Recently I was having a conversation with someone about Apologetics, and they mentioned that they didn't like that evolution always seemed to be where a conversation ended. "It doesn't matter," they said, "what we talk about, we always seemed to end up at creation versus evolution." This person said, "I understand that's important, but I really want to understand how to defend the truth of the Gospel to someone who's 70, or to someone who's hurting, or those types of things. I don't want to have to deal with evolution, and creation. Why does it all come back to Genesis one and two," they mentioned.

I have several thoughts about this, and I actually think this type of mentality is a little more common than we might think. Behind this, is really a failure to realize that we have to do ministry in the world as it is, not as we would like it to be. I can't remember who first coined that phrase, but it's really true. We have to engage on the issues that are currently pressing. If you're in a football game, and a player is running the ball on the right side of the field, you can't say, "I'd prefer to play on the left side of the field. I'm not going over there." That's a sure way to lose the game and get benched. More than that, as Christians we're not just talking about a game. We actually have to engage on the issues, the most important things in life: ethics, values, religion, the Gospel. We have to engage where the current questions lie.

We might very well get tired of talking about homosexuality. I do. It's not that big of a deal from a Biblical perspective. There's not a lot on it, but the reason it's a big deal currently in our culture is because that is the place of attack against the Biblical worldview, against what it means to actually be free, what it means to live in or not live in a universe created by God, what it means to be an image bearer of God, who has a soul that is supposed to live for the glory of God. The reason homosexuality is important is because of the authority of scripture, because scripture does speak clearly to this, and because of what it says about us being created by God. We don't get to choose these issues. We, oftentimes, are the ones responding to culture's questions.

It's interesting, when you listen to popular Christian figures who often get interviewed on these hot pressing topics, sometimes they're asked, "Why do you talk about homosexuality so much?" They say, "I just talk about it as much as I'm asked." We're responding to the questions asked to us, or the whole reason we talk about sexuality in the church as much as we do today is not because we've made it a big deal, but because we're responding to the big deal culture has made of it. If we did not respond, that would be irresponsible. We would not be doing ministry in the world as it is. We would be doing ministry in the world as we would like it to be.

Our first concept or point to think about today is we've got to address the world as it is, with its current, popular failings and its current trends and fads. We have to talk about those things. There was a time when the conversation, at least in Christian circles, was about whether scripture was true or not. Now largely, at least in Evangelical circles, that's not really the question, though non-Christians certainly still have that question. Today in the church the issue is are we going to stand on that word of God? Are we going to ascribe to it truth and authority, and recognize it for what it really is in those areas? Then are we going to be bound by it and live like it?

We have to do ministry in the world as it is, but we also need to answer the questions people are asking. This individual I was talking with, who didn't see what the big deal was with evolution, "Why…

Some of the largest "churches" today in America teach something called the prosperity gospel. Now, this is not the true Gospel, as we'll get into, but they claim it is. This is what they generally teach. (We're putting all these people in one bucket, but they do share some commonalities.) It generally goes something like this. They might say that God wants to prosper you. He wants to make you successful. He wants to make you wealthy. He's for you. In fact, he wants you to live up to your potential and he wants to bless you with things and make you healthy, and wealthy, and have great relationships. 

This goes on and on, and what's said is that you need to just claim these promises that God has said, where he's going to give you these things or make your life better in these ways. You just need to have more faith, because God is just standing there waiting to bless you, so you need to claim these promises, have a stronger faith, live better, more righteously (whatever it may be) and God will bless you with these things.

Now, the prosperity gospel exists on a spectrum, from “if you're really righteous, you're going to drive an Audi,” to “you know you might just get that job if you have enough faith, or that sickness will go away if you pray harder,” and everything in between. I actually think that while most Evangelicals today do not adopt the “Joel Osteen God - wants you to be wealthy” prosperity gospel, we do have a tendency to think that if we just behave well enough God is going to give us the things we pray for, or at least he's more likely to. Where how God treats us and the way in which we get things, or in the way in which our circumstances get better, is dependent on how we act. Where God might give us more things if we behave better. The fact is, is nothing could be further from the biblical Gospel. 

