It is not a shock, or it should not be a shock, when the world looks at the beliefs of orthodox Christianity with incredulity. In fact, we should be the first to say that the basics of our faith are hard to believe. Who will agree with us that God became man, that He was born of a virgin, that He raised a man from the dead, and then He Himself arose from the dead after His crucifixion? Who will willingly agree that their thoughts, ideas, actions, motives and goals are in reality idolatry? A world running on ‘scientific evidence’ and devoid of submission should not surprise us when they disagree.
What we should be surprised with, however, is how often skeptics and contrarians get away with arguing for the reasonableness of their unbelief using emotional appeals, faulty logic and unfounded claims. If we are led astray through lusts of the flesh and temporal enticements, this is the battle we expect to face in this life. But if we, students and adults alike, are led astray by professors and critics who antagonistically make claims about our Scriptures and our faith, we need to look to our own foundations of thought in the Christian life.
It has been correctly discussed by both believers and skeptics that in the manuscripts we have of the New Testament that there are more variances that exist (differences between manuscripts) than we have words in the whole New Testament. While there are around 130,000 words, depending on who is asked, there are between 200,000 and 400,000 variances!
With so many differences in the manuscripts, can we be sure we have the words that were originally written down by God’s apostles? What does this mean for a faith built on a compilation of ancient texts? Is this ancient text what we are basing our life on today as well as our eternity?
These statements and claims, using real data, are used over and over again to shake the faith of those in the church. How should we think about such information? Do we avoid any discussion of the topic? Do we ignore the “higher critics” in favor of our “Christian bubble”? Or is there a reasonable and thoughtful way to interact with the text?
As the high school has been reading through Acts the past couple of weeks, an impression has been made on me how often Paul reasons, argues, and convinces the people he encounters. We hope that we are able to do the same through sound reason and thoughtful discussion. This Saturday, October 3rd, at 10:00 a.m. Elder David Denny and Pastor Ethan Drent will be discussing reasonable thought on claims that are made against our Scriptures. All are welcome to join us in Room 102 -103.
Pastor Ethan