Gospel Outreach Conversations

How do we know that the Bible is God’s Word? Are there any errors in the Bible? Since we affirmed in lesson 1 that systematic theology attempts to summarize the teaching of the whole Bible on various subjects, we next turn to questions concerning the nature of the Bible from which we draw our data for the discipline of systematic theology. What does the whole Bible teach us about itself? The major teachings of the Bible about itself can be classified into four characteristics: (1) the authority of Scripture, (2) the clarity of Scripture, (3) the necessity of Scripture, and (4) the sufficiency of Scripture. With regard to the first characteristic, most Christians would agree that the Bible is our authority in some sense. But in exactly what sense does the Bible claim to be our authority? And how do we become persuaded that the claims of Scripture to be God’s Word are true? These are the questions addressed in this chapter. This is Lesson 2, based on chapter 2 of Dr. Wayne Grudem’s “Bible Doctrine” – an abridged version of his longer work – “Systematic Theology”. There are recordings of Grudem teaching from his longer book available online, and as we would expect with someone of his expertise, his teaching is very extensive, even more so as he answers questions from his class. On the other hand, my purpose here is to offer a very concise version of his abridged book, focusing on the major topics he covers and especially highlighting the passages from the Bible that relate to each topic. Anyone who reads the Bible on a regular basis has begun to develop a “theology” of who God is and what he has revealed of Himself to man down through history. But is it organized to the point where you can confidently say “this is what the Bible teaches” on a particular topic, or do you just base your beliefs on random verses that could well be misunderstood because they are taken out of context? My confidence in going out to share the Gospel with strangers comes largely from my study of “Systematic Theology”, which I’ll define as learning what the whole Bible teaches us about a given topic. I’m confident that I’m not misrepresenting God as revealed in his Word, and I’m confident when people make unbiblical claims about God that challenge my own beliefs. I’m increasingly amazed by the consistency of the Bible, written by so many human authors but without contradiction, that I can only conclude it was written by divine inspiration. I’ve gained so much personally from my systematic study of theology that I’m teaching a 34-week class on it at church, based on Dr. Wayne Grudem’s books “Systematic Theology” and “Bible Theology”. I’m excited to dig deeper personally as I prepare the outlines and lessons, and I want to take as many people along with me on this journey as possible. So I am recording the class and posting the videos to my YouTube channel, and making downloadable PDF chapter outlines and audio recordings available on a Google Drive folder as well. Care to join me? Links to my YouTube channel and shared resources are as follows: Video: YouTube.com/c/JeffReiman Shared Resources folder: https://tinyurl.com/yxy2kb56

Just thought I'd show Winnie having fun with her cousin, Buko.

Skeptics may think the Bible is too difficult to interpret, but the more one actually reads and follows it, the more understandable it becomes. A marketplace conversation with a Jewish man, Noah, got me thinking about one difficult passage that is only now starting to make sense to me. It is an incredible statement made by another Jew – the Apostle Paul – about the fact that his own people had not embraced Jesus as their Messiah: Paul wrote “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.” (Romans 9) What I have found so incomprehensible about this statement is that it seems as if Paul would be willing to give up even his own salvation for the sake of his fellow Jews! Now I feel much the same sense of anguish and sorrow for all lost people – both Jew and Gentile – that Paul felt. But I’d be lying if I said I’d be willing to give up my own salvation for them. In fact, I’d also be lying if I said that it is this sense of sorrow and anguish that drives me to regularly “put myself out there” and risk ridicule and worse for the salvation of others. “Saving people” really isn’t my motivation at all, because that’s something only God can do. How do I know? Paul himself wrote the rest of Romans 9 about that very fact – that it is God’s sovereign choice upon whom he will show compassion and mercy and whom He will not. Vs. 18 reads: “God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.” Why then, would I go out to initiate Gospel conversations if it doesn’t make a difference in God’s sovereign plan of election? Because God’s glory through our obedience is also a part of His sovereign plan. We obey Jesus’ command to proclaim the Gospel because He is worthy and we want Him to be glorified. Paul gave a clue about that very motivation toward the end of his description of the advantages the Jews had as God’s chosen people: “…and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.” Paul glorifies God in that statement, and then in the rest of Romans 9 explains the wisdom of God’s plan of salvation not necessarily for the physical descendants of Abraham (“the people of Israel”) but for all who believe in Jesus, whom he calls the “children of the promise”. Paul affirms in this chapter that he really couldn’t give up his salvation, that it is not something we humans can give or take. It is entirely in God’s hands. This leads me to believe that Paul merely made this statement for emphasis as to how serious the matter of salvation is, and how much sorrow and anguish he felt that so many Jews had abandoned the very gift that God brought through them to the world in the first place. So where does that leave me, a Gentile Christian, after talking with Noah, an unbelieving Jew? Well, it was a very short conversation, made even shorter because his wife was waiting for him and I wanted to respect their time. But in that short dialog I found out that not only has Noah rejected Jesus as the Messiah, he also rejects belief in God’s existence altogether. He talked much of trying to do good in this life, but rejects the idea of any kind of existence in a life to come. Toward the end I tried to respectfully ask what the difference would be between himself and an atheist, and he wisely said that he tries to avoid labels or categorizing people’s beliefs. But there is a difference between a Jew who rejects belief in God, and an atheist who did not grow up in a Jewish home, and Paul described it well when he talked about all the advantages Jews have had in the above passage. Neither the atheist nor the unbelieving Jew believe in God but the difference would be that the atheist may not necessarily have been given every advantage to believe like the unbelieving Jewish man had. I left the conversation feeling like I had at least given Noah a friendly reminder of the advantages he’s had growing up Jewish. I hope I gave a nudge in the direction of faith that glorifies God and could even be used by God in His sovereign plan for Noah. Maybe Paul’s incredible statement of willingness to give up even his own salvation helped me to see the importance of eternity and inspired me to reach out with the Gospel with at least some of the urgency as Paul had. And maybe, just maybe, I’m beginning to understand yet another difficult passage of the Bible.

