Something fun to watch as the year ends... :)
Posted in: video22 December 2010
11 December 2010
01 December 2010
Understanding the New Atheism (Part 2)
continued from part 1 here
September 18, 2010, 1:34 pm » Sean McDowell 
In the last post we explored the nature of the New Atheism. Now, let’s consider the tactics of the New Atheists and why we must respond to their attacks.
Why the New Atheism Matters
One of the reasons the New Atheists have been so effective is that today’s students can’t think well. As Mark Bauerlein has argued in The Dumbest Generation, the dawn of the technological age that promised to produce a brighter, more intellectually sophisticated young people has had the opposite effect. This generation has grown up in a society driven by images and slogans, not carefully reasoned discourse or critical analysis. It’s not that they are incapable, or even unwilling to engage difficult issues (from my experience, I believe they are both capable and willing). They simply haven’t been trained or properly motivated. And so many fall for the shallow, emotionally charged diatribes of the New Atheists.
Another reason tackling the influence of the New Atheists matters is because the worldview of a young person shapes his or her religious future. In his monumental study on the spiritual lives of emerging adults (ages 18–23), sociologist Christian Smith lists the most common factors for why a young person grows up to be highly religious. They include having highly committed parents (or other influential adults), holding their religious faith in high importance, practicing spiritual disciplines, having few doubts, and believing in divine miracles as a teenager. Yes, beliefs about the supernatural in the teenage years are deeply important for lasting faith. Smith concludes, “By taking a cognitive stand on miracles during the teenage years, youth who do so solidify a certain intellectual and affective structure that is more likely to resist the authority claims of secular modernity than those who do not.”[i]
It’s no coincidence that the New Atheists so aggressively criticize the supernatural basis of Christianity. They criticize the virgin birth, resurrection, incarnation, and other miracles of the Christian faith—all in an attempt to undermine students’ faith.
What the New Atheists Claim
If you had to boil down the main arguments of the New Atheism into one statement, it would be this: Religion is not just false; it’s dangerous and must be eliminated! And by religion, they mostly have Christianity in mind. Richard Dawkins lays all his cards on the table: “I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been invented.”[ii] He continues, “Unless otherwise stated, I shall have Christianity mostly in mind.”[iii] Clear enough.
They have two main lines of attack. First they raise scientific and philosophical challenges against belief in God and then they raise moral and biblical challenges against the God of the Bible. Let’s examine just one example. Regarding science, Christopher Hitchens claims, “Religion has run out of justifications. Thanks to the telescope and the microscope, it no longer offers an explanation of anything important.”[iv] The implication is obvious. Back when we lived in ignorance—before the dawn of science—being religious was excusable. After all, we didn’t know any better. Today, however, science has removed the need for God. His services are no longer required. Is this really true?
First of all, remember that science originated from within a Christian view of the world. Because Christians believed in a rational God and expected to find rationality in the universe created by that God (Ps. 19:1–4), they sought to develop and refine methods for investigating God’s universe. Furthermore, leading scientists who believed in God like Copernicus, Boyle, Kepler, Bacon, and Newton did not see any inherent conflict between faith and science (that is, faith as trusting in what one has good reason to believe is true, not the straw man definition of blind faith presented by the New Atheists). Biblical faith is not belief in spite of the evidence, but belief in light of the evidence. Now to be sure, science can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God; but it can point us in the right direction. Simply put, the beginning of the universe points to a Beginner, the fine-tuning of the universe points to a Fine-Tuner, and the vast amount of information contained in living organisms (especially in DNA) points to an Information Giver.
A quick word is needed regarding the New Atheists’ tactical approach in their writings, interviews, and public debates. Hoping that something hits the mark, the New Atheists tend to throw everything and the kitchen sink at people. They provide examples and anecdotes designed to appeal primarily to the emotions, and they—especially Christopher Hitchens—skillfully use sarcasm and humor. But humor is not an argument, and neither is ridicule (and neither is having a British accent).
In my next and final post on the New Atheism, we will explore how we can use the challenge of the New Atheism as an opportunity to impress a biblical worldview on the hearts and minds of young people.
[i] Christian Smith, Souls in Transition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 239.
[ii] Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2008), 36.
[iii] Ibid., 58.
[iv] Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (New York: Twelve, 2007), 282.
http://www.conversantlife.com/belief/understanding-the-new-atheism-part-2
15 November 2010
03 October 2010
Garbage Success
One of the things I look forward to when I wake up on Sundays; trash duties.
(Btw, today is VUPC (Valley United Presbyterian Church anniversary... 30 years or something. I've been a part of it for... um... 2... 3 years? Happy Anniversary!)
Vid of special Youth Group performance to follow.
(Btw, today is VUPC (Valley United Presbyterian Church anniversary... 30 years or something. I've been a part of it for... um... 2... 3 years? Happy Anniversary!)
Vid of special Youth Group performance to follow.
25 September 2010
Becoming Men: Feats of our Forefathers
We’re all familiar with names like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams and John Hancock. These men, along with others, were our forefathers and the founders of our nation. They signed the Declaration of Independence and wrote the Constitution. They won the Revolutionary War.
Not only that, but their incredible accomplishments weren’t limited to their adult lives. John Hancock entered Harvard University when he was 13 years old. Samuel Adams completed his master’s degree before he turned 21. Thomas Jefferson frequently studied 15 hours a day during his time at the College of William and Mary.
Of course, at this point it’s easy for all of us normal people to place these guys in the “superhuman” or “so-smart-it’s-disgusting” category and move on. However, there’s a danger in thinking that God simply blessed America with a generation chock-full of patriotic super-nerds just in time to write the Constitution.
You see, once we label people as a “geniuses” we usually cease to feel the need to learn from them or to be challenged by their example. The truth is that our forefathers weren’t nerds and their early college entrances were not unusual for their time.
Rather, what stood these young men apart from their peers was (1) a seemingly corporate sense that age could not keep them from accomplishing great things, and (2) an extraordinary drive that we like to call the “do hard things” mentality.
As we explore the different ways these traits played out in the early years of some of our most famous forefathers, our hope is that we will all gain a greater vision of our own God-given potential and calling.
George Washington: “He Didn’t Mark Time”
We all know George Washington as the first President of the United States, the Commander of the Revolutionary Army and the Father of our Country. These are impressive titles and the jobs that went with them couldn’t be more difficult.
But a quick glance at Washington’s teenage and young adult years indicates that these weren’t his first big titles or even his first weighty responsibilities. Rather, what comes through is a man who, from his childhood, chose to do hard things, and then did those things to the best of his ability.
According to the George Washington Bicentennial Committee (WBC), Washington was born into a “middling rank” family, lost his father when he was 11, and was never considered particularly bright or educated by his peers. Nevertheless, he developed a “passion for education [that] caused him to concentrate on hard study” and he mastered geometry, trigonometry, and surveying by the time he was 16 years old.
At the age of 17, Washington received his first big job when Lord Thomas Fairfax, one of the largest landowners in Virginia (we’re talking 5.3 million acres here), named him official surveyor for Culpepper County, Virginia.
At the time surveyors were some of the highest paid workers in the country, second only to trial lawyers. This means that Washington, at age 17, was earning today’s equivalent of over $100,000 a year.
Don’t get this wrong. Washington wasn’t an ornament who sat in an office while adult men did the real work. His journals reflect the rigor of frontier life and the WBC describes the appointment as “the fitting of a man’s tasks to the square young shoulder of a boy without cutting those tasks to a boy’s measure.”
Washington was a man at 17 years old.
