The Ready Witness

1 Peter 3:15 – But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence.

recent posts

  • Does Abortion End A Human Life?

    We’ve all heard people argue for abortion. We’ve heard phrases like “My body, my choice”, claims like “Abortion is healthcare”, and “It’s my right”. It’s easy to refute these statements, with simple logic, but ultimately the person you’re debating remains unconvinced because you haven’t addressed your foundational disagreement: personhood and the value of human life.

    Pro-Lifers cling to this idea of personhood from conception. If this is true, then abortion is the intentional murder of the most innocent people among us. But are they right? Let’s take a look at the development of the human fetus and see if science can give us the answer.

    When the sperm and the egg meet in the woman’s fallopian tube, the sperm penetrates the eggs outer shell, called the corona radiata. The sperm then is buried in the egg itself, which causes the egg to change, preventing other sperm from penetrating the egg. At this point, the head of the sperm dissolves, releasing the nucleus, which has the father’s DNA. It fuses with the egg’s nucleus, which has the mother’s DNA. This happens about 12 to 24 hours after fertilization and the egg is now called a zygote.

    In the next 5 to 6 days, the zygote travels down the fallopian tube, meanwhile splitting into multiple cells within the outer shell. By the time it arrives at the uterus has split into 16 cells. It is now called a blastocyst.

    The blastocyst hatches out of its shell and burrows into the uterus lining. This establishes nutrient exchange and later becomes the placenta.

    At about 4 weeks from the last period, the woman’s body releases the pregnancy hormone to tell the ovaries to stop releasing eggs. The blastocyst is called an embryo. It is possible to receive a positive result to a pregnancy test at this point.

    At week 5, the circulatory system, brain, and spinal cord have begun to form and the embryo has a tiny beating heart. By week 7 it has doubled in size. At about weeks 9 to 12 tiny hands and feet form and it is now called a fetus. 

    From this point on, the fetus continues to develop and grow in size until birth.

    As we see from this pregnancy overview that development is very gradual and there is no clear stage we can point to and say “this is where life begins”. Even conception is a bit ambiguous. Some object to the idea that human individuality begins at conception, because of the 12 to 24 hours before the DNA of the individual has formed. This objection is obsolete because no abortions happen at this stage. The mother has no way of knowing if she is pregnant! Other’s ground their objection on the possibility of identical twins, also called paternal or monozygotic. They make an interesting point, and this puzzled me during my research. Let’s dive in.

    Identical twins form, when a single fertilized egg splits into two. This usually happens 1 to 7 days after fertilization. This results in two embryos that have the same DNA. They are clones of each other. As cells split multiply the DNA is copied over and over again. Sometimes this copying results in mutations. So, while identical twins start out with the same DNA they end up differing very slightly.

    Many Pro-Lifers argue that a child in the womb is a human individual, because from conception there is a genetically unique set of DNA. But what we just saw, in the case of identical twins, you can have one set of unique DNA that results in two people! Also, if this was completely accurate, we would become a completely different individual every time our DNA underwent a single mutation! While I agree with the conclusion of the argument, the premise is incorrect.

    The obvious conclusion is that it is not DNA alone that makes a person. DNA is an organization of chromosomes that acts as a blueprint of physical traits. Plants and animals also have DNA, but do not have personhood or souls. So the DNA inside of a fertilized egg, determines that the egg is human, either male or female, and sets the trajectory for physical appearance, susceptibility to diseases, and many other personal traits. It looks like science cannot answer our question of personhood. What we’re searching for is a soul.

    The obvious place to look is God’s holy Word. 

    Psalm 139:13-16 says:

    “For You formed my inward parts;

    You wove me in my mother’s womb.

    I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; 

    Wonderful are Your works, 

    And my soul knows it very well.

    My frame was not hidden from You,

    When I was made in secret,

    And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;

    Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;

    And in Your book were all written 

    The days that were ordained for me, 

    When as yet there was not one of them.”

    This is probably the most quoted “pro-life” Bible verse. It speaks to the purpose God places in the creation of human life, even “unformed” life. This verse makes no distinction in value between a human inside the womb and a human outside the womb. Jeremiah 1:5 has a similar message.

