This page is just a look at some logical thought on various topics in culture and Christianity.
WHAT HAPPENS TO PEOPLE WHO NEVER HEAR? (Romans 1:18-21)
The Bible is not direct in answering this question but I don’t believe it’s silent.
In Acts we see Antioch as the launching pad to missions. In the first missionary journey they left and went north and returned to Antioch. In the second missionary journey they went north and then Paul got the “Macedonian call” to move to the unreached areas of Macedonia where he loops around and down to Jerusalem and returns to Antioch. The third missionary journey Paul went where he was before and visits Corinth, where he wrote the book of Romans, and goes down to Jerusalem but did not return to Antioch. There is a reason he did not return; he never planned to return. Paul had a desire to take the Gospel to Spain and had to pass through Rome from Corinth; and this is why he wrote the letter to the Romans. If people who have not heard the Gospel, or heard of Yahshua, then why was it so important for Paul to go to the unreached?
Everyone knows God at some level, but everyone has rejected true knowledge of God (Romans 1:18-25)
“What about the natives that were here before; the people who had no knowledge of God but they worshiped something, maybe the sun god, wouldn’t God be pleased in that?” What Paul makes clear is that you don’t worship the sun and call it god and that become pleasing to God (Romans 1:18-25).
We are all prone to worship creation, whether Gods or mans, rather than God. As a result, there are no innocent people in the world. Paul addresses the Gentiles in Romans 1:18-2:16. Paul addresses the Jews in Romans 2:17-3:8. In Romans 3:9-18 he brings it all together.
“What about the innocent guy in Africa who has never heard?” I believe, based upon Scripture that he would go to heaven. If he’s innocent he would go; but there is no such guy in Africa. To be innocent would be sinless. There are guilty people all over Africa, Asia, and the world who need the Gospel.
We often approach this subject with the question, “Would it be fair for God to condemn someone to hell for not believing in Yahshua when they have never heard of Yahshua?”. It does not seem fair but there is where the Christian community stands that those who have never heard will not be condemned. There are obviously different levels of knowledge of God; some who have never heard and some who have heard and more. In the hearing and knowledge of, we have a greater accountability. The problem is that those who have not heard about Yahshua still stand condemned because they’ve rejected God. If the person who has not heard of Yahshua gets a free ticket then the worse thing we could do is take the Gospel to them (Acts 1:8). As soon as we tell them about Yahshua they stand condemned but before they were going to heaven.
Think about it this way: If you were talking to a person and ask them if they ever heard of Yahshua, if they ever heard of Jesus, and they say “no”, what are you going to do at this moment; what are you going to say? If a person ever comes to you and tries to tell you about Jesus, put your fingers in your ears and start yelling and run because you're going to heaven right now. That does not work with Scripture.
If the person who has not heard of Yahshua gets a free ticket then we imply that there is more than one way to get to God (John 14:6)
WHAT IS SEXUAL IMMORALITY? (1 Cor 6:18)
Sexual immorality is anything that you would be upset about finding someone doing with your spouse. Would this then include kissing? If a person would be upset that another man was trying to kiss their wife, then kissing must be classified as a sexual act.
ABORTION
If the child, in the womb, is a human than the debate of abortion is nonexistent.
Some say women have a freedom to choose. In some cases yes. We do not have the freedom to eliminate toddlers when they become burdensome.
“The state cannot take away a woman right to choose.” The government always takes a right to choose. I cannot choose to walk in your driveway and drive off with your car. If caught speeding, when the officer walks up to the window of my vehicle, I do not look at him and say, “I have a right to choose what ever speed I want”. If we had the right to choose what ever we wanted, the result would be anarchy.
“A woman has a right over her own body.” Does that include prostitution; or is there laws against that?
“I don’t think we should take the right to choose away from someone.” As a society, we take the right to choose to do evil away every single day; and it’s a good thing.
“I don’t think we should force morality on other people”. The government exist’s to enforce morality (stealing, murder, etc.), and enforces morality every single day.
“If we don’t legalize abortion then women will do it in back allies with coat hangers.” If it is dangerous to kill a person should we make it easier to do so? If it is dangerous for a man to rob a bank should we create laws making it easier for him to do so?
Every year there are about 15 million babies born pre-mature. Five percent of those (750,000) are born before the third trimester (earlier than 28 weeks). Fifteen percent (2,250,000) are born in the early third trimester (28 to 31 weeks). All of the premature babies are given extra care to help them live. Rightly so, life is precious. If a doctor was to come into the hospital room and, instead of giving care, too the life of the child while laying quietly by their mother’s breast; that would be homicide. Yet, the same child, laying peacefully in the womb, inches from their mothers breast, can be legally killed. That which is 27 weeks old and outside the womb is life therefore, that which is 27 weeks old and inside the womb is life.
