Pastor's Blog

Do the Scriptures mention anything about interracial marriages, or is this a prejudice which has been passed on from generation to generation? How should we as Christians react towards mixed marriages? Interracial marriage per se is not forbidden in Scripture. It’s true that the Israelites were strictly forbidden to marry people from other racial or ethnic groups, as we read for instance in Deuteronomy 7: When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites…etc., and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them… You shall make no covenant with them… You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons…” (Deut. 7:1-3) God strictly prohibited his people from marrying outside of Israel—marrying people of other racial or ethnic backgrounds. But the command was not grounded so much upo...

The "Ask the Pastor" question for this week is, "What Happens When We Die?" The Bible doesn’t go into a lot of detail on this subject, but there’s enough information in Scripture on the one hand to comfort and encourage believers, and on the other to terrify unbelievers. There is also enough information to dispel a number of common misconceptions about what happens at death. For instance, people who are secular in their thinking believe that when you die…that’s it. When you’re dead, you’re dead . There is no soul or spirit in man that survives the death of the body and has an ongoing, continuous, conscious existence; nor will there ever be any resurrection. Man is simply a physical being, and when his body dies that’s the end of him. When you’re dead, you’re gone… forever . A view common among pagan peoples is that after death the soul or spirit of man roams the earth. It doesn’t go to heaven or hell, but leads a kind of shadowy, spooky existence, just hanging out, ...

A couple of questions have been submitted concerning the death penalty. When a man kills another man, shouldn’t the killer get a death sentence? The Catholic Church believes the death penalty is anti-Christian. What do you think? The Bible actually has a great deal to say about the matter of jurisprudence, that is, about the matter of crime and punishment. Many people seem to think that the Bible only deals with matters of personal salvation—how they may be made right with God, how they may have their sins forgiven and find acceptance in God’s eyes, and so go to heaven when they die. Not at all an insignificant question! But it’s not the only question the Bible addresses. The Bible actually has a great deal to say about how nations are to be governed. When God rescued Israel out of Egypt and took them to Mt. Sinai in the wilderness, he gave them a law to observe. And much of this law relates to the role of the civil magistrate and how he is to administer justice on God's behalf. Go...

How many Legos does it take to make a life-size statue of Jesus? Never thought it about before? Me either. Turns out it takes nearly 30,000. You can read about it here . In art, the medium is a part of the message. It used to be that the medium was thought to testify to the subject's worth. A Lego Mickey Mouse, maybe. But a Lego Jesus? Doesn't inspire much reverence... or confidence . If Christ is precious to believers (1 Pet. 2:4-6) it seems gold or silver or bronze would be more appropriate. Or since Christ is the cornerstone and foundation of the church (1 Cor. 3:11; Eph. 2:20). How about a marble, or better yet, a granite Jesus?

As many of you know, I've begun a new weekly radio program called Ask the Pastor , which airs Friday mornings at 8:20 a.m. on KREJ 101.7 FM. I'll be posting the questions and answers here, as well. Here's the first one from last week: Question: If the Holy Spirit indwells and guides us into all truth, why are there so many different interpretations of the Bible? Answer: The passage which the questioner seems to be alluding to is John 16:12, in which Jesus tells the disciples: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth…” The question is, if this is true, why are there so many differences of opinion about the Bible’s meaning? I have a couple of things to say about this. First, it’s important, when we read the Bible, to consider to whom the passage in question is addressed. In this particular passage, Jesus is speaking to the twelve disciples, and we have to ask ourselves the qu...

More from David Wells on "Self", chapter five of his book, The Courage to Be Protestant . As it turns out, we are a nation, frankly, in which we are all underappreciated. Even worse, we have all been victimized by someone. And worse yet, we are all about to collapse unless we get in touch with our feelings by getting entirely naked. Or, as those in the know say, by becoming “vulnerable.” Beneath the surface of normality, you see, is a car wreck about to happen. Everywhere. In everyone. That is what we are all assuming. And that is how we are now looking at every aspect of life... Quite a few public schools have banned competitive games because they dent the self-esteem of those who do not win. Most schools have so elevated self-esteem over performance, feeling good over doing well, that we have produced a nation of children whose estimate of themselves is sky-high but whose academic performance lags ever further behind that in many other nations... America has become a very s...