In Part 2 of our series on the polemics of the Bible, we go deeper into the book of Exodus and discover that the ten plagues were never random. They were a divinely orchestrated, escalating series of judgments, each one aimed at a specific Egyptian god or goddess. From the Nile turned to blood against Hapi, to the darkness that silenced the sun god Ra, to the death of the firstborn that struck at Pharaoh himself, Yahweh systematically dismantled the entire religious system of Egypt to prove his absolute supremacy, both to the Egyptians and to his own people.

Before we get to the plagues, we set the stage. We look at Deuteronomy’s severe warnings against idolatry, the mocking way the Psalms expose idols as lifeless and powerless, and the crucial fact that Pharaoh understood himself to be divine. That context transforms his challenge in Exodus 5, “Who is the LORD?”, from political defiance into a direct theological confrontation.

We also stop to notice something people often miss. This is not a cruel God lashing out. Again and again, He warns before he acts, offering a way of escape, which is exactly what He does for us through Jesus Christ. And as the blood goes over the doorposts in that final plague, we catch a glimpse of where this whole story has been heading all along.

We close where the Bible closes the loop: with idolatry today. Because the definition has not changed. An idol is still anything we put ahead of God, and understanding these ancient counter-narratives helps us build a robust, Christ-centered worldview in a culture that keeps offering us substitutes.

In the first part of this post, we started wrestling with a question someone brought to me: how can we possibly rejoice in heaven while still carrying the regrets of our earthly lives? It’s a fair question, and the person who asked it gave three reasons they assumed regret simply couldn’t exist there. They believed: 1. There would be no more tears, 2. That regret is itself a sin, and 3. That our sins will be remembered no more forever.

We managed to work through the first two of those reasons together. When we looked at the “no more tears” passages, we discovered something worth pausing over, namely that the image of God wiping away every tear may actually assume there is something there to wipe. We also spent time with Isaiah 65:17 and its promise that “the former things will not be remembered.” Rather than reading that as literal amnesia, we saw that it uses a familiar Hebrew idiom, the very same kind of language we find in Isaiah 43:18-19. The point of that idiom is eclipse, not erasure. The old sorrows lose their grip on us, but they are not deleted from existence as though they never happened.

From there, we tried to untangle regret itself, because it turns out to be a far more layered idea than simply “wishing things otherwise.” We worked our way from simple regret and agent regret toward lament, and then we drew a careful line between lament and sinful complaint. What we found was that the line is not crossed by how loudly we cry out to God, but by whether we are turning toward Him or away from Him. None of those categories, taken on its own, is a sin.

What I have not done yet, of course, is actually answer the question. That is what this second post is for. In this post, I want to take up that third statement, the claim that our sins will be remembered no more, and then we will finally arrive at the heart of the matter and ask whether we will, in fact, experience regret in heaven.

God will not remember our sins

When we think of the idea that God will not remember our sins anymore, there are a few verses that come to mind.

34 And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, ‘You should know the LORD.’ For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me already,” says the LORD. “And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.” - Jeremiah 31:34, New Living Translation

12 And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.” - Hebrews 8:12, NLT (Quoting Jeremiah 31:34).

12 He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west. - Psalm 103:12, NLT.

When we read these verses, we might tend to think that God simply forgets our sins. After all, that’s what it means to not remember, right? Well, not quite. In these passages, there is a deeper context. The context for both Jeremiah 31 and Hebrews 8 is the New Covenant.

Let us consider what the new covenant is. It is, as expressed above, grounded in Judaism (8:10). Consequently, any adequate understanding of Christianity must grasp its Jewish roots and the implication of those roots for Christian belief. It is about the internalization of religion, not merely the external practice of religion (8:10). God’s laws are written on the minds and hearts of true Christians. As such, transformation and intrinsic motivation form powerful, foundational elements of Christian life and living. The new covenant is about relationship with God (8:10–11), not merely service for God. Finally, the forgiveness of sins forms the basis for this new covenant relationship (8:12).1

When we look at the new covenant and what the Bible says in Hebrews 8:12, as quoted from Jeremiah 31, we see the Bible is talking about the forgiveness of sin. As Christians, our sins are forgiven because of our trust in Christ. When reading these verses, we must not think that God does not remember our sins in the idea that he has forgotten what we did, but we must understand that because of His grace through Jesus, He does not hold our sins against us. God is omniscient. He doesn’t literally forget anything. The verb “remember” (זכר in Hebrew, μιμνῄσκομαι in Greek) in a covenantal context carries a relational and judicial sense, meaning to “hold against,” “act upon,” or “bring to mind in judgment.” When God says He will not remember our sins, He is promising not to count them against us. He is not announcing a divine memory lapse.

When we add the passage from Psalm 103, we see King David using a metaphor describing how far removed our sins are from us. The reality from all these verses is that our sins are no longer between God and the believer. That means that our sins are not keeping us from God. The distance isn’t about God’s knowledge of sin, but about the separation of us as sinners from the consequences of our sin.

These passages, when taken together, establish that God’s divine forgiveness operates on two levels at the same time. God’s omniscience remains intact because he knows all things. However, his treatment of our forgiven sins changes. We can also see this in Psalm 32:2.

2 Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of guilt, whose lives are lived in complete honesty! - Psalm 32:2, NLT.

When you read Psalm 32:2, you see that God has cleared the record of guilt. The sin still exists, but God declines to hold it against the sinner. So the forgiven sinner experiences the practical reality of a God who, although he is all-knowing, chooses to stop prosecuting their offense.

Regrets at Judgment Day

In thinking about this idea, I believe a lot of it boils down to what is going to happen on judgment day, what type of accounting we will have to give, and whether that account will cause us to have regrets. So, how do we answer those questions? First, let’s look at what Scripture says about judgment day.

36 And I tell you this, you must give an account on judgment day for every idle word you speak.

37 The words you say will either acquit you or condemn you.” - Matthew 12:36-37, NLT.

So, here we see Jesus telling his disciples, the Pharisees, and the crowd of people that we must give an account for every idle word we speak. These verses come after Jesus has healed a demon-possessed man who was blind and couldn’t speak. If you recall, the Pharisees accused Jesus of casting out demons by the power of Satan. It is during this same exchange that we have Jesus mentioning the “unpardonable sin” of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. So Jesus is rebuking the Pharisees by telling them that they are evil, but they speak what is good and right.

I don’t know about you, but there are many times when I say or think some things I should not, even though I am trying to live a life that is glorifying Christ. The idea of having to give an account of every idle word I have ever spoken is not something I am looking forward to. But this is not the only time we see Scripture speaking about judgment.

13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable. - Hebrews 4:13, NLT.

5 But remember that they will have to face God, who stands ready to judge everyone, both the living and the dead. - 1 Peter 4:5, NLT.

So, Scripture is clear that God is going to judge everyone, but when does that judgment occur? Well, that judgment occurs in Revelation 20.

12 I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God’s throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books.

13 The sea gave up its dead, and death and the grave gave up their dead. And all were judged according to their deeds. - Revelation 20:12-13, NLT.

Most of us have probably heard of the Great White Throne Judgment, but fewer have heard of what’s called the judgment seat of Christ, and the difference between the two is exactly what we need to sort out. What we are seeing here is known as the Great White Throne Judgment. This is the final judgment before the lost are cast into the lake of fire. This judgment takes place after the millennium and after Satan, the beast, and the false prophet are cast into the lake of fire. Notice in verse 12 that the Book of Life is also opened. This is the book that determines where a person will spend eternity: with God in heaven or in eternal punishment in the lake of fire.

“Although Christians are held accountable for their actions, they are forgiven in Christ and their names were written in the ‘book of life from the creation of the world’ (Revelation 17:8). We also know from Scripture that it is at this judgment when the dead will be ‘judged according to what they had done’ (Revelation 20:12) and that ‘anyone’s name’ that is not ‘found written in the book of life’ will be ‘thrown into the lake of fire’ (Revelation 20:15).”2

While there is disagreement among Christians as to whether there are multiple judgments (Matthew 25:31-36, 2 Corinthians 5:10, and Revelation 20:11-15), or that these are three parts within the Great White Throne Judgment, we can be certain that there will be judgment. So, where does that leave the Christian?

The Judgment Seat of Christ

When we look at the accounting of our deeds in Matthew 12, we might not know what to make of this. After all, how do we reconcile Matthew 12:25-37 with the above passages on how God will not hold our sins against us? Well, for believers, the accounting of our actions serves a different purpose than it does for unbelievers. As Christians, we are held accountable for our actions, but we are forgiven because of the redeeming work of Jesus, and our names have been written in the Book of Life from the creation of the world.3

8 The beast you saw was once alive but isn’t now. And yet he will soon come up out of the bottomless pit and go to eternal destruction. And the people who belong to this world, whose names were not written in the Book of Life before the world was made, will be amazed at the reappearance of this beast who had died. - Revelation 17:8, NLT.

In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul brings up judgment:

10 For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly body. - 2 Corinthians 5:10, NLT.

As Protestants, we believe that salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone. So what is Paul talking about? If we have to give an account of everything we have done, isn’t that work-based? Well, no.

“The best explanation is to see this judgment not as contributing to our salvation, but as corroborating that we have been saved. Good works are the evidence of true faith. The final judgment will attest for the believer that the good tree has indeed borne good fruit (Matt. 7:15–20).”4

This idea aligns with what we see in the Book of James.

14 What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? - James 2:14, NLT.

18 Now someone may argue, “Some people have faith; others have good deeds.” But I say, “How can you show me your faith if you don’t have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds.” - James 2:18, NLT.

26 Just as the body is dead without breath, so also faith is dead without good works. - James 2:26, NLT.

When the books are opened, the books will show whether there is corroborating evidence for our names to be written in the Book of Life. Dr. DeYoung writes:

“It matters how you are living your life. There are no carnal Christians. There are weak Christians, struggling Christians, doubting Christians, less-sanctified-than-they-want-to-be Christians, but not carnal Christians wholly given over to the lusts of flesh, careless about the things of God, and disinterested-in-the-means-of-grace Christians. We don’t earn our way into heaven by a weighing of our deeds, but when our name is in the book, there will be a record of general faithfulness in the books that are opened on the last day. The Christian is not a perfect person (on earth), but he is a changed person.”5

So, the judgment seat of Christ is not a judgment on whether our names are in the Book of Life and we enter heaven, but a record of what we did on earth. So, this leads back to the idea of having regrets in heaven. I don’t know about you, but there are a lot of things I don’t want to be shown, so this idea is very uncomfortable for me. Paul speaks about this judgment in 1 Corinthians 3.

13 But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person’s work has any value.

14 If the work survives, that builder will receive a reward.

15 But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss. The builder will be saved, but like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames. - 1 Corinthians 3:13-15, NLT.

Paul tells us that the judgment seat of Christ will be about measuring our works, but remember what he says in verse 15. The builder will be saved. This is not a salvation issue. But this is about rewards. Remember, God is a just God. Think about this: we know that some people live more devoted lives to Christ than others. I don’t think that is a controversial take. So, if we are standing before a just God and you were fully devoted to Him and got the same rewards as someone who lived their life for only themselves and trusted in Jesus on their deathbed, would you think that the reward was just? I know I wouldn’t.

Now, please do not misunderstand what I am saying. We do not trust Christ and serve Christ just to go to heaven instead of hell, and just to get rewarded. We serve Him because He is the creator and the Risen King who is exalted above all. We serve Him because we deserve hell and destruction for our sin, but because of grace and His atoning sacrifice, we are made right with God again. Nevertheless, if we were all rewarded the same, that would not be fair. That is what the judgment seat of Christ is about.

“The judgment seat of Christ fulfills God’s impartial justice, since not all believers live with the same degree of devotion to Christ. Christians are individually accountable for what they do in this mortal body. One day all believers will stand before their Lord, who will impartially evaluate their lives and reward them accordingly. Paul knows that he too will have to stand before Christ with nothing to hide, and he will have to explain his life. This “fear of the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:11) motivates him (as it should motivate all Christians) to intensify his devotion to pleasing Christ.”6

So, Will We Have Regret in Heaven

I know this has been a long topic, but I felt it was necessary to look at the different aspects baked into this complex question. What I am going to write is what I, Andy Brown, believe Scripture says. You might have a different take, and that is okay. So, let’s run this through from the beginning.

I believe Scripture teaches that we will have memories in heaven. We can see that in the Book of Revelation.

9 When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of all who had been martyred for the word of God and for being faithful in their testimony.

10 They shouted to the Lord and said, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you judge the people who belong to this world and avenge our blood for what they have done to us?” - Revelation 6:9-10, NLT.

These martyrs are crying out to the Lord to avenge their deaths. They clearly remember why they are in heaven.

We also have the story of the transfiguration.

3 Suddenly, Moses and Elijah appeared and began talking with Jesus.

4 Peter exclaimed, “Lord, it’s wonderful for us to be here! If you want, I’ll make three shelters as memorials—one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” - Matthew 17:3-4, NLT.