Would we murder a child because they have been born with a defect? Would we murder a child because they were born of a rape conception? If we would not take the life of a child in these cases, why would we take the life of a child in the womb? If a tough decision but if the baby in the womb is a life then the debate of abortion is over.
People talk about being pro-choice. We are pro-choice about where to live, what to eat, what to drive, where to work, but we are not pro-choice about rape.
HOMOSEXUALITY
Everyone has a bent towards sexual deviation. Homosexuality is not the only sexual sin and heterosexual males represent the majority of the people responsible for sexual immorality in the world today.
It’s amazing how many Christians want to pick and choose which sin is evil. While homosexuality is not Biblical neither is looking at another person naked (Lev 18:17; Habakkuk 2:15: Prov 25:26).
If we shake our heads at homosexuality and then we turn the channel to stare, uncritically, at adultery, to watch the trivialization of sex on TV or movies, look at seductive images on reality TV shows and virtual prostitution of advertisements that sell interest in us though sexuality, then we miss the whole point. Are our sins more acceptable because they are the sins of the majority?
To justify homosexuality, or any other sexual immorality, by using Scripture can only be done by saying the Bible is irrelevant, inaccurate, or insufficient.
Civilization is placing the LBGT movement on the same civil rights levels as racism. The fundamental flaw in that line of thinking is ethnic identity is a morally neutral attribute; black or white is not an issue of right or wrong. Yet, sexual activity is a morally chosen behavior.
Acting out sexual immorality is defended upon natural explanations; assuming that if there’s a natural explanation that implies moral obligation. “If I am this way then I have to act this way”. Causation does not imply justification.
The Bible does not disagree with science. The Bible says sexual immorality is immoral not improbably or impossible.
What is a homosexual act? A homosexual act is erotically satisfying a person of the same sex though sexual touching of that individual. Would you agree? Sure. This being the case; wouldn’t masterbation be a homosexual act?
RIGHTS
Science says homosexuality is right because of a “natural” desire. Legality and rights are not based upon desires. Just because we have a desire does not mean we have a right to carry out that desire (Romans 6, Gal 5, Eph 5). If an adult man solicits sex with an elementary girl because he has a desire, nobody is saying “let him do it; that’s just the way he is”. If a man makes a sexual comment or commits adultery, we don’t just shrug it off saying they are just like that; they have those desires. Desires are immoral not inevitable.
INTOLERANCE
Most of society is angry at the intolerance of the Christians people. So, what’s really happening here is, the people in our culture is intolerant of intolerance
“I’m sick and tired of your intolerance and I’m not going to tolerate it any more” is actually what is being said
People claiming intolerance are intolerant of intolerant people; which means, they can’t tolerate themselves.
Tolerance actually implies disagreement in that we tolerate someone who does not believe the same way as we do. No tolerance is needed for someone who agrees with what we believe.
The moment we think that all belief’s are on the same level and the cardinal sin is to disagree we will rob ourselves from the quest for truth
YAHSHUA (JESUS) A GOOD PROPHET, TEACHER, OR MAN
By trade, Yahshua was a carpenter yet claimed He was the Son of God. In fact, He called Himself God when He said, “Before Abraham was, I AM”. It was this claim that caused the Jews of the day to seek to kill Him. He was from an obscure town of Jerusalem but claimed He was a King of a Kingdom.
He claimed to be able to forgive sinners; which placed Himself in the place of God again - and caused people to what to kill Him again. Everyone was lost but He was the Shepherd to find them. Everyone else was darkness but He was the Light of the World.
Yahshua did much good for society but if He were merely a man He would have had an extreme ego centricity; because, He talked about Himself all the times. He always talked about how good He was and how bad everyone else was. He classified Himself in a whole different plane from everyone else, placing Himself in a class all by Himself. Everyone else was hungry, He claimed to be their bread. Everyone else was thirsty but He was could quench their thirst.
Christ claimed that He will return at the end of history and all nations would stand before Him while He would separate them out and judge them on who goes to eternal life and who goes to eternal death.
Now, either these claims are true or they are false. If they are false, and He knew they were false, He would be a down right liar. If they were false, and He believed they were true, He would be a lunatic. Therefore, He is either God or a liar and/or lunatic. He cannot be merely a good moral teacher or prophet and be a liar and/or lunatic; therefore, He must be God - even accepting death for the claim. How is that explained?
