Category: Christianity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mztp74-kx0Q

https://youtu.be/Wwc2ZQikR-U So how do we respond to someone who asks: Are the teachings of Jesus just the recycled teachings of the Buddha? The first thing I would want to say in response to someone asking that question is that maybe they have the question backwards. Let me explain. Although Buddha lived before Jesus, the earliest writings about his life and his teachings that have survived to this day come after Jesus. And so we could ask the question: Did the people who recorded his life and his teachings in these manuscripts actually, by this point, begin to copy Jesus? We just don't know. Did Buddha copy Jesus? Did Jesus copy Buddha? What we are best to do is to look at their teachings and compare them. And we find there's…

https://youtu.be/9Z5RMjYBwds Can a person follow the teachings of Buddha and the teachings of Jesus at the same time? Well you can try and you'll have some measure of success. The teachings of Jesus and the teachings of Buddha overlap and complement one another at different points of connection. At the same time they are distinct in different ways and so you'll come to places where you need to make a choice about the nature of ultimate reality, about what love is and how we fully experienced it, about the role of grace versus karma, significantly different ways of looking at how the universe works. And so when that time of choice comes between the two, you can bounce back and forth, be friendly and non-committal but I would like to…

https://youtu.be/IoNP9Tjcnp8 Well I think that the being that created the universe has to be personal, otherwise he couldn't have elected to create a universe. So he has to be a person to make a choice. The second way we know that this being is personal is because we're personal and we reason from effect back to cause. If there's personhood, if we have personhood, there must be a cause of personhood out there. Thirdly, we ultimately look to Jesus who came to earth, added humanity to his deity and he is the being that the scriptures say is the perfect example of the Father. So we have three ways at least - there's probably others I'm not thinking of right now - to show that this God is personal.

https://youtu.be/lSO92VltlAg A good many people nowadays say “I believe in a God but not in a personal God.” They feel that the mysterious something which is behind all other things must be more than a person. Now the Christians quite agree but the Christians are the only people who offer any idea of what a being that is beyond personality could be like. All the other people, though they say that God is beyond personality, really think of him as something impersonal, that is as something less than personal. If you're looking for something super-personal, something more than a person, then it is not a question of choosing between the Christian idea and the other ideas. The Christian idea is the only one on the market. Again some people think…

https://youtu.be/mztp74-kx0Q

https://youtu.be/-CiKrOqaLGo What does the Bible say about Karma?  Karma is the theological concept found in the Buddhist and Hindu religions. It's the idea that how you live your life will determine the quality of life you'll have after reincarnation. If you are unselfish, kind and holy during this lifetime, you'll be rewarded by being reincarnated, reborn into a new earthly body, into a pleasant life. However, if you live a life of selfishness and evil, you'll be reincarnated into a less-than-pleasant lifestyle. In other words, you reap in the next life what you sow in this one. Karma is based on the theological belief in reincarnation. The Bible rejects the idea of reincarnation. Therefore it does not support the idea of karma.  Hebrews 9:27 states “Just as man is destined…

https://youtu.be/91uhzIDsc1M What is it that would then make what we might call meditation uniquely Christian or decisively non-Christian? And there's two things that I would say that define what you do. It's sort of what you do next after you slow down and take a deep breath, calm down then what do you do? And I think there are two things about a Christian approach to meditation that really distinguish it from the other things that are out there. One is that Christian meditation is full of content. Christian meditation and the bible encourages us to meditate. It's full of a person, it's full of God, it's full of his promises, his will, his revelation. I just think of how as I look back on my own life the way…

https://youtu.be/IhxTfIWK7cc The Bible talks a lot about suffering and most of the people it talks about experience suffering in one way or another. For example, Jacob's favorite son is kidnapped. And Job experiences the loss of everyone and everything in his life. And Jeremiah is not only rejected for his message, he's also imprisoned for his message. And Joseph loses the opportunity to marry his virgin bride. And Jesus is betrayed and abandoned and crucified. And Mary is left a widow and sees her son tortured and killed publicly. And John the apostle is exiled to die on the island of Patmos. He doesn't but he's exiled there. So the servants of God, even the son of God were no strangers to suffering but they all suffered successfully. That's the…

https://youtu.be/Uo_dxelasWU It's more sensible to think that a human, a normal human being, will normally seek comfort during suffering, not detachment. Because if he detached himself from all that, he's just going to build up his suffering. Let's be honest. It's gonna be comfort. They seek comfort. That's what humans do right? When they're going through hard times, they seek that. They want some kind of comfort. So here's God's answer for you. This is the answer for your suffering and you better thank God for this promise. That's why we Christians can live through suffering because we have a great comfort. 1 Peter 4:19 “wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing as unto a…