Love Truth Blog

A while back I heard about a video posted on Youtube that made the connection to Luke 10:18 to demonstrate that President Barack Obama is the antichrist. So I checked out the video and did not know whether to laugh at what could be ranked as a joke for being the worst cast of biblical interpretation ever, or cry at the fact that many people viewing the video would actually think it true. The idea presented in the video is that the Luke 10:18 phrase “heaven like lightning” in Hebrew should be translated baraq o bam-maw and serves as a cipher for the name of Satan’s antichrist is unfounded. Of course getting from point A to point B requires numerous leaps in logic that stretch credulity beyond the breaking point. First, those who read Luke 10:18 in context can readily see that Jesus reference to Satan’s fall from heaven like lightening referred to something that had already happened when the Lord spoke those words, namely the success of the preaching of the Gospel by the seventy evangel...

Recently someone sent me a link to a blog, wherein the blogger had interviewed various Christian leaders on the subject of approaching Mormons. He found the common denominator between each interviewee was the fact they identified their activity as “dialogue.” He then asserted: The great thing about the term “dialogue” is that it implies a two-way interaction. It means that both sides will have an opportunity to communicate their views, and both sides will be expected to listen to each other. The term “evangelism” suggests that one party has the knowledge and will be dispensing it to the other side, who is merely a passive recipient. In dialogue the two parties approach each other as equals, and both have an opportunity to be active participants ( http://tinyurl.com/nou49f ). To a certain extent, I can understand the guy’s diplomacy. Angry rants and half-cocked character attacks levied against a person’s own beliefs can certainly make a mess of things. For a Christian, it can be a way ...

Dr. Vishal Mangalwadi in his lectures entitled, “Must the Sun Set on the West?” made the following profound observation about the secular West’s rejection of God yet insistence upon the equality between men and women: You reject the biblical worldview, reject the New Testament worldview, but the idea of equality between male and female comes from the same worldview. If you reject that worldview, and make a statement, “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men and women are evolved equal,” that statement makes no sense, because by definition, evolution is explanation of inequality. Why are species unequal? Evolution is an explanation of inequality. Why are men and women equal? There is no ground for believing and affirming equality of human beings except that both were created in God’s image and they share the likeness of God. So even though they are biologically different, intellectually there might be differences, economically, physically there might be differences, there ...

I was reading through Mark Knoll’s The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (IVP) this afternoon, and came across this most enlightening point: It is the nature of God and his loving work, not primarily the practical benefits, that requires cultivation of the mind. For a Christian, the most important consideration is not pragmatic results, or even the weight of history, but the truth. Learning matters the world matters—the word both as material object and as the accumulated network of human institutions. For a Christian, the most important reason for exercising the life of the mind is the implicit acknowledgment that things do not exist on their own. This acknowledgment is a specifically Christian presupposition; its denial characterizes much of the scholarship that shapes our lives so decisively. But even more, we are learning about the One who made that thing (p. 50). Knoll’s point struck a chord, for often we simply learn about science, art, and philosophy in hopes of obtaining some prag...

The other day someone who asked, “What would the youth need to know about the Christian faith?” I responded with the following: It is important for high school students, grades 9-12, to understand that Christianity is more than just my mom and dad’s religion. They too must take up the challenge to know what they believe and why they believe it. It may appear that theology and apologetics is too cerebral for them, but this is not the case. If students can learn higher mathematics like trigonometry and calculus to improve their SAT scores, they can also learn how to give an answer for their faith. Several years ago, the youth group with which I served as a volunteer spent several Saturday evenings dealing specifically with apologetics and theology. These groups were called “Life.” The goal was to prepare them for the things that would challenge their beliefs when they entered into college. The first series of groups dealt with foundational questions related to areas of philosophy, like e...

Today I came across a newsflash about DC’s decision to recognize gay marriages. The issue of gay marriage as recognizing the rights of homosexuals is the popular vote. In fact, anyone challenging the idea is shunned in the most militant fashion. Gay marriage is an issue of morals, for all legislation reflects someone’s morality. The issue is whose morality is being legislated, and on what basis do we know what is “right” and “wrong?” I can respect the idea that the basic human rights of homosexuals must be preserved (they cannot be denied food, clothing, shelter, and jobs.) Moreover, there is not justification for gay bashing. Still, there is something sacred about marriage, that God established it as a covenant between a man and a woman. The idea that “a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24) certainly signifies a heterosexual union, which by logical extension includes the commission to “be fruitful and mul...

My review of 10 Books That Screwed Up the Word: And 5 Others That Didn’t Help (Washington DC: Regnery Publishing House, 2008) by Benjamin Wiker Ideas have consequences; therefore, bad ideas published in books can have bad consequences for generations. Benjamin Wiker, working off of this general thesis in 10 Books That Screwed Up the Word: And 5 Others That Didn’t Help (Washington DC: Regnery Publishing House, 2008), offers a thoughtful critique on ten of the books that laid the philosophical foundations for the ideologies, which made the 20th century the bloodiest century in all of history. Wiker, in 10 Books That Screwed Up the World , insightfully demonstrates the influence of philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men) had upon Karl Marx (The Communist Manifesto). According to Wiker: If we think back over Rousseau, we realize that Marx merely turned Rousseau on his head. Rousseau put an entirely fictional state of natur...