Question: “What is a Christian worldview?”

Answer: A “worldview” refers to a comprehensive conception of the world from a specific standpoint. A “Christian worldview,” then, is a comprehensive conception of the world from a Christian standpoint. An individual’s worldview is his “big picture,” a harmony of all his beliefs about the world. It is his way of understanding reality. One’s worldview is the basis for making daily decisions and is therefore extremely important.

An apple sitting on a table is seen by several people. A botanist looking at the apple classifies it. An artist sees a still-life and draws it. A grocer sees an asset and inventories it. A child sees lunch and eats it. How we look at any situation is influenced by how we look at the world at large. Every worldview, Christian and non-Christian, deals with at least these three questions:

1) Where did we come from? (and why are we here?)
2) What is wrong with the world?
3) How can we fix it?

A prevalent worldview today is naturalism, which answers the three questions like this: 1) We are the product of random acts of nature with no real purpose. 2) We do not respect nature as we should. 3) We can save the world through ecology and conservation. A naturalistic worldview generates many related philosophies such as moral relativism, existentialism, pragmatism, and utopianism.

A Christian worldview, on the other hand, answers the three questions biblically: 1) We are God’s creation, designed to govern the world and fellowship with Him (Genesis 1:27-28; 2:15). 2) We sinned against God and subjected the whole world to a curse (Genesis 3). 3) God Himself has redeemed the world through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ (Genesis 3:15; Luke 19:10), and will one day restore creation to its former perfect state (Isaiah 65:17-25). A Christian worldview leads us to believe in moral absolutes, miracles, human dignity, and the possibility of redemption.

It is important to remember that a worldview is comprehensive. It affects every area of life, from money to morality, from politics to art. True Christianity is more than a set of ideas to use at church. Christianity as taught in the Bible is itself a worldview. The Bible never distinguishes between a “religious” and a “secular” life; the Christian life is the only life there is. Jesus proclaimed Himself “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6) and, in doing so, became our worldview.

Recommended Resource: Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview by William Lane Craig & J.P. Moreland.

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Ask Mormons if they are Christian, and their answer often starts with a sigh.

Look at our name, they’ll say, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Read The Book of Mormon’s subtitle, “Another Testament of Jesus Christ.” Examine our Articles of Faith, “We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved…”

“When we read in the press that some religious person who should know better refers to us as non-Christian, it is baffling to us,” said Michael Otterson, the church’s head of public affairs. “To suggest that we don’t embrace Christ and his sacrifice for all of us is insulting.”

Yet nearly a quarter of Americans remain unconvinced, according to a recent poll conducted by The Salt Lake Tribune. The Vatican and several Protestant churches do not accept Mormon baptisms as legitimate (neither do Mormons recognize theirs), and some conservative evangelicals call Mormonism a “cult.” Mormons, meanwhile, believe they belong to the one true Christian church.

The theological debate might have remained relegated to Sunday school discussions and interfaith summits were it not for the presidential candidacy of Mitt Romney, a devout Mormon and onetime LDS bishop. While the former Massachusetts governor and current GOP frontrunner has muted religious talk during this campaign, he indirectly addressed the Mormon-Christian issue during his previous White House bid.

“There is one fundamental question about which I often am asked,” he said in a 2007 speech in Texas. “What do I believe about Jesus Christ? I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and the savior of mankind.”

Stressing the similarities between Mormonism and mainstream Christianity makes political sense. Republicans who say Mormons are not Christian are less likely to view Romney favorably or support his campaign, according to a November survey by the nonpartisan Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

During the 2007 speech, Romney acknowledged that “my church’s beliefs about Christ may not all be the same as those of other faiths.” But explaining theological arcana is not a politician’s job, he argued. It amounts to a religious test for office, which the Constitution forbids.

Still, the debate lingers around Romney’s campaign: Are he and fellow Mormons Christians? The question seems simple enough, but the answer is quite complicated.

Who’s in and Who’s Out?

According to “The Atlas of Global Christianity,” there are 41,000 Christian denominations. No definition of Christianity could encompass their doctrinal diversity, said Martin Marty, an emeritus professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School. “I wish there was some official place where you could determine who’s in and who’s out, but there’s not. No one can speak for all of Christianity in all its nuances.”

The atlas lists Mormonism as a “marginal” Christian group, along with Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church, primarily because it deviates from traditional Christian teachings on Jesus and claims sources of revelation beyond the Bible.

