Government and the Gospel

      Recently, as Supreme Court Justices, Presidents and other local Government officials have thrown the Constitution out the window, embraced tyranny and paraded the homosexual agenda; it’s become clear that America is currently under judgment and what we’re experiencing is the painful fruits of God’s judgment on a nation. But the question is; what now? Do we sit back and watch the fireworks? Do we quit our jobs like the Thessalonians and await the supposed rapture?

Many should rightly answer, “We continue to preach the Gospel!”

After all, Governments are in charge of us and Romans 13 clearly states we can do nothing but submit to its authority, at all times…

Or does it?

Quick review of The Gods of the Copybook Headings

     As I was in the middle of writing my second post of this series, it was suggested to me that I write a short explanation of the poem of the Gods of the copybook headings. In this short post I hope to give some background and clarification that will help the reader understand somewhat of what the author is trying to convey.

     The author of this poem is Rudyard Kipling, who lived from 1865 to 1936. During his lifetime, he wrote several stories and poems, including Just So Stories and The Jungle Book. The Gods of the Copybook Headings was published for the first time in 1919.

Now what is a copybook heading? Students used to use copybooks to practice their handwriting. At the top of the paper, there would be a perfect example of how to print something. The student would copy the handwriting on the rest of the page. Typically there would be a proverb (either from the Bible or other Literature).

CHANGES: part 1

      Change, something inevitable. Sometimes change is for the better, and sometimes it is not. From the moment we are born till the moment we die we are surrounded by change. With these next couple of posts I will be dealing with change in regards to our culture; looking at the change through the lens of a Christian perspective. Due to the length of the post I decided to separate them into a couple of posts. Before I begin on my own thoughts, I saw it fit to leave you with this poem. Please read and ponder as it is a fitting introduction to my next posts.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

Upside-Down Youth Ministry: A growing Problem

MTD: Upside-Down Youth Ministry

In the proceeding series on MTD, Rooted hopes to explore the implications of the religious atmosphere amongst our teens and ask the question, “What does the gospel have to say about this?”

When I was in college, I visited several churches from one particular denomination (which dominated the area) and found the same message in 90% of them. Until I found the exception, I kept looking for a different church. The sermon in most of them was essentially “be a good person and you will go to heaven”. I refused to go to a church preaching mere moralism. The truth is that I cannot succeed at being a good enough person to get into heaven and deep down I knew this. Moralism leads to attending Sunday services because it’s part of being a good person rather than out of a desire to worship the One who saved them.

Post Abortion

Pro-lifers slammed the international Journal of Medical Ethics for publishing late last month an article favoring “after-birth abortion”—previously known as infanticide—when children or adults are a burden to their families or when government pays for their care.

The core of the argument isn’t new at universities like Princeton, where ethicist Peter Singer has long approved killing 1-year-olds with physical or mental disabilities (see “Blue-state philosopher,” Nov. 27, 2004). But authors Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva push the argument further by defending the killing of any humans incapable of “attributing any value to their own existence.?…?Merely being human is not in itself a reason for ascribing someone a right to life.”

The authors used the term “after-birth abortion” rather than “infanticide” to emphasize that countries with legal abortion operate illogically when they forbid the killing of born creatures insufficiently self-conscious to fear death. Hurt is subjective, not objective: “For a harm to occur, it is necessary that someone is in the condition of experiencing that harm.”

Continue Reading on www.worldmag.com

The Atheist’s Burden of Proof

 

The Atheist’s Burden of Proof

by BK on July 27, 2011

I was in a discussion today with an atheist, and the subject turned to the idea of burden of proof. It is a common claim that Christians own a burden of proof to prove that God exists, but that atheists do not own any burden at all. Here’s my response, that outlines the reason I disagree with this:

Many (and probably most) atheists will say they have nothing to prove at all, because atheism (a-theism) is merely being without a belief in the existence of any gods. Therefore, the only *positive* explicit assertion they are making is about their belief, and not about the actual existence of any god. That is, they aren’t necessarily saying “God does not exist” (although some do), but rather “I don’t believe there are any gods because I have not seen sufficient evidence to lead me to believe any exist.”
This position of not having a burden of proof is fine until one considers that holding any position whatsoever – even one of skepticism – implies a lot of things about reality, knowledge, possibly ethics, etc. That is, everyone (including the atheist) has certain assumptions (let’s call them “basic beliefs”) that they are leaning on in order to make any sort of claim, including the claim “I don’t believe in God.” Stated differently – nobody is neutral. We all have a network of basic beliefs we rely upon.
So, the challenge for the atheist comes when they are presented with the question “Do you believe *the God of the Bible* exists?” Notice the question isn’t simply “do you believe in any gods?” Instead, the question is about a specific type of God – the Christian God of the Bible.
Now, if the God of the Bible was like any other god, they could get away with saying “no” and leave it at that – no burden of proof. However, the God of the Bible isn’t like any other God. He claims that everyone knows he exists. He claims that he created the world. He claims that his existence is necessary for knowledge, ethics, aesthetics, etc. In short, he makes a bold claim about everyone’s ability to reason, weigh evidence, draw conclusions, etc. He claims that none of those actions that we all do on a daily basis would be possible unless he existed as described in the Bible.
So that opens up an interesting challenge to the atheist. They aren’t explicitly denying the existence of God when they say “I don’t believe he exists”, but they most definitely are *implicitly* denying his existence. Why is this? Well, it is because they are doing all these things that the God of the Bible claims ownership to, while at the same time they are saying “I don’t believe he exists.” They are relying upon all these basic beliefs that the God of the Bible claims *only* make sense if he exists.
To say they don’t believe he exists is to say that it is *possible* to do these things (reason, weigh evidence, etc.) without him existing. But God says it is not possible to do them without him existing. Therefore (by implication) they are saying “This kind of God *does not* exist”.
It isn’t an explicitly positive claim that God does not exist, but is rather an implicitly positive claim. Either way, it is a positive claim, and therefore they own a burden of proof.

