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 [...]
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 [...]
“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 [...]
Biden and Co. want to steal more money in the form of taxes in the name of “the people.” The people will be fooled into believing that taxing the rich is for the greater good, and they have a right to use the power of government to reap the benefits of the immoral confiscation. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) wore a dress with “Tax the Rich” emblazoned with large blood-red letters while she [...]
Jerry Newcombe’s article below explains the negative implications of government interference in the economy. Subsidies disrupt the economy at many levels and often cripple the people they are meant to help. Anyone familiar with government wealth transfer legislation that has been designed to help the poor knows that when something is subsidized you get more of it. There have been multiple generati [...]
As the Cuban crisis unfolds, we are seeing an unprecedented number of protesters. Some of these dissidents could lose their lives for their bravery. A friend of mine from church is from Cuba. Carlos was a political prisoner for 18 months in his home country. His crime? Trying to escape Cuba. Eventually, he did get to escape. I asked him about today’s protests. He said, “62 years later—this i [...]
Failure to follow God’s economic laws results in disaster for individuals, families, corporations, and nations. Those who make daily economic decisions in running a business and keeping track of household expenses understand this. If a family fails to pay its bills or writes bad checks to postpone bill collection, it suffers the consequences of having creditors call demanding payment. What is true [...]
The following article was written by John Livingston, a deacon at Midway Presbyterian Church where my wife and I attend. For the record, our church has been open since April of 2020. One of the requirements of “the Lord’s bond-servant” is that he must handle “accurately the Word of Truth” (2 Tim. 2:15) and be “able to teach” (2:24). To teach, a teacher must know God’s Word and know how to apply it [...]
Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren wants to impose a two-percent wealth tax on the richest Americans. The wealth of most rich people is in stocks and other investments they own. The 16th Amendment is very clear: “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived…” People who own stock do not pay tax on their stock gains until they sell their stock. It’s th [...]
When George W. Bush was running for President, I debated Jim Wallis, who is the founder of Sojourners, a leftist ministry masquerading as a Christian ministry. I don’t remember everything about our debate, but the one thing I do remember is that he could not answer this one question I asked: You mention that numerous places in the Bible address the poor. Can you supply one verse that states that c [...]
Biden and Co. want to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour. First, like so much of government regulation, this is theft. Only governments (and the mafia) can force people to pay more money for work they don’t do. Second, it’s a job killer for young people trying to get work experience. If you listen to Democrats, most Americans are working at jobs for minimum wage pay. It’s not even close to the [...]
Many Christians approach life as if it is made of bits and pieces of unrelated reality. They struggle to see the relationship between seemingly contrasting categories. In fact, Christians often have been taught that the Bible addresses exclusively spiritual issues while some other standard should be used to govern how we should think about secular matters such as law, economics, politics, educatio [...]
When I became a Christian in 1973, I did not know much about the Bible. I went to a Catholic School through the fifth grade and church every Sunday, but I was only able to pick up some basic knowledge about Christmas and Easter. My first reading of the Bible was for knowledge. What does the Bible say? That’s always the first step. But I felt like the Ethiopian Eunuch when Philip asked him, “Do you [...]
Question: Why aren’t there enough votes to elect God-honoring candidates? Answer: Because there aren’t enough Christians who understand the basic biblical principles of government. Since the 1976 election, there has been a Christian voting block. Jimmy Carter was the first “Born Again” President. He turned out to be a disappointment. He was pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, and [...]
Candi CdeBaca — who won a runoff election for a seat on Denver’s City Council describes herself as “a Democratic socialist.” She said, “Communism is when the government owns everything; socialism is when people have control of the distribution of ownership. People have more power.” She wants to implement socialism “by any means necessary.” That was Fidel Castro’s methodology. “Malcolm X also [...]
People have been trying to identify a particular antichrist for centuries. Christopher Hill’s book on the subject just deals with antichrist in seventeenth-century England. (There were many more through the centuries and in other countries.) The candidates included Protestants, the Pope, radical sects, bishops, the Crown, the “‘Establishment’ generally,” the universities, and “the Turk,” an early [...]
Deflated footballs are in the news. In fact, the story is so popular that all the major networks led with the story even though almost nobody in the United States will be financially affected by the outcome. No one will lose any freedom, be forced to pay a tax, or have a pile of new regulations stacked on them. “On Thursday night, the ‘big three’ of ABC, CBS, and NBC each covered the news that the [...]
The game of Monopoly debuted in 1935 during a time of financial recovery after a steep economic downturn called the Depression from which we’ve never really recovered since government intervention created the Depression and every economic downturn since. A similar game was developed Elizabeth (Lizzie) J. Magie Phillips in 1903. The Landlord’s Game, as it was called, was self-published in 190 [...]
Pope Francis has received numerous accolades from the faithful. One area where Pope Francis gets poor marks is in economics. It’s hard to take economic advice from someone who has taken a vow of poverty, never owned a business, and lives off the donations of people who have not taken a vow of poverty and who own and/or work for businesses that make it possible for the Vatican, College of Cardinals [...]
John Stossel has been a consistent spokesman for free market economics. Thomas Sowell recommends Stossel’s latest book No, They Can’t! as a great Christmas gift. I agree. “It is written with a light touch, but gets across some pretty heavy stuff about economics. The title is a take-off on Obama’s old slogan, ‘Yes, we can!’” Sowell adds the following: “It is the first book I have read t [...]
