Raising Hands in Worship: Biblical Practice or Conditioned Behavior? - by CHRIS KING

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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Once again we are overjoyed to find an author who quotes some Scripture. It's only a little bit, but that is significantly more than what most of the supposed "Bible teachers" manage to do. 

He also references a number of other Scriptures without quoting them. Had he actually quoted them, we might tend toward a different conclusion than the one the he wants. Indeed, the author seems to have begun with his conclusion, and worked backwards to gain evidence for it.

Also, we note the author has a propensity to make numerical lists, as if that adds weight to his argument. It is largely a contrivance, however.

Lastly, the author's title is a false choice. 

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The cross is the danger signal to you - Spurgeon FB meme

 A FB friend posted this:

Me: As much as I like Spurgeon, I think he is misusing the word "spare." Romans 8:32 is the verse he's mis-citing.

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  The NKJV also uses the word spare so it might be a translation difference. Also the word ‘spare’ here is not used as an ‘exception to the rules’, so to speak. Rather it’s used as demonstration and amplification of the concept that while He, did not have to/ was not bound to, dying on the cross for our sins out of some transaction out of some failing of His own, but rather that even though He was innocent of all sin the Father did not spare Him this agony and suffering - for our sake. Thereby, if we are without Christ then we will not be spared since we are actually guilty, compared to Jesus being clear of all sin and yet not being spared from the sufferings of our sin as He obeyed the Father completely without exception.

  
  

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  It sounds like Spurgeon is telling us the same fate awaits us as Jesus, that is, God destroyed Jesus and He'll surely destroy us if we keep it up.

  Romans 8:32 does not say this. "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?"

  God did not spare Jesus, that is, He handed Him over for us as the sacrificial lamb. This is the reason Paul gives for us receiving good things.

What Blasphemy Laws Say About Religions - By Bob Johnson

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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About the best thing one might say about this author is that he is ignorant. Completely, totally ignorant. He believes every fable, half-truth, and legend ever told by religion haters about religion in general and Christianity in particular. He embraces the revisionist history of those who are hostile to religion, ignorant of the achievements of religion, and even hate the ennobling ideas carried by religion. 

So he cites for his evidence historical fiction, rewritten history, and vague fables of an imagined time when religion ruled the world, and from which reason and logic rescued us.

And without any sense of understanding the irony of his position, he thinks that blasphemy laws are wrong and dangerous because they prevent the free exchange of ideas. Aside from the fact that blasphemy has nothing at all to do with with exchanging ideas, the Left is not in the least interested in the free exchange of ideas. They never have been. 

The Left will silence, vilify, shout down, mock, and legislate the silence of anyone and everyone who doesn't agree with them. 

It is on one hand disturbing that the author believes so much that simply isn't so, but on the other it is more disturbing that he is so willing to comment pen to paper to join in the anti-halleluiah chorus. In fact, he doesn't really care about blasphemy at all. His sole purpose to write is to articulate his hate of Christians and Christianity.

Lastly, he will close with some utopian blather about how great everything will be once religion is eliminated.

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Is the Human Species on a Fast Track Toward Extinction? - By Bernard Starr

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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The author is advocating for complete central control of the entire world, in the name of saving the planet. Aside from the problematic idea of giving complete and total control to an intellectual ruling class, the author never even bothers to explain why humankind should not become extinct. What is bad about the planet dying? Why is it a problem that species die off? 

And why should we survive as a species?

The author is operating according to some unstated moral premise. Extinction may be bad, but it is not self-evidently so. The author would need to explain the moral premise upon which he bases his presentation. 

In actual fact, the author doesn't really believe that we will become extinct. Nope, that is a convenient excuse. What he really wants is a dismantling of capitalism. He wants the installation of a world administration. He is a marxist at heart, and marxists love the utopian ideas of a perfect society governed by wise elders, or whatever these despots would call themselves.

