Tag Archives: Bible

Commentary

What should we think about Obama’s use of the Bible?

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Story here on the NewsReal blog. (H/T Mary)

Excerpt:

Dr. Jeffrey Siker, professor of religion at Loyola University and a liberal Presbyterian minister, was featured in the LA Times yesterday for an academic paper he did on Obama’s use of the Bible in public speeches and writings.  His findings show a candidate and President willing to pick and choose scripture that Obama considers pluralistic and in support of his policies.  Siker presents this fact as positive pragmatism instead of what it really may be – sacrilegious ambition.

[…]Obama uses “brother’s keeper” to convince Americans to support socialist policies.

“This vision of being my brother’s keeper has important political and social consequences when it comes to such issues as healthcare, consumer protection or education reform.” – Siker

The problem with that interpretation is that the “brother’s keeper” passage has nothing to do with supporting welfare policies.  Cain has just killed his brother Abel, and God was condemning Cain for the sin by asking Cain where his brother was.  Cain said he didn’t know where Abel was because he’s not responsible for him.  God does not respond by saying, “Yes you are Cain.  You are responsible to make enough money to pay not only for your healthcare but also Abel’s.”

Quoting the Bible to teach socialism only works on people who haven’t read the Bible. You can’t get socialism from the Bible, because there is no passage that teaches that Jews and Christians should embrace the idea of wealth redistribution by government. The Bible teaches private, voluntary charity.

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    Commentary

    Does the book of Acts point to a physical, bodily resurrection?

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    Here’s a great post by Amy of Stand to Reason. She focuses on TWO passages to make a case for Acts teaching a physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus.

    Excerpt:

    The first is the words of Peter’s evangelistic sermon in Acts 2:22-36:

    [Y]ou nailed [Jesus] to the cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power. For David says of Him, “…You will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.”

    In case they missed the fact that Jesus’ body did not decay, Peter continues:

    Brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. And so, because he was a prophet…, he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that He was neither abandoned to Hades, nor did His flesh suffer decay. This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses.

    In other words, Peter argues that David couldn’t have been speaking of himself when he wrote those words of Scripture because David’s body decayed in a tomb. He then contrasts David’s death with Jesus’ death and physical resurrection to show that the words of the Psalm are describing Jesus, and therefore Jesus is the Messiah they’ve been waiting for.

    This is good, because the early sermon by Peter in Acts 2 is super early. So even if a bad guy argues that Paul’s view of the resurrection in 1 Cor 15:3-7 is non-physical, you can fall back on Acts 2 and the early eyewitness testimony of Peter. But as Amy mentions, there are other arguments as well.

    Further study

    The top 10 links to help you along with your learning.

    1. How every Christian can learn to explain the resurrection of Jesus to others
    2. The earliest source for the minimal facts about the resurrection
    3. The earliest sources for the empty tomb narrative
    4. Who were the first witnesses to the empty tomb?
    5. Did the divinity of Jesus emerge slowly after many years of embellishments?
    6. What about all those other books that the Church left out the Bible?
    7. Assessing Bart Ehrman’s case against the resurrection of Jesus
    8. William Lane Craig debates radical skeptics on the resurrection of Jesus
    9. Did Christianity copy from Buddhism, Mithraism or the myth of Osiris?
    10. Quick overview of N.T. Wright’s case for the resurrection

    Debates are a fun way to learn

    Three debates where you can see this play out:

    Or you can listen to my favorite debate on the resurrection.

    Extra stuff

    A lecture on Bart Ehrman by William Lane Craig.

    Podcasts

    Frank Turek interviews Jay Richards on Christianity and capitalism

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    Christian apologist Frank Turek, Ph.D interviews Jay Wesley Richards, Ph.D.

    The MP3 file is here.

    It’s a great interview, with lots of basic economics. Turek cites quotes from Richards’ book “Money, Greed and God” for Richards to respond to, and Richards provides lots of examples to make his points.

    Here’s a quote of Frank, from the beginning of the podcast:

    Money, Greed and God. How do those things go together, and why should we even be worried about them? And what does this have to do with apologetics? Well, in a few minutes, friends, you’re going to see that it has everything to do with apologetics. You know, you need money to do apologetics. You’re listening right now to a radio program that takes money to run. When you go buy an apologetics book, you need to pay for it. Somebody has gotten resources together – some of them immaterial resources, some of them material resources – they’ve put them together and they’ve marketed this piece to that you would buy it. That takes money. It takes money to preach the gospel across the world. It takes money to send missionaries overseas. It takes money to put on a TV program. It takes money to run an institute like the Discovery Institute. It takes money to run a seminary like Southern Evangelical Seminary or a ministry like CrossExamined.org. Money is essential to what we do. Well, you say “well, gee, you know, we’re Christians, we can’t really be concerned about money”. NONSENSE!

    He’s right. And Christians need to be more careful about the economic environment that they work, save and invest in – because that’s where charity comes from.

    Frank mentions that “Money, Greed and God” is now $10 on Amazon. Highly recommended, except for that awful chapter on usury. Skip that!

    An easier book for total beginners is “The Virtues of Capitalism“. It’s also $10 on Amazon.com.

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