rbs 2012 : apologetics & basic beliefs

<Basic Beliefs & Apologetics>

Why apologetics?

Discuss!

1. Why did you become a Christian? “I became a Christian because _______.”

2. What are 1-2 of the most difficult questions you have heard about Christianity?

Principles Distinguish between tough questions and

tough problems “I don’t know” is fine! Unanswered

questions don’t mean Christianity is false! Love is more important than logic What can YOU learn? The “seeker” issue (or why ‘proof’ is almost

never sufficient); psychological certainty vs. epistemic certainty

Session #1

God is Real

There are more than

1.5 million galaxies!

Two questions

• Did all this come about by chance or did someone have to create all this?

• Why is Earth the only planet where life (let alone intelligent life!) exists?

The Cosmological Argument

The Teleological Argument

The Anthropic Principle

The challenge of evolution

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” (John 1:1-3)

Other ‘hot’ problems

• “There is no truth”, “The world is an illusion”, “Truth is determined by _____”

• How do I know I exist?• Why doesn’t God do ‘sky-writing’?

(Rejection of Cognitive Violence)• Nature is all there is…you are being fooled

by your brain (Argument from Conditions for Knowledge)

Session #2

God is Love

Pop Quiz: Are you a heretic?!

What isthe Trinity?

1 x 1 x 1 = 1

The best model I can think of thus far…

The Problem of Evil

The problem of pain

Why do bad things happen to good people?

The FreeWill / Love Defense

1. God’s top priority is love

2. Love requires freedom for the beloved

3. True freedom means accepting the possibility or risk of evil

4. Freedom must be irrevocable

Natural Evil

Responding to Natural Evil

• Many people (especially children) die ‘before their time’

• There are too many deaths

• Innocent people suffer

• God should be able to control the hurricane, earthquake, etc.

Do tragedies mean that God is judging us?!

The LORD will rise up as he did at Mount Perazim, he will rouse himself as in the Valley of Gibeon— to do his work, his strange work, and perform his task, his alien task. (Isaiah 28:21)

The Pattern of God’s Judgment

• Clearly and specifically fore-warned• Characterised by patience and reluctance• Happens only after repeated warnings and

chances to repent! (e.g. Noah’s time, Pharoah, etc.)

• Involves rescuing / preserving a righteous remnant

What about hell?

But there is a question we seldom reflect on…

Why do good things happen at all?

(The scandal of grace)

Yet by far the best ‘answer’ to the problem of evil…

What happened on the Cross theologically?

(GROUP EXERCISE)

Session #3

Jesus is God

What questions do you have about Jesus?

Key Questions

• Who did Jesus’ contemporaries understand Jesus to be?

• What was the ‘Jewish problem’ Jesus was addressing?

• What is the ‘kingdom of God’? (Session 4)• Why all the miracles?• Why does Jesus talk in parables?• Why did He die?

4Jewish groups during Jesus’ time

There were (at least)

#1 The Withdrawers

Qumran Community / Essenes

• Focus: Purity, separation, complete withdrawal

• Victims: Leave the country! Forget politics!• Good: Holy and set apart• Bad: Totally disengaged and thus irrelevant

to the world• Not a threat to the status quo

#2 The Assimilators

Sadducees

• Focus: assimilation and accommodation• Victims: Join the government, profit from

those in power• Good: Works well with the world and

within the system• Bad: Selfish and helps perpetuate injustice• Not a threat to the status quo

#3 The Fault-Finders

Pharisees

• Focus: other people’s faults(!), distinguishing between ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’,

• Victims: “I-told-you-so”, “You-should-have-…”, “Your-mistake-was…”

• Good: Well-informed and very critical of all parties (except themselves!)

• Bad: Creates burdens for people, de-contextualised ‘solutions’,

• Not a threat to the status quo

“Life is like a forensic lab…”

Modern-day Pharisees?

