Christians should be wary of allowing current events to shape the way Scripture is interpreted. There is a long history of failure. In addition to the impact such end-time views have on Christian involvement in the culture and society, there is also the impact that predictive prophecy has on those who want to discredit the Bible. But aren’t we living in the “last days”? A lot of confusion exists o [...]
Roe v. Wade is before the Supreme Court again. Listening to some of the questions by the justices and the answers of the lawyers defending a Mississippi abortion law are telling. Justice Sonia Sotomayor—who has no children—clashed with Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart during oral arguments Wednesday over when a fetus can feel pain. The law kicks in when the pain kicks in? Dogs and cats [...]
Ever since the first grumblings of the modern feminist movement began in the early 1960s, the traditional roles of men and women have been under constant attack. With the gradual decline of the working class in America, our fathers have been slowly trading sweat-soaked blue-collars for permanent-press white or gray collars. Along with their uniform change they have also traded 40-50 hour workweeks [...]
What relevance does the Bible have for us today if so much Bible prophecy has been fulfilled? Preterists get this question asked of them all the time. Historicists claim their approach is the most historically relevant. They also claim that the Historicist approach was almost universally promoted by the Reformers. Calvin was the exception. Much of Calvin’s Daniel commentary is preterist. On the Re [...]
Dispensationalists vehemently maintain that the Church (ekklēsia) was unknown to the Old Testament writers. The so-called church age is said to be a “mystery,” a parenthesis, a gap in prophetic time, until the pre-tribulational “rapture” when the church will be removed from the earth and God will deal with Israel again. If they are correct, then the New Testament writers were awfully confused, in [...]
Many modern Christians believe that God’s kingdom will be manifested solely in the future. This means that we are living in a purely secular kingdom with purely secular laws cut off from the governance of heaven. This is the worldview of deism! If this is the view of any part of the church, then the secularists are right in condemning the mixing of any of God’s laws with the State. How can God as [...]
The usual dissenters come out of the woodwork every October to disparage Columbus and November to attack Thanksgiving. Here’s one from last year: Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) is being called “a racist piece of trash” and a “white supremacist” after defending the legacy of the Mayflower Compact and criticizing an article in the New York Times that called the story of the Pilgrims a “myth” and re-exami [...]
A Christian should never fear having his “system” scrutinized by the plain teaching of the Bible. The rallying cry of the Reformation was ecclesia reformata quia semper reformanda est, “the church reformed because it must always be reforming.” This should be every Christian’s rallying cry. The church needs to take another look at the topic of eschatology, the study of last things. The topic has no [...]
All Christians believe in fulfilled prophecy. This makes them preterists to some degree. A preterist interpretation of prophecy puts its fulfillment in the past. What separated unbelieving Jews from believing Jews in the first century was the issue of fulfilled prophecy. Was Jesus the fulfillment of the Hebrew Scriptures that predicted a coming redeemer? Jews who rejected Jesus as the promised Mes [...]
Our forefathers in the faith did not retreat from involvement in society and politics. They did not turn civil government—the making, enforcement, and adjudication of laws—over to Satan and those who serve him. They did not surrender the ministry of civil government to those who are in rebellion against God. Instead, they sought to base civil government and law upon the truth. The founders underst [...]
The people in Jesus’ day saw the kingdom of God only in externals. They visualized the kingdom of God as coming, not through regeneration, but by 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 salvation and about [...]
That’s the question being asked on the Christian Post website. Here’s the first paragraph: Many believers are anxious for Jesus’ return and, in the natural, some feel God is postponing His return despite knowing that the scriptures, such as 2 Peter 3, teach that God is not slow, but is patient, not wanting anyone to perish, said Jeff Kinley and Todd Hampson of the “Prophecy Pros Podcast.” Kinley [...]
America has entered troubling times. The massive expansion of federal government power with its destructive laws and policies is of grave concern to many. But what can be done to quell the abuse of power by civil authority? Are unjust or immoral actions by the government simply to be accepted and their lawless commands obeyed? How do we know when the government has acted tyrannically? Which action [...]
“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 [...]
In the New Testament, Israel was controlled by the Romans. Only Roman citizens had political standing (Acts 16:37; 22:25– 29; 25:9–12). Jesus had a political trial because the Jews did not have the authority to put Him to death (John 18:30–31). His accusers brought false civil charges against Him (Luke 23:1–2) to force Pilate’s hand (John 19:12). We’re not subjects of Rome. “Render to Caesar the t [...]
Many Americans might be surprised to learn that the United States Supreme Court building has a number of depictions of the Ten Commandments and other lawgivers prominently displayed, some of which are carved in stone, adorning entryways and visible in the chamber where the justices sit. Isn’t this a violation of the First Amendment and the “separation of church and state”? Histor [...]
This is Part Two of a book review written in 2009 of the book, Dual Citizens: Worship and Life Between the Already and Not Yet. Part One can be found here. In the “Preface” to Dual Citizens, Jason Stellman approvingly quotes Dutch theologian Geerhardus Vos, who “famously said that ‘eschatology precedes soteriology.” “But,” Stellman continues, “I wou [...]
Every Sunday, millions of people attend church services in this country. They usually hear a nice message about Jesus and what He did during his three-year earthly ministry. What is mostly missing is the “go and do likewise” application for each listener of these weekly sermons. What actual difference does what Jesus said and did make to 21st century Christians? A constant need is cris [...]
Matthew Dowd who was the chief strategist for the re-election campaign of former President George W. Bush who’s now running as a Democrat in the Texas lieutenant governor’s race implied in a tweet that conservatives and Republicans would criticize Jesus as being “woke” if He were alive today. Given the definition of being woke, Jesus would denounce it since it’s being used to promote racial [...]
Many prophecy writers try to get around the biblical meaning of genea by translating it as “race” when it should be translated as “generation” since this is what the word means in the genealogy in Matthew 1:17 where it’s used four times and cannot mean “race.” There weren’t 42 races, but there were 42 generations. Wars and Rumors of Wars Skeptics read the Olivet Discourse in the right way, but co [...]
