During this Christmas Season, I’m reflecting on the implications of understanding that Jesus was really born as a boy, who grew to be a man in this same world we live in. In my last three posts, I shared the first and second reasons which are vitally important to keep in mind, during Christmas and always. As important as these reasons are, the third reason is the most important one for our salvation. (Read Post #1, Post#2, Post#3 here. These reasons were just too important to cram into the few weeks leading up to Christmas!)
Leave a CommentStan W. Wallace, DMin Posts
Last week I began discussing a second reason we should reflect on the humanity of Christ this Christmas season. I shared four of the seven ways we forget this (“Christian Gnosticism”), and the harmful effects this has on us. In this post, I will share the last four. (These reasons were just too important to cram into the few weeks leading up to Christmas!)
4 CommentsIn my last post, I shared the first reason why it is important to remember Jesus is fully human this Christmas season. The second reason is that we devalue the worth of God’s creation (including ourselves) if we forget his humanity. The incarnation is a constant reminder that God, more than anyone, values the physical world just as much as the spiritual world.
4 CommentsIn this Christmas season, it seems fitting to write a bit about the humanity of Christ. We talk much about His Deity. And rightly so, with Jesus’ Divine status under constant challenge. Yet there are at least three reasons we must never forget that Jesus was also fully human—that he “moved into the neighborhood” as The Message translates John 1:14.
1 CommentDuring the intellectual attacks we have been discussing there were a small group of Christians who didn’t Retreat from or Surrender to the contemporary ideas at odds with Scripture. Instead they Engaged the ideas. They were in the world but not “of” the world (John 17:16). Their strategy was to “out-think” the critics of Christianity with sound reasoning and winsome engagement.
Leave a CommentI have discussed three attacks that sought to divide faith from reason. So how did believers respond? We responded in three different ways–two wrong ways and one right way…
Leave a CommentIn this first series of blog posts I’m discussing the massive intellectual attacks Christianity came under during the past several hundred years and the resulting cultural shift. The first attack was from (bad) philosophy (see my last post). The second attack was from a number of biblical scholars, primarily from Germany, who challenged the historicity of Scripture (known as “German Higher Criticism”). They began with an anti-supernatural bias (the assumption that supernatural events do not occur–everything that happens is caused by something physical). Therefore, they concluded that any part of the Bible which reported anything “supernatural” must not be historically accurate…
3 CommentsHaving shared in my last post the way believers loved God with their minds several hundred years ago… how did that all change? Christianity encountered another wave of intellectual attack, and for the first time in our history we did not respond in a healthy and helpful way…
2 CommentsIt has been said, “He who doesn’t understand history is bound to repeat it.” How true. So to understand how we got to the point of needing to blog about learning to love God with our minds it seems helpful to first understand how we got here. (My thanks to J.P. Moreland and Frank Pastore for first introducing me to some of these ideas. In fact, the influence of J.P. Moreland on my thought can be traced throughout all I will write on this blog. I consider it one of the greatest honors and blessings of my life to have been JP’s student and friend for the past 30 years.)…
Leave a CommentFor several years now I have been asked if I have a blog. Up until this moment, the answer was an unequivicoble “no.” Why? Because, I assumed there were many others who can say much better anything I would be tempted to write about…
5 Comments