Part One     Part Two     Part Three     Part Four

Among other points, I have written in this series that we can’t trust sight or evidence, versus faith, for knowledge because of our own depravity, the trampling of “evidence,” that is, we don’t live in a closed system, and then added the lack of perspective. For the latter reason, with God there “is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17).  You can’t count on getting it right if you can’t see everything, relating to sight or evidence.  On the other hand, faith is what brings glory and pleasure to God.  “Ye see. . . how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. . . . Your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (1 Cor 1:26, 2:5).

I want to take faith as the only reliable epistemology and compare it to sight or “evidence” in order to know that we have every word of scripture available for usage today.  By faith we know that we have every word and that every word is available.  This is the position of premodernism, which is why this is the sole position about preservation of scripture up until modernism.  Premodern epistemology was based upon revealed knowledge from authoritative sources — the ultimate truth could be known and the way to this knowledge was and is through direct revelation. This direct revelation was assumed to come and to have come from God.  Therefore, the church, being the holder and interpreter of revealed knowledge was also the primary authority source in premodern time — “the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15).

The church agreed that it had every word, that every Word of God was generally available to every generation of believer, in the language in which it was written.  Men knew they had every Word by faith.  A new epistemology, a modernistic one, fueled the denial of this revealed knowledge.  The dominant approach of the modern period was empiricism, knowing through the senses, which developed into scientific empiricism or modern science with the diversion into modernist methodology.  Rather than knowledge standing in the Word of God, it stands in the “wisdom of men” or the “wisdom of this world” (1 Cor 1-3, James 3).  “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness” (1 Cor 3:19).

With the new epistemology, the authority shifted from the church to the university as the source of power.  You see this affect everything in the world, let alone the church.  Every field of knowledge has left the church and moved into the university.  Religion on the campus is viewed as art, art something that can’t even be known in modernism and now postmodernism, but both religion and art just a matter of personal taste.  Doctrine has left the realm of knowledge and evangelicalism cooperates heavily with this.  They themselves see much of what premoderns believed and knew as only a matter of personal taste.

A major reason you can see a lack of strength in men today, and I’m not just talking about the church, but the church is mainly responsible, is because men don’t know anything anymore.  In general their breadth of knowledge stops short of anything more than what entertains them or gratifies them.  This is why we see in James that “this wisdom [that] descendeth not from above . . . is earthly, sensual, devilish” (James 3:15).  Paul describes their philosophy or direction as their “end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.”  The knowledge of God descends to man through supernatural means, acquired by faith.  God expects us to believe what He says and know.

Men very often don’t know today.  They know very little.  They have very little certainty.  This has come because of the acceptance of wisdom of men or evidence as the means of knowing.  God intended for us to know Him “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col 2:3).  We know Him by faith.

For men to lead with authority, they must know.  They need to have certainty to tell those people they lead, that they are right.  They know they are right.  What you can interpret today as the effeminate quality of men looks like a lack of confidence, which is why you might hear the word “like” come out of a mouth again and again.  They “like” know.  They don’t know.  Evangelicalism fuels that.  These men who deny preservation of scripture, like a James White, Daniel Wallace, and a large segment of the leaders of fundamentalism, are a major cause of that lack of confidence.

You hear the term “evanjellyfish,” which may have been coined by Douglas Wilson (I’m not sure), it comes from this lack of certainty, toward which in fact Douglas Wilson himself contributes.  He adds quite a bit of jelly to the fish with his capitulation to new Calvinism among other weakness.  Nevertheless, the weakness of evangelicals arises from its unwillingness to know by faith.

As this relates to the denial of the preservation of scripture, a modern pendulum swing is one category of King James Onlyism led by such men as Sam Gipp, that says that the Word of God was lost in the original languages.  These men deny preservation too, but their desire for certainty results a kind of double inspiration, where the English translation becomes the new authority.  Many men take this position in the United States, but it is fueled too by doubt and not faith.  They don’t get that position from scripture.

Spiritual warfare applies spiritual weaponry.  “The sword of the Spirit . . . is the Word of God” (Eph 6:17).  The “pulling down of strongholds” doesn’t come through carnal methods, which include the modernistic ones utilized by James White and other apologists.  The problem is a supernatural problem and the Word of God should be depended upon.

