How Soon Was Jesus Supposed to Come Back?

Although I haven’t taken an official poll, it seems most professors, skeptics, media, and those who comment on the Bible would say the disciples of Jesus expected him to come back within their lifetimes. This is often used as another reason not to take the message of Jesus all that seriously, but that is a sweeping judgment that lacks perspective. In fact, when it comes to the return of Jesus according to the Bible, Christians and skeptics alike may be guilty of missing key details.

For instance, many pastors and evangelical Christians today, (of which I qualify as both) maintain that Jesus can come back at any moment. We commonly speak and write in ways that give the distinct impression Jesus could return any moment in our lifetimes. In that respect, we aren’t much different than those early Christians.

It makes one wonder what people might conclude if, in the distant future, someone were to find the writings of Christians from today. Would they pick up a worn copy of “Left Behind” and conclude we believed Jesus would return in the next few years and that Kirk Cameron was our prophet? Couldn’t they also use that as evidence that since Christ did not return, he must not be real? Of course, ask almost any of those Christians or pastors of today and their views are not so simplistic. I have often said Jesus is coming soon, but I am not so certain he is coming in my lifetime.

Perhaps, we Christians should speak and write more carefully using more perspective in the first place? Probably, but that’s not going to happen. There’s never going to be a shortage of writers or speakers making exciting claims, no matter whether they are Christians, secularists, or global warming/climate change alarmist/deniers.

Besides, it’s more fun to talk about Jesus coming in the next few minutes. Come on.

Anyway, as it turns out and despite the fact this is often ignored for the sake of arguing, the writers of the New Testament DID write with perspective. Shockingly, they never

Now This is What It’s All About

The body of Christ is often known more for its conflicts than its cooperation.  At least, that seems to be the perception of the world, or maybe it’s just an excuse? (Sometimes I do wonder.)  At any rate, I’ve been a pastor for nearly 16 years, a Christian since I was a kid, and what people are seeing in Joplin, Missouri has actually been the norm in my experience. For example, from our small, rural community -which is a good 3 hour drive from the tornado devastation- a team of 66 workers made up largely from the Christian Church, the Baptist Church, and the local hospital staff, spent a full day cleaning tornado debris with Samaritan’s Purse.  Different churches with differences over a few doctrines, working together because of Christ.  It happens more than you think, and there is probably less hesitation than you imagine.  In fact, churches often jump at a chance to work together on such projects.  I think there is something about enjoying unity and working together where names, titles, and buildings play no part whatsoever.

It’s just the way it’s supposed to be.  The way it WILL be eventually.

Like the Bible says in I Corinthians 13:2… “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing… there are more pressing matters than being able to figure out all the mysteries, or having all the knowledge, or accomplishing great feats of faith.  With God, none of that matters if there isn’t real, lived-out, love.

It’s no accident that when telling 3 parables having to do with the end of the world and a coming judgment, Jesus final story was about love.  In Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus describes the nations being divided before Him on judgment day, and the reason for the division was that one side had given water to the thirsty, food to the hungry, and had met the needs of those who were destitute and devastated.  The other group had not.

Tornadoes in Joplin, and a Loving God

I have friends in Joplin, Missouri, but I’m one of the lucky ones. My friends survived. Two of them lost their home. Another was at his church on Sunday night, and the church was close to the path of the EF5 twister which ravaged a city of 50,000, but it missed them by a few blocks.  Unfortunately, one friend of mine did lose her grandfather in the storm, and some friends of friends were killed as well.  One died while heroically trying to save someone else.  Stories and memories that will live on with us.

Facebook helped many of us keep tabs on each other and when cell phones occasionally worked, we contacted each other that way, too. It’s not my first experience with feeling close to an EF5. I received my last tetanus shot on the sidewalk in Greensburg, Kansas courtesy of a friendly lady from the Red Cross. I believe Greensburg was the last EF5 to hit before this year although I might be wrong. I’ve read that generally those monsters develop and touch down about once every four years. With four EF5 tornadoes this year alone, we’re definitely above the average. The crazy weather combined with all the other disasters and unrest around the world has people talking about Bible Prophecy, but sometimes the questions are more personal.

