My answer to the quesiton, “Why is the church so negative and judgmental? is, “It shouldn’t be!” and I have three reasons why I say that.

First, because it is not how Jesus, the founder and leader off the Church, acted. He was a ‘friend of sinners’ (Luke 7:33-34 and 15:1-2). That was his reputation! It is interesting that Jesus’ reputation with the irreligious people was that he was not negative and judgmental, but today the church’s reputation with the irreligious people is that we are! How sad.

Second, because it repels people from the church and the Christian faith. As much as Jesus attracted ’sinners’ to himself, the Pharisees repelled them. Their judmental attitude drove people away from God. It is the same today.

Third, because it is not the way Christians are to live. There are many verses in the New Testament that speak of the attitudes towards others that we are supposed to have, but none better than Ephesians 5:1, “Be imitators of fgod, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” We are suppose to live a life of love!

Clearly, not everyone who understands what Christ taught and what the Church stands for will be accepting of the Christian faith, but without a doubt, many more would, if our reputation better matched the reputation of Jesus!

I end this entry and blog by telling River Oaks that I am proud of the way you have reached out to ‘the least of these’ in our area and around the world with your resources and your love. You carry the message of the Gospel and the message of compassion and love into our community and world and in this way, you speak well of both Jesus and his Church! Way to go!

First: I believe the bible teaches that engaging in homosexual activity is a sin. In reading the stories and statements from the bible, it is clear that God is opposed to the practice of same-sex, sex (see Genesis 19:1-17, Jude 7, Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, Romans 1:21-32, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and 1 Timothy 1:7-11).

Second: I don’t believe that engaging in homosexual activity is the ‘unpardonable sin’. That is reserved for blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:31-32) not homosexuality. Many point to the verse in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 that says that ‘homosexual offenders will not inherit the kingdom of God’ as evidence to support the claim, but the full statement adds 9 other sins to the list, including stealing, greed, drunkenness and slander! I am not trying to minimize the fact that homosexuality is sin, but I am trying to point out that it is not a special sin.

Third: I believe we should distinguish between homosexual behavior and homosexual orientation. I can’t speak authoritatively to the debate of ‘nurture verses nature’, but I can speak to the matter of control. Even if there are some homosexuals born that way, it is not a justification to act on their homosexuality any more than it is justification for a single heterosexual to act on his or her sexual desires. Both have to be controled. As John Burkey writes in NO Perfect People Allowed, “God does not condemn us for being in a state we didn’t choose, even though it may not be the way he intended originally, but he does hold us accountable for our choices.”

Fourth: I believe we should love homosexuals as Jesus would. The way Jesus people who were living an immoral lifestyle was demonstrated in John 4 with the woman who had been married five times and was now living with her boyfriend and in John 8 with the woman caught in adultery. In neither case was the issue homosexuality, but it was sexual immorality. In both cases the woman knew where he stood on the issue and in both cases he challenged their behavior, but he did so with respect, dignity and mercy. Jesus gives us the template to build our response to gays. We can stand with truth, but we can do so with grace.

I would like to recommend three books that deal with this subject:

“Welcoming but not Affirming” by Stanley Grenz

“Loving Homosexuals as Jesus Would” by Chad Thompson

“NO Perfect People Allowed” by John Burkey (chapter 8: How Do You Feel about Gays?)

Third, one reason there is so much evil and suffering in this world is because God is allowing Satan room to operate and he is generating as much destruction in human lives as he possibly can. By creating his ‘path of destruction, he is trying to drive a wedge between us and God. This is clearly seen in the first two chapters of Job where Satan is given permission to attack Job and in so doing he believes he can get Job to ‘curse God’. He was not successful, but his evil intentions were expressly designed to drive Job away from God.

Fourth, another reason for pain and suffering in this world is because God is working to bring people closer to himself. God uses pain to get people’s attention. In 2 Corinthians 7:8-9, Paul writes about a letter he sent to the Corinthian church and he stated that it caused them pain. Paul writes, “I am no longer sorry that I sent that letter to youk, though I was sorry for a time, realizing how painful it would be to you. But it hurt you only for a little while. Now I am glad I sent it, not because it hur you but because the pain turned you to God.” Just as the heat of the sun both hardens clay and softens butter, so pain hardens some hearts and softens others. Philip Yancy in his book, Where is God when it Hurts?” writes, “As I visited people whose pain far exceeded my own, I was surprised by its effect. Suffering seemed as likely to reinforce faith as to sow agnosticism.”

