By -
Merry Christmas from Layman

I have been defending the nativity narrative of Luke for a few days now. But today I'll refer to a passage from Matthew that I think nicely captures the significance of the incarnation and the reason we should celebrate this day with joy:

"Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us." -Matthew 1:23.


Merry Christmas.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Was God with the 20,000 who died due to an Act of God?
12/27/2004 05:34:00 AM
Anonymous said…
'God with us'???

Did God know that God was with him,when God Incarnate said on the cross that the one God of Christianity had forsaken the one God?

How can God be with us when God was not even with Jesus?
12/27/2004 05:35:00 AM
Layman said…
The phrase "Act of God" is somewhat misleading. This is an act of nature. Though there is a cost, God has provided us with predictable laws of nature that allow us to live our lives and plan our own futures.

But this argument is hardly a new ones. There have been much more destructive acts of God in the past and there may be more destructive ones in the future. They haven't destroyed belief in God in the past, they are unlikely to in the future.
12/27/2004 07:31:00 AM
Layman said…
God can be with us now in a more powerful way than previous precisely because of what Jesus accomplished on the cross.
12/27/2004 07:33:00 AM
BK said…
I would attempt to answer Anonymous (*sigh*), but the tone of the comments suggest he/she isn't seeking an answer but merely flinging accusations. 'Tis the Season to be frivolous, I guess.
12/27/2004 08:29:00 AM
Anonymous said…
"This is an act of nature"

Nature has a 'mind' of its own?
How so?
12/27/2004 11:21:00 PM
Layman said…
Who said nature has a mind of its own?

Please stay on topic.
12/28/2004 12:02:00 AM
Anonymous said…
Act of Nature?

God creates and sustains all things, including Nature.

Isaiah 45:7 ' I form the light and create darkness,
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
I, the LORD , do all these things.'
12/28/2004 04:08:00 AM
Layman said…
To paraphrase from The Princess Bride:

"That verse. I donna think it means what you think it means."

Yes, God made light and darnkess. Yes, he has brought prosperity and disaster. But he does not appear to claim credit for all weather and geological events.

Some Christians would disagree with me, of course. Perhaps Calvinists or Presbyterians. They would give you different answeres.
12/28/2004 07:27:00 AM
Anonymous said…
Job 5:10 'He bestows rain on the earth; he sends water upon the countryside.'

Job 37:6 'He says to the snow, 'Fall on the earth,' and to the rain shower, 'Be a mighty downpour.'

Psalm 135:7 'He makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth; he sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses.

A search of the Christian Cadre site reveals this article http://www.godandscience.org/love/sld031.html


'God Proclaims His Love:
Design of the Earth



Established a unique continental crust, which allows for recycling of minerals through tectonic activity'

Gosh, God loved those 50,000 who died through his recycling of minerals through tectonic activity.
12/29/2004 07:31:00 AM
Layman said…
Anon,

You are going to have to be specific about your point. If you have one, that is.

None of these verses say that all Acts of Nature are purposefully caused by God to accomplish some end. So if your point is that God killed these people, you'll need to find better scriptural evidence.

If your point is merely that God created a world in which bad things can happen, then I would agree with you. God created a world in which bad and good things can happen.

Is this the best possible world he could make and still accomplish his purposes in making creation at all? Arguing that is is not seems a pointless exercise in speculation.
12/29/2004 08:38:00 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Many Children in Bethlehem Did Herod Kill?

