George Washington And Christianity

Mary Thompson, a research historian at Mount Vernon:

The Time More Hoped For Than All The Centuries

"The inhabiter and founder of the heavens lived on earth so that the human person, the earth-dweller, might travel to heaven. O day more lightsome than all the sun! O time more hoped for than all the centuries! What the angels were waiting for, what the seraphim and cherubim and the mysteries of heaven did not know - this has been revealed in our time. What they saw through a glass and in mere semblance we perceive in reality." (Maximus of Turin, Sermon 45:1, Boniface Ramsey, trans., The Sermons Of St. Maximus Of Turin [Mahwah, New Jersey: Newman Press, 1989], 249)

A Summary Of The Evidence Against A Pagan Holiday As The Basis Of Christmas

Tom Schmidt is in the midst of posting a Twitter thread on the subject, which he started earlier this month. He also linked a recent Twitter thread by Tim O'Neill about English Heritage retracting its claim that the December 25 date was taken from paganism.

Early Extrabiblical Sources On Jesus' Childhood

It's sometimes argued that the infancy narratives were added to Matthew and/or Luke sometime after the documents were originally published, perhaps even as late as around the time of Marcion. Or an infancy narrative will be considered part of the original document, but the document will be dated late, such as in the 90s or even sometime in the second century.

Two Important Verses For Framing The Chronology Of Jesus' Childhood

The first is more commonly discussed, but is sometimes neglected. Matthew 2:16 suggests that Jesus was somewhat close to two years old when the events in the surrounding context occurred. See here, including the comments section, and here for discussions of the passage. The timing of the Matthew 2 events goes a long way in explaining why Matthew's material is so different than Luke's (the two authors are covering different timeframes) and addresses other objections.

The other verse to keep in mind, which is seldom understood or discussed as it should be, is Luke 1:56. See my post on the passage here and my explanation of some of its implications here, for example, among other posts in our archives that discuss it. Joseph and Mary probably went to Bethlehem during the first half of her pregnancy, not at the end of it. Luke 2:4 picks up where 1:56 left off. If you understand Luke 1:56 and its implications rightly, other issues in Luke and elsewhere will fall into their proper place, and some objections that are often brought up will be weakened or eliminated.

They Would Have Died To Pray As We Do

In addition to being grateful for prayer, we should be grateful for the types of prayer we can offer:

And when we look back, we have so much more to say than they [the pre-Christian Israelites] did, don’t we? Our past is even better than their past, because we know Jesus. They could remember what God did in Egypt, in the wilderness, and in Canaan, but we have Bethlehem and Calvary. We can pray,

Jesus, you came into our world, born in a manger.
For our sake, you were obedient to the point of death/on a cross.
You were pierced for our transgressions.
You were crushed for our iniquities.
You were wounded so that we might be healed.
You were poor so that we could become rich.
You suffered, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God.
And three days later, you rose to conquer death and give us life.

The Sons of Korah couldn’t say that yet, so they said, “You restored. You forgave. You covered.” They would have died to pray the kinds of prayers we get to pray, the prayers we pray every day — in Jesus’s name.

(Marshall Segal)

Why am I citing minor historical figures against baptismal regeneration?

An objection that some readers might have to posts like the two I put up earlier this week is that they involve relatively minor individuals in the historical record, people whose names we don't even know. If baptismal regeneration is false, shouldn't that have been known to more significant figures as well? Sometimes that sort of objection will be put in terms of asking for church fathers, church leaders, or some other such group instead of the sort of lesser individuals my recent posts have discussed.

Turning Back To Make Progress

"Progress means not just changing, but changing for the better….We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man." (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity [New York, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2021], approximate Kindle locations 355, 533)

Your Lot In Life

"Wherefore did David, who was both a prophet and a king, himself also live all his time in toils? whereas Solomon his son spent forty years in security above all men, in the enjoyment of profound peace, glory, and honor, and going through every kind of deliciousness? What again could be the reason, that among the prophets also one was afflicted more, and another less? Because so it was expedient for each. Wherefore upon each our remark must be, 'Thy judgments are a great deep.' [Psalm 36:6] For if those great and wonderful men were not alike exercised by God, but one by poverty, and another by riches; one by ease, and another by trouble; much more ought we now to bear these things in mind." (John Chrysostom, Homilies On First Corinthians, 29:7)

Looking Beyond Initial Reactions

"We are, indeed, desirous, as we ought to be, that our ministry may prove salutary to the world…If, to punish, partly the ingratitude, and partly the stubbornness of those to whom we desire to do good, success must prove desperate, and all things go to worse, I will say what it befits a Christian man to say, and what all who are true to this holy profession will subscribe:—We will die, but in death even be conquerors, not only because through it we shall have a sure passage to a better life, but because we know that our blood will be as seed to propagate the Divine truth which men now despise." (John Calvin)

Skeptics Being Evasive About Recent Miracles

Critics of the supernatural often object to paranormal claims that occurred in the more distant past, since there's no ability to question the witnesses, consult the larger number of records that tend to be available with more recent events, etc. But they often provide poor responses to the evidence we do have for those more distant events, which raises questions like how much these skeptics actually need the larger amount of evidence they're asking for and how sincere their objections are.

