Gospel Outreach Conversations

People seek thrills in many ways, be it storm chasing, wingsuit flying, high stakes gambling, sports competitions, and the like. Would you add “ghostbusting” to the list? He didn’t call himself a ghostbuster like the movie series, but Matt sure would have fit right in. As far as I could tell, it was for the thrill of close encounters with the supernatural that Matt and his friends would travel to haunted locations with electronic gear in hand in order to encounter what he believes to be the ghosts of people who have died with unfinished business to take care of before leaving this earthly realm. I asked Matt to describe some of his experiences, and he could only smile and shake his head, with a “you don’t really want to know” sort of look. I imagine that’s the same sort of answer many thrill seekers give, the feeling like they have stood on the brink of death and looked over the edge, only to be unable to describe the experience to those who prefer comfort and security. But what makes these close encounters with death so thrilling for some? I would say that, ultimately, getting past the possibility of pain and the fear of the unknown, its actually the fear of encountering God – on His terms. But do we have to risk death in order to do that? The Bible says that God is “a consuming fire, jealous God.” This comes from Moses, who first encountered God in the form of a burning bush, and who warned his fellow Israelites that God “will not share His glory with worthless idols.” Moses had learned what it meant to encounter God on His terms, and not his own. Death may be the ultimate event in our lives where God has the final word about who He is and who we are in relation to Him. Maybe thrill seekers are actually trying to defy that final word. In the end, though, don’t they know they will lose? As much as he believes in ghosts and spirits, Matt actually denies that God could exist, which I found unusual. Most people seem to understand that the presence of ghosts and a spiritual realm makes the likelihood of God's existence even more probable. Maybe Matt gladly accepts the possibility of ghosts, yet flatly denies the possibility of God because he knows that, for the most part, he can control his encounters with ghosts, but an encounter with God would be out of his control. Maybe his denial of God is a last-ditch effort to control God by claiming He doesn't exist. Matt gave a few other reasons for his lack of faith: a religious and controlling family upbringing, and the death of his long-time girlfriend just after high school due to a drunk driver. I couldn't be sure of the reasons, but just tried to explain that yes, we are to enter into a relationship with God on His terms, that God can't be controlled like Aladdin's Genie. A "god" that could be controlled, like the worthless idols that inspired Moses to describe God as "a consuming fire", wouldn't be a god worth believing in. In my experience, the more Christians are "all out" for a relationship with God on His terms, the less likely they are to be and live a boring life, and the more likely they are to describe that relationship as simply "thrilling". I want to encourage others to a place of total surrender to God, but not for some sort of cheap thrill - that would be pursuing God on our own terms - but simply because God is a consuming fire, and deserving of our all-out faith and commitment. (Thanks, Matt, for allowing me to record our conversation. My intent is to use these conversations as an inspiration to write about different aspects of Gospel outreach, and I post these videos not to promote my YouTube channel but just to provide some context to my writing.)

If you are over, say, 40, here’s a question to test your computer savvy skills: What is the easiest way to fix your computer when it freezes, stalls, or otherwise quits working? The answer? Turn it off! This always seems to put an end to the crazy, overworked track it was on and give it a new start, erasing all the clutter and giving it a new start back to its default settings. With this in mind, we are tempted to look at society the same way – that the crazy rat-race we were on needed to be suddenly shut-down and restarted back to the way it was before, making this a conservative longing. To some the pandemic is just the thing that has forced us to do just that – a great “reset” back to slower and simpler times before things got so complicated. But this idea of a "reset" is also popular on the progressive side of the political spectrum. The definition of “reset” seems to have both conservative and progressive ideas in mind as it actually gives two very different meanings: “to set again or differently”. That “set again” part is often what conservatives think about, as in “getting back to the good old days”. Progressives, however, would focus on the “to set differently” part, as in “lets throw off the bad habits and traditions that held us back and make a great leap forward to change the world.” So which is better? Should it be either/ or, or both/and? During a marketplace outreach conversation with a fellow shopper named George, much of his sentiments focused on lamenting the negative changes our society has made, among those being the loss of a more simple time when Americans shared much the same faith and values, before all the distractions of our digital age. George clearly identified with the conservative side of politics, and longed for a return to normalcy. But is that really possible, and is a return to the way things were always preferable? That’s not what Jesus always taught. Instead, Jesus’ followers then and now are often called to be agents of change – salt and light in a dark and tasteless world: “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven." This progressive trajectory applies to society, but it also applies to individual change as Jesus calls each person to die to their sin and become born again into a new relationships with God, given new life by his Holy Spirit. There are some things we do need to “conserve”, or go back to. Hebrews 13:8 says “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” He doesn’t change – but we most certainly do. George, for his part, had drifted away from regular church attendance, even before the pandemic. For him a “reset” would mean making progress in an area he has long neglected. Vs. 9 goes on to say “Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings.” We are not to add to or take away from the simple Gospel message. But sometimes the way forward can even mean going backward, as the way forward for those who have lost their way actually means going all the way back to the place they’d taken a wrong turn. For George, that will involve regular church attendance, being a part of a local church fellowship, prayer, worship, and reading God’s word. Conservative ideas? Not at all. Just like hitting that reset button, we are just returning to the only place we can really make progress.

What does Christmas mean to you? I asked a random shopper at the grocery store, Isaiah, and his response was probably not so random: “Tradition, family gatherings, faith, giving, a time to reminisce over the past year, and believing in something greater than ourselves”. Isaiah grew up in a strict catholic family in Mexico, and left much of that behind after moving to Chicago, in favor of a more general belief and respect for people of all religions. He sees all religions in general as a positive influence in society, as long as they promote tolerance for other beliefs and love for one’s fellow man. How then to convey the uniqueness of the Gospel and the Christmas story? I tried to explain that, while Christ is exclusive in that He is THE way, truth, life, and the only way to God, yet He is inclusive in that He is available to all who will trust him; people from every tongue, tribe and nation. All people are made in God’s image and are to be respected as such, but Jesus went a step further, teaching us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Isaiah did say he sees in Christmas a celebration of a new way forward brought by the birth of Christ, but that hope becomes limited when one sees Jesus as just another of many religious teachers. What makes Christ unique is that he is but one light in a great darkness, like a single candle in a dark room: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.” his namesake wrote in Isaiah 9. That light can’t be appreciated if one thinks it is but one of many. The good news of a Savior isn’t appreciated if one believes there are many ways to be saved, and its even harder to appreciate if one denies the need to be saved at all. As Isaiah himself said toward the end of our conversation, the shadows help us appreciate the light. I’m not sure he understood the significance of his own words. We must understand that that shadow is hiding in our own hearts, not just in the world in general. Only then can we truly behold the Light of Christmas in all His glory.

