New Testment Scholar Dr. Daniel Wallace on the Gospel of Mark discovery, and other Biblical papyri

Enjoy:  New Testment Scholar Daniel Wallace on the Gospel of Mark discovery, and other Biblical papyri with it

A skeptical writer has compiled a comparative image of the new fragment from the Gospel of Mark along side the text from the  Codex Sinaiticus:

For the Greek geeks who read this blog, here's how these passages (Mk 5:15-18) line up in the online digital version of Codex Sinaiticus:

καιηρχοντοπροϲ

τονινκαιθεωρου

ϲιτονδαιμονιζο

μενονκαθημε

νονϊματιϲμενο

καιϲωφρονουν

τατονεϲχηκοτα

τονλεγιωνακαιε

φοβηθηϲαν

καιδιηγηϲαντο

αυτοιϲοιϊδοντεϲ

πωϲεγενετοτω

δαιμονιζομενω

καιπεριτωνχοι

ρωνκαιηρξαντο

παρακαλιναυτο

απελθιναποτω

οριωναυτων

καιεμβαινοντοϲ

αυτουειϲτοπλοιο

παρεκαλειαυτο

HT:  Triablogue

Why Does the God of Romans 1 have to be Trinitarian?

An e-mail responder asked:

Can you tell me how should I then respond say for example to my biologically older brother who may use the Fristian approach to my defense of the christian faith?  How do I respond to him, what is the way to go about doing it?

The "Fristian objection" occurs when a detractor says, "Why do I need to appeal to the Trinity to make sense out of reality?  Why not a god that has four members in the godhead instead of three?  Why does it have to be a Trinity instead of say, a 'quadrinity'"?  A brief answer follows below:

1. We know that God can't be four-in-one because Scripture says so.  Either the all-knowing God of Scripture tells us who He is in such a way that we can know enough about Him to speak accurately about His nature or we're left to guessing.  The problem with natural revelation is that it doesn't give you specific information about God other than the fact that He's powerful, absolute, and personal.  This is why God has given us Scripture, which is also known as special revelation.  Scripture tells us that "In Him we live, and move, and exist" (Acts 17:28).  The "Him" in that verse has revealed some things about His character and nature in Scripture such that we can know them for certain, and one of those things is His Trinitarian nature.  The Father is God (Eph. 1:3); Jesus is God (John 20:28), and the Holy Spirit is God (2 Cor. 3:17).  We do not defend just any old god. Our defense is to stand up for the God of Scripture because we are commanded to do so (2 Cor. 10:4-5).
2. If the detractor is an atheist make sure that you explain to him that he just gave up his atheism in order to defend his atheism.
3. We are defending the God that is revealed in Romans chapter 1 and the rest of Scripture. In other words, Paul does not say that creation and conscience can reveal to us that God is explicitly trinitarian.  How would this be possible?  What Romans one tells us is that the creation reveals to us that God is the powerful, personal creator. We also know that we are morally accountable to our Creator. Therefore, our argument is not that the creation explicitly reveals a Trinitarian God, but that it reveals that God is indeed the creator, is powerful, and holds us morally responsible for our actions.  When someone brings up the Fristian objection, you can explain that God has not only revealed himself in creation, but has also revealed himself in Scripture and that the only way we're going to know anything specific about God's nature beyond what He's revealed to us in creation is if He Himself reveals it to us, and He has done this in Scripture.  When he says," How do you know that the God of Scripture is the true God and that some other god does not provide the preconditions for the intelligibility of reality?" it is then that you can respond, "Because there is no other god that has been revealed to us other than the God that is in Scripture and then upon philosophical, evidential, and historical examination, all existing worldviews fail to provide what's needed to make sense out of reality."

Thus, the only way you are going to know whether God is four persons in one being or three persons one being is if God himself reveals that to you such that you can know it for certain. This specific revelation has been given to us in the Bible.

IN CONCLUSION, how do we know that the Trinitarian God is the one true God versus some god that we haven't heard about yet? The answer is simple, the god of Romans one has revealed himself to us in Scripture, and that God is a Trinitarian God. Again, when the "Fristian objection" comes up, the appeal must be made to Scripture and not to philosophical arguments to try to prove the Trinitarian nature of the one true God.  If he argues that this is special pleading, you can say in response," No, this isn't special pleading, it's special revelation."