Another way of addressing the line of objections I'm focused on here is to look at how these skeptics handle more recent miracle claims. How much interest do they show in asking the witnesses the relevant questions and examining the evidence involved in other ways?

The Key To History

"Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing. That is the key to history." (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity [New York, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2021], approximate Kindle location 763)

Thank God For Scripture

Last Thursday I gave a lecture on William Tyndale to a group in Washington, D. C. Tyndale translated the New Testament for the first time from the original languages into English in 1526. He paid for this with his life. He was strangled and then burned at the stake at age forty-two. There was one point where I did not expect to be moved as deeply as I was. I was listing passages in the English Standard Version that we use here at Bethlehem which trace their origin back through the Revised Standard Version to the American Revised Version to the King James Version to the Geneva Bible to the Coverdale Bible to William Tyndale.

And when I got to the blessing of Numbers 6:24-26, I realized that I use these words almost every weekend to close our services. “The Lord bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.” And it hit me, I am using the very words that William Tyndale chose five hundred years ago to translate these verses (with two tiny changes, thee to you, and merciful to gracious), and he paid for this translation with his life. He died to put these words in English….

So I will say to you what I said to those folks: Let’s not play with these precious words. These are the words of God. Christ died to confirm them and make it possible for sinners to understand them and embrace them. And thousands have died to preserve them for us to this day. Thank God this Thanksgiving for the inspired Bible.

(John Piper)

Leave The Bulbs Alone, And The New Flowers Will Come Up

To demand the continual experience of the pleasure is to cut ourselves off from the subsequent pleasure that God intended. This principle - that memory is the capstone of pleasure - is for [C.S.] Lewis one instance of Christ's teaching that a thing will not really live unless it dies, and it has many applications. "On every level of our life - in our religious experience, in our gastronomic, erotic, aesthetic, and social experience - we are always harking back to some occasion which seemed to us to reach perfection, setting that up as a norm, and depreciating all other occasions by comparison." Many Christians look back with longing on the bright days after their conversion or after some great spiritual moment. They lament that those fervent desires have in some measure died away. No doubt sometimes the death of those initial pantings is due to sin. But not always. Lewis suggests that God intends those intense passions to pass away. They were the explosion that started the engine of the Christian life. But man does not live on explosions alone….

In addition, God has built us so that we can't keep these explosions going. Our bodies will not suffer the intensity of thrills for long. Lewis calls this the law of undulation (a fancy word for a wave-like rhythm)….Undulation is the natural, bodily way that God regulates our desires. Self-denial is the supernatural way that we join God in ordering our loves. As fallen humans, we're sorely tempted to ignore undulation and seek to get maximum and repeated joy out of the same pleasures. Self-denial is our resistance to this temptation, not because we wish to hinder our joy, but because we believe that God wishes to give us additional joys.

[quoting Lewis] "It is simply no good trying to keep any thrill: that is the very worst thing you can do. Let the thrill go - let it die away - go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow - and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time. But if you decide to make thrills your regular diet and try to prolong them artificially, they will all get weaker and weaker, and fewer and fewer, and you will be a bored, disillusioned old man for the rest of your life."

Instead of being tormented by the lost golden moments of our past, Lewis encourages us to accept them as memories. When we do, we find that they are entirely wholesome, nourishing, and enchanting. "Properly bedded down in a past which we do not miserably try to conjure back, they will send up exquisite growths. Leave the bulbs alone, and the new flowers will come up. Grub them up and hope, by fondling and sniffing, to get last year's blooms, and you will get nothing." The past joy is to die if it is to live.

(Joe Rigney, Lewis On The Christian Life [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2018], 159-60)

Friendship Across Time

I've sometimes cited H. Clay Trumbull's Friendship: The Master-Passion (Birmingham, Alabama: Solid Ground Christian Books, 2005) and Carolinne White's Christian Friendship In The Fourth Century (New York, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002) as resources on friendship and how Christianity shaped people's views on the subject. See here for a post I wrote 16 years ago that quotes some portions of White's book.

I want to expand here on what both books suggest about how Christians (and others) of past centuries viewed friendship differently than it's often portrayed today. Contrary to what you often hear about friendship in certain circles in the modern world, including among Evangelicals, both books mentioned above provide examples of friendships maintained for many years between men and women who weren't romantically involved with each other, friendships maintained largely or entirely without the two individuals interacting face-to-face, a living Christian considering a deceased Christian he never met a friend, etc. Keep in mind that much of what you hear about friendship in modern contexts is shaped by the personal circumstances and preferences of the people discussing the subject, the nature of the culture in which they live, and other factors that can and sometimes do distort their judgment. It's helpful to get a broader view of friendship by reading about how it's been viewed by other cultures and across a larger span of time.

Just as we shouldn't start with an assumption that modern views are correct, we also shouldn't start with an assumption that earlier views are correct. But we should give those earlier views more consideration than people typically do.

Why is the birth of this man having this kind of effect on the world?

