Anonymous Asks (195)

“Sometimes Christians comment about the need to be saved on unrelated YouTube videos. These comments get many thumbs up, but also make many people angry. Are they useful ways to witness?”

Each block near where I work has two or three parking meters. On the one I use most frequently someone has scratched “You need Jesus. Pray every day.” I have a friend who makes it his habit to attend protests, rallies, parades and major gatherings all over the city carrying a sign with a Bible verse on it. Then there is the classic “John 3:16” meme that has appeared for years in various forms at televised sporting events.

Like those YouTube comments from Christians that show up out of the blue where nobody is asking for them, these are all unsolicited expressions of faith in unexpected places intended to make people think about eternity.

Anonymous Asks (194)

“How can I learn to forgive myself?”

Mark 2 tells the story of a paralyzed man whose friends brought him to Jesus in hope that he would be healed. Mark records that Jesus saw their faith and responded to it by telling the man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” A number of Jewish religious leaders witnessed the interaction and took offense at it. Their objection was that only God can forgive sins.

Sadly, the scribes missed the point, which was that they were at that very moment in the presence of God himself. But their objection was technically correct: only God can forgive sins.

Anonymous Asks (193)

“What would you say to someone who thinks he is too sinful to be saved?”

I’d quote him the words of the apostle Paul: “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.”

After all, prior to being saved, Paul beat and imprisoned believers and tried to make them blaspheme. As a member of Jewish leadership, he cast his vote against Christians when they were put to death by the Jews.

Can your friend top that?

Anonymous Asks (192)

“Does God approve of the death penalty?”

The Law of Moses governed Israelite society in one form or another from around 1450 BC through AD70, when Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jewish people forcibly dispersed throughout the Roman Empire. In that law we find a plethora of offenses that call for the death penalty, among them murder, kidnapping, child sacrifice, rape, witchcraft, blasphemy, false prophecy, profaning the Sabbath, violence against father or mother, adultery, bestiality, homosexuality and perjury.

Did God approve of putting people to death for these things? Of course he did. The Law of Moses was the expression of God’s will for Israelite society. It came directly from him.

Anonymous Asks (191)

“What is the significance of the staff that produced buds?”

My boss has always been a little sensitive to criticism of people he has appointed to positions of responsibility in our organization. There is good reason for this: after all, he appointed them. Complaints about the suitability of a man or woman he has chosen to serve in one capacity or another may be legitimately construed as personal attacks on his judgment, and they carry with them the implication that maybe someone else would have been better off doing the choosing.

You can imagine how well that sort of comment goes over with him. It doesn’t.

Anonymous Asks (190)

“What’s the difference between righteousness and holiness?”

New Christians may hear these two biblical words as pretty much synonymous. After all, both qualities are on regular display when a believer is living a godly life, and we may be forgiven if we sometimes find them difficult to distinguish.

Nevertheless, the writers of the Bible do use these words differently, and we should probably make the same careful distinctions they do.

Anonymous Asks (189)

“Are there people who will never change?”

A friend of a friend served as an elder in his local church for many years. From all reports he was good at it. When he chose to step away from his responsibilities in his fifties, people wondered why, and a mutual acquaintance was nosy enough to inquire.

Here is the essence of his reply. Excuse the paraphrase.

Anonymous Asks (188)

“Are you more likely to trust politicians who claim to be Christian?”

Some people are reluctant to claim to be Christians. Jordan Peterson has dodged the question for years, sometimes more adroitly than others, for reasons he explained in a recent video clip: “Who would have the audacity to claim that they believed in God if they examined the way they lived? Who would dare say that? To have the audacity to claim that means that you live it out fully, and that’s an unbearable task, in some sense.”

Anonymous Asks (187)

“What do you think of this app?”

In case any of our older readers have eyesight as dodgy as mine, I’d better describe what this inquisitive young fellow has sent me. We are looking at a small computer program you can download to your cell phone called Bible Study for your Mood.

The app consists of a series of black or gray buttons, each with a one-word emotional state on them: Anger, Anxiety, Depression, Faith, Courageous, Tired, Confidence, Hopeful, Peaceful, Helpless, Forgiven, Strong, Afraid, Love, Worry ... and so on. Pushing a button takes you to a Bible verse that corresponds with your current mood, and gives the relevant book/chapter so you can look it up and keep reading.

That last part is important.

Anonymous Asks (186)

“Do Christians in today’s working world ever find themselves confronted by issues not directly addressed in the Bible?”

