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The Big Story of the Bible, Part 10

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by Dr. Ronn Johnson

I have been away from this blog for some time, though it has been constantly on my mind. Since my last post, I have written and presented a course at our church on the big story of the Bible. It was rewarding, yet undoubtedly the toughest challenge I had ever faced as a Bible teacher. As I told the class several times, sometimes out of desperation, it’s one thing to teach a passage of the Bible, or even a survey of books within the Bible—most of us have tried that—but something entirely different to approach the text with the sole intent of tracking its largest narrative. Sometimes I felt like I knew where I was going, while at other times I felt very unsure of myself, even within an hour of walking into the class. Now that it’s over I look forward to stepping back and reviewing what I said, thinking through where my work needs improvement.

I would like to return to this blog for such a purpose, in fact: to review what I said in the class and hear myself talk. I invite your response if you have the time. In previous blogs my thinking has been largely negative, pointing out perceived problems with evangelicalism’s traditional understanding of the big story of the Bible. It will feel good to turn the ship around at this point and head in a positive direction. As you could guess, my understanding of the story will be categorically different from the Sin Paid For model that I have been talking about—where the punishment required for sin by God was voluntarily paid by a behaviorally perfect individual, with this payment then being applied to those who accept this gracious provision of Christ on their behalf. I realize that many people like this story because it offers God a way to relieve the tension between his justice and love through Jesus while remaining true to his own demands of grace and impartiality. But as I’ve recommended, this does not seem to be the tension played out in the biblical story. And once we change the tension or crisis of a story we are in effect writing a different story altogether.

In my class, I developed the biblical story by working through the chronological flow of the text. This is easier said than done, I came to realize, and I’ll talk more of this below. But in general, I tried to not give away what happened until it actually happened. I did this for those in the class who were unfamiliar with the Bible, as well as to experiment how this would work within my own presentation. For purposes of this blog, I will lay out the whole story right up front, from beginning to end, then return back to go through the details in upcoming posts. I presume that readers of this website are familiar enough with the Bible to not be annoyed at being given the end of the story too soon.

I have used the analogy of a brick wall before so I will continue the analogy here. What follows are the one hundred bricks which make up, in my opinion, the big story wall of the Bible. Ending up with this round number is not accidental, as you could guess, but mostly because I didn’t like the idea of ending on an odd number, like 89 or 105. I constantly reworked my pile to keep it at the century mark, which is unimportant in the long run. The number can certainly change. Here are my bricks listed in the order in which they appear (or occur) in the story, starting with Genesis 1:1:

  1. God creates the universe
  2. God creates elohim above humans
  3. God creates humans below elohim
  4. Humans fail a loyalty test
  5. Humanity dies and awakens
  6. Creation is sentenced to frustration
  7. Adam’s family shows divided loyalties
  8. Elohim interfere in human affairs
  9. God destroys the earth
  10. Elohim receive territorial rule

 

  1. Elohim abuse their authority
  2. God judges ruling elohim
  3. Abraham switches spiritual loyalties
  4. Abraham is promised blessing
  5. Elohim come to earth as messengers
  6. God designates loyalty as right
  7. God designates disloyalty as wrong
  8. Abraham’s family shows divided loyalties
  9. God’s family is named Israel
  10. Jacob bears twelve tribes

 

  1. Joseph saves the family in Egypt
  2. Pharaoh enslaves the family
  3. God reveals his name
  4. Passover redeems Israel
  5. Israel accepts Torah
  6. Israel worships Baal
  7. God clarifies his jealousy
  8. Loyalty is demanded
  9. Disloyalty is predicted
  10. Sacred space is institutionalized

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Libertarianism and Christianity
Apologetics

Are Christianity and Libertarianism Compatible?

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Laurence Vance reviews Called to Freedom: Why You Can Be Christian and Libertarian by Elise Daniel.