Debate: Daniel Wallace & Bart Ehrman 2012 Audio/Video

What follows is a scholarly dialogue on the origins, the transmission, and the reliability of the New Testament.  Since we don't have the original manuscripts can we trust the copies passed down to us? How accurate is our New Testament today? Daniel B. Wallace and Bart Ehrman debate the topic: Is The Original New Testament Lost? Q&A follows the discussion. Video can be found on YouTube here. See also the great website The Ehrman Project for more great resources.

Full Debate MP3 Audio here. (2 hr)

Romans 8:28 and Perspective

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.  For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; 

The Lord Jesus was pleased to test me today for my good and His eternal glory.  I only got four hours of work when I was originally supposed to work eight and my whole work schedule was canceled for Thursday when I originally had an entire day scheduled.  Since four out of six people in my house are sick with norovirus, I had to stop by the grocery store to get some electrolyte replenishing liquids, and then my car battery was dead when I went to leave the grocery store.  I had a Torah keeper come by and plead the blood of the Lamb over my hood while I waited on jumper cables from my father-in-law, and then the jumper cables didn't work.  The tow-truck took over an hour to get there (arrived @ 7:45 p.m., I arrived at the grocery store @ 6 p.m., we called the tow-truck at @ 6:40 p.m.).  I had to leave the car with my father-in-law in the grocery store parking lot so that the tow-truck guy could pick up the car while I went home to feed the starving kids as my wife lay sick in the bed on Valentine's day.  I finally rolled in @ 8:30 p.m. after picking up my father-in-law from the mechanic's parking lot and my beautiful 3 year old is sitting on my lap now waiting for me to show her "A Guy on a Buffalo" video from YouTube while I still have about 1.5-2 hours of work to do on tomorrow night's lesson on 1st John 1:1-4.  Oh, and by the way, I'm not guaranteed any secular employment next month, I have no health insurance, my wife is pregnant with our fourth child, and according to our OB-GYN, our preborn child may be in danger of dying due to a supposed deformity in the womb.  Now, if you had a day like that, how would you do respond?  Would you give thanks for the test, recognizing it as part of God's plan to conform you to the image of His Son, or would you hate God in your heart for it?  Its all a matter of perspective my friends . . . a Romans 8:28 perspective.

Apologetic Methodology in a Nut Shell

The following excellent article is written by a friend of mine named Fred Butler.  I have re-posted it unaltered without his permission.  Hopefully he won't mind since I think his article is excellent.  

I have an opportunity in a month or so to teach on the subject of apologetics.  I'll probably have a one evening shot for maybe 50 minutes to an hour, so I am having to whittle down my notes to fit the occasion.  I figure someone will raise the questions: "Can you explain what presuppositional apologetics is, and how is it different from evidentialist apologetics?"  Anticipating those questions, I sketched out a bullet point outline defining presuppositionalism and what I think are the key distinctions with evidentialism.  I thought I would share to see what feedback I may get.

_______________________

Basically, presuppositionalism and evidentialism represent two apologetic methodologies that attempt to make a case for the Christian faith in light of unbelief.  As Christians, we should strive to make our apologetic case for Christianity God honoring, biblically based, and theologically sound.  Evidentialism is the apologetic methodology the average church going, "Red State" evangelical Christian is familiar with.  In fact, I call evidentialism "popular apologetics" because it is the methodology presented in the popular apologetic books found in the typical Christian bookstore and is taught on Christian radio and in other media presentations.  

As harsh as this may sound to some - perhaps even many - I think evidentialism is neither God honoring, nor biblically based, nor theologically sound.  I say that because proponents who advocate evidentialism are merely attempting to prove the possibility of God's existence and the viability of the Christian worldview, rather than proclaim the reality of God and the truth of Christianity.  Such an objective dishonors the Lord, because evidentialists typically keep the Bible out of the discussion (they believe you have to prove its dependability first), and thus, this makes their overall apologetic theologically unsound. 

Presuppositionalism, I believe, reflects more accurately the apologetic utilized by Christians in the book of Acts, and hence, it is the model we need to employ in our evangelistic and apologetic endeavors.

