Get Well Soon!

I just heard that Dr. Mohler had surgery this week.

Edit: Dr. D. James Kennedy was also hospitalized on Thursday with a heart attack.

May God grant both of these men a full and speedy recovery!

Why Christmas?

Why Christmas?

Why do we celebrate Christmas on December 25^th? There are many theories:

Dies Natalis Solis Invicti– This was a celebration of a trilogy of gods, Elagabalus, Helios, and Sol, during early Roman times in the first and second centuries AD. Interestingly, the concept of Helios was a Greek god that was borrowed from the Persian god Mithras, of whom I’m sure most of us here are familiar. Elagabalus was a spiritual figure from the religion of Baal from Syria. Sol was a Romanized form of the Greek sun-god.

This celebration literally means “festival of the birth of the Unconquered Sun.” It is celebrated on the first few days after the winter solstice on December 21-22, the day of the year with the shortest length of daylight, as the days once again start to get longer. It is sometimes referred to the “rebirth of the sun.”

Saturnalia – This was a celebration of the Roman god Saturn, the god of farming, celebrated December 17-23.

The statue of the god was located in Rome, and was bound with rope all year long except for this period of celebration. During this celebration, slaves and masters would switch positions. Also, it was celebrated by decorating houses with greenery, and some believe with adorned evergreen trees, a symbol of Saturn’s endurance.

Integral Age – This is an ancient Jewish belief that the prophets died on the same day as either their birth or conception. This is why Eastern Orthodox Christians celebrate March 25 as the Feast of Annunciation, the day Gabriel first appeared to Mary, and Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Nine months later was Dec. 25.

Under this theory of the dating of Christmas, the date was a product of the earliest attempts to find the date of Jesus’ date of death. This was a miscalculation. And having just researched the usage of a multitude of different calendar systems in the early days of Christianity, it’s no wonder all the dates are confused.

But all this aside, this Christmas, I have been wondering if it would be a good idea for Christians to once again reconsider the date of celebrating Christ’s birth. I’m sure I’ll be thinking the same thing come April 8, as we approach Easter, the time when the fake evergreen trees, multi-colored lights, plastic reindeer, red stockings much larger than any known human foot, and red and green colored M&Ms on the shelves of Wal-Mart are replaced with plastic eggs, bright yellow and blue baskets with that green plastic grass, and pastel colored M&Ms.

Also known as the celebration of Christ’s resurrection.

In other words, how many more times must I hear pastors gripe about the “commercialization of Christmas” before we decide to do something about it. There is nothing particularly sacred about the end of December.

Of course, the best approach is to make every day Christmas and Easter, where we share with everyone we meet the importance of KNOWING the savior who was born of a virgin and died for our sins, instead of just grumbling over when and how the traditions of those particular dates came into observance.

I just wanted to take a moment to tell everyone who reads this blog, on behalf of myself, Kevin, and Steve, may you all have a blessed Christmas!

Apologetics, anyone?

The Sunday school lesson in my class last week was on the Magi. As I prepared, one of the questions I wanted to anticipate was concerning the nature of the star found in the account from Matthew 2.

Here is the text from Matthew 2:1-2, 9-10.

1Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, 2saying, "Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him."…9After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. 10When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.

As I researched, I came across the website of an organization known as “Reasons to Believe.” You can click here to see the article they have on the Christmas Star. It is by a man named Dr. Hugh Ross. It looks like a solid apologetics resource, so tell me if any of you know anything about him or this organization.


But after a while, I got to thinking about something. As I read through some of the website, I also reflected on this past Friday when I went to MTSU to judge a debate tournament for the Christian Communicators of Tennessee, and one of the events I judged was a series of apologetics speeches where the students were given a topic, then they had to give a 6 minute speech to defend their proposition. This together with the website caused me to evaluate my experience with apologetics.

Thanks to the wonderful professors at Boyce College, I am slightly biased toward presuppositional apologetics. The three main categories of apologetics are presuppositional, classical, and evidential. You can click on those links to find out more about each form.

But like I said, I lean more towards the presuppositional (Gee, thanks Dr. Mohler!) and most of the students at the debate tournament, whether they knew it or not, were using classical, and this website seems to focus on evidential.

So my bias forces me to ask you this question. Is there really a need to prove all of the scientific data in the Bible in order to validate Scripture?

As I read through the website, I found myself asking myself this question: “Why do we need a natural explanation for a supernatural phenomenon?”

Couldn’t God create a star that shone directly over Christ that only astrologers from Persia could see if He wanted to?

I often ask this question to fellow Christians who turn purple with the giddy excitement from breaking news that hi-tech satellite imagery has shown the remains of Noah’s Ark on Mt. Ararat in Turkey. Or is it Mt. Sabalan in Iran? Or Mt. Suleiman in Tehran?

