Reflections on Loving God with Our Minds: Part 3

As we discovered in Part 2, the biblical idea of loving is not principally a feeling. Rather it is a decision to look out for another’s best interest. Think about what this means in terms of loving God. Loving God is not to have warm, fuzzy feelings toward God. Loving God means looking out for his best interest. Does God have interests? Yes, of course (though this does not imply God has needs).

What are God’s interests? Here are a few. God desires that his fallen world be set right. He desires a restoration of the broken relationship between himself and rebellious human beings. He desires that he be glorified in and by his creation (including humans).

To love God, then, means to align our thoughts, desires, affections, plans, words, and actions toward those things God desires. And this can only come about successfully when we fully apply our intellectual faculties to figuring out what God’s interests are and how we are going to orient our lives around those interests.

What are some other interests God has? What are some specific ways we can use our minds in seeing those interests, or the ones I mentioned above, get accomplished?

ALERT!!

This post is to give all you young people a heads up. If you didn't already know it, our society has very low expectations of you!

I don't know how many times I've heard over the years (and very recently) things like "that's just what boys do," "that's just how guys are," "they're going to do it, it's part of growing up," "if you think your kids aren't talking like that, you're crazy/naive/head is buried in the sand."

The people saying these things are talking about all kinds of behavior that goes against the way a Christian young person should be living their lives - things like drinking before legal age, getting drunk, doing drugs, having premarital sex, using crude or foul language, behaving immorally...

How does that make you feel? Most people really believe that you Christian young people cannot be serious about your walk with God; you can't be expected to honor & obey God and be Christ-like in your behavior. They have resigned you to running down the wrong path for the better part of your teen and twenty-something years and have already handed you over to the heartbreaking and often life-changing consequences that path leads you to. Can you believe they think no better of you than that?

But not all of us feel that way. Somewhere around you, you have Christian parents, or friends, or teachers, or mentors that believe much better of you.

We know you love God with all your hearts, and minds, and souls. We know that honoring God with all of your choices, even through your teen and twenty-something years, is your top priority because we believe you want to glorify God with your whole life!

And what do you know? You know that God has not forbidden the things He has just to keep you from having fun. You know that He has done so to protect you and to give you the most abundant life you can have. He has done so to keep sin's consequences far away from your life. Think about what some of those consequences might be: teen pregnancy; more bad choices made under the influence of some alcohol or drug - choices that can hurt or kill; turning someone away from Christ instead of towards Him; whole lives altered - and not for the better. And now think of the time wasted that could have been used in building up God's Kingdom; think of the regrets...

What else do you know? You know that obeying God is an act of gratefulness for what he has done for us and for our world through Jesus' death and resurrection. You know that and you don't take it lightly. You know that it may not always be easy to make the choices God wants you to make; you know you will face temptation. But you also know God has given you the power through the Spirit to do what is right. Will you make mistakes? Yes. Will you mess up? Sure. Will God forgive you? You know He will. This isn't about being perfect. It is about being set apart because you are God's child, and though you may fail at times, you will live your life to please Him. You are a disciple of Jesus. Your life and your choices will look different.

I challenge all of you not to lower yourselves to the expectations many in our society have for you. Instead, reach for the expectations those of us who love God, who love you, and who know you love God, have for you. We know you can do it...God knows you can do it!!

Reflections on Loving God with Our Minds: Part 2

In Part 1 we asked how seriously we take the requirement to love God with our minds. In Part 2, we now want to ask whether loving with the mind is even possible. On one hand we typically associate ‘love’ with feelings. We know we love someone when we have good, warm, tingly, affectionate feelings toward that person. On the other hand we associate the mind with thinking, reasoning, gaining facts and knowledge. ‘Love’ and ‘mind’ appear to be about very different things. Some people even contend that love is not something that can be commanded because feelings happen to us; we do not choose them (try to get angry or sad or happy on cue and you’ll see the point!).

However, a proper understanding of the biblical view of love will help us see that ‘love’ and ‘mind’ do go hand in hand and it makes perfect sense for God to command love. The biblical view of (non-erotic) love is not feeling-based. The proper way to understand the kind of love that Jesus call’s his followers to is to look out for the best interest of another. Loving another person, then, means that I seek what is best for that other person. And this is to be the case whether I feel anything for that other person or not. Ideally, though, compassionate or affectionate feelings will accompany a mature love, but the feelings are not the primary feature of biblical love.

