Have you ever wondered about the authority of God and how it influences our beliefs? Today, we're diving into an enlightening conversation about truth, faith, and the role of God's authority in our belief systems. We discuss the fascinating concept of everyone having religious beliefs, even those who deny having any. Join Christa, Bob, and Jeff as we open up about our experiences as Christians and share insights on how recognizing and submitting to God's authority affects your life.
What's the impact of humanism on our faith and truth as Christians? That's the intriguing question we grapple with in the second part of our discussion, where we shine a spotlight on how humanism prioritizes human reasoning over spiritual or divine aspects. We delve into the limitations of human judgment and the enduring validity of the Bible in a world where personal beliefs often challenge Scripture. This episode is an eye-opener, a reminder to consider the truth of Scripture and an exploration of the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives. So, tune in for this thought-provoking episode that enlightens and challenges your beliefs.
Show Notes:
Episode 31: What is Truth? with Pastor Forrest Bivens
Have you ever wondered about the authority of God and how it influences our beliefs? Today, we're diving into an enlightening conversation about truth, faith, and the role of God's authority in our belief systems. We discuss the fascinating concept of everyone having religious beliefs, even those who deny having any. Join Christa, Bob, and Jeff as we open up about our experiences as Christians and share insights on how recognizing and submitting to God's authority affects your life.
What's the impact of humanism on our faith and truth as Christians? That's the intriguing question we grapple with in the second part of our discussion, where we shine a spotlight on how humanism prioritizes human reasoning over spiritual or divine aspects. We delve into the limitations of human judgment and the enduring validity of the Bible in a world where personal beliefs often challenge Scripture. This episode is an eye-opener, a reminder to consider the truth of Scripture and an exploration of the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives. So, tune in for this thought-provoking episode that enlightens and challenges your beliefs.
Show Notes:
Episode 31: What is Truth? with Pastor Forrest Bivens
And yet you're willing to stake your eternity upon your flawed nature to sort out what is right and wrong for me to live by. And one of the greatest arguments, I think, for the objective standard of Scripture is one it isn't always something I like. There are things in the Bible I don't like. I want to rebel against it. But the other thing too is its longevity. I mean, it has been there for centuries and then, all of a sudden, you know, we think that human beings are now progressive enough, we've advanced enough that we can go past all this. It just doesn't hold up.
Paul Snamiska:Welcome to the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources. People today face many opportunities and struggles when it comes to issues of life and death, marriage and family, health and science. We're here to bring a fresh biblical perspective to these issues and more. Join us now for Life Challenges.
Christa Potratz:Hi and welcome back. I'm Christa Potratz and I'm here today with pastors Bob Fleischman and Jeff Samelson. Well, today we're going to talk about what is truth, and we have talked about this topic before. We had Professor Frosty Bivens on the podcast and we'll link that down below in our show notes too, if you want to go back and hear that at all. But today we're going to be talking about getting into more of the authority of God and why we listen to God. So it is going to be different, but we're still going to be using this question of what is truth too. So one of the questions that we kind of wanted to talk about today what would you say is maybe more true? That some people have religious beliefs and other people have none, or that everybody believes in something?
Bob Fleischmann:Well, I believe everyone has a religious belief. A number of years ago I was part of a panel discussion for a group of business leaders and the question at hand was should we know the religious convictions of a political candidate running for office? And there were other people on the panel, including a professed atheist and then maybe an extreme religious enthusiast and so forth, and the atheist was saying no, keep religion out of it and all that kind of stuff. And I said absolutely not. I said I think we have to accept the fact that everybody has convictions Even having no conviction is a conviction and therefore those religious beliefs we need to know so that we can evaluate on what standard that a politician would rule. So I would answer affirmatively, I think everyone has a religious belief. Truly, not everyone has a Christian belief or a biblical belief, but they all have some sort of standard or guidelines by which they live.
Jeff Samelson:Yeah, it's impossible to not have some kind of belief. Whether it's a belief that my religion is a great one or that all religion is worthless, that's still a belief, and it's not just something that you put in a corner in your file in your head. It affects the way you deal with the world, the way you deal with others, the decisions you make about your life and such, and we'll say that there are a lot of atheists out there who are a lot more quote unquote devout in their godlessness than a lot of Christian believers are in terms of their devotion to Christ. It's choosing to put yourself in the category of none when it comes to religion is not exempting you somehow from being a normal human being who has beliefs about the world that matter.
