Gun Control and Apologetics

Conservatives are outraged at the hypocrisy of people in heavily armed offices dictating that only gun-free zones will make you safe. We can easily see how foolish it is to pass more laws to stop lawbreakers who wouldn’t obey the first law. What does a gun free zone tell a criminal? It tells the criminal that the law abiding citizen has laid down their best weapon of defense.

When we engage unbelievers, being salt and light we are engaging in spiritual battle and they are wanting and expecting a “Bible free zone” of apologetic in the public square.  It goes something like “You can’t argue from the Bible because I don’t believe the Bible, so we must debate on common ground of what I consider to be good sound reason.”  They want you to give up your starting point but they get to keep theirs. You must abandon your worldview and engage their worldview FROM their worldview. They borrow Christian terms like “right” and “wrong” and “good” and “evil” that can only exist with a standard of right and wrong and good and evil. And if there is standard, where did that come from and why?

Let’s imagine you are awakened from dreaming about living in a free Republic to find you are being robbed. As a vigilant citizen you reach for your Smith & Wesson and proceed to engage the lawless and disobedient. Full of good courage, you play the man and catch the thief with his arms hugging your television. When confronted with superior firepower he says  with a furrow of anxiety upon the brow “I don’t believe in the right of a man to defend his home with a gun. I think this ought to be a gun free zone.” Would you reply “Oh, yes, certainly - allow me to holster my gun, since you don’t believe in it, and we will get on common ground.”

What has happened? You have conceded to his presuppositions. You have laid down your weapon because he doesn't like you having it or doesn't want you to use it. He may genuinely not like it and not believe in it – but should that stop you from using it?  The believer who attempts to argue apart from scripture has conceded that the unbeliever somehow is coming from a neutral position. You believe in the authority of God’s Word. He disagrees, but be sure he is not coming from an unbiased position.

If a person denies that the Bible is living and powerful, does that make it not so? Is the Bible quick and powerful regardless of what a person thinks about it? When we engage unbelievers who do not want to concede that God’s Word is truth, don’t voluntarily turn in your Sword to the proper authorities, who happen to have weapons of their own. I believe in divinely inspired Word of God. This leads to the next reason - since the Bible is divinely inspired, it is authoritative and I must bow the knee to God’s Word. And, as if I planned it this way, leads to a thirdly - I believe the Bible to be supernatural in power and sharper than any two-edged sword. That the Bible gets down to the meat & bones of the matter and discerns your thoughts and intentions. It is a powerful, spiritual weapon and our only weapon. Thus when engaging in spiritual warfare, don’t turn the debate into a Bible free zone.

Grace & Peace

Doug

Fighting Today's Battles

J.C. Philpot battled a great error that was gaining ground in his day - the denial of the eternal sonship of Jesus Christ. In his introductory remarks he answered the objections some had made to confronting that heresy in the first place. One group thought the battle was not necessary because they did not understand the full significance of the error. Some were persuaded by some “Big Guns” who had decided for themselves (and for their followers) what the Bible said and that settled the question once for all. A third group thought it was a fight over words and why cause a fuss over semantics and the question should never been waged in the first place.

When confronting error there are usually these separate battles that the truth must confront. Not only do you fight the error but sometimes you have to deal with those who should be on your side but for some reason or the other decided to sit this one out. Sitting it out wouldn’t be as bad, but often they cheer for the other team which stings a little.

Philpot said 

“Those who from self-interest, love of carnal ease, entanglement in error, or cowardice of spirit, wished things to remain quiet as they were, all lift their voice against the disturbers of the general peace.” 

Come on, ye who troubleth Israel, if you were quiet, none of this would have happened (1Kings 18:17). It is amazing to see that the battles will change but the tactics and the positions of the enemies of truth rarely do. 

Considering one of the great fights of our day, which I believe is on Biblical marriage, we are starting to see these groups appear. There are groups that don’t understand what the fuss is all about. Others who think it’s better to live and let live. There are others that wish it was like it used to be and among conservative Christians we are most susceptible to the last excuse. Remembering the glory days when you didn’t have to give a definition for marriage  we can say that it should not be like this because it did not used to be like this. Both are true statements, but unfortunately, that line of argument is a useless defense of the truth because they say "so what?" and if we shrug and saunter away mumbling to ourselves away as to avoid the controversy because we did not get to pick the fight we lose the fight anyway.  

 Few who live in exciting times that we like to read about would choose the exciting time for themselves.  An old proverb went something like “blessed are the forgotten nations of history.” Why? Who wants to read a story about a country that lived in quiet peace for centuries.

There are fights in every generation that rise. Sometimes the fight is greater than we think that we can stomach. Sometimes it’s a fight we would rather not have at all. All who pick up the sword of truth wish that it needn’t be so and it grieves us that God’s Word is not obeyed. There shouldn’t be any that relish fighting – but that should not stop the men of God. We can look at the spiritual battles for truth about us and wish it were not so, wish for quieter times and peaceful seasons, but that is not for us to decide. God has placed you in this time to fight the battle that is going on now. It’s easy to be on the right side of a fight that is already over-the test comes when the battles just starting to get hot. Your story has been written, it is not for you to decide what times you live in – it is for you to decide how you will live.

Once more from Brother Philpot:

 “Old Mrs. Bigotry is dead and buried; her funeral sermon has been preached to a crowded congregation; and this is the inscription put, by general consent, upon her tombstone:

For modes of faith let graceless bigots fight;

He can’t be wrong whose life is in the right. 

But if to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints is bigotry, let us be bigots still; and if it is a bad spirit to condemn error, then let us bear the reproach rather than call evil good and good evil, put darkness for light and light for darkness, bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”

Ronald Reagan on Abortion

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan wrote this article on abortion for Human Events, Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation..

This was AFTER President Reagan was elected. I stress this because modern Republicans are pro-life BEFORE the election, and it is a very important issue until the election is over.

Every legislator, every doctor, and every citizen needs to recognize that the real issue is whether to affirm and protect the sanctity of all human life, or to embrace a social ethic where some human lives are valued and others are not. As a nation, we must choose between the sanctity of life ethic and the "quality of life" ethic.

I have no trouble identifying the answer our nation has always given to this basic question, and the answer that I hope and pray it will give in the future. American was founded by men and women who shared a vision of the value of each and every individual. They stated this vision clearly from the very start in the Declaration of Independence, using words that every schoolboy and schoolgirl can recite:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I also appreciated Reagan's ability to see through the politics and bring the abortion issue down to the true issue, life and murder.

What, then, is the real issue? I have often said that when we talk about abortion, we are talking about two lives — the life of the mother and the life of the unborn child. Why else do we call a pregnant woman a mother? I have also said that anyone who doesn't feel sure whether we are talking about a second human life should clearly give life the benefit of the doubt. If you don't know whether a body is alive or dead, you would never bury it. I think this consideration itself should be enough for all of us to insist on protecting the unborn.

I'm sure the republicans will elect another prime example of prim and proper post-modernity, who says the right things at the right time, who is polite, smiles a lot and eats apple pie. I would rather have an honest man, who speaks the truth, trusts in Christ and unapologetically stands for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, rather than political life, party lines and the pursuit of reelection.


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Douglas Newell IV