This review was originaly posted on LewRockwell.com

I am a Christian and a libertarian. And not only that, I believe it is entirely possible to be a resolute social and theological conservative and at the same time be an uncompromising and hardcore libertarian. I believe that Christianity and libertarianism complement each other rather than contradict each other.

And so does editor Elise Daniel and the contributors to Called to Freedom: Why You Can Be Christian and Libertarian (hereafter Called to Freedom). “We are libertarians because we are Christians,” Daniel writes in the introduction.

Although Called to Freedom is a short book, I cannot stress enough its importance. I have many books on my shelves on the subject of libertarianism, but none of them are written from an evangelical Christian perspective. The other unique thing about the book is that half of the contributors are women.

Called to Freedom has six contributors, none of whom are widely known, and none of whom I had heard of before reading the book. However, my friend, Dr. Norman Horn, the founder and president of the Libertarian Christian Institute, wrote the foreword to the book. None of the contributors are ministers. Two of them are husband and wife. All of them are college graduates, some from Christian universities, some from secular universities, and some from both. They all appeared on a panel titled “Jesus, Morality, and Liberty: Is Christian Morality Coercive?” at the 2014 International Students for Liberty Conference in Washington, D.C. Called to Freedom “is an attempt to extend that conservation across the country.”

The editor wrote the introduction and the afterword. The five other contributors each wrote one chapter:

  1. Can I Be a Libertarian Christian?
  2. What Does the Bible Say about Government?
  3. Cool It: You Don’t Have to Be a Libertine
  4. Bars with Breadcrumbs: Optimists with a Story to Tell
  5. The State Is No Savior

Although Called to Freedom is not written by academics or scholars, in addition to the foreword, acknowledgments, and a page about the contributors, I note that each chapter (including the introduction and afterword) has numerous footnotes and concludes with a bibliography. Authors quoted include William Röpke, Lord Acton, Hans Hoppe, Walter Block, John Calvin, C. S. Lewis, Frederic Bastiat, F. A. Hayek, Adam Smith, Ayn Rand, and G. K. Chesterton.

The chapters in Called to Freedom are not equal in length or importance; nevertheless, I did find something of value in each chapter.

In chapter 1, Jacqueline Isaacs explains that although “the social obligations put forward in the New Testament are described as voluntary,” it is through these obligations that “we develop individual virtue,” “emulate our Creator,” and “bring flourishing to others.”

In chapter 3, Taylor Barkley clarifies the distinction between libertarianism and libertinism. He has a good critique of “thick” libertarianism and the idea that normative moral judgments are coercive and therefore unlibertarian. His “position as a libertarian is that government exists to protect life, liberty, and property” and that “any deviation from these core principles and, particularly the infringement of any of those principles, means the government’s action is unjust.” He believes that “a libertarian system of limited government allows for the peaceful coexistence of freewheeling libertines and legalistic Christians.” Barkley concludes: “As a libertarian Christian, my belief that someone’s personal actions are wrong or right is not enforced via the state. Their actions may indeed be morally wrong, but I don’t want the government to use its monopoly on force to make sure that person compiles with my preferred morality.”

In chapter 4, Leah Hughey points out that “even with the hyperbolic emphasis on terrorism across the globe, Americans are more likely to be killed by their own furniture than by a terrorist.” And here is another good statement: “The market, when left free, has its own self-cleansing mechanism for unethical or dishonest business practices.”

In chapter 5, Philip Luca quotes one of the few good things that Winston Churchill ever said—“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery”—even if he didn’t actually say it like that.