By -
A couple of months ago, I wrote a post about the Gospel of Matthew’s account of the slaughter of the innocents. Therein, I argued that some of the skepticism about the account was unjustified. One argument I made was that the number of children killed in Bethlehem would likely have been no more than 20. Though obviously an act of great evil, the killing of 20 children would be much less likely to be noticed by historians of the time than the slaughter of thousands as later traditions speculated. In response to the post, Peter Kirby asked a few questions. He has patiently waited my response, continuously delayed by work, family, and the completion of my Acts article . Two of the questions had to do with how the amount of 20 was determined. Others with the omission of the account by Luke and the reliability of the tradition recounted by Macrobius. Peter also mentioned that there were other reasons to doubt the story's historicity beyond just the silence of other sources. I ...
Read more

The Bogus Gandhi Quote

By J. P Holding -
Image
I first made this post in 2012, and since then I've made a sort of mini-career out of tracking down bogus quotes like this one (including a video version below). It's a sort of fun microcosm of the way information is mishandled in the Information Age. ** I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. – Mahatma Gandhi A Christian can probably expect to get this quote thrown at them at least once in their lifetime, and waved in their face many more. I had it put to me recently, but my experience with this sort of thing immediately led me to wonder -- is it real? The evidence at this point seems to be no. The first signal of a problem was that anywhere I found it, no source was given. That's often a sign that something is being passed around uncritically. Whether online sources or books, no one seemed to have a source for this quote. A second warning was that the quote has been given more than one context. As ...
Read more

Where did Jesus say "It is better to give than receive?"

By -
A visitor to the CADRE site recently sent a question about Paul's statement in Acts 20:35 which records Paul as saying, "And remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He said, 'It is better to give than to receive'." The reader wanted to know where Jesus said this. This was my answer: You are correct in noting that this saying of Jesus quoted by Paul is not found anywhere in the four Gospels. My own study Bible says "This is a rare instance of a saying of Jesus not found in the canonical Gospels." Does the fact that it isn't stated in the Gospels mean that it isn't reliably from the lips of Jesus? I don't think so. The Apolstle John said at the end of his Gospel (John 21:25): "Jesus did many other things as well.If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written." Obviously, this is exaggeration for the sake of making a point, but it means that Jesus ...
Read more

Discussing Embryonic Stem Cell Research

By -
Stand to Reason has published a list of "talking points" that can be used as a quick reference sheet for answering questions about embryonic stem cell research and why people ought to oppose this procedure. The piece, entitled "Are you against stem cell research and cloning?" give good, concise answers to some of the questions that arise concerning why Christians would oppose this procedure when it supposedly holds such great promise. For example, consider the following from the "talking points": Where do we get human embryonic stem cells? We can only derive human embryonic stem cells by killing a human embryo. Removing its stem cells leaves it with no cells from which to build the organs of its body. What is the embryo? An embryo is a living, whole, human organism (a human being) in the embryonic stage. All the embryo needs to live is a proper environment and adequate nutrition, the very same thing all infants, toddlers, adolescents, and adults need. ...
Read more

Tillich, part 2: What does it mean to say "God is Being Itself?"

By -
 In this essay, which is a chapter from the new book I'm now working on, I'm moving toward defining what I think Tillich means exactly by being itself. It's a long journey but an important one. What does Tillich actually mean by “being itself?” Does he mean the same things as other theologians who use the phrase? It’s a mysterious sounding phrase and Tillich never actually comes out and says what he means by it. As I will show there is a reason for this, and I will show what I think that reason in is. In the mean time the task of this chapter is to deduce exactly what Tillich actually means by this phrase. There are three basic possibilities: Three alternatives as to meaning (1) The basic fact that things exist is all that the concept of “God” amounts to. (2) There is a special quality to being, an impersonal aspect” ground of being” or “being itself” and that quality constitutes ‘the divine.’ This possibility excludes God as “king of the universe.” (3) God is b...
Read more

Revamping and New Articles at the CADRE Site

By -
We have changed the Christian History page at the CADRE site from the old design to the new one. The focus of the revamped page has expanded, with many new articles: This page provides links to websites and articles relating to Christian history, including theological development, notable figures, contributions of Christianity to society and culture, and the archaeological evidence for the facts of the Bible. We have also added four new articles by Darin Wood, PhD: John Chrysostum: His Life, Legacy, and Influence Dr. Wood provides an informative sketch of Chrysostum's life, as well as an exploration into his writings and impact on church evangelism. The Righteousness of God in the Pauline Corpus Dr. Wood examines the crucial role that righteousness plays in understanding Paul's perspectives on justification, propitiation, expiation, and covenant. The Structure of the Apocalypse Dr. Wood provides an in-depth analysis of the structure (or structures) behind the Book o...
Read more