Three years later Washington received his next big responsibility when the governor of Virginia, Robert Dinwiddie, appointed him district adjutant of the militia, with the rank of major.
Then, when word came that the French were encroaching on Ohio territory, Governor Dinwiddie chose young Major Washington to lead a mid-winter expedition to assess French military strength and intentions, and to warn the French to leave.
We don’t know about you, but to us traveling hundreds of miles in the middle of winter to tell a large garrison of French soldiers to pack up and leave doesn’t sound very easy or appealing. That’s because it wasn’t.
Nevertheless, 21-year-old Washington not only successfully carried out this mission, but also continued to serve as a primary negotiator and principle actor throughout the French and Indian War.
By age 22 he had been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and by age 23 he was Commander in Chief of the entire Virginia Militia. He’d been shaving for less than a decade, but no one seemed to notice, and we’re sure he never mentioned it.
Perhaps the WBC put it best when they wrote, “[Washington] did not mark time in any of the important positions of his life…. Just as [he] stepped into a man-sized job as a surveyor, so when he accepted Governor Dinwiddie’s mission to Ohio he stepped not only into a man-sized task but into a path which led, as we now are able to trace it, directly to the American independence, of which he was the chosen instrument.”
As The Twig Is Bent, So Grows The Tree
Even if we’d never read a history book and were forced to go solely off of what we now know about the first 23 years of his life, we’d be fools not to predict that George Washington would grow up to be somebody. In fact, we might even insist that he’d become President someday — even bet on it.
That’s because, inside, we all know that young adulthood is not some mystical time period that has no effect on the rest of our lives. These years are the profound shapers of our lives. Here we set our direction, develop habits, and build momentum. As an old saying goes, “As a twig is bent, so grows the tree.”
This understanding is what our founding fathers had in common. It was the secret to their greatness. They put into practice the principle of Lamentations 3:27, “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.”
As young adults they adopted the determination and high ideals that went on to characterize their entire lives. Their history-making adult years were directly connected to their focused years as young adults.
It is no coincidence that the same Samuel Adams who organized the Boston Tea Party at age 51 wrote his master’s thesis in defense of the people’s liberties at age 21.
It is no coincidence that David Farragut, who became the U.S. Navy’s first Admiral at age 65, was given command of his first ship at age 12.
It is no coincidence that Alexander Hamilton, who became our nation’s first Secretary of the Treasury at age 34, was a clerk in a counting house at age 13.
Likewise, it is no coincidence that, as the primary author of the Federalist Papers at age 32, Hamilton had already been publishing political pamphlets since he was 19.
And, of course, it is no surprise that the same George Washington who became the Commander-in-Chief of the Revolutionary Army at age 43, was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Virginia Militia 20 years earlier.
A Revolution Worth Fighting
Of course, it’s one thing to understand this. It’s a whole different thing to apply it to our own lives. But if our desire is to impact this world for Christ, we have to.
We can learn a lot from our forefathers. They lived in a time very different from our own, but their example couldn’t be more relevant. In a world that is looking to our generation for direction and leadership and finding a bunch of kidults, the commitment to do hard things as young adults is a much-needed revolution.
Don’t get us wrong. Our generation won’t be shooting guns or throwing tea in the ocean. Our enemy today is not King George. Rather we do battle with a culture that looks down on true adulthood and celebrates immaturity and irresponsibility.
In 1 Timothy 4:12, Paul writes, “Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.” As followers of Christ, we are called to a higher standard.
We need to be honest with ourselves. Is how we’re spending our time now preparing us for what we want to become? Are we doing hard things now that will equip us for greater things God may have for us in the future? These are the fundamental questions for this season of our lives.
Historian Peter Henriques, author of Realistic Visionary: A Portrait of George Washington, put it this way: “Washington became the man he strove to be.”
Henriques’ statement is not only true of Washington and the rest our forefathers, but it’s also true about us. We will become the men and women we strive to be.
Like our forefathers, this generation faces a crisis and an opportunity. A crisis, in the sense that we can no longer afford to avoid responsibility, and an opportunity, in the sense that we can choose today to buckle down and “do hard things” for the glory of God. The future of our nation and our world depends on it.
http://www.therebelution.com/blog/2006/12/becoming-men-feats-of-our-forefathers-2/
20 September 2010
Myth of Adolescence (Part 2)
http://www.therebelution.com/blog/2005/08/myth-of-adolescence-part-2/
In Part 1 of this series, I wrote of the great elephants of India, who, although they have the physical capacity to uproot trees during the day, can be restrained all night long by a piece of twine and a twig. How is this possible?
The elephant’s training begins when it is still young and considerably less powerful. Removed from its mother, the elephant is then shackled with an iron chain to a large tree. For days and weeks on end, the baby elephant strains against its restraints, only to find that all exertion is useless. Then slowly, over a period of several weeks, sometimes months, smaller chains and smaller trees are used. Eventually, you can use a piece of twine and a small branch, and the great beast will not budge. Its mind is fully committed to the idea that it cannot go anywhere when there is something around its right hind leg.
And so I ask my generation, individually and corporately, “What is holding us back?” History demonstrates that we are far more capable than we think we are. Our failure to realize substantial achievement at early ages is due, not to any innate inadequacies on our part, but rather to our social conditioning. American society, with its media-saturated youth culture, not only follows trends and fads, but it creates them. Classrooms, TV shows, magazines, and websites, are not only addressing us at the level of social expectations, but they are in fact dictating those expectations. They tell us how to act, think, and talk; they tell us what to wear, what to buy, and where to buy it; they tell us what to dream, what to value, and what to hate. We are being squeezed into a mold where there is no room for Christian character or competence. And as the famous proverb goes, “As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.”
In what could be considered the most maddening aspect of this crisis, not all areas of maturity are being stunted. In a powerful demonstration of teenagers’ ability to meet the expectations set before them, we witness young people today reaching unprecedented levels of technological proficiency and sexual experience. It is ironic that many teenagers, while fluent in multiple computer languages, are not expected to carry on an intelligent conversation with an adult. It is heartbreaking that so many young girls, while constantly pressed to become more and more sexually alluring, are not expected to attain any notable level of character beneath the surface.
Our world cannot last another generation of Christian young people who fit in. The shackles of society are on our minds and hearts, not our ankles. We are held back only by the myth of adolescence and the lies of social expectations. If we would only recognize that our restraints are illusory, and then let God’s Word and all of history govern our sense of what we are capable of, we would be a force this world could no longer ignore.
We face a crisis and an opportunity. A crisis, in the sense that we can no longer afford to slowly drift towards adulthood, viewing the teen years as a vacation from responsibility, and an opportunity, in the sense that we can embrace life now and make a difference for the glory of God, and for the good our family, our nation, and our world. Look down at your “ankle” and see the pathetic contrivance that has been restraining you. Now renew your mind in the light of God’s Word and take a step forward.
[Continue to My iPod Is My Best Friend.]
18 September 2010
Myth of Adolescence (Part 1)
The trained elephant of India is a perfect picture of the power of psychological captivity. Tamed and utilized for its enormous strength, the great beast stands nearly 10 feet tall and weighs up to 5 tons when fully grown. Its tasks may include uprooting full-grown trees, hauling great boulders, and carrying enormous loads on its shoulders. And yet, when the day’s work is done and this powerful beast must be kept from wandering off during the night, its owner simply takes a piece of twine, attaches it to a small branch embedded in the ground, and ties it around the elephant’s right hind leg. Reason dictates that the elephant can easily snap the twine or pull the twig from ground, and yet the owner does not worry, fully confident that when morning comes he will find the animal exactly where he left him. And he does.
