Author Archives: John Paine

About John Paine

Unknown's avatar
This blog is topical and devotional--we post whatever interests us, whenever. If you want to follow in an orderly fashion, please see our Kaqexeß page.
September 23, 2012

Is Christianity Reasonable? A Devotional Answer

By John Paine

Is Christianity reasonable? As absurd as this question might seem, there are major religions founded on the premise that faith does not have to be reasonable. Fortunately, Christianity is not one of them.

How would you go about convincing someone that the Christian faith is reasonable? (Okay, this is a trick question—it’s not really our job to convince anyone, but it is our job to think.)

There are massive apologetic resources dedicated to defending the faith and making sound arguments in support of Christianity.  Check out Matt Slick’s CARM site, William Lane Craig’s Reasonable Faith site, Lee Strobel, Ravi Zacharias, Hugh Ross’ Reasons To Believe, the Poached Egg, or the One Minute Apologist.

But it is incumbent upon all Christians—not just big-name apologists, theologians, and pastors—to think.  As Tim Keller says in the following message, “You cannot be a Christian without using your brain to its uttermost.”

Jesus says (in Matthew 6) if you want to have faith, “Think, consider, deduce.” Why does thinking lead to faith? The Bible tells us that if you don’t let your thinking take you all the way to Jesus Christ it will end in despair. Martin Luther’s thinking led him to see there is a God. Then his thinking led him further to see that God must be a personal God. Then he thought, “If there is a personal God, I want to please him.” But Luther couldn’t obey even the Golden Rule, and wondered how he could please God. The Bible tells us there is only one way: Jesus Christ.
Tim Keller, paraphrased from Faith is Reason clip on YouTube

Oftentimes apologetics can be an uppercut.  And it can be an intellectual salve. Great apologists are convincing debaters, loaded with sound arguments to defend their position, and truth be told most of us wish we could dial up their arguments in our normal conversations. But there is an inherent danger in all the eloquence and logic of good apologetics—we can lose sight of the object of apologetics.

Continue reading

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Apologetics

September 21, 2012

By John Paine

Here’s an intelligent look at the spin surrounding the recent publication of a Coptic fragment purportedly quoting Jesus referring to “My wife…” Daniel Wallace is an authority on ancient manuscripts, and the New Testament in particular.

Daniel B. Wallace's avatarDaniel B. Wallace

21 September 2012

There has been an unbelievable torrent of hoopla over a newly discovered—or rather, recently announced—Coptic fragment that speaks of Jesus as being married. The news of this small, business-card-sized fragment has gone mainstream, so much so that even David Letterman got into the act. On Thursday evening (20 September), just a couple of days after the story broke in the New York Times, he had a telephone interview with the most important guest he’s ever had: Jesus Christ. This ‘Jesus’ was married and his wife was nagging him in the background. Anything for a laugh, it seems.

But when the circus leaves town, what have we got? Below are some facts, some probabilities, and some possibilities.

The Facts:
1. Professor Karen King of Harvard Divinity School presented a paper at the International Association of Coptic Studies in Rome on Tuesday, September 18, making public a…

View original post 1,805 more words

1 Comment   |  tags: , , | posted in Archaeology

September 8, 2012

Matthew 23, Laying Down the Law

By John Paine
False Glory

False Glory by Odilon Redon, 1885

If you want to understand the New Testament you have to understand the Apostle Paul. And you can’t get very far into Paul’s writings before you come across one of his main themes—abuse of “the Law.”

Just what is or was the Law, and why does Paul devote so much energy and passion to it?  Before you get to Paul however, it is important to understand what Jesus himself actually said about the Law.  The identity of Jesus is tightly resolved if we understand the answer to this question.

Lee Strobel describes the prophesies that could only be fulfilled by Jesus. Mathematically, the odds that anyone who ever lived could fulfill only 48 of the Old Testament messianic prophesies were calculated by Dr. Peter Stoner to be one chance in ten to the 137th power—unimaginably small.  Add to that the Messiah had to color between the lines, so to speak, in fulfilling and not changing the Law, and you have what Lee Strobel would call the unmistakable “fingerprint of Christ.”

Continue reading

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in The Gospels, Topics

September 1, 2012

Mormon Doctrine

By John Paine

Aren’t Mormons Christians? Mormons indeed claim to be “Christians in a very real sense.”  But don’t let me or anyone else answer that question for you—check out the Mormon.org site and see what you think.

Here’s a short video that gets to the heart of the are-they-or-aren’t-they question.

For details, check out the Mormonism page from CARM.  And here’s an interesting post from Justin Taylor.

We recently had a Mormon family (with seven young children) stay overnight in our home.  Every one of the kids was loving, personable, well-mannered, empathetic, enthusiastic, and happy.  Strikingly so—these were precious children.  Their parents were very nice, and we enjoyed their visit.

So what’s that got to do with anything?  Just that these were loving, personable, well-mannered, empathetic, enthusiastic, and happy people.

Personally, I confess to hating conflict.  I wish we could just all get along.  But I love Jesus Christ more than I hate conflict.  Much more.  Christ did not teach that anything goes, or that we should all just accept each other’s doctrines.  Love each other?  Absolutely.  Accept apostasy?  Absolutely not.

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel–not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.  But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.  As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.  For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God?  Or am I trying to please man?  If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.”
Apostle Paul, Galatians 1:6-10  (ESV)

5 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Topics

August 29, 2012

Heaven In Simple Terms

By John Paine

Some biblical illustrations are harder to understand than others, particularly in the 21st century.  Consider Jesus’ words in John, Chapter 10.  John noted in this passage that the disciples had difficulty with the sheep and shepherd metaphors.

When we asked Bill Warrick what he would say if he only had five minutes to tell someone about Heaven, Bill shared that he told his own father about Jesus representing himself as the great shepherd.  Bill’s video continues to get steady play on this blog, so obviously people are curious about Heaven.

Here’s a beautiful video short that illustrates Jesus’ metaphors about the way to Heaven.  It’s perfectly clear—there’s only one gate.

HT: Sourceflix.com

3 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in The Gospels, Topics