12 October 2008
Apologetics is devotional, worshipful, and radically sanctifying…
…if it’s done properly.
Most Christians find that statement surprising. Christians tend to respond to challenges to their faith by succumbing to one of two temptations. On the one hand, the gung-ho debaters among us seize on the opportunity to score a few points on the forces of unbelief, and there are some serious temptations that go with that. These folks, however, are only a tiny minority — and even they wouldn’t normally describe their experience as devotional and worshipful.
Then there’s everyone else — those who dread a serious challenge to their faith. These are the people who get past the local freethinkers’ society table at the county fair by walking fast and not making eye contact, who respond to Jehovah’s Witnesses at the door by pretending that nobody’s home, who retreat from serious discussion with a skeptical friend by saying “I don’t know how I know it’s true — I Read the rest of this entry »
2 Comments | 
Apologetics, How To, News | Tagged: Apologetics, Bible, biblical apologetics, Christianity, presuppositional apologetics, Scripture, theology | 
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Posted by Tim Nichols
5 October 2008
Contradictions abound in almost anyone’s thinking. We regularly tolerate all kinds of nonsense, not because we’re stupid, but because we just don’t notice. Unless something happens that forces the two contradictory ideas together, we’ll continue to believe them both in their hermetically sealed separate spheres, live a long life, and die none the wiser.
Most evangelical brains shelter just such a contradiction when it comes to science. When we start discussing creation with an average secularist, we quickly bring up the issue of the limits of science. Direct Read the rest of this entry »
5 Comments | Meditations, Physicality | Tagged: acupuncture, breathwork, Christianity, critical thinking, limitations of science, progress, theology | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols
28 September 2008
Theologians love to speculate. The problem arises when they begin to think of their speculations as fact — and especially when they begin to convince laymen that their speculations are fact. Then the bare fact that the speculation comes attached to the name of a famous theologian or pastor makes it authoritative — until somebody starts asking for biblical backing.
Sadly, many people don’t bother to ask.
When that happens, the speculation takes on a life of its own, and before you know it, it’s one of those things that “everybody knows,” and questioning it becomes literally unthinkable. That way lies ruin; it is exactly in that way that tradition becomes more authoritative than God’s Word.
Case in point: there’s a particular bit of speculation going around that God created man in order to prove to Satan that His judgment of Satan Read the rest of this entry »
28 Comments | Meditations | Tagged: Christianity, doctrinal movement, fall of satan, religion, satan, sola scriptura, speculation, theological science fiction, theological speculation, theology, thieme, tradition | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols
21 September 2008
The second in a series of papers on liturgical matters, Unity and Music: Five Hills to Die On addresses five specific areas of concern as our church tries to find its way, musically speaking. It starts out like this…
One of the worst things about Christians is our tendency to feel that because everything is a matter of principle, everything is equally important. Consequently, we often waste time and resources fighting over trivial things when there are really serious issues in play. Nowhere is this more true than in church music. I have, to my considerable shame, been a combatant in some really stupid arguments over Read the rest of this entry »
Comments Off on Liturgy, Part 2: Unity and Music | liturgy, Meditations, music | Tagged: Christianity, church, church music, congregational music, culture, honesty, liturgy, music, psalm-singing, psalms, relationships, religion, theology, unity, Worship | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols
14 September 2008
In the pagan world, when one person wrongs another, the first step is often to involve third parties: friends, a coworker, the boss, a lawyer, etc. In serious cases, the first step may be to take the offender to court. If either party is unsatisfied with the outcome of the court case, then the unsatisfied party can appeal to a higher court, and so on, until the Supreme Court gives a final ruling. In that system at its best, the goal is justice. For offenses among believers, however, Jesus instructs us in a different procedure and a different goal. In Matthew 18, Jesus establishes the pattern for a believer to follow when one of his Christian brothers has sinned against him. He says,
Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that “by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.” And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.
The procedure seems clear enough. When some brother Christian offends you, there are four steps. We might think of these as a lower court, an appeals court, the (earthly) supreme court for Christian conflict resolution, and a final judgment. Read the rest here.
