Often we hear of a Golden Age in Spain when Muslims were tolerant of Jews and Christians, civilization flourished, and people of the three great Abrahamic religions lived in harmony.  This was the Andalusian Age (from an Arabic word meaning “green at the end of summer”) of Muslim Spain from 711 to 1492. But was this age so golden and harmonious?  And good for Jews and Christians? (more…) Read more

The coming election has most Christians I know in despair.  Two terrible candidates.  The Democrat cannot bring herself to acknowledge our war with radical Islam, and the Republican refuses to stand up to Putin’s depredations in eastern Europe and the Middle East. Where is Churchill when we need him? (more…) Read more

My wife and I were walking after church in Ireland.  It was a Sunday morning in a little town south of Dublin, on the Irish sea.  While enjoying the dazzling scenery along the coast, we ran into a man I will call Finian, a talkative and friendly retiree from a bank job.  Actually every Irishman we met was talkative and friendly–not to mention fond of Irish ales and whiskies–in this land of my forebears.   (more…) Read more

Here is a short but powerful video based on a true story.  It moved me to tears. See if you get the subtle allusion to today’s genocide in the Middle East against Christians.   Read more

Two recent articles at Public Discourse illustrate the basic problem in our society and its only solution–this side of spiritual awakening. (more…) Read more

Friends, this is the last of my series on Jesus and food laws.  (If you are late to this series, scroll down to July 12, where it started.)  I trust you have seen that Mark 7.19b is critical to a millennia-long debate over the relationship between Judaism and Christianity, and whether Jesus and Paul were starting a new religion called Christianity that is a radical departure from the Judaism of their day.  This discussion also gets at the role of... Read more

While more scholars in recent years have started to notice that Galatians makes more sense if Paul’s primary audience there was gentile, many good scholars still see in Galatia a mixed church of Jews and gentiles. Some of them would say that “we who are Jews by birth” (2.15) and the discussion of whether the law is opposed to the promises (3.19-25) both indicate Jews at Galatia.  So would Paul’s insistence that circumcision is not necessary–only for Jews would that be... Read more

I have not finished my exposition of Mark 7.19b.  This will continue in the next few days.  But in the meantime, let me address the book of Galatians. This book has been a stumbling block for millennia to those who try to understand these questions. For Paul there says to the Galatians, “If you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you. . . . You who want to be justified by the law have cut... Read more

We are picking up in the middle of the Mark 7 passage that we started expositing yesterday. 14 And calling to himself again the crowd, he said to them, Listen to me, all, and understand.  15 There is nothing from the outside of the person that going into him is able to defile him. But things going out of a person are what defile the person.  (more…) Read more

In the last few days we have seen that the early church continued to believe that Jewish followers of Jesus should keep kosher.  Long after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, the Jerusalem Council suggested the same.  So did Peter when, years after Jesus had returned to heaven, he had his vision of unclean animals descending on a sheet.  So that was one disconnect: If Jesus declared all foods clean even for Jews, why did his Jewish followers continue to keep kosher?... Read more