.jpg)
“Are religious icons idols?”
For readers with limited exposure to “high church” traditions, an icon is an artistic depiction of Bible persons or events in paint, mosaic or wood. Icons are common among the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics and some Lutherans. The Lord Jesus, Mary, ‘saints’ and angels are the most frequent subjects.
Depending whom you ask, what makes an icon ‘iconic’ is that, rather than simply being decorative, it serves as an object of devotion.
.jpg)
“When did the Church begin?”
Two answers to this question are common among evangelicals. The Dispensational answer is “At Pentecost in the early first century AD.” The answer of Replacement Theology (“RT”) is “The people of God are one throughout the entire Bible.” Since “church” [ekklēsia] means a congregation (i.e., more than one person), the Church can then be said to have begun with the second human being ever saved, perhaps Eve or Abel. Others argue Abraham is “the father of us all”. Either position adds thousands of years to the age of the Church.
If you think the difference is a mere numeric technicality, think again.
.jpg)
“What is the Synoptic Problem?”
The word ‘synoptic’ refers to the gospels written by Matthew, Mark and Luke, coming from the Latin synopticus, literally “seeing all together”. Wikipedia describes the Synoptic Problem this way:
“The ‘synoptic problem’ is … the question as to the source or sources upon which each synoptic gospel depended when it was written.”
You too may have noticed passages from the three gospels that are similar to one another. I’m not quite sure why commentators describe it as a problem. I think of it more as a curiosity.
.jpg)
“Why does God allow deception?”
Google the phrase “Why does God allow”. Stop there. The number one answer by a long, long shot is “suffering”. Even my browser’s AI response assumes that’s what my open-ended question is really asking. Second highest is “evil”. Third is “tragedy”, which may or may not have a malevolent component. I often associate tragedy with natural events that hurt people, or things like dying young.
Way down the list is “Why does God allow me to struggle and fail?” Hey, I sympathize.
.jpg)
“Why did Job’s wife tell him to curse God and die?”
The day the Sabeans killed Job’s servants and took all his oxen and donkeys was the same day fire fell from the sky and killed all his sheep and shepherds. It was also the same day the Chaldeans stole his camels and the same day the house fell on his ten children during a party and killed them all. Job lost every outward sign of God’s blessing in a matter of minutes. Shortly thereafter, his entire body broke out in pustules.
The pustules apart, it should be obvious that everything that happened to Job also happened to his wife. We don’t think about that aspect of the story quite so much.
.jpg)
“What does the Bible say about the three wise men?”
The Christmas story as we know it is a composite of information passed on by the writers of two of our four gospels. (Mark and John begin the story of Jesus Christ roughly thirty years in, with John the Baptist.) Matthew’s gospel is where we find the only references in scripture to the wise men.
First things first: the popular formulation in the Christmas carol about them (“three kings of orient”) turns out to be incorrect in as many as three respects. It is certainly wrong in one.
.jpg)
“What does it mean that a friend’s wounds are ‘faithful’?”
The line comes from one of Solomon’s later proverbs. In full it reads, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.”
The wounds of a friend are not injuries he incurs on your behalf or in the process of defending you from others, though that might be your first thought, as it was mine. Taking a major hit for a pal is definitely a confirmation of friendship, but I don’t think that’s what Solomon was talking about.
.jpg)
“My (saved) parents seem uninterested in their grandchildren. Is there anything I can do?”
Anonymous, you have the opposite problem many of us encounter, and that is that our children (saved or unsaved) may not have the level of interest in their grandparents that we would like them to have. Alternatively, many grandparents are overly invested in pursuing relationships with their grandchildren and complicate the lives of their parents by meddling.
In short, this is a new one for me among Christians.
.jpg)
“Is there an NT equivalent for sackcloth and ashes? If so, how should we practice it?”
The expression “sackcloth and ashes” occurs in only three Old Testament passages in precisely that form. In another two places both words appear in the same context separately. Both words are common in the OT, and both were well-known signs of public mourning. The mourner would wear the sackcloth and sit (or sometimes roll) in the ashes, and/or sprinkle them on his head.
Fun? Not really. But in ancient times, if you were in distress and wanted your neighbors to know it, that’s the way you told them. Sackcloth and ashes.
.jpg)
“Is it unloving to confront somebody about his sin?”