Peter, James, and John saw Jesus talking to Moses and Elijah. Moses and Elijah lived centuries earlier than the disciples, but they recognized them. This shows that we retain our distinct identities and are recognizable after we die. I’ll give you one more example from Scripture.

27 “Then the rich man said, ‘Please, Father Abraham, at least send him to my father’s home.

28 For I have five brothers, and I want him to warn them so they don’t end up in this place of torment.’

29 “But Abraham said, ‘Moses and the prophets have warned them. Your brothers can read what they wrote.’

30 “The rich man replied, ‘No, Father Abraham! But if someone is sent to them from the dead, then they will repent of their sins and turn to God.’

31 “But Abraham said, ‘If they won’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they won’t be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’ ” - Luke 16:27-31, NLT.

This is the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. If you remember, there was a rich man who lived in luxury and a poor man named Lazarus who was covered in sores who sat by his gate. They both died, and Lazarus went to sit beside Abraham, and the rich man went to the place of the dead (vv. 22-23). At the end of the parable, we read these verses. Notice that the rich man remembers his five brothers and Lazarus. He also thinks he knows what will persuade his brothers, with that being someone risen from the dead.

Before I draw a conclusion from these passages, I want to be honest about something. If you look closely, all three of these examples describe what theologians call the intermediate state, or the in-between time after we die but before we are raised at the resurrection. The martyrs in Revelation 6 are souls under the altar, still waiting. Moses and Elijah appear before the final resurrection. The rich man and Lazarus are in the place of the dead, not yet in the new creation John describes in Revelation 21. So someone could fairly ask whether these texts tell us anything at all about our final, glorified home.

I think they do, and here’s why. If memory survives even in that in-between state, when we are absent from the body and awaiting the resurrection, it would be strange to claim it suddenly vanishes once we receive our glorified bodies and enter the fullness of God’s presence. The whole hope of the resurrection is that it is me who is raised, the same person, with my history and identity intact, not a stranger wearing my name. The continuity of identity is the entire point. So if anything, the case for memory is stronger in glory than in the intermediate state, not weaker.

So, I believe Scripture shows we retain our memories. Even if we didn’t, the verses on judgment show that our lives will be shown, so we would remember then. Given those verses and the verses about judgment, I believe we will have regret in heaven. I think that we will regret not living our lives fully for Christ. I believe we will regret making certain decisions. I believe we will regret how we treated people. However, that is not the end of the story.

12 Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. - 1 Corinthians 13:12, NLT.

Paul writes that, right now, we see things imperfectly, but we will one day see things with perfect clarity. This is where I think the verses we looked at in part one come into play.

17 For the Lamb on the throne will be their Shepherd. He will lead them to springs of life-giving water. And God will wipe every tear from their eyes. - Revelation 7:17, NLT.

4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” - Revelation 21:4, NLT.

I think that once we get to heaven, we will remember our earthly stories, including our failures, but we will see them fully bathed in grace, with all their sting transformed into worship and gratitude. Nobody has lived a perfect life and has been 100% faithful to Jesus and to God. We are sinful beings, and it is impossible to earn God’s favor by our own righteousness.

However, I believe that once we see Jesus face-to-face, we will see things perfectly and understand how God sees things. He will wipe away tears from our eyes, and because we will see things fully bathed in God’s grace, our regret will be temporary, not eternal. That distinction matters because it isn’t just that God comforts us in our regrets but that He fully heals what was broken. The risen Christ kept His wounds. His wounds are real. They are remembered and visible, but they are no longer wounding. When we begin seeing clearly for the first time, there is genuine regret; that regret is among the very tears God wipes away. What remains for us afterward is memory without sting, a scar that now provokes worship instead of grief. Because God will wipe the tears from our eyes, and there will be no more sorrow, I am not going to dwell on the fact that I will have regrets in heaven, but I will dedicate what life I have left to maximizing the work God has called me to do. So, how can we rejoice while still carrying regret? Our rejoicing and our regret don’t sit side-by-side forever. Our regret is the last tear wiped away. What is left is pure worship of our risen King and Savior, Jesus Christ.

I hope this has been helpful in trying to understand the idea of having regrets in heaven. It is a deep subject, but one I hope I have shed some light on to help you better understand how Scripture works together and how we can dig to find answers to our questions.

In this episode, the first in a series on the polemics of the Bible, we tackle that challenge head-on. We start with a simple question: what is a polemic, and why does it matter that the Bible functions as one? Polemical theology is the deliberate strategy biblical writers used, not to ignore the surrounding ancient Near East cultures, but to take their familiar stories and concepts and reorient them entirely around Yahweh, the one true God. Rather than simply saying the other gods are false, Scripture demonstrates Yahweh’s superior claim over everything those gods were thought to control.

From there, we look at the deep theological chasm between the Bible’s strict monotheism and Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) polytheism. We talk about a transcendent God who creates out of nothing by his word and for his glory, the creator versus creature distinction, and the staggering truth that humanity is made in God’s image with dignity and purpose, rather than enslaved to serve moody, limited deities.

Then we get specific. We walk through the Babylonian creation myth, the Enuma Elish, and set it next to Genesis 1 and 2. We compare the flood account in Genesis with the flood in the Epic of Gilgamesh, looking at who causes the flood and why, the heroes, the details, and the character of the divine beings involved. The similarities are real, but the meaning and theology could not be more different. One God punishes sin because he is holy. The other gods brought catastrophe because humans were too loud.

Why does any of this matter today? Because Scripture is under attack from every direction, and you deserve more than “I just have faith” when someone challenges what you believe. This episode is about giving you a deeper, more confident foundation and a genuine sense of awe for the Word of God.

This is Part 1, with more to come.

The Question

The question I was asked is, “How can we be in heaven rejoicing while we are thinking about the regrets of our lives?” That is a valid question. I asked why the person thought there would be no regrets in heaven and was given a few answers.

1. There will be no more tears in heaven.

2. To this person, regret is a sin.

3. Our sins will be remembered no more forever.

So, let’s begin by answering each one of these in turn.

No More Tears in Heaven

This idea comes from several verses in Scripture.

for the Lamb at the center of the throne will shepherd them and will guide them to springs of the water of life. And God will wipe every tear from their eyes. - Revelation 7:17, Legacy Standard Bible.

and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain. The first things passed away. - Revelation 21:4, LSB.

He will swallow up death for all time, And Lord Yahweh will wipe tears away from all faces, And He will remove the reproach of His people from all the earth; For Yahweh has spoken. - Isaiah 25:8, LSB.

I will also rejoice in Jerusalem and be joyful in My people; And there will no longer be heard in her The voice of weeping and the voice of crying. - Isaiah 65:19, LSB.

Here’s something worth noting about the wiping of tears image. If the redeemed enter into the new creation with no awareness of past sorrow at all, what tears would there be for God to wipe? There are some commentators, including Randy Alcorn in his book Heaven, who press this point exactly. The image these verses suggest, at a minimum, a moment of remembered grief that God personally addresses. Whether that’s a brief experience upon entry or an ongoing dynamic is where interpreters land in different places.

The strongest counter-reading to this idea is that the phrase “wipe every tear” is a metaphor for total eradication, similar to how we might say, “I’ll wipe that off the map,” without implying any type of process. Because both readings are textually defensible, there are thoughtful pastors who disagree on this. But there is another passage of Scripture that also can play into this idea.

Making All Things New

This passage is often used to bolster the argument that there will be no regrets in heaven.

For behold, I am creating a new heavens and a new earth; And the former things will not be remembered or come upon the heart. - Isaiah 65:17, LSB.

At first glance, Isaiah 65:17 looks like a serious obstacle. The Lord says he is creating new heavens and a new earth, and ‘the former things will not be remembered or come upon the heart.’ If that describes our final state, then it seems memory is precisely what we lose. But notice what comes three verses later.

20. No longer will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, Or an old man who does not fulfill his days; For the youth will die at the age of one hundred, And the bone who does not reach the age of one hundred Will be thought accursed.

21. They will build houses and inhabit them; They will also plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

22. They will not build and another inhabit; They will not plant and another eat; For as the lifetime of a tree, so will be the days of My people, And My chosen ones will wear out the work of their hands. - Isaiah 65:20-22, LSB.

Verse 20 describes people still dying, even if they die at an extraordinary old age. That detail doesn’t fit Revelation 21:4, where God promises that death itself is no more. So Isaiah 65 doesn’t appear to map cleanly onto the consummated new creation John describes. Many interpreters take this paragraph to describe an intermediate stage of restoration rather than our final home, which means we should be cautious about reading verse 17 as the last word on whether memory survives into eternity.

Even if we grant that Isaiah 65 may describe a stage of restoration rather than our final home, people might still press the question. If God promises that “the former things shall not be remembered or come upon the heart” even in a preliminary stage, why would those memories suddenly reappear later? That’s a fair concern, and it deserves a careful answer.

The answer is found in how the Hebrew prophets often spoke. The phrase “not remembered” is a familiar idiom in Old Testament poetry, and it almost never means literal amnesia. We can see this clearly just a few chapters earlier. In Isaiah 43:18-19, God tells his people,

18. Do not remember the former things, Nor carefully consider things of the past.

19. Behold, I will do something new; Now it will spring forth; Will you not know it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, Rivers in the wasteland. - Isaiah 43:18-19, LSB.

I would imagine that nobody reads that verse and concludes God is commanding his people to develop a memory disorder. The phrase functions as a contrast. It tells us that what God is about to do will be so glorious, so overwhelming, so life-giving, that the old hardships of slavery and exile will no longer dominate the heart. The point is not erasure but eclipse. The new reality outshines the old.

When Isaiah 65:17 uses the same kind of language, we have good reason to read it the same way. The former things will not be “remembered” in the sense that they no longer wound us, no longer weigh on us, no longer define us. The sorrows of this present age will lose their grip. That’s a wonderful promise, and it doesn’t require us to believe that the people we loved, the lessons we learned, or the story God wrote in our lives will simply be wiped away. This is an idea that will be expounded upon in the second part of this post.

Is Regret a Sin?

Wow! Look at the time. I’ve got to go and hope you enjoyed reading... I am kidding, of course, but this is a difficult question in and of itself, not even tied to the larger context. So, let’s try to break this down.

Regret is one of the most common human experiences, but is it sinful in and of itself, or is regret part of how God heals sin? There has been some recent theological work on the idea of regret and how it relates to remorse and repentance. In his book Regret: A Theology, Paul J. Griffiths defines regret as simply “wishing things otherwise.”1 I think that many of us view regret in this way, but is the idea of regret actually more nuanced than that? Well, I believe that it is.

Simple Regret

Simple regret is sorrow over something bad that happened. Simple regret is not inherently sinful. For instance, I regret that I did not play football when I was younger. I also regret that I did not spend enough time with my son watching movies I love to ingrain that love of movies into him as well. Are those regrets sinful? No. It is simply that I wish I made different choices.

Agent Regret

We now move beyond just wishing things were different to the realm where it becomes even more personal. Agent regret says, “I was involved in what happened, even if I did not sin or intend to harm anyone.” An example for agent regret would be a doctor doing all they can to help a patient, but the patient getting worse or dying. The sorrow is connected to a person’s agency, or the capacity of individuals to act independently and make choices that shape their lives within the context of social structures.2 The sorrow here is connected to our agency, not necessarily our guilt.

As Christians living in a fallen world, we are finite creatures living in a fallen world. We are real agents, but we are not sovereign agents. We act, choose, influence, and bear responsibility, however many outcomes in our lives exceed our knowledge and control. We see this in Scripture.

13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.”

14 Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.

15 Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” - James 4:13-15, LSB.

In this passage, James is warning against the presumptuous confidence many of us have about our future. Now, I am not saying that we shouldn’t make plans for our future at all, but that we should live our lives along the lines of verse 15. Proverbs even echoes this idea.

9 The heart of man plans his way, But Yahweh directs his steps. - Proverbs 16:9, LSB.

When it comes to simple regret and agent regret, these need not be sinful. But, are there other types of regret as well?

Lament

Now, let’s think about lament. A lament is grief brought before God. When we lament, we say, “This is grievous, painful, broken, or unbearable.” We don’t necessarily say, “God should have ordered reality differently.”

That difference matters. Lament is not the same as accusing God of wrongdoing. We see biblical lament that protests, weeps, questions, pleads, and waits, while still remaining addressed to God in faith. The Bible gives us many examples: Psalm 13, Psalm 22, Psalm 42, and Psalm 88. In addition, we have an entire book called Lamentations. We also see laments from Job, and from Jesus when He cries out from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46; Psalm 22:1).

When we think of the difference between lament and regret, in that lament is sorrow over the state of things, but not necessarily a type of regret, because it does not necessarily wish that things were otherwise.

So lament may be insufficient in some cases, but I don’t believe it is, in and of itself, sinful.