The biblical Gospel said that I cannot earn my righteousness, that none is holy before God, that all of my righteousness on my own equates to filthy rags before God, not something worthy of merit or reward.

Now, it is true when we look at the Old Testament, we do see that the way God showed his blessing for righteous acts, and living, and faith was oftentimes through physical prosperity. You look at David, or Solomon, or Moses, or even Job. These people had a lot of wealth by worldly standards, and it was because, in part, that they were Godly, upright men. 

Sometimes people will read their Bible and they'll see that and they'll say, "See, it should be the same today." Here is one of many problems with this view. Here's the main antidote to that type of gospel poison, if you want to think of it that way. That concept of holiness is not even big enough for Jesus, or for Paul. Here's what I mean. If the sign of holiness, if the sign of God's blessing as a result of your holiness is wealth, if it is better relationships, and if it's better health, then Jesus was not very holy.

Here's what I mean. Let's tackle the health aspect of it. Jesus, was he in good health? Well, he was ultimately killed by crucifixion. That's not a very healthy thing. It doesn't really do too well in the health department. Now, we're not told very much about Jesus's health throughout the rest of his life. I imagine he got sick just like everyone else did. He was, after all, human, living in a fallen world, even though he himself was not fallen. He certainly didn't have a very peaceful, tranquil demise at the end, did he? No, he was tortured, and treated horribly unfairly, and ultimately killed on a cross, so he didn't do too well in the health department.

What about the relationship department? Did he have great relationships? Is that how God the Father showed his blessing on Jesus? Well, not so much, because his life got started with Herod tr…

Some of the largest "churches" today in America teach something called the prosperity gospel. Now, this is not the true Gospel, as we'll get into, but they claim it is. This is what they generally teach. (We're putting all these people in one bucket, but they do share some commonalities.) It generally goes something like this. They might say that God wants to prosper you. He wants to make you successful. He wants to make you wealthy. He's for you. In fact, he wants you to live up to your potential and he wants to bless you with things and make you healthy, and wealthy, and have great relationships. 

This goes on and on, and what's said is that you need to just claim these promises that God has said, where he's going to give you these things or make your life better in these ways. You just need to have more faith, because God is just standing there waiting to bless you, so you need to claim these promises, have a stronger faith, live better, more righteously (whatever it may be) and God will bless you with these things.

Now, the prosperity gospel exists on a spectrum, from “if you're really righteous, you're going to drive an Audi,” to “you know you might just get that job if you have enough faith, or that sickness will go away if you pray harder,” and everything in between. I actually think that while most Evangelicals today do not adopt the “Joel Osteen God - wants you to be wealthy” prosperity gospel, we do have a tendency to think that if we just behave well enough God is going to give us the things we pray for, or at least he's more likely to. Where how God treats us and the way in which we get things, or in the way in which our circumstances get better, is dependent on how we act. Where God might give us more things if we behave better. The fact is, is nothing could be further from the biblical Gospel. 

The biblical Gospel said that I cannot earn my righteousness, that none is holy before God, that all of my righteousness on my own equates to filthy rags before God, not something worthy of merit or reward.

Now, it is true when we look at the Old Testament, we do see that the way God showed his blessing for righteous acts, and living, and faith was oftentimes through physical prosperity. You look at David, or Solomon, or Moses, or even Job. These people had a lot of wealth by worldly standards, and it was because, in part, that they were Godly, upright men. 

Sometimes people will read their Bible and they'll see that and they'll say, "See, it should be the same today." Here is one of many problems with this view. Here's the main antidote to that type of gospel poison, if you want to think of it that way. That concept of holiness is not even big enough for Jesus, or for Paul. Here's what I mean. If the sign of holiness, if the sign of God's blessing as a result of your holiness is wealth, if it is better relationships, and if it's better health, then Jesus was not very holy.