I’m going to explore this further in future posts.

At least in the top five all time most read of all of my posts was one I wrote in 2009, titled, “Why To Delete a Facebook Account.”  When I look at the blog stats, it is still very often one of the most read posts for the day or the week.  I don’t think I’ve written about social networking since (you can listen to a sermon on it by Dave Mallinak from the 2014 Word of Truth Conference).  Especially among fundamentalists or independent Baptists or separatists and even conservative evangelicals there is a wide range of opinion about social networking.  When I say “wide range,” I mean that this post might get very different and contradictory reactions.  Some will really identify with what I’m writing and others might hate it.  I have found with the 2009 post that there is both strong agreement and hostile opposition.

A lot of younger people think that older folk like myself just don’t get it.  Perhaps nothing seems more inane than explaining how you do “get it” to someone who says you don’t.  It dawns on you pretty quickly that it wasn’t an argument.  It was intended to shut down the conversation.

More than ever I see a rejection of the elderly or older generations by millennials.  Maybe it is just generational to make fun of the previous generations and to see yours as superior to the older ones. The silent generation or boomers more than gen x, millennials, or gen y see danger in social networking.  Some have succumbed either to look like they do “get it” or to submit to their only available or offered connection.  In 2004 Zuckerberg foresaw bookoo bucks in the perceived weakness of people, not for trying to help the world be a better place.  Facebook succeeds off the worst traits of humanity.  It’s underlying philosophy and very design discourages godliness.  While cultural indicators trend downward, facebook stock rises.

What I have said about social networking is that it is possible to have a good “page,” but that the massive difficulty of having one likely outweighs any benefit.  Is active social networking compatible with complete obedience to scripture?  Does the capability exist for social networking without sinning?  I’m not sure.  It is unlikely.  Those are not even the best questions though.  Facebook itself does far more damage than good to the degree that involvement encourages more facebook, which one can guarantee will cause even more damage.  That is code for stumbling block.

I’ve noticed that people who judge social networking are stalkers, lurkers, and trolls.  That’s intended, it seems, to shut you up and sit you down, where you might stay in your diminished physical condition.  Also, if you treat social networking like it might be the real world, you aren’t getting the point.  It seems that social networking is an opportunity to sin without accountability.  You are not really sinning.  You are only virtually sinning.  Social networking provides cover or deniability for sinning.  It is somehow removed from you as some kind of technological scapegoat.  It is perfect for postmodernism, where everyone’s truth is his or her truth.  These are people who treat real life like it is a simulation, so surely social networking is a simulation.

I just signed up for an instagram account.  Instagram is not really the friend of the desktop or laptop computer.  I couldn’t get started with instagram on my regular computer without further research.  It is simple for the mobile device, which encourages the mobile device, which appears to me a soul sucking vortex for young people.  I digress.  I use my tablet almost exclusively for sermon notes, as a means of replacing paper and ink cartridges.  Very seldom, I check email on it while traveling.  I have added instagram to its purpose.

Based on what I’ve written in this post, it would seem that my instagram account could not be good. It will serve to encourage more instagram.  I’m open to that criticism.  My page is public.  I’m not hiding here.  It has my full name and my picture.  It will keep one posting, because that is required to comment.  It’s been up for a day and I still have no followers, am not following anyone, and have had zero likes or comments.  That is tell tale already.

The only point of my instagram account is to add my opinion to other instagram accounts.  Yes, I hear the screaming and see the eye rolling.  I don’t count either reaction though, because it’s only virtual anyway.  You don’t get it.  I don’t want to sit by without comment on what I see as brainless damaging social networking (I wanted my title to appear in the post).  I’m not going to step into the matrix of facebook.  However, instagram looks like it can be managed.  Only an arm and a leg are affixed to the glue like substance spun with silicon.

My comments on instagram will be a light not hid under a bushel.  I won’t comment on everything I don’t like, but I will comment.  I will add perspective with a comment.  I will praise with a comment.  All of it will be light though.  Most of it will be scripture, actual verses quoted.  I don’t plan on posting another picture on my own account.  I’m not going to accept all followers (even though there will be nothing to follow), and I will follow only family members and church members with private accounts.  I will solely exist for the sake of commenting.  Maybe I’ll come back later with a post to report all the times I have been blocked or deleted.

