Jesus Christ Archives - Page 13 of 14

August 6, 2019August 5, 2019

Your God Is Too Small

Many years ago J. B. Phillips wrote an excellent book titled Your God Is Too Small. The thesis of the book was that there are things we consider impossible because we think we are too small, or too weak, or too poor. The problem with that line of thinking is that we are not figuring God into the equation. That thinking is still alive. Because of our own limitations, we believe that God is incapable of doing great things in America today. Sometimes we have more confidence in Satan as the destroyer than we do in God as the creator.

Judges chapters 6-8 tell the story of Gideon. He was a man who had huge doubts about God. He wanted to believe, and he stepped out on faith a time or two. When Satan opposed him, he backed away, and his father had to save him. Then Gideon tested God. When one test that he devised worked, he refused to accept it, and he gave God a bigger challenge. Don’t you know that the people around Gideon thought the whole thing was nuts? “You’re looking at 135,000 soldiers, and you’re going after them with an army of 300? That’s insane!!” Read the story. Gideon didn’t win; God did.

So here we are surrounded by a sea of hate, violence, war, abuse, and poverty. At the same time in America, God has blessed us with enough to eat, comfortable places to live, and enough money to make a difference in the world. Do you say that you aren’t rich? Americans are rich by the standards of most countries in the world. Instead of pouring money into selfish toys and paying for expensive entertainment to support the lavish lifestyles of Hollywood icons and athletic heroes, we need to use what we have to solve the world’s problems. Those who believe in the “survival of the fittest” mentality will oppose this, but following the teachings of Jesus Christ can make it happen. We can, with God’s help, change the world.

You say, “That’s crazy.” My response is, “Your God Is Too Small.” We need more Gideons, fewer Nebuchadnezzars, and a greater faith that God can do anything.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

May 27, 2019May 24, 2019

Memorial Day in the United States

Today is Memorial Day in the United States. While many people think it is just the beginning of the summer recreational season, it is much more than that. Memorial Day is of extreme patriotic significance, and the concept has biblical origins.

The Memorial Day tradition in this country began after the Civil War when people placed memorials and held services for the 20,000 soldiers killed in the war. It was originally held on May 30 and called “Decoration Day.” In 1967 Congress changed the official name to Memorial Day, and in 1971 changed it to the last Monday in May. Those of us who served in the military are always amazed to find how many people have already forgotten the wars that we were forced to participate in to preserve freedom. American ignorance of the 38th parallel, Bay of Pigs, Viet Nam, etc. is depressing. We too quickly forget the sacrifice people made to keep us free.

In the Christian faith, there is great emphasis on memorial activities. The communion service is a memorial. Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11:24). REMEMBRANCE is the first of three things we see in the biblical instruction about the communion service, and our country’s Memorial Day carries the same ideal. It is essential for us to remember what Jesus did for us both in terms of how we live and our eternal existence with God.

The second purpose of communion and which should e applied to Memorial Day in America is PROCLAMATION. In 1 Corinthians 11:26 says, “We proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes again.” The Christian communion is not just communing with God, but it is also a proclamation to each other and to the world that our spiritual identity is with Jesus Christ. We proclaim vertically to God and horizontally to each other.

The third purpose the Bible gives us for communion is SELF EXAMINATION. First Corinthians 11:28 tells us to examine ourselves. We need to do that regularly. Am I growing? Am I stronger? Am I learning? Throughout the Bible, we see God calling people to memorials. In Exodus 12:13-14 and 13:9-10, God tells ancient Israel to engage in a memorial of all they have been through and how God has blessed them.

On Memorial Day in the United States of America, we should thank God for the freedom we have and the people who have protected that freedom. In this time of national and international conflict and uncertainty, it is vital that we remember who we are and what we believe.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

May 7, 2019May 7, 2019

Scientific Method Is a Friend of Faith

Scientific Method Is a Friend of Faith Our mission statement is: “Science and faith are friends and not enemies.” One of the challenges that we hear from atheists and skeptics is that statement is bogus because the scientific method can not be applied to it.

