Happy Mother’s Day

9 May

Mothers Day

Dear Moms,

Happy Mother’s Day.

For the dishes that never clean themselves, the dinners that do not cook themselves, and the laundry that never washes and puts itself back in its place.

Your work makes a difference.

For the times you cuddle, caress, and hug. The times you pick up, encourage, and kneel in prayer. For the thousand reminders you give each day.

You are instrumental in shaping a life and future generations.

For the sacrifices you make. The instruction that you give. The books you read and the trips you take your children on.

You are impacting the people your children are becoming.

For the early mornings and the late nights. For the doing without so that your children may have. For the life on mission you live and not simply preach about.

You are laying a path for little feet turning man and woman to follow.

For the cheers and clapping over accomplishments big and small.

You are cherishing champions and reflecting the Father who loves when His children walk in obedience and give their best offerings to Him.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms who frequent This Temporary Home. A mother’s work is never done and the mundane feels as if it may not make a difference most days. But…

Your faithfulness in the great and the small will be rewarded and you are living as a sacrifice like Jesus–the King who came to serve.

God has entrusted you with His highest creations. You are indeed blessed.

Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. (Psalm 127:3)

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Priscilla and Aquila: Following Their Faithful Steps

6 May

P and A Following Their Faithful

On Friday, we learned how Priscilla and Aquila entertained Paul (and thus probably his traveling companion, Luke) and equipped Apollos in the complete knowledge of the gospel. Today we consider how they endangered their lives for the gospel and encouraged the Body of Christ, His church. Finally, we will consider what women of the 21st century can learn from the life of Priscilla.

Endangering Their Lives for the Gospel:

Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well. (Romans 16:3-4)

We are told that Priscilla and Aquila risked their lives for the Apostle Paul but the details surrounding the specific event are not made known to us. They considered Paul’s life as more important than their own and his ministry of greater importance for reaching the Gentiles. Moreover, they demonstrated they were committed unto Christ Jesus even unto death.

Priscilla and Aquila followed in the footsteps of Christ Jesus in true love and friendship outlined in John 15:13:

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

While their offering was sincere, they would be spared along with Paul to proclaim the gospel message. Additionally, like Paul, they would later give their lives for the salvation message they proclaimed. Tradition has it that Priscilla and Aquila were martyred in Rome. (Exploring Church History, J.P. Eckman, 2002)

Encouraged the Body:

Priscilla and Aquila were transient. They moved multiple times in the Bible. From Pontus to Rome to Corinth and Ephesus then reportedly back to Rome. In city after city, Priscilla and Aquila opened their home to preaching and teaching of the Word. They viewed their home as an extension of ministry; a commodity to be used for living out and sharing the gospel. Priscilla and Aquila grasped the reality that earthly life is temporary and true citizenship is granted beyond death.

What can women learn from the life of this influential woman of the Bible? 

  • She lived a life of ministry. (Mark 10:45)
  • She was an exemplary partner in the ministry with her husband. (Ecclesiastes 4:9)
  • She equipped and evangelized. Priscilla was a woman bent on fulfilling the Great Commission. (Matthew 28:19-20)
  • She followed the teachings of Paul in that she learned and ministered in line with scriptural mandates. (2 Timothy 2:11-12)

Jesus’ earthly ministry and the teachings of his followers validated women more than any other religion in history. Priscilla’s actions fell in line with the mandates of God and we can follow her lead. We know this because Paul was accustomed to call out women within the church who were outside the mandates of God in his other writings. He does not do this with Priscilla. She is a woman who kept ministerial boundaries in accordance with the scriptural mandates.That is the type of women we need in the church today.

We should strive to become women  and couples who follow in the Christ-centered footsteps of this God-fearing, God-honoring couple.

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Priscilla and Aquila: Models in Marriage and Ministry

2 May

priscilla and aquila

Have you ever made a decision in your life which only in retrospect you could say was a turning point? A decision that was setting into motion opportunities for encounters with believers and events that would shape the person you have become?

I believe that we could all answer yes.

Step back almost two-thousand years ago and we encounter a couple whose back-story is  unknown, yet whose choices changed the nations and generations for Christ: Priscilla and Aquila. Famed partners in ministry with Paul and teachers of the well-known preacher, Apollos.

Priscilla and Aquila are mentioned six times in the New Testament. Four of these times Priscilla (Prisca) is listed first:

  • Acts 18:2, 18,26
  • Romans 16:3
  • 1 Corinthians 16:19
  • 2 Timothy 4:19

Some scholars have speculated that either Priscilla was of a higher social status (Aquila possibly a former Jewish slave) or that in some way her ministry was greater than that of Aquila’s. Either way, this continued coupling of their names indicated their unity in marriage.  Five of the six times they are mentioned in the New Testament, their names are separated by the word and alone. This is a peanut butter and jelly pair!

