The movie “God’s Not Dead” is a realistic portrayal of college students who are not permitted to voice their belief in God on secular campuses. In the movie the atheistic philosophy teacher demanded on the first day of class that each of the 80 student write three words on a sheet of paper: God is Dead. One student, Josh Wheaton, who was a Christian refused and was ridiculed by his teacher for the rest of the semester.
The persecution on university campus is so widespread, that The Alliance Defending Freedom ministry actually comes to the legal defense of Christian students. The Alliance Defending Freedom has won nine Supreme Court cases in the seven years.
The theme of Daniel is God’s sovereignty even in the worst of times of persecution and even in times of chastening which was the case of Israel. God’s sovereignty encouraged the returning captives to Israel, later Jews in the Maccabean persecutions, and finally, all future suffering believers (Hebrews 11:33).
Read moreC. H. Dodd contended that kipper or kopher in the OT and hilaskesthai in the LXX and in the NT meant expiation and the forgiveness of sins. Leon Morris argued that these words meant propitiation or an appeasing of God’s wrath. The overwhelming evidence is the meaning of propitiation of God’s wrath.
N. T. Wright has taken up the mantle of C. H. Dodd in his 2016 The Day The Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus Crucifixion. Throughout his book, Wright disparages the penal subsitutionary death of Christ and the doctrine of propitiation. For example, referring to kapporeth, Wright argues that “older interpretation suggested ‘covering.’ But recent research has challenged this, connecting the Hebrew word with the root kipper, meaning ‘cleanse’ or ‘purge.’…..”there is less, because this context, in and of itself, says nothing about punishment” (p. 328-329). Wright is correct when he writes that “the Hebrew word kapporeth was rendered in the Greek translations of Scripture as hilsasterion.” But then again following the argument of C. H. Dodd, Wright writes “So when Paul writes in Romans 3:25 God put Jesus forth as a hilasterion, he does not mean that God was punishing Jesus for the sins of Israel or the world” (pps. 328 and 330). Just a few other comments from Wright about Romans 3:21-26: “the ‘propitiation’ readings of 3:24-26 are straining” (p. 330). “Paul is not here saying, then, that God has punished former sins, whether of Israel or the Gentiles, certainly not that he has punished them in Jesus. There is no mention here of such a punishment then exhausting the divine wrath” (p. 331).
Read more In our OT lexical study we examined kipper and kopher and demonstrated that the meaning of these words is the propitiation of God’s wrath. The Greek word group of hilaskomai, which is the most used Greek word in the LXX and the NT for the kipper word group, also contains the meaning of appeasing God’s wrath rather than expiating of sin.
Four primary sources were consulted: Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, BDAG (Third Edition), New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (Abridged Edition), and Leon Morris’ The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross.
Read moreThe Times (London) has reported that many American couples are adjusting wedding vows to new concepts of marriage. "Til death do us part" is giving way to "for as long as our marriage shall serve the common good."
Hollywood has played its part as well. Actress Julia Roberts' wedding to Daniel Moder featured the vow to "love, support, but not obey." And consider this: Others merely promise good manners: Will Smith, the actor, recently revealed that when he married Jada Pinkett in 1997 "our vows did not promise to forsake all others. The vow that we made was that 'you will never hear that I did something after the fact'. One spouse will ask the other, 'Look I need to have sex with somebody -- please approve it'." From The Briefing on August 5, 2005.
Liam Stack at the New York Times published on Nov. 7 the results of a Pew Research study.
The Pew Research Center, published online Wednesday, show high public support for unmarried couples who live together, with majorities of every age group saying they find it acceptable to live with an unmarried partner. At the same time, the share of American adults who live with an unmarried partner has more than doubled since 1993, to 7 percent from 3 percent. The share of American adults who are married was 53 percent.
According to the survey, unmarried couples report significantly less satisfaction in their relationships than do married couples, who report higher levels of trust in their partners’ honesty, fidelity and spending habits. It said that 58 percent of married adults said their relationship was “going very well,” compared with 41 percent of unmarried people who live with a partner.