Bob Fleischmann:What they're coming out today now is well, I'm against organized religion, which, of course, I'm always thinking well, what's the alternative? Disorganized religion, is that what I mean, which is really what they have? What they're holding to is kind of a disorganized religious approach, which means my view, this is how I view it, and oftentimes, even when you talk among organized religion, among Christians, people will pick and choose a church based on what they like, their view of how they handle it, whether it's who can vote in that church, whether it's, you know, are they involved with the right social activities? Are they? Do they have great music on Sunday morning and so forth. So a lot of times they're holding to a religious standard that is quite disorganized. You know, I mean it's kind of more of a personal preference.
Christa Potratz:Yeah, no, I can really see that when we think about this topic too. How is this ultimately a question of whom or what a person sees as an authority over their life or the world?
Jeff Samelson:The Christian recognizes God not just as a powerful being, but as the Creator of the world and His or her own maker. Even more than that, the believer sees Christ as their Lord and as the head of the church. These are all things that Scripture is very clear on. So we therefore understand that we, as believers, are under divine authority, and we also recognize that everyone, whether they were respected or not, is also under God's divine authority. And that authority that we're under not only tells us what to do, it also tells us what to believe. A non-Christian, maybe a religious one, some other religion, will also claim to recognize some authority above and outside him or herself, whether it's another God or holy writings or legends, or fate or ancestors or whatever. But in theory, that authority guides their choices and actions.
Jeff Samelson:But the people who reject God reject the whole idea of God. They necessarily also reject any idea of God having authority over them or anyone else, and you might think that that leaves some kind of authority vacuum in their life, as though okay, well, I guess he's operating without any. But the reality is that, in choosing to reject God, people like that have assumed the authority for themselves. They have decided, consciously or not, that the highest authority there is is their own reason, their own mental abilities, and now they may claim to have some kind of moral or ethical values of some kind that guide them, but ultimately they are convinced that they can do and will do whatever they decide is best to do. They've made themselves the highest authority.
Christa Potratz:You know, I've read some posts, or seen some things to, about people that have lost their Christian faith, and one of the things is people just feel like, oh yeah, once I let go of God, I just felt more free and I felt that I wasn't, I mean, I didn't have all these impossible standards to live up to. And so just this kind of idea of you know, I mean this authority figure sitting there telling you exactly what you have to do and then not having that is freedom. And I think you know kind of what you're saying along those lines is there really isn't any freedom. But why do you think you know people kind of perceive that to be the case.
Bob Fleischmann:Well, first of all, those kinds of religious gods they should let go of If they see the religious God as burdensome and holding me back and all that kind of stuff. That's not the God of Scripture. But we practice. I think all of us tend to practice what I now refer to as a crisper, you know, truth, or crisper faith. CRISPR in biotechnology is the crispers, that new technology that allows you to take DNA and to slice sections out that you don't want and replace it with sections you do want, and we tend to. It's kind of an analogy for the way we treat our faith. We tend to we like to cut out the parts that we don't like and keep the parts we do like we'll borrow from others who you know will say well, you know they do this and I think we like that. So we begin to create this crisper faith in our lives and it shows a selective attraction to truths that are comfortable, that play well for us. So when somebody says that since I gave up God, you know I feel free and so forth, first of all, nobody you got to first of all ask you know, where did you get the God in the first place? Where did you get that God that made you feel like a prisoner? Where did you get that God that made you feel burdened, and so forth? Now, sometimes you belong to a church that's very performance laden, you know. In other words, you got to keep performing, you got to keep, and of course that's not the God of Scripture, but that might be a God of a church. If you lack an objective truth, scriptures, then you're going to be aligning yourself with a truth that, quite honestly, could be very untrue. And so if you're aligning yourself with a truth that says that you're going to be saved, you're going to have a relationship based on your performance, you're going to be very unhappy, and that's you want to get rid of that religion. That's not the religion of Scripture. The religion of Scripture says Christ performed for you, he performed on your behalf, and through that you're saved, through faith you're saved. And now the whole table is turned. Well, which gets to kind of.
Bob Fleischmann:Another point, that is when it comes to the way people live their life. We like to talk about it being a life of gratitude. I love because he first loved me, so I love because I'm the object of perfect love, and so when I love somebody else, it's gratitude. How can I love you less than I have benefited from? So it's a life of gratitude, and maybe gratitude is what we suffer from a lack of gratitude, a lack of understanding. That, and, of course, again, an objective standard for true Scripture, will show you how to love, and love is not dependent first on emotion, it's dependent on commitment.
