Monthly Archives: December 2011

False teachers

Theological liberals vs. militant atheists — which do you prefer?

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I was watching a theological liberal do his usual false teachings on this thread and noted with amusement how the atheists cheerily agreed with his religious views.  I pointed out that both should be concerned over that.  If they agreed on their favorite sports teams that would be fine.  But if an atheist or someone from another religion agreed with my foundational points about God I’d be very concerned.

Yes, militant atheists can be annoying, but I’ll take twenty of them over a fake Christian any day.  At least the atheists are fulfilling their job descriptions and there is no confusion over roles.  But the fake Christians really confuse the discussions and fuel the atheists’ false assertions that disagreements within Christianity mean that the religion can’t be true.  Their argument fails on many levels, but the actions of the false teachers give them ammunition.  That was a key theme on the link above: “Christianity must be false because Christians disagree.”

Of course, Christianity clearly predicts divisions:

  1. Many warnings of false teachers and many references to the importance of sound doctrine.
  2. The fact that Christians learn more over time — “milk/meat,” growing in knowledge (Philippians 1:9), etc.
  3. God’s guidance about disputable matters in Romans 14 and elsewhere reveals that He knew we’d have disputable matters and gave us guidance in how to handle them.
  4. Some people think they are saved but aren’t (“I never knew you” from Matthew 7, testing your salvation in 1 John, etc.)
  5. We are told not to violate our consciences, so people are right to worship in denominations that align best with their views on non-essential issues.

Based on that, if all Christians agreed on everything then that would be evidence that the Bible’s predictions failed.  The essentials are what divides Christianity from other religions: Jesus deity, his exclusivity, etc.  You can’t take the Bible seriously and miss those, which is another way of highlighting false teachers.  Example: The fake at the thread thought I was wrong to say that Christians must hold the view that Jesus is the only way to salvation.  My point was simply that if the Bible mentions it 100 times then it seems like something Christians should agree with.

Christianity has fought a two-front war from the beginning: Persecutors on the outside and false teachers on the inside.  Things haven’t changed, so we need to be on guard for both.

I think the bigger enemy is inside.

Bible, Christian worldview

Do Christians want non-believers to go to Hell?

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Of course not.  We spread the Good News because we want to obey Jesus and we want people to avoid eternal punishment.

But you wouldn’t know that by reading criticisms from some atheists.  They think we’re being big meanies by pointing out our belief in an eternal punishment for those who don’t repent and trust in Jesus.

They are missing something obvious, of course.  If we wanted people to go to Hell we’d do like the theological liberals and withhold the Gospel. We’d tell everyone that any path to God will do, or just to conceive God however you want him to be, etc. — basic fake Christian / Hindu / New Age / etc. beliefs.  Think of all the time and money we would save!  Think how much more popular we would be!

Oddly, these folks often give you the “But I like the definition [of being a Christian] being people trying to live according to the teachings of Jesus” view of Christianity as they are ignoring the reality of Hell, Jesus’ exclusivity and divinity, biblical teachings on marriage and the sanctity of human life, etc.  But Jesus’ teachings covered all those things.

How they conflate our warnings about Hell with their view that we want them to go to Hell is puzzling.  It is like saying that by warning people not to steal that you really want them to go to jail.

Jesus said Hell was real and He warned people how to avoid it.  He is the only way to salvation.  Here are a few verses on that topic.  I’ve got lots more if you need them!

John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Acts 4:11-12 He is “‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone.’ Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”

Acts 16:30-31 He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.”

1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

1 John 2:23 No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.

1 John 5:11-12 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

Luke 10:16 “He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.”

Luke 12:8-9 “I tell you, whoever acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man will also acknowledge him before the angels of God. But he who disowns me before men will be disowned before the angels of God.

John 3:18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

John 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.”

John 8:24 I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins.”

John 10:7-8 Therefore Jesus said again, “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.

Christian worldview, Politics

False teachers want to control your guns

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The National Council of Churches and other false teachers want to control your guns, and they do it under the guise of their religion.  See Want Guns In Your Church? The NRA And Their Allies Do for a recent example of their flawed thinking.

Like the National Council of Churches, I maintain that: “Present-day violence is made far worse than it otherwise would be by the prevalence of weapons on our streets.”  

That statement is true but meaningless: Yes, if all weapons were taken away, including knives, fists, etc. then there would be less violence.