This couple demonstrated that beside every good man there is room for an equally good woman.

Let’s take a closer look at the life and ministry of this influential couple and the woman beside the man in a two-part blog series.

First they are remembered for entertaining Paul.

Like the Apostle Paul, Priscilla and Aquila were tent makers by trade. Most likely, Paul, who had traveled from Athens, met Priscilla and Aquila in Corinth while he looked for work. It is possible that Paul heard of their ministry in Corinth prior to meeting them on his journey. (Acts 18:2-3) Paul stayed with them six months (Act 18:11). From Corinth the three set sail for Syria and stopped in Ephesus where Paul left them to minister to the people of Ephesus. Paul was known for traveling with Luke so it is probable that it was more than the three of them that journeyed together. Either way, Paul would travel 1500 miles before he would see them again (Acts 19:18-22)

Secondly, they equipped Apollos. 

Soon after Priscilla and Aquila settled in Ephesus, they visited the temple. They were blessed to hear a young man, eloquent in speech and competent in the Scriptures who preached the baptism of John. Enter Apollos. Apollos was a Jew from Alexandra (NE portion of Egypt), named after Alexander the Great who ruled during the Greek Empire between 356-323 BC.

Apollos was a convert of John’s most likely from the teaching of a disciple of John the Baptist. He continued to look for the Messiah as he preached in the synagogue. Priscilla and Aquila heard him and took him privately and explained the way of God more accurately. (Acts 18:24-28)

Note that they equipped Apollos in a spirit of love (1 Cor. 13), accurately and with the support of the Scriptures, and they set him up for future ministry that was later equated to the level of Paul and Peter. (See 1 Corinthians 1:12)

Priscilla and Aquila both possessed an in-depth understanding of doctrine learned from Paul (and their own studies), and this husband and wife team was able to pass on their knowledge to another Christian and build him up in the faith.  Apollos’ message was not inaccurate or insincere; it was simply incomplete. That’s where this iron sharping pair stepped in.

I want to equip myself in such a way that when an Apollos walks into our lives, Ron and I are ready to further his or her understanding of the Scriptures. I hope you will join me for part two on Tuesday.

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Taking a Moment to Dream

29 Apr

Reach for your dreams

In high school I set plenty of goals: captain of the cheerleading squad, valedictorian, president of the student government, county Jr. Miss, etc. Some goals were met, others not. When I went to college, my one spoken goal was to meet my man. Of course, I certainly wanted to graduate, join a sorority, find a church to plug into, form friendships, and cheer on the Auburn Tiger football team—which I did! But those weren’t audibly stated goals; they were more like checkboxes waiting to be ticked off.

Fast forward fifteen years (where does the time go?) and many more goals have brought me to today: wife, mom of two, former foster-mom of one, writer, and a woman passionate about apologetics, fitness, enjoying the outdoors, and making disciples, both in home education and women’s groups. However, I can say with greatest certainty that all the short-term or long-term planning I have ever considered would not have placed me exactly in the setting that I find myself.  Yes, I wanted to be a wife, mom, and writer, but the details are different than I would have planned.

So, what does this talk of goals have to do with my current dreams?

Join me over at iBelieve to read the rest. Click here.

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Yesterday’s Tomorrow

21 Apr

Today is

Kids are often told, you can have that tomorrow, we will go there tomorrow, we will read that or watch that or eat that tomorrow. My son will excitedly run to us in the morning and ask, “Is it tomorrow?!” He believes that tomorrow holds the fulfillment of yesterday’s promise.

We as adults are very adept at promising ourselves, as well as those we love, wishes fulfilled tomorrow. Are we not?

We grow to doubt that tomorrow will deliver.

My personal favorite is that I will do the laundry tomorrow. Another one, I will make that call tomorrow.  Yet another tomorrow I often promise myself is a break from blogging. This thought is quickly dismissed as I consider my devoted readers. (Thank you!) 

Whether we like it or not tomorrow comes. Promises and good intentions are either prioritized and met, or they continue to be pushed off for another day.

When my son excitedly asks me if it is tomorrow I smile and tell him, “Yes it is tomorrow.” Then I try my best to explain that today is yesterday’s tomorrow. How’s that for confusing?

