).  After twelve chapters of more-or-less unrelieved despair, the take-home message is this: trust God and keep his commandments anyway (Eccle 12:12f).…