J. Warner Wallace says: you should step into the ring...but not if your opponent is too educated

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

The Apostle Peter Called Us to Be “Responsive” Christians

Posted: 24 Jan 2018 01:48 AM PST

If you’re like me, you feel a sense of duty and responsibility as an ambassador of Jesus to share the Good News with others;

And if they are not like you, you cannot find anything in the NT condemning Christians who don't feel themselves called to be evangelists or apologists or bible teachers.

the Great Commission calling to make disciples.

The Great Commission actually requires that Jesus' followers not simply teach "the gospel" to new converts, but to require new followers or convert to "obey" all that Jesus had taught the original apostles:

18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.
 19 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (Matt. 28:18-20 NAU)

And since it was obviously Matthew's author who recorded this, and since it is obvious that the vast majority of Matthew's gospel concerns all that Jesus taught before he died on the Cross, it is clear that Matthew's author understand this part of the Great Commission to require Jesus' disciples to teach future converts to "obey" all those pre-Cross teachings.

That's where you fail, Wallace.  You seem to think there's no need to teach Gentile converts about leaving their gift at the altar in the Temple and go be first reconciled with their brother (Matthew 5:23 ff) since, obviously, obeying that teaching of Jesus was rendered impossible by Titus' destruction of the Temple in a.d. 70.  That's where you falter, thinking that surely Jesus doesn't require his followers to do the impossible, when in fact you don't have the first clue as to whether such a text requires you to interpret it in light of later events, or whether it implies that Jesus, at that point in his career, had no suspicion that future events would render many of his teachings impossible to obey.  You just blindly assume Jesus is God, therefore, any answer that gets God out of trouble, is surely preferable to an answer that would put you out of your attention-whore business.  That's right, you fucking hypocrite, you put yourself at the center of attention by your acts of telling others to focus on Jesus.  So when I call you an attention-whore, your history of telling others to focus on Jesus is precisely the justification for such.  Especially in light of the fact that your "cold case Christianity, case-maker" bullshit is nothing but a modern-day marketing gimmick that, once again, requires you to put yourself front and center.  Yes, I extend that criticism to every Christian who obsessively puts themselves in the media spotlight the way you do, including attention whore apostle Paul.

At the same time, you may not feel like an accomplished or gifted evangelist.

And that might be because God doesn't want them to do that kind of shit.

Don’t feel bad, it’s a common sentiment. Peter’s admonition has comforted and guided me over the years in my efforts to share the Gospel with others: 

1 Peter 3:15
But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. 

Peter is talking to all of us who call ourselves Christians.

If you can find exceptions to Jesus' statement in Matthew 28:20, expect other Christians to see exceptions to 1st Peter 3:15.

We have an explicit and specific responsibility.

Yes, to give an answer to those who ask.  Nothing here about confronting those who don't ask.

While not every Christian may be a gifted or called evangelist, all of us have a responsibility to become competent Christian Case Makers.

Translation:  all of us have a responsibility to purchase the Case Maker marketing gimmicks of J. Warner Wallace, and a duty to stop listening to skeptics who accuse him of selectively applying only those facets of American jurisprudence that help him while ignoring those that put him in the toilet.

But, Peter does more than call us to duty; he also provides us with a strategy.

Peter was talking to first century Christians, and the burden is on you to show that he intended his comments to be read by future generations of Christians, a task I've not seen any Christian scholar or apologist fulfill yet.  Since the Mt. of Transfiguration event did not include angels nor Jesus rewarding every man according to his works, it would appear that when Jesus says there are some standing there with him who will not taste death until he returns in glory (Matthew 16:28), Jesus intended for his hearers to believe his second coming would take place in the first century.  Because you push bible inerrancy, you are required to read Peter's admonitions through the the assumption that Jesus would return before the end of the first century.  Like I said, putting the burden on you to show that Peter intended this epistle to govern the lives and conduct of Christians who would live after Jesus comes back and restores justice to the world.

I think this is the part where you suddenly discover that "god" had lead you miraculously through the criticisms of a skeptic, to the glorious truth of Preterism.  You know, something, anything to avoid having to admit the false doctrine of bible inerrancy is false.

Peter asks us to be “responsive” Christians. He calls us to always be ready to respond to those who have questions about what we believe.

And God obviously fails in his responsibility to do his part to empower Christians to do such things.  You say God gave Adam and Eve freewill, so the creator of the universe allows human freewill to get in his way?  Your Calvinist brothers say God is the reason that any authentically born again Christian fails in his or her duty to to teach and preach.  So...given that bible inerrancy can't possibly be a false doctrine, did you suddenly discover that Calvinism is biblical?  Or are you somehow content to give lip-service to the notion that God has his own responsibility to empower Christians to teach and preach, and rely on your own self-serving speculations absolving God of blame when you look at today's Christianity and see what a fucking mess it is?

When I talk with other Christians about this notion of becoming a “Responsive Christian”, they sometimes worry that I am suggesting a fragile and meek form of Christianity that is timid and tentative; a form of the faith that is patiently waiting to respond, but afraid to make the first move.

the verse you supplied only talks about responding to those who "ask".  Not all unbelievers "ask".

This is not what Peter is advocating. As a boy, I remember watching the fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman.

If you wish to convince the reader that your interpretation of 1st Peter 3:18 is correct, you must resort to Peter's grammar and immediate context.  These are valid tools of interpretation.  What you remember from watching unChristian boxing matches does not constitute valid hermeneutics.  And yet you cite to unChristian boxing in your effort to support the premise that Peter is not teaching that Christians need to wait for the unbeliever to make the first move.

I was a huge boxing fan at the time, and, like everyone else, I had been watching Foreman come up through the ranks, including his dismantling of Joe Frazier on his way to the fight with Ali. Foreman was a scary guy. He was a brutal puncher. He had a bad attitude. I was worried for Ali. In the first rounds of their fight, Foreman threw everything he had at Muhammad Ali. Hundreds of punches. Ali did something very unusual, however; he simply stayed on the ropes and let Foreman throw his punches. He took everything Foreman could offer for several rounds, until Foreman was exhausted. Then, Ali became the consummate counter puncher through the middle of the fight. In the late rounds of the fight, Ali eventually came off the ropes and became the aggressor, delivering a few concise, targeted punches that dropped an exhausted George Foreman to the canvas. Ali won one of the biggest fights of his life and Foreman was never the same. Ali learned the value of being a “Responsive Boxer”:
 Ali was the guy everyone wanted to fight
Ali was willing to enter the ring with Foreman
Ali took Foreman’s best and maneuvered Foreman into position
Ali delivered his best when the time was right

So in your view, if a Christian doesn't feel compelled to become a spiritual "boxer", surely this cannot be God calling them to a different type of approach, this is just their own freewill rebellion against biblical mandate.

As Christians, we could learn something about being “Responsive Christians” from the king of “Responsive Boxers”, Muhammad Ali.

A true Christian would find biblical examples better suited to Christian learning.

We can be proactive and reactive at the same time, even though this may seem like a contradiction. “Responsive Christianity” requires us to rethink how we have been living as Christians.

It also requires Christians to ask why God wasn't able to do this job you think needs doing, until you came along and decided to use Christianity as an excuse to draw attention to yourself.  We have examples of Christians who don't do that, such as most conservative biblical scholars...who do not employ the talk show circuit and turn what might be legitimate book sale activity into obsessive self-promotion the way you do.