For example, if I have sinned, lamenting the sin alone is insufficient. If I merely say, “This is tragic,” it is not enough if I must also confess, repent, repair, and seek forgiveness. David does not merely lament after his sin with Bathsheba; he confesses:

“Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You are justified when You speak and pure when You judge.” - Psalm 51:4, LSB.

In that case, lament must deepen into repentance.

But when the object is a “lamentable” rather than a personal sin, such as death, sickness, injustice, disaster, betrayal, or persecution, lament may be exactly the Christian response that fits.

20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope

21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.

23 And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. - Romans 8:20-23, LSB.

Romans says creation itself “groans” under bondage to corruption, and believers groan inwardly as they await redemption. That groaning is not sin. That groaning is the sound of hope suffering under the conditions of the fall.

When we lament as Christians, we rest on two doctrines held together:

We must first remember that creation is good, so evil, death, and suffering are genuinely grievous. As Christians, we do not have to pretend that pain is fine. Jesus wept at Lazarus’s tomb even though He knew He would raise him. Now, I know there are other reasons why Jesus wept over the death of Lazarus as well, but that is another post for another time.

In addition to remembering that creation is good, we must also remember that God is sovereign and good, so our lament does not need to become a rebellion against God. Biblical lament speaks of pain to God, not away from God. It is grief in covenantal relationship.

When Regret and Lament Become Sinful

We have covered a little about regret and lament. So now, let’s try to put it all together. A lament says, “This is grievous before God,” and is fitting when we experience suffering, loss, injustice, or death. Regret says, “I wish this had not happened,” and is fitting when we experience bad outcomes, especially ones from our past. These two can lead us into repentance, which says, “I have sinned. Lord, forgive and change me.” We usually repent when we feel personal guilt. These are perfectly normal emotions we feel. The problem is when we go further.

One thing we can begin to do when we are feeling hurt is that we begin to complain against God. We say, “God has done wrong.” This can be dangerous, especially when we falsely accuse God. This is where I want to slow down because I think this is where many Christians get tangled up.

Here is the tension. If you read through the Psalms, you will quickly notice that Biblical lament can sound a lot like complaint. Psalm 13 opens with:

How long, O Yahweh? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? - Psalm 13:1, LSB.

Habakkuk begins his prophecy by crying out:

How long, O Yahweh, will I call for help, And You will not hear? I cry out to You, “Violence!” Yet You do not save. - Habakkuk 1:2, LSB.

Psalm 88, which is perhaps the darkest chapter in the Bible, ends with an unresolved sorrow with this line:

You have removed lover and friend far from me; My acquaintances are in darkness. - Psalm 88:18, LSB.

There is no resolution, no triumphant turn at the end. The psalm just stops in the dark.

If verses like these are inspired Scripture, given to us by God for our instruction, then clearly there is a kind of intense, even desperate cry that is not sinful. So how do we tell the difference between faithful lament and sinful complaint?

Well, the distinction is not really about volume or intensity. A person who weeps loudly before God is not automatically sinning and a person who quietly seethes in their heart is not automatically faithful. The distinction is about posture. Specifically, two things mark faithful lament.

First, faithful lament is still addressed to God. The psalmist in Psalm 13 is not talking about God to someone else. He is talking TO God. Habakkuk does not write off the Lord and walk away. He stands in front of God and asks his hard question. Even Jesus, in the darkest moment of human history, cried out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” in Matthew 27:46. The cry is sharp, but it is still a cry to His father.

Second, faithful lament remains in covenant with God. The lamenter still belongs to God, still trusts in God enough to bring the pain to him, and still believes that God is the One who can answer even when no answer has yet to come. The Psalms of Lament are honest, but they are not abandonment. They are the words of someone who is still holding on even when holding on hurts.

Sinful complaint, on the other hand, has a different posture. It is not a cry to God so much as a verdict against him. It does not say, “Lord, I do not understand, and I am hurting.” It says, “God has wronged me, and I am justified in turning away.” The grumbling of Israel in the wilderness in Numbers 11 and 14 is a good example of this. They were not bringing their pain before the Lord in trust. They were accusing him of cruelty for delivering them, longing to return to slavery in Egypt, and rejecting his provision. This is a very different posture from David in Psalm 13.

What I want to say is that if you’re reading this and your prayer has sounded a lot more like Psalm 13 than like a polished worship song, please hear me and know that this is not a sin. This is the language of God’s people throughout Scripture. The fact that you’re still talking to Him, still bringing your sorrow to His feet, and still asking the hard questions in His presence is itself an act of faith. You have not crossed a line. You are walking the same path the psalmist and Jesus walked.

The line is crossed, not when we cry out loudly but when we turn away. It is crossed when lament turns into accusation, and then accusation hardens into despair. When we are in despair, we say, “There is no hope.” This is contrary to everything Christians believe because we know there is hope, and that hope is found in Jesus Christ.

So, to wrap this section up, we can say that regret or agent regret can be a morally appropriate sorrow that we have over bad outcomes, including harms that we might have caused or participated in without sinning. Regret and agent regret reflect the seriousness of human agency in a fallen world. This does not mean that it is automatically guilt, and should not be treated as repentance unless an actual sin was committed.

Lament is grief over what is broken, painful, or tragic before God. It does not have to involve wishing that God’s providence were otherwise. However, in some cases, it may include a longing that the painful event had not occurred. Lament can be incomplete if repentance, action, justice, or repair is required on our part, but lament in itself is not sinful. In Scripture, we see that lament is often an act of faith. Christian lament can grieve the event while still submitting to God’s wisdom and goodness.

As Christians, we see that regret recognizes the tragedy of harmful outcomes. Lament brings that tragedy before God. Repentance is required only where sin is present. And hope refuses to let sorrow become despair.

Now, I know that in this first post, I have not answered the question of whether we will have regret in heaven. It’s just too large a question to address in a single post. So, in the next post, I will answer that third statement from above that says our sins will be remembered no more forever, and talk about whether or not we will actually have regret in heaven

In this episode, we tackle one of the most controversial passages in the New Testament: Romans 9:13-18. Paul’s words about God showing mercy to some and hardening others have troubled Christians for centuries. But Paul is not making this up out of thin air. He is quoting the Old Testament. So we are going to follow him back to Egypt, walk through the ten plagues, and dig into a piece of Hebrew grammar that most Christians have never heard of but that completely reframes the story.

Along the way, we will look at 1 Samuel 23, talk about the difference between foreknowledge and predestination, draw on insights from scholars like Michael Heiser, J.P. Moreland, and William Lane Craig, and finish with a pastoral word for anyone who has ever felt forgotten while watching the ungodly seem to prosper.

Have you ever read a passage of Scripture and felt completely confident you understood what it meant, only to find out later that you had missed the point entirely? I have. More times than I’d like to admit.

Here’s the thing most of us don’t stop to think about: every time we open our Bibles, we bring a whole invisible backpack of cultural assumptions with us. We grew up in a specific place, in a specific time, shaped by a specific way of seeing the world. And without realizing it, we project all of that onto an ancient text written to people whose world looked nothing like ours.

That’s the central challenge that E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien take on in Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible. It’s a book I’d recommend to just about any Christian who takes Bible reading seriously, and I want to walk you through some of its key ideas because they genuinely changed the way I approach the text.

The Church at Laodicea: A Famous Misread

The book opens with a familiar passage. In Revelation 3, Jesus rebukes the church at Laodicea for being “neither hot nor cold” and threatens to spit them out of his mouth. Most of us have heard a sermon on this: hot means on fire for God, cold means lost, and lukewarm means spiritually complacent. O’Brien explains that he was taught, as were many others, that our leaders and teachers “interpreted the words hot, cold and lukewarm as designations of spiritual commitment.”1 That interpretation has probably been preached in thousands of churches.

There’s just one problem. That’s almost certainly not what Jesus meant.

O’Brien recounts standing in the ruins of ancient Laodicea and suddenly understanding what the original hearers would have known immediately: the city had no water supply of its own. They had to pipe it in. Hot water came from the nearby hot springs at Hierapolis; cold water came from the mountain streams at Colossae. Both were genuinely useful. Both served real purposes. The water that arrived lukewarm, after traveling a long distance through pipes, was the problematic water: tepid, mineral-heavy, and good for very little.

The rebuke isn’t about spiritual temperature. It’s about utility. The church at Laodicea had become useless.

That’s a significant difference. And it only becomes visible when you strip away the assumptions you brought to the text and ask what it meant to the people who first received it. Richards and O’Brien put their finger on exactly this problem when they write that “in whatever place and whatever age people read the Bible, we instinctively draw from our own cultural context to make sense of what we’re reading.”2 Their goal is to help us become aware of that instinct so we can read more carefully. And as they conclude their introduction, they note that their “primary goal is to help us learn to read ourselves.”3

That’s a worthwhile goal, because most of us may subconsciously know we bring biases to the text without realizing just how much of our present culture we’re carrying into biblical interpretation.

The Things That “Go Without Being Said”

Chapter one focuses on what the authors call cultural mores (pronounced mawr-eyz), which are discussed in the book as “views a community considers closed to debate. People don’t think about them as closed to debate; they simply don’t think of them at all. They go without being said.”4

That idea of things that “go without being said” runs through the rest of the book, because it names something we, as Westerners, routinely overlook but that could be of real importance to readers from other times and places. The alcohol example the book uses makes this concrete. O’Brien grew up in a tradition that preached the evils of drinking and used Proverbs 20:1 to back it up. Then he visited a friend from a different denomination and found a wine chiller engraved with a different Bible reference entirely: “Use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake” (1 Tim 5:23 KJV).5 This is the same Bible, but this is a completely different assumption about what the Bible teaches.

As the authors put it, “We might assume that our mores are universal and that Christians everywhere have always felt the way we feel about things.”6 That assumption is exactly the problem. Neither reader thought they were importing a cultural value. Both thought they were simply reading the text. This chapter could have easily been a book on its own, and it sets the tone for everything that follows. Before we can interpret the Bible faithfully, we have to be honest about the invisible glasses we’re already wearing.

Race, Ethnicity, and Reading Between the Lines

Chapter two tackles race and ethnicity. The authors make the pointed observation that “we may assume an issue is due to ethnicity when it isn’t, assume it isn’t when it is, fail to recognize an ethnic slur when it’s obvious or imagine one when it isn’t.”7

A compelling illustration comes from Numbers 12, where Aaron and Miriam speak against Moses because of his Cushite wife. Since Cush was in the southern Nile River Valley, Cushites were dark-skinned Africans, and many Western readers jump to a familiar conclusion. As the authors explain, “We might supply what goes without being said for many Westerners and conclude that Miriam and Aaron were upset with Moses because he married a black woman and therefore married below himself.”8 But that reading projects a modern Western assumption onto the text. At the time, the Hebrews were a slave race. A Cushite wife would have represented marrying up in status, not down. Miriam and Aaron may have been reacting to the perceived social elevation, not to anything about race at all.9

Our cultural moment shapes what we notice. This chapter is a good reminder that faithful interpretation requires us to ask not just “what does this say?” but “what assumptions am I bringing to what it says?” By helping readers understand how their own ethnic stereotypes might shape what they see in the text, Richards and O’Brien offer a genuinely useful tool for reading Scripture more honestly.

Language, Time, and the Distance We Don’t Always Feel

Chapter three makes the important point that translation is only half the battle. Even when we understand the English words, we may be missing the world behind them. Richards and O’Brien put it plainly: “Behind the words, now in a language we understand, remains that complex structure of cultural values, assumptions and habits of mind that does not translate easily, if at all. If we fail to recognize this — and we very often do — we risk misreading the Bible by reading foreign assumptions into it.”10 Their practical recommendation is to read from a variety of translations. A good Bible dictionary or concordance can also fill in gaps that translation alone can’t bridge.

Chapters four and five deal with culture, covering individualism versus collectivism and the contrast between honor/shame and right/wrong frameworks, respectively. One illustration that stuck with me: we tend to imagine writing as a solitary activity, but the authors note that in the ancient world, “Authors commonly stood and dictated while a scribe sat with a sheet of parchment balanced on his knee or in his lap. Paul would not have locked himself away in some private room to write. (It would have been too dark anyway.) He more likely would have sat in a public place: the breezy, well-lit atrium of a prosperous home like Lydia’s, or in an upstairs balconied apartment.”11 That small detail opens up a whole different picture of how the New Testament letters were produced and what kind of communal world they came from.

Honor, Shame, and the Story of David and Bathsheba

This section stopped me cold.

Most Western Christians read the story of David and Bathsheba primarily through a lens of guilt. David sinned. He knew it was wrong. He felt terrible. That’s the moral of the story.