This may sound off-topic, but work with me here. I have never been a fan of applying the slave/master verses of the New Testament to modern employment arrangements. The two situations are simply not analogous. I have known people who felt trapped in dead-end jobs, but even in the worst modern employment situations, the employee is legally free to take his leave any time he chooses on a mere two weeks notice. It’s not the law of the land or the middle manager he reports to that make him feel trapped, but rather his personal financial situation.

That’s not to say there is nothing in the New Testament to address the issues faced by Christians in today’s working world, but let’s be careful what we do with those slave and master passages.

Anonymous Asks (185)

“What are the pros and cons of getting a formal Christian education?”

In one sense I’m the wrong guy to ask. I never felt the need to go out and get one. Blame my parents for a Christian upbringing that went heavy on familiarity with the Bible. My father also spent a short time in a U.S. Bible school but did not finish his program. The lack of accreditation had no measurable impact on his ability to serve the Lord. I never heard him express a single regret about the decision.

My own feeling is that there is nothing you can learn in a classroom that you can’t learn from reading the same material for yourself, but then I felt the same way about university and still do.

Anonymous Asks (184)

“As a parent, where would you draw the line with allowing your children to read/watch/play video games about demons, wizardry, etc.?”

This sounds a lot like the famous Harry Potter question that was bandied about in Christian circles twenty years ago when the Rowling books were at their most popular and the movie adaptations were just starting to come out. Christian parents were all over the map on that one, from mindlessly legalistic at one end of the spectrum to imprudently casual at the other.

Still, there is probably a more biblical answer than “Let’s split the difference.”

Anonymous Asks (183)

“Conventional wisdom disagrees with an increasing number of Bible proverbs. Is it possible some were of their own time and do not apply to us today?”

Last week I began going through Proverbs with a fine-tooth comb in an effort to answer this question. I tried to select those sayings which seem the most foreign to our modern mindset, in order to set the current “wisdom of the world” side by side with the wisdom of God.

So far the wisdom of God is looking pretty relevant to the present day.

Anonymous Asks (182)

“Conventional wisdom disagrees with an increasing number of Bible proverbs. Is it possible some were of their own time and do not apply to us today?”

What a great question! Most of the Bible’s proverbs are over 3,000 years old, so we certainly cannot discount the possibility that applying all of them literally is borderline-unworkable. It sent me combing through Proverbs from beginning to end in search of the most controversial examples I could find. (I am leaving out Proverbs 31, since I dealt with the cultural relevance of the “excellent wife” here.)

So, let’s see about those “irrelevant” proverbs then ...

Anonymous Asks (181)

“ ‘Son of man’ is a title that belongs to Christ. Why is it also used for Ezekiel?”

Ezekiel not only had the title before the Lord Jesus, he had it used to describe him many more times than the Lord Jesus, 93 in total. More importantly, it was God himself who chose to address him that way, though Daniel is also called a “son of man”. But Ezekiel and Daniel are not the only places you find the phrase in the Old Testament; you also find it in Job, Numbers, the Psalms, Isaiah and Jeremiah.

What can we learn from the fact that both Ezekiel and Daniel had the title earlier, and Ezekiel more frequently? Not much, probably, except maybe not to measure spiritual importance by such metrics.

Anonymous Asks (180)

“How important are traditions observed by other Christians?”

One Sunday afternoon in my early teens I was craving a snack. That posed a problem: my father did not permit us to go to the stores on Sunday.

“Dad,” I said, “why can’t we go to the store on Sunday?”

“Because Sunday is a day of rest,” he replied.

“That was the Sabbath,” I responded, “and we are not under law, we are under grace.”

Guess what. I got to go to the store.

Anonymous Asks (179)

“Is church membership important?”

The words “member” and “members” occur many times in the New Testament. Conceptually, church membership is a product of metaphor. The various parts of a human body — feet, hands, eyes, ears, etc. — constitute its members. In the same way, all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ are members of the church, which the Bible refers to as a spiritual body.

Is that important? Absolutely. But we should be clear what that means and does not mean, since Christians often use the word “membership” in ways the Bible does not.

Anonymous Asks (178)

“Which of the psalms stands out the most to you?”

If you were stranded on a desert island and could take only one book of the Bible with you, which book would it be? Forest Antemesaris says he would take the Psalms, and many Christians would agree with him. The Psalms, he says, are “the songbook of Israel, a chronicle of praise from our spiritual ancestors, an emotional catharsis, the New Testament’s Old Testament foundation, and the scriptural bedrock of spiritual formation”. He goes on to say the Psalms are central to both testaments, and foundational to praise, the biblical language of prayer, and the love of God’s word.

All this is true.

Anonymous Asks (177)

“How does one write effectively about Christianity in a work of fiction?”