And don't feel like I'm picking on just you.  Hank Hanegraaff, the fools at TBN and Daystar, James Patrick Holding, most "internet apologists" and all pastors of mega-churches are dishonest charlatans  for choosing the one method of teaching Christianity that just happens to require them to put themselves into the spotlight.
The more you use the media to focus people's attention on Jesus, the more you prove what an attention-whore you are, no different than apostle Paul.

It requires us to prompt those in our world to ask questions and then and be prepared to answer their questions:

A task you are woefully unprepared to handle, given that you made the wise marketing decision, also used by most politicians, to not respond to my criticisms, perhaps knowing you risk losing book sales if you try to defend your shit from informed criticism.

“Responsive Christians” live a life that causes people to ask questions
Every boxer knew who Muhammad Ali was. Ali placed himself in the center of the boxing world. As Christians, we need to recognize that all of us are being watched; all of us are causing others to ask questions. Think about that for a minute. People are watching us, and they are formulating silent questions about what they are seeing.

I do that too.  When I look at apologists like you, I ask myself "what's more likely, Wallace's primary motive in putting himself at the center of attention because he thinks doing so is the best way to get people to focus on Jesus?  Or his primary motive in putting himself at the center of attention is because of a purely naturalistic desire to make himself the center of attention?"

I’m just hoping that they are not looking at my life and asking questions like, “Why is he such a hypocrite?”

We are.  You lose.

or “Why is he so arrogant?”; “Why is he so angry?”; “Why is he so unfriendly?”

I don't accuse of those things.  You are too smart of a salesman to make the ill-advised choice to show anger.  Good salesman always associate their sales pitch with smiles, friendly gestures, and other bells and whistles constituting those marketing gimmicks you apparently think the Holy Spirit finds indispensable.

It’s my desire to live a life that causes a different set of questions. Questions like, “How is he able to handle hardship so well?”

Fallacy of loaded question, you don't handle hardship well at all, at least not ministry hardship.  You are an attention-whore and you appear hard-wired to suddenly go deaf whenever anybody suggests you are making Christianity more like a used case salesman's pitch, than you presenting it in the grave serious solemn way it was done by the early church fathers.

What are you gonna do next?

Create an amusement park with carnival rides for the kids where they cannot avoid viewing Christian propaganda while riding the Jesus roller coaster?

or “Why does he always seem to be at peace with his situation?”

No need to ask, the answer to that one is obvious:  you are happy with your having turned Christianity into a cash-cow that places the spotlight on yourself.

; “How is he able to stay so committed?”;

The way Paul Crouch stayed so committed.  Smart people don't get off the money train after it has proven to bloat their bank accounts.  Especially when that money train is enhanced by an egregiously unfair tax-exemption.

“Why is he willing to sacrifice his time and money?”

For the same reason any attention-whore is willing to make the financial sacrifices necessary so they can be put in the spotlight.

When we live a life that prompts the right kind of questions, God allows us the marvelous opportunity to answer these questions with the truth of the Gospel.

Your Calvinist brothers disagree, and say that you cannot do anything to thwart the secret will of God, even if you kill children, donate your ministry money to terrorists and commit adultery in the middle of a busy traffic intersection on national tv.  You are dishonest to coddle your ignorant followers' ignorant views of "freewill" in a way that makes it appear they can "help" god by acting a certain way and hinder the divine purpose when they act another way.

“Responsive Christians” go where people already have questions
Ali had to decide to get in the ring with Foreman; he had to decide to take the risk. As Christians, we sometimes need to decide to take a similar risk; we need to take advantage of the opportunities to “get in the ring” and to go where strangers are already waiting with questions.

But all smart people obey the naturalistic drive to stay away from certain death, which fully explains why you never come over to the boxing ring known as turchisrong.blogspot.com.  As soon as you dare attempt to take on the "ancient documents rule", you'll have to write a new book explaining why you think only some of the rules of evidence in American courts are good and others are unfairly predjudicial.  And since such a book would be foolish, you avoid the nightmare entirely by never stepping in the ring.

For which reason, you are about as credible as Benny Hinn, who himself also creates a lot of popularity while carefully staying away from critics the vast majority of the time.

There are places where people are already asking the important questions of life. University campuses, religious centers, libraries, etc. This desire to “get in the ring” is the motivation behind my own personal efforts to talk to people on college campuses and in places like Salt Lake City and University of California at Berkeley.

But being cross-examined live in real time, in-person by an informed skeptic, concerning the merits of your arguments, would also obviously qualify as "stepping in the ring".   Now explain to your readers why the form of stepping into a ring that would most closely scrutinize your arguments, is the type of ring-stepping you carefully avoid.

People here are already asking questions related to faith: “Is there a God?”; “Can naturalism explain our origin?”; “Why do Christians believe what they believe?”; “Why do Christians act the way they do?”. In these “question rich” environments, thoughtful Christians can help to provide some answers.

People have been asking those questions for centuries before you were born.

My own personal desire to reach those with questions is also the motivating force behind ColdCaseChristianity.com.

Which apparently has to be carefully understood to mean you don't have a desire to reach well informed skeptics who possess the most potential of causing your book sales to decline.  Frank Turek's arguments are no more compelling than yours, but at least he does get in the ring with the skeptics.

Around the world, thousands of Christians are now “entering the ring” with blogs and websites of their own.

So are well-informed bible critics, like me.

“Responsive Christians” help people ask the right questions
Ali maneuvered Foreman so that Ali had the best chance of making an impact in the fight. As Christians, we’ve also got to learn to direct our conversations in such a way as to have the greatest impact. All of us are constantly involved in daily conversations and interactions with our friends, coworkers and family. These are great opportunities to share those areas of your life that may prompt people to ask, “Why?”

That's true.  When I look at your Christian ministry and your books, I ask "why doesn't this guy respond directly to those with the most potential to kill his book sales?

We typically engage in conversations about the mundane aspects of our culture; we often avoid religious or political conversations. But by simply sharing the activities of our own lives, our efforts to serve those around us, our struggles that have been assisted by the hope we have in Christ and in the next life, we will create opportunities by ‘teasing’ out the questions all of us hold about life, death and purpose.

there is no biblical support for any such "teasing".  Jude 3 characterizes apologetics are needing to be done by "earnest contention".

We need to share honestly but strategically,

Yeah, because if you share via improper strategy, the creator of the universe, who is otherwise able to cause unbelievers to do whatever he wants by tractor beam from outer space (Ezra 1:1) won't be able to do his job as well as he'd like.

and then be patient to wait for their questions. By doing this, we can actually guide the conversation into the places where we can have the most eternal impact.
 “Responsive Christians” are prepared to answer people’s questions
When the opportunity presented itself, Ali made the most of it. As Christians, we will have similar opportunities.

You also have an opportunity to debate me any place, any time, on any subject of your choice, as well as respond to my blog-based criticisms.

This is perhaps the most challenging aspect of our lives as “Responsive Christians”. We need to be prepared. It’s seems odd to me that we have no hesitancy about preparing for school tests, work assignments, or even our next vacation. Why don’t we, then, understand the importance of preparing for our next contact with a non-believer?

Maybe because Christianity is a false religion, therefore, the vast majority of people who hold to it, having no basis to exhibit spiritual maturity, thus show no more spiritual maturity than the mental maturity that usually takes place for the purely naturalistic reason of aging?

It’s impossible for us to live as “Responsive Christians” if we aren’t even prepared with a response. Most of ColdCaseChristianity.com has been assembled to help you prepare yourself in the one area of Christian evangelism each and every one of us is called to embrace: Christian Case Making.

