We’ve all heard the rant. The Bible is a collection of stories passed around the campfire back in Bronze Age times that somehow got written down centuries after the events by gullible people who didn’t realize how malleable oral histories are. It is almost impossible to know if they depict actual events in any way. Jesus was a charismatic teacher of justice and wisdom who provoked opposition and was executed. After his death, various parties and viewpoints emerged among his followers about who he was. Some claimed he was divine and risen from the dead while others said he was just a teacher who lived on spiritually in the hearts of his disciples. After a power struggle, the “Jesus is divine” faction won and created texts that promoted its views, suppressing and destroying all alternative texts like the “Gnostic” gospels.

Such a view, if true, would radically change our understanding of the content and meaning of Christianity. No one could really know what Jesus said and did; the Bible would lack any sort of authority over our lives and beliefs. It would call into question Jesus’ deity, atonement and resurrection; central doctrines of the Christian faith would be based on mere legend.

Despite Dan Brown’s assertions in The DaVinci Code, the case for the “historic Jesus” is really pretty weak. Anne Rice, famous for Interview with the Vampire and other fiction works, returned to her Catholic faith a few years ago. A hallmark of Rice’s fiction writing is her extensive research into the periods she depicts. She explained in the afterword of her novel Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt that she had begun doing extensive research into the historical Jesus by reading the work of scholars from the most respected academic institutions. She was amazed to discover how weak their arguments concerning the unreliability of the Bible were.  She read assumption piled upon assumption, conclusions reached without any corresponding data, and some of the worst scholarship she’d ever encountered. Given her findings (which are supported by many conservative theologians) the case for the “historical” Jesus as distinct from the New Testament accounts is pretty useless. The Christian faith requires knowledge and belief in the Bible. That is a stumbling block for those who are Biblically ignorant. They insist you can’t take the Bible “literally”. It is full of scientific inaccuracies, historical legends, and culturally repressive ideas. Oh, really?

I’m not going to present exhaustive research here. I’ve presented information along these lines before. By all means, check out books like Reinventing Jesus by Daniel Wallace or Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Bauckham. If you prefer a less scholarly approach, try The Case for Christ or the Case for the Real Jesus by Lee Strobel. Scholarship has strongly established that the canonical gospels were written not more than 40 to 60 years after Jesus’ death and Paul’s letters were written 15 to 25 years after Jesus’ death.  Paul even challenged his readers to go find the eye witnesses to the events he was describing in order to verify what Paul was claiming. Paul demonstrated clear confidence that the eye witnesses would agree with his record of events. The Gospel writers included details in the stories that were verifiable by their readers. Mark, for example, wrote that the man who helped Jesus carry His cross the Calvary was the “father of Alexander and Rufus” (Mark 15:21). Why include the names unless the readers knew or could access Alexander and Rufus? While the Gospels were clearly based on oral histories, they were written down from the testimony of living witnesses. What was more, enemies of Christianity could vouch for some of these events. Had Jesus’ body truly disappeared from a sealed tomb? Well, it was well-known in Jerusalem that it had. Claims such as that could not have been made if witnesses had existed who could refute the claims. And if such had existed, the new faith of Christianity would have been stillborn. It would have quickly received a reputation as fanciful and full of falsehoods, therefore arguing against some of its own tenets like honesty. The hearers would simply have laughed at the accounts if they’d been refutable.

The four canonical Gospels were written much earlier than the so-called Gnostic gospels. The Gospel of Thomas is a translation from Syriac dated 175 AD at the earliest, more than a hundred years after the time that the canonical Gospels were in widespread use and 15 years after Irenaeus declared in 160 AD that there were four, and only four, Gospels (he named the canonicals). Dan Brown asserted in The DaVinci Code that Emperor Constantine decreed Jesus’ divinity in 325 AD, but Paul’s letter to the Philippians, which historians all agree was written no more than 30 years (c. AD 61) after Jesus’ death, shows Christians were worshipping Jesus as God (Philippians 2) nearly two centuries before the Council of Nicea. Belief in the deity of Christ was part of the dynamic from the beginning of the early Christian church. More likely Constantine affirmed an existing belief because he wanted to back a winner.

When people invent stories about themselves, they tend to leave out the embarrassing parts. Why would Peter depict himself as failing Christ unless he had done so? Why would a church that held Peter in such high esteem depict him as denying Christ unless he had done so?  Why would women, who were considered poor witnesses, be the first witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection unless they were actually the first witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection? Why would the canonical Gospels include so many precise details unless the writers or their sources were privy to such detail? In John 21, we read that Peter and Jesus caught 153 fish. Now that’s precise! The only explanation why an ancient writer would record the precise number of fish caught was if that were the precise number of fish caught. There is a growing body of careful scholarship that shows there were a very large number of eyewitnesses to Jesus’ life who lived for decades, supporting the authenticity of the Biblical account. This was one reason why Christianity grew so rapidly in its early years, because the opposition could not mount an argument against something that kept proving itself to be true.

The Bible was written 2000 years ago in a very different culture from ours. I know a lot of people who have issues with, for example, Ephesians 6:5 “Slaves, obey your masters.”  They jump to incredible conclusions about the Bible based on one sentence without even considering that they might be taking the sentence out of context both within the Bible itself and within history. Slavery in the first century was wholly different from the African slave trade of the 18^th and 19^th centuries. This would be a classic case of ignoring the cultural and historical distance between us and the writer and readers of the original text. I urge people to consider that their problem with some texts might be based upon an unexamined belief in the superiority of their own historical moment over all others. That belief is surely as narrow and exclusive as the views in the Bible many moderns view as so offensive.

It is also important to remember that these are side issues in the greater Biblical context. The shallow end of the Biblical pool is inhabited by controversies over interpretations and culture. The center of the Biblical pool rests with the deity of Jesus, His death and resurrection. These are not disputed among scholars. Even liberal scholars who reject miracles agree that something happened to make the people of Jerusalem, particularly those who became Christians, believe that Jesus had been resurrected. Whether to believe or disbelieve the resurrection themselves, they agree the early church believed in the resurrection of Jesus. It is therefore important to consider the Bible’s core claims about Who Jesus is and whether He rose from the dead before you reject the Bible for its less central and more controversial teachings.

What is at stake is nothing short of your personal salvation! If you don’t trust the Bible enough to let it challenge and correct your thinking, how could you ever have a personal relationship with God? In any truly personal relationship, the other person must be allowed to contradict you. In eliminating what you don’t like from the Bible, you run the risk of creating a “Stepford” religion. Anything that offends your sensibilities or crosses your will is therefore suspect. You may now attempt to create a god of your own design. That is not a God with whom you can have genuine interaction. Only if your God is allowed to outrage you (as a real friend or a marriage partner can) will you know you have gotten hold of a real God and not a figment of your imagination. An authoritative Bible is a precondition to a personal relationship with a real God.

Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris asserted in various best-selling books that science in general (evolutionary science in particular) has disproven a belief in God. Dawkins famously asserted that “although atheism might be logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.” (Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker – WW Norton, 1986, page 6). Pointing to a 1998 survey of National Academy of Sciences members he noted that only 7 percent of American scientists believe in a personal God. From Dawkins’ point of view, this proves that science has essentially disproven Christian beliefs and that the more intelligent, rational and scientifically minded you are, the less you are able to believe in God.

Scratch the surface of most modern thinkers today and you will find a rejection of miracles. Miracles are an important part of Christian belief. Christians annually celebrate the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus. The New Testament is filled with accounts of miracles performed by Jesus and the disciples. Scientific mistrust of the Bible began with the Enlightenment belief that miracles cannot be reconciled to a modern, rational view of the world. Armed with this presupposition, scientists turned to the Bible and said “These accounts cannot be reliable because they contain descriptions of miracles and science cannot quantify miracles, therefore these accounts cannot be reliable.”

Of course, this is a leap of faith. Science is only equipped to test for natural causes; it cannot speak for supernatural events. Science proceeds on the assumption that whatever happens has a natural cause; it can be accounted for by other events. Miracles are outside the scope of science. While science cannot explain miracles, it cannot claim they don’t exist. Just because my blind friend cannot see the color green does not mean that the color green does not exist. It simply means that my friend is unable to perceive the color.  The existence of God cannot be demonstrably proven or disproven by science, because science, by design, cannot quantify the supernatural.

The media often reports news events concerning controversy between secular and religious people over the teaching of – for example, evolution (this is by no means the only controversial subject, it just gets the most press) – as a war between science and religion. This treatment lends to the picture that you are either scientific and rational or religious and therefore, irrational.

Evolutionary science assumes that more complex life-forms evolved from less complex life-forms through a process of natural selection.  It surprises many to hear that many Christians believe that God brought about life in this way. We do not reject evolution per se, but we do not embrace philosophical naturalism, which is a view that everything has a natural cause and that organic life is solely the product of random forces guided by no one and nothing. When evolution is presented as an all-encompassing theory of everything we believe, feel and do, we are no longer in the arena of science, but of philosophy. Evolution as an all-encompassing theory of existence has insurmountable difficulties as a worldview.

Dawkins insists that if you believe in evolution as a biological mechanism you must believe in philosophical naturalism. Why? I read Dawkins The God Delusion just weeks after I read Francis Collins The Language of God. Collins is the Head of the Humane Genome Project. He believes in evolutionary science. However, Collins believes that the fine-tuning, beauty and order of nature points to a divine Creator. Dawkins would claim that Collins cannot exist, for it is impossible to hold a firm belief in evolutionary biology, but reject philosophical naturalism. Obviously, since Collins does exist and has written a book explaining his view, Dawkins is wrong about the incompatibility of belief in evolutionary biology and Christianity.

Dawkins is a brilliant evolutionary scientist, but he steps out of his realm of expertise when he starts making philosophical claims. His scheme is simplistic. There are many different models proposed about how God relates to the development of the life-forms we see today. Not all Biblical Christians are hostile to evolutionary science in its entirety. The conflict model of the relationship between religion and science was a deliberate exaggeration used by scientists and educational leaders at the end of the 19^th century to undermine the church’s control of their institutions and increase their own cultural power. It was a product not so much of intellectual necessity but of cultural strategy. Many scientists see no incompatibility between faith in God and their work. Studies in 1916 and 1997 showed this. In 1916, 40 percent of scientists said they believed in a God Who actively communicates with humanity through prayer. In 1997, those numbers had not significantly changed. Dawkins cited a much narrower study of National Academy of Science members which was designed to screen out all scientists who do not ascribe to conservative traditional beliefs. Those with a more general belief in God were screened out.  Dawkins also gives readers the impression that all atheistic scientists would agree with him that no rational, scientific mind could believe in God. Stephen Jay Gould, the late Harvard scientist and evolutionist, was an atheist who wrote “Either half my colleagues are enormously stupid, or else the science of Darwin is fully compatible with conventional religious beliefs – and equally compatible with atheism” (Stephen Jay Gould, “Impeaching a Self-Appointed Judge”, Scientific American 267, no 1, 1992. quoted in Alister McGrath, The Dawkins Delusion? Intervarsity Press, 2007, p. 34.) In other words, Gould was unwilling to assume stupidity on the part of his colleagues just because they did not agree with him religiously. He was willing to admit they might see evidence that he was not seeing.

While Dawkins might be perfectly content to believe that physical science can explain the whole of human reality, there are other atheists, often scientists themselves, who disagree, or at least doubt, his premise. Science cannot explain everything. Despite popular appeal, we should disabuse ourselves of the notion that we must choose between science and faith. A majority of scientists admit some degree of religious belief of their own and survey evidence shows that number statistically increasing in recent decades. There is no necessary disjunction between science and devout faith.

Doesn’t evolutionary science disprove Genesis 1 and therefore call all of Christianity into question? Not necessarily. The relationship of science to the Bible hinges not just on how we interpret scientific data, but also on how we interpret key Biblical passages. Christianity does not rise or fall upon Genesis 1. The skeptic should consider the central claims of Christianity, revolving around the person of Christ, the resurrection and the central tenets of the Christian message rather than the side issues of creation and evolution. It is my experience that once you have the guidance of the Holy Spirit, some forms of evidence that previously seemed suspect become less so, up to and including full acceptance of them.

Yes, Christians disagree on the concept of God’s intervention in the natural order. Miracles are sometimes hard to believe. The apostles didn’t necessarily believe in Jesus’ resurrection the moment they heard of it. Thomas had to see Jesus for himself in order to believe. Miracles were never given to prove belief, but to stimulate worship. We think of miracles as suspension of the natural order, but Jesus meant them to be restoration of the natural order. He healed the blind and the lame, after all, which are disruptions of the natural order. God did not originally make the world to have disease, hunger and death in it. Jesus has come to redeem and repair what is wrong and broken in the world. His miracles are not just proof that He has power, but wonderful foretastes of what He will one day do with that power. Jesus’ miracles don’t just challenge our minds. They promise our hearts that the world we all want will one day be proven reality.

