Stand to Reason Blog

And That's What You Missed in the Bible

The Center for Youth Ministry Training is promoting a new Bible study:

Introducing a new Bible study series from the Center for Youth Ministry Training: "And That's What You Missed on Glee!" Our graduate residents have written an eight lesson series based on FOX's hit show to be used in weekly Bible study or small group meetings. The authors chose a handful of episodes to focus on, each of which covers a topic that the teens in your youth group (and in theirs) are dealing with—bullying, sexuality, and faith, to name a few.

You can download Lesson 1—Not Just a Loser: "Objective/Lesson Overview: When society tells us that fame and popularity are 'so important,' are we all losers for not living up to the impossible standards? Or are all the talents and gifts God has given us important and are what can make us happy?"

The study takes us through an episode of Glee, asking questions like:

Why do you think Tina chose to sing Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl”? Does she really want to kiss a girl or is she trying to get attention?

Rachel wants change in her life now because she feels the clock ticking and doesn’t want to leave high school with nothing to show for her time spent there. Have you ever felt like Rachel, tired of being laughed at or that everyone hates you? Or if not, what would it feel like to think that?

They include Jesus as an illustration of someone who wasn't accepted by His peers:

In the Matthew passage Jesus was somewhat of an outcast. He wasn’t following the law in the way the Pharisees saw fit. They wanted to catch Jesus in the act of what they saw as wrong to make him an outcast so that no one would want to listen, follow or pay any attention to what He was trying to do. How is this the same in your school or even in youth group? Are others not accepted for certain things that they do or activities that they take part in?

Then they close with an encouragement to "overcome that fear of being a 'loser,'" freeing yourself to pursue what makes you happy:

Are you secretly taking piano lessons, but afraid to share your gift with others because you may not be as good as you think you should be?...

Do you want to be in the talent show, but afraid your friends might make fun of you?

Are you afraid to tell your friends you go to church every Sunday because they might think you are a goody-two-shoes?...

Be the one who isn't afraid anymore.

If you're using Glee to teach the Bible, then you might not be teaching the Bible. Here's what I mean (and I see this happen all too often): a person will choose a topic on which to preach or teach and then tack on a verse at the end that could be construed as being related. But the teaching didn't arise out of the Bible. That is, it could have come from anywhere—Glee, Oprah, or even Happy Days. The verse simply functions as support.

But the Bible isn't just a collection of independent verses on topics of morality and self-esteem, it's a story about God—our Creator and Redeemer who is the beginning and end of all things, and the center of every purpose we embrace. Everything we study ought to be studied in relation to Him and His story. As soon as you separate bits of moral instruction from this great, central truth, you may be teaching something true about morality, but your instruction ceases to be Christian, let alone biblical.

If you're teaching a Bible study, ask yourself, is the Bible really central to my teaching, or does it just serve as an illustration of my point (an illustration I could have dug out of a number of other books)? Could I teach this same lesson without using the Bible at all? Without referencing God at all? If you could, then your lesson is not about God or the Bible, even if you use the word "God" at some point or read a Bible verse.

And that is my biggest problem with this first lesson of the new Glee study, which is firmly focused on us, with the minor characters of God and our talents functioning as the means to self-esteem and courage. It's utterly empty of the majesty of God.

Now don't get me wrong, I think a study on Glee for youth could be very valuable: What worldview is being promoted here? How are they shaping the way you view reality? What are they teaching about right and wrong, and how does that line up with the truth? Helping students think critically about the media they're taking in is valuable and even necessary.

But in this case, they're not evaluating Glee from the perspective of a biblical worldview, they're exegeting Glee in order to build a perspective…with a couple Bible verses thrown in to make it "Christian." This is a lot of things—a good time for kids to hang out, a lesson on self-esteem and not following the in-crowd, a way to help kids have the courage to do what they like to do, even if it's not "cool." But it's not a Bible study.

Faith & Logic Aren't at Odds

Lisa Randall perpetuates the ubiquitous misunderstanding that faith and logic are incompatible in her essay criticizing some current presidential candidates in Time Magazine, "How Science Can Lead the Way: What we lose when we put faith over logic."  Her concern with the candidates is an expression of her overall view of religion and science.  Her view is summed up in this sentence, "What we are seeing in the current presidential race is not so much a clash between religion and science as a fundamental disregard for rational and scientific thinking." The disregard is found in the candidate's religious expressions.

