Anonymous Asks (352)

“How should Christians view retirement?”

There is a little bar on a major street near where I used to live. It’s owned by a Greek fellow who makes what I think is the best (and by far the cheapest) souvlaki dinner in the neighborhood. I have eaten there enough times to lose count. From about 3:30 p.m. onward, up to a dozen retired white men occupy most of its barstools, some of whom I became friendly with over the years. A trip to the bar gets them out of the house and gives their wives a break. They drain their pints with care, milking out of them as much socialization and conversation as possible for their dollar, then head home in time for dinner.

Most don’t wobble when they leave, but two of them passed away in the last twelve months.

Anonymous Asks (351)

“If cessationism is true, then why does God seem to continue to work through Pentecostal churches?”

For anyone unfamiliar with the term, “cessationism” is the teaching that the Holy Spirit of God no longer gives some of the spiritual gifts he gave in the early days of the church, the most comprehensive lists of which may be found in Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12. Cessationists believe the Lord intended certain gifts only to operate in the churches for a short time until the fall of Jerusalem in AD70, and until the completion of the canon of scripture.

Anyway, you’re asking the right person. I happen to be a cessationist, though I don’t usually use the term. My reasons for believing certain gifts are no longer being given may be found here, here and here.

Anonymous Asks (350)

“Does an unmarried couple who have sex become married in God’s eyes?”

Some years ago, I had a late night phone call from an old friend to whom I hadn’t spoken in years. He was reviewing his relationship history. Many of these, frankly, had been sinful and ended in disappointment. The most recent was no exception. Despite professing to follow Christ, he has been initiating and falling into uncommitted sexual entanglements most of his life.

“I’ve been ‘one flesh’ with over thirty women,” he confessed. “Which relationship does God regard as ‘the one’?”

Anonymous Asks (349)

“What’s wrong with ‘always learning’?”

Today’s question is about a description of life in the “last days” from Paul’s second letter to Timothy. It reads as follows:

“But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.”

That’s a long list of unpleasant character qualities and behaviors that were already appearing in the churches of God in Timothy’s time (the instruction to Timothy to “avoid such people” implies some of them were already around), and are increasingly present today.

Anonymous Asks (348)

“Was Jesus rich?”

There’s a well-known theological answer to this question, but I’m guessing our anonymous questioner can Google “rich” and “Jesus”, and come up with 2 Corinthians 8 as fast than I can, so that’s probably not what he has in mind. He’s curious whether Jesus the man actually had shekels a-plenty during the time of his ministry.

Two years ago, I would have called this a silly question. Today, not so much.

Anonymous Asks (347)

“How would you counsel young Christian men whose parents cannot seem to let go?”

Moses left the care of his parents as an infant in a basket. Jacob left home, by many calculations, at the age of 71, finally and unexpectedly forced out of the homestead by circumstances he had himself set in play.

Somewhere in between those extremes lie the rest of us. The ideal scenario is becoming financially, domestically and emotionally independent at some point prior to both our parents wishing we would — please!

Anonymous Asks (346)

“Does God really care about the little things that trouble us?”

Last night was prayer meeting, and I sat listening to others pray, thinking about corporate prayer and what it means to the Lord. One after another, men stood up and took their concerns to their Father in heaven: a full-time worker struggling with health issues; the preparations for this summer’s camp work; the regular meetings of the congregation; a father, brother and grandmother who do not know Christ; a family with its head under church discipline. All the ordinary concerns of a local church had their moments, and we said our amens as others expressed them.

But I couldn’t help thinking about all the things we were not requesting.

Anonymous Asks (345)

“What does an eagle signify in the Bible?”

Birds of prey are majestic, beautiful, horrible creatures. If you’ve ever watched a winged predator drop out of the sky to pluck a smaller bird out of the air then calmly shred its screaming victim to pieces, all the while brazenly meeting the gaze of horrified onlookers through the glass pane of a full length 21st storey office window, you will know exactly what I mean. You may taste your own lunch a second time.

