How to Answer Questions More Correctly

Found this post on Dr. Wayman's site and written by Marc Cortez


The following is a conversation that recently took place in my daughter’s middle school group. And I think it does a good job highlighting three mistakes that we often make when we talk about the sovereignty of God and how it relates to sin and suffering in the world.

Youth pastor: God is sovereign. That means he controls everything that happens.

Middle-schooler: So God was in control when my dog died? Why would God kill my dog?

Youth pastor: That’s a tough one. But sometimes God lets us go through hard times so that we’re prepared for even more difficult things in the future. I remember how hard it was when my dog died. But going through that helped me deal with an even more difficult time later when my grandma died. Does that make sense?

Middle-schooler: (Long pause.) So God killed my dog to prepare me for when he’s going to kill my grandma?

Youth pastor: (Silence.)

You can read the rest here.

Purpose For Living

Why are we here?

Introduction

Consider this insight from Ben Shapiro:

In other words, people need meaning and purpose in life. Our focus on materialism from both the political right and left — on income inequality and intersectional victimhood from the left, and on tribal affinity and economic deregulation from the right — ignores the key problem: Americans, particularly young Americans, increasingly don’t feel that their lives have purpose. This isn’t a problem that can be cured by redistributing Xboxes. This is a problem of the soul. (Source).

He writes about the skyrocketing levels of suicide in the USA:

According to the Centers for Disease Control, youth suicide is in the midst of a precipitous and frightening rise. Between 2006 and 2016, suicides by white children between ages 10 and 17 skyrocketed 70%; while black children are less likely than white children to kill themselves, their suicide rate also jumped 77%. And as The Blaze points out, CNN reported last year that “the suicide rate among girls between the ages of 15 and 19 rose to a 40-year high in 2015.”

It’s not just young people. According to Tom Simon, a CDC report author, “We know that overall in the US, we’re seeing increases in suicide rates across all age groups.” As of 2016, suicide levels were at 30-year highs.

What Is Our Purpose in Life?

B1 For management

C1 God wanted a beautiful earth.

C2 He wanted to delegate something to maintain it.

C3 God created Adam and Eve to be those maintainers.

C4 God created them with a reasonable soul (ability to reason and learn) and the communicable attributes of God in order to accomplish this.

D1 Genesis 5:1 CSB - This is the document containing the family records of Adam. On the day that God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.

D2 Psalm 8:6-8 CSB - You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all the sheep and oxen, as well as the animals in the wild, the birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea that pass through the currents of the seas.

C5 Genesis 1:26 CSB - Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth."

C6 Genesis 2:15 CSB - The LORD God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it.

B2 For fellowship

C1 1 John 1:3 CSB - what we have seen and heard we also declare to you, so that you may also have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.

C2 Fellowship is meeting together to talk and enjoy life together, having a common cause and purpose.

C3 The Greek word for fellowship here is κοινωνία koinōnia. It means having beliefs in common, fellowship, participation. (Source)

C4 1 Corinthians 1:9 CSB - God is faithful; you were called by him into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

C5 Philippians 2:1 CSB - If then there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and mercy.

B3 To glorify God

C1 By our thoughts, desires, words, and deeds reflecting the image of God. He is holy, loving, just, etc., so also He wants us to be this.

C2 Ephesians 4:22-24 CSB - to take off your former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires, to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, the one created according to God's likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth. Some examples are found in Ephesians 4:25-32.

C3 Romans 1:21 CSB - For though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became worthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened. This passage teaches that there is a common failure.

D1 Do not glorify God.

D2 Are not thankful.

C4 Glorifying by praising in song: Romans 15:9 CSB - and so that Gentiles may glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles, and I will sing praise to your name.

C5 Telling God thank you glorifies Him: Psalm 50:23 CSB - "Whoever sacrifices a thank offering honors me, and whoever orders his conduct, I will show him the salvation of God."

C6 Humbling ourselves glorifies God: Psalm 86:9 CSB - All the nations you have made will come and bow down before you, Lord, and will honor your name.

C7 Obeying God’s rules glorifies Him, but disobedience is proof of NOT glorifying Him: 2 Timothy 3:2 CSB - For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, proud, demeaning, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy.

C8 Believing God glorifies Him:

D1 Did NOT believe: Deuteronomy 9:23 CSB - "When the LORD sent you from Kadesh-barnea, he said, 'Go up and possess the land I have given you'; you rebelled against the command of the LORD your God. You did not believe or obey him.

D2 Did believe:

E1 John 6:69 CSB - "We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."

E2 John 11:27 CSB - "Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who comes into the world."

E3 Hebrews 11:6 CSB - Now without faith it is impossible to please God, since the one who draws near to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

B4 For good works

C1 Matthew 5:16 CSB - "In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

C2 Ephesians 2:10 CSB - For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.