I’ll admit that upon first hearing of this practice, I couldn’t decide which was harder to believe: that the owner was confident, or that his confidence proved justified. A beast that can uproot trees is suddenly unable to pull up a twig? What is it about the piece of twine and the small branch that allows them to subdue all of the elephant’s power? I soon discovered that it had little to do with the twine around the elephant’s ankle, and everything to do with invisible shackles around its mind.
My contention is simple: The young adults of our generation are the elephant. Our twine is the 20th century concept of adolescence. Our twig is societal expectations. We stand restrained as a hurting world burns around us. Yet our twine and twig are of a recent origin. Young adults of the past were not so encumbered.
David Farragut, the U.S. Navy’s first admiral, became a midshipman on the warship Essex at the age of 10. At the age of 12, a mere boy by modern standards, Farragut was given command of his first ship, sailing a capture vessel, crew, and prisoners, back to the U.S. after a successful battle. Young David was given responsibility at an early age, and he rose to the occasion.
The father of our country, George Washington, though never thought to be particularly bright by his peers, began to master geometry, trigonometry, and surveying when he would have been a 5th or 6th grader in our day and ceased his formal education at 14 years of age. At the age of 16 he was named official surveyor for Culpepper County, Virginia. For the next three years, Washington earned nearly $100,000 a year (in modern purchasing power). By the age of 21, he had leveraged his knowledge of the surrounding land, along with his income, to acquire 2,300 acres of prime Virginian land.
These examples astound us in our day and age, but this is because we view life through an extra social category called ‘adolescence’, a category that would have been completely foreign to men and women just 100 years ago. Prior to the late 1800s there were only 3 categories of age: childhood, adulthood, and old age. It was only with the coming of the early labor movement with its progressive child labor laws, coupled with new compulsory schooling laws, that a new category, called adolescence, was invented. Coined by G. Stanley Hall, who is often considered the father of American psychology, ‘adolescence’ identified the artificial zone between childhood and adulthood when young people ceased to be children, but were no longer permitted by law to assume the normal responsibilities of adulthood, such as entering into a trade or finding gainful employment. Consequently, marriage and family had to be delayed as well, and so we invented ‘the teenager’, an unfortunate creature who had all the yearnings and capabilities of an adult, but none of the freedoms or responsibilities.
Teenage life became a 4-year sentence of continuing primary education and relative idleness known as ‘high school’ (four years of schooling which would later be repeated in the first two years of college). Abolished by law were the young Farraguts and young Washingtons, who couldn’t spare the time to be children any longer than necessary. Cultivated instead was the culture we know today, where young people are allowed, encouraged, and even forced to remain quasi-children for much longer than necessary.
The effect of this seismic shift in America’s philosophy of education is not limited to students in the public schools. As homeschoolers we may feel as though we have escaped the danger, but an honest evaluation proves that, as a whole, we also fall short of realizing our potential. After reading the examples of great men of our country’s past, we should recognize that there is no reason why a 13 to 18 year old cannot behave as a responsible adult. History proves it is possible. Diverse cultures confirm its validity. The only thing holding young people back in America today is the twine of this perpetual recess called adolescence and the twig of lowered social expectations. We expect immaturity and irresponsibility, from ourselves and from one another, and that is exactly what we get.
http://www.therebelution.com/blog/2005/08/myth-of-adolescence-part-1/
15 September 2010
"Understanding the New Atheism (Part 1)"
September 10, 2010, 12:36 pm » Sean McDowell
Atheism is on the move. At least that’s what Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and other so-called “New Atheists” are fighting for. While atheists have always been around, the pop-cultural influence of atheism has traditionally been rather minimal. Not anymore.
Read the rest here::
http://www.conversantlife.com/belief/understanding-the-new-atheism-part-1#continue
Atheism is on the move. At least that’s what Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and other so-called “New Atheists” are fighting for. While atheists have always been around, the pop-cultural influence of atheism has traditionally been rather minimal. Not anymore.
Read the rest here::
http://www.conversantlife.com/belief/understanding-the-new-atheism-part-1#continue
06 September 2010
"More teens becoming 'fake' Christians"
(CNN) -- If you're the parent of a Christian teenager, Kenda Creasy Dean has this warning:
Your child is following a "mutant" form of Christianity, and you may be responsible.
Dean says more American teenagers are embracing what she calls "moralistic therapeutic deism." Translation: It's a watered-down faith that portrays God as a "divine therapist" whose chief goal is to boost people's self-esteem.
Dean is a minister, a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and the author of "Almost Christian," a new book that argues that many parents and pastors are unwittingly passing on this self-serving strain of Christianity.
She says this "imposter'' faith is one reason teenagers abandon churches.
"If this is the God they're seeing in church, they are right to leave us in the dust," Dean says. "Churches don't give them enough to be passionate about."
Read the rest on this link::
Posted in: news article
05 September 2010
Free Will
"God created things which had free will.
That means creatures which can go either wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong; I cannot. If a thing is free to be good, it is free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible.
Why, then did God give them free will?
Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata - of creatures that worked like machines - would hardly be worth creating.
The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water.
And for that they must be free."
- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
That means creatures which can go either wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong; I cannot. If a thing is free to be good, it is free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible.
Why, then did God give them free will?
Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata - of creatures that worked like machines - would hardly be worth creating.
The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water.
And for that they must be free."
- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
26 August 2010
Top 10 Ways to Stay Focused
25 August 2010
So it’s getting to be that time of the year when you can count the days till school starts on one hand. YAY. New Classes! More Stressing about grades! College Apps! SATs! But seriously.. If you’re like me- or like most people- my guess is that you find it hard to stay 100% on track during the school year – It’s easy to get bogged down with class work, with the social scene- insecurity slips in so quickly, and before you even realized what’s happened you’ve all but forgotten your commitments, your identity, Jesus’ call on your life-and self-centeredness (that’s not a word but whatev…) has become the name of the game again.
Well, I thought it would be helpful to gather together some tools that Christians throughout the ages- (the years compulsory schooling and the most peculiar inventions known as “middle school” and “high school” have been around) have used to stay on track, and keep out of “civilian affairs.” (2 Timothy 2) So here’s my “Top 10” practical ways to stay focused. Some of them are tips, some are guidelines, some fall in the netherworld between goals and objectives- all are things that I’ve found useful, (or, if not that, things that I’ve heard other people say and thought “hey that’s a good idea” and was too lazy and forgetful to actually implement-) things to help you keep your head in the game. Feel free to comment and add your own to the list! SO. Here we go: (insert electric-guitar heavy ESPN theme music here)
10.Early Bird Gets the Worm!
C.T. Studd once wrote, “if you don’t desire to meet the Devil during the day, meet Jesus before dawn.” Consistent devotions is a given, but try doing it first thing in the morning (It’s hard. I know. I struggle just waking up in time to make it to 1st period 5 minutes late on ordinary days.) If you can’t find the time, I would try reading a chapter in the morning while you’re eating cereal or brushing your teeth. Or outside your classroom. So yeah. If you don’t know what to read there’s lots of daily devotions on our Interhigh Site…
But anyway- morning is key. Start off your day right. While you’re by yourself at home, or waiting on the bus, send up a prayer for the day, think about the challenges you’re going to face, ask God for strength.
9.Pray Every Day and You’ll Grow!
Duh. To God. For yourself – for strength to make it through the day, for God to grant you his spirit of power, of love and of self discipline. (2 Timothy 1), thanksgiving etc.
