Worldview Discussion Continued

It is better to be divided by truth than to be united in error... Oprah, Dr. Phil, and President Obama say we should embrace all faiths and all views. Not! Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth” in John 18:38. Anyone with an anti-Christian worldview today will try to convince you that truth is subjective and that whatever works for them is their truth. Was Pilate a humanist before his time? www.ministryofwritinghelps.com

If given a one hour interview with Pilate, what would I want to say to him? If Pilate had no authority at the time of my interview I would ask him why he had allowed the Jews to bully him into condemning Jesus to death by crucifixion when he himself had found Jesus guilty of no crime. It seems to me that Pilate would even have been converted had Jesus been willing to converse further with him, but He did not in order that the Scriptures be fulfilled. Jesus said, "Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice” (John 18:37). I would ask Pilate what he was really getting at when he asked Jesus “What is truth?” (John 18:38). Could Pilate's heart really have been so dark and jaded, having succumbed to the expediency of pragmatism which says whatever succeeds or prevails today is truth? I would assume Pilate was sarcastically insinuating that whatever gets us through today is truth.

It is clear that Pilate was quite annoyed with the Jews for putting him on the spot – a spot which taxed not only his executive skills but also, because Jesus was and is truth (John 14:6), burdened the finiteness of man’s ability to reason. Given the opportunity, I would then ask Pilate why he refused to honor the chief priests of the Jews’ protest when they said “Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews” (John 19:21).

Furthermore, I would ask Pilate what happened to the guards that had been posted outside the tomb from whence Jesus was raised bodily by God Almighty from the dead. I would also ask Pilate if he knew where he would spend eternity if he were to die today and whether he wouldn’t rather be assured of spending it peacefully as a friend of the one who created him than to spend it in a state of ignorance and grief as an enemy of that one true supreme creator and divine ruler of the universe who reigns high above any other god or government, whether it be Brahman, Zeus, or Caesar.

Using Paul as my evangelistic example and seizing the opportunity for the gospel, I would then elaborate on the salvific necessity of the gospel until he either begged to know Jesus or ordered me to leave. I would be sure to read Isaiah 53 aloud and at least the prologue of John’s Gospel, having prayed beforehand for God to open Pilate's eyes and prepare his heart to receive the gospel truth. I would inquire about his wife and family and seek to assure him of God’s grace in healing those who trust in, believe on, and rely upon Him (who is fully God and fully man) and His means of salvation for all who believe on Him (Isaiah 53:5).

Hated

Why Jesus was and is hated (John 15:18) is simple; as Gabriel pointed out, " And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." (John 3:19) I agree the best defense as to why the Bible is true to you is because of one person; Jesus Christ. Is the gospel more difficult to believe or somehow less credible than evolution as taught to us in our schools? Bridgette, I applaud your citing of John 14:6 because a 100% error free knowledge of who Jesus Christ is predicates wisdom and salvation. Drug addicts and alcoholics have to hit rock bottom in order to know Jesus as a deliverer. Some will first come to know Him as a healer. Humanists must "meet" the Savior on their own Damascus road and our apologetics must be that signpost for the way to the Lord. Remember that before the term Christian was coined, discipleship was mereley called "the way" and believers were called people of the way. I think it is a more fitting nomenclature because acceptance of John 14:6 defines who and what we are as disciples of Christ, that is of course, "if we have love one to another." (John 13:35) Love is the box often left unchecked on our Christian identity cards and so many fail to fully qualify...

Personal Testimony of The One

It is easy to reject what is unknown. If grace is irresistible, then surely sharing the intimacy of our knowledge of Jesus, The Bread of Life, The Living Water, The Word of God, etc. might resonate with the emptiness inside the hearts of those deceived by the lies of secular humanism and spiritualism. They will want to focus on the failures and ills of religion, even citing religion as a major cause of war. We, however, must focus the discussion on questions that expose the issue of personal sin and present the perfection of The Savior whose resurrection points to our only hope of eternal salvation and peace. Our personal testimony is crucial - of how we have come to personally know that Jesus is really with us, that He is a person who loves and cares for us, and, that although He is divine, He is not merely some impersonal higher power mystically floating in an arbitrarily hostile universe.

