As institutions, Church and State are separate but not so separate that either one can deny the law of God as it applies to each of them. “This separation in no way implies a radical antithesis between God and State, between Christianity and State, between morality and State, between Bible and State." [1] The biblical relationship between Church and State must be considered. A jurisdictional [...]
Family, church, and civil governments reflect the self-government of the people, whether good or bad. At the civil level, a nation gets what it votes for. Civil government, no matter how righteously conceived, cannot make people better. Leadership, like water, rises to its own level, the righteousness or unrighteousness of the people. George Washington, in his Farewell Address, gave this advice to [...]
An article in GQ magazine written by the editors declared that the Bible is one of 21 books that you don’t need to read. It’s 12th on the list and the description by Jesse Ball begins with the following comment: The Holy Bible is rated very highly by all the people who supposedly live by it but who in actuality have not read it. More people live by it that have not read it, and that’s the main r [...]
Were the miracles in the Bible tricks? Was Jesus an extraordinary stage magician? Did He pretend to raise people from the dead, walk on water, and feed thousands? Was Jesus like Jim Jones, using some of His followers to concoct an elaborate deception on the people to build a following of nationalist zealots to overthrow the Romans? Some people believe this, even though Jesus rejected any notion of [...]
I saw a short video by someone named Paul Williams. I don’t much about him. Actually, I don’t anything about him. James White texted me and said he is a former Anglican who became a Muslim. But since he is a homosexual, that did not sit well with the Muslim community, who at first praised his defection from Christianity. Williams is articulate, and with his British accent, he sounds authoritative. [...]
Michael Tomasky, writing for the New Republic (January 10, 2022), called for bold political action: “In 2022, Democrats Must Put the GOP’s Threats to Democracy on the Ballot.” “Threats to Democracy”? Does he mean stacking the Supreme Court by adding more Leftist Justices because he does not like the conservatives on the court and allowing non-Citizens to vote? Does he mean canceling and censoring [...]
If a person rejects Christianity, he has not set himself free from the concept of faith. He has only transferred his faith to something or someone else. For Carl Sagan, the cosmos is god, a glorious accidental substitute for what he believed were ancient, pre-scientific beliefs about the deity and the origin and nature of the universe. The very idea of a personal God, in Sagan’s worldview, is simp [...]
God assures believers He will “abolish all rule and all authority and power” in opposition to His kingdom (1 Corinthians 15:24). While Satan rails against the church, God promises “the gates of Hades shall not overpower” it (Matthew 16:18). Jesus describes the church as a marching army, ready and able to move against the stationary gates of Hades. Satan and his minions are on the defensive as the [...]
In a previous article, I discussed some translation missteps that are frustratingly unnecessary. Let’s move on to more critical examples when it comes to verse tenses. The following is from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home: KIRK: What’s going to happen when you release the whales? GILLIAN: They’re gonna have to take their chances. KIRK: What does that mean, exactly? ‘Take their chances.’ GILLIAN: It [...]
The battle today is over lordship. The issue of politics today is the issue of sovereignty. Who is the Lord of all of life to whom man must give his total allegiance, Christ or Caesar? The answer to this question is the difference between liberty and slavery, justice and tyranny. The critical issue of our day is the relationship of Jesus Christ and His Word to our political and legal system in the [...]
The goal of the Bible translator is to stay with the original text as much is linguistically possible by making judicious translation decisions that maintain the integrity of the words used by the authors. When a literal translation is not made, the reader should be notified and told why. This is done in some translations like the KJV and the NASB that italicize words that are not in the Greek tex [...]
One of the most common methods of understanding the book of Revelation today is the futurist approach which says that the visions of the book of Revelation signify historical events that will occur at the end of the world. Some early Christian writers like Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Lactantius seem to have held similar views. Some who hold this view today believe that the visions in the majority [...]
“Stupid Pet Tricks” was introduced on NBC’s Late Night with David Letterman in the early 1980s. Some of them were cute and clever but many of them were … stupid. For decades there have been Stupid Prophecy Tricks to get Christians to believe that we are living in the last days. While it didn’t start with Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth in 1970, it continued with bar codes being the mark [...]
2021 is about to end. It’s been interesting and productive. I had two bouts of cancer. My left kidney was removed in January and my prostate was removed in May. I’m not experiencing any ill effects. In fact, I participated in a Masters Track and Field meet in July in the shot put and won my age group in Georgia. Of course, it’s not that hard to do since there aren’t that many 70-year-olds who can [...]
Theologians virtually ignore the economic commentary in the Bible. In the few cases where it gets any attention, economic commentary in the Gospels and other New Testament writings tend to lapse into simplistic class warfare nostrums. Liberation theologians import Marxism wholesale (but they try to sell it retail) into theology. Academic historians of first Century Palestine/Judea have been pushin [...]
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 believers.” When this is applied to storytelling and film, this primary focus on word over image ends up killing the spirit of the message in favor of trying too hard to make sure the mess [...]
A biblical worldview is an essential part of thinking properly about God and His creation. Thanks in part to the Enlightenment and its long-lasting effects of modern thinking, we often think like humanists rather than like faithful stewards of God’s truth. In order for Christians to be effective in the culture, they need to understand what it means to think God’s thoughts after Him. Or [...]
It’s shocking that elected officials, most of whom do not know how economies work or how to start, build, or run a business, are passing laws and spending our money on things they know nothing about. It’s immoral. The following meme caught my attention. While something of an exaggeration, it makes a point: Almost every business in the United States started and prospered without the help of the gov [...]
Many in Jesus' day saw the kingdom of God in externals only. They visualized the kingdom of God as coming, not through regeneration, but through social revolution. Jesus said of His followers: “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves, and were filled” (John 6:26). It was Jesus' message about mankind’s need for salvatio [...]
“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 that all the signs in the Olivet Discourse referred to events leading up to and including the destruction of Jerusalem that took pl [...]