Now, if love is the looking out for the best interest of another, then it makes perfect sense that the mind is deployed in this activity. A person who seriously looks out for another’s best interest will have to be very good with the use of the mind to figure out what will produce that which is in the best interest of the other. And, of course, looking out for another’s best interest can be commanded as well because that activity is not a feeling.

God is right in issuing a command to love with the mind. Not only is it possible to obey this command, but how else could one actually look after the interest of another apart from using one’s intellect? Would you want someone looking after your best interest who could not use his or her mind well? I wouldn’t. God apparently doesn’t either.

Can You Defend That? Common Challenges to Christianity

"When Christian college freshmen arrive on a typical secular campus, their faith will be ridiculed on all sides by their very own friends and teachers. They will hear that the Bible is unreliable, that Christ was no different than any other religious teacher, and that any Christian who thinks otherwise has been seriously misguided. Professor J Budziszewski notes, "Modern institutions of higher learning have changed dramatically in the last half century, and from the moment students set foot on the contemporary campus, their Christian convictions and discipline are assaulted." (Ravi Zacharias, Beyond Opinion, 40)

"They will see me as just another liberal professor trying to cajole them out of some of their convictions, and they are dead right about that-that's what I am, and that's exactly what I am trying to do." (42)

The above quotes drive home the need to be prepared to defend Christianity and the Christian worldview at least by the time you go away to college. This is what you will be facing. Will you know what to say or will you be left speechless? According to Alison Thomas, a contributing author in Beyond Opinion, studies show that over half of college freshman who enter secular universities will abandon their faith in the few short years before they graduate. I've heard that statistic again and again from many different sources. That should alarm us all! Don't be caught off guard when someone challenges your faith. Even if you don't have all the answers - and most of us don't! - at least realize you have resources to find them.

Since Jesus commanded us to love God with our minds as well as our hearts and our souls, as Dr. Mathewson pointed out in his last post (Reflections on Loving God), and since we can expect to hear objections to our faith, if not attempts to sabotage it all together, I thought it might be helpful to name a few of those objections and how to refute them.


1. The Bible is Unreliable

This is probably one of the most common objections. Some will claim the Bible has been corrupted as it has been handed down over the centuries. In fact, the Bible is the most well attested book in history.

While there are only a few manuscripts of the Old Testament, their accuracy is supported by other sources. Manuscripts prepared by different people and found in a variety of places (Palestine, Egypt, & Syria) all agree to a great extent. They also agree with the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the OT) which dates to the second-third century. The Dead Sea Scrolls give us a comparison from about 1,000 years before our manuscripts were written. The comparison shows that the transmission over the centuries has been remarkably accurate. "One scholar observed that the two copies of Isaiah found in the Qumran caves, 'proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text. The 5 percent of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling." (Geisler, When Skeptics Ask, 158-9)

This remarkable consistency is due to the great care the Jewish scribes took in copying the sacred text. There were laws and traditions in regards to copying the text, and just one mistake found meant the whole copy had to be destroyed.

The New Testament has even more evidence of its reliable transmission. There are 5,366 manuscripts for comparison and some date very early - to the second or third century, within 70 years of their writing. Now consider: there are only 643 copies of Homer's Iliad, 10 copies of Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars (and it's earliest copy was made 1,000 years after it was written), but no one questions their reliability. So why is the Bible's reliability questioned when there is so much evidence showing its reliable transmission?

Most people who throw this objection at you have no idea that there is so much evidence. Simply making them aware of these facts will let them know their objection has no basis and may even motivate them to do some investigating for themselves.


2. You can't take the Bible literally.

If someone uses this objection, ask them to clarify what they mean by "literally." If they are saying that the Bible is filled with metaphors & similes, imagery, and parables and these things aren't to be read literally, they are right and Christians would agree. Of course, the Bible is also filled with historic events and narratives, law, epistles (letters), and biographies (although they look a bit different than the biographies we are familiar with). These are to be taken literally.

What they may mean, however, is that none of the Bible should be taken literally. "Some of it's true, some of it isn't - just don't take it too literally." (That means don't take it too seriously-take what you like and leave the rest!) If you are talking to someone who has this in mind, ask them how they decide what is true and what isn't; and why they trust or accept anything in a book that they believe is even partially untrue. What they accept and reject from the Bible is usually based on what their agenda is; they will accept what they can without having to change their lifestyles or behaviors and reject what would mean making the changes they don't want to make.


