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June 19, 2020
Have you ever composed a text message on your smartphone and had the app suggest the next word? It is amazing that, many times, the app is correct. How does it work? By sheer chance? Or by reading your mind?
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June 5, 2020
While people do indeed conspire and real conspiracies have existed, I tend to treat them with care because they can hurt one’s credibility should they prove untrue. I do so for at least three reasons: the methodological, the psychological, and the spiritual. I’ll explain each and will also offer an alternative approach for dealing with novel conspiracy theories that may help maintain our witness for Christ.
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May 22, 2020
I frequently see comments on social media claiming, “We are all God’s children.” Generally, people intend this sentiment to mean that God has the same relationship with every human equally. The implication is that God relates to each person directly as heavenly Father. Sometimes this phrase is even used to affirm universal salvation (i.e., that everyone will ultimately be saved).
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May 8, 2020
Humans in all eras of history have suffered trauma, especially from the horrors of war. How might people in the ancient world have coped with traumatic events without access to modern treatment options? Was coping even a possibility? We can learn much about trauma by looking to Daniel, a biblical figure who endured multiple severely traumatic events during his lifetime.
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April 24, 2020
How did Jesus die? In the ancient world, execution by crucifixion involved a slow, agonizing death without obvious injury to vital organs. Jesus’s cause of death was crucifixion. However, the physiological process resulting in cessation of life, medically termed the mechanism of death, is unclear. Consequently, there has not been a clear consensus among physicians as to what physiological mechanism ultimately caused him to die. Some proposed mechanisms of Jesus’s death have included: cardiac rupture, suffocation, and shock. Some say Jesus didn’t die at all, an idea referred to as the “swoon theory.” Which of these propositions, if any, provides the most plausible explanation for the mechanism of Jesus’s death?
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April 17, 2020
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27).
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March 27, 2020
When I was five years old, Postman Pat was my favorite TV show. So, when I misbehaved my punishment included missing the show. I suffered, as only a five-year-old can, knowing that my siblings were watching while I was banished to my room.
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March 13, 2020
I have heard many sermons on the issue of faith and good works as conveyed in the book of James. Each time I hear such a sermon I am led, as a mathematician, to connect the relevant Scripture and mathematical logic or, simply, logic. Making such a connection shows how science/mathematics provides compelling evidence for the accuracy of the Bible and the Christian worldview.
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February 21, 2020
One of the many ways that modern civilization reflects a Christian worldview of the nature of humanity—creation, fall, redemption—is in the kinds of food we eat. With food accessibility being a nonissue for most people, we might expect most of us to be making wise food choices, correct? Well, not exactly, and this is how a biblical view of humanity helps.
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February 7, 2020
How can we share our evidence-based faith effectively? I have found that context is key. In my outreach efforts, I have invited nonbelievers to explore life and the Christian faith in a friendly, open, and informal environment and their responses have typically led to ongoing, fruitful discussions.
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January 24, 2020
When I reflect on the first verse in the Bible, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1), what often comes to mind is a quote from one of my favorite theologians, R.C. Sproul, describing God’s creation as “a grand theater of divine revelation.”1 In Genesis 1, the almighty, loving God and his creative acts take center stage. We learn that he has the incredible power to create something out of nothing by simply speaking it into existence. And we see how he designed the heavens and the earth as a sacred space for his people where he would be in relationship with them. Within this sacred space where God is present and active, the earth is the center of interest—the place he created to dwell among his people.
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January 10, 2020
Part 1 of this two-part series cited two reasons to believe the traditional view that Moses authored the first five books of the Bible (Pentateuch or Torah). Mosaic authorship, as noted, has been largely abandoned in academic circles. What does this mean? Is the Bible’s authenticity in jeopardy?
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December 27, 2019
The notion that Moses actually lived and wrote the first five books of the Bible has long been rejected in academic circles and is now being increasingly questioned among conservative Old Testament (OT) scholars. However, since Mosaic authorship is the traditional view of the church, it would be unwise for Bible believers to reject Moses’s involvement in the production of the Torah (or Pentateuch, the first five books). Indeed, while the Torah probably did not come into its final form until the sixth century BC, there are at least five good lines of internal evidence suggesting that Moses (thought to have lived around the fifteenth century BC) authored the Torah. We will look at two of those reasons here in the first part of a two-part series.
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December 13, 2019
fisherman grabs his net with a rather large mesh size and heads for his favorite lake. After a day of fishing, he notices that his entire catch is larger than six inches. He concludes, therefore, that there are no fish smaller than six inches in the lake. This is an example of observer selection bias where the fisherman arrives at a false conclusion by not accounting for the design of his net.
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November 22, 2019
In Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, both the Americans and Nazis are desperately attempting to find and capture the Ark of the Covenant that is depicted in the Hebrew Bible. Their quest to find the elusive, power-laden artifact makes for an action-packed, wildly popular adventure movie. But what made those two rival groups think that the Ark actually existed and, if it did, that they could find it?
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November 8, 2019
As a child, I hated playing double-deck pinochle with my father. He always won—unless, I had learned, some of the cards were missing. Then I had an increased chance, especially if I knew which ones were missing, while my father’s assumption that we were playing with a full deck reduced his chances.
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October 25, 2019
Calculating Earth’s age remains a contentious area of study that often divides Christians and keeps scientifically minded skeptics from considering evidence for the Christian faith. Nevertheless, two methods of determining age—radiometric dating and tectonic plate movement—stand to resolve conflicts and provide evidence for creation’s history. As I’ll explain, it’s literally a “game of inches” that takes place in Hawaii.
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October 11, 2019
When defenders of naturalistic evolution state their case, they frequently begin with the claim that their theory is “scientific.” Alternative views, especially those that would invoke supernatural causation, are pejoratively dismissed as “pseudoscience,” pseudo because they falsely claim to have scientific legitimacy. Given science’s respected status, this becomes a powerful rhetorical device to marginalize Christian claims that life on Earth involved the supernatural intervention of God.
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September 27, 2019
One of the promises Christians hold dear—and invite nontheists to consider—is that as humans place their faith in the redemptive work of Christ, the infinite personal God of the Bible will live in us. Thus, our bodies are “temples” of the Holy Spirit and we are not our own but have been bought with a price (1 Corinthians 6:19–20). The apostle Paul then admonishes us to “honor God with your bodies.”
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September 13, 2019
Humans have always wondered about their place in the universe—specifically, whether we are alone. And in today’s scientific age, we have added more details to that initial question. We wonder, why is there life on Earth rather than on Mars or planets around other stars? Is life common or rare? Are there intelligent beings living on other planets? If so, then those planets likely require Earth’s marbled appearance—including 71% of its surface comprised of water—in order to be habitable, according to a recent study.1 We’ll explore that discovery after some foundational work on planetary habitability.
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