Here's what I mean. Let's tackle the health aspect of it. Jesus, was he in good health? Well, he was ultimately killed by crucifixion. That's not a very healthy thing. It doesn't really do too well in the health department. Now, we're not told very much about Jesus's health throughout the rest of his life. I imagine he got sick just like everyone else did. He was, after all, human, living in a fallen world, even though he himself was not fallen. He certainly didn't have a very peaceful, tranquil demise at the end, did he? No, he was tortured, and treated horribly unfairly, and ultimately killed on a cross, so he didn't do too well in the health department.

What about the relationship department? Did he have great relationships? Is that how God the Father showed his blessing on Jesus? Well, not so much, because his life got started with Herod tr…

Why should Christians take a position on the gender identity issue?

In our time today, Christians are continually faced with the question of how to think about the cultural issues that are going on? Do we take position or if we have a position, how active should we be in either supporting or opposing what's going on? One of the main cultural conversations that's happening right now is that of gender identity and transgenderism. The question becomes why should Christians care about this? Why should we have a position? Is there a Christian position? That's what we're going to talk about today.

I think there are three reasons, at least, that Christians should care about this conversation and care about taking a very specific stance on this position.

The first point is, it's a denial of creation and perhaps more importantly creation purpose. If we say that however I feel is how I should act, that means we weren't created with the express purpose of functioning as either a male or a female. This trend towards you deciding your gender, it not being rooted in reality or in your biology or anything like that, is actually fundamentally a denial of the fact that we were created and that we were created by God. We weren't just made as androgynous person one and androgynous person two as though we don't have a defined sex, that's kind of what androgynous means. God made us male, distinctly male. That is a type of human and he made another type of human called female. He made these two things for a very specific purpose, because they are to come together and unite, one man, one woman, for one lifetime to create the next generation and provide for it's flourishing.

That's God's design there, but that's not all actually. Because the new Testament in multiple places, picks up this man-woman marriage picture and uses it to help us understand Christ and his love and sacrifice for the church. It totally blows-up the Christ-church analogy and parallel if we say that the bride can choose to be a groom, and that those roles don't really work and they're not meaningful. The new Testament has no concept of that in part, because it would just really distort that Christ-church picture but more than that, because at the heart of saying I can choose my gender is the denial of the fact that God had a purpose in making distinctly male humans and a purpose in making distinctly female humans.

When we say gender is up for grabs, we are denying that there's actually a purpose to how we were made. Take out the fact that we're made in the image of God, which is really important, and we've talked about that a lot. If we say gender isn't a defined thing, then we're saying there's not really a purpose to why we are the way we are. This shouldn't surprise us for a culture that believes evolution explains the arrival and flourishing of life, well of course they don't believe in a creator but that doesn't mean we should encourage people in that.

That's our first point: the reason we should take a position where gender is actually rooted in reality, rooted in biology, rooted in how God made us, is because the opposite of that is denying the fact that God, this God we know and worship, actually created people male and female for a reason.

The second reason we should take a position on this, is actually out of loving our neighbor. The first is a very God centered approach. We don't want to profane what God has created and called good, by the way. The second is out of loving our neighbor. I think most Christians would say that God's way is best. God sets up this pattern in the bible where men leave their parents, women leave their parents and one of each come together and are married. We just talked about…

Why should Christians take a position on the gender identity issue?

In our time today, Christians are continually faced with the question of how to think about the cultural issues that are going on? Do we take position or if we have a position, how active should we be in either supporting or opposing what's going on? One of the main cultural conversations that's happening right now is that of gender identity and transgenderism. The question becomes why should Christians care about this? Why should we have a position? Is there a Christian position? That's what we're going to talk about today.

I think there are three reasons, at least, that Christians should care about this conversation and care about taking a very specific stance on this position.

