Monday, October 28, 2019

Triple Filter Test Before Speaking By George Yates

The great Greek philosopher, Socrates is credited with introducing the Triple Filter test. One version of the story is, a man, possibly a disciple of Socrates, came to the philosopher and said, “Let me tell you what I heard about one of your friends.”
Socrates said, “Hold on a minute. Before you tell me, it might be good to run it through the triple filter test. First, have you made absolutely sure what you are about to tell me is true?”
“No,” came the reply. “I just heard it, I do not know, I have not checked to insure if it is true.”
“Okay,” replied Socrates, “Let’s try the second filter. Is what you are about to say something good about my friend?”
“No, quite the opposite…”
Socrates interrupted the man, not wanting him to share the news yet. “Okay, you do not know if it is true. It is not good. But you might still pass the test with the third filter. Is what you are about to tell me useful?”
“No, not really.”
“Well,” said Socrates, “If what you want to tell me is not true, good or useful, why do you want to tell me at all?”
Can you visualize a culture where this triple filter test was practiced in the workplace, churches, and in homes, even in our private casual conversations with friends and family? A culture with no gossip, backbiting, or insinuations about others. Sounds like a utopia, doesn’t it?
It all starts with one person, you. Will you this week commit to put into practice the triple filter test before you speak and before you allow anyone to share information about others? With whom will you share this concept, perhaps even make a triple filter test pact with?
George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life.

Monday, October 21, 2019

Does Islam Have a Lot in Common With the Christian Faith? by Wade Trimmer

The Muslim’s message to Christians in the West these days is,” We have a lot in common, we are similar, accept us, listen to us…”