As a public school science teacher I always tried to make sure that students knew what scientific method is and could see how to apply it to the problems we face in the modern age. Sometimes that is incredibly difficult to do. Our textbooks usually gave six steps to use the scientific method:

1. Identify and define the problem.
2. Accumulate all possible data.
3. Formulate a tentative hypothesis that would solve the problem in step 1.
4. Conduct experiments to test the hypothesis – the more experiments, the better.
5. Interpret the results of the experiments without prejudice.
6. Repeat the steps until you find an acceptable solution.

In high school science classes, those six steps are usually easy to do, but sometimes later data alters what we thought was a solid fact proven by scientific method. Suppose we ask, “What causes gravity?” We could say “I think gravity is a property of mass.” All objects with mass have a gravitational attraction for all other d objects that have mass. Other people might say that it’s a property of electric charge, or maybe spin. You write down all the possibilities and conduct experiments to see which hypothesis can be experimentally verified.

To see if mass produces gravity, I fill two large bags with cement, and I hang them close to each other. If mass causes gravity, they should attract each other. That is an experiment I can do. I can also charge two balls electrically and see if they attract each other including the electric forces in the calculation. I can spin the two balls and see if they change their attraction for each other as they spin. The mass experiment works, and all the others don’t. I publicize my results and wait for additional experiments to support or deny what my experiments have shown.

The example I have just described is in most physics textbooks and has been done and repeated hundreds of times. But then a scientist did an experiment that didn’t support this conclusion. He found that when a beam of light passed by a huge object (the Sun), the light curved. This suggested that gravity was actually a product of space, not mass. The difference was that the size of the experiment produced different results when you used a star instead of a bag of cement.

As we have looked at the very large (quasars) and the very small (quarks), we have found that the scientific method is hard to do and sometimes impossible. String theory, brane theory, multiverse theory, and a variety of other proposals simply cannot be tested by an experiment. For the time being at least, we cannot test them by scientific method. They are not alternatives we can hold up as fact. They cannot even be considered as serious scientific explanations since they cannot be demonstrated or falsified by scientific method.

Trying to use the scientific method in areas like psychology, sociology, and matters of faith are also frequently difficult. What we generally do is to rely on statistics to evaluate a potential cure for a psychological difficulty. Does a treatment method work? Is a particular activity statistically helpful in relieving a mental or spiritual problem? As more and more data become available, we examine that data. We must reject some psychological theories (like Freud’s view of sex) and use the data to make a new proposal we can analyze.

Christ challenged his followers to examine the data. When the disciples of John came to Christ to ask if He was the promised Messiah, He responded: “Go and tell John what things you have seen and heard: how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised …” (Luke 7:22). Jesus didn’t ask the disciples to take His word for it. He asked them to look at the evidence. The evidence supports the claims of Christianity. If we honestly examine the evidence, our investigation will lead to a better understanding of how our faith works.

The scientific method is not an enemy of Christianity. The whole basis of our ministry is to ask people not to blindly accept what anyone says. The title of our ministry is “Does God Exist?” and that is the question at hand. We offer data for our readers to evaluate. The tentative hypothesis is that God does exist and that intelligence and design will be seen everywhere we look in the creation. As you continue to look at new data, we hope that you will find the solution for the struggles in life. The scientific method is a friend of faith.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

April 3, 2019April 2, 2019

Happiness Secret Is Simple and Easy

A research team at Iowa State University led by Professor Douglas Gentile discovered the happiness secret. It has nothing to do with money or power or fame or anything else that people are always striving to gain. Actually, an ancient book had the secret all along.

The researchers divided a group of Iowa State students into four groups. Each group was told to look at people they saw as they walked around the campus. They told one group to wish others well and really mean it. The researchers called this “loving-kindness.” A second group was told to think about how they might be connected to the people they saw, such as sharing a class. This was called the “interconnectedness” group.