1 Comment | How To, Meditations | Tagged: Bible, Christianity, conflict, conflict resolution, Deuteronomy, excommunication, Matthew, Matthew 18, practical theology, reconciliation, relationships, theology | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols
7 September 2008
“The site is not the source.” In bodywork, this maxim means that where the client feels pain is probably not the location of the real problem. Back pain can be the result of an ankle injury that didn’t heal completely; pain in the elbow can come from chronic tension in the neck, and so on.
The same holds true in theology. We feel the pinch in a lot of areas lately, and we usually set about defending at the site — the place where we feel the pinch.
The Bible suggests a different approach. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” If we’re hungry, eating is not the only, or even the first, solution. The first thing is to go back to God’s Word.
The Battle Belongs to the Lord by K. Scott Oliphint makes this line of thought explicit in the field of apologetics. When pressed by various Read the rest of this entry »
Comments Off on Two Books for a More Robust Bibliology | Reviews | Tagged: Apologetics, Bible, biblical theology, bibliology, Christianity, clarity of Scripture, debate, K. Scott Oliphint, Mark D. Thompson, perspicuity, perspicuity of Scripture, Scripture | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols
28 August 2008
In 1915, Robert Frost wrote a famous poem titled “The Road Not Taken.”
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
For most Christians, the study of Greek is a road not taken, but usually there’s no clear point of decision. It’s one of those things that flits Read the rest of this entry »
Comments Off on NEWS: Orange County 1 John Class | How To, News | Tagged: 1 John, Christianity, Greek, greek instruction, koine greek, New Testament Greek, religion | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols
24 August 2008
The first of several planned papers on liturgical matters, “Against Liturgy-Bashing” attempts to clear away the nonsense that plagues our thinking in many American churches. To bring it closer to home: our local church is in desperate need of liturgical reform, and we cannot even begin to build a God-honoring liturgy until we have cleared away the underbrush of the pagan ideas that harden our necks and soften our heads. To that end, this paper addresses several common objections to liturgical worship. Two excerpts:
Does the leading of the Spirit require spontaneity rather than planning? Again, we can return to the commands to sing in order to see the fallacy here. Imagine if we all just got together, and on the count of three, all began to sing whatever words happened to pop into our heads, set to Read the rest of this entry »
Comments Off on Liturgy, Part 1: Against Liturgy-Bashing | liturgy, Meditations, News | Tagged: Christianity, church, liturgy, liturgy-bashing, religion, theology, Worship | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols
17 August 2008
If you had to be stuck on a desert island for [life, ten years, or some other long period of time], what books would you want with you?”
It’s a common thought experiment, and usually the occasion of much consideration and discussion. If you hang out with the more passionate readers, as I often do, it will also be the occasion of heated debate. Yesterday, I happened upon an interesting twist on it, and I’d like to share it.
So get out your pen and paper, and here we go.
No, seriously, get out a pen and paper. (Or open a Word document, or whatever). You’ll thank me later.
The challenge is to answer the standard question, as stated above, but with two additional conditions. First, all your physical needs are taken care of, so assume you have no pragmatic need for medical texts, homesteading reference books, etc. This is strictly life-of-the-mind stuff. (Of course, if you enjoy reading medical texts, that’s another thing…) Second, you have only two minutes to answer, starting right now.
Go. Tick tock.
Done? Good. I’d love to hear your list. This was mine: Read the rest of this entry »
Comments Off on Desert Island Reading | Classics, Meditations | Tagged: Christianity, church history, Classics, great books, philosophy, theology, western canon | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols
10 August 2008
The opening chapters of How to Read Genesis by Tremper Longman III are pretty good. So when I got to chapter four, titled “Myth or History? Genesis and the Enuma Elish” I was excited. I had just recently engaged an unbeliever on the question of whether the biblical stories — or at least the supernatural ones — were myth or history, and I have also long been intrigued by the contrasts between Genesis and Enuma Elish. I was looking forward to seeing Longman’s take on it.
I’m sorry to say that I was sorely disappointed. Longman writes:
Read the rest of this entry »
9 Comments | Meditations, Reviews | Tagged: Bible, Christianity, creation, Enuma Elish, Genesis, gnosticism, James Jordan, theology, Tremper Longman, worldview | Permalink
Posted by Tim Nichols
