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Growing up, I always viewed Arminianism as some sort of “faith plus works” model of salvation.   That idea was further established by those friends of mine who came from supposed Arminian circles that very much did believe that their salvation was in part dependent on the salvific work of Christ on the cross and in part due to their constant striving in good works.  Though I knew not what label to affix to their theology at the time, I grew to be certain in later years, that they practiced what is known as Arminian theology.  In all reality, however, what my friends were guilty of embracing was more of a folk-theology digression from true, Classical Arminianism.

In his book, Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities, Roger E. Olson makes a strong defense of Classical Arminian theology against many of the commonly-held, yet thoroughly unwarranted caricatures of Arminian Theology.  He does this in ten chapters, each tackling a separate Myth projected onto Arminianism by those outside (and, unfortunately by some supposedly inside) the Arminian camp.  The 10 myths are as follows:

1. Arminian Theology is the Opposite of Calvinist/Reformed Theology
2. A Hybrid of Calvinism and Arminianism is Possible
3. Arminianism is not an Orthodox Evangelical Option
4. The Heart of Arminianism is Belief in Free Will
5. Arminian Theology Denies the Sovereignty of God
6. Arminianism is a Human-Centered Theology
7. Arminianism is Not a Theology of Grace
8. Arminians Do Not Believe in Predestination
9. Arminian Theology Denies Justification by Grace Alone Through Faith Alone
10. All Arminians Believe in the Governmental Theory of the Atonement

I believe this book would be beneficial for both Calvinist and Arminian alike.  It has always been my conviction (though sadly not always my practice) that to be fair we ought to get our description of a particular theological persuasion from the best, most able proponents of that persuasion. All too often, we are satsified in obtaining our description of a theological camp we differ with from the detractors of that view, rather than “the horse’s mouth.”  Let us all be gracious enough to read the perspective of those we think we disagree with before deriding them as sub-Christian or heretical.  Those are strong terms that ought not be used flippantly.

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If you are interested in purchasing this book, it is available at the following links:

Were the Books that we find in our Bibles today hand-picked to fit a certain mold or was the process more objective than that? This post is an attempt to answer a particular objection I was confronted with to the truth-claims of Christianity by a friend and has to deal with what is called the Canon of Scripture.  (Canon is just a fancy Greek word that meant “measuring rod” and by which we understand the canon to be that “rule of faith” that recognized – not selected – certain books as authoritative and inspired of God.) 

The early church was never popular.  Besides the fact that Jesus was doing miracles left and right (and then the Apostles followed suit with miracles), by and large the crowds were unimpressed spiritually.  They liked magic tricks, but that was about where it left off.  Being unpopular from the get-go was bad enough, but “The Way” or Christianity, was proving to be quite the competitor to the Judaism of the Jews or the pantheism of the Romans.  Before long, both camps were persecuting this up-start religion. 

After what is known as the Edict of Diocletian, wherein the sacred Scriptures were to be burned by law, the Christians were forced to determine not which books would make for the best story, but which books they were willing to die for….and die they did.  This edict, coupled with the fact that a heretic by the name of Marcion had developed his own canon of sorts (or list of books that he held to be the Bible), the church at large needed to respond with an authoritative list of books of their own.  The process was not at all hodge-podge, pick and choose as some have supposed, but they had several criteria they used to discover (not determine) which books belonged.  I’ll quickly define just a couple of the most important ones here:

1. Apostolicity – was the book either written by an apostle, an associate of an apostle, or was approved by an apostle (by quoting it, etc.)
2. Catholicity – not whether or not the book was Roman Catholic, but universal in its acceptance.  Catholic actually literally means universal.

There are certainly other criteria that were used (the list ranges in number of criteria listed, but not in substance). 

Here are some quick videos (just a couple minutes a piece that would be worth looking at:
Lee Strobel – Former atheist discusses the reliability of the Bible
Dr. Wallace answers your question more specifically
Dr. Bock speaks to those “gospels” that never made it into the Bible

This was not meant to be an exhaustive answer to your question regarding the compiling of the Sacred Scriptures, but it does present the other side of the story.  I hope you’ll read what I wrote and take a moment to watch the videos (they’re very short) before you make a final decision.  Truth, at the end of the day, is what matters. 