After many conversations with atheists and skeptics, I’ve noticed a general pattern: the god they claim disbelief in is way, way too small. Almost every time I hear criticism of the biblical concept of God, it is based on the unbiblical idea that God is more like a man than the omnipotent (all powerful), omniscient (all knowing), omnipresent and infinite Trinitarian (three in one) deity that the Bible reveals. Even when God did take the form of a man in Christ, we still see these attributes of God, though self-limited. Col. 1 tells us “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” But as skeptics try to limit their ideas about God to a human-like personality, then, this “god” becomes easy to criticize, because it is an ugly and pathetic thing when a human tries to pretend they have the powers of God listed above when they actually have the weaknesses and limitations of mortal man. For example, jealousy is often a pathetic thing in a man, who wants the attention and authority he often doesn’t deserve. We might ask – “Who does he think he is, God?” But for God, jealousy is an entirely expected and appropriate emotion when people choose cheap substitutes, precisely because He IS God, and rightly deserves our attention and authority and glory and honor and praise. He made us to be in a right relationship to Himself, and we don’t function correctly when He isn’t given the honor He rightly deserves. I was reminded of this in a conversation with Colin, an adamant atheist, when he asked an interesting question. He was asking about my beliefs in the biblical account of the origins of man and the earth, with God as Creator of it all, and seemed surprised that I would think that not only did God create the earth and all that it contains, but the countless stars and galaxies of the universe as well. For me it seems like second nature: if the Creator made the mountains and oceans, as massive as they are, doesn’t it go without saying that He would also be able to create the rest of the universe as well? Put another way, doesn’t the idea that God formed the heavens and the earth in six days beg the question “Why did He take so long?”? Atheist, skeptic – I believe you are the victim of your own shallow thinking about God. Or maybe “victim” isn’t appropriate here, as it could be more of an intentional mischaracterization. Colin mentioned that he much prefers the idea that humans make gods in their own image, and that maybe we are the true gods of the universe. The idea that God made man in His own image may give us and our fellow human beings incredible value and dignity, but it is still far less than the God whose image we bear, since an “image” is always somewhat less than the real thing. Fellow believers, don’t be discouraged by the next criticism of the biblical God you hear out of the mouths of skeptics. It will almost always be the result of closed or narrow minds and a god that is far too small.

The enthusiasm of a new believer, Jacob, now seeking to be baptized, helped me relive the joy of my own baptism. The question is, which one? My baptism as an infant, or my believer's baptism as an adult? Like Jacob as a Catholic, I underwent infant baptism as a Lutheran. Even though it happened long before I would ever be able to have any memory of it, it was nonetheless meaningful to me as I was reminded of my own baptism every time I saw another infant being baptized while growing up. My baptism as an infant also happened long before I could ever have any choice in the matter, and that is exactly why it was very special to me as it reminded me that God chose me long before I could ever choose Him, and God’s church had committed itself to raise me up in the Christian faith long before I could commit myself to serve the church. It was for these reasons that, after becoming involved with a non-denominational church, I wrestled with the idea of believer’s baptism as an adult. I fasted and prayed about it for weeks, because while believer’s baptism seems to have much more scriptural support for it than infant baptism, I somehow felt like I was turning my back on something so special that God had done in my life. I also knew that solid Christian leaders and, in fact, whole denominations have been unable to come to an agreement on this issue for centuries. Who was I to think I could settle the issue either way? In the end, I felt God leading me to undergo believer’s baptism as an adult through a rather unusual Bible passage found in 2 Kings 5. It was the story of Naaman, a military commander from Syria, a gentile nation and enemy of Israel. Naaman was suffering from leprosy, and his servant girl from Israel told him that there was a prophet in Israel – Elisha – who could heal him. Naaman went to see Elisha, who insulted him by refusing to meet with him personally, but simply sent a message that he was to go dip himself in the Jordan river seven times and he would be healed. At first Naaman refused, because his sense of dignity was threatened in front of his delegation: “But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage.” In the end, one of Naaman’s more sensible soldiers convinced him to perform this simple and strange act of obedience. Naaman did as Elisha told him, and was immediately healed. As I struggled with the issue of adult believer’s baptism, I recognized myself in Naaman. I realized I was being commanded to do a strange and simple act of obedience, one that could threaten my sense of dignity, especially since I had been baptized as an infant already. Yet in adult baptism I also saw special meaning. It gave me a chance to take that simple “first step” of obedience (though I had already been a believer for years) – a step that confirmed myself as a disciple of Jesus, willing to live under his authority and follow his commands no matter how strange or insignificant they might seem, and in so doing to follow him through death and resurrection. It also affirmed for myself and all to whom I might share the Gospel that we indeed have life-changing decisions to make, that we all need to take steps of obedience, and that we may not always know why or where those decisions will lead. These are decisions that appear to be of our own free will, but are put before us and made with God’s sovereignty in mind. So was my infant baptism or my adult believer’s baptism the correct one? I really can’t say, just as I can’t solve the age-old debate between God’s sovereignty and man’s free-will. All I know is, I have believed, and I have been baptized; that both of these facts are not of myself but are wonderful gifts of God, and that’s good enough for me.

The Bible tells us “God is love”. So does that mean there is no such thing as hell? Most people I talk to who believe in heaven also say they believe in hell, and that you can’t have one without the other. But a good percentage say they only believe in heaven, often with the explanation that “God is love”, and therefore would not punish people in hell. An assumption many make is that a God of love could never hate, but is this really true? I asked this of a man named Damon during a sidewalk outreach conversation, and he was quick to recognize that this world is not what God created it to be, and that there are many horrible situations in life that a loving God must hate by His very nature. Look a little closer at the context of that “God is love” statement from the Bible. It comes from 1 John 4. It is found in the middle of a chapter which identifies love as a mark of a genuine Christ follower. It is followed by an explanation of what “real love” looks like – God “sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins”. The key word is “sacrifice”. Real love involves sacrifice. Many people would like to believe this sacrifice is made when God sees the evil deeds we do and just looks the other way, with no consequence for sin. In so doing, God would have to sacrifice his own justice in the process. But God’s perfect goodness in every attribute means it must be more complicated than that. Being perfect in every attribute, not just His love, God will not sacrifice one attribute for another. He won’t sacrifice or diminish his perfect love for his perfect justice, or vice-versa. His perfect justice demands a just consequence for our sin, but his perfect love provides a perfect sacrifice. Both God’s love and justice must be perfectly expressed, then, but when it comes to the consequences for our sins these two attributes seem to be incompatible with one another. We want the mercy we don’t deserve, and we fear the terrifying just punishment we do deserve. But we don’t have to continue living in fear of the punishment we deserve. 1 John 4 tells us “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” Only at the cross are these two attributes of God expressed perfectly. God’s sacrificial love and mercy give us the hope of heaven, driving out the fear of a just punishment in hell. Thanks be to God!