How many times have you heard someone say “The Bible says…” ? The Bible is a pretty big collection of books. Are you sure what they said was accurate within the context of the whole Bible, or did they just “cherry pick” a verse to make a point? How can you defend yourself against false teaching? "Systematic Theology" is simply an organized way to study what the Bible says in its entirety about given topics. I have put together a series of lessons based on the chapters of Dr. Wayne Grudem's book "Bible Doctrine", which is an annotated version of his more scholarly classic "Systematic Theology". My purpose has been to provide a concise audio/visual outline of each chapter, for those with limited time or diverse learners who may struggle with simply reading it on their own. Dr. Grudem does the same in a lecture series, but given his wealth of knowledge it is not exactly "concise"! Care to join me? The entire series is available as a playlist on my YouTube channel at YouTube. com/c/JeffReiman and my outline worksheets and audio files folder are available at https://tinyurl.com/yxy2kb56

“What I don’t like about religion is its all confined to a book” a very inquisitive guy named Brian told me. “If God is so infinite, don’t you think that his book should be ongoing?” I thought that was a pretty good question. Brian had alluded to it earlier when he wondered why God wouldn’t be evolving through time, and that maybe some of his archaic laws written in the Bible would be modernized today. I immediately thought of James 1:17, which says that God is “the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” God never changes. There are many biblical passages that make this claim. Even Jesus, God in the flesh, has this same attribute of unchanging character, called “immutability”: Hebrews 11:8 says “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever”. But why can’t God change? After all, doesn’t change allow for improvement? And isn’t improvement a good thing? But this begs the question: “How can someone who is perfect improve?” God’s character attribute of being unchangeable is closely tied to his attribute of perfection, which could help explain to Brian why the Bible isn’t ongoing; God can’t be improved upon. But there is another reason why Brian wondered why the Bible is limited to the pages of one book. He understands that the Creator of this vast universe must be absolutely infinite in nature – bigger than any mere book could describe. I respected his insight and thoughtfulness about the immeasurable vastness of God. But there are a few things that can help us understand why God’s revelation of Himself is limited to one book, or, more accurately, one huge but closed-ended collection of books. One is that although God is unlimited in nature, we are not. We can only take in so much. Likewise, our time here is limited, for some more than others. Psalm 90:10 tells us “The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.” More hopefully, Genesis 6:3 gives us more time than that: “Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.”’ Our time on earth is limited, and so is the knowledge and understanding we can have here about our infinite Creator. Yet, the opportunity to learn what we can of God – through reading His word and experiencing what it means to live it out, is worthy of lifelong pursuit. And we don’t have to worry that our knowledge of God will grow obsolete like it does with so much of our knowledge of worldly things. God never changes like the world does. Our understanding of God may change as we read His word, and His revelation of Himself only increases as we progress through His word, so it might seem like God is changing. But it is, in fact, we who are changing, and that’s the way it should be. Thanks, Brian, for allowing me to record our conversation. It can be seen on my YouTube channel.

What is heaven? Is it a place? How will the earth be renewed? What will it be like to live in the new heavens and new earth? According to Scripture, there is a difference between “heaven’, and “the New Heaven and New Earth”. What most casual observers think of as “heaven” is really a temporary or intermediate place where the souls of believers will be with God before the final resurrection of their physical bodies. The “New Heaven and New Earth” on the other hand, is the final state of existence in eternity, where believers, their souls reunited with their resurrected bodies, will enter into the full enjoyment of life in the presence of God forever. We are in the final unit of Grudem’s Bible Doctrine, and are considering events that will happen in the future, as foreseen in Scripture. The study of future events is often called “eschatology,” from the Greek word eschatos, which means “last.” The study of eschatology, then, is the study of “the last things.” Anyone who reads the Bible on a regular basis has begun to develop a “theology” of who God is and what he has revealed of Himself to man down through history. But is it organized to the point where you can confidently say “this is what the Bible teaches” on a particular topic, or do you just base your beliefs on random verses that could well be misunderstood because they are taken out of context? My confidence in going out to share the Gospel with strangers comes largely from my study of “Systematic Theology”, which I’ll define as learning what the whole Bible teaches us about a given topic. I’m confident that I’m not misrepresenting God as revealed in his Word, and I’m confident when people make unbiblical claims about God that challenge my own beliefs. I’m increasingly amazed by the consistency of the Bible, written by so many human authors but without contradiction, that I can only conclude it was written by divine inspiration. I’ve gained so much personally from my systematic study of theology that I’m teaching a 34-week class on it at church, based on Dr. Wayne Grudem’s books “Systematic Theology” and “Bible Theology”. I’m excited to dig deeper personally as I prepare the outlines and lessons, and I want to take as many people along with me on this journey as possible. So I am recording the class and posting the videos to my YouTube channel, and making downloadable PDF chapter outlines and audio recordings available on a Google Drive folder as well. Care to join me? Links to my YouTube channel and shared resources are as follows: Video: YouTube.com/c/JeffReiman Shared Resources folder: https://tinyurl.com/yxy2kb56