But I’ve noticed that people who are willing to steal and kill don’t change their behavior because you tell them they aren’t allowed to have guns.  They get them anyway — sometimes straight from the U.S. Government!  (See the Fast and Furious scandal.)

We need sensible gun control measures in our nation to protect the American people from gun violence, a public health crisis.  

It is sadly ironic that they consider gun violence a health crisis but are pro-abortion, including pro-taxpayer-funded abortion.

The NRA and their politicans in Congress want to expand the “rights” of gun owners so that they can carry weapons into churches and school yards across the nation.

These false teachers are apparently too busy apologizing to Muslims to follow the news about how Christians are getting killed around the world, including violence in their own churches.  If someone wanted to kill Christians, what better place than a church on Sunday morning?  Are the killers going to care if there is a law against taking guns into churches?  I would be glad to have people armed and ready to defend the congregation.

Today The New York Times reports on the violence that has been caused by their victories at the state and local level.  People of faith and mayors are fighting back against the NRA.  As we approach the one year anniversary of the Tucson shootings it is time to double our efforts to stop gun violence in the United States.   

The NYT article was purely speculative and ignored how overturning gun control laws has reduced crime.

This is classically bad reasoning by the false teachers.  They claim to want to change people but consciously avoid sharing the real Gospel, which is the only biblical way to truly change hearts and minds.  Of course you can count the people who get hurt by guns, but what they fail to consider is the law of unintended consequences: What happens when criminals know the victims are unarmed?  Does that reduce or increase crime?  How about the lives saved because of people who could defend themselves?  And so on.

 

Politics

Kindergarten politics

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And by the title I don’t mean the politics of Kindergarteners (as vicious as those can be!), I mean when elected officials do thoroughly childish things and think we won’t see through them.  The latest example is President Obama’s grandstanding on House Republicans rejection of a 2-month payroll tax cut.

Does anyone seriously think that a two-month extension would have a significant effect on the economy?  Of course not.  This is a transparent game to make it look like the Republicans are trying to “raise taxes.”  The Democrats remember how pressuring President George H. Bush to raise taxes worked to get Clinton elected, so they strive to trick Republicans into raising taxes again.  Hopefully the Republicans will continue to see through the games and force the hands of Obama and the Senate to accept or a reject a longer term deal to keep the taxes down.

Unfortunately for the Democrats, now that they took the short-term populist approach of cutting payroll taxes it will be almost impossible to raise them again.  No Republican will want to oppose letting the cuts expire, even though it technically wouldn’t be a tax increase.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Tuesday rejected legislation to extend a payroll tax cut and jobless benefits for two months, drawing a swift rebuke from President Barack Obama that Republicans were threatening higher taxes on 160 million American workers on Jan. 1.

Obama said the two-month compromise is the only way to stop payroll taxes from going up by two percentage points.

“Now let’s be clear,” Obama said in a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room after the House vote. “The bipartisan compromise that was reached on Saturday is the only viable way to prevent a tax hike on January 1st. The only one.”

Uh, the only one except the case where the Senate and Obama agree to a longer period.

Obama said failure to pass the Senate version of the payroll tax cut extension could endanger the U.S. economic recovery, which he described as “fragile but moving in the right direction.”

Obama is gearing up to run for a second term in next November’s elections and there have been suggestions he will borrow a tactic from a past president and charge that a do-thing Congress is responsible for the country’s ills.

Another option would be to get involved and actually lead.

House Republicans controlling the chamber instead of a two-month extension want immediate negotiations with the Senate on a year-long plan. But the Senate’s top Democrat on Tuesday again ruled out talks until the House passes the stopgap measure.

“President Obama needs to call on Senate Democrats to go back into session … and resolve this bill as soon as possible,” said the Republican leader of the House, Speaker John Boehner. “I need the president to help out.”

 

Bible, Favorites

Reverse missionaries

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u-turn.jpgTypical evangelism for any religion involves someone going out at some degree of expense and risk to share what one believes to be true.  It is a pretty simple and logical concept: If you think you know the true path to forgiveness, joy, peace and eternal life and you truly care about others, then of course you’ll want to share the Good News (regardless of how you define it).