If you profess Christianity and strive to live as a Christian in America today, will you be part of the establishment, or anti-establishment? Conformist, or rebel? Christianity has been seen as both/and throughout history. Romans 13 tells us to “submit to the governing authorities”, but we well know there are times when doing so will clearly put us in conflict with God’s authority. This is true on a more personal level as well, when the “governing authority” in our lives might be our own earthly parents, whom we are told to respect and obey as children, but from whom we need to gain our independence and our self-identity as teenagers. In the process, we might have to face decisions of whether it is better to obey our parents, or to obey God. However many people I talk to, like a man named Nicholas, have to face the realization as adults that in their quest for independence and identity as teenagers, they actually rebelled not only against their parents, but also the God in whom their parents faithfully put their trust. It’s probably the most common “prodigal son” scenario, and there comes a time when they need to realize their rebellion has led them down a path similar to Jesus’ story of the wayward son, who woke up when he realized he “longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating”, and turned back to the father he had abandoned. But these aren’t just individual experiences. It’s been the path we are headed down as a nation and on a global scale in the last few generations. Nicholas rightly pointed out that the alternative skateboard culture he had surrounded himself with in his teens, which had been so anti-establishment, is now actually THE establishment. It is now reflected in every institution of our dominant culture, not just the government but also the mainstream media, the entertainment industry, our educational industrial complex, our globalized corporations, the military, and many religious denominations. For the first few centuries, early Christians had to meet and worship in secret, at risk of their own lives and livelihoods. They truly knew what Jesus meant when he taught “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also” and what Paul was experiencing as he wrote “everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted”. The underground church was being refined through persecution, and growing as a result. But then, a horrible thing happened. It became cool to be a Christian. In the Edict of Milan of 313 AD, Emperor Constantine decreed that Christianity would be a legal religion of Rome, and declared himself a Christian. Now, people began to associate themselves with Christianity in order to gain prestige, power and influence, rather than to forsake those pursuits to serve Jesus. House churches were replaced by elaborate public buildings, and the wealthy showed off their finest clothes at church services scripted by a professional clergy. This “Christianity” became The Establishment. Christianity has struggled with its association with the secular establishment on and off again throughout its history. I believe Jesus wasn’t just referring to religious leaders, but also those who falsely associated themselves with Christianity when he said “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ Despite our call to respect the governmental authorities to a limited extent, the government is usually just a small subset of what can be considered the “establishment”. And those who truly follow Christ have been pushing back against the establishment ever since it sanctioned and carried out his crucifixion over 2000 years ago. If Nicholas and others like him want to genuinely push back against the worldly establishment, the best place to do that is in a sincere devotion to following Jesus.

How did we as a nation get so polarized? How is it that we all have much the same evidence available to us, but reach such different conclusions that we now feel so divided between red and blue, conservative and progressive, religious and secular, and, ultimately, good and evil, with all of us feeling like we the ones who are on the good side? I think there is a big clue from my recent conversation with Brian, myself as a committed Christian and he as an equally committed atheist. I think both Brian and I would agree that God’s existence can’t be proven, scientifically, one way or another. The best we can do is to put together a body of evidence, or clues, both for and against God’s existence. Then, based on a consideration of the clues, putting them on a sort of balance scale if you will, we can reach our own conclusions. At least that way if we disagree in our conclusions we might at least be able to see some of the reasons people have for being on the other side. But Brian had an interesting response when I asked a question about this “body of evidence”. Instead of asking him for his reasons NOT to believe in God, I asked him for the evidence he was aware of FOR belief in God. He couldn’t think of any. What this tells me is that his rational, scientific approach may not be as unbiased as it pretends to be. Given the vast majority of people in the world who are at least “theists”, it would be pretty biased and arrogant to be so sure of one’s atheism that the evidence from the other side won’t even be considered. As we were talking I knew that one of the divisions in our society is between the secular and the sacred, and that Brian probably had not had much recent exposure to consider clues in favor of God’s existence. So I began to tell him about Christian apologetics as a way to consider the evidence and clues in favor of belief in God and Christianity, and offered a book to help him consider the evidence. I wasn’t surprised that he declined to take it. This is a pattern among atheists and sceptics. However, if he had offered me a similar book of atheist “apologetics”, or a collection of arguments and evidence for atheism, and there are many popular titles and authors out there right now, I wouldn’t have taken it either. We have both made up our minds, are pretty much set in our ways, and any consideration of the evidence for the other side would likely be seen by each of us as a waste of time. That said, I do think that American Christians are more aware of the opposing arguments than atheists are. It comes from living in our secular society. It’s pretty hard to avoid atheistic and secular arguments as they are constantly pushed on us by education, advertising, entertainment and social pressure. I believe secular people, however, more often have to go out of their way to hear evidence and arguments in support of religious belief. They don’t have to go far, however, so just as Brian had rejected my offer of a free book, they too often avoid evidence and arguments that might challenge their secular presuppositions. My challenge to all of us, sceptics, atheists, and believers alike, is to consider both sides of the arguments, not for an ultimate proof one way or another, but for reasons both for and against your position so that we as a society can be less polarized and more understanding of one another.

Toward the end of a streetcorner conversation with Spencer, who described himself as an interested agnostic, he asked how it could be in Christianity that people can just “believe” and be saved, yet continue to sin? I explained how true faith in Christ is life changing, that it brings a desire to turn away from one’s sins and live for God. “But what about the REALLY bad people?”, he asked, several times. I asked if he saw himself in that category, and he did not, like well over 99% of the people I talk to. We all may be able to acknowledge some of our own sinful shortcomings, but none of us thinks we are anywhere near the level of, say, a Hitler or a Stalin, or even capable of such evil. It made me think of the book I’ve been reading – “The Gulag Archipelago” by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, about the vast system of prison and labor camps in Stalin’s Russia, and of which he was an inmate himself. In it, Solzhenitsyn documents the millions of citizens who were arrested, detained, interrogated, tortured, imprisoned, and killed under socialist and communist rule, and the descriptions of man’s cruelty and inhumanity to his fellow man are simply mind-numbing. The temptation is to see Stalin and his hundreds of thousands of officers and prison guards as evil monsters, like those in Spencer's “really bad people” category, while the rest of us are the pretty good guys. But Solzhenitsyn doesn’t give us that reassurance. He wrote “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Is that true? Might we be in the “really bad” category, given different circumstances? Do we have that same evil in our own hearts? Where would we be without the intervention of God’s Spirit, both from outside influences and from within through our moral conscience? After Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden and from an intimate relationship with God, we see the murderous result between Cain and Abel in the very next generation, and complete lawlessness within a few generations: “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6:5) Would we have been any different? Fortunately, in his mercy, evil doesn’t go entirely unchecked in this world. Since Adam and Eve, all people have a God-given moral conscience – a sort of referee in our minds to whom we are accountable to. This doesn’t mean we stop doing evil completely, but it does mean we need to get very creative to come up with elaborate excuses to justify our evil actions. And according to Solzhenitsyn, one of the most powerful excuses that leads to the self-justification of even the most monstrous of crimes is an ideology such as the theory of communism: “To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good... Ideology - that is what gives devil-doing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others' eyes, so that he won't hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors.” So, given the right excuse, especially under an ideology like socialism, facism, racism, or any number of “isms”, or even in the name of religion or any number of other excuses that make evil seem good, any of us could and might be the REALLY bad people Spencer was asking about. None of us are exempt, and all of us are exposed by the one who takes away all excuses and helps us see that we are all equally in need of the Savior.

