Bridge of Reason

Image by  Pedro Ivo Pereira Vieira Pedin  from  Pixabay   When you are struggling with a problem, when your plans don’t seem to be working out, when you wonder, ‘why is this so intractable, have I missed something?’ there is great wisdom in going back to first principles. This is especially true of Bible understanding. Writing at some length about the priestly role of Jesus, the writer to the Hebrews goes on: ‘ About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.’ Hebrews 5:11-14 W e notice several things in this passage: T...

  I received a call from someone asking for help in developing a good apologetic in witnessing to Jehovah’s Witnesses. His enthusiasm was encouraging in a world where fear and apprehension, complexity and a sense of helplessness are the usual faire. It made me reflect on the process that might bring someone to this place of finally wanting to do something constructive when they answer the door. Christians who have never been in a cult will often imagine, whatever else might be said, it is an exotic experience, touched with a frisson of danger and romance. This really is incorrect, but people are sometimes drawn because of this mistaken notion. Neither the cult nor the ministry are romantic, certainly the ministry is not especially popular among churches and church leaders; too ‘confrontational.’ What I find is often the case, however, is an encounter with Mormons, or Jehovah’s Witnesses, or some other group, drives someone back to their Bible. There they search for answers to qu...

How are things with you these days? I imagine there have been significant changes to your normal routine. Confinement has seen me running out of excuses and actually tacking the mess I laughingly call my study. (Starting to tackle) My local shop is allowing just two customers in at any one time. He has considerately marked out the floor into metre squares in black and yellow tape. Shopping is now a dance class, but we are all grateful. I like chunky rolled oats for my porridge and it is not easy to come by these days. But my local shopkeeper, who doesn’t usually carry them, found a box for me and made a friend for life. I needed to visit the chemist in the city centre and the roads and pavements were quieter than a wet Sunday morning in November. I knew the police were stopping drivers to ask if they have a legitimate reason to be out. I did, but I still felt somehow guilty, waiting for that tap on the shoulder. We had to go to the hospital and that journey has never been so ...

The Jehovah’s Witnesses believe God’s name, his one true name, the name by which he is identified is Jehovah. But, biblically, God has and is identified by many names, names Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t seem disposed to talk about. In Genesis 1:1 he is ‘God,’ the Hebrew elohim . In Genesis 17:1 he is ‘God Almight,’ the Hebrew El Shadday . In Psalm 8:1 he is ‘Lord,’ the Aramaic  Adonay . In 1 Samuel 1:3 he is ‘Lord of hosts,’ the Hebrew yhwh tseba’ot . In the New Testament Jesus teaches his disciples to call God ‘Father,’ the Greek Pater Matthew 6:9 The disciples, following Jesus’ teaching, called God ‘Father’ 1 Corinthinas 1:3 Indeed, in the whole New Testament God is called Father. He is the Father to whom we pray Matthew 6:9 He is our Father and Jesus’ Father John 20:17 By the power of the Spirit of adoption we call him Abba, Father Romans 8:15 Our fellowship is with the Father 1 John 1:3 Of course, Jehovah’s Witnesses only became Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1931, based ...

Correctly Handling the Word of Truth Departing from Iniquity Pursuing Righteousness Repenting of Error Last time we looked at The Complete Rule of Faith , summed up in four points: The Knowledge of God in Christ, Escape from Corruption by Grace, Adding Virtue to Faith, Trusting the Word. Peter’s message has an urgency we might easily relate to today as the New Testament warnings of error from within the body seem so apposite. Listing the qualities that keep us from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of Christ, he warns: ‘For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.’ (2 Peter 1:8/9) This blindness, this lack of fruitfulness, may well be the result of a lack of true conversion. It is possible to appear to have all the trappings of a ‘reformed’ life but for that reformation to be merely external, cleaning up one’s act without having a truly changed he...

The Knowledge of God in Christ People can struggle, especially in the current church climate, with the question of what does being a Christian look like. So many claims and counterclaims are made on our lives it can be daunting trying to simply walk in faithfulness. Two areas in particular are problematic for people, Bible reading and prayer. I will have something practical to say about that, but first I want to build on the question I addressed in my last post ; where do you stand in the daily battle of faith? (Eph.6:13) Of especial concern throughout the New Testament is the threat of error from within the church. Paul, in his farewell address to the Ephesian elders, warns of false prophets who will arise ‘from your own number,’ (Acts 20:30); He warns the church in Corinth not to be taken in by ‘false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ,’ (2 Cor.11:13) In his first letter to Timothy, Paul writes of some who will ‘abandon the faith and follow deceiving...