Do you remember when the remains of Jesus’ brother James were found a few years ago? Unfortunately, the inscription on the ossuary was proven to be a forgery.

My point is that none of this really matters, in an apologetic sense, since the reason why people do not believe in God is NOT because they can’t see the evidence. Check out Romans 1:18-23, 28-32:

18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles….28And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Can you see the case here for presuppositional apologetics? Why should we “play by their game” by trying to empirically prove Christianity according to the paradigm of modern science—astronomy, biology, archaeology—when the primary presupposition of those who are critical of Christianity is based on suppressing the unmistakable evidence of God that exists in all of creation?

The NEW Covenant!

My Sunday School class has been going through a study on the tabernacle, and looking at how it relates to Christ. That being said, I found this reading of Hebrews to be really cool.

I might have to memorize this in 2007!

Hebrews 9 & 10

Who's Got Pride?

I recently read Kevin Vanhoozer's book, Is There A Meaning in This Text? For those of you who might recognize it, the title is a play on the book by postmodern thinker Stanley Fish, Is There A Text In This Class? But I do not want to talk about postmodernism today, at least not postmodernism specifically. Vanhoozer talks for a brief moment in the book about two sins of interpretation that I want to highlight here, not because I think that anyone reading this would ever fall prey to these sins (ahem..) but you never know...

The first sin he talks about is one of Interpretive Pride, and it "is the sin of conservative and liberal alike."

It encourages us to think that we have got the correct meaning before we have made the appropriate effort to recover it. Pride typically does not wait to listen; it knows. [Italics mine]...Readers who take pride in their readings seek to 'master' the text and so risk elevating their commentary over the text in importance. Pride neglects the voice of the other in favor of its own. it may therefore be te preeminent temptation of the fundamentalist, insofar as he or she craves certainty.

Now, really. Who does that? Ha, ha. I do not know if I can think of any person who has not done that to one degree or another. Too often, I find myself jumping to conclusions about what an author writes, or what another person says without actually listening to their entire argument. While the old adage is true, "there is nothing new under the sun," we cannot afford to think that we already know everything there is to know when someone opens his mouth to argue with us. How can we as Christians lead another to truth if we do not give that person the courtesy of listening to what he or she sincerely thinks? Maybe, just maybe, we don't know it all and we could be surprised with something we haven't thought of before. But we'll never know if we hear a couple of quick buzzwords and drop the other person into this or that particular theological/ philosophical box. Let's have a little humility in our dialogue with others, and in our reading.

Vanhoozer says it very succinctly a little further on: "The refusal to respond to the genuine otherness of the text may be the hermeneutical equivalent of sucking one's thumb." Our egos may be so large that we just don't have the patience to listen to another person talk. After all, we could be talking and that would be so much better for everyone ; ). As responsible thinkers, and sincere Christian apologists, we need to have the humility to listen to what the "other" is saying, and interact with that, not with what we 'assume' they are saying. After all, we are seeking to find what drives the thought of others, and if we don't understand what their thought is, how can we understand the presuppositions behind it? So a little caution for us all: listen, read and interact with humility, it might just be the truth that we don't know everything there is to know.

And a last word from Dr. Vanhoozer: "Interpretive pride at its ugliest leads not to humility but to humiliation."

Next time, we'll look at the other interpretive sin, 'sloth'. I know none of us has to worry about that one, so I'll just get to it when I've got the energy (okay, dumb joke. I'm sorry). And I'm sorry this is so short. I actually wrote this twice, but the first time just as I finished I got booted off the internet and lost everything. So trust me when I say, the first one was much better ; )

Read Is There A Meaning In This Text?

Your Best Teeth Now!

We just happened to come across this little gem while eating breakfast, and Sara and I thought it would brighten everyone's day!

Oh Steve.... Where are You?

Hey everyone... This is Steve and I am right here. I just thought I would let everyone know what is going on with me and my lack of posting this week (month etc...).

I am no longer the pastor at Shellsford Baptist Church. This blog is no longer associated with them either. It seems that small town politics and control play a huge part in rural church polity and I am not equipped to play the game appropriately. I have resigned as of December 1st and am cleaning out my office this week. I have no job prospects on the horizon and so I am also doggedly pursuing employment. Also we are continuing our work with the church plant in Chattanooga (pray for us as we look around for a facility to house us - we have at least 6 families already involved - 6 families with a grand total of over 30 children!).

Apologetics group... I have not received more than 3 answers yet. Krystle, I am working on my response to you!
Please get them to me as soon as possible so that we can tweak them, if need be, and prepare our card boxes!

In Christ, my Rock!