Love Truth Blog

The Lord spoke through Jeremiah prophet, warning Zedekiah the king of Judah and his court to submit to the Babylonians lest they experience utter ruin (Jer. 27:1ff). Nevertheless, Zedekiah refused to listen to the prophet, fought against the Babylonian army, and suffered a fate far worst than death. He was captured by the Babylonians, forced to watch the execution of his sons, and then experienced his eyes being gouged out, which literally made the death of his sons the very last thing he saw (2 Kings 25:1-7; Jer. 52:1-11). Some time ago, it was pointed out to me an apparent contradiction between Jeremiah 24:7 and 34:1-5, in that the former suggest the king would be handed over to Nebuchadnezzar and killed, whereas the latter suggests the king would live. In reality, the two verse are in complete harmony with one another, each offering unique elements to the events surrounding Zedekiah’s downfall. On one particular occasion, Zedekiah sent his messages, Pashhur and Zephaniah, to...

Here is a new blog on Do Ministers Like Joel Osteen and Charles Finney Help or Hinder the Church?  at blog.equip.org.

Jesus Christ often taught through antithesis—good and evil, right and wrong, true and false. This, of course, is something quite unpopular in an age of relativism, where everyone does whatever is right in one’s own eyes, in a spirit of all inclusive embrace. Yet, Jesus would have not stood for all ways being equal, nor the notion that the only absolute is there are no absolutes. He wanted His followers to know and discern truth. The stakes were high from His perspective, since one’s beliefs and practices had eternal consequence. In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ utilizes earthy images to convey the importance of hearing and living His message. The Lord spoke about two gates, one wide and one narrow, the small gate being the one leading to eternal life (Matt 7:13-14). He warns of wolves in sheep’s clothing, and the only way one could tell them apart was by their fruits. So there are two trees, one being good fruit and the other bad (Matt 7:15-21). He also speaks of spiritual counterf...

The “golden rule” is something familiar to a great many people. Jesus Christ put it this way: “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 7:12). There ubiquitousness to this principle, as it can even be found outside the Canon of Scripture in the Jewish Apocrypha, which presents it in its negative form: “And what you hate, do not do to anyone” (Tobit 4:15). Certainly many people hold to this as a truism, and the principle mutual giving and receive of goodness resonates well with the multitudes. Jesus Christ even points out that this principle of reciprocity is foundational to “the Law and the Prophets.” The very Yahweh who entered into history, who rescued the Hebrews from Egyptian slavery, giving them a national identity, reminded them of the promises made to the great patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and created the universe, the very idea of doing unto others what one would have done to ones...

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you,” said Jesus Christ, who goes to explain, “For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened” (Matt. 7:1). The present tense of the verbs “ask,” “seek” and “knock,” stresses the continuous action of prayer. The followers of Christ were a people who prayer. The temptation is to think that this is some kind of faith formula, that if one simply claimed something in prayer, and continued to do so, then they would have their every wish. Yet, this simply misses the mark. The point is not merely to sate one’s own carnal appetites. Matthew chapter 7 begins with a call for believers to judge with right standards of judgment. Having discernment skills would allow believers to know when it would be right to speak on sacred things, so as not to simply cast their pears before swine. Moreover, the Sermon on the Mount called for God’s people to have a right...

Independence Day has always been a special occasion for me. More than just memories of fireworks and BBQs as a kid—and even an extended childhood with some “creative” pyrotechnics as an adult—it is also a time to be a little patriotic in commemoration of my country’s beginnings, and its formation out of a struggle against tyranny. Being “created equal” and “endowed with unalienable Rights,” such as “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” are cherished among Americans, whether understood or misunderstood. Yet, are these ideas really “self evident.” Maybe for the founders of this nation, but what seems to be the most self-evident truth is inequality. Distinctions between one ethnicity and another, slave and free, men and women is the perennial struggles of all history. Eastern Religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism rightly accepted the reality these inequalities, albeit they stumbled in concluding people are fatalistically consigned to their lot in life based upon karmic law wor...