The most important part of Called to Freedom is chapter 2. At 50 pages, it takes up over one-third of the book. The author, Jason Hughey, is an adherent of “anarcho-capitalism, the belief that state power is wholly illegitimate and can be ultimately replaced by market and other private forces.” He defines government or a state as “a political organization of individuals that is distinguished from all other social institutions by two characteristics: (1) its territorial monopoly over lawmaking and enforcement and (2) its ability to collect revenue through compulsory taxation for the provision of services.” Government “operates under a different set of moral rules and consequently engages in immoral behaviors with a perceived sense of legitimacy.” Its authority is “inherently grounded on one principle: the threat of aggressive violence against individuals for noncompliant behavior.” It is “an institution that is distinguished from all other social institutions by its ability to inflict violence upon its citizens (or ‘customers’).” The power of government “has inflicted far more damage upon the human race than any other social institution.” Hughey posits five major themes about government that “articulate a biblical perspective of government that is far less rosy than the mainstream Christian perspective on government:”

  1. Government is filled with sinful humans.
  2. God is greater than any political authority.
  3. Political power tends to corrupt the wielder of power.
  4. Christians ought to grieve over the abuse of power.
  5. Christianity is advanced through the Gospel of Christ, not political authority or Obedience to it.

Hughey tackles what he terms the “Big Four” Bible verses (Romans 13, First Peter 2, Matthew 22, & Luke 20) that “are widely referred to in Christian circles when discussing the idea of whether or not government is legitimate and what our obedience to it should look like” (I would have also included Luke 4 & Titus 3). Even if you don’t completely agree with his conclusions (I don’t), he still makes some valid points.

Hughey concludes that “as Christians, we should agree with Bastiat and try liberty for a change and leave our desire to control, mold, and fix others up to God’s sovereignty.” Only God “can change men’s hearts, only he can fix sinners, and only he is worthy of honor, reverence, and unlimited obedience.”

The personal testimonies and biblical viewpoint of the contributors to Called to Freedom make it clear that one can be Christian and libertarian.

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Apologetics

More than 1,000 scientists sign ‘dissent from Darwinism’ statement

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by Brittany Slaughter

Earlier this month, a long list of Ph.D. scientists who “dissent from Darwinism” reached a milestone — it crossed the threshold of 1,000 signers.
“There are 1,043 scientists on the ‘A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism’ list. It passed the 1,000 mark this month,” said Sarah Chaffee, a program officer for the Discovery Institute, which maintains the list.“A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism” is a simple, 32-word statement that reads: “We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”

Launched in 2001, the list continues to collect support from scientists from universities across America and globally. Signers have earned their Ph.D.s at institutions that include Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, Princeton, Brown, Dartmouth and the University of Pennsylvania. Others on the list earned their doctorates at Clemson, UT Austin, Ohio State, UCLA, Duke, Stanford, Emory, UNC Chapel Hill and many others universities. Still other signers are currently employed as professors across the nation.

Those who sign it “must either hold a Ph.D. in a scientific field such as biology, chemistry, mathematics, engineering, computer science, or one of the other natural sciences; or they must hold an M.D. and serve as a professor of medicine,” according to the institute.

The group points out that signing the statement does not mean these scholars endorse “alternative theories such as self-organization, structuralism, or intelligent design,” but rather simply indicates “skepticism about modern Darwinian theories central claim that natural selection acting on random mutations is the driving force behind the complexity of life.”

According to Discovery Institute Senior Fellow David Klinghoffer, the signers “have all risked their careers or reputations in signing.”

“Such is the power of groupthink,” he wrote. “The scientific mainstream will punish you if they can, and the media is wedded to its narrative that ‘the scientists’ are all in agreement and only ‘poets,’ ‘lawyers,’ and other ‘daft rubes’ doubt Darwinian theory. In fact, I’m currently seeking to place an awesome manuscript by a scientist at an Ivy League university with the guts to give his reasons for rejecting Darwinism. The problem is that, as yet, nobody has the guts to publish it.”

In interviews with The College Fix, some of the list’s signers explained why they were willing to go public with their skepticism.

“[Darwin’s theory] claimed to explain all major features of life and I think that’s very unlikely. Nonetheless, I think Darwinism has gotten to be kind of an orthodoxy, that is it’s accepted in the scientific community unthinkingly and it’s taught to kids unthinkingly,” said Michael Behe, a professor of biological sciences at Lehigh University.

