During our “Questions from Jesus” series, we’re encouraging Faith Church attendees to submit questions they may have to Jesus and/or to Faith Church through the number (219) 440-2463. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be trying to answer some of the questions submitted on this blog. Check back weekly as new questions are added.

We’ll tackle three in this post:

1. Can Faith Church have a service or Hot Topic on spiritual warfare? It’s a very real thing that we all go through and yet we aren’t taught how to handle or engage it.
2. Why does the church talk about the refugee crisis when there are so many needs right here in our communities?
3. I know there are different opinions on the Gospels, whether it be the old or new testaments. Would you say that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the best to “tell” Your story?

Can Faith Church have a service or Hot Topic on spiritual warfare? It’s a very real thing that we all go through and yet we aren’t taught how to handle or engage it.

Our Hot Topic night in May of 2016 looked at Spiritual warfare, with my summary of the night’s discussion posted here: https://wearefaith.org/blog/thoughts-on-spiritual-warfare/. Hopefully this is helpful and sparks more thoughts and understanding on the topic. We will keep in my mind this comment as we do future sermon planning and as we think through various truths and applications that emerge from particular passages that are part of other serieses.

Why does the church talk about the refugee crisis when there are so many needs right here in our communities?

We have talked about refugees a few times over the past year in terms of services and blog posts (if you didn’t see those but are interested, you can find one from 2017 here and one from in 2016 here). It seems there are two aspects of this question: 1) why we would talk about refugees at all and 2) whether this discussion takes away from the various other needs that surround us. Let’s look at each issue in turn.

Regarding the first issue, I would highlight two points. First, people in the world have been talking about refugees now more than ever before, so it is wise and good for the church to think through what the Bible says about the topic; if we don’t address what people are talking about in the world, people may not see the relevancy for the Christian faith for all of life, that our faith is not just a one hour activity but something that should influence how we view the world and live each day. Second, as the post from 2017 highlights, the Bible does speak to how we should treat and interact with “strangers” and “aliens,” with the parable of the Good Samaritan reminding us that we are neighbors to those in need. At the same time, it is wise to note that the call to compassion and what that might look like will likely vary from person to person; in these posts and discussions, there has not been advocacy for a particular policy or political stance, as there are other factors involved in those matters. Christians differ in terms of what compassion and care look like practically (and politically), and we know that is true in Faith Church. We are trying to raise awareness of a world issue and get people thinking about how their faith should affect their thoughts, words, and deeds about a contemporary issue.

The second issue is whether focus on refugees causes us not to care or address needs in our nearby communities. The same question could be directed at any sort of support for people in need in foreign lands (for example, World Vision’s work in Rwanda and development there), or even missions in general (why are we sending missionaries out to other lands when there are so many non-Christians in our own land?). I think it is helpful to remember that it is not an either/or but a both/and; we want to reach people near and far and also care for people near and far. As a church, we have a vision to reach people near and far, and hopefully these things enhance each other; as we see needs and transformation afar, we pray and seek that near, and as we help people near we also know that there are many others in other places with needs as well. In addition, there are too many countries and causes for any one person or church to support, so we will always be selective in what we give our time and resources towards. Each person and church will likely have to pick some that are near to their heart, which does not mean that other issues are not important to them. In addition to Faith Church having a ministry partner that works with refugees who are resettled into our area (so they truly are our neighbors), we have other partners that work with crisis pregnancies, adoption, special needs, prisoners, international students, children and adults with special needs, soup kitchens and children in crisis, to name a few. We have missionaries in countries such as Ethiopia, India, and Honduras, as well as some in countries that cannot be named and some in America working with students or in church planting. There are countless other organizations and missionaries we could support but don’t, not because we don’t believe in their work but because of natural limits.

My pastoral advice is for someone find one or two causes that he or she can really focus on and give your time, talents, and treasures towards and be really passionate about, and recognize that other people will not be as passionate as you about that cause and not to think less of others who don’t share your passion because they do not share your passion (they might have another passion). Going back to the topic of refugees, there are some people for whom this is a passion (likely due to their story and experiences) and others for whom it is not. For those whom it is not a passion, hopefully there is still compassion to fellow humans in need but also a deep passion for some other cause or group of people in need that you can support and advocate for.

I know there are different opinions on the Gospels, whether it be the old or new testaments. Would you say that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the best to “tell” Your story?

I hosted a Hot Topic back in April that discussed the Gospel of Judas and by extension some of the other “lost” gospels that you hear about (e.g. Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Philip, Gospel of Mary) when people make claims about what Jesus “really” was like, usually arguing that the gospels we have in the Bible (known as the canonical gospels) are not accurate. When you examine these other gospels, you do see a much different portrait of Jesus, though most of these gospels are often just sayings or particular stories, not the whole story of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection that we find in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The early church knew about these gospels but rejected them because they did not find them to be accurate about Jesus or the faith. That raises the question, why trust what we have in the New Testament rather than these gospels?

For one thing, the gospels in the New Testament are much closer to Jesus’s life than these other gospels; many of these “lost gospels” come centuries after Jesus lived while the Gospels were written within the lifetime of the apostles. In addition, we have early (and lots of) manuscripts of these documents while very few for the other gospels; if people raise questions about whether the New Testament gospels have been tampered with (which I could go through another discussion that shows why this is not the case), this argument would be just as true for the other gospels. In addition, we have more evidence in these gospels about Jesus and his life than we have for many historical events and individuals; if we know anything about Jesus, then it is found in the gospels we have in the New Testament, and if we can’t trust them, then applying the same rationale, we likely don’t know a whole lot about most things in history! Furthermore, people often say that the gospels are biased because they were written by Jesus’s followers, but that is what you would expect (who else would write them down!), and everything is written by people with a perspective and agenda. The question isn’t whether there is bias but whether they wrote accurately, which comes down to the same question we ask of any person who is testifying in court – do I believe that they are telling the truth? For many of the reason given above (as well as many others, such as the fact that we have 4 stories that cohere but also are not identical, showing that they are not copies of each other, and the fact that the disciples are portrayed so bad), I believe they are telling the truth and thus the best way to tell the story of Jesus.

One of the best books on the historical accuracy of the gospels include The Historical Reliability of the Gospels by Craig Blomberg. More technical works that discuss reasons include Jesus and the Eyewitness by Richard Bauckham (which shows that the gospels in the New Testament reflect eyewitness testimony) and The Historical Jesus of the Gospels by Craig Keener (in which he examines the type of literature the gospels are and why the most accurate reconstruction of the historical Jesus is what we find in the gospels). This is a strong interest of mine (the focus of my PhD was gospel studies), so feel free to ask follow up questions on this matter.

Questions about Bible or theology? E-mail them to Pastor Brian at Theology@wearefaith.org. You can also subscribe to this blog by filling out the info on the right side.