However, some people hold the view that all religions are equally valid paths to God.  As I was reflecting on the discussions on the Jesus is still the only way thread, I was reminded that people who hold that view should have a completely different model of evangelism.  Wouldn’t it be most loving for them to send “reverse missionaries” to encourage everyone to follow their local religions?  After all, consider the persecuted people around the world who could avoid pain, suffering, economic loss, prison and even death if they just held beliefs more palatable to their culture.

For example, you’d want to send people to Christians in India, N. Korea, China, all Arab countries and more to explain to them that Hinduism/Islam/Buddhism/etc. are just as good and that they should leave Christianity to maximize their comfort and happiness.  If you follow any organizations like Voice of the Martyrs you are probably familiar with how much Christians suffer for their faith in many parts of the world.  Why suffer like that if other religions are just as good?

And loving universalists (those who believe everyone is going to Heaven, regardless of what they believe) should go to China to encourage people to be atheists.

What a tragedy that hundreds of thousands or even millions of Christians died unnecessarily for their faith over the centuries.  They should have just recanted and gone with the local religion, right?

What I’ve found is that religious pluralists and universalists do no such thing. They typically think their “home religion” is correct (why else would they belong to those denominations?) but are afraid to offend someone or risk rejection for sharing their view, or perhaps are unwilling to work to learn their beliefs well enough to defend them.

Shouldn’t false teachers who insist that all religions lead to God lend their time and money to being reverse missionaries?  Yet I never hear of them undertaking such efforts to reduce the “needless” suffering of Christians around the world.  Real faith is behaving as if what you say you believe is true.  Yet these folks don’t follow through to the logical consequences of their worldview.  This is one of the easiest ways to spot false teachers.

Of course, since I hold the view that Jesus is the one way to salvation then it is on my heart to share that with people.

If you encounter “Christians” claiming that other or even all religions are valid paths to God, ask them simply and politely if that means we should end Christian evangelism efforts and “evangelize” people to follow whatever “valid” religion will result in the least persecution for them.

Politics, Pro-life

Whoa — I agreed with Planned Parenthood again!

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[Discerning readers will note the past tense in the title.]

First, it was their 1964 advertisement that accurately stated, among other things, that “An abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun.”  Even if I haven’t agreed with them since I was 1 yr. old, I’m always looking for common ground.

Now I found out that we agreed again on a similar truth: Life begins at fertilization.

OK well it was 1951 but still, Planned Parenthood said it!  The brochure, titled, “The Gift of Life” was discovered at a Berkeley estate sale by the San Francisco Weekly.  On page 21-22 you will read the following; “If one of the new male sperm meets and unites with an egg cell, a new life begins.”

Did they learn anything about science in the few years after that when they changed their minds about life beginning at fertilization and that abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun? Of course not. The facts of science couldn’t be more clear: A new human being is created at conception.   They just lie now for the money and to advance their worldview.  To make a living they crush and dismember innocent but unwanted human beings.
As always, I’m too pro-science to be pro-choice.  When people bring up the “we don’t know when life begins” canard I highly encourage you to use this link about the scientific position plus the quotes by Planned Parenthood noted above .  Use them gently and people may see that Planned Parenthood and the like know the truth about when life begins as well as pro-lifers do, but they go on killing anyway.
Media, Politics

Did your media inform you of these stories?

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microphone.jpgIf not, you should consider expanding your horizons*.  This week’s list:

1.  NYT silent on shocking Hollywood pedophilia charges.  The evil Fox News had this story, but the NY Times did not.  (I don’t watch Fox, but I do read Hot Air).

Apparently, pedophilia is an entrenched part of Hollywood culture — but you wouldn’t know that if you only consulted The New York Times for news. Check out this Fox News account of just some of the muck that underlies Hollywood’s glamorous gilding:

If a spate of recent allegations proves true, Hollywood may have a hideous epidemic on its hands. The past two weeks have brought three separate reports of alleged child sexual abuse in the entertainment industry.

Martin Weiss, a 47-year-old Hollywood manager who represented child actors, was charged in Los Angeles on Dec. 1 with sexually abusing a former client. His accuser, who was under 12 years old during the time of the alleged abuse, reported to authorities that Weiss told him “what they were doing was common practice in the entertainment industry.” Weiss has pleaded not guilty.

On Nov. 21, Fernando Rivas, 59, an award-winning composer for “Sesame Street,” was arraigned on charges of coercing a child “to engage in sexually explicit conduct” in South Carolina. The Juilliard-trained composer was also charged with production and distribution of child pornography.

