In the not-too-distant past, I have had some theological exchanges with representatives from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) and the Church of the Almighty God. You are probably familiar with LDS; that’s the group that adheres to the Book of Mormon, which they believe contains information that’s additional to the Old and New Testament. The Church of the Almighty God, also known as the Eastern Lightning Movement, is a bit more obscure to Westerners. In 1989, a woman named Yang Xiangbin entered the House Church Movement scene in China and claimed to be Christ, the incarnate God. In the following years, she delivered some messages that the Church of the Almighty God accepts as authoritative. These “utterances” have been compiled into a book called The Word Appears in the Flesh.
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Apologetics
Some concerns with Michael Heiser’s “The Unseen Realm”
Several months ago, a friend started reading Michael Heiser’s book, The Unseen Realm. It’s on the topic of angelology and she asked me if I had heard of the book or if I knew of any dangerous teachings therein. I had never heard of the book, nor the author, so I did a quick google search. I didn’t want my friend to get into some weird hyper-charismatic teaching on angels and demons, so when I saw that Darrell Bock of Dallas Theological Seminary endorsed the book, I assumed that it would be pretty safe.
Boy, was I wrong.
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Book Review: So The Next Generation Will Know
Here is a stark reality: if we do not consciously equip young Christians with a biblical worldview, they will unconsciously absorb the ideas of today’s culture. (pg. 76)
Those who know my story will know that I came out of the 90s/2000s American youth group culture that was characterized by apostasy en masse. It wasn’t until my early 20s, when I started studying apologetics from the inside of a jail cell that I came to my senses about Christianity. One book in particular that stands out among those that helped me return to Christianity was More than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell, which was later updated by his son, Sean McDowell. So, when I saw that Sean had co-written a book specifically about “Preparing Young Christians for a Challenging World,” and was looking for reviewers, I volunteered with enthusiasm.
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Guest Post on Rabbinical Judaism
I’ve recently had some good discussions through email with my friend, John Schumacher, on the origins of Rabbinical Judaism. He has done a lot of research on this topic and has some great insight, so I asked his permission to include some of his thoughts on our blog.[Read More]
Reconsidering the Talmudic Definition of “Day”
I’ve recently had the privilege of being able to edit Robert Courtney’s article on the day when Christ died. This is a huge topic in apologetics. Mark and Luke record Jesus’ tomb being empty on Sunday, the first day of the week, the day after the Sabbath (Mark 16:1–2; Luke 24:1) and Matthew records Jesus saying:[Read More]
Rick Warren: Next to the Bible, [Purpose Driven Life is] the bestselling book [in English]
While researching for my dissertation on the kingdom proffered and postponed, I came across a video of kingdom now proponent, Rick Warren, at a World Economic Forum panel. Talking about his book, The Purpose Driven Life, Warren said:
It became the bestselling book in English in world history, it’s, next to the Bible, it’s the bestselling book and it’s the most translated, [audience giggles] it’s the most translated book next to the Bible in over one hundred languages.
So, I did a little looking… and I do mean a little because all it took was a quick Google and Wikipedia search to find this information… and lo and behold, I found 42 books in English that sold more than The Purpose Driven Life and another 35 (other than the Bible) which have been translated into more languages.[Read More]