It is imperative that we understand that there is ultimately One who promises an indefinite tomorrow because of a greater good. That of saved lives for all of eternity:

The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. (2 Peter 3:9, NLT)

Jesus’ tomorrow tarries so that we will turn. His promise for your next step seems to delay and the uncertainty seems daunting, yet…

Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. (Ecclesiastes 3:11, NLT)

Tomorrow will come. Eternity will commence. The next step will manifest itself.

I hope that all the tomorrow’s of this week will draw you closer to the person that God has created you to become.

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Suffering Servant, Resurrected Lamb

15 Apr

Jesus Messiah

The Redeemer came to reunify the created to the Creator. Like the Good Shepherd that goes after the one lost lamb, He came so that all the lost have freedom to choose life. Life not given at first breath, but by means of faith in the One who died in our place.

But is there proof for our belief that Jesus is the Messiah and that he was resurrected from the dead?

Today, I hope to strengthen the minds of those of you who answered yes, and guide those who would answer no to the question above. We will look at one aspect of the proof of Jesus being the Messiah via the Old Testament prophecies and another for the proof of His resurrection from an eyewitness account.

First, in Isaiah 53, the prophet, Isaiah, prophesied about Jesus, the Messiah, 700 years before His birth and 733 years before His cruel death on the cross.

But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:5-6)

Today, the response to Isaiah 53 for the Jewish and rabbinical theologians is that the Suffering Servant described in Isaiah 53 was not referring to the coming Messiah, but to the nation of Israel.  The first Jew to propose that Isaiah 53 is referring to the nation of Israel was Shlomo Yitzchaki, more familiarly known as Rashi (c. 1040-1105). According to Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek in their book, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (2004),  there are at least three reasons why Isaiah 53 cannot be referring to the nation of Israel:

  • First, unlike Israel, the Servant is sinless. (53:9) If Israel is sinless, then why did God give the Jews a sacrificial system? Why did they have a Day of Atonement? Why did they constantly need prophets to warn them to stop sinning and to come back to God?
  • Second, unlike Israel, the Suffering Servant is a lamb who submits without any resistance whatsoever (53:7) History show us that Israel certainly is not a lamb–she lies down for no one.
  • Third, unlike Israel, the Suffering Servant dies as a substitutionary atonement for the sins of others (53:4-6, 8, 10-12) But Israel has not died, nor is she paying for the sins of others. No one is redeemed on account of what the nation of Israel does. Nations, and the individuals that comprise them, are punished for their own sins.

(Geisler and Turek, 2004, pp. 333-334)

Who alone in all of human history can match the description of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53? None but Christ alone.

Secondly, as we consider the claims of the disciples and apostles that Christ indeed rose from the dead, let us look at Paul. Paul is one of the primary proofs of the resurrection of Jesus. Let’s consider Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. Acts 9.

 Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? (Acts 9:4)

It is imperative that we distinguish this is Jesus addressing Paul for two reasons (verse 5). 

First, this is pertinent in the revelation that when a Christ-follower is suffering, Christ Himself suffers too. What is done to the Body of Christ, the church, is done unto Jesus Himself. The Bible clearly tells us that persecution of Christ-followers is to be expected and that we should rejoice in our suffering. Saul of Tarsus, later called Paul, was a persecutor of the early church “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.” (Acts 9:1)

Secondly, it is imperative that we note this is in fact Jesus talking with Paul because he is another eyewitness of the risen Savior. More specifically, an eyewitness by a professing enemy of the gospel following the ascension of Jesus into heaven. (See Acts 26) Paul’s conversion is significant in this fact as he was a primary witness of Jesus. Paul did not come to be a Christ-follower from a secondary retelling of the gospel; rather, he encountered the risen Savior himself.

The Old Testament prepares the way, and the New Testament documents the prophecies fulfilled. Now we who remain are looking to the clouds and eagerly awaiting His second coming.

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Reliability of the Scriptures Part III

11 Apr

 Archaeological

What have archaeologists discovered that would lead us to believe in the historical claims of the New Testament? Thankfully, the answer to this question is, archaeology has unearthed a great deal of support for the historical accounts of the Bible. Today I will provide a springboard for further studies of the wealth of archaeological support.