She writes, "Empirically based logic and the revelatory nature of faith are very different methods for seeking answers, and only logic can be systematically improved and applied."  In this statement, she equates science with logic.  But science isn't the only field of study that employs logic, and other methodology gives us knowledge through applying rationality.  History isn't subject to scientific methodology, yet it's a field of knowledge where rationalty applies.  Christianity largely falls into this methdology where logical investigation and thinking lead us to rational conclusions about what has taken place in the past.  We believe we know all kinds of things about the past that aren't subject to scientific investigation. 

Christianity has always considered itself to be a knowledge tradition.  The Biblical writers offered evidence so that we can know and have confidence about what took place.  Faith is laying hold personally of the significance of those things that took place, not the way we come to know them.  We don't take a "leap of faith."  Faith is a reasonable act of entrusting ourselves to a God who we can rationally conclude has acted on our behalf in history.  Faith and logic aren't incompatible, they are partners.  Some people and some religions may be irrational, but Christian faith isn't illogical.

Randall is concerned about Gov. Perry praying about the Texas drought rather than acting on the scientific evidence for climate change.  Without evaluating the merits of climate science or Perry's specific views, Randall is just wrong to pit prayer and action as patently incompatible. Prayer and action have always gone hand in hand. There's a long tradition of our presidents calling us to prayer while they engage solutions for the problems of our nation. According to Randall's view, Washington and Lincoln would have been irrational since they both, and many other presidents, called the nation to prayer. 

She claims that there's a "chasm between tangible effects [science] and unseen, imperceptible influences [religion] that is unbridgeable by logical thought."  This is just false.  Unseen influences aren't the same as being imperceptible.  After all, gravity is unseen but very perceptible.  In fact, the cosmological argument deals in a scientific, logical way with tangible effects that rationally lead to a conclusion of an unseen yet perceptible Creator. The only reason scientists disregard this explanation is because of their empiricist presuppositions - which is a very irrational way to engage in science.  Logically, scientific investigation  should be open to any rational conclusion rather than limiting the possibilities at the outset.

Science isn't the only realm of logic and knowledge.  Some religions may not be knowledge endeavors, but Christianity always has been. The Bible makes historical claims that can be considered rationally.  And faith is a logical step if those claims turn out to be true.  Faith isn't incompatible with science or logic, only with the modern presupositions of empiricism.

He Suffered Because God Loved Him

One of the biggest stumbling blocks to reconciling God's goodness with the existence of suffering is a misunderstanding of God's love. It's assumed that if God were loving and powerful, He would care about our good and therefore prevent our pain. Too often, the question is never asked: what is the goal of God's love for His people? That is, what is our greatest good? Only by answering this question can we know how God's love would act in order to accomplish His goal for us.

In a recent sermon on the death of Lazarus, John Piper discussed this relationship between God's love and our suffering:

It was love that moved Jesus to let Lazarus die. It was the love of Jesus for this family and for his disciples—and for you, reading this text—that caused him to choose to let Lazarus die.

Look again at the connection between verse 5 and 6: “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Therefore [because of this love], when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.” He did not hurry to his side.

And in writing John intends—and Jesus intends—for everyone seeing this to ask: How is that love? John has gone out of his way to set this up. Jesus loves them. He loves them. He loves them. Therefore, he does not heal him but lets him die. Why is this love?

Jesus has given the answer loud and clear and will give it again in verse 15. He said in verse 4: “This illness does not lead to death [in other words, the point is not death]. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” This illness will turn out for the glory of God, and the glory of the Son of God. This illness will put the glory of God on display. It will make Jesus look amazing.

Therefore (verse 6) love lets him die. Love lets him die because his death will help them see, in more ways than they know, the glory of God.

So what is love? What does it mean to be loved by Jesus? Love means giving us what we need most. And what we need most is not healing, but a full and endless experience of the glory of God. Love means giving us what will bring us the fullest and longest joy. And what is that? What will give you full and eternal joy? The answer of this text is clear: a revelation to your soul of the glory of God—seeing and admiring and marveling at and savoring the glory [of] God in Jesus Christ. When someone is willing to die—or let your brother die—to give you (and your brother) that, he loves you.

