Some questions come from people who are skeptical about the Christian faith. Some come from believers who have skeptical friends. And some come from believers who are struggling with the issue themselves. Our first question is found in the hearts of all three. Read the rest of this entry »

A woman once told me, “If you can prove God loves me, I’ll trust him.” I asked her if she could prove that her husband loved her, that his words were true and his actions sincere. She admitted she could not.

Read the rest of this entry »

Can God make a rock so big he can’t move it? Can he make two mountains without making a valley in between? Computer programmers have a shorthand statement for such questions: GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). God is not obligated to do that which is logically contradictory, like making a square circle or a red number seven. Such “category mistakes” are not his fault but ours.

Read the rest of this entry »

We all know that Eve ate the apple in the Garden of Eden, so that the Fall is all her fault. Except that Genesis nowhere states that the forbidden fruit was an apple. In fact, unless climatic conditions were much different then in that region, apples would likely not have grown in the area. And Adam was with Eve in the Garden, and ate the fruit as well. What else do we know that we don’t?

Read the rest of this entry »

Mark Twain is supposed to have said, “It’s not the parts of the Bible I don’t understand which bother me—it’s the parts I do understand.” We understand what he meant, even if he never said it. The Bible tells us all we need to know, but seldom all we want to know.

Read the rest of this entry »

On Sunday morning, September 9, 1973, I asked Jesus Christ to forgive my sins and become my Savior and Lord. But when I finished praying, nothing happened. I saw no lights, I felt no weight lift from my shoulders. My first thought was, “Is that all there is to it?” And my intellectual questions about God didn’t evaporate. I still wondered about creation and science, world religions, why God allows evil and suffering. And so I doubted for many months whether my salvation and faith were real.

Read the rest of this entry »

When Ronald Reagan was running for Governor of California, a woman confronted him by his car one day and berated him severely. Finally she said, “I wouldn’t vote for you if you were St. Peter.” He smiled and replied, “No problem. If I were St. Peter, you wouldn’t be living in my district.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Remember the Y2K scare? One problem created by the turn of the millennium was very real. Perhaps you’ve been to a cemetery and noticed the headstones already in place for the spouse of the deceased, with the birth year followed by 19–. What’s now to be done? Some monument companies created epoxies to fill in the numbers, but without much luck. It was a Y2K problem etched in stone.

Read the rest of this entry »

At one time Martin Luther thought the Pope was the Antichrist, and expected Jesus’ return during his lifetime. Christopher Columbus thought the world would end in 1656, and that his explorations would lead a Christian army in the final crusade to convert the world. Charles Taze Russell, founder of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, predicted the “rapture” in 1910 and the end of the world in 1914.

Read the rest of this entry »

Someone asked a wise older pastor his view of the “end times.” He smiled and said, “The Lord put me on the preparation committee, not the planning committee.” He spoke for us all. We cannot control how the Lord chooses to end history. Our theories about the future are just that. The word of God is too practical to focus extensively on an issue which possesses no pragmatic value for our lives. If I could prove a particular theory of the end times to you, would such knowledge change your life today?

Read the rest of this entry »