To many in American culture, divine judgment is the most offensive of Christianity’s doctrines. People object to hell and judgment for a variety of reasons. Many believe that a judgmental God simply could not exist or could not be called “loving” or would simply not allow Hell.

Note that Muslims are deeply offended by the idea of a forgiving God. Such a God could not, in their opinion, uphold righteousness because He would allow sinners to “skate” for their misdeeds. In a truly post-modern discussion, Western ideals are not the final court from which to judge whether Christianity is valid. If truth is relative then one does not have a frame of reference to deem God judgmental or His judgment wrong.

If Christianity truly is transcendent, a product of the divine rather than an outgrowth of any particular culture, then it would be reasonable to expect that at some point it would clash with every culture on the planet. After all, cultures are humanly built. Christianity claims to be God-given. Right is right because God says this is right and that is wrong. No human culture will ever completely line up with God because the Bible teaches us that human beings are never completely capable of following God. We’re always going to, somewhere, be out of alignment with God.

Many people struggle with the idea of the Christian God Who wields both love and justice. How can a loving God be a judging God? A God of love would never get angry!

Really?

I know quite a few truly loving people who at times are filled with wrath because they love. Haven’t we all had the experience of seeing someone we loved hurt by a relationship? Do we respond with benign tolerance or are we angry on their behalf? I submit most of us become angry. There is a difference, however, between our anger and God’s.  God’s wrath is not a temper tantrum, but His settled opposition to the cancer of sin that is eating the inner soul of the human race. The Bible teaches that God’s anger flows from His love for His creation. He is angry at evil and injustice because it is destroying the peace and integrity of His creation.

Yet, there are those who will insist that those who believe in a God of judgment will not approach enemies with a desire to reconcile with them. If God smites evildoers, then it would seem perfectly justified to do some of the smiting yourself. While this has sometime been true of Christians, I think we should look at the Amish of Nickel Mines, PA, who had the peace of their community shattered by a madman, yet turned in love toward his wife and embraced her and saw to it that she and her children would be cared for in the aftermath of her husband’s violence. The Amish believe that God is a God of judgment, Who will punish wrong-doers, but their belief has not led to a more brutal society; rather, it has created a more loving community. In interviews, the Amish have said that, left to their own human hearts, they might still be angry, but God does not allow them to hold onto rage that is His to wield. They are expected to let it go and let Him deal with it. This frees them to forgive those who have hurt them.

Fighting evil and injustice in the world is one thing, but the Bible teaches that God sends people to Hell, a place of eternal punishment, where even if you are sorry for your sins, you can’t get out.  First, I would submit that this is a caricature of Hell. The Bible teaches that human beings were made to thrive in the presence of God, but that sin has separated us from that presence. That was not God’s doing, but ours. To be outside of the presence of God is to dwell in Hell. Thus, truth be told, all human beings are in Hell already because “all have sinned.” Because of God’s mercy, He still interacts with human beings, so that this world is not truly Hell, but it is not really what it should be and our contact with God is at best limited. For some, it is virtually nonexistent, so they are, in essence, already dwelling in a Hell of their own making.

In The Great Divorce CS Lewis described a busload of people from hell who come to the outskirts of heaven. They are there urged to leave behind the sins that have trapped them in hell, but they refuse. Grumbling and complaining, blaming others, they cling to their pride, paranoia, self-pity and own sense of intelligence. They literally lock themselves in a prison of their own making. They chose Hell because they reject Heaven.

It is a travesty to picture God “sending” people to Hell who are sorry to be sent. The people on Lewis’ bus preferred their “freedom” to salvation. They insisted that if they glorified God, they would somehow lose power and freedom. Ironically, their insistence upon self-promotion ruined their potential for true greatness. Lewis explained that hell is “the greatest monument to human freedom”. Romans 1:24 said God “gave them up to … their desires.” God simply gives people what they most want, including freedom from Himself. What could possibly be unfair about giving people the dignity of their own choices?

Both Christians and secularists believe that self-centeredness and cruelty have very harmful consequences. Christians believe souls don’t die, so moral and spiritual errors affect the soul forever. Secular liberals believe that there are terrible moral and spiritual errors like exploitation and oppression, but they don’t believe in an afterlife, so they don’t think the consequences of wrongdoing go into eternity. Are Christians narrower than secularists because they accept a belief in more long-term consequences?  Consider if two people argue over the safety of eating a cookie. The man believes that the cookie is poisoned while the woman believes that it is not. The woman believes that the man’s mistaken belief will keep him from enjoying a nice treat. The man believes that the woman’s mistaken belief will kill her. Is the man more narrow-minded than the woman just because he thinks the consequences of her mistake are direr? I think that would be a hard argument to propose.

During the 1960s, it was an extremely popular belief that God was all-loving and forgiving. Popular culture taught that all religions basically centered on the belief in a loving God. Unfortunately, this was an unfounded belief. No other religious text outside the Bible teaches that God created the world out of love and delight. Most ancient pagan religions believed the world was created through struggles and violent battles between opposing gods or supernatural forces. Buddhism does not believe in a personal God at all; love is an action of a person, not God. Muslims balk at the idea that Christians feel intimacy with God that is almost spousal in nature. They find it incredibly disrespectful when we speak of such intimacy as knowing God personally. What makes us think that God is Love? The Bible tells us that God is love, but it also tells us that God judges and will put all things in the world right in the end. The belief in a God of pure love Who accepts everyone and judges none is a powerful act of faith; there is no evidence for it in the natural order and almost no historical or religious textual support for it outside of Christianity. The closer one looks at history and world religions, the less evidence one finds for it.

The Christian God judges because He loves. The Christian God loves through judgment. As a firm parent provides discipline for his beloved offspring, God provides discipline for His beloved creation. This is what the Bible teaches. We may disagree with it, but in doing so, we must accept that we may be denying reality.

The Christian church has a history of supporting injustice and destroying cultures. It is a magnet for fanatics and hypocrites. There is not denying any of that and Christians today must address the corporate and individual behavior of Christians that has undermined the plausibility of Christianity for many people.

If Christianity is the truth, why are so many non-Christians living so much more moral lives than Christians? If Christianity is the truth, why has the institutional church supported war, injustice and violence over the centuries? If Christianity is the truth, why would God’s people want to be hanging out with so many smug, self-righteous and dangerous fanatics and hypocrites?

The average professing Christian has character flaws. I have several, some of which I’m working on and some of which you might just want to ignore. Church communities are often characterized by more fighting and hedonism than other voluntary organizations. And, who can forget the moral failings of Christian leaders? The press takes way too much pleasure in reporting them, but honestly, folks, they didn’t create them. Church leaders appear to be as corrupt (sometimes more corrupt) than leaders in the world at large.  Then there are non-churchgoers who live exemplary moral lives. What is wrong with this picture? If Christianity is the truth, shouldn’t Christians on the whole be much better people than everyone else?

First, we must understand the concept of common grace whereby God casts good gifts of wisdom, justice and beauty on all mankind in a completely unmerited way. So beggar, beautician, banker or serial killer, all human beings stand to receive something from God’s great hand-out of gifts. His grace is indiscriminate and inexhaustible.

Christianity further teaches that we can only have a relationship with God by sheer grace. Our moral efforts are too weak and falsely motivated to ever merit salvation. Jesus, through His death and resurrection, has provided salvation for us, but it is not something we have earned. Growth in character and changes in behavior occur in a gradual process after a person becomes a Christian. We don’t “clean up” our act in order to become Christian. The act of becoming a Christian allows us to start to the process of letting God “clean up” our acts. Unfortunately, that means the church is infested with immature and broken people who have a long way to go emotionally, morally and spiritually. The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.

Good character is largely attributable to loving, safe and stable family and social environments. Bully for you if you grew up in one of those, but most people don’t get to choose their family of origin or the culture into which they were born.  Oddly, those most broken and struggling humans are often the ones most aware of their sin and most able to recognize the need for something outside of themselves to reform their character defects. Unless you know the starting point of someone’s life, you might find individual Christians to be inconsistent with their own high standards. Of course, we’re not surprised to find the health of hospital patients to be less than the health of those walking around out in the world, but somehow that practical observation is often not applied to churches.

The flesh-and-blood foibles of Christians are no reflection on God, but only on the flesh-and-blood people who inhabit most churches. A better standard of comparison might be to look at where people started before becoming Christians and measure where Christianity has taken them rather than look at the end-point ideal of the Christian standard and note how few Christians actually live up to it. None ever truly attain all that God would have us to be. Perfection is a pretty tough standard.

Christopher Hitchens believes that orthodox religion leads inevitably to violence. Using examples from Belfast, Beirut, Bombay, Bethlehem and Baghdad, he argued in god Is Not Great that religion takes racial and cultural differences and aggravates them. To a certain extent, Hitchens is correct. Religion tends to cast ordinary cultural differences into a cosmic struggle between good and evil. Christian nations have institutionalized imperialism, violence and oppression through the Inquisition and the African slave trade. Buddhism and Shintoism deeply influenced the totalitarian and militaristic Japanese empire of the mid-20^th Century. Islam has provided fertile soil for terrorists, which Jewish Israel has dealt with ruthlessly. All this is evidence that indicates that religion aggravates human differences which inevitably boil over into war, violence and oppression of minorities.

Of course, it wouldn’t be fair to not note that Communism in Russia, China and Cambodia, finding its roots in the French Revolution, rejected organized religion and belief in God. These societies were all rational and secular, but each produced massive violence against its own people without the influence of religion. Remove God from the equation and people will find something else to put in that cosmic place in order to appear morally and spiritually superior. The Marxists made the state “God”; the Nazis made race and blood “God”. The French revolutionaries used liberty and equality as excuses to do violence to their opponents.

Violence done in the name of Christianity cannot be excused. It is a terrible reality that must be addressed and redressed. However, the 20^th century saw as much violence inspired by secularism as by moral absolutism. From this, we can only conclude that some violence is deeply rooted in the human heart and will express itself regardless of the particular beliefs of a society. Violence isn’t a Christian thing, a Buddhist thing, an Islamic thing, a secular thing – it’s a human thing.

Many outside observers look at Christianity and make certain assumptions. We see it in movies and television programs and portrayals by the Democratic Party. The world believes that Christians are fanatical and therefore dangerous. In most people’s estimation, religious faith exists on a continuum. At one end of the spectrum, there are nominal Christians who go to church on Sunday, but live and work pretty much like the rest of the world. At the other end of the spectrum are the fanatics, those who over-believe and over-practice Christianity. The idea most promoted is that someone in the middle is the best kind of Christian. They believe it, but they aren’t overly devoted to it. Of course, this makes the assumption that Christianity is essentially a form of moral improvement. Intense Christians would be Pharisaical, assuming they are right with God because of their moral behavior and right doctrine. This is not, however, what Christianity teaches.

The essence of Biblical Christianity is salvation by grace, not because of what we do, but because of what Christ did on our behalf. Belief that you are accepted by God by sheer grace is profoundly humbling. Therefore, those who seem smug and self-assured in their faith are not that way because they are too committed to their faith, but because they are not committed enough.  Overbearing, self-righteous, opinionated, insensitive and harsh, these fanatics are zealous and courageous, but not humble, sensitive, loving, empathetic, forgiving or understanding like their role model, Jesus. Because they think of Christianity as a self-improvement program, they emulate the Jesus Who took whips to the money changers, but not the Jesus Who said “Let the one with no sin cast the first stone” (John 8:7). What the world deems fanatical is actually a failure to fully commit to Christ and His gospel. This leads to injustice and oppression and it is a constant danger within any body of religious believers. For Christians, however, the solution is not to tone down and moderate our faith, but rather to fully grasp true faith in Christ.

In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5, 6 and 7), Jesus did not criticize irreligious people. The people He found fault with prayed, gave to the poor, and sought to live according to the Bible. They did so, however, in order to gain acclaim and power for themselves. This made them judgmental and condemning, quick to criticize and unwilling to be critiqued. They were religious fanatics. Like the prophets before Him, Jesus wasn’t against prayer or obedience to Biblical direction. He opposed the use of spiritual and ethical observance as a lever to gain power over others and over God. This led to an emphasis on external forms of religion (rituals and good works).  God cannot be manipulated by religious and moral performance; He is moved only by repentance, through giving up of power. If we are saved by grace alone, we can only turn to God in gratitude. We have no cause to be proud because our status in Christ is completely not of our doing.