God desires all men to be saved...all men or all men?

     When it comes to reading the Word of God it is quite easy to read a verse and forget that there is a surrounding context. What I mean is this; we are prone to looking at verses in the bible in isolation, and because of this, we can easily misinterpret what the word of God is actually saying. For example: in the book of Revelation chapter 3 we see Christ speaking to the Church of Laodicea. In verse 20 we read “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” This verse is used by many Christians when they are evangelizing to unbelievers. It goes something like this “if you open up the door to your heart and let Jesus in, He will surely come in and you will be saved”.  There is a problem when saying something like this (or something similar) or using this verse to witness to an unbeliever and it is mainly this: In this chapter and specifically this verse, Christ is speaking to the Church, not un-professing unbelievers. I hope this example shows why understanding the context is important. Having the understanding of context will help us in our further study of particular verses, and our main text of focus will be in 1 Timothy 2:4 “who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”  Before we begin let’s look at this verse with a surrounding context.

The Real John 3:16

     Traditions, things passed on through time that people believe and often  without question. This not only happens throughout secular history but also through Christian Church history. We as humans are often , I believe, either too scared or too apathetic to challenge the status quo. Because of this apathy, the Christian Church suffers the way it does. Instead of taking heed to 2 Timothy 2:15 we accept things without any careful study because of the majority acceptance. But this is why we are here today. We are here to study and to learn in-depth the things of our Christian faith. We are here to challenge the status quo of some of the things that are said or believed in the Churches today. Now, I am not saying that all tradition is wrong and not to be believed, but I am saying that there will be traditions that stand true and strong and there will be some, when challenged, that fall and are found to be simply not true. John 3:16 is one of the most wonderful and also often quoted verse in the entire Bible. It is a verse that you yourselves have memorized in Sunday school; or even if you were saved in your older years, it is a verse you have heard many times. You see the verse on billboards, bumper stickers, T-shirts, and Tim Tebow's face during the College football championship game a few years ago. But what does this verse mean? How is this verse normally seen today, and how was it seen in the past? Are we taking this verse for granted and feel no need to think deeper to what it possibly means? To look at it in isolation, without the surrounding context? I think so. I challenge you to put on your thinking cap and don't be afraid to challenge yourself in the study of this verse. I encourage you to read this and not let your emotions dictate you, but rather let the truth you learn dictate your emotions. For I am human like you and we do not like to be wrong, but if we claim Christ as our Lord then we must submit ourselves to the infallible Word of the living God. Here we go, lets get into the verse.

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16 ESV

Household according to the Bible

    One of the major doctrines in which I have been spending a lot of my time and thought on lately has been on a doctrine which has been very much misunderstood in our day in age. And that is the doctrine of paedobaptism (infant baptism). Now I will not be spending time on this particular doctrine (perhaps on another day). But through my studies on infant baptism I have been reminded of some really neat things in scripture, things which have been running in my mind this past year and a half or so, things which have been growing in my Christian worldview. Within these things there is one thought in particular I want to talk about, and that is the idea, or better yet, the reality of a household, particularly a Christian

Eschatalogical Muddle

        I got this article from one of my favorite sites so I will now share it with you. No matter what your eschatalogical (last things) view is, this article will be extremely helpful for you to understand some of the major views out there. I encourage you to take time and check them out. They even have cool pictures to help visualize, now we all like pictures :). Three of these views are historic and one is about 150 years old but very popular today among evangelicalism. Please leave a comment if you have any questions about these views. Enjoy!

Why Ron Paul?

This email was sent to me by a family I am good friends with. Like me they are also very concerned about the state of our country and with the liberties which we have been given, we desire to use our vote to the canidate who most glorifies the Lord. I do not believe many Christians are aware nor really care about the state of our Land so I hope and trust that this email I got will be a blessing to you all. Voddie Baucham is a well known trusted Christian man who has done much for God's Kingdom. My encouragment to you all is to really pray for our country and our leaders, that God will grant us repentance and restore righteousness to our land. If you are not considering Ron Paul I really encourage you all to do some research on all the candidates and see which one could really make the difference. Grace and Peace. Enjoy.

Some of the reasons I started this blog site.