For others- for your non-Christian friends to have open hearts, for your Christian friends to stay strong, etc. And other stuff too. About everything. “Pray continually.” (1 Thessalonians 5:17)
8.Chocolate Factory!
(If this doesn’t make sense do you, don’t worry about it- you’ll only get this title if you saw Veggie Tales way too many times while you were getting babysat at church.) Make sure you have some Christian friends! If you don’t have any, than you’re pretty much dead meat. No. Seriously. Get together with some like-minded friends every week. If you’re not part of a youth group do some research and find one in your area. Pray for each other. Share what’s going on in your life- the sins you’re struggling through. If there’s other Christians at school ask some of them to keep you accountable – to check you if they see you stumbling. Ecclesiastes 4:12 says, “Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not easily broken.” Or think the book of Daniel- Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego.
7.Goals!
Set some! For example, something along the lines of: “I am going to share the gospel with at least one person between 1st and 4th period, one person during lunch, and one person between 5th and 6th period.” Well, set goals that are a little more realistic than that. Maybe like, invite one friend to my youth group bible study every week? Give some Christian Literature to a friend once a month? Give a gospel presentation to one friend in the year? Make some new friends? Other things of that nature…
6.Plan Ahead!
“Always be prepared to give a reason for the hope that you have,” wrote Apostle peter to some group of early Christians. (1 Peter 3:15) Put together a gospel presentation- integrate your testimony, include bible verses, write it all down and practice it until you know it backwards and sideways and can give it naturally and casually to your friends. Improve on it as you go on living life, as you learn more bible, as your knowledge grows- as you see what people get and what people don’t, what needs clarification and what you can shorten, etc. etc.
5.Read Up!
It’s important to know what you believe- and the best way to do this is to sit down and plough through some of the tens of thousands of books that smart Christians have been writing for 2000 years about why it makes sense to be a Christian. Biology teacher blasting “creationism”? Read Michael Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box, or Lee Strobel’s Case for a Creator. One of your friends hits you with the problem of evil or some tough spiritual question? Try Mere Christianity, The Case for Faith, Letters from a Skeptic. Or if you want some serious intellectual stimulation try J.P. Moreland’s Scaling the Secular City. For anything else check out the books written by William Lane Craig (also see his debate with Christopher Hitchens- on youtube) or Josh McDowell. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
4.Lists, Post – Its..
Write it all down! To remember and remind yourself. Write out a list of all the friends you’re going to try to pray for consistently, the friends you’re going to try to reach out to. Put post-its in your locker with big bold letters along the lines of: “JESUS LOVES YOUR FRIENDS TOO” and “YOU ARE THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT” and “WHAT IF YOU DIED TOMORROW,” or “WELL DONE GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT….. ??” Things like that. (and I’m only half joking.) Or bible verses. (The Great commission?) Or whatever works for you. Keep yourself reminded. Write things down so that your goals and objectives will be more concrete.
3.Spend!
Be generous. Take your friend out to lunch. Or pay for his school lunch Jesus says in Luke 16 to “use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourself, so that when it is gone you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.” Really. Generosity can be a powerful testament to the fact that you are in this world but not of it. Be generous in your time as well as your money- I know you would rather practice your guitar, or spend that extra time studying for that class you’re studying in- but always try to prioritize people. If an annoying friend tries to talk to you – be civil, engage, try to be loving.
2.”Don’t Worry. Be Happy.”
Strangely enough, the biblical Christian might have more in common with this laid-back, Bob Marley hippy attitude than you might think. Sometimes reflecting back on the day can be discouraging- seeing all the ways you messed up. Again. Always remember Romans 8- that “in all things (even sin) God works for the good of those who love him.” Trust- in God’s grace, in the work of the Holy Spirit.
1. BE CREATIVE!
Always be looking for new ways to reach out, to serve- creative things you can do that match the gifts God has given you and your unique situation on your campus. Maybe start a weekly after school bible study with a small group of friends. Or ask your small group leader to join you at your lunch hang out spot. Hand out Christian Literature at lunch? Play a Christian song with your band at your school talent show. Start a philosophy club to open up discussions! Walk down your local main street and engage random people in conversations about what they believe. I don’t know. Pray about it- and do something crazy and awesome. You got it.
from: http://www.interhigh.org/youth-culture/top-10-ways-to-stay-focused/
19 August 2010
09 August 2010
Reason for Everything
26 July 2010
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen! This is the southbound train to San Jose, and this is the Davis stop. We have a packed train today, so please find a seat as soon as possible.
Yes—it sure was crowded indeed, and with three bags and not enough hands, as well as three boys whom I had to keep an eye on, it was a nightmare trying to find seats last Friday on the Amtrak train.
Finally, we found seats at the end of the train and I found myself facing a pleasant looking lady with a binder, backpack, and Greek salad sprawled out about her.
“I’m sorry, but may I sit here?”
“Oh of course!”
And she hastened to make room for me in the seat beside her. After a few seconds, a conversation quickly snow balled and introductions were soon made. I learned that she was a UC Davis student who was traveling home to visit her younger sister for her birthday, and I explained that I was traveling to the Bay Area for my youth group and that my dad was a pastor. Fifteen minutes after leaving Davis, I realized that we were still talking at about 100 miles an hour, and we discovered that we were both extreme extroverts. One topic led to another, until I felt led to ask her:
“May I ask what religion your family practices?”
“Oh, my family is Greek Orthodox, but we’re not very devout even though my whole family has been baptized.”
Our conversation continued to unravel, and we began expounding on the topic of religion, and I found that she had many questions regarding Christianity and life. She began by asking,
“What do you think of the creation of the world? Do you believe in evolution? Or the Big Bang theory? Or a mixture of both?”
“Well, there are two different types of evolution argued by scientists—macro-evolution and micro-evolution. I do not believe in macro-evolution, which is the evolution of entire species forming from another species, like humans from monkeys. However, I believe in micro-evolution, which is the change of characteristics within a given species. I do believe that God the Creator created everything. I do not believe that everything came into existence on accident.”
“Now upon what basis do you believe that?”
“Well, let’s sa
y everything did come from a single amino acid, as many evolutionists claim. Where did that single amino acid come from? It had to have come from somewhere! Furthermore, the factors of which life can exist, for example, the placement of our solar system within the spirals of our galaxy, or the placement of our planet Earth within just our solar system, is so perfectly set for sustaining life that there is no way it could have come about by chance. There are so many different factors that even if one was slightly changed, life could not exist. The number is so great that it is 1 followed by so many zeroes it could cover entire sets of encyclopedias!”
“Yes, that is true…”
“I honestly think that it takes greater faith to believe that life is all an accident and is meaningless than to have faith in a God who created everything and is orchestrating everything behind the scenes.”
“Now that is an interesting statement! Wow….” And here I could just see the clog works of her mind churning and she seemed to be lost in thought. After a few moments, she turned to me again and said,
“So you think that everything is done for a reason? You think God has everything planned? Because then why did God create bad?!? And isn’t God just controlling us like puppets, then?”
“No, God did not create bad.”
“He did—he created Satan, didn’t he?”
“Yes he did, but he did not create bad. He created Satan, but Satan chose to do bad. God creates good things that turn bad. God created us humans to do good, but he also gave us free will and the choice to make out own decisions, which was his ultimate proclamation of love. He didn’t strap us to chairs and tell us what to do. So no, he is not controlling us. Hence the reason why evil continues to exist in the world.”
“Then what do you think is the purpose of life? Why did God even create us if we’re not going to even do what he intended? What is the purpose of going through all the suffering of this world? Why do we have to?”
