Apprentice Owl Apologetics

                This post may be a little shorter than my usual posts, but I had this thought and believed it was worth sharing. My ministry that I pursue here focuses quite a lot on apologetics, which I have defined as the act of defending a position/set of ideals. Now then, since I spend so much of my time discussing and researching apologetics, I am saving quite a few people right? It’s not as easy as that. Jesus said that “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” So the only way to be saved is through belief in Christ, not apologetics. So apologetics is not saving anyone, so why am I doing this? Well we are commanded to give a defense of our faith with humility and love, so there is that. Also, I feel that I am called by God to do it to attempt to show to those people who find Christianity “unreasonable”. If what I write here can disprove their assumptions about the reasonableness of Christian...

                Christians are told over and over again that we are to be fearless, but I never really think that I am supposed to be when I am overcome by fear. My New Year goals involve trying to get rid of my bad habits that inhibit my relationship with God and with people. My writing this and discussing possible solutions is something for myself as well as you, the reader, in the hopes that what I discuss help you if you are dealing with similar issues.                 The first source of my fear comes from work, the most common fear being known as impostor syndrome. For those unfamiliar, it is feeling unworthy of the job one has, or that one will be exposed as a fraud at any given moment. I wonder if the main characters of the Bible stories (Abraham, David, Noah, etc.) ever felt this impostor syndrome. There is a part of me that thinks they did, but they are im...

                As I write this, I am thinking over the past year that God has blessed me with and am pondering the things he has given me and taken away. I lost one of my grandfathers at the beginning of the year and a friend of mine committed suicide earlier in the year. While the pain was substantial during and after these events, I am comforted in the fact that both of these people had accepted Jesus as their savior and that I will see them again when God decides to call me home. I would go into more stories about them, but I have already said my piece on this blog and would like to dwell on happier things tonight.                 God has blessed me very much this year. I have been doing well in graduate school and have passed the departmental requirements for most of my second year, there is one more thing to complete in April but the biggest hurdle was a liter...

                To pick up where I left off on the last left off, we have Joseph and Mary arriving at the town of Bethlehem. They are looking for a place to stay and all of the inns are full. They finally come to an inn where the proprietor allows them to stay in the barn in the back. Now Mary’s time has come for her to have her child. Jesus is delivered and they wrap him in swaddling cloth and the only place they can lay him is in a manger. I would like to take a minute to talk about the conditions Mary, Joseph, and now the baby Jesus are living in. They are in a barn meant for keeping livestock. I have been in a barn, I can’t say I have stayed in one, but I will say that it is not the most pleasant smelling of places if you have non-human residents. To focus on the manger, this is not typically used to lay newborn children. This is a feeding trough for the animal residents of the barn. Once again, livestock feed isn’t the most pleasant sub...

                While the birth of Christ is a great event, the setting of the birth is important as well, as it could give some context and greater meaning to Christ’s birth. Firstly, one must keep in mind that the holy spirit has departed Israel, and God has not spoken to Israel in over 400 years. This in between period is known as the silent years. The book of Malachi concludes by saying that God would send Elijah as the forerunner for the Messiah. One of the Jewish writers of the time wrote that the altars were torn down and stored until a prophet came and give them instruction. The people of Israel were spiritually starving when Christ was born. Second, the nation of Israel has also been taken over by the Romans. Caesar Augustus has just decreed a census which requires citizens to return to their place of birth to be counted. So while Israel  was free from the slavery of the Babylonians or the Egyptians, they still had an earthly...

                During the month of December I am going to try to write my first series, and given the major holiday of the month is Christmas, you can guess what the topic of the series will be. This first part will focus on the meaning of Christmas. Now the typical answer that most people would give for Christmas is that it is either the celebration of the birth of Christ or the celebration of the giving of gifts to one another to show love to one another. While both are well and good, the former answer provides a much more lasting gift than the new sweater that grandma just knitted for you.                 Now then, why does the birth of Christ matter? Other than the fact that one of the most famous historical figures came into being. That’s the thing, as a follower of Christ, I believe that he is so much more than just a historical figure. The birth of Christ sh...

               Recently, a friend and colleague of mine committed suicide. His name was Christian Taylor, and undergraduate student at Texas A&M University. Christian, in my experience, was a generally happy guy who loved to ponder scientific and philosophical questions. We shared the same office since the beginning of the summer and as a result had quite a few interesting discussions while working together. On October 15, Christian ingested sodium cyanide, he was rushed to the hospital and he went on to be with the Lord on October 17. While attending his funeral, another friend of mine asked me if suicide was a sure way to hell. I disagreed with him and explained my reasons. I would like to repeat these reasons here as a tribute to the memory of a friend.                 Now as I said, I don’t think that suicide is a sure way to hell. By my beliefs, there is only on...