Hey Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I hope you had a good weekend so far. Thanks for your prayers. I had some good discussions, Emanuel, a good looking African American Student with a Beard and red hoodie who I’d spoken with before waved me over in the PE lounge and said he had some questions, so I explained some things to him. He was with a girl whose name I did not know, heavy set with a pretty face and light brown hair, Caucasian.  He wanted to know why Jesus decided to die. Broadly speaking it seems obvious that He died for our sins but many people think God could just be magnanimous and forgive you. I explained that God is just in Christianity, unlike the Islamic god whose essence is unknowable (they claim).  So Islamic theologians will say God has no limits even being reasonable. His decisions then from a human perspective are arbitrary. Whereas Christian worldview Scientists like Francis Bacon derives the scientific method imagining they had a reasonable God. God creates order. Islam never creates experimental science like the West because their god cannot be said to be essentially reasonable. Scientists nowadays will say they do not believe in God. But I explained to Emanuel, to do an experiment [even if you say you think the world evolved without God out of randomness and chaos] you must conduct yourself in a lab as if de facto, there was a God who guarantees the experiment. Because the environment is ordered in world of natural laws and so it can be reduplicated. Similarly God is Just in His essence, and so to forgive there must be just compensation. When you break the world or hurt another person you owe God for damaging His stuff. In order to be Just and to forgive God must “get paid”. When you wreck someone’s stuff you owe them something perfect in return. The example I used was borrow a sweater that was ruined while you wore it you would buy your friend a new sweater. If you borrow a car and wreck it you pay the deductible and the Body Shop auspiciously makes it like new again. You owe someone something perfect in return, but we cannot do anything perfect, so we owe God but have no means to pay–to make the thing perfect again. So Jesus lives a perfect life to pay for this inability or debt on our part. His life is worth an infinite amount because He is God (if He is not God there is no just payment for sin in His death) He dies then and God pays Himself. He does not just get over it, He gets paid and so He can forgive and still be just. Jesus had to die so God could get paid and be both just and forgiving.

I also answered some other questions explaining that there are not 3 world religions that are monotheistic. Christianity is Trinitarian with God in 3 powers and Biblical Judaism, which is not believed buy any Jews now [since 200 AD when their leaders declared it a heresy] has God in two powers. Only Islam has a god in one power alone, only Islam is monotheistic theologically. Sociologists might disagree but this is because they do not understand Theology, or really anything else in my honest opinion. I referred them to Heiser’s lectures on this topic on YouTube.

I asked him why God should let him into Heaven as I had before. He said because He had accepted Jesus into His heart and spread the kingdom of God, which is “what God wanted most”. I explained he was wrong on both counts. You go to Heaven because you believe Jesus is God, died for your sins and rose from the dead and you have placed your trust in this as an appeal to God for forgiveness. Not because you asked Jesus into your heart, the Bible never says for you to ask Jesus into your heart. I then explained why people who had told me this on campus prayed to receive Jesus after hearing the Gospel, because the statement accepted Jesus into your heart does not really mean anything you can find in the Bible. I then asked “What is the thing God wants most from you, it is not spreading the Kingdom of God.” The Girl answered, “To love Him and love your neighbor as yourself.” I said she was right. He tried to maintain he was loving his neighbor in spreading the Kingdom and I explained why that was not true and it was not the definition for loving God in the Bible. We talked some more and he said he had some more questions maybe we could talk again, I said sure.

I got to give assurance of salvation to Nichele; she thanked me and was genuinely grateful to hear the Gospel explained clearly, that was nice. Cute kid, African American basketball player with her hair up in a hair band popping up in 5 inch braids. Had a t-shirt and basketball shorts on.

Crystal a short plump Latina with light brown hair and bangs said she’d “Pray on her own time” after I explained the Gospel to her, which I think means “later” so maybe I’ll discover she trusted in Christ. She was attending a different Bible study group and had no idea what she’d say to God to get into Heaven.

Danish an Islamic guy form Pakistan heard the Gospel and took a Bible Study on the Deity of Christ. So it was a good day, though it’s more fulfilling when someone prays to receive Jesus.

May God Bless what is left of your Weekend!

Love ya,

Bob