But Richards and O’Brien argue that David was likely operating within an entirely different moral framework: the honor/shame culture of the ancient Near East. Within that system, a king taking a woman for himself and covering his tracks was not unusual. It was, in a disturbing way, normal. “At every step, he did what was typical for a Mediterranean king at the time in a situation like this. And according to the honor/shame system of David’s day, the matter was resolved. It is likely that David never gave it another thought.”12

Now, before you panic: the authors are not excusing David. The point is that God’s moral standard is not determined by cultural norms. David’s behavior may have fit his cultural context and still fallen catastrophically short of God. That’s why God sent Nathan. Nathan didn’t make a legal argument. He told a story designed to publicly shame David, which is exactly the kind of appeal that would have landed in an honor/shame culture. The conviction came through the cultural mechanism David would have understood.

The practical tip here is worth writing down. As Richards and O’Brien advise: “Pay attention to where stories take place in Scripture. If an event or conversation is taking place publicly, there’s a good chance that honor/shame is at stake.”13 The concept of honor and shame, while still prevalent in some Middle Eastern and Eastern cultures, is largely foreign to Western readers. This chapter provides real insight into how that world worked and why we so often misread the people in it.

The discussion of time in chapter six is one I found particularly useful. Biblical writers thought in terms of two kinds of time: chronos (clock or calendar time) and kairos (the weight and significance of a moment). Western readers tend to be deeply chronos-minded. We want to know when something happened, how long it took, and where it fits on a timeline. But the biblical authors were often far more concerned with the kairos: the significance of the moment, not just its sequence. As the authors put it, “We Westerners can focus so much on the time (chronology) that we miss the timing (the meaning of the sequence) in a biblical passage.”14

Rules vs. Relationships

Chapter seven is one I think every Christian should read slowly. Richards and O’Brien argue that because Western readers tend to understand relationships in terms of rules and laws, “we have a tendency also to understand ancient relationships, including those we read about in Scripture, in terms of rules.”15 But in the ancient world, relationships defined reality, not rules.

They illustrate this memorably. Imagine a marriage contract that read something like: “I will kiss you twice daily, with one kiss lasting at least two seconds. I will make at least one statement implying thoughtfulness every morning. I will provide three hugs per week of medium snugness.”16 That’s not love. That’s a checklist. And a checklist, no matter how faithfully followed, cannot substitute for genuine relationship.

So many Christians, if they’re honest, approach their faith the same way. Follow the rules, avoid the sins, check the boxes. What Richards and O’Brien are pointing to is that this is a fundamentally Western misreading of what Christianity is about. The relationship with Christ is the point. The rules, when they appear, exist to protect and describe that relationship, not to replace it.

Virtue, Vice, and What We Quietly Celebrate

Chapter eight opens with the story of the little red hen, who asks her fellow farm animals to help plant seeds, harvest wheat, grind flour, and make dough. At each stage, the other animals decline. When the bread is finally finished and the hen asks who will help her eat it, all the animals are suddenly eager. She tells them plainly: they did none of the work, so they will eat none of the bread.17

In most Western retellings, the hen is the hero. Industriousness is the virtue. Free-riding is the vice. This is illustrated in their stories of teenagers going on mission trips to poorer areas and giving away all their extra clothes to return home with nothing but the clothes they are wearing. Once they return home, they are apalled at how they don’t teat the poor among us the same way as they did in the other country.

But as the authors point out, “the unconscious cultural lessons often influence the way we perceive certain behaviors in Scripture and can lead us to ignore clear biblical teaching on vice and virtue if it challenges a previously held cultural value.”18 That is worth sitting with. The little red hen story teaches a lesson that feels obviously right to most Western readers, but that instinct itself is a cultural formation, not a biblical absolute. Richards and O’Brien ask us to notice when we’re applauding a “virtue” that is more cultural than biblical.

Jeremiah 29:11 and the Promises We’ve Borrowed

The final chapter takes on one of the most quoted verses in modern Christianity: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11, ESV).

This verse appears on coffee mugs, graduation cards, and church lobby walls. We apply it personally, confidently, and individually. God has a plan for me.

Richards and O’Brien gently point out that the original recipients of this promise were exiles in Babylon, and the fulfillment was a corporate, generational, decades-long process. The promise is not false. But it was made to a community, not to an individual, and it was not a guarantee of immediate personal blessing. As the authors write, “Western Christians, especially North American Christians, tend to read every scriptural promise, every blessing, as if it necessarily applies to us — to each of us and all of us individually. More to the point, we are confident that us always includes me specifically. And this may not be the case.”19 That assumption shapes what we expect from God and what we feel when life doesn’t deliver accordingly.

How to Read Better

The book’s conclusion offers five practices for becoming more aware of cultural assumptions. Embrace complexity, because the text rewards patience, and the presuppositions we add to it take work to uncover. Beware of overcorrection, since, as the authors note, “We Westerners have a tendency to overcorrect. We’re all-or-nothing sort of people.”20 Be teachable, because the position you arrive at might not be correct, and should be held with enough humility to adjust. Embrace error, since you will misread things, and that is how you learn. And read together, because we need each other to see what we individually miss.

That last one resonates with me deeply. One of the reasons I started Not Forsaken Ministries was the conviction that too many Christians are trying to navigate hard theological questions alone. We were not designed to do this in isolation. The Bible was written to communities, interpreted by communities, and is best understood in community.

As Richards and O’Brien write at the outset of the book: “Before we can be confident we are reading the Bible accurately, we need to understand what assumptions and values we project onto the Bible.”21 That is an accurate statement, and they have spent an entire book helping us do exactly that.

Whether you’re a layperson who loves reading the Bible or someone further along in theological study, this is a book worth your time. It will challenge you, and that is a good thing. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

If you haven’t read it, you can check it out here: https://amzn.to/4tch6eO

Starting With the Interpreter

When we think about who is reading and interpreting Scripture, it helps to start with a broad distinction: the believer and the unbeliever. These are broad categories, I know, but I think they’re useful ones. A believer is typically coming to the Bible to deepen their understanding of God and strengthen what they already believe. An unbeliever might be coming to it with skepticism, or they might genuinely be searching for answers. The motivation behind the reading shapes the reading itself, which is why this distinction matters.

Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard identify five qualifications they believe every interpreter of Scripture should have:

1. A reasoned faith in the God who reveals

2. Willingness to obey its message

3. Willingness to employ appropriate methods

4. Illumination of the Holy Spirit

5. Membership in the Church 1

Let me walk through these, because I think some are more foundational than others.

The First Three: Non-Negotiables

The first qualification, a reasoned faith in the God who reveals, gets at something essential. The Bible is God’s Word to humanity, and as Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard put it, “if the Bible is God’s revelation to his people, then the essential qualification for a full understanding of the Bible is to know God and to believe that he is speaking through it.”2 Without that foundation, interpretation doesn’t just fall short; it can go sideways in ways that mislead others.

The second qualification, a willingness to obey the message, is equally important. If someone has no intention of actually living by what the Bible teaches, you have to wonder what they’re really after. Interpretation, when disconnected from obedience, tends to become interpretation shaped by self-interest.

The third qualification involves using appropriate methods. This is what we were talking about last week: understanding the background of the text, the culture it came from, and the language it was written in. Without the right tools and methods, even a sincere reader can miss what the text is actually saying.

I believe these three are the most important qualifications, and they apply whether a person is a believer or not.

The Last Two: Important, But Conditional

The fourth and fifth qualifications, the illumination of the Holy Spirit and membership in the Church, are genuinely important, but I think they function differently depending on where someone is in their faith journey.

For the believer, the Holy Spirit plays a real role in opening up Scripture. The Bible speaks of a work God’s Spirit performs in people once they have committed their lives in faith to Jesus as Lord. As Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard describe it, “this internal capacity enables believers to perceive and apprehend spiritual truth, an ability unavailable to unbelievers.”3 That’s a significant statement. But it raises a question I’ve sat with for a while: if that capacity is unavailable to unbelievers, how does anyone come to faith in the first place?

My own view is that because we are made in the image of God, we retain some capacity to understand spiritual truth even before we come to saving faith. The Holy Spirit works powerfully once we’ve placed our trust in Christ, but that doesn’t mean He’s entirely absent from the searching that comes before. For the believer, His illuminating work deepens and confirms what the text is saying. For the sincere seeker, I believe He can still be at work drawing them toward truth.

Membership in the Church matters for the believer as well. Interpreting Scripture within a community of other believers provides accountability and correction. None of us is immune to reading our own assumptions into the text, and being part of a local congregation helps guard against that. For the unbeliever who is genuinely searching, this may not yet be possible, but it’s something that becomes increasingly important once faith takes root.

What Are You Bringing to the Text?

I think the honest question every reader of Scripture has to ask is: What am I actually trying to get out of this?

Duvall and Hays put it plainly: “We want to dig into the real meat. But often we are able only to come up with baby food — soft mush for infants. This is not a reflection on the Word of God, which is loaded with meat, but rather a reflection on us and our inability to extract the meat and enjoy it.”4

That image has stayed with me. The Bible has more to offer than most of us ever get to, not because it’s withholding anything, but because of what we bring, or don’t bring, to the reading. The seeker looking for basic nourishment will find it. The believer who comes prepared, willing, and equipped will find something far richer.

This is a lot of what Not Forsaken Ministries is built around. You don’t have to be a theologian to read your Bible well, but you do have to come to it honestly: with the right posture, the right tools, and a genuine willingness to let it say what it actually says. That’s what we’re here to help with.

Sources

If you’ve ever heard a pastor or theology professor use the word “hermeneutics” and quietly nodded along while thinking, “I have absolutely no idea what that means,” you are not alone. It’s one of those words that sounds intimidating, like it belongs in a seminary classroom or a book with a thousand footnotes. But here’s the thing: hermeneutics is something every Christian is actually already doing, even if they don’t know it.

So let’s take the mystery out of it.

The Simple Answer

At its most basic level, hermeneutics is the task of interpreting Scripture. It’s the process of figuring out what the Bible means, not just what it says. And while that might sound straightforward, anyone who has sat through a Bible study where five people read the same passage and walked away with five completely different takeaways knows it’s a little more complicated than it looks.

Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard offer a fuller definition in their Introduction to Biblical Interpretation: “Hermeneutics describes the principles people use to understand what something means, to comprehend what a message—written, oral, or visual—is endeavoring to communicate.”1 When we apply that to the Bible specifically, we’re asking the question: what were the biblical writers trying to say, and how do we understand it faithfully today?

Three Voices in the Room

When you open your Bible and read a passage, there are actually three different “voices” worth paying attention to. There’s the author who wrote the text. There’s the original audience who first received it. And there’s you, the interpreter, reading it thousands of years later.

All three matter. But I would argue that the author is the most important starting point.

Here’s why. The biblical writers weren’t just putting their own thoughts down on paper. They were divinely inspired. At the same time, and this is important, God didn’t bypass their personalities and turn them into human typewriters. He worked through them. Theologian Mark Thompson, writing about B. B. Warfield’s view of inspiration, captures this tension well: “The Reformed Churches hold, indeed, that every word of the Scriptures, without exception, is the word of God; but, alongside that, they hold equally explicitly that every word is the word of man.”2

That means the person who wrote the text made choices. They chose these specific words. They had a specific intention. They had a specific audience in mind. Understanding who they were, what they were facing, and who they were writing to gives us the foundation we need to interpret well. Holding an inerrant view of Scripture also means that the Biblical authors are without error in their original writings. Of course, we do not have the original manuscripts, but there are copies that are thousands of years old that have faithfully preserved what the original authors wrote. The process of interpreting the message must begin with the authors.

Locution, Illocution, and Perlocution

These three words sound like a spell from a fantasy novel, but they’re actually pretty simple once you break them down.

Locution is just the words on the page. Exactly what it says.

Illocution is the intention behind those words. What was the author trying to accomplish by saying it that way?

Perlocution is the outcome that the author was hoping to produce in the reader. What did they want their audience to walk away thinking, feeling, or doing?

Why does this matter? Because we can’t ask Paul, Moses, or John to sit down with us and explain what they meant. We only have the text itself. As Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard put it, “Only by means of the written text itself (the locution) in its context can we hope to reconstruct the meaning of the utterance (considering both illocution and perlocution) the author most likely intended.”3 The words aren’t the finish line. They’re the starting point.

Why This Matters for Regular Christians

You might be thinking: “Andy, I just want to read my Bible. Do I really need to know all of this?”

Yes. And here’s my honest reason: bad interpretation has caused real harm. When we ignore the context, the author, and the original audience, we end up reading our own assumptions into the text instead of drawing God’s meaning out of it. And that leads to everything from minor misunderstandings to full-blown false teaching.

The goal of hermeneutics isn’t to make Bible reading complicated. It’s to make it trustworthy. It’s the difference between reading Scripture and actually hearing what God said.

This is exactly the kind of thing Not Forsaken Ministries exists to help with. You don’t need a seminary degree to read your Bible well. You just need a few good tools and the willingness to take the text seriously.

Sources

When I first started studying Scripture seriously, I didn’t realize how many different lenses there were for reading it. I just thought you opened the Bible and read. But the more I dug in, the more I realized that faithful students of God’s Word have developed some really useful tools over the centuries. Today, I want to walk you through a few of them, because understanding how we study Scripture matters just as much as what we study.

