The Question

I recently listened to podcast by Apologetics.com featuring apologist and author Greg Koukl who recently authored the book called Tactics. In this book Greg offers several great approaches to talking to people in a way that will lead to spiritual conversations and possibly sharing yor faith with them.

The podcast did not offer everything that is in the book but briefly went over some of the important topics in the book.

One thing that really stands out from the podcast is the simple use of the question.

A lot of Christians are not sure what to say or what to talk about in order to bring a spiritual conversation, some Christians are just afraid...

but the use of questions is an amazing thing.

First it puts the burden of proof on the other person. Second it makes you look like a good guy, you care and are asking great questions and are letting them share thier prespective. Thirdly it is safe. They are relational. They encourage your relationship with others. 

Questions can be leading. can be investigative, or can be curious. If your friend says they do not believe in God for instances...instead of being afraid and feeling like you have to prove God, simply ask "What do you mean by God?" or "How did you come to that conclusion?"

Let them do the explaining...then after they have shared you can be ready to offer your own expirience or opinions in a kind but evangelistic manner.

I plan on getting this book and posting more about this book on my blog eventually. But check out the book Tactics. And the podcasts at Apologetics.com 

I want to see the fossils...

I have a problem with the evolution's theory and I think any logical thinking scientist or evolutionist should have a problem with it too... the lack of evidence in fossils of "slow" evolution?

Where are all these "transitional" fossils? Without them no one can see this "slow evolution."

If this evolution was really happening even at a slow pace, the fossils would, in fact, back it up. But we do not have any fossil record to back up these small changes. The changes are imagined. Evolutionists keep telling themselves that the changes are occurring "at such a small pace that it is not noticeable," this seems said only to make themselves feel better about themselves.
Because even if the changes occurred at such a small pace OVER Millions or Billions of years , there would, in fact, be some kind of fossil record. There should be MILLIONS of years worth of fossils....which is NOT the case!

I will admit that fossils by themselves cannot prove or deny evolution. But the evidence leans towards denying it. It is a matter of interpretation. My question is how do you interpret the evidence to seem like there is millions of years worth of fossils, when there is not? It is a simple question.

I will admit there have been some fossils that are good finds and might be "transitional fossils," but the number of these great finds is not even in double digits...five fossils does not prove anything. In fact it makes the case for itself that these five fossils or so are more likely to be unique, seperate extinct species and not transitional fossils at all.

150 years of energetic and well funded world-wide searching for fossils to 'prove' evolution have failed to reveal more than a tiny handful of disputed possible intermediate forms. If Darwin was right about gradual changes happening over millions of years, millions and millions of 'missing links' would have come to light. The fact that each Archaeopteryx, Tiktalik, Flores man is triumphantly announced as 'THE' missing link only underlines the lack of the MILLIONS of intermediate missing links which Darwin's hypothesis of gradual change over millions of years requires to sustain it. What about all the hominid, ape-man, Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon man and other fossils? Where are they?

Second question: If we found a fossil, dated at 37.5 million years ago, with features of both organisms A and B, and called it AB, the young earth creationist would then say "There are no transitional life forms between A and AB, or between AB and B." So another simple question...where is the transitional fossils? They are non-existent.


Other interesting stuff:


What does not honest, good scientist do with this: unfossilized dinosaur bones with soft material found in the earth? From a non-Christian

Darwinists say, "We continually revise our theories and welcome critical examination and evaluation." They may revise aspects of their theories, but because evolution is so incredibly malleable, no amount of contrary evidence will convince them otherwise. But how much contrary evidence must accumulate before a theory is discarded?

Today evolution survives, not so much as a theory of science, but as a philosophical necessity. Good science is always tentative and self-correcting, but this never really happens in the case of evolution.

explanatory power

Christians...
if we believe we have the answers (which we really do), then we have explanatory power...
If we have explanatory power, then why are we not using it?

One of the big problems is ignorance. Many "Christians" are not well versed, taught enough. They do not understand their faith completely.

Another problem is lack of faith. Some believes just do not believe that we have all the answers.

Maybe another problem is the lack of effort. Some Christians know that we have God on our side and know that we have the answers. They trust God and all, but they are not disciplined enough or serious enough about studying the Word of God and being ready at any moment to answer such questions.

Evolving Values

Which came first the departure from God or the decline in morals and values?

