Our Perfect King

February 27, 2023 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible. 

Our country has a policy of separation of church and state, and that appears to be a good thing. When the head of the government starts telling the church how to worship, or when the head of the church starts telling the government how to run its affairs, strife typically results. 

There have been some notable examples of wise kings who were God-fearing rulers, and some examples of religious leaders who had the wisdom to make just laws. But history has most often shown us that when a king imposes on the church a mode of worship or a pastor imposes on the king religious ways of governing, clashes result. Some of them have been bloody civil wars and some have spread into international conflicts. 

That being said, wouldn’t it be better for everyone if there was a way that one person could hold both of those offices simultaneously? If only there was some way to bring those different offices together. Very few people could ever accomplish this because it would require a perfect person with both absolute wisdom and complete God-honoring selflessness, someone so confident in both their wisdom and their relationship with God that they would never be swayed unfairly one way or the other. 

Last week we saw the first bold claim from Jesus: “I am the I AM.” With this title and authority, Jesus claimed to be the Head of the Church. This is a title Paul uses several times in his letter to the church at Ephesus (Ephesians 1:22, 5:23). Paul goes on to remind us that our aim as the Church body is to grow into maturity under the Headship of Jesus (Ephesians 4:15). 

Consider two other notable rulers during this same time period. As the high priest, Caiaphas would have laid claim to the title of “head of the church.” As the Roman governor, Pilate would have laid claim to the title of “head of the government in Judea.” Yet both of them clearly demonstrated that they had “become the symbol of those who make religious decisions based on political expediency rather than truth and justice,” as Dr. Donald Stamps noted. 

Paul goes father than calling Jesus simply the Head of the Church—

And He [Jesus] is the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have the supremacy. (Colossians 1:18) 

Not just Headship over the Church, but Headship over “everything.” 

After the bold claim of Jesus that He was the I AM, the Sanhedrin wanted to have Him put to death, so they took Jesus to Pontius Pilate (Luke 22:71—23:2; Matthew 27:1-2; John 18:28-37). 

Pilate “knew it was out of self-interest that they had handed Jesus over to him” (Matthew 27:18), but he still asked Jesus, “Are You the king of the Jews?” Just as Caiaphas was trying to save his position of power by keeping a delicate balance between the Jews and the Romans, Pilate was also trying to save his skin. Pilate was trying to appease both the Sanhedrin and Tiberius Caesar. 

Jesus answers Pilate’s question in a way Pilate never expected. Twice Jesus says “My kingdom,” noting that His kingdom is other-worldly. His kingdom comes from outside this world and therefore supersedes any government of this world. Pilate clearly has never heard anything like this, so after hearing this statement he announces, “You are a king, then!” 

Just as Jesus had answered the Sanhedrin with, “You are right in saying I am the Messiah,” now He answers Pilate, “You are right in saying I am a king.” 

Combining those two bold claims—“I am God” and “I am a King”—Jesus is the only One who can perfectly hold both offices without any conflict. This is what the prophecy in Isaiah 9:1-7 foretold, and this is the fulfillment that John shows us at the end of time (Revelation 17:14, 19:11-16). 

What does this mean for us? How are we now supposed to live knowing Jesus as our God and as our King? We should live confidently before our King and humbled before our God. We don’t fear earthly kings, but neither do we fight them. We don’t have to try to convince earthly kings to rule a certain way because they are God’s servants to accomplish God’s plan. We don’t have to get caught up in the politics of the day because this day will come to an end. 

We are subjects of a kingdom not of this world, so the kings of this world don’t get to decide our final destiny!

(If you would like to explore this topic further, check out my series of messages from 1 Peter called Aliens and Strangers.)

If you’ve missed any of the messages in our series called Bold Claims, you can find the full list of messages by clicking here. 

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Don’t Try To Get Even

January 31, 2023 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible. 

When I work with students I frequently find that conflicts between them are really one-upmanship. Here’s what I mean: one student intentionally or unintentionally tweaks another student, that student then responds with a decidedly intentional verbal or physical shove, which is responded to by the initial student with a louder and more intentional reprisal. And on and on it escalates until someone steps in to stop it.