In answer to my questions about eternity, a friendly, positive young man named Oscar told me he doesn’t think much about heaven, but often finds himself hoping for the existence of hell. What?!! I was surprised and told him this is unusual, that most people I talk to focus on heaven, and I asked him about it. Oscar told me it has to do with hoping for ultimate justice – that all too often bad people aren’t punished in this life, so he hopes they will be punished in the next. I thought this was pretty interesting, and wondered if it came from our culture’s current emphasis on “social justice”. Many Christians have jumped on the social justice bandwagon, because, after all, throughout the Bible “justice” is repeatedly and consistently referred to as an important and prominent attribute of God’s character. I wonder, however, if our culture’s current concern for “social justice” is, indeed, biblical, or is it leading us in an entirely different direction? The secular definition of the word “justice” itself often involves circular reasoning. Google’s first definition is “just behavior or treatment”. Defining a word with another form of the same word is not helpful. Neither is describing it as “right” or “moral”, because, well, who decides what is right or moral? So we need a system of laws, and with them, we can describe justice as “the quality of being just, impartial, or fair” according to those laws. This is true with civil laws, and it’s true when it comes to moral laws as well. At one time moral laws such as the Ten Commandments were considered to be the foundation for civil laws. Lately, however, it seems our civil laws are often abandoning moral laws. Maybe we as a culture are abandoning moral laws because we are abandoning God as the moral lawgiver. In so doing we are then forced to take the law in our own hands, to determine what is good, right, moral and just for ourselves. We as a society, and many as individuals within it, seem determined to become “god” ourselves, and then we turn in judgment upon God himself and the Bible as God’s Word for acting like, well, God! So is the current emphasis on “social justice” an attempt to bring ourselves in line with God’s justice in society, or is it an attempt to usurp God’s role? We know by experience that life is far from fair; that although everyone is born into this life with the same dignity and worth endowed by our Creator, we are, nonetheless, all dealt a different hand of cards, so to speak. We may be born in different neighborhoods and nations, in different social and economic groups, and even within the same family we are given different skills, abilities, experiences, appearances, and so on. Some are given many privileges; some nothing but hardship. Given the great inequity we see in life, how can God be considered fair, or just? Here’s a few thoughts... First, the Bible tells us it is God’s right to create as He sees fit: “Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?” (Romans 9:21) The Parable of the (unequally distributed) Talents tells us this is to be expected. God’s justice, then, is not found in an equitable distribution of privilege, but in His wise judgment as to what we do with that privilege - “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked” (Luke 12:48). Second, while we might rightly long for equal opportunity and equitable outcomes in life, it’s not for us to think we can untangle the complicated mess of inequitable differences in life by our own efforts. Do we really think we can make up for this complex range of differences with our overly simplistic and inaccurate identity politics, and our reliance on government policies and programs? This is not to say we should give up the struggle for equality and equity in life. When Jesus said “the poor you will have with you always” in reference to a woman’s heartfelt act of worship, he was quoting from a longer passage in Deuteronomy 15 that continued “Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.” Caring for the poor and the needy was expected; Jesus’ point was that we shouldn’t neglect worship of God in the process. And I wonder if that’s not what many are falling into in their pursuit of social justice – either neglecting to worship and glorify God in the process, or actually attempting to usurp God’s role altogether, to be “good without God”. For Oscar’s part, with his desire for the wicked to be punished in hell, at least he saw God as the ultimate source of justice in the next life. But, there again, he saw himself as one of the good guys. I’m afraid he was falling for the temptation of our secular pursuit of social justice, to be good without God rather than to give God the glory He deserves.

Mr. Skeptic, are you looking for a reason to believe, or a reason to doubt? Mr. Christian, are you giving Mr. Skeptic a reason to believe, or more reasons to doubt? There is a difference. A man named Dan began his answer to my question about his views on eternity by saying “I want to believe, but I just can’t”. He said he just can’t get past his intellectual doubts, and during the course of our conversation I really felt like he is sincere. He seemed to be looking for a reason to believe, not more reasons to doubt. Reviewing the dialogue, it seems to me the biggest stumbling block for Dan to believe, at least specifically in Christianity, is the idea of “easy-believism”. He’s had some experiences with people who claim to be “born again”, yet don’t seem to be any better morally than anyone else. In fact, their hypocrisy makes them seem worse. He finds it hard to believe in a God who would save some people based on a “magical prayer”, rather than on their overall goodness. I knew what he meant. I’ve met many people who have claimed to be “saved” at some point years earlier and are now living life as if they are good to go, but when I ask them what they prayed they have no idea. Some well-meaning Christian had at one time declared them saved based on their repeating the “sinner’s prayer”, and they took that as their get out of jail free card. Dan objected to the self-righteous certainty of such people, and I could tell he would never want to be associated with them. I also had to tell him I’m one of those people who claim to be born again, and I also feel a certainty toward my future in heaven. So as one of those very people that seem to turn people off to the Gospel for someone like Dan, was I being just another nagging stumbling block that causes doubt, or might I somehow find a way to be a good reason for Dan to believe? I can’t presume to know. The best I could do was try to explain what Jesus meant when he said “You must be born again” of the spirit, and how it is that one can have certainty of salvation without being self-righteous about it. I tried to explain that my certainty comes from faith In Jesus and his righteousness, not faith in my own righteousness. I am in a right relationship with God based on what Jesus has done, not on anything I could do. We can have an assurance of salvation when we put our faith in Christ. But the Bible also tells us to “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12) Maybe it’s best to tone down our certainty, and show some fear and trembling with regard to just how that salvation is being worked out in us. Maybe then we can be a reason to believe, rather than just another reason to doubt in the life of a hopeful skeptic.

