Every word of God
is pure:
He is a shield to those
who put their trust
in Him.
Do not add to
His words,
lest He rebuke you,
and you
be found a liar.
Proverbs 30:5-6; cf. Revelation 22:18
To protect God's word is the work that all Christians are involved so that generations that follow will have the pure word of God so that their lives are not following a man's interpretation, rather that they are under the authority of God as God has revealed through His word. One of the chief aims of the previous blogs, and of this blog, those that will follow is to determine the truth. God has promised to preserve His word: "For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled" (Matthew 5:18). Mankind is human and have brains, and by means of those brains educated by God's word we are to align our lives, our understanding of God as we translate His word from the original languages into the vernacular of various ethnics. God has not seen fit to write by His hand as He did to the king of Babylon Belshazzar: Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin," (Daniel 5:25b), No, He uses man and man is to use His brains. The question then is: by what information does a man determine the truth when deciphering old manuscripts? Is the translator under the guidance of the Holy Spirit or is he under the influence of men who are not of God? It is true, man is the product of history. We are the history of future generations until God returns and the Son of God calls home all of God's children that have been given to Him by the Father: "Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world and I come to You, Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given to Me, that they by one as We are" (Matthew 17:11). Man being educated and driven in many ways by history then we must examine history and determine how that history has affected our thinking, the way we view certain aspects of life. Jesus Christ has all authority and it is by His word that man is to live and be guided in this life, we are to keep His word, that is fact, and we are not to by our own authority: "as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him" (Matthew 17:2). It by God that man can come to given to His Son Jesus Christ, and it Jesus Christ that has all authority, therefore as a child of God, drawn to the truth by God, enabled by God to believe the truth (see John chpt. 6) and it is to those whom God has given to His Son that the Son prays for: "I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word" (Matthew 17:20). Jesus was looking into the future and for all those drawn by God, enabled by God, that they would live and keep His word. But, man is sinful, not just in action, that is so often true, rather he is sin, a sin inherited from the first man Adam and that sin often is enhanced by ideologies, theologies, and other ideas that are misleading and man being educated by those men are often far removed from the truth of God's word. These men and we, being affected by men and women of history we must calculate whether or not they have affected us in some negative way. How has history affected the Church, its form of government, the Doctrines that churches operate under, those ideologies that affect those attending Church? We are the sum total of history whether we like it or not, and the only way to mitigate how history has affected us is to learn and be educated by those who follow God's word. Have we been affected by sinful men? Yes! To what degree? How? I will use how we are affected by history by demonstrating something we all know and have at least some knowledge of: atoms. We far too often think of atoms as being a modern scientific fact, found and determined to exist by modern science. This is far from the truth. Allow me to show this: One such belief system that is opposed to the Doctrine of creation as taught in the Bible is an early philosophy based upon the teachings of Epicurus (Founded around 307 B.C.) called Epicureanism. Epicurus was an atomic materialist who developed his theory from Democritus (ca. 460 B.C.-370 B.C.), an ancient Greek philosopher who formulated an atomic theory for the cosmos held that everything is composed of “atoms,” that are physically, but not geometrically, indivisible; that between atoms lies empty space; that atoms are indestructible; have always been, and always will be, in motion; that there are an infinite number of atoms, kinds of atoms, all which differ in shape and size. The theorem of these two men differed in some aspects but is similar in their focus of materialism. For Epicurus, his theory led him to have a general attack on superstition and divine intervention. It is not that Epicurus denied the existence of a god(s), rather that those god(s) did not interfere with the material world. Epicurus wrote:
entitled as Problem of Evil: which argues against the existence of an all-powerful and providential god(s).
“God either wants to eliminate bad things and cannot, or can but does not want to, or neither wishes to nor can, or both wants to and can. If he wants to and cannot, then he is weak - and this does not apply to god. If he can but does not want to, then he is spiteful - which is equally foreign to god's nature. If he neither wants to nor can, he is both weak and spiteful, and so not a god. If he wants to and can, which is the only thing fitting for a god, where then do bad things come from? Or why does he not eliminate them?”