“Well, let’s say we were all perfect creatures, and we were all just with God in heaven for all eternity, without ever experiencing life here on earth. We didn’t do anything wrong, and we all lived in harmony and glory. God would not have the chance to show us how great his love is for us—we would have no opportunity to come to him, to have a relationship with him, because we wouldn’t need him at all. I believe the purpose of life is to come closer to him through a relationship.”
“Then if God really does love us, why does he allow suffering?” She shared with me how one of her younger sisters had gone through a serious disease several years back which had almost caused her to lose her sister, and the question of her sister’s suffering had troubled her for so long.
“Well, through suffering, we are able to come closer to God. If everything was going fine and dandy, how would we grow closer to him? It is through suffering and pain, we are able to grow and get closer to him. Just as in relationships, hard times evoke the strongest points in relationships in which both grow, so does suffering bring us closer to God. Now, God does not wish pain and suffering upon us. But, he allows it to happen, because he wants what is best for us.”
“Yeah, that is true…” And she explained to me how she realized even within her own family and within her own sister’s life, there had been so much growth and strength which grew from that hard time. She grew silent for a time, and after a few moments turned to me once again and said,
“So then if God knew all this…all this evil was going to happen in the world, then why didn’t he just send Jesus into the world before? Why did he wait so long?”
“Well, God is a merciful God, and in the Old Testament you can see how many times he tried over and over again to bring his people back through prophets like Jonah did for Ninevah. God knew all along that Jesus was going to have to come and save us from our sins, but he still wanted to give us a chance. But, in his perfect timing and will, his plan unfolded.”
“So you think there is a reason for everything? You really think there has been a plan all along? Because I have a really hard time believing that all things—all aspects of life past and present relate together.”
“Yes, I do. I think we all have an omnipotent, omniscient, and loving God who has a master plan in which we all fit.”
“Yeah, I guess….like I think this talk with you was planned. See, I just barely missed the earlier train…by one minute. If I had made it onto that train, I wouldn’t be here right now talking to you…” she chuckled, “Maybe he wanted me to talk to you today…”
Wow! Hearing her say that blew my own mind away! The fact was I had almost gone on the next later train to the Bay Area, and if I had, I would not be sitting there in Car 1 of the southbound train talking to this precious soul. And it hit me so afresh that, wow, God really does have a reason for everything!
By that time, we had reached her final destination, and as she prepared to leave, I gave her a resource which I myself found very helpful—a lecture by Rob Bell called “Everything Is Spiritual” which I hoped would help her understand the supremacy and sovereignty of God in our world and how much he desires that in our lives. As she left the train, I silently prayed for this precious creation of God to open her heart and engage in a personal relationship with the Creator God of the universe who loved her so much!
As I sat back and breathed deeply after such a long conversation (well over an hour!), I was so thankful for the kind of training I have received through Interhigh and other worldview and apologetics training!! I also could not helping thinking what a great God we serve—a God who can use even the young to further His Kingdom and who is a faithful God in control of all things.
Soli Deo gloria!
“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:5
06 August 2010
No Harvesting
While the teens are at Mission Camp, the teachers aren't "Harvest"-ing. Kind of sad.
I think this the first time since, I can't remember when, we've broken the tradition OG-COD started of going to Harvest Crusades every year.
Greg... I'll miss you this year. But in all honesty... to me... it was never about you.
Posted in: harvestcrusade cod tradition
26 July 2010
Postcard from China!
Sent by Christine from across the sea with love for the youth group. ^^
Published with Blogger-droid v1.4.8
27 June 2010
Faith in Obedience
Faith, Feelings And Corrie Ten Boom
God revealed the gospel to us not only for our salvation from our sins, but “to bring about the obedience of faith” (RO 16.26).
Faith leads to obedience; obedience eventually produces feelings. In faith we obey God, even when we don’t feel like it, trusting that feelings will follow. Faith is the engine of the train and feelings are the caboose.
Corrie ten Boom discovered the principle of the obedience of faith.
While speaking in a church in Munich in 1947, she was approached by a man whom she recognized as a cruel guard from the Ravensbruck concentration camp where she and her sister had been sent after being arrested for hiding Jews in their home during the Nazi occupation of Holland.
Now he was in front of me, hand thrust out: “A fine message, fraulein! How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!
It was the first time since my release that I had been face to face with one of my captors and my blood seemed to freeze.
“You mentioned Ravensbruck in your talk,” he was saying. “I was a guard there. But since that time,” he went on, “I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fraulein–” again the hand came out–”will you forgive me?”
And I stood there–and could not. Betsie (her sister) had died in that place–could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking?
It could not have been many seconds that he stood there, hand held out, but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.
For I had to do it–I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us. “If you do not forgive men their trespasses,” Jesus says, “neither will your Father in Heaven forgive your trespasses.”
Still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. “Jesus, help me!” I prayed silently. “I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling.”
And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.
“I forgive you, brother!” I cried. “With all my heart!”
For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then. (© 1972 by Guideposts Associates, Inc.)
Faith obeys, feelings follow. Where do you need to obey God in faith today?
photo of Corrie ten Boom by www.radiotheatre.org/images
21 June 2010
Can't Turn This Worldview Thing Off
Check out this great article by Chuck Colson on worldview and how it colors even the way we watch movies.
It’s a short story about Chris who went to a worldview training camp and suddenly saw movies in a new light! It’s a fast read but very interesting! Hope it encourages you to pursue more worldview training!
Here is an excerpt:
“A few years ago, a teenager named Chris attended a worldview training program run by Summit Ministries. He learned a great deal and had a great time. But by the end of the intensive, two-week program, he was exhausted.
As Chris wrote to John Stonestreet, executive director of Summit, “I had never had to think so hard…before in my life! So I decided I was just going to veg out for the next few days.”
When some friends invited Chris to a movie, he thought it would be a good way to relax and recover from all that hard thinking. They went to see the latest version of War of the Worlds.
But the film wasn’t the mental vacation Chris expected it to be. As he explained in his letter, “Mr. Stonestreet, I tried to veg out during the movie, but I just couldn’t. I am watching it and thinking, ‘Wait a minute, that’s secular humanism, and wait a minute, that’s not true. And, what do they mean by that, and how do they know that’s true!’”
Chris then joked, “I just wanted you to know that you ruined my movie!”
After the film ended, Chris and his friends went out for food and talked about the themes in the movie. His friends were astonished at how much Chris had gotten out of the film. As he told Stonestreet, “They kept asking me, ‘How did you see that? How do you know all that stuff?’ It was a great conversation. And I [learned] I can’t just turn this worldview thing off!”’….
Read the rest of the story here: Can’t Turn This Worldview Thing Off
16 May 2010
09 May 2010
Garbage Fail Part Deux
Garbage Fail Part Deux
Originally uploaded by supawako
08 May 2010
Happy Mother's Day
Daniel, Joshua and Joanna put a lot of finger sweat into these origami flowers. Motivated by the Wonder Girls, "So Hot" we managed to make close to 70 flowers (lilies & tulips) in one night.
Hopefully Seo Jipsanim will use them in her flower arrangements for Sunday. *fingers crossed* as we hope she won't come in tomorrow morning; see the bag of paper flowers and chuck it in the trash can, thinking it was just garbage. That would bring tears to the toughest origami making man...
Now if I can just get this catchy tune out of my head... JOSHUA!!!!!
Posted in: vupc youthgroup mothersday flowers origami
23 April 2010
Resurrection Evidence Part I
Hi all!