One thousand years. That’s about how long it took for the teaching of “purgatory” to develop in the Roman Catholic Church as it strayed away from faith in Christ’s shed blood alone for the forgiveness of sins. Apparently Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross wasn’t enough, so in the 11th century it was decided that the additional punishment of the soul in an intermediate state called purgatory was needed. Fast forward another one thousand years or so, and that’s how long it took for this teaching about purgatory-as-punishment to morph into the modern view that purgatory is a final “purification” before we can enter the holiness of heaven. In the meantime, this teaching led to the many abuses and false teachings around the selling of “indulgences” to get loved ones out of purgatory. It also led to Martin Luther’s 95 theses and the Protestant Reformation that emphasized the sufficiency of scripture alone, not church tradition and dogma, to teach the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. So what does the Bible say? 1 John 2:2 tells us that “He (Jesus) is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” This “propitiation” refers to God being appeased, or satisfied, that an appropriate payment has been made on our behalf for our sins. God demands this payment so that sin doesn’t go unpunished, and his perfect justice is observed. But what about the modern view of purgatory as “purification”? This view would say that Jesus paid the legal penalty for our sin, but that our character still needs to be made pure before we can be a part of the Kingdom of Heaven. I was trying to figure out just how that might work as I talked with a man named Larry during an outreach conversation. Larry is a Catholic who only recently has been exploring his faith, as well as the beliefs of other religions. I asked how purgatory actually works and Larry offered a few theories, but really wasn’t sure. My understanding based on the Bible rather than church dogma is that when we have been “born again” as Jesus described, we are adopted into God’s family and become children of our heavenly Father. Naturally, a father disciplines His children, and we learn and grow in godliness. That discipline may include suffering, and through it we better realize the suffering Jesus went through on our behalf. We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus, not through the moral perfection of our character, and we are then “sanctified”, or set apart, through a lifelong process as God begins His work in and through us. But nobody can claim to have arrived at perfection. We all need the forgiveness found in Jesus. There is much biblical support for this process of sanctification as Christians, such as Colossians 1:9-11 - “And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” But where is the biblical support for something so important as purgatory, if indeed it exists? One would think that someone like Paul would have written long passages about it. And how is it that moral and character development occurs through something that sounds a lot like torture? I know there are biblical truths, such as the doctrine of the trinity, that don’t require us to understand them for them to be true. But knowing its history, together with its lack of a biblical foundation, and I have to be honest and say this just looks a lot like a medieval moneymaking scheme by a corrupt church, which could no longer be maintained once the invention of the printing press allowed people to read the Bible for themselves, so it had to change into something slightly less heretical. I believe Martin Luther was on to something when he called the Catholic Church to get back to its biblical roots and its faith in Christ alone for both our salvation and our sanctification. I just wish they had listened.

What did Jesus mean when he told this short parable – “The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows.” ? It’s actually good news in a way, I guess. People are punished less if they sin in ignorance than if they sin with full knowledge of what they are doing wrong. The principle would be that God recognizes that we are all dealt a different hand when it comes to our ability to make moral choices. Those who should know better but still choose to sin are punished more severely than those who had no chance to know better. But why should an ignorant person be punished at all? Jesus’ parable was told to an audience that understood that no one is completely innocent, even if they haven’t had proper home training or moral instruction. He went on to say “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.” We all have some moral knowledge to work with, as described in Romans 2:5: “…the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.” This is bad news for those who believe they can’t be held accountable because of ignorance. They are nowhere near as ignorant as they claim to be. In fact, part of the job of our general moral conscience is to prod us to learn the specifics of the law, which for many is readily available in a nearby Bible, in a local church, and in the counsel of godly Christians. I was reminded of this in a recent conversation with a man named Raphael, who told me he had fallen away from his faith, but was helped back in all three of these ways. He listened to his God-given conscience, and took advantage of the knowledge and moral instruction made available to him. None of us can claim ignorance, and we all have access to a Bible, a local church, and the fellowship of other believers to help us grow in godliness. We have been given much, and much will be demanded.

Is there a Judgement Day? Who will be judged? What is hell? It’s not a popular topic, but Scripture frequently affirms the fact that there will be a great final judgment of believers and unbelievers. They will stand before the judgment seat of Christ in resurrected bodies and hear his proclamation of their eternal destiny. We are in the final unit of Grudem’s Bible Doctrine, and are considering events that will happen in the future, as foreseen in Scripture. The study of future events is often called “eschatology,” from the Greek word eschatos, which means “last.” The study of eschatology, then, is the study of “the last things.” Anyone who reads the Bible on a regular basis has begun to develop a “theology” of who God is and what he has revealed of Himself to man down through history. But is it organized to the point where you can confidently say “this is what the Bible teaches” on a particular topic, or do you just base your beliefs on random verses that could well be misunderstood because they are taken out of context? My confidence in going out to share the Gospel with strangers comes largely from my study of “Systematic Theology”, which I’ll define as learning what the whole Bible teaches us about a given topic. I’m confident that I’m not misrepresenting God as revealed in his Word, and I’m confident when people make unbiblical claims about God that challenge my own beliefs. I’m increasingly amazed by the consistency of the Bible, written by so many human authors but without contradiction, that I can only conclude it was written by divine inspiration. I’ve gained so much personally from my systematic study of theology that I’m teaching a 34-week class on it at church, based on Dr. Wayne Grudem’s books “Systematic Theology” and “Bible Theology”. I’m excited to dig deeper personally as I prepare the outlines and lessons, and I want to take as many people along with me on this journey as possible. So I am recording the class and posting the videos to my YouTube channel, and making downloadable PDF chapter outlines and audio recordings available on a Google Drive folder as well. Care to join me? Links to my YouTube channel and shared resources are as follows: Video: YouTube.com/c/JeffReiman Shared Resources folder: https://tinyurl.com/yxy2kb56

What is the millennium? When does it occur? Will Christians go through the great tribulation? We are in the final unit of Grudem’s book, and are considering events that will happen in the future. The study of future events is often called “eschatology,” from the Greek word eschatos, which means “last.” The study of eschatology, then, is the study of “the last things.” The word millennium means “one thousand years” (from Lat. millennium, “thousand years”). The term comes from Revelation 20:4–5, where it says that certain people “came to life, and reigned with Christ a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.” Just prior to this statement, we read that an angel came down from heaven and seized the devil “and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years were ended” (Rev. 20:2–3). Throughout the history of the church there have been four major views on the time and nature of this “millennium.” These views, along with scripture support for each, will be reviewed and analyzed in lesson 32. Our purpose is not to favor any of them over each other, but to better understand them and in turn better understand fellow believers who hold views different from our own. Anyone who reads the Bible on a regular basis has begun to develop a “theology” of who God is and what he has revealed of Himself to man down through history. But is it organized to the point where you can confidently say “this is what the Bible teaches” on a particular topic, or do you just base your beliefs on random verses that could well be misunderstood because they are taken out of context? My confidence in going out to share the Gospel with strangers comes largely from my study of “Systematic Theology”, which I’ll define as learning what the whole Bible teaches us about a given topic. I’m confident that I’m not misrepresenting God as revealed in his Word, and I’m confident when people make unbiblical claims about God that challenge my own beliefs. I’m increasingly amazed by the consistency of the Bible, written by so many human authors but without contradiction, that I can only conclude it was written by divine inspiration. I’ve gained so much personally from my systematic study of theology that I’m teaching a 34-week class on it at church, based on Dr. Wayne Grudem’s books “Systematic Theology” and “Bible Theology”. I’m excited to dig deeper personally as I prepare the outlines and lessons, and I want to take as many people along with me on this journey as possible. So I am recording the class and posting the videos to my YouTube channel, and making downloadable PDF chapter outlines and audio recordings available on a Google Drive folder as well. Care to join me? Links to my YouTube channel and shared resources are as follows: Video: YouTube.com/c/JeffReiman Shared Resources folder: https://tinyurl.com/yxy2kb56