What bible version characterizes evangelism as Christian Case Making?  The J. Warner Wallace edition?

Peter provided us with a calling and a strategy: “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you…”  Let’s take the time to prepare ourselves, live a life that causes people to ask questions, go where people already have questions, and help people ask the right questions.

Jesus also promised to return within the lifetimes of his original disciples (Matthew 16:28), you cannot cite the Mt. of Transfiguration as any type of fulfillment since the Transfiguration event did not involve Jesus in rewarding every man according to his works (v. 28), and you cannot find any relief in preterism, which says the return of Jesus would be invisible and spiritual, because Acts 1:11 makes perfectly clear that Jesus' second coming would take place in the same manner that the disciples watched him go into heaven.

27 "For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and WILL THEN REPAY EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS (didn't happen at the Transfiguration).
28 "Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom." (Matt. 16:27-28 NAU)

Here's the Play-With-Words-and-Make-God-Say-Anything-You-Want translation of 16:28

28 "Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man on the Mt. of Transfiguration."

11 They also said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven." (Acts 1:11 NAU)

So at best, Peter did not expect his epistle to be read by Christians thousands of years later still waiting for Jesus to come back.

Thanks, Wallace, for your improper analogies to boxing rings and how much Christians should be willing to step in the ring.   You know perfectly well that your stuff is not convincing to those who specialize in bible criticism, including credentiled bible scholars and not just hobbyists like me...yet you never "step in the ring" with your greatest opponents.  Doesn't the Westminster Confession say that chief end of Man is to promote sales through marketing gimmicks?

Cold Case Christianity: purchase my marketing gimmicks, or the Holy Spirit won't do his job

J. Warner Wallace absurdly counsels other Christians on how modern American rules of evidence can "prepare" a person to hear the case for Christ.

Cold Case Christianity: How the Rules of Evidence Can Ready Evangelism – Part 1 (Cold Case Christianity Broadcast #100)

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How the Rules of Evidence Can Ready Evangelism – Part 1 (Cold Case Christianity Broadcast #100) Posted: 28 Dec 2017 01:56 AM PST In this episode of the Cold-Case Christianity Broadcast, J. Warner continues to discuss the practices and principles of good investigators and applies these techniques to the Christian worldview. When juries are asked to evaluate a case, they are instructed in the rules of evidence. In this episode, J. Warner discusses three important evidence instructions: 1. The fact the other side can make a case doesn’t mean it’s true, 2. Everything has the potential to be used as evidence, and 3. Whoever makes the claim, has the burden of proof. J. Warner demonstrates how a proper understanding of these rules can help you prepare people to hear the case for Christianity. This approach is described in more detail inForensic Faith: A Homicide Detective Makes the Case for a More Reasonable, Evidential Christian Faith. Be sure to check out Forensic Faith and the accompanying curriculum. Be sure to watch the Cold-Case Christianity Broadcast on NRBtv every Monday and Saturday! In addition, here is the audio podcast (the Cold-Case Christianity Weekly Podcast is located on iTunes or our RSS Feed):

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Gee, Wallace, you wouldn't think the Holy Spirit needs human beings to help him do his job, do you?

If the Holy Spirit is to be solely credited with convicting sinners, and if the Holy Spirit really is the "third person of the trinity", then it would seem that merely quoting the NT to unbelievers would be sufficient, under NT principles, to discharge your obligation to present the gospel.

But no, the way you argue, its as if there's no Holy Spirit at all; if Christians don't purchase your marketing gimmicks and employ the standard persuasion tactics of secular institutions that you also apparently approve of, unbelievers won't be clobbered as strongly as they otherwise could be.

Cold Case Christianity: Why Is It So Important for Young Christians to Be Able to Defend Christianity?

This is my reply to a video by J. Warner Wallace entitled

Why Is It So Important for Young Christians to Be Able to Defend Christianity? (Video) Posted: 17 Oct 2017 01:47 AM PDT

Wendy Griffith interviews J. Warner Wallace on the 700 Club and asks why it’s so important for the current generation of Christian believers to be prepared to give the reason for the hope they have in Jesus. More young people are walking away from the Church than ever before.

Gee, that couldn't have any relation to the fact that Christian apologetics arguments are unpersuasive, could it?  If Wallace is so sure his apologetics arguments are solid and convincing, why is he so deathly afraid of engaging in a real-time debate with informed atheist bible critics?  Is he aware, as an expert in marketing, that the less you subject your sales pitch to the criticisms of the other side, the more chance you have of the typical average person purchasing your product?

Gee, that couldn't possibly be it, could it?

What can we do, as older believers, to address the problem?

Maybe quit acting like God is just a higher Corporate executive who orders you to solve problems but never himself gets involved?  Maybe act in a way that shows you often step out of the way and let God do God's part?  Because from the looks of it, your claim that God does his part appears to be utterly gratuitous, the ONLY basis upon which a kid in the church grows up, makes less immature decisions, and memorizes more bible and apologetics arguments, is straight purely naturalistic learning.  What you call "spiritual growth" appears to be nothing more than the naturalistic learning and aging, with the attendant effects of such, of the person alleged to be growing spiritually.

Would you say the 50 year old atheist, who naturally doesn't wish to commit fornicatio as much as he did back in his 20's, has "grown spiritually"?  Then how can you be so sure that when young people grow up in the church, their similar pattern of growth is rooted in the invisible world?

If you think the Christian solution to the problem need involve anything more than quoting the bible and limiting your spiritual studies to just the bible, I'm afraid you'll just look like you are using Christianity to sell your absurdly unconvincing apologetics materials.  Gee, how did God sufficiently guide the church in matters of apologetics for 20 centuries when nobody could purchase your forensic faith crap?

All believers must recognize their duty and train themselves to develop a more reasonable, evidential faith, as described in the book, Forensic Faith: A Homicide Detective Makes the Case for a More Reasonable, Evidential Christian Faith.

That's what I thought, you dishonest greedy salesman.  Christianity just couldn't survive unless people purchased your products, amen?

Take some advice from a spiritually dead atheist whom you believe willfully rebels against the truth:

The bible is sufficient for faith and practice.  Now go google the dictionary definition of "sufficient".

Under your reasoning, saying the bible is sufficient for faith and practice is like saying water is "sufficient" nutrition for a baby.  Perhaps you should be honest, and just come right on out and bluntly admit that if people never purchase your forensic faith materials and instead rely on the bible alone as their source of Christian instruction, they won't be growing spiritually as efficiently as they might.

Why can't you just admit what logically follows from your marketing gimmicks?

Warner at video time code 0:40 ff says the resurrection of Jesus in the first century "stands up against all evidential scrutiny".  It doesn't matter if that is his sincere opinion, he would have been more aligned with "truth" and more objective to say that he disagrees with the Christian scholars who view the resurrection of Jesus differently from him (i.e., they deny the bodily nature of the resurrection, or they think it is something that cannot be proven, etc),  Clearly, Wallace is more interested in one-sided marketing here than he is in telling the view about the reality of the situation.

Wallace absolutely refuses to have any serious scholarly online or live debates with informed skeptics.  So do Benny Hinn, James Patrick Holding and many other "Christians" who do a lot of yammering and not a lot of actual interaction with skeptics themselves.

Gee, what are the odds that Wallace runs away from those atheist debate challenges because he is afraid he'll win?

I don't think so.

Wallace at time code 0:50 ff says "young people are leaving the church in record numbers".

