How to Be a Man

How to Be a Man

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 [...]

Does Fulfilled Prophecy Have Relevance for Today?

Does Fulfilled Prophecy Have Relevance for Today?

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 [...]

What About 2 Timothy 2:15?

What About 2 Timothy 2:15?

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 [...]

“Why Hasn’t the Lord Come Yet?”

“Why Hasn’t the Lord Come Yet?”

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 a [...]

We're Not Subjects of Rome

We're Not Subjects of Rome

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 [...]

Eschatology Precedes Everything

Eschatology Precedes Everything

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 woul [...]

The Local Mission Field for Every Church

The Local Mission Field for Every Church

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 [...]

Christians are Outsiders Here on Earth

Christians are Outsiders Here on Earth

John Piper writes that Christians “exert influence as happy, brokenhearted outsiders” who should only count on having limited and temporal success this side of heaven. “American culture does not belong to Christians,” he continues, “neither in reality nor in biblical theology. It never has. The present tailspin toward Sodom is not a fall from Christian ownership, &rsq [...]

Mistranslating the Bible to Support Abortion

Mistranslating the Bible to Support Abortion

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg and pro-abortion Baptist “minister” Katey Zeh argue that opposition to abortion is based on “a single word being mistranslated more than 2,000 years ago.” The Christian responses to the claim made by these two pro-abortion women are OK, but they do not go far enough in pointing out their very bad exegetical work. I’ve run across additional twisted exegesis and history simila [...]

Christians and Dirty Jobs

Christians and Dirty Jobs

Christianity’s failure to be a practical religion in the past 150 years or more has meant the success of a perverted and twisted secularism and an advancing militant Islam that are doing incalculable harm at home and abroad. Humanism and Islam have gained the upper hand by default. The rejection of any type of this-worldly application of the Bible has resulted in the proliferation of a man-centere [...]

How the King James Bible Refutes Dispensationalism

How the King James Bible Refutes Dispensationalism

In my 2020 debate with Kent Hovind, the topic of Daniel’s 70-weeks-of-years prophecy in Daniel 9:24–27 came up. Like all futurists like Hovind who hold to a rapture during a seven-year interval in which supposedly the antichrist shows up and makes and breaks a covenant with Israel, the temple is rebuilt, and the Great Tribulation takes place, includes a parenthesis after the 69th week (483 years). [...]

The Church Grows through Connections

The Church Grows through Connections

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. (1 Corinthians 12:4–6) In His providence, God supplies individuals and churches with the talents they need to perform the work for which He has called them. Personal di [...]

Preaching and Living the Whole Gospel

Preaching and Living the Whole Gospel

The Gospel is not just “getting people saved.” Salvation is the start of a lifetime-long journey of sanctification and growth. For too long, the Church has been abandoning its role as the “change agent” within culture and society. Cursing the darkness is much easier, because shining a light requires more effort and more time. But the fact that it’s difficult doesn&rsq [...]

The Way We Should Go

The Way We Should Go

“A student is not above the teacher; but everyone, when he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher” (Luke 6:40). God’s plan for His people is growth. The entire experience of life is characterized (or should be) by continued maturity—from infancy to adulthood. Parents teach their children “the way they should go” (Proverbs 22:6), while also gaining a deeper u [...]

Leading from the Middle

Leading from the Middle

Movements for change require leaders, but they also require those willing to do the everyday work. While most people have their eyes trained on the captivating individual at the forefront, the real change is coming from deeper inside. Somewhere in the “middle management” of the change movement is where the real work gets done. History 101: Lessons from the Past History 101 is an overvi [...]

Become the Problem They Think You Are

Become the Problem They Think You Are

Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” (John 8:12) “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. [...]

Bart Ehrman and John's Apocalypse

Bart Ehrman and John's Apocalypse

As a Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Dr. Bart Ehrman is well-regarded in the area of New Testament textual criticism. He has written many books and given many lectures on the topic. He even participated in a debate in early 2009 with Dr. James White on the topic of the reliability of the NT manuscripts. Dr. Ehrman’s recent fascination is with [...]

What it Means to be a Christian in the World

What it Means to be a Christian in the World

Many Christians have trouble wrapping their heads around several difficult questions regarding how they should respond to what’s taking place in the world. It’s not because of a lack of intelligence; it’s a lack of teaching and a narrow focus of what it means to be a Christian in the world. The world has gotten more complicated. In one sense, it has passed us by. We have not kept up with what’s be [...]

Reading the Bible as Literature

Reading the Bible as Literature

How should the Bible be interpreted? Most conservative Christians will immediately respond with the answer “literally.” But what does it mean to interpret literally? How should a book written thousands of years ago by multiple authors in different settings and cultures be understood by modern readers? Paul Lee Tan is helpful when he writes: “Literal interpretation of the Bible si [...]

Challenging the Absoluteness of Romans 13

Challenging the Absoluteness of Romans 13

There’s great interest in the subject of Christian resistance against tyrants. It’s not a new consideration. The Reformers had a lot to say about the topic as well as their immediate heirs. John Calvin addressed the topic in his Institutes of the Christian Religion as did Theodore Beza in his The Rights of Magistrates (1574) where he contended that resistance to an established civil government fun [...]