“Getting a list of scientists who point out that they don’t believe the orthodoxy can kind of open up some minds hopefully,” he said.

“It is clearly a growing trend with biology to think that Darwin missed a whole lot of biology and cannot explain a good deal of evolution,” Behe added.

Regarding how his colleagues view the list, Behe said, “Most of my peers are unaware of it, but those who are aware of it don’t like it one bit. They think that anybody who would sign such a list has to have a dishonorable motive for doing so.”

Taking a stand comes with a risk. Scott Minnich, an associate professor of microbiology at the University of Idaho, said he has many times been accused of being “anti-science.”

“I signed this list when it first came out because of this intellectual deep skepticism I have that the random unintelligent forces of nature can produce systems that outstrip our own intellectual capacity,” he told The Fix.

Minnich went on to quote the writer C.S. Lewis: “Men became scientific because they expected Law in Nature, and they expected Law in Nature because they believed in a Law Giver.”

IMAGE: Gajus / Shutterstock

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conversations with strangers
Apologetics

6 Non-Awkward Questions That You Can Use to Start a Spiritual Conversation With Anyone

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by Erik Manning

Most Christians know that they ought to be sharing their faith. I mean, there is the whole “make disciples of all nations” thing that Jesus said. (Matthew 28:19) But knowing and doing end up being two different things for many believers. When Christians hear the word evangelism, there’s a sense of anxiety that springs up for many.

Asking a friend “hey buddy, do you know Jesus?” can be an awkward thing. It’s only more awkward to spring that question on a total stranger. There’s a certain yuck factor, as you don’t want to come across overly salesy or be lumped in with some cult.

Our society is growing increasingly secular. We have to be aware of the cultural background in which we’re preaching. I’m sure in some cases that if you ask if someone knows Jesus, you might get the reply that they used to play soccer with him. We may want to consider backing up a little bit. Instead of going right for the “do you know Jesus?” we should ask some worldview questions.

A worldview is how one interprets the world around them, like their philosophical lenses. In other words, how they answer some of the big questions in life – origins, morality, meaning and the like. The nice thing about worldview questions is it helps us to locate someone. It gives you a starting point that becomes a more natural transition to the gospel. You’ll see as I provide some examples.

Without further adieu, here are some of my favorite “launch pads” into gospel conversations. I’ve included short videos with more in-depth explanations if this is new to you:

1. Are there moral facts? Does real right and wrong exist?

Everyone – and I mean everyone – has a moral opinion about something. Just sign into Twitter for like 2 seconds to see this in action. You’ll see what I mean. We live in an age of moral outrage. The words homophobe, misogynist, racist and bigot are thrown around like confetti. Tolerance and acceptance are the highest virtues according to many in our society.

These are often the same people who say that no culture is better than another. But if a culture practices terrible things – say female circumcision – then I think we recognize that we’re right to condemn such practices. No one is a consistent moral relativist. Certain things, like female genital mutilation, are wrong.

The heart of the gospel is that we’ve sinned and come short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23) That we recognize there are moral facts and we all fall short of them cries out for an explanation.

2. Is everything ultimately material in nature?

I like this question because if they say no, they’re at least open to spiritual things. If they answer with a yes, now you can follow up with some questions that should make them think.

We already talked about morality. Moral facts aren’t physical facts, because if all that exists is unintended nature, then there’s no way things should be. People hurt, main and torture each other. It is that way. But there is no way things should be. But surely that’s counterintuitive. Why should we doubt our moral experience any more than we doubt our other sense-experiences?

But there are further problems for the materialist worldview. If everything is matter, then our beliefs are all the product of natural processes that are beyond our control. Thinking that matter is all there is then is a just a product of a deterministic system. If the thorough-going materialist is right, it’s only by accident, not some intellectual virtue. In other words, materialism destroys knowledge.