Why would God allow a high school senior returning from a graduation ceremony to get sucked out of the sunroof of his SUV where he was riding with his father? Why didn’t God miraculously keep him from being hurt like God kept others safe? Why didn’t God at least let the family find him after it happened?  It took days to discover his body in a pond.  Another 15-month old was found at a morgue.  Many other bodies took weeks to identify and families had to wait those weeks to officially discover a loved one’s fate.  Quite often, the happy miraculous ending we would hope for, didn’t happen.

We’re All Going To Die and I’m Having Tea

Issues, issues everywhere and not a drop to drink!  Ok, not exactly true, I’m guzzling sugar free iced tea right now… But where to start?  Hell or the imminent second coming of Christ?  Let’s start with hell!

These days the idea of hell seems a non-starter with most.  In fact, as a society we are in the midst of concluding that the idea of a God who sends people to hell is simply dangerous. Unfortunately, the “Church” has not always helped.  Instead of actually following the teachings or example of Christ (Christians right?), the “Church” has sometimes burned people at the stake.  It’s a past that contributes to a dangerous image, one that is often exploited today by those who oppose Christianity.  That’s to be expected of course.  It’s just a fact of life that when some of those who claim to follow Jesus do such horrible and anti-Jesus things, Christianity itself gets associated with evil.

It has come to the point in our culture, that make no mistake, basic Christian beliefs are being looked upon with suspicion.  No longer are heinous acts of the Dark Ages being blamed on a corrupt church or power-hungry leaders, now it’s the Bible itself, the traditional religion itself.  Maybe it’s imbedded in our belief system?  Seems silly to most Christians who regularly give to help the poor, or work in the soup kitchens and slums of the world.  But nevertheless, despite our actions we are being painted as something more sinister, even by those who call themselves believers.  As Rob Bell said in his book “Love Wins” :

“Inquisitions, persecutions, trials, book burnings, blacklisting – when religious people become violent, it is because they have been shaped by their God, who is violent.” (For you Kindle users, that’s at 88% through the book, chapter 7)

 

Don’t miss the logical conclusion of such reasoning. 

Osama Bin Laden is Dead: Hooray?

Today in America, or on my Facebook at least, Christians are torn. The natural reaction for a human being when a mortal enemy is destroyed is celebration. A sense of victory. Relief.  But should we join in the celebration?   The western world may rejoice in the death of Osama Bin Laden, but we are not of this world.  Should believers in Jesus feel guilty for feeling good about the death of someone?  It is difficult not to “feel” something.  But what should I do with those feelings?

Questions like these are part of being a Christian.  Following Christ is not a matter of eating, drinking, wearing certain kinds of clothing, repeating particular phrases at church, voting a particular way, or any of those outward, surface things.  I have my own opinions on what food is worth eating, what drinks are worth drinking,  and what kinds of clothes look good.  I have favorite phrases I use, and I have plenty of opinions on political things.

But that’s not what following Christ is about.  The Bible says when it comes to following Jesus, “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” -Galatians 5:6

It’s faith in Jesus, trust in Jesus, expressing itself in our lives through putting God ahead of ourselves, and putting others ahead of ourselves.  See, that’s the Biblical definition of love, and the example of love when Jesus made Himself nothing, took the form of a servant and obeyed the Father by dying on a cross for the sins of everyone else.  Everyone.  Even Osama’s if he would only have taken hold of that forgiveness.

So for a believer and follower of Jesus, because we are to love God by putting Him first, and because He lives in us through the Spirit that He gave us, we should honor God with our reaction to the death of Osama Bin Laden.  Therefore we should be thoughtful with how we conduct ourselves and careful to guard our hearts.  God did say:

‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. -Ezekiel 33:11

And in another place:

Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when he stumbles, do not let your heart rejoice, or the LORD will see and disapprove and turn his wrath away from him. -Proverbs 24:17-18

I think it is worth noticing that the above verse instructed us to conduct ourselves humbly so that God would continue to pour out His wrath on our enemies.  In fact, desiring wrath on mortal enemies is found in several places in the Bible where it is not condemned by God.