Eagles soar with mesmerizing elegance, then eviscerate mercilessly in a matter of seconds. You do not mess with such creatures.

Anonymous Asks (344)

“How do you feel about prayer in public schools?”

My family returned to Canada from overseas when I was due to enter grade 4, resulting in the school system bumping me into grade 5 a year early. Awkward and shy, I pretty much accepted everything the way it came, at least initially. Each morning at school started the same way: with the day’s announcements, preceded by rising for the national anthem and a rote recitation of the “Lord’s prayer”.

How did I feel about it?

Anonymous Asks (343)

“Was Jesus a pacifist?”

As defined by Merriam-Webster, pacifism is “opposition to war and violence as a means of resolving disputes”, often manifesting in a refusal to participate in military action. Extreme pacifists even exclude self-defense as an option when under attack.

Ready for one of my infamous yes-and-no answers? Okay, here we go …

Anonymous Asks (342)

“What’s the Christian perspective on MGTOW?”

MGTOW is an acronym for Men Going Their Own Way, an anti-feminist online community of men who reject marriage and commitment. It may be distinguished from other much-maligned informal men’s movements like the pickup artists (men who share tips about how to persuade women to engage in casual sex), incels (involuntary celibates) or promoters of men’s rights (primarily divorced dads who’ve had a hard time with the system).

While there are differences between the views and objectives of each of these groups, all have this in common with respect to the opposite sex: defeatism. MGTOW is not the exception.

Anonymous Asks (341)

“What is the core message of the Minor Prophets?”

Sometimes a question is too general to be useful. That’s not a criticism of the anonymous person who asked today’s poser. He is probably trying to get a clear, simple reply to an area of Bible inquiry he finds interesting. Sometimes that is easy to do. Other times it isn’t.

This would be one of those.

Anonymous Asks (340)

“I have a couple of books on my shelf written by Ravi Zacharias. What would you do with them?”

If you have been living under a rock and don’t know the name, Ravi Zacharias was a highly influential apologist, writer and evangelist, the head of a $35-40 million international empire ... er, Christian ministry. His books sold two million copies and his YouTube videos received hundreds of thousands of views.

He died in May 2020, shortly following which allegations surfaced of repeated sexual misconduct over many years.

Anonymous Asks (339)

“Is there a conclusive argument for the existence of God?”

Sadly, there is no conclusive argument either for the existence of God or anything else. The reason is unbelief. Perhaps I should not use “reason” and “unbelief” in the same sentence. They are in fact mutually exclusive. The unbeliever refuses compelling arguments, persuasive evidence, and even the science he claims to worship when any of these do not agree with his predetermined position.

For such a man, literally nothing is ever conclusive.

Anonymous Asks (338)

“Will serial killers go to heaven with no punishment if they believe in Jesus, repent and ask for forgiveness?”

The great King David once plotted the murder of his own faithful servant in order to cover up his adultery with the man’s wife. Yet upon his confession of guilt, Nathan the prophet told him frankly, “The Lord also has put away your sin.” David himself writes concerning that same incident, “a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise”. That sounds like forgiveness to me. I think we’ll see David in heaven. In fact, I’m sure of it.

Admittedly, that doesn’t deal with the “serial” aspect, does it?

Anonymous Asks (337)

“Are lustful thoughts natural, and how do I deal with them when they keep coming back into my mind?”

God made the average young man to procreate. There are always exceptions to the average, of course, as the Lord Jesus noted to his disciples — that’s how it becomes an average in the first place. You need the outliers on both ends to put you smack bang in the middle of the pack.

You sound like you’re right there in the middle, Anonymous: a normal human, Christian male.

Anonymous Asks (336)

“Should Christians from different denominations date or marry?”