Does that not sound like many of those who oppose Christianity? Other men such as John Dewey affected the thinking many: David Hume (1711 A.D.-1776 A.D.), a historian, philosopher, economist, and essayist, is known for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism paraphrased this passage in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion: “Epicurus’s old questions are yet unanswered. Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then is he impotent? Is he able, but not willing? Then is he malevolent? Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?” These questions and some form of those theorems by Epicurus, and Democritus, as well as others are still in vogue, and held by those in opposition to Christianity. How often have you heard this type of thinking? The father of modern education John Dewey (1859–1952) who co-authored the Humanist Manifesto I has affected eduction within Universities, schools, and even has by this form of education propagated by his ideologies, has affected even the Church. Along, with liberal theologians, these men, such as Immanuel Kant, Bertrand Russel, Nietzche, Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle, all have by their prominence as thinking men have affected history and our lives. The more that 30 men who wrote Humanist Manifest I has this to say as those as did Raymond B. Bragg (1933),"who are forging a new philosophy out of the materials of the modern world. The time has come for widespread recognition of the radical changes in religious beliefs throughout the modern world...religions, the world over are under the necessity of coming to terms with new conditions created by vastly increased knowledge and experience...there is great danger of a final, and we believe fatal, identification of the word religion with doctrines and methods which have lost their significance and which are powerless to solve the problem of human living in the 20th century. .... today man's larger understanding of the universe, he is scientific achievements, and deeper appreciation of brotherhood have created a situation which requires a new statement of the means and purposes of religion.... While this age does owe a vast debt to the traditional religions, it is none the less obvious that any religion that can hope to be a synthesizing and dynamic force for today, must be shaped for the needs of this age. to establish such a religion is a major necessity of the present. It is a responsibility, which rests upon this generation. We therefore affirm the following:" Humanist Manifesto I contains 15 tenets, I will not give each and every one, rather only those that are pertinent to our present discussion.
FIRST: Religious humanists regard, the universe as self--existing and not created.
SECOND: Humanism believes that man is a part of nature, and that he has emerged as result of a continuous process.
FIFTH: Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by modern science makes unacceptable in any supernatural or cosmic guarantees of human values. Obviously, humanism does not deny the possibility of realities as yet undiscovered, but it does insist that the way to determine the existence and value of any and all realities is by means of intelligent inquiry and by the assessment of their relations to human needs. religion must formulate its hoes and plans in the light of the scientific spirit and method.
SEVENTH: Religion consists of those actions, purposes, and experiences which are humanly significant. Nothing human is alien to the religious. It includes labor, art, science, philosophy, love, friendship, recreation--all that is in its degree expressing up intelligently satisfying human living. the distinction between the sacred and the secular can no longer be maintained.
NINTH: In the place of the old attitudes involved in the worship and prayer. The humanist finds his religious emotions expressed in a heightened sense of personal life and in a cool operation effort to promote social well-being.
TWELFTH: Believing that religion must work increasingly for joy in living, religious humanists aim to foster that creating in man, and to encourage achievements that add to the satisfaction of life.
Final: So stand the theses religious humanism. Though we consider the religious forms and ideas of our fathers no longer adequate, the quest for the good life is still the central task for mankind. Man is a last becoming aware that he alone is responsible for the realization of the world of his dreams, that he has within himself the power for its achievement. He must set intelligence and will to the task.
You may not consider yourself a religious humanist, but you have been affected by their introduction into the schools and thoughts of individuals who have affected history and you. To what extent is only mitigated by your knowledge of God's Word and allow Him to be the authority of your life. Humanist Manifesto II expanded on these thought and Humanist Manifesto III, IV only accepted and approved the previous manifestos. This historical fact is not historical in today's world, it is fact and is the way education is taught, how our entertainment industry operates, the advertizing picturing the "good" life, and the pornographic scenes in "soap operas." Furthermore, the Church, which is made up of people, both laymen and those educated in seminaries, have been affected in some way and bring to the Church at least a portion of those ideologies, unless they are sold out to God and follow the authority of God.