In Revelation 6:10, martyrs asked God how long before he “avenged” their deaths. In Revelation 18:20 it says to rejoice when Babylon the Great is destroyed for she killed God’s people.  And regardless of what someone interprets “Babylon the Great” to be, the end result is destruction that involves people.

In the Psalms, David often appealed for his enemies to be destroyed or put to shame by God.  He would write things like“Rise up, O LORD, confront them, bring them down; rescue me from the wicked by your sword.” -Psalm 17:13  

In that Psalm, as in Revelation, and other places in the Bible, it was God who received the praise for His justice in destroying the wicked.  It seems that God accepts that praise, even though as He said in Ezekiel, he takes no pleasure Himself in the death of the wicked.  He would rather that they repent.

Thus, it follows that Proverbs would warn us not to gloat over the death of our enemies because God does not destroy the wicked to feed our desire for power and pride.  God brings justice, but at the same time, He sacrificed His Son for the likes of Osama Bin Laden as well. Anyone can be forgiven if they turn to God as we all know. And a sobering reminder for us is found in Luke 13:1-5. If not for Jesus, we all face judgment.

      Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.

      Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them–do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”-Luke 13:1-5

In many ways, the death of Osama Bin Laden is merely the natural result of his own actions.  Jesus said that those who choose to live by the sword, will die by the sword.  But I believe that Osama’s death at the hands of his enemies was also an act of justice by a Holy God, avenging the death of thousands of people.  I praise the Lord for His justice and His judgment on our enemies.  But it is also a sobering reminder which makes me grateful for the grace of God through Christ which is available for all, that all might be forgiven and receive eternal life, if they will call upon the name of the Lord.

An Eternity of Torment?

Franklin Graham said it recently during an interview with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, “There IS a hell”  Graham said as he tried to explain how he came to believe in Jesus in answer to O’Donnell’s question on whether or not Graham had given up everything to follow Jesus.  In his round-about answer, Graham warned that people would go to a literal hell if they rejected God.   The idea of hell and/or eternal punishment is a traditional  doctrine of Christianity, one that has fallen out of favor in today’s culture.  In fact, the very thought of it, is an obstacle to many in considering the Christian faith.  For them, hell makes the whole story a bit too unreasonable.  Is it? 

Knowing Jesus Rose from the Dead

This claim is the center-piece of Christianity. As all four Biblical narratives about Jesus life and death attest, Jesus died from severe torture and crucifixion at the hands of the Romans and the blessings of the leadership in Israel. On a purely human level, Jesus’ teaching was obviously threatening the power and status of those in the theocratic leadership of Israel, and Rome was wary of anyone causing disruptions. It created a perfect storm which resulted in Jesus’ execution. On a spiritual level, Jesus life and death fulfilled over 108 distinct prophesies and became the culmination of the Old Testament religious covenant to the Israelites and the world. The New Testament Scriptures indicate that perfect storm was actually God-orchestrated, for the purpose of providing forgiveness and grace to the human race.

It’s powerful stuff, and the deeper you get into it, the more powerful it becomes. Jesus was the culmination of the Jewish sacrificial system for sins because He was the ultimate sacrifice, taking away sins once for all according to the book of Hebrews. (It’s why John the Baptist once announced Jesus was “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!” -Lambs were often used as sacrifices)

Taking away sins once for all, meant a person no longer had to feel separated from God by sin, and provided a way for anyone to approach God, without a priest to intercede. It’s one reason three of the four Gospel accounts record the curtain of the temple being torn in two by an earthquake at the time of Jesus’ death. The curtain of the temple is what separated “the Most Holy Place” -where the presence of God was- from the outside world. The meaning being that humanity no longer had to be separated from God because of Christ.

And that only begins to scratch the surface how in Jesus, or through Jesus, so much of the Old Testament religious teaching is fulfilled, or reaches the highest order of magnitude. But none of it matters, if Jesus never got out of the grave.