Last Saturday was RiSE. You guys couldn't go but I spent some time figuring it out the talk William Lane Craig gave and thought that it would help you too! I'll try to keep it a little short, but trying to cover what he said AND explaining it will take a while. Get ready for a looooooonnnnggg email. This is just the first part.
So first:
He said that there are 2 ways through which people can know Jesus:
1) through historical evidence
2) through their own experiences
The Historical Evidence
Going over the first way, he talks about 2 points about how you can prove that the resurrection is historically true:
I) through the 4 widely accepted facts
II) by looking at the problems of the other explanations that try to explain those 4 facts (which the skit was about)
I'll just cover the 4 facts in this email and cover the other stuff later. This is going to be long. oi.
I) The 4 Facts
1) Jesus died.
2) Jesus was buried.
3) Jesus' tomb was later empty.
4) Jesus was seen by the disciples and many others.
Then he goes over the evidence for each of these 4 facts.
1) Jesus died.
It doesn't make sense to say that Jesus didn't actually die. During this time, the Roman Empire was really big and really strong. These Roman soldiers would have not messed up. They were highly trained to carry out these punishments and to kill.
Also, Jesus was beaten to the very inch of His life and then nailed on a cross. Then the soldiers pierced His side. Why this was proof of Jesus death is that we all have water and blood cells in our system, but it's all mixed up so when we bleed it's red. But when we die, the water separates from the blood. So they pierced Jesus to see whether or not the water and blood separated and it says in the Bible, water and blood flowed out.
Dr. Craig also talks about the 5 early, independent sources that talk about Jesus death. And he mentions, Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, and letters of Paul.
Why is it important that these sources are early?
When the document or source is written earlier, closer to the time of the event, it is more reliable.
Like if I wrote a diary entry about my 7th birthday one week after and then I wrote another diary entry about it 3 years after, than the entry I wrote closer to the date of my 7th birthday is more reliable. Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, and Paul's letters were written really, really close to the time of Jesus' death and resurrection. The earliest copies of documents of Plato or the Odyssey we have were written like centuries apart from the time of Plato's life and the actually time the Odyssey was written, and we consider those accounts to be completely accurate. So, the New Testament is then so much more accurate.
What does it mean that these books were independent?
We don't realize it because all the books of the Bible are together, but when they were first written, these books were written separately. This means that when the Book of Mark was written, it wasn't written at the same place or exactly the same time as when Luke was written. Paul didn't talk to John when we wrote his letters and John didn't work together with Matthew over Facebook. They were independent (they didn't help each other write them) and they all talked about Jesus death.
He says we can know they are independent because the stories are different. I'm sure you've seen when you read the books that the stories in Matthew aren't quite the same as the stories in John. Some stories are the same, but they are also a lot of differences. If they all worked together to write them, it wouldnt make sense to make them different. Why would they? And why would they have 4 different ones anyway? If they really worked together, it'd be easier to just have one.
He also gives a specific example in Matthew, where Matthew uses different words to describe an event (what he was saying about Matthean words). This is because Matthew didnt know how to describe certain things in his words, in the language he was used to. And because he wrote the book years after Jesus life and death, he used other sources to help him.
It's sort of like this: In Korean the word for my mom's sister is different from the word my dad's sister which is different from my mom's brother's wife which is different from my dad's brother's wife. In english it's all, "Aunt." But in Korean, all four are different. But say I wanted to really describe that I'm talking about my dad's older brother's sister (keun omma) and not my mom's sister (Eemo), so I borrowed the word for it from Korean and used it in English, using "Keun Omma" instead of "Aunt."
So Matthew used different words, words he wouldn't have used normally or words he wouldn't have known, showing that he borrowed words from a different source.
And this is different from how the other Gospels described the event. They all used different sources to write their books. So we can know that they wrote them separately.
Tired yet? There's still more to go!
2) Jesus was buried.
Dr. Craig talks about Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph of Arimathea was a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin, you know, the people who went out, got Jesus captured and killed? But yet in the Gospels, it says that Joseph of Arimathea buried Jesus' body. If Christians were just making the story up, then it would be a better story to say that Mary buried the body, or that one of the disciples came and buried the body, or even the angels of the heavens came down and lift the body into a holy tomb, or something. But even though, the Bible says this man - one of the very people who condemned Jesus - buried Jesus' body. Why? Most likely because it actually happened.
Also the process of burying is detailed. Dr. Craig mentioned briefly that there would have been a lot of heavy bandages wrapping Jesus' body.
The tomb was covered by a heavyyyy boulder and it was guarded by Roman guards who were placed there because they were afraid that people would desecrate or do something to the tomb because Jesus was such a controversial person, even back then.
And again, 5 early independent sources (like I wrote about earlier) all say that Jesus was buried.
3) Jesus' tomb was found empty.
This observation was reported by women. Back in those days, women were seen as unreliable. They couldn't even testify in a court of law. Again it goes back to the question, why would they have written that women found the tomb? If this story was all made up, it would be easier to believe for the people at that time to hear that men saw the tomb empty first. To say that women found the empty tomb first would not help their case but rather hurt it. It's almost the same thing as saying that a color-blind person told us about how pretty the rainbow in the sky was yesterday. So why did they say the two Marys found the tomb? Again, most likely because it actually happened that way.
5 early, independent sources talk about it too.
And if the tomb really wasn't empty, why didn't the Jewish Sanhedrin bring the body of Jesus out when the disciples began proclaiming that Jesus rose from the dead? They tried so hard to stop the Christians, stoning them, presecuting them, killing them, but they could have easily gone to the tomb, brought out the body and say, "You crazy people, the body is right here! Rose form the dead? Crazy!" But they didn't. Why? Because they body wasn't there!
4) Jesus was seen by his disciples.
Not only the 11 disciples but also by his other followers that He had claimed they saw Jesus alive on the third day after His death. There wasn't anything in the Jewish tradition, no stories or past knowledge or ideas in their culture to imagine that the Messiah would rise from the dead. They believed that everyone at the end of the world would come back but not just one man on a certain day. Once Jesus died, they would have considered it to be the end.
So to say that they made up the story or it was hallucinations wouldn't make sense because no one in that time would have ever had the idea that something like that would ever happen. Hallucinations come from thoughts you have in your head. How can you hallucinate something about dogs if you don't know what a dog is or looks like in the first place?
And if they made up the story, why would the disciples willing die and suffer for a lie they made up? So few times people die for the truth. How many people would die for lies?
and that's that part. oi.
Last Saturday was RiSE. You guys couldn't go but I spent some time figuring it out the talk William Lane Craig gave and thought that it would help you too! I'll try to keep it a little short, but trying to cover what he said AND explaining it will take a while. Get ready for a looooooonnnnggg email. This is just the first part.
So first:
He said that there are 2 ways through which people can know Jesus:
1) through historical evidence
2) through their own experiences
The Historical Evidence
Going over the first way, he talks about 2 points about how you can prove that the resurrection is historically true:
I) through the 4 widely accepted facts
II) by looking at the problems of the other explanations that try to explain those 4 facts (which the skit was about)
I'll just cover the 4 facts in this email and cover the other stuff later. This is going to be long. oi.
I) The 4 Facts
1) Jesus died.
2) Jesus was buried.
3) Jesus' tomb was later empty.
4) Jesus was seen by the disciples and many others.
Then he goes over the evidence for each of these 4 facts.
1) Jesus died.
It doesn't make sense to say that Jesus didn't actually die. During this time, the Roman Empire was really big and really strong. These Roman soldiers would have not messed up. They were highly trained to carry out these punishments and to kill.
