Category: Uncategorized

Evangelical Covenant Church missionary Dr. Paul Carlson was arrested and killed in the Congo in 1964. Read about it here.

Can you imagine getting a letter from Jesus to your church? That’s the situation that seven churches in Asia Minor found themselves in when the Apostle John penned the book of Revelation. The book starts out with the statement: Revelation 1:1-2 – The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His…

Study details school sexual misconduct.

It’s no longer fashionable in some sectors of the Christian community to be patriotic, but I say, “God Bless American”. Let’s keep praying for our country and thanking God that we live in a place with the sorts of freedoms we enjoy here. There are certainly enough people who would give up everything to come…

The Psalmist wrote, “The Heavens declare the glory of God.” Sometimes we forget that. Today we got another reminder. Check out the pictures of Saturn from the lastest JPL mission to the ringed planet. It is certainly spectacular. And yes, the Heavens do declare God’s glory. Amen.

The British Museum has a series of wall panels describing the siege of Lachish by Sennacherib. This is described in the Old Testament in 2 Chr 32:9. The period of the Old Testament Kings is well attested from archaeology. This is documented in a book titled, The Bible in the British Museum: Interpreting the evidence,…

I am thinking today about libertarianism (Free Will) and determinism (Bondage of the Will). In particular, I am thinking about compatibalism. Under compatibalism there is an assertion that man is both free to choose and determined. The example of Saddam comes to mind. In some very limited sense of the word free, he is free.…

This is a neat piece of physical evidence for the historicity of the Old Testament. This clay prism describes the siege of Jerusalem by King Sennacherib. The text says “I shut up Hezekiah like a bird in a cage.” This matches the Biblical account of the siege where Sennacherib surrounded the city, but did not…

Machen fought the forces of liberalism in his day. His spiritual children ended up fighting each other. This article details the areas of battle.

Biblically, what is a true mystery? When are we justified in calling something a mystery? If there is a contradiction in our theology can we say that it is all rectified by recourse to mystery? There are things in Scripture that are called mysteries. The calling of the Gentiles was only hinted at in the…

There are a number of passages in Scripture which are cited by critics of the Bible as showing the the Bible has contradictions. As an example, the infidels.org website has a long list of alleged contradictions in the Bible. They do this in an attempt to deny the Divine authorship of God’s Word. If there…

The Scholastics loved their philosophy. In their philosophies, they loved to split things into categories. Then they subdivided these categories into sub categories with nearly infinite regression. Bangs points out that this was greatly aided by the invention of the printing press. With the press, they could create large fold out charts containing their categories.…

It’s getting tougher every day to deny that life is present in the womb at a very early stage. See this article for pictures of why this is true. There are more pictures on the site, too.

Open theists assert that God does not know the future until it happens. One verse that is difficult for their position is: Isaiah 46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, ‘My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’; God…

Any resemblance to reality in the following story is purely intentional. The herd moved along slowly across the wide open plains. There wasn’t much cover in this stretch of the plains. There were no trees for the herd to hide in if enemies attacked. They were oblivious to any attack that might happen. Sure there…

It is possible for a system to be internally consistent and yet false. For instance a system might assert five truths, call them A, B, C, D and E. Suppose that someone who holds this ABCDE system is asked to prove the A. Suppose then that person says, B proves A. Suppose the proof is…

Here is a good article on free will and determinism which deals with some of the common objections to the Free Will Defense; Overcoming Objections to Self-determinism (Free-will).

Why Walk on Water? The Gospels tell us that Jesus walked on water (Mat 14:23-32). At first glance this might seem like something that is too showy for Jesus. Why walk on water? Does this miracle story play a crucial part in the Gospel? Would it still be the Gospel without the story? The story…

How Do We Understand the Bible? N. T. Wright, in his book, “The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is” addresses the question of how we are to understand the Bible in our modern world. Wright starts with an carefully developed historical view of first century Palestine. He puts his scholarly focus on…

A syllogism is sometimes posed in order to prove that regeneration precedes justification: 1 – It is pleasing to God for someone to repent 2 – Those who are in the flesh cannot please God 3 – Therefore those who are in the flesh cannot repent The desired conclusion of this syllogism is that a…

Some Preliminary Thoughts on How the New Testament Writers Quote the Old Testament 1 – The NT writers frequently quote OT passages. 2 – The audiences of the NT writers have varying familiarity with the OT texts. 3 – The audiences may have people that know the OT text quite well since there are probable…

Does God answer prayer? Sometimes in their life everyone has an experience which makes them wonder if prayer is futile. Some Good and Bad Reasons for Prayer 1 – No need to pray because whatever will be, will be. Que sera sera… 2 – We pray because it is commanded but we don’t expect what…

It is often said that “dead men can’t respond” or “dead means unable to respond“. This is used in relation to the passages which speak of our condition before we came to Christ. It is said that since we were dead, and dead men can’t respond, then we were unable to respond to God. The…

Where Does Faith Come From? The New Testament has a lot of verses on faith but not too many passages clearly identify where faith comes from. There are several Scriptural possibilities for where our faith comes from. One is that faith is from God, and the other is that faith comes from somewhere inside a…

What isn’t Christian Apologetics? Christian Apologetics is not giving an apology for the faith as if there is something deficient in the faith. The Christian faith is God’s self-revelation to mankind. There is nothing deficient in that revelation. What is Christian Apologetics? Apologetics comes from the Greek word; apologia, ap-ol-og-ee’-ah; a plea (“apology”):–answer (for self),…