Tagged: Bible
What young atheists can teach us
Larry Alex Taunton directs the Fixed Point Foundation, which seeks innovative ways to defend and proclaim the gospel. Recently, his organization reached out to college-age atheists nationwide in a unique campaign. As Taunton contacted leaders of Secular Student Alliances and Freethought Societies, he had one simple request: Tell us your journey to unbelief.
Taunton did not dispute their stories or debate the merits of their views. He just listened. Many stepped forward – some reluctantly – but ultimately Taunton found patterns emerging from the young atheists’ stories, and he summarized them in a recent article in The Atlantic.
Islam’s doctrine of deception
Like Christianity, Islam is monotheistic, yet it denies basic Christian doctrines like the Trinity, the deity of Christ, Jesus’ death and resurrection, and salvation by grace through faith.
Muhammad’s encounters with heretical Christian sects, and the lack of a Bible in Arabic in his lifetime, no doubt contributed to his faulty understanding of the Christian faith.
But two lesser-known teachings based on the Qur’an are equally disturbing. Christians should understand them in order to more effectively evangelize our Muslim friends.
Did Jesus die on a torture stake?
Jehovah’s Witnesses deny the deity of Christ and His bodily resurrection. These unbiblical views are nothing new; the apostles wrestled with them in the days following the ascension of Jesus, and the church invested much of the fourth century in the Arian controversy, which challenged the Trinitarian view of God.
But one of the more curious doctrines of the Watchtower is the view that Jesus died, not on a cross, but on a “torture stake.”
According to Watchtower publications, “no biblical evidence even intimates that Jesus died on a cross…. Jesus most likely was executed on an upright stake without any crossbeam.”
Jehovah’s Witnesses (JWs) argue that the Greek word for cross – stauros – in classical Greek means an upright stake. Further, they teach that the cross is a pagan religious symbol adopted in the early centuries of the church after Satan took control of “Christendom.”
Therefore, JWs insist that their members reject the notion of Jesus’ death on a cross. They should not wear crosses as jewelry or display the symbols in their homes or places of worship.
When a Bible promise is not for you
This time of year Christians send and receive a variety of graduation gifts that feature Jeremiah 29:11 –“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (NIV).
It’s a wonderful biblical promise. The problem is … it’s not for graduates.
As Christians in the U.S., we have a tendency to Westernize, personalize, and lift out of context many passages of scripture so that they lose their original meaning – and worse, lose their intended application for modern readers.
Using this verse, let’s look at three ways we sometimes misuse biblical promises. E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien identify these common errors in their book, “Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes.”
Which translation of the Bible should you use?
There is an alphabet soup of Bible translations available today, from the KJV to the NIV and the NASB to the HCSB. This has led some critics to conclude that because there is so much variation between translations, no one really knows what the Bible says.
This attack on inerrancy is misplaced. Keep in mind that the Bible’s autographs, or original documents, are inerrant – not subsequent copies and translations. Even though there are dozens of English translations that differ in varying degrees, we are highly confident that the source documents from which these versions came – more than 25,000 New Testament manuscripts alone – are accurate representations of the autographs.
A more practical question for Christians today is, “Which translation of the Bible should we use?” To answer that question, let’s look at four types of translations, then match our intended use with the translators’ intended goals.
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