Also, Jesus was beaten to the very inch of His life and then nailed on a cross. Then the soldiers pierced His side. Why this was proof of Jesus death is that we all have water and blood cells in our system, but it's all mixed up so when we bleed it's red. But when we die, the water separates from the blood. So they pierced Jesus to see whether or not the water and blood separated and it says in the Bible, water and blood flowed out.
Dr. Craig also talks about the 5 early, independent sources that talk about Jesus death. And he mentions, Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, and letters of Paul.
Why is it important that these sources are early?
When the document or source is written earlier, closer to the time of the event, it is more reliable.
Like if I wrote a diary entry about my 7th birthday one week after and then I wrote another diary entry about it 3 years after, than the entry I wrote closer to the date of my 7th birthday is more reliable. Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, and Paul's letters were written really, really close to the time of Jesus' death and resurrection. The earliest copies of documents of Plato or the Odyssey we have were written like centuries apart from the time of Plato's life and the actually time the Odyssey was written, and we consider those accounts to be completely accurate. So, the New Testament is then so much more accurate.
What does it mean that these books were independent?
We don't realize it because all the books of the Bible are together, but when they were first written, these books were written separately. This means that when the Book of Mark was written, it wasn't written at the same place or exactly the same time as when Luke was written. Paul didn't talk to John when we wrote his letters and John didn't work together with Matthew over Facebook. They were independent (they didn't help each other write them) and they all talked about Jesus death.
He says we can know they are independent because the stories are different. I'm sure you've seen when you read the books that the stories in Matthew aren't quite the same as the stories in John. Some stories are the same, but they are also a lot of differences. If they all worked together to write them, it wouldnt make sense to make them different. Why would they? And why would they have 4 different ones anyway? If they really worked together, it'd be easier to just have one.
He also gives a specific example in Matthew, where Matthew uses different words to describe an event (what he was saying about Matthean words). This is because Matthew didnt know how to describe certain things in his words, in the language he was used to. And because he wrote the book years after Jesus life and death, he used other sources to help him.
It's sort of like this: In Korean the word for my mom's sister is different from the word my dad's sister which is different from my mom's brother's wife which is different from my dad's brother's wife. In english it's all, "Aunt." But in Korean, all four are different. But say I wanted to really describe that I'm talking about my dad's older brother's sister (keun omma) and not my mom's sister (Eemo), so I borrowed the word for it from Korean and used it in English, using "Keun Omma" instead of "Aunt."
So Matthew used different words, words he wouldn't have used normally or words he wouldn't have known, showing that he borrowed words from a different source.
And this is different from how the other Gospels described the event. They all used different sources to write their books. So we can know that they wrote them separately.
Tired yet? There's still more to go!
2) Jesus was buried.
Dr. Craig talks about Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph of Arimathea was a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin, you know, the people who went out, got Jesus captured and killed? But yet in the Gospels, it says that Joseph of Arimathea buried Jesus' body. If Christians were just making the story up, then it would be a better story to say that Mary buried the body, or that one of the disciples came and buried the body, or even the angels of the heavens came down and lift the body into a holy tomb, or something. But even though, the Bible says this man - one of the very people who condemned Jesus - buried Jesus' body. Why? Most likely because it actually happened.
Also the process of burying is detailed. Dr. Craig mentioned briefly that there would have been a lot of heavy bandages wrapping Jesus' body.
The tomb was covered by a heavyyyy boulder and it was guarded by Roman guards who were placed there because they were afraid that people would desecrate or do something to the tomb because Jesus was such a controversial person, even back then.
And again, 5 early independent sources (like I wrote about earlier) all say that Jesus was buried.
3) Jesus' tomb was found empty.
This observation was reported by women. Back in those days, women were seen as unreliable. They couldn't even testify in a court of law. Again it goes back to the question, why would they have written that women found the tomb? If this story was all made up, it would be easier to believe for the people at that time to hear that men saw the tomb empty first. To say that women found the empty tomb first would not help their case but rather hurt it. It's almost the same thing as saying that a color-blind person told us about how pretty the rainbow in the sky was yesterday. So why did they say the two Marys found the tomb? Again, most likely because it actually happened that way.
5 early, independent sources talk about it too.
And if the tomb really wasn't empty, why didn't the Jewish Sanhedrin bring the body of Jesus out when the disciples began proclaiming that Jesus rose from the dead? They tried so hard to stop the Christians, stoning them, presecuting them, killing them, but they could have easily gone to the tomb, brought out the body and say, "You crazy people, the body is right here! Rose form the dead? Crazy!" But they didn't. Why? Because they body wasn't there!
4) Jesus was seen by his disciples.
Not only the 11 disciples but also by his other followers that He had claimed they saw Jesus alive on the third day after His death. There wasn't anything in the Jewish tradition, no stories or past knowledge or ideas in their culture to imagine that the Messiah would rise from the dead. They believed that everyone at the end of the world would come back but not just one man on a certain day. Once Jesus died, they would have considered it to be the end.
So to say that they made up the story or it was hallucinations wouldn't make sense because no one in that time would have ever had the idea that something like that would ever happen. Hallucinations come from thoughts you have in your head. How can you hallucinate something about dogs if you don't know what a dog is or looks like in the first place?
And if they made up the story, why would the disciples willing die and suffer for a lie they made up? So few times people die for the truth. How many people would die for lies?
and that's that part. oi.
04 April 2010
Words That Wound
DOWNLOAD.
:D
HAPPY EASTER!
"Greatly To Be Praised" by FEE
VERSE 1
Lift your eyes, lift your eyes to the One
Who’s reigning over us, for He has overcome
Fill the skies, fill the skies with a song
As heaven sings along, to glorify the Son
PRE-CHORUS
Who is like You, none compare
There’s no one like our God
CHORUS 1
Great and greatly to be praised
Name above all other names
Powerful and strong to save
Hallelujah, our God reigns
Our God reigns
CHORUS 2
Glory in the highest place
King of mercy, God of grace
Together let the earth proclaim
Hallelujah, our God reigns
Our God reigns
VERSE 2
Tell the world, tell the world of the love
He’s lavished over us, His daughters and His sons
Made alive, made alive, now we’re free
Rescued and redeemed, the victory is won
BRIDGE
We lift our eyes up, behold the Son
Lift our voices, and sing as one
Hallelujah, our God reigns
:D
HAPPY EASTER!
"Greatly To Be Praised" by FEE
VERSE 1
Lift your eyes, lift your eyes to the One
Who’s reigning over us, for He has overcome
Fill the skies, fill the skies with a song
As heaven sings along, to glorify the Son
PRE-CHORUS
Who is like You, none compare
There’s no one like our God
CHORUS 1
Great and greatly to be praised
Name above all other names
Powerful and strong to save
Hallelujah, our God reigns
Our God reigns
CHORUS 2
Glory in the highest place
King of mercy, God of grace
Together let the earth proclaim
Hallelujah, our God reigns
Our God reigns
VERSE 2
Tell the world, tell the world of the love
He’s lavished over us, His daughters and His sons
Made alive, made alive, now we’re free
Rescued and redeemed, the victory is won
BRIDGE
We lift our eyes up, behold the Son
Lift our voices, and sing as one
Hallelujah, our God reigns
Posted in: song
01 April 2010
31 March 2010
24 March 2010
16 March 2010
Living Unplugged
By Elaine Chen, InterHigh Mentor, Senior @ UC Berkeley
Does separation from your cell phone bring you great anxiety? Does studying ever end up becoming a time of “see how many things I can look up on Wikipedia”? Or has your hearing been severely impaired because of the amount of music you’re blaring into your ears every spare moment in the day? I can relate.
