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“Will we eat food in our glorified bodies?”
The glorified human body is very much on my mind these days. My mother is in her mid-nineties after decades of serving the Lord Jesus, and her mind and body are in the process of demonstrating the truth of the Second Law of Thermodynamics: things fall apart. Her inexorable deterioration may plateau, but it will not cease until the Lord returns for his Church.
When I’m praying for Mom, I sometimes wonder what that glorified body will look like.
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“How should Christians think about making reparations for slavery?”
Scripture appears to give a qualified nod of approval to efforts to compensate one generation for the losses of another, but I’m not sure it’s the type of compensation any modern, Western government should feel terribly comfortable emulating. I’m thinking of the time the Gibeonite survivors in Israel raised a legitimate claim against Saul’s family for unsuccessfully attempting to exterminate them.
The “reparations” requested and received by the Gibeonites involved hanging seven relatives of Saul for the sins of their family.
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“Is it wrong for a Christian to be an introvert?”
Introversion is one of those terms whose popular usage has become so inconsistent that you really need to agree on a definition before discussing it. I am an introvert by almost any definition, and in my case, it goes well beyond being reserved, quiet and comfortable alone, as some dictionaries have it. I’m also quickly worn down by too much conversation. I have my limits in social situations. I don’t imagine all introverts are socially awkward, but I am often that as well.
Some dictionaries link introversion with being inwardly focused or self-occupied. To me, that’s more a feature of narcissism or solipsism than of introversion.
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“Should Christians take on mortgages?”
I’ve written on the subject of Christians and debt before in a number of different contexts (bankruptcy, school debt, credit cards, etc.) but to the best of my recollection, never at any great length about mortgages.
Okay, then. It’s well established in scripture that carrying debt is less than ideal.
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“What’s the difference between faith and belief?”
As far as the Bible is concerned, there is absolutely no difference between these two concepts. The same Greek word (pistis and members of its family) is translated both “faith” and “believe”. You may be surprised to find that the word “faith” does not appear in most English translations of John’s gospel. Yet he writes, “To all who did receive [the Word], who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”
That is unquestionably saving faith John is talking about, and he’s using the word “believed”. As far as salvation is concerned in scripture, the two words mean the same thing.
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“What does it mean that Christ died for our sins ‘in accordance with the scriptures’?”
The phrase “in accordance with the scriptures” comes from two verses in 1 Corinthians, a letter Paul wrote to a church he established during his second missionary journey. The year was probably AD55, making it likely the fifth book of our New Testament chronologically. When he wrote it, the word “scriptures” meant what we now call the Old Testament, no more. None of the gospels existed, so Paul certainly didn’t mean them.
Later, “the scriptures” would come to include the four gospels, many of Paul’s letters and a number from other pillars of the early church, as it does today.
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“Should Christians be tolerant of other people’s beliefs?”
Some questions have no easy answers, not because the Bible is unclear, but because we cannot be sure what is really at issue. Provided we are paying attention, answering today’s question requires asking several more:
If we cannot first answer these secondary questions, we will not be in any position to answer the primary question.
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“How should Christians react to doomsday predictions?”
You know what’s worse than nuclear Armageddon, for me at
least? The prospect of ending life in an old folks’ home while succumbing to Alzheimer’s just
slowly enough that I occasionally notice my mind’s merciless and
inexorable deterioration. Of the various fates that might turn me
into a quivering bag of
Yeah, as I have said about a few of the questions we’ve handled here over the years, I might be the wrong guy to ask. I’m not exactly the median respondent in any survey you might conduct.
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“I believe our pastor is trying to introduce teaching and practices inconsistent with our church’s statement of faith. Should I respond, and if so, how?”
It’s not at all uncommon for Christians to attend a church whose statement of faith they disagree with in small ways. I’ve yet to fellowship with any congregation that was monolithic in its faith and practice. Doctrinal differences are to be expected, and our Lord anticipated them in his letters to the seven churches in Revelation. To the church in Pergamum he twice says some among them held teachings contrary to the faith.
Quietly holding a doctrinal error is a problem, but not as big a problem as being in a position to teach it. Being in a position to teach it weekly is worst of all.
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“I recently came to faith in Christ and am living with an unbeliever. What should I do?”
An excellent question. A couple that attends our church’s Sunday morning service recently answered it: they got married. The man, definitely saved and growing in Christ. The partner of many years, possible. She comes out to the meeting. She looks, listens and lingers, but no definitive evidence of regeneration. Maybe she will follow her new husband’s lead. Maybe she will decide to turn back to Sodom and end up the spiritual analog to Lot’s wife. Nobody knows.