Using presuppositionalism as the focus, let me contrast the two systems:

1) Presuppositionalism defends the totality of the Christian worldview when engaging unbelief. 

*By unbelief I mean:

• Those opposed to the Christian faith by either apathy or outright hostility.
• Those who may claim some Christian "affiliation" but inconsistently live out their "faith" or religious practice.
• Religious faith outside biblical Christianity.

2) The presuppositionalist defends the totality of the Christian worldview by beginning with a most certain and unquestioned commitment to,

• The inspiration and infallibility of Scripture as a Divine revelation.
• The reality and existence of our Divine Creator. 
• The acknowledgement and submission to Christ's sovereign lordship over all areas of human existence.  
• The supernatural work of God to convert the hearts of sinners.

3) A presuppositionalist seeks to engage the unbeliever by challenging the totality of his or her specific worldview.  Such things as a person's truth claims, dogmatism, fundamental convictions; how the person lives, interacts with the world, what he or she believes about reality, why we are here, where we are going, etc.

4) Presuppositionalism is distinguished from the "evidentialist" approach, what I personally term, "popular apologetics," along two foundational disagreements:

• Evidentialists believe various lines of evidence are self-authenticating and sufficient within themselves as "proofs" for God's existence, the veracity of Scripture, and the truth claims of the Christian faith.  
• Though evidentialists believe men are fallen and are sinners, they believe man still retains his reasoning faculties so that he can learn spiritual things about God.  The Ratio Christi apologetic university network affirm this viewpoint under their basic belief statement under the heading, “Concerns about Apologetic Methodology:”

It is our belief, however, that the Scriptures testify to the fact that man, though corrupted by sin, is still made in the image of God and has been given reasoning faculties that can be used to gain important, though limited, data from nature about reality and theology.

5) Presuppositionalists, on the other hand, believe that men are created in the image of God, yet are completely fallen including their reasoning facilities.  What is understood as the "noetic effects of the fall," (Rom. 8:6,7; 1 Cor. 2:14-16; Eph. 4:17, 18). 

• This does not mean unbelievers are stupid and "unreasonable" and thus unable to function as people in a society. Rather, it means their reasoning cannot learn about spiritual things and biblical truth apart from a divine work of regeneration. Their unbelief and rejection of the Christian faith is not one lacking "evidence," or having it explained to them correctly, but is fundamentally a moral/spiritual problem. 
• In fact, The Bible tells us all unbelievers intuitively know God exists, but due to their spiritual disconnect and heart rebellion against God, they suppress that knowledge of God and attempt to explain it away by the philosophical constructs of their personal worldview.

 6) Therefore, presuppositionalists believe there is no "neutral" evidence.  Meaning, evidence is NOT self-authenticating and sufficient within itself as "proofs" for the Christian faith.  All evidence has to be understood and interpreted according to the "fear of the Lord." (Prov. 1:7, 9:10)  In other words, all evidence is God's evidence and we seek to understand it according to a comprehensive, biblically informed framework.

7) Unbelievers, in spite of how smart they may be, or "open-minded" to consider the "evidence," interpret all evidence according to a set of unquestioned presuppositions (from whence "presuppositional apologetics" gets its name).  Because unbelievers are unspiritual, and not submitted to God's authority, they interpret any "evidence" contrary to belief in the revealed God of Scripture. 

8) The strategy of the apologist, then, as noted under #3, is to engage the worldview of the unbeliever.  What Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 10:4, 5 as "pulling down strongholds" and "casting down arguments." The "pulling" and "casting" down involves challenging those unquestioned presuppositions that give shape to the unbeliever's fundamental convictions and overall faith commitments, thus forcing him to "justify" or "give a reason" why those presuppositions should be trusted. 

9) The goal of the apologist then, is to:

• Challenge the validity of those presuppositions.
• Attempt to demonstrate, through personal interaction, how the unbeliever lives out his life inconsistently to what he knows in his "heart of hearts" is true about God and reality. 
• Show him the sinful folly of trusting those presuppositions apart from the revealed God of Scripture. 
• Trust that it is God's Spirit Who is the one Who convinces the person of spiritual truth, not evidence or correctly presented philosophical argumentation.

Super Bowl 2012 Outreach Report

Notice the cross in the midst of the sea of people bowing down to their "golden calf".