Pastor Sam Storms reports on the contents of a billboard in Oklahoma City: “On the right side of the sign, in huge letters, is the word ISLAM. On the left side, under the title One Family, are the names of Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad.” Sam rightly exclaims, “No! We are not one family with those who deny that Jesus is God. Abraham and Moses are two of the great saints of the old covenant, but they lived in anticipation of the coming of Jesus. Their words and deeds and prophetic utterances pointed forward to the coming Son of God, the one true Messiah, Jesus. To suggest that Jesus is merely one of a long line of revered prophets that includes Abraham, Moses, and Muhammad, is blasphemous. Worse still, it is damning. To believe this lie is to consign your soul to eternal death.”
The “we worship the same God and are basically similar” assertion of Islam to the typical, biblically illiterate American, is readily accepted and is certainly the politically correct position.
But in reality it is a ploy that Muslim leaders use to spread their political and religious system. After they gain the upper hand, the Muslims’ message will be, “We have nothing in common with you, you are kafirs/infidels who worship three gods, and follow a corrupt Bible. You are dhimmis (non-Muslims in an Islamic society who are subjugated and second-class citizens) who must accept Islam or pay jizya (a penalty tax) for being Christians…”
Islam is superficially similar but radically different to Evangelical Christianity. The Bible makes it clear that, “last of all,” God the Father sent His Son Jesus (Matthew 21:37), and that the Bible, which hasn’t been corrupted, is God’s last revelation (Revelation 22:18).
In John 5:23, Jesus makes a clear and unmistakable claim not only to being equal with God the Father, but also to being God himself. John 5:23 that “whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.”
In light of the truth of the above verse, the question for any person – religious or atheist, is, “Do they honor Jesus Christ, acknowledging that He is God who became flesh and made a sacrifice for the sins of men and women by dying on the cross and physically and bodily rising from the dead three days later? Do they know and celebrate Jesus as the true Messiah – the full, final, and forever revelation of God? Do they honor and praise him for being equal with God the Father in deity, glory, and majesty?
Do Muslims honor the Son according to the Scriptures? No! In fact they reject his being the Son of God, his atoning sacrificial death on the cross, and his bodily resurrection. The assertion that only through faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ can someone be saved is rejected and repulsive to them.
The fact is that the differences between Christianity and Islam are very deep, and irreconcilable. The space limitation will enable us to list just a few.
The Christian God is not their Allah
Our God is a loving Father, who, along with the Son and the Holy Spirit, is One God.
  • To Muslims, the concept of a triune God is a blasphemy.
    ” They do blaspheme who say God is one of three…, for there is no God except one God.” The Koran, verse, or Surah 5:73
  • Allah of Islam is a deceiver.
    “They plot and plan, and God, too plans, but the best of planners (deceivers) is God.” Surah 8:30 
The Christian Jesus is not their Isa
Our Jesus is the Son of God who died on the Cross to save the whole world. (In the Quran Jesus ‘ name is Isa.)
  • Isa is a created human being.
    “The similitude of Isa before God is as that of Adam; He created him from dust, Then said to him: “Be”: And he was.” Surah 3:59
  • Isa is just an apostle.
    “O people of the book (Christians) commit no excess in your religion: nor say of God aught but truth, Christ Isa the son of Mary was (No more than) an apostle of God.” Surah 4: 171 
  • Isa was not crucified.
    “That they said (in boast) “we killed Christ Isa, the son of Mary”…but they killed him not, nor crucified him.” Surah 4:157
  • Isa will return to earth to destroy the Cross.
    ” The hour will not be established until the son of Mary (Jesus) descends amongst you as a just ruler, he will break the Cross..” Hadith vol. 3:656
The Christian Holy Spirit is not their Angel Gabriel
Our Holy Spirit is the third person in the Godhead. His work is to comfort, convict, regenerate, guide, give power and bring forth fruit.
  • The Holy Spirit in Islam is an angel.
    “Then we (Allah) sent to her (Mary) our Angel (our spirit), and he (Angel Gabriel) appeared before her as a man in all respects.” Surah 19:17
    “Say the Holy Spirit (the Angel Gabriel) has brought the revelation (the Quran) from thy Lord in Truth.” Surah 16:102
 The Christian Ethics are not their Sharia
Christian ethics are based on love, forgiveness, equality, tolerance and free-choice.
  • Islam teaches revenge.
    “If any one transgresses the prohibition against you, transgress likewise against him.” Surah 2:194 
  • Islam does not treat women and men as equal.
    “To the male a portion equal to that of two females.” Surah 4:11
  • Islam allows men to beat their wives.
    “… As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them, refuse to share their beds, beat them .” Surah 4:34
  • Islam imposes harsh punishment on wrongdoers.
    *A thief is punished by the amputation of hands. Surah 5:38
    *A drunk is punished by 80 lashes. Hadith vol. 8:770
    *An adulterer is punished by 100 lashes. Surah 24:2
  • No Muslim can ever leave Islam. To do so is to become an apostate and is punishable by death.
    “Whoever changes his (Islamic) religion, kill him.” Hadith vol. 9:57
The Christian Salvation is not their straight path
Our Salvation is guaranteed by the redemptive work of Jesus Christ on our behalf, on the Cross.
  • In Islam there is no Original Sin, and no need for the Cross; Allah, the all powerful, has the supreme authority to punish or to forgive whomever He pleases, whenever He pleases.
    “He (Allah) forgiveth whom He pleaseth, and punisheth whom He pleaseth, for God has power over all things.” Surah 2:284 
  • In Islam good deeds cancel bad deeds.
    “For those things that are good remove those that are evil.” Surah 11:114 
The Christian Heaven is not their Paradise
In Christianity Heaven’s pleasures are pleasures of spirit, pleasures of purity.
  • In Islam Paradise is the place where a Muslim will be reclining, eating meats and delicious fruits, drinking exquisite wines, and engaging in sex with beautiful women (and perpetually young beautiful boys “Wildan or Ghilman”, according to some Muslim theologians).
    “As to the righteous, they will be in gardens and in happiness (to them will be said:) “Eat and drink ye, with profit and health, because of your (good) deeds “They will recline (with ease) on thrones (of dignity) arranged in ranks; and we shall join (marry) them to companions with beautiful big and lustrous eyes… And we shall bestow on them, of fruit and meat, anything they desire. They shall there exchange, one another, a cup free of frivolity, free of all taint of ill. Round about them youth (handsome) as pearls well-guarded.” Surah 52:17, 19, 20 & 22-24
The conflict between Christ and Muhammad cannot be ignored. Either Jesus is Lord or Muhammad was a false prophet.
In my humble opinion, we have the greatest opportunity in history to bring masses of Muslims to faith in the one true and living God through our Lord Jesus Christ! However, if this is to happen, we must recover a God-centered, Christ-exalting, cross-shaped, Spirit-empowered, kingdom-focused gospel and begin to proclaim it without fear and with great confidence. We must start ministering in faith because we have eyes to see what the natural man cannot – that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe, and Father God wills for – and will see to it – that massive numbers believe in His beloved Son!

