Apologetics and Evidence

            “The beehive is a good example of how different individuals can work together for one common goal. There is very little time to bicker when each bee’s contribution is necessary for survival. When each different group makes its contribution, the hive is strong” (Arnold and Black n. pag.).  It seems that this analogy draws the best picture as to why small groups should form in the first place—for one common goal. This common goal, since we are speaking of Christian small groups, should normally be focused on everyday life situations (such as apologetics, evangelism, philosophy, discipleship, divorce, serving, love, compassion, community, frustration, anxiety, theology, transparency, sex, addictions, etc.), and how the Bible and theology should be applied to these life situations. Small groups, it could be argued in any generation, should have an apologetic bent to them in order to build up new believers, and to encourage mature beli...

When someone makes a truth claim or statement, no matter who it came from, this claim must come under the Three Fundamental Laws of Logic . If the claim is true, then the source of the claim is irrelevant and arbitrary. The genetic fallacy ultimately reduces the significance of a claim because of its origins. For an extreme instance, Adolf Hitler said that smoking cigarettes are unhealthy, and tried to convince those around him to stop smoking. We think of Adolf Hitler as being an evil person and with anything he might have said, we perhaps want to dismiss it as something that is false, or we do not want to give what was said the time of day, so to speak. The problem is, sometimes the truth hurts, not always the claim itself, but where the claim or statement came from.  If a person does not like the source, no matter if he is usually described as an expletive, or if it is your mother-in-law, or a biker, or a janitor, or the Bible , it has nothing to do with the validity of the...

We know of the first problem the Bible presents, that there is a separation between God and man, and we know that Jesus alone is the mediator, the Savior, our redeemer, and our solution to the problem. Many of us however, do not understand the (second) problem we face after we are saved from our sins. Paul, on a huge discourse about the Law and sin in Romans, comes to a place inevitably examining his own sin. He says in Romans 7: Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. 14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 ...

Having seen the world in its ugliest states, with garbage floating down rivers in third world countries, people living tough lives in the streets of NYC and everywhere else, poverty and drugs running rampant in lonely towns all over the United States, I question what my place is in helping people in these and similar situations. The Bible is clear when it tells us to love people and how to love them: Matthew 7:12 is what many people know as the Golden Rule. Jesus says, “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” In Matthew 22: 36-40, Jesus gets interrogated by a lawyer and responds accordingly: “And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neig...