Category: Bible

Thou Shalt not Oppress the Stranger: A Review of "The Immigration Crisis" by James Hoffmeier

9/16/2017

The Purpose of the Book

The purpose of this book was to prove that the commands regarding Israel’s treatment of strangers were only intended to apply to legally resident aliens. In order to prove this point, Hoffmeier put forward the claim that

“In the Hebrew Bible the alien (ger) was a person who entered Israel and followed legal procedures to obtain recognized standing as a resident alien.”

In contrast, Hoffmeier described the foreigner (nekhar) as

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The Problem with Finding Problems with Standards

4/15/2017

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This past Thursday, April 13th, evangelist Dave Young published a very thought provoking article on standards. He explained that there are five categories of standards in the life of a Christian: (1) standards that are pure obedience to the Bible, (2) standards that are applications of biblical principles, (3) standards that protect us from our own weaknesses, (4) standards in response to the culture, and (5) standards that help a weaker brother.

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James, Paul, and Abraham: What Does it Mean to be Justified?

12/14/2016

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I recently spent several days engaged in a facebook debate with a Catholic, and in the process, I was challenged to re-think my view of the relationship between faith and works in James chapter two. Catholic theologians claim that James 2 teaches the necessity of adding good works to our faith in order to obtain final salvation. The typical response to this claim is to argue that James is only speaking of good works as an evidence of our salvation and not as the means of our salvation. The greatest challenge to this argument is found in the use of the word “justified” in verses 21 and 24. Here is my solution to this challenge:

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A Response to Dr. Grudem on Third Party Voting

11/1/2016

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Recently, a friend of mine asked me for my thoughts on Dr. Wayne Grudem's article answering objections to voting for Donald Trump. Dr. Grudem responded to 11 objections and then wrote a lengthy comparison of the proposed policies of Trump and Hillary followed by an appeal for Christians to "seek what is best for the nation." I read Dr. Grudem's article and jotted down the following thoughts in response to his answers:

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A Lesson on Strategy from the Second Temple

10/23/2016

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The fourth chapter of Ezra tells us how the enemies of God forced God's people to stop building the Temple. According to verses 4 and 5, the enemy made life difficult for the Jews and pestered them with actions intended to frustrate the plan to build the Temple. This slowed down the work so that it was not completed during the reign of Cyrus or that of his successor, Ahasuerus, or even of his successor, Artaxerxes.

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A “Brief” Response to Matthew Vines

10/19/2016

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A few years ago, a young man by the name of Matthew Vines released a viral video in which he claimed to refute the traditional interpretation of the Bible’s teachings regarding homosexuality. Vines claimed to take the traditional view head on and to prove that the verses used to support it do not actually mean what traditionalists claim that they mean. There are several responses to Vines’ claim, but I was recently asked to write a brief analysis of his claim in light of the view

expressed in my video “What the Bible Really Says about Homosexuality.” Well, I tried to be brief, but I also wanted to be thorough, so here is my relatively brief response to the claims of Matthew Vines:

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The Bible and The Donald: Immigration

9/28/2016

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I have heard many Christians say that they are voting for Donald Trump because they like his immigration policy, and I've just dismissed these claims as examples of ignorance in the church. More recently, however, I've heard several Christian leaders claim that Trump's immigration plan is biblical, and this really caught my attention. This is not some generic assertion of favor toward vague goals. This is a specific claim that the written policy of Donald Trump can be measured against the written Word of God and proven to be good. With that in mind, let's take a few moments to compare what Donald Trump has written about immigration with what God has written about immigration.

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Trump is not a Nebuchadnezzar or a Cyrus

9/21/2016

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Does God Command Christians Not To Vote for Trump?

8/31/2016

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Does God command Christians not to vote for Trump? I know that this is a very controversial question, but let's consider what the Bible says in I Corinthians 5:11.

"But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat." (1 Cor. 5:11)

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John 10 Does Not Support Calvinism

5/22/2016

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A few days ago, I had a Calvinist tell me that my view of John 6:35-45 is disproven by John 10:26. In discussing John 6, I pointed out that a comparison of Christ’s statements in chapter 6 with what He had previously said in chapter 5 reveals that Christ was not teaching the doctrines of Calvinism. He was actually teaching that those who rejected the written Word of God would never accept the living Word as

their savior. Those given to Jesus by the Father were not the Calvinist elect, but rather they were the ones who had already believed the Old Testament and thus were followers of the Father before they met the Son. The Calvinist that I was debating introduced John 10:26 as an argument against my view of John 6, and I’d like to share my response with you as well.

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<<Previous

Thou Shalt not Oppress the Stranger: A Review of "The Immigration Crisis" by James Hoffmeier

The Problem with Finding Problems with Standards

James, Paul, and Abraham: What Does it Mean to be Justified?

A Response to Dr. Grudem on Third Party Voting

A Lesson on Strategy from the Second Temple

A “Brief” Response to Matthew Vines

The Bible and The Donald: Immigration

Trump is not a Nebuchadnezzar or a Cyrus

Does God Command Christians Not To Vote for Trump?

John 10 Does Not Support Calvinism

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