  • “There are at least thirty characters in the NT who have been confirmed as historical by archaeology or non-Christian sources.” (Geisler, Norman L. and Turek, Frank, 2004)
  • The John Rylands Papyrus, discovered by Grenfeld in Egypt in 1920, provides the oldest known fragment of a New Testament Manuscript. The small scrap from John’s Gospel chapter nineteen verses thirty-one to thirty-three, and thirty-seven to thirty-eight, was one specific finding that helped to fix a date to the gospel of John. Papyrologists dated the scrap to 125 A.D., “but since it was so far south into Egypt, it successfully put an end to the then-popular attempt to late-date John’s Gospel to the second century rather than to the traditional first century date of A.D. 85–90.” (Walter C. Kaiser, 2007; Walter C. Kaiser, 2007)
  • The well-known, well-referenced Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1948 in caves at Qumran in the Judean Desert, near the northwest end of the Dead Sea. This archaeological find provided around eight-hundred manuscripts of every book (in part or the whole) of the OT except for Esther. “Prior to that, the earliest Hebrew texts dated to around A.D. 1000, but the scrolls at Qumran are generally more than one thousand years older! These Hebrew texts illustrate that a thousand years of copying had provided us with an amazingly pure text, with one of the best examples being the book of Isaiah where only three words had slight modifications. (Walter C. Kaiser, 2007)

Given the number of manuscript copies (here), the agreement between manuscripts (here), and the archaeological support of Biblical, historical characters and events, we can say with confidence that the Bible is a historically reliable text. Further, that it is the most historically reliable text of all of ancient documents.

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The Reliability of the Scriptures Part II

8 Apr

Textual Variants

We’ve seen how the number of manuscripts for the New Testament exceeds all other ancient texts by thousands; as well as observed the fact that the New Testament books were well referenced in historical documents outside of the NT.

Now let’s look at the variants within the manuscripts. It should be noted that the more manuscript copies available, the more variants.

A textual variant is any time the New Testament manuscripts have alternative wordings…By far the most significant category of variants is spelling differences. Spelling differences account for roughly 75 percent of all variants.(McDowell, 2005)

Spelling variants, followed by pronoun and synonym differences account for the variants we see within the manuscripts. In fact, three scholars: NT scholar Bruce Metzger, Greek scholar A. T. Robertson, and Sir Frederick Kenyon all agree that the New Testament we have today is 99.9% accurate and by far the most accurate of any known ancient text. (Geisler, 2007)

We know that the manuscripts far outnumber all other ancient documents and are accurate according to the academic and historical tests of scholars, but how did the New Testament Cannon come to be? How do we know that the books included in the Bible are meant to be there? Three criteria were deemed necessary. Meeting these criteria, the entirety of the Old Testament and the New Testament were first agreed upon at the Council of Laodicea in 363 A. D. followed by the Council of Hippo (393 A.D.) and the Council of Carthage (397 A.D.):

  1. The books must have apostolic authority—either they were written by eyewitness apostles or by followers of apostles.
  2. Conformity to the rule of faith. Was the document congruent with the basic Christian tradition that the church recognized as normative?
  3. Did the document have continuous acceptance and usage by the church at large?

(Strobel, 1998)

In 2005, former evangelical and present New Testament professor at the Universtiy of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Bart Erhman, broke from the faith and published the New York Times Bestseller, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. As recently as March of 2014, Erhman continues to lead people astray with his claims that Jesus was given deity postmortem by his disciples in his latest book, How Jesus Became God.

In speeches and writings, Erhman points out the differences in the gospel accounts of Jesus’ final words on the cross in the books of Mark and Luke. Additionally, he makes bogus claims that Jesus’ was not buried and further that the eyewitnesses of Jesus following his resurrection were merely hallucinations. As Lee Strobel conveys in his book, The Case for Christ, Dr. Gary Collins, a psychologist, explains, “Hallucinations are individual occurrences. By their very nature only one person can see a given hallucination at a time. They certainly aren’t’ something which can be seen by a group of people.” (Strobel, 1998)

Erhman’s claims can be rebutted.

These divergent, eyewitness accounts within the gospels are not barriers to our faith but are important in proving the authenticity of the texts.

Complete harmonization would indicate the accounts were all from a single source or editor. Each author of the gospels includes early and unique material that eyewitnesses can provide. (Norman L.Geisler and Frank Turek, 2004)

Further, the New Testament writers include embarrassing details, carefully distinguished between their own words and those of Christ, and refer to facts that readers of their day could either verify or repudiate. Finally, after imprisonment, beatings, and martyrdom none of the disciples recanted the gospel. The disciples either died for the truth or a known lie. As many can attest, “liars make poor martyrs.” (Habermas, 2004)

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The Reliability of the Scriptures Part 1

4 Apr

Proof of Historicity

Are the scriptures that we preach as truth historically accurate compared with other documents of their time and in light of archaeological finds? Can we trust that scribes accurately copied the scriptures as they were passed across the ancient world and how do we know that what comprises our Bible is what the original authors wrote? These are reasonable questions which you or someone you know may have asked and for which there are ready answers.