What did Jesus mean when he said “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”? No adult wants to be thought of as being like a child. Where’s the respect and prestige in that? How will anyone ever take us seriously? Isn’t it only natural for a child to want to prove their maturity and wisdom as adults? But maybe to “become like a child” IS a stage of maturity. After all, Jesus didn’t say “remain” as a child, but, in speaking to adults, he said that they should “change” and become like children. Maybe this means that they had already proven themselves as adults in many ways, and now the next step was to change and become like children again in some ways. This is where I think I found a man named Ryan at – on the verge of becoming more like a child again in certain areas of his life, and in a very good way. With his doctorate in physics, Ryan has certainly proven himself mature in many ways intellectually, and at a fairly young age. Has he reached the highest stage intellectually, with no other ways to mature? What about the connection between intellectual and spiritual knowledge? I asked Ryan how all his extensive knowledge of the universe and the laws that hold it together affected his view of God. Given the great frontier of knowledge man has attained in this area, I was curious if his focus was on the expanses of man’s knowledge, or the even greater expanse of mystery this knowledge reveals. After all, the greater the perimeter of the known universe becomes, the more the area of the unknown universe grows exponentially. Ryan told how he has passed through an atheistic stage and now describes himself as agnostic. “Agnostic” has its roots in the word “ignorant”, and Ryan is willing and able to say that, when it comes to spiritual things, there is much he just doesn’t know. I believe this to be a more advanced stage of maturity both intellectually and spiritually, and I see it as part of the change that Jesus referred to as becoming “like little children”. There is nothing wrong with looking around at this amazing universe with the wide eyes and wonder of a child, even if one has their doctorate in physics. Even more so if it leads one to see that what makes it so amazing is the great Mind that created it all!

Does God exist? You might "know' God exists, but can you "show" a skeptical audience? It might be a friend or family member, a child in their rebellious teenage years, or even yourself during a difficult season of life. This is the first of a short series on showing God's existence, and part of a longer series on Christian apologetics, or "giving reasons for the hope within us". I teach from the perspective of someone who regularly talks with a skeptical audience during my Gospel outreach conversations on the streets and in the marketplace. Hope you can join us in person on Sunday mornings in Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood, or here on Youtube. Lessons, teaching notes, and audio files will be available in my shared resources folder at https://drive.google.com/drive/folder...

Imagine if someone, who barely knows you, begins to describe you to others, misrepresenting your character, your history, the attributes of your very being. Or what if they did indeed tells some truths about you, but only a few select truths out of context that support their false narrative about you. Would you be content to just leave your reputation in the hands of strangers? No one likes “fake news”, a mild way of describing lies and deceit, deliberate or not. But fake news is nothing new. It’s been with us all through human history, and is described even in the first few chapters of Genesis in the Bible. In Genesis, a false narrative was already being spun about the character of God that helped Adam and Eve make their fateful decision to disobey God by eating the forbidden fruit. In chapter 2, before creating Eve, God had instructed Adam “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” Later, when questioned by Satan in the form of a serpent, Eve put a different spin on this command: “‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” So where did “and you must not touch it” come from? Did Adam distort God’s command when he taught Eve what God had instructed him? Did Eve exaggerate the command deliberately to the serpent, making God seem like an overbearing tyrant with unreasonable rules? It might seem like a small little twist, but this might have been the beginning of “fake news”, and it had a devastating impact. Maybe there was a progression of falsehoods, from Adam’s distortion to Eve’s exaggeration to Satan’s deception when he claimed “You will not surely die”, thus calling God a liar. That progression escalated quickly, resulting in Cain’s murder of his brother Abel in the very next generation, and the creation of idols and the worship of false gods in generations to come. As sinful and flawed human beings, we might not mind a little fake news about us now and then, because much of it is to our benefit, making us seem to be better than we really are. But for a perfect being like God, any falsehood can only serve to distract from His perfection, and to corrupt His perfect creation. This is why, during an outreach conversation with a young man named Nicholas from Columbia, I asked where his beliefs about God came from. Nicholas had described in some detail his ideas about God, but it needed to be pointed out that his ideas were only the product of his own imagination and wishful thinking. We need a source for truth outside ourselves, and the source needs to be based on God’s representation of Himself, rather than the ideas and opinions of others. This is why God’s revelation of Himself, in the person, work, and teachings of Jesus, and in the words of scripture, needs to be our source of authoritative teaching about who God is. Satan questioned Eve about God, asking “Did God really say...?” He did this for the sake of undermining God’s truth. We need to ask the same question with an opposite purpose – to determine God’s truth. And we need to check with his Word ourselves - not the fake news, the half-truths, the distortions, exaggerations and outright lies of others – in order to find that truth for ourselves.

As a Christian, you may “know” your faith to be real and true, but can you “show’ that truth to others? Do you have the ability to “give a reason for the hope that is in you”? Are you able to answer the questions of sceptics on the street, not to mention friends and family members you know and love? And what about those times and even season of personal doubt most Christians experience from time to time? It’s best to confront these nagging doubts, rather than sweep them under the rug Apologetics is a field of study that shows we as Christians have an historical and reasonable faith, despite the challenges and mockery of sceptics. “Reasonable Faith” then, is a series that focuses on Christian apologetics in order to equip Christians with sound arguments and evidence in defense of the Gospel. After a short introduction, I’ll focus on evidence and arguments for God’s existence, then move on to the Bible as Gods word. After that I’ll leave it up to my Sunday morning Bible class to decide upon the next topic in Apologetics. I’ll try to use my experience in Gospel outreach conversations to keep it real, asking and answering questions that people often ask me on the street, rather than hypothetical questions from the halls of academia. If you live in Chicago, you are welcome to join us on Sunday mornings. Otherwise, you are welcome to watch or listen online on the Reasonable Faith playlist from my YouTube channel,or to use the different outlines, audio files, or teaching resources as they become available on my shared resources folder link below. YouTube Channel: (YouTube.com/c/JeffReiman) Shared Resources Folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jMjmPs2-mhJUE2fcycdTmT7ZOVkSUNkk?usp=sharing

A young man named Rob had many interesting and insightful questions about Christianity, which caused our sidewalk conversation to stretch on to over 45 minutes. One of the more important questions he asked was about how one goes about obeying the Bible through all the important decisions we face in life. (At about 22:45 in recording) I gave Rob an example of how I used biblical principles in dealing with someone who had treated me unfairly a few days earlier. Here now I want write about how it applies to an issue Rob brought up earlier in our conversation. Rob had stated that he has turned from atheism to an acceptance of a more spiritual approach as a result of his use of psychedelic drugs. He said the experience expanded his view of the world. So does the Bible have anything to say about psychedelic drug use, even though nowhere is it explicitly mentioned? There are actually several biblical principals that apply to the use of recreational drugs. First, there is the principle that, unless it directly opposes a moral law of God, we are to obey the governing authorities, and the use of these drugs is often illegal. In Matthew 22:21, Jesus says “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” and Romans 7 tells us “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” This means that as much as possible, we should obey the laws of the land. It doesn’t mean, however, that all activities sanctioned or ignored by the civil authorities are automatically acceptable. Other biblical principles also apply. The Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25 teaches us the principle of stewardship, that we are not our own but merely managers or stewards of all that God has entrusted to us. Wasting the master’s money on recreational drugs, or using drugs that harm our God-given bodies both violate the principle of stewardship. But not only are our bodies to be used as good stewards to serve God in everyday tasks, they are also to be used for holy purposes. 1 Corinthians 6:19–20 reads “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” Another principle often mentioned in Scripture is sobriety often for the case of always being ready for service or ready for battle. 1 Peter 5:8 tells us “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” Being “under the influence” of drugs takes down the defenses we normally have against temptation or evil influences. Finally, there is the principle that we can’t serve two masters: Luke 16:13 – “No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” And this “two masters” analogy or short parable shows how biblical principles can be present without being very obvious to beginners. It was primarily directed against those who are distracted by money as their God. But we could just as well substitute in “pleasure” or “escape” or “fantasy” as alternative masters from drug use that might distract us from God. In the end, this “god” just enslaves us with physical and/or psychological addiction. Some biblical principles are well-known or obvious, but many are only available to us as a result of the careful and diligent study of scripture. Christians who learn and follow them understand the Bible as God’s word that is “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