Jeff Samelson:And even having that objective standard of Scripture is something we should have gratitude for, but it's something that a lot of, a lot of people who just kind of they want to skip over that part. They want to say, okay, yeah, I believe in God. Jesus is great, but yeah, that Bible, yeah, well, I'm not so fond of that.
Jeff Samelson:That's full of errors and mistakes and things like that, and I don't think we really need to look to that as the thing that has authority over our lives and the decisions we make, and there are all sorts of very good arguments to be made against that point of view, but one of the ones that I always want to point out is pretty much everybody who says they believe in a God wants to believe at least in a loving God, particularly if they've had some influence with Christianity.
Jeff Samelson:And I just asked him if he really is a loving God, why would he give you a document that tells what his will is and say, oh, yeah, and some of it's correct and some of it's not.
Jeff Samelson:Is that a loving thing to do? I mean, imagine a father giving his children a list of things these are the things that I want you to do while I'm on my business trip and saying, yeah, but some of them I do want and some of them I don't, and you've gotta figure it out. I mean that's not loving at all. And if we truly believe that God is all powerful, all loving and everything like that, then we're happy that he has given us the Bible as an objective standard for truth, not just for telling us what to do and what not to do, but, much more importantly, telling us the truth about our sinfulness, the truth about his solution to our sin, the truth about Christ and heaven and all of these kinds of things, and we are happy as Christians to take that as an authority, because it's something God in love gave to us.
Christa Potratz:Well, kind of shifting, but not really too much here. How does humanism fit into our discussion and topic?
Bob Fleischmann:When the apostle Paul wrote to Timothy and he warned him, he said preach the word correct, or you can encourage with great patience and careful instruction, because people won't put up with sound doctor name or but instead, to suit their own desires, they'll gather around themselves a great number of teachers who will tell them what their itchineers want to hear. He's talking about humanism. He's talking about they'll gather around themselves people that will match what they want to hear. And I have to confess that when I was in high school my argument against the Bible was it's an old book. Times have changed, things have changed, people have changed.
Bob Fleischmann:It's an old book but you know it raises an interesting question is when does a standard become too old to listen to? Okay, so 2,000 years, that's too old. Does that mean 1,000 years? Is that too old, or does that maybe one year or maybe 10 minutes? The problem is that whenever somebody decides that you're going to take a longstanding, objective standard for truth and reject it in the end, you're basically saying that I'm basing it on some sort of human notion of what I think it should be, and that's humanism, and humanism is really kind of at the root of everything. That's contrary to scripture. It's. In the end, I've made a decision based on my own human notions, which are horribly flawed, but I'm going to make this decision that I like that part, I'm going to keep it. I don't like that part, I'm going to reject it. And that's humanism.
Jeff Samelson:What's different from the time when Paul was writing, or really any time throughout history, is that in when exactly it would have started. But there's actually been a humanist movement and there's actually something called a humanist manifesto that was written and such. But there are all sorts of different things that humanism is referred to, but when we talk about it today and being more precise, it's secular humanism. It's basically an elevation of what is human in place of anything or anyone divine, and it's an elevation of human reason place of anything spiritual or supernatural. There are some religions I kind of put that in quotation marks that are essentially just humanism. Scientology would be a prime example of that.
Jeff Samelson:What there are others, but ultimately every form of atheism or atheistic worldview, including things like communism and fascism. Those are humanistic because they are all saying we humans, we're the ones who know what's what, we are the standards of what's best and what's right and what's wrong, and all those attitudes are thoroughly incompatible with Christian faith and truth. It would be easy for us as Christians to say well, being human is a good thing, right. So humanism can't, you know, just gotta be good too. But what it's talking about is not just elevating human just a little bit. It's elevating human above everything, including God.
Bob Fleischmann:Now and there's a form of humanism out there that says you know, I reject all life hereafter. Roger Ebert was the one who said you know, he was a professed atheist, lived as a humanist and he said I don't remember anything before I was born. I expect that after I die it'll be the same way. I don't understand anything like that. First of all, anybody who's listening to this podcast I'm pretty much, I'm guessing is that you're figuring you're going to live beyond death, that there's some sort of life hereafter. Now I want you to consider this. If you have a choice between applying your human judgment over the parts you like or accepting an objective standard, now let's first of all evaluate the nature of the human judgment that you're going to apply. Did you get a speeding ticket? You used human judgment and one time you went over the speed limit and you got a ticket. Okay, in human judgment, you, you know you went to work at a certain place. You thought it was the ideal job and then you found out it wasn't the ideal job. Maybe some of you listening have been involved with catastrophic things. You've done something that has harmed somebody by accident. You got into an accident because you tried to swerve and you weren't aware of the car behind you or something whatever you know, trying to avoid an animal or something like that. Okay, those are just like tiny, single examples of the flawed nature of your human reasoning. And yet you're you're willing to stake your eternity upon your flawed nature to sort out what is right and wrong for me to live by.