INTRODUCTION:  This past weekend, I along with 100 other evangelists teamed up with Sports Fan Outreach International to bring the gospel to the 2012 Super Bowl crowd.  My Canadian friends, Sye Ten Bruggencate and Cory McKeena joined the rest of our team for 3 spiritually and physically grueling yet God-glorifying days in Indianapolis, Indiana.  It was a real blessing to shine the light of Christ's gospel in the midst of spiritual darkness with a cadre of like-minded Christian soldiers.  I share the following videos for your edification:












I will put up more videos as I have time to upload them.  The schedule was physically grueling and was designed to wear us down a little to prevent too much dependence upon the flesh and promote dependence upon the Spirit.  Here's how the schedule went so that you can get an idea about the intensity of the days as they unfolded:

SUPERBOWL OUTREACH 2012 | ITINERARY

Thursday, February 2nd

• 3:30-4:45 a.m. - Team leader Justin Edwards and I get up at 3:30 a.m. to meet with our team to leave Charlotte by 4:45 a.m for Indianapolis.  We anticipated getting there by 5:30 p.m., but didn't arrive until @ 8 p.m. due to I-40 being closed at a particular point and us having to take a detour in Louisville, KY.  Not to mention, our team leader became sick and we thought that surely we too were going to get sick since we were breathing the same air. 
• 8:00 p.m.  - We were able to hear the final parts of Tony Miano's presentation about the dangers of “nomadic” evangelism and the need to abide in Christ unto perseverance.  We then headed back to our cabins for fellowship, singing, and discussion about the pros/cons of various apologetic methods.  We probably got to sleep @ 12:30 p.m.

Friday, February 3rd

• 6:30 a.m. - Rise and shine. 
• 7:00 a.m. - Prayer followed by a fellowship breakfast
• 9:00 - 10:30 a.m. - Teaching on the role of the evangelist in the local church.
• 11:00 - 9:30 - Traveled to downtown Indianapolis for open air preaching, one-on-one evangelism, and tract distribution.
• 11:00 p.m. -1:00 a.m. - More late night one-on-one iron sharpening.

Saturday, February 4th

• 6:30 a.m. - Rise and shine.
• 7:00 a.m. - Prayer followed by a fellowship breakfast
• 9:00 - 10:30 a.m. - Teaching on living and preaching in light of Christ’s grace and humility
• 11:00am – 9:30pm – Traveled to downtown Indianapolis for open air preaching, one-on-one evangelism, and tract distribution.
• 11:00 p.m. - 1:00 a.m. - More late-night conversation about evangelistic methods, apologetics, and fellowship.

Sunday, February 5th

• 5:30 a.m. - Rise and shine.
• 6:00 a.m. - Prayer followed by a fellowship breakfast.
• 9:00 - 10:30 a.m. – Teaching on persevering through trials for the glory of God.
• 11:00 a.m. - 6:30 p.m. - Traveled to downtown Indianapolis for open air preaching, one-on-one evangelism, and tract distribution.
• 7:45 p.m. to 7:45 a.m. – headed back to Charlotte for an all-night drive.  I slept no more than 30 minutes during the entire drive home. 

This is a photo of my newfound long-lost brother Brian Ottinger getting on the box for the first time!

I think I may have gotten less than 20 hours of sleep total during the entire trip and by God's grace, my immune system broke down and I got a nasty cold.  But God's grace is sufficient for us, and so I praise God for this time of outreach, fellowship, and evangelism.  The opportunity to train and encourage men to open-air preach, pass out tracts, and interact with unbelievers with gentleness and respect was the personal highlight of this trip for me (1 Peter 3:15).  It is so much more of a blessing to find faithful, available, and teachable people to pour myself into rather than wearing myself out by hogging the box and doing most of the preaching and/or evangelism (2 Tim. 2:2).  Thus, I thank God for giving me an opportunity to encourage, exhort, and equip others to do the work of the ministry (Eph. 4:15). 

Smashing idols with the love of Christ.

A little worship occurring as we prepare for war:

Sye Ten Bruggencate talks truth with a couple football fan

Justin Edwards answering the objections of hecklers.