Have you seen a ghost? If so, judging from my hundreds of outreach conversations over the years, you would be in the minority. But it would be a strong minority, maybe 15 or 20 percent of the people I talk to, and I think we should take their experiences seriously. A man named Lance told me he has had encounters with spirits or ghosts of some sort during his custodial job at a Catholic school, but it seemed the more meaningful experiences he’s had were of specific incidents of feeling his Mom’s presence in his home after she had passed away during her hospice care there. Lance told me these experiences were always positive for him, and I had no reason to doubt his sincerity as he described them. But was it really his mother that he encountered? Throughout the Bible, covering some 3000 years of spiritual history, there are only two recorded incidents in which the spirit of a dead person possibly communicated with the living. One was when King Saul sought the counsel of the deceased prophet Samuel with the help of a medium named “The Witch of Endor”. (1 Samuel 28). Bible scholars seem divided whether this was indeed the ghost of Samuel, but either way Saul was disobeying God’s command that “There shall not be found among you anyone who... practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord.” (Deuteronomy 18) It was clearly an exception to the norm, and the story was probably included to show the spiritual depths to which King Saul had fallen. The other incident – the disciple’s encounter with Jesus, Moses, and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration, was also an exception to the norm for the special purpose of establishing Jesus’ authority over even the law, represented by Moses, and the prophets, represented by Elijah. There is a difference between those who say they have seen a ghost or spirit of some sort while seeking the paranormal through a psychedelic drug trip or a séance like King Saul did, and those who just innocently experience it while going about their daily life. People in the first category are clearly violating God’s prohibition of the living seeking after the dead. Most people I’ve talked with in the second category have experienced a spirit of some sort at a particularly vulnerable time in their life, usually around the loss of a loved one, and usually in a familiar setting that brings back memories of happier days, as Lance experienced. He said he is now more aware of the spiritual dimension to life, but he also seemed rather unconcerned about his own relationship with God, perhaps even feeling favored or approved in some way as a result. Although it seemed to be a positive experience, could it have been a distraction of the enemy away from God? With the Bible being rather unclear about the validity of these experiences, I want to offer some warnings: 1. One would be blameless if they didn’t initiate or control this type of experience, but it would still be wrong to seek additional experiences on their own (Deuteronomy 18 above); 2.) Even if the experience seemed positive, one can’t be sure of the true identity of the ghost or spirit – “And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.” (2 Corinthians 11:14–15) We may think it is paranoid to think Satan is behind every event in our lives, but this passage lets us know he has a lot of help in the form of demons in the spiritual realm. 3.) Positive or negative, God allows some people to have these encounters. Romans 8:28 tells us that God is able to make “all things work together for good”, and I believe this can even include an encounter with an evil spirit masquerading as a departed loved one; 4.) Just because the majority doesn’t have certain spiritual experiences doesn’t invalidate the experiences of a minority. Only one person encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus; only 400 witnesses saw Him before He ascended into heaven. Part of God’s plan has been for the majority to have faith through the testimony of the relatively few, and this may just apply to the minority who directly encounter the spiritual dimension as well. If you, like Lance, are of the relatively few that believe themselves to have had experiences with ghosts or spirits, you may have a valuable story to share with the rest of us, not because of anything you have done or discovered on your own, but simply because God has allowed or willed it to be so.

According to his resume, he was a religious “expert”. Born Catholic, raised Baptist, converted Hebrew Israelite, then Nation of Islam. Somewhere in there Kelly became pastor of a Church of God in Christ, only to leave the denomination over their stance on women pastors. Now, apparently, he is such an expert that he is beyond any formal creed, and practices his beliefs outside of any formal or organized setting. How does one become an “expert” like Kelly? I think there are some clues way back in the Bible, in the book of Exodus. During a forty-day disappearance on Mt. Sinai by their religious expert – Moses – some of the leaders of the people of Israel decided to take matters into their own hands. Moses and his God were too unpredictable and unreliable, so they decided to make a “god” of their own, one formed by their own hands and with their own imaginations, based on the gods of Egypt that they were more comfortable with. They created a statue of calf made of gold, a god that the community could gather around and, frankly, a god with a geographical location they could avoid if they wanted to. Along with creating this god by their own hands came the ability to decide just how this god was to be worshipped, and they apparently decided this god would be a party god, one they could worship with gluttony and lust and orgies and chaos. On the surface, the golden calf doesn’t sound at all like the god Kelly worships. But there are some similarities at a deeper level. First, the materials Kelly used weren’t the gold objects the Israelites brought with them from Egypt, but they were the various religious ideas Kelly had collected during his journey through several different religions. The golden calf had a physical location they could approach or ignore at will, and Kelly has reached a point in the development of his god where he can do the same. The Israelites had formed a god designed and crafted by their own hands, and Kelly has created a god designed and crafted by his own mind. While the Israelites were down in the valley creating their own god, Moses was up on the mountain hearing from his. And the second commandment God gave Moses was this – “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.” God already knew what was going on back at the camp. He knew our human nature, which prefers to decide on it’s our own what sort of god we will serve and what rules we will follow. He knew human nature would be the same today as it was 3000 years ago, that we would still be trying to form and worship god on our own terms. It’s for this reason why the Bible contains numerous warnings against creating and worshipping idols, and that this commandment would still apply to us today. We need to read God’s word for what God says to us and for who He reveals Himself to be, not for bits and pieces with which to form a god of our own. If we don’t, we will be no more religious experts than the gold and silver craftsmen who built idols back in Moses day.