They instructed the third group to look at people and think about how much better off they are than the people they are looking at. This was the “downward social comparison” group. The idea was that seeing how much better off you are than someone else could make you feel happy. The fourth group was the control group. Their task was to walk around in the same way and just notice the outward appearance of people. They were supposed to look at things like clothing and accessories.

All of the students in each group were questioned before and after the 12-minute test to determine their happiness, stress, and anxiety. Can you guess which group had the most significant increase in happiness? It wasn’t the “downward social comparison” group. They came out on the bottom. The group that increased their happiness the most was those who practiced “loving-kindness.” The happiness secret is simple!

Whom do you suppose set the example for practicing loving-kindness? If you answered “Jesus Christ,” you are exactly right. Jesus not only felt love and compassion for those He met, but He also demonstrated it by His actions. Jesus said, “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” He gave us the happiness secret!

Professor Gentile concluded, “Walking around and offering kindness to others in the world reduces anxiety and increases happiness and feelings of social connections…It’s a simple strategy that doesn’t take a lot of time that you can incorporate into your daily activities.”

I suggest that we begin to practice the happiness secret today!

The research report has the long title, “Caring for Others Cares for the Self: An Experimental Test of Brief Downward Social Comparison, Loving-kindness, and Interconnectedness Contemplations.” It was published in the Journal of Happiness at THIS LINK.

March 23, 2019March 21, 2019

Christian Identity Group Promotes Racism and Hatred

Christian Identity Promotes Racism and Hatred

We live in a world of violence and senseless killing. When Jesus walked the Earth, not only did the Roman government control by violence, but even the Jews practiced stoning. One of the strengths of Christianity is that the teachings of Jesus Christ stood in total opposition to the violence of His day. When the Romans and Jews came to crucify Jesus, he told Peter, “Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword shall die with the sword” (Matthew 26:52). You can’t read the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 – 7 and get the picture of Jesus advocating or tolerating violence in His name. But today a group called Christian Identity promotes hatred.

Because we have some 4000 prisoners taking our Christian Evidences correspondence courses all over the country, we get letters indicating that a group calling themselves Christian Identity is very active in prisons. That group teaches that the Bible says salvation in Christ Jesus is only available to those in the white race. The consequences of such teaching should be obvious. Those teachings are not biblical and contradict everything that Jesus and the apostles said and did.

Just briefly let us point out some of the most egregious errors promoted by Christian Identity:

–They claim that “Adam” means “to show blood in the face” which is a characteristic of the white race only. Actually, the word “adam” in Hebrew means “out of the ground” indicating man’s origin. (See Genesis 3:19.)

–They say that white men governed all nations of the Earth. We have mummies, paintings, genetic studies and written testimonies that contradict that teaching. The Bible shows us that dark skin was a thing of beauty and is desirable. Read Song of Solomon 1:4-8 where one of Solomon’s wives begs him to love her for something other than her black skin. Biblically, humanity originated in the fertile crescent. (See Genesis 2:10-15.) People who are native to that area are dark skinned.

–Christian Identity invents words to fit their hate-filled message. They claim that the word “beast” used in Jonah 3:8 refers to inferior races of humans. The Hebrew word is “behemoth” which refers to a quadruped and never to a human of any kind.

Genetically we all have one common female ancestor proven by mitochondrial DNA research. Skin color is a function of latitude. If you move away from the equator, what happens to skin color? The basic principles of Christianity wipe out any claim of racial superiority. Galatians 3:27-29 is hard to misunderstand.

The Sermon on the Mount spells out the message of Jesus, and nowhere in it is there any justification for relegating secondary importance to any group. The woman at the well in John 4 was a Samaritan–a race despised by the Jews of Jesus’ day. (See John 4:9.) Jesus not only talked with her but stayed in her city for several days.