Mark 10 "As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’” “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.” Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!” The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” In loving memory of my uncle, Alan Peterson, who loved Jesus and faithfully served Him for most of his adult life. He wanted the Gospel shared at his homegoing, and I believe would want it shared here too. Read more about Alan at https://www.carlsonlillemoen.com/obituary/Allan-Peterson

It has troubled me that European depictions of Jesus look, well, European. But did you know that African depictions of Jesus look African, and Asian depictions of Christ look Asian? Just Google it and you can see images of “Jesus” in any racial or cultural context you prefer. For the record, the Bible doesn’t give us much to go on, which prophesied that he wouldn’t stand out from his peers: “…he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.” (Isaiah 53:2) This implies that he was an average, brown-skinned Middle Eastern Jew. Claims that he had wooly hair and bronze skin come from Revelation 1:14-15: “The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.” This was a description of Jesus’ glorified body, and if we follow this same line of thinking, the very next verse tells us he also had seven stars in his right hand, a sword in His mouth, and a face as bright as the sun! The ambiguity of the Bible about Jesus’ appearance tells us one thing: it just wasn’t that important. But it had become very important to a young man named Rico, who gave Jesus’ racial identity as his main reason for abandoning the Christian faith. Rico had been following the teachings of the Black Hebrew Israelites, a religious group for whom race is extremely important. They have many splinter groups but generally believe that American Blacks are the true heirs of the lost tribes of Israel and thus God’s chosen people. Much of God’s New Testament describes a new relationship between God and man, no longer based on one’s line of ancestry. There is debate among Christians as to the role the physical descendants of Abraham (Israel) will have in future events, but one thing is certain: What is of utmost importance is not what Jesus looked like, but who He is in relation to God, and who we are in relation to Him. The church in Galatia was struggling with the question of whether Jewish Christians in their midst should continue with their Jewish practices, and whether they had special privileges because of their physical ancestry. Paul wrote that “those who have faith are children of Abraham” – not those who claim physical descent. He summed up a long passage of explanation by writing “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Gal. 3) It still troubles me when European images of Christ are imposed on people of other cultures. It troubles me that something like this is a stumbling block for someone like Rico, who pointed to it, probably more so as an easy illustration, as the reason he has abandoned Christianity. The Bible may indicate it simply is not that important, but unfortunately, the depiction of Jesus by an historically dominant culture has turned it into something the Bible never meant it to be.

I love to meet people who recognize the limitations of our own intelligence and our own insignificance in this vast universe. But can that humility go too far when it comes to knowing our Creator? A young man named Paul described this when he told me that one of the main reasons he left the faith he had grown up in is the tendency for people to personify God. He believes the Bible was written by people as a way to explain and describe God, rather than inspired by God as a way to reveal Himself to people. There is a big difference between these two approaches. A constant theme in the Bible is God’s commands against idolatry. An “idol” is defined as “an image or representation of a god used as an object of worship”. Early idols were often in the form of statues, such as the golden calf that reminded the Israelites in the wilderness of the more familiar gods they had left behind in Egypt. As physical objects, these idols are made by human hands, and are very convenient because they don’t talk back, and they stay in one place if you want the freedom to go somewhere else to do things that might displease it. Or you can take it with you and bring it out when needed, like the genie in Aladdin’s lamp or like a good luck charm. But as an “image” of a god, idols don’t have to be limited to physical objects. The can also exist in our imagination. We can pick and choose what we want to believe and what we want to reject about our version of “God”, and in so doing we are forming an idol just as real as any golden calf. I didn’t blame Paul for rejecting what he sees as a very arbitrary version of God based on human whims and tradition. This is just what we are left with if the Bible is indeed just the product of human imagination. But nowhere in this library of books that form the Bible do we find it referring to itself as simply the word of man. Rather, it is the revelation of God throughout human history, and in reading it we gain a much better understanding not only of our Creator, but also of who we are in relation to Him. So why didn’t God just state up front who He is and what He expects of us? Why the gradual self-revealing and the many lessons and examples along the way? Why choose one people, the Israelites, for Himself and allow such conflict to occur, and why allow evil people to prosper at times? Why allow suffering, and war, and horrible atrocities? What do we learn about ourselves and God in all this? Because words without actions are just words. Ideas untested are just ideas. Love needs context, and that context needs to include sacrifice and compassion, which can’t exist without the presence of suffering or loss. The Bible shows God relating to us in a wide variety of circumstances, and through it all shows us how we can have a relationship with our Creator. In Exodus 13, Moses asked God to “show me your glory”. In Exodus 34:6-7, God answered – “And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.” Now imagine if God had just left it at that, and we didn’t have the rest of the Bible for reference. Imagine that each of us had to learn all the lessons of the Bible the hard way, by experiencing them for ourselves rather than learn from the experiences of others? What about all the times we have to learn hard lessons over and over again until we get it right? We wouldn’t get very far. In our grocery aisle conversation, Paul told me about his own version of God after having abandoned the Bible’s version as being too “personified”. Paul’s preferred version of God seemed to me to have many of the conveniences of those early golden calves. As more of an impersonal “power” it didn’t dictate moral preferences or hold him accountable. It seemed ready to receive his soul energy after this life but promised to leave him alone until then. Without the rest of the Bible, or in Paul’s case, without reference to the Bible, we are left up to our own imaginations to fill in the blanks, and all we end up with is a worthless idol.