I often leave outreach conversations with great hope that although the person I talked with wasn’t even close to repentance and faith In Jesus, God isn’t through with them yet, and their story isn’t over. My hope is that my efforts might be just one part of the means of grace God might use to draw them to Jesus and a right relationship with Himself. But what if their story is, indeed, over? What if the times they heard and rejected the Gospel earlier in life were, in fact, the end of the story? Does God really owe anyone continued opportunities throughout life to respond to the Gospel, or is it possible some people have had their chance? I got to thinking about this while talking with Aditia (spelling?), who had grown up in India, and had heard aspects of the Gospel both in India and here in the states. Now he adamantly rejects anything to do with it. Normally, I would still have faith that “his story isn’t over yet.” So what made this conversation different? About halfway through the conversation, Aditia looked past me while talking and noticed that a parked car near us had caught fire. Once we and others had made sure that the fire department was on its way, we tried to resume our conversation. But we pretty much lost our train of thought, and the circumstances were just too distracting to continue our line of thinking. At this point Aditia seemed to put up defenses of apathy toward the conversation and expressed certainty that he would never be interested in anything I might have to say about it or to give him to read for future reference. It would be a mistake to think that Aditia in particular is beyond the hope of salvation. But the incident gave me a fresh reminder that tomorrow isn’t guaranteed, that life is full of unexpected turns, that we are just one heartbeat away from eternity. I doubt Aditia often has conversations like ours with random strangers on the street, so it seemed like a valuable opportunity was lost because of the car fire. I take great comfort in knowing that I am just one small part of God’s work in the lives of people I talk to, and that their story probably isn’t over just yet. But it just might be. The rich farmer in Luke 12, who found security in the great storehouses of grain he had built, heard some disturbing words: “Fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you!” How many people around us have rejected every opportunity they’ve had to respond to the Gospel, and will never have that opportunity again? Fortunately, in my opinion, that’s not for us to know. We need to live with the hope that the story is not yet over, but the realization that there is no guarantee that it isn’t.

How would you feel if a complete stranger told you details about your life that in no way – outside of some sort of supernatural power – they should or could have known. Would it get your attention? That’s what happened with a young man named Alex, who told me about meeting with his grandfather and a friend of his grandfather’s named Derrick, who seemed to have some sort of prophetic or psychic powers. When Derrick told Alex several details about recent events in his life, he had Alex’s attention, and from there he seemed to have the authority to make claims that both Alex and his grandfather were spiritual “shamans” in previous lives. As Alex described this experience, I could tell he had been impressed and rather flattered at the possibility of having an important role in a past life. I hear of personal experiences with the supernatural in maybe 1 of 6 people I talk with on the streets, and I don’t doubt the sincerity of their stories. On the positive side, these experiences usually leave them with a strong sense of the presence of the spiritual realm that exists alongside our physical reality. On the negative side, I find these experiences usually distract people away from God and faith in Jesus. I usually try to affirm their experiences - that yes there is indeed a spiritual dimension to life, but from a Christian perspective I try to explain that these are most likely counterfeit experiences from the spiritually demonic designed to distort and misrepresent God, and attract them to cheap substitutes. I say “counterfeit”, because to my knowledge the devil and his minions are never portrayed in the Bible as trying to attract followers to themselves straight away. Rather, “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14) and I’m sure his demonic followers are doing the same. So in order to attract people to himself, the devil doesn’t try to reveal his true nature, but rather to pretend to be like God or to be positive and beneficial in some way. A psychic, in an attempt to establish his authority to reveal the distant past and future to his subjects, often tells them details about their present lives in much the same way that Jesus revealed his personal knowledge of the Samaritan woman he spoke with at the well in John 4: “...(Jesus said) ‘The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.’ ‘Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet...’ ” As the Son of God, Jesus naturally has divine power, but where does the demonic get such knowledge? Is it all-knowing? Can it read our minds? Can it see into our future? Absolutely not! The demonic can only be a cheap imitation of attributes only God can have. At best, it can only quietly collect information and enable its human counterparts to use it in ways that appear to be supernatural and authoritative. So if both the godly and the demonic appear to us as “light”, how can we tell the difference between the two? Psalm 119 gives us a clue: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” The source of true light comes to us as God reveals Himself through his word, both in Jesus, His living word, and in the written words of scripture. Just as one recognizes a counterfeit bill by comparing it to the real thing, so we must have a familiarity with God’s word in order to recognize imposters. And anyone who has sincerely looked to God’s word, or heard it’s truths unfolded through biblical preaching, knows that it too has a way of revealing personal details about our lives, truths we may or may not want to hear, but truths nonetheless. Truths that indeed have the authority to explain our past and give great hope for our future.

When you see a physically handicapped person using a crutch, a wheelchair, or a walking stick, do you think anything less of them as a human being? Of course not! If anything we know they have learned to accept their physical shortcomings and make the most of what abilities they do have. Spiritually speaking, we also have “shortcomings’, not the least of which is the fact that as sinners we need Jesus in order to be in a right relationship with God. This means, then, that Jesus is a sort of “crutch” for us and the only way we can benefit from the help he offers is to swallow our pride, admit our shortcomings, and receive the help He provides. I bring this up because during a conversation with a religious sceptic named Kevin, he explained his view that religion simply provides the comfort some people need to deal with the loss of loved ones and the certainty of their own death one day. Like most such sceptics I talk to, the implication is that, unlike the masses of religious people out there, he has no need for such a “crutch”; that he just uses his own logic and common sense to see beyond the superficiality of religion. But what kind of logic would lead one to believe they can solve the difficult questions of life, to explain where we have come from, why we are here, and where we are going? What common sense tells us we can control our own destiny and don’t need help from anyone, that to admit weakness in this area is somehow demeaning? The Apostle Paul, who had every reason to boast, learned the power of humbly admitting ones weaknesses, writing “But (the Lord) said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” Instead of boasting about his own power and abilities, Paul had the wisdom to boast about God’s power and to find his strength in Him. May we have the sense to accept all our shortcomings – physical and spiritual – and make the most of the help the Lord provides for us.

As a teacher I love it when students ask me good questions. It shows they are engaged and wanting to learn more. This doesn’t always happen during my Gospel outreach conversations, but I really appreciate when it does, such as with a young man named Ralph, whose curious questions extended our conversation for over an hour. I don’t always know the answers to difficult questions, and have learned to just be honest about it and admit my struggles. One question Ralph asked me was difficult to answer, but in the weeks since our conversation I’ve heard a good analogy that helps me explain it. Ralph asked me what I would do if I was to come across irrefutable evidence that invalidated my faith. I think this is a hard question because in order to show people the Gospel, we also want to show that we are rational human beings who consider the evidence and don’t deny reality. I didn’t want to come across as a crazy lunatic. The answer to this question, I now think, comes in the difference between “knowing” the truth of the Gospel, and “showing” it to be true. Just because we “know” something to be true by personal experience, doesn’t mean we can “show” that truth to others. Here’s the analogy that helps explain this. Suppose you were to be accused of a crime you absolutely know you didn’t commit. In fact, you weren’t anywhere near the scene of the crime so it couldn’t even be some sort of mental lapse. Yet, evidence is produced and repeated by the media that “proves” you did it, and it seems the whole world is against you. The evidence is so solid that you wouldn’t know how to debunk it, and you are left defenseless in the face of the charges against you. Would you, then, throw up your hands and admit to a crime that you know you didn’t commit? You “know” you didn’t commit the crime, but you can’t “show” you didn’t commit it. That, I think, is the place many Christians find themselves when it come to defending the truths of the Gospel. They may have experienced its truths on a personal level, but are unaware that theirs is an historical, reasonable faith. They know it to be true, but can’t show this truth to others. They feel powerless against a secular culture that actively seeks to refute the truths of Christianity and to gaslight those who believe them, making them think they are being unsophisticated, irrational or just plain crazy. In answer to Ralph’s hypothetical question - “What would I do in the face of irrefutable evidence against Christianity?” - I would have to say that even though I would then have to admit that I didn’t know how to defend it – that I couldn’t show it’s truth - I would nonetheless continue to know it is true for me personally. The Bible tells us we are to walk by faith, not by sight. I believe it is a very reasonable faith, but if for some reason it had to be a blind faith, then so be it. Here I stand.

