Judgment Day- Part 4

In Parts 1-3 I covered different types of judgment. The focus was on "discernment" and "condemnation". So, what does the Bible say about making judgments? Here's a few passages that I want to tackle:

Proverbs 3:21- "My son, preserve sound judgment and discernment, do not let them out of your sight."
Phillipians 1:10- "...so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ"
Matthew 7:1- "Judge not, lest you be judged."

I placed these purposely in this order because I wanted to show that both the Old and New Testament condone judging. The question is though, which one ("discernment" or "condemnation") does "judge" mean in these?

Overstating Conclusions

This post is going to build upon two of my other posts: "Positive Arguments vs. Negative Arguments" and "This Argument is Full of Crap!" Please read both of those (even if you already have), so that the material is fresh in your mind and connections among all three posts can be easily made.

Book Review: "Thrilled to Death"

Thrilled to Death: How the Endless Pursuit of Pleasure Is Leaving Us Numb
By Dr. Archibald D. Hart

Let me start this review by letting you know why I wanted to read "Thrilled to Death". Ravi Zacharias is one of my favorite apologists for the Christian faith. Many times I have heard him state that, in general, today's society's people are depressed not because they are weary of pain, but are weary of pleasure. I had always thought that this was just an opinion based on some careful observation. However, I was listening to Focus on the Family's podcast about marriage (James Dobson on Marriage) and heard psychologist Dr. Archibald Hart talking about the pleasure center of our brains and how over-stimulation of that pleasure center can cause it to become "accustomed" to the level of pleasure and the never-ending higher levels that are required to maintain a feeling of pleasure. I was quite interested since this seems to be scientific evidence of what Ravi Zacharias was claiming. So I got the book.

Judgment Day- Part 3

I finished Part 2 with the idea that if condemnation cannot be an option in a situation, then neither can praise be an option. This also goes the other direction.

Just to make sure that I'm being clear about "option", I'm talking about before evidence pointing one way or the other is presented. If the situation is deemed to allow one, then it must also allow the other. If one option is available, then both are. The evidence provided after the initial determination of possible options will then determine which option is the correct one to administer.