Gary discusses a recent question answered by Vivek Ramaswamy about the American government “propping up” Christianity and Christian Nationalism. Professor Stone is correct that there were traditional Christians and deists among the Founders. “Around the time of the American Revolution,” Robert Royal, president of the Faith and Reason Institute, writes that “a significant minority of th [...]
An image of Isaiah 13 from the Bible with some highlighted verses was posted on Facebook followed by a comment that stated that “the wrath of God is coming on the world,” that is, our world that was 2700 years in the future from the time the prophecy was given to Isaiah. Of course, God hasn’t stopped with judging the world when He sent Israel and Judah into captivity or with Babylon, the Medes and [...]
Gary discusses a recent call by some atheists to get out to the polls and vote in 2024 to prevent Christian Nationalists from winning. Atheism is a dark and bleak world. It offers no meaning or ultimate purpose. It is the dead end of all dead ends. R.C. Sproul has written, “the existence of God is the supreme proto-supposition for all theoretical thought. God’s existence is the chief element in co [...]
Gary continues his discussion of the confusion over how God’s law should be understood and applied in modern times. The righteousness and perfection toward which the “commandments” of “the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 5:17-19) guide us was identified by Jesus when He said, “you shall therefore be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (v. 48). God is [...]
“In 1905, a Vermont doctor and his chauffeur were the first to successfully drive a car across the country from San Francisco to New York. It took them 63 days. Today you can fly cross country in a matter of hours while using wireless Internet.” — David Bahnsen It’s 2024 and to the surprise of many, we’re still here. We don’t know what the future will bring. With that in mind, many people are nost [...]
Gary begins a two-part podcast about preterism and God’s law. It is important to note that the noun “preterism” has been squeezed too far back as if it is about nothing more than what is past, about completed action in the past with no future application. The New Testament does address the issue of preterism and acknowledges that certain prophetic announcements—such as Christ’s Olivet Discou [...]
Gary responds to an Advent devotional in Christianity Today regarding Matthew 24. A failure to understand the symbolic nature of these passages has led many popular writers (and, surprisingly, not a few scholarly ones) to assume that such expressions as “the sun turned to sackcloth and the moon to blood” can only be understood as referring to the collapse of the physical cosmos. Nobody takes these [...]
Gary responds to a video where a pastor claims you must “rightly divide the Bible,” based on 2 Timothy 2:15. By this he means that you must rightly divide the “people” of God into Jew and Gentile and understand New Testament passages in light of “the Church age.” How could Christians believe that Jesus could come at any moment and also believe that He would not [...]
Now that the first volume of the book is available, this recap from the initial episodes of Covenant Hermeneutics and Biblical Eschatology was due for a re-run. New Testament eschatology is the eschatology of Old Testament Israel. Israel’s eschaton is what is being discussed there. But, of course, Israel’s eschaton was a subset of the greater world history. OT Israel was not the end of the road. I [...]
A few years ago, I spoke at a conference on postmillennialism in Torrance, California, on the topic, “Evidence that Postmillennialists are Winning the Prophecy Debate.” I only got through a small portion of what I prepared. Ken Gentry also spoke. Kirk Cameron was there at my invitation. He gave a great talk about his prophetic pilgrimage. Sorry to say, the recording of my talk did not turn out. Th [...]
God created trees. He made them for us: for home building, decoration, shade, construction of fences, tables, chairs, sheds, and so much more. We can easily visualize a tree as a ladder to heaven, with the bottom as the beginning of the ladder, the trunk as the ladder proper, and the leafy crown on top as the glory-cloud of heaven. Is this a Biblical image, however, or is it just one that we have [...]
Every Christmas there is the inevitable talk about a “war on Christmas.” Not all opposition comes from secularists, atheists, and Muslims (see here and here). Some Christians believe the Bible does not set aside the birth of Jesus as a special calendar day to honor His birth because such a celebration violates the “regulative principle of worship.” Acknowledging the birth of Jesus is biblical. Chr [...]
Gary discusses the classic Christmas film, Miracle on 34th Street and many instances of how this film presents opportunities for thinking through worldviews and Christian apologetics. Most evangelicals tend to think in “words.” This is certainly understandable because of the Protestant focus on the Bible as the sole authority (sola Scriptura) and the Lutheran concept of the “priesthood of all beli [...]
Many people get bent out of shape when they see ‘Xmas’ or ‘X-Mas.’ They think it’s a way of removing Jesus Christ from Christmas. Removing Christ from Christmas happens in many direct ways, but X-Mas is not one of them. “Every year you see the signs and the bumper stickers saying, ‘Put Christ back into Christmas’ as a response to this substitution of the letter X for the name of Christ. [...]
Newspeak and media brain-washing are the tactics, but many are (finally) starting to question the “upside down” world of the cultural elite. When individuals lose their identity, when civil government becomes the only government and people live in service to the State, “the standard of living falls, refugees flee across borders in abject poverty, and barbed wire and walls go up along b [...]
What does the incarnation of Jesus mean? For Simeon and Anna, it was a confirmation of God’s faithfulness to act on behalf of His people. They believed that the incarnate Jesus WAS God’s plan of salvation for the world. They weren’t bothered by the fact that their hope for Israel was bound up in the helpless frame of a baby. Quite the opposite; they were overjoyed. Simeon and Anna rejoiced to see [...]
Every Christmas liberals have tried to make the Christmas story about some Leftist program. The Bible is convenient when Leftists and their fellow Democrats want to snooker the religiously naïve public. We’ll see more of it this year because of the border and immigration issues that energize the Democrat Party. Leftists have little regard for the Bible unless it can be used to scold Christians for [...]
From the archives: Gary answers an interesting question that was submitted to the Michael Heiser podcast several years ago. “This generation” in Matthew 24:34 and the parallel passages in Mark 13 and Luke 21 refers to the generation of Jesus’ day. Following this biblical evidence, most Bible commentators have interpreted “this generation” in this way, understanding t [...]
Gary answers a listener question about the “number of the beast,” Nero, and Titus. The number 666 has long fascinated theologians and mathematicians. Maybe the interest in the number has something to do with the attainment of wisdom and understanding since to “calculate the number of the beast” will reward the diligent (Rev. 13:18). Wallace John Steinhope is the physicist in Paul Natha [...]
Democrats are playing the Democracy card … again. Anyone who disagrees with a Leftist is anti-democratic and fascist. What Leftists like President Biden and James Carville never do is define what they mean by “Democracy.” For Democrats, “democracy” means rule by Democrats, no matter what evil scheme they may try to force on the American people. For example, to oppose killing unborn babies and beli [...]