The Christian faith has been a defining feature of my life so long that I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t aware of it at some level, even if it was only that I didn’t like the pews in church because my feet couldn’t reach the floor, or that my parents didn’t approve when I got down and crawled between them during the service. My childhood reading was full of “Christian” literature, from the too-saccharine adventures of the Sugar Creek Gang to the memorable spiritual analogies of C.S. Lewis’s children’s books.

Later in life I developed a taste for detective fiction and sci-fi, and discovered that secular writers have their own reasons for depicting Christians and their faith in one light or another.

Anonymous Asks (176)

“What specific verse/passage about human nature resonates the most with your observations?”

That’s a tough one to pin down. Whichever passage I choose today, I’m almost guaranteed to find an even better one tomorrow.

Would you settle for a top five?

Anonymous Asks (175)

“What does the Bible say about church-hopping?”

In the early first century, the world had a grand total of one local church. It may have had thousands of people in it, but “all who believed were together and had all things in common”.

In AD45, you couldn’t church-hop. There was nowhere to hop to.

Anonymous Asks (174)

“What tools exist for getting a perspective on Bible history and confirming its accuracy?”

There is no better way to get a bird’s-eye perspective of Bible history than by repeatedly reading the Old Testament from beginning to end. If that sounds like a lot of work, well ... it is. But, for the serious Christian, it’s absolutely worth committing to and making a part of every day of your life.

While you are building that knowledge base, though, there are a few shortcuts you can use.

Anonymous Asks (173)

“Do guardian angels exist?”

How many angels are there? We can’t be sure, but there are indications in the Bible that number is stratospheric. Hebrews speaks of “innumerable angels in festal gathering”. In Revelation, John writes of “many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands”.

The Greek expression underlying the latter phrase may refer to vast numbers generally, or may refer literally to the number 10,000 times itself.

Anonymous Asks (172)

“Did Noah’s sons represent races?”

We are often told diversity is our strength. Yet many of the very same people who chide us to accommodate the differences between men and women from different parts of the world also insist there is no such thing as race, other than the human race.

So then, to answer questions about the origin of races, we would first have to agree about the meaning of “race”. Good luck with that in our hyper-politicized environment.

Anonymous Asks (171)

“Is the United States a Christian nation?”

I have commented before that the word “Christian” makes a poor adjective. It doesn’t tell you much that is useful. I have seen lies, error and heresy on sale in “Christian” bookstores, false believers in “Christian” youth groups, and atheists playing “Christian” rock.

Christianity is just not something you can ascribe to groups, especially groups as large as a nation. One becomes a Christian by trusting Jesus Christ for salvation and recognizing him as Lord. Groups can do all kinds of things an individual can’t, but only individuals can be saved.

So what is really being asked here? Here are a few possibilities:

Anonymous Asks (170)

“How should Christians regard Jews?”

This is a fairly important question to consider. Historically, there has been little agreement within Christendom about it. Today, there is increasing polarization within the evangelical ranks concerning both the religion of Judaism and the nation of Israel.

The two “poles” look something like this.

Anonymous Asks (169)

“Why do so many white supremacists claim to be Christians?”

Interesting question. I’m not actually aware that this is common. I’ve encountered few genuine white supremacists online, but the ones I have run into all reject Christianity, primarily because of its close association with Jews. If they call themselves religious at all, white supremacists generally appropriate Norse mythology as their starting point; for example, a Finnish movement called Soldiers of Odin is currently gaining popularity in Canada’s western provinces.

Well, that’s assuming it is reasonable to refer to an organization with a mere 600 members across the entire globe as “popular”.

Anonymous Asks (168)

“If God knows I’m hurting, why doesn’t he help me?”

The answer to the first part of this question is perfectly straightforward: God knows. Of course he knows. He’s God. How could he not know? “You discern my thoughts from afar,” wrote David. “Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.” The only being in the universe with full knowledge of the human condition is humanity’s Creator.

The second part’s a little tougher to answer. There are just so many possibilities ...

Anonymous Asks (167)

“Is God male or female?”

J. Manning feels there is a “connection between belief in the maleness of God and the deeply ingrained acceptance of the abuse of women in society”. Of the origins of belief in a masculine God, D.T. Williams writes, “It is felt that ascribing maleness to God was due to the superiority of the male in pre‑modem and especially Biblical culture,” and that “as modern culture is more enlightened about recognizing the equality of the sexes, so the maleness of God [is thought to be] an anachronism which should be disposed of.”

All to say that this is one of those matters into which few theologians of the pre-feminist era would have thought to inquire.

Anonymous Asks (166)

“Are people born good?”

