Gary answers a listener question about the word “church” and how it is used by the Bible and interpreters over the years. English translations have obscured the biblical and historical meaning of ekklēsia by translating it as “church” rather than “assembly” or “congregation.” It’s unfortunate that John Wycliffe (c. 1324–1384) and the translators of the Geneva Bible (1560) chose to tra [...]
A lack of a comprehensive biblical worldview has left Christians open to a blind-side attack from humanists who have developed a comprehensive secular worldview. The adjective secular comes from the Latin saeculum, which means “time” or “age.” “To call someone secular means he is completely time-bound, totally a child of his age, a creature of history, with no vision of eternity. Unable to see any [...]
Education and action are at the heart of what we do at American Vision. As a biblical worldview ministry, we seek to provide biblically faithful resources and training to fill the mind. Proverbs 23:7 tells us that “as a man thinks, so he is,” which means that thinking precedes doing. Christians must become biblical thinkers before they can become biblical doers. We have long had an idea for a proj [...]
Gary talks about his experience with a seminary class and discussing various views on biblical prophetic interpretation. 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 Jes [...]
Click here to read the first part of this article While most Christians would claim that they have a biblical worldview, I suspect that many of them could not (1) explain what a worldview is or (2) what the particulars of a biblical worldview are beyond personal salvation, keeping some of God’s commandments, and working to raise children in a Christian home. These, of course, are good worldview st [...]
Gary responds to two individuals critical of his own eschatological view. There is redemptive continuity between the testaments. Jesus didn’t come to start something new. We know from the book of Acts that thousands of Jews came to Jesus as their Messiah. The gospel was to be preached throughout the cities of Israel before the destruction of Jerusalem (Matt. 10:23) and the oikoumenē, the known wo [...]
Abraham Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism Students at Reformed Theological Seminary where I graduated in 1979 who were interested in cultural Calvinism were directed to Abraham Kuyper’s 1898 Lectures on Calvinism. It was here that we were told that we would find a fully developed, comprehensive, biblical world-and-life view. Kuyper’s brand of Calvinism has been described as the “only modern exception [...]
Gary answers several questions from a listener who is fearful and anxious about the world based on what local pastors are preaching and teaching about the “end times." At first reading, the New Testament seems to teach that the temple would be destroyed (Matt. 23:38; 24:2), Jerusalem would come under siege (Matt. 22:7), and the Old Covenant order would come to an end before the last dis [...]
History is filled with prophecy speculators who claimed that some form of the end was on the horizon. “When Mark Twain was in London, a rumor of his death or imminent death reached the editor of the New York Journal, who sent its London correspondent the following cablegrams: ‘IF MARK TWAIN [IS] DYING IN POVERTY IN LONDON SEND 500 WORDS’ and ‘IF MARK TWAIN HAS DIED IN POVERTY SEND 1000 WORDS. [...]
Gary recently returned from a Pastor’s Conference in Mexico, where he spoke to a hundred pastors or so about eschatology. On today’s podcast, Gary discusses his travel to and from Mexico, his experiences while he was there, and his takeaways from teaching through a translator. Is Jesus Coming Soon? Daily on Christian radio and television and the the endless stream of prophecy books we [...]
Over the years, American Vision has had an impact on Christians from all over the world. It’s humbling to learn that your life’s work has meaning for other people. It’s especially gratifying and encouraging to learn that fellow Christians have gained a greater purpose because of the work of American Vision. The following is an email American Vision received. I’ve asked Neil if it would be OK to pu [...]
In this second part of his interview with David Vaughn, Gary discusses worldviews and their importance. The Bible states, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (Prov. 1:7). True knowledge does not take place unless one begins with the presupposition that God exists and His Word is supreme. If the starting point is something other than God and His Word, then that other thing becomes [...]
My friend Robert Cruickshank sent me a copy of a letter he received from a Jehovah’s Witness. It sounded so much like what we hear from Christians pushing the claim that we are living in the last days. I’m writing because as you know we are living in what the [Bible] refers to as the last days of this system of things, which begs this question; what’s next? Please a moment of your time to read wh [...]
Using the right word to get an unfamiliar and sometimes unpopular and counter-culture idea across to people is tactical. If someone wants to hide what is really going on, words that can mean almost anything are often used to serve as an ideological cover for repressive programs and ideologies. The word “gay” and the use of a rainbow flag offer cover for what the practice of homosexuality is all ab [...]
Gary answers a listener question about 2 Thessalonians 2 and the man of lawlessness. Many believe that 2 Thessalonians 2 describes the end times leading up to the rapture of the church, the revealing of antichrist, and the second coming. Tim LaHaye, a representative of this perspective, writes: “Second Thessalonians 2:1–12 contains the rapture, Tribulation, and Glorious Appearing all in one chapte [...]
Gary answers a listener question about the two witnesses from Revelation 11. Immediately after the destruction of the temple and the judgment of Jerusalem, the Old Covenant age came to an end. The New Covenant was realized in all its fullness. The author of Hebrews writes that God had promised “Yet once more” to “shake not only the earth, but also the heaven” (Heb. 12:26). “‘Yet once more’ &hellip [...]
Gary responds to a recent article that discusses Matthew 24:22. The majority of today’s prophecy writers see today’s “wars and rumors of wars” as clear evidence that we are living in the last days. A study of the period before Jerusalem’s destruction in A.D. 70 tells a different story. The Roman historian Tacitus (A.D. 56–117) writes in his history of the period that there were “disturbances in Ge [...]
The following is from the first chapter of Dr. Greg L. Bahnsen’s book The Impossibility of the Contrary, available here. Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes. — Proverbs 26:4–5 But who is a fool? Sometimes we get a little misled, thinking the Bible is using terms the way we would in contempo [...]
Gary answers a listener question about the difference between sending the disciples out to the “lost sheep of Israel” in Matthew 10 and the “Great Commission” in Matthew 28. There is a continuity of the people of God—called the ekklēsia in the Greek translation of the Old and New Testament—as well as Old Testament images that were first applied to Israel but in the New Tes [...]
Now behold, a man of God came from Judah to Bethel by the word of the LORD, while Jeroboam was standing at the altar to burn incense. And he cried out against the altar by the word of the LORD and said, “Altar, altar, this is what the LORD says: ‘Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name; and on you he shall sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense on you, [...]