Rob Bell Rhymes With Hell

But he doesn’t believe in it, not in the traditional sense. I am currently reading Rob’s book “Love Wins,” and in it, he argues against the traditional idea of a place of eternal suffering for everyone who does not believe in Jesus. Although I am in danger of misrepresenting his beliefs before I am completely through with his work, my understanding so far is that Rob believes a God of love would not condemn people to a literal hell of His own making. Instead, Rob seems to view the afterlife as a place where people are able to see their own evils in contrast to God’s mercy and the only real hell is when people refuse to let go of the prejudices, hate, and well… evil… in light of God’s truth and love. Rob is a captivating writer, and for any believer in Jesus, there is food for thought in those pages as he discusses and exposes how Christian’s attitudes come across to others, and as he eloquently describes God’s awesome mercy.

There are problems however with Rob’s conclusions which I believe are wrong. Serious ones. And yet, there are thought-provoking questions which I am glad he brought up. First the problems…

Japan’s Earthquake and The Bible

The 8.9 – 9.1 magnitude earthquake that hit Japan on Friday at 2:46 (their time) and the subsequent tsunami, left such wide-spread destruction that it is natural to question whether such an event is a “sign”. We humans often ask ourselves those type of questions after any major disaster. We might wonder if it’s a sign of global warming, a sign of geological upheaval, a sign of God’s displeasure, or a sign of the end of the world.

From Jesus until now, Christianity has talked about earthquakes as a sign of the end. Revelation speaks of a great earthquake and Jesus mentioned that earthquakes, famines and conflict would be like “birth pains” leading to the end.

For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes. But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.
-(Jesus) Matthew 24:7-8 [NASB]

Did God Lie To Us?

There are two groups of Christians who believe that the universe was created by God.  The group that believes He did it in 6 actual days just a few thousand years ago, and the group that believes God did it billions of years ago.  Both groups often claim to interpret the Bible straightforwardly because the Bible never specifically says how old the earth is.  Thus it becomes a question over who has the proper interpretation.  An argument usually ensues over the Hebrew word “yom,” possible gaps of time, how long the seventh day actually lasted, and more.

I am currently a believer in a young earth.  Pretty crazy for a pastor I know, but it’s fun being radical and besides that, I just happen to think those models and theories work pretty well.  Yet if I (or you for that matter) want to hold to a young earth position, we’re going to be faced with a few thought-provoking theological questions.  Like this one:  Did God Lie to Us?

Timothy Beal and Is There a Bible?

A friend asked me to comment on Timothy Beal’s blog post on CNN entitled “My Take: There’s no such thing as the Bible and Never has been”.

Beal is a good writer, but my first reaction was negative. After all, it’s an article that begins with its conclusion.  I’m sure it will be applauded by those who already agree, and denounced or ignored by those who don’t.  In church we call this “preaching to the choir,” and I’m definitely in a different choir than Timothy Beal.

It’s natural, but I believe these days we are starting to buy our culture’s own propaganda. You know, the one that says southerners are always dumb, Republicans are always rich, sexual promiscuity is always enlightened, and anyone who believes the Bible is true is uneducated at best, and raving mad at worst.

Did Revelation Predict What Is Happening in Egypt & the Middle East?

It’s pure speculation at this point, especially when the results of so many protests and attempts at revolution are still up in the air, but how might all this turmoil fit with the Bible? I’d keep my eye on Revelation chapter 6, specifically the four riders of the Apocalypse as they are called. Again, I wouldn’t make any grand pronouncements, but it’s like anything else, it bears watching.

As I explained in a previous post, it’s the first rider that intrigues me most. Revelation chapter 5, the prologue to the four horsemen and the other three judgments, begins with God holding a book sealed with seven seals. In the day Revelation was written, books (or scrolls) were sealed in that way when they were legal documents pertaining to life and death. Many Bible teachers say this book was “the title deed for the earth.” Well, the Bible doesn’t say that, but it is at least true that anyone reading Revelation at the time it was written, would recognize that book was about life and death. And as it turns out, it was about the earth.