The church has inexcusably been party to the oppression of people at times, but the Bible provided and continues to provide tools for critique of religiously supported injustice. Many who criticize the church for being power-hungry and greedy fail to realize that these are Christian precepts. Many other cultures consider power and respect to be good things in society and do not understand why Western culture frowns on these behaviors.  The typical criticisms by secular people concerning the oppressiveness and injustices of the Christian church actually come from Christianity, leaking into society during previous generations when the culture was steeped in Christianity. The shortcomings of the church are due to the imperfect adoption and practice of Christian principles. The answer to this hypocrisy is not to abandon the faith for this would leave us with neither the standards nor the resources to correct our corporate behavior. Instead, it is for us to move to a fuller and deeper grasp of what Christianity is. The Bible warned there would be abuses of religion, but it also told us what to do about them. For this reason, Christianity has, historically, given us remarkable examples of self-correction.

For example, the African slave trade was a deep stain on European culture. Christianity, being the dominant religion in those nations that bought and sold slaves during that time, bears a responsibility for what happened. Slavery has existed in almost every human society at one time or another, but Christians were the first to conclude that it was wrong. Anti-slavery doctrines began to appear in Christian theology soon after the fall of the Roman Empire and slavery eventually dwindled to virtual non-existence in Europe. When Europeans instituted slavery in the New World, the Catholic Church strongly protested. The abolition of New World slavery grew from and was achieved by Christian activists. Men like William Wilberforce protested against slavery not because of some general understanding of human rights, but because they saw it as a violation of God’s will. Race-based, life-long chattel slavery could not be squared with Biblical teaching. The wealth brought by the slave trade made the abolition efforts difficult. Many church leaders defended the institution because their fortunes rested upon it, but eventually Christianity self-corrected.

Conversely, during the Civil Rights movement, northern white liberals, with their secular belief in the innate goodness of human nature, disagreed with civil disobedience or direct attacks on segregation, believing that education and enlightenment would inevitably bring about social and racial progress. They counseled black leaders against taking direct action to bring about integration. Black leaders were more rooted in the Biblical understanding of the sinfulness of the human heart. They knew that segregation would always remain unless it was directly confronted. Through vibrant faith they empowered themselves and rank-and-file African Americans to insist upon justice despite the violent opposition they faced. In many ways, the American Civil Rights movement was a product of a religious revival. Martin Luther King did not call upon white churches in the South to become more secular. In his sermons and “Letters from Birmingham Jail” he called white Christians to be more true to their own beliefs and to live out what the Bible really teaches.

Similarly, Dietrich Bonheoffer refused to stay in the safety of London after Hitler came to power. He returned to his native Germany to head an illegal seminary of Christian congregations that refused to sign an oath of allegiance to the Nazis. Eventually arrested for his activities and executed, Bonheoffer spent his time in prison writing letters in which he revealed how his Christian faith gave him vast resources to give up everything for the sake of others. Marx argued that if you believe in a life after this one, you won’t be concerned to make this world a better place. Bonheoffer, however, had a joy and hope in God that made it possible for him to do what he did. He stated that it was not a religious act that made a Christian, but “participation in the suffering of God in the secular life.” He advocated “allowing oneself to be caught up into the way of Jesus Christ” that embraces pain as a pathway to joy.

When people have done injustice in the name of Jesus Christ, they have failed to live up to the example of the One Who died as a victim of injustice and Who called for forgiveness of His enemies. When people give their lives to liberate others as Jesus did, they are realizing the true Christianity of Martin Luther King, Jr., Dietrich Bonheoffer and other Christian voices. Fanaticism is a symptom of incomplete faith, a lack of true contact with the Savior God. Only by fully embracing Jesus and Biblical principles can the Christian truly live a God-centered life that values every human life as if it were his own.

Ted Stevens: An innocent man

By Lanny Davis

Washington Post

August 18, 2008 

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Just the headline of this piece alone, I'll bet, shocks a number of people.

Most people assume, or have concluded, that Sen. Ted Stevens is guilty. After all, didn't a D.C. grand jury indict Mr. Stevens on seven felony counts? Haven't the U.S. government and its federal prosecutors concluded that Mr. Stevens failed to disclose taking more than $250,000 worth of gifts on his Senate financial-disclosure forms?

Of course the media hype and Page One, above-the-fold headlines about these charges lead to the public impression that Sen. Stevens must be guilty of ... well ... something.

But just suppose all these media stories began with the following paragraph:

"Sen. Ted Stevens, who must be presumed to be an innocent man until he is proven guilty by the U.S. government beyond a reasonable doubt, today was indicted on charges of filing false statements in Senate financial-disclosure forms. As is normal, the grand jury voted the indictment based on one-sided evidence presented by prosecutors, without Sen. Stevens or his attorneys having an opportunity to be present, to cross-examine witnesses, or to present contrary evidence that could have created a reasonable doubt regarding his guilt."

Most media people and government prosecutors would probably say such a lead would be naive and ridiculous. What they couldn't say is that a single word of the above paragraph is untrue.

Actually, the "presumption of innocence" appears nowhere in the U.S. Constitution. In 1895, the U.S. Supreme Court in Coffin v. U.S. held that such a presumption must be inferred from the 5th, 6th, and 14th amendments and guilt proven beyond a reasonable doubt. (Ironically, the very same conservative "strict constructionists" who insist that Roe v. Wade should be overturned because the right to privacy appears nowhere in the Constitution do not challenge inferring the "presumption of innocence" as a fundamental constitutional right.)

Here are a few examples to remember, in case anyone forgets the importance of this presumption:

• Remember the three Duke lacrosse team players indicted on rape charges in the spring of 2006 by Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong? There was Nancy Grace on CNN proclaiming guilt before trial when she said, "I'm so glad they didn't miss a lacrosse game over a little thing like gang rape."

But then in 2007 came the findings of the North Carolina attorney general, who completely exonerated the indicted players and caused all charges to be dropped, accusing the since retired and disbarred Mr. Nifong of a "tragic rush to accuse."

• Remember Richard Jewell? During the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, he was publicly accused by the media in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing after having been lauded as a hero for having helped evacuate the park. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, citing anonymous law-enforcement officials, reported that he fit an FBI profile of a lone bomber and that the U.S. government was investigating him on that basis. He faced 24/7 media stakeouts in front of his home and news coverage every day that assumed his guilt. He was never even indicted.

Then, in April 2005, Eric Robert Rudolph pled guilty to planting the bomb, and Mr. Jewell was completely exonerated. But not before his life was ruined and his heart broken long before he died, just last year, of diabetes and kidney failure at the age of 44.

• In recent days, there is Steven J. Hatfill, a former scientist at the U.S. Army Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md. Mr. Hatfill was named through anonymous leaks from "law-enforcement sources" as a prime suspect in the anthrax scare. His life, too, was virtually ruined, his reputation forever tarnished by law-enforcement leaks to the media rather than by evidence heard under the rules of due process.

And then: In the past several weeks, the FBI has identified another suspect, Bruce E. Ivins, as the virtually certain source of the anthrax mailings at the same time it "settled" a civil case with Mr. Hatfill for a reported $5 million.

Mr. Hatfill could be asking the same question as was once famously asked by former Republican Labor Secretary Raymond Donovan after a Bronx, N.Y., jury quickly acquitted him of multiple felony charges.

Mr. Donovan had suffered years of media innuendo fed largely by partisan Democrats making what turned out to be false charges of Mafia ties and corruption. When a reporter congratulated him after his quick acquittal on all charges, Mr. Donovan answered:

"Thank you. Now where do I go to get my reputation back?"

So whatever happens to Sen. Stevens, we all should learn and repeat the following Latin words: "Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui egat." ("The burden of proof rests on he who asserts, not he who denies.")

OK, OK ... if you can't remember those Latin words, then at least remember Mr. Jewell and the Duke lacrosse team before you convict Sen. Stevens in your mind based on a grand jury indicting, or the law enforcement authorities accusing.

Give the man his day in court. That's the least we can do in this presumption-of-guilt culture in which we live and with which we are all complicit.

• Lanny Davis is a prominent Washington lawyer and a political analyst for Fox News. From 1996 to 1998, he served as special counsel to President Clinton. From 2005 to 2006, he served on President Bush's five-member Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.

From the larger cultural picture of Christianity, we step down to the more individual aspects of the faith. Supposedly, Christianity limits personal growth and potential because it constrains our freedom to choose our own beliefs and practices. Immanuel Kant defined an enlightened human being as one who trusts his or her own power of thinking rather than authority or tradition. Our culture has a deep current of resistance to authority in moral matters. Freedom to determine our own moral standards is deemed necessary for healthy personhood.

Yes, that is an oversimplification. I only have a short space to deal with this. The idea of Christianity as an intellectual and emotional straitjacket is also an oversimplification. Freedom cannot be defined in strictly negative terms. It is not merely the absence of confinement and constraint. In fact, confinement and constraint may at times be a means to liberation.

My daughter is a dancer. She has spent years practicing, practicing and practicing to get good at what she does. This is a restriction of her freedom. It takes time away from activities in which she might otherwise wish to participate. She had natural talent before the lessons, so why spend so much time honing her craft? Well, last semester a role in the school play Grease became unexpectedly available, but whomever stepped into this vacated role had to be a good dancer because they had only three weeks to learn to jitterbug. The lead playing Danny requested Bri, a mere freshman, to take the role because, as a ballet dancer himself, he recognized that she had the honed skills that would allow her to quickly learn the moves of a dance genre she had never before learned. There were girls in the supporting cast who dearly would have loved to play ChaCha, but all recognized as opening night rolled around that Bri had the skills to do so on short notice. Her restriction of freedom in pursuit of her craft allowed her a greater liberality of roles.

In many areas of life, freedom is not so much the absence of restrictions as finding the liberating ones. By this I mean the restrictions that fit with the reality of our nature and the world to produce greater power and scope for our abilities. Experimentation and risk bring growth only if, over time, they show us our limits as well as our abilities. If we grow intellectually, vocationally and physically through judicious constraints why should we also not grow spiritually and morally through the same means? Instead of insisting upon freedom to create our own spiritual reality, should we be seeking to discover what true spiritual reality is and disciplining ourselves to live according to that reality?

The popular concept that belief in the spiritual realm is nothing like the rest of reality and therefore we should be free to determine our own morality fails because reality does exist on the spiritual plane and we must acknowledge that reality in order to thrive. For example, love is the most liberating freedom-loss of all. You must lose independence to attain greater intimacy in a love relationship.  You cannot enter into a deep relationship and still make unilateral decisions or allow your lover no say in how you live your life. To experience the joy and freedom of love, you must give up your personal autonomy. I know people who would disagree with that, but I would note that the majority of them have been married and divorced multiple times. Similarly, a relationship with God seems inherently dehumanizing because God says “there is one way, it is My way, you must adjust to My reality.” Yet, God adjusted to our reality in a most radical way when He took on human flesh and died for our sins. God became a limited human being, vulnerable to suffering and death. He adjusted to us for our sakes.

CS Lewis asked the question “Is it easy to love God?” and answered “It is easy for those who do it.” When you fall in love, you want to please your beloved. Your efforts to please that person may seem oppressive to those on the outside of the relationship, but to you, it doesn’t feel oppressive at all. It feels like you’re feeding the relationship and making it stronger. For the Christian, it is the same with Jesus. The love of Christ constrains us to please Him. Jesus changed His very nature for us, even dying for us, so why would we be afraid to give up our freedom in order to fully love Him? It is through that love that we experience true freedom.

Freedom is not the absence of limitations and constraints, but the discovery of those freedoms and restraints that best fit our nature and liberate us to be all that we can be. Christianity gives Christians a framework for defining our natures and being the best people that we can be within the restraints and freedoms afforded by the Christian framework. Rather than being a straitjacket for our individual emotional, intellectual and spiritual growth, Christianity serves as a channel for disciplined emotional, intellectual and spiritual growth.

Is a belief in absolute truth the enemy of freedom?

Christianity names some beliefs “heresy” and some practices “immoral”, therefore barring from its community those who transgress its doctrinal and moral boundaries. That would appear to endanger civil freedom, dividing rather than uniting the population. It is culturally narrow, failing to recognize that diverse cultures will hold different perspectives on reality. Observers reason that Christians are enslaved to a belief system that tells them who they are and how to live, denying individuality, creativity, and emotional and spiritual growth. Emma Goldman, an early 20^th-century social activist, called Christianity “the leveler of the human race, the breaker of man’s will to dare and to do … an iron net, a straitjacket which does not let him expand or grow.” (Goldman, The Failure of Christianity, 1913, Goldman’s Mother Earth Journal)

To many people “true” freedom is liberty to create your own meaning and purpose. In that view, Christianity appears an enemy to social cohesion, cultural adaptability and authentic personhood. Its truth claims sound suspiciously like power plays, attempts to control others and get power for yourself.  Of course, that suspicion in itself is a power play. CS Lewis explained that quite nicely in The Abolition of Man. Some kind of truth-claim is inevitable and unavoidable.  To make any sort of moral judgment in the absence of an objective standard of morality is inconsistent, yet we do it all the time. We state the Chinese are violating human rights, but who defines human rights for the entire human race? The West? China? China sees our call for the protection of human rights interference in their governmental sovereignty and therefore a violation of human rights. They want to know why our definition of human rights should apply to them, but not theirs to us. Truth claims are untenable in a world without objective standards for morality, yet we all recognize certain truth claims as “right”. For the postmodern thinker, such questions inevitably lead to an inability to judge reality on any sort of objective basis. CS Lewis noted that the transparency of a window is a good thing, because it allows us to see the garden beyond, but if we also insist upon looking “through” the garden, then we find the world to be invisible and ultimately completely unknowable. To insist upon “seeing through” everything means to see nothing.