What objections to Christianity have you heard? Maybe you have some objections yourself? We'll pick up next time with some more common objections to Christianity, so if you have any you want to discuss, or have any thoughts about this post, leave your comments! I want to hear from you!!!

Reflections on Loving God with Our Minds: Part 1

Upon being interrogated by a Torah expert as to the greatest commandment in the Jewish Law, Jesus replied:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. (Matthew 22:37-40)

Dubbed “the Jesus Creed” by Scot McKnight, Jesus’ pronouncement requires a person to engage every aspect of his or her being in loving God. No part of the human person is exempt. Yet, how seriously do we take loving God with our minds? Do we work as hard at this as we do loving God with other aspects of our person whether emotions, feelings, will, religious activities, and so on? As loving God is not an option (note, Jesus is issuing his understanding of the greatest command, not greatest recommendation or suggestion!), so also loving God with the mind is not an option. It is disobedience and, hence, sin to fail to do so. Loving God with the mind does not apply only to Christian philosophers, apologists, and scholars. It applies to all of us!

“The Jesus Creed” is in fact so fundamental that every other command from God flows out of the requirement to love God with our whole being (“All the Law and Prophets hang on these two commandments.”), including the mind. Our minds are to be engaged constantly in living out God’s instructions for living.

How are we as the Church (the community of Jesus-followers) and as individuals succeeding at obeying this great commandment’s requirement to love God with our minds? Where and in what ways specifically do you see loving God with the mind happening?

Also, how are we as the Church and as individuals failing at obeying this great commandment’s requirement to love God with our minds? Where and in what ways specifically do you see loving God with the mind absent?

In Name Only?

Today I received books in the mail...a sure way to make my day! These particular books were from Biola Univ. for the upcoming semester which starts in a couple of weeks. School is starting everywhere. My own son has one more week of summer freedom (if you don't count football practice!) before he heads back to halls lined with lockers and filled with friends. With so many of our kids about to be spending the better part of their day in an environment away from home, I started thinking about how we who claim to be Christians look out in the real world - away from our Christian safe zones like church and home.

It will be no surprise to anyone reading this that there are far too many nominal Christians - people who claim Christianity as their "religion" but who do little or nothing to actually understand what it means to live like a Christian...or if they do understand, they just flat can't be bothered with it. If you pay attention to polls at all, you will know that one of the biggest reasons unbelievers aren't drawn to Jesus and Christianity is because of the way Christians live. ("Christians are a bunch of hypocrites. Their lives don't look any different than mine!") Please don't read this as me saying true Christians are perfect - far from it - but becoming a Christian should carry with it a desire to do things, in every aspect of life, God's way, plain & simple, even if we don't always get it right.

Paul says this in Romans: "Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires...You, however, are not controlled by the sinful nature but are in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ." (Romans 8:5&9) If you are truly a Christian, you want to please God, and the Spirit of Christ is what makes that possible.

I think there are two reasons why nominal Christianity is so prevalent in our country. (And I know nominal Christianity from experience...I'm sorry to say I was one.)

One, I think it has become a default religion where if you don't happen to identify with any other particular religion, say Judaism or Hinduism for example, you just default to Christianity because you guess you believe in God (in some way) and you live in America...so, sure, I'm a Christian. (I do think this reason is on the decline as more and more people become comfortable with rejecting God altogether or believing that they are somehow "spiritual" in and of themselves with no need for a god of any kind.)

Two, those who have come to faith in Jesus, whether as a young child or as an adult, have made the proclamation of faith but have never taken it to the next step. They have never found ways to grow and mature in their faith. For many with an "inherited faith" it is also because they have just followed the family's status quo without having put much thought at all into what they are claiming to believe. This can have the effect of rendering one's faith irrelevant when making decisions and choices in life outside the church walls. If you're not even sure why you believe what you believe, you're going to have a hard time understanding why it should matter in your day to day life.

So investigate what you say you believe.

Explore it.

Question it.

Study it.

Can you reasonably believe the claims of Christianity? Is there enough evidence to make it credible? (I believe the answer will be yes if you keep an open mind and be willing to go wherever the journey takes you.)

