Apologetics and Evidence

I hear the following kinds of phrases frequently, and most often from those who hold to a prosperity gospel  or who are somehow influenced by such: “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus, Satan…” “…in the name of Jesus, go back to the pit where you belong…” “I will rebuke Satan for your healing.” I question if we, as Christians, have such power to rebuke Satan. Something you might find interesting is that the Bible never says that we do have this power, but it does say something else very interesting concerning such… I want to jump right into this and see what the Bible says. Let’s start in Jude 9-11:    “But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you.’”   Michael the archangel did not rebuke Satan. Michael, in the world of  Jehovah’s Witnesses , is the same person as Jesus. But it is significant to know that here, Michael does no...

Nearly everyone has experienced division. We personally learn the effects of such even in high school. When a classmate on a random day decides on a whim to negatively regard a fellow student, he or she might gossip about a person, and try to   poison the well , for example, in making such a person seem unappealing or unreputable in whatever issue is being discussed.   Poisoning the well   is the idea that before   person B   even gets a chance to examine certain information on his or her own,   person A   seeks to distort  person B’s   understanding by pointing out things that might either be true or false in order for   person B   to immediately have the perspective that   person A   has. For instance, I have recently been called an   anti-Mormon , which is a textbook example of poisoning the well. What this does is when a Mormon calls another person anti-Mormon, he is using this derogatory label to warn other Mormo...

People are (and get) stuck in false religions, because to them, it is the ultimate  identity . People seem to have an innate need to have identity in something. It consumes us. Think about it. We often ask someone we first meet what they do for a living because we think that we will have a quick grasp of who they are. This is because we tend to think that a person  is  what he or she  does . Those of us who are not afraid to ask questions might ask what a person believes about the world. Perhaps what religion he or she might be.  Religions seek to answer life’s fundamental questions. One of them is, “Who are we?” People often gravitate toward these answers that religions provide ( even erroneous ones ), to their questions. Take  Buddhism  for instance, some argue that it is not a religion, yet in interviewing Buddhists, they claim to have peace. Why? Often it boils down to the fact that their questions are answered. The problem with  Buddhism , at...