    “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you;”

    On another note, Psalm 51:5 says:

    “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”

    How can a clump of cells, a fertilized egg be sinful? It can’t, unless it is a soul from the fallen race of Adam: a human life.

    So, as we have seen, God’s Word makes no distinction between sinful people outside the womb and sinful people inside the womb. And if God’s Word is truly our standard for what is good and evil, then neither will we. The command “Thou shalt not murder” stands whether the victim has been alive for seven days or seventy years. It is time we start calling abortion what it is. 

  • The Theory of Abiogenesis: Matthew 13:14-15 In Action

    In the battle of worldviews, it all comes down to one issue. God, or no god? 

    In science, this issue manifests itself in the study of origins. But when you cut God out of the picture, you are left with one option: somehow, life created itself. Have secular scientists backed themselves into a corner? Let’s find out.

    The idea of life creating itself is called abiogenesis. The widely accepted view is that life sprang from non-life in a pool of chemicals 3.8 billion years ago.

    Amino acids are the building blocks of life. When strung together, these chemical compounds are called proteins, which make up living things. Proteins vary in size, averaging 300-500 amino acids each. Some may have as few as 50 or as many as tens of thousands, depending on their size.

    There are over 500 known types of amino acids, and only 20 are used to build proteins. Amino acids also are assembled in two different shapes. They are called Right-Handed or Left-Handed because they roughly resemble a human hand. Each of these assemblies are made the same components but are arranged differently . They are mirror images of each other, with the “thumb” of one hand on the right and of the other on the left. Organic proteins only ever contain L-amino acids (left handed). 

    Now that we understand the building blocks of life, lets dive in. 

    In 1953 Stanley Miller and Harold Urey used water, methane, ammonia, and hydrogen in an attempt to mimic the atmosphere of the early earth. These gasses do not react to each other under usual conditions so they used an electric spark to mimic lightning. The result of the chemical reaction was the production of amino acids. 

    The purpose of this experiment was, not to create life, but to show how amino acids could have formed on the early earth. This experiment is often promoted as evidence for abiogenesis in textbooks. 

    But there are several problems with this experiment.

    First of all, they left very little up to chance. They carefully selected which gasses to include in a closed system. They purposefully introduced energy in the form of electricity. They also collected their amino acids away from the environment they were formed in to protect them from the harsh conditions.

    Second, their experiment produced a mixture of left- and right- handed amino acids, which tend to bond together. This is hostile to life. 

    Thirdly, how could they have known what the atmosphere was composed of billions of years ago? They chose their chemicals based on the assumption that the early earth’s atmosphere had little or no free oxygen. This was the prevailing scientific theory at the time, because it is known that Oxygen destroys amino acids. So their selection of gasses was based on the assumption that evolution is true!

    But the ozone layer is made of oxygen. If there was no oxygen in the early earth’s atmosphere, then nothing would stop the sun’s ultraviolet rays from destroying any biological molecules. This is the biogenesis “Catch-22”. Oxygen: no life. No Oxygen: no life. 

    This leads some scientists to propose that life originated underwater. But water splits molecules apart, so that theory has to go.

    So evolutionists seem to have hit a roadblock. But does that stop them? No sir. And why would it? Atheism is their worldview, the foundation of their thinking and beliefs. As Jesus says in Matthew 13:14-15: 

    “In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, ‘You will keep on hearing, but will not understand; you will keep on seeing, but will not perceive; For the heart of this people has become dull, with their ears they scarcely hear, and they have closed their eyes, otherwise they would see with their eyes, hear with their ears and understand with their heart and return and I would heal them.”

    This leads atheists to bend over backwards to dismiss laws of science in their arguments. Laws of science are a summarization of our best understanding of the world and how it works. These laws have never been violated or contradicted in our observation.

    The observation that life always arises from pre-existing life is called biogenesis. Scientists brush this law under the rug by saying that conditions were different millions of years ago. They may well have been suited for abiogenesis. They have no proof for this and it is simply a use of the special pleading fallacy. 

    But they cannot claim ignorance. Romans 1:20 says: 

    “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”

    If it is obvious that there is a Creator God, then why do they deny his existence? Psalm 14:1-3 says:

    “The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt; their acts are vile. There is no one who does good. The Lord looks down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if any understand, if any seek after God. All have turned away, they have together become corrupt, there is no one who does good, not even one.”