The “marginal” category is not a perfect fit and rings a pejorative tone, said Todd Johnson, editor of the atlas and director of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Seminary. “It’s not a category that helps you understand what these groups believe. It’s just saying that they have something besides the Bible that is quite significant.”

For centuries, most Christians have relied a closed canon of scriptures and creeds to draw the circle of membership. Catholics, Anglicans, Eastern Orthodox Christians and many Protestant churches recite the 4th Century Nicene Creed, for example, which states foundational Christian tenets.

Mormonism’s founding prophet, Joseph Smith, blasted the Christian canon wide open and cast aside the creeds. At a time when religious revivals engulfed his Upstate New York homestead, a 14-year-old Smith reported a vision of God and Jesus, who told him that the Christian churches had fallen into apostasy.

A second vision directed Smith to a stack of buried golden plates, according to LDS Church history. The plates, which became The Book of Mormon, told of an ancient society visited by Jesus in North America that was destroyed by warring tribes.

With the impatience of a prophet, Smith set out to restore the Christian church. He revised the Bible; reported receiving “keys to the priesthood” from John the Baptist; rejected the traditional idea of the Trinity as three-gods-in-one; taught that God was once a flesh-and-blood man, and that men could become gods through purification and obedience to the church.

They were all — including Smith’s promotion as Prophet of the Restoration — radical departures from centuries of Christian orthodoxy. And intentionally so.

Smith’s Latter-day Saints consider The Book of Mormon as much a part of God’s word as the Bible, and continue to honor their top leader as “prophet, seer and revelator.”

“Take away the Book of Mormon and the revelations,” Smith said, “and where is our religion? We have none.”

The Fourth Abrahamic Faith?

Jan Shipps, the preeminent non-Mormon expert on the LDS church, draws a comparison between the early Christians and Latter-day Saints. Both introduced new scriptures and ideas to established religions, and insisted that their new faith fulfilled the old. Christians added the New Testament to Judaism, and Smith added The Book of Mormon to Christianity.

Richard Land, an ethicist with the Southern Baptist Convention, goes even further, calling Mormonism “the fourth Abrahamic faith,” after Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Like Islam, Land said, Mormons receive the Old and New Testament as sacred texts, but not as the final divine word. Like Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, Smith is considered an authoritative vessel of God’s word.

“Whatever it is, Mormonism is not Christianity,” Land said. “They do not believe in the doctrine of the Trinity, they do not believe in God the Father as he is recognized in the orthodox Christian faith, and they believe that ‘As man now is, God was once.’ The only thing right about that sentence from the orthodox Christian perspective is the punctuation.”

Evangelicals like Land tend to be the most eager to keep Mormons from the Christian camp. In addition to doctrinal concerns, Johnson said, conservative Christians worry about sheep-stealing Mormon missionaries. “It’s a pragmatic decision to call (Mormons) non-Christian, to protect church members from Mormon evangelism,” he said.

But even Catholics and more liberal Protestants, such as the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the United Methodist Church, do not consider Mormon baptisms valid.

“The church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, by self-definition, does not fit within the bounds of the historic, apostolic tradition of Christian faith,” the Methodists wrote in 2000.

Cherishing Mormon Distinctiveness

Mormons do not deny their differences with traditional Christianity. According to a recent survey, Mormons are as likely to say their religion resembles Judaism as it does evangelical Protestantism.

Otterson says Mormons cherish their distinctiveness, much as Catholics or Methodists show special devotion to their traditions. But Mormon leaders have also sought to tie their unique theology to the earliest Christians, using the ancient past to sanction the present.

For example, arguing that Mormons are not Christians because they do not recite the Nicene Creed would leave Jesus and his disciples outside the Christian fold as well, argues Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, a member of the LDS Church’s Quorum of Twelve Apostles. And, Holland says, the idea of a flesh-and-blood God should not sound strange to Christians, who, after all, believe in the bodily birth and resurrection of Jesus.

Christians who insist on a single, closed canon forget that Catholics and Protestants use different versions of the Bible, argues Stephen Robinson, a professor of religion at Mormon-run Brigham Young University in Utah. And didn’t differing interpretations of the Trinity contribute to the Great Schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches in 1054?

Mormon theologian Robert Millet has been laboring to convince Christians that the Mormon idea of deification — humans becoming gods — resembles the mystical union with the divine taught by early church fathers like St. Augustine. But Millet said he worries more about the opinions of Christians in the pews than the specialized scholars who read his books.