I want just to talk about instagram at this juncture.  What is it that I see that I don’t like, that I believe is unscriptural?  I’m going to enumerate and then briefly elaborate not in any order.


1.   Unbiblical Content in a Photo or Photo Description or Hashtag

2 Chronicles 19:2, “Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the LORD? therefore is wrath upon thee from before the LORD.”
Psalm 101:3-4, “I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.  A froward heart shall depart from me: I will not know a wicked person.”
Amos 5:15, “Hate the evil, and love the good.”
Matthew 6:24, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.”
Ephesians 5:11, “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. 

Psalm 119:37, “Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity.”
Proverbs 30:8, “Remove far from me vanity and lies.”
1 Corinthians 10:23, “All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.”
1 Corinthians 14:26, “Let all things be done unto edifying.”

 3.  Lack of Positive, Aggressive, Real Christian Testimony, i.e., Lack of Love for God Shown


The Bible should be all over a Christian’s social networking.  It should be a regular mention.  It isn’t something they have to try to do.  It is who they are.

Matthew 5:15, “Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.”
Matthew 12:34, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.”
2 Timothy 2:4, “No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.”

4.  Allowed Unbiblical and Worthless Comments without Rebuke


God is not this way.  We should not be this way.  The reproval of unbiblical comments will not be likely welcomed by the one commenting, but it will start him or her on her way to the gospel.  Christ is the end of the law, but the law comes first.  Everyone who believes the gospel starts with the confrontation of his or her sin.  This is all over both the Old and New Testaments.  It is an application of holiness and the doctrine of separation.  I’ll put two though.

Proverbs 19:25, “Smite a scorner, and the simple will beware.”
1 Timothy 6:5, “Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself.”

5.  Attachments to Ungodly People through the Comment Section, Aiding and Abetting the Enemy


It seems that some professing Christians want commentary from unbelievers.  They love that kind of praise of men.  They say what will impress the ungodly for the kudos of the ungodly.  It’s not right. By doing so, they aid and abet the enemy.  People should be asked if they are right with God.  They should be confronted for their unbelief by believers.  What is the point of developing a following of unbelievers in a comment section or in your followers? You’ll find yourself trying to impress unbelievers, when you should be thinking about the pleasing of God.

2 Corinthians 6:17, “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.”
1 Peter 3:12, “the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.”

Men should not be accepting the flattery of the strange woman, including in social networking.  It’s wrong.

Proverbs 5:3, “For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil.”
Proverbs 6:24, “To keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman.”
Proverbs 7:5, “That they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger which flattereth with her words.”

I’ve noticed that social networking is a way for men to collect their admirers.  They lack in confidence in Jesus Christ, so they allow for women to flatter them with their acceptance.

6.  Pandering


Pandering is a kind of lie.  People live a lie in these social networking situations, because they portray their lives in a way of their choosing.  It isn’t reality.  It is pandering to a particular group of people to give them a false impression.  I’m quite sure that the degree of social networking corresponds to the lack of confidence of the individual.  He compensates with his social networking.  He puffs himself up with his account.  He uses other people as props as part of the impression he or she is making.

I’m going to be using my instagram as a means, part time of course, for calling out brainless damaging social networking.

Part One     Part Two     Part Three

How do we know?  We know by faith.  Someone might ask and say, “How do I know I drank a glass of orange juice for breakfast?  It isn’t by faith.  I know because I saw it, tasted it, swallowed and then ingested it.  No faith was involved.”  Someone else could say to that person, “How do you know that you were drinking the glass of orange juice and you are not actually a brain in a vat, living in a simulated world, not really drinking the orange juice?  You don’t really know.”  Certain conditions must be met for the constitution of knowledge.  Human knowledge is dependent on other knowledge and the buck stops at God, which is why faith still buttresses all knowledge.  Human faculties are unreliable without certain presuppositions that originate from God.  For instance, how can an accident (chance) “know” anything?  It can’t, which brings us back to God again.  I could say that God is the only alternative, except that chance is the alternative.  You can’t even consider chance without God. Chance doesn’t have a chance.

