• Spiritual importance, continued:

  • “If you really believe the Bible, then I suppose you believe in slavery and stoning rebellious children as the Bible teaches.”

  • “What about my dear Grandmother who died without being baptized? Are you really saying that baptism is necessary for salvation?”

    • Romans 6:3-4; Luke 16:30-31

  • “Since the inerrancy of Scripture is a divisive doctrine, we should reject it.”

  • “Most scientists believe in evolution.”

  • “I know what Matthew 19:3-9 says, but don’t you think God wants us to be happy? You don’t think He wants His people to be stuck in miserable marriages, do you?”

  • “Which would you rather believe in – God or evolution?”

  • “Which would you rather believe in – a God who saves everyone or just some?”

• What is it?

  • “A person commits the fallacy of bifurcation when he or she claims that there are only two mutually exclusive possibilities – which, in fact, there is a third option (or more).”

  • See John 9:1-3. “The key to avoiding the dilemma is simply to find the third alternative.”

  • If there truly is no third option, then no fallacy is committed.

    • For example, Matthew 12:30 commits no fallacy.

    • Matthew 21:25

Proverbs 18:22 – Marriage is good!

The controversy around marriage roles

• I Corinthians 11:3; Ephesians 5:22-24; I Peter 3:1-6

The benefits of marriage roles

• God-designed companionship

  • Genesis 2:18; Malachi 2:14

  • If we try to change what God designed, the only way it can go is down!

• Your companion is instructed to love and sacrifice themselves for you.

  • Ephesians 5:25-30; I Peter 3:7; Colossians 3:18

  • When the husband fulfills his role correctly, the wife gets a wonderful thing.

  • Ephesians 5:33

  • When the wife fulfills her role, the husband benefits as well.

What is my spouse isn’t on board?

• Work on yourself first.
  • Matthew 7:5
• Get the Bible into your lives.
  • Psalms 119:97-100
• Hang around Christians that are doing it well.
  • Titus 2:2-8

I John 2:17

Courage

• John 16:32

• Acts 4:13 – Peter and John showed confidence, but it was not through their own knowledge or training. It was from being with Jesus!

• Acts 18:9-11 – God gave Paul some encouragement by settling him in a safe place for a while.

• I Corinthians 16:13

Cost

• Philippians 3:7-8 – Paul gave up many physical things, including a career as a Jewish official, to serve God.

• Whatever the cost, we must stand with Christ.

• Matthew 16:24-26

Christ

• I John 2:3-6

• I Peter 2:21-24 – Jesus did not die so that we could sin like anybody else!

• We should not stoop to the level of the enemy. We must be like Christ!

• Galatians 2:20

• Matthew 10:16

Faulty appeals

• Amos 7:10-17; Jeremiah 38:1-6 – God’s prophets were often rejected without reasoning through their warnings. People tried to ignore or stop their message with force.

• What is it?

  • Appealing to faulty sources of authority might be very effective or persuasive, but it is faulty reasoning because it does not prove a proposition.

  • The appeal to force/fear: “You better accept my claim or there will be consequences!”

    • Daniel 3:6

    • You do not see this sort of appeal in the New Testament. The apostles did not try to force people to be baptized.

  • The appeal to emotion: attempting to persuade people by stirring powerful emotions rather than making a logical case.

    • Matthew 27:17-26

  • The appeal to pity: a particular type of the appeal to emotion that occurs when an arguer tries to persuade people to accept a position by generating sympathy for those who hold the position.

    • I Peter 3:8-9

  • The appeal to ignorance: the fallacy of appealing to the unknown; specifically, it is when a person argues that a claim is probably true simply because it has never been proven false.

  • The appeal to the majority of what’s popular: the fallacy of deciding proof by opinion polls.

    • Matthew 7:13-14

• Spiritual importance

  • Acts 4:14, 21; 5:18, 28, 40

  • What about preachers who primarily tell anecdotes and poignant stories instead of reasoning with people from the Scriptures (Acts 17:2)?

  • “What about the tribal member deep in the jungle who’s never had a Bible and doesn’t know about Jesus?”

    • John 3:36; 14:6; Acts 4:12 – We have to obey what we do know. God is the judge of all.

  • “If you teach creation in this school, we’ll sue you.”

    • This is a realistic example. David Gelernter, professor at Yale.