Apprentice Owl Apologetics

               To continue our series in “Christian-ese”, the words that Christians throw around that non-Christians may not totally understand, we look at another couple of words that get tossed around a lot by Christians are “Justification” and “Sanctification”. Let’s take a brief look at these and see what they mean for our faith as Christians.               Justification can be viewed as a legal term first, then what it means for us as Christians. As I am a concealed weapons permit holder, I always have to think about justification, in case I ever have to use my weapon in defense of myself or others. Justification means that we are acting within the law and that whatever actions we take are legal. For example, if I have to draw my weapon, I need to make sure that I am somewhere that I am  supposed to be, that my life or someone else's life is in imminent danger, and that I only acted to stop the threat, not to kill. For a concealed weapons holder, it is the difference betwe

               Easter week is an appropriate time to talk and think about the next part of this series to decode “Christian-ese” for the non—Christians and seekers. Salvation is one of the first ideas that evangelists bring about when they are trying to, well, evangelize, but sometimes they don’t have the best grasp on how to communicate that, and they wind up just brow beating people with scriptures, telling them they are evil and condemned to Hell.               To start with salvation, it may be useful to explain why we need it in the first place. We as human beings have a moral covenant with God, in that we have His moral law written on our hearts (Romans 2:15) and are expected to follow that moral law. When we break that moral law, we commit sin, and the consequence of that sin is death (Romans 3:23, Genesis 3). It may sound harsh, but God is described as all good, all just, and all holy, and he cannot tolerate sin, because if we enter into His holiness as sinful beings, we wo