Registered sex offender Jason James Murphy, 35, worked as a casting agent in Hollywood for years before his past kidnapping and sexual abuse of a boy was revealed by the Los Angeles Times on Nov. 17. Murphy’s credits include placing young actors in kid-friendly fare like “Bad News Bears,” “The School of Rock,” “Cheaper by the Dozen 2” and the forthcoming “Three Stooges.”

What’s worse: Former child stars like Corey Feldman (“Lost Boys”) and Alison Arngrim (“Little House on the Prairie”) have said these three isolated, independent charges of child abuse are indicative of a much broader problem. Their quotes are chilling:

Corey Feldman [made] eye-opening remarks in August to ABC’s “Primetime Nightline” that “the No. 1 problem in Hollywood was and is and always will be pedophilia. That’s the biggest problem for children in this industry … It’s the big secret.”

Alison Arngrim, the veteran Hollywood actress best known for her role decades ago as Nellie on “Little House on the Prairie,” has said, “This (the abuse of children) has been going on for a very long time.

“If a child actor is being sexually abused by someone on the show, is the family, agents or managers – the people who are getting money out of this – going to say, ‘OK, let’s press charges’? No, because it’s going to bring the whole show to a grinding halt, and stop all the checks,” says Arngrim. “So, the pressure is there not to say anything.”

P.S. Paging Lady Gaga … Wouldn’t this kind of child molestation qualify as bullying in a big way?

Yes, it seems like the anti-bullying stars (who only seem to oppose bullying of gays, whereas conservatives oppose all bullying) should be bold and brave and “out” the molesters.  But that might cost them something.

2. It is fair game to criticize Rick Perry and anyone else who forgets things they should know.  But does your media give equal time to Liberal gaffes? 

Said Obama while looking around the room: “We are honored to be joined by… one of the Justice of the Supreme Court Ruth.” At this moment the President made a move with his forehead and eyes saying “ah…” and then looked down at his papers and said “Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is here.”

This of course is worse than when Texas Governor Perry who was clearly referring to a specific 8-1 ruling said “eight unelected Justices,” nor is the same as when Perry said “Not Montemayor,” knowing clearly that he does not have the correct name of Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Or how about the NY Congresswoman who hadn’t heard of “Fast and Furious?”  She not only misses out on it in the news but doesn’t even notice it at work!

3. ACORN was exposed by conservative journalists.  The Mainstream (Leftist) Media would have ignored them completely – just like they are ignoring that ACORN is back in the form of the Occupy Movement.

When the radical group ACORN was shut down, Jeff Quinton at Quinton Reports reminds us, the state and local chapters of ACORN reconstituted themselves as new non-profits. And guess what they’ve been up to lately?

In more than two dozen cities across the nation Tuesday, an offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movementtook on the housing crisis by re-occupying foreclosed homes, disrupting bank auctions and blocking evictions.
Occupy Our Homes said it’s embarking on a “national day of action” to protest the mistreatment of homeowners by big banks, who they say made billions of dollars off of the housing bubble by offering predatory loans and indulging in practices that took advantage of consumers.

4. The “Fast and Furious” debacle has been barely covered by the Mainstream Media, especially the part about its goal to to undermine legal firearm ownership.

5. While the Obama administration is aggressively exporting its pro-gay ideology to other countries (basically forcing their beliefs on others), they are silent on religious persecution.

We all know about the report of the Obama Administration saying it will check to see what countries are doing on the gay rights front to make sure gays are not being persecuted. But at the same time the Obama Administration has decided to not reauthorize the bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

The Commission investigates religious liberty issues around the world and informs the State Department about nations persecuting people because of religion, including Christians.

In other words, we’re going to start checking up on how countries treat gays and lesbians, but Obama wants to shut down the Commission that investigates how countries treat citizens who believe in God.

6. Do death threats qualify as bullying if they are made against Christians?  Apparently not.  See Charges Filed as Oklahoma City Pastor Paul Blair Gets Death Threats after Opposing Pro-Homosexual Ordinance.  Fortunately the legal system is stepping in here, but don’t expect to hear about this in any Liberal media outlets.