“When people call Mormons non-Christian, they might believe that we do not accept Jesus Christ as Lord and savior, or believe in the New Testament,” Millet said. “We don’t want to fight about this. We just wish people would get it right.”

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Question: “What is the true meaning of Christmas?”

Answer: The true meaning of Christmas is love. John 3:16-17 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” The true meaning of Christmas is the celebration of this incredible act of love.

The real Christmas story is the story of God’s becoming a human being in the Person of Jesus Christ. Why did God do such a thing? Because He loves us! Why was Christmas necessary? Because we needed a Savior! Why does God love us so much? Because He is love itself (1 John 4:8). Why do we celebrate Christmas each year? Out of gratitude for what God did for us, we remember His birth by giving each other gifts, worshipping Him, and being especially conscious of the poor and less fortunate.

The true meaning of Christmas is love. God loved His own and provided a way—the only Way—for us to spend eternity with Him. He gave His only Son to take our punishment for our sins. He paid the price in full, and we are free from condemnation when we accept that free gift of love. “But God demonstrated His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

Recommended Resource: The Case for Christmas by Lee Strobel.

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Question: “Did God create evil?”

Answer: At first it might seem that if God created all things, then evil must have been created by God. However, evil is not a “thing” like a rock or electricity. You cannot have a jar of evil. Evil has no existence of its own; it is really the absence of good. For example, holes are real but they only exist in something else. We call the absence of dirt a hole, but it cannot be separated from the dirt. So when God created, it is true that all He created was good. One of the good things God made was creatures who had the freedom to choose good. In order to have a real choice, God had to allow there to be something besides good to choose. So, God allowed these free angels and humans to choose good or reject good (evil). When a bad relationship exists between two good things we call that evil, but it does not become a “thing” that required God to create it.

Perhaps a further illustration will help. If a person is asked, “Does cold exist?” the answer would likely be “yes.” However, this is incorrect. Cold does not exist. Cold is the absence of heat. Similarly, darkness does not exist; it is the absence of light. Evil is the absence of good, or better, evil is the absence of God. God did not have to create evil, but rather only allow for the absence of good.

God did not create evil, but He does allow evil. If God had not allowed for the possibility of evil, both mankind and angels would be serving God out of obligation, not choice. He did not want “robots” that simply did what He wanted them to do because of their “programming.” God allowed for the possibility of evil so that we could genuinely have a free will and choose whether or not we wanted to serve Him.

As finite human beings, we can never fully understand an infinite God (Romans 11:33-34). Sometimes we think we understand why God is doing something, only to find out later that it was for a different purpose than we originally thought. God looks at things from a holy, eternal perspective. We look at things from a sinful, earthly, and temporal perspective. Why did God put man on earth knowing that Adam and Eve would sin and therefore bring evil, death, and suffering on all mankind? Why didn’t He just create us all and leave us in heaven where we would be perfect and without suffering? These questions cannot be adequately answered this side of eternity. What we can know is whatever God does is holy and perfect and ultimately will glorify Him. God allowed for the possibility of evil in order to give us a true choice in regards to whether we worship Him. God did not create evil, but He allowed it. If He had not allowed evil, we would be worshipping Him out of obligation, not by a choice of our own will.

Recommended Resource: If God, Why Evil?: A New Way to Think About the Question

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Last week my son asked me a profound theological question: “Why did God make stinging bugs?”

Stumped, I told him to talk directly to God about it. Pausing for just a moment to consider my inadequate answer, he countered, “You know I can’t talk to God; I’m not even dead yet!”

In my son’s literal but complex eight-year-old mind, prayer does not qualify as “talking to God.”

Thus, his many and variegated questions about the mysteries of the universe, the meaning of life, and the purpose of wasps and biting flies, will have to wait.

Truth be told, my son’s conclusion about “talking to God,” and more pertinent, God talking to us, is the conclusion most of us have. God doesn’t really talk to people, does he?

And those mystical types who routinely say things like, “God spoke to me” or “I heard God say,” are we to take them seriously, or should they be scheduled for a mental health examination?

I remember a bizarre story from two decades ago about a Texas pastor who crashed his car while attempting to elude police.

It was a bizarre story, first, because all 20 of the pastor’s parishioners were with him in his vehicle – 15 adults and five children – in a single Pontiac.

