Restitutio

This is our second answer in our series on responding to your questions and comments.  In Off Script 38: Killing in War: A Christian View of Violence, we discussed whether it is appropriate for Christians to participate in war, concluding that Jesus’ command to love our enemies means that Christians should not kill others.  If you haven’t already, check out that episode first before listening or commenting on this one.  In this episode we respond to Zak’s comment.  He wrote:

I really enjoyed this episode. It challenged my current worldview with scripture(a very good thing, even if not pleasant at times). I do have few questions. 1.Can none lethal self defense be put under “confrontational nonresistance” or is it always finding “exceptions to Jesus’ commands.”

For example in the highly unlikely event that I would be walking a busy street and someone pulled out a gun and started shooting other people/family/etc. Would it be against the bible to(if I had the training)Disarm the individual.

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Welcome to our series answering your questions and responding to some of your comments.  We’ve been saving these up and over the next few weeks, we’ll address a number of them.  We’ve decided to do these in individual episodes, so if you’re not interested in the topic, you can just skip it and listen to the ones that matter to you.  As a result, these are each significantly shorter than our typical Off Script episodes.

First up is a statement someone made on an old episode.  In Off Script 16: Christians Discussing Politics, we cited John Zmirak’s comment that he made on Unbelievable, a Christian talk radio show in London, as an example of inappropriate Christian discourse.  Zimrak said,

I would vote for a dead moose strapped to the hood of a car in order to stop Hillary Clinton or really any of the Democrats in America because their policies are fundamentally incompatible with Christianity and really just with human decency.

This episode responds to the following comment by Levi:

A dead moose would in fact be less threatening to freedom of religion, the lives of the unborn, the sexual purity of our young people, etc etc etc. The left is an atheistic, perverted agenda and the Truth is, the Facts are such that no disciple of Christ should ever countenance no less support their godless agenda.

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Have you ever heard the martyrdom argument for the resurrection of Jesus?  It goes something like this.  Jesus’ apostles faced persecution and martyrdom for their confession that God raised Jesus from the dead, sealing their witness with their blood.  Why would they die for a lie?  Their martyrdom unequivocally proves that they sincerely believed in Christ’s resurrection.  Since they were in a position to know if it was true or not, we have every reason to trust their testimony.

However, if I asked you to prove to me that these apostles suffered martyrdom, how would you do it?  How do you know they died as martyrs?  The only apostle whose execution the bible records is James, the brother of John (Acts 12.2).  Furthermore, critics like Candida Moss have argued that the martyrdom stories we have are historically unreliable and are full of exaggerations at best and completely made up at worst.  This is where Sean McDowell’s research is so helpful for us.  He’s taken the time to sift through countless pages of primary documents to collect and then evaluate the martyrdom accounts of the apostles.  After rating the historical likelihood of each on a nine-point scale, he’s concluded that four of them definitely died for their faith: Peter, Paul, James the brother of Jesus, and James the brother of John.  In addition, he argues that two more have a probability greater than 50%, including Thomas and Andrew.

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Have you ever read the book of Ruth?  Though it’s only four chapters, it contains timeless truths that can help us today.  Our culture puts an incredible amount of pressure on spouses to never change, be perfectly compatible, and fulfill our deepest longings that it’s no wonder that singles often can’t seem to find the right one.  However, the lesson of Ruth’s life is that she pursued God and then he took care of finding her a spouse and even built her a lasting dynasty.

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1|Tragedy Strikes

Ruth 1.1 The famine in the land left people with few options

Ruth 1.2-5  The widow’s options

Ruth 1.6-14 Naomi decides everyone should go with option 1

Ruth 1.15-18 Ruth abandons her country, her gods, and her family

Background on Moab

2|Ruth Gleans

Ruth 2.1-12 Gleaning in the barley fields was an accepted norm for the poor

Ruth 2.20 Boaz is a potential redeemer

3|Ruth Proposes

Ruth 3.1-14 Levirate marriage

“Any childless widow had the right to expect her dead husband’s brother to marry her. If no brother existed, some more distant male relative was required to perform this duty.  Whichever relative married the widow became her “go’el” (redeemer or protector).  The first son born to the widow by the new marriage was counted as a child of the dead husband and inherited his property.”[1]

4|Boaz Redeems

Ruth 4.1-17  Boaz does the right things and Naomi and Ruth both benefit

Although she has every reason not to, Ruth chooses Yahweh and his people.  Even if it is a forbidden love, she wants the God of Naomi.  Instead of spurning her, this great lover accepts Ruth and provides for her.  She comes under the protection of his wings and he takes care of the rest.  Not only does he provide her with a husband and the means to thrive, but he grafts her into the ancestral tree that one day would sprout the branches of not only king David but even Jesus the Messiah!  Ruth is no longer an unfortunate Moabitess widow, but a matriarch—the great grandmother of David—and the premier example of a heart who found the love of her life.

