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mericans have
become increasingly attracted to TV shows that feature the use of forensic
evidence. Forensic evidence is the
application of science and technology in the investigation and establishment of
facts that can be used in a court of law.
The proliferation of shows such as Forensic Files, CSI, and many others
demonstrate our fascination with the use of this technique.
Some time ago, I read one of the most heartrending news
accounts I’ve ever read that involved the use of forensic evidence. In this shocking story we learned that
investigators had found DNA matter on the inside door of a car belonging to an
Alejandro Avila. Analysis confirmed
that the DNA came from the tears of five year-old Samantha Runnion. Based on this evidence, Avila was
subsequently charged with Samantha’s kidnap and murder which took place in
2002.
Every parent swoons at the thought of such a
situation. For a split second one’s
mind flashes with the scene of your own child in Samantha’s place. Then, when
you come back to reality, you go find your kids, hug them tight, and they look
at you like you’re nuts.
We can only imagine poor Samantha’s horror and the events
that caused her flood of tears. But God
is in the process of avenging her.
Because her tears cry out against her murderer and the voice of her
tears will have their day in court — first here on earth, and eventually in
Heaven’s court room.
Interestingly, a similar scene involving forensic evidence
is found in Genesis chapter four. As a
testament to the depravity of mankind we learn there that the first man ever
born has just murdered the second man ever born. Cain, jealous of his brother Abel’s approval with God, executes
his brother in an act of premeditated murder.
God proceeds to prosecute Cain, asking, “Where is Abel
your brother?” Cain replies with a
comment so flippant that it’s been memorialized as a testament to human
callousness: “I do not know, am I my
brother’s keeper?” Cain did what nearly all guilty parties do: he denied
any knowledge of the crime.
But Cain’s “not guilty” plea was short lived. God confronts Cain with the forensic evidence as follows: “The voice
of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground.”
We can’t know completely all the implications of this
devastating indictment. But suffice it
to say that God uncovers forensic evidence in a way that makes our own science
labs look like a kindergarten classroom.
He sees DNA matter with no more difficulty than we see a Mack truck. He hears electrons whirling around a nucleus
as easily as we hear our child’s voice.
No testing or analysis is required because every particle of matter that
exists in the universe is already known by God intimately.
Nor is God’s forensic evidence confined to the
physical. Consider this frightening
statement from the Lord Jesus in Matthew 12.36, “But I tell you that every
careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the
day of judgment.” Are we impressed
at all by a forensic science that exposes all the words of human history? Moreover, will God stop with revealing
merely our words at the judgment?
Or will the judgment include a visual replay of each of our lives
like some cosmic DVD player as inferred in places like Revelation 20.12? Worse yet, will the judgment include an accounting
of all our thoughts in life? How
would you come out in that test?
This is not a comforting scenario, is it? Based on this kind of forensic science we realize that we don’t stand a chance in God’s court. We realize that we don’t need to be the likes of Alejandro Avila to be found guilty and condemned.
What are we going to do?
Ironically, the only way out is to call on the Judge Himself. The Bible says, “There is therefore now
no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8.1). God sent His Son Jesus to take the
condemnation in our stead when He sacrificed Himself on the cross. He did this so that all who cast their lot
with Jesus would receive pardon.
Have you cast your lot with Jesus? Will Jesus be your Judge or your
Saviour? His court is a court that
exhibits perfect forensics, unimpeachable facts and infallible
conclusions. But it also is a court of
unspeakable mercy for all who will put their faith in Him and Him alone.
Glen O’Keefe is Pastor of First Baptist
Church of Enfield, CT
Reasons for Our
Hope (1 Peter 3:15) – Part 3
So far in this series I have tried to show that reason and faith are compatible, and that even great examples of faith, such as Abraham, had questions. Since God knows our hearts, we should be honest with him, and ourselves, about our questions. We also need to follow Abraham's example of humility when we seek answers from God. Though God never promises to answer all of our questions, he does promise to be found by those who seek him. As the Psalmist says, "Thou, O Lord, hast not forsaken those who seek Thee" (Psalm 9:10, The New American Standard Bible).
One issue raised by some people, including a few recent and very popular books, is that that New Testament is untrustworthy because it was changed over time. Some think it has been translated, retranslated, edited and corrupted over time so much so that we can't tell what was in the original version. Considering that the New Testament is about 2,000 years old, such accusations sound possible at first. But, is that really the case? In actuality, there are many reasons to think otherwise.