A young man named Joe just sort of shrugged his shoulders when asked about his views on eternity. “Who can know? It’s really scary” he said. As we talked further, he explained that he has no problem with the religion of others; “That’s fine for them” he said, but saw no reason for belief himself. But as a Christian praying for the salvation of others like Joe, I saw one small reason for hope in what he said; “It’s really scary”. So how could someone’s fear of the unknown when it comes to eternity give me hope? Because the Bible repeatedly tells us that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”. At least Joe still has a measure of humility when it comes to things beyond his knowledge or control. The beginning of wisdom is the realization that we don’t have it, that we didn’t bring ourselves into this world and can’t really determine what happens when we leave it. I told Joe that he’s right, we can’t know much about God on our own, unless God reveals Himself to us. And the best revelation of God to man is the Bible, and particularly in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. We don’t have to live with the fear of the unknown. We can fear what we do know! In Mark 4, we read about how Jesus was sleeping in a boat while his disciples were crossing the Sea of Galilee, when a furious storm came up and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. Jesus said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” His disciples were no longer afraid of the storm, they were afraid of Jesus! They recognized his power over nature, and, by extension, his power over their own lives and existence as well. In another incident on a boat, Jesus had given Peter the fisherman a miraculous catch of fish, and Peter responded by falling at Jesus’ knees and saying, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” The fear of the Lord rightfully comes when we see our own weakness, insignificance, and, yes, our sin. It is the beginning of wisdom when we start to see that He is God and we are not; that He is the Creator and we just created beings; that He alone determines what is true or false, right or wrong, living or dead, temporary or eternal; and that He brought us into this world and has every right to take us out. The disciples began their relationships with Jesus with a healthy dose of awe and fear. But it didn’t stop there. All except Judas ended up with a love for him so great they lay down their lives for him as martyrs. Except for John, who lived long enough to pen these words: “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. We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4) So Joe, if you read this, and others like you – humility and fear of the Lord is where we need to start, but it doesn’t have to end there. Keep reading, and you will find a loving God with arms wide open, ready to receive you when you turn to Him in repentance and faith.

When and how will Christ return? Could he come back at any hour? As we begin the final unit of Grudem’s book, we turn to consider events that will happen in the future. The study of future events is often called “eschatology,” from the Greek word eschatos, which means “last.” The study of eschatology, then, is the study of “the last things.” Unbelievers can make reasonable predictions about future events based on patterns of past occurrences, but in the nature of human experience it is clear that human beings of themselves cannot know the future. Therefore, unbelievers can have no certain knowledge of any future event. But Christians who believe the Bible are in a different situation. Although we cannot know everything about the future, God knows everything about the future and he has in Scripture told us about the major events yet to come in the history of the universe. About these events occurring we can have absolute confidence because God is never wrong and never lies. Regarding our own personal future as individuals, we have already discussed the teaching of Scripture in chapter 25 (on death, the intermediate state, and glorification). The study of these future events that will happen to individuals is sometimes called “personal eschatology.” But the Bible also talks about certain major events that will affect the entire universe. Specifically, it tells us about the second coming of Christ, the millennium, the final judgment, eternal punishment for unbelievers and eternal reward for believers, and life with God in the new heaven and new earth. The study of these events is sometimes called “general eschatology.” In this chapter we will study the question of the return of Christ, or his “second coming.” Subsequent chapters will deal with the remaining topics in a study of the last things. There have been many debates—often heated ones—in the history of the church over questions regarding the future. In this chapter we will begin with aspects of Christ’s second coming with which all evangelicals agree and then at the end move to one matter of disagreement: whether Christ could return at any time. In the following chapter, we will discuss the question of the millennium, a topic that has long been a source of disagreement among Christians. Anyone who reads the Bible on a regular basis has begun to develop a “theology” of who God is and what he has revealed of Himself to man down through history. But is it organized to the point where you can confidently say “this is what the Bible teaches” on a particular topic, or do you just base your beliefs on random verses that could well be misunderstood because they are taken out of context? My confidence in going out to share the Gospel with strangers comes largely from my study of “Systematic Theology”, which I’ll define as learning what the whole Bible teaches us about a given topic. I’m confident that I’m not misrepresenting God as revealed in his Word, and I’m confident when people make unbiblical claims about God that challenge my own beliefs. I’m increasingly amazed by the consistency of the Bible, written by so many human authors but without contradiction, that I can only conclude it was written by divine inspiration. I’ve gained so much personally from my systematic study of theology that I’m teaching a 34-week class on it at church, based on Dr. Wayne Grudem’s books “Systematic Theology” and “Bible Theology”. I’m excited to dig deeper personally as I prepare the outlines and lessons, and I want to take as many people along with me on this journey as possible. So I am recording the class and posting the videos to my YouTube channel, and making downloadable PDF chapter outlines and audio recordings available on a Google Drive folder as well. Care to join me? Links to my YouTube channel and shared resources are as follows: Video: YouTube.com/c/JeffReiman Shared Resources folder: https://tinyurl.com/yxy2kb56

“Religious people just put their lives toward God more than anything…they don’t really live their lives the way they want to, you know what I mean? They are just like “God this” and “God that”…So I started researching it myself because there has to be more than just this…you can’t just die and it’s over, you know?” -Jose, 18 These were the mixed feelings about God that I found a young man named Jose to have, who jumped at the chance to have a conversation about religion, even in the aisles of our local grocery store. Jose grew up Catholic but is now searching and learning about other religions, and favors the idea of being reincarnated in the next life. He is turned off by what he views as the limitations that organized religion would bring to his life. But is Christianity really meant to be “organized religion”? Is that what Jesus meant when he told parables about, say, the forgiving father who rushed out to embrace his prodigal son who finally returned home? Or the loving father who gives good gifts to his children when they ask him? Or what about praying to “Our Father in heaven” when we repeat Jesus’ prayer? Or praying to our Heavenly Father who knows what we will ask even before the words are formed on our lips? But the good news of the Gospel is that the relationship lost between man and God in the Garden of Eden, and the broken relationship we affirm every time we ourselves likewise sin, can be restored. It isn’t restored through man-made religion, but through the God-initiated relationship made available to us through faith in Jesus. Romans 8 tells us “For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.” “Abba” is an Aramaic term for Father, said to be a term of endearment like “Daddy” in English. How amazing that the Lord, the Creator of this magnificent universe wants to adopt us into His Family and call us His children! This doesn’t sound like a religion, it’s a relationship!