Systematic Theology

Think of systematic theology as the organizational framework for everything we believe. Theologian B.B. Warfield described theology simply as “the science of God and his relationship to man and the world.”1 Systematic theology takes all of that and tries to bring it together into a coherent whole that the church can actually use.

In practical terms, it answers the question: how does the verse I read this morning connect to the bigger picture of who God is and what He’s doing? Without some kind of framework, we tend to collect isolated facts about the Bible without ever seeing how they fit together. Systematic theology is what helps us see the forest instead of just the trees.

But it doesn’t stand alone. It needs help.

Biblical Theology

Theologian Millard Erickson calls biblical theology “the raw material” that systematic theology works with.2 That’s a great way to put it. The Bible is the foundation. Everything else we build has to rest on it.

This might seem obvious, but it’s worth saying clearly. You can’t have a solid understanding of God if you don’t have a solid understanding of what He’s actually revealed. And what He’s revealed is Scripture. Biblical theology keeps us anchored to the text so our systematic frameworks don’t drift into speculation.

Historical Theology

Here’s one that often gets overlooked, especially by people who are newer to serious Bible study. Historical theology examines how Christians throughout church history have understood and taught the faith. And it is incredibly valuable.

Why? Because we all bring our own assumptions and blind spots to the table. Studying what believers wrestled with 500 years ago or 1,000 years ago helps us to recognize those blind spots and compensate for them. It also reminds us that the questions we’re asking today aren’t new. Doubt, suffering, the resurrection, and the nature of Christ have been wrestled with by brilliant, faithful people long before us.

As Ecclesiastes 1:9 says, “There is nothing new under the sun.” That’s humbling for us in the best way. When someone presents a “revolutionary new take” on Christianity, historical theology helps us ask if anyone has thought about this before. And almost always, the answer is yes.

Erickson makes an important point here, too. “It is not sufficient to have a warm, positive, affirming feeling toward Jesus. One must have correct understanding and belief.”3 Biblical and historical theology working together help us get there.

Philosophical Theology

This one sounds more intimidating than it is. Philosophical theology basically helps us think carefully about the ideas and arguments surrounding the faith. It sharpens our language, examines our logic, and helps us communicate clearly to people who think differently than we do.

For a ministry like Not Forsaken, which is grounded in Christian apologetics, this matters a lot. The world is full of competing ideas about God, truth, and meaning. Philosophical theology helps us engage those ideas thoughtfully instead of just talking past people.

That said, I agree with Erickson in that philosophical theology plays a supporting role. “While philosophy, along with other disciplines of knowledge, may also contribute something from general revelation to the understanding of theological conceptions, this contribution is minor, serving to illuminate the special revelation we have in the Bible.4 All of these different theologies don’t replace Scripture. They help us present what Scripture teaches in a way that connects with the world we’re actually living in.

A Word of Caution

Here’s something worth keeping in mind as we use all these tools. There’s a temptation to think that if we just get our theology systematic enough, we’ve figured God out. We’ve put Him in a neat little package.

That’s dangerous. God is not a concept to be systematized. He is a Person to be known. These tools are meant to help us know Him better, not to give us the illusion of having Him figured out. The more I study Scripture, the more I’m struck by how much depth is packed into a single passage. These theological lenses help us see that depth. They don’t exhaust it.

Practical Theology: Where It All Comes Together

All of this study has to land somewhere real. Jesus asked in Mark 4:21, “Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket, or under a bed, and not on a stand? (ESV)” The lamp exists to give light. So does everything we learn.

Practical theology is where all of this meets everyday life. It’s taking the doctrine of God’s sovereignty and finding actual peace when you lose your job. It’s letting the truth of the resurrection steady you when you’re sitting in a hospital room. That’s the goal.

Every generation has to do the work of translating the timeless truths of Scripture into language and forms that their neighbors can understand. That’s not compromising the message. That’s faithfulness. And thankfully, we don’t do it alone. That’s what the Holy Spirit is for.

Links to Books Mentioned and Other Recommended Systematic Theology Books

Links are to Amazon. Not Forsaken Ministries might receive a commission if you purchase from one of the links.

Christian Theology - Millard J. Erickson

Evangelical Dictionary of Theology - Daniel J. Treier and Walter A. Elwell

Christian Theology - Adam Harwood

In this first episode, Andy introduces himself and the story behind Not Forsaken Ministries. This is a journey that winds through Hurricane Harvey, the loss of his father, a string of careers he never planned, and a moment of complete surrender that changed everything. It’s not the tidy, straight-line calling story you might expect. And that’s exactly the point.

Along the way, Andy unpacks the verse that gave the ministry its name, 2 Corinthians 4:9, and why Paul’s words to a fractured church in ancient Corinth speak just as powerfully to the fractured church of today.

If you’ve ever wondered whether God is still at work when life feels like it’s falling apart, this episode is for you.

As 21st-century Christians, one thing we often lose sight of is the fact that Jews made up the early church. We see Christianity and Judaism as two completely separate things; while they are, we must not forget the Jewish roots of the early church. Luke provides evidence for this in the book of Acts. In Acts 2, Luke tells us that the early church was “day by day, attending the temple together.” (Acts 2:46, English Standard Version). Luke again reiterates this in Chapter 3, stating, “Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour.” (Acts 3:1). Many people will miss the fact that these men were still going to the temple. We must remember that the Christian church was brand new and did not yet have places to meet except in the homes of its members. They also relied on the Old Testament as their Scripture since they had no New Testament.

Remember, Jesus had just ascended back to heaven in chapter 1 of Acts, and the Spirit had come upon them at Pentecost. Pentecost itself is a Jewish holiday. “Pentecost (2:1) refers to the ancient Hebrew holiday instituted in Moses’s time (Deut. 16:16, there called the Festival of Weeks). It took place seven weeks after the Passover observance and is still celebrated by Jews today.”1 Why does the timing of the Holy Spirit’s arrival at Pentecost matter so much? Elwell and Yarbrough provide insight by saying, “The central effect of the Spirit’s unusual presence involved the announcement of the gospel of Jesus the Messiah. An international assortment of Jewish pilgrims in Jerusalem for Pentecost—2:9–11 names more than a dozen nations or ethnic groups, representing perhaps scores of languages—heard “the wonders of God” (2:11) proclaimed in their native tongues.” 2

God used Pentecost to help spread the Gospel. But why is it important to understand the Jewish setting of Acts? Dr. Robert Wayne Stacy says, “The first Christians, Luke reminds us, were Jews, and unless we understand that, we will likely misunderstand, misinterpret, and misappropriate much of the New Testament.”3 Of further importance in Acts is how Peter’s sermon at Pentecost reminds us that the Day of the Lord had dawned. Dr. Stacy reminds us that beginning here in Acts and continuing throughout the New Testament. The New Testament people were eschatological. The Day of the Lord continues still. We live in a time of already, but not yet. Jesus inaugurated the beginning of the end, but we have not seen the end of the eschaton.4

Why does this matter?

The Old Testament makes up most of our Bible. Just as the early church did not abandon its Scripture while writing the New Testament, neither should today’s church. We must understand how God worked throughout history and how Jesus fulfills what the Old Testament taught. I understand why most preachers strictly preach from the New Testament. That is where we find Jesus, but we must also be aware of how the Old Testament points to Jesus. We need to understand that when the New Testament writers are refer to Scripture, they mean the Old Testament. I truly believe that the more we study the Old Testament, the more we understand the New. We must remember the context in which the Scriptures were written. We must understand the importance of the Jewish context of the early church so we can correctly interpret and apply the Scriptures to the modern church.

My challenge to you is not to speed through reading the Old Testament if you are doing a one-year Bible reading plan, but to really try to understand what is going on. If you are not currently reading the Old Testament, I suggest incorporating some Old Testament passages into your daily Bible reading.

If you have been in church for any amount of time, you have probably heard something mentioned about the inerrancy of Scripture. This idea of inerrancy basically means that the Bible is true in all that it affirms and contains no errors, and serves as a foundational doctrine for understanding biblical authority. We hold to this idea because God doesn’t lie or make mistakes. What you might not know is that there are different types of inerrancy.

When we talk about inerrancy, we say that God inspired Scripture, so what Scripture says is trustworthy. Since God inspired Scripture, the Bible is without error in what it affirms. The problem comes when people make some assumptions that can lead to misunderstandings in how biblical inerrancy is applied, so I would like to offer some clarifications and distinctions that help frame the doctrine accurately within its proper scope.

Inerrancy is speaking about the original writings

Most people holding to an inerrant view of Scripture say that the Bible is inerrant in the original manuscripts, which were the first versions of Scripture written by the biblical authors. We need to make this distinction because when you read our copies of Scripture today, we are reading copies that were produced by scribes and copyists over many centuries. These copies may contain minor variations or scribal errors. However, most of these differences are insignificant and consist of spelling errors or word order variations, and although there are many variations, they do not change the core meaning or doctrine of Scripture.

Inerrancy does not mean that everything is literal.

Biblical inerrancy doesn’t force us to take every sentence literally. If you read the Bible, you understand that it contains different genres of writing. When we read poetry like the Psalms, we recognize that there is figurative language, such as metaphors.

“The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety” (Psalm 18:2, New Living Translation). When we read this verse, we understand that God is not a physical rock, a fortress, or a shield. David is using a metaphor here to help us understand the nature of God and the role He plays in our lives. Inerrancy says that the truthfulness applies to the intended meaning of the text within its specific literary form. Inerrancy is not a wooden literalism that ignores how authors use imagery, metaphors, and other literary devices to convey spiritual truths. Inerrancy holds that this text is true in the way the author intended.

Inerrancy does not mean that the Bible is a modern-day science textbook.

I don’t want to get too into the weeds here, but people use the Bible to answer scientific questions. This is a challenging topic, but I briefly want to touch on it. We see this a lot in the debate about the age of the Earth. Some Christians who believe in the idea of absolute inerrancy treat the Bible as though it is making definitive scientific claims about our physical world. They read Genesis chapters 1 and 2 as providing a precise chronology and the mechanism for creation. We see this by taking and adding up the various genealogies to calculate the Earth’s age to be around 6,000 or so years old. When we look at the Bible as teaching science, we can run into an issue that if science contradicts a plain reading of Scripture, then science must be wrong or incomplete. As I said, this is not something I want to get too deep into because there are people on both sides of creation who are wonderful, dedicated, and smart Christians who differ on the age of the earth, and that is okay. I bring this up because biblical inerrancy allows the Bible to describe natural phenomena using language that describes things as they appear to human observation, not necessarily by providing technical scientific explanations for things.

Inerrancy usually focuses on what the Bible asserts, not every detail someone says

When we are reading and studying Scripture, we must be aware of the context. For example, if the Bible records someone telling a lie, inerrancy doesn’t mean the lie is true simply because it is in the Bible. Inerrancy means that the Bible accurately reports that the person lied. Again, the distinction I am making here serves to ensure that biblical inerrancy applies to the truthfulness of the author’s assertions rather than the factual accuracy of every statement recorded within the text. These distinctions help us understand how different people approach the idea of inerrancy, leading to various interpretations of the doctrine itself.

When many of us think about inerrancy, we tend to think about it in terms of absolute inerrancy. Absolute inerrancy is the idea that the Bible is fully true. This would include all the details regarding matters that are both scientific and historical. The idea here is that the biblical writers did intend to give exact scientific and historical data. The issue with this view is that it can then lead to conflicts that arise when looking at the text, and force us to solve problems. An example of this tension can be found in 2 Chronicles 4:2. “Then he cast a great round basin, 15 feet across from rim to rim, called the Sea. It was 7½ feet deep and about 45 feet in circumference.” If you hold to absolute inerrancy, the math doesn’t hold up. Mathematically, if you have a diameter of 15 feet, the circumference would need to be about 47.1 feet, not 45 feet. We find the circumference by multiplying the diameter by pi, so 15×3.14=47.1. This suggests that the biblical author was using rounded and approximate measurements, not precise technical specifications. This example, although it seems minor in isolation, powerfully illustrates the interpretive challenges that can arise with absolute inerrancy.

I believe the Bible is God’s Word and is without error. Although I believe the Bible is inerrant, I find myself holding more to the definition of full inerrancy rather than absolute inerrancy. According to Millard Erickson, “Full inerrancy also holds that the Bible is completely true. While the Bible does not primarily aim to give scientific and historical data, such scientific and historical assertions as it does make are fully true.”1 What strikes me most about this definition is that when discussing scientific and historical references, “full inerrancy regards these references as phenomenal; that is, they are reported the way they appear to the human eye. They are not necessarily exact; rather, they are popular descriptions, often involving general references or approximations. Yet they are correct.”2 For me, this seems to be the most reasonable position to hold, knowing that religious, theological, and spiritual messages are entirely true while being able to account for the descriptions provided by the Biblical authors that would not necessarily line up with modern thinking on a scientific and historical basis. This also lines up with Walter Elwell’s definition of inerrancy, being that “when all the facts become known, they will demonstrate that the Bible in its original autographs and correctly interpreted is entirely true and never false in all it affirms, whether that relates to doctrine or ethics or to the social, physical, or life sciences.”3

Why does inerrancy matter?