Godlessness

I have read concerning the dilemma of atheism that “The atheist can’t find God for the same reason a thief can’t find a policeman.” Atheists and humanists tend to cite human suffering as the wellspring of their lunacy. “If there is a God (See Psalm 14:1), how could he allow earthquakes, murder, poverty, tsunamis and cancer?” The humanist generally refuses to discuss anything he or she considers to be without merit and Scripture is at the top of that list. The bedrock of humanist reasoning is diversion and the art of inquiry. Genesis 3:1 and Matthew 4:3 give witness some of Satan’s favorite questions. In sales we learn that the person asking the questions is in control of the meeting. In witnessing to atheists and humanists it is imperative that we engage them in the questions all religions seek to answer. Opening with Bible thumping will fall on deaf ears.

Witnessing to Those with a Secular Humanist Worldview

Secular humanists, a subset of modern day spiritualists, are skeptics and largely atheists or agnostics who have supplanted the creator with the creature and thus worship an idyllic representation of themselves as scientific evidence and the pinnacle of an unsubstantiated evolutionary hypothesis. It would seem that secular humanists are on a mission to prove that man has no need of anything supernatural, mainly God. A skeptic begins with the assumption that all systems of faith are wrong. (Caner 2009, p. 43) This assumption, along with the humanist’s many other assumptions and presuppositions, must be questioned and dissected according to reason.

Debating humanists on an intellectual or argumentative basis is largely unproductive. An appeal to the need for an ultimate authority might be established after a heartfelt dissatisfaction with the status quo of unanswered questions is acknowledged and then one can present historical evidence for the superiority of the Bible as the God given source of such authority. The unanswered questions of science are a good place to begin (Caner 2009, p.43) as is a discourse on worldview questions such as

1. Where did we come from? (Origin)
2. Why are we here? (Meaning)
3. What is good and what is evil? (Morality)
4. Where is civilization headed? (Destiny)

Such testimony by believers can only help spiritualists refine their worldview and learn that there is more to life and death than what meets the eye. There is mythological, philosophical, empirical, and historical evidence in favour of biblical truth and authority, and God desires an intimate fellowship with us because He created and loves us. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. It’s just that simple. I don’t ever want to be accused of being more in love with my interpretation of theology than I am with my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! The solution to the root of every problem in any life is a person named Jesus. The historical record of the life of the apostle Paul is a most useful, scripturally anchored introduction to the gospel. Why do men reject God and His Son, Jesus? It’s alright if Jesus is anything other than God. It’s alright with humanists if Jesus is just another prophet or just another great historical figure. In fact Jesus is just more fodder for their mountain of relativism which is akin to a pantheism where mere ideas are gods.

I think most people are longing for something that will resonate the general revelation of God’s existence within them and the God shaped hole inside that they try to ignore. They try to fill this abyss with alcohol, drugs, sex, philosophy, materialism, etc. All they know for sure is that they have not yet experienced that ultimate peace that we have learned is only made possible through what Christ has accomplished on our behalf.

The core ideology of Secular Humanism is anti-faith and therefore anti-Christian. It exalts reason as supreme as a way of knowing. The question is what is to be known? What does man need to know in order to “conquer” life. Secular Humanism developed in part as a direct antithesis to Christianity. The primary supposition must be that the universe is inherently hostile to mankind and survival is therefore man’s main pursuit in life. Man is viewed as victorious and superior in an adversarial relationship with nature. Admitting then that man needs anything outside of himself, such as a higher power, God, traditional dogma, etc. would undermine the basic presuppositions of the humanist manifesto and worldview. I doubt that anyone holding to this worldview would welcome prayer or an overt discussion of Scripture because any aspect of anything “religious” offends their sensibilities. One must approach reason from the perspective of either contextual apologetics or negative apologetics as did the apostle Paul in his Mars Hill Address in Acts 17.

Oprah, Dr. Phil, eastern mysticism, New Age fads, and ethical relativism fail miserably to apprehend the centeredness and peace of mind that is so lacking in this world of the twenty-first century schizoid man (King Crimson) where lives are so expendable as acceptable casualties of war and the love of money and prosperity gospels rule. This is perhaps the most world view most aggressively forced upon us in the mass media, schools, and ultra liberal churches teaching far to the left of Scripture in America today. This is the height of vanity and exalts vain imaginations above reason, believing that all that exists is what can be seen with the naked eye, while dismissing the validity of the supernatural. Everything is relative to the secular humanist, which is one reason why it leads to gross immorality and incredible insensitivity to the pain and suffering of others. 1 Corinthians 1:18-29 is also a good place to begin when discussing the gospel with humanists.

© 2010 Brian L Hunter