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The highest source of truth is God's divine revelation in the Scriptures. Yet the Bible is not the only source of revelation. There is that which we call "general revelation," and it comes to us from nature.

From a Christian perspective, the location of maximum pain is in the pit of hell and the optimum abode of pleasure is in the kingdom of God.

There is no sin in enjoying the pleasant and being free from pain, but there are times when the Christian must choose the road that results in pain.

Pluralism suggests more than just diverse opinions in the church. It allows contradictory views of Christ, of God, and of the very essence of the Christian faith. It considers them all to be right. Once a church embraces pluralism it is saying, "It doesn't matter whether we agree on the essential points of the Christian faith, because it's all relative."

Faith is based upon evidence; it is based upon what is seen, but it goes beyond what is seen. We trust Christ, who is seen, about matters that are unseen. We believe God's Word about the future because in the past He has proven Himself, both rationally and empirically, to be utterly trustworthy.

If we want to see something disturbing, during one week we should write down every time we make an ethical decision on the basis of expediency. The pressure to do so is overwhelming. We start compromising and then compromise some more until we are merely an echo of everything that is around us. We become part of the problem of human society instead of part of the solution.

"By their fruit you will recognize them" (Matt. 7:20 NIV).
Our practice reveals most clearly what we think and what we believe.

We must remember that humanism is a world view. It shares the skepticism and agnosticism with respect to God found in secularism. It has retained enough common virtues and ideals to be easily confused with Christianity, especially by children.

It is important for us as Christians to be compassionate to the sick and to the poor. We have a duty, a moral obligation, to minister to those people. God has commanded it. But humanism retained these concerns while denying their theological foundations. They want to retain much of the ethic of Christianity while rejecting the Christ of Christianity.

Our task is not to escape the secular, but secularism. We must embrace the world without embracing worldliness.

The secularists of Jesus's day summed up their philosophy like this: "Eat, drink, and be merry. For tomorrow you die." Contrast that with Jesus's words: "Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven" (Matt. 6:20).

We guess about tomorrow; we hope for tomorrow; but tomorrow is always shrouded a bit in mystery for us. That is because we are secular. We live in a world of time.

We are not all philosophers, but we all have a philosophy. Perhaps we haven't thought much about that philosophy, but one thing is certain—we live it out. How we live reveals our deepest convictions about life. Our lives say much more about how we think than our books do. The theories we preach are not always the ones we actually believe. The theories we live are the ones we really believe.