Aristotle argued that men are born amoral and morality is learned, while Rousseau insisted men would be gentle and pure without the greed and inequality promoted by the class system. The philosophical debate has gone on for centuries, and “science” has contributed little to finding an answer.

So then, expert opinion on the question averages out to something like “We’re not really sure.”

Anonymous Asks (165)

“What does it mean that God is able to keep us from stumbling?”

You are probably thinking of the last two verses of Jude: “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever.”

Anonymous Asks (164)

“Is is possible to be born again without knowing when it happened?”

I was once confronted by an older Christian who wanted to know the exact time and circumstances of my salvation. Apparently he asked many others the same thing. He was convinced the experience of becoming a believer only comes about in one way, and that it is impossible not to know how and when it occurred. If you can’t tell people when it happened, he insisted, it’s because you’re not saved.

That is not what Jesus taught.

Anonymous Asks (163)

“Do elders have authority?”

A hundred years ago nobody would have asked this question. Today, authority of every kind is being challenged at every level. Don’t like what the founders wrote in the Constitution? Just reinterpret it. Don’t like the Governor’s latest executive order? No worries, an unelected County Circuit Judge will shortly declare it unconstitutional so you don’t have to comply. Don’t want the fraudulent election results you certified audited? Just refuse to hand over the evidence of your malfeasance. Are the health care rights guaranteed in your province getting in the way of your ability to impose mandated vaccination? Don’t worry, we’ll find a way around that.

Anonymous Asks (162)

“Are angels God’s sons?”

The Old Testament contains five occurrences of the phrase “sons of God”; three in Job and two in Genesis. All five appear to me to be referring to angels. The New Testament gives us a further six mentions. Every one of these six refers to redeemed members of the human race.

That requires a little more explanation, but hey, that’s why we do this. Let’s go back to front, since the question is about angelic sons.

Anonymous Asks (161)

“What does ‘walking in the Spirit’ involve, and what do I do when I don’t feel like it?”

Walking by the Spirit is mentioned explicitly in two NT verses, Galatians 5:16 and Romans 8:4:

“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.”

“... in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

The first is a command, the second is merely descriptive; it tells us what constitutes a normal state of being for Christians, that “all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God”.

Anonymous Asks (160)

“Has science disproved the miracles of the Bible?”

A question like this one reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of both science and miracles.

Here are a couple of modern definitions of science. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language calls it “the observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of natural phenomena”. The Collaborative International Dictionary of English calls it “Accumulated and established knowledge, which has been systematized and formulated with reference to the discovery of general truths or the operation of general laws”.

So then, science deals in generalities and natural phenomena. It attempts to explain the way the world normally works, all else being equal.

Anonymous Asks (159)

“Why did King Saul consult a witch?”

The account of King Saul and his visit to the witch of En-dor in 1 Samuel 28 is one of those passages that gives rise to all manner of questions. Short summary: Unable to hear the voice of God and about to enter battle with the armies of the Philistines, Saul seeks direction from the dead prophet Samuel by consulting a medium, a practice forbidden by God and outlawed earlier in his reign by Saul himself. A spirit appears to the medium and confirms that Israel will lose the battle, and that Saul and his sons are to die the very next day.

Not the most encouraging tale, but one that arouses considerable curiosity among readers of the Old Testament.

Anonymous Asks (158)

“Why did God make some people less attractive than others, and what can those of us who got the short end of the stick do about it?”

I told this story here back in 2016, but it is meaningful enough to me that I’ll tell it again. In my early twenties I spent a week helping out at a Christian camp — as did my tall, handsome cousin. It was a nice gesture on his part to come along, but I quickly found myself gritting my teeth every time he was around.

Anonymous Asks (157)

“Are visions of Mary real?”

Now, here is an interesting question, and I will admit right up front that I can’t possibly answer it as asked.

When we ask whether a thing is real, we may be asking any of several different questions about it. We may be asking “Did this person actually experience what they say they experienced, or is their claim fraudulent?” Or we may be asking “Assuming they did experience something, was it something that originated with God, or are they deceived about its origin?” Finally, and most importantly, we may be asking “Is what they say they saw authoritative in any way? Does it mean anything to me, or is it just an interesting story?”

Anonymous Asks (156)

“Is everything in the Bible true?”

In what is often referred to as the high priestly prayer of John 17, Jesus speaks to his Father on behalf of his followers. “Sanctify them in the truth,” he requests. Then he adds these words: “Your word is truth.”