#4 The Revolutionaries

Zealots

• Focus: revolution, violence• Victims: Overthrow the government by

force (other means are a waste of time!)• Strongly opposed to injustice, courageous

and action-oriented• Bad: Perpetuates ‘violence’ and ‘hatred’,

equates worldly justice with divine justice• Threatens status quo

Into the midst of these four worldviews…

WITHDRAWERS

REVOLUTIONARIES

ASSIMILATORS

FAULT-FINDERS

“Behold I make all things new”(Rev 21)

Jesus

• Focus: aggressive kindness and love (for all), self-sacrifice, all-out giving,

• Victims: Liberation of the heart, really good news, compassion, hope, peace, joy, promise of resurrection

• Oppressors: Sacrifice, radical listening / friendship, forgiveness

• Everyone: A New Way of Being Human• A quiet but real threat to the status quo!

Miracle Type Mark Matt Luke John

In all four gospels          

1. Feeding of 5,000 nature 6.35f 14.15f 9.12f 6.5f

In three gospels          

2. Walking on water nature 6.48f 14.25f   6.19f

3. Peter's mother-in-law healing 1.30f 8.14f 4.38f  

4. Man with leprosy healing 1.40f 8.24f 5.12f  

5. Paralyzed man healing 2.3f 9.2f 5.18f  

6. Man with shriveled hand healing 3.1f 12.10f 6.6f  

7. Calming the storm nature 4.37f 8.23f 8.22f  

8. Gadarene Demoniac(s) exorcism 5.1f 8.28f 8.27f  

9. Raising Jairus' daughter revivification 5.22f 9.18f 8.41f  

10. Hemorrhaging woman healing 5.25f 9.20f 8.43f  

11. Demon-possessed boy exorcism 9.17f 17.14f 9.38f  

12. Two blind men healing 10.46f 20.29f 18.35f  

In two gospels (Mark, Matt)          

13. Canaanite woman's daughter exorcism@distance 7.24f 15.21f    

14. Feeding of 4,000 nature 8.1f 15.32f    

15. Fig tree withered nature 11.12f 21.18f    

In two gospels (Mark, Luke)          

16. Possessed man in synagogue exorcism 1.23f   4.33f  

In two gospels (Matt, Luke=Q?)          

17. Roman Centurion's servant healing@distance   8.5f 7.1f  

18. Blind, Mute, and Possessed man exorcism   12.22 11.14  

Only in one gospel (Mark)          

19. Deaf mute healing 7.31f      

20. Blind man at Bethsaida healing 8.22f      

Only in one gospel (Matt)          

21. Two blind men healing   9.27f    

22. Mute and possessed man exorcism   9.32f    

23. Coin in fish's mouth precognition/nature?   17.24f    

Only in one gospel (Luke)          

24. First catch of fish precognition/nature?     5.1f  

25. Raising Widow's son at Nain revivification     7.11f  

26. Exorcism of Mary Magdalene exorcism     8.2  

27. Crippled woman healing     13.11f  

28. Man with dropsy healing     14.1f  

29. Ten men with leprosy healing@distance     17.11f  

30. High Priest's servant healing     22.50f  

Only in one gospel (John)          

31. Wine miracle at Cana nature       2.1f

32. Official's son at Capernaum healing@distance       4.46f

33. Sick man at Pool of Bethesda healing       5.1f

34. Healing of the Blind Man healing       9.1f

35. Raising Lazarus revivification       11.1f

36. Second catch of fish precognition/nature?       21.1f

<Did it really happen?>

Did it really happen?

Consider…

• All evidence suggests that Jesus really died (water from body, unbroken legs, burial)

• Jewish leaders claimed the disciples stole the body but tomb was guarded by Roman soldiers (whose lives were at stake)

• More than 500 people saw Jesus resurrected, and who was present for days (hallucination cannot explain this!), see Acts 1

• The first witnesses were women! (not good for credibility or conspiracy!)

• What motives did disciples have for lying? So they could ‘look good’? So they could be persecuted and die as martyrs?!