The Folded Napkin Legend

By J. P Holding -
I wrote about t his "urban legend" a few years ago, but it's typical of the silly urban legends we hear about now and then, such as the idea that the head of Proctor and Gamble went on Oprah to pledge his allegiance to Satanism. Christians are no less gullible for this sort of nonsense than anyone else, and frankly, some seem more gullible to believe anything that they consider "edifying". It's no wonder we're mesmerized by self-comfort tunes like "I Can Only Imagine" that contain about as much useful theology as a thimble. ** The Gospel of John (20:7) tells us that the napkin, which was placed over the face of Jesus, was not just thrown aside like the grave clothes. The Bible takes an entire verse to tell us that the napkin was neatly folded, and was placed at the head of that stony coffin.... In order to understand the significance of the folded napkin, you have to understand a little bit about Hebrew tradition of that day. The fol...
Read more

A Botched Abortion Shows the Lies of Pro-Choice Proponents

By -
One of the classes I teach at the university is a course on Ethics, and I am using a book by Ralph Dolgoff, Donna Harrington and Frank M. Lowenberg entitled " Ethical Decisions for Social Work Practice " as the text. Overall, I think that it is a good Ethics textbook largely because it provides a balanced viewpoint on the need for values in social work. For example, the book makes the argument (without committing to it) that those engaged in social work cannot avoid making value judgments in ethical decisions because trying to do what is right necessarily involves making an value choice. Also, I book notes that some (including me) think it is ethically wrong for a social worker to cover-up her own values when counseling another person because it creates a false (and ultimately unproductive) relationship with the person being counseled. Still, one of the exemplars in the book gave me pause – not because I thought it raised a deep ethical quandary, but because I wondered how ...
Read more

Do you say this of your own accord? (John 18:34, ESV)

By -
Image
One of the most well-known events in Scriptures is Jesus' exchange with Pontius Pilate at his trial as described in John 18. In verse 38 of that chapter, Pilate asks the question that may be the most ironic in the history of the world, "What is truth?" A less known but equally intriguing saying of Jesus from an apologetics viewpoint can be found in Jesus' response to an earlier question in the same trial. It is a question that is not often quoted, but on those rare occasions when it is quoted, Jesus' response is often overlooked as not particularly important or relevant to today's world. However, it is my experience (as well as the experience of many people who have truly spent time studying the Scriptures) that little, if any, of what Jesus said in the Bible lacks significance across time. To best understand the response, it's important to see the response in context. The situation is this: Jesus has been arrested following His betrayal by Judas I...
Read more

A Non-Biblical Historian Accepts the Key "Minimum Facts" Supporting Jesus' Resurrection

By -
In their book, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus , Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona argue for the historical reality of Jesus' bodily resurrection using the "minimum facts" approach. Rather than get bogged down in inerrancy and other debates, they focus on the key facts demonstrating Jesus' resurrection. For them, the key facts are: *Jesus' death by crucifixion. *Disciples' Beliefs that Jesus Appeared. *Conversion of Paul. *Conversion of James. *Empty Tomb. William L. Craig, another significant apologist for the historical bodily resurrection of Jesus likewise focuses, in his accessible The Son Rises , on the empty tomb and Jesus' resurrection appearance. Craig gives special emphasis to Jesus' honorable burial by Joseph of Arimathea and Jesus' appearances to James and Paul and their subsequent commitment to the Christian cause. Craig, Licona, and Habermas argue that these basic facts are generally supported by most of the relevant sc...
Read more