Jesus Among Secular Gods

The problem though is that in actuality you don't read the Bible through the lens of Jesus. You understand the Bible as being inerrant, so that if the Bible says that God commanded His followers to publicly stone people to death or to commit genocide then you believe that to be historical. That though is completely incompatible with Jesus' command to love your enemy, turn the other cheek etc, The enemy at that time was considered to be the Romans, and that specifically at the time was who Jesus would be referring to. Your understanding of inerrancy is also completely incompatible with Jesus telling them to release the woman caught in adultery.

It is a choice. As a Christian you can believe that the "Word" of God is a library of books or it is Jesus. It can't be both.

For that matter the Bible says that in Jesus the "Word" was made flesh. Neither the Bible nor Jesus says that the "Word" was embodied by a book.

Phat writes:Do you believe that He has absolute power?

Phat writes:Who do *you* say that I am?You always duck and dodge this one, preferring to teach the Bible from a neutral and objectively independent standpoint.

jar writes:Have I ever posted that I agree with the Nicene Creed?

Phat writes:So a question to ask you is this: What is the difference between a Biblical Christian (by your definition the CCoI) and a modern-day Anglican,(we used to discuss John Shelby Spong if I recall correctly) and/or Episcopalian Christian.

Phat writes:You are nothing more than a secular humanist who is not religious nor has any belief in a higher power yet who feeds the poor, thinks of others before himself, and is unchanged except through his daily actions.

Phat writes:To me, it makes no sense to simply save everybody right off the bat and then expect them to have to earn credit through what they do versus what they could have done. How would anyone know they had worked hard enough or done enough? It would cause anxiety in life...forever wondering whether to spend money on a Starbucks latte or give it away to yet another homeless person begging outside of the supermarket.

jar writes:Why would anyone strive to be more than a secular humanist who is not religious nor has any belief in a higher power yet who feeds the poor, thinks of others before himself, and is unchanged except through his daily actions?
I do not want to be more than any other person, only more than I was yesterday.

jar writes:If you know I subscribe to the Nicene Creed and what the first two words of the Nicene Creed happen to say, why are you asking me what I believe?

Phat writes:Because I find it amazing that for all the times you have read the Bible, you get something different out of it that the apologists, some of whom I respect, can't find.

Wiki writes:Some prominent modern apologists are Douglas Groothuis, Frederick Copleston, John Lennox, Walter R. Martin, Dinesh D'Souza, Douglas Wilson, Cornelius Van Til, Gordon Clark, Francis Schaeffer, Greg Bahnsen, Edward John Carnell, James White, R.C. Sproul, Hank Hanegraaff, Ravi Zacharias, Alister McGrath, Lee Strobel, Josh McDowell, Peter Kreeft, G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, Hugh Ross, David Bentley Hart, Gary Habermas, Norman Geisler Scott Hahn and RC Kunst.[17]
Notable apologists within the Catholic Church include Bishop Robert Barron,[18] G. K. Chesterton,[19] Dr. Scott Hahn, Patrick Madrid, Kenneth Hensley,[20] Karl Keating, Ronald Knox, Peter Kreeft.

Websters writes:Definition of apologist
: one who speaks or writes in defense of someone or something

Wiki writes:Christian apologetics (Greek: , "verbal defence, speech in defence")[1] is a branch of Christian theology that defends Christianity against objections.[2]Christian apologetics has taken many forms over the centuries, starting with Paul the Apostle in the early church and Patristic writers such as Origen, Augustine of Hippo, Justin Martyr and Tertullian, then continuing with writers such as Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham and Anselm of Canterbury during Scholasticism.Blaise Pascal was an active Christian apologist before the Age of Enlightenment. In the modern period, Christianity was defended through the efforts of many authors such as G. K. Chesterton and C. S. Lewis, as well as G. E. M. Anscombe.

Rom 9:1-19 writes:I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, 2 that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh, 4 who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; 5 of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen.
6 But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. For they are not all Israel who are of Israel, 7 nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, "In Isaac, your seed shall be called." 8 That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed. 9 For this is the word of promise: "At this time I will come and Sarah shall have a son."10 And not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one man, even by our father Isaac 11(for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls), 12 it was said to her, "The older shall serve the younger." 13 As it is written, "Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated."
14 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! 15 For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion." 16 So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth." 18 Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.

jar writes:The difference Phat is that I am honest about what is actually in the Bible while the Apologists make stuff up to make the Bible say what they want it to say rather than be honest and admit it actually says what is written.

jar writes:They are Apologists; people whose sole profession is to find ways to apologize for the fact that the Bible says what is actually written rather than what their fantasy demands.

Phat writes:What criticism do you, whose mother was Jewish, have concerning Paul's apologetics concerning the hardening of Israel's heart?

Phat writes:You are essentially claiming that our gun-toting Eisenhower conservative ( Jay from Deep South Texas )is as honest as the day is long in regards to reporting and defending what the Bible actually literally says while the whole mess of Apologists which I just googled a bunch of their names are liars defending a fantasy.

Phat writes:I'm beginning to suspect that at least three of you (jar,ringo, and Stile) say that you would be open to any objective methodology

yet wouldn't like God if He were as we believers see Him as.

Which means to me that you were indeed meant to be different.

Phat writes:I cant see a whole religion lying to itself.