[1] Great People of the Bible and How They Lived, (Reader’s Digest Association, 1974), p. 132

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Mary Willson, director of women’s initiatives for the Gospel Coalition, wrestles with a couple of the Old Testament texts that critics use to show that God hates women, including Deuteronomy 21.10-14 and Numbers 5.11-31.  First she looks at how we perceive these ancient scriptures from the perspective of our own culture, then she shows how they functioned in their original historical contexts.  She concludes that God gave these laws to protect women not oppress them.

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In this last episode of our 500 class, we’ll cover a bunch of 20th century American groups including Christian Science, the Evangelicals, Plymouth Brethren, Pentecostals, Calvary Chapel, Vineyard Churches, Christian and Missionary Alliance, the Way International, the Worldwide Church of God, Scientology, the Moonies, and Megachurches (Rick Warren, Craig Groeschel, and Joel Osteen).  It’s a whirlwind, but it should aid you in making some interesting and helpful connections between present day Christian groups and their past.

This is lecture 15 of a history of Christianity class called Five Hundred: From Martin Luther to Joel Osteen.

All the notes are available here as a pdf.

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Christian Science (a.k.a. Church of Christ, Scientist) (85,000)

Evangelicals/Born Again Christians (similar to fundamentalists, but different focus)

Plymouth Brethren (1 million)

Pentecostals (279 million)

How do you deal with difficult people? Jesus teaches us that there’s nothing noteworthy about showing love to those who love us. Rather, he says we are to be like God who sends rain on the just and the wicked. He calls us to love annoying people, boring people, monopolizing people, vengeful people, shallow people, prideful people, and all other kinds of difficult people. We are not free to set our own artificial boundary on love, instead we must love without limits. Listen to this powerful message by Victor Gluckin, originally taught at Revive 2018.  This sermon will challenge you to strengthen your relationship with God since he alone can sustain you with his love so you can freely love those who don’t love you back.

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The 1800s was an exciting time for Christianity in America. At the same time that secularism and liberal Christianity made huge gains, several renewal movements occurred throughout the land, including the Second Great Awakening. In this episode you learn about the birth of the Protestant missionary movement with the Moravians and the Baptists, how the various Adventist denominations got their start, and last of all the most successful made-in-America religion–Mormonism. These thumbnail sketches will help you understand a number of groups that are still around today.

This is lecture 14 of a history of Christianity class called Five Hundred: From Martin Luther to Joel Osteen.

All the notes are available here as a pdf.

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Pietism (late 17th c. to 20th c.)

Moravians (Unitas Fratrum)

“In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; and in all things, love”

Modern Missions

“It is inconsistent for ministers to please themselves with thoughts of a numerous auditory, cordial friends, a civilized country, legal protection, affluence, splendor, or even a competency. The flights, and hatred of men, and even pretended friends, gloomy prisons, and tortures, the society of barbarians of uncouth speech, miserable accommodations in wretched wildernesses, hunger, and thirst, nakedness, weariness, and painfulness, hard work, and but little worldly encouragement should rather be the objects of their expectation. Thus the apostles act

This is part two of our discussion about Charles Mathewes’ Washington Post article, “White Christianity is in big trouble. And it’s its own biggest threat.”  Check out part one here.  In this episode we consider gun control, immigration, the death penalty, and treatment of the poor in an effort to understand and respond to evangelicalism’s ongoing public relations problem.  Are “white evangelicals” as Mathewes puts it “a breathtakingly cruel bunch?”

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This lecture covers the two main types of criticisms leveled against Christianity during the Enlightenment period: biblical and philosophical.  In addition you’ll see how some Christians dug their heals in and worked hard to defend their faith while others gave ground but reinterpreted Christianity in a way that would not only survive the criticisms but also attract “cultured despisers.”  We’ll conclude with a brief sketch of unitarianism in America.

This is lecture 13 of a history of Christianity class called Five Hundred: From Martin Luther to Joel Osteen.

All the notes are available here as a pdf.

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Early Views of Biblical Inspiration

“The Holy Spirit did not simply inspire the meaning or sense of the words contained in Scripture, which the prophets and apostles then set forth, expressed, and embellished with their own words by their own will.  The Holy Spirit supplied, inspired, and dictated the very words and each and every utterance to the writers.” –Johann Quenstedt (1623-1687)[1]

“The Hebrew Original of the Old Testament…is, not only in its consonants, but in its vowels—ether the vowel points themselves, or at least the power of the points—not only in its matter, but in its words, inspired of God” –Helvetic Consensus (1675)[2]

In the 18th c., we have Deism and Pietism.

In the 19th c., we have higher criticism and revivalism.

In the 20th c., we have secularism and Pentecostalism.

Enlightenment[3] (1650-1890)

Deism (17th-18th centuries)

Philosophical Criticisms of Christianity