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What about predestination? The "firstfruits"

Recently we've been reconsidering many of the things we thought we understood regarding doctrine and faith. We have begun to question certain beliefs, church structures, and practices of the western church. Too often we have discovered unbiblical doctrines and activities. This causes us concern. We have deemed this our “Rethink.”

Our questions include, how did we arrive at our doctrines? Does the Bible really teach what we think it teaches? Why do churches do what they do? What is the biblical basis of church leadership structure? Why do certain traditions get entrenched?

It's easy to be spoon fed the conventional wisdom, but it's an entirely separate thing to search these things out for one's self. In the past we have read the Bible with these unexamined understandings and interpreted what we read through those lenses. We were lazy about our Bible study, assuming that pastors and theologians were telling us the truth, but we rarely checked it out for ourselves.

Therefore, these Rethinks are our attempt to remedy the situation.

We should note that we are not Bible scholars, but we believe that one doesn't need to be in order to understand the Word of God.

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Dear fundamentalists of all religions... John Fugelsang

Found on FB. 

You can be sure that when the Left discusses Christianity they will not even come close. John Fugelsang thinks he's being clever, but this is just dumb. 





Aside from the obvious error of speaking for God, Mr. Fugelsang simply makes up the idea that everything God created He likes, no matter what subsequently happens with that creation or what it does. 

Let's substitute some other things and see just how dumb this is.

"If I didn't like pedophiles I wouldn't have created them in every civilization in history."

"If I didn't like men I wouldn't have created them in every civilization in history."

"If I didn't like earthquakes I wouldn't have created them in every civilization in history."

Twin Truths - by Michelle Lesley

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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Again and again we confronted with biblical illiteracy. Ms. Lesley gets bent of shape for being called a heretic, and goes wild with an incorrect definition of heresy.

She then gets all twisted up trying to explain Bible paradoxes, while simultaneously asserting that there is only one set of doctrinal beliefs that are true. 

In addition, she will never quote the Bible. Not once.)

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The Mailbag: Is it OK for women to teach the children’s sermon? - Michelle Lesley

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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Ms. Lesley is becoming a too-frequent guest on our blog. Unfortunately, she has distinguished herself as an incapable Bible teacher when it comes to the more controversial teachings of the Bible, or doctrines that require deep analysis or careful thought.

Today she further parses 1 Timothy 2:12 into an unrecognizable mess, but pretends it's about other issues. The verse reads, 

1Ti. 2:12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.

If the reader would check the above link, it will not take long to discover the fact that Ms. Lesley has an entire portfolio of interpretive work regarding this single verse. And none of it is correct.

Lastly, we note that Ms. Lesley doesn't quote a single Scripture. Not one.

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The Shocking Things the GOP and Trumpians Believe - By Thom Hartmann

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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One might be tempted to ask, is this satire? It isn't. Or perhaps the author is simply cynically spouting leftist talking points? Nope. Maybe the author actually believes these things? Sorry. In actual fact, the author is part of the leftist propaganda machine, deliberately spewing approved agitprop in service to The Narrative. 

Nothing the author writes is provided for its trueness. Truth is irrelevant. He does not intend to inform or clarify. No, every sentence, every word, is carefully chosen to obfuscate, divert, and manipulate.  In every sentence you will find a deception, mischaracterization, revision of history, or an outright falsehood. 

Its sole purpose is to promulgate the story the Left wants told. Period.

But this is to be expected. The Left will certainly not fact-check their own propaganda, and the Right is wasting their time doing so, because tomorrow these very same talking points will be stated yet again as if today didn't happen. Thus The Narrative continues another day, unimpeached and unassailable.

We should also note that the author is engaging in Mountain Man's Law. Everything he tells us about the Republicans is something the Left is actually doing. This article is simply a massive projection. In addition, what the author is really intending to tell us are things he wants us to think Republicans believe, not what they actually believe.