I hope this post finds you doing well and pursuing Truth.  After all, the truth is what sets you free. – John 8:32

The oldest alleged naturalistic explanation for why the tomb was empty was that Jesus’ disciples had stolen the body.  This story was first propagated by the Jewish leaders who wanted to stifle the inevitable explosion of growth that would be realized when word got out that this tomb was in fact empty.  So, does the stolen body theory work?  Read the words of Scottish Theologian Principal Hill and decide for yourself:

“But if not withstanding every appearance of truth, you suppose their testimony to be false, then inexplicable circumstances of glaring absurdity crowd upon you. You must suppose that twelve men of mean birth, of no education, living in that humble station which placed ambitious views out of their reach and far from their thoughts, without any aid from the state, formed the noblest scheme which ever entered into the mind of man, adopted the most daring means of executing that scheme, and conducted it with such address as to conceal the imposture under the semblance of simplicity and virtue. You must suppose that men guilty of blasphemy and falsehood, united in an attempt the best contrived, and which has in fact proved the most successful, for making the world virtuous; that they formed this singular enterprise without seeking any advantage to themselves, with an avowed contempt of loss and profit, and with the certain expectation of scorn and persecution; that although conscious of one another’s villainy, none of them ever thought of providing for his own security by disclosing the fraud, but that amidst sufferings the most grievous to flesh and blood they persevered in their conspiracy to cheat the world into piety, honesty and benevolence. Truly, they who can swallow such suppositions have no title to object to miracles.”

You see, the stolen body theory was simply the best thing they could come up with on such short notice and because of one HUGE problem – the tomb WAS empty!  As demonstrated, however, this theory falls short on several fronts.

We serve a risen Savior.  Happy Easter!

2,000 years ago, an obscure man from an obscure family, living in an obscure town made the claim that He was the Son of God – indeed God Himself. While that claim seems outrageous enough to us, it was infinitely more outrageous to the Jewish culture of the 1st century, which counted it blasphemy for any human being to claim divinity and were appalled by the very idea. Despite their best efforts to refute this alleged God-man, Jesus Christ not only claimed to be the Son of God, but backed it up with some 30 (recorded) miracles – not the least of which was rising from the dead. The funny thing is, those most opposed to the teachings of Jesus never claimed that He didn’t do the things that He said He did – they simply attempted to make the miracles out to be demonic in nature, rather than divine. The problem, though, was that the very nature of the miracles that were performed refuted the idea of having been born of malevolence – you’re probably familiar with Jesus’ response: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” What’s more, none of Jesus’ enemies ever refuted the idea that the tomb was in fact empty on the third day, just as He had predicted. They simply attempted to find an alternative explanation, which paled in comparison to the truth: Jesus Christ had predicted and accomplished His own resurrection from the dead, just as promised.

C.S. Lewis pointed out that we are granted three options when it comes to the person of Jesus Christ:
1. We can choose to pity Him as a mad-man or fool…for who else would claim to be God if He wasn’t?
2. We can spit on Him as a very demon of hell, for who else would convince his friends to die for a lie?
3. OR – We can fall on our faces and worship Him as the very Son of God He proved Himself to be.

You see, we don’t have the option of just respecting Him as a good teacher or prophet – I can think of a lot of words to call someone who calls themselves God and convinces their friends to die for that claim when in fact they are not, but GOOD is not one of them. We frankly weren’t given that verdict as an option. God Almighty never intended for it to be an option.

So what is Christ to YOU, this Easter – your Lunatic? your Liar? or your Lord and Savior?

Choose as if your life depends on it…IT DOES.

Another discussion at work prompts another post…

The question arose, sincerely enough, “Is personal Bible study really all that important.?”  My friend went on to add “Isn’t everyone just supposed to try to live out the basics and interpret it for themselves?”

In this age of the “Gospel According to Oprah” (aka: anything goes spirituality), it would seem honorable enough to just “live and let live” and not push our interpretation of God’s Word on anyone else.  Don’t those who study the Bible more just find more to argue about?  Wouldn’t it be much more freeing to just not have such dogmatic opinions on Biblical doctrine?

Well, historically, it has been the exact opposite scenario – the less people knew about their Bibles, the more enslaved they were to the dictates of ecclesiastical (Church) hierarchy. Countless heresies were able to develop at the whim and fancy of the church because no laymen were able to read the Bible for themselves.  For many, many years, for those who even could read in their own language, a vernacular translation was illegal!  How was the individual follower of Jesus Christ to know where to follow?  People were lost for lack of Biblical knowledge.  It wasn’t until the Reformation, fueled by personal study of the Bible in its original languages, that emancipation from this spiritual bondage could begin.

Today, we see an abundance of modern translations to read and an unwillingness to read them!  What was yesterday a bondage due to ignorance will become in our generation a bondage due to apathy.  Will we ever see such extreme enslavement of the church to an Ecclesiastical hierarchy again?  Probably not.  Because the Bible is so readily available, laymen today are just a few page-turns or mouse-clicks away from discovering for themselves what the Bible really says.  What I fear is that the exact opposite will happen – we will become TOO free and accepting and lose our doctrine!  Because we don’t make personal Bible study a priortiy, we will be more and more given over to the idea that any interpretation is a proper interpretation.  We will become no less enslaved today to our tolerance than the church of yesterday was to its intolerance.