Second, and stranger by the details, the congregants were all naked. It seems the devil had cursed their clothing, God had told them, so the voodooed garments were cast off per divine instruction.

And finally, the police were chasing the naked and mobile congregation because they had attempted to forcibly procure a parked RV, an RV that God said now belonged to them.

God gets blamed for a whole lot of the kookiness in this world, and stories like this one make me appreciate my son’s conclusion.

If this is how God speaks, I’ll be happy to wait till I’m dead for such divine instruction.

And let’s be honest; sometimes the stories are more tragic than comical. Some of history’s greatest atrocities have been committed because someone “heard God speak” to them.

Absurdity aside, I still believe God speaks.

Now, I don’t believe God’s instructions ever include harming others, stealing their property, or committing violence. Such voices are patently inconsistent with the way and person of Christ

And no, I don’t think God’s voice arrives in our inboxes as an unalterable blueprint for life. Further, it’s not likely that many of us will find God standing at the foot of our bed some early morning with a heavenly telegram in his hand.

Besides, if God did speak that clearly (and maybe he does), most of us would miss it anyway (maybe we have), for it seems God prefers communicating through quiet and stillness rather than through the pyrotechnics of signs, wonders, and naked-RV-stealing-hijinks.

“God didn’t speak through the whirlwind, the earthquake, or the fire,” the prophet of old tells us. Instead, God spoke “in a still, small voice.”

It’s summed up by Dan Rather’s magnificent interview of Mother Teresa more than twenty years ago.

Paraphrasing, he famously asked her, “What do you say to God when you pray?” She offered him a simple answer, “I don’t say anything. I just listen.”

Rather then asked the obvious follow-up question: “Well, what does God say?” Mother Teresa gave Rather that crooked little smile of hers, and said, “God doesn’t say anything either. He just listens.”

Does such a wordless “conversation” sound as bizarre as a Pontiac filled with naked Pentecostals? Hardly. In a relationship of love and trust, being together is enough, and more is understood in the silence than when using all the words in the world.

A great deal of religion, I fear, is built upon the desire for divine fireworks, megaphoned and crystal clear answers, God showing himself in flamboyant and undeniable style.

Yet, God only requires the quiet and silent heart to quietly and silently speak.

In other words, keep your shirt on. Getting quiet will do more to sharpen one’s perception of God than all the religious gymnastics in the world.

Ronnie McBrayer is a syndicated columnist, speaker, and author. His books include “Leaving Religion, Following Jesus” and “The Jesus Tribe.” Visit his website at www.ronniemcbrayer.net.

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Question: “What are the lost books of the Bible?”

Answer: There are no “lost books” of the Bible, or books that were taken out of the Bible, or books missing from the Bible. Every book that God intended and inspired to be in the Bible is in the Bible. There are many legends and rumors of lost books, but there is no truth whatsoever to these stories. There are literally hundreds of religious books that were written in the same time period as the books of the Bible. Some of these books contain true accounts of things that actually occurred (1 Maccabees, for example). Some contain good spiritual teaching (the Wisdom of Solomon, for example). However, these books are not inspired by God. If we read any of these books, the Apocrypha as an example, we have to treat them as fallible historical books, not as the inspired, inerrant Word of God (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

The gospel of Thomas, for example, was a forgery written in the 3rd or 4th century A.D., claiming to have been written by the apostle Thomas. It was not written by Thomas. The early church fathers almost universally rejected the gospel of Thomas as heretical. It contains many false and heretical things that Jesus supposedly said and did. None of it (or at best very little of it) is true. The epistle of Barnabas was not written by the biblical Barnabas, but by an imposter. The same can be said of the gospel of Philip, the apocalypse of Peter, etc.

There is one God. The Bible has one Creator. It is one book. It has one plan of grace, recorded from initiation, through execution, to consummation. From predestination to glorification, the Bible is the story of God redeeming His chosen people for the praise of His glory. As God’s redemptive purposes and plan unfold in Scripture, the recurring themes constantly emphasized are the character of God, the judgment for sin and disobedience, the blessing for faith and obedience, the Lord Savior and sacrifice for sin, and the coming kingdom and glory. It is God’s intention that we know and understand these five themes because our lives and eternal destinies depend upon them. It is therefore unthinkable that God would allow some of this vital information to be “lost” in any way. The Bible is complete, in order that we who read and understand it might also be “complete, and equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

Recommended Resource: The Missing Gospels: Unearthing the Truth Behind Alternative Christianities by Darrell Bock.

