Melissa Dougherty is a former New-Ager turned Christian apologist. Here she lists a few of the misconceptions she held before becoming a Christian. They're kind of fun to hear, but it's important to remember that most non-Christians - and many new believers - believe a lot of things about Christianity that just aren't true.
God describes Himself in mostly masculine terms: father, husband. The Hebrew names Yahweh, Elohim, Adonai, Kurios, and Theos are all linguistically masculine. At the same time, God also describes Himself in Job as giving birth, and in Isaiah as a mother. It's more complicated than simply "he" or "she."
Most businesses and churches and non-profits would love to rank #1. For anything. Most don't even rank #1 for their own name! A lot of companies pay a lot of money to try to reach #1. They pay fly-by-night SEO agencies. They pay local ad agencies who don't know much about how the web works. They also pay big money to big agencies full of experts in the field, hoping to rank well enough to get just a bit more traffic than they would naturally get.
Regular GodWords readers know about Disciples Report. I created that website as a place to share content created by others... articles and videos and podcasts by reputable writers, scholars, and apologists. It's gone now. Or is it?
As with so many things, confusion abounds about demons. What does the Bible actually say? How are followers of Jesus to think about interacting with demons? How can we avoid falling into superstitious nonsense and - more important - how can we avoid unbiblical ideas about demons?
Shema is a very interesting word. It's commonly thought to mean "obey," but that's not the whole story. There's no Hebrew word for "obey," and there's no English equivalent for shema. It's far richer than that, so it's good to see how the writers of Scripture use it. The name Simon is related, coming from the Hebrew Shim'on. Video, 3:25.
Skeptics of Christianity often cite the so-called 'problem of evil' to indict Christians, and to indict God. How, they ask, could a loving God - or a supposedly loving follower - live a life with any joy, peace, or contentment while others suffer? Then, they ask, how could anyone be happy in Heaven when they know that others are suffering eternally in Hell? Consider this article as one example of how we might address such an objection.
The universe is vast, mind-bending, and fascinating. Scientists - religious and non-religious alike - speak of the conditions necessary for life to exist, and the numbers are mind-boggling. If the universe were only slightly different, based on a large number of different forces, no life could exist. This is a strong argument for the existence of an intelligent designer who purposely created everything. Video, 6:22
The New Testament refers a number of times to people speaking in tongues. That is, believers being enabled to speak in languages they hadn't previously learned. Many in Pentecostal and Charismatic churches are taught that every believer will speak in tongues, as that is 'the initial physical evidence' of being filled with the Holy Spirit. Video, 3:14
Neo-Darwinian evolution is generally accepted by the public as fact, but that doesn't make it so. There are a lot of scientists who, with no religious agenda, acknowledge the scientific and mathematical problems inherent in evolutionary thought. Doug Axe explains simply and clearly why we have reasons to doubt one of the basic tenets of evolution: that small mutations add up to successful adaptation through unguided processes. Video, 17:02.
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