You might be wondering why inerrancy matters. I don’t know if you were like me, but before I took my first systematic theology course, I did not realize there were different types of inerrancy. I thought the Bible was either inerrant or it was not. When I began to study the different types of inerrancy, it was eye-opening to me. One of the reasons why some people struggle in their study of Scripture is that they have difficulty with some of the historical and descriptive things in the Bible. When I began to think about how I view Scripture, I was floating between absolute and full inerrancy. There are more conceptions of what inerrancy entails, but what ultimately led me to full inerrancy over absolute inerrancy is that when the writers reported on things, they reported the way they appeared to them. That helps me to understand the vivid imagery in books such as Ezekiel and Revelation.

When we are talking about inerrancy, we need to make sure that what we believe does not diminish or weaken the Biblical message. I believe that if you begin to deeply examine what you believe about Scripture, you will find the exercise to be quite enlightening. We need to understand and know why we believe what we believe. It’s okay to have questions. That is how we learn. I believe that holding the Bible to be inerrant should be a foundational belief of the church and that it should matter to all Christians. While many people waver in their beliefs about different secondary aspects of Christianity, inerrancy should not be one of them. If we cannot believe the Bible to be inerrant, our whole belief system and worldview begin crumbling. I would challenge you to think about how you think about the reliability and inerrancy of Scripture.

Now that we are midway through the first month of 2026, I figured that it would be a good time to update you on what Not Forsaken Ministries did in 2025 and what we are prayerfully planning to accomplish in the coming year. I cannot thank you enough for all of your prayers and financial support, which made all of this possible. It is because of you that I am able to pursue full-time ministry and dedicate my efforts to furthering the mission of Not Forsaken Ministries.

Ministry Update

As many of you might be aware, beginning on January 1st, I have accepted a bi-vocational position as the Elder Pastor of Discipleship at The Church at 242. It is a small but dedicated church, and I am honored to have been asked to serve in this capacity, allowing me to integrate my passion for spiritual formation with practical congregational leadership. I have been teaching a Wednesday night Bible study at the church since June of last year and have been able to share my passion for deep biblical engagement with the wonderful people of the church. I have also been given the opportunity to fill in and preach on several Sunday mornings for the church, and that has been an incredible blessing, allowing me to cultivate a deeper connection with the congregation and hone my preaching skills.

Blog Update

Last year, I published a variety of articles ranging in subjects from eschatology to Christian living. While the blog has been successful, there has been no consistency regarding the timing of the blog posts. This year, a renewed emphasis will be placed on establishing a consistent publishing schedule, ensuring that fresh content is delivered to our readers on a regular basis, thereby fostering greater engagement and predictability. To achieve this, we will implement a formalized editorial calendar and consistently aim to publish new articles every Friday. The goal is to begin with this post today and carry it forward through the rest of the year.

In addition, the decision was made to switch blog providers from Ghost to Substack. While this is mainly a backend move, you might have noticed some changes with the email delivery and overall presentation, reflecting Substack’s integrated newsletter and publishing platform capabilities. This also allowed us to have a separate blog and website, so we can plan for the future and be ready for what the Lord has in store for us. The reason for this change was so that the ministry could leverage Substack’s tools to reach more people and expand its audience engagement through enhanced discoverability and community features. In addition, Substack has another feature, which I will mention a little later, that will help the ministry continue to expand in 2026.

Giving

Because of your generosity to this ministry, I am happy to be able to report that we have been able to give financially to help with different needs over the last year. In total, we were able to give over $12,500 to various mission-aligned organizations and individuals, directly contributing to initiatives supporting missions, homeless outreach, vacation bible school programs, pastoral care and support, as well as working with Support Mission to share the Gospel and help those in need. The impact of your generosity and giving has helped share the love of Christ with countless people, and we cannot thank you enough.

Future Plans

For 2026, the ministry plans to expand its digital outreach by launching a new podcast series, leveraging Substack’s integrated audio features to deliver deeper theological discussions and practical Christian living advice to a broader audience. The goal is to launch the podcast in February with a video podcast component coming later in the year. The hope is that Not Forsaken will be a resource for those who are seeking to deepen their understanding of scripture and apply biblical principles to their daily lives, or who might have questions or struggles they are hesitant to speak with others about.

In addition to the podcast, the ministry will be exploring short-form social media content to expand its reach and engage with a younger demographic through platforms like Instagram Reels and TikTok, by creating visually engaging content that distills biblical truths into digestible formats.

2026 - A Great Year

If 2025 was just the start, 2026 is going to be a wonderful year. The Lord has continually opened doors for Not Forsaken Ministries, and we are excited to see how He will continue to use this platform to further His kingdom and minister to His people. We anticipate a year of significant growth in outreach and spiritual impact, trusting in the Lord’s guidance for every new endeavor.

I know that I refer both to myself and to “we” in this post. Not Forsaken is not just about my individual efforts; it represents a collective endeavor, which encompasses the dedication of volunteers, supporters, and prayer warriors who contribute to our shared mission. I cannot thank you enough for the role you have played in my life and in the life of this ministry so far. Without your prayers and support, I would not be able to do what I do, and for that, I am eternally grateful. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything you do. May the Lord bless you all. Thank you again!

- Andy Brown - President, Not Forsaken Ministries

In this post, I will explain how our faith and reason work together to strengthen our relationship with our Creator.

Faith and Reason Work Together

In discussing the differences between faith and reason, many think they are mutually exclusive in the life of a Christian. This is not the case. Faith and reason work together to help the Christian know and understand God. In September 2006, Pope Benedict XVI addressed the faculty of the University of Regensburg. In this address, he brought up an issue with the institutions in the modern West. “The West, he argued, faces a crisis of reason. This crisis stems from a divorce between reason and faith that has deeply shaped the culture and institutions of the modern West, a conflict between the claims of reason and the claims of religious faith that seems to be intensifying rather than diminishing.”[1] Christians in the West should embrace faith and reason and not elevate the status of one above another, for they work together in the life of the Christian.

Faith Brings People to God

Most people do not start their journey as a Christian by looking at the evidence and saying, “That’s true. I believe.” While some become Christians this way, most begin with a faith journey. This journey can start with a situation such as a death in the family or hitting “rock bottom” in life where one cries out to God for help. It can also be through a Sunday school or children’s church program in a local church where a child is led to faith in Christ. These beginning steps of belief blossom into a genuine faith in God. Mckaughan writes, “While it is widely acknowledged that Christian faith involves more than belief, it is also often taken for granted that faith includes beliefs. For example, in The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695), John Locke takes it that, in addition to the call to do certain things such as repent and obey God’s commands, Christians must believe a set of propositions, such as that God exists and that Jesus is the Messiah.”[2] Locke is proving the point that faith and reason work together for the Christian.

Reason Allows One to Understand God

One cannot understand something just by having faith in it. To truly understand something, one must study it and learn about it. This is even more true when it comes to understanding God. While faith can lead one to God, only reason can help one truly understand God. In speaking about the problem with evangelicals, Moreland discusses a conclusion by David Wells, saying, “At core they are hollow men, empty selves. If we as the church are to engender a current of reform throughout our culture, then we need laypeople who are intellectually engaged with their faith and take their Christian identity to be definitive for their self-conception.”^[3] If the church truly desires to understand the God they serve, they must not only rely on faith to understand God but also use their intellect to understand and know Him.

The Power of Faith and Reason

Jackson asserts, “Hope is one of the three Christian theological virtues, alongside faith and love. Note that hope is listed next to faith, with no indication that it is subsumed by faith or a backup for those who have lost faith.”[4] Hope and faith work alongside each other within a believer. In discussing Christian faith, Milburn states, “Christian faith is not merely a matter of believing in God or Jesus Christ, but it is also a matter of believing that. For example Christian faith involves believing (at least implicitly) that God exists, that Jesus Christ is truly man and truly God, that Jesus Christ suffered death on the cross and rose again on the third day, etc.”[5] Belief in simply requires faith. Belief that requires faith and reason.

God Has Not Forsaken His People

As Christians go about their lives, it can be easy to fall into the trap that God doesn’t care about His people any longer. All we have to do is look around the world. In America, we see Christian values mocked and labeled as hateful, bigoted, and out of touch. Around the world, we see Christians being persecuted in countries such as China, Nigeria, and India. Below is the 2025 World Watch List by Open Doors US. As you can see, there are many countries where Christians are persecuted around the world.

However, even though there is much persecution happening around the world, I would like to show you a Christian population map from The Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. It shows the population of Christians in 2020, and in many of these persecuted countries, the Christian population is growing.

We must remember that God has not forsaken His people. While our faith may waver during times of persecution, our reason must not. We have seen what God does for His church in the midst of persecution. God’s people have always been persecuted in one form or another, but God has never wavered. It is our faith in Christ that sustains us, yet our reason plays an important role by helping us understand that God has a plan even though we might not see it. Paul tells us that “all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28, New Revised Standard Version). So, as you are praying daily, remember those around the world who are being persecuted. If you are struggling right now, remember that God is still in control and has a plan. You might not see it, but know He is there.

Conclusion

Many think faith and reason in the life of a Christian are constantly at odds with each other. Some Christians have elevated faith and emotion above reason and intellect. However, faith and reason work together in the life of Christians, leading to a full relationship with Jesus Christ. As stated by Buben, “While reason proper cannot be the path to God, a more emotional rationality of sorts can still be found working within faith; and given the supposed value of evidence, such rationality seems like a valuable partner in the affirmation of faith once it is formed.”[6]

[1] Bruce D. Marshall, “The Flesh of the Logos: Reflections on Faith and Reason,” Nova et vetera 16, no. 2 (2018): 587.

[2] Daniel J. Mckaughan, “Authentic Faith and Acknowledged Risk: Dissolving the Problem of Faith and Reason,” Religious Studies Review 49, no. 1 (March 2013): 103.

^[3] J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, 2nd Edition. (Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2017), 7.

[4] Jackson, “Belief, Faith, and Hope: On the Rationality of Long-Term Commitment,” 45.

[5] Joe Milburn and Philosophy Documentation Center, “Faith and Reason in the Oxford University Sermons,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 92, no. 3 (2018): 484.

[6] Adam Buben, “Neither Irrationalist nor Apologist: Revisiting Faith and Reason in Kierkegaard,” Philosophy compass 8, no. 3 (March 2013): 322.

As I have witnessed the events of the past week, the murder of Iryna Zarutska, the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and the school shooting in Colorado today, I have struggled with what my response should be. But as I began thinking about it, I began wondering what our responses as Christians should be. I'm not going to lie, this has been a difficult day and a difficult week. And, as I write this, we are on the eve of 9/11, so that is also adding to the emotion of this already tragic week. As we look for answers and as we seek justice, we must understand that the world has changed. No longer are we able to have civilized discussions without name-calling. No longer can we express any opinion without someone trying to "one-up" someone else. People are openly hostile to each other over the smallest things. Why is that? Because of evil.

These are senseless tragedies, as are the many other tragedies that affect the world today. So how are we to react as Christians? I want to focus on a section of Romans 12 to provide some answers.

15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight.

17 Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.

18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”

20 To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”

21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

• (Romans 12:15-21, English Standard Version).

In times like these, it's easy to try to place blame. We see it almost immediately for any tragic event. Who or what is to blame? Is it a race problem? Is it a gun problem? Is it a mental health problem? Is it a Democrat/Republican problem? No. It is an evil problem. I will get to that in a moment. But first, we must weep with those who weep. As I was reading social media this evening after the death of Charlie Kirk, I read a heartfelt post from a pastor giving his thoughts. A few comments down was one berating him because he was a white pastor trying to console their congregation while labeling Kirk as a racist. This person then decided to quote "Jesus loves the little children." I don't know if this person is a Christian or not, but the fact that someone was shot in front of a lot of people on a university campus should grieve us all. Whether you like his politics or not, this says something about society. And yes, I would feel the same way had it been someone on the other political side and a different race.

We should all be weeping together over a loss of innocent life. We should be weeping together over the loss of Iryna Zarutska and all school shooting victims. We should weep over the slayings of Minnesota Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, who were shot in their home in June of this year. We should be weeping for the lives lost in the 2022 racially motivated Buffalo supermarket murders, Jasmine "Star" Mack, who was killed in 2023, and Ahmaud Arbery, who was killed in a racially motivated murder in 2020. We should be mourning all the senseless violence, no matter who is killed. We must remember that we are all created in the image of God. "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." (Genesis 1:27).