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While at a soccer game this summer I was reminded of why there is so little peace in our world.

Parents from the two opposing teams almost came to blows and bloodshed while watching from the bleachers. This wasn’t a game with the World Cup at stake. These were five-year-olds on the field.

Cooler heads ultimately prevailed, but only after copious amounts of pushing and shoving, after the air had been singed blue with profanity, and the threat of involving law enforcement was made.

It made me wonder what these five-year-old witnesses had to say after the game as the juice boxes and orange slices were passed out.

The Hebrew word for anger literally means to “blow out your nostrils” or to “smoke.” That’s apropos, for we all know what it is like to get that fire burning and boiling on the inside, only to have it explode out the chimney of our mouths, minds, and fists. Truly, few things have the incendiary power of anger let off the leash.

How much pain has anger caused each of us by fueling words that can never be recalled, actions that can never be undone, and memories that can never be erased?

How many divorces, wars, irreconcilable differences, failed business partnerships, murders, errant texts and emails, and soccer field assaults have been the result of primal, fully vented rage?

We know the painful answer to these questions, but we may not have considered the answer to this question: Why does anger seem to get the best of us?

I have three young men in my home with lots of testosterone coursing through their veins. Somebody is jack-slapping mad most every day, and I often ask, “Why are you so angry?”

My children never give me a straight answer to that question. Oh, I get an answer; it usually involves finger-pointing with artery-and-eye-bulging blame toward another person. Yet, other people are not the source of our personal anger. They play a role, certainly, but the source of anger is usually internal, not external.

Now, is there such a thing as justifiable anger? Yes. Is there anger that is right and just? Absolutely.

But genuine “righteous indignation” is a rarity. The anger that most often consumes us is the anger of offense. We feel insulted, disrespected, or that our rights have somehow been dishonored.

Our rage is rather self-centered, the result of others not doing what we want or expect them to do.

I have a hunch that most of our anger stems from a lack of maturity. See, we move from childhood to adolescence and adulthood when we realize the world does not revolve around us.

It’s no wonder the teenage years are full of such rage and angst. In addition to puberty, galloping hormones, changing bodies and changing family relationships, there is this social coming of age that informs us we are not the center of the universe.

Some of us have had our growth stunted at precisely this stage. We are stuck in an adolescent state of immaturity and perpetual offense. This is as equally true of soccer moms and little league dads as it is of war-makers and politicians.

We want everything and everybody to orbit around our shining sun, to do and behave as we demand. Frankly, this is a formula for frustration, for it demands of others and the world what cannot be given.

So how do we calm the burning fire within us? Well, we can control everything and everybody around us, forcing them to comply with our will (Let me know how that works out for you), or we can grow up.

Francois de Fenelon said it simply: “The moment you stop wanting everything your way, you will be mature. Until then, your life will be full of trouble and agitation.”

We don’t have to live with this kind of anger. We can let go of our pride and self-centeredness, and release our grip on our always defended rights. We can learn to let go, and thus, learn to grow up.

Ronnie McBrayer is the author of “Leaving Religion, Following Jesus.” He writes and speaks about life, faith, and Christ-centered spirituality. Visit his website at www.ronniemcbrayer.net.

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Question: “Does God still speak to us today?”

Answer: The Bible records God speaking audibly to people many times (Exodus 3:14; Joshua 1:1; Judges 6:18; 1 Samuel 3:11; 2 Samuel 2:1; Job 40:1; Isaiah 7:3; Jeremiah 1:7; Acts 8:26; 9:15 – this is just a small sampling). There is no biblical reason why God could not or would not speak to a person audibly today. With the hundreds of times the Bible records God speaking, we have to remember that they occur over the course of 4,000 years of human history. God speaking audibly is the exception, not the rule. Even in the biblically recorded instances of God speaking, it is not always clear whether it was an audible voice, an inner voice, or a mental impression.

God does speak to people today. First, God speaks to us through His Word (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Isaiah 55:11 tells us, “So is my word that goes out from my mouth: it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” The Bible records God’s words, everything we need to know in order to be saved and live the Christian life. Second Peter 1:3 declares, “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who called us by his own glory and goodness.”

