We Have All Have This In Common
Aug 30, 2019 | Written by Tommy Waltz
We have all gone to these gatherings. Family reunions, putting up with crazy cousins and a list of peoples’ idiosyncrasies that we really don’t see but once or twice a year. However, what do we all know about family reunions? Everybody there has something in common: last names. We are all family. This common thread runs through all the heartwarming conversations and the awkward moments with cousin Vinney.
In this month’s article, I am going to share what the entire human race has in common: Life. I know what you are thinking, Tommy, that is obvious. Duh. But hold on, have you ever taken time to think about why we have this thing called life at all? Why does life have meaning? Why is there so much to be learned and harnessed from creation itself? In short, life is truly intelligible. Bear with me a few paragraphs and let me lay out the framework for the next few months, and how I got the desire to take you on this journey with me.
1 Peter 3:15: “But sanctify Christ as Lord in your heart always being ready to make a defense to everyone who ask you to give an account for the hope that is in you with all gentleness and reverence.”
The past few years I have—by God’s grace—started to understand how to defend the Christian faith. It is a desire that has brought about further sanctification in my life. I have understood that sanctifying Him as Lord will change the way I defend what I believe. If I defend Him being Lord (not one of the many counterfeit lords) but as Jesus Christ the Lord of heaven and earth, I will defend what this text demands. I will become truly free under His lordship to relax and understand that it is those who are in opposition to God’s truth who need my gentleness and reverence.
I am a slow learner. What I have learned has been given by God’s grace and Him giving me discipline to rehearse truths over and over again, observing them at work around me and in my life until it becomes natural to my conversation and thought. By the help of the Holy Spirit, and countless hours of coming to His word and prayer, I am learning enough to take you along with me. To those who are slow: don’t give up and keep coming back to His word. You will learn that the proper way to defend truth is to worship Him and love Him as Lord.
A few years back I encountered a springboard into understanding how to worship Jesus more. What was it? It is called Presuppositional Apologetics. It transformed the way I worshipped God and invaded how I defended the Gospel. I am not going to explain presuppositional apologetics here. Sorry. But, read these following books for help and be patient. (Pushing The Antithesis) by- Greg Bahnsen (Van Tils Apologetic)- by Greg Bahnsen (Biblical Apologetics)- by Clifford B. McManis. We will have videos and articles coming out to help.
I am going to discuss one aspect of how the one and only true God is R.U.L.I.N.G. You guessed it. This is an acronym for what I want to communicate. We are going on a six-month journey that will help you understand this acronym. This month, we are going to jump into the “L” on our acronym in order to help you see how this engages you in the practicality of life. It unites all of us under one common denominator —life—just like your name ties you to your family.
Here is a brief overview of what R.U.L.I.N.G. stands for:
Revelatory epistemology
Uniformity in nature
Life is intelligible
Impossibility of the contrary
Neutrality is a lie
God law was given to us in science and His word
Life is intelligible
What does that mean?
1. Life is screaming at you saying there is a purpose, meaning, and hope.
The only way we can know these three things is because a self-attesting God gave us the preconditions for intelligence give us all hope. What does it mean for God to be self-attesting? God testifies about himself because He is the only person who is eternal and unable to be corrupted by sin. What do I mean by intelligible? Life can be understood and comprehended because God put things in place to give us a platform to observe. He gave us bodies, time, matter, and space. Side note, our planet is put in the goldilocks zone in the Milky Way galaxy, just so we can observe outer space.
Psalm 19 “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”
Here are two verses that describe preconditions and God’s self-attesting nature:
Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
Exodus 3:14: “God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.”
Does God have a huge ego complex? No. Quit comparing God to man. He had to testify about himself because He is the only one who does not change. He testified about himself because He is the only who has always been and who will always be the same.
2. He gave preconditions which allowed us the ability to exist physically. These preconditions are:
Check out Genesis 1:1 broken down
Time: In the beginning
Space: God created the heavens
Matter: and earth
This life has meaning. We are created by God to worship Him on His earth. We now have a purpose to subdue the earth and to study it to further worship God. Creation is teaming with tons of information. Here are just a few examples:
DNA
Archaeology
Weather patterns
The cosmos
What difference does life being intelligent make in you defending your faith? Everything! Neither the atheist or those who worship false gods have no grounds for life being intelligible; however, they rob from the Christians coherent view of reality in order to make sense out of life. Here are two examples:
3. Exposing inconsistencies within Atheist’s and Pantheist’s worldviews
Example 1
The Atheist
They state that we are just bags of random stardust or meat machines marching to our DNA code. According to them, we are brain fizz, some fizzing one way and some fizzing another. Although, what if someone tries to plunge a knife into their meat machines while they lay in bed at night? They will call the law enforcement officer to protect them. Why? All of a sudden when their meat machine is threated with harm, it now has value. When they make this leap, they are coming into your Christian worldview to give meaning to their lives. Life is truly intelligible. They are applying the morals that the Christian worldview affords them. Their DNA meat machine theory is exposed as false reality and they show that there is meaning to existence, in this case, not to be brutally murdered in their bed. Why is murder wrong to the atheist? Living is better than dying. According to whom? Not the atheist but the Christian.
Example 2
The Pantheists (The Hindu)
This life is really just an allusion and we really don’t exist as we perceive. All is god, and god is all. As long as your good karma is more than your bad karma, the murderer coming to stab you in your sleep could be sending you to a better life in your reincarnation cycle. Why even bother with calling the police and fighting with the person in your home? When they do this, they automatically appeal to the values found in the reality of God’s truth. But not in their Hindu belief. All life has value.
There are countless unbelievers who are much smarter than me who have dedicated their lives to studying the cosmos, medicine, biology, historical artifacts, weather patterns, etc.. Why? Life is truly intelligible. This intelligence gives us purpose, meaning, hope, and it unites all of us as fellow partakes in life that God gives.
Life was given to point us toward the one that makes true hope possible. All of us have fallen short of God’s holiness. We have all made gods that do not deserve our worship. We have all lied and dishonored our father and mother. We have all been angry enough to lash out with our tongues to hurt our loved one.
God saw our dilemma and sent His son to take the wrath that we deserved. The God that created you was just and His wrath (divine disfavor) must burn against sin. The full weight of His wrath was put on Jesus on the cross. He was crucified for your sins—if you believe he was buried and rose again on the third day defeating death and hell. The Bible calls all men and women to repent and believe the Gospel. Please do this today before it is too late. If you reject God’s salvation through Christ, He will punish you for eternity in hell.
We are all united under the banner of life that God has been so very kind to give it to us and this life is screaming that there is a creator. Look at the creation around, the Bible in front of you, and listen to your conscience inside of you. Next month we will cover revelatory epistemology. I am excited you are going on this journey with me. Enjoy your next family reunion, crazy cousins included.
Thank you for reading our article. We would like to extend an invitation for you to officially become a champion of our ministry. You can help us send missionaries out to proclaim the Gospel to see lives transformed. Find out how you can benefit by becoming part of our champion community. https://goo.gl/e8nywg
Gospel God Ministries leader, Tommy Waltz has a new book coming out.