But if thoughts, knowledge, and reason aren’t material things, then the idea of the spirit or soul comes into play.

3. What would you do if you had a week to live? And what do you think happens to us after we die?

OK, so the last two questions were super-philosophical. This one shoots straight for the heart. I like asking what they’d do if they found out that they had a week to live because now you’re going to see what’s important to them.

So many of us would put the smartphone down, spend time with our families, mend any fences that need mending and do something meaningful with our short time left. Life is fleeting. Blaise Pascal said:

“Imagine a number of men in chains, all under sentence of death, some of whom are each day butchered in the sight of others those remaining see their own condition in that of their fellows and looking at each other with grief and despair await their turn. This is an image of the human condition.”

In our modern world, everything is so sanitized. We live in denial of death and waste our time on the trivial. Once we’ve asked this question, maybe they’ll be open to sharing their thoughts on life after death. This can turn into a golden opportunity to share the gospel with them.

4. Is there any single ‘true’ religion?

It’s a popular thing to say that there is no one true religion, that they’re all basically saying the same thing. This is called religious pluralism. It the tolerant thing to say in our politically correct world. It’s also what makes Christianity not so PC.

But various religions aren’t teaching the same thing. Christianity says Jesus was God. Islam says he’s a prophet. Judaism says he was badly mistaken or a deceiver. Many Buddhists say there’s no god at all. Hinduism says there are many gods. Clearly, they’re not all teaching the same things!

The other knock on this view is that it’s just as dogmatic as the dogma it opposes. The pluralist implicitly suggests that their view is privileged, that they can see what others are blind to – namely, there is no one true religion! This is the kind of person that needs to hear the uniqueness of Christian truth claims. That leads me to my next question:

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Lust does not equal love
Apologetics

10 Reasons Why the Argument ‘Jesus Never Mentioned Homosexuality’ Doesn’t Matter

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by David Kyle Foster

If you’ve ever engaged with an activist, a liberal Christian or just the average person on the street on the subject of homosexuality, you’ve probably encountered this platitude: “Jesus never mentioned homosexuality!” Among those who make such a claim, that statement is one of the quickest, easiest and most common excuses for approving homosexual practice because it gives the appearance of being a biblical argument while being just the opposite.

Does such a claim hold any weight biblically? And if it is true that Jesus never mentioned homosexuality, does that really justify homosexual behavior?

The “Jesus never mentioned it” argument has numerous and serious flaws, so let’s go through them one by one.

  1. The most obvious point to make is that Jesus didn’t mention any number of sins. For example, He never mentioned child sexual abuse or wife beating. Does that mean that they are no longer sins? He never mentioned transvestism (Deut. 22:5). Does that make it okay now?
  2. It defies simple logic to claim that the absence of any mention of certain sins by Jesus in the New Testament indicates that He now approves of them. Homosexual practices were condemned in the Old Testament in the strongest of terms (Lev. 18:22; 20:13) and Jesus affirmed those prohibitions (Matt. 5:17-20).
  3. Additionally, the claim that He must mention a sin for it to be wrong assumes that the purpose of the New Testament was to re-state or to create a new list of forbidden practices. Such an argument unmasks complete ignorance of Scripture on the part of those who make it. These would-be scholars are no scholars at all. They are apologists for those who seek to jettison God’s moral standards (see Rom. 1:28, 32). Until the modern era, no biblical scholar of the past 2,000 years has ever proposed such a ridiculous hermeneutic. Thus, such would-be scholars presume to know better than all of the biblical scholars (Christian or secular) of the past two millennia. They echo Satan’s original deception, “Did God really say”? (Gen. 3:1, NIV).

What Jesus did do was to point out that the religious leaders of His day were inventing laws in an effort to establish their righteousness before God and to show themselves pious before men (Matt. 23:1-7, 27-28).