Bob Fleischmann:And you know, one of the greatest arguments I think for the objective standard of Scripture is one it it isn't always something I like. There are things in the Bible I don't like, my. I want to rebel against it. But the other thing too is is its longevity. I mean it is. It has been there for centuries. And then, all of a sudden, you know we think that human beings are now progressive enough, we've advanced enough that we can go past all this. It just doesn't hold up. You wouldn't accept it If you were an employer.
Bob Fleischmann:If somebody came to you with their resume saying, based on my performance, I'm going to lead this company. I'm going to be better than you at leading this company into the future. You're going to want to look at their background. You're going to want to look and see how well have you done. So those of you who think that you can pick and choose the parts of Scripture you like. How well have you done? How well have you done with your life? How many right decisions and how many wrong decisions did you make, and are you willing to stake your eternity on it? And I think that just drives you back into Scripture and I think that's a solid argument.
Jeff Samelson:No, no, but you have to at least take it seriously To simply dismiss the Bible as something that is that's just old, or that's only applies to certain people, or it's a bunch of fairy tales that only weak-minded people will follow, or something like that. The evidence of history, the evidence of Literary criticism, all sorts of things like that. It all points to to the Bible as we have it as Something that needs to be taken seriously, which means its claims need to be taken seriously. I mean, if it itself claims to be the word of God, then when you read it you have to say, okay, well, this is something I need to consider. And Holy Spirit works through that word and countless stories of atheists who go into the Bible, often just to prove it wrong, who end up Christians as a result, because the assumptions they went into it with get destroyed upon reading it.
Christa Potratz:Yeah, just what you were saying, Bob to, about just how you got to kind of look at it and then you might see these things to just being being truth.
Bob Fleischmann:Well, and you know, in the arena of life and family issues, when we talk about Beginning of life, when does life begin? Psalm 51: 5, a sinful from birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Scripture doesn't talk vague about it. And if anybody does, we've done episodes where we've talked about Psalm 51: 5 and what that all means. The scriptures clear. But you have to make a conscious decision to say that doesn't. That doesn't agree with my worldview, which now we're getting into humanism again doesn't agree with my worldview. So I'm just going to dismiss that section. And so you end up cutting that, pasting, making a Jeffersonian Bible. You know what Thomas Jefferson did? You cut and paste until you got the, the Bible that you feel most comfortable with.
Bob Fleischmann:Scripture is incredibly candid. I just got done writing a piece that's actually coming out today on the whole gender issue. You know, and I talk about scripture. Scripture talks two ways. Scripture says You're made male and female. Genesis clear. It's clear, no debate, male and female.
Bob Fleischmann:Scripture also says that sometimes you'll have same-sex feelings, that some people have same-sex feelings. It talks about women having desires for women and it talks about men having desires for men. What's interesting when you study scriptures? First of all it's. It's candid enough to say both exist. So it's not like it's not naive, it's, both exist and there might even be reasons why both exist that are inexplicable right now, why there's same-sex attraction so far.
Bob Fleischmann:But what's interesting is the same scripture that tells us those candid truths also says that One is acceptable, one's not. Why do we want to believe the section that says we can have these feelings, and the Bible says we can have these feelings, but we want to reject the truths part of it that says that that's wrong. We have to accept truth for what truth is, and the problem that we're having nowadays is that we really I go back to that statement again or we want this crisper Version of truth, will cut and paste and dissect and slip it together and we're going to make it this perfect. You know, bible that we want, and then we find out it's not perfect.
Christa Potratz:The gender stuff too is a good example and and I know you also talked about the the pro-life too Just kind of want to get into that a little bit because and with the gender and the pro-life issue, there are professing Christian groups that Take a different stance. Then I mean, I mean those of us that would say fully in support of what the Bible says how do those groups kind of get around these issues and why? Why is that important to us and how do we kind of view that?