A few hours before I started writing this post, I read Ezra Klein interview Ta-Nehisi Coates at Vox, which was entitled, “Ta-Nehisi Coates: ‘I’m a big believer in chaos.”  In his introduction, Klein writes:

I spoke with Coates for my podcast this week. The first half of our conversation is political: It’s about Coates’s interviews with Obama, his perspective on American politics, the way his atheism informs his worldview. . . .

I draw your attention to “the way his atheism informs his worldview.”  Coates in the same section that he said “I’m a big believer in chaos,” also said:

I think religion undergirds a lot of this. This sort of idea that, “At the end of the day, it all works out.” Or maybe, to put it less condescendingly, that, “We’re on the right side of history, and the arc of the moral universe bends to justice.” That’s just something I don’t share. The sense of destiny that “it will,” I just don’t share it. There’s ample evidence it might not. That’s where I come down.

By the way, how can anyone understand chaos without understanding order?  Coates was commenting on a long personal interview he did with President Obama.  He doesn’t have even a close to consistent epistemology.  He can’t have one with his view of the world.  Like all professing atheists, he borrows a Christian worldview to make his argument.  Coates says:

From an atheist perspective, life is precious — whenever someone dies, it’s the end of their personal universe. The idea we should hand-wave away the deaths that I believe will come as a result of this election — I just can’t do it.

Life expectancy went down in 2015, the first drop since 1993, a year Bill Clinton was president. Let’s not hand-wave that away.  But I digress.

Earlier Coates also said, “I find it hard to say that Obama’s optimism was “wrong” in a global or moral way.”  He judges morality and by a certain standard from, he says, an “atheist perspective.” What I wanted you to observe, however, is how that his epistemology affects him.  President Obama obviously operates on certain assumptions Coates does not.

In part three, I ended by saying that James White denies the knowledge of the exact words and word order of scripture.  What we do “know,” like among many other evangelicals, White says is by sight. The words are judged by human reasoning.  When White argues with a Muslim scholar based upon the veracity of scripture, he depends on textual criticism, which is man’s observation.  He rejects the authority of scripture for sight.

I guess you can really appreciate James White’s arguments against the perfect preservation of scripture if you agree with him.  First, you can’t bring that to a debate with a Muslim scholar. Second, he’s never heard of you.  Third, he leafs through one of his books, drawing attention to his authorship. Fourth, all of the above said with an unconventional articulation of the sibilant consonants, rolling of his eyes, and then a maniacal mocking grin.  You’ll never hear one scriptural argument from James White.

Scripture teaches its own, perfect preservation for every generation of believers.  In history before modernism, believers took their position from scripture.  They knew by faith.

Not believing what God said about His preservation of His Words and, therefore, not knowing both whether we have God’s Words or what they are, brings and has brought many harmful consequences.  It begets further faithlessness and denial.  If you don’t know what God’s Words are, how could you believe them and obey them?

Part five will bring further application.

Part One     Part Two 


Charles Wesley wrote the hymn lyrics:

We know, by faith we know,
If this vile house of clay
This tabernacle, sink below
In ruinous decay;
We have a House above,
Not made with mortal hands;
And firm as our Redeemer’s Love
That heavenly fabric stands.

“We know, by faith we know.”  By faith we know God and in God is all knowledge and wisdom.  By faith we know, since the curse, because our faculty to see has been ruined and because what we’re seeing is a disturbed scene.  The world is not a closed environment — there has been intrusion.

Evidence presented in court is only relevant if it can be shown to have been involved in a crime and to have survived intact until considered by the judge and jury. . . . Disturbed evidence refers to any item of evidence that has been interfered with in some way, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

Evidence collection requires the evidence not be intruded upon, cannot be contaminated by outside sources, degraded, or destroyed.  That describes, however, what has occurred unceasingly during the entire history of mankind, since the curse, either through the divine intervention of God or the debilitating effects of sin.