He also pointed out that their standards and practices for obeying the Mosaic Law fell short of its full meaning. For example, when He pointed out that the sin of adultery could be committed at the heart level, not just physically (Matt. 5:27-28), Jesus was revealing the deeper meaning, scope and intent of the law. He was also establishing the fact that no man could keep the Law in all of its aspects (see also Rom. 3:20, 27-28; James 2:8-11).

4. Most of what Jesus said wasn’t even recorded in the Bible (John 20:30, 21:25; Rev. 22:18-19). So the incompleteness of the biblical accounts of what He said mitigates the claim that Jesus never mentioned homosexual practices.

5. Jesus reaffirmed all of the moral law (Matt. 5:17-20), and chided those who broke the commandments and taught others to do the same (Rom. 1:32).

Here, it’s important to understand that there were different kinds of Old Testament law. The Old Testament contained ritual (ceremonial), sacrificial, civil and moral law. Jesus affirmed its entirety, yet brought to an end the ritual and sacrificial law by fulfilling them.

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John-Lennox-Oxford-Union
Apologetics

Transcript: God Exists — John Lennox

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This transcript is of John Lennox presenting his case for the existence of God at the Oxford Union in 2012.

Copyright © 2012 Oxford Media Associates

The excerpts, below, are a sample of the transcript.

God Exists

And as we look at the rise of science in the 16th and 17th centuries, Alfred North Whitehead and many others commented, that men became scientific because they expected law in nature and they expected law in nature because they believed in a lawgiver.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I’m not ashamed of being both a scientist and a Christian because, arguably, Christianity gave me my subject.

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What I am amazed at is that serious thinkers today continue to ask us to choose between God and science. That’s like asking people to choose between Henry Ford and engineering as an explanation of the motor car.

When Newton discovered his law of gravity he didn’t say I’ve got a law, I don’t need God. No, he wrote the Principia Mathematica, arguably the greatest work in the whole history of science, because he saw that God is not the same kind of explanation as a scientific explanation. God doesn’t Compete. Agency does not compete with mechanism and law.

It reminds me a little bit of GK Chesterton who said, “It is absurd to complain that it is unthinkable for an unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing and then to pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into everything.”

Leading philosopher Alvin Plantinga of Notre Dame says, “If atheists are right that we are the product of mindless, unguided natural processes then they have given a strong reason to doubt the reliability of human cognitive faculties, and therefore inevitably to doubt the validity of any belief that they produce including their atheism.” Their biology and their belief in naturalism would, therefore, appear to be at war with each other in a conflict that has nothing at all to do with God.

As modern science sprang from Judeo-Christian sources, so did the concept of human equality. Listen to atheist Jurgen Habermas, arguably one of Germany’s leading intellectuals. He said that “Universalistic egalitarianism from which sprang the ideals of freedom and collective life and solidarity, the individual morality of conscience, human rights and democracy, is the direct legacy of the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love.”

This legacy, substantially unchanged, has been the object of continual critical appropriation and reinterpretation. To this day there is no alternative to it. Everything else is just idle postmodern talk.

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Social Media Battles
Culture

How to Lose by Winning Battles on Social Media

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By Mark Ward, originally published under the title, “What Would the Author of ‘Amazing Grace’ Say about Social Media?”

John Newton wrote a beautiful letter to a friend which is called in _his collected works, “On Controversy”—because that friend was about to engage in public controversy over Christian doctrine; Newton wanted to give him some scriptural counsel. I have read it 20 times over nearly as many years, and thought of it countless more. In order to more fully get the principles into my own soul—because I, frankly, have not always lived up to them—I have taken the liberty of “transculturating” it for today’s Christian SMWs—Social Media Warriors. If Newton were to write the same letter today, this is my guess as to what he would write:_

Dear Christian Friend about to Post a Comment in a Social Media Battle,

I’ve always appreciated your love of truth—and I know that itch you’re feeling right now, the itch to jump into the fray.

