Stand to Reason Blog

Time 2020-10-30 17:04:25

Web Name: Stand to Reason Blog

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You may have noticed we didn’t have the usual new post here this morning. That s because it s at str.org! We have now fully integrated our blog into our website. You ll be able to see the six most recent blog posts there on the home page, or you can go straight to our blog.To keep reading our posts, make sure you update your RSS feed or subscribe to our blog highlights email. Because of two recent posts on wrongly applying biblical promises to ourselves (Jeremiah 29:11 and Exodus 14:14), we’ve been receiving questions about how to determine which promises do apply to us.The most basic place to start is to look at what is said to New Covenant believers versus those who were under the specific terms of the Mosaic Covenant with its promised blessings and curses. If a promise was made as a term of the Mosaic Covenant (for example, that they would have good crops if they obeyed the Covenant’s commands), then that is not part of our Covenant. However, we can learn much about who God is from how He dealt with people in the Mosaic Covenant, and His character does not change. From His dealings with people in the Old Testament, we learn that He is just, that He is gracious, that He loves undeservedly, that He’s trustworthy and faithful to those He’s covenanted with, that He has their ultimate good in mind, that He’s working everything together for His plan to glorify Himself and redeem the world. God doesn’t change, so what we learn about Him in the Old Testament is still true of Him today. The only question is about how He promises to act today on those characteristics of love, grace, etc.When we get to the New Covenant, we see these same characteristics of God play out in terms of the New Covenant. For example, “because of His great love with which He loved us,” and by His grace, we’re reconciled to God through Christ’s death on the cross and are made alive with Him; we are given the Holy Spirit as a secure pledge of God’s faithful covenant with us (Ephesians 1–2). (All who are united to Christ are also heirs of the promises made by grace to Abraham—Galatians 3:15–29.) The particular promises and commands of this Covenant may be different, but His character is the same. We know specifically that His love, grace, wisdom, and purpose are directed towards making His people like Christ (Romans 8:29), and that everything in our lives is working towards that end good (Romans 8:28). It’s the trustworthy character of God that we cling to throughout this difficult life, regardless of whether He heals us or increases our “crops.”So when reading the Old Testament, we look to see what we can learn about God in any given passage. Who is He? What is He like? How does He treat His people? In terms of promises, the biggest promise of the Bible is the promise of who God is. This is the promise we depend on. We find we have cancer? We trust the promise that God is good, that He’s sovereign over history, that He loves us, and that He seeks the good of His people. We can’t trust that He’ll heal us (that isn’t always the greatest good for us and for God’s kingdom), but we can trust that God is good and sovereign, and that our suffering has a purpose.Always look for what you can learn about God through His dealings with human beings throughout the Bible. When God makes promises about who He is, that always applies. When God promises to give something specific, look more closely at the context to see if He’s promising it in a unique situation (or under the terms of the Mosaic Covenant).Here’s how I would apply that approach in the case of Jeremiah 29:11. In Jeremiah 29:11, we learn that God cares for His people and doesn’t abandon them, and that He hasn’t abandoned them even if it seems everything has gone wrong in their lives. We see that His good purposes are still moving forward, even when everything looks grim. This, we can cling to, because it’s an understanding of God’s character, which doesn’t change. What we can’t cling to is the specific outworking of God’s character in that unique biblical situation. That is, in that particular situation, God’s goodness and wisdom decreed that He would bring back those who were exiled to Babylon, saying, “I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations.” But in a different situation, God’s goodness and wisdom may decree something different. John the Baptist was beheaded, not released from jail (Matthew 14:1–12). Stephen was stoned, not saved (Acts 7:54–60).We can’t trust that things will work out the way we hope they will. However, throughout any and every situation, we trust in God—that He is loving, powerful, wise, and committed to the good of His people—and we trust His promise that everything is working towards the good of making us more like Christ. For these reasons, we take whatever comes our way, and we depend on Him when we go through suffering.If you’d like to learn more about how to read and interpret the Bible, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth and Playing with Fire: How the Bible Ignites Change in Your Soul are great places to start. [PLEASE NOTE: We have now integrated our blog into our website, and soon we will not be adding anything new to this Typepad site. Please visit our new blog and update your RSS feed to continue to receive our posts. (You can also now