It becomes clear very quickly that it is a book about judgment. Chapter 5 begins by asking the question “Who is worthy to open the book and to break its seals?” (verse 2) and no one is found in heaven or earth who is worthy.

That is, until Jesus steps forward.

The Trinity: It’s the Whole Point

Although the Bible never uses the term, and never sets aside any passage to explain it, the idea of the “Trinity” has been a pretty key doctrine for Christianity for a long time. It can be found in various early creeds and teachings, and basically explains that God is one God, but revealed to mankind as three: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit.

Arguments are made by some that Jesus never claimed to be God, but in fact, according to the Bible He did several times and did so in unmistakable ways. He took the name of God for Himself, He claimed the power of God for Himself, He claimed the authority of God for Himself, and flat out said He was equal with God in clear enough terms that many of those present tried to kill Him for blasphemy. So clear is the teaching in the Bible that Jesus is God, the Jehovah Witnesses -who do not believe in the Trinity- went to the trouble to develop their own Bible, which specifically has changed the passages of the New Testament dealing with Jesus as God. It is accurate to say then, that the Bible presents Jesus as God, with the lone exception being the version of the Bible printed by the Jehovah Witnesses in 1961.

Muslims and Jews would simply claim this is a heresy to the truth. Both the Jewish Scriptures (the Old Testament), and the Qur’an teach that God is one God. So does Christianity of course, but Christians believe in the Trinity, which adds that God is also three. On the surface it is contradictory, but in the expression and understanding of God, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I wouldn’t believe in any other way.

Sign of the Apocalypse in Egypt? -Mysterious Horseman

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show has a video clip showing various riot scenes from Egypt, and at about the 10:27 mark in a clip titled “World’s Eyes on Egypt,” there appears to be a mysterious horseman. Obviously this is a glare, or a weird reflection of the fire on the lens of the camera. Nevertheless, for anyone who knows of the four horsemen of the apocalypse in Revelation chapter 6, it’s kinda spooky, and very, very cool.

Here’s the original from Rachel Maddow’s site. The video is long, and the ghostly image appears around the 10:27 mark.

Here’s a much shorter video that plays up the spookiness factor. (It’s a little silly)

Here’s a link that demonstrates it’s just a camera lens thing.

Speculations are abounding on Youtube. While it is undoubtedly just a weird reflection, it is nevertheless a rather striking one. Why couldn’t it have looked like a racoon? Or a flaming peace symbol? Or the Eye of Sauron? For something that appears to simply be one of those camera anomalies, it sure picked a significant shape. A thought-provoking one for me.

Twenty years ago, while studying the book of Revelation, I came up with a theory about Revelation 6 that no one really took seriously, and I quickly dropped. By “no one,” I mean the 3-4 people I explained my theory to. Hey, I was just a young college student with plans to make a career in business, not dedicate my life to the ministry. Just as well. If I’d tried that theory out in Bible college, it would have undoubtedly been shot down even sooner, different as it was from a traditional interpretation. Besides, nothing really came of it. Twenty years passed, and the world didn’t end.

Which certainly may happen again, but for the record, it is somewhat interesting that something I predicted 20 years ago, seems poised to happen in the Middle East. Maybe my timing was just off?

Who Was Cain’s Wife in Genesis?

The Book of Genesis in the Bible, says that Adam and Eve had two sons: Cain and Able. In the story, Cain kills Able and eventually moves away to a land east of Eden. The Bible mentions Cain had a wife, but it doesn’t say where she came from, or when they got married, or where they met. It simply says this:

Then Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain had relations with his wife and she conceived, and gave birth to Enoch; and he built a city, and called the name of the city Enoch, after the name of his son. -Genesis 4:16-17

So where did Cain get that wife? Surprisingly, despite all the attention given this question over the years, when one looks at the circumstances in the story itself, the answer isn’t hard at all.  The problem seems to be more that we don’t like the answer.

