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If God Exists And Is All-Powerful, Then Why Evil?

All of us have asked that question. And you’ve probably had a hard time explaining how a loving and all powerful God could still allow evil. I want to tell you about a great opportunity on Tuesday Night from 7:00 – 8:30pm (EST) on December 10th where Dr. Frank Turek will address this question live from the campus of IMPACT 360 or live from the comfort of your ipad on Ustream. I will be hosting the event and moderating the Q & A. (You can tweet us your questions to @impact360 )

Go to this URL to view on your computer.

If you want to view on a mobile device, Ustream offers an app in the iTunes store.

Turek slide

(About the Speaker) Dr. Frank Turek is a dynamic speaker and award-winning author or coauthor of three books. As the President of CrossExamined.org, Mr. Turek impacts young and old alike at colleges, high schools and churches with hard yet entertaining evidence for Christianity. He hosts a hour long TV program each week called I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist and has appeared on many TV and radio programs including: The O’Reilly Factor, Hannity and Colmes, Faith under Fire, Politically Incorrect and Focus on the Family.

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The Real World Importance of the Resurrection of Jesus

“Risen and alive, the one who stood at the center of God’s kingdom was vindicated. His claims of kingship, heavenly rooted authority, and God’s kingdom stood firm. Life triumphed over death. The disciple’s grief became conviction. The offer of life had found in him a fresh focal point—forever. The disciples taught what Jesus had preached. They proclaimed the new promise of God. They shared that life had come in the message and person of Jesus. Resurrection not only meant new life for Jesus, but the offer of new life to the world.” – Darrell Bock

The resurrection is the central claim of Christianity and its implications reach far and wide. In fact, as far as the curse is found.

Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, 2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; 7 then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; 8 and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. – 1 Corinthians 15:1-7 (NASB)

Explore the historical evidence for the resurrection

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There is no such thing as a religiously neutral intellectual endeavor

There is no such thing as religiously neutral intellectual endeavor — or rather there is no such thing as serious, substantial and relatively complete intellectual endeavor that is religiously neutral. – Alvin Plantinga

This is a very important point to bring up. After all, as Christians we have a point of view. A perspective on God in general and Jesus in particular. Plantinga’s point is that if you give serious thought to ultimate questions, you can’t be neutral. Neutrality in and of itself is not a virtue. Too much is at stake.

But what this observation doesn’t mean is that if you have a point of view about ultimate reality, you can’t be objective. We should always be honest about where we are coming from but we must also allow evidence and reason (reality) to correct our point of view. This is the kind of critical realism that allows us to make genuine progress in discovering more about the way reality actually is.

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False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel

“God usually exerts that power in connection with certain prior conditions of the human mind, and it should be ours to create, so far as we can, with the help of God, those favorable conditions for the reception of the gospel. False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel. We may preach with all the fervor of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation or of the world to be controlled by ideas which, by the resistless force of logic, prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion.” – J. Gresham Machen

*Address delivered on September 20, 1912, at the opening of the 101st session of Princeton Theological Seminary.

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Why Was Jesus Silent On The Issue Of Slavery?

In order to impugn the moral authority of Jesus of Nazareth, New Atheist Sam Harris claims:

“There is no place in the New Testament where Jesus objects to slavery”

Is this true? Actually, Jesus did speak to the issue of slavery, but he went after the root of physical slavery: spiritual slavery. Spiritual slavery has led to and continues to lead to immense misery. When Jesus began his public ministry, he stood in the synagogue to read the following passage: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed” (Luke 4:18).

What a mission statement! Jesus came to set captives free, restore, heal, and transform—that is the good news of the kingdom of God. The good news of the kingdom of God is when “up there” comes “down here” and begins to be embodied by a new community. Given the reality of sinful humans and corrupted institutions, Jesus knew the best way to end slavery was first to liberate the hearts and minds of humanity. The truth sets people free. As Ravi Zacharias poignantly frames the question, “Slavery is now illegal, but is racism gone?” Simply passing a law doesn’t transform the brokenness in the human heart. If obscure Bible passages were really the problem, then why in the twenty-first century are we confronted with the horrible reality of human trafficking and the sex-slave trade?

For more, see my answer to the question of Does God Intend For Us To Keep Slaves? (p148-57)

Miss our latest podcast on whether Jesus was just a myth? Check it out here.