In this rebroadcast from early 2021, Gary discusses an interchange he had with “Chaplain Mike” on Facebook. Being “spiritual” does not mean “made up of spirit.” “Spirit” is not a ghost-like substance that inhabits the truly “spiritual Christian.” The adjective, as in “spiritual man” and “spiritual body,” does not mean ethereal, incorporeal, immaterial, otherworldly, or even unworldly as depicted i [...]
The latest in last days madness comes from, naturally, the Middle East. It concerns the drying up of the Euphrates River. Supposedly the dry Euphrates is an end-time sign that the end is near. When Russia invaded Ukraine, that was said to be an ancillary fulfillment of Ezekiel 38-39. Linking Russia with the Hebrew word rosh in Ezekiel 38:2 and 39:1 goes back a long way. Rosh is not a prophetic mar [...]
Voting isn’t a long-term solution, but ignoring it isn’t the right response either. Christians cannot shrink from the scene when political decisions are hard to make. We need to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matt. 10:16) while recognizing that “the sons of this age are often more shrewd in relation to their own kind than the sons of light” (Luke 16:8). We live in a sinfu [...]
Gary discusses the providential history of his life after high school and college. The War of the Worlds depicts a clash between very alien societies—one planetary world hell-bent on destroying another. The fictionalized Martian attack was relentless. Cobra-like periscopes emitted pulverizing beams of energy that ravaged the countryside. The sleek and deceptively beautiful Martian flying machines [...]
My wife will tell anyone that my mind works in mysterious ways. It seems to ramble around until it finds disparate bits of information and makes odd connections that mystify her. “How did you get that from that?,” she often asks. To be honest, I don’t really know. The latest is from the film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) that stars John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Lee Marvin, Vera Miles, Edmon [...]
The story of the Geneva Bible is a fascinating and important part of world and Church history. When the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Massachusetts in 1620, they brought along necessary supplies, a consuming passion for advancing the Kingdom of Christ, and their most precious cargo —William Bradford’s copy of the Geneva Bible. The famous painting of the embarkation of the Pilgrims (above) shows Brad [...]
A recent film was a spectacular box-office failure for several reasons, and speaks volumes about public support for the gay ideology. In 2006, Larry David wrote this in the New York Times: “Somebody had to write this, and it might as well be me. I haven’t seen Brokeback Mountain, nor do I have any intention of seeing it.” He writes this as something of an apology. Like it is expected that all good [...]
Tyrants have always feared God’s Word, especially when it is translated so the average person can read, understand, and apply it to every area of life. This is no less true today… The Geneva Bible is unique among all other Bibles. It was the first Bible to use chapters and numbered verses and became the most popular version of its time because of the extensive marginal notes. These notes, w [...]
Authority figures have been claiming to speak for God ever since the beginning in the Garden of Eden. There are mostly harmless misreadings of Scripture such as: the belief that the forbidden fruit was an apple (no fruit is specified), that Jonah was swallowed by a whale (it was “a great fish”), and that angels have wings (they don’t). These and other fables parade as facts only because we have he [...]
Guest article by Charles Jacobi A few weeks ago, I responded to a Christianity Today columnist who, using C.S. Lewis, argued household discipleship takes precedence over “participating in culture wars.” The columnist’s point was that Christian parents shouldn’t run for school board: public education is an “open system” influenced by its local environment, thus, Christians should forgo the politica [...]
A Christian posted on Facebook that she was eager to leave this world because it’s not home. Actually, it is her home. Similar to her dual citizenship (Phil 3:20), she has two homes, one in this world and one in the next. Until God calls us to our heavenly home, we are responsible for our earthly home that God made possible for us to have. Christians are often caught between “This World Is Not My [...]
Gary discusses a new book by Eric Metaxas that makes the point that the social and political climate in America today resembles early 20th century Germany. “I will protect the German people, Hitler shouted. You take care of the church. You pastors should worry about getting people to heaven and leave this world to me.”[1] Adolf Hitler’s angry response was directed at Martin Niemöller, [...]
Gary discusses what it means to be a patriot and a Christian, and while the two are not mutually exclusive, they are also not the same thing. Biblical elements often dominated when it came to establishing a moral foundation for the fledgling nation and suspicions of centralized political power. For example, the first legislative act of Pennsylvania, passed at Chester December 7, 1682, announced th [...]
Gary discusses how failed prophecies take a toll on those who believe them. Hal Lindsey argued that Revelation was written in the form of an ancient code that needed a time machine to speed to the right prophetic era where the original symbols could be understood. “You might say,” Lindsey writes in There’s A New World Coming, “that [the apostle] John was put into a ‘divine time machine’ and transp [...]
“Just preach the gospel.” How many times have you heard pastors and critics of social and political action scold Christians concerned about the moral direction the church is taking for mixing the gospel with politics? The gospel is more than a life insurance program or a “Get Out of Hell Free” card. It is to transform everything we think about and act on. There is no neutrality or areas that are o [...]
Gary discusses climate change end-times “prophets” who sound just like religious end-times authors. Climate Armageddon is the new secular apocalypticism. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was nuclear destruction. That was always a possibility because the United States and the former Soviet Union had real nuclear weapons. Students were to “Duck and Cover” in case of a nuclear attack. Like this [...]
“The publishers did not see that my purpose was to write a moral lesson of the punishment that befell a mortal man who dared to emulate God.” — Mary Shelly’s character in The Bride of Frankenstein (1935). October is horror film month because of Halloween (“Hallow,” not “Hollow”). The genre has come a long way. The older horror films often blend elements of legitimate science with the occult, alche [...]
Guest article by Jason Mattera [see original post here] Remember the part of Jesus’ parable where, after seeing the beaten and half-dead traveler on the ground, the Good Samaritan rushes to find the nearest Roman official, urging him to impose an obligatory progressive income tax on the locals to bankroll the battered man’s recovery at the nearby inn? Me either. Must be in the other red-letter edi [...]
Most people who have seen the film The Ten Commandments on television have never seen Cecil B. DeMille’s opening introduction. DeMille had something more in mind than just making a film about a religious figure from the Bible. He considered his production to be so important that he came out on stage to deliver a short but powerful statement on the nature of freedom under the law of God: The theme [...]
Gary discusses art and worldview with Pastor Doug Giles and his several series of art to help change Christians’ perception of biblical persons and events. Interest in the occult emerges when the prevailing Christian worldview fails to impact people’s lives in concrete, life-transforming ways. When the Christian message becomes defeatist, retreatist, and exclusively otherworldly, the door is [...]