'The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.' (Hebrews 4:12-13) Queen Elizabeth II was crowned on 2 June 1953. She would spend her life living in castles and palaces. She would sit on thrones, ride in gold carriages, and leading designers would line up to make her the best clothes, She would wear the finest jewellery, eat the finest meals, and travel first class. At her coronation in Westminster Abbey, amidst all the pomp and ceremony, lords and ladies, dignitaries both spiritual and secular, she was handed a Bible with these words: Our gracious Queen: to keep your Majesty ever mindful of the law and the Gospel of God as the Rule for the whole life and government of Christian Princes, we present you with t...

The Evangelical Alliance recently (2018) published the results of a survey of people’s attitudes to the Bible. Among Christians it was discovered: 57% believe the Bible should shape their daily lives "a great deal" 35% said they read the Bible everyday 73% said the Bible actively challenges them to live in a way which runs counter to the present culture in Britain 60% believe the Bible provides moral guidance, sets out God's rescue plan for humanity and shows God's priorities 78% believe the Bible is divinely inspired and 34% believe that it is free from error 68% say the Bible is regularly taught at their church Stop and think about that second statistic; 35% said they read the Bible daily. Perhaps because 73% said the Bible actively challenges them to live in a way which runs counter to the present culture in Britain? It is true that taking the Bible seriously today can seriously make you stand out from the crowd. But it has always been God’s purpose that his peopl...

  If I haven’t already said it to you personally, I wish you a Happy New Year. As we begin a New Year with fresh opportunities to bring God’s light and truth where deception has darkened people’s minds it seems good to start with the fundamentals. You will know that, even within the Christian Church, there are troubling challenges to the long-established truth of the Gospel. Add to this the claims of the cults and the increasing marginalisation of the church in an intolerant liberal society it has never been more imperative to ensure we stand on solid ground in our faith and witnessing. Even after all these years we at Reachout will get asked about groups we haven't heard about, ideas we are not familiar with. Where do you start, what do you ask, how do you asses truth claims in light of God's Word? Here are ten questions to help lay some solid foundations on which to build a reliable picture. What do they say about God? Is he the one, true God of the Bible? Is h...

Who needs a Bible when you have the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society and the indepth, probing articles of the Watchtower?

Two recent polls underlines the need for apologetic ministries such as Reachout Trust and why other groups often have a better press. The reason is simple – they know what they believe and preach it! Christians in America According to a new Barna Group Poll , 40% of those in America who call themselves Christians, do not believe that have any responsibility to share their Christian faith with others, and a worrying 25% dismiss the Bible as inaccurate in some of the principles it teaches. This of course leads to choosing the bits you like and misrepresenting the Lord. As George Barna, the head of the polling group, noted; millions of people who describe themselves as Christian, believe Jesus sinned and those who say they will experience eternal salvation because they have confessed their sins and accepted Christ as their savior, also believe that a person can do enough good works to earn eternal salvation. Is Britain any better? Last month, Ted Baehr, who founded The Christia...

The Watchtower May 15, 1988, sort to tackle one of the thorny problems that Jehovah's Witnesses have, namely, the appearances in the Old Testament of “the Angel of the Lord,” or as they say, “Jehovah’s angel.” They cannot say that the angel was Jehovah because “no man has seen God at any time.” However, they also cannot say that the angel was a manifestation of Jesus - because according to their belief He had no eternal pre-existence as Jesus. Therefore they maintain that these were Jehovah’s angelic representatives; but this is where the problems start because of the way they were treated. The article [pp.21-23] first deals with Moses in Exodus 33:17-23 and rightly points out that God says, “You are not able to see my face, because no man may see me and yet live.” However, Moses was able to see the ‘back’ of God. The Society tells us that this is just the “afterglow of the divine presence.” We can probably accept that but an important point has been made - no man can see the fa...

In writing my weekly Bible reading for the Reachout web site, the Richmond Briefing, there was such a clear application to the problems of dealing with the disingenuous answers routinely given by Mormons when they are challenged about aspects of their faith that they would rather not discuss. I wrote a second version of the study with a particularly Mormon application and put it up here as a warning that it just doesn’t do to take thing at face value. James is writing here about oaths and the way we represent ourselves to others. When he writes “Do not swear” he doesn’t have in mind bad language but the making of oaths designed to guarantee the truth of what we are saying. We hear this sort of thing a lot in certain circles; “On my mother’s life!” someone might insist when something they have said is challenged, a particularly obnoxious oath inasmuch as it indicates that neither their word nor their mother’s life means much to them. This reaches its extreme noxiousness when it’s expre...