The first point is, it's a denial of creation and perhaps more importantly creation purpose. If we say that however I feel is how I should act, that means we weren't created with the express purpose of functioning as either a male or a female. This trend towards you deciding your gender, it not being rooted in reality or in your biology or anything like that, is actually fundamentally a denial of the fact that we were created and that we were created by God. We weren't just made as androgynous person one and androgynous person two as though we don't have a defined sex, that's kind of what androgynous means. God made us male, distinctly male. That is a type of human and he made another type of human called female. He made these two things for a very specific purpose, because they are to come together and unite, one man, one woman, for one lifetime to create the next generation and provide for it's flourishing.

That's God's design there, but that's not all actually. Because the new Testament in multiple places, picks up this man-woman marriage picture and uses it to help us understand Christ and his love and sacrifice for the church. It totally blows-up the Christ-church analogy and parallel if we say that the bride can choose to be a groom, and that those roles don't really work and they're not meaningful. The new Testament has no concept of that in part, because it would just really distort that Christ-church picture but more than that, because at the heart of saying I can choose my gender is the denial of the fact that God had a purpose in making distinctly male humans and a purpose in making distinctly female humans.

When we say gender is up for grabs, we are denying that there's actually a purpose to how we were made. Take out the fact that we're made in the image of God, which is really important, and we've talked about that a lot. If we say gender isn't a defined thing, then we're saying there's not really a purpose to why we are the way we are. This shouldn't surprise us for a culture that believes evolution explains the arrival and flourishing of life, well of course they don't believe in a creator but that doesn't mean we should encourage people in that.

That's our first point: the reason we should take a position where gender is actually rooted in reality, rooted in biology, rooted in how God made us, is because the opposite of that is denying the fact that God, this God we know and worship, actually created people male and female for a reason.

The second reason we should take a position on this, is actually out of loving our neighbor. The first is a very God centered approach. We don't want to profane what God has created and called good, by the way. The second is out of loving our neighbor. I think most Christians would say that God's way is best. God sets up this pattern in the bible where men leave their parents, women leave their parents and one of each come together and are married. We just talked about…

Are you actively praying against your sanctification?

First off, "sanctification", what is it? That’s one of those big $10 theological words that really just means to make more holy. What the Holy Spirit is doing in the life of the Christian is progressively sanctifying them, making them more holy, making them more set apart for the things and purposes of God. That’s one of the Holy Spirit’s jobs and that’s one of his roles in the Trinity and in the working out of our salvation. The Holy Spirit makes us more holy over time.

Now there are certainly means that God uses to do this. Those could be our conscience, those could be our circumstances, that could be the written word of God, that could be preaching, community - a lot of different things.

Here’s my question, do we pray against some of the most powerful things that God actually is using to sanctify us? That might sound counterintuitive. "Certainly I am not praying against something God is trying to do for my good."

Herein lies one of the overlooked problems of our evangelical culture today: what is prayer request time generally compromised of? Now maybe your church is different, maybe your friends and family are different. In my experience over my entire life the majority of prayer requests center around issues like: there’s this thing in my life that’s not as I want it to be and I want it to be better.

Now that might be I need a car, so I can get to work. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that. That’s a very good thing, wanting to get to work and support your family.

It might be that your aunt is sick, she’s got cancer and it’s not looking good. We want her to get healed and that’s certainly a good thing, wouldn’t we say? We want people to be healthy and the list goes on. For instance, I need this job, so I can make more money and on its own that’s not necessarily bad either.

What ends up happening is: we end up praying against and asking God to change every negative thing in our life. It’s interesting, when I read scripture I see no promise that God is going to do this. In fact, I don’t see us being told to pray that way. Of course, this is a much bigger conversation and study. We’re talking about what does the whole Bible teach on this topic. We can’t really cover that in 10 or 15 minutes on this podcast.

I just want to give you a thought. I want to put forth that true holiness before God, true sanctification as a Christian does not look like the absence of problems in your life. In fact, I would almost say it’s probably the opposite. Not as a rule, not as in "it has to be this way," but in a general sense, I would say that some of the most holy people I know have some of the most difficult lives.