Christianity requires particular beliefs in order to be a member of its community. Critics argue that such exclusivity is socially divisive. They point to diverse ethnic neighborhoods where members respect one another’s privacy and rights and participate in a “liberal democracy” without any common moral beliefs and say this is proof that common moral beliefs are not necessary.

Liberal democracy is based upon an extensive list of assumptions – a preference for individual to community rights, a division between private and public morality, and that sanctity of personal choice. Many other cultures find such ideas utterly foreign. Communities (whether a liberal democracy or some other form of governance) share a common set of very particular beliefs. Western society is based upon a shared commitment to reason, rights and justice, even though we may have no universal definition for these. Yet, we must be honest and recognize that other cultures do not share this same commitment. Therefore, a completely inclusive community is an illusion. Beliefs create boundaries within every human community, including some people and excluding others.

Don’t believe that? What would happen if the board member of the local Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Community Center announced he had become a Christian and now believed that homosexuality is a sin. Trust me, he would be asked to step down from the board because he no longer shares a common commitment with the rest of the organization. No one would find that odd and most if not all members of the homosexual community would applaud their actions as protecting the integrity of their organization. Yet, when a church insists that an actively homosexual person cannot be a Sunday School teacher or pastor, that is labeled “exclusive” and deemed harmful to society. Neither community is being “narrow” – they are just protecting the specific boundaries of their community. One aspect of community is that we hold members of that community accountable for specific beliefs and practices that define our corporate identity. Standards for members do not define the openness of a community so much as the way that that community treats those outside of their circle.  We should criticize Christians when they ungraciously condemn unbelievers in unfair and cruel ways, yet why do we not complain when the local GLTC group excludes vocal homophobes from their meetings? We should not criticize churches when they maintain standards for membership in accord with their beliefs. Every community must and generally does do the same.

As for the charge that Christianity is a cultural straitjacket, a quick look around the world will put this lie to the rest. Christianity has been more adaptive of diverse cultures than secularism and many other worldviews.

Islam remains centered in the place of its origin – the Middle East. The historical lands of Hinduism and Buddhism remain India and China/Southeast Asia. Christianity was first dominated by Jews and centered in Jerusalem, then it was dominated by Hellenists and centered in the Mediterranean. Later the center shifted to Northern Europe and the United States. Today, most Christians in the world live in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Christians comprised 9 percent of the African population in 1900 when they were outnumbers four to one by Muslims.  Today, Christians comprise 44 percent of the population and passed Muslims in number in the 1960s.  Africans have a strong traditional belief in the supernatural that secularism has failed to address. Christianity allows them to critique their traditions without completely rejecting them as Islam had demanded they do.

Cultural diversity is built into the Christian faith. In Acts 15, the Jerusalem church declared that the new Gentile Christians did not have to enter Jewish culture in order to have full standing before God. No one owns the Christian faith for there is no Christian culture in the same manner as there is an Islamic culture that you may find in any Islamic country you visit. Chinese Christians look and act, even worship, in significantly different ways from African Christians who look, act and worship in significantly different ways than South American Christians, and all diverge from European Christianity. Christianity is not a “Western” religion that destroys local cultures. It has taken on more culturally diverse forms than any other faith, gathering deep layers of insight from Hebrew, Greek and European cultures of the past and now being further shaped by African, Latin American and Asian cultures of today.

The false accusation that Christianity is a cultural straitjacket has been laid to rest by the example of its diversity throughout the world’s cultures. Christians bring Christianity into their culture; critiquing their culture through the lens of Christianity, but ultimately keeping those aspects of their culture that work within a framework of Christianity.  Rather than being destructive of ethnic cultures, Christianity has proved to be remarkably adaptable to native cultures.

The world we inhabit is evil and cruel, filled with suffering and despair. Some find unjust suffering a philosophical argument against the very existence of God. Many refuse to trust or believe in any god who allows history and life to proceed as it has. Philosopher J.L. Mackie postulated that a good and powerful God would not allow pointless evil, therefore, the traditional Biblical God could not exist.

Of course, since we’re speaking of logic here, I must point out that just because some kinds of suffering seem pointless to me doesn’t mean that all suffering is pointless or that all people will view it as pointless. It would be fallacious to assert that because I view something as pointless it is therefore pointless. I think carnival rides are pointless. My 9-year-old son and 45-year-old husband would disagree. Just because you can’t  imagine a good reason why God might allow something to happen doesn’t mean there can’t be one. The assumption that good reasons for evil are something we can easily recognize is a faith assumption. The existence of evil is not an argument against God’s existence.

CS Lewis originally rejected the idea of God because of the cruelty of life. Then he came to realize that evil was even more problematic for the atheist. Suffering provided a better argument for God’s existence than against it. He honestly asked himself where he got the idea of “just” and “unjust”. What in the world was he using for a frame of reference in a cruel universe? Was it merely a private idea, something to do with his inner fantasies? He rejected that for an option. We are told people ought not to suffer, die, be mistreated, go hungry, but evolution requires those very inequalities in order to work. On what basis, then, does the atheist judge the natural world as horribly wrong? Without God, there is not objective standard to make such a judgment. The secular way of looking at the world provides no moral framework whatsoever. Wickedness cannot be ascribed in a natural system. The problem of evil and suffering are problems for everyone, whether we are believers or nonbelievers. Abandoning a belief in God does not somehow make the problem of evil easier to handle.

God, through Jesus, experienced the greatest depth of pain and suffering. Christianity does not claim that belief in God will avoid pain. It claims that God will provide great resources to face suffering with hope and courage rather than bitterness and despair.  We see in the cross Jesus facing overwhelming pain and separation from the Godhead. It is important to remember that Jesus is God, Who chose to step down into human existence as one of us. I don’t think we humans can fully appreciate what that meant to Him. The transcendent sinless God chose to become a man and to bear the sins of His fellow human beings. In doing so, He faced the separation from God that every soul who labors under sin must face. Clearly, He accepted this suffering because He loves us. God loves us enough to die a horrible death separated from Himself on our behalf. We cannot say that He allows suffering because He does not care for us. He proved His care while on the cross when He took on our suffering for us.

Please remember, though, that Christianity teaches that the suffering of this world is a temporary condition. In heaven, there will be no pain – not even the memory of pain. The pathway to that painfree future is the incarnation and suffering of God. The doctrine of the resurrection instills Christians with a powerful hope for it promises that we will get the life we most long for and it will be so much better than anything we can even imagine!

Suffering is a pathway to peace and strength. When God finally vanquished pain and evil, it will be so utterly defeated that we will not even remember its existence. The Christian’s future life is one of infinite joy in which we will not even have the memory of suffering.

Please let’s be honest. There are significant, irreconcilable differences between the major faiths, whether we are discussing Christianity, Judaism or Islam. A Christian pastor, a Jewish rabbi and a Muslim iman would likely all agree with the following statement: “If Christians are right about Jesus being God, then Muslims and Jews fail in a serious way to love God as God really is, but if Muslims and Jew are right that Jesus is not God, but rather a teacher or prophet, then Christians fail in a serious way to love God as God really is.” The bottom line?  We cannot all be equally right about the nature of God!

This would cause serious disturbance among my leftist coworkers. I’ve heard that all that really matters is that we believe in God and that we are loving toward others. To insist that one faith has a better grasp of the truth than others is intolerant. Cue the frowns and concerned looks! I remember a college professor of mine once saying that a primary barrier to world peace is the exclusive claims to superiority by the major traditional religions. And, you know, what? He’s probably right!

Each religion informs its followers that they have “the truth”, which naturally makes them feel superior to those of differing beliefs. A religion tells its followers that they are saved and connected to God by devoutly performing “the truth”. This moves them to separate from those who are less devoted and pure in life. It is therefore easy for one religious group to stereotype and caricature other groups. In such a situation, it becomes easy for some groups to marginalize other groups or even oppress and persecute them.

Religion has the power to erode peace on earth. What can we do about that?

One solution would be to outlaw religion. This has, by the way, been tried in some cultures – Communist China, the Khmer Rouge, and Soviet Russia are examples of cultures that have outlawed or tightly controlled religious practice in an effort to stop it from dividing society or eroding the power of the state. Their efforts were not successful, leading to more oppression rather than more peace and harmony. At the time that Communism was postulated there was a widespread belief that the world would become more secularized as we became more “civilized”.  Religion was seen as a crutch we used to help us adapt to our environment that would go away as our skills and knowledge increased. This has not been the case. There has been an explosion of evangelical Christian growth across developing nations in the last half-century and there are signs that evangelical Christianity in the United States is at least holding its own, though church memberships are shifting patterns.

Religion is not just a temporary crutch that helped us to adapt to our environment; it is a permanent and central feature of the human condition. This has been a hard swallow for secular, nonreligious people. Everyone wants to think they’re in the mainstream and not extremists, but robust religious beliefs dominate today’s world. There is no reason to expect that to change!

Outlawing religion hasn’t worked. It’s not going away and its power clearly cannot be diminished by government control. So, maybe education and argument can socially discourage religions that claim to have “the truth” and try to convert others to their beliefs. Surely we can find ways to urge all citizens, whatever their religious beliefs, to admit that each religion or faith is just one of many equally valid paths to God and ways to live in the world. Shouldn’t reason win the day?

I’ve already defined reason in a previous article, but I will expand the idea here.

I often hear all major religions are equally valid and basically teach the same things. It’s such a commonplace assertion that some people assume that anyone believing there are “inferior religions” is a rightwing extremist. You certainly here this notion expressed openly on the political pundit shows that populate the television “news” networks. Not too long ago a friend sent me a magazine article that contended that the doctrinal differences between Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism are superficial and insignificant. The article claimed we all believe in the same God, some all-loving Spirit in the universe.

How amorphous and inconsistent!  The article’s insistence that doctrine is unimportant is something totally at odds with all the religions considered. Buddhism does not believe in a personal God at all, while Judaism, Christianity and Islam believe in a God who holds people personally responsible for their beliefs and practices, a God whose attributes cannot be reduced to “love”. The insistence that doctrine doesn’t really matter is in itself a doctrinal belief: it holds a specific view of God, which is touted as superior and more “enlightened” than the believers of most major religions. The proponents of this view do the very thing they forbid in others.

Another reasonable argument is that each religion just sees a portion of the truth, sort of like the blind men describing the elephant. The religions of the world, it is claimed, each have a grasp of part of the truth of spiritual reality, but none can claim a comprehensive vision of the truth.  The problem with this is that the story of the blind men and the elephant is told from the point of view of someone who is not blind and knows that they are only describing part of the elephant. How could you possibly know that no religion can see the whole truth unless you yourself have the superior, comprehensive knowledge of spiritual reality you just claimed none of the religions have? They’ve denied their own premise, thus nullifying it.

One of my favorite points of discussion is that religious beliefs are culturally and historical conditioned and, therefore, cannot be true for other cultures. All moral and spiritual claims are the produce of our particular historical and cultural moment; since no one can judge whether one assertion about spiritual and moral reality is truer than another, no one should claim they can know the “Truth”. Peter L. Berger, in his book A Rumor of Angels explained the sociological principle at work here. People believe what they do largely because they are socially conditioned to do so. Everyone belongs to a community that reinforces certain beliefs and discourages others. Noting this, we assume it is impossible to judge the rightness or wrongness of competing beliefs. However, absolute relativism can only exist if the relativists are held exempt from their belief that no belief can be held as universal. “Relativism relativizes itself,” Berger wrote. Our cultural biases make weighing competing truths more difficult, but no impossible. We cannot avoid weighing religious and spiritual claims by hiding behind the canard that “All truth is relative.” The questions remain. Which affirmations about God, human nature and spiritual reality are true and which are false? Alvin Plantinga once answered the argument that if he’d been born in Morocco he’d have been a Muslim not a Christian. He pointed out that the pluralist (those who hold that there are multiple “truths” would also not be a pluralist if he’d been born in an Islamic country, so did that mean “that his pluralist beliefs had been produced by an unreliable, belief-producing process?” The pluralist, of course, would deny this, but you cannot honestly say that all claims about religion are historically conditions except the one I am making right now. We all make truth claims of some sort. Until we can stop doing that, relativism is a self-defeating premise.