In the comment section of part one of this series, Jon Gleason proposed a third reason sight can’t be trusted.  He wrote:

Even if our sight were clear, even if the forensics hadn’t been trampled:

Our sight is limited. 

Pre-fall Adam’s sight had not yet been muddled by sin, and the “crime scene was clean.” Yet, he also needed faith, for he could not see everything. 

Even if we somehow could be sure we were seeing clearly, we still would need faith for the things that are beyond our sight. There is a spiritual realm and spiritual truth of which we simply must be told. All we could see of that realm, even if our eyes were working right, would be shadows and reflections. We might be able to see that the heavens declare the glory of God, if we were looking at them clearly, but we could not see Him without Him telling us who He is.

Adam and Eve overestimated their abilities as well, and failed.

Knowledge is transcendent.  It is with God, separate from the finite and the ruined world in a place of pristine purity.  God is outside of His creation, separate or holy, where the knowledge is kept pristine, unspoiled, unlimited, and with the proper perspective (cf. James 1:17-18).

Will Jesus Christ return?  He will.  Scripture says He will.  Sight or experience says that He will not return, because “all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation” (2 Pet 3:4).  Is that true?  It isn’t, but it is the perspective of someone with spoiled sight in a disturbed scene.  What is Peter’s answer?  He goes to scripture:  “be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour” (2 Pet 3:2). Scripture and faith supersede sight and evidence.

What are the applications?  There are many, but I want to deal with what might seem to be the most controversial.  They have been made controversial by those professing to be believers, but who have relied on sight or evidence for their “knowledge,” even though scripture has spoken.  Faith is what pleases God.  He doesn’t want to be doubted by our sight.  He wants to be believed.  That’s what pleases Him.

What does God say?  He says He preserves every Word of God for every generation of people.  Jesus says He will send the Spirit and He will lead His people into all truth.  Men like James White are saying there isn’t evidence, and they mock the biblical position.  He doesn’t believe God.

We’ll proceed with this line of thought in the next part, Lord-willing.

Part One

My sins are forgiven, continue to be forgiven, and will be forgiven through all eternity.  I know that by faith.  Nothing is more important to me or anyone else than this forgiveness.  Knowing it is vital.  I can’t see the forgiveness I possess, but faith is superior to sight (2 Cor 5:7).  If I step off a cliff, I will go over and down.  I can say I know that, but it isn’t less than I know that my sins are forgiven.  God says my sins are forgiven.  I know they are.

Faith is the threshold through which knowledge comes:  knowledge of God, of salvation, of righteousness, of understanding everything else.  Colossians 2:3 says that “in [Christ] are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”  The whole history of mankind is understood by faith.  How we got there and continue being here is known by faith.  The future is apprehended by faith.  All spiritual matters, which are most important, are recognized by faith.  We understand the purpose of everything by faith.  We know what to do by faith.  How families work is known by faith.  Whether we’ve done wrong is discerned by faith.  I can keep going.

What comes through faith is pure because faith itself is pure and what comes through faith is pure.  Faith is a gift.  I mentioned that in part one.  The faith by which we access or obtain the knowledge is the “faith of Jesus.”  The New Testament certainly teaches “faith in Christ,” but it also teaches “faith of Jesus,” what Jesus calls “my faith” (Rev 2:13, 4:12), a genitive of possession.  Since it is his, we do not get it except from Him.  The knowledge of God comes by divine origination and the pathway it takes is faith. You don’t get it except by faith.  And faith itself is divine, so it is pure.  Sight comes with impurity.  Actual faith doesn’t.

Jesus in Luke 11:52 talks about the Pharisees taking away “the key of knowledge.”  Faith in Jesus Christ or faith of Jesus Christ is the key of knowledge.  One could say Jesus opens up the door to all knowledge, like He did for the Apostle Paul, but that occurs by faith.

Someone has said, “What you see is what you get.”  It’s not true.  You don’t know always what you are getting from what you see.  What you see isn’t necessarily what you think it is.  You can be fooled, and what it is that you see is itself a lie.

Many doctrines of scripture now through the centuries have been challenged by man’s observations, his sight.  Man sees something that he then thinks contradicts a teaching of the Bible.  He considers his sight to be superior to the doctrine, because it is “evidence.”  He thinks evidence is how someone obtains knowledge and evidence by definition is something he can touch or observe.