Many people I talk to in the public square, such as a young man named Keith whom I talked with at the grocery store, believe the Bible to be a centuries-old version of the “telephone game”, which clearly shows how a message gets distorted as it gets passed on from one person to the next. But the Bible wasn’t subject to the distorting effects of the telephone game, which assumes there is only one message to be shared and that each receiver can’t check with other copies for accuracy along the way. The Bible, as an entire library or body of literature under no single authoritative control, has passed many tests for accuracy. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I’m going to quote from GotQuestions.com about the reliability of the Bible: “The approach to assessing whether the Bible is accurate in what it reports is the same used to evaluate any other historical book. The legal/forensic method and its principles are employed to judge the validity of historical texts and whether the reported testimony is factual. There are three primary tests historians use within the forensic method: “First is the bibliographical test. This examines the reliability of the available manuscripts and the time that elapsed between the events in question and their recording. When applied to the New Testament, literally no other ancient text measures up. The New Testament has tens of thousands of ancient manuscripts that can be extensively compared to each other; plus, those manuscripts have the earliest dating to its recorded events of any historical book. In other words, the books of the New Testament were written very soon after the events they describe, leaving no room for legend to creep in. In fact, Paul cites more than 500 eyewitnesses to the risen Christ, “most of whom are still living”—meaning that his readers were free to check out the truth for themselves and confirm the accuracy of what he wrote. “Another proof of the New Testament’s early dating exists in the writings of early Christian leaders such as Clement (c. AD 95), Ignatius (c. AD 107), Polycarp (c. AD 110), Justin Martyr (c. AD 133), and others. Historians have determined that the entire New Testament could be completely reconstructed from citations from the early church fathers, with the exception of 27 verses, most of which come from 3 John. “The second test used by historians to assess the accuracy of ancient texts, including the Bible, is the internal evidence test. This test concerns itself with whether there are multiple attestations of the events in question and whether those accounts are free of contradictions (i.e., do they match?). With respect to the New Testament, multiple eyewitness accounts exist that all tell the same story. As for contradictions or manuscript variants, the overwhelming majority of biblical variants are inconsequential, consisting of spelling and numerical differences, sentence word order changes, etc. This leads scholars such as Neil Lightfoot to say, “Practically all of the variations found among the manuscripts do not affect our present text. Although a few textual problems remain, these are explained in the footnotes of most recent translations” (How We Got the Bible, Baker, 2003, p. 104). “The third and final historiographical test for accuracy is the external evidence test, which asks if evidence outside the document in question corroborates the text. In the case of both the Old and New Testament, countless archaeological discoveries validate the historicity of the Bible. In addition, works such as Robert Van Voorst’s Jesus Outside the New Testament chronicle what non-biblical writers had to say about Jesus. “To sum up, using historians’ three key tests from the forensic/legal method for validating the trustworthiness of an ancient text, no other work from ancient history comes close to matching the reliability and accuracy of the Bible.” This and the many volumes of apologetic books written on the topic, encourages me as a Christian, but what really convinces me to take the Bible seriously are two things: 1.) My trust that God created us for a reason extends to my trust that He would indeed reveal Himself to us in a consistent way, and the same belief in God’s inspiration of the original authors of scripture includes the faith that He would make sure it is accurately preserved for all generations; and 2.) As I read the Bible as God’s holy word and respond in faith and obedience, I experience it to be true for myself. The more I read the Bible and try to live it out, the more I believe it to literally be God’s Word. In 2 Timothy 3, Paul described just how valuable the Bible is: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” It is meant to be taken seriously as God’s Word, read daily, and lived out over a lifetime.

How should we understand and use specific spiritual gifts, in particular the more misunderstood and controversial gifts of prophesy, teaching, healing, and tongues/interpretation? Do you have any of these gifts? How would you know? What are their purpose? In part 30b of our 34-part theology series, we learn about the second two of these four spiritual gifts. We will explore the gift of healing, including the balance between modern medicine and faith. We will also examine the role of “tongues” (languages) throughout the Bible, with a focus on the use of this gift in churches of the New Testament and at present. The first two gifts, prophesy and teaching, were discussed in part 30a. Anyone who reads the Bible on a regular basis has begun to develop a “theology” of who God is and what he has revealed of Himself to man down through history. But is it organized to the point where you can confidently say “this is what the Bible teaches” on a particular topic, or do you just base your beliefs on random verses that could well be misunderstood because they are taken out of context? My confidence in going out to share the Gospel with strangers comes largely from my study of “Systematic Theology”, which I’ll define as learning what the whole Bible teaches us about a given topic. I’m confident that I’m not misrepresenting God as revealed in his Word, and I’m confident when people make unbiblical claims about God that challenge my own beliefs. I’m increasingly amazed by the consistency of the Bible, written by so many human authors but without contradiction, that I can only conclude it was written by divine inspiration. I’ve gained so much personally from my systematic study of theology that I’m teaching a 34-week class on it at church, based on Dr. Wayne Grudem’s books “Systematic Theology” and “Bible Theology”. I’m excited to dig deeper personally as I prepare the outlines and lessons, and I want to take as many people along with me on this journey as possible. So I am recording the class and posting the videos to my YouTube channel, and making downloadable PDF chapter outlines and audio recordings available on a Google Drive folder as well. Care to join me? Links to my YouTube channel and shared resources are as follows: Video: YouTube.com/c/JeffReiman Shared Resources folder: https://tinyurl.com/yxy2kb56

