February 21, 2014.

“Daniel answered the king and said, “No wise men, enchanters, magicians, or astrologers can show to the king the mystery that the king has asked, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream and the visions of your head as you lay in bed are these: To you, O king, as you lay in bed came thoughts of what would be after this, and he who reveals mysteries made known to you what is to be. But as for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because of any wisdom that I have more than all the living, but in order that the interpretation may be made known to the king, and that you may know the thoughts of your mind.”
(Daniel 2:27-30)

Last night at small group, we discussed biblical apologetics, reasons why we believe that the bible is the inspired word of God. I believe this to be an important field as many Christians who have never questioned their faith will probably run in to an atheist or agnostic (or someone of another faith, for that mater) and have to answer that question. Not do you believe, but why do you believe.

I am very interested in Christian apologetics. I believe I was first drawn to it for two reasons. One, I’m a scientist and I love to see scientific foreknowledge in the bible. Perhaps more so than this reason, however, is because I needed Christian apologetics to build my faith. I believe that faith is more of a road that we walk down rather than a point of believe. We will all go through waxing and waining sections of our walk of faith, and It was at one of those low points that I turned to apologetics. If you would like to study more and gain more indepth knowledge of apologetics, I would suggested apologeticspress.org. They have been an indispensable resource for me, as they have all kinds of materials and articles written on faith and atheism, the validity of the bible and answers to alleged discrepancies of the scriptures proposed over the centuries. I would also suggest you watch the lecture series Kyle Butt and Eric Loins do on the bible.

Apologetics is usually split into three categories when it comes to confirming the bible: aracheology, scientific foreknowledge and prophecy. Prophecy is then broken down to messianic prophecy and all other prophecy. Today I will just focus on one specific prophecy that you may easily turn to to confirm the word of God. There are many, many others, but I will leave that up to you to seek out and find for now (the seventy weeks prophecy is a phenomonial one).

The prophecy in Daniel 2 deals with the four world kingdoms that were to come between that time (Babylon) to the Roman kingdom when the church was established. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had a dream of a statue composed of four distinct parts, a head of gold, chest of silver, legs of iron and feet of partly iron and partly clay. Each of these corresponds to a kingdom that was to come: Babylon, Medo-persian, Greece and Roman. It then says “in the days of these [the fourth kingdom, Rome], the God of heaven will set up his kingdom…” Well, it just so happens that our messiah was born and crucified during the Roman Empire (which, as is prophesied to be a divided kingdom, it indeed was). I think this is truly a telling prophecy. I will leave it up to you to piece together the rest (mostly because I am running out of time). There a many examples of prophecy in the bible, and perhaps I will revisit some on a later date.

Suggested Daily Reading: Daniel 2, 9, Acts 2, 7.

Be strong in The Lord.

-Walter