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We are going to analyze only the very first sentence to demonstrate the truth of our assertions:

What Does the Bible Say about Christian Tithing? - by R.C. Sproul

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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Our sole reason for posting this article is because it completely fails to explain its title, "What Does the Bible Say about Christian Tithing?" Dr. Sproul doesn't say. Really. He never answers the question. He's supposed to be a notable Bible teacher, and has over 1600 words (not including Bible quotes) to teach us about Christian tithing. Instead, he sidesteps the entire issue. 

He does not quote the NT, except a single tangential Scripture. He does not quote or even reference 2Co. 8:19-21, Ph. 4:16-18, 2Co. 8:1-4, 2Co. 9:6-7, or 1Ti. 6:17-18, all of which speak directly to the point. In fact, he does not document anything at all, he simply asserts that the tithe applies to Christians, based on a non-biblical source, the Didache.

But he is able to quote OT examples of tithing. This is truly astonishing.

We deal with tithing here, and we actually quote relevant Bible verses.

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When people say Jesus Christ is coming again do not believe them, for Jesus Christ never left you - FB meme

 Found on FB:

Transcript:

When people say Jesus Christ is coming again do not believe them, for Jesus Christ never left you. Did he not say, "Lo, I AM with you always, even to the end of the age?" Then how can you look for him to return? Scripture states that Christ was taken up into the kingdom of heaven (which is within) and that he will come in the same manner as he was taken up. If Christ (God's creative power) is in you, he cannot come from without. Although he seems to be invisible, Christ has never left you, as you cannot detach yourself from imagination.

This is a "new-agey" interpretation of the return of Jesus. We say this because there are people who kinda don't like what the Bible says, so they want to reinterpret it to suit their own ideas, while simultaneously retaining a superficial connection to the faith. 

These are truth claims. Truth claims require source information. If one claims the truth, one must document it objectively. It is one thing to claim a personal truth, but it is entirely another to expect someone else to embrace it. Once a personal truth contains an imperative (you must believe this truth also), then it no longer is personal truth. It becomes objective truth requiring an objective source.

So they set out to tell what the Bible actually means. You've had it wrong all this time, and they have some truth to tell you.  

Five Decisions Every Bible Translator Must Make - by Peter J. Gurry

Found here. An interesting article.

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Knowing the hard decisions Bible translators face inspires gratitude for our Bibles and encourages us to read them.

A bible translation is a major undertaking. A good one can take more than ten years to finish even when a full team is involved. Besides the translators, there is often a team of editors, proofreaders, publishers, printers, marketers, and more. Along the way, a translation committee has thousands of decisions to make, many of which go beyond the most obvious one of deciding how to translate any given word or phrase. Here are five decisions that every translator has to decide—whether their readers know it or not.

1. Who’s the audience?

The first decision is arguably the most important because it will determine many other decisions along the way. The first way to define a translation’s audience is, of course, based on what’s called the target language. A translation into German will have a German-speaking audience; a French translation will have French speakers, etc. Though target language is the most obvious form of this question, there is much more to it. Since some language groups like English are so vast and have so many translations already, translation teams often aim their work at a narrower set of readers.

In other cases, the choice is not about geography or theology, but reading level. The original NIV was designed to be especially readable, and so was designed for a seventh-grade reading level. But even that audience could be narrowed. That’s why it was revised in a special edition published in 1996 called the New International Reader’s Version or NIrV. It was aimed at a third-grade reading level with the hope of reaching children and readers whose first language isn’t English. This was accomplished by using smaller words and shorter sentences whenever possible. American Bible readers are sometimes surprised to learn that major English translations usually result in an American edition and a separate British edition that has British spelling and, in some cases, different word choices. The ESV, for example, has both an Anglicized version and an American version. There is now even a Catholic edition that includes the Apocrypha.

Psalm 23:2 was changed from the NIV’s “He makes me lie down in green pastures” to “He lets me lie down in fields of green grass.” The Lord’s prayer became “Our Father in heaven, may your name be honored. May your kingdom come. May what you want to happen be done on earth as it is done in heaven” (Matt. 6:9–10). These small translation choices add up, but they are all the result of a much larger decision about who the audience is. It’s a choice every translator needs to make.