We have in our hands today a most precious commodity – the inspired Word of God.  He only wrote one, why shouldn’t we take the time to study it?

Many today who casually call themselves “Christian” fail to see the very existence of Christianity today for the miracle it is. Today, one third of the world’s population wear the label. So where do I get off calling Christianity an unlikely story?

Well, to start, the story of Christianity begins obviously enough with the birth of its namesake, Jesus Christ. This birth fulfilled a prophecy written by Micah 700 years before it took place! (Micah 5:2) In fact, Micah even prophesied where the birth would take place – Bethlehem. This was certainly not the only Messianic prophecy that Jesus fulfilled. In all, some 300 prophecies were fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus Christ! One prominent mathematician calculated that the odds of one person fulfilling just 8 of these prophecies was so unlikely as to be statistically impossible.

While the odds were bad enough that one person could fulfill the prophecies necessary to identify them as the promised Messiah of the Old Testament, the religious culture into which Christianity was born was totally opposed to the idea! The Jews were expecting a Messiah, sure enough, but not in the fashion that Christ was delivered to them. They thought it utterly disgraceful to think of the Messiah being born of a human mother. No man could be God, and surely God would never become a man. The very idea to them was no less than blasphemous.

Despite their ideological bent against Jesus being the true Messiah, there was a period of time when a large portion of the Jewish community accepted Him as such. This of course found its peak on Palm Sunday, but was short lived as they would be shouting “Crucify Him” just a few days later. You see, the Jews were not anticipating the Spiritual Savior they ought to have been, but were looking for a Kingly, political figure to reinstate them as a nation.

In addition to Jesus, there were a host of others Messianic claimants ranging from late first century B.C. all the way in to the second century A.D. We read of just a few of them in the book of Acts, chapter five as the High Priest, Gamaliel tells us that the claimants he were familiar with had died and their followers were scattered as a consequence. Nothing became of their following. He postulated that if Jesus were of the same ilk, the same consequence would befall He and His followers. But, he continued, if this Jesus were the real deal, he wanted no part of standing in the way.

Despite all the odds being stacked against the fledgling faith system, not only did it survive, but thrived. In the first few centuries of the church, we read of heavy persecution against Christians by the Roman government – all to no avail. In fact, Tertullian made the claim in the 3rd century that the blood of the Christian martyr was the seed of the church. Persecution had the exact opposite of the intended effect.

It should be mentioned at this point that the reason Christianity was able to survive – especially in the early years – was that it demonstrated itself to be authentic, to be the truth. Christ and His apostles were not the only ones claiming miracles for Jesus. His enemies – the very religious group that crucified Him – never denied that He did the miracles that were attributed to Him. They simply ascribed the power by which he accomplished them to Satan. It is difficult, however, to argue for an evil cause when the effect manifests no such evil. You would think that if Jesus Christ had an evil ulterior motive in working His many miracles, it would not be to appropriate a system steeped in good will toward the fellow man and love of your neighbors. That is hardly a likely product of deceitful scheming.

For all intents and purposes, Christianity was a belief system that should not have survived the first century. Jesus’ very name should be one that was forgotten in ancient History with the likes of Theudas and Judas of Galilee. The problem for the unbeliever is that His name wasn’t forgotten. In fact, the most ardent atheist today acknowledges the birth of Christ each and every time they employ our dating system. Like it or not, Christianity was meant to stick around and today, some 2 billion of its adherents bear heavy testimony that it has no plans of going away any time soon.

Misconceptions are in no short supply when it comes to the history (transmission/translation) of the Bible.  I, for example, for most of my life knew only enough about the origin of the Bible to know not to bring the topic up for discussion, especially in the presence of inquiry-prone or skeptical friends.  Perhaps this article finds you in a similar boat.  Have you ever been asked to give an explanation of where your Bible came from?  If so, did you have an answer you were confident in, or were you as ill prepared as I was?  This next series of articles will address that very topic and this article will prepare the way for that discussion.  We will be addressing here some of the major misconceptions and false beliefs popularly associated with the Bible.  In addition we’ll attempt to build a framework of understanding regarding the chronological history of the Bible that will be further expounded in articles soon to come.  Both these efforts ought to work together to increase your confidence in the Scriptures.

We should start with some basic facts – things every Christian ought to know – and probably most readers of this article already do.  For the sake of those who may not know, however, we will lay out some of those basic facts, and build upon this common understanding.