First, though the New Testament has been translated many times, most translations are made directly from the original language of the New Testament, ancient Greek. Therefore, there is no long chain of retranslations behind Bibles printed today.
Second, almost 6,000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament have survived the centuries. Some of these are small fragments, barely surviving the passage of time. However, many manuscripts contain entire books from the New Testament. In addition to this, some of the earliest manuscripts were hand copied as early as the second century, about 100 years after Christ died.
These facts might not sound impressive, but they are when you compare them to other ancient documents. The New Testament is actually the first place winner for number of manuscripts, with the Iliad in second place with several thousand fewer manuscripts. The earliest of those were hand copied several hundred years after Homer died. In fact, most other ancient documents have only a few dozen or less surviving copies. For example, we have less than a half dozen copies of the so-called "Gospel of Thomas" and only one copy of the "Gospel of Judas."
Another criticism some people make against the New Testament is that it can't be trusted because there are many, many differences between the thousands of manuscripts. Again, this point might sound valid at first, but it is not. First, we should expect some differences when you have thousands of people copying documents by hand. Second, most of the differences are trivial. For example, some manuscripts will read "Jesus Christ" in one place, whereas others will read "Christ Jesus." Many other instances have to do with spelling variants, such as "Rachel" versus "Rachael." These types of differences do not affect the meaning of the text. Third, when some differences do affect the meaning of a text we have several tools to resolve the problem. We can look at the age of the manuscript and several other factors to help determine what the original said.
Even in the worst textual cases, we can often find several other New Testament verses that discuss the same subject matter. No critical Christian doctrine is based on just one or two sentences. Even if some scholars debate the exact wording of a single passage, there are other passages that teach the same thing. (By the way, beware of those who base their theology on a single verse. History is full of people abusing single verses by taking them out of context.)
Obviously, the above is just a summary of the issues. If you are interested in more information on the text of the New Testament, I recommend reading Reinventing Jesus – What The Da Vinci Code and Other Novel Speculations Don't Tell You, by Komoszewski, Sawyer, and Wallace.
Considering how many New Testament manuscripts have survived for hundreds and thousands of years, much more than any other ancient document, Christians find it easy to see God's mighty hand in preserving his Word for us. Whether or not you share this view, the preservation of the New Testament text is remarkable compared to any other ancient document. Though some may exaggerate, distort, or even make up claims that the New Testament text was corrupted, there is more than ample evidence to prove otherwise.
We recently received two books donated by the Creation Coalition of Connecticut. The first is In the Beginning by Walt Brown. The second has already been read by Pete Kozlowski. He graciously wrote a few words to acquaint us with the book.
“I recently had the opportunity to read and review the book, Unlocking the Mysteries of Creation by Dennis R. Petersen. The author makes a compelling, God-based case for the reasons that planet Earth is “young” and not the 13 billion years of age that seems to be the accepted “fact” of this present day scientific world.
In Section three of the book titled “Could Job have seen these?”, the author talks about the dinosaur named apatosaurus that if you go to the 40th chapter of Job and read there of the “behemoth with the tail like a cedar tree”, it makes an interesting case for Job perhaps seeing this dinosaur. Dinosaurs existing with humans is something very foreign to our thinking, but you can read for yourself the Job passages.
This is a good God-centered, Bible based book loaded with many fascinating observations presented in a clear way by the author.
Ever sometimes wonder about modern reports of the Loch Ness monster? This is a good book to reference as to what may be going on. Dinosaurs in the past may have co-existed with humans, and that still might be the case today.
If you know anyone to be an evolutionist this book is a terrific asset to help you to stand firm in what God says and to help out the one lost in Darwin’s falsehoods.”
Ann McDougal is Librarian at First
Baptist Church of Enfield, CT
by Glen O’Keefe
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ike your own
mailbox at home church mailboxes are inundated every day with unsolicited
mail. You'll find plans and programs
that promise to transform your church, ignite exponential growth and give every
church member perfect contentment.
Recently we received a mailing from Purpose
Driven inviting us to participate in their wildly popular program, 40 Days of Purpose.
For the uninitiated, Purpose
Driven is arguably the most influential movement in Evangelical America and
it’s founder, pastor Rick Warren, is de facto the most influential man in
modern Evangelicalism.
I first became aware of Rick Warren some years ago when he
wrote his 1995 watershed book, The
Purpose Driven Church. The impact
of the book has been immense with thousands of pastors eagerly adopting
Warren’s recommended model for church growth.
