Post Category → Norman Giesler

Question & Thought for June 4th, 2016!!!

Question & Thought for June 4th, 2016!!!

Good Saturday Morning!

  1. Question – Do you have truth questions?

2. Thought – In order to resolve our cultural schizophrenia, we need to address four questions concerning truth:

  • What is truth?
  • Can truth be known?
  • Can truths about God be known?
  • So what? Who cares about truth? (I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist by Frank Turek and Norman Geisler)

Question & Thought for May 24th, 2016!

Question & Thought for May 24th, 2016!
Good Tuesday Morning!
1. Question – Do you reject Christianity’s core principles?
2. Thought – Not too long ago, most Americans accepted the basic claims of Christianity, even if they weren’t Christians. Most believed there is a God. Most respected the Bible. Most were convinced Jesus was an actual person. And most generally accepted the biblical moral code: Don’t use God’s name as a curse word; respect your parents; don’t commit murder; don’t steal, or covet your neighbor’s spouse or possessions.
This is no longer true. Many reject Christianity’s core principles. Virtually everything Christians have always believed is being challenged or opposed. These challenges come from schoolteachers, college professors, commentators, writers – seemingly from every walk of life.
These are some of the allegations:
  • There is no God
  • The New Testament is unreliable. Though it may have some good moral teaching, it contains fables and errors.
  • If Jesus existed at all, he was not God; he certainly did not rise from the dead.
  • The Bible is no different from any other religious book. All religions have their own truth.
  • Many paths lead to God; Jesus is not the only way. being good and being sincere about what you believe is what matters.
Many Christians don’t know how to respond to these claims. (Reason for Belief by Norman Geisler and Patty Tunnicliffe)
“From the day of the Declaration…they [the American people] were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of the gospel, which they nearly all acknowledged as the rules of their conduct.” (John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, July 4th, 1821)
rem – I had no knowledge that I had no knowledge.
Question & Thought & ANDs.

Question & Thought for May 19th, 2016!!!

Question & Thought for May 19th, 2016!!!
Good Thursday Morning!
1. Question – “Is it true that Jesus is the only way to God?”
​2. Thought ​- All other religions contradict every core New Testament claim about Jesus. For the final time, we’re brought back to the reminder that contradictory truth claims cannot be true. Look one more time at these statements to see how clear they are about Jesus being the only way to God:
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.” (John 14:6)
“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)
“Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” (1 John 5:12)
These declarations are unambiguous. They’re either true or false. Either Jesus and the New testament writers are right or they are wrong. We must make our choice.
If Jesus is God, he cannot be wrong. If Jesus is not God, then he is wrong on the most important matter – how we can have our sins forgiven – and we cannot trust what he says. If he is not God, he would not be the way, the truth, and the life, and he would not be the only way to the Father. In fact, if he did not speak the truth, he is not even a way to the Father – he is not a way to anywhere.
But then again, as we’ve seen, Jesus is God. His words are true.
Here the laws of logic, compel us to make a choice: a choice about Jesus. If his claims to be God are true, and thus his claim to be the only true way to God is true, then everything that contradicts him is false. The claim that he is the only way to God is no more narrow-minded, closed-minded, arrogant, or intolerant than any other belief someone may hold, for whatever they believe to be true, the opposite of it must be false.
And so the only real question is “Is it true that Jesus is the only way to God?” For all the reasons we’ve stated above, this claim is demonstrably true. Now you must ask yourself, “What am I going to do about it?” You have a decision to make.
True or false? Right or wrong? What do you say of Jesus and his claims?
C.S. Lewis, who understood the laws of logic, challenged us to make a decision about the claims of Jesus. Are they true or false?
“You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, or you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon, or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
Lewis is right. The law of noncontradiction insists that we choose. Jesus is the only way to God, or he is not. There is no other option. (Reasons for Belief by Norman L. Geisler and Patty Tunnicliffe)
“I had no knowledge that I had no knowledge.” (Stephen Pratt)
rem – I had no knowledge that I had no knowledge.
Question & Thought & ANDs.