    But what hope is there if the human condition is so depraved? Romans 5:8:

    “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”

    Jesus Christ died for sinful men so that we, who once were His enemies, could turn to Him and be reconciled to God. It is only then that our hearts will be changed and our sight will be restored and we will see the world as it truly is. Jesus is the answer to fixing our worldview.

    Sources and Further Research:

    Can Natural Processes Explain the Origin of Life? – https://answersingenesis.org/origin-of-life/can-natural-processes-explain-the-origin-of-life/

    You Can’t Do That: Three Ways Evolution Violates Basic Science! – https://answersingenesis.org/evolution/three-ways-evolution-violates-basic-science/

  • Why can’t we agree?

    Have you ever wondered why Creationists and Evolutionists can’t agree? After all, everyone is looking at the same evidence. The same fossils, the same rock layers, the same stars, the same glaciers; the list goes on and on. Yet they come to vastly different conclusions. Why?

    Let’s consider “The Hammer of God”, a short story from “The Innocence of Father Brown” by G. K. Chesterton. At the beginning of the story, Father Brown finds a man dead in the street. At first, all the evidence points to the blacksmith as the murderer. It’s obvious. The guilty weapon was identified as his, and he had a grudge against the man. Then the blacksmith’s wife confesses to the murder to save her husband. She also had a grudge. More evidence has been revealed and now the situation is as clear as day. In the time leading up to her execution, Father Brown is quietly discovering more information that everyone else had missed. In a final plot twist, we discover that the Reverend was the murderer the whole time!

    The characters in this story were looking at the evidence – the weapon, the body, the confession, ect… – and using that evidence to reconstruct what happened in the past. Scientist do the same.

    People often pitch the “Evolution vs. Creation” problem as “Science vs. the Bible”. They say things like “It doesn’t make sense for Christians to believe in the Bible as historically accurate, yet also believe in airplanes and electricity. They’re being inconsistent! You can’t believe in science and the Bible.”

    Oh yes you can. What most people don’t understand is that there are two very different kinds of science. Observational and historical. Observational science is what you can observe with your five senses in the present. Scientists observe and analyze data. They often make repeatable experiments to explore the world as it is now. Historical science is drawing conclusions about the past from those observations. Father Brown in “The Hammer or God” was practicing historical science.

    In a way, you can make an argument that observational science is the only true science. Both Christians and Non-Christians believe in observational science. Our reliance on it is how we get our modern world, with cars, laptops, stealth bombers and medicine. We disagree over our reconstructions of the past.

    “But,” you ask. “If everyone is looking at the the same observational science, why don’t they agree about the historical science?” An excellent question.

    I have a puzzle for you. Suppose we have a character named Alice. Today, Alice came home in a good mood. What happened at school?

    Is the answer:

    • a) She made new friends
    • b) She passed a test
    • c) Her teacher praised her
    • d) Her best friend gave her a note
    • e) Some other reason

    If you picked any of these answers, you are wrong. I asked you, “What happened at school?” and you accepted my presupposition, “Alice was at school”. She was not at school, she was at a job interview. I gave you evidence – “Today, Alice came home in a good mood” – and a starting assumption and asked you to draw your conclusions from there. If I had given you the same evidence and given you a different assumption – “Alice was at a job interview” – you would have drawn a completely different conclusion.

    This is what happens when Creationists and Evolutionists look at the same evidence. Creationists have the starting assumption that God created the world exactly as Genesis records. Evolutionists have the starting assumption that the world came into being on its own accord and evolved over millions of years. These starting assumptions are called worldviews.

    The difference between these worldviews is that one is standing on the authority of the Bible, and the other is standing on the authority of man drawing conclusions about the past. At its core, the battle is not between Evolution and Creation. Those are the conclusions. The battle is between Man’s Word and God’s Word.

    What about people who try to compromise by trying to fit evolution into the Bible? By trying to add to the Bible, they have conceded that it is no longer the absolute authority. That human’s can know more about the world than God. They are standing on Man’s Word.

    What about neutral people? Matthew 12:30 says:

    “He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters.”

    So by saying that they are neutral, these people are claiming that the Bible is false. They stand on Man’s Word.

