Posts by Kevin Schaal

Pharisees were the religious megastars of Jesus’ day. They were generally viewed by the populace as deeply committed, genuinely spiritual, and on fire for the Law of Moses. To us, the word Pharisee is synonymous with hypocrite or religious legalist, but much of that is the result of what the gospels later said about them,…

“Is God for us or for them?” God is not a Republican. He is certainly not a Democrat. He is also not American. He is not Canadian, Russian, Ukrainian, British, French, Egyptian, Iraqi or Iranian. Shockingly, He is also not Israeli. Jesus was Jewish (and from the tribe of Judah) by blood, but that is…

I had some difficulty getting Co-pilot to generate a theme image for this post.  It seems that Microsoft considers an image depicting child-sacrifice objectionable. Shocking. One of the intellectual dilemmas about the Genesis 22 story is the issue of human sacrifice and the command of God. On one hand, God commands Abraham to make a…

This, Judge Phil Ginn wrote for Realclearreligion.com on the subject of Christians and culture. He was addressing an upcoming (March 8, 2026) feature on CNN entitled The Rise of Christian Nationalism. In the article, he includes CNN’s definition of Christian Nationalism as follows:  CNN is ostensibly defining Christian Nationalism as “an ideology rooted in the…

Entertainment disguised as worship isn’t worship. It’s idolatry. Ignorant worship is not worship at all. The ultimate authority on worship is Jesus, and He explained Himself very clearly in John 4. Let’s consider it. Situation Jesus is in Samaria by choice. The Jews did not have dealings with the Samaritans. The Samaritans were the remaining…

The simple answer is that they probably didn’t. There were two groups of people. The Matthew account of the Triumphal Entry clearly delineates between the two. It was a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Jesus began telling the disciples that He was going to Jerusalem to die months before this trip. The book of Matthew records three…

Note:  Position statements of the FBFI are not the same as magazine articles on FrontLine or typical posts on Proclaimanddefend.org.  They are crafted in a committee during our Winter Board Meeting, discussed by the assembled board members, edited by the board, and published as a collective statement of the position of our board on a…

A young man recently started on a journey to find God and a biblical place to worship. His friends were investigating Eastern Orthodoxy because it has an extremely prominent representation on Youtube. As he began visiting evangelical mega churches and asking about the differences, he was met with vapid answers. “Well, we are just glad…

Drawing Theological Boundaries We won’t always agree. No, let me rephrase that. We won’t ever agree—on everything doctrinal and practical about the faith. History indicates this and the Bible recognizes it. The Apostle Paul recognizes this in the early church regarding worship choices. Historically, Baptists have also recognized this in one of the key Baptist…

I must admit that I had not been keeping up with Child Evangelism Fellowship and its premier way of sharing the gospel with children—the Wordless Book. The Wordless Book uses simple colors as a framework for sharing the gospel. My mother trained with CEF before she was married and considered joining the organization as a…