Today we will look at the historicity of the scriptures. 

The New Testament is comprised of twenty-seven different books written by nine different authors over a twenty to fifty year period. All New Testament books (scrolls) were written before 100 A.D. which is about seventy years after the death of Jesus. However, most books were probably written much earlier, before 70 A.D. placing the manuscripts forty years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. This reasoning is due to the omission within the New Testament writings of the destruction of the Temple and the city of Jerusalem which occurred in A.D. 70. This omission would be akin to leaving out the bombing of the World Trade Centers on 9/11 when writing a text on American History.

In order to prove the reliability of any ancient text, historians look at the time gap between the original and first surviving copies of ancient documents. The New Testament manuscripts found to date were written within twenty-five years of the original documents. The next closest in years is Homer’s Iliad at five-hundred years between the original and first surviving copies.  (Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek, 2004)

Next, historians look at the number of manuscripts (copies of the original documents). The Bible has an embarrassment of manuscripts. The number of manuscript copies in the Greek alone is nearly 5, 700 and add to that more than 19,000 manuscripts in other languages and the nearly 25,000 manuscripts (some total Bibles others books, pages, or portions of scripture) vastly outnumber the next closest works, the Iliad by Homer with 643 manuscripts. Most other ancient works are considered reliable with fewer than a dozen manuscripts. (Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek, 2004) (McDowell J., 1999)

A closer look at the gospels and sources outside the scriptural authors on the events recorded therein, further add to the authenticity and reliability of the text. Consider:

  • The Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) are historical biographies written by firsthand eyewitnesses (Matthew and John) or recorded from written and oral traditions passed down and carefully documented by early apostles (Mark and Luke).
  • Early Christian leaders between 120-170 A.D. including Papias, Justin, and Irenaeus, reported that Matthew and John were two of the twelve Disciples of Christ and attribute them to writing the gospels baring their names. Further, they record that Luke was a companion to Paul and wrote the gospel we know as Luke and that Mark had written what had been told to him by his companion, Peter. (Licona, 2012)
  • Twenty-five of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament  are recorded and referred to within the writings of the early church fathers, Clement, writing from Rome (c. A.D. 95), Ignatius, writing from Smyrna in Asia Minor (c. 107) and Polycarp, writing from Smyrna in Asia Minor (c. 110). Further, including Jewish, Roman historian, Josephus, there are ten known non-Christian writers who mention Jesus within 150 years of his life.(Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek, 2004)

When tested, the historicity of the Bible withstands the tests better than any other ancient document. Next we will consider the variants within the gospel accounts.

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Proving the Resurrection of Christ

1 Apr

 Ready to Defend

During a time of year when bunnies, flowers and chocolates abound, Christians are tempted to believe that everyone will accept on faith what we preach as fact. What skeptics scoff at as a fictional fairy tale for the weak of intellect, the resurrection of Jesus Christ can be proven historically and logically concluded.

All salvation commences on an confession of faith in the final act of redemption that Jesus fulfilled on the cross. However, some converts will take more than merely the Bible’s word or that of a concerned friend or loved one to convince them of the truth of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

What about you? Was your conversion experience one of a skeptic convinced? Was it more with child-like faith? Was yours a conversion of the mind and emotions?

I came to know and accept Christ as the Lord and Savior of my life at eight years of age. I was one with a child-like faith that instantly responded to the pressing of the Holy Spirit on my heart to confess my sins and walk the isle of my baptist church to make my faith commitment to Jesus. I didn’t even consult with my parents before making the decision. One minute my family was standing in our pew singing Just as I  Am and the next minute my parents reacted by following me as I started crying and walking down the isle to meet the pastor waiting at the end.

Mine was not a conversion of a doubters mind. However, it is my job as a disciple maker to equip myself and the others who read my writing or listen to me teach with the ability to defend the faith. Further, to have ready answers for honest questions of seekers of the truth. Moreover, to equip the minds of children, teens, and adults God has blessed our paths with.

In the weeks leading up to Easter Sunday, we will address a few questions concerning the reliability of the scriptures and the proof of the resurrection. Today I want to highlight a few resources that have guided me in my studies and which will answer the questions that you or someone you know may face surrounding Easter and all that is celebrated within it.

Here are some questions you can look forward to answering with these resources:

    • Did the resurrection really happen?
    • How can we know that God’s Word, the Bible is accurate?
    • How did we get the Bible that we hold in our hand today?

 

Time to buckle the belt of truth and put on the helmet of salvation as we take up our shield of faith and carry the Sword of the Spirit walking in our feet ready with gospel shoes. (Ephesians 6)

Be ready,

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