Now, the Bible is the word of God. That’s not simply a nickname Christians have given to our favorite book so we can impress unsaved people with its authority; that’s something the scripture calls itself. The phrase “word of God” is used 48 times in the Bible, and the phrase “word of the Lord” another 255. These expressions are used about the Law of Moses, the Psalms and the Prophets, taking in the entire Old Testament. They are used to describe both the teaching of Jesus and his apostles, which became the basis for our New Testament. They are used as a synonym for “scripture”, which includes both, and about which Jesus himself declared, “Scripture cannot be broken.” So then, the Bible itself claims to be truth from cover to cover.

But it should be obvious that not everything in the Bible is true in exactly the same sense.

Anonymous Asks (155)

“What is the difference between an archangel and a cherub?”

Whether we are talking about Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Protestant Christianity, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy or even the cults, religious tradition has plenty to say about the more powerful angelic entities, their roles, descriptions, names and history. Most of what is written is conjectural. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s all wrong, but even accurate speculation is still just speculation. It has no authority for Christians.

So then, I will try to stick pretty close to the scripture on this one …

Anonymous Asks (154)

“What is a reprobate mind?”

The phrase “reprobate mind” comes from the old English translation of Romans 1:28, where Paul declares that when men and women reject the knowledge of God and refuse to honor and give thanks to him, God gives them up to a “reprobate mind”.

The Greek word underlying the translation is adokimos, which means literally “not approved”, and refers to something that does not meet objective standards of acceptability; for example, a counterfeit coin, a metal alloy which doesn’t hold up when subjected to stress, or soil that looks normal but in which nothing can grow.

Anonymous Asks (153)

“Do Jews go to heaven?”

Before we rush to give a pat answer to what seems an obvious question, we should stop to ask what the questioner means by “Jews”. The word is used several different ways today, and the answer very much depends on which sort of Jew the writer has in mind.

A discussion of how the term came to be used to mean so many different things to so many different people may be found here.

Anonymous Asks (152)

“Should we worship the Holy Spirit?”

Long before the Word was made flesh, the Holy Spirit was present in the world and active on behalf of the Godhead. We find him in the second verse of Genesis, the fourth-last verse of Revelation, and everywhere in between. He is mentioned approximately 100 times in the Old Testament and well over 200 in the New. It has been demonstrated from the scriptures that he possesses the same attributes as both Father and Son.* His significance to us can hardly be overstated, since without him we would not have the written Word at all.

So it’s a good question: Why not worship the Holy Spirit? He’s certainly worthy of our worship.

Anonymous Asks (151)

“Why do some Bible translations not capitalize pronouns referring to God?”

Much like personal choice of Bible translation and no small number of doctrinal issues, this is a question hotly debated among believers. People are rarely neutral about deity pronouns. The reasons for choosing to capitalize or not capitalize them may vary from publisher to publisher, but these three reasons provided by the publishers of the relatively recent English Standard Version are probably the most common.

Anonymous Asks (150)

“Why did the Lord condemn Corban?”

The word korban comes from Hebrew transliterated into Greek, and has most likely made it untranslated into English by way of the 1611 KJV. The gospel of Mark tells us it means an offering, or “given to God”. Of course there is nothing wrong with the practice of giving things to God, and Jesus did not condemn the practice of Corban in any broad, general sense.

It was what the Jewish religious leaders had done with Corban that was the problem. As Jesus put it in quoting Isaiah, the Pharisees were “teaching as doctrines the commandments of men”. They had substituted their own tradition for the command of God, and in doing so were “making void the word of God”.

Anonymous Asks (149)

“Did Jesus know he was the Messiah?”

Nobody ever displayed a more definite sense of his purpose in this world than Jesus of Nazareth.

We see it in him long before his ministry began. “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” he asked his anxious mother. This was not some generalized impression that the people of God ought not to forsake gathering together, but a specific sense that he uniquely belonged where God had placed his name. “I must be.”

He was twelve years old and “about my Father’s business”, as another translation puts it.

Anonymous Asks (148)

“Did Ishmael become a great nation?”

The question is in reference to a promise God made to Abraham in Genesis 17 to bless the son he had with his wife’s Egyptian servant, Hagar: “As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation.”

It’s a compound promise with a few clear stipulations to it. Surely it’s worth a few minutes of our time to check and see if God made good on it, right?

Anonymous Asks (147)

“What does Romans 14:5 mean?”

The verse in question comes in the middle of a passage in which the apostle Paul is seeking to discourage Christians from quarreling over opinions.

That makes it fairly important to understand what Paul means by “opinions”.

Anonymous Asks (146)

“Is it okay to take communion at home?”

As is the case with many questions about the Christian faith, the answer to this one very much depends on the motive.

On the ‘yes’ side, there is plenty of New Testament precedent for taking communion at home.