Maybe he should consider a) that's not a problem because those who leave the Church aren't true Christians in the first place, or b) true Christians leave because i) eternal security is not true and ii) modern Christian apologetics arguments simply aren't convincing to those who give every appearance of being authentically born again, or maybe even iii) eternal security is true, and the reason so many true Christians leave the church is because the "church" of America is cursed with consumerism and materialism.

J. Warner Wallace would be a good example of a church leader who cares more about marketing his products, than much else.  In his opinion, God could not think of any way to sufficiently induce the spiritual growth of Christians for 20 centuries, then breathed a hurricane sigh of relief when Wallace started up this "God's Crime Scene" marketing gimmickry.

Cold Case Christianity: Why You Don't Have a Duty to Be A Christian Case Maker

This is my reply to a video by J. Warner Wallace entitled

Why You Have a Duty to Be A Christian Case Maker (Video)

Posted: 03 Oct 2017 01:32 AM PDT

Aaron Klemm from Summit Ministries in Colorado talks with J. Warner Wallace about the evidential nature of Christianity in this edition of the Summit Forum. J. Warner describes why every Christian has a duty to make the case for what he or she believes. For more information about the incredible two-week worldview conferences offered by Summit Ministries (J. Warner is a member of the faculty there), please visit the Summit website. To sign up for the next Summit Forum, visit the Forum Page at Summit Worldview Conference.

Some would argue that it is not by reason of coincidence that Wallace's position here just happens to also work toward the goal of convincing you to purchase his gimmicks.

First, Jesus never taught that all of his followers have to go around making the case for the gospel, or disproving the objections of critics, and we see nothing of the sort in any of the 4 gospels.  Yes, Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for falsely interpreting the scriptures and for being hypocrites, but while the same can be safely inferred about first century pagans, nobody in the gospels is bothering to refute and rebuke the pagan criticisms of Jesus or his beliefs.

Second, Jesus charged his followers to teach the Gentiles to obey his original teachings, Matthew 28:20.  You can do that quite easily without needing to defend your beliefs from skeptical attacks.  Most Catholic and Protestant churches teach Jesus' stuff to billions of people every year without explaining how it is that some skeptical attack is faulty.

Third, Jesus charged his immediate followers to be his "witnesses", Acts 1:8, and according to the context, to be Jesus' witness meant to preach the gospel and declare that one had seen the risen Christ for oneself, it did not require one to study the arguments of the gainsayers and provide any type of informed rebuttal remarks, Acts 2:32,  3:15,  5:31, 10:39, etc.  The choice of Paul and others to get into long debates with Christianity's most obvious critics, the orthodox Jews (Acts 18:4), Apollos refuting the Jews in public (18:8) and Paul disputing with pagan critics (Tyrannus, Acts 19:9), only shows what was true about them, it does not provide a contetxual basis for taking the "witnesses to me" in 1:8 as requiring all Christians to conduct their witness the exact same way the men most focused on in the NT happened to do t.

Fourth, anything found in the pastorals is written to church leaders.  So the exhortion for Timothy to reprove and rebuke others (2nd Tim. 4:1ff) is made to a Christian leader, leaving open sufficient room to legitimately dispute whether all that is required of leaders is required of the laity.

Fifth, nothing in the context of 2nd Timothy 4 requires that Timothy know about the arguments of unbelievers/critics and to rebut them on the merits.  In the immediate context, everybody worthy of reproof or rebuttal would be a church-member.

Sixth, Paul characterizes Timothy's need to reprove and rebuke with all patience and teaching, as the work of an "evangelist" (4:5), but Paul also believed there were different types of ministry work:

 4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit.
 5 And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord.
 6 There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons.
 7 But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
 8 For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit;
 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit,
 10 and to another the effecting of miracles, and to another prophecy, and to another the distinguishing of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues.
 11 But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills. (1 Cor. 12:4-11 NAU)

And in the same chapter Paul denied that individual Christians had a duty to manifest each of the different ministry styles:

 27 Now you are Christ's body, and individually members of it.
 28 And God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues.
 29 All are not apostles, are they? All are not prophets, are they? All are not teachers, are they? All are not workers of miracles, are they?
 30 All do not have gifts of healings, do they? All do not speak with tongues, do they? All do not interpret, do they?
 31 But earnestly desire the greater gifts. And I show you a still more excellent way. (1 Cor. 12:27-31 NAU) 

Seventh, Paul's admission that he tears down speculations and anything which exalts itself against the knowledge of God (2nd Cor. 10:5) arises from an immediate context that makes it clear he is limiting his remarks to issues of church discipline (v. 6-8).

Eighth, Jude's famous remark in v. 3 about contending earnestly for the faith, is made in a context of a complaint that many false teachers/converts have entered the fold and corrupted it (v. 4, 12), these were people who caused church divisions (v. 19).  Jude 3 is not authorization to spend your money on scholarly books refuting Christianity so you can be prepared to answer informed criticisms.

Ninth, Peter's famous remark that Christians should be ready always to give a defense to everyone who asks a reason for the Christian hope, and to do so with gentleness and respect (1st Peter 3:15) likely has reference to defending the faith to outsiders, but even so, one can make a defense without needing to reply to the rebuttal materials submitted by the gainsayers.  And in context, it is a defense to those who ask a reason for the hope that lies within you...so those who think this also applies even in cases where the unbeliever hasn't asked a reason for the hope that lies within you, are the ones who have the burden of proof to show this more broad interpretation is what Peter meant.

While one might be justified to say the bible allows for Christians to be case-makers if they so chose, there is certainly nothing in the bible that places a "duty" upon them to minister this way.

Hence, Wallace's subtle intent to make Christians believe they have a "duty" to purchase his marketing gimmicks, fails.

Cold Case Christianity: Are There “Limits” to God’s Power? Yes, if the bible has anything to say about it

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

Are There “Limits” to God’s Power?

Posted: 27 Sep 2017 01:13 AM PDT 

285Christians claim God is “all-powerful”. Does this mean He can accomplish anything?

When Jesus answered that question the answer was "yes" and no exceptions were expressed or implied:

 26 And looking at them Jesus said to them, "With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." (Matt. 19:26 NAU)

Are unbelievers morally obligated to know enough about the bible to recognize that when God himself teaches people on earth  in the person of Jesus, he sometimes employs typical Semitic exaggeration?  If Jesus was exaggerating here when giving his exception-less statement that with God all things are possible, where else might he have been exaggerating?  Maybe in his statement that whoever doesn't support him, opposes him (Matthew 12:30)?

Skeptics often test this notion by offering the following challenge: “Can the all-powerful Christian God create a stone so heavy he cannot lift it?” The question highlights an apparent dilemma: If God cannot create such a stone (or cannot lift what He has created), He is not all-powerful. Does this apparent paradox prove an all-powerful Being cannot exist in the first place?

Yes.  We are capable of creating an object we cannot lift, so the challenge is not a deceptive sophistry or trifle.  So if God cannot create a rock so heavy that he can't lift it, then there is indeed at least one act that, while being a logical possibility, is an act God is nevertheless incapable of doing, at which point the cherished doctrine of God's full omnipotence is refuted.

It’s true the Bible describes God as an all-powerful Being and often uses language that suggests that “nothing” is impossible for Him (as in Luke 1:37).

And if Paul Copan and Matthew Flanagan are correct when they argue in their "Did God Really Command Genocide?" book that God himself sometimes employs exaggeration, then we have to wonder how many other times a biblical author is employing exaggeration-rhetoric when describing some attribute or act of God, and what degree of potential death-blow this poses for traditional biblical proofs for classical theism.