As with so many questions, the answer very much depends on your personal situation. Why do you attend the church you currently attend? Obviously, the most desirable answer is “Out of conviction about the interpretations of scripture taught there.”

But that’s not always why people are where they are, is it?

Anonymous Asks (335)

“What does leaven symbolize in the Bible?”

Lots of things, none of them good. Let me try to make that case.

Symbols can be tricky things. Where our Bible interprets a symbol, we generally have no difficulty at all, but there are also times when the meaning of a symbol is open to question because the Holy Spirit has not told us plainly, “This signifies that.” Leaven was unacceptable to God in some contexts and acceptable in others. We will need to find an explanation for that.

The Old Testament uses leaven as an illustration. The New Testament unpacks its meaning.

Anonymous Asks (334)

“If Jesus was/is omniscient, why did he ask questions?”

Good question. You can find several lists online of the questions Jesus asked in the gospels. Curious Bible students have dug up at least 300, minus a few repetitions from overlapping accounts. No single explanation accounts for them all, but one thing we can say with absolute certainty is that Jesus never asked a question to which he didn’t already know the answer.

Anonymous Asks (333)

“Is the name you give your child important?”

In the beginning, names signified destiny. Adam is simply the word for “mankind”, while Eve sounds like the Hebrew for “life-giver” and resembles the word for “living”. Genesis explicitly tells us Adam named his wife Eve “because she was the mother of all living”.

Nowhere does it say God named either member of the first couple. He certainly named the species, but not the individuals. He left that up to our questionable judgment.

Anonymous Asks (332)

“Is not reading the Bible a sin?”

As with so many answers to questions asked here, let’s say it depends on the situation. There have been times throughout history, both during and after the period when scripture was in the process of being written, when large numbers of its intended audience were illiterate, and not by their own choice. Literacy is a privilege and an opportunity not offered to all men and women, and surely the Lord would no more charge people who can’t read with the sin of not doing what they are unable to do than he would charge the innocent poor man for being poor.

Likewise, I don’t see him adding the charge of not reading the Bible to every one of the dead scheduled to appear before the great white throne, though it will certainly leave those who had opportunity to do so without excuse. But they have plenty on their plates without that.

Anonymous Asks (331)

“Are mono-ethnic churches biblical?”

I have never been to a truly mono-ethnic church. I have no evidence they exist. To remain truly mono-ethnic for more than a few weeks, a church would have to find a way to enforce ethnicity-based membership. Which leads to the obvious question: What makes a person, for example, Chinese? Is 100% racial “purity” required? Or would it be permissible for him to have one Tibetan grandparent, or if not a grandparent, perhaps a great-grandparent?

How would you prove such a thing, and why should you have to?

Anonymous Asks (330)

“Was Jesus a Palestinian?”

The word “Palestine” has an interesting etymology. It appears five centuries before Christ in the secular history of the Greek Herodotus as Palaistínē [Παλαιστίνη]. The similarities to our modern noun are obvious. The Greek word in turn derives from pᵊlištî, a Hebrew word that appears as early as Genesis.

Other ancient languages like Akkadian and Egyptian had similar constructions, so it’s probable Hebrew simply transliterated it from another local tongue as “Philistine”. To the Hebrews it meant “immigrant”, to the Egyptians “sea people”.

Anonymous Asks (329)

“What is a post-Christian society?”

I remember first using the term “post-Christian” in the early 2000s. A Roman Catholic co-worker my own age with whom I shared a fair number of views about society was trying to pin down where and when Western culture began to slide into the abyss.

“Post-Christian” popped into my head as a good description of Canada in the new millennium. I probably picked it up from somebody else along the way, but it seemed apt.

Anonymous Asks (328)

“What does it mean to be baptized for the dead?”

The so-called Latter-day Saints or Mormons practice something they call proxy baptism, literally baptism for the dead. They believe individuals who have not been water baptized cannot enter the kingdom of God — “Even Jesus Christ himself was baptized,” they say — and so, under ecclesiastical supervision, members of their church will baptize a living person on behalf of the unbaptized dead. In doing so, they believe they are putting in place a critical component of God’s salvation requirements for those who can no longer do it for themselves, but would if they could.

