Christians Must Be Hated

“It is not that I want merely to be called a Christian, but actually to be one”

-Ignatius (To the Romans 3:2)

Are you hated by the world? If you are a Christian, and the world does not hate you, I believe if I may, sadly inform you that you are not a Christian. You are merely called a Christian, but you are actually not one. Being a Christian, “a follower of the anointed one”, is not only professing to the truthfulness of Christianity but also a lifestyle that imitates Christ Jesus.

Apostle John records Jesus saying: “The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.”(John 7:7). The context to which this Jesus’ saying is coming out, is that of his half brothers, who the Apostle remarked did not even believed in Jesus, pose him to go to Judea and twitter himself publicly at the Jews Feast of Booths, which is celebration of the feast of ingathering observed at the end of the year (Exod. 23:16; Exod. 34:22)

Jesus answered his skeptical half-brothers with a reply  like this: The world loves those who speak what it longs and dearly wants to hear: it’s O.K., it’s O.K.! You are fine! Everything is going to be fine! The world loves those who “claim” to be Christians yet appraise and approve its immoral actions and behavior and hates those who testify about its evil.

If you are a Christian, and the world listens to you, then examine yourself to see whether you are truly what you claim to be. In First Epistle of John, a letter that was generally written to congregations across Asia Minor (now Turkey), John warned Christian that there are “Christian” who are not “ Christian”: “They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us.”(1 John 4:5-6)

Christ Jesus was hated for speaking against the evilness of the world. As a true follower of Christ, practicing his teaching and lives a life-style that reflects that you are in Christ, being hated by the world is guarantied. You ought to be hated. You must be hated.

In all this, take courage in these words of warning from the one who loves you: “ If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you”(John 15:18–19)

Be a Christian, “Keep on praying”for others too, for there is a chance of their being converted and getting to God. Let them, then, learn from you at least by your actions. Return their bad temper with gentleness; their boasts with humility; their abuse with prayer. In the face of their error, be “steadfast in the faith.” Return their violence with mildness and do not be intent on getting your own back. By our patience let us show we are their brothers, intent on imitating the Lord, seeing which of us can be the more wronged, robbed, and despised. Thus no devil’s weed will be found among you; but thoroughly pure and self-controlled, you will remain body and soul united to Jesus Christ.”(Ignatius’ To the Ephesians 10:1-3)

Go out Christians and be hated! Speak the truth with love and gentleness. Go out, Go be hated.

What Make You Think You Have the Correct Belief?

“What make you think you have the correct belief?” asked one of my youth, as we fell into discussing the objectivity of moral values and duties. He was convinced that everything is a matter of perspective and opinions. He believed that my belief could be right to me, but wrong to him. And surprisingly we are all at the same time correct.

“ My belief is correct because it passes  belief tests. And I believe yours does not” I answered.

A belief, or an opinion can be put on trial and tested for its truthfulness.  There by-and-large four belief test: test of reason; test of outer experience;  test of inner experience; and test of practice.

Test of Reason:

Does a belief pass the scrutiny of logical reasoning? If a belief has logical contradicting ideas, then that belief is necessarily false. The law of non-contradiction states that p, cannot be both q and not-q at the same time and sense. Example: I did not write this sentence in English language.

Test of Outer Experience:

A belief needs to pass the test of what we know about the world and ourselves. Example: A belief that suffering and death is illusory is false, because our knowledge of ourselves tells another story.

Test of Inner Experience:

Does a belief align with our inner experience? Examples: the knowledge of self-awareness. I am a being that experiences grieve, guilt, hope, love, sorrow, joy et cetera.  I am not a robot that believes what an alien installed me to believe.

Test of Practice:

Ronald Nash argued that life is the laboratory of our beliefs.  Can one, holding a certain belief, live consistently with what she believes?

Practical test example: When you find a person who holds a belief that stealing is not wrong, try to steal something from her and see if she would live consistently to her belief.

So, what make you think you have the correct belief? Well, test it and  see if it passes these tests.

Article inspired by: Evaluating A Worldview, Life’s Ultimate Questions. An Introduction to Philosophy – Ronald H. Nash

Blogging and Personal Life

It is over a month since I updated my blog or answered comments. Three reasons to why I took a blog-fasting time off are:

• Apologetic out of passions for people and not for arguments sake
  

  Damsels in Distress

I took this time off for personal prayers, reading and self examination to see  whether my blog reflected Christ Jesus in me. Did I gave arguments for arguments sake or for the passion and genuine concern of the real person reading my blog. I took this period to evaluate my motives.

• Blogging And Family

Blogs do demand attentions. Reading, researching, evaluating and answering comments takes a lot of time and energy. My time spend on blogging and answering comment affected my relationship with my wonderful wife(mostly when I stayed up late answering comments) and my friends around me. In this blog-fasting period, I re-learned to delight and adore my wife, showing her that I do treasure her infinitely above blogging.

• Blogging Our Of Joy

I did lost focus on why I blogged. I  blogged because I “thought” I had to and not because I loved and  joyed to as when I started. This time out brought me back to the joy I had in writing because I love to. I re-leaned that our God is sovereign and he does all, (including reaching out those who deny Him)  that he pleases and its He who draws people to Christ.

Now I am back blogging and will answer all the comments sent to me as soon as possible.

A lot of thanks to my regular readers and commentators Héhé, Brap Gronk, thewordofme, Random Ntrygg, NaughtyGnosiophile, Alexander Winslow,Stephen Butterfield, Jay Osborne, Noreligion, Lance Ponder, Robert and many subscribers. I am back 🙂

In Christ I Trust,

Prayson

Non-Christian On God and Morality

The modern age, more or less repudiating the idea of a divine lawgiver, has nevertheless tried to retain the ideas of moral right and wrong, without noticing that in casting God aside they have also abolished the meaningfulness of right and wrong as well.  Thus, even educated persons sometimes declare that such things as war, or abortion, or the violation of certain human rights are morally wrong, and they imagine that they have said something true and meaningful.  Educated people do not need to be told, however, that questions such as these have never been answered outside of religion.

  – A prominent non-Christian American philosopher

Richard Taylor(1919-2003)

Ethics, Faith, and Reason (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:  Prentice-Hall,  1985), pp. 2-3

No Reason To Believe Them!

C. S. Lewis(1898-1963)

If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents – the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts – i.e., Materialism and Astronomy – are mere accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It’s like expecting the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk-jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.

C. S. Lewis,

“Answers to Questions on Christianity,” in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology & Ethics, ed. Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), 52-53.

Some Arguments Atheists Make Against God’s Existence

One of the most important living philosophers of religion, who is also credited with helping revive Christian philosophy, Alvin Plantinga answers some of the arguments atheist make against God’s existence.

Site:

Closer To The Truth: Robert Lawrence Kuhn’s ‘s life journey to grasp Cosmos, Consciousness, and God, visiting those who think deeply about existence, meaning and purpose.(He interviews both world leading theists and atheists professors)

Alvin Plantinga: Warranted Christian Belief and God, Freedom, and Evil

Cosmic Beginning Quote

It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning (Many Worlds in One [New York: Hill and Wang, 2006], p.176).

Leading cosmologists,

Alexander Vilenkin