 

*One of the best time-savers when discussing politics with Liberals is to ask what conservative media they consume. Typical answer: [Crickets chirping]. Then you politely note that you consume plenty of media from both sides and then form your opinions. That isn’t what makes you right (well, it makes you Right but not necessarily correct), but it does mean you have examined the issues from both sides while they probably haven’t. (Yes, they could pose the same question to you, but I don’t know anyone who can only consume conservative media. The Leftist mainstream media is very, very hard to avoid.)

Bible

About those Canaanites . . .

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The word genocide gets thrown around a lot when people try to criticize God and the clearing out of the Promised Land.  Richard Dawkins particularly likes it, especially when trying to dodge debates with William Lane Craig.

That term fails on a couple of levels, not the least of which is that these people were thoroughly guilty.  They had done all sorts of things such as sacrificing their children on super-heated metal images of their gods (see Leviticus 18 for a laundry list of things these charmers had done for 400 years).

I highly recommend this link for an overview of the Canaanite issue: We Don’t Hate Sin. So We Don’t Understand What Happened To The Canaanites.  Too many Christians try to apologize for God and rationalize away the meaning of the text.  I remember one guy teaching a Bible study who insisted that God didn’t really say that, but the Israelites made it up to rationalize taking over the land.  This is far too common.

The question that remains is what do you think of God for commanding such a thing? Does God have a right to do with His creation as He pleases? If you have a problem with the selective judgment of the Canaanites then how do you feel about the almost complete destruction wrought by God of the whole world during the Flood? And how do you feel about the impending destruction of everything at Armageddon?

Too many people made themselves god and the arbiters of what is good and evil, and even those standards are flexible and incoherent.

We need to look to God for what is truly holy.  He is the Lord of the universe, and He sets the terms and conditions.  His terms of surrender are wildly generous, but you must come to him on his terms, not yours.

P.S. Speaking of God’s holiness, you can currently get a free Kindle version of The Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul!  (You don’t have to have a Kindle to read it — you can use the PC Version of the Kindle).

Economics, Politics

Some good ideas for the college loan problem

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Hey, if you want to get a degree in a field with little or no demand* then don’t be surprised if you end up with a lot of debt and no job.

The government has been the problem here, not the solution.  The part in bold is a must-read, as it gives a simple explanation of how the government has wreaked havoc with the student loan crisis and the housing crisis in typical “ignoring human nature and the law of unintended consequences” style.  Via Glenn Reynolds: Let’s put colleges on the hook for loans that their students can’t repay:

How do you solve the problem of young adults earning worthless degrees and a truckload of debt? Three ways. One: The Chinese way, which, while characteristically direct, is probably too authoritarian for most Americans’ tastes. Two: End federal student loans. Let kids take their chances with private lenders, who’ll need assurances up front before they lay out the cash that they’ll get a return on their investment after graduation. This idea would, I assume, die a grisly death after the first round of “all Jimmy/Sally wanted to do was go to State but he/she couldn’t get the money” stories. Three: The Reynolds way.

This is a simple case of inflation: When you artificially pump up the supply of something (whether it’s currency or diplomas), the value drops. The reason why a bachelor’s degree on its own no longer conveys intelligence and capability is that the government decided that as many people as possible should have bachelor’s degrees.

There’s something of a pattern here. The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle class people.

But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter, and stay in, the middle class.

Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them. One might as well try to promote basketball skills by distributing expensive sneakers…

For higher education, the solution is more value for less money. Student loans, if they are to continue, should be made dischargeable in bankruptcy after five years — but with the school that received the money on the hook for all or part of the unpaid balance.

* that is, degrees such as Lesbian Astrology (it is possible I made that up) or Women’s Studies (sadly, I didn’t make that up).

Bible

Do you read the Old Testament?

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If you have never read all of it — and I mean all  of it — then you really should.  I’m reading through it chronologically this year, which is a nice change from reading it straight through.  For example, as I’m going through 1 Samuel it mixed in some Psalms related to those passages.

Here are some good reasons from Got Questions?

Question: “Why should I read the Old Testament?”

Answer: The Bible is a progressive revelation. If you skip the first half of any good book and try to finish it; you will have a hard time understanding the characters, the plot, and the ending. In the same way, the New Testament is only completely understood when it is seen as being built upon the foundation of the events, characters, laws, sacrificial system, covenants, and promises of the Old Testament. If we only had the New Testament, we would come to the gospels and not know why the Jews were looking for a Messiah (a Savior King). Without the Old Testament, we would not understand why this Messiah was coming (see Isaiah 53); we would not have been able to identify Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah through the many detailed prophecies that were given concerning Him (e.g., His birth place (Micah 5:2); His manner of death (Psalm 22, especially vv. 1,7-8, 14-18; Psalm 69:21, etc.), His resurrection (Psalm 16:10), and many more details of His ministry (Isaiah 52:13.; 9:2, etc.).