I often ask these students who are upset with each other, “What did you think was going to happen when you treated the other person that way?” The quick response is almost always, “I don’t know.” And I believe that because most of us don’t think through the counter-reaction to our reaction. 

So I will ask a follow-up question: “Did you think that by shoving him in response to his insult that he was going to say, ‘Oops, my bad. I’m sorry for that and I won’t do it again’?” 

Usually, the student answers quite honestly, “No, I didn’t think that would happen.” They were just so upset that they wanted to let the other person know that they had been hurt.

This idea of getting even is the longing of so many of the psalms: How long until we see victory? (see Psalms 6, 13, 35, and 94 as examples). It’s the cry of the martyrs before God’s throne: How long until we see justice? It’s the desire of every Christian wrongly accused and condemned: God, how long until Your truth prevails? 

Matthew quotes a passage from Isaiah 42:1-4 that is fulfilled in the ministry of Jesus. Part of that description says, “A bruised read He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not snuff out, till He leads justice to victory. In His name the nations will put their hope” (Matthew 12:20-21). Notice this key word: till HE leads justice to victory. 

Jesus is Justice and Truth, and He does ultimately triumph. But notice how Jesus accomplishes this because it is to be our model too: 

  • No quarreling 
  • No shoving back on those who have hurt us
  • No attacking those who have attacked me

Victory comes only through Jesus. I have to relent trying to balance the scales of justice—this is never my place. If I try to make things right on my own, my so-called justice only sets off a one-upmanship shoving match that continues to escalate in very ungodly ways. 

Vengeance is God’s. Justice is God’s. My hope—my immovable hope—is only in what Jesus has accomplished. Remember what Matthew quoted: “In His name the nations” [and all those who have been persecuted, wronged, and martyrd] “will put their hope”! 

Let’s all ask the Holy Spirit to remind us of this the next time we want to shove back the person who just shoved us. 

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Triumphant King

December 26, 2022 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible. 

Have you ever noticed how many of our Christmas carols celebrate the dark night giving way to the bright light? For instance, the hymn O Holy Night contains the line, “long lay the world in sin and error pining until He appeared.” 

English historian and theologian Thomas Fuller was the first to put into print what has now become a cliché that so many people use: “It is always darkest just before the Day dawneth.” Indeed, Micah paints a very dark scene just before the Messiah makes His First Advent (Micah 5:1). 

The Light of Jesus that burst onto planet Earth in a Bethlehem stable revealed Him as our Great Shepherd, our Prince of Peace, and our Mighty Deliverer. And there is also one more title that Micah foretells: our Triumphant King! 

What does our Triumphant King do? He confronts and defeats the darkest foes. Check out the words in Micah 5:9-15: destroy (5x), demolish (2x), tear down, uproot, take vengeance. 

Christ’s birth in Bethlehem is our proof that God’s plan prevails. God always gets the final word, the decisive word, and the best word! 

Most of the Old Testament prophets foresaw both the first and second advents of Jesus simultaneously. The mountains of prophecy look like they are on top of each other, so it’s very common for the prophets to see events of both advents happening simultaneously. So Micah sees both the coming of Jesus in Bethlehem and His coming at the end of time as King.

There is a spiritual battle that has been raging since before Time began (Ephesians 6:12). It started when Lucifer became satan by his rebellion against God, and then he began his agenda of the destruction of God’s people (Ezekiel 28:12-17; Revelation 12:7-9, 13, 17). 

Into this dark battle, Jesus enters the scene. The reason the Son of God was made manifest (visible) was to undo—destroy, loosen, and dissolve—the works the devil has done (1 John 3:8 AMP). 

I already talked about how the death of Jesus on the Cross meant the death of Death, and Jesus became our Mighty Deliverer! The resurrection of Jesus means satan’s time is nearing an end. It may be dark now, but the darkness has to give way to the Light of the King of kings (check out these verses in Revelation). 

“It is always darkest just before the Day dawneth” should assure us of the victory of the King of kings! Jesus assured us that darkness is only afforded an hour, and then the Light will completely overwhelm it. The Light dawned in Bethlehem and is returning soon to completely vanquish every last bit of darkness!

If you missed any of the messages in our Advent series, you can find a list of all of those messages by clicking here. 

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Verifiable Facts About The Birth Of Jesus

December 21, 2022 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible. 