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070308/survey-departure-from-god-is-cause-of-america-s-moral-decline.htm

http://www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/essays/cot/t4w32usmoraldecline.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0216-20.htm

Question of the Day

Will we miss those who are not in Heaven when we are in Heaven?

A member of my church mentioned, during a rabbit trail of his sermon, that Christians will not miss those who are not in Heaven, because Heaven is perfect...there is not more tears, pain, suffering, etc...therefore it must be so.

I do not know if that is true. I do not know if it is even something we can know for sure. But at first thought I recall that there is tears in Heaven. Although it is Christ Jesus who wipes away those tears. I am not sure I even like that line of thinking, because an extreme case of this type of thinking will lead to hyper-Calvinism... "I don't need to share the Gospel, cause God is ultimately in control and did not want everyone in Heaven in the first place and I will not miss any one who is not up there any way!"

Albeit, this person was NOT preaching a Calvinistic sermon and he is not a hyper-Calvinist by any means. He did not mean it that way, but when reflecting on this question that thought came to my mind.

To me, it is vital that we think about eternal life while we live in this temporary one. It is vital that we share our faith. And while I do not want to merely give out "get out of jail free cards." I do think that the after life, Heaven and Hell can, will, and should motivate us Christians to share our faith and the unsaved to act upon the Good News. Becuase Hell is real.

We should build relationships of discipleship and not merely save'm and leave'm. Of course. But do not forget about how real and life changing the message of Heaven and Hell really is.

Now back to the question:
"Will we miss those not in Heaven?

I have heard and read some pre-millinalist dispensationalists say that "Yes. We will miss those not Heaven."

So what do you think?

Social justice

I have written blog posts about this previously but
today it seems even more real and more concerning!
I am going to be blogging more about this in the future as well,
the topic:
social justice.
Why has it been so real to me recently?
I have been reading the prophets a lot recently!
It is not just in Amos, although there it is prevalent!
Just read in Isaiah, Micah, Malachi - social justice is a foundational point to all of the prophets and the ideas are not just limited to the prophets!
In fact the prophets were only building on the foundations of the Mosaic and Deuteronomic law!
Which also speaks about fighting for justice!

God is a God of justice, love and compassion.

I will be posting more later to build on this but I wanted to stress the idea in this post that OT stresses the importance of fighing for social justice.

In later posts I will address these questions:

Does the NT also address social justice/issues the same way?
How does this relate to us today in modern world?
Why should you care?
What social justices should we be concerned for/ fighting for?
How does this relate to Dominion theology and what are the concerns (pros and cons?)
How does this relate to our political stance?
Should a conservative and/or liberal Christian work together for social justice?
How does fighting for social justice relate to post-modern society?
How does it relate to the emergin and emergnat churches? Should we be concerned?
Can we take stands for social justice and not loose our foundational, essential theology?

Random Question

I have been trying to do some extra research in my free time to learn about the differences between:
Covenant theology vs. dispensational theology
And then:
The different types of dispensational theology:
premillennial, progressive, traditional, etc

I was wondering if anyone had a simple, easy, or straight-forward resource about any of these topics or if they simply have an explanation that they just want to share with me! That would be great!
I have not had enough time to delve too much into this research, so for now I just would like a starting point.

Thanks
Alex

Hezekiah's sons?

Today I was reading Zephaniah and some commentary on it.
The first verse got me asking a question:
1The word of the LORD which came unto Zephaniah the son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah.

I think that both Zephaniah and Josiah are related.
Zephaniah is the son of Cushi, who is the son of Gedaliah, who is the son of Amariah, who is the son of Hezekiah.
And Joshia is the son of Amon, who is the son of Mannaseh, who is the son of Hezekiah.

Mt. 1:10: Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amon, Amon the father of Josiah

So basically Zephaniah and Josiah were cousins!

When did church start Sunday service? Why?

Apparently the Roman church started it.

NOT ONE of the texts I read, set the first day of the week, Sunday, apart as a rest day or as an more important than any other day of the week.

A better question remains then:

Why Sunday over Saturday?

Which is really the Sabbath?

The Sabbath is still Saturday according to all a study of the Greek Hebrew Word.

So another great question remains:

Are we Christians today in trouble (or in violation) for using Sunday as oppose to Saturday? Or is God just generally happy that we are keeping "a day" out of seven holy, restful, and "Sabbath?" Will God at least punish the Roman church?