Second, God speaks through impressions, events, and thoughts. God helps us to discern right from wrong through our consciences (1 Timothy 1:5; 1 Peter 3:16). God is in the process of conforming our minds to think His thoughts (Romans 12:2). God allows events to occur in our lives to direct us, change us, and help us to grow spiritually (James 1:2-5; Hebrews 12:5-11). First Peter 1:6-7 reminds us, “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”

Finally, God may sometimes speak audibly to people. It is highly doubtful, though, that this occurs as often as some people claim it does. Again, even in the Bible, God speaking audibly is the exception, not the ordinary. If anyone claims that God has spoken to him/her, always compare what is said with what the Bible says. If God were to speak today, His words would be in full agreement with what He has said in the Bible (2 Timothy 3:16-17). God does not contradict Himself.

Recommended Resource: Hearing God’s Voice by Henry & Richard Blackaby.

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Question: “What is the proper way to pray?”

Answer: Is it best to pray standing up, sitting down, kneeling, or bowing down? Should our hands be open, closed, or lifted up to God? Do our eyes need to be closed when we pray? Is it better to pray in a church building or out in nature? Should we pray in the morning when we get up or at night before we go to bed? Are there certain words we need to say in our prayers? How do we begin our prayers? What is the proper way to close a prayer? These questions, and others, are common questions asked about prayer. What is the proper way to pray? Do any of the above things even matter?

Far too often, prayer is viewed as a “magic formula.” Some believe that if we do not say exactly the right things, or pray in the right position, God will not hear and answer our prayer. This is completely unbiblical. God does not answer our prayers based on when we pray, where we are, what position our body is in, or in what order we word our prayers. We are told in 1 John 5:14-15 to have confidence when we come to God in prayer, knowing He hears us and will grant whatever we ask as long as it is in His will. Similarly, John 14:13-14 declares, “And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” According to these and many other Scriptures, God answers prayer requests based on whether they are asked according to His will and in the name of Jesus (to bring glory to Jesus).

So, what is the proper way to pray? Philippians 4:6-7 tells us to pray without being anxious, to pray about everything, and to pray with thankful hearts. God will answer all such prayers with the gift of His peace in our hearts. The proper way to pray is to pour out our hearts to God, being honest and open with God, as He already knows us better than we know ourselves. We are to present our requests to God, keeping in mind that God knows what is best and will not grant a request that is not His will for us. We are to express our love, gratitude, and worship to God in prayer without worrying about having just the right words to say. God is more interested in the content of our hearts than the eloquence of our words.

The closest the Bible comes to giving a “pattern” for prayer is the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13. Please understand that the Lord’s Prayer is not a prayer we are to memorize and recite to God. It is an example of the things that should go into a prayer—worship, trust in God, requests, confession, and submission. We are to pray for the things the Lord’s Prayer talks about, using our own words and “customizing” it to our own journey with God. The proper way to pray is to express our hearts to God. Sitting, standing, or kneeling; hands open or closed; eyes opened or closed; in a church, at home, or outside; in the morning or at night—these are all side issues, subject to personal preference, conviction, and appropriateness. God’s desire is for prayer to be a real and personal connection between Himself and us.

Recommended Resource: Prayer, The Great Adventure by David Jeremiah.

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Question: “Why did God choose Israel to be His chosen people?”

Answer: Speaking of the nation of Israel, Deuteronomy 7:7-9 tells us, “The LORD did not set His affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath He swore to your forefathers that He brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; He is the faithful God, keeping His covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commands.”

God chose the nation of Israel to be the people through whom Jesus Christ would be born—the Savior from sin and death (John 3:16). God first promised the Messiah after Adam and Eve’s fall into sin (Genesis chapter 3). God later confirmed that the Messiah would come from the line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Genesis 12:1-3). Jesus Christ is the ultimate reason why God chose Israel to be His special people. God did not need to have a chosen people, but He decided to do it that way. Jesus had to come from some nation of people, and God chose Israel.

However, God’s reason for choosing the nation of Israel was not solely for the purpose of producing the Messiah. God’s desire for Israel was that they would go and teach others about Him. Israel was to be a nation of priests, prophets, and missionaries to the world. God’s intent was for Israel to be a distinct people, a nation who pointed others towards God and His promised provision of a Redeemer, Messiah, and Savior. For the most part, Israel failed in this task. However, God’s ultimate purpose for Israel—that of bringing the Messiah into the world—was fulfilled perfectly in the Person of Jesus Christ.

Recommended Resource: Faith of Israel, 2d ed.: A Theological Survey of the Old Testament by William Dumbrell.

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