The Deception Spectrum - The Hidden Battle for Moral Jurisdiction

The Deception Spectrum - The Hidden Battle for Moral Jurisdiction

A great sermon always leads to a good conversation after church. Then pizza : ). Then home to feed and let the dogs out. But the subject never left my brain. I took a motorcycle ride on which the sermon kept playing back in my head. So back home in quiet time I found myself pondering how the serpent deceived Eve so easily. There was something there nagging at me. That led to the article you have in the source material: “The Deception Spectrum”. Note to the Deception Spectrum [https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/ey5tgbtpps5rb8i3/The_Deception_Spectrumbct32.pdf] Episode Link:

Whether Those Things Were So

If you have followed this podcast for some time, you might detect some discrepancies. And you would be right. I’m not what many would call a seasoned Christian. My journey as a Christian has been but a few short years. Perhaps my life was preparing me for the journey, only God can say, because when I finally embarked on this journey, it was what many would describe as fervent, zealous - even fanatical if you ask some. I have a “four to eight” program (Go to bed at 4 PM, get up at 4 AM, study until 8 AM, and then start the workday) that allowed me to study deeply without encroaching on my already hectic business life. Though some days, I’d break those rules and consume the whole day studying biblical concepts and passages. I couldn’t put it down, and I still can’t. I’ve read more in the past 4 years than I did in the prior 40. And what I love the most is that I’ve barely scratched the surface. And what I regret the most is that I did not discover this sooner! That said, today I landed on a video from Jack Hibbs. Jack is one of the online pastors that I like a lot but on the subject of Rapture, I’ve come to disagree with. Truth be told, if I ignored every online resource that believed in something I didn’t believe in, then the landscape of online resources would diminish quickly. The point is not to argue with Jack about this particular topic, though I certainly do that in the source material I’ve included. The point is that there are some things in the church that it’s OK to disagree on. There are some things that you absolutely must agree on, and the correct posture is to know the difference. Notes for Whether Those Things Were So [https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/zrtbbuy75ju53vwx/whether-those-things-were-so.pdf] Episode Link: https://www.rabbitholesandmeditations.com/whether-those-things-were-so/ [https://www.rabbitholesandmeditations.com/whether-those-things-were-so/]

The Children of the Marketplace - A Parable

They were the most religious men in Israel. Jesus called them children throwing a tantrum in the street. Not the sinners. Not the outsiders. The experts — the men who knew the Law cold, who fasted on schedule, who had built their whole lives on getting religion exactly right. He looked straight at them and reached for a picture from a playground. You have probably heard this parable preached soft. A gentle word about people who are simply hard to please. Read it again. It is not gentle. It is an indictment, and Luke names the guilty a breath before Jesus opens His mouth. God sent two men. The first came in sackcloth — fasting, alone in the wilderness, calling a whole nation to mourn over its sin. They said, He hath a devil. Then came the second — at the table, among the tax collectors, announcing a kingdom near enough to feast on. They said, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. Now stop and look at what just happened. The same men condemned the fast and condemned the feast. They damned the one who would not eat and damned the one who would. Opposite lives. Opposite messages. One identical verdict: rejected. Two men could not have stood farther apart, and the same mouths buried them both. Which means the verdict was never really about the men at all. This episode walks into that marketplace and refuses to leave early. What if the problem was never John’s diet or Jesus’ dinner guests? What if these men had already decided in advance what God was permitted to look like — and turned on Him the instant He arrived wearing something they had not approved? Then comes the harder question. The one that should keep you sitting in the driveway after the engine is off. That same reflex — to measure a word from God by whether it fits what you already expected — are you certain it is not sitting in your own hands right now? The men in this story were sure it wasn’t in theirs. We are not going to hand you the ending. We are going to stand in the noise of the square and let Jesus finish His own sentence — the way He meant it to land on the people who first heard it, and the way it still lands on anyone honest enough to stay. The Bereans heard preaching that cut, and they did not flinch. They searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. That is the only posture that survives a parable like this one. Bring it with you. Press play. Then go open the text and check every word. Notes for The Children of the Marketplace [https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/ifuhhs5ukqkmqnq2/Children_in_the_Marketplace.pdf] Episode Link: https://www.rabbitholesandmeditations.com/the-children-of-the-marketplace-a-parable/