The full sermon is worth watching, listening to, or reading.

Dead Sea Scrolls Online

Today the Dead Sea Scrolls are available online. They include the oldest known manuscripts of some of the Old Testament books, including the Scroll of Isaiah.  They're visual and searchable. 

The Scroll of Isaiah is an excellent example of the consistency of textual transmission that the entire Bible has followed. The Scroll of Isaiah, 2000 years old, has no significant differences from the book we read now in our Bibles.  Despite many critics today raising doubts about whether we have an accurate Bible, we can see in this example that we have every reason to believe we do.

Adam and the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Video)

If Adam was created without the "knowledge of good and evil" how did he know that it was wrong to eat from the fruit of that tree?

Links Mentioned on the Show

The following are links that were either mentioned on this week's show or inspired by it, as posted live on the @STRtalk Twitter feed:

• 9/11 Demands Intellectual Honesty by Sam Harris

• It Is Why They Are Called Atheists by Greg Koukl

• Pint-sized Preacher Wows Churchgoers

• The Constantine Codex by Paul Maier

• The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts

Register at str.org and sign in to listen to today's show or download any archived show for free.

Seeing God Will Humble a Person

Was Moses being proud when he wrote, "Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the earth"? Must someone else have written it for it to be true? I love James Hamilton's answer:

The irony is obvious, right? It’s hardly humble to declare yourself the most humble man in the world.

Unless it’s true.

In which case, it wouldn’t be a humblebrag fail.  Nor is Moses touting his own virtue….

If anything will create humility, face to face interaction with Yahweh will do the job. Moses knew the greatness of God like no one else. Moses thereby knew both his inadequacy and his massive task like no one else.

Moses knew from this direct interaction with God what God’s intentions were and what part God intended Moses to play in the program. Only a reprobate fool would be made proud by such knowledge, and Moses is neither.

So Moses, I contend, is humbly speaking the truth. The access Moses had to God made him the humblest man in the world, and part of the proof of his humility is that he doesn’t cave to the proud desire to avoid doing anything that might make people think he isn’t humble.

This also makes sense given that the Numbers 12:3 verse in question comes in the midst of the story of Miriam's and Aaron's grumbling against Moses' position of authority—a position that Moses had desperately tried to get out of as he stood before God, to the point of provoking God's anger. God's glory had informed informed Moses of his utter lack of natural ability to fulfill his role. He never wanted it and would have been relieved to pass it on to his brother or sister. And so here, he reminds us of this.

Only Moses, among all the people living on earth, had seen God "face to face" and felt the anguished inadequacy that seeing towering greatness evokes. His words were spoken not as a reflection on his virtue, but out of his keen awareness of his own smallness—an insight he uniquely bore because of his encounters with God.

Now that makes sense to me.

10 Classics for a Balanced Reading Diet

If you'd like to take on an adventure and be more deliberate in your reading this year, John Mark Reynolds has a post on "10 Essential Classics of Western Literature" that can get you started:

Here are 10 books that began the rebirth in my own soul of something better. Eccentric though such a list must be it at least has the benefit of actually having helped one person and I have some hope that where it helped one it may help another.

I have limited myself to one sentence to say why I read them….

1. Odyssey, Homer. The long journey from the darkness of paganism to philosophy begins here.

2. Republic, Plato. Justice should be sought for its own sake, but we need a man to die and come to life again in order to fully see it.

3. Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius. Emo-whining gets a dose of tough love from Lady Philosophy, and the result is a poetic vision of reality.

4. Divine Comedy, Dante. The world isn’t quite what Dante imagined, but if wrong in details this great poem is truer as a whole than what you will read in today’s paper.

5. Faerie Queene, Edmund Spenser. Protestants can be romantic and poetic.

6. Much Ado about Nothing, William Shakespeare. If not the Bard’s greatest play maybe the best play for us, because this comedy contrasts our cynicism and eroticism with Christian romance while making us laugh out loud (not LOL).

7. Paradise Lost, John Milton. We oft like Milton’s Satan more than Milton’s God, revealing more about us than about Milton.

8. Second Treatise, John Locke. If you are an American, this apologist helped create the government you should cherish.

9. On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin. Darwin tries to remove design from biology and still makes the case better than anyone else.

10. Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky wrestles with seeming meaninglessness and pain and finds Christ, if not Christianity, victor.