When you've examined your faith and decided it is something you can take to the bank, you will take it more seriously. You will find that when you've really thought about what God has done through Jesus, for us and for the world, and decided on your own that you believe in Jesus' death and resurrection, you will respond in gratefulness and a desire to please God with your life by honoring, obeying, and glorifying Him. We won't want to let Him down (though, sadly, we still will at times). Now the decisions and choices you make will come from a desire to please God instead of coming from trying to obey a list of do's and don'ts when you really have no idea why many of them should matter to you to begin with. You won't be open to any worldview that you happen to come into contact with because you haven't thought your faith through enough to even begin to know how a Christian worldview should differ from the others. Now your life will look different.

So back to school...Do you look any different than your unbelieving friends walking the halls with you? Do they see a difference in you? Christianity is practical; it requires something from us. So here's my challenge- to me and to you - make a conscious decision every day to show Jesus to someone simply by the way you live your life. Be different!

Stewardship for God's Glory

If you watch TV at all, you may have noticed that there are a couple of things that have recently moved to the forefront of people's minds: the environment and the end of the world. I don't think it's possible to be breathing and not to be well aware of the global warming debate - is it true or isn't it; is it as bad as they say or isn't it? And "end of the world "(or at least mankind) movies seem to be popping up everywhere from Hollywood to made for TV. So after a little nudge from the message I heard at my church this morning (entitled "The Majesty and Splendor of God; 8/9/09) http://www.lincolnberean.org/resources/sermons/ ) I decided maybe a post about the environment and our God-given role in it might be appropriate.

There seem to be two extremes when it comes to the environment and our responsibilities towards it: 1) Humans are destroying it and are going to be the instruments of our own demise if we don't get it together and turn things around, and 2) God is going to destroy it all in the end anyway, so what's the problem? Why worry ourselves about it?

Neither of these extremes is a good biblical response to environmental concerns.

As my church's pastor pointed out in his message this morning, the first extreme is wrong because it requires a small view of God - a view that says WE can actually destroy what God is sustaining. This is God's world. He created it. He set it in motion. We cannot stop it. It is arrogant of us to think we can. That is NOT to say we should not be responsible for caring for our world. God entrusted it to us and gave us dominion over it and everything in it...He expects and requires us to be good stewards of our planet- to take good care of it.

There are lots of ways we can do this. My family recycles. We collect pop cans and give them to our school for the teachers to turn in for extra classroom money. This helps the environment and our school in a small way at the same time. Perhaps a program like this would benefit your school (or the school your kids attend). We also use a city recycling program for other recycleables we have. Some people help care for our world by being involved in beautification programs or animal rescue programs. Many try to be more "green" by driving more fuel efficient vehicles and energy efficient appliances. These and many other examples are great ways to care for the world God has given us. What's important to remember, though, is that we are not saving the world for our own sakes and our own glory. We are taking care of it for God's glory and because as Christians, we are given the mission of bringing a little bit of God's Kingdom to earth until the day He brings it in full.

The other extreme of not taking care of our environment because God will destroy it one day anyway is not only selfish but unbiblical. God created the earth and said it was good. The only reason He would have to destroy it is if evil had so corrupted it that God could no longer do anything with it, and that would mean evil had won; God has to scrap the whole project and start over. But we know that's not the case. Instead God will redeem, or restore the earth back to the way He always intended it to be. Acts 3:21 teaches that Christ "must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets." (emphasis mine)

There you have it. God will not destroy the earth and start from scratch, He will redeem it and make it the paradise He has always intended it to be. So the Christian response to environmental concerns is to be good stewards by doing what we can to care for our earth. We don't do this because we're going to destroy the earth if we don't. God created it and He can run it in spite of us, thank you very much! But that's not how He wants it. He wants us to have a part in caring for His creation. Many believe that everything we have done on this earth for God and His glory will remain after God redeems the earth. What a privilege!!

So take care of our planet any way you can. It's God's gift to us and it will be our eternal home in its redeemed form with all its majesty and splendor bringing Him glory forever!