Without the Old Testament, we would not understand the Jewish customs that are mentioned in passing in the New Testament. We would not understand the perversions the Pharisees had made to God’s law as they added their traditions to it. We would not understand why Jesus was so upset as He cleansed the temple courtyard. We would not understand that we can make use of the same wisdom that Christ used in His many replies to His adversaries (both human and demonic).

Without the Old Testament we would miss out on numerous detailed prophecies that could only have come true if the Bible is God’s word, not man’s (see the major and minor prophets) (e.g., Daniel 7 and following chapters). These prophecies give specific details about the rise and fall of nations, how they will fall, if they will rise again, which powers would be next to emerge, who the major players would be (Cyrus, Alexander the Great, etc.), and what would happen to their kingdoms when those players died. These detailed prophecies are so accurate that skeptics charge they had to have been written after the fact.

The Old Testament also contains numerous lessons for us through the lives of its many fallible characters. By observing their lives we can be encouraged to trust God no matter what (Daniel 3), and to not compromise in the little things (Daniel 1) so that we will be faithful later in the big things (Daniel 6). We can learn that it is best to confess sin early and sincerely instead of blame-shifting (1 Samuel 15). We can learn not to play with sin, because it will find us out and its bite is deadly (See Judges 13-16). We can learn that we need to trust (and obey) God if we expect to experience His promised-land living in this life and His paradise in the next (Numbers 13). We learn that if we contemplate sin, we are only setting ourselves up for committing it (Genesis 3; Joshua 6-7). We learn that our sin has consequences not only for ourselves but for our loved ones around us and conversely that our good behavior has rewards not only for us but for those who are around us as well (Genesis 3; Exodus 20:5-6).

The Old Testament also contains vast quantities of wisdom that the New Testament does not share. Many of these are contained in the Psalms and Proverbs. These bits of wisdom reveal how I can be wiser than my teachers, what various sins will lead to (it helps us to see the hook that the bait is hiding), and what accomplishments in this world hold for us (nothing!). How can I recognize whether I am a fool (moral fool, that is)? How can I inadvertently turn people off without trying? How can I open doors to lasting success? How can I find meaning in life? Again, there is so much there that is just waiting to be found by one who truly wants to learn.

Without the Old Testament, we would not have a basis for standing against the error of the politically correct perversions of our society in which evolution is seen to be the creator of all of the species over millions of years (instead of them being the result of special creation by God in a literal six days). We would buy the lie that marriages and the family unit are an evolving structure that should continue to change as society changes, instead of being seen as a design by God for the purpose of raising up godly children and for the protection of those who would otherwise be used and abused (most often women and children).

Without the Old Testament, we would not understand the promises God will yet fulfill to the Jewish nation. As a result, we would not properly see that the Tribulation period is a seven-year period in which He will specifically be working with the Jewish nation who rejected His first coming but who will receive Him at His second coming. We would not understand how Christ’s future 1,000-year reign fits in with His promises to the Jews, nor how the Gentiles will fit in. Nor would we see how the end of the Bible ties up the loose ends that were unraveled in the beginning of the Bible, how God will restore the paradise He originally created this world to be, and how we will enjoy close companionship with Him on a personal basis as in the Garden of Eden.

In summary, the Old Testament is a mirror that allows us to see ourselves in the lives of Old Testament characters and helps us learn vicariously from their lives. It sheds so much light on who God is and the wonders He has made and the salvation He has wrought. It shares so much comfort to those in persecution or trouble (see Psalms especially). It reveals through repeatedly fulfilled prophecy why the Bible is unique among holy books—it alone is able to demonstrate that it is what it claims to be: the inspired Word of God. It reveals volumes about Christ in page after page of its writings. It contains so much wisdom that goes beyond what is alluded to or quoted in the New Testament. In short, if you have not yet ventured in depth into its pages, you are missing much that God has available for you. As you read it, there will be much you do not understand right away, but there will be much you will understand and learn from. And as you continue to study it, asking God to teach you further, your mining will pay off in brighter treasures still.