This week we have a unique opportunity for our interview. I’m talking to authors from the November/December 2024 edition of FrontLine. Mostly we are discussing the theme of The Thinking Christian, but this time I am focusing on a regular feature of the magazine, our Chaplain’s Report. Our chaplain for this edition is Troy Shoaf…
Romans 11:25–27 provokes many questions for students of the Bible, including the phrase “And in this way all Israel will be saved” (Rom 11:26), which one commentator calls “the storm center in the interpretation of Rom. 9–11.”1 The following is but one attempt to summarize these questions and provide some answers. Romans 11:25 What is…
Considering the very recent events in Syria, I thought I would share some brief thoughts for consideration with our friends and followers. Setting the Stage As most of you are probably aware by now, the Assad regime in Syria has fallen. This remarkable reality has the potential to greatly affect our country as well as…
Periodic self-evaluation is not a bad thing. Sometimes in our lives, we notice a spiritual digression we need to adjust. Perhaps our devotional life needs a reset; perhaps our fledgling prayer life needs restoration; perhaps our marriage needs to renew its spark. I contend that it is time for churches who claim to be “conservative”…
The recent death of Pete Rose has rekindled a decades-old debate about his place in the Baseball Hall of Fame. “Charlie Hustle” was indisputably one of the greatest baseball players of all time. Some argue that he was the greatest. However, despite being named an All Star seventeen times and holding the MLB record for…
Jordan Petersen is doing a series on the Gospels on the Daily Wire. The discussion panel consists of Jordan Peterson (a Canadian psychologist and social philosopher who admittedly is not a born-again believer), Dennis Prager (a religious Jew, founder of Prager U), Robert Barron (Roman Catholic bishop, philosopher, and evangelist for the Catholic Church), Johnathan…
Our episode this time turns to the November/December edition of FrontLine, which came out on this theme: The Thinking Christian. Our first interview is with a man who is a long-time friend of mine, David Potter. Our first meeting was almost thirty years ago in Alameda, California. He served with the same mission board as…
Ever since its inception, Israel has never been a fully believing nation. Some of the Israelites were believers, however. Abraham has always had a spiritual offspring among his physical descendants (Rom 9:6–7). Even in the darkest chapters of Israel’s history, so it is today—“there is a remnant” (Rom 11:5; cf. 11:3–4). Generally speaking, however, Israel…
At the close of a recent church service a teenager told me, “I had a hard time staying awake while you were preaching.” I did not tell him that I already knew it. Few realize that the pastor on the platform sees the passing notes, the fixation on the cell phone, and the drooping heads.…
Part of Christian parlance is to speak of “the ministry” or “the minister” to refer to a set of professional religious activities and the professionals so employed. That’s a rather unfortunate happenstance of how religious terms develop, because ministry refers to everything Christians do to build up the body of Christ: “…the work of ministry…