"Sometimes the most important things in the world pass before our eyes, and we don't see them. And so they don't have the impact on our thought and our emotions the way they could if we just stopped and pondered for a moment. This is especially true of the significance of the birth of Jesus Christ. There are undisputed historical effects of the birth of Jesus Christ that are so huge and so important that we miss them—like we miss the sky or the air or the ground under our feet. We never give them a thought. But when you think about them, they're staggering….the impact of Jesus Christ on this world has been so immense that even before we turn to the Bible, we are confronted with a staggering choice this morning in relation to the man Jesus Christ….First, because Jesus Christ was born, one third of the world's population today calls itself Christian….Not only that, Christianity is the most extensive and universal religion in history. There are Christians and Christian churches in every inhabited country in the world. And in two-thirds of the world's 223 countries the population is over 50% Christian. So the first indisputable significance of the birth of Jesus Christ is that the life of this man has influenced more people over the course of human history than any other single man. Buddha, Confucius, Mohammed, or even Moses do not compare in the extent of their influence on history and the world….Second, virtually every person in the modern western, and most of the non-western, world calls this year 1987. But the reason bankers and butchers, and car dealers and doctors, and teachers and attorneys, and computer programmers and presidents date their checks '1987' is because Jesus Christ was born 1,987 years ago. No other man in history has been accorded the almost universal honor of dividing history in half—and with such definitive influence that millions who do not call him Lord are forced to bear witness daily to his tremendous, on-going importance in the world by using the date 1987….In other words the religious, historical, and cultural significance of Christmas—the birth of Jesus Christ—is so huge that no one can begin to give it an adequate description. Now that fact, in and of itself, before we even turn to the Bible, confronts you and me with a profound choice: will we ignore this man and take him lightly in spite of his being the most influential man who ever lived, or will we inquire earnestly into who this man was and why he has changed the world so deeply? Why is the birth of this man having this kind of effect on the world?" (John Piper)

Resources For Reformation Day

Reformation Day will be celebrated in a few weeks. Here's a collection of resources on the historical roots of the Reformation and Evangelicalism. I update that page from time to time, and some changes have been made over the last several months. I've added links to articles about the evidence against a Catholic view of Mary in Luke's writings and whether Jesus taught a physical presence in the eucharist. See here for a recent post on the papacy, specifically how we should expect to see the office referred to in the early sources if such an office existed. And here's one I added on the Assumption of Mary.

The Apostolic Documents In The Apostolic Churches

My last post cited some comments from Tertullian in the process of discussing the evidence for Paul's authorship of Ephesians. I want to expand that quote, to include more of what surrounds it, since what Tertullian says has significant implications for the authorship attributions of other Biblical documents as well:

"To sum up: if it is agreed that that has the greater claim to truth which has the earlier priority, and that has the priority which has been so since the beginning, and that has been since the beginning which was from the apostles, there will be no less agreement that that was handed down by the apostles which is held sacred and inviolate in the churches the apostles founded. Let us consider what milk it was that Paul gave the Corinthians to drink, by the line of what rule the Galatians were again made to walk straight, what the Philippians, the Thessalonians, and the Ephesians are given to read, what words are spoken also by our near neighbours the Romans, to whom Peter and Paul left as legacy the gospel, sealed moreover with their own blood. We have also churches which are nurselings of John's: for although Marcion disallows his Apocalypse, yet the succession of their bishops, when traced back to its origin, will be found to rest in John as originator. In the same way also the legitimacy of the other churches is to be tested. So I affirm that among them— and I am not now speaking only of apostolic churches, but of all those which are in alliance with them in the fellowship of the mystery—that gospel of Luke which we at this moment retain has stood firm since its earliest publication, whereas Marcion's is to most people not even known, and by those to whom it is known is also by the same reason condemned." (Against Marcion, 4:5)

Whether, When, And How The Enfield Poltergeist Concluded

The issues surrounding the conclusion of the case are larger and more complicated than is often suggested. Many of the factors involved haven't gotten much attention and remain unsettled. I can't answer every question, but I want to discuss what I know at this point.

I'll be citing the tapes of Maurice Grosse and Guy Playfair. Grosse's tapes will be referenced with "MG", so that MG22B is a reference to tape 22B in his collection. Playfair's tapes will be designated with "GP", so that GP12B is a reference to his tape 12B.

Should we trust the histories written by skeptical winners?

Scholars like Ehrman cite in this regard the well-worn adage: "It's the winners who write the histories." That is, those who get to write the histories are those who have already won the cultural battle. Thus they write history in a way that favors their own party, and puts any rivals in a bad light. The winners who wrote the histories were biased, often so biased, they couldn't even see their own biases. So, when we read early orthodox [Christian] writers today, we need to adopt a hermeneutic of suspicion, and read against the grain.

This is what the history books are telling us today. But then, isn't history always written by the winners? And aren't the winners often so enmeshed in the reigning cultural narrative that they can't see their own bias? Which is why we ought to read today's historians with the same sort of critical suspicion as they recommend we apply when reading the ancient writers.

(Charles Hill, Who Chose The Books Of The New Testament? [Bellingham, Washington: Lexham Press, 2022], approximate Kindle location 99)