When it comes to relating to God, would you rather “pay it forward” or “pay it back”? That seemed to be the best way to describe the Gospel to a positive and enthusiastic young lady named Kamala, whom I found doing her own car maintenance, due to the tragic loss of her husband fairly recently. After the recorded part of our conversation, Kamala described herself as coming back to God after some dark times and I think our conversation might have helped her keep heading in that direction. But it was only because I had asked her some rather perplexing questions and challenged some of her initial assumptions about God. She knew, from her past church experience, that there is “glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good” (Romans 2) and that “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6), and she definitely sees herself as counted among those who do good, and, therefore, heaven bound. I had to push back a little at this. “Does that mean you are a better person than those who are condemned?” I asked. “Well, no, I think I just make better decisions. I learn from my mistakes and don’t continue doing the same sins” she told me, not quite convinced herself. Kamala saw herself in the “those who do good” category and not in the “wages of sin” group, but she didn’t really want to put it that way. So I had to ask another hard question. “So if you could be a good enough person, then you wouldn’t really need Jesus, right?” Hmm. That can’t be right either. Kamala knows we are supposed to need Jesus. After all, He is to be our Savior, and that means we need to be saved. “Maybe Jesus made a way for us to be saved, but we need to prove that we deserve it by doing good deeds in addition?” But the Bible says we are saved by grace, through faith and not by works. “Faith” means to trust in Jesus and not in ourselves or our own good works. We can’t save ourselves, not by any amount of good that we might try to do to “pay back” God for the bad things we’ve done. This is where I think Kamala realized that we can’t “pay it back” when it comes to doing good to make up for past sins. The wages of sin is death, and that’s a debt none of us can afford to pay. Only Jesus is the one who could make that sin payment for us. Being sinless and guiltless, Jesus had no need to “pay it back” for His own sins. Instead, He was able to “pay it forward’, allowing His good works to apply to our account. His life, death and resurrection paid our debt, and gives us the freedom to “pay it forward” with our own good deeds as well. What a much better way to live life – not always having to “pay it back” under the debt of our sin. We can have the freedom to “pay it forward”, expressing gratitude to God for freeing us from our debt and sharing our joy and freedom with others around us.

The Bible repeatedly emphasizes the importance of faith as a key attribute in the lives of believers. I believe it is the one attribute that we can’t really be tempted to take credit for. Its emphasis is not on the person demonstrating the attribute, but on the object of our faith. We can have faith because God is faithful. Other attributes, such as love for others and hope for the future, might spring from this faith, but it is by God’s grace – through faith – that we are able to love others with the love of Christ, and to have hope for the future because of the victory of Christ. So beside the personal attributes that grow in a Christian through this faith relationship with Christ, how might it look in the life of “seekers” or pre-believers – people being drawn to faith in Christ but not quite there yet? One statement made by a man named Omar caught my attention. A week ago, Omar was hit by a car on his bicycle. He wasn’t injured and called this incident a “friendly reminder” from God. He agreed that the effect of this incident was to wake him up a bit to God’s presence in his life. He wasn’t bitter that it happened, but grateful that God had spared him. I think the faith of believers allows them to see much of what happens in life, positive and negative, as “friendly reminders” from God. I remember looking at some new grey hairs in the mirror, and instead of grumbling to myself I suddenly saw them as friendly reminders that my days here in this life are limited. It gave me a new perspective at how precious this life is, and a desire to make the most of whatever time I have remaining. This ability to receive friendly reminders reminds me of the passage on faith in Hebrews 11, which reads “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” Many people try their best to ignore all the evidence and reminders of God’s existence. But to acknowledge them is an important part of this passage. God “exists”, and we are told elsewhere in the Bible that those who don’t believe this are actively suppressing such knowledge, that it is actually very obvious. Why would people try to suppress the truth about God’s existence? Maybe because they can’t accept the other important aspect of faith in this passage – That God “rewards those who earnestly seek him.” Not only does a great God exist – worthy of our faith because of His infinite power and wisdom, but He is also good, worthy of our faith because of His goodness towards us. God is great and God is good. Both of these attributes are worthy of our faith, and both help us as believers to see numerous “friendly reminders” all around us.

As a teacher I love it when students ask me good questions. It shows they are engaged and wanting to learn more. This doesn’t always happen during my Gospel outreach conversations, but I really appreciate when it does, such as with a young man named Ralph, whose curious questions extended our conversation for over an hour. I don’t always know the answers to difficult questions, and have learned to just be honest about it and admit my struggles. One question Ralph asked me was difficult to answer, but in the weeks since our conversation I’ve heard a good analogy that helps me explain it. Ralph asked me what I would do if I was to come across irrefutable evidence that invalidated my faith. I think this is a hard question because in order to show people the Gospel, we also want to show that we are rational human beings who consider the evidence and don’t deny reality. I didn’t want to come across as a crazy lunatic. The answer to this question, I now think, comes in the difference between “knowing” the truth of the Gospel, and “showing” it to be true. Just because we “know” something to be true by personal experience, doesn’t mean we can “show” that truth to others. Here’s the analogy that helps explain this. Suppose you were to be accused of a crime you absolutely know you didn’t commit. In fact, you weren’t anywhere near the scene of the crime so it couldn’t even be some sort of mental lapse. Yet, evidence is produced and repeated by the media that “proves” you did it, and it seems the whole world is against you. The evidence is so solid that you wouldn’t know how to debunk it, and you are left defenseless in the face of the charges against you. Would you, then, throw up your hands and admit to a crime that you know you didn’t commit? You “know” you didn’t commit the crime, but you can’t “show” you didn’t commit it. That, I think, is the place many Christians find themselves when it come to defending the truths of the Gospel. They may have experienced its truths on a personal level, but are unaware that theirs is an historical, reasonable faith. They know it to be true, but can’t show this truth to others. They feel powerless against a secular culture that actively seeks to refute the truths of Christianity and to gaslight those who believe them, making them think they are being unsophisticated, irrational or just plain crazy. In answer to Ralph’s hypothetical question - “What would I do in the face of irrefutable evidence against Christianity?” - I would have to say that even though I would then have to admit that I didn’t know how to defend it – that I couldn’t show it’s truth - I would nonetheless continue to know it is true for me personally. The Bible tells us we are to walk by faith, not by sight. I believe it is a very reasonable faith, but if for some reason it had to be a blind faith, then so be it. Here I stand.