To begin, the Bible was written over an astounding period of 1500-1600 years.  Some 40 authors did the work – from all walks of life, in 3 languages and on 3 continents!  If we said nothing further, the case would have already been made for at least the uniqueness of the authorship of the Bible, if nothing else.  How does that stack up against other “holy” books you might ask?  Well, in comparison, the Book of Mormon was supposedly authored by an unidentified number of unnamed prophets from an unknown period of time, writing in an unverified language.  The translation of this mystery language (“reformed Egyptian”) was done by one man, Joseph Smith, and published in 1830.  The word “ambiguity” barely scratches the surface.  Of similar incredibility, the holy book of Islam (the Quran) is a compilation of “divine” revelations given by Allah through the Archangel Gabriel to the prophet Mohammed.  The veracity of these revelations rest on the trustworthiness of one individual, who, at the time, was otherwise convinced he was under demonic attack.  He was only later persuaded by his wife to believe that the visions he was having were divine – shaky to say the least.  You get the point, I’m sure.  Not every book claiming to have been written by God deserves equal consideration.

It is time now for some facts that Christians must acquaint themselves with in their quest for truth if we are to remain objective and honest.  We must come to grips with the fact that we have NONE of the original writings as penned by their original authors.  Though we have thousands of manuscripts in Greek alone, we have only copies of copies of those original writings.  I assure you, however, that this is no cause for despair.  I’ll explain why there is no need to despair in a moment, but first, let me say from the outset that the typical “telephone game” argument for corruption – as you will hear many a skeptic propose – has not taken place.  In case you’re unfamiliar, the telephone game is a funny way of passing a whispered statement down a line of eager participants, some of which may be instructed to introduce errors into the statement they received, thus corrupting the final message.  The humor is in seeing how distorted the message can become after only a few errors are introduced, often resulting in a message not just semantically altered, but fundamentally changed.  At first look, it may seem fairly logical to expect this type of corruption in the transmission of the Bible.  Indeed, if this were what happened during the oral stages of the transmission of the Word, we would have much to worry about.  As a matter of fact, if this were the case, our very trust in God’s Word would be necessarily impacted.  But, as I promised, there is no need for concern.  Let me show you why.

If I was to start with a single message that was going to be passed on by a single individual to successive generations of single recipient-transmitters, our line of transmission would be expected to break down eventually, giving rise to a gross corruption of the sort we mentioned earlier.  That would be the case with a SINGLE line of transmission.  The problem that must be faced by the proponent of this type of textual corruption is that there was not a single line, but multiple and independent lines of transmission against which all the others could be tested.  Now, for another admission – though we enjoy literally thousands of manuscripts in attestation to the original writings, the closest two manuscripts discovered to date differ from each other an average of 6 times per chapter.  These differences are typically referred to by Bible scholars as Textual Variants. Be careful about accepting just anybody’s explanation of these facts because a misuse or deceptive use of this data could be very misleading (see recent best-sellers by Bart Ehrman).  That these variants exist is a matter of fact.  To expound on that truth to say that we no longer have any idea what the originals said would not only be going too far, it would be downright fallacious.  Again, I will demonstrate this to be the case rather than presupposing it for the sake of vindicating the Christian faith.

The truth is, about 75% of the total number of variants (estimated at 400,000) are completely meaningless.  These meaningless variants would typically constitute a minor punctuation difference or capitalization here or there that has no bearing on the meaning of the text whatsoever.  That being the case, we’ve now dramatically reduced the potential number of corrupting variants to around 100,000.

The second category of variants are those that are referred to as Meaningful, but not Viable. That is to say that while the variant represented in a particular manuscript may change the meaning or understanding of a particular text, there is little to no chance of that variant going back to the original.  These types of variants could be achieved by the slip of a pen or a scribe who has simply been working too long and needs rest!  This category comprises almost the remaining 25% of variants.  Even those of us unskilled mathematicians can clearly see that this doesn’t leave much room for our last category of variants. So you can see how interpretive this data sometimes gets when one’s presupposition (atheism / agnosticism) is in danger of becoming obsolete!

The final category of variant makes up less than one percent of all known variants and those are that which are both meaningful and viable. These would be cases where the actual intended message is in question.  It must be emphasized at this point that these are not only the fewest by far, but even where they do arise, they do not affect a single doctrine that isn’t abundantly clear in other undisputed areas!

The phrase “Mountain out of a molehill” seems appropriate here to describe the “problem” of textual variants.  It really isn’t a problem at all.  The believer can rest assured that God’s Word, while not preserved in the original autographs, was preserved in the abundance of manuscript evidence backing our English translations.  With some of the major misconceptions now cleared up, we will be able to begin our journey back in time to witness the history of the transmission and translation of the Bible.

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