Come now, smart guys (of whom I used to be one): Why is there no easy, black and white, definitive answer for couples with one partner on each side of the line between heaven and hell?
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“What does God say about avoiding sin just because we are scared of the consequences? Is resisting temptation meaningless if fear is the only reason we are godly?”
Jesus taught that love is the best motive for obedience, though he wasn’t the first to do so. Even the Law of Moses has the correct motive built right into it. When asked about the most important commandment in the Law, Jesus quoted two commands to love: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” and (in second place) “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Then he said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Love and avoiding sin go together better than chocolate and peanut butter.
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“What is the great deception of the end times?”
The Bible portrays the final years of our present age as a period characterized by lies and deception, one in which truth will be very hard to find. Sometimes I wonder if we are getting close.
In Matthew 24, the disciples asked Jesus what signs will indicate the end of the age has come, and that the Lord Jesus is returning to earth as king. Among other things, he replied, “Many false prophets will arise and lead many astray”, including deceivers who claim to be the Christ. Paul would later write to Timothy, reminding him that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and the teaching of demons. Numerous other passages say similar things.
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“Why are missionaries obsessed with getting everybody else to go to the ends of the earth with the gospel?”
If you’ve never had a missionary to another country visit your local church while on furlough, let me tell you what to expect. You will not get a nice little forty-minute message from scripture. You will definitely not get deep exposition that will help you to grow in Christ. You’ll get a rousing, urgent call to join the missionary out in the world somewhere preaching the gospel to the lost.
If you’re like me, you’ll end the meeting feeling slightly guilty and a little annoyed. I guess I’m saying I can relate to this question, and maybe you can too.
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“What is the ‘marvelous light’ 1 Peter 2:9 refers to?”
Light is frequently a metaphor for truth, revelation or understanding, not just in the Bible but everywhere in Western literature and beyond. In English, we refer to becoming “enlightened”, meaning we have somehow received a more accurate way of looking at something we formerly did not comprehend. There is even a period in Western history we call the Enlightenment or Age of Reason.
Did this usage originate in the Bible? Perhaps. Many metaphors did.
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“To what extent are friendships transactional?”
If you peruse secular media and believe what you read, your answer is probably a quick and hearty yes. Perhaps you have come across the expression “toxic friendship”. The line of thinking currently in vogue is that your friends exist to benefit you. When they stop being satisfying and become more trouble than they are worth, it’s time to give your old pals the boot right out of your life. In the words of Marie Kondo, “The space in which we live should be for the person we are becoming now, not for the person we were in the past. Keep only those things that speak to your heart.” By “things” she means people.
Hmm. Let’s see what the Bible says about that.
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“How should the church deal with gossip?”
Words can be a deadly poison. The gossip presents himself in public as a friend, then stabs you in the back when you’re not expecting it. He betrays confidences, reveals secrets and causes endless unnecessary heartache. Jeremiah said that tale-bearing is characteristic of the “stubbornly rebellious”. That’s not a inscription I’d want on my tombstone.
Let’s not kid ourselves. Gossip happens among Christians too.
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“Is God opposed to pleasure?”
The Bible paints a consistent picture of a God who both experiences pleasure and designed his creatures to experience it too. The same is true of delight, if there is any difference between the two concepts. (Personally, I think delight is a little more intense, but I won’t insist on it as an article of faith.) A simple concordance search for either term turns up numerous references to things that give God delight and things that don’t. Likewise, scripture contains many references to things in which humans take pleasure, whether or not we should.
It would be strange indeed to find God comprehensively opposed to something he not only created, but which originates in him.
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“How should a Christian respond to unreciprocated romantic interest?”
Christians are called to love one another, but it’s a very specific kind of love. “Just as I have loved you,” the Lord Jesus told his disciples, “you are to love one another.” That was the “new commandment” he gave them, and one of its purposes was to identify Christ’s followers to the world. “By this all people will know that you are my disciples.”
If the love the Lord commanded and commended is like his own, it should be obvious there is no element of romance in it.
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“Is it wrong to be pessimistic?”
The New Testament epistles have much to say about Christian joy. Paul mentions it six times in each of 2 Corinthians and Philippians, and five times in 1 Thessalonians. Our joy is one of the ways the world know we are different. Peter, John, Jude, the writer to the Hebrews and even grumpy old James mention joy too. By my count, that’s every NT letter. Joy should characterize the Christian life.
Of course, joy is not mere optimism. It’s far more than that.
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“Why is finding true love so difficult?”
The list of possible answers to this question is lengthy, so I won’t pretend to get to them all. Perhaps we can start with some of the features of our society that work against us when we are in the process of trying to pair up for life.
First on that list is an affliction sometimes called “oneitis”.