Check out the resources I mention in this video:

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Complacency Is Deadly

October 18, 2022 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible. 

At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps and punish those who are complacent… (Zephaniah 1:12). 

When I taught a series on the minor prophets, I noted that Zephaniah wanted to share some really, really good news, but first, he had to make his audience confront the really bad news. The really bad news is that we all have sinned and fall short of God’s righteous standard. The really, really good news is that God has provided forgiveness for our sins through Jesus. 

Sadly, one of the things that keeps us from addressing the sin in our heart is complacency. The King James Version of Zephaniah 1:12 says that the people were “settled in their complacency.” If you look up the definition of the Hebrew word here, it literally means settled on their lees. 

Look at the full verse in the NIV: “At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps and punish those who are complacent, who are like wine left on its dregs, who think, ‘The Lord will do nothing, either good or bad.’” 

This phrase—“who are like wine left on its dregs”—puts the people at a tipping point. The lees or dregs of a barrel is where the wine is at its finest color and flavor. But wine that has “settled” is right at the point of curdling. 

God is addressing people who have become self-satisfied. They have reached the place that they have called their “good life.” They want nothing to disturb them; especially not any teaching or preaching that may bring the conviction of the Holy Spirit. 

So they have deluded themselves. They have said, “If everything seems to be going well for me, then I must be doing everything right. Don’t tell me anything that might make me uncomfortable.” Outward appearances and circumstances can be deceiving. We have to listen for the voice of the Holy Spirit. We must never become complacent in our relationship with Jesus. 

A very similar warning is sounded for the church in Laodicea. Jesus called them complacent when He said that they were neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm. They, too, had also stopped listening to the Holy Spirit because they had complacently said to themselves, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.” 

Laodicea was at the point where they should have been at their finest, but instead their complacency had brought them to a place of curdling—a place where Jesus threatened to spit them out of His mouth! 

Complacency is deadly! 

The solution: listen to the rebuke and discipline that the Holy Spirit brings, and repent of complacency. If we do, we will discover the inestimable, eternal riches that only a vibrant relationship with Jesus can give us (Revelation 3:14-22). 

Let us never become settled on our lees, but let us be ready to be poured out for our Master’s enjoyment and glory. May I suggest that we all regularly pray the prayer of David: “Search me, O God. Point out any sin that I have complacently allowed to remain in my heart” (Psalm 139:23-24). And when that sin is revealed, don’t wait to repent because your wine is just about to curdle! But the restoration that repentance will bring to your heart will allow the richness and vibrancy of your life to be pleasing to your Savior! 

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Faith Over Fear

September 27, 2022 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible. 

I am always interested when I see contrasts in the Bible. Things like:

  • Live this way, not that way
  • These people are blessed, these people have trouble 
  • If you do this, you won’t have this 

So an interesting contrast caught my eye in the story where Jesus calms the storm (Matthew 8:23–27). Jesus is sleeping peacefully in the middle of a storm that is described as “furious [where] the waves swept over the boat.” The disciples were anything but peaceful—they thought they were going to drown—so they yelled for Jesus to wake up. 

Before Jesus calmed the storm, He says, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” 

That’s the phrase that caught my attention. Notice the contrast between “little faith” and “so afraid.” In other words, small faith means big fear! 

Strong’s Greek dictionary defines “little faith” as “dread (by implication) faithless.” So it appears there is an inverse proportion between faith and fear. 

The word that Jesus used for “afraid” is only used here and in the same story in Mark 4:40, and in Revelation 21:8 which lists people who will be excluded from entrance into heaven.

The phrase “so afraid” (or “O ye of little faith” in the King James Version) is just one word in Greek: olgiopistos. The root word pistos is faith, but I find the prefix oligos very descriptive. It means: 

  • small in quantity 
  • short in time 
  • slight in intensity 

In other words, it is faith that is immature, or hasn’t been used much, or hasn’t been applied to a particular circumstance. This word olgiopistos is used five times in the New Testament, and only used by Jesus. 

In addition to this story, it is used in Matthew 6:30 and Luke 12:28 when Jesus tells us not to worry about the things that God will provide for us—things like food, clothing, and shelter. Jesus uses this word for Peter when he began to sink in the water after walking a few steps toward Jesus. And Jesus uses it in Matthew 16:8 when He warns His disciples about the “yeast” of the Pharisees and Sadducees that can creep into their hearts and spoil their faith. (Check out all of these verses here.)