The authority they claim for this practice is the apostle Paul and, more importantly in their view, an alleged revelation to the “prophet” Joseph Smith.

Anonymous Asks (326)

“What’s the difference between contentment and stoicism?”

I was recently thinking through how believers ought to deal with change. Denial is obviously not a Christian option, though it’s a very natural one. Intransigence is also generally unhelpful; there are situations in which no movement is good movement, but these are rare. Stoicism is a third common reaction to change, even among followers of Christ.

Oh, we wouldn’t call it that. Most of us haven’t read the stoics to know what they believed.

Anonymous Asks (324)

“Why should we restore a brother caught in a transgression in a ‘spirit of gentleness’?”

A gentle spirit is appropriate to restoration. Paul gives us one reason right in these first few verses of Galatians 6: Because you or I could so easily make the same error. “Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted,” the apostle writes. He adds, “For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.”

“That would never have happened to me” is dangerous thinking, and it makes you useless at the job of helping a fallen brother learn to stand again.

Anonymous Asks (323)

“What should be the focus of a Christian funeral?”

I always remember attending a Roman Catholic funeral at which a sobbing relative hurled herself on the casket, her howls of grief painfully and embarrassingly audible in an almost-empty room with high ceilings and a lot of stained glass. She probably lay there for less than a minute, but it seemed like forever.

I’ve never seen that sort of thing at an evangelical memorial, but you can never rule it out.

Anonymous Asks (322)

“Who is the ‘friend who sticks closer than a brother’?”

The line comes from a section of Proverbs attributed to King Solomon. Many Hebrew proverbs state a truism twice in slightly different words. Other times, the two statements contrast. Either way, the first line usually provides a clue to the interpretation of the second, or vice versa. In interpreting proverbs or poetry, I try to let whichever part is easiest to understand guide me through the bit that’s a little tougher.

In this case … hoo boy, good luck.

Anonymous Asks (321)

“I just graduated Bible college without finding a partner. Would taking a pastorate improve my prospects?”

Having only just graduated, and being presumably somewhere in your mid-twenties, if your primary concern is attracting women, I recommend starting a rock band. That’s a sure-fire profession for wannabe chick magnets. A pastorate, not so much.

Of course, if you can’t sing or write music, that’s a bit of a problem. Let’s work with your original suggestion a little.

Anonymous Asks (320)

“Is hell a literal lake of fire?”

For the average reader with limited Bible exposure, it’s probably useful to distinguish between hades, which is a holding place for the human dead prior to the final judgment, and hell [γέεννα, sometimes pronounced gehenna], also called the lake of fire, the final destination of the wicked dead, the place of permanent separation from God. Hell was not created for mankind at all, but for the devil and his angels. After man’s final judgment, death and hades will be thrown into the lake of fire for all eternity. This is called the “second death”.

Anonymous Asks (319)

“Where is the increase in anti-Jewish sentiment coming from, and how should Christians respond to it?”

It should be evident from the long history of worldwide antisemitism that there is no single, definitive answer to this question. “The Gazacaust”, as critics labeled the IDF’s siege of Palestine in the wake of the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, is just one more in a long line of excuses for virulent Jew-hate. Plenty of others exist. If they didn’t, dedicated enemies of Israel would simply make them up.

Anonymous Asks (318)

“Why isn’t the obvious obvious to everyone?”

This isn’t an actual question. It’s my way of summing up the confusion of a number of different friends and other Christians who are frustrated with their fellow believers. One is frustrated because his church keeps recognizing elders who do not qualify by the standards set out in Timothy and Titus. Another is frustrated because his Christian friends are contemplating not voting in November’s election, thus increasing the likelihood of a Democrat win. Another is incensed that none of the Christians who heaped online abuse on the vaccine-hesitant during COVID have ever apologized for the foolish, uninformed and unchristian things they said. Yet another is frustrated by a pastor who believes the unwillingness to use a gun to defend one’s wife from rape is a biblical virtue.