At the same time, there are many places in Scripture where certain behaviors or conditions are described as “impossible” for God to accomplish. This apparent contradiction is inexplicable until we examine the nature of the activities (or behaviors) described as “impossible” for God:
 Moral “Impossibilities”
The Bible clearly indicates there are many things that God cannot do. Most of these are “moral” in nature. For example, it is impossible for God to sin (James 1:13). According to the Bible, God always acts and behaves with certain moral considerations in mind and it is impossible for Him to do otherwise. Our moral laws are not simply the decrees of God (as if He could have chosen otherwise) but are, instead, a reflection of his unchanging moral nature. God cannot violate His nature. For this reason, it is impossible for God to sin.

Some would argue that God sins whenever he either a) makes good on his promise to cause women to be raped, or b) takes "delight" in causing women to be raped:

15 "But it shall come about, if you do not obey the LORD your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I charge you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:
 16 "Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country.
 30 "You shall betroth a wife, but another man will violate her; you shall build a house, but you will not live in it; you shall plant a vineyard, but you will not use its fruit.
 63 "It shall come about that as the LORD delighted over you to prosper you, and multiply you, so the LORD will delight over you to make you perish and destroy you; and you will be torn from the land where you are entering to possess it. (Deut. 28:15-63 NAU)

If your basis for exempting God from sin despite his doing acts that are "sin" for human beings, is blind reliance on the biblical statements that god cannot sin, then your basis for saying God is all-good, is not reality or the merits of his character, but sheer word definitions.  Asking you to consider that God might sin is like asking the dictionary to consider that good might be the proper definition of evil.  You have DEFINED God as necessarily good, and you fallaciously view that conclusion as some untouchable icon.  Well guess what...you being a sinner means ANYTHING you believe could possibly be false.  And who doesn't know that Christians disagree with each other on almost every biblical subject.

Stop pretending your classical theist beliefs are foregone conclusions, unless you admit you are only interested in helping other classical theists feel better, in which case you are hardly doing "apologetics".

The person who would give two shits for any fundamentalist Christian attempt to classify God's causing rape to be a morally "good" thing, would be other fundamentalist Christians.  The rest of us keep our cell phones at the ready, waiting to call the police on you should you ever come within 500 feet of us.

Logical “Impossibilities”
The Bible also clearly indicates that there are a number of things that God cannot accomplish based on logical necessity. For example, it is impossible for God to change (Malachi 3:6, James 1:17) or to deny himself (2 Timothy 2:13).

God changes often enough.  He changes his mind in Genesis and in 1st Samuel 15, despite the claim in Numbers 23:19 that he doesn't change his mind:

 19 "God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good? (Num. 23:19 NAU)

 5 Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
 6 The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.
 7 The LORD said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them."
 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. (Gen. 6:5-8 NAU) 

 9 The LORD said to Moses, "I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people.
 10 "Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation."
 11 Then Moses entreated the LORD his God, and said, "O LORD, why does Your anger burn against Your people whom You have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?
 12 "Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, 'With evil intent He brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth '? Turn from Your burning anger and change Your mind about doing harm to Your people.
 13 "Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants to whom You swore by Yourself, and said to them, 'I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens, and all this land of which I have spoken I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'"
 14 So the LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people.   (Exod. 32:9-14 NAU) 

 28 So Samuel said to him, "The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to your neighbor, who is better than you.
 29 "Also the Glory of Israel will not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind."
 30 Then he said, "I have sinned; but please honor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel, and go back with me, that I may worship the LORD your God."
 31 So Samuel went back following Saul, and Saul worshiped the LORD.
 32 Then Samuel said, "Bring me Agag, the king of the Amalekites." And Agag came to him cheerfully. And Agag said, "Surely the bitterness of death is past."
 33 But Samuel said, "As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women." And Samuel hewed Agag to pieces before the LORD at Gilgal.
 34 Then Samuel went to Ramah, but Saul went up to his house at Gibeah of Saul.
 35 Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death; for Samuel grieved over Saul. And the LORD regretted that He had made Saul king over Israel. (1 Sam. 15:28-35 NAU)

You do not say these are anthropomorphisms due to any concern about the grammar, context, genre or other any objective criteria of hermeneutics, you say they are anthropomorphisms solely because that excuse is the only artifice you can employ to avoid the conclusion that the bible contradicts itself.  But you don't have the first clue whether the originally intended ancient Hebrew audience, having no "bible inerrancy" baggage to worry about defending, would have accepted God's regret in Genesis 6:6 as a literally true statement about their god.

Your fanatical devotion to bible inerrancy is greater than your willingness to interpret bible texts consistent with their immediate contexts.  If the bible had said in the originals that 2+2=5...

Wallace continues:

According to the Bible, God always acts and behaves with certain logical considerations in mind and it is impossible for Him to do otherwise. The laws of logic are, once again, a reflection of God’s unchanging nature.
 These “Divine Impossibilities” provide us with insight into God’s character and power. Objective moral truths and transcendent laws of logic are simply a reflection of God’s eternal being.

There are biblical exceptions to all moral laws of God in the bible.  Don't believe me?  Take your best shot.  Or decide that ignoring the challenge will likely help keep sales of your gimmicks going at a profitable rate.

They are not rules or laws God has created (and could therefore alter recklessly), but are instead immutable, dependable qualities of his nature reflected in our universe.

So because keeping holy the Sabbath day originally required killing anybody who dared to engage in work on the Sabbath day (Numbers 15:32 ff), God's eternal unchangeable objective morals require that this moral truth be observed today in the exact same way.  The more you talk about how Jesus showed us the liberal truth about working on the Sabbath day, the more reason you give us to believe the original death-sentence for Sabbath day work was improper and immoral.

Sorry, but most of God's "absolute" morals are contained in the Mosaic Law or first covenant, and the NT is clear that these things of God were becoming obsolete even in the 1st century, and were ready, even back then, to vanish away, which is the exact opposite of your lauding God's morals as eternal unchangeable objective truths.  And the NT specifies that it was God himself who made his first covenant obsolete, making him not much different from a sinner whose morals change throughout their life:

 13 When He said, "A new covenant," He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear. (Heb. 8:13 NAU)

Wallace continues:

They exist because God exists (not because God created them).

Then the moral of God (i.e., that those who work on the Sabbath be killed (Numbers 15:35)) only exists because God exists, not because God created that law.  So unless you wish to argue God doesn't exist, this rather harsh objective moral of God still applies today in all the full stern way it did originally, that is, if you wish to accord the least bit of meaning to your belief that God's morals are eternal and unchangeable.

Some would argue that first requiring the death penalty for an act, then later refusing to enforce that death penalty in appropriate cases, constitutes a change in morals even if not a change in law.

In addition, the Bible describes God as omnipotent and capable of doing anything he sets out to do.

