This is not just a joke guys. our universe is surprisingly intelligible, meaning that it can be known & understood. Human beings can study & understand the physical world. St. Paul in Romans 1 about 2,000 years ago, makes the same argument:

people who do not believe in God are without excuse because the invisible attributes of God are clearly visible through creation and the physical world. they point to a rational mind behind them

for example 2 + 2 = 4 is true regardless of whether any of us exist. It is a necessary and objective truth. So, what grounds such necessary truths? necessary truths logically require necessary foundations.
In Christianity or the theistic worldview such truths are grounded in the character or nature (intellect) of God. God's rationality explains why reality is intelligible why mathematical relationships are stable and why our universe is so ordered and carefully designed.


obviously the devil's part is meant to be a joke😁

All the great minds who contributed to the development of physics mathematics, chemistry and other fields of science discovered laws and principles because they believed in a Lawgiver. for example Isaac Newton, perhaps the greatest physicist of all time passionately studied and discovered the laws of nature because he genuinely believed that there is a Lawgiver and an intelligent Mind behind them.

Some people especially young teens in Ethiopia who call themselves atheists, think religious people are stupid for believing in some sort of higher deity who created the universe. They also think that science and religion are antagonistic. But the reality is very different from that, as I said above.

I took the Above video footage or the ff idea from President John F. Kennedy's presidential inauguration speech.  the idea that the development of civilization depends upon certain fundamental truths about human beings, their rights, and their dignity.

The equal treatment of all people, moral laws & the dignity of every human being are grounded in the belief that we are accountable to the Almighty God. The American Declaration of Independence says:

“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.”

Notice that it says these truths are "self-evident" but how are they self evident? we cannot simply assume that all human beings possess equal and inherent dignity without giving some account of why they do.

Of course one powerful explanation is that all human beings are created in the image of God. Therefore, every human being possesses inherent dignity and deserves equal moral consideration not because of their wealth, intelligence, social status race, sex, or usefulness but because they bear the image of their Creator.

In much of the ancient literature outside the Bible, the idea of being made in the image of a deity was often associated particularly with kings and rulers. But the Bible makes a remarkable claim: all human beings..not merely kings, princes, or rulers..are created in the image of God.

This introduces an important distinction: the biblical doctrine of the imago Dei provides a radically different foundation for human dignity and equality. Every human being has inherent worth because every human being bears the image of God.

@biblicalthinker1

@biblicalthinker1
How I sleep at night knowing Christianity is true ✝️

Every natural man wants three things in this world: money, power and sex. Think of anything else you want..it often boils down to these three things. I think religious figures or teachers who have ever lived should be measured by those standards.(they aren't the only standards thou)
for example look at the muslim prophet Muhammad. he supposedly got all three. He fixed the number of women an ordinary Muslim could marry but for himself, Allah supposedly allowed him to marry multiple women without the same restriction including a six-year-old girl. he even married the wife of his adopted son after supposedly lusting after her. He allowed the sexual enslavement of women captured in war. He seized considerable wealth from his military conquests and wars, and he had political and military power given to him by Allah.

Now look at Jesus. What did he gain?
Money? he had no money. He literally came from Nazareth.
Power? He explicitly said, "My kingdom is not of this world"
now look at Jesus' apostles. If Christ did not rise from the dead, where did those cowardly disciples get the courage to proclaim the resurrection of their Lord boldly in the exact same city where he had been brutally murdered only a few days earlier?
What did Bartholomew Matthew, Peter, and Paul gain from this?
Money? St. Paul worked with his own hands and said that if we have food and clothing, we should be content.
Sex? no! from his writings, it seems that Paul was unmarried and had no wife.
Power? what power? He spent much of his life suffering, being persecuted, imprisoned, beaten, and eventually executed.

So here is the question: Why would a natural man forfeit all the benefits that people naturally desire and endanger his own life for something #he #knew was false?

I am not saying that people never die for religions or ideologies they genuinely believe in. Muslims, for example, may commit suicide attacks because they genuinely believe Islam is true. That does not make Islam true. But that is not my point.
My point is this: you don't willingly endure persecution, imprisonment, torture & ultimately death for something you personally know is a hoax and false.

If the apostles knew that Christ had not risen from the dead, why would they willingly endure suffering, forfeit the benefits of ordinary life, and continue proclaiming the resurrection when they #knew it was a lie?

@biblicalthinker1

እርስ በርሳችሁ በኃጢአታችሁ ተናዘዙ። ትፈወሱም ዘንድ እያንዳንዱ ስለ ሌላው ይጸልይ፤ የጻድቅ ሰው ጸሎት በሥራዋ እጅግ ኃይል ታደርጋለች።
ያዕቆብ 5፥16


You should confess your sins to one another not to God alone.
Confessing your sins to God is a very important & fundamental thing and we can directly access God and boldly approach his throne of grace whenever we want. But it alone is not enough. The Bible says that if you want to be healed, confess your sins to one another

Catholics and Orthodox have this priestly confession tradition. Protestant Reformers historically opposed the necessary and binding nature of this priestly confession practice as a requirement for the forgiveness of sins. But they did not abandon the whole practice altogether and certainly not the mutual confession of sins.