Monday, October 14, 2019

Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God? by Sam Storms

I am constantly amazed that this question is still being asked, and even more amazed that some Christians respond by saying, Yes.
May I remind you of a few important things that Muslims believe, or conversely, don’t believe?
Muslims deny the truth of the Trinity, that the one eternal God exists in three co-equal persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Muslims also deny the incarnation. We are told in John 1:14 that the eternal Word or Second Person of the Trinity “became flesh,” a notion that is abhorrent to all Muslims. Yet, Muslims also do their best to speak highly of Jesus. He is given a prominent place in the Qur’an. He is called the Messiah, the virgin born Son of Mary, Messenger, Prophet, and Servant. He is revered by Muslims much in the same way as are Abraham, Moses, and Muhammad. But Jesus, so say all faithful Muslims, is not himself God.
As all of you know, the death of Jesus on the cross as a substitute for sinful men and women, followed by his bodily resurrection from the grave, is the very heart and soul of Christianity. There is no gospel, no good news, indeed no Christianity, apart from the sinless life, atoning death, and bodily resurrection of Jesus. But Muslims deny that Jesus died on the cross. And since he never died physically, he never rose from the dead. Someone disguised as Jesus suffered crucifixion, while Jesus was taken up into heaven by God.
For quite some time there was an interesting billboard on Broadway Extension, just north of Bridgeway Church, here in OKC. On the right side of the sign, in huge letters, is the word ISLAM. On the left side, under the title One Family, are the names of Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. No! We are not one family with those who deny that Jesus is God. Abraham and Moses are two of the great saints of the old covenant, but they lived in anticipation of the coming of Jesus. Their words and deeds and prophetic utterances pointed forward to the coming Son of God, the one true Messiah, Jesus. To suggest that Jesus is merely one of a long line of revered prophets that includes Abraham, Moses, and Muhammad, is blasphemous. Worse still, it is damning. To believe this lie is to consign your soul to eternal death.
In John 5, Jesus is making a clear and unmistakable claim not only to being equal with God the Father, but also a claim to being God himself. In fact, he says in John 5:23 that “whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.”
Consider how this speaks directly to the question of whether people of other religions worship the same God as do Christians. That question is easily answered: Do they honor Jesus Christ. Do they acknowledge who he is? Do they believe and affirm that he is the Word who became flesh and made a sacrifice for the sins of men and women? Do they know and celebrate Jesus as the true Messiah? Do they honor and praise him for being equal with God the Father in deity, glory, and majesty? If they don’t, then they don’t honor the Father either. Clearly, if you don’t honor the Father you don’t worship him, you don’t know him, you have no relationship with him.
So let me speak to the question that constitutes the title to this article: Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God? No! Definitively and decisively, No! Muslims do not honor the Son. They deny about Jesus everything he himself claimed to be. They reject his being the Son of God. They reject his atoning sacrificial death on the cross. They repudiate any notion of his bodily resurrection. And any suggestion that only through faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ can someone be saved is abhorrent to them. Says John Piper,
“In other words, if you want to know if someone in another religion, or no religion, honors God (has a true worshipful relationship with God), the test that you use to know this is: Do they honor Jesus for who he really is—as the divine Son of God, the Messiah, the crucified and risen Savior of the world, the Lord of the universe and Judge of all human beings? If they don’t, then they don’t honor God” (John Piper).
John the Apostle wrote much the same thing in his first epistle: “Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also” (1 John 2:22-23). The “liar” par excellence, the one who embodies and gives expression to the spirit of the Antichrist himself, is the person, be it male or female, who denies that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God who has come in human flesh (see 1 John 4:1-6).
The reason why I expressed my continual shock that knowledgeable Christians would persist in asking the question, Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God? is because of the simple yet profound declaration here in 1 John 2. “No one who denies the Son has the Father.” If you do not “have” the Father, you do not know him, you cannot honor or worship him. End of argument. Case closed.
My prayer is that any who are reading this article, be they Muslim or atheist, who deny the Son, may by the grace of God open their eyes to the true identity of Jesus of Nazareth. He is the Word who became flesh (John 1:14). He is the one whom we must honor and adore with the same passion and conviction with which we honor and adore his Father.

Monday, October 7, 2019

5 Reasons Not to Give Announcements in Worship Service By Eric Geiger

Several years ago my former boss and wise sage, Thom Rainer, made the observation that large churches (700 and up in average worship attendance) are highly unlikely to have announcements as a part of the worship service. Thom always has a keen sense of what is happening in large number of churches, so while many churches still give announcements, he recognized the trend away from them. Which I believe is great. Here are five reasons announcements should be minimized or even eliminated in a church’s worship gatherings.

1. They are not that effective.

Look around the next time you are in a church service during the announcements. You likely won’t see high levels of engagement. Announcements in a worship service are not that effective. They are often filled with “insider language” that can even cause people to feel like this place is not something I can understand or navigate. And the more announcements in a worship service the less effective each one is. As complexity goes up, engagement always goes down.

2. Announcements in a worship service don’t change the heart.

I get that something people are invited to can be a place where God changes the heart, but people are already gathered in the moment. That moment should be stewarded well. More prayer, more singing, or more study is exponentially more transformational than more announcements.

3. People did not come to church for announcements.

No one wakes up on a Sunday morning and goes to church to hear announcements. It is not why God’s people gather together, nor should it be. We gather to encourage one another, to worship Him in community, and to study His Word.

