Tuesday, April 11, 2023

More Beads on the Abacus

A Belgian man obsessed with climate change reportedly took his own life recently after a series of exchanges with a so-called artificial intelligence (AI) on his smartphone. His widow says “Eliza” (the app’s default chatbot) had become his “confidante” and encouraged him to consider suicide as a contribution to saving the planet when his worries about the effects of global warming on earth’s environment became the primary topic of their “conversations”.

I read the article the morning of April 1 and immediately started thinking the writer was pulling my leg.

Monday, April 10, 2023

Anonymous Asks (244)

“Is freedom of speech a biblical value?”

There is no such thing as a right to free speech. Jesus Christ didn’t have one. The apostles certainly didn’t have one. What they had was a divinely authorized responsibility to engage in costly speech. They walked out into the public square with a message almost nobody in positions of authority wanted to hear and inflicted it on the world in spite of all efforts to silence it.

As a result, the Lord Jesus was tortured and crucified. The apostles were delivered over to courts, flogged in the synagogues, dragged before governors and kings and, like Stephen, stoned by their own neighbors and kin.

Sunday, April 09, 2023

About the Weather

“Whether for correction or for his land or for love, he causes it to happen.”

The line above is from the book of Job. The speaker is Elihu, the young man who attempts to correct his elders on the subject of suffering, since all four men who have held forth previously have, in one way or another, erred in their understanding of how God works. Like most young men, Elihu is full of earnestness and conviction, but also shows admirable restraint in allowing the discussion he is witnessing to reach an impasse before stepping in to offer his own opinion. Age and experience receive their appropriate deference.

Elihu’s mission is not to attack Job as all the other speakers have done, however unintentionally, but rather to justify God. So he begins to talk about … the weather.

Saturday, April 08, 2023

Mining the Minors: Nahum (9)

The New Testament is full of staggering numbers of quotes and allusions to the Old. Its writers directly cite or make passing reference to all but four Old Testament books at least once: Ezra/Nehemiah (a single volume in Hebrew), Esther, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon. If we are going to be technically correct, we should probably add Nahum to these, as I will shortly demonstrate.

So here’s a question for you: if the New Testament writers can find no reason to quote Nahum, what good is the book to Christians?

Friday, April 07, 2023

Too Hot to Handle: Situation Critical

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Tom: By the time a cultural phenomenon makes it to The Daily Wire, it’s probably already at the tail end of the news cycle, which is about the time I usually discover things these days. Then, upon closer examination, I just happen to notice this “new phenomenon” is something that’s always gone on, except that somebody young and tech-savvy has coined a clever new name for an awful interpersonal dynamic and wants to tell us we should like it instead of hating it.

IC, let’s talk about “situationships”. Want to try to define this one for us?

Immanuel Can: In short, a “situationship” is an emotional and/or sexual relationship in which the terms of involvement are not defined to either participant. Usually it’s sexual, but the primary driver of the relationship is emotional entanglement with a decided “lack of commitment or clearly defined roles”. That’s how Corina Hsieh, the inventor of the term, defines it.

Thursday, April 06, 2023

“I Love You,” She Said Determinedly

A man and a woman are going to bed. It’s been a long day — work has been vexing, the children have been demanding, calls and emails have piled up, and best efforts at getting it all done have failed. Irritations have built up; and at times, the couple has actually been a bit snappish.

The husband is middle-aged, and somewhat dumpy and slightly graying. His earlier grumpy mood has subsided only into a plodding weariness as he gets ready to turn in. He’s left his slippers askew in the corner again, and hung his trousers over the chair instead of putting them in the closet.

The wife turns to her husband and says, “I love you.”

Wednesday, April 05, 2023

Turnabout is Fair Play

Having given Michael Heiser’s The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible three posts of reviews that some will probably say border on hagiography, I promised to take a few lines to consider the other side of the story, as comparatively trivial in spiritual seriousness as Heiser’s “errors” may be — if indeed such they are.

Turnabout is fair play. Your mileage may vary. Here goes …

Tuesday, April 04, 2023

More About the Divine Council

I dislike systematic theology as a way of learning about the Bible: Dispensationalism, Calvinism, Replacement Theology, Covenant Theology, Amillennialism — you name it. “Isms cause schisms,” it is said. This testimony is true.

“Isms” also build weak Bible students who accept other men’s assumptions uncritically.

Monday, April 03, 2023

Anonymous Asks (243)

“Should Christians reject sentimentality and nostalgia?”

The writer of Ecclesiastes penned these words: “Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.” Some Christians take this to mean that all periods of history have their disadvantages and one may as well be born in any given century as in another. Clarke’s Commentary, for example, says, “This is a common saying; and it is as foolish as it is common. There is no weight nor truth in it; but men use it to excuse their crimes, and the folly of their conduct.”

Actually, it’s Clarke’s assertion that has no weight or truth in it, as a moment’s consideration easily demonstrates.

Sunday, April 02, 2023

Mustard Seed and Leaven

Matthew 13 neatly collects many of the Lord’s kingdom parables in a single chapter, which is appropriate since Jesus taught seven of these on the same day, some by the sea to a large crowd, and others indoors to his disciples only. Among the parables he shared with the crowds (but did not explain to them) were two that were obviously intended to go together: the first compared the kingdom of heaven to a mustard seed that grew into a great tree, the second compared it to leaven that contaminated three measures of flour.

That must have left more than a few Jews scratching their heads. More than a few Christians are still scratching theirs over them.