In mathematical circles, this relationship between faith and fear is one that would be called inversely proportional. When our faith is high, our fear is low; when our fear is high, our faith is low. I also think it is very eye-opening that the mathematical symbol for inverse proportionality (∝) is the same symbol called ichthus that the early church used to represent Jesus.

Faith and fear cannot coexist in the same heart. Sometimes our faith is small in quantity because we haven’t fed our faith with God’s promises. Sometimes our faith is short in time because we want things done on our time schedule. And sometimes our faith is slight in intensity because we are unsure if God can “come through” in this particular situation. 

Whatever the case, when we feel any fear, we need to ask for faith. We need to return to God’s Word and be assured that His promises are applicable regardless of the situation we are in. As our faith grows, our fear has to diminish! 

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Sure And Secure

August 15, 2022 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible. 

We have looked at all of the psalms with a Selah pause, but there is one bonus message that we need to consider, and I think it’s a perfect wrap up to this series. 

Outside the book that bears his name, there is no other mention of Habakkuk anywhere else in the Bible. The author himself gives us no biographic information, nor does he give us dates as most of the other prophets do. However, there is enough information inside his short book that allows us to make some solid inferences:

  • based on his instructions in 3:19 we can infer he is a Levite and a worship leader—notice that he says “my instruments” 
  • we know for certain he is a song writer and a prophet (1:1; 3:1) 
  • he is a prophet with a heavy message—the word oracle in in the opening verse is probably better translated a “burden” 
  • he is a contemporary of Jeremiah, who spoke to backsliders, but Habakkuk speaks to the godly remnant to help them make sense of what’s happening in their crumbling culture 

Habakkuk does something that isn’t seen anywhere in the Bible except in the Psalms: he calls godly people to Selah—not once, but three times! 

In our look at the Selahs of Psalm 55 we noted how David’s Selahs almost came as an interruption of his anxious thoughts. Habakkuk’s Selahs follow this same theme. That’s because Habakkuk’s culture (like ours today) was increasingly unrighteous, unstable, and unsure. This prophetic worship leader wants righteous people trying to stand strong in their unrighteous culture to know that our surety and stability must come from our unshakable relationship with our righteous God. 

We’ve said that one of the definitions for Selah is “pause and calmly think of that,” but for Habakkuk’s Selahs I want to modify it slightly: Pause to interrupt your doubtful thoughts and consider this…. What he wants us to consider, I believe, comes from the opening words of his song in chapter 3—

Lord, I have heard of Your fame; I stand in awe of Your deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy (v. 2). 

We are to pause to consider that God has already shown His unrivaled power in the past, and then we stand firm to see Him move again “in our day, in our time” so that the unrighteous will have an opportunity to repent and turn to Him. 

The first Selah is after v. 3 in which Habakkuk references Mount Paran. How did God show His fame there? Moses recorded it this way: 

The Lord came from Sinai and beamed upon us from Seir; He flashed forth from Mount Paran, from among ten thousands of holy ones, a flaming fire, a law, at His right hand. (Deuteronomy 33:2)  

Selah—pause to interrupt your doubtful thoughts and consider this: God did this before and He can do it again. His glory will cover the heavens, His praise will fill the earth, His power will be so evident that the earth will quake and nations will tremble (vv. 4-6). All of this to reassure the righteous and arrest the attention of the wayward unrighteous.  

The second Selah is after v. 9 where Habakkuk is still describing all that God will do personally to rescue His righteous ones. Selah—pause to interrupt your doubtful thoughts and consider this: God did this before—see the almost identical language David uses in Psalm 18:3-17—and He can do it again. All of this to reassure the righteous and arrest the attention of the wayward unrighteous. 

The final Selah is at the end of v. 13 where Habakkuk describes what God will do to the enemies of His people. He uses words of decisive victory—crushed, stripped, pierced, trampled. 