More ‘hot’ questions

• What about those who didn’t get to hear the Gospel through no fault of their own?

• How do we even know Jesus existed?• What about Da Vinci Code?!• Why does God create all people sin-less?

Won’t that be the case in Heaven?• Was Jesus gay?

The Temptations of Christ in the Wilderness:

A Study of Sin, Truth,

Man & Politics

“I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak to her heart”

(Hosea 2:14)

Why do Christians still sin?

5 Views• Lutheran – fall on the grace of God (we

can’t help but sin)• Reformed – keep obeying (new creation

overcomes sin)• Keswick – encounter the Spirit (sin

requires a crisis)• Wesleyan – why still sin? (sin entails non-

surrender to Christ)• Joseph Prince – no more sin? (radical

grace)

The 1st Temptation

"If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread." (Luke 4:3)

The Devil doesn’t appear like this

“Man shalt not live by bread alone…”

Sin is the ‘Cutting Short’

of a kingdom process!

Biblical Inerrancy

• Does the Bible need to be 100% error-free? (A theo-philosophical question)

• Is the Bible actually error-free? How do the OT and NT compare historiographically with other ancient documents?

• What about 2Timothy 3:16?

The ‘miracle’ of NT Preservation

The 2nd Temptation

"If you are the Son of God…throw yourself down. For it is written:

'He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone”

(Luke 4:3)

'He will command his angels concerning you…”

Sin = ‘Circus Stunts’ to gain kingdom peace /

protection!

Thou shalt not BLACK-MAIL the Lord your God!

Temptation is often a distortion of true vocation

Who / What is Man?

Rich?Successful? Popular? Good-looking? Hot body? “Cultured”?Educated?

Man

• A creature who lives and works by every word that comes from God(Ephesians 2:10)

• A derivative being who finds life and meaning in trusting God, refusing to rely on the world’s power and tricks and looks to God’s power in all things(Psalms 20:7)

• A worshipful agent who finds purpose in God alone

The 3rd Temptation

"All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me."

(Luke 4:9)

“All this I will give you!”

What about faith and politics?

Sin is a Short Cut towards a kingdom goal!

Idolatrous ‘victories’ are

the worst defeats

What’s the Common Thread?

The absence of the “sensational”…

Q&A?

Final Session

We are Jesus

In 165 AD, a devastating epidemic swept through the Roman empire, killing 1/3 of the population, incl.

Emperor Marcus Aurelius…

In 251 AD, another

plague hit the empire,

this time both rural and urban areas were affected…

“Most of our brothers showed unbounded love…never sparing themselves and thinking only of one another…Heedless of danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ…drawing on themselves the sickness of their neighbors and cheerfully accepting their pains…”

Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria, AD260

“The heathen behaved in the very opposite way. At the first onset of the disease, they pushed the sufferers away and fled from their dearest, throwing them into the roads before they were dead and treated unburied corpses as dirt, hoping thereby to avert the spread and contagion of the disease; but do what they might, they found it difficult to escape.”

Bishop Dionysius

Result?

‘Miraculous’ healing

Huge Conversions

Growth of Christian population

Spread of Christian love/principles throughout

empire!

The kingdom of God is like a team of resistance fighters...

If a country starts mobilizing its troops, preparing its airplanes, testing its weapons, sending

spies to other countries, etc. – what does that tell you?

The kingdom of God is like flying jet-planes of love into towers of hate

The kingdom of God is like a cigarette smoker…

The kingdom of God is living in Wonderland…

Jesus’ strange kingdom…

• It’s “weak” and “foolish” (1Cor 1) – relevant to apologetics?

• It’s lowly and despised…it’s something that is NOT (1Cor 1)

• It’s not of this world (John 8)• It’s perfected in our weakness i.e. we need

to be very ‘teruk’ before New Creation becomes very ‘terror!’ (2Cor 12)

<thank you>

GOD BLESS YOU!!