There’s a movement today called the prosperity Gospel or maybe the pseudo-prosperity Gospel that basically says if you’re doing what God wants you to do, if you’re being holy enough, if you’re being righteous enough, if you have enough faith then your life’s going to go well. Now some people will say that this means you’ll be actually physically wealthy, some people will just say it means that things will start going your way, that pieces start falling into place.

What I want us to consider is what James says in James 1, when he says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you encounter trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Allow perseverance to finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

Why should we look at trials and difficulties in our life not as something that need to go away, but something that we need to come through? Because there one of the main ways God uses to sanctify us, to make us more holy, to make us more like Jesus.

When I look at my life and I …

Are you actively praying against your sanctification?

First off, "sanctification", what is it? That’s one of those big $10 theological words that really just means to make more holy. What the Holy Spirit is doing in the life of the Christian is progressively sanctifying them, making them more holy, making them more set apart for the things and purposes of God. That’s one of the Holy Spirit’s jobs and that’s one of his roles in the Trinity and in the working out of our salvation. The Holy Spirit makes us more holy over time.

Now there are certainly means that God uses to do this. Those could be our conscience, those could be our circumstances, that could be the written word of God, that could be preaching, community - a lot of different things.

Here’s my question, do we pray against some of the most powerful things that God actually is using to sanctify us? That might sound counterintuitive. "Certainly I am not praying against something God is trying to do for my good."

Herein lies one of the overlooked problems of our evangelical culture today: what is prayer request time generally compromised of? Now maybe your church is different, maybe your friends and family are different. In my experience over my entire life the majority of prayer requests center around issues like: there’s this thing in my life that’s not as I want it to be and I want it to be better.

Now that might be I need a car, so I can get to work. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that. That’s a very good thing, wanting to get to work and support your family.

It might be that your aunt is sick, she’s got cancer and it’s not looking good. We want her to get healed and that’s certainly a good thing, wouldn’t we say? We want people to be healthy and the list goes on. For instance, I need this job, so I can make more money and on its own that’s not necessarily bad either.

What ends up happening is: we end up praying against and asking God to change every negative thing in our life. It’s interesting, when I read scripture I see no promise that God is going to do this. In fact, I don’t see us being told to pray that way. Of course, this is a much bigger conversation and study. We’re talking about what does the whole Bible teach on this topic. We can’t really cover that in 10 or 15 minutes on this podcast.

I just want to give you a thought. I want to put forth that true holiness before God, true sanctification as a Christian does not look like the absence of problems in your life. In fact, I would almost say it’s probably the opposite. Not as a rule, not as in "it has to be this way," but in a general sense, I would say that some of the most holy people I know have some of the most difficult lives.

There’s a movement today called the prosperity Gospel or maybe the pseudo-prosperity Gospel that basically says if you’re doing what God wants you to do, if you’re being holy enough, if you’re being righteous enough, if you have enough faith then your life’s going to go well. Now some people will say that this means you’ll be actually physically wealthy, some people will just say it means that things will start going your way, that pieces start falling into place.

What I want us to consider is what James says in James 1, when he says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you encounter trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Allow perseverance to finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

Why should we look at trials and difficulties in our life not as something that need to go away, but something that we need to come through? Because there one of the main ways God uses to sanctify us, to make us more holy, to make us more like Jesus.

When I look at my life and I …

Today, we're going to learn one tip for discovering inconsistent or contradictory views.

More than ever before, Christians need to be equipped to find views that aren't true, to find views that can't be consistently applied, and more importantly to find views that do not accord with what scripture teaches. There are many tips and techniques that one could look at to get better at this, but the one we're going to look at today involves taking a position and seeing where it leads: How can this view be consistently applied, can I try and put this principle into practice in other areas? We're going to look at several examples of this.

The first is that of abortion. Some people will say that if abortion were illegal, then there would be more and more unwanted children in the world. For instance: children that are treated very poorly perhaps in a foster care situation, there would be even more of those and surely we wouldn't want more unfairly treated children. Here's the question. They're saying we could kill children who are unwanted. Does that view work if we apply it to the child currently in the foster care situation? Can we kill children who are currently in foster care because they are being treated poorly? I think the answer's going to be no. Another question we could ask here is: is your worth dependent on how you're treated? Are you less valuable, are you less of a valuable human being if you're mistreated compared to if you are treated well? Once again, no.