Egypt’s Unrest and Bible Prophecy

Watch this Egypt thing play out because it’s a game changer, not only in the Middle East, but also in the way people will view Bible Prophecy. Egypt has the biggest military force in the area besides Israel, so they have been a big reason why there has been an uneasy truce between Israel and Hamas. In fact, despite all the hype about Iran, Egypt is currently the most powerful nation in the Arab world, and a nation that Israel tends to watch very closely.

It’s safe to say that Egypt is a very big deal in the Middle East peace process. As in, whether peace exists or not.

Now, if Egypt were to become radicalized lets say, then a chorus of end of the world predictions will likely start being heard, and perhaps with good reason. But by the looks of things right now, it is not radical Islam that is behind this unrest, but people who wish to be free and have a real democracy. What if the secular democracy supporters win out?

Good question. For one, it’s going to trash a lot of the predictions made by Bible prophecy guys and gals. This “turning point in history” as Geraldo Rivera said the other day, sure could end up becoming a GOOD “turning point” in the eyes of most of the world. IF democracy takes hold in Egypt, it is very possible that dictators and radical Islam will find themselves on the way out in nations all over the Middle East. That would be good news wouldn’t it?

Age of the Earth, Can the Bible be serious?

The Bible actually never says how old the earth is, but people do infer the age by adding up the genealogy lists which give the ages of various persons in a family line. There are several places in Genesis where it lists who was the father of who, and how long they lived, so adding those up, people arrive at an age of about 6,000 years.

It has been argued that traditionally Jewish genealogies have sometimes left people out and skipped a few generations here and there when making a list.

If that happened with the lists in the Bible, then one would expect the age of the earth to actually be a bit more, but still nowhere near the 4 1/2 billion mark that the scientifically establishment usually says. (I heard a rumor they are fixing to increase it again, this time to 6 billion)

Many Bible believers, and even some (not all) Hebrew scholars have argued that the word we translated “day” in the Genesis story referred to a time period that was longer than 24 hours. (The word can mean a portion of a day, basically a full day, or an indefinite period of time depending on how it’s used.) Here, it’s used in a way that is most easily just translated “day,” as in… a regular ol’ day.

Other’s have argued there’s a gap of time in there BEFORE the seven days of creation even start. Historically, they’ve argued that this is the time the dinosaurs lived, but the Hebrew language in those verses doesn’t really allow any gap between verse 1 and 2 for the dinosaurs to live in. Some argue that the earth was covered by water for eons, in between Genesis 1:2 and 3, but you can’t fit land dinosaurs in there.

So the plain meaning of the Bible, taking a day to be basically a regular day, is that the earth is a little more than 6,000 years old. Since there was evidently no sun until day four, I think you have give a little room for God to say what is meant by “evening and morning” on those days. I think Augustine said those were “God-defined days, not solar-defined days” and I agree. Was it 24 hours, or 19 hours, or 456 hours…??

Where Did All the Water Come From… Or Go? -Noah’s Flood Part III

The Bible says that “all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.” -Genesis 7:11-12 (ASV). So according to the Bible, it came from two places: From underneath the oceans and raining down from the sky for 40 days and 40 nights.

And if it came from underneath the oceans, was that in the form of water, or was it in the form of steam as volcanic eruptions took place along the earth’s crust sending huge plums of steam into the atmosphere where it cooled and then fell back to earth as rain?

It would be quite the cataclysm would it not?

Noah’s Flood, Examining Some Questions, Part II

In his book, “A Biblical Case for an Old Earth,” David Snoke claims that the story of Noah in the Bible refers to a localized flood, and not a global one. I enjoyed his book, but I disagree with Snoke on this. So just for fun, I thought I’d answer some of his objections to a world-wide flood.

In part one I dealt with gathering the animals, fitting them into the ark, and feeding the carnivorous ones! Here, I will deal with whether or not 8 people can feed that many creatures every day, the ventilation of the ark, and animals with special needs. Let’s start with whether or not it’s even possible for 8 people to practice their animal husbandry skills with that many critters…

Noah’s Flood, Examining Some Questions, Part I

Recently, I’ve been reading the book “A Biblical Case for an Old Earth” by David Snoke. In it, he challenges the traditional notions of young earth creationism from both a Biblical and scientific viewpoint. When I’m finished, I’ll give you a full report on it, but for now, I wanted to focus on what he said about Noah’s flood.

