Episode 24E02a – How to Defend your Faith Session 3: Is there Truth, Goodness, & Beauty? (Part 1 of 3)
(Written by Dr. Kip Wehrman 01/21/2024)
Let’s start with a song called Goodness of God
I like this song.
Before we get started today, Let’s Pray.
(Video Only) Paper Bag object lesson
Today we are going to add another piece to our worldview.
How can we defend our Christian Faith? Or more importantly Is Christianity True?
Now to most of us this is ludicrous, but people argue about truth; your truth, my truth, their truth. Truth is relative, you can’t know the truth. Only Science is true. We hear a lot of this stuff in our world today. So, we are going to dig deep into this to discover, what is truth.
I want to highlight a couple of the books I have over on the table. “from dawn to Decadence, 1500 to present” by Jacques Barzun. It is a great historical look at the major shifts in western culture. If you want to understand how we got to this place in our culture,
this is excellent. It is an intense history book more than 500 pages but witty and easy to read. “Faith & Reason” by Ronold Nash looks at the how our faith has a rational basis. “Total Truth” by Nancy Pearcey. This is probably the best book I’ve ever read that was not the Bible. Her subtitle “liberating Christianity from its cultural captivity” is a clue to the topic. Pearcey is a great writer, she co-wrote a book with Chuck Colston that many of you might know ‘how shall we live”. This book is absolutely the best, if you are serious about following Jesus in today’s world you need to read this book. I absolutely love her book. It’s thick but it is worth the time to read it. It will change your perception of our culture forever.
How would you describe this picture?
This is a picture of the most beautiful beach my feet have ever stepped on. And I’ve been on a lot of beaches around the world. This is in Siruma, Cam Sur Philippines.
How would you describe this picture?
This is actually a stream on top of the volcano Isarog in the Philippines. It is a very beautiful place.
How would you describe this picture?
My daughter took this picture. In the Philippines they make a juice from this flower that is supposed to have all kind of health benefits. It is called Clitoria or sometimes called butterfly pea or pigeonwing. It’s pretty. And it tastes pretty good.
Picture NOT Licensed.
(Pig intestines)
How would you describe this picture?
Okay I don’t want to gross you out but it is pig guts. Some might not see this as ugly. Some in my family would say yummy. Thinking of cooking it up for dinner.
Picture of Dead Rat not shown
How would you describe this picture.
Even if it was not dead. We would not like this picture or at least the rat in it.
How would you describe this picture?
In case you are unsure what it is. This is dog excrement or for those of us that want a more layman term, it’s dog poop. It is definitely not pretty.
Why do we universally have these reactions. Now some people may have different opinions but all in all. Humans have a mechanism to tell ugly from beauty. Why?
We hear beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But is that true and why?
I say no. Beauty is in the eye of the creator. And He built it into us. Allow culture to dictate beauty, is ceding territory to the enemy.
I have a question for you. What decade would you like to live in and why.?
What stage of life were you?? Most choose a time when they had no responsibilities like when you were a kid or maybe college years.
I want to share a couple slides from one of my seminary classes from Dr. Johnathon Pritchett of Trinity Seminary. Pritchett asked a similar question.
Dr. Johnathan Pritchett asked us this question. What decade in recent history is responsible for the moral decline in the United States? Which decade in recent history do most Christians point to as being the “beginning” of the demoralization of the United States? Or the end of the golden era
Pritchett highlighted that the 50’s had segregation, rabid racism. The decade gave rise to popularizing secular humanism, scientism and futurism. Which was manifested in the image of a future with flying cars utopia. The 60’s had the ugliness of desegregation and civil rights protests. But it was also the decade that saw bans on prayer and Bible reading in our public schools. 70’s was the beginning of the image self-consciousness and consumerism. And we can go on and on. No matter what decade you choose, you can identify moral decline and morally corrupt behaviors. Every decade has moral decline and the papering over of its problems. So, Goodness does not have a date. Goodness is defined by a person, Jesus.
This is the end of How to Defend your Faith Session 3: What is Truth? (Part 1 of 3)