Each sees the obvious and cannot understand why others don’t. The result is a potential breakdown in fellowship between believers.

Anonymous Asks (317)

“What does it mean that there is ‘one baptism’?”

I can see how this expression might confuse a new Christian. Technically, there is not “one baptism” in scripture; there are many. I read somewhere once that there are seven.

That would be a neat thing ... if true.

In fact, let’s count and see.

Anonymous Asks (316)

“Is it important to know Greek and Hebrew when studying the Bible?”

My father used to caution us to beware of “little Greeks”. Seminary students know a little Greek in about the same way I know “a little French” because I studied it for five years in high school. If I went to Quebec today, I wouldn’t dare utter a word of it. Around any genuine expert, my paucity of actual language knowledge would be laughable.

Anonymous Asks (315)

“Why does God test us?”

Regardless of your personal beliefs about the origin of man, it’s evident bad things happen to good people. The difference between a Christian worldview and a naturalistic one is that the latter offers no explanation for suffering and unpleasant choices beyond the luck of the draw. If randomness rules, then these serve no higher purpose than weeding out the weak. If God does, then perhaps misery has meaning.

I could offer all kinds of anecdotes and speculations in response to a question like this, but it’s one that scripture answers in plain language very early on. Who needs my opinion when we can read the words of the Holy Spirit through men like Moses and Job?

Anonymous Asks (314)

“Is it wrong for a woman to propose marriage to a man?”

Funny story, or maybe not. When I tried to generate a suitable picture to accompany this post, I made 25 attempts with my usual AI tool to show a woman proposing to a man. Eventually, I gave up. No combination of carefully worded prompts could induce the algorithm to produce anything but the most traditional image of a man on one knee holding a ring. I could get the woman to change positions, but I could not get the man to stand up and appear to be the object of feminine desire. Every one of the terabytes of data to which this tool has access was telling it I couldn’t possibly want what I appeared to be wanting.

I had an easier time generating an image of Israel being nuked. Hmm. Maybe we can learn something from that.

Anonymous Asks (313)

“Is there any way the new heavens and new earth could be happening now?”

The idea that the new heavens and new earth prophesied in scripture exist today “in seed form” is a concept embraced by a subset of the post-millennialist prophetic school. They would say this seed “grows and spreads and becomes more and more manifest until it finally culminates in the Final Coming of Christ, which introduces the Eternal State”.

I feel like that’s a major stretch.

Anonymous Asks (312)

“What does it mean to take communion unworthily?”

Today’s question comes from 1 Corinthians 11:27, which reads, “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord.”

Anonymous Asks (311)

“Why are Christians homophobic?”

Homophobia is a ridiculous pejorative that applies literally to almost no Christians in the real world. It fails miserably as language, in that if it means anything at all, it means “fear of that which is the same”. The term is a convenient way to deflect arguments that address the dangers and evils of a lifestyle that exalts sodomy. I do not use it.

That said, if you don’t celebrate perversion, anyone who inquires why that might be will probably use the word, so we may as well formulate an answer for them.

Anonymous Asks (310)

“What does it mean to ‘call upon’ the Lord?”

The expression “to call upon” the Lord sounds admittedly archaic today. We don’t talk about calling upon the doctor, the lawyer or the bankruptcy trustee.

With reference specifically to God, the words “call upon” are a translation of the Hebrew qārā' or qārā' šēm, which means to address by name, to single out or identify. The first time the phrase appears in scripture is in Genesis 4, where the statement is made, “At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord.”

What time was that? So glad you asked.

Anonymous Asks (309)

“Why did God punish David and Bathsheba’s innocent child with death?”