How should we understand and use specific spiritual gifts, in particular the gifts of prophesy, teaching, healing, and tongues/interpretation? Do you have any of these gifts? How would you know? What are their purpose? In part 30a of our 34-part theology series, we learn about the first two of these more controversial gifts within Christianity. We will explore the differences between the Old Testament prophets and the gift of prophesy in the New Testament churches. We will also learn about how prophesy and teaching are different from each other and what we can expect from them. The second two, healing and tongues/interpretation, will be discussed in part 30b. Anyone who reads the Bible on a regular basis has begun to develop a “theology” of who God is and what he has revealed of Himself to man down through history. But is it organized to the point where you can confidently say “this is what the Bible teaches” on a particular topic, or do you just base your beliefs on random verses that could well be misunderstood because they are taken out of context? My confidence in going out to share the Gospel with strangers comes largely from my study of “Systematic Theology”, which I’ll define as learning what the whole Bible teaches us about a given topic. I’m confident that I’m not misrepresenting God as revealed in his Word, and I’m confident when people make unbiblical claims about God that challenge my own beliefs. I’m increasingly amazed by the consistency of the Bible, written by so many human authors but without contradiction, that I can only conclude it was written by divine inspiration. I’ve gained so much personally from my systematic study of theology that I’m teaching a 34-week class on it at church, based on Dr. Wayne Grudem’s books “Systematic Theology” and “Bible Theology”. I’m excited to dig deeper personally as I prepare the outlines and lessons, and I want to take as many people along with me on this journey as possible. So I am recording the class and posting the videos to my YouTube channel, and making downloadable PDF chapter outlines and audio recordings available on a Google Drive folder as well. Care to join me? Links to my YouTube channel and shared resources are as follows: Video: YouTube.com/c/JeffReiman Shared Resources folder: https://tinyurl.com/yxy2kb56

What do people “on the street” believe about election fraud? If it is proven that Trump actually won, should Biden then concede the election? This is the second of a series in which I’m asking opinion questions about current events, and just trying to honestly report people’s opinions at one point in the ongoing development of an issue. Right now a major issue is voter fraud, and whether or not it actually affected the outcome of the election. Some people said yes, that there was massive voter fraud, and it at least deserves it’s day in court. The other side says no, there was not, and no, it should not be questioned in court. Most agreed, though, that a fair election is more important than getting a particular candidate into office. Cheating to win isn’t worth it. That gave me hope in humanity. However, despite their good intentions, I believe most people are at least willing to “look the other way” if they feel the evidence isn’t in favor of their favorite candidate. There is so much wishful thinking, group think and confirmation bias that are being exploited by the media. I think these are opinions worth hearing. One man helped change my mind some about the issue. Maybe at least some of the many unusual election anomalies are due to the fact that this was a very unusual election. Biden may not have motivated many new voters but strong feelings for or against Trump certainly did. The man said he usually didn’t vote but was motivated not only to vote but also to personally help 15 family members to vote who had never voted before. Even if he was exaggerating it could help explain why record numbers of people voted for Biden and left the rest of their ballots blank. I think it’s reasonable to believe that “where there’s smoke, there is fire”, and the same applies to this election. Common sense tells me that the evidence adds up to prove there was massive fraud for Biden, but common sense alone can’t prove court cases. Especially if judges aren’t even willing to take the massive amount of time it would require to hear the evidence. And time seems to be in short supply for the Trump campaign. I like doing these videos because I want to help people on different sides of current events better understand each other, and to document current opinions for future reference. Any suggestions for future topics? This video can be seen on my YouTube channel. https://youtu.be/VZGD0yzNG5g

The suppression of the overwhelming evidence for voter and election fraud by the mainstream news and social media is so obvious for those who are willing to evaluate the news from both sides of the political spectrum. But what about the average “man on the street”? I normally record Gospel outreach conversations, but many people I meet don’t have time for a long conversation about religion. So I thought I’d ask a few quick questions about politics. Most didn’t think there was widespread voter fraud, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that most felt a fair election was more important than who actually won, even if they didn’t like Trump. I didn’t get the impression that they intentionally look the other way when it comes to election fraud, but it just reminded me of the tremendous power the media has in forming the opinions of the largely indifferent public. I had so much fun doing this that I think I will start a regular series of “man on the street” interviews. What are some questions you would like me to ask people? This video is also found on my YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/3g21FW1VyhM

There is a big difference between “evidence” and “proof”, and I think many of our difficulties with both religion and politics could be much better understood if we use these terms correctly. “Proof” is defined as “evidence or argument establishing or helping to establish a fact or the truth of a statement” whereas “evidence” is defined as “the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.” They are very similar but different. “Proof” is generally not something that can fit in a soundbite, or even within the attention span of the average sceptic. It is made up of the sum total of a body of evidence, and in my opinion, it is almost impossible to establish, even in science. The whole post-modern movement exists because long-held physical “laws” are being undermined. Scientist are increasingly being reminded that they can’t afford the arrogance of certainty. So I never claim “proof” in my Gospel outreach conversations, but I do claim to provide evidence, which Pastor Tim Keller wisely calls “clues”. In a court of law, both the defense and the prosecution build a body of evidence for their respective claims, and the judge or jury weigh the evidence, pro and con, and declare a verdict. Rarely would one claim that the other side has absolutely “no evidence”. Both sides usually have reasonable evidence; it’s just that one side has more than the other. Yet that is what I see in arguments for both religion and politics. Usually what people mean when they say there is “not a shred of evidence” or “baseless claims” is that they see no evidence that they are willing to consider or accept according to their personal “scepto-meter”, due to their strong commitment to a certain position. A young man named Ishmael, for example, claimed he would start believing in God as soon as he saw “proof”. My usual response is that as a Christian I can’t “prove” God exists, but that there is enough evidence that we can have “reasonable faith”, as opposed to the blind faith that Christians are so often accused of. The Bible and Romans 2 in particular tells us that God gives us all the evidence we need for that reasonable faith, but it never tells the sceptic will get all the evidence he wants. In my experience, even if a sceptic does get the proof he requires, he would just dismiss it by quickly moving the goalposts. For most controversial truth claims, circumstantial evidence and eyewitness accounts aren’t enough to convince the opposing view. Casual arguments rely on expert testimony, which can be detailed and time-consuming to consider. So the argument quickly devolves into a contest of “my favorite expert versus yours”. In person, I for one can’t remember all the details of the arguments my favorite experts give that were so convincing at the time I read them, so I end up making claims that I can’t quickly back up in a sound bite. Online, our opponents are rarely willing to read the convincing but lengthy sources we link them to. I believe the best approach is usually to present our view along with a reasonable amount of evidence to at least show our claims aren’t baseless, and to demonstrate we understand the opposing view and have considered that evidence also. But before we do that we need to prove ourselves to be careful, active listeners, and to ask sincere clarifying questions. I hope we can all learn to stop talking past each other, to quit trying to convince each other of our position in a slam dunk (otherwise known as shoving our view down their throats), but also to stop retreating to our polarized safe zones and avoiding and even condemning dissenting opinions. We as a culture, especially in this age of social media algorithms, must make an effort to engage in civil conversations that help us to stop demonizing the other side but to better understand both our differences and the many things we still have in common.

