The New International Commentary on the New Testament (NICNT) was announced in 1946 by William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company to be a seventeen-volume project. As of this date, the series is still not complete, although the much anticipated commentary on Matthew has just been published. I’ve been waiting 30 years for its publication. When I was in seminary, I was able to speak with Herman N. Ridde [...]
We live in a topsy-turvy world. News articles have reported that Michael Vick has found Jesus. Since the popularity of the atheist tomes by Hitchens, Harris, Dennett, and Dawkins, I would have called on these defenders of Darwin and the no-God hypothesis and pleaded for evolutionary understanding rather than Jesus since He’s no longer in style. Given the present religious climate, I would have cou [...]
For Hal Lindsey, every news story is a sign that we are living in the “rapture generation.” It wasn’t too long ago that he claimed in his wildly popular prophetic book The Late Great Planet Earth (1970) that the “this generation” of Matthew 24:34 would end sometime before 1988 (1948+40 years=1988). In an interview published in Christianity Today (April 15, 1977), Ward Gasque asked Lindsey: “But wh [...]
Kay Haugaard has taught creative writing since 1970. As with most of her classes, students read and discuss Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery.”[1] Jackson’s lottery isn’t about winning millions of dollars by picking the right Lotto numbers; it’s about human sacrifice that a small town accepts and takes Part 1n with no questions asked. Of course, the premise is absurd. Or is it? As the yea [...]
“This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the inhabited earth as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come” (Matt. 24:14). Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis(AiG) sees the newly opened Creation Museum contributing to the fulfillment of Jesus’ prophetic words in Matthew 24:14: The remarkable international media buzz surrounding the opening of the Creation Museum on May 28 [2007] [...]
A mini-storage facility uses edgy ads to get the attention of customers. The latest billboard not only advertises its storage facilities but promotes its pro-abortion agenda. The ad causing controversy carries a picture of a coat hanger along with the following copy: “Your closet space is shrinking as fast as her right to choose.” Since New York is overwhelmingly liberal and pro-abortion, only a m [...]
If we are to believe secularists, the Christian religion has been the enemy of science. In reality, “it is the Christian world which finally gave birth in a clear, articulate fashion to the experimental method of science itself.”[1] Before science could get started in proposing theories, certain assumptions about the way the world works had to be assumed to be valid and operationally consistent. I [...]
The Democrats, if you don’t know it by now, are pro-homosexual. They actually believe that homosexuality is a natural sexual act that should be sanctioned by law. Former Sen. Mike Gravel and Congressman Dennis Kucinich, both from Ohio, delighted the mostly homosexual studio audience at the “gay debate” held in Los Angeles on August 9, 2007 because they are the only candidates who believe that homo [...]
With some variations, those who hold to a biblical economic model share many fundamental principles with advocates of a free market, or, as I hope to demonstrate, free marketers share many fundamental economic principles with advocates of a biblical worldview. John W. Robbins writes, in his critique of Ayn Rand’s Objectivist philosophy, “That the structure of knowledge that she erected, in which m [...]
What’s missing in the Harry Potter series? According to Lev Grossman, it’s God. “Harry Potter lives in a world free of any religion or spirituality of any kind. He lives surrounded by ghosts but has no one to pray to, even if he were so inclined, which he isn’t. Rowling has more in common with celebrity atheists like Christopher Hitchens than she has with Tolkien and Lewis.”[1] While not as popula [...]
On Saturday, August 4, 2007, the House of Representatives passed a $16 billion increase in taxes on oil companies. Actually, this is a lie. Oil companies, like every company in America, see taxes as the cost of doing business. Any tax increase will be passed onto consumers. If the voting public supports this increase, then they have only voted for a tax increase on themselves. The profits oil comp [...]
Cal Thomas, before he was a regular commentator for FOX News Watch and a syndicated print columnist, was the vice president of the Moral Majority from 1980 to 1985.1 While Thomas is still a conservative Christian, he has for some time called on Christians to modify their interest in politics. His first contribution to evangelical disengagement from politics was a book he co-authored with Ed Dobson [...]
Crazy for God is Frank (Franky) Schaeffer’s tell-all book about his life with his parents Francis and Edith Schaeffer and how he “helped found the religious right and ruin America.” It’s an angry book, and an immature memoir. By the time someone is a grandfather, memories of sex, drugs, rock and roll, and idiosyncratic parents should be a distant memory. I sure hope my sons are more kind if they e [...]
John Hagee’s “Christians United for Israel” held its annual meeting in Washington, D.C., last month (July 2007). Supporters of CUFI are looking forward to Armageddon. Of course, they believe they won’t be around to experience it. God will finally fulfill his covenant promises to Israel, but not until He wipes out millions of Jews and billions of others around the world in one final judgment. No wo [...]
In the ongoing debate over Bible prophecy, a number of issues keep coming up. One of the biggest disputes is on the dating of Revelation. Was Revelation written prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 or nearly 40 years later? Late-date advocates are almost solely dependent on the ambiguous testimony of Irenaeus (120–202). I deal with this bit of external evidence in my book The Early Chu [...]
Poor Michael Vick. The multi-talented quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons picked the wrong side business. Football doesn’t seem to be enough to satisfy his interests. Vick and his associates got involved in the dog fighting business. His story has made front-page news across the country. USA Today carried an editorial that read, “Window on a cruel world.” The editorial reports that “Vick and two a [...]
Dispensational author Paul Benware accuses preterists of not interpreting prophetic passages in a literal way. As an example, he points to Matthew 24:29: “But immediately after the tribulation of those days THE SUN WILL BE DARKENED, AND THE MOON WILL NOT GIVE ITS LIGHT, AND THE STARS WILL FALL from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” Since Jesus tells His questioners that this [...]
Paul N. Benware’s revised and expanded edition of Understanding End Times Prophecy includes a chapter on Preterism. This is a good sign. Preterists teach that certain prophetic passages have already been fulfilled (e.g., Matt. 24), while futurists claim that these same passages are yet to be fulfilled. The debate centers (mostly) on how specific time indicators like “near,” “shortly,” “quickly,” a [...]
With the best-seller status of books supporting atheism and attacking religion in the news, it’s remarkable to see so much talk about religion by the presidential candidates and liberals in general. Can you identify who said this?: “Science is a gift of God to all of us, and science has taken us to a place that is biblical in its power to cure.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said this during a debate [...]
The place of Israel in Bible prophecy has a long history among non-dispensational theologians going back at least to John Calvin. “By virtue of this, [Paul] teaches, the Jews are the first and natural heirs of the gospel, except to the extent that by their ungratefulness they were forsaken as unworthy—yet forsaken in such a way that the heavenly blessing has not departed utterly from their nation. [...]