It also says God sometimes fails to achieve what he wished to achieve, such as his desire to give Judah battle victory, but could not in the case of particular enemies because they had chariots of iron:

 16 The descendants of the Kenite, Moses' father-in-law, went up from the city of palms with the sons of Judah, to the wilderness of Judah which is in the south of Arad; and they went and lived with the people.
 17 Then Judah went with Simeon his brother, and they struck the Canaanites living in Zephath, and utterly destroyed it. So the name of the city was called Hormah.
 18 And Judah took Gaza with its territory and Ashkelon with its territory and Ekron with its territory.
 19 Now the LORD was with Judah, and they took possession of the hill country; but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had iron chariots.
 20 Then they gave Hebron to Caleb, as Moses had promised; and he drove out from there the three sons of Anak.
 21 But the sons of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who lived in Jerusalem; so the Jebusites have lived with the sons of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day.    (Jdg. 1:16-21 NAU)

Evangelical Christian scholars who accept biblical inerrancy are unable to explain how iron chariots could hold back the sovereign intent of God for Judah to win that battle, except to speculate that "presumably" Judah must have lost its nerve at that point in the battle...despite the fact that the biblical text provides the reason God's hand did not prevail...it was because the enemies he was fighting had iron chariots: 

 In our text (v. 18a) the narrator explicitly attributes Judah’s successes in the hill country not to equivalent military power but to the presence of Yahweh. Then why could they not take the lowland? Why is Yahweh’s presence canceled by superior military technology? The narrator does not say, but presumably the Judahites experienced a failure of nerve at this point, or they were satisfied with their past achievements.

Block, D. I. (2001, c1999). Vol. 6: Judges, Ruth (electronic ed.).

Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 100).

Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

Keil & Delitzsch, ultra-conservative in their Christanity and theology, comment on this verse but carefully avoid discussing why the iron chariot held back the sovereign hand of god.

Wallace continues:

God’s choices, however, are always consistent with His moral and logical nature; He never sets out to do something contrary to who He is as God.

Which can only mean that when God causes rape and parental cannibalism (Deut. 28:30, 53), takes "delight" to inflict such ravages (v. 63), causes unbelievers to brutally slaughter Hebrew children and forces women to endure abortion-by-sword (Hosea 13:15-16), this is consistent with the notion that God is always "good".

!?

Do ya think there might be the slightest chance that J. Warner Wallace's interest in biblical inerrancy ultimately rests on something other than sincere genuine persuasion that this doctrine is true?

One has to wonder: if God is good despite causing such atrocities, what worse type of evil would God have to cause before conservative Christian inerrantists would change their mind and start saying the god of the bible isn't as good as the bible says?.

What could possibly be worse than hacking children and babies to death as the mother's arms are amputated by sword and she shrieks hysterically in her fruitless efforts to protect them?

Maybe refusing to purchase your forensic faith gimmicks would be a worse sin?   If you can justify slaughter of women and children as described above, there's every chance you'd seriously believe a person's refusal to purchase your materials is a sin.

When someone asks, “Can the all-powerful Christian God create a stone so heavy he cannot lift it?” they are asking a logically incoherent question. It is the equivalent of asking, “Can God create a ‘square circle’?”

No, as explained above, because human beings can create an object so heavy they cannot lift it (for example, creating a steel beam that weighs 4 tons), then the question is no more illogical than

"Can a human create an object so heavy that she can't lift it?"

Since the question is legitimate and can be legitimately and correctly answered "yes", the question will remain perfectly logical and legitimate regardless of whoever happens to the actual person named in the challenge:

"Can Bill create an object so heavy that she can't lift it?"  YES
"Can Susan create an object so heavy that she can't lift it?"  YES
"Can William Lane Craig create an object so heavy that she can't lift it?"  YES
"Can J. Warner Wallace create an object so heavy that she can't lift it?"  YES
"Can God create an object so heavy that she can't lift it?"  YES

So then, there is one logically legitimate action that God cannot do, therefore, he is not all-powerful.

There is nothing illogical about sinning, otherwise you'd have to say humans cannot sin, so if God cannot sin, there's another act within the realm of the logically possible, that he cannot do: sin.

However, the notion that God cannot sin constitutes nothing but willful salivating blindness on the part of biblical authors and the modern Christians who swallow such garbage hook, line and sinker, as has been demonstrated from Deut. 28:63 (supra) and as will be demonstrated from Ezekiel 38-39 (infra).

Circles and squares are mutually exclusive by their very definition. As a result, the question nonsensically queries the creation of something similarly nonsensical.

Then human beings must be more powerful than God, because under your logic, the examples I just gave must then indicate human beings can achieve the logically impossible.

God cannot create square circles for the same reason He cannot sin; He acts dependably in a manner consistent with His moral and logical nature, and our universe is the beneficiary of God’s dependable nature.

And nothing about this changes when he forces people to sin and then punishes them for acting the way he forced them to act, such as is taught explicitly in Ezekiel 38:4 through ch. 39.

God forces the future armies of "gog and magog" to attack Israel, describing the force with the metaphor of "hook in your jaws", which is clearly the wrong mental image for the person who thinks God always respects human freewill:

 1 And the word of the LORD came to me saying,
 2 "Son of man, set your face toward Gog of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him
 3 and say, 'Thus says the Lord GOD, "Behold, I am against you, O Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal.
 4 "I will turn you about and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you out, and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them splendidly attired, a great company with buckler and shield, all of them wielding swords;
 5 Persia, Ethiopia and Put with them, all of them with shield and helmet;
 6 Gomer with all its troops; Beth-togarmah from the remote parts of the north with all its troops-- many peoples with you.
 7 "Be prepared, and prepare yourself, you and all your companies that are assembled about you, and be a guard for them.
 8 "After many days you will be summoned; in the latter years you will come into the land that is restored from the sword, whose inhabitants have been gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel which had been a continual waste; but its people were brought out from the nations, and they are living securely, all of them.
 9 "You will go up, you will come like a storm; you will be like a cloud covering the land, you and all your troops, and many peoples with you." (Ezek. 38:1-9 NAU)
 16 and you will come up against My people Israel like a cloud to cover the land. It shall come about in the last days that I will bring you against My land, so that the nations may know Me when I am sanctified through you before their eyes, O Gog."
 17 'Thus says the Lord GOD, "Are you the one of whom I spoke in former days through My servants the prophets of Israel, who prophesied in those days for many years that I would bring you against them? 18 "It will come about on that day, when Gog comes against the land of Israel," declares the Lord GOD, "that My fury will mount up in My anger.
 19 "In My zeal and in My blazing wrath I declare that on that day there will surely be a great earthquake in the land of Israel.
 20 "The fish of the sea, the birds of the heavens, the beasts of the field, all the creeping things that creep on the earth, and all the men who are on the face of the earth will shake at My presence; the mountains also will be thrown down, the steep pathways will collapse and every wall will fall to the ground.
 21 "I will call for a sword against him on all My mountains," declares the Lord GOD. "Every man's sword will be against his brother.
 22 "With pestilence and with blood I will enter into judgment with him; and I will rain on him and on his troops, and on the many peoples who are with him, a torrential rain, with hailstones, fire and brimstone.
 23 "I will magnify Myself, sanctify Myself, and make Myself known in the sight of many nations; and they will know that I am the LORD."' (Ezek. 38:16-23 NAU)
Ezekiel 39:1 "And you, son of man, prophesy against Gog and say, 'Thus says the Lord GOD, "Behold, I am against you, O Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal;
 2 and I will turn you around, drive you on, take you up from the remotest parts of the north and bring you against the mountains of Israel. (Ezek. 39:1-2 NAU)

After these future armies are forced by God to be the means by which God punishes Israel, supra, then God will punish these future armies for the attacks on Israel which God had forced them to engage in:

 3 "I will strike your bow from your left hand and dash down your arrows from your right hand.
 4 "You will fall on the mountains of Israel, you and all your troops and the peoples who are with you; I will give you as food to every kind of predatory bird and beast of the field.
 5 "You will fall on the open field; for it is I who have spoken," declares the Lord GOD.
 6 "And I will send fire upon Magog and those who inhabit the coastlands in safety; and they will know that I am the LORD. (Ezek. 39:3-6 NAU)

Sorry Wallace, but you need to learn some basic English.  "preaching to the choir" does not constitute "apologetics", and certainly doesn't equip your audience to do anything more than get slaughtered, should they dare choose to take your stuff and use it to confront an atheist knowledgeable of the bible, as I am.