This blog has been long and full of facts. There is much more that could be added, the Communist Manifesto, the beliefs and practices of the N.E.A. and the N.O.W. movements. Our culture has been infected and we are infected in some way, but culture is not to define our belief in a Supernatural God who is Just, Good, and Merciful, who has sent His Son to pay the debt of sin, and I am not allowing what I write to be determined by culture, rather to return to the Bible and become under its authority. We need to address though, those things that have and are affecting the way we see authority. How we may have changed, and are we actually being taught the truth of God's word?
We then, as workers
together with Him
also plead with you
not to receive the
grace of God in vain.
2Corinthians 6:1
Prayer Is The Answer-Pray For Guidance
Richard L. Crumb
FIRST: Religious humanists regard, the universe as self--existing and not created.
SECOND: Humanism believes that man is a part of nature, and that he has emerged as result of a continuous process.
FIFTH: Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by modern science makes unacceptable in any supernatural or cosmic guarantees of human values. Obviously, humanism does not deny the possibility of realities as yet undiscovered, but it does insist that the way to determine the existence and value of any and all realities is by means of intelligent inquiry and by the assessment of their relations to human needs. religion must formulate its hoes and plans in the light of the scientific spirit and method.
SEVENTH: Religion consists of those actions, purposes, and experiences which are humanly significant. Nothing human is alien to the religious. It includes labor, art, science, philosophy, love, friendship, recreation--all that is in its degree expressing up intelligently satisfying human living. the distinction between the sacred and the secular can no longer be maintained.
NINTH: In the place of the old attitudes involved in the worship and prayer. The humanist finds his religious emotions expressed in a heightened sense of personal life and in a cool operation effort to promote social well-being.
TWELFTH: Believing that religion must work increasingly for joy in living, religious humanists aim to foster that creating in man, and to encourage achievements that add to the satisfaction of life.
Final: So stand the theses religious humanism. Though we consider the religious forms and ideas of our fathers no longer adequate, the quest for the good life is still the central task for mankind. Man is a last becoming aware that he alone is responsible for the realization of the world of his dreams, that he has within himself the power for its achievement. He must set intelligence and will to the task.
You may not consider yourself a religious humanist, but you have been affected by their introduction into the schools and thoughts of individuals who have affected history and you. To what extent is only mitigated by your knowledge of God's Word and allow Him to be the authority of your life. Humanist Manifesto II expanded on these thought and Humanist Manifesto III, IV only accepted and approved the previous manifestos. This historical fact is not historical in today's world, it is fact and is the way education is taught, how our entertainment industry operates, the advertizing picturing the "good" life, and the pornographic scenes in "soap operas." Furthermore, the Church, which is made up of people, both laymen and those educated in seminaries, have been affected in some way and bring to the Church at least a portion of those ideologies, unless they are sold out to God and follow the authority of God.
This blog has been long and full of facts. There is much more that could be added, the Communist Manifesto, the beliefs and practices of the N.E.A. and the N.O.W. movements. Our culture has been infected and we are infected in some way, but culture is not to define our belief in a Supernatural God who is Just, Good, and Merciful, who has sent His Son to pay the debt of sin, and I am not allowing what I write to be determined by culture, rather to return to the Bible and become under its authority. We need to address though, those things that have and are affecting the way we see authority. How we may have changed, and are we actually being taught the truth of God's word?
We then, as workers
together with Him
also plead with you
not to receive the
grace of God in vain.
2Corinthians 6:1
Prayer Is The Answer-Pray For Guidance
Richard L. Crumb
No comments:
Post a Comment