Must Books for the College Student

The last weeks of summer find many students and parents scurrying to get ready for college. Oddly enough, for most Christians, advanced spiritual and intellectual preparation is not always on the radar. It somehow gets lost in the busyness of all the other preparations. For those of you who are attending, or considering attending college next fall, I want to recommend five books for you to read. For those already in college or about to enter, I recommend reading these as early in your college experience as possible. For those who will be attending college next fall, I recommend reading and reflecting on these prior to enrollment (Parents: I would encourage you to read these as well so you can dialogue with your students about their college experience). I consider these required reading and will insist that my children read them (or books like them) when they are ready for college.

For the last twenty plus years, I have been either a student or an instructor in both secular and religious institutions of higher learning. While in both capacities and in both environments, I have thought seriously about how a student can best be prepared and be successful. More specifically, I have spent time trying to figure out how the Christian student can best prepare himself or herself for college success in our present culture. It is on this basis that I recommend the following resources.

1. J. P. Moreland and Mark Matlock, Smart Faith: Loving Your God With All Your Mind (Colorado Springs: Th1nk Books, 2005). Smart Faith presents what it means to love God with one’s mind and to apply one’s intellect to discipleship to Jesus. Too often, Christians think gaining knowledge, becoming educated, or being involved in academic pursuits is dangerous and unchristian. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the lack of knowledge, education, and academic pursuit is dangerous and leaves one susceptible to lies and falsehoods. Moreland and Matlock provide practical ways students can improve their minds and thus be better disciples, more grounded in their faith, better worshippers, and more productive for God’s kingdom. This is an indispensible book for understanding the importance of loving God with one’s mind and how to do it in secular and religious settings. [For those who want a bit more depth, you might choose to read the book Smart Faith was modeled on, J. P. Moreland’s Love Your God With All Your Mind (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1997)].

2. Marcus Honeysett, Meltdown: Making Sense of a Culture in Crisis (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2002). You happen to be going to college in an age where something called “Postmodernism” is influential, including on college campuses. What is Postmodernism? Is it something I should be concerned about? Why? How does a Christian respond to it? Meltdown addresses all these questions using as illustrations incidents that take place on college campuses. Though this is the most difficult of the five books I am recommending, it might be the most important. If you want to be prepared to face postmodernist thinking which espouses relativism about truth, knowledge, ethics, and religion, this is a book you must read. Make sure you take the time to read the Foreward and Afterward of this book too.

3. Douglas Soccio, How to Get the Most Out of Philosophy, 5th ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2004). I know what you are thinking. “I’m going to take as little philosophy as I have to (maybe none at all), so I don’t need this book, thank you very much.” But please don’t make both those mistakes. First, taking philosophy courses can be a vital part of loving God with your mind. Second, this book is so much more than about philosophy. In fact, this book is more about your overall college education than about taking philosophy courses. If there was one book I wish I had read as an undergraduate, it is this one. This may be the most practical book about college you will ever read. When I taught undergraduates at three different universities, I required my students to read this book in the first week of classes. This book gives important advice on reading, studying and study habits, taking notes, taking exams, writing papers, relating to your professors, self-respect and getting the most out of yourself, academic ethics, and, yes, even how to do well in a philosophy class. I can’t urge the college-bound person enough to read this book. Not one college student I required to read this book regretted reading it or found it unhelpful (even those who were already seniors).

4. Scot McKnight, The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others (Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2004). How does a student maintain, develop, and put into practice his or her relationship with God when away at college? The Jesus Creed explains what it means to love God and others with one’s whole being. Following the “Jesus Creed” (See Matthew 22:36-40) is a life changing practice that will result in significant spiritual transformation and vibrancy. It will also make one an effective worshipper of and ambassador for God. If you are concerned about the health of your relationship with God while away at college, read this book.

5. Allen Wakabayashi, Kingdom Come: How Jesus Wants to Change the World (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003). The aspiration of many people headed to college is to become someone who can impact society. For the Christian, this is not “pie in the sky” thinking, but a significant part of the Christian vocation. How can a Christian be an agent of change in the world? Wakabayashi’s book is an excellent study of what it means for a Christian to be involved in Jesus’ mission of changing the world. Kingdom Come presents a much needed explanation of the Kingdom of God and what that means for Christian engagement in our culture. Wakabayashi makes the case that the mission of Jesus, and thus the Christian, is so much more than “getting people saved.” It means being an agent of transformation in every area of life helping to restore the fallen creation, fallen societies, fallen systems of education and business, and, yes, fallen people. College-bound Christians need to understand and live out the perspectives found in Kingdom Come if they want to change the world.