Cold Case Christianity: Why Doesn’t God Reform People Rather Than Punish Them in Hell?

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

Why Doesn’t God Reform People Rather Than Punish Them in Hell?

Posted: 01 Sep 2017 01:00 AM PDT

 258Some struggle to understand how a loving God could create a place like Hell.

Your spiritually alive brothers and sisters called 5-Point Calvinists don't.  They believe God secretly wills the teenager to steal a candy bar while telling her through the bible "thou shalt not steal".  That is, they believe God causes people to sin.  Apparently, your bible is not quite as clear on the "Christian" answer to the problem of hell, as you pretend it is.  So unless you claim all 5-Point Calvinist Christians aren't truly born again, spiritual deadness cannot be the reason somebody thinks your brand of Christianity is total bullshit.

And the fundamentalists who struggle with how a loving god could create a place like hell probably struggle because they haven't seriously considered the arguments of the liberal Christian scholars who do a fine job showing that hell "fire" in the NT is mere metaphor.  Also they probably struggle with the question since if Deuteronomy 28:30, 63 be true, their "loving" God takes just as much delight in causing women to be raped as he takes in causing prosperity to others.  I recommend that fundie Christians first make sure the biblical portrayal of God is consistent, before they start asking the larger questions. 

Either way, viewing the bible as the inerrant word of God does not appear to generate any more positive change in life than when one starts believing the Book of Mormon is the word of God. 

 Others, while understanding and accepting the relationship between mercy and justice, freedom and consequence, victory and punishment, still imagine a better way. If God is all-loving, why doesn’t He simply “reform” people rather than allow them to continue in their sin and eventually punish them in Hell? Even human prison systems understand the value of reform; isn’t a God who punishes his children in Hell a sadistic and vengeful God?

Isn't your God vengeful and sadistic for not only causing women to be raped (Deut. 28:30) but in taking "delight" to see this happen (v. 63)?

We expect that a loving God would care enough about us to offer a chance to change rather than simply punish us vindictively for something we’ve done in the past.

Then you apparently never read Romans 9, where Paul pushes the analogy of God/potter sinner/clay to such an extreme that concerns about freewill are preempted:

 18 So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.
 19 You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?"
 20 On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, "Why did you make me like this," will it?
 21 Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? (Rom. 9:18-21 NAU)

Which marketing strategy makes more money?  Providing the proper interpretation of Romans 9 to a modern audience who think human freewill is a foregone conclusion?  Or providing arguments about God's respect for human freewill, to a modern audience who think human freewill is a foregone conclusion?

As it turns out, God (as he is described in the Bible) understands the difference between discipline and punishment,

Yes, for example, his causing sickness and suffering to a baby born to David and Bathsheba, so that the child suffered several days before finally dying.  God causing babies to suffer when he can just instantly take their souls with no suffering, is the god you serve: 

2nd Samuel 12:11-18
10 'Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.'
 11 "Thus says the LORD, 'Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household; I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight.
 12 'Indeed you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and under the sun.'"
 13 Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." And Nathan said to David, "The LORD also has taken away your sin; you shall not die.
 14 "However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die."
 15 So Nathan went to his house. Then the LORD struck the child that Uriah's widow bore to David, so that he was very sick.
 16 David therefore inquired of God for the child; and David fasted and went and lay all night on the ground.
 17 The elders of his household stood beside him in order to raise him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat food with them.
 18 Then it happened on the seventh day that the child died. And the servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, "Behold, while the child was still alive, we spoke to him and he did not listen to our voice. How then can we tell him that the child is dead, since he might do himself harm!"
 

Oh, did I forget?  God did this to the baby despite telling David that David's sin had been put away, see last clause of v. 13.   The lesson we learn here is that even if God himself tells you that your sin of adultery has been "put away", that does not prevent God from punishing you and your children for it anyway.

Oh yeah, the bible god sure does know the different between suffering and punishment.

and He is incredibly patient with us,

Which is rather stupid given that if God is smarter than a con artist, he can quickly convince us, without violating our freewill, that Christianity is true, and any need for patience will be foreclosed.  Even if you read divine respect for human freewill into Ezekiel 38:4, still, the whole idea that god is like a best friend who is trying to convince you of the error of your ways, is childish and unrealistic.  If God really wanted you to do something, he could infallibly cause it to come to pass, whether to make you sin or do good.  Notice what God says about two future armies, gog and magog, through Ezekiel.  You'd think they were nothing but puppets on strings in God's hands:

 3 and say, 'Thus says the Lord GOD, "Behold, I am against you, O Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal.
 4 "I will turn you about and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you out, and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them splendidly attired, a great company with buckler and shield, all of them wielding swords; (Ezek. 38:3-4 NAU)

It doesn't matter if this is mere metaphor, which it is:  the metaphor still puts images in your mind of God forcing other people to sin or do whatever he wants them to do, images that are wholly inconsistent with your childish pandering to modern society's individualist cult mentality that says God respects our freewill.

But it was never any secret that you are doing Christianity mostly because of the money you can make convincing people that God wasn't able in the past to do as much as he wished until you came along with your "forensic faith" marketing gimmick.

And if God is eternal, than his attributes will be eternal as must logically be the case in any other situation, which means his attribute of patience is no less eternal than his attribute of love.  Feel free to trifle that an infinite being his a finite trait all because the bible presents him that way, but remember that you only sound convincing to your religious fanatic friends, nobody else.   But that assumes you care about being wrong, when in fact it is clear you are more concerned with making money off of Christianity than you are in being correct

allowing us an entire lifetime to change our minds and reform our lives.

Not true, plenty of children die less than year after they reached the age of accountability, whatever you think that age is.  Only a fool makes the generalized statement that God allows people a lifetime to change.

This is easier to understand when we think carefully about the definitions of “discipline” and “punishment”:

Discipline Looks Forward

All of us understand the occasional necessity of disciplining our children. When we discipline, we are motivated by love rather than vengeance.

That might be the politically correct party line, but the truth is some parents discipline their devil-children out of sheer exasperation, and desire to see the child suffer punishment and discipline at the same time.

We hope to change the future behavior of our kids by nudging them in a new direction with a little discomfort.

Most modern Christians think the the biblical model of beating kids with rods constitutes something more than a "nudge":

NAU Prov. 22:15  Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of discipline will remove it far from him.
 13 Do not hold back discipline from the child, Although you strike him with the rod, he will not die.
NAU Prov. 29:15  The rod and reproof give wisdom, But a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother.

Wallace continues:

God also loves His children in this way and allows them the opportunity to reform under his discipline.

Which makes no sense once you remember that kids die at all ages all the time, and therefore, their dying shortly after the age of accountability occurs statistically just as often as kids dying in any other age-group.  Your generalization is too hasty, you wouldn't be talking that way to a Christian family who just lost their rebellious 9 year old daughter in a bus accident.  You'd have to tell them you believe that since he lived past the age of accountability and still wasn't a Christian, she is in hell right now...and that means you won't be achieving record sales of your books in her town any time soon.