I came across this question at the GotQuestions website and was curious how they would answer, as it’s something I’ve reflected on at length. It’s a reference to the events of 2 Samuel 12, in which God afflicts the bastard child Uriah’s wife bore to David, who subsequently dies of the illness much to David’s sorrow.

The sad death of comparative innocents is one of the more perplexing mysteries we ever encounter, and the GQ writers usually offer solid, biblical answers to difficult inquiries. Moreover, scripture doesn’t tell us God’s motivation in this instance, it simply tells us what happened, which means the writer of the post was obliged to conjecture.

Anonymous Asks (308)

“In a theocracy such as the Christian Nationalist movement would like to see established, what would be the most biblical way to treat people with non-Christian religious beliefs?”

I’m never a huge fan of hypotheticals, and this is a big one. Notwithstanding the efforts of our postmillennialist friends, I believe the next (pseudo-) theocracy we’re going to see on this planet will be global beast-worship, to be followed shortly by the glorious millennial kingdom of the Lord Jesus, who will not require my advice about how to administer justice.

Anonymous Asks (307)

“Why are there so many atheists in the world?”

The impression that the world is full of atheists is actually quite false. It has several causes, not least the vocal efforts of a small minority of “true unbelievers” to keep their hobbyhorse in the public eye and to blame religion for every feature of the world they dislike. The high profile of men like Stephen Fry, Bertrand Russell and Richard Dawkins leaves many with the impression their beliefs are scientific and their numbers statistically significant. That is simply wrong.

Anonymous Asks (306)

“Is it really possible to be overly righteous or too wise?”

New Christians may be inclined to exclaim, “Of course not!” How could one have too much of a good thing? But those who have read the complete works of King Solomon may find the wording of this question familiar. He speaks of both.

Anonymous Asks (305)

“Does the Bible predict an EMP attack?”

Early on a Friday in mid-April this year, Israel allegedly attempted a missile strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. News services documented multiple explosions, and some reported a successful strike. The Iranians claimed their high tech air defenses had done the job for which they were designed, and that whatever the Israelis had launched in their direction had been summarily shot down. End of story, for now at least.

The comparatively small scale of the attack prompted internet speculation about an EMP.

Anonymous Asks (304)

“Are some words better than others when describing people who are not Christians?

I recently had a fellow believer give me a thirty-second lecture about my use of the word “unsaved”. He was technically correct in the sense that, of all the English translations currently available, that word appears only in The Amplified Bible. To the extent that I was using an extra-biblical term, he had a point, though I’m not sure his preference was better in all contexts.

But some words are indeed better than others. Let us consider …

Anonymous Asks (303)

“What does it mean to be spiritually dead?”

Let’s start with the fact that scripture doesn’t use the phrase “spiritually dead”. Not once. Spiritual death is a concept we’ve derived from the word of God, but it is not the language of the Bible. First, then, we need to figure out what “spiritually” means as the Bible uses it.

Anonymous Asks (302)

“How should parents who are divorcing/separating deal with child custody issues?”

How does one do a bad thing in the best possible way? This the dilemma for divorcing Christians. Finding the will of God in one area of your life when you are already rejecting the revealed will of God in another area is always going to be a losing battle. The Lord never intended Christians to divorce, and his word does not provide a great deal of direct guidance to those in the process of demonstrating they don’t want it.

The best we can do is derive some general principles from scripture about behavior patterns that are always good, and leave it at that.

Anonymous Asks (301)

“What causes church splits?”

Let’s start with this proposition: God is gracious, and may continue to bless the efforts of his people even when they make mistakes, often in spite of them. But I think we can safely say the Lord is never behind factionalism. Even Martin Luther worked to reform Roman Catholicism from within for fifteen years before settling for the alternative.

In short, there is no such thing as a good church split. Some other outcome is always preferable, and something irreplaceable is lost in every fracture of a local testimony.