If you want to know when an event in the Bible is to happen, look for time indicators. Some of them are very specific: after three days, in 40 days, after 40 years, at the completion of 70 years. There are less specific time indicators like “near,” “shortly,” “quickly,” and “at hand.” These time words are at the heart of the debate between those who claim that certain prophetic events have already [...]
I just received a book notice from Moody Press for a new commentary on Revelation by John MacArthur with the title Because the Time is Near. At this time I will forego a critique of MacArthur’s use of “near” to describe an event he believes is “near” while the use of “near” by New Testament writers (e.g., James 5:8; Rev. 1:3) did not mean “near” when they used the same word. [...]
In a 5–4 judicial squeaker, the Supreme Court ruled that a ban on partial birth abortions is constitutional. The pro-abortionists are hysterical. What’s instructive is how the pro-abortion position is being argued. Maureen Downing, writing the lead editorial in the April 20, 2007 issue of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (A10), is a good example of purposeful obfuscation. She begins by claiming th [...]
What happened at Virginia Tech was tragic. Seung-Hui Cho, the student who killed 32 people and then himself, left a long and “disturbing” note behind. There are a number of curious things that lead me to believe that Cho, a Korean, was a Manchurian Candidate. You might remember the movie that was released in 1962 and starred Frank Sinatra, Angela Landsbury, and Janet Leigh. It was based on a 1959 [...]
Evolutionists claim that morality is a product of evolution. As we saw in yesterday’s article, Marc Hauser claims that “evolution hardwired us to know right from wrong.” How did evolution, which is not a person, place, or thing, know what is morally acceptable? Of course, “it” didn’t, since there is no such “thing” as “evolution.” For the sake of argument, let’s suppose, following Hauser, that evo [...]
Marc Hauser, a Harvard evolutionary biologist, believes that “evolution hardwired us to know right from wrong . . . based on instincts encoded in our brains by evolution.” He “argues that millions of years of natural selection have molded a universal moral grammar within our brains that enables us to make rapid decisions about ethical dilemmas.”[1] Dr. Robert Henkin of the Taste and Smell Clinic i [...]
Many Christians believe the kingdom can only be identified within the confines of the church, and kingdom activity cannot manifest itself outside the church. In their view the kingdom is the church and nothing but the church. Since the church is “sacred” and the world “profane,” as they see it, the church should not consider the world as an arena for kingdom activity. The world is the domain of th [...]
From a study of the Old Testament we realize that God’s kingdom was a present reality even before Jesus came to earth. The New Testament does not indicate that it has somehow been interrupted or postponed for a distant future fulfillment. Even Nebuchadnezzar understood that God’s “dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom endures from generation to generation” (Dan. 4:34). There is no “ [...]
Christians act as if they are living as “strangers in a strange land.” As a result, when they learn about a new law that will define what a pastor can preach from the pulpit concerning homosexuality, they will chalk it up to the work of “the god of this world”[1] (2 Cor. 4:4). They will argue that this world is rightfully the devil’s domain until Jesus comes again. If God’s kingdom is yet to be, t [...]
Historical revisionists are turning the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown into a celebration of political correctness. One of the arguments being made is that whole Native American populations were wiped out because of disease, and the Europeans were at fault. J. W. Barber’s Interesting Events in the History of the United States, published in 1829, described an event that was then com [...]
When Christians hear the phrase the “end of the world,” most assume it’s a reference to a great end-time prophetic event like Armageddon, the Second Coming of Christ, or the inauguration of the New Heavens and New Earth. Actually, the phrase “end of the world,” as in the end of the physical world, is not found in the Bible. There is Psalm 19:4, but in context “end of the world” is a geographical d [...]
In 2000 Years of Disbelief: Famous People with the Courage to Doubt the author makes the following claim: For anyone scanning the past and surveying the current world scene, it is nearly impossible to find any outstanding person—except for popes, archbishops, kings, and other rulers—who says the purpose of life is to be saved by an invisible Jesus and to enter an invisible heaven. But it is easy t [...]
One of the debates surrounding the “celebration” of the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown colony is that the English “invaded” the land of a native people. It’s true; it was an invasion, an invasion of a superior worldview even if the people who did the invading weren’t always morally superior. Can you imagine what the world would be like if the invasion was the other way around? Native cultures [...]
Hugo Chávez is a hero to many in South America. “He roams Latin America, hurling insults at President Bush, sneering at the United States as the enemy ‘empire’ and spending billions in oil money to undermine Washington wherever he can.”[1] The poor consider him to be a “liberator.” “I think God sent him,” Omaira Perez believes. “I think he’s the reincarnation of Simón Bolívar,” the nineteenth-cent [...]
The world is in a mess, and Christians know it. Too many of them believe that they have not been called to change the world. What if other Christians had taken a similar position? What would the world be like? John Newton (1725–1807) was an infamous slave trader. The church knows him best as the author of such well-know hymns as “Amazing Grace” and “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken.” Even while [...]
An article appeared in the March 10, 2007 issue of the Marietta (Georgia) Daily Journal with the title “Homosexuals try to find place in Christianity.” Substitute the words “thieves,” “adulterers,” “liars,” “drunkards,” “murderers,” and any other group of sinners, and you have a good description of who makes up the church of Jesus Christ. If you are not a sinner, then you are not a Christian. Chri [...]
Jan Markell’s article “Kingdom Now: We’re Not Returning to Eden,”[1] which appears on the Christian Worldview Network website, is one of the worst uninformed hit pieces I have ever read. It gets nearly everything wrong. I don’t have a problem with thoughtful, accurate, and well researched articles dealing with disagreements over theological issues, but I do have a problem with someone who refuses [...]
A prominent end-time advocate writes that “the church is not in the business of taking anything away from Satan but the souls of men.” This person also believes that working to change culture and society is outside of God’s redemptive plan, believing that Satan has control of this world until Jesus returns and vanquishes him. In truth, Satan is a mere creature who was defeated at the cross. If we [...]
Former fundamentalist preacher Dan Barker and his wife Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-presidents of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, believe America is becoming a theocracy. “[Religion is] the source of the greatest violence in the world,” Gaylor said. “More people have been killed in the world for religion over any other reason.”[1] Actually, atheism has been responsible for more than 100 million d [...]
I watched “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” from beginning to tortuous end. The first obvious conclusion any critical thinking viewer comes away with is that the tomb that held the ossuaries was not hidden away to conceal anything. The entrance was constructed in such a way that it invited visitors. If the tomb actually held the bones of Jesus, then why did His immediate disciples preach in His name and di [...]