One thing I appreciate about John Mark Reynolds is his love of beauty and poetry, and you'll notice this list is chock-full of it. I also suspect that as analytical people who love apologetics, you might not be getting enough of these things in your diet. So give them a try! They will speak to you in a different way from a theology or philosophy book and reach different parts of you, but tell you true things, nonetheless.

Read his post to hear more about why and how to read great literature (or if you want more explanation on his inclusion of Darwin). And take a look at his Great Books Reader where you'll find excerpts from 30 classics followed by essays that will help you think through and appreciate these books as a Christian.

How We've Infuriated Centuries of People

I spit my drink out laughing when I read this piece from Al Stefanelli, the Georgia State Director for American Atheists:

It should come as no surprise that the individuals who abide by fundamentalist Christian and radical Islamic doctrines would be the first to cry out that they are being persecuted when their dangerous, damaging and disingenuous beliefs come under attack. Most of these people lack the maturity and intelligence to act in a socially acceptable manner.  Many of them are sociopaths and quite a good number of them are psychopaths.  All of them are clearly delusional.

Bigotry, discrimination, hatred, coercion, terrorism, slavery, misogyny and everything else that is part and parcel of fundamental Christianity and radical Islam should not be tolerated….

The fact is that fundamentalist Christians and radical Muslims are not interested in coexisting or getting along.  They have no desire for peace. They do not want to sit down with us in diplomatic efforts to iron out our differences and come to an agreement on developing an integrated society.

They want us to die.

Their interpretation of the Bible and Koran are such that there is no other course of action but to kill the infidel, and if anyone believes otherwise they are only fooling themselves….

But the underbelly of fundamentalist Christianity and radical Islam does not operate in the legal system. They don’t respond to lawsuits, letters, amicus briefs or other grass-roots campaigns and they must, must, must be eradicated. As long as they are allowed to exist, we will continue to be inundated with accounts of buses, buildings, markets and abortion clinics being blown up, rape victims being murdered for adultery, wives being beaten (sometimes to death), airplanes being flown into buildings, people being tortured and sometimes beheaded for blasphemy, people being burned for witchcraft and sorcery and all the other horrific, inhumane and insane practices that are part of fundamental Christianity and Radical Islam.

Oh, those reasonable, loving atheists. But seriously, why do I post this? For two reasons. First, it can be wearing on us to constantly hear jabs at Christians, and it's easy to start believing maybe they're right about us being horrible human beings, or backward, or gullible. But then they tip their hand with something like this—something we know without a doubt to be false, and suddenly the truth becomes much more clear.

And second, I think one thing Stefanelli says here insightfully sums up a big reason why people do hate Christians and Christianity. It shows up in smaller ways with atheists, and more clearly in extreme, totalitarian regimes like the Soviet Union. It's this comment:

They don’t respond to lawsuits, letters, amicus briefs or other grass-roots campaigns and they must, must, must be eradicated.

The truth is, what has infuriated people about Christians throughout the centuries is that they can't get us to conform to them. From Shadrach, to Peter, to Richard Wurmbrand, no law, threat or torture can turn true Christians from loving and serving God or affirming what we know to be true. Because we believe in, and are accountable to, someone higher than human law and power, totalitarian leaders (like Stalin) recognize that Christians are a threat to them. And not because Christians are out to kill them, but because by their mere existence Christians threaten their power and plans.

The Soviets had their methods of breaking people and forcing them to conform to their ideas about a utopian society, and those methods worked for the most part. But what could they do with Christians who remained free from them, even through torture? Wurmbrand talks about the constant propaganda that was piped through the prisons: "Christianity is stupid! Christianity is stupid! Christianity is stupid! Give up! Give up! Give up!" Their inability to break Christians and bring them to their side was maddening.

Of course, I'm not at all saying that Stefanelli is a Stalin. I'm only saying this: When people who have strong ideas about how things ought to be discover they can't persuade us from God and His word, that is when they become desperate and hysterical with anger. So don't be surprised when it happens. Just take heart and remember that every time you endure such things, you are testifying to the truth and glory of the God of the Bible, who is worth more to you than the comfort of conforming.

Quantum Physics and Logic (Video)

Doesn't quantum physics undermine the laws of logic that we use to prove the existence of God?