Bob Fleischmann:Well, and to my knowledge, and Jeff you, if you know something different, I'm open to being correct, corrected, but I do not know of one Church body, I don't know of one church body that that accepts abortion rights, that also believes the Bible is the word of God Entirely. Every church body that allows for abortion or allows for euthanasia of some sort, every one of them, believes that the Bible isn't entirely the word of God and therefore is not the objective standard by which live, which means they've adopted, for a more humanistic approach to it, a cut and paste.
Jeff Samelson:Yeah, I mean, the basic problem is with everything is sin and unbelief, and and that exists among Christians as well and and within the church Humanistic pride in one's own reason leads people, even pastors and teachers and seminary professors, basically to think that they know better than God. Maybe they'll place popularity and public acceptance, or even just a more comfortable existence, ahead of God's will. That's another reason why why they will, you know, say well, okay, yeah, I believe the Bible, but you know God's good, but yeah, I'm not gonna be pro-life, I'm gonna be in favor of abortion or euthanasia or whatever. And sometimes it's simple self-interest and guilt. If you are someone who has had an abortion, or someone close to you has had an abortion, or you made what you thought was a really difficult decision to Essentially end your loved one's life, you know, in the hospital, you don't want to feel guilty about that and you want to basically have the sense of this is something we are free to do. In fact, it's right. Basically, it's human nature and it's Allowing your human nature to to be uncorrected by the authority of God in his word.
Jeff Samelson:And what we might call theological liberalism has been systematically attacking God's authority and specifically the authority of the Bible for centuries now, and that leaves many Christians and churches with with really nothing left to believe. And they end up then well, what is that expression? Something like you've you get to the point where you know it's not that you believe nothing, but then you end up believing anything. That group of what we might call theological liberals. They generally want to believe that there is nothing wrong with abortion or assisted suicide or experimenting with human embryos and all those sorts of things.
Bob Fleischmann:And the reason they do is because they'll pull out that passage. God is love and he would not want you to be unhappy, and so forth. God is love. And I remember I was confronted by a lady once who argued for abortion and says God is love. I said, well, how do you know that that's the true? Maybe that's the false thing. Maybe God isn't love, maybe you picked the wrong one to cling your hope on. And seeing, that's the problem with the subjectivity of trying to figure out your truth.
Christa Potratz:Anything else that we should mention on this topic here?
Jeff Samelson:I'll just say that, as much as we lament the theological liberalism, lament humanism and all these things that we don't want to just stop there at the lamentation. We need to do better as Christians, as those who do know the true God and his true authority in scripture. So we need to be faithful ourselves and joyfully, confidently, submit to God's authority. When we see these things going on around us, we want to pray about them. We want to be good witnesses to Christ, and the truth especially means that we need to teach, particularly our children, but anyone we have the opportunity to teach. Teach them not only what is true but why it is that we rejoice to hold it as true and make sure that we're not raising a generation that is going to go out into the world and be seduced by all these very comfortable ideas around us.
Bob Fleischmann:And make sure that if we claim we are Bible believers, that we believe that that is the truth, that we really are Bible believers. In other words, when scriptures say things like correct, rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction, and let your gentleness be evident to all, that doesn't mean you take the truth and you smack people over the head with it. It is a process. Being a believer is not an event. It's a process. You believe, you have faith and through that you're saved. But as your life conforms to that conviction, that doesn't happen overnight. You're not going to correct all the world by standing on a mountaintop reciting a half dozen Bible passages and waving a condemning finger for all the people who don't live up to it. You want to be as patient with other people as you know. God is with you, and that requires a lot of introspection, a lot of searching your own heart, and then you'll be patient with them.
Christa Potratz:All right. Well, thank you both for your insight on this topic today, and we thank all of our listeners too, and please check out our website at lifechallenges. us or christianliferesources. com for more information, and we'll see you back next time. Bye.
Paul Snamiska:Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Life Challenges Podcast from Christian Life Resources. Please consider subscribing to this podcast, giving us a review wherever you access it and sharing it with friends. We're sure you have questions on today's topic or other life issues. Our goal is to help you through these tough topics and we want you to know we're here to help. You can submit your questions, as well as comments or suggestions for future episodes, at lifechallengesus or email us at podcast at christianliferesourcescom. In addition to the podcasts, we include other valuable information at lifechallengesus, so be sure to check it out. For more about our parent organization, please visit christianliferesourcescom. May God give you wisdom, love, strength and peace in Christ for every life challenge.