Snoke claims that to believe Noah’s Flood covered the whole earth, one has to accept that 15 separate miracles took place, and that God not only flooded the earth, but erased the evidence. He claims the flood was local AND that it killed all of humanity BUT did not cover the globe -not without miracles at least.

Now, it is true that the Biblical account of Noah’s flood contains some miracles. Of course it does, we’re talking God here. When the children of Israel were wandering around the desert, God performed all sorts of miracles, including miracles of preservation: Manna appeared on the ground every morning, their clothes didn’t wear out, water came out of rocks, and more. To say that God had Noah build an ark, and then flooded the earth without also preserving and protecting Noah, would be to not pay attention to God, and not read the story very closely. There ARE miracles in it.

But are these miracles bordering on the unreasonable?

Was the Holocaust God’s Wrath?

I got asked this question by someone who wanted me to say yes. They wanted me to say yes, because they wanted the opportunity to mock me for claiming that God loves us, while being forced to admit that God also wanted to gas millions of people.

How do you reconcile a good God… with stuff like this? If it’s OK with you, I’d like to avoid for now, the tedious philosophical arguments and just look at the big picture. By that I mean, if the God of the Bible exists, then understanding Him requires understanding what the Bible says is going on with God and the world in general. Calling God “good” or “loving” sends people off on tangents because we think of various depths of meaning when those terms are mentioned. It’s better just to stick with the source without getting sidetracked.

So back to the Jewish holocaust, was it God’s wrath?

Church Divisions and Gay Pastors

Every city has loads of churches, many of whom greatly disagree with each other on all sorts of issues. On my desk right now sits a section of the newspaper. It has been folded several times to focus on just one particular article entitled “Gay pastors to be reinstated.” According to the article, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, after voting last year to end a policy requiring gay clergy to remain celibate, will now begin welcoming gay clergy into their ranks. Although the article from the Associated Press was very favorable, this decision by the ELCA will bring them into sharp disagreement with many churches, and many will condemn their decision.

How Perfect Does the Bible Need to Be? Abraham’s Age…

For all you believers and skeptics… If all Scripture is inspired by God, does that also mean there can never be any grammatical errors, or errors in the copies and translations over time? Exactly how perfect does the Bible need to be in order for God to exist?

Two things occurred to me yesterday. One is that many people reject God because the Bible is “proven wrong” by difficult to understand passages, or even by mistakes made in copying the Scriptures, or by a corruption in the original text by later scribes. While two… at the same time there have always been noted differences in the manuscript copies (there ARE tens of thousands of them, which is tens of thousands more than any other ancient documents) as well as syntax and grammatical errors by the writers, or debates over the original sentence structure here or there.

How much do those things matter?

For instance, how old was Abraham when he left Haran for the land of Canaan?

Will God Send People to Hell When They Were Raised in Other Religions?

Of course. Class over.

No, I’m kidding. It’s a really good question. I’ve wondered about it constantly, and of all the questions that are out there, this one has been the toughest for me to come to grips with. Doesn’t seem right that people would grow up being taught different religions, never hearing about God the way I do, or Jesus, and then go to hell for eternity. I have no problem with the really bad people going to hell, of course, but what about the well-meaning folks who just didn’t know? It doesn’t sound fair.

I know the usual answers. Here’s a couple of them:

Quick Advice On Giving Sermons or Lessons

Almost every time a service concludes, I wonder if I preached the sermon or taught the class in a quality manner.

Not sure if I can help wondering about it, although as I’ve grown older, I do find peace and reassurance knowing that God can take my feeble attempts and do miracles with them.

So in the end, it’s not my ability that matters most, but it is Him. Having said that, I’m a big believer in preparation and effort, and I am most often down on myself when I feel I haven’t given enough in those areas.