Choosing Your Army

 Those of you who have been with us for the last couple of weeks will know that we are in the midst of a series called “Facing Your Enemy.” The New Testament uses military analogies in several places to describe our life of faith. We have looked at several of them already: fighting the good fight, wanting to please our commanding officer. Last Sunday, John talked about the gear that we need as spiritual soldiers, in particular the armor of God as described in Ephesians. Today’s topic is Choosing Your Army. In what sense do we choose our army? Clearly there are choices to be made. There is no middle ground, as our cartoon friend is realizing, as he attempts to keep a foot in both camps – or is it a hand?

Knowing Your Gear

Today, we continue in our new series titled “Facing Your Enemy.”  Last week, Carl introduced the series and talked about “Choosing Your Battles.”  I told Carl afterward I thought it was one of his best messages.  It really struck home with me.  I often feel like I have a hard time articulating what brought me from where I was in my walk with Christ to where I am now.  And as Carl was talking, I could relate again and again the mistakes and pitfalls he described to my poor decision making and how I was confused along the way over the years.

The biggest point was how we can easily get pulled into fighting the wrong battles.  In particular, I used to exert a lot of energy in praying that I do not sin or praying repentantly after I have sinned.  I’ve got journals at home with those kinds of prayers written on pages and pages.  There was not a point in my life where I remember thinking, “I’m fighting the wrong battle.”  But, I don’t dwell on myself nearly as much as I did, but rather put my focus on Christ.

Choosing Your Battles

Welcome! Today we begin a new series entitled Facing Your Enemy. I hope you enjoy the illustrations; Isaac has made one for each message in the series. The character in the illustrations in one from a comic strip Isaac has been developing that he calls Iggleton.

I am really excited about this series and where it will take us. We will have multiple speakers as we go through this topical series, but our approach is not to micromanage what each person will speak on. Each speaker is given the title, just as you can see the list of titles in your bulletin, and that is really all they are given! We don’t plan out the details but instead pray and trust that the Spirit will direct each speaker and, combined with each speaker’s own gifts and life experiences, we pray that the Spirit will weave together the messages into a powerful unified whole.

The Gospels vs. Claims of Contradiction

Welcome! Today we have our final installment in our series on the reliability of the gospels. Two weeks ago we focused on atheists’ and others’ claims that the gospels are fabrications. We looked at when the gospels were written, using as evidence early copies, letters by Christians, and writings by those who were neutral or even opposed to the Christian faith. We saw strong evidence for a very small gap in time between the events in Christ’s life and the writing of the gospels as well as overwhelming evidence that the gospel accounts were not “doctored” in the following centuries.

Last week we focused on claims that the gospels must be in error based on what the gospels say. We focused in on the miracles of Jesus because that is one of the things people have a hard time with. As the atheist Christopher Hitchens has said, “Exceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.” I think we showed evidence that was pretty exceptional. Our main approach was to show that alternative explanations for how the gospels accounts were written and came to be strongly believed as fact were all severely flawed. For example, we talked about how if you start with the presumption that the miracles were “added in” you find the problem that the miracles are completely integrated into the entire story and, beyond this, essential! 

The Gospels vs. Claims of Error

Welcome! Today we continue our series on the reliability of the Gospels. Last week we began by explaining that we were focusing in on the Gospels because they are the most central documents of the Christian faith; they are “ground zero” for the fundamental claims of Christianity. If one accepts the Gospels as true accounts, the fact that Jesus and the Gospel writers clearly believed the Old Testament makes it natural to trust in the Old Testament as well. Similarly, the other material in the New Testament can also be believed because the fundamental teachings are clearly based on the historicity of the Gospels.

Last week we also focused in on atheists’ claims that the Gospels are fabrications. We addressed this by looking in some detail at when the Gospels were likely written, as evidenced by early copies of the Gospels, as evidenced by Gospel fragments, as evidenced by other early letters by Christians referring to the Gospels, and as evidenced by early letters by those who were not Christian but who acknowledged some Christian claims along with some historical events in the life of Christ. 

This week I want to discuss claims that the Gospels must be wrong, must be in error, because of what they say. There are two common types of arguments along these lines. First, people try to find and point out specific errors in the details between one gospel and another or between a gospel and a non-gospel piece of evidence such as an item from archaeology, another document, geographical data, etc. This category I will refer to as contradictions, and we will look at this next week.