Other sources:

Book and movie by David Pack

http://www.sabbathfellowship.org/biblestudies/erwingane/biblestudy_gane_sabbathchng.htm


Final Thought:

Christ's resurrection was on Sunday, this is why Sunday was so important.

An opposing thoery or thought could be that, Saturday was God's "day of rest" therefor so it should also be ours.... (that assumes a 7-day Creation)...

Complete Rest in God's Will?

I was reading "My Utmost for His Highest" as I do daily today...and got me thinking:

Here is an excerpt (read the full devo by clicking link above:)

"The child of God is not conscious of the will of God because he is the will of God. When there has been the slightest deviation from the will of God, we begin to ask - What is Thy will? A child of God never prays to be conscious that God answers prayer, he is so restfully certain that God always does answer prayer."

Oswald Chambers makes a good point here...that in God's will we do find rest. We should rest in God and be assured that he answers prayer.....

My thoughts though are this:
Is it so bad to be asking God, 'What is Thy Will?'
Is that really bad when we are conscious of God's will...
aren't we suppose to be on our feet and looking out for God's will everyday?

I think there is an extreme that could take place if you are too "rested" in God's will that you miss the obvious callings of God. What I mean is that there is a certain level of consciousness that we need to have. An active faith.

We need to avoid a lazy faith. And like I said a lazy faith is an EXTREME. You really are not finding rest IN GOD if you are being lazy....(but I am on a rant here.)

Question Time....

How do we go about making church, a family ordeal? More family oriented?
It has been my experience that teenagers stay at church when their families (their parents) are committed, involved with, or at least encouraging their teens to go regularly.
The past two years, several teenager have left our ministry. Many of them did not have too much agianst us or our ministry, they simply did not have the encouragement from parents and other family to continue going.
When their parents quite going or started slacking off, slowly they began to follow suit.

So I am asking my blog audience for some ideas, suggestions, on how wto connect with parents and keep the entire family churched...

Have you ever wondered about Chapter and Verse numbers?

The purpose of the chapters and verse numbers was to facilitate reference. These divisions sometimes ignore logical and natural divisions.

If you keep up with my blog you know that sometimes I feel that they should be ignored sometimes when reading the Inspired text because they can be frustrating, they are not diviney inspired. And they sometimes distract us from the full context of a story, text.

It is likely that the original manuscripts did not even contain basic punctuation, far less an organized numbering system for each sentence.

But there remains a question....
when were verse and chapter numbers added to bible?

Until I asked this question, myself, I did not realize how the texts of the Bible through-out history have been divided. The Original Hebrew Manuscripts of the OT first was divided at each paragraph with Hebrew letters separating each paragraph.
around the time of the council of Niche the NT also was divided into Paragraphs.

Churchmen Archbishop Stephen Langton and Cardinal Hugo de Sancto Caro determined different schemas for systematic division of the Bible between 1227 and 1248. It is the system of Archbishop Langton on which the modern chapter divisions are based.

Verse numbers came later: Rabbi Isaac Nathan around 1440.


Okay so I do need to mention this...there are some groups who believe that the chapter and verse numbers have some significance and relevance to us today. CodedBible.com has a very strange theory, but it seems like a conspiracy to me.


Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapters_and_verses_of_the_Bible
http://www.bible-researcher.com/chapter-verse.html
http://www.biblebelievers.com/believers-org/kjv-stats.html

Serious Question

The Lord has impressed my heart to share the Gospel in my neighborhood. I am new to the area.
It is suburbia and I really hate it....but I want to be obedient.

I used my status on Facebook and Twitter to ask a question:
"Any good ideas for suburbia evangelism?"

None of my friends have thrown ideas out to me yet, but I googled "Suburbia Evangelism"
and guess what, I found a neat article and a helpful blog so far....

So now I ask my blog audience (all two of you) for some ideas....
What are some creative or practical ways to share my faith in Suburbia...
(click the photo for Steve McCoy's "Mission to Suburbia Resource guide"!)
Yeah I realize it is ultimately about relationships, but how do I make the connection...should I just talk? hold a dinner party? Or what kinds of ideas come to mind?