Reading this article reminded me of the downward spiral we’re all heading in with the advent of newer and faster technology. Our world is more and more becoming a place where silence and free time is uncomfortable. This quote really stood out to me: “The alternative to all this fiddling is being alone with your own thoughts, which terrifies people used to constant stimulation provided by our media-saturated culture.” How true is that! I can recall days growing up, and even nowadays, where instead of having to deal with my onslaught of thoughts I drowned it all out with television, the Internet, and my iPod. And you know what, it’s becoming easier and easier to do this. Being able to actually hear God past all the noise we surround ourselves with is a challenge (I mean, we can’t even hear ourselves at times!)
I think about this passage: 1 King 19:11-13
11 The LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.”
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
God was a gentle whisper. Yet how can we let that voice in if we fill our ears instead with the constant noise of our iPods?
Something that I did over the summer with my home group at church was to do a week-long Media Fast. It was inspired by this hilarious article in the LA Times about a teacher who did something similar with her middle school students. Essentially, all of her middle school students went crazy: and what was revealed was the severe lack of ability to relate to others. How pathetic that our relationships, our creativity, and our time are so easily stifled by the media we consume.
So what can we, as counter-cultural Christians do to reject the ways of the world and continue to strive for Christlike-ness? Here are some ways:
- PRAYER. Praying for the different ways that people can be negatively affected by media overconsumption (i.e. video game violence, the increase in sexual images onscreen, Internet addiction, escapism… etc.) can help us recognize the great need this world is in to hear God’s voice over all others.
- Reading the Bible. How well do you know God’s word? Well enough to recite amazing chapters like Romans 8 or 1 Corinthians 13? Are we truly placing his law and Word within our hearts? Or are we more concerned with memorizing lyrics of the newest hit songs?
- Meditate over Scripture. “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Psalm 119:103)
- Hang out with peers. Share your devotionals, pray together, read together.
- Write a letter… by hand! When was the last time we did this?
- Read a book. Some good suggestions: Shadow of the Almighty (Elisabeth Eliot), Loving God (Chuck Colson), Mere Christianity (C. S. Lewis), Lord of the Rings (J. R. R. Tolkien) — there’s so many good books out there!
- Exercise / play sports! Our physical health is also very important to God (1 Corinthians 6:19)
- Share the gospel with someone. Instead of going to the movies with a friend, try having a conversation with someone about your abstention from media and why you’re doing what you’re doing. Maybe it’ll open up an opportunity to share the gospel!
More encouraging articles:
Can you unplug yourself? Or will you let yourself be pulled by the masses instead of what God may be calling you to do? I pray that Christ can help us do the former! We definitely need a lot of His help.
03 March 2010
28 February 2010
RiSE Event in Berkeley
Hey guys!
So I don't know if you guys know this or not, but I'm involved in a ministry with my Berkeley church that reaches out to local, small youth groups (much like yourselves). What we try to do is offer Apologetics training (like the presentation I showed you last winter break), worldview lessons, connect them with other Christians in the area, and provide college mentors.
How does this apply to you?
Weeeeeellllllllll, we're holding our spring kick-off event on April 17th. It's a FREE event. It'll be a night of praise, worship, and games. But the best part is that our main speaker is Dr. William Lane Craig! William Lane Craig is a famous theologian and Christian leader. He is such a great leader that the world's top atheist leaders are afraid of debating him (because he ends up winning!). (I showed a video on this blog of him.)
He's going to be talking about the Evidence of the Resurrection. It's open to Christians and non-Christians, so that everyone can invite their friends!
HERE and here are the links to our website that gives more info about the night. And you'll have to go to that link and sign up too.
It's going to be at 5 pm on a Saturday night. I thought it would be cool if you guys could make a day trip out of it.
Here is a trailer for it!
What do you think?
So I don't know if you guys know this or not, but I'm involved in a ministry with my Berkeley church that reaches out to local, small youth groups (much like yourselves). What we try to do is offer Apologetics training (like the presentation I showed you last winter break), worldview lessons, connect them with other Christians in the area, and provide college mentors.
How does this apply to you?
Weeeeeellllllllll, we're holding our spring kick-off event on April 17th. It's a FREE event. It'll be a night of praise, worship, and games. But the best part is that our main speaker is Dr. William Lane Craig! William Lane Craig is a famous theologian and Christian leader. He is such a great leader that the world's top atheist leaders are afraid of debating him (because he ends up winning!). (I showed a video on this blog of him.)
He's going to be talking about the Evidence of the Resurrection. It's open to Christians and non-Christians, so that everyone can invite their friends!
HERE and here are the links to our website that gives more info about the night. And you'll have to go to that link and sign up too.
It's going to be at 5 pm on a Saturday night. I thought it would be cool if you guys could make a day trip out of it.
Here is a trailer for it!
What do you think?
21 February 2010
Greatness
Sorry for not posting for so long. Like any of you read this regularly anyway. :PEveryone wants to be great, to be known for something, to be looked up to.
In our world, greatness is achieved by being the best. The smartest, the fastest, the most beautiful or the most successful. Everyday, our parents tell us that we have to be the best in our classes, get straight A's and get a perfect score on our SATs. At school, the coolest, the prettiest, the funniest, the most athletic and the most social are the ones that seem to have the most friends and it seems like they have it all. It seems like this is how things are supposed to be; it seems like this is the way to be happy. And we think, "If only I was better, than I could be happy too."
Imagine a staircase. In this world, the people higher on the staircase look down on the people lower on the stairs and the people above are people to be beaten and pushed aside. This is how this world defines greatness.
But there is a fatal flaw, a big problem, with this type of thinking. This type of thinking leads to judging and comparison. Basically, by trying to be the best, you need to be better than someone else. So automatically, you are going to judge people and measure yourself against them. The people around you become enemies. You have be be better than them. You have to beat them. So instead of loving them like God commands us to do, you hate them if they are better than you and you think they are worth less than you when they don't do as well as you.
Your life becomes self-centered. It's all about you and how you can be better, greater, cooler, smarter, prettier, etc. You become self-absorbed and self-absorption leads to self-destruction. You may never be able to trust other people again, never be able to hold onto relationships because you are always jealous of some and always feeling like you're too good to hang out with others.
As a Christian, God calls us to be humble and love everyone. He wants us to consider every person out there better than ourselves. God's view of greatness is reverse than the world. The people who choose to be at the bottom of the staircase, serving and loving others above themselves, THIS is true greatness.
In the parable of the workers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16), Jesus says:
"So the last will be first, and the first will be last."God says that He will make the first, the best of this world, and make them last, and those who make themselves last will be first. He clearly shows that greatness is not measured by your achievements and your skills, but by your love, mercy, and humility. In Romans, Apostle Paul says, "It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy."
In Philipians 2:3-11,
Jesus, who is the King, our God, our Lord, Supreme in Heaven, made Himself a servant. He bent down and washed the dirty, dusty feet of His disciples, He went around and lived without money, depending on other people's kindness to get by, He stayed with the kind of people everyone hated, He talked to those everyone ignored, and He ate with the people who no one wanted to be with. And when these people blamed Him with crimes He didn't commit and condemned Him to death on the cross, instead of protesting, instead of calling His armies of angels to punish everyone, Jesus obediently died.3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
The world would see Jesus as foolish, even stupid. But God does not. God, rather, exalted Jesus to the highest place and raised His name above all names.
So, we are called to follow Jesus. God wants us to be obedient, to be humble, to be like a servant. This is greatness.
Written by Mark Altrogge