I love it when people find out I’m a Christian and suddenly want to sound like they know their stuff about the Bible and the “conspiracy theories” surrounding it.
“Oh, you’re a Christian! So, what’s your opinion on the Dead Sea Scrolls?”, then they smile thinking they’ve posed me some kind of theological question they’re not too sure about, however, persuaded it will put me in a difficult situation. The problem is, that is a completely nonsensical question: “Um, what I think about them? Well, I think they're scrolls that were found near the Dead Sea!” It’s like asking someone: “So… what do you think about that stapler over there?” What kind of a question is that? “Er... It works?” But I think maybe, just maybe, someone has told them that there is something very controversial about the Dead Sea Scrolls, and they think “ooh, there’s another 'contradiction' in Christianity!” (on top of all the other "contradictions" they know of). Too bad that friend got their information from another friend having themselves got it from someone else, or from the internet, or from some cheaply written novel…
Romans 1:16-20: I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
People will be happy to accept anything, whether true or untrue, whether phrased intelligently or not, to refute Christianity, like this young person who told me: “No, you see the reason I don’t believe the story of Adam and Eve is true is that the account in the Bible is very similar to other stories found amongst ancient civilisations in the Mesopotamian area.” Oh, I’m sorry, is that an argument, or did you forget the rest of the reasoning back with the first time you heard it. Surely if “other” civilisations from
It’s amazing when people assume that since now we have come to the levels of technological progess we are living in, we are somehow more intelligent than the people who lived back in those days AND we can explain their own story better than they could! They weren’t stupid! They were people like you and I… If you have ever opened a Bible with a bit of intention you would have encountered high levels of detail with which stories are told and censuses are given. They could read, they could write, they could count. They weren’t the uninformed people we are or people in the middle-ages were, because of media bias and censorship. They weren’t scientists, but then, when your God can part a huge sea, you don’t really need science.
Guys like Richard Dawkings argument the other way round: “We have science, we don’t need God anymore!” That is very sad, because they are shooting themselves in the foot, with regards to this life and the next.
But even more dreadful, in the next life, these people will appear before the King, to give an account of their lives. At that time, I know Richard Dawkings will not be saying, “I don’t need you!” no matter how much he hates God! He and a great multitude of others will be faced with the utter holiness of God and will shrink back at that dreadful sight because it will be unbearable to them.
1 Corinthians 1:17-25: Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:
"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."
Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.