Stymied by such arguments, the discussion often breaks down at this point and those holding specific religion beliefs are then accused of being “arrogant” for insisting their religion is right and trying to convert others to it. Of course, most people don’t hold this view concerning their own beliefs, just the belief of others. Many will say that it is ethnocentric to claim our religion is superior to others, but then turn around and say their secular beliefs re superior to others.  It is a Western idea that no religion can claim a truth foundation. Non-western cultures have no problem with this. Thus, the rejection of exclusivity is an ethnocentric premise.

Skeptics believe that any exclusive claims to superior knowledge of spiritual reality cannot be true, but their assertion is itself a religious notion. It assumes that God is unknowable, or loving, but not wrathful, or an impersonal force rather than a person who speaks in Scripture. All these are unprovable faith assumptions. Their proponents believe they have a superior way to view things, that the world would be a better place if everyone dropped the traditional religious views of God and truth and adopted their “enlightened” view instead. Their view is also a claim to exclusivity. If all such views are to be discouraged, then those holding the pluralist viewpoint are not exempt from their own premise.  It is no narrower to claim that one religion is right than to claim that one way to think about all religious beliefs (that all are equal) is right. We are all exclusive in our beliefs about religion; we just make different exclusive claims.

This inevitably leads to the charge that we should keep our religious beliefs “private”. That word private takes on different meanings, but often it is urged that we keep our religious beliefs out of the “public square”. It is argued that we may not argue for a moral position unless it has a secular, nonreligious grounding. This is the argument of Peter Singer and Daniel Dennett, who insist that religious faith must remain a strictly private affair, never brought into a discussion of public policy. Of course, this brings up charges of discrimination by religious believers, but these secularists insist that religion is divisive and controversial while public policy should be secular and universal. We should keep our religious beliefs to ourselves and unite around policies that “work best” for most people.

How does one leave religious belief out of any discussion of moral reasoning? Religious belief is a set of beliefs that explain what life is all about, who we are, and the most important things that human beings should spend their time doing. Even secularism fits this description. It is a worldview or narrative identity that makes certain faith-assumptions about the nature of the world. Some view of the world and human nature informs everyone’s life. Pragmatists say we should leave our deeper worldviews behind and find consensus in “what works”, but our view of what works is determined by what we think people are for. Even the most secular pragmatist holds his own deeply held beliefs about what it means to be human.

It is impossible not to bring your most deeply held convictions to the public square. They are a part of us that cannot be laid aside for the “good of society” because they are what inform our personal definition what is good for society. Honest thinkers cannot deny that fact.

I actually sympathize with those who believe that religion is a major barrier to peace in our world. Exclusivity claims have caused much strife in the past and have the potential to cause more in the future. However, within robust, orthodox Christianity, there are rich resources that can make Christians agents for peace on earth because Christianity holds remarkable power to explain and remove the divisive tendencies within the human heart. Christianity provides a firm basis for respecting people of other faiths (Matthew 5:16; 1Peter 2:12). Jesus assumed some overlap between Christian values and those of other cultures. All human beings are made in the image of God, capable of goodness and wisdom, so Christians are not surprised to find that there are nonbelievers who are much nicer and wiser than we are. We recognize we are not accepted by God because of our moral performance, wisdom of virtue, but because of Christ’s work on our behalf. More religions and philosophies ascribe one’s spiritual status to one’s religious attainments, which naturally leads to feelings of superiority. The Christian gospel, however, should not have effect. One of the paradoxes of history is the relationship of the beliefs and practices of the early Christians compared to those of the cultures around them. The Greco-Roman world’s religious views were open and seemingly tolerant – everyone his or her own god – but the practices of the culture were quite brutal. The Greco-Roman world was highly stratified economically, with great discrepancy between rich and poor. Conversely, Christians insisted that there was only one true God, Jesus Christ, an exclusive and seemingly intolerant claim. Their lives and practices were remarkably welcoming to those that the greater culture marginalized. Early Christianity mixed people from different races and classes in ways that seemed scandalous to those around them. Rather than despising the poor as their neighbors did, Christians gave to the poor both inside and outside of their own community. During the terrible urban plagues of the first two centuries, Christians cared for all the sick and dying in Rome, often at the cost of their own lives.

Why would such an exclusive belief system lead to behavior that was so open to others? The Christian belief system holds that practicing sacrificial service, generosity and peace-making are the strong possible resource. Our Savior died for the sins of His enemies, praying for their forgiveness as they were killing Him. How could that lead to anything other than a radically different way of dealing with those who are different from us. Early Christians could not act in violence and oppression toward their opponents because Jesus had not acted in those ways.

Yes, there have been Christians who have violated Jesus’ basic teachings, sometimes in His name, but who can deny that the force of Christianity’s most fundamental beliefs can be a powerful impetus for peace-making in our troubled world. As it once was, so it can be today.

As part of considering basic Christian beliefs, I found myself asking why faith is the most reasonable reaction I could come up with to what the world dishes out. I grew up in a non-believing family, so why would I be attracted to Christianity when that wasn’t how I was raised?

I remember a conversation with a coworker of my husband. It was a Saturday night as their shift was ending and she invited us to a party at her house. My husband said “Well, we’d like to come, but we’re teaching tomorrow in Sunday School, so we really need to go home to bed.” He then left me with her to go get something and Alice made a comment about how she didn’t go to church because they were all racist institutions. Although she looked white, she was actually half-black and half-Jewish. We’ve always attended multi-ethnic churches, so I invited her to ours, saying that we weren’t the typical church, that we have more than one race attending. To which, Alice said, “oh, you mean the children and grandchildren of people who were forced by the missionaries to become Christians?”

So the conversation was over, but the comment remains in my mind. I’ve had a lot of opportunity to talk to Christians from other cultures. Our church is about 1/3 Korean, for example. Actually, South Korea is about 1/5 Christian these days. I don’t know anyone who claims the missionaries forced grandpa to become a Christian. Most are themselves first-generation Christians – having been raised as Buddhists, though at least one of my friends was raised in a rich, secular family that disowned her for becoming a Christian. Even those with a traditional Christianity tell stories of grandpa having been curious about music, rituals, culture, wanting to learn English, wanting to learn to farm better, needing food/medicine, etc., that caused him/her to voluntarily interact with the missionaries and voluntarily accept Christ as Savior.

I am not saying there were never any forced conversions, but I think these were far fewer than revisionist historians make out.  You can make someone go to church by providing them incentives to go or simply by proscribing their behavior, but you cannot make them believe. Belief is something that happens inside the human heart. It cannot be coerced. I think the history of Christianity would, if we could really know it, reveal a mass of voluntary conversions with a scattering of forced efforts, which by the way, wouldn’t result in true conversion.

Christianity cannot be forced. It’s about a relationship with Jesus Christ, not about rules and rituals. You can make me performs rules and rituals. That perhaps makes me a Christianist, one who practices the forms and rites of Christendom. This does not, however, make me a Christian because a Christian has a relationship with the Savior and that is something that cannot be forced. It’s the old chestnut “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”

So what makes a belief in a personal God preferable to non-belief or some other concept of God? Well, first you need to look at the reasonableness of belief. Sometimes a particularly type of non-believer will insist that a belief in God is irrational. They usually paint their position as open-minded and based upon reason while suggesting that the “religious” person is guided by unproven emotion or “faith assumptions.” Truly, that position is itself a faith assumption. It is true that we can’t fit God into a test tube and analyze Him like we might a microbe. However, mention of that microbe reminds me that there was a time when claiming that diseases were caused by little one-celled organisms that we can’t see would have been viewed as insane. We had no way of proving that microbes exist, so the first scientists to advance the theory of microbial infection were really making a faith assumption based upon their observations of the world. Christians do much the same. Perhaps we see evidence that the non-believer doesn’t see or won’t acknowledge; that doesn’t mean the evidence is false. It simply means the non-believer doesn’t recognize it. Microbes still existed before people knew they did. God can still exist even if my atheist cousin believes He doesn’t. Essentially, you can’t prove or disprove God. A lack of evidence doesn’t disprove Him. A lack of evidence that is acceptable to some people really doesn’t disprove Him. It mostly just proves that some people can’t see the evidence for whatever reason, usually having to do with denial. They don’t want to entertain a supernatural cause for anything, so they simply refuse to accept any supernatural evidence. While they’re off looking for evidence the meets their standards, those of us who are a bit more open-minded are able to enjoy the fruit of accepting the evidence in the first place.

It is really not more rational to refuse to accept that which won’t fit into the scientific model. It is more materialistic, but that doesn’t necessarily speak to reasonableness. A narrow focus risks missing the larger picture.

There are those who wonder why Acts ends so abruptly. I dealt with it briefly at the beginning of this series. There is every reason to believe that Luke wrote both his Gospel and Acts as a kind of court brief for Paul’s defense before Caesar. Theophilus appears to have been a Christian in a official capacity in Roman government who Luke hoped would help Paul with his defense. If Acts ends abruptly and does not detail the trial or any part of the years following, up to and including Paul’s death by Roman execution around AD 64, it might be because the finished product had already been given to Theophilus in AD 61-62.

Much ministry must have taken place in those three months that Paul and the other passengers wintered on the island of Malta. Luke didn’t give much detail, but Paul being Paul, the possibility of a vacation seems unlikely. When the seas were again open for travel, the passengers obtained passage on an Alexandrian ship, which had wintered there on Malta and was bound for Rome. Luke not only tells us that this was an Alexandrian ship (undoubtedly a grain ship), but that it had “the Twin Brothers” for its figurehead. These “twin brothers” were the heathen gods who were believed to provide safety and success on the sea. In the shadow of God’s mighty hand in delivering Paul and all on board his ship, how paltry these two gods must have seemed to Luke. The One True God is in charge of all, while the heathen make their “gods” to bolster their hopes for safety and success. Even they were used to fulfill God’s plan to take Paul to Rome.

In contrast to the detail with which Luke described the journey which ended in shipwreck (chapter 27), he told us very little about the journey from Malta to Rome. I think this is because not much happened. Their route took them from Malta to Rome, via Syracuse, Sicily’s major port city, then onto Rhegium on the “toe” of Italy and then to Puteoli, where Paul stayed seven days visiting Christian brethren. Luke gave details that could be checked against archeology, which is one reason he is such an important Biblical historian. We know Paul met the Roman Christians at the Market of Appius and the Three Taverns along the Appian Way. Paul had written a very important letter to these believers some time before (we call it the Book of Romans) and had spoken of his earnest desire to visit and minister to them and allow them to minister to him (Romans 1:7-15). This was joyous fellowship, but Luke did not dwell on the minor details, for he had a more important goal in writing this account. Luke had almost nothing to say about Paul’s relationship to the church in Rome, particularly Roman Gentiles. Instead he ended his narrative with an account of Paul’s meeting with the leading Jews of Rome.

Although Paul had arrived in Rome, his appearance before Caesar would be delayed by the normal “red tape” paperwork and processes of government. Paul was kept in custody during this time of waiting, allowed to stay in a house, under guard by one soldier. This freedom appears to be the result of one or more factors. First, Paul was not yet a convicted criminal. The Romans had great difficulty even deciding upon what charges to press against Paul, let alone succeeding in convicting him. Second, Paul had won the confidence of at least Julius, the centurion commander of the Augustan cohort (27:1). Paul was therefore granted a fair measure of freedom, being under a kind of “house arrest.” This also seems to have been consistent with Roman governance under Claudius and the administrators who acted in Nero’s stead before the madman reached his majority. These were sensible men who saw no reason to act rashly just because they had the power to do so.

This freedom did not allow Paul to travel about on his own, but it did give him the opportunity to minister to any who would come to him. Three days passed before Paul called for visitors. We do not know what happened in these three days, or why Paul waited to invite the Jews to his house. My best guess is that Paul wanted to meditate and pray about this matter, to be able to come to some conviction as to what he should do.

Paul determined to invite the Jewish leaders, so that he could explain the reason for his presence in Rome and open the door to proclaim the gospel to unbelieving Jews there. Paul had at least two meetings with these Jews. On their first visit, Paul is not said to have presented the gospel to them. His first order of business was to explain his presence in Rome and assure the Jews of his innocence and sincerity. Paul faced an uphill battle in this. He was, after all, a Roman prisoner. He had to explain the cause of his arrest and the reason for his presence in Rome. He claimed not to have violated any customs of the Jews and he assured them that the Gentiles had purposed to release him, but had been dissuaded by protest from certain Jews.