Saturday, April 01, 2023

Mining the Minors: Nahum (8)

You may have seen a version of this meme cropping up on social media lately, attributed to one person or another. Best I can figure out, it was a science fiction writer named G. Michael Hopf. It goes something like this: “Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.”

This saying is true. It ain’t scripture, but it’s good pattern recognition, and there’s no small value in being able to learn lessons from the past.

Friday, March 31, 2023

Too Hot to Handle: The Golden Age

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

A few weeks back we spent some time considering eternity as described in our Bibles, and the various misunderstandings that exist about it even among believers.

Tom: I promised at the end of that exchange that we would put together some thoughts on the subject of the Millennium, the coming thousand year reign of Christ, a subject explored mostly in the psalms and the writings of the Hebrew prophets and touched upon only briefly in the book of Revelation, where we are told that Satan will have no part in it, having been consigned to the abyss.

So let’s talk about this golden age a little, IC. Why have a Millennium at all? Why is it so important? Why not transport Christians straight into our promised eternity with Christ?

Thursday, March 30, 2023

Who’s Minding the Store?

I’m seeing more and more of those “self-checkout” units at the local stores. They always creep me out a bit. There just seems to be something really weird about the idea of walking up to a mechanical box, shuffling around my own transaction, and then leaving, going out of a store without passing by a person.

I feel as if I owe somebody some kind of explanation, like “Here’s my purchase, and here’s my money, and they match up; so don’t call the cops.” And then this person is supposed to give me the nod, like, “Okay, you’re alright this time; but when you come back, we’ll need to see each other again.”

Wednesday, March 29, 2023

Implications of the Divine Council Worldview

The “divine council worldview” is a way of looking at scripture that recognizes the supernatural elements that shaped the devout Israelite mindset well into the first century. The late Michael Heiser, writer of The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible, used the phrase extensively. I’ve had occasion recently to re-read Heiser’s magnum opus, and have been particularly interested in the implications the divine council worldview has for the rest of scripture.

It answers more than a few questions, major and minor, and reinforces a boatload of important truths and principles we find in our Bibles.

Tuesday, March 28, 2023

Back in the Unseen Realm

I’m back in the unseen realm this week.

It wasn’t my idea really. One of the men who attends our weekly Bible study proposed we have a look at Genesis 6:1-4, the much-disputed “sons of God” passage. That was fine by me, but studying it together opens up a can of worms best addressed in the late Michael S. Heiser’s The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible, a book I last read through a few years ago but never got around to reviewing here.

Heiser was probably the most recognizable modern proponent of something he calls the “divine council worldview”.

Monday, March 27, 2023

Anonymous Asks (242)

“What does it mean to hand someone over to Satan?”

Paul gives a command in his first letter to the church at Corinth to “deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh”. The man to whom the apostle refers was carrying on a relationship with his stepmother, a sin Paul said was “of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans”. That’s where this phrase comes from.

So what was the apostle saying exactly?

Sunday, March 26, 2023

What Does Your Proof Text Prove? (26)

Grammarly.com says, “A straw man argument is a logical fallacy in which an arguer distorts an opposing point of view and misrepresents it … creating the impression of refuting an argument rather than addressing or refuting it.” That’s as good a definition as any, and will do for our purposes.

Rick Warren is a Southern Baptist pastor and author who has become one of the most influential evangelicals of our day. He is also very well acquainted with the straw man argument, though he probably doesn’t put that on his resume.

At the age of 69, after a lifetime teaching the Bible, Rick Warren has finally decided the Lord always intended women to teach in church. This is absolutely not, Warren says, based on culture or anecdotes or outside pressure, but based on the Bible.

Saturday, March 25, 2023

Mining the Minors: Nahum (7)

History shows us empires never last.

People groups do. Israel, for example, has been around as a distinguishable national and genetic entity for something very close to four thousand years notwithstanding its lack of a country to call home for most of that time; the Chinese have been almost completely ethnically homogenous even longer. In this respect at least, China holds a tremendous advantage in our present day should the US opt to go to war with them over Taiwan. Ideologically divided right down the middle, some say the US is on the brink of civil war; though occasionally experiencing internal unrest, the Chinese are comparatively unified.

But that’s the problem with multi-ethnic empires: they don’t have the kind of cohesion and staying power that kinship produces. The modus operandi of empire building is perpetual expansion and absorption of new people groups, whether through conquest or immigration. At some point, those so absorbed inevitably begin to influence the empire in favor of their own ethnicity and agendas.

Historically speaking, diversity is the opposite of strength. Biblically too.

Friday, March 24, 2023

Too Hot to Handle: Kissing Through the Fence

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Let me give you a scenario that plays out over and over again.

I’m a young Christian man, say … or maybe I’m a middle-aged Christian woman. Who knows? It doesn’t matter. But let’s go with the young Christian man for a minute.

I have always been told that, for some reason, it’s bad for a believer to partner up with an unbeliever. But now that I’m in the situation myself, I can’t quite see why.

Immanuel Can: After all, girl X (my intended) is a lovely person. She’s just like me. We have great conversations. She thinks exactly like I do about practically everything that matters. We have wonderful times together. And I have deep feelings for her.

Tom: “It can’t be wrong when it feels so right …”

Thursday, March 23, 2023

Getting to the Truth

“I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.”

— English Common Law
Oath of Testimony

The fight outside a club was broken up by police; but a man was stabbed. Inspector Thomas has been assigned to find the assailant.

When the perp fled, the crowd scattered, but four witnesses remain: a bouncer, the girlfriend, the bar manager and a local cabbie. Inspector Thomas knows procedure; that each must be interviewed separately in order to get a complete picture.