The real question with abortion is what is the unborn? It is a human being that's alive. It's the product of a living sperm and a living egg that come together to make another cell that's alive, that takes in nutrients and expels waste and adds to itself. It's alive, and it's also human. It's nothing else. Genetically, it's totally human. Since it's a human that's alive, we should treat it like any other human being when it comes to end-of-life issues. More than that, this reason given for abortion is inconsistent because it would actually support killing children currently in foster care.

Another thing we might say is, "Well, abortion should be legal in the case of rape." As tough of a circumstance as this is, I can't imagine what that's like, but we can think through together how one could consistently act in this sort of circumstance. If the argument is, if a woman is raped then it's permissible to kill her child, then how should we respond to the one year-olds who reminds a mother of rape? Can the mother kill that child too? Can she kill her at five or at 10 or at 20? I think the answer to all of those questions is going to be no. We see it's inconsistent to say you can kill the unborn child because they remind you of rape but not the post-born child because there's no substantive difference in being in the womb and out of the womb. It's just a change in location, it's not a change in anything else. That's another reason for abortion that can't be consistently applied. It would be in favor of killing toddlers. This is a tactic called “trotting out the toddler” where you say, "Well, is the reason that's given, would it actually apply to a toddler too?" Many of the reasons given do. There are many other ways we could look at this, but I want to give you some other examples also.

Some people will say, "You can't trust the Bible, it's written by men." I might ask that person, "Where did you first learn of this line of argument?" "Well, I read it in a Richard Dawkins book," they might say. "Okay." Now, I'm going to see if their way of reasoning as to how they can trust something is being consistently applied. I'm going to ask, "Is Richard Dawkins a man who wrote this book you read?" They're goi…

Today, we're going to learn one tip for discovering inconsistent or contradictory views.

More than ever before, Christians need to be equipped to find views that aren't true, to find views that can't be consistently applied, and more importantly to find views that do not accord with what scripture teaches. There are many tips and techniques that one could look at to get better at this, but the one we're going to look at today involves taking a position and seeing where it leads: How can this view be consistently applied, can I try and put this principle into practice in other areas? We're going to look at several examples of this.

The first is that of abortion. Some people will say that if abortion were illegal, then there would be more and more unwanted children in the world. For instance: children that are treated very poorly perhaps in a foster care situation, there would be even more of those and surely we wouldn't want more unfairly treated children. Here's the question. They're saying we could kill children who are unwanted. Does that view work if we apply it to the child currently in the foster care situation? Can we kill children who are currently in foster care because they are being treated poorly? I think the answer's going to be no. Another question we could ask here is: is your worth dependent on how you're treated? Are you less valuable, are you less of a valuable human being if you're mistreated compared to if you are treated well? Once again, no.

The real question with abortion is what is the unborn? It is a human being that's alive. It's the product of a living sperm and a living egg that come together to make another cell that's alive, that takes in nutrients and expels waste and adds to itself. It's alive, and it's also human. It's nothing else. Genetically, it's totally human. Since it's a human that's alive, we should treat it like any other human being when it comes to end-of-life issues. More than that, this reason given for abortion is inconsistent because it would actually support killing children currently in foster care.

Another thing we might say is, "Well, abortion should be legal in the case of rape." As tough of a circumstance as this is, I can't imagine what that's like, but we can think through together how one could consistently act in this sort of circumstance. If the argument is, if a woman is raped then it's permissible to kill her child, then how should we respond to the one year-olds who reminds a mother of rape? Can the mother kill that child too? Can she kill her at five or at 10 or at 20? I think the answer to all of those questions is going to be no. We see it's inconsistent to say you can kill the unborn child because they remind you of rape but not the post-born child because there's no substantive difference in being in the womb and out of the womb. It's just a change in location, it's not a change in anything else. That's another reason for abortion that can't be consistently applied. It would be in favor of killing toddlers. This is a tactic called “trotting out the toddler” where you say, "Well, is the reason that's given, would it actually apply to a toddler too?" Many of the reasons given do. There are many other ways we could look at this, but I want to give you some other examples also.

