John 3:16 famously says, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.” In my teenage years, before I became a Christian, Christians would quote John 3:16 and urge me to “just believe” Read more…
Christians talk a lot about the importance of “belief.” After all, perhaps the most famous verse in the New Testament, John 3:16, says, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.” (I Read more…
One of my favorite Old Testament stories is that of Gideon in the book of Judges.[1] Perhaps no one tested the Lord’s patience as much as Gideon and lived to tell about it. By the time of Gideon, the Israelites were living in Canaan (that is, Palestine or Israel), the Read more…
When I was a teenager, which was before I became a Christian fifty years ago at age 20, I thought Christianity was a silly religion—because that was how my Christian friends had explained it to me. If you just believed in Jesus, they said, you would go to heaven, where Read more…
Before I became a Christian at age 20, many of my Christian friends tried to convert me by quoting John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.” They would then Read more…
Let me make this clear. I am not a pacifist. But perhaps I should be. After all, didn’t Jesus say, “Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword will perish by the sword”?[1] Today he probably would have said something like, “Put your Read more…
Many years ago my wife and I taught a weekly Bible course at our church that encompassed the entire Bible. I think it was called the Bethel Bible Series. As I recall, the course covered all of the Old Testament books in the first half of the course and all Read more…
I recently saw a little brochure—what we used to call a “tract” when I was a baby Christian—that said, “Eternal Life is a Free Gift.” Well, yes. And no. Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Read more…
There are many examples in the Bible of God giving people no real choice in what they do. For example, when God sent Moses to lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, God said he would “harden Pharaoh’s heart that I may multiply My signs and My wonders in Read more…
Aren’t Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism basically the same? No! And not just because Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.”[1] Buddhism was founded by Siddhartha Gautama, known as the “Buddha,” which means one who is “awakened” or “enlightened.” One Read more…