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The Watching WorldWorldviews, Truth and Evidence: Part 9Wrapping up our series, Knowing What You Believe And Why You Believe It; World Views, Truth And Evidence Part 9, Les Norman and Ed Croteau discuss how to live as a Christian and share the gospel in today’s post-Christian American culture.
The number one thing you must do is know Jesus as your Lord and Savior. The Lordship of Jesus in your life is the most important aspect of witnessing to people. As it says in Colossians, Christ in you is the hope of glory (eternity). In John 15 it says apart from Christ we can do nothing.
Everyone is guilty, an...
2022-05-1225 minThe Watching WorldWorldviews, Truth and Evidence: Part 8Welcome to part eight of our current series, Knowing What You Believe and Why You Believe It. In this episode, Les Norman and Ed Croteau wrap up understanding American culture and the final worldview, Christianity.
Unlike postmodernism, Christianity teaches that there is an absolute truth that you can know.
Understanding who God is and the mechanics of the gospel is the key to understanding Christianity.
God gives us examples and evidence that allows us to know Him in two different ways. The Greek words "nostos" and "ginoskos" are used in the Bible.
Ginoskos is mentioned in John 17:3:
"Now this is...
2022-05-0534 minThe Watching WorldWorldviews, Truth and Evidence: Part7Welcome to part 7 of Worldview, Truth, and Evidence. In today’s episode, guest Ed Croteau talks about understanding postmodernism and why it fails to lead you to the ultimate truth.
What is going on in today’s culture and how does it relate to the biblical truth? The Bible tells us to be still and slow down and spend time with the Lord. Americans are choosing to be too busy. Jesus is reaching out and we are missing the opportunity to spend time with him.
Post-Modernism is a reaction to modernism. Post Modernism means people have their own relative truth, inte...
2022-04-2826 minThe Watching WorldWorldviews, Truth and Evidence: Part 6In part six of our series, Knowing What You Believe and Why You Believe It, Les Norman and Ed Croteau will help you understand American culture, modernism, and how it fails to lead you to the ultimate truth. Ed is the leader of the Faith, Substance, and Evidence University at Abundant Life Church, Lee’s Summit. You can also check out the FSE University Facebook page to catch his articles about how cultural events relate to Biblical truths.
To understand American culture, we should be familiar with the three most popular cultural views:
Modernism: This approach focuses on scientific, empirical me...
2022-04-2126 minThe Watching WorldWorldviews, Truth and Evidence: Part 5Welcome to part 5 of Knowing What You Believe and Why You Believe It. In today’s episode, guest host Ed Croteau tells us how we can test for what is true, specifically in today’s post-Christianity culture. Before presenting the truth, it’s important to establish trust and authenticity. Then, when testing the truth, we look to principles of epistemology or the study of how truth claims are formed. We can use two basic tests to do this: the correspondence test and the coherence test.
When using a correspondence test, we ask how well a person’s truth corresponds to reality...
2022-03-3123 minThe Watching WorldWorldviews, Truth and Evidence: Part 4In
part 4 of Knowing What You Believe and Why You Believe It, Les Norman and guest host Ed Croteau discuss rhetoric and how we can use it to persuade others of Biblical truths. Ed is the leader and founder of FSE (Faith, Substance, Evidence) University at Abundant
Life Church, Lee’s Summit. FSE University meets every Sunday morning at 9:30 AM, in room 1024 of the main building.
Last week, we talked about how people decide what is true. This week, we will learn how to persuade others to believe a truth claim. Rhetoric is an art form of persuasion or debate. It...
2022-03-2426 minThe Watching WorldWorldviews, Truth and Evidence: Part 3In this episode, part 3 of learning about World Views, Truth and Evidence, guest Ed Croteau helps us understand how people decide what is truth.
Ed Croteau is the leader of FSE University at Abundant Life Church Lee’s Summit, MO, classes are every Sunday morning at 9:30 AM, located in room 1024 of the main building.
The Bible encourages us to examine ourselves. It’s important to be honest with yourself and your beliefs. When diving into the “why” behind your faith, ask yourself these questions: How did I come to believe this? How certain am I that the things I believe are true...
2022-03-1719 minThe Watching WorldWorld Views: Truth and EvidenceJoining host Les Norman in beginning part 1 of 9 of a new series, “Knowing What You Believe and Why You Believe it, World Views, Truth and Evidence” is guest Ed Croteau, leader and founder of FSE University at Abundant Life Church.
In today’s episode, Ed takes us through some shocking parallels that led to the collapse of ancient Rome, and our American culture today. Mentioned in the book “The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah” by Alfred Edersheim, there are five main points about specifically Rome. In Rome, there grew a culture of entitlement, an increase in atheism and self-deifi...
2022-02-1721 minThe Watching WorldEye WitnessContinuing in our discussion of why we can trust our Bible, Lead Pastor Phil Hopper, Ed Croteau, and host Les Norman dive into the eyewitness accounts and why they are crucial, trustworthy pieces of evidence.
At the scene of a crime, one of the first actions a detective makes is to collect eyewitnesses and study their testimonies for credibility. If the same general story is being shared with small details that differ here and there depending on the witness, a story of what happened can be drawn from what was shared and most likely be trusted. But if the same...
2021-08-0540 minThe Watching WorldWhy We Can Trust the BibleGuests Lead Pastor Phil Hopper, Pastor Ed Croteau, and host Les Norman, take us through more reasons on why we can trust our Bible, based on secular historians.
One of the key tools in verifying any piece of literature is to examine other pieces of literature around the same time historically.
When reading about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus in our bibles, we’re filled with awe of our King, and belief in our hearts. Our faith grows even stronger when we read of secular historians, non-believers outside of the Bible, who authenticate what we read in the go...
2021-07-2923 minThe Watching WorldArchaeological EvidenceIn today’s episode featuring Lead Pastor Phil Hopper and Ed Croteau, we’re are taken through some archaeological proofs of actual biblical people and events.
To trust that archaeological evidence points to the idea that the Bible is true, you have to be open to using a similar mindset to that of a police officer or detective. To solve a crime, they find clues at the crime scene, and draw conclusions from their findings, coming to a place of having enough proof beyond a reasonable doubt, to pin down the crime.
Rational thinking says that if multiple pieces of evid...
2021-07-1536 min