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 [...]
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. [...]
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 [...]
In the first article on this topic, I pointed out that a prominent pastor told his congregation and viewing audience the following: “In your Bible, right next to Isaiah 66:8, you can write down May 14, 1948.” It’s obvious that Isaiah 66 describes a time when the sacrificial system was operating (v. 3), the ancient people of Tarshish, Put, Lud, Meshech (the archers, those who draw the bow: Ezek. 27 [...]
I received an email from a pastor that stated the following: “I keep hearing … that Isaiah 66:8 is fulfilled in modern-day Israel. I have looked at these verses in every way and cannot get that reading even with a dispensational hermeneutic…. Can you tell me how they might see this verse to use it in this way and can you give me some help with what Isaiah is actually saying? [...]
Gary continues responding to Pastor David Jeremiah’s interview and book, The Great Disappearance. All of the texts used to support the rapture theory presuppose the validity of the theory, a theory that does not have a single text to support it. The doctrine has been constructed before texts have been evaluated. This unsound approach to Bible interpretation has done little to dissuade the ad [...]
A daily double: an article and a podcast! The article is from the July 1991 issue of James Jordan’s Biblical Horizons newsletter. It shows how Jordan’s thinking and views of the whole debate over ancient and modern Jews and the state of Israel changed from his previous views that essentially followed the Puritans and the Westminster Divines. It is vital that Christians understand this [...]
Part Two of Two. Gary continues his response to Answers in Genesis’ Ken Ham. Ham uses 2 Peter 3 to show that we are in the “last days.” John Owen asks the question that so many expositors fail to ask: Where had God promised to bring “new heavens and a new earth”? The answer, as Owen correctly states, is only in Isaiah 65 and 66—passages which clearly prophesy the period of the Go [...]
Does Isaiah 11:11-12 refer to a distant return of Israel back to their land, or did it have a past fulfillment in view? No Jew reading Isaiah 11 in Isaiah’s day, during the time of the exile, and the return under the decree of Cyrus (2 Chron. 36:22-23; Ezra 1:1-4), would have considered such an interpretation given that the chapter mentions Assyria, Shinar, the Philistines, Edom, Moab, “and the so [...]
How authoritative are man-man confessions of faith? Can they ever be revised or updated? How sacrosanct is historical theology? No one should despise the work of the church over its many centuries or the work it has produced over nearly two millennia. My many published works show great respect for historical works. In some circles, when there’s a disagreement, appeals are made to agreed-upon seemi [...]
Skeptics of the Bible nitpick different accounts of similar events. If the four gospels don’t align exactly at every detail, the claim is made that there are mistakes in the Bible. It seems to me that when the Gospels were put together, the compilers would have noted differences and fixed them if they were thought to be a problem historically. They didn’t. The different Gospels are an interrelated [...]
Most Christians cannot read and translate Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, the languages of the Bible. As a result, for most of us, we are dependent on translations. Vernacular translations began early. The Latin Vulgate was mostly the work of Jerome (345-420). The Vulgate was adopted as the Bible translation of the Western Church. It was the first book printed using JohannesGutenberg’s printing press [...]
Non-dispensational debates on eschatology have become big news. The topic of the resurrection is often at center stage. What passages deal with the physical resurrection of the “self-same bodies” (Westminster Confession of Faith: 32.2) and “the very same body” (Larger Catechism Q/A 52) at the physical return of Jesus at some time in the future? Larger Catechism Q/A 87, “What are we to believe conc [...]
I remember a young boy crying to his mother because, “Dad hurt my feelings.” In most situations like this is a dad doing his job teaching his children how to deal with disappointment when rules are broken. It doesn’t help when one parent coddles the child with a hug and a “there, there.” The parent should ask, “What were you doing that your dad had discipline you?” The last thing we want is for ou [...]
In this concluding part of his interview with Pastor Richard Henry, Gary further discusses the recent heresy controversy. As the New Testament makes clear, apostasy was rampant almost from the church’s inception. The apostasy about which John wrote was operating in his day. Paul had to counter a “different gospel” that was “contrary” to what he had preached (Gal. 1:6–9). He had to battle “false br [...]
It’s been a busy year. As many of you may know, I and American Vision have been attacked by some high-profile Christians because I have asked some necessary questions concerning eschatology. Some of the attacks have been vicious, mean spirited, and downright ugly. The questions I am asking have been designed to construct a better understanding of the topic. Many Christians are afraid to make a stu [...]
Gary continues his interview with Pastor Richard Henry. In this second part, he summarizes some of the controversy he was involved in a few months ago. In the immediate context of the book of Daniel, and throughout the book itself, death and resurrection is a major theme. We think of death as physical death and of resurrection as the physical revival and transfiguration of men and women at the end [...]
The world and the way it functions cannot be accounted for in the atheistic world. Atheists are bound by laws of the uniformity of nature. There is no escape from this reality. Scientists know that an experiment performed today under specific conditions will function in the same way tomorrow under the same conditions because that’s the way the world was made to work. It didn’t evolve to work the w [...]
Gary discusses the biblical lessons on hearing and seeing. The Greek word typos refers to an image impressed onto something else, for instance, wax. It is the word used in Scripture for the imprint of God’s heavenly pattern on the earth, and thus it is absolutely fundamental to a Biblical worldview. In Acts 7:44 Stephen says, “Our fathers had the Tabernacle of testimony in the wilderne [...]