Once again, Selah—pause to interrupt your doubtful thoughts and consider this: God did this before and He can do it again. More specifically, Jesus is the Decisive and Ultimate Victor over sin and death! Check this out: 

Then the end will come, when [Jesus] hands over the kingdom to God the Father after He has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. (1 Corinthians 15:24-26) 

And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the Cross. (Colossians 2:15) 

Do not be afraid. I [Jesus] am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades. (Revelation 1:17-18)

When our culture is becoming increasingly unrighteous, unstable, and unsure, what an unshakable surety and security we have standing on Christ the Solid Rock. As the old hymn reminds us—when all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay!

If you’ve missed any of the messages in our lengthy Selah series, you can find all of the messages by clicking here. 

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God Bless America?

July 4, 2022 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible. 

On this 4th of July weekend, is it right for us to pray for God’s blessing on America? I have blogged before about being careful with our terms that are biblical, unbiblical, or non-biblical. Clearly, the phrase “God bless America” is non-biblical—that is, this phrase doesn’t explicitly appear in the Scripture. But are there principles in the Bible that can make that phrase biblical? 

Yes, I believe so IF we recognize why we have been blessed by God. 

In God’s perfect timing, the next psalm in our series looking at the Selahs in the Psalms is one that addresses this topic. 

Notice the very first word in Psalm 87 is the personal pronoun “He.” There is an assumption the sons of Korah make that their readers will know that “He” is The Creator and Sustainer of the Universe. In fact, they see God as the Prime Mover in this psalm, putting His words at the very middle of the psalm (v. 4). 

Just before these quotation marks, we are invited to Selah—pause and carefully listen to God. He announces heavenly citizenship for age-old enemies of Israel: Rehab, Babylon, Philistia, Tyre, Cush. Peoples from all of these nations are identified as: “those who acknowledge Me” and three times He says they are “born in Zion” (vv. 4-6). 

God desires that none should perish. He wants people from every nation, tribe, and language to enjoy His presence forever in the eternal Zion. 

The sons of Korah remind us of just how blessed Zion truly is (vv. 1-3) and how God establishes all who have Zion citizenship (v. 5). God does this so that all people will see God’s blessing on those people who acknowledge Him as their Lord and King. 

So let’s return to my earlier question: Is it right and biblical for Christians to pray for God to bless America? 

Let me ask it another way: Has God blessed America? I believe He has and we should be eternally grateful. I believe this nation was founded on biblical principles, and recognized as a place where people could have the freedom to worship God.

Will God continue to bless America? Psalm 87 says the blessing will last only as long as we Americans acknowledge, “All my fountains are in You” (v. 7). This is a call for us to continually recognize God as our Foundation and Source. We also have to remember that the blessing is only to us so that it can flow through us to all peoples, languages, and tribes. 

The blessing stops when we dig our own wells, or we try to hoard the blessing. 

There are two phrases in this psalm that stand out to me as prophetic. 

  1. Selah (listen to this) and then “I will record” (vv. 3-4) 
  2. “The Lord will write in the register” (stop to celebrate) Selah (v. 6)

God keeps perfect records of those who are citizens of Zion because they have acknowledged Jesus as the One who paid the price for their sins to be forgiven. So when John gives us a glimpse of the eternal Zion, he tells us about the rejoicing over those who are there “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9-10, 7:9-10, 21:22-27). 

Just as Revelation records spontaneous praise to God, the sons of Korah build in those Selah pauses to worship too:

  • Glorious things are said of God—praise Him! 
  • He has blessed us by His presence in our midst—praise Him! 
  • People from all tribes are entering Zion—praise Him! 

May God continue to bless America so that we can use those blessings to tell the world about His love as we invite them into a personal relationship with Jesus! 

If you’ve missed any of the messages in our Selah series, you can find the full list by clicking here.

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Thursdays With Spurgeon—Accepting It For What It Is

June 30, 2022 — Craig T. Owens

This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Charles Spurgeon. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Spurgeon” in the search box to read more entries.

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible. 

Accepting It For What It Is

…For the mouth of the Lord has spoken (Isaiah 1:20).

     In the Word of God the teaching has unique dignity. This Book is inspired as no other book is inspired, and it is time that all Christians avowed this conviction. …  

     Where are we if our Bibles are gone? Where are we if we are taught to distrust them? If we are left in doubt as to which part is inspired and what is not, we are as badly off as if we had no Bible at all. I hold no theory of inspiration. I accept the inspiration of the Scriptures as a fact.