This takes place during our mortal lifetime; God disciplines those He loves in this life because He is concerned with eternity.

Then he is stupid, because he has an infallible way of making sure they avoid hell:  killing them within a month after they are born.  If aborted babies go to heaven by default, then you need to remember infant death brings eternal good, as you sob about how abortion "kills".  And abortions doctors cannot do any wrong:  when they abort a baby, God takes the credit, because God takes personal responsibility for all murder:

 39 'See now that I, I am He, And there is no god besides Me; It is I who put to death and give life. I have wounded and it is I who heal, And there is no one who can deliver from My hand. (Deut. 32:39 NAU)

Discipline, by its very definition, is “forward-looking” and must therefore occur in this world with an eye toward our eternal destiny:

Hebrews 12:9-11

Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

Punishment Looks Backward

There are times as a parent, however, when our loving efforts to discipline and reform are unsuccessful; our kids are sometimes rebellious to the point of exhaustion. In these times, our love requires us to deliver on our repeated warnings. Our loving sense of justice requires us to be firm, even when it hurts us to do so.

yeah, but you would never cause your rebellious teen daughter to be raped just because she is rebellious...but God causes women to be raped, and takes "delight" in this, in Deut. 28:30, 63.  So your attempted analogy to human instances fails miserably, your God's ways are too extreme to permit analogy to any human instance, except perhaps deranged lunatics.

Our other children are watching us as well, and our future acts of mercy will be meaningless if we fail to act justly on wrongdoing. In times like these, we have no alternative but to punish acts that have occurred in the past. Punishment need not be vindictive or vengeful. It is simply the sad but deserving consequence awaiting those who are unwilling to be reformed in this life.

Hebrews 10:28-29

Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?

God is patient.

If so, it's only because sinful Moses talking some sense into the divine head:

 9 The LORD said to Moses, "I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people.
 10 "Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation."
 11 Then Moses entreated the LORD his God, and said, "O LORD, why does Your anger burn against Your people whom You have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?
 12 "Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, 'With evil intent He brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth '? Turn from Your burning anger and change Your mind about doing harm to Your people.
 13 "Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants to whom You swore by Yourself, and said to them, 'I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens, and all this land of which I have spoken I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'"
 14 So the LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people. (Exod. 32:9-14 NAU)

He’s given each of us a lifetime to respond to His discipline and change our mind. It cannot be said that God failed to give us the opportunity to repent.

But it can certainly be said that God did not do everything he could possibly have done, to convince freewilled humans to do what he says.  If he was willing to part the Red Sea in face of faithless Israelites and skeptical Egyptians, then God doesn't think doing monster-miracles violates anybody's freewill.  Or he doesn't respect freewill the way you think he does.

And it is rather difficult to believe that after this particular miracle, the Israelites continued to complain against god (Exodus 16:3).  If this part of the story is historically true, then God is stupid for "expecting" such human beings to materialize a strong faith on the basis of the 10 plagues and parting of the Red Sea, especially when he infallibly foreknow these miracles would not produce such a faith.  Don't you worry though, these stories are just religiously embellished kernels of historical truth, for not more more purpose than religious edification of the tribes.

When we are rebellious to the point of exhaustion, however, God has no choice but to deliver on His warnings.

Not true, according to you and the bible, the Canaanites were sinful to the point of exhaustion for 400 years before god punished them:

13 God said to Abram, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years.
 14 "But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions.
 15 "As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age.
 16 "Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete." (Gen. 15:13-16 NAU)

 In other words, God recognizes the Amorites as sinful to the point of exhaustion, both in reality and in his allegedly infallible foreknowledge, and yet doesn't act there and then, but waits 400 years, not for the Amorites to change their ways, but so their sinful iniquity will become "complete".

Sort of like you knowing you have a devil child who hurts others, but you still put him in the same room with other kids and then don't immediately punish him when he hurts other kids, because you don't think he iniquity is yet complete.

Let's just say that J.Warner Wallace's apologetics argument don't exactly cause me to break out in nervous sweats.  And I say that after multiple demonstrations that his arguments are wrong and inconclusive on the merits.

Cold Case Christianity: selling god to the kids Disney-style

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

Help Young Christians Make the Case for God's Existence

 

Hello

Susie and I are excited to announce our next children's book, God's Crime Scene for Kids.

...We tried to write the book that we wish we had when our kids were young; a book that will encourage children to be thoughtful believers and give them confidence that all creation is the work of our Glorious Creator. 

Yeah, because despite your spiritually mature understanding as an adult currently, you still don't believe, and never did believe, that the bible alone is a sufficient guide for faith and practice.  If you don't help the Holy Spirit via employment of typical marketing gimmicks learned from secular child psychology, the Holy Spirit probably won't be able to convert as many kids to Jesus as he wants to.

We're excited about the new book, but we're even more excited about our new, updated Case Makers Academy! This interactive website will provide your kids with the opportunity to learn from Detective Allen Jeffries by watching chapter videos, printing out and completing chapter fill-in and activity sheets, and even earning their own Graduation Certificate:

You should be more excited about the fact that God doesn't need your help, and therefore, God will accomplish all He needs to through you if all you do is simply preach from a bible.  Really James, you give every appearance of using Christianity to make money, as Benny Hinn.  Only with you, its not the prosperity gospel or absurdly heretical theology, but "apologetics". 

If you say God is using you in new and exciting ways, we have to decide, as readers, whether this is true, or if it is more likely that your ceaseless promotion of yourself by promoting your views of Christianity testifies that you are in this game for little more reason than to make money.

...Thousands of kids have already completed the Case Makers Academy and they're proud to display their graduation certificates. Check out our Honor Cadet page to see what we mean, and be sure to join our Family Facebook Page to add your cadets to the team.

Yeah, because the biblical teaching that Christian kids are part of the body of Christ, isn't sufficiently eye-catching or interesting for the Holy Spirit to use today....what he was apparently otherwise able to do for more than 20 centuries without your involvement and with no need to imitate secular cartoons.        

A Special Introductory Offer!

And you want your salivating followers to think you are NOT employing typical marketing techniques to sell God?  FUCK YOU.

To celebrate the release of our new book, we've created a special offer for those who want to start the Academy. If you purchase God's Crime Scene for Kids before October 1st, we will send you a FREE digital copy of God's Crime Scene (the adult version) so you can read along with your kids (and use the Parent Guides on the Case Makers Academy).

But if this digital copy for adults is a good idea to supplement the kid's crime scene book, some would argue that because the Holy Spirit is supposed to get all the credit anyway and NOT you, you should add the digital adult supplement to every purchase regardless.   Jesus fucking Christ you hypocrite...what's next?  The first 200 orders will receive a coupon for a free doughnut?  FUCK YOU

We'll also send you a FREE Bonus Activity Sheet for your young aspiring detectives.

Order Your Copy Today

Simply purchase the book, send a screen capture of your receipt to offer@coldcasechristianity.com and we will send you the free offer. We hope God's Crime Scene for Kids will help your kids learn the truth about God and grow in their confidence as Christians.

 Why can't you just bulk-order and resell bibles?   How did God reach the kids for more than 30 centuries into the past without cartoons and daily reminding people of how important it is to purchase forensic faith dvds?

Hey James, you forgot to say "Act now while supplies last".  If you are going to waste your reader's time pretending you aren't selling god on the basis of employing marketing gimmicks, while you employ those gimmicks the whole while,  then why would you limit the amount of gimmicks you stuff into your advertisements?