Looking at verses 16 and 18, Paul is telling us to live in harmony with one another. That's almost impossible in today's postmodern world. There seems to be no living with anyone in harmony anymore. When society claims there is no absolute truth, anyone's whims become the truth: their truth. We are told we need to respect each other's truth. That is nonsense. There is Absolute Truth and we know there is Absolute Truth. Why does anyone say there is not? Racially and politically motivated killings seem to be ramping up as well as school shootings. There is one reason: Evil.

Let no one fool you: evil exists. But also, do not let anyone place the blame on God. In times like these, the rallying cries come out. "Where was your God?" "How could your God let this happen?" "If God is so good, why does evil exist?" I admit, these can be difficult questions to answer. It may seem like God doesn't care. But the true answer is that there is evil in this world, not just within the natural world, but also the supernatural world as well.

Before I address this, I need to say that yes, I do believe in spiritual warfare, but I also believe that, in many cases, our own sin and its consequences cause bad things to happen. We should not be looking for spiritual warfare in every situation, but we should recognize that it does exist. Paul tells us, "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:12). Peter says, "Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour" (1 Peter 5:8). Satan is not just some red guy with a pointy tail and horns who carries a pitchfork. Make no mistake, he wants to take you down. He is the enemy. Satan is the author of selfishness and pride and wants you to be like him.

As Christians, we know Satan is a defeated foe. Satan also knows he is a defeated foe. So what does he try to do? He tries to take as many with him as he can. Our job as Christians is to share our hope, which is the Gospel and Jesus Christ. You might be thinking, "How can I have hope? This world is a mess." Yes it is. We live in a fallen world. But this world is not all there is. Charlie Kirk knew that and is now at the feet of Jesus. We mourn for him and we mourn with his family and friends. But, as Christians, we don't mourn as those who have no hope. However, it is our job to spread hope to others.

People will be trying to make sense of what is happening in the world. We might not understand why these things are happening, but we know who is in control. King Jesus is on His throne. We don't see a purpose in what is going on in the world right now. We don't know why people seem to hate each other more than ever before. Jesus warns us about this. "And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold." (Matthew 24:10-12). Look at that last verse. "Because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold." I don't care which side of the aisle you are on politically, one thing we can agree on is that the sense of lawlessness has increased and the love of many has grown cold. Don't believe me? Go spend some time on X and then Threads and then Bluesky and see how loving people are towards each other.

So, what is the answer? Jesus. That's it. I know it sounds trite, but Jesus is the answer. Why? I'm glad you asked. Jesus did not just say pithy things about evil from his place in heaven. He entered into the world and entered into our suffering. He knew what it was like to have people he loved die. We remember Lazarus, when Jesus wept with those around Him, but oftentimes forget John the Baptist who was Jesus' cousin. Jesus knew what it was like to be mocked. He was mocked at His crucifixion. He also knew what it was like to be a political opponent. He was hated by the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes as well as people from His own hometown who wanted to kill Him. Jesus understands what we are going through because He went through it. "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15). Jesus confronted evil head-on. For the moral evil we commit, His death on the cross offers forgiveness and pays our debt if we trust in Him. He entered our suffering and understands our pain. Most crucially, His resurrection is the ultimate answer to evil including sickness, death, and other disasters. Jesus is God's demonstration to us that He has not abandoned us to evil, but has, in fact, overcome it.

Yes, as sad and senseless as the assassination of Charlie Kirk is, we need to look back at Romans 12 one more time. "Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.' To the contrary, 'if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.' Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:19-21). Anytime something like this happens, we want vengeance. I get it. I do too. Honestly, I'm mad, just as many of you are. I want vengeance and I want it quickly and decisively! But that is not how we should react. Let's leave the vengeance to God. I am not saying to sit back and do nothing. What I am saying is to not be vigilantes and not begin attacking others. Let the authorities handle it and let God handle it.

Unfortunately, we will not be rid of evil this side of eternity. However, we can share the love of Christ with others. I'm not saying that will make everything better instantly, but what I am saying is that the more people who have Jesus, the more people who have hope. "but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint" (Isaiah 40:31, New International Version).

As we have seen in this past week and today, this world is not getting better. Time is running out. Run to Jesus. He is the only answer and only hope. "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid" (John 14:27). So, as we reflect upon these tragedies, let us remember that our hope is found in Christ. Yes, we must weep with those who weep, but we must also remain vigilant in spreading the gospel and sharing the hope we have in Jesus. He is the only hope we have left in this fallen world.

In my last post, I wrote about biblical faith, its importance, and how it connects believers to Jesus, to each other, and provides hope. In this post, I want to focus on reason, or as many people think of it, intellect. I want to show that these two ideas are not in opposition to each other in the life of a believer, but work together.

What is Reason?

Reason is “the guiding principle of the mind in the process of thinking.”1 When we think, we generally use a process. Most of us do not just think of things randomly. While it is true that thoughts randomly enter our minds, we process these thoughts logically, and reason enables us to make sense of them. One thing that sets humanity apart from the rest of creation is that humans are made in the image of God. Genesis 1:27 states that God created man and woman in His image. Because God created us in His image, we can know that we possess several traits of God within ourselves. Padgett states, “While some Christian groups are highly suspicious of human reason, the Bible sees learning, reason, and wisdom as gifts to be used for God’s glory. Thinking is natural to humanity, a normal part of our created abilities.”2 God has created humanity in His image, and one of the biggest blessings from Him is the ability to think about the things present in life.

Reason Engages the Mind

Whereas faith is seen as a primarily emotional trait in Christians that engages the heart, reason engages the mind. Padgett also states, “Using their God-given powers of thinking, human beings are able to learn and become wise, to think and to grow in knowledge and understanding of themselves, of God and of the world around them. Yet like everything human, thinking has its limits and inherent dangers as well as its joys and triumphs.”3 The ability of human beings to grow in their wisdom and understanding is a central thought of the Bible. When asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus replied in Matthew 22:37 to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind. The inclusion of the mind in this verse is important. God does not want people who mindlessly follow Him. God wants the whole being: heart, soul, and mind. To completely love Him, one must use their mind to understand Him.

Reason Allows Understanding

When the mind is actively engaged, understanding occurs. This is evident in humanity from the earliest days of childhood. A baby, while growing, engages its mind to understand the world around it. Once the child reaches a certain age, they move into a school where formalized training begins. The whole point of education is to help people grow and understand the world and how to live. This is also true with the Bible. By giving humanity the ability to reason and learn, God gave them the ability to experience not only the world around them but God Himself.

Reason Allows Humanity to Experience God

The Bible is God’s Word and a tool to help humanity understand and know Him. In 2 Timothy 3:16-17, Paul tells Timothy that all Scripture is breathed by God and is useful to teach, rebuke, correct, and train in righteousness so that man can be knowledgeable and equipped for every good work. Proverbs 9:10 states, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. (Holman Christian Standard Bible). God has provided us with reason so we can know Him. This does not negate the role faith plays in the process. Faith in God underlies the understanding of God.

The Importance of Reason

The importance of reason in the life of a Christian today cannot be overstated. Christians in the Western world find an increasingly hostile environment in which to live. While there has always been opposition to Christianity, social media and the interconnected world have allowed those who oppose Christianity to quickly gather in larger groups more than they could have in the past. Because the opposition to Christianity is strong, the importance of Christian reasoning has grown.

Reason and Christian Apologetics

Peter tells Christians in 1 Peter 3:15 to be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks for a reason why they have hope in their hearts. This verse is the basis of Christian apologetics, or defense of the faith. When engaging in apologetics, reason is of extreme importance because many who oppose Christianity use the same argument presented by Bill Maher in ridiculing faith. These opponents will discount faith but have more difficulty disproving reasonable arguments presented with facts as to why Christianity is true. Hübenthal states, “The primary goal of Christian apologetic communication is not missionary in the traditional sense of the word, it is not about making as many new Christians as possible. Rather it aims at bringing humans to a point where they can make a reflected and well-considered decision on how to deal with the fact that ultimate human fulfillment is possible only if God exists.”4

If the ultimate goal of Christian apologetics is to lead people to a “reflected and well-considered” decision, then the heart of Christian apologetics must lie with providing examples and data so one may reach the intended conclusion. For those who discount faith, appealing to reason with well-delivered illustrations and supporting data is the only way Christians can adequately defend their faith. Once a person understands the facts and the evidence, faith will help fill in knowledge about other parts of Christianity and the Bible.

Reason in Evangelism

In the same way that reason and intellect can help with Christian apologetics, they can also help with evangelism. Jesus gave what is known as the Great Commission in Matthew 28, calling on his followers to make disciples of all nations. Many people do not focus on Jesus’ command in verse 20, where he tells the disciples to teach the nations to observe what He has commanded. Teaching requires reason so one can learn and understand what they are being taught, and the church today has the call of the Great Commission Jesus gave to His disciples. J.P. Moreland states, “the church must see herself as an educational institution, and the development of the Christian mind will be at the forefront of the church’s ministry strategy of equipping the saints.”5 If the church does not make disciples for Christ or teach the nations, Satan and the world will make disciples against Christ. Once again, the driving force of reason is to help people have faith in Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

Again, this post is not meant to be a philosophical treatise on the idea of reason. What I hope you get from these posts on faith and reason is that both are necessary in the life of a Christian. Each one helps us through difficult times in our lives. Faith can help us when we don't have an understanding of our circumstances and reason can help us make sense of things when our faith struggles. For many people in many churches, there are times when they are facing a crisis and the response from their pastor or Christian friends is, "Just have faith." While this is well-meaning it can come off as a slap-in-the-face as someone making light of a bad situation. We know God is in control, but when we are facing a crisis the idea of just sitting back and resting on our faith does not cut it. That is when we need reason to cut through our emotions and help us see that the person in whom we place our faith, Jesus Christ, is faithful. Our reason allows us to recount all the times when He has been faithful in our lives and make the conclusion that He will continue to be faithful. In turn, this will help to bolster our faith because faith and reason work together, not against each other. In the final part of this series, I will explain how faith and reason relate to each other and how we, as Christians benefit from both.

Beginning with this post and continuing over the next few posts, I hope to demonstrate that the roles of faith and reason are not mutually exclusive in the life of a believer but are both necessary for a full relationship with Jesus Christ. To begin, I would like to briefly discuss the topic of faith. I understand that books can and have been written on the subject of faith, but I want to touch on faith in the broader context of how it works with reason in our lives.

The word “faith” has had a negative connotation in recent years. Where it once was used to describe a positive characteristic of a person who had hope, it is now used in a derogatory way to mean that someone is not intelligent. To see evidence of this, all one has to do is turn on the television or browse social media. Bill Maher states in his movie Religulous,“ Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking. It’s nothing to brag about. And those who preach faith, and enable and elevate it, are intellectual slaveholders, keeping mankind in bondage to fantasy and nonsense that has spawned and justified so much lunacy and destruction.”¹ Maher’s definition of faith is not correct and is his attempt at belittling those who are religious.

While he is poking fun at those who are religious, every person has faith in something. This could be as simple as faith that they will have a job tomorrow or that the plane they are flying in will not fall out of the sky. The point is that everyone has faith of some sort. What Maher is trying ot do is separate faith from reason. In the eyes of many, faith is separate from reason, with reason being intellect and faith being nonsensical wishes. As Christians, is faith separated from reason? Should reason be our primary guide in living the Christian life with faith playing a distant role?

What is Biblical Faith?

As in many undertakings, we must first define our terms. Dickinson, Gould, and Loftin provide a great definition of faith. They state, ”Christian faith is entrusting ourselves to Christ and venturing on the truth and reality of the Gospel. We place our faith in Christ as Savior and Lord. It is not merely the truth of the Gospel, and it is not merely the evidence and reasons constitutive of the knowledge of the Gospel, but we are literally entrusting ourselves to Christ and his Gospel.” 2

What also separates the Christian faith from other faiths is that the Christian faith helps Christians believe certain things about God, such as His omnipotence, love, and grace. Biblical faith also helps Christians relate to God because they trust in Him. Finally, Biblical faith elicits a response from Christians in living out what they believe.^[3] 3 Hebrews 11:1 affirms this belief for the Christian by stating it is the“assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (English Standard Version). Throughout the Bible, God provides assurances to His people. Christians trust things they have not seen but have assurance because they have the Word of God, the Bible.

Examples of Biblical Faith

Some great examples of Biblical faith are found in the Old Testament. What makes these examples great is how each person trusted in God during their particular situation. These were men of God who had to have total faith in Him. Many Christians are familiar with the “Hall of Faith” presented in Hebrews 11. The author of Hebrews uses this chapter to tell of those who demonstrated faith in God and how He rewards those who seek Him. (Hebrews 11:5).