From The Infallibility Of Scripture

I, too, accept the inspiration of the Scriptures as a fact. Every single word is perfectly inspired by the Holy Spirit. Even the order in which the words are spoken.

During the summer months, I like to lead my congregation through a study of the Book of Psalms. Currently, we are looking at the psalms that contain the word Selah. 

It is distressing to me to see how many “modern” translations of the Bible either relegate the word Selah to a footnote (like the NIV which says, “The Hebrew has Selah [a word of uncertain meaning] here”), or completely disregard this word (e.g. The Message, The Contemporary English Version, and The Living Bible, to name a few). 

Why? Do we think we are so much smarter now that we know which words the Holy Spirit truly inspired, and which ones we can leave out?

Once we start down this path, what is to stop us from modifying any word in the Bible? Many liberal-minded people want to tell us “what God really meant” in some passages, or to water down the inspiration so much to try to make it “culturally relevant” that they end up destroying its very meaning. This is not only a slippery slope, but it is something that God has already warned us against doing: 

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll. (Revelation 22:18-19)

Let us accept the Word of God for what it is: Words that the mouth of Almighty God has spoken, not words that we think can be modified, improved, or eliminated. 

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Links & Quotes

May 5, 2022 — Craig T. Owens

The seed your weakened hand is sowing
May ripen to a harvest broad,
Which yet may help, without your knowing,
To fill the granaries of God! —Margaret J. Prescott

My friend and podcast partner Greg Heeres talked about growing and learning through change. You can check out the rest of this episode of The Craig And Greg Show here.

Sometimes the prophetic language in the Bible can be a bit confusing. Like the phrase: “A time, times, and half a time.” Here is how Dr. Henry Halley unpacks this—

“It denotes the duration of the other horn of the fourth beast (Daniel 7:25). It denotes the period from Daniel to the time of the end (Daniel 12:6–7). It is used in Revelation 12:14 as identical to 42 months and to 1260 days (Revelation 11:2–3; 12:6, 14; 13:5), the period of time the Holy City was trampled, the two witnesses prophesied, the woman was in the wilderness, and the revived beast was on the throne. 

“The word ‘time,’ in the phrase ‘a time, times, and half a time’ is generally taken to mean year; the phrase thus means three and a half years, which is 42 months, or 1260 days. 

“By some, this is taken to refer to a literal three and a half years. Others, on the year-day interpretation (Numbers 14:34; Ezra 4:6), take it to be a period of 1260 years. Still others look upon the figures, not as defining time limits or periods, but as being symbolic: 7 Is the symbol of completeness, while three and a half, which is half of 7, represents incompleteness—that is, the reign of evil will be only temporary.” —Halley’s Study Bible (check out all of the biblical references in this quote by clicking here)

“Ambivalence toward the Law of God is troubling. Theologians discard the Law, and pastors either reject or neglect it. Jesus said that keeping and teaching the Law of God was a mark of Kingdom greatness (Matthew 5:17-19). Apparently that’s not a goal many of us aspire to. He also said that when the Law of God is neglected, love grows cold (Matthew 12:24). The ubiquitous lack of love in our world today is undoubtedly related to our failure to teach and live according to the Law of God. … 

“Pastors have three main resources for the work and business of ministry: The Word of God, prayer, and their personal example (Acts 6:4; 1 Peter 5:1-3). If any of these fails, their ministry will as well. Especially must pastors be seen to be men zealous for the Law of God, to obey all the counsel of the Lord in His Word and to resist the devil and overcome every temptation. Jesus did. Paul did. John said this is the way love flourishes (1 John 5:1-3). Throughout this generation, failures of obedience on the part of highly visible pastors have contributed to the Church’s becoming an object of scorn by many unbelievers, while believers have been largely silent about their failings. We must be diligent in obeying Christ if we would teach others to do so and thus fulfill our calling to the Kingdom and glory of God.” —T.M. Moore

New wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) analysis dates the Shroud of Turin to the first century.

Not all viruses need to be eliminated. A study has discovered 5500 new RNA viruses on the ocean, finding “an entire phylum, the Taraviricota . . . found all over the oceans, which suggests they’re ecologically important.” The Creator knew what He was doing!

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