The Roman Jews were rapidly facing difficulties of their own. Claudius had expelled Jews from Rome for a period of time because of unrest and the coming rebellion of the Jews in Jerusalem would lead to the sack of Jerusalem by the Romans. Thus, Roman Jews were likely sensitive to the presence of any Jews who might cause trouble with Rome. They dealt with Paul in an apparently open-minded fashion. They claimed to have not heard the details of his case and they insisted while they had heard nothing against him, the Jewish response to the gospel was uniformly unfavorable. They assured him they were willing to listen to his views and they set up a second meeting to do so.

“They set a day to meet with him, and they came to him where he was staying in even greater numbers. From morning until evening he explained things to them, testifying about the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus from both the law of Moses and the prophets. Some were convinced by what he said, but others refused to believe. So they began to leave, unable to agree among themselves, after Paul made one last statement: “The Holy Spirit spoke rightly to your ancestors through the prophet Isaiah when he said,

‘Go to this people and say, “You will keep on hearing, but will never understand, and you will keep on looking, but will never perceive. For the heart of this people has become dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have closed their eyes, so that they would not see with their eyes

and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.”’

On the appointed day they arrived in large numbers and Paul proclaimed the gospel all day long. The Jewish response to Paul and the gospel was, as usual, mixed. Some were persuaded by what Paul taught and believed in Jesus as the promised Messiah. Others did not. As usual, this created another dynamic in the group. Rather than telling us that the unbelieving Jews polarized against Paul, Luke recorded a polarization between the believing and unbelieving Jews. Having arrived in unity, they departed along gospel lines. Those who chose not to believe decided that Paul was insane while those who believed the gospel found him the sanest man in Rome. As the day drew to a close and Paul was about to bid his guests farewell, he had one last thought to share. Paul had used Scripture to prove that Jesus was the Messiah; he now reminded them of Isaiah 6:25-28.

There was a distinct parallel between Paul’s ministry to the Jews of his day and Isaiah’s ministry to Judah and Jerusalem centuries earlier. Paul found an explanation for the rejection of these Jews of his day and a corresponding word of warning for them in God’s instruction to Isaiah could therefore find in God’s instructions to Isaiah. The people of Judah and Jerusalem have not listened to God’s admonition; now the time for her divine discipline had drawn near. Isaiah was commissioned to preach to this disobedient nation to bring about repentance, but God had made it clear that his words would not succeed Paul saw the parallels between his ministry and that of Isaiah. He knew that God had spoken once and for all in Jesus and that the Jews had rejected Him. His ministry would not be one of ushering in the kingdom of God, but of preceding the coming day of God’s discipline. Paul pointed back to God’s words to Isaiah as being also words to his own generation of Jews. Let them listen well to this ancient warning, for just as Judah and Jerusalem of Isaiah’s day were soon to go into a period of captivity at the hand of the Babylonians, so the Israel and Jerusalem of his day were to go into captivity at the hands of the Romans.

These were Paul’s last words to most of the unbelieving Jews in Rome, but for the other Jews who believed in Jesus, Paul’s words were only the beginning. Luke recorded that Paul spent the next two years continually ministering to all who came to him, both Jew and Gentile.

The concluding words of the Book of Acts are sad because they focus on the fate of the nation of Israel. Luke had started his Gospel introducing the Savior God had promised to His people, but the Jews rejected Him. The church had been commissioned at the start of Acts to carry on Jesus’ work, but the Jews continued to reject the gospel. The gospel expanded from Jerusalem all the way to Rome and there were Jewish listeners as well as Gentile listeners, but the Jews persisted in rejecting the gospel and persecuted those who proclaimed it. Now, at Rome, the majority of the Jews there rejected the gospel. The Jews have heard, and most have rejected the truth that Jesus was the Messiah, who came to the earth, took on human flesh, was rejected, crucified, and raised from the dead. Now, after nearly 40 years of grace, the time of God’s judgment drew near. The Book of Acts ends, not with the salvation of Israel and the establishment of the kingdom, but with the rejection of Israel and the approaching time of Israel’s captivity and suffering. There is, in this sense, a deep feeling of sorrow as the Book of Acts draws to a close.

Yet, in a way, the Book of Acts does not end here and Luke’s way of ending indicates that. If the gospel has been rejected by the Jews, it is still being proclaimed and believed by the Gentiles. We Gentiles, who now live some 20 centuries after the ending of Acts, find that what Jesus continued to do through the apostles, He is still doing today. The Book of Acts ends one chapter in the history of Israel as it begins a whole new chapter in the history of the church. Jesus is still at work in and through His church to this very day. Perhaps it will not be long before “the times of the Gentiles” come to a close, and the return of the Lord Jesus to establish His kingdom will take place. The day of judgment for all mankind draws near. Each individual must repent of his sin and trust in the solution for sin which God provided in Jesus, Who died in the sinner’s place, and Who offers righteousness to all who would believe, which God requires for eternal life.

Paul’s focus (and Luke’s) was not a happy ending that resolved Paul’s life, but the advancement of the gospel. Today, we seek to motivate Christians to obey Christian principles so that they can live happier, more successful lives. Paul urged Christians to live in obedience to the Word of God so that the gospel would not be hindered. When Paul prayed or asked for prayer, it most often pertained to his boldness and clarity in proclaiming the gospel, not in his deliverance from suffering and difficulties. The gospel had been proclaimed and Paul was in Rome, the place where God wanted him. This was the focus of Acts from the beginning and it remained the focus of Acts in the end. The gospel proclaimed!

We are not, however, done with Paul because the Lord was not done with him. Luke’s court brief was apparently successful and Paul was released. He ministered about three more years before being rearrested and eventually executed by Nero.

For this reason, we will take a look at the three letters Paul wrote after the close of Acts and then move onto the letters that grew from his death.

One of the things we like best about living in Alaska is the outdoors. The Chena River, which flows placidly through downtown, is a little powerhouse of rapids in its upper courses. Although we are not white-water canoeists, we enjoy an occasional momentary thrill as the Chena reaches Class 3 in some spots. One Memorial Day weekend we decided to take advantage of an early spring and a hot day to canoe the Chena from just below Chena Hot Springs to a campground near the highway to Chena Hot Spring. We were floating along, commenting on the warm sun when we hit rapids. No sooner were we in the center of the river aiming for the best slot then we saw two men up to their chests in the rushing water trying to pull their overturned power boat out from under a submerged log. Our Lab, who wasn’t water-rescue trained but never missed an opportunity to get wet, immediately went over the side of our canoe to “rescue” these men, swamping us, which turned us sideways to the current and flipped us.

Alaskan water is COLD!!  Even on a warm day in the middle of summer, it takes your breath away and numbs your hands and feet quickly. We surfaced gasping and sputtering and worked for the next couple of minutes to retrieve our canoe from a sweeper and beach it. Our Lab had decided that her allegiance was owed to us, but she was still concerned about those men we had passed in the slot, so we slogged back there to investigate. Both were blue and hypothermic, but determined to get their boat free.  I built a fire while BJ and Girl Dog, who thought she was a water-loving freight puller, tied off to their boat and pulled it free of the log. The men stumbled to the fire so cold they couldn’t talk without biting their tongues. One man was babbling about stuff that wasn’t there. When he came to, for a moment, he hollered. Later he told us that the fire and the pain in his hands and feet as blood returned had made him think he was in Hell.

I think Paul knew how he felt as his party came ashore on Malta. There were probably some islanders who turned out for the shipwreck – shore people have for millennia made money off sunken treasure and it’s best to keep the survivors distracted so they don’t know you’re stealing from them. They probably built a fire and offered warm drinks around. Those passengers who recovered quickly no doubt lent a hand gathering firewood. Paul, apparently, was one.

“After we had safely reached shore, we learned that the island was called Malta.  The local inhabitants showed us extraordinary kindness, for they built a fire and welcomed us all because it had started to rain and was cold. When Paul had gathered a bundle of brushwood and was putting it on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened itself on his hand. When the local people saw the creature hanging from Paul’s hand, they said to one another, “No doubt this man is a murderer! Although he has escaped from the sea, Justice herself has not allowed him to live!”  However, Paul shook the creature off into the fire and suffered no harm. But they were expecting that he was going to swell up or suddenly drop dead. So after they had waited a long time and had seen nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god.” Acts 28:1-6

While gathering sticks and brush, Paul found more than wood. A viper was apparently lying dormant among the sticks, and did not come to life until the heat of the fire roused it, whereupon it fastened itself to Paul’s hand. Paul’s reaction was simple and decisive: he shook the creature into the fire. (Growing up without snakes in Alaska, I am amazed that he didn’t panic and endanger others by flinging the creature away from him; I would have!). Just as during the shipwreck, Paul didn’t do anything “spiritual”. He seems to have gone on with what he was doing.  He didn’t kneel in prayer or make some pious last speech or preach a sermon. The man who had gotten up off the ground and walked back into Lystra after being stoned seems to have continued gathering wood. He didn’t act like he was about to die. There are commentators who will assure you that this viper was not venomous at all because present-day Malta, a small and overcrowded island no longer has such snakes. They will insist that the islanders and passengers, including Luke were merely mistaken about the risk to Paul’s life. Let’s set aside the idea that God’s inspired writer, empowered by the Holy Spirit, could be mistaken. Luke was a doctor who may well have treated snake bites in the past. Doctors were not then as they are not now careless about the identification of snakes which might have a fatal bite. Far from being primitives who knew nothing of herpetology, people in Paul’s day knew more about nature than we do today, who live in paved cities. Their lives depended upon knowing the difference between a venomous snake and one that was not. They knew Paul had been well and truly bit for the snake clung to his hand. They waited for Paul’s hand to swell and for him to die. This was the natural course of events from such an encounter.

God intervened. Paul went on as usual and, eventually, became clear that Paul was not going to die be adversely affected. Jesus had promised as much in Luke 10:17-20. Christians should not have been surprised at Paul’s miraculous deliverance from death. The natives, however, were. Supposing he was a dangerous criminal who had escaped justice by drowning at sea, they had expected him to die from the snake bite. When he did not, they concluded it was evidence that Paul was a god. I don’t know why Luke didn’t follow up on this incident. Surely there were consequences from being deemed divine. We can be assured, based on past experience, that Paul did not allow the Maltese natives to worship him as a “god”. I think that this is similar to the experience in Lystra, where Paul used the mistaken identity to refute claims that he was a god and in so doing, proclaimed the way of salvation.

The serpent incident was the perfect entre to the gospel. The Maltese did not believe in a personal god, but in an impersonal force or divine being they called “justice” (fate, might be a better term). If they thought Paul had escaped the “sting of death”, well, they too could escape that fate through faith in Jesus Christ. Paul, the great theologian who didn’t hesitate to preach before Athenian philosophers and kings, capitalized on this opportunity, I’m quite certain.

“Now in the region around that place were fields belonging to the chief official of the island, named Publius, who welcomed us and entertained us hospitably as guests for three days. The father of Publius lay sick in bed, suffering from fever and dysentery. Paul went in to see him and after praying, placed his hands on him and healed him. After this had happened, many of the people on the island who were sick also came and were healed.  They also bestowed many honors, and when we were preparing to sail, they gave us all the supplies we needed.^”  Acts 28:7-10

The incident with the serpent brought Paul to prominence on the island and paved the way for an expanded ministry while on Malta. Publius, the chief official on the island, seems to have offered these 276 stranded, shivering souls meals and a place to stay for three days, after which they seem to have found winter accommodations on the island. Publius’ genuine hospitality allowed Paul to learn of his father’s illness and to determine that God’s power was available to heal him. Seeing the ailing man, he prayed for him and then laid hands on him for healing. This resulted in others being brought to Paul for healing. Paul did not presume that God would heal through him, any more than He would deliver those on board ship, as though Paul could turn God’s power on and off like a water faucet. Paul only acted when he was assured of God’s will in these matters. Only when the angel of the Lord appeared to Paul did he assure the passengers of their safe landing (27:21-26). I believe that Paul only laid hands on the father of Publius after he was convinced that God willed his miraculous healing. Would that Christians today would do likewise, rather than claiming to have constant power which they employ at their discretion. The inference of Luke 5:17 is that there were times when the power of the Lord was not present for performing healings; Jesus was sensitive and attentive to such times. He would not act independently of the Father, or seek to force Him to act in accordance with His own will (Luke 4:1-11; John 7:1-9; 8:28-30). Paul also seems to have performed miracles, signs and wonders, only when it was apparent that it was God’s will to do so (Acts 14:3). In addition to Paul’s sensitivity to God’s sovereign leading, Paul also took other related factors into account, such as the faith of those who would be healed (Acts 14:9-10). God’s sovereignty therefore means that He is always able to heal and perform miracles, but that He is not always willing to do so. We do not manipulate God; He manipulates us!