Relevant is that Warren leads the mammoth Saddleback Church in Lake
Forest, CA which grew under his ministry from zero to 10,000 in only fifteen
years and is now 20,000 plus. Hence,
when Warren speaks, pastors listen, especially when it’s the poor village
minister being pressured by his congregation.
I recall being initially intrigued by the book because of
it’s stated approach of simultaneously viewing the Great Commission (Matthew 28.18-20) and the Great Commandment (Matthew 22.36-40) as a single focus for the
local church. But not many pages into
the book it becomes clear that neither of these play a material role in
Warren’s church growth model.
Instead it is Warren’s organizational genius that produces growth. And the 40 Days of Purpose program, which is now three years in the running, is proof of his abilities. The glossy pamphlet claims that “over 20,000 churches of all denominations” have participated and this is probably an understatement.
The two overarching promises of 40 Days is that churches will grow and that their members will become more spiritually mature Christians. As to the first promise, 40 days clearly delivers. Churches that participate often grow in number, sometimes drastically.
But the second promise of biblical spiritual maturity is nothing less than an abject hoax that makes 40 Days a poster child for 2 Timothy 3.5, which speaks of those “having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.”
Ironically, one of
the most startling evidences of this deficiency is found in the endorsements
section at the back of the glossy 40 Days
pamphlet. The very first testimony is
from “pastor” Tami McGrew of Riverside Community Church in Riverside CA. McGrew praises the 40 Days program for the amazing spiritual growth in her staff and
congregation. Curious, I visited the
church’s website which provided the following “spiritually mature” statement: “We view the Bible as
an inspired and reliable written word of God and regard it as our manual for
living. We do not hold scripture to be infallible or inerrant.”
Now this is strange. One would think that if the 40 Days program really produced its advertised effect that two things would have happened at this church: First, Ms. McGrew would have resigned her pastorate due to her newfound conviction over 1 Timothy 2.12. Secondly, the newly-matured congregation would have repented and affirmed the Bible to be what it indeed is — infallible and inerrant. But despite the “transforming” influence of 40 Days, that apparently has not happened at Riverside.
And this is not at
all surprising. Although 40 Days claims to emphasize Bible study
and discipleship, the studies are in reality
devotionals written by Rick Warren.
Which leads us to what is by far the most glaring weakness in both 40 Days and the Purpose Driven program in general, which is Warren himself.
Rick Warren’s understanding of even the most basic biblical fundamentals is highly questionable. His bestseller, The Purpose Driven Church, though it claims to be written for pastors, is actually written at about an eighth grade level and has so many exegetical errors it’s difficult to know where to begin. Some of them, such as his claim that Jesus used parables to help people understand His vision are only mildly irritating. But others, such as his assertion that Jesus drew crowds only after earning their trust, are downright blasphemous. I can assure you that when the I AM says nothing more than, “follow me,” the creature responds!
Further, Warren’s admonition to “never criticize any method that God is blessing” has opened a Pandora’s Box at Evangelical churches. In the name of evangelism almost any practice — no matter how outrageous — is deemed blessed by God because it is filling pews.
Other aspects of the Purpose Driven movement are equally troubling. In his book, Warren speaks at length about his church’s target constituent whom they call “Saddleback Sam.” Saddleback Sam is hip, in his late thirties, married, has two kids, is well-educated and upper middle class. Warren claims to target such people simply because of the area's demographics. Oh, please.
Purpose Driven’s slick, upscale website underscores this target marketing. It is replete with pictures of people who, almost without exception, are beautiful, affluent looking and for the most part under 40 years old. It instantly raises the question in my mind, if Purpose Driven is so Bible-centered, why doesn’t the site depict the brethren as we really are (1 Cor. 1.26ff)?
Lastly, let me point out what you won’t see much of in the Purpose Driven movement. You won’t see much about Calvary and the
precious blood that flowed to wash away our sins. There’s little discussion about Christ’s soon-return which is
supposed to be the blessed hope of the Church.
There’s not much awe over the excellency and resplendent majesty of
Christ. There’s no cogent explanation
of the means of our justification, which Luther called the article on which the
Church stands or falls. Too, don’t look
for much talk about denying yourself, suffering persecution or forsaking this
world’s ephemeral charms.
Brethren, are not these the things for which we should be purpose-driven? Thanks to Warren, fewer and fewer churches think so. And that’s what makes 40 Days of Purpose a purpose-driven hoax.
Glen O’Keefe is Pastor of First
Baptist Church of Enfield, CT