“If you could get to heaven by being a good person, why would you need Jesus?” I asked Dolly, a young person I found sitting on a bench outside of a grocery store. Dolly said she had attended a Christian church, believes in God and that she will go to heaven because she hadn’t done any of the real bad things that could send a person to hell. In her view, Jesus basically came to teach us and to set an example for us to follow, which is why I asked her whether she even needed Jesus for salvation. Anyone with a reasonable church background has heard growing up that “Jesus died for your sins”, but what does that really mean? Why would the obscure death of a Jewish itinerate preacher on a cross 2000 years ago in a remote Roman province have anything to do with our forgiveness here in America today? Everything. Jesus lived and taught the moral law of God as revealed in the Jewish scriptures so that we might have a mirror in which to see ourselves, not in comparison to other people but in comparison to God’s holy standard. And if we are brave enough to take an honest look at ourselves in that mirror, we will see that we can’t possibly measure up to that standard. Romans 3 tells us “…no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin”. God’s law, then, helps us; not because by following it we can be saved, but because by measuring ourselves by its standard we see our need for a savior. John the Baptist used various commandments to prepare people’s hearts for Jesus, and Jesus did the same with his famous “Sermon on the Mount” in Matthew 5. In it, he told us of an impossible standard: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” But Jesus also taught that what is impossible for man is possible for God. We can’t save ourselves but Jesus can. Romans 3 continues to tell us “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith.” This all means that as our “sacrifice of atonement”, Jesus took the punishment for our sins in our place. Even though we are guilty and He is innocent, He took the punishment that we deserve. We did the crime, and He paid our fine. But we need to settle out of court, now, today, before that great Day of Judgement arrives. We need the repentance John the Baptist preached to “receive by faith” the gift of our salvation bought with the “shedding of his blood” – which alone can take away our sin and allow us to reach that impossible standard of perfection in God’s sight. Why do we need Jesus? Better, where would we be without Him? Just something to think about this Christmas as we contemplate the obscure birth of a baby in a manger in a remote Roman province with a little village called Bethlehem, over 2000 years ago.

“Never talk religion or politics in polite company”, they say. I would agree, as most people have fairly strong feelings about both subjects and the chance that we are in complete agreement about them is pretty slim. But there’s one subject that is by far even more divisive: religion AND politics. Our politics are usually driven by our core values and beliefs, so to try to persuade someone politically means we must also try to change who they are religiously. In our politically charged climate, I’ve found that religion is by far the safer subject of the two, and I rarely feel the need to talk politics in any of my Gospel outreach efforts, such as a recent conversation with Fabian, whom I discovered to have a solid faith in Christ. Fabian and I had a lot in common as fellow followers of Jesus Christ, and we enjoyed a pleasant conversation. Would we have had as much agreement if we had talked politics? Most likely not. And I think the seeds of those disagreements among Christians could be seen toward the end of our conversation, when we talked about our approach to sharing Gospel truths with people around us. As Christians, we are “born again” spiritually as the Holy Spirit, who previously had only influenced us from the outside in, now takes up residence in us and begins to change us from the inside out. Two of the changes that occur often conflict with each other: as we learn what it means to “love our neighbor as ourselves” as Jesus teaches us, it means we want to share our greatest treasure – our salvation and faith relationship with Jesus – but it also means we want to be friendly and kind as we do so. The good news of the Gospel only makes sense if we understand the bad news of our guilt and condemnation without Christ, so trying to be loving and nice as we try to explain this isn’t very easy. In fact, it is often offensive to people, especially as our society drifts further and further away from a biblical understanding of who God is and who we are in relation to God. So, as Christians, we often find ourselves caught between trying to be a loving and kind person that always “gets along” with our neighbor, and one who honestly tries to share the hard but lifechanging truths of the Gospel. Love, or truth. But are they really incompatible? For his part, Fabian tries to do what I also tried to do for most of my Christian life – to be a nice, approachable Christian with a ready answer about the Gospel for anyone who might come to me and ask about it. Apparently, I wasn’t nice enough, because these kinds of conversations rarely happened. I finally realized I was expecting people who aren’t born again – who only experience the influence of the Holy Spirit from the outside – to initiate the kinds of risky conversations that we can really only expect to be started by people who are motivated by the Holy Spirit from the inside. This is why Jesus said “go and tell”, not “wait and answer”. So, what does this have to do with politics? How is it that Christians are so often divided politically? I think it has to do with questions of how, exactly, are we to love our neighbor when it comes to decisions between loving, friendly relationships or difficult but necessary truth. For me, I fall on the side of “tough love” – a love that is tough enough to tell my neighbor the truth, even if they hate me personally for it. I am willing to risk offending my neighbor in the short term in order to share truth that will be for their long-term benefit. And, especially in politics, it’s not just a question for individuals but one of policy. Take, for example, the question of our budget deficits and crushing debts, which both sides of the political divide struggle with. The Bible teaches in Proverbs that “the borrower is slave to the lender”. Is it really loving our neighbor, including our children’s children, to kick the can of slavery to debt on down to future generations? On the other hand, is it really loving our neighbor to impose harsh measures of austerity that hurt the poorest and weakest of society most right here and now? Christians will deal with issues such as these in very different ways, so we shouldn’t expect to agree politically. For me, since our politics are so often driven by our religion, I’d rather avoid political side issues for the most part and try to focus on sharing the heart of the Gospel, simply because I trust the Holy Spirit to take it from there. Thanks, Fabian, for allowing me to record our conversation. It can also be seen on my YouTube channel. https://youtu.be/k7hAaOzty0s

Highlights from a Gospel conversation with a young man named Gil. Comments interspersed about how to have a friendly witnessing conversation.