      I suspect most of you who visit my blog will already know me, but for those who do not my name is Joel Aispuro. I am married to my lovely wife Moriah. Through this post I will be giving reasons for why I started this blog site. I trust that those who follow me and read my future post will get to know me even better as you see what I as a Christian believe, disbelieve, things I may be confused on, certain theological topics in which I am going through etc. I want you all to know that I love dialogue and would love for you to leave comments, or ask questions. I am not a very good writer so I'll ask for your forgiveness in advance in case there is a time where I do not make sense, or misspelling, or whatever the case may be. So this brings us to my first reason why I started a blog site.

Reason number.....

1. To work on my writing skills: Let me tell you about my background. I am 24 years old and God saved me when I was 19. I was born in San Diego and moved to Sandpoint Idaho when I was 9. I did the normal kid thing and went to school and all that. It wasn't until high school that I started getting into the "popular" crowd and becoming noticed by the girls and what not. That kept me more than busy with my time to be sure. I also was obsessed with sports, so that took up most of my time as well. I also was very much just as obsessed with Hip Hop, especially the East Coast underground style of Hip Hop. Dudes like Jedi Mind Tricks, The Wu-Tang Clan, Biggie Smalls and many more. I say all that to show you what all my time was built around: girls, sports and Hip Hop. So when i came to school I could have cared less, which then lead me to getting terrible grades which means I did not pay attention in class which means I did not learn the things I should have i.e English and proper grammar. It was not until I got saved that I started reading and caring about scholastics. I do know it was harder for me to learn all the big words than most people but I stuck with it. So after about three or four years of reading the puritans and theologians throughout church history I am now beginning to write and share my thoughts with others and share and teach the things that I have learned through my hard studies and work on my grammar as I do so. That I may be a blessing to an open ear. This now brings us to my second point.

2.  "You then my child...what you have heard from me...entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also" 2 Timothy 2:1-2: When God saved me He did not turn over a new leaf, oh no, He created a new person. God through His grace showed me my sin and His grace and granted me repentance and faith in His Son Christ Jesus. Everything changed: my life, speech, conduct (not perfection), worldview etc. I fell in love with reading the Bible and good books. After about a year or so of being saved God in His kindness somehow got some books in my hands written by A.W Pink and Charles Spurgeon. Let me tell you, if you want a good read then read those guys! So that started my journey in the deep ocean of Theology, more specifically reformed theology. To make a long story short I started seeing that the more I learned of our great Christian faith the more I saw the beauty and majesty of the God we serve. Paul Washer, who has had a wonderful influence in my life said these words which saved my life "theology is a means not an end, it's a means to an end and the end is knowing God." That quote saved me from a lot of pride which could have really hindered me. From then on it was instilled in my head that I wanted all my hard studies and reads and debates and discussions to draw me nearer to my Savior. Please know that just because that is ones focus, to do all things to draw us nearer to Christ, does not mean its always like that. We are still sinners and have to struggle with our flesh. The Lord still has to humble me and bring me back on track. So through this blog I want to share with people these wonderful truths of theology so that I may help others grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ and so that they could teach others and so on and so forth. To possibly teach others that may have a hard time figuring something out. The deep ocean of theology can be very intimidating to Christians, so intimidating in fact that it can neutralize the Christian. So one thing I love to do and desire to do with this blog is to bring the hard to understand things and make them understandable for the people of God so that we can continue to swim deeper in the theological ocean. I also desire those who read these blogs and may see the need to correct me or challenge me, to do so in love. I need to be sharpened as well and would love the dialogue.  Now to my next reason.

3.  To create a helpful learning atmosphere for the student: What I mean by that is this is that I understand a lot of Christians do not get deep into studying because they do not know where to begin and they then get overwhelmed and give up. My desire with my blog is to have trusted websites and blogs and other Christian/Church resources readably available so one can begin his or hers journey. Instead of trying to keep track of site after site, one would just have to come to this blog site to be a launch pad to multiple sites. I hope this makes sense.

4.  To keep people posted on current event issues:  As Christians we need to submit to the Word of God and the Word of God effects every area of our lives. Because of that even the political realm is important to the believer. Contrary to a lot of the modern belief, where Christians say something to the effect of "as Christians we should engage ourselves in the 'secular' realm of politics', we just need to focus on the spiritual things." Now I am not saying all Christians say that but that is the spirit of the age in many churches in our day. But as Believers there is no division between secular and sacred, it is all sacred. I believe as Christians we need to develop a comprehensive world view and not just pick and choose which areas of life we like or dislike. Politics matter and with the freedoms we still have (which are fading away) we need to use our rights to try to make a change in our country for the glory of God and the furtherance of His kingdom. There will be other blogs to come on this topic.

5.  To do book reviews:  One thing I believe would be beneficial and fun for myself and others would to do reviews on the books I read. I will do so as time permits.

So there is a few but not all the reasons why I have started a blog. I hope it can be beneficial to everyone who desires to follow and read.

Grace and Peace

P.S This post would not be complete if I did not give credit to Helen Soderberg. She wrote a blog on "Ten reason to start a blog" and it had a tremendous impact on me starting a blog ;).

Soon

This is a new blogspot and a post will be coming soon. Thank you.

Joel, Soli Deo Gloria