Yours truly stoplight preaching at SuperBowl XLVI

Yours truly trying to reason with an irrational Bengals fan.  This guy became violent later along with his other two friends as Justin Edwards' video shows above.  Some people need to stop watching MMA and drinking beer and beg Jesus for mercy from His coming wrath!

GOD WAS DRAWING PEOPLE TO CHRIST THROUGH THE PREACHING:  The Spirit used our preaching efforts to powerfully draw a few, sober, convicted sinners out of the crowd to talk about His Son while their drunk friends waited impatiently for them to finish the conversation.  As we preached and witnessed, some passerby's came to tears as they were convicted by the public preaching of Christ crucified.  I personally prayed for at least three of these folks after they asked us to pray for them on the spot that God would grant them repentance and faith.  These were exciting and fresh reminders that our great God truly is mighty to save and that open-air preaching is not dead!

75 y/o Frank Robertson still going strong at hitting the street with the glorious gospel of Christ.

Perhaps the most inspiring “glory story” from the streets of Indianapolis involved a 75 year-old street evangelist named Frank Robertson. While brother Buck Hamilton and I took a bathroom break at the 2012 Superbowl Outreach, we saw some brothers not with the Sports Fan Outreach International group (our organizing group) handing out tracts, preaching the gospel, and holding signs with Scripture on them. We introduced ourselves to these men and the fellowship was so sweet. One of their evangelists was 75 years old and had been on the streets since the 1980s. He told Buck and I, "I'm 75 years old and I'm going to die soon, I've been praying for 20 years that God would raise up some young men to take my place." I then told him, "Brother, this young man with me and myself have been preaching the gospel with a group of young men; some of which have only been saved two years." His eyes started to well up with tears and he got choked up and he said, "Can I pray for you?" We then prayed and went our separate ways overjoyed and full of the Spirit.

Pastor Cory McKeena preaching to the masses.

Our blessed team praying for one another and the lost.

I want to extend a gracious thanks to Bill Adams of Sports Fan Outreach International for inviting Shepherd's Fellowship to participate in this outreach and our following team members for their encouragement, fellowship, and teachable hearts:

• Justin Edwards (Team Leader) – Charlotte, NC
• Aaron Beane – Charlotte, NC
• Brian Ottinger – Huntersville, NC
• Buck Hamilton – Concorde, NC
• Kent Blalock – Concorde, NC
• Shawn & Lisa Pander – Mt. Holly, NC
• Chris Landrum – Manning, SC
• Ed Leese – Easley, SC

IN CONCLUSION, I want to thank all the dear saints of Shepherd's Fellowship and other saints who support my evangelistic activities who were upholding me and our team in prayer during this outreach.  Without your prayer and sacrificial giving, I would not be able to reach the lost!  I know that I speak on behalf of all the other evangelists involved when I say that the Lord strengthened us for the task through your faithful prayers!
 
Here's Pastor Cory McKenna and I talking with Nick and Jake (1 hour, 15 minutes)
SBO2012_Dustin_Nick&Jake.mp3
 
WARNING: the audio file above has not been edited and contains profanity.  Listener discretion strongly advised.


CLICK HERE to see more pictures from SuperBowl Outreach 2012 on Pastor Cory McKenna's Flickr page!

A Published Refutation to John Loftus' The End Of Christianity

"Last year, John Loftus and some colleagues published a book titled The End Of Christianity (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2011). The back cover and inside endorsements describe the book as "the sharpest set of intellectual criticisms [of Christianity] found under the cover of a single volume", "tremendously useful", "superb", and "exceedingly well-researched". One endorser claims, "This book should win the game: Christianity, it's strike three and you are out!" Another tells us, "No collection better demonstrates how taking Christianity seriously reveals its all-too-human origin." We're told that "Loftus and his friends annihilate the Christian Goliath".

Steve Hays and [Jason Engwer] have written an e-book in response, which you can read here, titled The End Of Infidelity. We'd like to thank Peter Pike for editing it. We wouldn't have been able to release it so soon, and it wouldn't be so readable, without Peter's help.

Those of you who haven't read Loftus' book can find an overview of it here. You might want to read each chapter summary on the page I just linked before reading each of our chapter responses.

Steve and [Jason Engwer] most likely will have more to say about Loftus' book, especially if we get a response from the authors."

Source: The End of Infidelity