Christian Identity is a racist hate group hiding behind a corrupt presentation of Christ and the Bible. In our day of violence and hate, it is essential to know the enemy and his workers. Satan will have a field day with this group, especially in the prison population.

March 13, 2019March 13, 2019

Moral Compass Lost

The lack of a moral compass in America has become apparent. In the first part of 2019, various states have legalized recreational drugs and approved prostitution. Now the New York State legislature has allowed the abortion of a baby up to the time of birth. There was a standing ovation in the legislative chamber when they announced the result of the vote. Two states are now considering the abortion of a baby after birth if the child has “significant health issues,” whatever that means.

I am being bombarded with emails and phone messages from atheists saying that I need to see what significant changes can take place when religion no longer controls America. Religion has not controlled America for a long time, if ever.

This ministry is not about religion – human attempts to find God. This ministry is about education and seeing the evidence to support faith in God and the Bible as His Word. I appreciate the challenges of atheists and skeptics because I can raise questions from a scientific standpoint to show the intellectual bankruptcy of their abortion ideology. When we remove God from the equation, the moral compass is gone. You have no basis of making any law that has moral ramifications. The existence or nonexistence of God plays a major role in issues like these:

When is a fetus a human?

Can medical intervention change the criteria of what is moral?

Is “survival of the fittest” a valid standard to support whether someone should be allowed to live?

I have argued for over 50 years that one of the best evidences for God’s existence is the wisdom and practical value of the teachings of Jesus. I believe we can see God’s hand in the Bible’s writing which gives us answers to the tough questions. Science can provide data, but it cannot answer how its discoveries should be used.

We try to give logical answers that provide a moral compass to a confused world. Our answers are not from one man’s wisdom, but from what God has given us in His Word and in His creation. The moral argument for God’s existence gains strength as the world sinks into a quagmire of doubt and conflict, but the Bible’s fixed value system has worked and continues to work when it is applied.

For more on this subject, click HERE and watch programs 21 and 22 in the Does God Exist? series for free.

February 21, 2019February 20, 2019

Mob Psychology – Then and Now

One of the interesting characteristics of the people of the first century was the fact that they allowed mob psychology to control what they believed and what they did. We see this happening in the accounts described in the book of Acts.

A good example is an incident at Lystra in Acts 14:8-20. The story begins with Paul healing a man who was born with a physical deformity that made it impossible for him to walk. The crowd saw that an indisputable miracle had taken place. They cried out that Paul and Barnabas were gods who had come to Earth in the form of men. They called Barnabas Zeus and Paul they called Hermes (the god of speech). The local priest brought garlands and oxen for sacrifice.

When Paul and Barnabas realized what was going on, they rushed into the crowd and proclaimed that they were not gods, but just ordinary men. They seized upon the opportunity to tell the people about Jesus. Verse 18 tells us that “even by saying words like these it was all they could do to keep the crowds from sacrificing to them.” Almost immediately opponents of Christianity showed up and “turned the minds of the crowd against Paul.” The same crowd that wanted to make Paul a god now stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city thinking he was dead. This is an amazing change of belief among the crowd, and it shows mob psychology at work.

The classic example of mob psychology is the crowd that demanded the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. In spite of the evidence and the best effort of Pilate, the mob demanded the freeing of a known criminal and the crucifixion of the obviously innocent Jesus.

People today are no different when it comes to mob psychology. I have spoken to groups of atheists in public venues in which they summarily rejected anything I said, even though it was obviously true. I have spoken in other venues sponsored by a local religious group where I could say anything, and the crowd would approve it. Having a debate is no way to come to an understanding of truth. That is because what the crowd believes is what they came into the debate believing and no amount of evidence will change their minds.