Read moreWhen you hear the words, "Baptism of the Holy Spirit" what comes to your mind? For some there are scenes of highly emotional church services accompanied with tongues. For others, a confusing mix of ideas from different studies and sermons muddies the thinking. That is understandable because there are many conflicting views. In part one, I am going to review eight views of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. I am taking some of my information from Dr. Windsor's notes on Pneumatology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. In part two, I will discuss the Traditional view of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Read moreChris Sheeter and I were students at BJU and friends in 1981. Chris was tall, handsome, musical, with a great personality. He also was a good preacher. Chris was studying to pastor. We attended the same church, Southside Baptist Church and worked as waiters at the same Seafood restaurant, Old Mill Stream Inn. I graduated one semester before he did and started pastoring in N.C. and I drove back to Greenville, S.C. just to fellowship with Chris. During his last semester, he was a lifeguard at a local hotel. At the end of a shift, he dove in the pool just to swim across and go home. As he was swimming across the bottom, his friends notice he stopped about half way. Chris drowned.
Chris studied seven years, spent nearly $100,000 to prepare to pastor and never got to pastor one day. I remember asking myself, not out loud, why did God lead him to go through the rigors of four years of undergraduate work and the even tougher studies of three years of seminary and then allow this tragedy to happen?
William Safire, in a New York Times editorial, wrote after the 2004 India tsunami in which over 200,000 people were killed from 14 countries, “Where was God? Why does a good and all powerful deity permit such evil and grief to fall on innocent people? What did these people do to deserve such suffering.”
David Hume, the eighteenth century philosopher, connected the problem of evil and the existence of God: “Is He willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is impotent. Is He able but not willing? Then He is malevolent. Is He both able and willing? Whence then is evil?”
Read moreL.S. Chafer in his 1948 Systematic Theology said that “thirty-three stupendous works of God” took place the moment we trusted Christ as Savior (Volume 3, page 234-265). Justification and imputation are two of these supernatural works. Justification is a legal courtroom word where the judge declares the person either guilty or innocence whereas imputation is a business word.
Read moreHave you seen the car tag, “I’m spending my children’s inheritance.” Comforting thought. Right? There is one inheritance most children wish had been spent by their parents. The inheritance of a sinful nature.
Charles Ryrie calls this sinful state “inherited sin” because it came from our parents. Reformed or Covenant brothers believe this sinful state like “imputed sin” came directly from Adam. Wayne Grudem is an example: “Our inherited corruption, our tendency to sin, which we receive from Adam” (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994, page 497). Wayne Grudem calls this sinful state “inherited corruption” because Adam pasted his sin nature to his children.
Read moreIs our mission as a church social justice or social reform? According to Jim Wallis editor of Sojourners the church’s mission is social justice. The three objectives of
Sojourners are stated on his website: racial and social justice, life and peace, and environmental stewardship. See the Al Mohler and Jim Wallis debate: Is Essential Part of the Mission of the Church? Where Al Mohler disagrees with Wallis.
Read morePsalm 33:6 and 9 make a very clear statement about the origin of life for those of us who believe the Bible to be the Word of God: “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. For he spoke, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.”
When I was pastoring Swan Creek Baptist Church, I borrowed one my teenager’s biology book just to see what they were being taught in our local public school. Her biology textbook clearly pitted evolution against God’s Word:
Read moreWe are examining some Scriptures used to defend the belief in personal guardian angels.
1. Psalm 91:11 is thought to teach each believer has one assigned guardian angel (See Part 1).
2. Some use Mt. 18:10 to teach that each child has only one guardian angel assigned at birth.
This was the view of Thomas Aquinas in his The Summa Theologica. Question 113 addresses the guardianship of the good angels and Article 5 asks whether an angel is appointed to guard a man from his birth?
“As long as the child is in the mother’s womb it is not entirely separate, but by reason of a certain intimate tie, is still part of her: just as the fruit while hanging on the tree is part of the tree. And therefore it can be said with some degree of probability, that the angel who guards the mother guards the child while in the womb. But at its birth, when it becomes separate from the mother, an angel guardian is appointed.”