subscribe to our weekly Blog Highlights Email.) To comment on this post and others, please visit our main website. ] Some people think that since I’m an apologist, I always lead with an apologetic point when talking to a person who doesn’t share my faith. That’s not true. I don’t believe apologetics is an end in itself. Rather, it’s a means to an end. The end is the Gospel and that’s the first thing I present to someone when I share my faith. Sometimes, though, people don’t accept the Gospel for various reasons. Only when they reject it do I try to discover the reason or cause. I start asking questions to try to find out, as Francis Schaeffer said, “what is troubling their heart and mind.”When I talk to Muslims, then, I don’t begin by presenting apologetic arguments, reasons, or defenses. Instead, I try to clearly communicate God’s message. That’s why I often say you only need three things to reach Muslims: the Bible (the message of God), the Holy Spirit (the power of God), and a meaningful relationship (requiring you to be the ambassador of God).You need the Bible to reach Muslims. I don’t mean you need an actual Bible in hand. I’m simply saying you need to present the Gospel of Jesus Christ that’s found in Scripture. Sure, having a Bible on hand is great, but the key is to clearly explain the pardon that God offers to all people for committing crimes against Him.You need the Holy Spirit to reach Muslims. We are in a spiritual battle (2 Corinthians 10:3-5), and no one comes to faith in Jesus apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. That’s why prayer is essential before, during, and after talking with non-Christians.You need a meaningful relationship to reach Muslims. Certainly Muslims can come to Christ without a relationship with a believer (and they do quite often, in fact). God can bring people into His kingdom in all kinds of ways. Relationships, though, are the bridge by which we can show love, communicate the truth, and share the Gospel. Muslims are typically very relational people, and your ability to have an influence in the life of a Muslim will likely be a function of your relationship with them.God typically uses an ambassador of Christ—you—to bring people to Himself. It’s not only your identity to be His representative, but it’s also your mission to proclaim His message of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18-20). That means any believer who knows the Gospel can be used by God to bring Muslims to the Truth. This article by Donald Whitney on the danger of drifting away from a daily time of communion with God through Bible reading and prayer is true and scary, but also strangely motivating and encouraging. It’s a reminder that something real is happening when you meet with God daily. An excerpt from “Spiritual Disciplines and the Sinkhole Syndrome”:As the pressures of life increase and more deadlines loom, it becomes harder to maintain time for the devotional life. And herein is where the erosion begins.At the outset it’s likely that very few will know when the hidden part of your spiritual life begins crumbling. Just as imperceptible movements of water underground can carry away the earth beneath long before anyone on the surface perceives it, so the pressures of life can secretly displace the soil of our private spiritual disciplines long before the impact of their absence is visible to others. The more public parts of a Christian’s life, such as church involvement and various forms of ministry, can often continue with little observable change right up until the awful moment of collapse and the hypocrisy is revealed….Never be deceived by the temptation to think that with the increasing spiritual maturity you expect to come with age, the less you will need to feast your soul on Christ through the Bible and prayer. What Jesus prayed in John 17:17 for all His followers—“Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth”—applies to us all throughout our lives.I just finished Matt Papa’s Look and Live, and I recommend it to you if you need a jump start for your devotional time.Atheists do have reason on our side because there is no evidence that God exists…. We deny God for the same exact reasons you deny the existence of fairies: No evidence. In fact, God is just a really powerful fairy: An invisible being that wields magic powers. The fact that I don t believe in such a being should go without saying…. The only thing God has going for him is that he was grandfathered in. Fairies, leprechauns and other invisible creatures are dismissed out of hand. There is no more evidence that God exists than there is for Zeus.How would you respond to this assertion that there’s “no evidence” for God? Try to think about how you would narrow down a response (because I don’t think the kind of person who says this is likely to sit through a long list of arguments). What would you focus on in your answer? How would you counter-challenge him? Let us know in the comments below, and then come back to the blog on Thursday to hear Alan’s response.[Update: View Alan s video response. Explore past challenges here and here.]

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Stand to Reason trains Christians to think more clearly about their faith and to make an even-handed, incisive, yet gracious defense for classical Christianity and classical Christian values in the public square.

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