Laymen's Lounge interviews Frame

Here's a brief but edifying interview with Prof. John Frame. (And I never would have guessed Prof. Frame's favorite movie is Casablanca! A classic movie I've never seen.)

By the way, for those who don't already know, the Laymen's Lounge has a lot of good interviews and other resources.

The two deaths of Ravi

"Apologetics After the Two Deaths of Ravi Zacharias" (Doug Groothuis)

Materialism and mysteries

Prof. James Anderson responds to Bart Ehrman's (I guess one could call it) mysterian materialism in his post "Materialism and Mysteries".

Is physical determinism reality?

Natural law arguments against same-sex marriage

Jason Engwer and Lydia McGrew, among others, recently made several helpful comments about same-sex marriage and related issues. Their comments are well worth reading and taking to heart.

Lydia alluded to natural law arguments against same-sex marriage. Here's Tim Hsiao outlining the general argument:

Making sense of the Ravi Zacharias scandal

I've read and seen several Christians reflecting on the Ravi scandal. I think the person who gets closest to what I'd want to say is David Wood. It's a long video, but Wood makes several insightful observations and as is often the case Wood is keen in his psychological analyses.

The Akedah

Regarding God testing Abraham's faith by telling Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a burnt offering in Genesis 22:

I think there's dramatic irony in Gen 22. The events of the story turn out to be the opposite of what one would have expected at the climax of the narrative.

My understanding is human sacrifice to various gods occurred among many ancient Neareastern cultures. An ancient Neareasterner (like Abraham) might not unreasonably expect Yahweh to be like these other gods too.

Yet Gen 22 has a twist ending. The twist ending of the story is that Yahweh isn't like other gods.

Quite the contrary. Yahweh doesn't demand Abraham sacrifice Isaac. Rather Yahweh "provides" a ram caught in a thicket by its horns for Abraham to sacrifice. As such, Abraham learns Yahweh is the God who "provides", not a god who takes. Yahweh is the God who unilaterally blesses his followers, not a god who requires things in a quid pro quo fashion from his followers. Yahweh is the merciful God, not a god who must always exact his pound of flesh. Yahweh blessed Abraham because Abraham trusted Yahweh, not because Abraham literally killed and sacrificed his son Isaac in exchange for blessings like a pagan god might wish. These are the kinds of lessons Yahweh imparted to Abraham - and to us.

So this was a happy reversal of fortunes from Abraham and Isaac's perspective. They didn't have to do what they thought they had to do.

What's more, this happy reversal of fortunes in turn points to the One who reversed their fortunes - namely, Yahweh. Such that Abraham and Isaac, along with the audience, are led to ask: what kind of God is this, this Yahweh? Yahweh is not like heathen gods. Instead Yahweh is the God of promise, provision, blessing, grace.

Ed May's Materialism

Alex Tsakiris recently interviewed Stephen Braude. He makes a lot of significant comments during the interview, but a segment I found especially interesting was one about Ed May. You can click on the link just provided to watch that segment on the YouTube video of the interview. Braude's comments about his private interactions with May are worth hearing. You can listen to Tsakiris' interview with May here. And here's a post I wrote about the significance of the interview.

How To Argue Against Same-Sex Marriage

It's still important to argue against it, though few people are doing it. See here for an overview of some of the relevant arguments. And here's a post where I discussed how I expected the issue to develop after the Supreme Court's 2015 decision, given the nature of the American people. Much of what I said there is still applicable. But we've now had several more years of political developments, and the large majority of Republicans and Christians have shown themselves unwilling to discuss the subject much, if at all. Life consists of more than politics, though, and how people view marriage is important in non-political contexts, not just political ones. Changes outside of politics can, and often do, lead to political changes. But the arguments for a Christian view of marriage ought to be made, even if we don't get the political changes we want.

See here for some comments I made about the significance of holidays like Valentine's Day in this context.

A Good Discussion Of The Death Of Judas In Matthew And Acts

James Bejon recently wrote a Twitter thread on the subject, which I had seen linked by Peter Williams. And here's a PDF of the text in the thread, if you'd prefer that. However many of Bejon's points you take a position on or agree with, there's a lot of valuable material there to consider.

If The Type Gives Confidence

"The angel feared the blood [Exodus 12:23]; for he knew of what it was a Type; he shuddered, thinking on the Lord's death; therefore he did not touch the door-posts. Moses said, Smear, and they smeared, and were confident. And you, having the Blood of the Lamb Himself, are ye not confident?" (John Chrysostom, Homilies On Hebrews, 27:1)

How objective are near-death experiences?

Sean McDowell just interviewed J. Steve Miller on near-death experiences. Here's a comment I posted there on the subject.

The Eye Of The Beholder

Lydia McGrew has posted a new video announcing the release date for her upcoming book on the gospel of John and quoting some of the endorsements for it. Here's the table of contents for the book.