Testing the Knock - The Berean Meets the Jehovah Witness

Some of the most challenging tests for the Berean Filter app come from religions that don’t negate Jesus but redefine Him. We saw this when we researched the Muslim challenges to Christianity. Today, we looked at the top 5 challenges a Jehovah's Witness would present and fed them into the Berean Search app to test the response. Armed with the response from the Berean Search app, we then turned it around and started asking questions that would make the average Jehovah’s Witness uncomfortable. Unlike a Berean, the Jehovah’s Witness has two issues. The first is that it is very difficult to support their answers the way a Berean would. The text just doesn’t support the claim. Second, new interpretations (NWT - New World Translation) nuance the text to fit the interpretation - clearly a violation. I think a Berean would have a real problem with that. These challenges we are presenting to the Berean app are specifically designed to test the application's robustness. We were not intending to confront the Jehovah’s Witnesses. But ultimately, it turns out to be a very useful tool for laying the groundwork for a discussion. This is not “bashing” a religion. It is the rightful and appropriate response to a religion that, by its own claims, uses the Christian Bible and reinterprets it. The Christian has every right to push back. That is exactly how a Berean would respond. So armed with the Berean responses or, more importantly, armed with scripture itself, we did go deep into the discussion beyond the answers to the 5 major traps we presented to the Berean app. The article “Testing the Knock” was developed to cover both the response to the traps and the deeper discussion. Notes for Testing the Knock [https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/vbnq5yr4pukaqs8b/Testing_the_Knock8ylwu.pdf] Episode Link: https://www.rabbitholesandmeditations.com/testing-the-knock-the-berean-meets-the-jehovah-witness/ [https://www.rabbitholesandmeditations.com/testing-the-knock-the-berean-meets-the-jehovah-witness/]

The Muslim Challenges The Berean (Testing the Berean Search App).

We scoured the web for some of the top objections a Muslim person would raise against Christianity. Then we fed those questions into the Berean Teacher Search App to get a direct scriptural response. This was part of our plan to test the abilities of the Berean Teacher to respond to some of the toughest objections a Christian might face. When the question of lineage comes up, there is something the Berean app initially failed to bring up that completely reframes why Mary's genealogy is so important. In fact, none of the respondents in our research brought it up either. In our bible study, the point was raised. Jesus was born of a virgin. So, it makes sense that the genealogical structure can be confusing. It is unlike any other person and suggests the nuance that the reader of scripture must contend with. In all our research, no one seemed to raise this point, and it is the one thing that softens and clarifies the rest of the response to genealogy. A Jew would not consider the lineage traced through the woman but in Jesus’ case, that must be considered. That is his human origin. The Davidic covenant promises an eternal ruler. God steps in place of Joseph. Jesus is legally the descendent of David, but he could not be biologically the son of David and be divine. This argument throws even the Muslim off since the Muslims do not deny the virgin birth. The top 5 questions along with the Berean response are included in the article: The Muslim Challenges the Berean. Bottom line… I think the Berean wins! See for yourself.  The actual responses from the Berean Search are included here for your reference. The nuance regarding genealogy was updated to give what we believe to be a better response. We urge you to test the Berean Search app on your own and never take our word for it, or even the Berean Search results as definitive until you sit with the text, sit with others in your bible groups and wrestle with the text. The app facilitates that by giving you supporting scripture. It is a wonderful and expedient way to come up with a Bible study topic for discussion and further reading. After seeing some of the omissions, we updated the app.  Notes from the Berean Search app - The Muslim Challenges and Responses [https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/364mgp493x7rp275/The_Muslim_Challenges_the_Bereanb2zaw.pdf] Episode Link: https://www.rabbitholesandmeditations.com/the-muslim-challenges-the-berean/ [https://www.rabbitholesandmeditations.com/the-muslim-challenges-the-berean/] The Berean Search App https://www.rabbitholesandmeditations.com/the-berean/ [https://www.rabbitholesandmeditations.com/the-berean/]