4. They disrupt the arc of the worship service.

Those who prayerfully and intentionally plan a worship service do so with the desire to declare God’s grace and truth and respond His grace and truth. However the service is designed, announcements typically disrupt where the leaders desire to take people.

5. A smaller percentage of the people will hear them.

Whatever level of effectiveness announcements had in church services a decade ago, they are way less effective now as people attend church less frequently then a decade ago. Meaning less people in the church even hear the announcements any given week.
How will a church help guests take a next step? How will people be encouraged to plug into a group or serve in a ministry? Those are the right questions and announcements in church services are often the easy answer, but not always the best answer. There is a better way to having infomercials in the middle of a worship service. There is better way than promoting five of “the best things ever” in between the singing and the teaching. I will offer a few thoughts on a better way in an upcoming post.

Tuesday, October 1, 2019

When the Bible Speaks, God Speaks by Tim Challies

Today’s post features Al Mohler on the classic doctrine of biblical inerrancy. It is sponsored by Zondervan Academic.
Sola scriptura, Scripture alone, was the formal principle of the Reformation, and it’s also the fundamental principle of evangelical Christianity. We’re the people of the Bible. That’s where it all starts. And that’s where it all ends in this life. All that we have revealed in Scripture is given to us by God.
The question is, how do we understand that Scripture?
Every Word of Scripture is Inspired
The classical evangelical doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture comes down to a simple formula: when the Scripture speaks, God speaks. That’s an easy way to understand exactly what we’re seeking to affirm here. This means we can have the confidence that whenever we read the Bible—any text of Scripture—God is speaking. It’s not just Isaiah speaking. It’s not just Mark or Luke speaking. It’s not just the apostle Paul or Ezekiel speaking. It’s God speaking.
Even more fundamental than the inerrancy of Scripture is understanding what’s behind it. And that is how God gave us the Bible. This is referred to as a theory or a concept of inspiration: how did inspiration happen? There are different variants held by different people throughout time. But what I’m going to contend for is what evangelicals have long prized: the verbal inspiration of Scripture, which is formally called the verbal plenary inspiration of Scripture.
It comes down to this. The Holy Spirit as the Scripture tells us moved “men of old”—that’s how they’re described in the New Testament—to write exactly what the Holy Spirit wanted written. That means right down to the words. Every word of Scripture is inspired—that’s verbal inspiration. And plenary verbal means “fully”—that’s what plenary affirms. Every word of Scripture is inspired. And every word of Scripture is fully inspired.
The Church Doctrine of Scripture
Let me tell you how that liberates us. First of all, it liberates us to understand that we’re not looking for the Word of God in Scripture. We’re not reading a text of Scripture or hearing a text of Scripture and trying to listen for where in those words is the Word of God. Instead, we are affirming that the words themselves are the Word of God, that the Scripture is nothing other than the Word of God in written form.
B. B. Warfield, one of the great defenders of Scripture in the nineteenth century, rightly articulated this. He called it “the church doctrine of Scripture.” Why would he call it that? Because, as Warfield said, it’s the church’s historic understanding of what Scripture is, how Scripture came to us, and the perfection of Scripture in its truthfulness and in its trustworthiness as we know it now. The church doctrine of Scripture can be traced throughout the history of the church. The church doctrine of Scripture is grounded more than anything else in the words of Scripture, in the very claims that the Word of God makes concerning itself.
Biblical Inerrancy in the Modern Age
One of the things we need to note is that the conversation we’re having is on the other side of the advent of the modern age. If you were to go back to the time before the Enlightenment—if you were to go back before the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—there would have been an overwhelming consensus that the Bible, verbally inspired, is the Word of God.
The arrival of the modern age changed the conversation about inspiration. With the modern age came arguments that led to innovations in Christian doctrine. There was a tremendous sea change in the way human beings thought. The Enlightenment was a more human-centered way of looking at the entire universe. And eventually, this human-centered view began to affect how some people understood the Bible, too.
This explains why some people in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries want to argue that the Bible is just ancient literature. It’s ancient religious literature. The Bible was changed from being understood as the Word of God to being understood as the witness of ancient Israel, or the story of the unfolding nature of the early church.
Who is Speaking
But this is where Christians have to understand exactly what B. B. Warfield was emphasizing. We hold to the church doctrine of Scripture, the doctrine of Scripture that has marked to the Christian church, and is foundational for our understanding, our confidence, not only of what the Bible is, but of who’s speaking. Is it merely Paul? Is it merely Ezekiel? Is it merely Moses? Well, Paul and Moses and Ezekiel do speak in Scripture. But more importantly, God speaks.
Where does God speak in Scripture? Everywhere, in every word.
Learn more about the classic doctrine of biblical inerrancy by watching Dr. Mohler’s lecture in Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy, A Video Study, or stream the enter lecture on MasterLectures.