And so it was that Paul concluded it was God’s will to heal the father of Publius, which opened the door for many other healings. Once again, Paul had come to the forefront; he had gained prominence. This took place through the sovereign workings of God, and it likely resulted in the proclamation of the gospel and the salvation of some souls. Luke does not tell us that Paul preached, or how he did so. Neither does he give us a “head count” of the “souls won.” Such statistics are unnecessary and often inaccurate. God was at work here. This is evident. And where God is at work the results are assured. As a matter of fact, an accurate understanding of the sovereignty of God assures us that for the Christian, God is always at work, for his or her ultimate good and most importantly for the advance of the gospel and of God’s purposes.

The islanders, grateful to God and grateful for Paul’s presence, showed their gratitude in a very tangible way—they gave all the passengers provisions for the final days of their journey to Rome. Once again, the presence of but one man—Paul (not to mention the other saints with him)—was a source of blessing for the entire gathering of those on board this ship. How the presence of but a few saints can be a blessing to the rest (see 1 Corinthians 7:12-14).

We are about to leave these islanders behind, as Paul and his fellow-passengers will board ship, headed for Rome. But let us leave these Maltese natives with a final thought. They rushed to the shore, thinking that they could be of help to these shivering passengers. What they were to learn shortly was that God had sent Paul and the gospel to help them. It was not long before those who rushed to the shore to help Paul were rushing to Paul for help from God. How marvelous are His ways!

We’re coming to a section of Acts that I think is often overlooked by commentators. At least, I had to search for commentation on Acts 27:1-44 and a couple of my support team weren’t enthusiastic for the passage either. I found it a nice change of pace to see Paul as something other than as a scholar and zealous servant of the Lord. In this section we see Paul in action, buoying his credentials for the practical advice he offered in his epistles. Paul proved to be a very wise man in practical matters, a leader of men, and someone whose counsel was taken seriously because he knew what he was doing.

In all honesty, you’d think Paul was out of his element on a ship. He was a tentmaker and theologian, not a sailor, but his leadership emerged aboard the ship as he was headed toward Rome. As the journey continued, his wisdom was recognized and his counsel sought, all without any formal leadership or position of authority. Not bad for a prison on his way to stand trial before Caesar in Rome.

The first several verses of Acts 27 follow Paul from Caesarea under the guard of a centurion of the Augustan cohort by the name of Julius. They sailed from Caesarea to a harbor on Crete named Fair Havens, near the city of Lasea where he boarded an Egyptian ship headed for Italy. The journey was delayed by unfavorable winds and it was decided that it was too late in the sailing season to risk a trip to across the stormy Mediterranean Sea to Italy. As they debated where to winter, Paul strongly urged them to stay at Fair Havens. It wasn’t an ideal winter harbor and sailing conditions seemed favorable at the moment, so the captain decided to head for a more accommodating port. A storm ensued and rapidly endangered the ship, so that it looked like all hope was lost. We remember as similar storm when the apostles were panicking and Jesus just wanted to sleep. The humans then as with Paul off the coast of Crete did not see that God had His hand upon them.

“Since many of them had no desire to eat, Paul stood up among them and said, “Men, you should have listened to me and not put out to sea from Crete, thus avoiding this damage and loss. And now I advise you to keep up your courage, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only the ship will be lost. For last night an angel of the God to whom I belong  and whom I serve  came to me and said,  ‘Do not be afraid, Paul! You must stand before Caesar, and God has graciously granted you the safety of all who are sailing with you.’ Therefore keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will be just as I have been told. But we must run aground on some island.”  Acts 27:21-26

An Alexandrian ship would have been heavily laden with wheat for Rome, as by this time Rome was quite dependent upon Egyptian wheat for survival and control of its population.  Winter travel in the Mediterranean can be quite dangerous. They’d already experienced great difficulty in getting this far. I don’t think it took any gift of prophesy for Paul, who had been previously shipwrecked, to know that it was best to stay where they were. Paul spoke as a seasoned traveler who had experienced dangers at sea. Why risk shipwreck when they weren’t going to make Rome that winter anyway and they were in a safe location?

The centurion respected and trusted Paul, and he took Paul’s warnings seriously, but like most of us, he figured the captain and sailors knew more about sea conditions than a missionary. After all, they had a great deal to lose, so it wouldn’t pay for them to be reckless. Would it? From what I hear of sailors, it would seem that Fair Havens didn’t have a good tarverna and they wanted better.

 Paul, on the other hand, was a Christian who believed God was in control of all things, including the sea. God had assured Paul that he would reach Rome. So why was he nervous to set out to sea? I think because, though he was assured of reaching Rome, he cared about his traveling companions and didn’t want harm to come to them.  Apparently quite a few of the passengers could not even swim. It seemed like needless endangerment to set out to sea when you didn’t have to.

Paul was overruled by a majority of the ship’s company who thought a favoring wind a good sign for travel. They were wrong. Eventually, when they thought it certain they would perish at sea, God sent an angel to Paul to assure his shipmates that there would be no loss of life when the ship sank.

Fourteen days passed on the stormy sea after they left Fair Havens. Lost, the sailors discovered they were nearing land, which is a dangerous thing for a wooden boat in a storm. Limited control and treacherous sea conditions make it almost impossible to make port under storm. Thus, they put out anchors to slow their progress and hoped for daybreak so they could visually navigate the ship. Some considered taking the skiff for land. It was risky, but they knew they might make it. Of course, without the sailors, the ship would be completely at the mercy of the sea.

Whether by divine revelation, intuition, or by learning of their plans from some human source, Paul became aware of the sailors’ intentions and informed the centurion, who ordered the skiff lines to be cut.

“As day was about to dawn, Paul urged them all to take some food, saying, “Today is the fourteenth day you have been in suspense and have gone without food; you have eaten nothing. Therefore I urge you to take some food, for this is important for your survival. For not one of you will lose a hair from his head.” After he said this, Paul took bread and gave thanks to God in front of them all, broke it, and began to eat. So all of them were encouraged and took food themselves. (We were in all two hundred seventy-six persons on the ship.) When they had eaten enough to be satisfied, they lightened the ship by throwing the wheat into the sea.

In the darkest part of the night, everyone needed to hear some encouraging words. Paul again stepped forward with that, persuading his fellow travelers to prepare for the rigors ahead. He’d told them several days before that they could have hope that they would all be saved, although the ship would run aground. Whether from seasickness or fear, nobody had eaten in the last two weeks. Paul gave them practical advice here.  He was essentially saying “You’re not going to die, but you need to help yourselves. Eat something!” Paul then led them in eating a small meal.

Paul’s faith and his courage were contagious. The others—276 sailors, passengers and soldiers—followed his example. Strengthened, they were ready for the day’s activities. They started by dumping that precious and burdensome Roman wheat overboard. A light boat sits higher in the water, meaning it can get closer to shore, meaning a shorter swim (or float). Though they weren’t exactly sure where they were, they decided to run the ship aground in a bay. Cutting the anchors loose, they surfed the ship toward land. Ship and cargo disappeared into the stormy seas, but all the passengers and crew survived.

With the requirement to abandon ship, the soldiers faced a serious problem. At least some of the prisoners were in chains. If they weren’t going to drown, the soldiers would have to release them which would risk escape. The sensible solution, from a Roman soldier’s point of view, was to kill them all. The centurion does not seem to be concerned with any of the prisoners, except Paul. He wanted to spare him, resulting in all the prisoners being saved. Not a single soul was lost; God’s promise was fulfilled.

I think Luke’s central purpose in writing this to Theophilus was not to show Paul’s leadership skills. Remember, Luke was a Christian writing to a Christian. He was most likely trying to show God’s divine hand in all of this. What were the odds of everyone surviving such a shipwreck? Yet, Paul’s leadership shines through in the narrative. What were the odds that a prisoner would become the de factor leader of this shipwreck?

I think there are some important elements to recognize in this change from lowly prisoner to leader. Paul didn’t strive to become a leader in this situation. He was simply trying to help. Leadership should perhaps not be seen as a status so much as a service. Leadership works best when it is not a prize to grasp to your chest, but a humbling responsibility. Christians should work to serve others and let leadership develop (or not) on its own. Paul did not take a position of formal leadership, but he did function as leader. People followed him because he knew what he was doing, not because he had politically maneuvered himself into a position of authority. His leadership emerged in a time of crisis when no one else had any answers. Functional leadership often works that way, particularly in a democratic society (a ship whose company votes on its itinerary is indeed a democracy in microcosm). 

Paul’s leadership was probably not perceived as “spiritual” by the ship’s company. However, his practical advice and proven ability enhanced the preaching of the gospel. His competence in this time of crisis surely made his fellows more willing to listen to him about faith in Jesus as the Messiah. His skillfulness gave the gospel credibility it would not otherwise have had.

We see God’s sovereignty once more, but we also see His care for human beings. There is no place safer than the place of obedience to the Word of God. In human perspective, Paul lived in constant danger, but he was never more safe or secure than when he was on his way to Rome. God’s mission for Paul was to go to Rome and preach the gospel. The angry mob in Jerusalem, the Sanhedrin’s plot to kill him, the two years imprisoned by Felix, the bungling of Festus – all were used by God to bring Paul to this point. Paul’s safety and deliverance were so certain that it was sufficient for those with him. For Paul’s sake, all the passengers on board his ship were spared from the storm and all of the prisoners were spared from execution by the soldiers. How often, I wonder, are others benefited by the presence of a believer? If there were but 10 righteous in the city of Sodom, God would have spared the city for the sake of those righteous (Genesis 18:22-33). Is this principle of extended “deliverance” perhaps an explanation of Paul’s comments in 1 Corinthians 7, that the unbeliever is sanctified on account of the believer?

If you are a Christian, the same safety Paul experienced is yours, when you are walking in obedience to God’s commands and within His purposes. Whatever God has promised to do, He will do. When you are walking in accordance with God’s purposes, whatever obstacles to the accomplishing of His will are encountered, He will overcome. Whatever dangers might arise, He will protect His people, in accordance with His purposes and promises.

“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath {of God} through Him. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” (Romans 5:8-10).

“{For I am} confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:6).

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to {obtain} an inheritance {which is} imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, that the proof of your faith, {being} more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.” (1 Peter 1:3-9).

Paul was kept safe, and as a result, all of those with him were saved. Their safety was contingent on the presence of Paul and the patience of God. There will come a time, however, when God will take His own to the final safety of heaven and then there will be no protection for the lost. The sovereignty of God will result in the overthrow of His enemies and in the judgment of the wicked. If God’s sovereignty is the source of comfort to the Christian, it is the source of terror for the unbeliever, for God has warned of His coming judgment. It is as certain as the salvation of His own. Flee today to the safety that only in Christ. He has weathered the storm of God’s wrath on the sinner, been battered by the storm of God’s anger toward sin, and He has come forth from death and the grave, to give us new life. If we are not in Christ, Who has weathered the storm, then we must endure the storm ourselves, which leads to our eternal destruction.

The sovereignty of God is not an excuse for our sloppiness. It was the crew of the ship who lived dangerously, foolishly risking the ship, the cargo, and the lives of all on board, just to “get ahead” a little. The potential gains were minimal, while the potential loss was great. I see something of a parable here. Men do those things which they know to be risky, partly for the love of the risk, and often due to some small gain we wish, prompted by a false sense of assurance, and by the hope for some small profit or happiness. Think about drug use or sexual immorality. People pursue these recreations seeking a little pleasure, often at the cost of the loss of their lives and sometimes their souls. The one whose fate was sure and certain on Paul’s ship was the most cautious; those whose ultimate fate was most uncertain were those who lived most dangerously. Paul was a man whose personal safety was assured, and yet who lived with care and caution. The sovereignty of God is no excuse for reckless living.

Some Christians live their lives sloppily, believing that God is sovereign and will, on demand, produce a miracle to deliver us from the fruits of our own foolishness. Paul believed in the power of God and in His infinite control over all things, in heaven and on the earth and he was frequently the instrument through which God’s power was manifested. He spoke prophetically of the fate of the ship and its passengers. He would later, on the island, work signs and wonders. Nevertheless, he did not presume that God would intervene in this instance.

