The Myth of the Rebuilt Temple

The Myth of the Rebuilt Temple

A battle is raging over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. With the latest happenings in Iran, many Christians are excited about the prospects of doomsday because they will not be around to witness it. Gog and Magog, Zechariah 14, Jeremiah 49, Isaiah 21-22, and the mention of Elam, and, of course, “wars and rumors of wars” (Matt. 24). For the futurist scenario outlined by modern prophecy writers to oc [...]

Sola Scriptura and the Return to the Roman Catholic Church

Sola Scriptura and the Return to the Roman Catholic Church

I received an email about “the younger generation, millennials, genZs, etc., are not interested in the end times” but are attracted to the Roman Catholic Church. This is not a new phenomenon, and it’s not only the younger generations. The RCC is safer. A single authority speaks for the church and its members. For the most part, everyone is operating with the same playbook. There aren’t any debates [...]

Can We Stop All the Armageddon Talk?

Can We Stop All the Armageddon Talk?

There are reports that troops are being told that what’s happening with Iran is a divine end-time event related to the return of Jesus and Armageddon. I’ve seen reports that Pete Hegseth is pushing this narrative. I find that claim hard to believe, since Hegseth is a member of a CREC Church affiliated with the denomination founded by Douglas Wilson. Wilson certainly does not believe that Armageddo [...]

It’s Stealing, Even if a Majority Votes for It

It’s Stealing, Even if a Majority Votes for It

“You shall not steal” is a fundamental biblical commandment that’s found in both Testaments (Ex. 20:15; 21:16; Lev. 19:11, 13; Matt. 19:18; Rom. 13:9). If property is theft, as one Christian stated on his Facebook page, then every person in the world is a thief because everyone owns something. Property rights are fundamental in the Bible, so much so that they’ve been written into our nation’s laws [...]

Jesse Jackson Once Described Abortion as ‘Black Genocide’

Jesse Jackson Once Described Abortion as ‘Black Genocide’

Jesse Jackson died after a long illness. In 1973, Jesse Jackson said the following: “Abortion is black genocide…. What happens to the mind of a person and the moral fabric of a nation that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience?”[1] Jackson saw there was more money to be made as a pro-abortionist. See the timeline of Jackson’s flip-flop on the issue. The Black Pant [...]

Zacchaeus, the Tyranny of Taxation, and Fleecing the Sheep

Zacchaeus, the Tyranny of Taxation, and Fleecing the Sheep

In a sermon this past Sunday, we heard about Zacchaeus, who climbed a tree to see Jesus as He passed by. Our pastor, uncharacteristically, even sang the first few lines of ‘Zacchaeus Was a Wee Little Man.’ Zacchaeus was a wee little man And a wee little man was he He climbed up in a sycamore tree For the Lord he wanted to see Zacchaeus may have been a “wee little man,” but he was complicit in bein [...]

How Well Do You Know the Bible?: Take this Simple Quiz

How Well Do You Know the Bible?: Take this Simple Quiz

Americans revere the Bible—but, by and large, don’t read it. And because they don’t read it, they have become a nation of biblical illiterates. This lack of Bible-reading explains why Americans know so little about the Bible that is the basis of the faith of most of them. For example, eight in ten Americans say they are Christians, but only four in ten know that Jesus, according to the Bible, deli [...]

You Can’t Beat Something With Nothing

You Can’t Beat Something With Nothing

It was Saul Alinsky in Rules for Radicals who wrote, “Do one of three things. One, go find a wailing wall and feel sorry for yourselves. Two, go psycho and start bombing—but this will only swing people to the right. Three, learn a lesson. Go home, organize, build power and at the next convention, you be the delegates.”[1] It could be argued that, because we have limited our application of the Bibl [...]

Abolish the Minimum Wage

Abolish the Minimum Wage

California just implemented a law requiring many businesses to pay employees at least $20 per hour. First, like so much government regulation, this is theft. Only governments (and the mafia) can force people to pay more money for work they don’t do. Second, it’s a job killer for young people seeking work experience. If you listen to Democrats, most Americans are working at jobs for minimum wage. I [...]

Failure to Reject Prophetic Speculation: No 6

Failure to Reject Prophetic Speculation: No 6

Note: This is the sixth and final article on worldview concepts that Christians have failed to overcome. (First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth) George Will called 1968 “perhaps the worst year in American History” and called the sixties “the most dangerous decade in America’s life as a nation.”[1] This is not surprising because of the continued escalation of the Vietnam War, the draft, and the assas [...]