Abraham

The story of Abraham is a familiar one to most Christians. In Genesis 12, the Lord tells Abram to leave his country to go to another that God will show him. Abram has faith in the Lord and leaves his country. In Genesis 15, the Lord promises a son to Abram, even though he is an older man. Time passed, and Abraham did have a son, Isaac. In perhaps the most outstanding display of faith in the Old Testament, the Lord tells Abraham to sacrifice his only son. Abraham and Isaac went up for the sacrifice, and Isaac asked, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” (Genesis 22:7). By this time, Abraham had seen what God would do in response to his faith. Abraham knew God through reason, and in one of the boldest statements of faith made, Abraham responded, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” (Genesis 22:8). Abraham had faith that God would provide a sacrifice instead of his son, and He did.

Enoch

Another man presented in Hebrews 11 is Enoch. Not as much is known about Enoch as is Abraham, but he is important, nonetheless. Hess states, “As the first biblical character to forgo death, Enoch had a unique relationship with God.”4 Enoch, in Hebrews 11, was also commended as having pleased God. (Hebrews 11:5). By continuously walking with God, Enoch was spared death. The book of Jude also gives an idea of why God so highly regarded Enoch. Jude 14 and 15 tell of Enoch prophesying and speaking of the Lord coming to pass judgment and convict the ungodly. By continuously walking with the Lord, Enoch learned about Him. Enoch’s trust that the Lord would judge those opposed to Him and Enoch’s walk with the Lord are great examples of Biblical faith and reason.

Noah

The story of Noah is another that is familiar to most Christians. Genesis six tells of a righteous man who was blameless in his generation and walked with God. When God told Noah He was going to send a flood to destroy the earth and to build an ark, Noah did. God promised Noah He would preserve Noah’s family, but Noah had to step out on faith and make the ark that God had instructed. Because Noah trusted in God and had faith in His promises, he and his family were spared. Once again, Hebrews 11 provides details of Noah’s faith. The author of Hebrews says of Noah, “being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household.” (Hebrews 11:7).

This ties in with Hebrews 1:1 in that Noah had the conviction of things not seen and had faith and trust in the Lord. One might ask where Noah’s reason came into play. I would venture it came into play as soon as God began telling Noah the instructions on how to build the ark. Noah reasoned that if God gave him the measurements and the instructions on how to build an ark, He would flood the earth just like He promised. These are only three examples in a long line of people who have had great faith in God over the centuries, but why should we worry about faith today? After all, if knowledge is power, as they say, shouldn't we focus on intellect and reason? I would say that although we do need intellect and reason in our Christian lives, faith provides three key benefits for us today.

Faith Connects Believers to Jesus

Because the object of trust for Christians is Jesus, it stands to reason that Christians would want to understand the object of their faith. This is, perhaps, the most important reason we need to have faith. Intellectual assent that Jesus is Lord is not enough. "You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!" (James 2:19). This verse emphasizes that mere belief in God's existence is not sufficient for genuine faith, since even demons acknowledge God and cower in fear. True faith must be accompanied by actions that reflect a transformed life, distinguishing it from the superficial belief that demons possess. I understand that not every Christian wants to dive into deep theological issues and studies, but they must still have some connection to the object in which they place their trust. One verse that illustrates this principle is Romans 10:14, which asks, “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?” To believe in Jesus is to be connected to Him. To truly be connected to someone requires that we spend time with them. The basis of that connection is faith, and as our relationship deepens with Him, we see Jesus being faithful to us as well.

Faith Connects Believers to Each Other

“Belief, that sacred faculty which prompts the decisions of our will, and knits into harmonious working all the compacted energies of our being, is ours not for ourselves, but for humanity.”5 When believers put their faith and trust in the person of Jesus Christ, they enter the body of Christ. Each person in that body connects through the Holy Spirit. As Clifford points out, our belief, or faith, is not only for oneself but for humanity. “Then it helps to bind men together, and to strengthen and direct their common action.”6 Believers are strengthened by being together. Jesus states in Matthew 16:18 that the gates of hell will not prevail against His church. Because a unifying faith in Jesus Christ connects believers, they can stand together in unity and knowledge and fight against those opposed to Him.

We must understand that there are no "Lone Ranger Christians." We are designed for fellowship together and to be a part of a local church. A great pastor and friend of mine, Dr. Jeff Berger, wrote, "Wherever God’s people come together, they are God’s bridge between Heaven and Earth. They are the place where people can come, experience His love and grace, and be saved. Becoming a church member is making a commitment to God and to a group of people. It’s saying, 'This church can count on me to give my time, my gifts, my financial resources to help us reach our community.' The benefit you get is that you’re obeying the command of God, and you’re fulfilling your destiny as a living stone in God’s building."7 We must not neglect how our faith connects us to each other and our importance of being the Christ's Church.

Faith Provides Hope

Once again, turning back to Hebrews 11:1, faith is the assurance of things that are hoped for. In 1 Timothy 1:1, Jesus Himself is described as the Christian hope.8 It is in this hope that all Christians place their faith. Faith in Christ provides hope that the wicked will be punished and that those subjected to evil will be vindicated. When thinking about hope in the biblical sense, one should not think of what Jackson terms “so-called ‘prosaic’ or mundane cases of hope—for instance, my hope that the cashier at the grocery store has a nice day, that my distant cousin gets the job he wants, or that my picnic doesn’t get rained out.”9

The type of hope most Christians express is known as profound hope. Profound hope is more life-changing and is concerned with things such as the hope of seeing a loved one healed. A believer’s hope is in Christ. Peter tells his readers in 1 Peter 1:13 to set their hope on that grace that will be brought at the revelation of Jesus Christ. The revelation of Jesus Christ leads to understanding. Faith connects believers and provides hope in Jesus Christ. As you reflect on these truths, consider how diligently engaging both your faith and your reason can transform your daily walk with Christ." Next time, we will look closer at the idea of reason and its role in the lives of Christians.

When determining what I believe about anything, I want to have the most substantial evidence possible. This holds true not only for major things, like Biblical theology, but also for mundane things, such as which football team is the best. (It is the Buffalo Bills, by the way.) Many people, myself included, tend to research as much as they can when considering large purchases such as a car or electronics. Why do we not spend the same amount of time researching Scripture? I like to have strong evidence because when I am challenged, I want to be able to back up why I believe what I believe. This is extremely important in today’s environment, with social media “experts” challenging just about anything people post on any subject. Is there any concrete evidence to support my belief that the Bible is true? Well, that is what we are going to briefly look at.

Evidence Supported Beliefs

I think that I have a good amount of evidence to support most of my beliefs. My strongest-held belief, my faith in Christ, is proven by mountains of evidence such as eyewitness accounts and archaeology. I feel the evidence supporting the Biblical accounts of Jesus’ life is overwhelmingly accurate. My quest to discover the evidence and to be able to share the evidence is what led me to begin my studies in Christian apologetics. I was raised in a Christian home and have always attended church, but I did not know why I believed what I believed. To make a horrible analogy, I had the faith, but not the reason. After stumbling on some wonderful YouTube videos, I was finally able to begin learning about the evidence Christians have for the beliefs we hold.

The timeliness of the Biblical accounts really helps set the evidence for Jesus apart from other figures in the ancient world. As Moreland states, “the length of time from Jesus’ death until there was widespread belief in His resurrection can be dated to within five years, and many scholars would say a few months or even weeks, after the Crucifixion. There is not enough time for legend to develop.”^[1] I also find the archaeological evidence compelling to bolster my belief in Jesus. Moreland also provides an example of how archaeology is helping to confirm the evidence.

The Pool of Bethesda

One such piece of archaeological evidence is the Pool of Bethesda. The Gospel of John mentions this pool in Chapter Five. In verse 2, John writes, “Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches.” (John 5:2, New Living Translation). While most of us would probably move past this verse with little thought to its significance, there is actually more to the story. “Until the 1890s, critics dismissed the entire narrative on the grounds that no one had ever discovered the pool. But, then, archaeologists discovered the pool, and it had exactly five porticoes, just as John said.”^[2]

The pool of Bethesda is important apologetically because its discovery provides Christians with archaeological evidence that this pool, mentioned in John’s Gospel, upholds the accuracy and consistency of the earliest manuscripts we have. In addition, the documented location is accurate, which, combined with the archaeological evidence, gives weight to John’s reliability.

The Pilate Stone

There is another passage that atheists and others use to try to say the Bible is not accurate, and that is a passage from the Gospel of Luke.

“It was now the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius, the Roman emperor. Pontius Pilate was governor over Judea; Herod Antipas was ruler over Galilee; his brother Philip was ruler over Iturea and Traconitis; Lysanias was ruler over Abilene. Annas and Caiaphas were the high priests. At this time a message from God came to John son of Zechariah, who was living in the wilderness. Then John went from place to place on both sides of the Jordan River, preaching that people should be baptized to show that they had repented of their sins and turned to God to be forgiven.” (Luke 3:1-3, NLT).

When we look at this text, we see that Luke mentions several people. Of particular note is that Luke mentions Pontius Pilate, who was the governor over Judea. Again, this is likely a passage that many Christians do not pay much attention to, but there was some controversy as it differed from the title given to him by the Roman historian Tacitus.

“Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.”^[3]

Notice in this passage from Tacitus’ Annals Book 15:14 that the Roman historian wrote that Pilate was the procurator. Who should we trust? Surely the Roman historian would keep better records and be more accurate than a doctor writing a book for his friend, Theophilus, right? We should automatically side with the Roman historian because Luke had an inherent bias, shouldn’t we?

Well, like so many things, there is more to the story. In the time Luke was writing, which I believe was in the mid-50s CE, using his sources as mentioned in Luke 1:1-3, he and his sources likely knew of Pilate as the governor. This was the general title given to him as a ruler, but a more specific Roman title would be that of Prefect.^[4] This position was a civil and military governor. Pilate was the Roman governor of Judea from 26-37 CE, and his official title was that of “prefect” (praefectus), not procurator. The title of prefect was in use in Judea for this position until 41 CE, when the title procurator was used. Pilate never held the title of procurator.^[5]

Since Tacitus is writing much later, around 117 CE, he is likely using the newer title of procurator. Why does this matter? It matters because most people don’t know this part of history. I didn’t until I began to research this topic.

“Until the summer of 1961, absolutely no archaeological evidence existed that would demonstrate that Pontius Pilate, a pivotal figure in the New Testament gospels, ever really existed. Some literary sources mention him — including a few brief allusions in Jewish material (e.g., Josephus) and in late Roman chronicles (e.g., Tacitus) — but no administrative records survive from him and no genuine letters of his have been preserved. Plenty of Roman ruins exist in Israel, but none bears his name, and a historical Pilate isn’t required to account for them.”^[6]

This all changed when, during an archaeological dig in the ruins of Caesarea Maritima, a group led by the Italian archaeologist Antonio Frova found a large stone that said in Latin:

“To the Divine Augusti (this) Tiberieum
... Pontius Pilate
... prefect of Judea
... has dedicated (this)”^[7]

Notice the stone refers to Pilate as the prefect (governor) of Judea, not procurator. The Roman historian got it wrong, and the Gospel writer got it correct.

Why does this matter for us today?

So many people in the world today are looking for facts and evidence. When we say we have faith the Bible is true, that is wonderful. However, many people want tangible evidence. Archaeology has given us much evidence to the accuracy of Scripture. I am not saying that we should not have faith. I am saying that we can have faith, but that we also have evidence to back up our faith. I know that my belief in Christianity takes faith, but it also has evidence to back it up. I am a Christian because I believe Christianity is true. A lot of that belief comes from evidence, but I still rely on faith.

Many of us are insecure about sharing our faith because we think all we have to go on is our faith. It is precisely because such a strong case can be made from the evidence that we should be sharing the Gospel with those around us, and not worry about only having to rely on our experiences or our faith alone. When we are honest with ourselves, the problem we face in sharing the message of Christianity is not its lack of evidence but the fact that its teachings are so opposed to how many people want to live their lives. We were no different before we became Christians.

What I hope you will take away from this is that the lack of evidence is just an excuse for many people. However, we can use the evidence we do have to begin to break down those barriers within our evangelism. Ultimately, although we can present all the evidence in the world, until a person decides they are a sinner in need of a savior, it will likely fall on deaf ears. But there is hope. Remember, our job is to deliver the message only. We are not responsible for leading someone to Christ. We plant the seed. Remember, God has not forsaken you or the people around you. Use the talents He has given you to share the gospel with those around you and let Him do the work.

1. J. P. Moreland, Love Your God with All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2012), 213. ↩︎

2. Ibid., 212. ↩︎

3. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Annals_(Tacitus)/Book_15#44 ↩︎

4. P. Stein. "A. Ormanni, Penus Legata (Extr. from Studi in onore di Emilio Betti, IV, 581–750). Milan: Giuffré, 1962. Price not stated.." Journal of Roman Studies, 54 (1964): 259 - 259. https://doi.org/10.2307/298726. ↩︎

5. Ibid. ↩︎

6. https://www.deseret.com/2018/5/3/20644446/the-pilate-stone-in-israel-s-caesarea-by-the-sea/ ↩︎

7. Ibid ↩︎