C3 Easton’s gives the following three points:

1. Works are "good" only when,
   1. they spring from the principle of love to God. The moral character of an act is determined by the moral principle that prompts it. Faith and love in the heart are the essential elements of all true obedience. Hence good works only spring from a believing heart, can only be wrought by one reconciled to God (Ephesians 2:10; James 2:18:22).
   2. Good works have the glory of God as their object; and
   3. they have the revealed will of God as their only rule (Deuteronomy 12:32; Revelation 22:18,19).
2. Good works are an expression of gratitude in the believer's heart (John 14:15,23; Galatians 5:6). They are the fruits of the Spirit (Titus 2:10-12), and thus spring from grace, which they illustrate and strengthen in the heart.
3. Good works of the most sincere believers are all imperfect, yet like their persons they are accepted through the mediation of Jesus Christ (Colossians 3:17), and so are rewarded; they have no merit intrinsically, but are rewarded wholly of grace.

Copyright © 2018 by Len Gane All rights reserved.

Know Them by Their Fruits

Questions:

What does the phrase "...know them by their fruits" mean?

Answer:

This statement comes from Matthew 7:16 and 20. The Lord Jesus is speaking about false prophets. 

How can we know they are false prophets? It is by their fruits. These would be by their prophecies (Deuteronomy 18:20-22 and Jeremiah 28:1-14), doctrine (Deuteronomy 13:1-5 and 1 Corinthians 14:37), life style (Isaiah 28:7,Jeremiah 6:13, Micah 2:11), and priorities, particularly what those people are in private, in persecution, and confrontation. See also Revelation 16:13.

God Repents. What?

The Lord's Repentance


Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. So the LORD said, "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them." But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD. (Genesis 6:5-8, NKJV)


The word for repentance here conveys the idea of heavy breathing as in panting or sighing. It depends on the context. If it is to be understood as something good, then it will be translated comfort, etc. If the context is something negative, then it will be translated as being sorry, change the mind, etc.


In a good sense:

1. 1 Chronicles 7:22
   


2. Isaiah 40:1
   


3. Zechariah 1:17
   

In a bad sense:

1. Genesis 6:6
   


2. Job 42:6
   


3. Jeremiah 20:16
   

The basic sense, again, is an emotional change of mind, thus comfort, repent, be sorry for, etc.


So God did not commit a sin that He needed to repent, that is, change of character, rather it was an emotion of seeing things good and happy about it to seeing this evil and being sad about it.


K&D has "The force of יִנָּחֵם (nâcham), "it repented the Lord," may be gathered from the explanatory יִתְעַצֵּב` (atsab), "it grieved Him at His heart." This shows that the repentance of God does not presuppose any variableness in His nature of His purposes. In this sense God never repents of anything (1 Samuel 15:29), "quia nihil illi inopinatum vel non praevisum accidit" (Calvin). The repentance of God is an anthropomorphic expression for the pain of the divine love at the sin of man, and signifies that "God is hurt no less by the atrocious sins of men than if they pierced His heart with mortal anguish" (Calvin). The destruction of all, "from man unto beast," etc., is to be explained on the ground of the sovereignty of man upon the earth, the irrational creatures being created for him, and therefore involved in his fall. This destruction, however, was not to bring the human race to an end. "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." In these words mercy is seen in the midst of wrath, pledging the preservation and restoration of humanity." Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament on Genesis 6:6.


 

Another comment: "A peculiarly strong anthropathic expression, which, however, presents the truth that God, in consistency with his immutability, assumes a changed position in respect to changed man" (Lange). That he had made man on the earth. i.e. that he had created man at all, and in particular that he had settled him on the earth. And it grieved him at his heart. A touching indication that God did not hate man, and a clear proof that, though the Divine purpose is immutable, the Divine nature is not impassible." Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 6:6.

Impossible Questions?

"Answering Bugliosi's Unanswerable Questions

In his book "The Divinity of Doubt," former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi argues that agnosticism is the only sensible position to hold. But the book never gets to the heart of the Christian message. Instead, Bugliosi trots out the usual challenges to faith, mocking believers along the way with taunts about how his questions have never been, and cannot be, answered. Here's a sampling of his "can't be answered" questions: At the very beginning of the book, Bugliosi claims that theists have not a single fact to support their position. "By fact I mean a truth known by…" 

Are there really unanswerable questions that "prove" God cannot exist?

True Christianity is based on faith. This faith is a REASONABLE faith, not blind faith.

Most atheists that I have dealt with demand proof that has no possibility of doubt. They accept only what their senses "know". Eyewitnessed events are not accepted except from themselves and even then it might not be accepted.

Al Serrato provides the answer. A very good read!