Timothy's Thoughts

T he great divide in Christianity today boils down to one thing. What do you believe the Bible is? In a discussion the other day, I used a passage from the Bible to prove a point. The other person in the discussion responded by saying that she didn’t believe that passage means the same today as it did then and more than that, she didn’t thing Jesus would agree with the passage. Then she made the statement, “the Bible contradicts itself.” Compare that to the follow excerpt from the doctrinal statement my church has adopted: The Scriptures are God's inerrant revelation, complete in the Old and New Testaments, written by divinely inspired men as they were moved by the Holy Spirit (II Tim. 3:16; II Peter 1:21). Those men wrote not in words of human wisdom but in words taught by the Holy Spirit (I Cor. 2:13). The Scriptures provide the standard for the believer's faith and practice (II Tim. 3:16, 17), reveal the principles by which God will judge all (Heb. 4:12; John 12:48), and...

I heard a term I’ve never used before, the other day. The term is egalitarian and I heard it used to describe Rachel Held Evans. If you don’t know who she is, she is the self proclaimed “follower of Jesus” who has gathered a following by making fun of the Bible, including doing such things as sitting her roof for 89 minutes because Proverbs 21:9 says, “It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop than with a brawling woman in a large house.” Proverbs 21:19 is similar, “It is better to dwell in the wilderness than with a contentious and angry woman.” (Which may explain why some men like to go hunting.) But my intention isn’t to talk about her silliness. Instead, I want to talk about the problem of labeling her as an egalitarian . While it may be true that the egalitarian vs. complementarian debate may have been Rachel Held Evans’ motive for her silliness, I don’t want to label her an egalitarian . That’s not to say that she doesn’t hold to the ideas held by egalitarians , I t...

H ave you heard this argument before? In the Bible it says that God told Joshua to kill all of their enemies at Jericho, therefore, the Bible isn’t accurate. I may bore a few people today. I have the urge to talk about logic. Also, I’m a little rusty on that subject. If we can write the statement as: A: God told Joshua to kill all of their enemies at Jericho. B: The Bible says A C: The Bible isn’t accurate. Not(A) And B => C ( Not(A) And B Implies C) This would be the same as saying God didn’t tell Joshua to kill all of their enemies at Jericho but the Bible says it did, so the Bible is inaccurate. We know that B = True. (From reading the book of Joshua.) Not(A) And True = Not(A), meaning Not(A) => C To prove the inaccuracy of the Bible, we must prove A = False, God didn’t tell Joshua to kill their enemies. Herein is a problem. To be able to show that God didn’t do what the Bible says he did, we must have evidence from a source outside of the Bible. Some people answ...

P eople have a tendency to pick and choose the things they want to believe in the Bible. Some people are blatant about it, while others of us may do it without realizing that we’re doing it. Martin Luther thought that the book of James conflicted with his theology and wanted to edit it out of the Bible. Thomas Jefferson thought it was a good idea to rewrite the Bible with the references to angels, the genealogy of Jesus, the prophecy of his birth. He also wanted to remove miracles, the divinity of Jesus, and Jesus’ resurrection. All he had left were 46 pages that he thought were “pure and unsophisticated doctrines.” Recently, one commenter to this blog told me that she disagrees with a lot of what Paul wrote. She didn’t like what he said about women being submissive to their husbands and about women not teaching men in church. But how often have we simply not read a passage because we didn’t think it had anything interesting? Or how often do we look for verses about a particular subjec...

I ’m amazed at what some people think is keeping up with the latest technology. They’ve all got to have the latest phone, the latest handheld device, and they’ve got to be a member of the latest social media website. Rachelle Gardner recently suggested that staying current on these things would help stave off dementia or help you maintain marketable skills. That’s a nice thought, but really, do you think knowing how to use Facebook, or Twitter, or now Pinterest is going to do all of that? Other than the fact that there are some people who are convinced that the latest technology is too hard to try, many of the things that people think are new technology are old technology with new packaging. The social media networks are driven by fads. But given the number of people who are using them, you can be sure that it’s okay to skip the latest thing. You don’t have to sign up for the latest social media website. You don’t have to have the latest handheld device. If at some point you see a r...

D o you give create where credit is due? The other day, I happened across a blog and the author quoted me, without stating my name. While I don’t believe that is illegal, or even plagiarism, since she didn’t claim the statement as her own, it would've been nice to have my name next to the quote, even nicer if there were a link back to the statement I made. (Or course, you realize I’m mentioning what she did without providing a name or a link.) My thought is this: if you use something someone has said as the basis for an argument or a point of disagreement, it is important to cite your source. If you are giving an example of something someone has done, but you believe it is representative of what many people do, it isn’t so important to cite them, especially when it may place them in a bad light. From doing research papers, you know the importance of citing your sources so that people can verify your work. When it comes to online stuff, one of the reasons I think it is important...

O kay, Wow! One of my books is available for free right now on Amazon.com. I knew it was going to happen, but I had let it slip my mind. But I didn’t see any harm in it. After all, the whole point is to encourage a broader audience to take a chance on it. Apparently, hundreds of people decided to do just that. It makes my sales numbers look good, even though I’m not making a red cent from any of them.