I wish there were a culture among Ethiopian evangelicals of confessing our sins at least to a priest or a pastor. Some Protestant traditions do have this practice btw, and they receive absolution.

Let's cultivate the biblical culture of confessing our sins to one another.

(A bit long but it's very important)

In 1948, Billy Grham's evangelistic association, before they started their ministry, they came up with an idea called the "Modesto Manifesto" which included four principles that guided the entire team. I forgot the other two, but the first two concerned women and money.

Today, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association is led by Billy Graham’s firstborn son, Franklin Graham, who came to Ethiopia last year. They have rejected more than $300 million in donations from the American government for their Samaritan's Purse organization because of this policy.

Today I want to talk about their policy toward women. I am sure it is not what you might have thought when you first saw it😁

The evangelistic team had a strong commitment to avoiding being alone in private with women, even when they had no intention of doing anything inappropriate with them. This was to avoid unnecessary temptation.
Thomas Watson once said,

"A man who prays the prayer 'Lead us not into temptation' must not lead himself into temptation"

This sounds crazy, but bear with me. Think of great evangelists and authors who fell into the sin of adultery outside their marriages, including prominent televangelists such as Jimmy Swaggart, Alan Becker, and many others, even very recently, like Pastor Steven Lawson and our favourite author, Philip Yancey. from our own country, we are only aware of Pastor Tekeste Getinet's scandal because it went public.
I am not condemning these men, no not at all. I am trying to draw attention to the fact that Billy Graham's evangelistic team’s "Modesto Manifesto" was not ridiculous. They understood the potential consequences of failing to maintain such boundaries.
I once heard Billy Graham tell a story about an incident in the 1970s. While he was sitting alone in his hotel room, quietly resting, a very beautiful and attractive woman walked into his room. You know what he did? he ran out of the room!😂

He was on one of his evangelistic crusades, sitting quietly in his room and resting. I mean..why would this woman come to him dressed like that?

In the 1980s when Jimmy Swaggart confessed to having slept with a prostitute(sorry for the word) his ministry was severely damaged. Thousands of people condemned him, and many left his church. At that time, both Billy Graham and Jimmy Swaggart were among the most prominent figures in American Christianity.

When Billy Graham was asked about Swaggart's scandal, reporters expected him to condemn him. Instead, Graham said something along the lines of "Let us not wound this already wounded soldier of Christ. Let’s raise him up" he also expressed the sentiment that if Jimmy could fall into this sin, there was no guarantee that he himself would not fall.

He showed grace to Jimmy.
however, the prostitute with whom Jimmy had slept went on television shows, bragging about the incident and how she had managed to make him fall. You can search for these events and see for yourself, btw.

Women can be a source of temptation for men, including great men throughout history and even some of the most godly Christian men. This is not an excuse for anyone's sin but the issue is not as simple as some people might think. What Billy Graham's team did was a wise precaution.

Sexual sin is a unique kind of sin that can destroy a man's entire ministry. It breaks God's heart and is a very ugly sin. The team understood that if even one member became involved in such a scandal, it could incapacitate and paralyse his ministry.

This principle also concerns other Christian women. You should establish boundaries in your own life and remain committed to them. I am primarily addressing men because women are not necessarily tempted by sexual sin in exactly the same way as men.

Billy Graham was a man of authenticity and integrity. Until his death at the age of 99 in 2018, there were no reports of him having affairs with women. He was married to his wife, Ruth, for nearly 64 years, until she died in 2007

Billy Graham was immensely famous. He was friends with almost every American president during his lifetime. He was charismatic, and even Russian Orthodox churches opened their doors to him to preach the gospel. Hundreds of millions of people heard the gospel through his ministry& millions came to faith in Christ.

God will certainly give a second chance to his servants who fall into such sins..there is no doubt about that. However such failures can seriously affect a person's ministry.

I even wonder whether Billy Graham would have been as successful if he had not taken seriously the prayer, "Lead us not into temptation" and deliberately placed himself in situations where he could be tempted.

What a wonderful man!
Besides Billy Graham, we have many other wonderful men of God, including those in our own generation, who remained faithful to their marriage covenants until the end, such as John MacArthur, R. C Sproul, and Timothy Keller etc..
The point is we should imitate these men and have boundaries.

@biblicalthinker1

ፕሮቴስታንቶች 66ቱን መጻሕፍት ብቻ እንደ እስትንፋሰ መለኮት የሚቀበሉበት እና የዕብራይስጡን መጽሐፍ (39)ቀኖና የሚከተሉበት ታሪካዊ እና መጽሐፍ ቅዱሳዊ ምክንያት ምንድነው?
@biblicalthinker1