Read moreDO you believe you have a personal guardian angel? Many people think they do. For that matter, a certain woman in western Canada is said to have a special gift involving angels. If you give her your full name along with $200, she claims that she will put you in touch with your guardian angel. First, she meditates by focusing on the flame of a candle. Next, she has a vision in which your angel gives her a message to pass on to you. As a bonus, the woman provides a sketch of what your angel looks like. This example from this Jehovah Witness’s website is just one among many on the internet revealing the new angel craze or the Third Wave.
Read more1st Peter 3:15 commands us to “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” The word “answer” is “apologiav” in the Greek and means “defense or a thoughtful defense of the faith.” One of the areas we need to “answer” has to do with alleged contradictions in the Bible.
Which of the following approaches to alleged contradictions fulfills 1st Pet. 3:15?
Read moreIt is becoming common to hear preachers “finding Jesus” in every text of Scripture. Many name recognized Bible Scholars and popular writers advocate a Christological hermeneutic that forces Christ onto every text. Albert Mohler in He Is Not Silent: Preaching in a Postmodern World wrote:
Every single text of Scripture points to Christ. He is the Lord of all, and therefore He is the Lord of the Scriptures too. From Moses to the prophets, He is the focus of every single word of the Bible. Every verse of Scripture finds its fulfillment in Him, and every story in the Bible ends with Him.[1]
Read moreAn unwillingness to forgive is sometimes described as burying the hatchet but leaving the handle sticking out. Country music singer Garth Brooks actually wrote a song about forgiveness called We Bury the Hatchet But Leave the Handle Stickin’ Out
Read moreMichael Bryson, a first-time father, surprised his wife on her first Mother’s Day. He did so by bringing their six-month old son, Jason, to the hospital where she worked as a nurse. After the balloons and the laughing and the sharing was over, Miriam returned to her post and her two men returned to the car for the trip home.
You can imagine that getting all the stuff back into the car was not an easy job. Michael balanced the baby carrier on the roof of the car while tossing the candy in the front seat, arranging the flowers on the floor, and wrestling the balloons out of the wind into the backseat. Finally, he got everything arranged and headed home.
Suddenly, other drivers began to honk at Michael and flash their lights. He could not figure out what was happening, until he hit about 55 miles per hour on the highway and heard a scraping sound move across the top of his car. Then, Michael watched in horror through the rearview mirror as the baby carrier – and Jason – slid off the roof, bounced on the trunk, dropped to the road, and began to toboggan down the highway behind the car.
Read moreWord of Faith Rod Parsley is pastor of World Harvest Church in Cleveland, Ohio. He said, “Forget Paul’s Thorn! We know God has the power to heal…It is His absolute and perfect will to heal you. We do not have to sift through Paul’s thorn, Job’s boils, or Timothy’s sick stomach to try to understand the perfect will of God. You must realize Paul’s infirmity was not in his flesh; it was his soulish man-his mind, his will, and emotions. We know this because he told us the thorn was a messenger of Satan sent to buffet him…. It is time preachers stop trying to make excuses for their lack of faith and understanding of the Word of God” (Repairers of the Breach, page 267, 268).
Read more"The Olivet Discourse is not about the Second Coming of Christ. It is a prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70." --David Chilton (Preterist)"
Read moreMichael Horton states the importance of inerrancy: “Whatever the holy, unerring, and faithful Father speaks is-----simply by virtue of having come from him----holy, unerring, and faithful” (page 184).
Read moreEric Liddell’s story was told in one of my favorite movies, Chariot’s of Fire. He was called “The Flying Scotsman” after the record breaking locomotive. He wanted to compete in the Summer Olympic games, while his family wanted him to begin his missionary career in China. He decided to put off his missionary work until after the Olympics. His family was very unhappy with his decision. When he made the British Olympic team, he went to the games in Paris in 1924. However, when he arrived, he found out that the qualifying heats for the 100-meter, his best event, were to be held on Sunday. He had made up his mind that he would not race on Sunday – and instead, he preached in a church in Paris that da
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