I’m not often given to nostalgia, but sometimes it happens.  And for some reason, as it turns out, I’m in a bit of a nostalgic mood today.   It’s easy — for me anyhow; maybe others don’t think this way — for me to somehow imagine that people I haven’t seen for many years are still going on with their lives pretty much unchanged.  Unlike me, in my imagination my seventeen- and eighteen-year-old high school classmates are still... Read more

    One aspect of my visit to Iran was that, in a few ways, the place reminded me of Utah.   Obviously, there are huge differences — not least the fact that Tehran is vastly larger than the Salt Lake City metropolitan area and that all of the woman are covered from their heads on down in coal-black chadors.   But — and, to make my point, I repeat above a photograph above that I’ve already recently used —... Read more

    Matthew 11:2-19 Luke 7:18-35 Compare Mark 1:2   Much could be said of these verses, but I’ll confine myself for now to just four observations:   1.   Some critics of traditional Christian claims have made a lot of the fact that Jesus never explicitly describes himself as divine, the Son of God, and so forth.   Yet, in Matthew 11:2-6 and Luke 7:18-23, we see an instance of how, even when he’s asked a clear question, he... Read more

    From the Interpreter Foundation, two discussions of Gospel Doctrine materials by Martin Tanner:   Audio Roundtable: Come, Follow Me New Testament Lesson 11 “These Twelve Jesus Sent Forth”   Audio Roundtable: Come, Follow Me New Testament Lesson 12 “Who Hath Ears to Hear, Let Him Hear”   Also from the Interpreter Foundation, a video discussion by Hales Swift:   “The Lord Gives His Servants Power to Do His Work: A Video Supplement for Come, Follow Me Lesson 11: “These Twelve Jesus Sent Forth””   ***  ... Read more

    The other day, I posted some thoughts regarding a 2017 article proposing evidence of terrestrial life between 3.77 and 4.28 billion years ago:   “An amazing thought: “New find could be oldest evidence of life ever discovered””   I thought this astoundingly early, given the fact that the Earth itself isn’t much older than that.   Here’s another article suggesting that life may have commenced on our planet at a remarkably early time:   “Potentially biogenic carbon preserved... Read more

    The previous post in this little series of informal recollections makes it obvious that I did, indeed, manage to leave the Islamic Republic of Iran.  But, of course, that could also have been deduced from the fact that I’m currently teaching at Brigham Young University, which is located in Provo, Utah.   My friend Professor Louis Midgley reminds me, though, of one other thing that I should record in this connection:   When I had agreed to go... Read more

    Matthew 10:37-39 Luke 14:25-27; 17:33 Compare Matthew 16:24-25; Mark 8:34-35; Luke 9:23-24; John 12:25   These verses are summed up, in  a way, by Luke 13:33:  “Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.”   But it’s impossible for me not to think of this passage, as well:   Let us here observe, that a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the... Read more

    I published the article below in the Deseret News on 15 June 2017:   Critics of religious faith often like to compare it, unfavorably, to science. Science, they say, has cured polio and malaria, sent humans to the moon, created powerful computers and plumbed the secrets of distant stars and galaxies. Religion has done none of these things. However, this is a profoundly misguided argument. For one thing, it suggests that only such accomplishments as these have value.... Read more