Feb, 04
2016
Apologetics

Who do we address in prayer Yahweh, Jesus or the Holy Spirit?

It’s important to recognize the model prayer—the prayer of Jesus, the prayer that Jesus taught his followers to pray—does start: “Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name” (Matt. 6:9). And I think that the recognition here is that, first and foremost, our desire, what we really care about, is that God’s Name be made holy. Our daily lives should radiate a Prayer3Sfar greater commitment to God’s nature and His holiness than to our own needs.

So to pray, “hallowed be Your Name,” is to pray that God be given the unique reverence that His holiness demands, that God’s Word be preached without corruption, that our churches be led by faithful pastors and preserved from false prophets, that we’d be kept from language that profanes the name of God, and that our thought lives remain holy, that we cease from seeking honor for ourselves but ask instead that God’s Name be magnified.

In saying this there’s nothing wrong with using the names of God as opposed to the titles for God. There’s nothing wrong with addressing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and thanking Him for His sacrificial death on our behalf. There’s nothing wrong with thanking the Holy Spirit for empowering us as we pray, as we witness, as we provide for our families. So the standard is we pray to the Father, in the Name of the Son (or through the Son), by the power of the Holy Spirit. But Jesus Himself invites us to pray to Him in John 14:14.

So there is no set formula. We pray to one God revealed in three persons, who are eternally distinct.

—Hank Hanegraaff

For further related study, please see the following:

What Are Some Secrets to Effective Prayer? (Hank Hanegraaff)

The Prayer of Jabez or the Prayer of Jesus (Hank Hanegraaff

Prayer of Jesus: A Discussion Between Hank Hanegraaff and Lee Strobel

Is the Trinity Biblical? (Hank Hanegraaff)

[Answer taken from: “How Should Christians Start Their Prayers? Can We Pray to Jesus and the Holy Spirit?”]

February 4th, 2016 by Christian Research Institute | Type: Standard
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Feb, 02
2016
Apologetics

What about the Book of Enoch?

I think that the Bible will often time draw from other sources, either explicitly by referencing those other sources, or by using similar quotations, as you would find in other books. For example, there are judgement metaphors in the Book of Revelation, which you find in1st century literature. Those judgment metaphors, therefore, have an understanding in the 1st century that you can derive from 1st century literature. But, of course, that does not mean that the 1st century literature is inspired literature.

I think that same principle applies, if you look at the Book of Jude. Jude mentions Enoch as the seventh from Adam, and mentions that Enoch had prophesied about men that are being described in the Book of Jude (Jude 14ff). Now, Jude was well respected as was Enoch in New Testament times. So Jude is now, as a well-respected church father or disciple of Jesus Christ, is quoting from the book of Enoch, but his quote does not mean that Enoch is inspired in the sense of supernaturally revealing new truth. Jude simply finds a quotation to be a helpful confirmation of truth that is already well established, and that’s the point.

The Book of Enoch is not inspired literature, but that does not mean it does not have truth. For example, it is true to say, whether this is in the Canon or outside the Canon that “the Lord is coming” or that “false prophets will appear,” or that “the wicked will be judged.” So, these are true statements, regardless of where you find them. But the fact that Enoch is being quoted does not of necessity mean that the quote is from inspired literature. It is a confirmation of truth that is well established.

—Hank Hanegraaff

For further study, see the following:

Is the New Testament Canon Authoritative or Authoritarian? (Hank Hanegraaff)

Gnosticism and the Gnostic Jesus (Douglas Groothuis)

The Gnostic Gospels: Are They Authentic? (Douglas Groothuis)

[Answer taken from “What’s Your Opinion on the Book of Enoch since Jude Quotes from it in His Epistle?” http://www.equip.org/audio/whats-your-opinion-on-the-book-of-enoch-since-jude-quotes-from-it-in-his-epistle/]

 

 

 

February 2nd, 2016 by Christian Research Institute | Type: Standard
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Jan, 28
2016
Apologetics

What is dispensationalism?

Dispensationalism2Dispensationalism: an eschatological viewpoint according to which God has two distinct peoples (the Church and national, ethnic Israel) with two distinct plans and two distinct destinies. Dispensationalism is distinctive for its teaching that the Church will be “raptured” from the earth in the first phase of Christ’s second coming so that God can return to his work with national Israel, which was put on hold after Israel’s rejection of Messiah. God’s renewed working with Israel is thought by many dispensationalists to include a seven-year period of tribulation under the Antichrist in which two-thirds of the Jewish people will be killed, followed by the second phase of Christ’s second coming in which Christ and the martyred “tribulation saints” will rule for a thousand years from a rebuilt Temple with a reinstituted sacrificial system. Dispensationalism was first conceived by John Nelson Darby in the nineteenth century and popularized by prophecy pundits such as Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye in the twentieth century. 1

— Hank Hanegraaff

For further study, please see the following:

Does the Bible Make a Distinction Between Israel and the Church? (Hank Hanegraaff)
Apocalypse When? Why Most End-time Teaching Is Dead Wrong. (Hank Hanegraaff)
The Perils of Newspaper Eschatology (Elliot Miller)
Is Dispensationalism Indispensable?  (Steve Gregg)
One Shot, One Book, One God: Apologetics and the Unity of the Bible (Dean Davis)
Who’s Been Left Behind? (Steve Gregg)
Response to National Liberty Journal Article on The Apocalypse Code (Hank Hanegraaff)
When the Truth Gets Left Behind (Gene Edward Veith)

Notes:

1. Hank Hanegraaff, The Apocalypse Code: Find out What the Bible Really Says about the End Times and Why it Matters Today (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2007), 272

January 28th, 2016 by Christian Research Institute | Type: Standard
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Jan, 26
2016
Apologetics

From Hank to You

Dear Friend,

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
 The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

Serious poetry readers will recognize these lines from W. B. Yeats’s most celebrated apocalyptic poem, “The Second Coming.” And my hunch is that in a moment of candor, most of us would confess to similar sentiments as we listen to today’s avalanche of largely bad news.

Falcon2From spiritual, moral, cultural, and political points of view, my guess is that increasingly rare among us are those who haven’t felt, at least at some point, that things are falling apart.

In the rubble and ruin that mark the wake of philosophers who have labored diligently to “deconstruct” truth, one could not reasonably be blamed for believing that in much of our intellectual landscape today, their work has been lamentably successful. Time spent debating “truth” seems a colossal if not utterly mindless waste of time to those who have swallowed “hook, line, and sinker” the notion that objective truth is sheer fantasy, embraced only by obscurantic religionists and others with room-temperature IQs.

Yet those who intimately know the One who is “before all things” and by Whom “all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17) will never fear that the true center cannot hold. They will not only embrace but also daily live out the equally famous words of Alfred Lord Tennyson whom Yeats venerated as a young man:

“Cast all your cares on God; that anchor holds.”

—Hank Hanegraaff

January 26th, 2016 by Christian Research Institute | Type: Standard
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