Love Truth Blog

July 20, 2012 is one of those days when evil rears its ugly head and we are left speechless. The suspect, James Egan Homes, walked into the midnight premiere of the Dark Knight Rises at a theater in Aurora, Colorado, and begins a shooting spree. 12 killed 58 wounded. It is unspeakable to even describe. We can invent words to describe great injustices and tragedies, like “genocide,” but they never really come close to the intenseness of the experience. Aurora is not the first place. Great evils occurred elsewhere, such as Auschwitz, the Cambodian “Killing Fields,” Rwanda, Columbine, the 9/11 attacks in New York, just to name some. History is littered with these kinds of events. How do we come to grips with the kind of evil that happened in Aurora? The aftermath of such acts of evil leave us with questions. Did friends/acquaintances see any signs that he would do such a thing? Is the problem physical a brain malfunction? Was the person in the right state of mind at that time? Who

Recently, I came across an article from Relevant entitled “ Christianity’s New F-Word ” by Sungyak Kim. What caught my eye was the teaser: “All this learning how to defend Christianity seems to have left us uncomfortable with one very basic word.” Being in an apologetics ministry, I was drawn into reading the piece. Kim offered a critique on the growing popularity of Christian apologetics, and raised concerned over what he perceived to be mainstream apologists attempts to answer every “prate and twaddle” coming their way. In doing this, Kim finds popular Christian apologetics surrendering to “the culture’s definition of ‘rational,’ ‘reasonable,’ and ‘justified.’ ” I can understand that apologetics cannot be sidetracked into trying to address every “prate and twaddle.” Instead of addressing key apologetic issues (e.g. origins of the universe, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the reliability of the Bible), an apologist might get caught up in a debate over secondary issues. Ye

Jesus’ parables have a shrewdness, which made them highly effective in communicating extremely controversial messages. The parable of the landowner facing off against wicked tenants is a prime example. It is unmistakably a powerful condemnation to a sinful religious establishment in the spirit of the ancient prophets. The Lord tells the following story: T here was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a wall around it and dug a wine press in it , and built a tower , and rented it out to vine-growers and went on a journey. When the harvest time approached, he sent his slaves to the vine-growers to receive his produce. The vine-growers took his slaves and beat one, and killed another, and stoned a third. Again he sent another group of slaves larger than the first; and they did the same thing to them. But afterward he sent his son to them, saying, “They will respect my son.” But when the vine-growers saw the son, they said among themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kil

Self-righteousness has a way of making a person blind to the truth of their own circumstances. The self-righteous are unable to see they have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The religious establishment of Jesus’ day suffered from this spiritual blindness. They could easily see the faults of the tax collectors and prostitutes, but failed to see their own faults. Jesus even tried to bring this to light in the act of clearing the temple of money changers, since they were making God’s house a “robbers den” (Matt. 21:13). Yet, the self-righteous leaders still could not see their error. To help the self-righteous realize their situation, Jesus tells this story: But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, “Son, go work today in the vineyard.” And he answered, “I will not.” But afterward he regretted it and went. The man came to the second and said the same thing; and he answered, “I will , sir.” But he did not go” (Matt. 21:28-30).

I hope everyone is having a blessed Independence Day! I am always grateful for living in the United States, with all of its freedoms and representative democracy. But I am also mindful of the fact that it is the God of heaven who made and sustains the world I live. Not just my country, but all countries are established by God. I think that is something always to remember. Yet, as an American, I do appreciate the 4th of July holiday, and it is a time to commemorate the birth of a nation, as well as show a little patriotism. Even so, I believe that what makes life in the United States so great it its very infrastructure was built upon hearts and minds influenced by the Bible. For example, when the founding fathers of this country established this representative democracy, they were informed by the pattern of government God established for Israel’s theocracy. The Lord appointed Moses to lead and prophesy; however, there were also another seventy elders to assist in the burd