Unfortunately, mob psychology applies in politics where our political figures, for the most part, regurgitate what their political party has decided to be true. No matter what the evidence is, they refuse to consider other options. We have seen that clearly in recent years in the inability of Congress to accomplish anything of substance. Public evangelists frequently “seed” some people in a crowd to come forward during an invitation, because they are trying to invoke mob psychology to move people.

When you study conversions in the New Testament, you see people sitting down in a one-on-one relationship and considering the evidence. Deciding what to believe is most fruitfully done in rational one-on-one discussions. We live in a wonderful time in which people can consider the evidence in the privacy of their own homes. The “Does God Exist?” ministry attempts to reach people in that way. We strive to be intellectually honest by presenting, in a personal way, what the evidence is and how we should react to it.

We have many websites designed to reach people on a personal level. It is not our desire to stampede anyone into a belief they don’t understand or to move anyone to make an emotional decision. Jesus reasoned with people, and Paul presented evidence. It is up to you to decide what you will believe, but we hope you will base that decision on a careful study of the evidence.

In addition to this website, we have doesgodexist.org, doesgodexist.tv, and our Facebook page facebook.com/evidence4god. Email is an excellent way to ask questions as you learn and grow in understanding. You can always email questions to jncdge@aol.com.

August 18, 2018August 20, 2018

Secularizing a Culture

Is it possible to discover the key factors for secularizing a culture? Yesterday we discussed an international computer modeling project called the Modeling Religion Project. The goal of the international team of experts working on the project was to use computer modeling to learn how politicians could manipulate the religiosity or secularization of a society. We won’t go into all of the background details again, but you can read yesterday’s post HERE.

We said that this scientific study determined that four factors lead to secularizing a culture. The factors are: 1-Having material things, 2-Having personal freedom, 3-Welcoming diversity or pluralism, 4-Having a higher level of education in science and the humanities. We quoted Wesley Wildman, a professor of philosophy and ethics at Boston University and a collaborator on the project who seems to want our culture to become more secularized and less religious. He said, “The U.S. has found ways to limit the effects of education by keeping it local, and in private schools, anything can happen.” He also said, “Lately, there’s been encouragement from the highest levels of government to take a less than welcoming attitude to pluralism. These are forms of resistance to secularization.”

You shouldn’t need a computer model to realize that having money and material things along with personal freedom can lead people to forget about God. The ancient Israelite nation demonstrated that multiple times, and we can see it in more modern societies. Unfortunately, people turn to God in hard times and forget about Him when things are going well. Welcoming diversity or pluralism, when it means that we consider all faiths or no faith to be equally valid, is also an obvious path to secularization. However, sharing our faith with people of diverse cultures does not lead to secularization. Also, education does not have to be a path to unbelief. The DOES GOD EXIST? program has always said that science and the Bible, when both are correctly understood, are friends and not enemies.

Professor Wildman built another computer model to determine why some religious groups survive while others fall apart. He concluded that one of the most important factors is that the movements that persist have “a highly charismatic leader who personally practices what he preaches.” Wildman said, “It’s basically, leave the groups alone when the leaders are less consistent, kill the leaders that have those specific qualities.” In other words, he is saying not to worry about religious movements with leaders who are not charismatic and who don’t practice what they preach. They will probably die out anyway. The religious movements that will last and have a radical effect on society are those led by a charismatic leader who practices what he preaches.

What religious leader fits that description precisely? Jesus Christ, of course. What did the ones who wanted to end His religious movement do? They killed Him. The thing they did not count on, was that we would not stay dead.

Computer modeling has now given us the steps to secularizing a culture. Professor Wildman put it this way: “The MODRN (Modeling Religion in Norway) model gives you a recipe for accelerating secularization—and it gives you a recipe for blocking it. You can use it to make everything revert to supernaturalism by messing with some of those key conditions—say, by triggering some ecological disaster. Then everything goes plunging back into pre-secularism. That keeps me up at night.”