Welcome!

I am very excited that Dr. Mark Mathewson will be authoring this blog along with me. Check out his profile for all his info. He holds a doctorate from University of Nebraska-Lincoln in philosophy and is currently Academic Dean of Christian Leadership College. He's someone I have learned a lot from in the past and will continue learning a lot from in the future! Now you're really going to get some good stuff!!

Prepare For Attack!

I've been thumbing through a new book I bought called Apologetics for a New Generation: A Biblically & Culturally Relevant Approach to Talking About God and I came upon these paragraphs that show the importance for training young people in apologetics:

"Training in apologetics also provides an anchor during trials and difficulties. Emotions only take us so far, and then we need something more solid. Presently, most teens who enter adulthood claiming to be Christians will walk away from the church and put their emotional commitment to Christ on the shelf within ten years (Kinnaman & Lyons, unChristian, 74). A young person may walk away from God for many reasons, but one significant reason is intellectual doubt. According to the National Study of Youth and Religion, the most common answer nonreligious teens offered for why they left their faith was intellectual skepticism...From the moment Christian students first arrive on campus, their faith is assaulted on all sided by fellow students and teachers alike." (18-19)

When my son came home from junior high one day and told me that the speakers at his school's weekly chapel had said more than half of Christian kids will walk away from the Christian faith after they leave their parents' home, I wasn't surprised...I had experienced the things McDowell talks about in the above passage when I was in college. My professors taught that the Bible was man-made, inaccurate, legends, & formula stories - and I didn't know how to answer their claims. Could they be true? My faith was on the line.

Now, I know that when a person is truly saved, God never lets go of them, and I am so thankful for that. But think about the heartache and the sin & consequences that can be avoided if these young people stand firm in their faith and walk with God knowing their faith is on solid ground instead of being influenced by what they're being taught in universities or by the opposing worldviews they're suddenly faced with when they strike out on their own.

1 Peter 3:15 says, "but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence;" Scripture tells us we should be prepared to defend (respectfully & lovingly) our faith and one important reason for that is so that we ourselves aren't influenced by the lies we are sure to hear when we are away from our churches and our Christian friends & families.

So parents, don't let your kids take their faith for granted...and don't you take it for granted either! There are too many forces working against them and they need to have answers to the attacks on Christianity that they're going to hear. They need to have a strong emotional and intellectual faith.

And youth group leaders, Sunday School teachers, Christian educators of any kind...encourage the young people you are leading to ask their questions and then embark on a journey with them for the answers. Jesus has no reason to fear any of our doubts or questions and discussing them shows young people that their faith is reasonable and intellectual - not backwards, ancient, or ignorant.

And young people...don't be afraid to ask your questions. It doesn't mean your faith is weak! Find someone who is devoted to biblically accurate answers and let them help you find those answers.

Is Jesus the Only Way?

I'm in Texas right now visiting my grandparents. Since I have some free time, I was thinking about this blog and I started thinking about how my grandparents have been so instrumental in my belief in Jesus as Savior. Our family's legacy of faith goes back much further than my grandparents, but they were my foundation and example. For me, it has not been hard to believe that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life because I was raised with a Christian family around me. (I did come to a point when all the questions I had wondered about growing up coupled with college professors who scoffed at Christianity, if they weren't downright hostile towards it, led me to start questioning my beliefs. The search for the answers only strengthened my faith and showed me I didn't need to fear the questions and has led me to begin learning how to answer those who try to discredit the Christian faith. That is why I think it's so important for young people to know they have a reasonable faith that stands up to the questions before they encounter opposing worldviews that try to tear down their faith.) But what about those who are raised in different faiths, or no faith at all? What are the points that we can make that would lead them to believe - or at least start giving some serious thought to - the belief that Jesus is the only way to eternal salvation?

The belief that Jesus is the only way is wildly unpopular among our culture today. It is said that Christianity is exclusive and Christians are close-minded. But if those who make this protest stop and think, they will realize that Christianity is very inclusive. Anyone can get in! There are no ethnic requirements; no gender requirements; no success level one has to achieve first. The apostle Paul (the very first apologist!) says this: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male or female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants, heirs according to the promise." (Rom. 3:28-29) Paul is telling the Jews that God's promise is not exclusive to only those who follow the Jewish law because through Jesus God has made the promise available to everyone who accepts Him as Lord and Savior. No one is excluded! So don't be fooled by those who would disdainfully claim Christianity is exclusive because we believe Jesus is the only way. Anyone who wants to can accept this free gift from God.

