Any study of a religion properly begins with its holy writings. The Christian Bible has come under repeated investigation throughout history and has valiantly stood each assault. The best one can argue against the accuracy of the Bible is not having found mention of certain people, places or wars in extra-Biblical literature, which when it comes down to it is really a fallacy of logic called “arguing from silence.”
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After seeing the latest Hollywood exploit of a major Biblical story, I intended to write a review of Exodus: Gods and Kings. I considered talking about the stellar performances from the all-star cast, and the production value. All of which are exceptional. Then I thought of creating a list of all the ways the writers and directors altered the original story, which would have been remarkably long. In thinking it through I realized this isn’t the Biblical story, this is a new Moses, one where acts of nature replace acts of God, and acts of terrorism are accepted as acts of justice. A story where God is a figment of one man’s imagination after hitting his head on a rock. How can a movie be so good in so many ways and yet miss the mark so widely? Pondering this led me to a more important question, what creative liberties can one take with God’s Word?
Last year we started a tradition of giving our readers a speacila gift on Christmas day, and this year we bring you another free download. Download our latest periodical on one of our most liked series of the last year, Five Forms of Prayer. Feel free to to download it, print it and share it with those you believe may benefit most.
There are two approaches necessary for fully understanding Islam. One is to take a 30,000 foot view of it historically and the other is to look at principles and holy writings. We’ll begin this series with the broad overview and narrow our study to specifics and end on notes that may be used when attempting to convert a Muslim to faith in Jesus Christ.
I am pleased to live in Colorado, for it is a state where the beauty of its natural resources and its people is completely incongruous to the events that unfolded in France last week. To the families of the innocent victims we at Think-Biblically.com offer our condolences and our prayers. To the families of the now dead perpetrators of these evil acts, and to all Muslims around the world whether practicing or not, we would like to say:
January first, the day millions – perhaps billions – of people make life-changing resolutions. New Year’s Resolutions is tradition that goes back thousands of years, all the way to the Babylonian Empire. The Babylonians vowed to repay their debts, but it is from the Roman’s that we inherit the modern practice. The Romans made promises to Janus, a god from whom many wrongly believe the month of January is named after (January is actually named after the god Juno). According to the Romans, Janus is the god of beginnings and transitions and has two faces, one on each side of his head, which permits him to look forward into the future and back into the past.
Of all the things you have learned about our savior and of our place in his kingdom over the last few weeks, nothing is more important than our full acceptance of the person celebrated today. Jesus came into this world as an infant, grew up with all the same emotions and temptations we have faced, and battled our darkness and the darkness in the heavenly places for a single purpose. To suffer and die at our hands and the hands of God’s enemies. Through his perfect birth, life, sacrifice and resurrection we have the chance to be made whole. Being complete means more than being independent of our sin, it means being in right relationship with the one who has loved us since before we were born. Mankind is not whole until he can enter the presence of God without fear.
As promised previously, this week begins a new study and a new commitment. Our new study will be of Islam and will be a multi-part investigation providing a broad overview of the history of Islam and a detailed study of it’s primary components and how they compare to Christianity. The new commitment is one of a personal nature, for today I take the Nazarite Vow which will last 30 days.
A good friend of mine is in the midst of tough times and the experience has caused questions he has set aside in the pest to come to the center of his attention. Questions like, “why is there so much suffering in the world?” and “why doesn’t God do something about all the suffering in the world?”. There are of course quick answers to these questions: (1) we brought suffering into the world when we sinned and (2) God is not responsible for making our lives easy. While these answers are true, they do not satisfy the deep feelings evoked when going through intense suffering. I do not believe he is alone in his questioning, and for this reason Think-Biblically.com will launch a new Bible study series on the book of 1 Peter.
Thank you readers of Think-Biblically.com for your feedback and valuable questions regarding our Christmas timeline. At your request we’ve put together a chart that shows much of what was discussed on Christmas Eve day and the Scripture passages that match the events. This probably should have been part of the article in the first place.
It has been surprising to me how many Christ-followers do not know the timing of events related to the birth of their Savior. A mixture of tradition and good storytelling have confused many, so Think-Biblically.com is taking a moment to explain the timeline of events that may contain a surprise or two even for the seasoned believer.
