We do not affirm the divine inspiration of the Bible in such as way as to deny or to minimise its human authorship. Geisler (Baker Encylopedia of Christian Apologetics) outlines this as follows:-
…First, every book in the Bible was the composition of human writers.
Second, the Bible manifests different human literary styles, from the mournful meter of lamentations to the exalted poetry of Isaiah, from the simple grammar of John to the complex Greek of Hebrews.
Money, sex and power, writes Richard Foster, are inseparably intertwined:-
…Money manifests itself as power. Sex is used to acquire both money and power. And power is often called ‘the best aphrodisiac’. We could discuss at length the interlacing connections. There is, for example, an important relationship between sex and poverty: sex is the poor man’s holiday and the poor woman’s disaster. Note also the connection between power and wealth: power is frequently used to manipulate wealth, and wealth is used just as frequently to buy power.
I like this entry in the Handbook of Bible Application:-
Sometimes we wonder how to pray for missionaries and other leaders we have never met. Paul had never met the Colossians, but he faithfully prayed for them. His prayers teach us how to pray for others, whether we know them or not. We can request that they
All believers have these same basic needs.…
Arch-atheist Christopher Hitchens repeatedly held out the following challenge to religious people:-
“Name me an ethical statement made or an action performed by a believer that could not have been made or performed by a non-believer.”
Hitchens seems to think that he has religious folk stumped. “As yet,” he claims, “I have no takers.”
I am very far from wanting to defend ‘religion’ in general. So I would respond by asserting that it is not difficult to find multiple instances of moral acts that would only be performed by followers of Jesus Christ, and others that would more prevalent amongst followers of Jesus Christ than among non-believers. …
John Stott outlines three options for rich Christians.
It might be supposed that 2 Cor 8:9 teaches this. Consider also:-
(a) The example of Jesus. He was born into a poor home. He had no home and few possessions. ‘He taught from a borrowed boat, rode into Jerusalem on a borrowed donkey, spent his last evening in a borrowed room, and was buried in a borrowed tomb. He and his disicples shared a common purse, and depended for their support on a group of women who sometimes accompanied them.…
This is the title of a new book (not yet available in the UK) by Elaine Howard Ecklund. It reports the results of a survey of nearly 1700 leading American academic scientists. The questionnaire survey (with an impressive response rate of 75%) was followed up by 275 interviews.
A summary of the findings of the research is available here. There is an interesting (and, I think, even-handed) interview with Ecklund on the Point of Enquiry website.…
Here are a few reasons, drawn from Scripture, why Christians should engage in apologetics:-
It was Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) who first popularised the notion that religious belief is merely the projection of human longing, the objectification of a false idea that people wish to be true. ‘God’ is, according to this view, an entirely human invention, ‘a dream of the human soul’, brought into being to give comfort along life’s difficult and dark path.
Religious people are unaware of this. They think that the God they have imagined has some objective existence. …
Clear thinking about humankind’s fallen nature requires a careful distinction to be made between ‘free agency’ and ‘free will’.
Free agency is part of what it means to be human. We all make decisions as to what we will do and how we will behave, based on our personal inclinations and our sense of what is right and wrong. We are moral agents, accountable to God and to one another for our voluntary choices.
Free will, on the other hand, has been defined as the ability to choose from all the moral options that may be available in a given situation. …
Christians adopt a high view of the reliability and trustworthiness of the Bible for a number of reasons, not least on the testimony of Jesus Christ himself. But what kinds of responses are available to those who question the truthfulness of certain sections of the Bible?
Paul Copan makes a number a helpful suggestions:-
