Thinking about God, Jesus and The Big Questions

The Bible is strongly supportive of charitable giving. The effective altruism movement, or EA, is focused on charitable giving. But that is where their similarities end. EA is not in line with how the Bible says we should donate our money or time.  I am not saying that EA is intrinsically unethical - I'm simply saying that its aims are in conflict with what the Bible says we should do. So it's therefore a very secular approach to giving - which may not be a problem for you if you're an unbeliever. But for believers, it simply doesn't line up with the Bible.  Here we will take a look at what the Bible says we should do with regards to donating time or money. Then we will look briefly at EA. Disclaimer : Although I have done some research on EA for the purposes of this blog post, I am by  no means an expert on it. It's entirely possible I have missed some of its nuances. Nonetheless, even with those caveats, I still don't see how EA is compatible with Christianit...

There is much written in the Bible about false prophets. These are people who claim to be prophets but they are not getting their information from God - instead they are spreading things that they made up. Today, we also have false prophets in Christianity. These people spread misinformation. Often this misinformation is poorly interpreted Bible readings, but sometimes it can spread outside the sphere of the spiritual and into political things.  This is why it's very important that each person, whether a Christian or questioning, should read the Bible for themselves and compare it to what is being said by someone else. As a concrete example, some false prophets will claim to be Christian but they say racist things. Racism is not compatible with Christianity (I have written more about that here ). It is made abundantly clear in the Bible that salvation is made available for all people who choose to take this free gift of Jesus's sacrifice - not just certain people or certain ra...

Human leaders are fallible and won't be able to lead once they die. This concept seems logical and common-sense, and besides that it is iterated in the book of Psalms: Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help. When their breath departs, they return to the earth; on that very day their plans perish. Psalms 146: 3 - 4 By contrast, God and Jesus are perfect leaders who are with us forever. Even the richest or most powerful man in the world is not a leader we should trust. Instead, we should put our trust in God and ask Him to lead us.  How do we do this? By reading the Bible and by praying, we get to know Him more and more. We can ask for wisdom, for discernment in knowing what to do in any particular situation. Guidance from God is far more useful and valuable than guidance from any human. Furthermore, I've explained why I believe that a human leader who does not know God cannot have true wisdom . Who are you following? If you found this po...

The people of Israel were asking for a king. God gave them the type of leader they wanted, which was King Saul. God warned the people about asking for such a king. The prophet Samuel was communicating to the people and to God: Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, “You are old and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations.” But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to govern us.” Samuel prayed to the Lord, and the Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. Just as they have done to me, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so also they are doing to you.  Samuel 8: 4-8 God warned the Israelites through Samuel that they would soon be in despair under the rule of this kin...

I have become a little concerned by the attitude of some people that the spread of germs through a community is desirable to God - for example, the idea of not being concerned about catching (and therefore spreading) Covid. There is actually plenty of biblical evidence against that attitude. The book of Leviticus shows a lot of instructions for cleanliness, which back in those days the instructions may have seemed inexplicable. These may have seemed like a long list of things to be obedient about without a clear reason why. However, if we read this book of the Bible with our modern-day knowledge of bacteria, viruses and fungi, these instructions quickly make sense. The instructions were designed to avoid the spread of germs. Here is an example from the Bible of what to do with clothing (made of cloth, wool, or animal skin) that has a spreading disease in it. This referred to a discoloration such as mold or something similar: If the priest makes an examination, and the disease has not ...

The book of Proverbs is the combined knowledge of generations of people, and much of it is the collected sayings of King Solomon, who was the wisest man ever to live. The Bible specifically says that no man wiser than Solomon has come before him nor will come after him. This is shown in the book of Kings, where Solomon asks God for wisdom. Here we see God's reply: God said to him, “Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches, or for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, I now do according to your word. Indeed I give you a wise and discerning mind; no one like you has been before you and no one like you shall arise after you. 1 Kings 3: 11- 13 We see here than Solomon was granted wisdom by God. Assuming he is the wisest man ever to have lived, then if we desire to follow words of wisdom we should pay particular attention to the parts of the Bible that are attributed to Solomon. These writing...

Human leaders are just as fallible as we ourselves are. We should not place our hope in human leaders. Instead we should place our hope and trust in God. God is so much better in all ways than any human leader. This passage of Psalms expresses this very clearly: Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help. When their breath departs, they return to the earth; on that very day their plans perish.  Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God Psalms 146: 3-5 If you found this post interesting, you might also like these related posts on this blog: We should never swear anything on the Bible, even in a court of law Our leaders are imperfect. Even the best leader pales in comparison to Jesus. How to know the difference between God's plan and foolhardiness? God is not a crazy stalker. He will not inflict himself upon us. He lets us choose

I have heard many times before that Christians are ambassadors for God's kingdom. But I'd never stopped to really think what that meant until recently. To put it into perspective, imagine you are the ambassador for an earthly country. That's an incredibly important job. In that situation, you would be charged with responsibilities that had very far-reaching ramifications. As much as we look up to earthly ambassadors, should we not then attach even more importance to the job of being ambassador to the creator of the Universe, the King of Heaven? We are very fortunate to know God and Jesus, and we are also fortunate to be their ambassadors here on Earth. We should be honored to be tasked with that role. Yet how many of us take our responsibilities less seriously than what they would if they had a job as an ambassador to an earthly country? I know I'm guilty of that. And our job as ambassadors for God's kingdom is even more important than that to an earthly count...

Even though he is the Son of God, Jesus in human form still had human emotions. He was not a robot! He suffered terribly during his crucifixion. In this post though, I'm not going to focus on the suffering that he had then (as important as it is). We're going to take a look at how and when he anticipated this bad time ahead. In a previous post , I pointed out that Jesus did not just curl into a ball and give up on his ministry days, even though he surely had some inkling that he had to go through a very bad time at some point in the future. He carried out his ministry, teaching and healing people, right up until the end. The part I want to focus on is the night immediately before his arrest. He was distressed at what was to come. The Bible says: And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And he said to them, “My soul is ...

Every election year, I notice that many people get very vocal for or against a particular candidate. But   we should never put all of our trust in human leaders . Even the best human leader is flawed and imperfect. Even the best candidate of the century pales in comparison to Jesus. It's good to carry out our civic responsibilities: carefully considering the candidates and their policies, and picking which one we feel is best for the country at the time.  It is wonderful to live in a democracy where we have choices. At the same time, I find it hard to get passionately behind any candidate, because I have yet to find one that isn't flawed. I'm flawed too, an imperfect being, a sinner. We all are. It's part of being human. But just as I would not find myself worthy of leading a country, I find it hard to find anyone worthy of leading the country. In the second coming of Christ, we can look forward to a new Heaven and a new Earth, with God and Jesus as our leaders. Now...