As in so many situations Christians encounter in this life, motive is more important to the Lord than the actions it produces. Some people just can’t get their heads around that. We generally call these people legalists. They value actions and outcomes more than the heart and mindset that produces them.
The Lord just … doesn’t.
.jpg)
“Does a Christian marriage have to be romantic?”
Men and women born much prior to the ‘Summer of Love’ — like, say, those who managed to live through a World War, the Great Depression or any of the plagues and famines of prior centuries — would probably find this question hilarious. Even today, in cultures where the social or financial advantages of being married outweigh any potential negatives, a deficiency of romance in a marriage rarely amounts to a stopper.
However, we live in an era in which a young person’s view of marriage is often wildly unrealistic. Feminist media propaganda shapes the expectations of most young women — and many men.
.jpg)
“What does it mean that everything is meaningless?”
Today’s question comes from the NIV’s rendering of the second verse of Ecclesiastes. The NIV is one of only two English translations out of the most common 35 that has elected to go with the word “meaningless” in this context. People are far more familiar with the King James: “Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.”
The vast majority of English translations (21 of 35) follow the KJV.
.jpg)
“Should Christians spank their children?”
I have experienced spanking from both ends. (Sorry.)
I have regularly spanked three children throughout their formative years, and maintain loving and mutually-beneficial relationships with each one to this day. I have also received the occasional judicious and quite necessary whack from a loving and reluctant parent during the lengthy period it took me to grow to maturity.
Both ways, spanking worked. I regret nothing.
.jpg)
“What does the command to ‘fill the earth and subdue it’ entail?”
Today’s question is a reference to Genesis 1:28, in which God told our distant ancestors, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” He gave Noah and his sons a similar mandate after the flood: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered.”
.jpg)
“Is thrill-seeking wrong?”
An old acquaintance is in hospital right now going on two months with little prospect of an easy recovery, the victim of a motorcycle accident. He’s got a long road ahead of him with many potential pitfalls and pains as he tries to regain his strength and mobility and get back on his feet without inadvertently undoing the beneficial effects of a complex surgery in the process.
His drastic reversal of fortune brings up the question Did this have to happen? Not knowing all his circumstances, I have no good answer for that.
.jpg)
“Why do people struggle with lack of faith?”
On its own, the word “faith” is content-free. There is no such thing as generic faith. To talk about believing without asking what you are supposed to believe is like trying to order dinner at a restaurant when you’ve never been given a menu and the waiter refuses to tell you what the options are. A question so unspecific is quite impossible to answer meaningfully.
Faith always has to be in something or someone. It cannot exist in a vacuum.
.jpg)
“Why did Jesus weep at the grave of Lazarus?”
This week has been hard. An unsaved friend of over 30 years is on his way out of this world. He can’t communicate directly anymore, and his younger sister, the “baby” of the family, has been passing messages back and forth to me. I have every confidence the Judge of all the earth will do justice with respect to my friend, but his poor sister has no clue. Her desolation when she talks about losing her brother would break your heart.
Am I grieving for my friend? Absolutely. But I’m grieving even more for his family, who do not have the resources I do.
.jpg)
“Why did Pharaoh give Joseph so much authority in Egypt?”
The question is a reference to the events of the latter portion of Genesis 41, in which the king of Egypt takes a thirty-year old foreign prisoner fresh out of the local hoosegow and promotes him to the second-highest position in the kingdom, allowing him unprecedented discretion and political influence. “All my people shall order themselves as you command.”
It’s fair to say nobody saw that coming, and the first-time reader can be forgiven for saying, “Huh. That’s unlikely.” Because it was.
.jpg)
“Why do so many preacher’s kids apostatize?”
I feel as if this is one of those “When did you stop beating your wife?” questions. It assumes the veracity of its premise without any actual investigation. Do “so many” preacher’s kids really abandon their faith when they leave home? What does “many” mean relative to the total number of children born to full-time servants of Christ? If large numbers really did apostatize, how would we know? How many of them come back to the faith later?
Also, who’s keeping the stats: George Barna?
.jpg)
“Should we take miracles literally?”
If we are talking about the miracles of scripture, absolutely. Once we have conceded the existence of God, there’s no logical reason not to. Any being sufficiently powerful to create and sustain the laws of nature, as the Bible claims God did, is also sufficiently powerful to suspend those laws at his pleasure.