Moral Decline

University Of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow actually made "John 3:16" the number one search term on Google for a short time by wearing it in the eye black under his eyes during the BCS championship game.

You can actually see the effect that Tebow had on the search term "john 3 16" right here:

http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends?q=*&sa=X&date=2009-1-8

For those of you not familiar with John 3:16, it says: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

In some previous games, Tebow wore Philippians 4:13 on his eye black which says: "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."

Millions watched this most recent game when Tebow led the Florida Gators to a 24-14 victory over the University of Oklahoma to win the national championship.

But not everyone is thrilled with Tebow's display of faith. The Orlando Sentinel recently put it this way:

Others feel religion and sports should not mix. "Why must he rub it in my face?" they ask.

So why would Tim Tebow do this?

Why would he expose himself and his teammates to potential ridicule?

The truth is that Tim Tebow recognized that millions and millions of people would be looking at his face during the national championship game, and he used that opportunity to promote the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Tim Tebow is part of a dying breed of Christians who are not ashamed of the gospel.

Jesus told us that we should never be ashamed of Him or His message. In Luke 9:26, Jesus said this:

If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

We applaud Tim Tebow for not being ashamed of the gospel. The truth is that Tebow is working to fulfill the command that Jesus gave us almost 2000 years ago in Matthew 28:18-20....

Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

So as far as we are concerned we hope that Tebow will continue to wear Bible verses on his face.

If even one person finds eternal life because of it then it is more than worth it.

One of the reasons that the moral fabric of America is coming apart like a 20 dollar suit is that Americans have rejected the authority of the Bible as the Word of God.

There has been a relentless assault on the Bible in America's movies, television, literature and other media. But rather than being able to defend the Bible, we have noticed in our interactions with America's pastors and spiritual leaders that most of them have NO IDEA where the Bible came from.

In particular, we have noticed that there is serious confusion regarding the development of the New Testament.

Even most Christian "leaders" have fallen for the misconception that a bunch of people sat around a big table during some grand "council" (such as the Council of Nicaea) called by Rome and picked out which books would go into the Bible.

First of all, the canon of the New Testament was not even remotely on the agenda at the Council of Nicaea:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea

But that hasn't stopped Dan Brown, the author of the Davinci Code, and many others from trying to promote the claim that that New Testament books were not decided upon until the 4th century during the Roman Catholic councils.

So does this claim have any merit whatsoever?

Well, for starters, Dan Brown is not a religious expert in the least. In fact, Dan Brown admitted in court that his wife did most of the research for the Davinci Code:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/mar/12/books.danbrown

The truth is that the Davinci Code is interesting fiction, but the facts about the New Testament tell us an entirely different story:

Fact #1) Paul's letters were already considered scripture in the mid 1st century. Take a look at how the apostle Peter himself called Paul's letters Scripture:

2 Peter 3:14-16

So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.

Fact #2) The apostle Paul, writing between A.D. 62 and A.D. 65, quoted Luke 10:7 and called it Scripture:

Luke 10:7

Stay in that house, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages.

Now look at how Paul quoted Luke 10:7 as Scripture in 1 Timothy 5:18....

For the Scripture says, "Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain," and "The worker deserves his wages."

This clearly establishes that the apostle Paul himself considered the gospel of Luke to be Scripture in the middle of the 1st century.

Fact #3) Irenaeus, writing about 170 A.D., tells us that the four-fold gospel was already a rock solid fact by then:

But it is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the church has been scattered throughout the world, and since the "pillar and ground" of the church is the Gospel and the spirit of life, it is fitting that she should have four pillars, breathing incorruption on every side, and vivifying human afresh. From this fact, it is evident that the Logos, the fashioner [demiourgos] of all, he that sits on the cherubim and holds all things together, when he was manifested to humanity, gave us the gospel under four forms but bound together by one spirit. (Against Heresies 3.11.8)

Fact #4) The fact of the four-fold gospel is also reflected in the "Muratorian Fragment" which was written about the same time (around 170 A.D.) that Irenaeus was writing. The Muratorian Fragment lists for us almost the entire New Testament canon. The document may have indeed been a complete list of New Testament books, but we only have a portion of the ancient document. While we do not have the very beginning of the document or the end of the document, the portion of the document that we do have tells us that there are FOUR (and only four) gospels.

Fact #5) We have approximately 50 manuscripts of the New Testament that PRE-DATE the Roman takeover of the established church in the 4th century. So there WAS a New Testament before Rome ever called a "council".

Fact #6) We have more than 32 THOUSAND New Testament quotations from the early church writers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries. In fact, we could recreate virtually the entire New Testament just from the quotes of the early church writers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries. We can be QUITE certain that the New Testament we have today has come down to us just as it was from the earliest days, and we can be QUITE certain what the early Christians of the 2nd and 3rd centuries considered to be Scripture.

Yes, the Roman government came along in the 4th century and corrupted and paganized the institutional church. There were many Christians who resisted this, and they were persecuted brutally. However, Christianity and the Bible were doing JUST FINE before Rome ever came on the scene.