Why Hermeneutics is Like Interpreting ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ and ‘American Pie.’

Why Hermeneutics is Like Interpreting ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ and ‘American Pie.’

Hermeneutics is often defined as the science and art of interpreting what people write (mostly) and speak. R.C. Sproul writes: “The purpose of hermeneutics is to establish guidelines and rules for interpretation. It is a well-developed science that can become technical and complex. Any written document is subject to misinterpretation and thus we have developed rules to safeguard us from such misun [...]

Trying to Get Around the Obvious in Matthew 24:34

Trying to Get Around the Obvious in Matthew 24:34

Futurists just can’t bring themselves to believe what Jesus actually said and meant about His “this generation” coming, that it was “about to” take place, before all those who first heard His words died (Matthew 16:27-28). Jesus told His apostles that they would not finish going through the cities before He came (10:23). The use of “about to” in Matthew 16:27 coincides with 10:23, 23:36, and 24:34 [...]

The Internet is Not Required to Interpret Matthew’s Gospel

The Internet is Not Required to Interpret Matthew’s Gospel

How do we determine how documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution should be interpreted? Let’s check with those who were there when they were written and the circumstances for their construction. Such a methodology comes to mind with a book I read as a child, We Were There at the Driving of the Golden Spike (1960).Eyewitness accounts are the starting point (e.g., Luke 1:1 [...]

Default Dispensationalism Is Holding Back the Church

Default Dispensationalism Is Holding Back the Church

I love the monthly news magazine World. You can thank David Chilton for contributing to its existence. He used his influence to help launch World with editor Joel Belz and wrote a monthly column for the publication for years. You should subscribe. You can do it here. Gary North wrote the following in his article “David Chilton Made the Case for Long-Run Christian Optimism.” “From the very beginnin [...]

Failure to Expose the Fraud of Red-Letter Christianity: No. 5

Failure to Expose the Fraud of Red-Letter Christianity: No. 5

In the Foreword to Tony Campolo’s book Red Letter Christians, Jim Wallis tells a story about a secular Jewish country-music songwriter and disk jockey who told him that a new social movement was being birthed as a result of Wallis’ God’s Politics and other “social conscience” books. Here’s how Wallis tells it: “I love your stuff and have been following your book tour.” Then he told me he believed [...]

R.C. Sproul before the ‘Three Questions Letter’ Controversy

R.C. Sproul before the ‘Three Questions Letter’ Controversy

In January of 1993, the Covenant Eschatology Symposium was held in Mt. Dora, Florida. It was hosted by R.C. Sproul. I would like to thank Ed Stevens for providing materials about the Conference and for being a guest on an upcoming episode of American Vision’s podcast, which will be posted soon at AmericanVision.org. We also discussed David Chilton’s move to full preterism. Those in attendance disc [...]

Failure to Abandon Gnosticism: No 4

Failure to Abandon Gnosticism: No 4

Recently, I received an email from a woman who asked whether I could direct her to sources that refute Gnosticism. She wrote that a friend of hers “claims to be on an extraordinarily intense spiritual ‘pilgrimage’ of ‘really pressing in to know God intimately’—but this guy has in effect divorced himself from the material world and from all relationships (including his wife and 10 children) which h [...]

Failure to Oppose the Call for a Sacred-Secular Divide: No. 3

Failure to Oppose the Call for a Sacred-Secular Divide: No. 3

Some (too many) Christians advocate a form of factual neutrality, under which some subjects—science, geography, politics, mathematics—can be taught without regard to religion, since “facts speak for themselves.” This is most evident in education, where a self-conscious sacred-secular divide is maintained and supported by Christians. Ninety percent of Christian parents send their children to govern [...]

Failing to Neutralize the Claim of Neutrality: No. 2

Failing to Neutralize the Claim of Neutrality: No. 2

According to a radio editorial some years ago, “a man’s religion and the strength of his conviction are his own personal matter” and therefore “religion should not interfere with politics.”[1] Regrettably, many churches during Hitler’s rise to power accepted the argument that religion and morality should be separated from politics based on the neutrality claim. “Religion was a private matter,” his [...]

Failures that Neutralize Christians: No. 1

Failures that Neutralize Christians: No. 1

What are some of the worldview concepts that Christians have failed to beat, and what steps must be taken to beat them and offer alternatives? 1. Failure to Identify and Challenge an Opponent’s Presuppositions and Their Intended or Unintended Consequences. “What’s it going to cost?” is the first thing a savvy shopper asks when purchasing an item, not only in the purchase price of a car or a house, [...]