These days, many who claim the name of Jesus are also politically and theologically "progressive." They don't view God, Jesus, or the Bible in the traditional sense of what Christians have believed from the first century forward. They often substitute their own views for those found in Scripture. For this reason, it's important to be able to compare progressive beliefs with Scriptural truths.
Did you know there are no fossils with blowholes? As we learn more about biology, the numbers of missing evolutionary links have skyrocketed. Every new discovery brings many more questions than answers, and ever more evidence that blind evolution cannot explain the origin of life’s astonishingly sophisticated biological designs. Audio, 14:08.
Is the Bible in your hand (or on your shelf, or on your phone) inerrant? What would that mean? Can we trust that the Bible we have is the same Bible originally written? Jimmy Wallace explains what inerrancy means, and what it doesn't mean. Video, 9:54
Darwin's 'natural selection' is a favorite idea of philosophical naturalists - people who believe the physical world is all that exists. The problems begin when trying to explain how ANYTHING exists. As Doug Axe clearly explains in this video (5:38), evolutionary biology can't account for the origin of things. "The power of invention resides elsewhere."
We all want things we should not want. Each of us has to struggle with the decision either to indulge unhealthy desires or to obey God. However, not every struggle carries the same weight. Rachel Gilson's struggle was about relationships: oneness, love, sex, and romance… and faithfulness.
Historians have traditionally acknowledged the impact of Judaism and Christianity on western culture. That's no surprise. What IS surprising is the modern trend of atheists defending biblical values. Skeptics like Tom Holland, Richard Dawkins, and Jordan Peterson are now willing to admit that the values of Christianity are not only good, but necessary for human flourishing.
Mormons and New-Agers have something in common: they often consider the Fall of Man to be a positive development for humanity, rather than a negative one. This contradicts what we read in the Bible, of course. Alisa Childers outlines the problems with this view.
It's important to tell our own stories. When we explain that we were lost and then were found, people listen. While personal testimonies aren't necessarily evidence that Christianity is true, they are powerful nonetheless. Here Douglas Groothuis tells his own story.
It seems like there's a new scandal in the American church every week. We tend to dismiss them as anomalies... good leaders who blew it. What if these moral failures, which seem to be more common than we'd like to admit, are actually baked-in results of the recipes we're using to grow churches, rather than growing God's Kingdom?
David Wood's personal testimony explains his path from believing that dogs and cats ruled the world to understanding that there must be a Creator, to whom we are morally accountable. Along the way, he tried to murder his father, to out-fast a Christian friend, and debunk the Bible. Video, 34:05
Christopher Yuan is a Christian speaker, author, and professor of Bible at Moody Bible Institute. In this video he shares how God rescued him from a life of promiscuous sex and drug dealing, sent him to prison, then set him free... both personally, relationally, and spiritually. Video, 21:10
Philosophical naturalists believe that the physical universe is all that exists. As a result, they reject the idea of God, and the idea that morality - our sense of right and wrong, and what ought to be - comes from God. Can morality be explained in purely physical terms?
The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts is committed to preserving, and studying, ancient Greek New Testament manuscripts. They're a world-class organization, using state-of-the-art technology to photograph and publish information about these invaluable artifacts. They recently launched a new manuscript viewer, and it's worth your time.
A worldview is a person's attempt to combine what they believe is true into a single narrative. There are a number of competing worldviews, but the most common pair in the western world is that of naturalism vs creationism. There are inherent flaws in naturalism that make it unworkable.
Are you making disciples? Are you feeling discouraged about not having anyone to disciple? You might want to consider asking God to provide. Audio, 44:24
Jesus told Simon and Andrew that He would make them 'fishers of men.' Because they were fishermen, Jesus' words carried more meaning than if they had been tailors, or football players. Here, Tim Challies details a few of the more significant ideas behind fishing for people.
Moses is believed to have written the Pentateuch... that is, the first five books of the Old Testament. Would that include the account of his death and burial found in Deuteronomy 34? Some suggest that Moses prophesied his own death.
A primary critique of Darwinian evolution is that there are large gaps in the fossil record. We don't see the transitional forms - animals in the middle of changing from one kind to another - that evolutionists claim to have existed. Günter Bechly says that this isn't a minor problem for Darwin... it's a fatal one. Audio, 16:57
The Bible describes the devil, our spiritual enemy, in a number of ways. The most well-known is the serpent, who was cursed by God to crawl on his belly for deceiving Eve. What was he like before the curse? Video, 5:44
Jehovah's Witnesses teach that Jesus was God's first creation, and not God Himself. This is rightly considered heresy, of course... but can you explain why they're wrong about the interpretation of John 1:1, where - they claim - Jesus is "a" god and not "the" God? Video, 5:30
Jesus warned us: “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you."
God is "simple." That is, He is not a combination of things that already existed, like a cabinet is made of wood. Instead, He existed before anything else existed. Because of this, anything true of God comes not from His parts, because He has no parts. All things true about God are completely true of Him, in totality.
Alisa Childers grew up in a committed Christian home, and lived her faith for many years... until a pastor undermined almost everything she believed. She began a journey of intellectual honesty that led her back to faith. Video, 4:48
Do humans actually have free will, or is that an illusion created in our brains? It seems silly that anyone would argue that we don't have free will, since the claim implies that they MUST argue that way, rather than that they choose to. What are the implications, and what does the science say?