Fifth, another reason for pain and suffering is that God is working to develop and mature his children. James 1:2-4 says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” And the author of Hebrews writes in 12:10-11, “Our fathers disciplied us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our own good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” As hard as it is to accept, God’s desire for his children is not happiness, but holiness; it is not to give us a life of ease, but to develop in us the character of Christ and one of his primary tools is pain and suffering.

Sixth, resist telling someone that you know why bad things are happening to them. This is a word of caution to those of us who think we know why bad things are happening to someone. The friends of Job thought they had the reason for Job’s suffering all figured out, only to find out in the end that they had not only missed it, but did great damage to Job’s relationship with God! The disciples in John 9:1-3 had the reason why a man had been born blind; either he or his parents had sinned. Jesus told them that both were wrong and that the reason was so that God could get glory by healing him! We just never know and we should be very careful in assuming we do.

Seventh, one day God will deal with every act of evil that was not dealt with in this life. Romans 12:19, “do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to aveng; I will repay,’ says the Lord.” And that includes Satan! Revelation 20:10 tells of God banishing Satan to the “lake of burning sulfer where he will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” The next paragraph describes God banishing all who did not choose Christ in this life to the same place. One day, the Hitlers, the Stalins, the Polpots and the Mao Tse-tungs of the world will stand before Jesus and will give an account of their evil and pay for it forever away from God and all that is good.

Eighth, one day God’s people will live forever in The New Heaven and The New Earth. Revelation 21:1-5 describes the day when God will create a new universe for his people. It will be a place with a perfect environment, perfect relationship, we will have perfect bodies and we will finally be at home with God forever! And my guess is that after experiencing that existence for a million or so years, our answer to the question will make more sense than it ever could in this life. It will no longer be a matter of faith, but of sight!

The magnitude of this issue is clearly not only felt with those outside the Christian faith. Many have abandoned their faith because of it. Charles Templeton, the co-founder of Youth For Christ and co-evangelist with Billy Graham ended up denouncing Christianity because of the problem of suffering and evil and wrote a book entitled, “A Farewell to God: My Reasons for Rejecting the Christian Faith”!

I believe that to conclude, with Templeton and others, that pain and evil in this world proves that God is not loving is the path of least resistance and I choose to resist taking that path and take another. The path I take begins with the realization that the blame for all of the mess we are in is not with God but with Adam and Eve’s choice to disobey God in the Garden of Eden. It is because of that one act of disobedience that all pain, suffering and evil can be traced.

But secondly, I believe God can stop any pain, suffering or evil. The Bible is full of stories of God demonstrating that he is all-powerful and loving and can stop any magnitude of evil, cure any disease and calm any storm. I don’t deny the evidence of pain and evil, but I also won’t deny the evidence that points to God’s ability and willingness to act to stop it.

“Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.” - Jeremiah 32:17

“For nothing is impossible with God.” - Luke 1:37

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever!” - Ephesians 3:20-21

Against evidence that sometimes points in a different direction, I believe that God is all-powerful. I believe he is good. I believe he can stop any pain and any evil any time he chooses to. And I believe we live our lives under the care and protection of a loving heavenly Father who sees it all and is firmly in control.

Shea put it well! My answer to her and to others with the same concern went like this:

First, I believe there will be people in heaven who never heard of Jesus.

These include Old Testament believers and children who died before the age of accountability.

Second, I believe God provides the necessary revelation to those who truly seek him.

There are two stories in the book of Acts that support that idea. The first is of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8 and the second is of Cornelius in Acts 10.

I read several contemporary evangelical Christian authors who wrote about this very matter. Here are those quotes.

“I’m confident God will not send anybody to hell for lack of knowledge or place of birth or ethnicity – it will only be because they truly did not want God’s leadership and relationship…so if God sees the heart of a Muslim who never heard about Jesus but is seeking to be forgiven and made right with God by faith, and God somehow does for her what he did for Abraham, it is only through what Jesus did on the cross.” -John Burke’s book, NO Perfect People Allowed

“Virtually every Muslim who has come to follow Christ has done so either because of the love of Christ expressed through a Christian or because of a vision, dream, or some other supernatural intervention. No religion has a more intricate doctrine of visions than Islam, and it’s amazing that God used that sensitivity to the supernatural world to reveal himself.” -Lee Strobel in Case for Faith:

“There are people who are slowly becoming Christians though they do not yet call themselves so. There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it. For example, a Buddhist of good will may be led to concentrate more and more on the Buddhist teaching about mercy and to leave in the background (though he might still say he believed) the Buddhist teaching on certain other points. Many of the good Pagans long before Christ’s birth may have been in this position. And always, of course, there are a great many people who are just confused in mind and have a lot of inconsistent beliefs all jumbled up together. Consequently, it is not much use trying to make judgments about Christians and non-Christians in the mass.” -C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity

“Many Muslims have come to know and love Jesus in personal and transforming ways while remaining Muslims, just as many Messianic Jews have come to know Jesus while remaining Jewish. This is particularly true of Sufi Muslims. The founder of the Sufi movement so loved Jesus and depended on him for salvation that other Muslims accused him of having become a Christian. They put him to death by crucifixion because they thought that would be a fitting way to be rid of him, given his constant talk of how God’s love was revealed in Christ’s death on the cross. While I am absolutely convinced that ‘there is no other name under Heave, whereby we might be saved (Acts 4:12), I am also convinced that Jesus is alive and touching people who are outside of Christianity and the church. He’s really much bigger than we Evangelicals make him out to be.” -Tony Campolo in Letters to a Young Evangelical:

Third, I must never judge a person’s heart.

I am certain we will be surprised, both by who is and who isn’t in heaven! Jesus said in Matthew 7:21-23 that there would be many who called him “Lord” in this life and did many religious things will not be in heaven. Likewise, in Revelation 5:6-9 the scene in heaven includes people from, “every tribe and language and people and nation.”

And fourth, what about you?

The real question is what have you done with the knowledge you have of Jesus? John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whosoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life.” Have you acted on the knowledge that you know? Have you asked Jesus to be your Savior? If you haven’t, you can by praying this simple prayer: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I now ask Jesus Christ to come into my life and be my Savior. I desire to follow him for the rest of my life.” If you prayed that prayer, please let me know by e-mailing me at trowland@riveroaks.org.

My response was framed in three parts:

#1 I believe that Christianity shares common ground with many religions.

#2 I believe that there are critical differences between Chrsitinaity and other religions.

#3 I believe that Christianity is the only true religion pointing us to the only true God.

I backed the third point up with the evidences of prophecies in the Old Testament fulfilled in the New Testament about Jesus and the evidence we have of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

And as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:17-19, “If Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless, and you are still under condemnation for your sins. In that case, all who have died believing in Christ have perished! And if we have hope in Christ only for this life, we are the most miserable people in the world.”

If the prophecies about Jesus in the are accurate, and by all accounts they are. If Jesus actually did rise from the dead, and there is compelling evidence that he did. Then Jesus really is God and we need to judge all religions by the words of Jesus, who said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one come to the Father accept through me.” (John 14:6)

I cast my lot with Jesus.

Leviticus 25:44-46, “Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.”

Deuteronomy 21:18-21 “If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us.” Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death.”

Deuteronomy 22:22 “If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die.”

Deuteronomy 25:11-12, “If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity.”

1 Samuel 15:1-3, Samuel said to Saul, “I am the one the LORD sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the LORD. This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.”

I added a few verses to the list that appear to communicate error or contradictions such as:

Leviticus 11:6-7, “The rabbit, though it chews the cud, does not have a split hoof; it is unclean for you.” But, rabbits don’t chew the cud!

Leviticus 11:20-23, “All flying insects that walk on all fours are to be detestable to you. There are, however, some winged creatures that walk on all fours that you may eat: those that have jointed legs for hopping on the ground. Of these you may eat any kind of locust, katydid, cricket or grasshopper. But all other winged creatures that have four legs you are to detest. All flying insects that walk on all fours are to be detestable to you.” But insects have six legs, not four!

And then there is the resurrection account where Matthew says there was 1 angel at Jesus’ tomb and John in his Gospel says there were two! How can they both be right?

Passages like these, are pointed to as evidence that the Bible is not accurate or credible.

I offered a three-part answer:

One: Whereas I accept the Old Testament as a part of the Bible, I interpret it through the teaching of the New Testament.

Two: I can find answers to the questions I have about the teachings and stories in the Bible by using proper biblical interpretation principles and study helps.

Three: I choose to live with the tensions of Scripture and to believe that it is the inspired Word of God without error in the original writings.

What do you think?

I have included a list of books and links to help answer some of the tough questions from this message and the ones that will follow.

I would appreciate your response to my answers and I would love to read additional answers that you think of.

Also, if you want to post other tough questions about the Bible, have at it.

]]> http://toughquestions.riveroaks.org/what-about-the-credibility-of-the-bible/feed