I happen to agree with the position you’re about to defend. We’re together on this. And truth is stronger than fiction: our side cannot lose. Not even the gates of hell could prevail against it. So even a person without your skill with a keyboard could enter this particular social media mêlée with some confidence of coming out on top—in the end, at least.

But we must be more than conquerors. We need to triumph not just over error in others but over sin in ourselves. Some battle wounds may make us wish we had never won.

Let’s stop and think about our opponents, the internet bystanders, and ourselves.

Our social media opponents

I’m ashamed how often I myself have forgotten step one, step zero: have we prayed for our internet sparring partners? I mean prayed for them not only before pounding out a response but between every keystroke. Are we praying for them as our fingers hover over the return key? If we ask the Lord to teach them and bless them, that prayer will soften our hearts and our prose in profoundly healthy ways.

If our opponents are Christians, we can imagine the Lord saying to us what David said to Joab about Absalom: “Deal gently with him for my sake.” The Lord loves our opponents; his love for them was longsuffering long before we met them, ahem, fifteen seconds ago. If we wring their rhetorical necks, we’ll not only risk unforgiving servants, we’ll risk proving unforgiven ones (Matt 18:35).

Someday our Facebook pages will be memorial walls for whatever friends we have left—and so will be those of our (Christian, remember?) opponents. Think about what will happen then. All of us will be together in heaven, forever, and our love for each other then will be greater than our love for our best earthly friends now. Our opponents may be dead wrong, but after we’re all dead—they’ll be right again.

If our opponents are not Christians—and I try not to be too quick to come to that conclusion if they claim otherwise; before their own Master they stand or fall—the best emotion to feel toward them is compassion, not anger. “They know not what they do!” But we know who’s responsible for giving us new hearts dedicated to truth. It didn’t have to be this way. God was not required to save you and me from our sins. But for the grace of God, we’d have their list of Likes.

There is room for an Elijah mocking the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18), an Isaiah mocking the silliness of idols (Isa 44), and a Jesus Christ mocking the Pharisees (Matt 23). But those seem to me to be exceptions to the general rule that one ought to “correct his opponents with gentleness” so that “God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim 2:25). If we are writing for spiritually blind people, we must be careful not to put any trip hazards between them and the cross. God’s grace is necessary for salvation, but this is no reason to push people (humanly speaking) further away from him.

And there are mudslinging trolls out there—Christian and non-Christian—whom it is foolhardy to engage. They’ll only drag you down to their level (Prov 26:4; Matt 7:6). My rule of thumb: I do my best to avoid debating people who can never bring themselves to acknowledge that their opponents have just made a good point. (I also, by God’s grace, do my best not to be one of those people—if I can’t see the genuine strengths of viewpoints I disagree with, it’s likely my fault.)

The internet bystanders

Among those reading and liking (and trolling) will be three groups:

1. Those who disagree with you

It’s easy to forget these people when our eyes are focused on our direct opponents. But those opponents represent many, many others who hold the same opinions. Many will watch who will not comment. Regarding these I will point again to the thoughts above.

2. Those who don’t care about your religious points

But then there are people who don’t know or care about the doctrines we defend online, because they aren’t religious at all. If these people are generally indisposed to dislodge their rather shining views of their moral rectitude, that doesn’t hinder their ability to sniff out pride in us. Even those who can’t follow our arguments can read our spirits pretty well in between the pixels. And they know that religious people—particularly Christians—are supposed to be meek, humble, and loving.

Every day online the Scripture is proved true: “The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” If we mix invective and scorn into our posts, we’re forgetting that the weapons of our warfare—the only weapons which, in reality, can break down strongholds of error—are “not of the flesh.” Whether we persuade anyone of anything else or not, somehow we must persuade bystanders that we wish others well. We are known by our love (John 13:35).

3. Those who agree with you

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