Some people will say, "You can't trust the Bible, it's written by men." I might ask that person, "Where did you first learn of this line of argument?" "Well, I read it in a Richard Dawkins book," they might say. "Okay." Now, I'm going to see if their way of reasoning as to how they can trust something is being consistently applied. I'm going to ask, "Is Richard Dawkins a man who wrote this book you read?" They're goi…

Is believing in Jesus enough for salvation?

One of the most commonly tossed around phrases when discussing religion, and especially Christianity, is 'I believe in Jesus.' You might be sharing your Christian convictions with a coworker, and they're like, "Oh yeah, I believe in Jesus!"

Or, you might be talking with a Muslim, and they'll say, "Well, we believe in Jesus." Or, the same thing with a Jehovah's Witness, or a Mormon. I've had all of these sorts of conversations. I remember being in college, and going to a culture night, and hearing an imam talk about Islam, and how Judaism, Islam, Christianity, we're all just forks off the same tree. “We believe in Jesus, too.” Now, I wasn't buying it, but many people were quite intrigued because that didn't sound like the Islam they had heard about growing up.

I remember a conversation with a friend who said "Well, I'm a Jehovah's Witness, and we believe in Jesus." The list goes on, but the real question is, how should we respond to this type of statement?

Is simply saying "I believe in Jesus" and believing that Jesus was a real person, or a real figure in history, is that enough for salvation? Well, no. The problem is is there are many different things one can believe about Jesus or mean by "I believe in Jesus."

We need to use our first question from Greg Koukl's book, 'Tactics,' and say, "What do you mean by that? What do you mean by 'believe in Jesus?'" Because when the Muslim says it and the Mormon says it, and the Jehovah's Witness says it, and the Christian says it, we all mean different things. We all can't be right. We all could be wrong, but we all can't be right.

It really matters what you mean by, "I believe in Jesus."

For instance, when the Muslim says "I believe in Jesus." He probably believes Jesus was a real figure in history was born of a virgin, who did wonderful acts and miracles. He probably believes he ascended to heaven, and is coming back one day to usher in judgement. That's a lot of similar stuff to Christianity.

Where he's going to diverge is he doesn't believe Jesus is God. He doesn't believe he's the second person in the Trinity. He doesn't believe he even died on the cross. Muslims think Jesus didn't die on the cross, that it was only, "made to appear that he did." Not dying on the cross means not paying for sin, which means we're not saved by believing in that Jesus. Additionally, a Jesus who is not God cannot save us, either. Believing in Jesus, that phrase, or believing things about Jesus, that's not enough. It matters what you believe about Jesus.

What about the Jehovah's Witnesses? Okay, so "We believe in Jesus," they say, and they do! But, they believe different things than Christianity teaches about Jesus. A Jesus who is a created being, who is not the same God as the God of the Old Testament is not a Jesus who can save. It's not the same Jesus Christians are talking about. A Jesus who is not fully God, and a Jesus who is not fully man-both of those in the one person of Christ-that is a Jesus that cannot save. That is why Christians reject the idea of the Jehovah's Witness Jesus, because he is a Jesus that cannot save. He is a Jesus who is not supported by scripture.

Now yes, they believe in Jesus. Yes, the Muslim believes in Jesus, but they don't believe the right things about Jesus. The Jesus they're actually believing in is not the Jesus of the Bible. It's the same with Mormonism. Mormonism teaches that Jesus is a created being, he's the literal son of God and his Goddess wife, who was created. The Jesus in Mormonism is actually one of three gods in the god head. Not one god, in three persons, but three gods. That's a different God. That's a different Jesus.

Mormons also believe that Jesus atoned for sin on the cross and in the …