We suggest that we should be working to create not a “secular” or “religious” society, but a society based on the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. We don’t need an ecological disaster. We do need a 1-a secure society, 2-with personal freedom of speech and religion, 3-that welcomes and shares with those in need, not only physically, but spiritually, 4-and with education that recognizes that God speaks through His creation (science) and through His word (the Bible). Remember that the authorities tried to kill Jesus and His message, but they could not.
–Roland Earnst © 2018

Click HERE for information about the Modeling Religion Project.
Click HERE for research reports from the project.
Click HERE for an article from The Atlantic titled “Artificial Intelligence Shows Why Atheism Is Unpopular.”

August 5, 2018August 3, 2018

Religion in Canada

The Angus Reid Institute is a highly respected polling agency in Canada. They have released a detailed study of religion in Canada which is titled “A Spectrum of Spirituality.” Their study divided the Canadian population into four categories:

Non Believers 19%
Privately Faithful 30%
Spiritually Uncertain 30%
Religiously Committed 21%

When the “Spiritually Uncertain” were asked “Do you believe that God or a higher power exists” 87% indicated doubt. The study observes some interesting points about morality and belief:

“When one is unsure of the existence of a supreme arbiter of truth, it becomes increasingly easier to abandon previously held values… Identifying with a specific religious organization usually means sharing a set of values with others of like belief. Removing the connection has facilitated an increasing number of Canadians to adopt or accept practices that they would have otherwise seen as immoral.”

Religion in Canada reflects the tragedy of the modern church in which the leadership assumes that everyone believes in God. When people ignore the evidence for God, they choose to live according to their own desires. We need to make a strong effort to show young people how we can know there is a God, and what a difference belief in God makes in our lives.

We invite you to build your own faith and to know why you believe what you believe. For our free correspondence course, go to doesgoedexist.org. You can watch our video series free of charge on doesgodexist.tv. Build your faith in God and His word. Know that a fulfilling life comes from following the rules and practices that Jesus gave us for successful living.
–John N. Clayton © 2018

August 2, 2018August 1, 2018

How to Define Religious Freedom

It is almost impossible to pick up a newspaper or news magazine these days without seeing an article about religious freedom. That raises questions of how to define religious freedom.

Atheists maintain that religions are vehicles of discrimination, and in some cases that charge is valid. We previously reviewed the history of the Mormon Church which excluded blacks in its early days. There have been cults that have excluded people based on their sex or their occupation. Should the government allow a religious group to advocate the violation of the laws of the land? What about a religion that advocates violence or suicide as was the case in the Jim Jones tragedy in Guyana? We have a case in the Midwest where a nun is suing the Roman Catholic Church because they won’t allow her to become a priest. Recently a local Church of Christ was threatened with a lawsuit because they wouldn’t interview a woman for the advertised position of pulpit minister. The list of grievances is virtually endless and raises questions of how to define religious freedom.

Many people in America limit the definition of religious freedom to the right to meet in a single facility and worship God as you choose, but your religion must not move outside of that building. In this view, you may not share your faith with anyone outside of the building or make it part of what you do at work, in school, or in the presence of the general public. This has been evident in cases where a person is asked to make something or do something that violates their religious convictions. Asking Christians to act against their faith has led to legal cases involving people like Jack Phillips and his wedding cakes or Barronelle Stutzman and her flower displays or Joanna Duka and Breanna Koski and their custom art. Pro-life pregnancy care centers have been told they must promote abortion options in spite of their religious convictions.

As the government tries to decide how to define religious freedom, we must remember that Christianity does not need religious freedom to survive. God cannot be defeated by the ACLU, no matter how much money they have. It may be that the right to worship outside of a government-registered building is going to be destroyed by activists and government officials who are determined to drive historical Christian beliefs from the public square. Remember that the early church did not have religious freedom, but the teaching of Jesus Christ on love and service still survived.

“And they called them and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said unto them, ‘Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, you judge. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard’” (Acts 4:18-20).
–John N. Clayton © 2018