The Mileses

Paul and Olena Miles with Grace Abroad Ministries

Apologetics

Can you tell the difference between an atheist, a liberal, and an evangelical?

Can you tell the difference between an atheist, a liberal, and an evangelical?

Seems like it should be easy enough, right? Well, not exactly…

I have been teaching on apologetics in church lately. A few weeks ago, I did a presentation on bible manuscripts (available here, but only in Russian), and last Sunday, I spoke on the reliability of the biblical autographs (see the whole thing here).

As an introduction to this Sunday’s talk, we played a game. I took quotes from different sources and had our congregation guess if the quote came from an atheist, a liberal, or an evangelical.



Response to “Luke’s Gay Apocalypse” Part II: Context

This is part two of a response to a post by Jeremy Myers. In that post, Myers summarizes the view of Ron Goetz, which proposes that Luke 17:34–35 is about saved non-celibate homosexuals. While I believe that there are saved non-celibate homosexuals, I disagree with the process of forcing a gay reading into this text (especially by using Document Q and Pagan mythology).[Read More]

Response to “Luke’s Gay Apocalypse” Part I: Intro and Word Studies

This is part one of a response to a post by Jeremy Myers. In that post, Myers summarizes the view of Ron Goetz, which proposes that Luke 17:34–35 is about saved non-celibate homosexuals. While I believe that there are saved non-celibate homosexuals, I disagree with the process of forcing a gay reading into this text (especially by using Document Q and Pagan mythology).[Read More]

Daniel’s Seventy Weeks Prophecy

Among the evidence that the Bible is infallible is the startling accuracy of the prophecy revealed to Daniel, which he records in Daniel 9:24–27. This prophecy, known as Daniel’s Seventy Weeks, was revealed during the Babylonian exile “in the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus” (Dan. 9:1). At the beginning of the chapter, “Daniel deals with multiple interwoven texts and how exactly they all fit together. He wonders how the seventy-year prophecy relates to God’s larger plan concerning the complete reinstatement of Israel.”1 Daniel knew that the exile would last 70 years (Dan. 9:2) as Jeremiah had written (Jer. 25:1–14).

Jeremiah repeats the language of Deuteronomy and Kings in discussing the need for repentance, seeking God with all one’s heart, in addition to describing the complete restoration from exile (Jer. 29:10, 13; cf. Deut. 30:1–4; 1 Kings 8:48–50)… The intertextuality of Jeremiah with Kings and Deuteronomy clarifies what Daniel is wondering in Daniel 9. First Kings 8:30 and Deuteronomy 30:1–6 focus upon the ultimate end of exile. By contrast Jeremiah 29 predicts a return from Babylon after seventy years but does not directly associate the seventy years (Jer. 29:10) and how it will ultimately be restored per Deuteronomy and Kings (Jer. 29:12). The Lord does not, however, guarantee in Jeremiah that they will be ultimately restored when they return to the land after seventy years.2

Daniel confessed that he and Israel had sinned (Dan. 9:3–19) and God responded by sending Gabriel to deliver a message that fills in some gaps of what will happen after the return from exile and when it will happen:[Read More]