Some Christians have held that cremation is not permitted by the Bible, on the grounds that bodies buried intact, or “sleeping”, are a concrete anticipation of the resurrection of the dead on the last day. But the Bible never expressly forbids cremation, and in at least one place cremation is approvingly performed (1 Samuel 31:11-13).

The key issue is the question of what the resurrection from the dead means: if the body has been created by God and is fundamentally good, then our funeral and burial practices must center around and focus on the belief and confession that God will raise all the bodies of his children someday to new life in his new creation, whether they have been buried or cremated.

Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert

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Virtue, in the ancient world, was the word for moral and physical excellence. Those who were brave, those who were honest, those who accomplished great things, were excellent, therefore virtuous.

The Bible, too, picks up on this ancient idea and calls humans to pursue virtue. But the Bible, unlike the Stoics and other ancient philosophies, holds that virtue is something that is only located in God’s character. In 2 Peter 1, Peter first claims that glory and virtue are something that are God’s alone, and then calls God’s people to live in His virtue, making ever effort to supplement our faith with this excellence. And if Christians are living in Christ’s virtue, then there is no need for “virtue signaling” - having to tell people we have virtue, to cover up our lack - because the genuine virtue and excellence of Jesus will be manifest in our day to day living.

Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert

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When Jesus was falsely accused of sedition and blasphemy, Pontius Pilate asked him a question which has persistently confounded every thinker before and since: “What is truth?”

Pinning down truth so that everyone can have access to reality has been notoriously difficult. One option is to hold that humans can figure out the truth based upon their own observations and experiences - but the human propensity to be mistaken often demonstrates this theory’s weakness. Another option is to hold that there is no such thing as truth (or, at least, no one can know whether there is or not) - and yet we humans continue to live as though some things are true and worth giving assent to and others are not.

The Christian solution is that no mere mortal can completely know and understand the truth, but that God has made the truth known in the person of his Son Jesus. In other words, any and all truth claims must be tested not against the standard of human experience or common sense, but against the person of the One who claimed to be the way, the truth, and the life.

Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert

Subscribe to the show at https://cacg.saintjamesglencarbon.org.

To comment on this episode, visit https://saintjamesglencarbon.org/cacg-ep99.