So Christianity isn't exclusive, but is it the only way? Do all roads lead to heaven, as they say?

Let's think about what Jesus gives that no other religion can claim to give. There is no doubt that we as humans are fascinated with what happens to us after we die. Though there are some who are convinced that we die and that's that, most people believe in some sort of an afterlife. Christians can reasonably believe that we continue to live after we've physically died and will be resurrected in our physical, transformed bodies. This is a reasonable belief because Jesus didn't just die for our sins, He was physically (not just spiritually) resurrected three days later. He is the prototype of what will happen to everyone who believes in Him. Paul (the very first apologist!) writes, "But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep." (1 Cor. 15:20) Jesus is the living Savior and that is hugely important because it means that He has conquered death and we will share in that victory!! He is the only relgious figure to have ever claimed that He will conquer death and then back it up by rising from the dead. No other religious figure makes that claim or provides a way for us to have an actual life after death.

Second, it is important to see which religion or worldview best deals with the reality of our world.

God has had a plan that began to unfold from the very first verse of Genesis. He knew giving mankind free will to love and accept Him would mean that there would be rebellion and that rebellion would lead to mankind's, and the universe's, fall away from the perfect state in which He created things. But His plan from the beginning was to set Israel apart as a separate people from which Jesus - the sinless God-Man - would eventually come to die in order to set in motion God's redemption of the universe and His people, which now included anyone who put their belief in His Son. Jesus' death and resurrection defeated death and took care of sin, suffering, and evil, the ultimate results of which will be seen when Jesus returns to bring in the new heavens and new earth.

No other religion or worldview deals successfully or realistically with death and evil. Some have tried. It was thought at one time that man, with all his intelligence and technology - could make the world a better place where evil and crime and suffering would cease to exist and mankind would live in peace with one another. Can anyone say that has even come close to happening? No, because no one but God through Jesus Christ has the power to defeat death and evil.

Scripture tells us that Jesus is the only way to the Father. I have left this till last because it will be unconvincing to those who don't hold the Bible as the authoritative Word of God, but perhaps we can tackle that in another post if anyone is interested. For now, I hope those who don't believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God will hold judgment until they have done some investigating into the reliability of the Bible if they haven't done so.

The Gospels tell the story of Jesus' birth, ministry, death and resurrection. They show that Jesus knew He was the One through whom God would work out His plan. He would be the faithful Israelite that would die and rise again according to God's plan of redemption. "Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began." (John 17:1b-5) These verses say Jesus was given the authority to grant eternal life. Coupled with John 14:6 which says, "Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me," it is clear to see that Scripture teaches that believing in Jesus as Savior is the only way to eternal life in God's redeemed universe.

We have already mentioned Paul who was at one time a zealous persecutor of those who followed Jesus. That is until he met the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus. His experience was so real and so life-changing that he became one of the most out-spoken Christ followers in the history of Christianity. That in itself should give one pause when considering the reality of Jesus' resurrection. In fact, Paul tells us that if Jesus has not been resurrected, then our belief is in vain. If Jesus has not conquered death, our faith is useless.

There are also many, many prophecies in the Old Testament that speak of the coming Savior, and only Jesus fulfills all of these, a feat that is so unlikely that the chances of anyone accidentally fulfilling them all are astronomically slim.

Again, I know evidence based on Scripture is not satisfactory to those who don't believe in the authority of Scripture, but I hope this will lead to some searching. I recommend starting with The Case for Christ by former atheist Lee Strobel who, among other topics, investigates the authenticity and reliability of the Bible.

I hope this will get people thinking about Jesus' claim to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life; I hope people will thoughtfully consider why Christians firmly believe that all roads do not lead to heaven and all religions are not ultimately equal. This post is not a conclusive argument, but I hope it can open a dialogue for those who disagree or want to explore further! It will be fun to get into any of these things further.

I hope your search is as rewarding as mine continues to be! Hope to read lots of thought provoking posts from many of you; or get many questions to learn the answers to! Bye for now from Texas :)