Around this time of year, a lot of Christians try to explain the genealogies in Matthew and Luke by saying that Matthew gives Joseph's genealogy while Luke gives Mary's genealogy. While this is technically true, I think that it causes more confusion than necessary. The proper way to view the two genealogies is not as those of Joseph and Mary but rather as the genealogies of Joseph and Jesus.  

Last year, one of my friends posted a video on facebook excoriating everyone who did not wear a mask in public.  I wrote this friend a letter explaining that his statements were very wrong and very hurtful.  We never received a response from this friend, but he did soften his tone shortly thereafter.  With the current rise in cases, I have seen several other friends make statements about masks that are similar to what this other friend said last year, and I have decided to share publicly the letter that I wrote to him.  Here is the text of that letter:

Not too long ago, I taught a Sunday School series on Using the Law Lawfully.  In that series, we analyzed all 613 of the laws in the Old Testament to determine which of them still applied to modern Gentile believers.  One of the laws that we looked at was the prohibition against crossdressing found in Deuteronomy 22:5, and I think that we established a pretty good understanding of that law and how it applies to us today.  Here is the outline from that lesson:

Sir William Blackstone is often praised for laying the groundwork for American jurisprudence with his Commentaries on the Laws of England.  Blackstone's Commentaries were one of the most widely read books in the colonies, and his views of the laws of England were often incorporated into the laws of America.  One portion of Blackstone's Commentaries that has largely been forgotten by modern legal scholars but which played a significant role in forming the thought of founding fathers like James Wilson was Blackstone's answer to the question of where laws come from.  What follows is a condensed version of Blackstone's somewhat loquacious answer to that question.

I have many Catholic friends, and from time to time, one of them will attempt to persuade me that the books of the Apocrypha are just as much Scripture as the Old and New Testaments.  After studying the Apocrypha itself, I've developed the response of pointing out that even according to the Catholic church's own criteria, the Apocrypha does not make the cut. 

One of the common arguments brought against the traditional understanding of Leviticus 18:22 is the claim that the Hebrew word “toebah” (abomination) only refers to pagan temple practices and not things that are revolting in and of themselves.  I was recently presented with an opportunity to respond to this argument, and I took the time to look up every occurrence of the word “toebah” in the Bible.  I found that the above claim cannot be supported by the facts and that the English term "abomination" is an accurate translation of the word "toebah." 

Evan Minton of the Cerebral Faith Blog recently asked for my opinion of his article "Why The Calendar Day Interpretation Of Genesis One Is Exegetically Untenable."  Evan presented four problems that he saw with the young earth view of Genesis, and I thought that my responses to his problems would be helpful to my readers.  Go ahead and read through Evan's article and then check out my response below.