New Recommendations For Biblical Commentaries And Other Resources

Steve Hays' Old Testament and New Testament bibliography is no longer being updated, but one of the resources he recommended there is. Denver Seminary recently updated their own Old Testament and New Testament bibliographies. Steve kept his bibliography updated until close to the time of his death, and it's still a great resource. But you should supplement it with other resources that address what's come out since Steve's death. He included references to upcoming commentaries of interest, and you can supplement those recommendations with Denver Seminary's.

Demonic deception

jay-dog asks an intriguing question in this post:

I have noticed that when presented with miracle claims from other religions, Christian apologists will suggest the possibility that they could just be attempts by demons to deceive us. However, couldn't people from other religions say the exact same thing about the evidence for the Ressurection? Here are some blog posts where I heard this idea and I wanted to get your response. Thank you.

Sorry I didn't read through the posts you linked to, but I think there's enough material in your question to address. Here are my thoughts on the question:

An interview with Andrew Torba on Gab

Mark Dice interviews Andrew Torba about Gab. Torba is the founder and CEO of Gab. Both Dice and Torba are conservative Christians (e.g. Torba even seems to follow Doug Wilson). Torba regards what's happening today with the left, big tech, social media, and the mainstream media as part of a spiritual war. I applaud and support what Torba is attempting to do with Gab: that is, make Gab the free speech alternative to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, reddit, various web browsers including Google Chrome. I pray for his success and the success of others (especially other Christians) like him. If he succeeds, I think it'll prove good for many people including Christians. Torba will need all the help he can get.

Childlessness

It may not seem like it, but I think the message of our secular popular culture is a message more about death than life.

After all, is it not praiseworthy in our popular culture for a woman to choose to end her baby's life?

Is it not noble to end one's life if one sees fit to do so for almost any reason whatsoever?

What does popular culture think about the elderly? Is their wisdom valued? Why are the elderly more likely to be portrayed as out of touch more if not ready to be put out to pasture than they are to be portrayed as sagacious or at least worth giving a fair hearing to? (By contrast, why does popular culture all but worship youth?)

What does popular culture say about the environment and overpopulation? Isn't the fear that climage change is going to cause coastal cities to be flooded? Isn't the fear that overpopulation will mean scarce resources will be even more scarce (e.g. food)?

What about pets? Why does popular culture seem to care more about pets than children? Why are children often portrayed to be annoying? Why are pets often portrayed as acceptable in lieu of children? Why was there so much more of an outcry for Harambe than for "the boy" whom Harambe was dragging around like a ragdoll? Do most people even know the name of the 3 year old boy without having to search for it?

I could go on. But popular culture's message seems to me to be a message more conducive to death than to life.

By contrast, Christians have a message of life. We are pro-life. We value life. We are for life in all its glorious manifestations. We possess a life-giving and life-changing message. We love life. And we can hold forth life to a dying world.

With all this in mind, see this recent post: "The Other Pandemic Sweeping Across Our Globe" (Akos Balogh).

Is there a pattern to the Bible's miracles?

"Is there a Pattern to the Bible’s Miracles?" (Joel Arnold)

Helm reviews Live Not By Lies

Paul Helm reviews Rod Dreher's Live Not By Lies.

The lesson of Trump

William Lane Craig:

The case of Donald Trump is an object lesson how a man’s flawed character can lead to his own undoing. Given his considerable accomplishments—such as the appointment of three Supreme Court justices, brokering a Mideast peace agreement, engineering a revival of the US economy, revitalizing the US military, confronting China’s economic and military threat, stemming the tide of illegal immigration, and much more—he could have been a great US president. But he has been his own worst enemy. Like a figure in a Greek tragedy, his nemesis is his own deeply flawed character, which has contributed to his downfall. This should be a lesson to every Christian, but especially to those in leadership positions, to be mindful of our character development, to try to recognize, as best we can, our own sinful proclivities, and to allow the Holy Spirit to do His work in conforming us to the image of Christ, lest we bring disrepute upon His name.

Chad McIntosh:

Craig is right about Trump’s accomplishments, but wrong about the lesson of Trump’s presidency. There have been previous occupants of the Oval Office with worse character. The lesson is that Democrats and their enablers in media, entertainment, education, and even ostensibly non-partisan institutions like the FBI are unquestionably the biggest threat to America as an economically prosperous country of liberty with law and order that puts its own citizens first. There is no backward or unjust law they will not support or moral perversion or mental illness they don’t want to normalize, and they will use any means necessary to get what they want. That is the lesson. Trump was a bigger obstacle to them than previous milquetoast Republicans, so they went harder than ever against him.

But make no mistake: the next Republican candidate for president, no matter how upright or milquetoast, will also be literally Hitler. And so will the one after. And after. It’s not about character at all. It’s about how serious of an obstacle one is to the evils of progressivism.