The doctrine of God’s sovereignty is multi-faceted, something which careless and thoughtless Christians often forget or ignore. The sovereignty of God means that God is able to intervene supernaturally, but He is also able to work naturally, through human instruments (like the Roman soldiers and the centurion). Beyond this, God is free to act (or not to act) in any way that He chooses. He is not at our disposal, to carry out our whims or wishes, but we are at His disposal. We dare not presume that God will work a miracle for us, at the time and in the way we choose, due to our foolishness, carelessness, or sin. Paul never presumed that he had God’s power at his command to use when and how he chose. He did not expect a miracle nor did he even ask for one. To Paul, the sovereignty of God was not an excuse to avoid his human obligations or his personal responsibility; it was the motivation for him to live responsibly. The safety of the ship, according to Paul’s words, required the presence of the crew while the safety of the passengers involved their actions in eating a good meal, lightening the ship, and swimming to shore or clinging to some wreckage as it floated to shore. The sovereignty of God is no excuse for us not to work, but the assurance that our work is not in vain as long as it is in the Lord.

Paul and the passengers were saved for the sake of the gospel. Paul was headed to Rome to proclaim the gospel. The passengers lived, I suspect, so that they could hear the gospel and experience the hope the gospel gives to unworthy sinners. These people saw first hand the hope of the gospel in Paul, when all hope was lost. Christianity is not a “fair weather” religion. The gospel sustains men in the greatest storms of life. The gospel would have meant less to the hearers if the trip to Rome had gone quickly and smoothly. The storm brought men and women face to face with death, and with the truth of the gospel.

What a scene it must have been, with Paul standing before this august gathering of celebrities and leaders. They, having arrived and seating themselves, with all due dignity and solemnity; he, in his chains, accompanied, no doubt, by one or more guards. This gathering was, at best, an informal hearing, a favor to Festus, and probably a matter of curiosity to those who attended. It seems Agrippa did not take Paul all that seriously and that no one came expecting or hoping to be converted. It was, as comics, say “A tough crowd!” Perhaps hearing Paul would at least help them understand the mindset of this sub-unit of Judaism, Christianity, and perhaps help them find a way to quell the uprisings and disorder that seemed always to be popping up.

Some men would have been dazzled to stand before the “movers and shakers” of their generation. For Paul, this was just one more in a long series of hearings where his conduct, ministry, and gospel were scrutinized by public officials for some sign of wrongdoing.

While Paul always proclaimed Christ with “fear and trembling” (1 Corinthians 2:1-5), knowing that the gospel was a “stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles” (1Corinthians 1:23), he must also have rejoiced at the opportunity to proclaim Christ before this audience of Caesarean dignitaries. Though powerful and influential, they were lost and Paul had been called to preach the gospel to such as them.

Paul would have made a good lawyer. Quickly figuring out that Agrippa was in charge of the proceedings, Paul engaged the man and complimented him on his expertise in the Law. The issue before them really had little to do with Paul’s own beliefs or conduct, even his alleged crime of attempting to desecrate the temple. The gospel was the central issue here. Was it legitimately part of Judaism or, as the Jews charged, a cult, distinct from and opposed to Judaism? Paul set out to show that the gospel was the fulfillment of the hope of Israel; in other words, Christianity was as Jewish as it gets.

The Jews consistently attempted to disown Christianity in general, and Paul’s preaching in particular, as a “counterfeit Judaism,” a sect which did not have their sanction and which was diametrically opposed to their faith. Paul dealt with the issues through his own example, because his life explained and illustrated the animosity between Judaism and the gospel. Would his Jewish opponents represent Paul as some out-of-town foreigner, who came to Jerusalem to stir up trouble for the Jews? Paul was a Jew, not born in Jerusalem, but a Jew who was brought up there, trained in the strictest order of Judaism. He was no stranger to Judaism or Jerusalem, but was, from his early days as a child, an active, dynamic, leader. And so Paul began his defense by starting at the beginning, with his own faith and practice as a Jew, in Jerusalem.

Paul’s opponents had misrepresented him and his personal religious life. Paul had been well-known before his conversion; if he was now viewed as an enemy of Judaism, it had not always been so. He had once been Judea’s national hero. He had been one of the outstanding young men of Judaism. Paul was accused of forsaking his faith, but this was simply untrue! He was on trial at this moment not for opposing Judaism, but for adhering to it. He was guilty of hoping and believing in the promise made by God concerning the Messiah. Was it possible to be more Jewish than that?

Paul now turned to Agrippa, a Jewish ruler, and asks, “Why is it considered incredible among you people if God does raise the dead?” If belief in the resurrection of the dead is a fundamental premise of Judaism, how was it that the Jews condemn Paul for believing in the resurrection of Jesus? Why did they find believing in an actual instance of resurrection (namely, Jesus) so incredibly difficult? Judaism was not consistent with itself in its response to Paul’s proclamation of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

The watershed issue between Paul and his Jewish opponents was the doctrine of the resurrection, particularly of Jesus. This fueled the fires of opposition against Paul and Christianity. This was the reason for the uprisings associated with Paul, which the Roman leaders were still trying to sort out. Paul then set out to show how he, as an unbelieving Jew, opposed Christianity because of the same failure, and how, through a confrontation with the resurrected Christ, he was converted from an opponent of the gospel to one of its most renowned proponents.

Paul was not unfamiliar with the failure of the Jews to be consistent with their own faith. As an unbelieving Jew, Paul found Christianity with its central doctrine of the resurrection of Jesus, an abhorrent thing, something to be violently opposed. Paul understood the opposition of his Jewish peers because, before he was saved, he’d felt obliged to attack and oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth, Who was worshipped and followed by Christians as the risen Messiah of Israel. He practiced his opposition in Jerusalem and in distant foreign cities. He tried to force Christians to renounce their faith in Jesus as Messiah which was blasphemy. He cast them into prison and enthusiastically voted for their execution as heretics. In his opposition to Jesus, he worked closely with the Sanhedrin, with the cooperation of the chief priests, the very ones who now took the lead in opposing him.

Paul’s opposition to Christianity, to the gospel, had been the result of his own misguided Judaism, which had been exposed and corrected by a direct encounter with the risen Jesus, which Paul now went on to describe as the turning point in his life and in his understanding and practice of Judaism.

Paul did not describe his conversion as some kind of evolution, but rather as a radical transformation, a change from darkness to light, from death to life, from persecuting Christianity to practicing and promoting it. Jesus stopped him dead in the act of actively opposing the church and turned him around. Paul was not seeking the truth; he was convinced that he knew the truth, and that Christianity was a lie. He was not acting independently in his persecution of the Christian community; he had the full consent and authority of the chief priests.

Sharing the bare details of his conversion, Paul moved on to the “divine commission” which was given to him at the time of his conversion. Like every believer, Paul was saved for a reason. Paul was appointed to be both a minister and a witness, not only to the things which he had just seen, but also to those things which were yet to be revealed to him in subsequent appearances.

With this call to be a witness, was the promise of divine protection, both from the Jews and Gentiles, for he was being sent as a witness to both groups. As God’s instrument of salvation, Paul was called to “open the eyes” of those who were blinded by their sin, so that they might “turn from darkness to light,” and “from the dominion of Satan to the kingdom of God.” The goal of this was the “forgiveness of sins” and the reception of “an inheritance,” by all who have been sanctified by faith in Jesus. We read here the gospel in a nutshell.

The Lord commissioned Paul to proclaim the gospel. Plucked from darkness, his eyes now opened, Paul was called to lead others to the light. As Paul received the forgiveness of sins and an eternal inheritance, he now had the privilege of introducing others to that same salvation.

Paul then focused on the consequences of his conversion and commission. His encounter with the resurrected Jesus radically changed his life so that he no longer persecuted the church but preached Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ. The life he now lived was based on his conversion and commission. He refused to disobey his heavenly calling. This led to his persecution by the Jews. His status with them had changed as radically as his status with God. Once a “Hebrew of Hebrews”, a Pharisee of the strictest order, he was now considered a traitor to Judaism. This was the reason for all the Jewish anger and opposition that had culminated in Paul being seized in the temple and nearly beaten to death. He hadn’t desecrated the temple. His only crime was in believing that Jesus is the Messiah and proclaiming that belief. His deliverance from the Jews, though by the hands of Roman officials, was God’s work. Paul would not be silenced because God would not have him silenced.

Paul’s “defense” was a declaration of the gospel. This group, though they thought they were judging Paul and making some decision about his ministry, were actually being forced to make some decision about his message. They were given a choice here – repent and believe what the Jews rejected or ignore God’s calling to them. No report is given of any having come to faith that day, though some may have believed. There’s no question they heard the gospel that day. We just don’t know their response.

The gospel controlled and dominated Paul’s life. He did not speak about Christianity as some academic theory, a topic of great debate and intense opposition. He presented the gospel as the means by which this audience could be saved, calling on them to repent and believe.

Festus could stand it no longer! I can almost hear him mumbling to himself, “What next? Will this Paul give an invitation? Will he have an altar call? This is no defense, it is a crusade!” Festus accused Paul of being out of his mind. Festus protested, “This is insane!” Paul defended his presentation as solemn truth. The words of an insane man cannot be taken seriously; the words which Paul spoke must be taken as a matter of eternal life or death. The gospel is both truth and reality. Paul quickly turned his attention to Agrippa, a Jew, whom Paul believed was convinced that the Old Testament revelation was the Word of God. Agrippa also knew from his own experience that Paul was speaking truthfully and accurately. These were not mad ramblings of a confused mind. Paul’s words, Agrippa must know, were consistent both with Old Testament revelation and with events as they had taken place in Israel. Paul pressed Agrippa for a commitment. Did he believe? Would he believe? Agrippa’s salvation was what was important to Paul. Where did he stand? What would he do? Even if Festus rejected Paul’s words as insanity, Agrippa had much more knowledge. Paul urged him to cross the line and make a commitment to salvation.

Agrippa knew he was on the spot and appeared to be uncomfortable. Seemingly unwilling to believe, yet unable to deny what had been said, his response to Paul has been understood in various ways. Agrippa clearly did not come to faith in that hour. Perhaps he was sincere in saying he needed more time, or perhaps he was merely trying to avoid the issue. Paul was not deterred, picking up the conversation where Agrippa left off. Would Agrippa accuse Paul of trying to convert him? Okay. Paul desired that Agrippa and all the others might be just as he was—saved by grace, through faith in Jesus as the risen Lord. In this, Paul was guilty as charged and proud of it. The interview was over. Things were getting uncomfortable for Paul’s audience. They had come for his trial, but now felt themselves on trial.

The meeting hadn’t been called to give Paul a chance to preach to the dignitaries and seek to convert them. They’d come to hear Paul’s case, so that Festus could report something, anything, to Caesar. As Paul was led away, those gathered together expressed their unanimous conclusion – this man was not guilty of any crime. There really were no charges against Paul that would hold up in court. Paul should never have been brought to trial in the first place.

This was no compliment to his handling of the matter. The reason why Festus had a problem on his hands was because there were no valid charges against Paul. The Jews were wrong. Had Festus dealt with Paul justly, he would not have the problem which he now faced. Agrippa indicated as much. Yet he also deemed Paul foolish to have appealed to Caesar. But for that appeal, Paul would now be a free man. (Perhaps Agrippa was not aware of the plot against Paul in Jerusalem, for he would have realized that to be free in Jerusalem was to be in danger of assassination.) Agrippa was unaware of the divine plan which included Paul’s journey to Rome.

I find it interesting that Paul cared so much about the condition of those who were standing in judgment of him. He was a prisoner, doomed to die, but he was saved, so he was not truly the one in trouble. His audience had the problem, so Paul spoke according to the need. Paul had once been on the fast track to becoming one of these rulers and now he used the story of how he had been turned from that path by an encounter with Jesus. That encounter had shown him that he was mistaken about Judaism and about the Christian connection to it.

I think the problem for Christians today is largely the same problem that Jews had in Paul’s day. We believe some things in principle, but we refuse to believe them in practice and in particular. Today, there are many truths, many doctrines, which professing Christians firmly believe in principle, but refuse to practice in particular. We say we believe in the goodness of God, omniscience (knowing all) and omnipotence (having all power), but when the chips are down and life seems to challenge these truths, we are not so willing to act upon these truths which we claim we believe.

Let’s take the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, for example. We profess to believe that because Jesus was raised from the dead, we, too, shall be raised. What happens when the doctor tells us we have a malignancy? What happens when we are required to take a stand which puts our life in danger? Where, then, is our faith in the resurrection of the dead?

If we fail to believe in practice what we claim to believe in principle, what is the solution? How can we develop a practical faith, which not only believes, but also acts on this belief?

We develop a living faith by living in accordance with the Word of God, in obedience to the commands of our Lord (as given personally by Jesus or through His apostles in the epistles of the New Testament).

I encourage you to read through the entire New Testament, making note of all the commands that are given, either by Jesus in the gospels or by the apostles in the epistles. Then, do them! It will be very difficult to obey these commands apart from believing in the doctrines on which they are based. I think that our practical faith is proportionate to our practice of our faith by our obedience to the commands of Scripture. Would we have a practical faith, and not merely a theoretical one? Then let us practice our faith, by obeying God’s commands.