Phat writes:I cant see a whole religion lying to itself.

jar writes:Religions often grow based on marketing and coercion

ringo writes:Bring the apologetics here and we'll see whether they are lying or not.

Jesus Among Secular Gods writes:Humanism, secular humanism at least, is inextricably tied to the relativization of truth and of ethics. Humans are the measure of all things. Well, then, this measure is relative to which human person? Which human culture? Which human age? No answers are forthcoming. In this way, the failure of humanism and the failure of relativism are inextricably intertwined. All value is reduced to value according to the preferences and biases of this or that person, culture, or age.

Jesus Among Secular Gods (p. 162). writes:Amid the confusion of the relativism mandated by secular humanism, Jesus makes an absolute claim about what it means to be human.(...) I see four clear distinctives that bring the chronological and the logical together:
Creation
Incarnation
Transformation
Consummation
This sequence defines the Christian message of what being human really means.
(...)The fact is that even scientists simply do not make a convincing case for an earthbound theory of origins. I do not speak of processes. I speak of the starting point. Science has to remain silent on it at this point, and that is why we see differences within the disciplines. Here, for example, are Hoyle and Wickramasinghe as they calculated the odds that all the functional proteins necessary for life might form in one place by random eventsa staggering 1 chance in 10 to the 40,000th power. They conclude, It is an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup.2Hoyle concludes in his book Intelligent Universe: Life could not have originated here on earth nor does it look as though biological evolution can be explained from within an earthbound theory of life. Genes from outside the earth are needed to drive the evolutionary process. This much can be consolidated by strictly scientific means, by experiment, observation, and calculation.3 He goes on to posit instead the possibility of a panspermia theory of origins. If science is willing to suspend judgment on ultimate origins, is it too much to ask that a Designer also be in the mix of possibilities?

Zacharias, Ravi. Jesus Among Secular Gods (p. 165). FaithWords. Kindle Edition. writes:King Solomon, who knew enough about the law though he flaunted it, said, The path of the righteous is like the morning sun, shining ever brighter till the full light of day (Proverbs 4:18). He went on to say that the whole duty of man was to keep God’s commandments (Ecclesiastes 12:13 KJV). He spoke from the perspective of someone who struggled with a derelict lifestyle, finding out he had been chasing after the wind (Ecclesiastes 1:14).The very word law evokes rebellion within our hearts. When you look at the Mosaic Law, there are 613 laws given in total. They were divided into the moral, ceremonial, and civic codes. As the Hebrew Scriptures unfold, you see other prophets distilling them down to their core and essence. In Psalm 15, David reduces them to eleven. Isaiah in 1:16—18 brings them down to six. Micah in 6:8 narrows them down to three: to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly before your God. Habakkuk in 2:4 sees the law in its core relationship between man and God and states it in one lawthat the just would live by his faith (KJV). If you remove the third of Micah’s three imperatives (to walk humbly before your God), you are left with the same terminology as humanism espouses: justice and compassion. The foundational difference between the two is the third imperative, walking humbly before God.How do we know this?When Jesus was teaching on the law, two trick questions were placed before Him. The first was whether it was right to pay taxes to Caesar. Jesus brilliantly asked the questioner for a coin. When the man produced the coin, Jesus asked him whose image he saw on the coin. The answer unhesitatingly given was that it was Caesar. Jesus promptly said, So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s (Matthew 22:21). This was truly a defining moment. The taxation burden on the Jew was huge, and he resented having to pay it. But then came the silence that ought not to have been. The man should really have asked, What belongs to God?That question would have underscored what lies beneath all political and economic responsibility. And Jesus’ answer would have been, Whose image is on you? That all-defining essence is at the heart of what it means to be human. We are madeimago Dei. We are made in God’s image.This is even further underscored in the next trick question placed before Jesus: Which is the greatest commandment? (Matthew 22:36). Having failed to trip Him up on God against Caesar, they tried God against God. With 613 laws to choose from, Jesus was asked to choose one. Amazingly, He didn’t fall for it and put two together as inextricably bound. He said, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ The second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Matthew records the ending of the conversation with Jesus’ words, All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments (Matthew 22:37—40). Mark then adds, There is no commandment greater than these (Mark 12:31).In other words, loving God and the resulting love for humanity are not only inextricably bound, but apart from that all else of morality has no other ground on which to stand. This is the only noble truth. All else is an ignoble lie. There is no foundation without these and nothing greater than these. Truth-telling, sanctity of sex, sanctity of life, sanctity of ownership, etc., none is greater and none can be legitimate except based on the vertical relationship with God. There you have what humanism simply does not have and is avowedly against. The logic of Jesus is compelling in what He has joined together. There is no absolute basis for loving your fellow human being without the first commandment. There is no way to claim to love God while being inhuman to your fellow human being. That which God has joined together, let no one put asunder. That is why even the Ten Commandments hang on the hinge of redemption.When man is released from bondage to self, he or she sees the glory of the other person. You cannot be a genuine human without acknowledging the intrinsic worth given to every other human being.

Phat writes:You cant find a lie in any of this.

Ravi Zacharias writes:King Solomon, who knew enough about the law though he flaunted it....

Ravi Zacharias writes:The very word law evokes rebellion within our hearts.

Ravi Zacharias writes:In other words, loving God and the resulting love for humanity are not only inextricably bound, but apart from that all else of morality has no other ground on which to stand.