Thanks
In Christ,
Alex

Interview Question

So I was at an interview today and a question I had not heard came up...it made me think and I froze a little. The gentleman interviewing me was generous and gave me time to think and after I gave an artificial reply smiled and gave me a life lesson. He was pretty nice.


The Questions: "LONG-TERM where do you see your self...by long term I mean at age 47...where do you want to be?"

(I was thinking, 'age 47? I have not thought past the next 5 or 10 years, far less doubling my life experience!!!)

I said, "Well, long term I would like to become a professor at some point, hopefully well BEFORE age 47!"

Then the interviewer said, "You have not heard that question before have you? When I went to my first interview, 17 years ago, they asked me that question. From that day forward I figured out what my life goals where and to this day am on my way at achieving them."

I couldn't resist, " And your goal is..."

"I wanted be retired by the time I am 47!"

It was interesting 'interview.' I do not know, most interviews are a lot more formal and life lessons are not talked about....but this guy was nice and wanted to talk not just interview it seemed like. I am not sure if that is such a good thing or not though.

Random Question

How many times can something be new?

gas prices and "Shipping and Handling"

Question: How will the rising gas effect UPS, DHL, Fedex...?
Will they still be able to run business with out raising prices?
If they do raise prices how will it affect their business?

Or are they still making out okay because of their efficiency and shire mass shipping?

The truth is we the consumer have to pay for the price of shipping and handling no matter what, if that means paying UPS a few bucks more for shipping in to our door or if it means paying $50 extra at Walmart for "artificial inflation," I talked about in a previous post. We still have to pay for shipping either way! So in a since that might actually benefit UPS if they can figure out how to use it to thier advantage. Right?

We are creatures of habit

I am learning that more and more everyday!

I live efficient with structure. I like some structure. i like to be productive and efficient.
I have lived very free and spontaneous the past few months but now I am ready to come back to structure. I miss it.
Even as a college student, I lived a life of habit. I had a calendar and worked for so many hours, class so many hours, and extra circular activities, as well as organization, and then I FOUND time during my free time for anything else that was IMPORTANT.

When I do not have a lot of structure in my life, or I have too much free time I do not need to find time, I need to waste it. And I have wasted a lot of time recently. I have not really done the things that are important to me. I just do "whatever." Maybe I am not very well-discipled when given a lot of freedom. But I assure you when I am under a time line, deadline, pressure... I make time for what is important. I am well-discipled when I am given structure.

Does anyone else feel the same way?

What are Evangelicals to do?

Evangelicals are not going for the Democratic agenda. (especially not the more liberal agenda of Obama.) And Evangelicals have reservations about McCain too.
Who are Evangelicals going to vote for?

I remember everyone was saying four years ago they were voting Bush as the lesser of two evils.
That is interesting. Now the same people are wondering if Kerry was the lesser evil, while others wonder how much more evil Kerry would have been...

Well, in the end it comes down to our two-party system. At least that is what I think. The two parties leave a difficult dilemma for any individual (evangelical or not). Most people are not one-platform believers. What I mean is that hardly anyone agrees with every single aspect of one particular party. A two party system does not really represent everyone. I know people like to vote on a couple of really important issues, but think about that a minuet. How smart is that really? We are picking a President all aspects of what he believes is important and can change our society not just the social issues!

(random but funny pics sorry they have little to do w post)
I understand that changing the party system is practically impossible. So am not leaving much of a solution, but just thinking out loud. What might change everything for this year' election would be the VP selection. McCain and Huckabee ticket anyone?

What is essential to Christian faith?

Or better yet simply to the to Gospel message?

I have been learning a great deal that a lot of things in the Christian faith are non-essentials.
My question is what are the absolute essentials?
What must a person believe to get into Heaven?
What must a church agree on in order for it to be Evangelical/Protestant?
What are the "essentials" that Augustine speaks of and are they the same today?
What are the major Agreements?


Okay, that is a lot of questioning. That is enough for one day. What do you think?
And yes I understand that the answers to each of those questions are different....

Just a Question

why are conservatives upset about Evangelist manifesto? I don't get it.
I think that the manifesto is great and even if people are not signing it, we can at least reflect on and work with some of the ideas pointed out in the document and critic our own faith system.
What is the big deal?

http://www.todaysthv.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=65390

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080508/32296_Evangelical_Statement_on_Faith,_Politics_Stirs_Up_Religious_Right.htm