YAHSHUA DID NOT DIE OR RISE FROM THE DEAD
1 Corinthians 15:19 (NKJV) If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.
History, even the most secular of historians, agree that Yahshua DID live in the first century; and had a small group of followers. So the question is not whether or not Yahshua is real. The question is was Yahshua the Messiah or was He not (addressed in different section of this page); did He die or didn’t He; and either He rose from the dead or He didn’t. What’s fact for one person cannot be a non-fact for another. If you go to the bank to get some of your money out, the teller saying that they don’t believe you have money in the bank does not negate the fact that you do.
Come believe the burden of proof is solely on Christians to prove that Christ died and/or arose from the dead. There is a level of burden of proof on the Christian but there’s also a level of burden of proof upon the non-believers; because, even among the most secular of scholars, they agree that over two thousand years ago an entirely new religious movement and community was formed over night and hundreds of people started claiming that Yahshua died and arose from the dead.
Which is most plausible?
Some say that He didn’t die, He was just hurt so bad that He fainted. They thought He was dead and took Him off the cross and buried Him; and later He regained consciousness and escaped from the tomb. This theory relies on a belief that Yahshua went through six trials with no sleep, a brutal beating, thorns thrust into His head, nails driven through His hands and feet, and after hours on the cross a spear thrust into His side; then He was wrapped in grave clothes, put in a tomb, a stone was rolled over the entrance with Roman soldiers standing guard. Wo we are to believe that Yahshua regained consciousness, hopped out of the grave clothes, rolled the stone out of the way, passed the guards standing by, and cooly went about His way.
The other theory is called the “Wrong Tomb Theory”. This theory goes... The women, when returning to the grave upon the shock of loosing their loved one, went to the wrong tomb. They only mistakenly thought Yahshua had risen. Everyone started to believe because they were going to the wrong tomb also. These events happened in a time in which the last thing Jewish leaders wanted was for a claim of Yahshua rising from the dead; this is why guards were posted at the tomb. Apparently, they were posted at the wrong tomb also. The reality is that no one would have believed that Yahshua arose from the dead if the tomb was not actually empty. All people had to do is say, “The tomb is over there” and it would have shut down the whole idea from the start.
What if the disciples stole the body? This would mean that the timid disciples who ran scared when Yahshua was arrested, all of a sudden, outmaneuvered guards that were highly disciplined, highly trained, in order to do that which all the Jewish and Roman authorities were making sure would not happen. Also, there were all kinds of leaders that had disciples that would make claims that got them killed; yet, no where in history do we find any of their disciples stealing the body to claim their rabbi was raised from the dead.
Both those last theories are also undercut by the claims of people who saw Yahshua walking around. If you have an empty tomb and no one see’s Yahshua, then you just have something strange going on. If you have disciples stealing a body and claiming Yahshua arose from the dead but no one sees Him then you have disciples fabricating a lie. But if people actually saw Yahshua after He died on a cross then you have a real issue at that point.
The disciples were delusional when they saw Yahshua. In their pain over the death of Christ, they somehow believed that Yahshua was still guiding them and leading them. They had visions in their minds of Yahshua talking to them. Maybe they didn’t really believe He was still alive but rather believed He was spiritually alive and over time that developed into a myth that Yahshua physically arose from the dead. But again, there the fact that the belief was not gradually built but rather instantly, hundreds and thousands believed He arose from the grave. Not just the twelve but hundreds of people saw Yahshua walking, eating, and drinking. They did not see an image in the sky and hallucinations to not eat and do not drink.
A few people could have been deluded into thinking they saw Yahshua but Paul states that five hundred people saw Him, and many are still alive (1 Cor 16:6). In other words... go talk to them and they’ll tell you He arose.
As a result of making the claim of Yahshua rising from the dead, families were being ripped apart and people were dying. “I believe the witness’ who get their throats cut”. It’s not to their advantage to lie about it.
THERE IS NO ABSOLUTE TRUTH
Does that include this statement?
THERE IS NO GOD
To say it’s NOT there, you would have had to searched out all possibilities that it MIGHT be there. If you say there is no God, you have to search ALL knowledge to know that God’s not there. If you searched all knowledge then that means you have all knowledge and by definition that makes you… god. Therefore, you deny your own existence with your statement that there is no God.
How can God exist when there’s so much evil in the world? The existence of evil actually points us to the existence of God; because if there’s evil in the world there must be good in the world. If there is good and evil then there must be a measure by which good and evil are judged; and that can only come from a moral law giver. This does not mean atheist don’t have morals or moral beliefs; this means atheist’s natural moral beliefs to be able to see both good and evil come from a God they do not believe in. My question would be, how can God NOT exist when there’s so much evil in the world?