At one time, men considered faith superior to observation.  They got truth, goodness, and beauty from God.  The founding fathers of the United States were from this era and they had the notion that men were endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.  Think of that!  Too bad, I guess, that they didn’t come from a later period where that could be debunked by humanists.

I come to a couple of areas of application (next time).

People can talk about justification by faith or being saved by faith, and that is good.  It’s biblical.  We are justified by faith, we are saved by faith. That’s right. Faith, however, is even much bigger than that. Faith doesn’t sit next to religion about as trustworthy as personal taste.  Faith isn’t conventional wisdom.  Faith is a major means that we know.

More attaches itself to faith than knowledge, but the most important, the most vital knowledge comes by faith.  It must.  Epistemology is the study of the method for acquisition of knowledge. It answers the question, “How do we know?”  I’m saying that we know by faith, because scripture says we know by faith.

If you study knowledge or knowing or understanding through scripture, and that’s all in the Bible a lot, you find that it comes from God.  In John 9:29, Jesus says, “We know that God spake unto Moses.”  Jesus could say that He knows that because He is God and that He was there, but He says, “We know.”  How do we know?  We know by faith.  We weren’t there.  We didn’t see it happen.  We believe it, because God said it, so we know it.

Hebrews 11:3 comes in here, because it says, “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God.”  No one saw creation, but we understand it by faith.  God said it in Genesis 1-2 and so we believe it.  In 2 Timothy 1:12, Paul says, “I know whom I have believed.”

Why is faith the means of knowledge?  We could say to the glory of God, and that’s true.  That is a point Paul makes in 1 Corinthians 1-3.  There is a means by which someone knows God by which God receives the glory.  That’s how God will get things done — in a way that will bring Him glory.  If it is by faith, then it is by grace, which means that God is doing it, so He gets the credit for it (Rom 4:16).

Faith is the pure and, therefore, reliable means of knowing.  Faith is not a work.  It is a gift (Philip 1:29, Eph 2:8-9).  Faith comes by hearing the Word of God, and the Word of God is incorruptible seed (1 Pet 1:23) and the sincere milk (1 Pet 2:2), that is, the pure mother’s milk.  All the eternal things have to come by faith, because only faith pleases God (Heb 11:6).  God has a standard higher than any of us can reach.  We can’t get there our way.

Furthermore, we must know or understand by faith, because the other means are unreliable.  This is why in 2 Peter, Peter said that the “sure word of prophecy,” “scripture,” is superior to his eyewitness testimony on the Mount of Transfiguration (2 Pet 1:16-21).  It’s why Abraham (and Jesus) in Luke 16:28-31 said no to the experience, the sight of someone coming from hell, but instead believing Moses and the Prophets.  The knowledge of salvation comes through scripture.  The threshold into eternal life comes through scripture.  Our salvation and sanctification comes through scripture (cf. Jn 17:17).

Ultimately everything that is important, what is eternal, the answer even for everything in this age, comes by faith.  It must be faith.  It must be faith, because of two other related aspects.  One, our abilities are flawed.  Our sight is muddled.  We cannot count on us.  We are not going to see it right. Two, the forensics have been trampled upon.  We do not enter a clean crime scene.  Whatever it is we are looking at has been affected by the harmful effects of the curse too.  We can’t trust our sight and we can’t trust what we see.  We can trust God’s Word, and we can believe by means of the Word of God, because that is a gift of God.

When James says we are begotten by the Word of Truth (James 1:18), he ties that into God’s unchangeable nature, the lack of variation of God.  God is outside of the box.  There is no shadow of turning with Him.  He is not effected or affected.  That’s why every good and perfect gift comes from above.  It can’t originate here.  This scene has been spoiled.  It has to come from the outside, which is why we have to live by faith.

You can say that you know, but you don’t really know.  You think you know.  What you really know, you know by faith.  That’s what you know.  That’s why we shouldn’t apologize for seeing faith as science.  It is superior to so-called science.  It is better than the science side of the campus.  Faith should not be relegated to the art side of the campus.  We know by faith.

More to Come.