    When you are having a debate with someone with a different worldview, it doesn’t help to throw more and more evidence at them. They will always find a way to reinterpret it in a way that is consistent with their worldview. And they are right to do so. Their worldview is the foundation of everything they believe. It is their religion. That is why you have to start foundationally. When you take out the foundation, everything that is built upon it comes tumbling down.

    Man’s Word and God’s Word. If both of these worldviews are claiming ultimate authority, then both cannot be true at the same time. How do we know which is right?

    2 Timothy 3:16 says:

    “All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness;”

    Colossians 2:3 says:

    “…Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

    and Psalm 146:3 says:

    “Do not trust in princes, In mortal man, in whom there is no salvation.”

    These verses tell us that the Bible is the word of God and that He is the source of all wisdom and knowledge. Man’s Word is faulty and prone to error.

    “But,” you say. “You can’t argue for the authority of the Bible from the Bible. That’s circular reasoning.” No it’s not. Standing on your worldview to prove your worldview is perfectly reasonable, like breathing air to argue for the existence of air. You are trying to prove that it is the highest authority. There is nothing greater to appeal to.

    Back to “The Hammer of God”. Until the very end of the story, the reader only has partial evidence and so draws an incorrect conclusion. Father Brown is the only one who sees all the evidence and allows the reader to know the truth.

    Job 38:4-7 says:

      “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding, Who set its measurements? Since you know. Or who stretched the line on it? On what were its bases sunk?Or who laid its cornerstone, When the morning stars sang together And all the sons of God shouted for joy?”

    The only way you can interpret history correctly is if we have all the evidence. No human was there to see the world made. But God was. In fact, He made it. He has told us what happened and we all have instant access to His letters to us. He has given us our Foundation on which to build our life.

    So why can’t Creationists and Evolutionists agree? We look at the same evidence, but we interpret that evidence through the lenses of our worldviews of Man’s Word and God’s Word. Think Foundationally and stay rooted in the Rock, that is Jesus Christ.

    Psalm 18:2

    “The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.”

    Sources and Further Research:

    The Ultimate Proof of Creation – Dr. Jason Lisle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ_UxcV-xcM

    Christians NEED to Beware of This Deception From Atheists https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVHC50K_PPQ

  • Welcome to The Ready Witness!

    My name is Audrey Mueller. I am a homeschool graduate and follower of Jesus Christ. Jesus died in my place, taking the punishment for all my sins. He reconciled me to God when I was his enemy, and I will one day live forever in heaven with Him. What an incredible gift! I strive every day to learn more about God through his Word, and live in a way that honors my Savior.

    But what is The Ready Witness? What is my goal in starting a blog? 

    God commands his people to witness to unbelievers. But in this age we come across people who are skeptical about the Bible’s claims, sometimes even hostile. They pick apart the Word of God and seem to expose holes, contradictions and fallacies.  This can make our job difficult and sometimes shake our faith. What if they’re right?

    1Peter 3:15 says: 

    “But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to anyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence.” 

    Matthew 10:15 also says: 

    “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves.” 

    Miriam Webster’s dictionary describes shrewd as “marked by clever discerning awareness”. Often the original Greek word is translated to prudent or wise. So, these verses do not mean that we should attack people or try to trick them into looking silly for our own benefit. Rather we should present powerful arguments for God’s Word in a way that honors Him. 

    But how can we give an account if we do not know what we believe and why we believe it? Too often, skeptics’ accusations leave me speechless. I know that they are wrong, but I do not have specific knowledge and arguments ready to counter their claims. Their attacks seem so logical. 

    That is why I started The Ready Witness. It has always been a dream of mine to become an apologist, but I never studied the subject in depth. I learned a bit here and there, but very few facts or arguments have stuck with me over the years. Now is the time. On the Ready Witness, I will be diving into topics like the authority of the Bible, the Gospel eyewitness debate, literal six day creation, and current cultural issues. As I research I will be educating myself and then I will share what I have learned with you. I will also be completely transparent and list my sources. Never just take my word for it! Do your own research and ALWAYS test what you hear against Scripture. I hope that this blog helps you learn how to defend Christianity!

    Blessings in Christ and happy research!

    Audrey Mueller