THERE IS NO RIGHT OR WRONG
What you're saying is, It’s right to agree with you but it’s wrong not to agree
EVOLUTION
The answer to the question of how the universe started is not as much WHAT happened; the ultimate question is what CAUSED it to happen. Ex Nihilo, Nihil Fit - Out of nothing, nothing comes. If I have noting in my hand, what can you get? Nothing. Whatever begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist therefore it has a cause. The “big bang” requires that the universe began to exist, and is created, out of nothing. If out of nothing, nothing comes then how can the universe creating from nothing without a cause. “Nothing is what rocks dream about” - Aristotle
The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same… This is an exceedingly strange development, unexpected by all but the theologians. They have always believed the word of the Bible. But we scientists did not expect to find evidence for an abrupt beginning because we have had, until recently, such extraordinary success in tracing the chain of cause and effect backward in time… At this moment it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.—Robert Jastrow (former director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies)
RACISM
Everyone has a level of racism. If a person walks into a room with blacks seated on one side and whites on the other, even a person who does not see racism in their lives will pick the side which is the same color as they are. Therefore, racism comes more in degree than in kind.
From the beginning, the Bible pictures a basic unity behind worldly diversity. Genesis one man is made in the image of God and by Genesis ten there are clans, languages, lands, and nations. All the divisions trace their ancestry back to Noah; who is traced back to Adam and Eve (Act 17:26).
What race was Adam and Eve? Human race.
What color were Adam and Eve? The Bible does not say because God’s Word does not equate membership in the human race by skin tone. Therefore, it does not matter what color anyone is because all of us have the same root as part of the same race. We are the same race, just different tones of that race.
To discuss diversity in terms of different races is to undercut unity in the human race; and undercuts the goal of the Gospel (Acts 1:8)
Every time we see racial diversity in the Bible we see a picture of selfish pride and ethnic prejudice between those people; mistreating one another.
Revelation talks about unity in our diversity (Revelation 7:9) standing before the throne of God. Therefore, we must put aside all prejudice of race and unite under one... human race.
Don’t ignore differences but allow our differences to shape and mold us to better people.
SIN
You become most like that which you desire the most
No sinner says, with honesty, “I don’t find pleasure in God.” The fact is that it’s not that we don’t find pleasure in God but we find more pleasure in things for ourselves than we have in God; and that is what makes sin so bad.
WITNESSING
A church is not healthy if it is not reproducing.
The success of a church is not how many people are coming into a building. The success of a church is how many people are being sent out into missions.
SALVATION
Many talk about “making Jesus Lord of their lives”. The fact of Yahshua’s Lordship is without question - He is Lord (Phil 2:9-11). The question we ask is not “Have you made Yahshua Lord of your life?” but rather, “Have you submitted to Yahshua’s Lordship?” Everyone will bow at His feet and call Him Lord. The question is, “Will you do it now or will you do it later?”
It’s impossible to make Yahshua your Savior without submitting to His Lordship.
It is impossible to believe in Yahshua and be saved and not produce works (James 2:14-26). Faith without works is merely the faith of demons.
If you were to ask satan if he believed Yahshua is the Son of God, he’d say “yes”
If you were to ask satan if he believed the Bible was the Word of God, he’d say “yes”
If you were to ask satan if he believed that Yahshua died and arose from the dead, he’d say “yes”
If you were to ask satan if he believed Yahshua is the only way to be saved, he’s say “yes”
If you were to ask satan if he would be willing to commit to live a moral life, come to church, and get involved with leadership, he’d say “yes”
Because you can believe and do every one of those things and still not be saved from your sins.
The conversation would change if you were to ask satan if he would repent of his sin and surrender your life to Yahshua as Lord; and he’d say “absolutely not!”
Unfortunately this is exactly what we’ve done in the church. We’ve said, “Believe in Jesus”, “Pray some prayer”, “Read the Bible”, “Get involved with church”, “Live a good life and you will be saved” and that is a LIE! It’s a diceiving damning lie.
BIBLE
There are some who believe that the Bible was made up either by government for control or man for a new type of religion. I say that both are impossible. Here’s why; first my response to the government. The writings of the Bible were in existence before the Bible was canonized: it’s been proven by the finding of ancient documents older than the Bible canonization; and those ancient documents match the text of our Bible. The dating of the text dates back to a time that it was illegal to be a Christian. In other words, government killed people where followed the text that we now call the Bible; therefore, the government could not have made up the text for control because they did not like the text. Now my response to the Bible being written by man to make a new religion; because this to is impossible. Since the government was killing people who professed to follow these writings, it would be completely ridiculous for anyone to write these, and follow these documents. Remember that the persecution of professing Christians started before these documents were written and continued for a time after. So, for people to be willing to be sawed in half, burned, boiled in oil, crucified, skinned alive, and the likes for something that was not true and something they made up would be completely insane.