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There are two extremes that the Church must continually face; either of which could prove fatal. Like driving down a road while punching in phone numbers on a cell phone it is easy to lose one’s concentration and veer off the center of the road. I almost hit the curb the other day doing that very thing.

The first extreme is for churches to start criticizing one another. There is no perfect church and we must remember Jesus’ prayer for unity that they all be one. If there was a perfect church it would not be perfect if we joined it. So, to argue about worship styles, music, how often we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, or just how last day events are going to work out I think is hurtful to the church at large.

The other extreme that many Christians have fallen into is that we just mind our own business. We really don’t care what the church down the road teaches. After all, who are we to judge? Our job is to preach the truth and not worry about others. Right? This attitude of non-involvement allows false teachers to pull thousands, yes, millions, into cult and quasi-cult organizations which compromise the gospel which was once for all delivered to the saints.

Therefore, on the one hand we must be careful not to condemn other churches which have a different style of worship and differences in other peripheral beliefs, yet on the other hand, Scripture is clear that we must confront false teachers who compromise the basic fundamental of Christianity—the gospel of Christ.

If you compare the book of Galatians to Paul’s other books, it will become immediately evident that Paul considered the Galatian problem to be of greater magnitude than any other problem he addressed in any of his letters.

First, we note that there are no words of endearment. If one compares, for example, Paul’s letter to the Corinthians we find that he addresses the Corinthians as “sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling” (1 Cor:1:2Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our LORD, both theirs and ours:
See All...). Paul goes on to commend them saying, “you were enriched in Him, in all speech and all knowledge (1 Cor:1:5That in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge;
See All...). “you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor:1:7So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ:
See All..., 8). However we know that the church in Corinth was not very “saintly” in their behavior. There were factions, with jealousy and strife (1 Cor. 4). There was “immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife” (1 Cor. 5). The Corinthians were taking one another to court (1 Cor. 6). There was false teaching about marriage (1 Cor. 6) and the list goes on and on.

Yet Paul could call them “saints in Christ Jesus!” Why? Because the problem of the Corinthians was one of behavior, immaturity and misunderstanding and not a blatant compromise of the gospel. When writing to the Galatians, however, there are no words of assurance or endearment. There is no mention of “saints” anywhere in the book of Galatians. There are terms of endearment in all of Paul’s other letters but not here. Why?—Because of the magnitude of the problem! We can justly conclude that for Paul the problem is Galatia was much worse than the situation in Corinth.

Paul comes right to the point and tells the Galatians that they are teaching a false gospel. “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ” (Gal:1:6I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
See All...,7).

The Greek makes it very clear that the “gospel” the Galatian false teachers were promoting was a gospel of a totally different kind from the true gospel of Christ. Paul goes on in the strongest language to condemn anyone who would teach this false gospel. “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!” (Gal:1:8But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
See All..., 9)

Paul, why such strong, condemning language? Why?—Because of the magnitude of the problem!

—Dale Ratzlaff (1936–2024, Former Adventist Pastor and Founder, Life Assurance Ministries, for former Adventists).

[TBC: For the full article, here is the link:] https://blog.lifeassuranceministries.org/2025/01/16/do-adventists-preach-another-gospel/

The all-important question is whether the soul and spirit of man, which resided in the body, continue to exist even after the body is dead. If we don’t know how life arose, can we be sure what happens to it when it abandons the body in death? That is the most important question we face. The answer to it all hangs on the question of origins.

Young radicals trashed campuses in 2024 as part of their campaign against the Jewish state. For months, the nation’s colleges and universities saw day to day life disrupted by the anti-Israel activists who harassed and attacked Jewish students, spread anti-Semitic propaganda, glorified terrorism, and assaulted police officers. 

Now, the recently published Young Zionist Voices presents the views of those on the other side of the campus divide: Jewish students and alumni steadfastly opposing the anti-Semitic “Campus Tentifada” and “classic schoolyard bully dynamics,” as Eylon Levy, a former spokesperson for the Israeli government, states in the Foreword to the book. 

The young Jewish activists featured in the book are not a monolith. They represent voices from across the political and religious spectrums within Judaism, and, as Hazony points out, many of the essays “contradict each other” in certain points. Yet their differences bring into focus what unites them: a strong Jewish identity, a burning love of Israel, and a desire to stand up to anti-Semitic bullies, all part of a mission that transcends their political and theological disagreements. 

A common theme across the stories in the collection is how pervasive and virulent anti-Semitism is on campuses. Shabbos Kestenbaum, the Harvard University student who sued his school for its atmosphere of unchecked anti-Semitism, draws parallels between the current campus climate and Kristallnacht–the massive 1938 Nazi pogrom that murdered Jews and burned their businesses, homes, and synagogues to the ground. 

Kestenbaum warns that the anti-Semitism in higher education is “how a Kristallnacht begins.” He writes: “In my time at Harvard, swastikas were drawn in undergraduate dorms, a Jewish student was spat on, an Israeli student was asked to leave class because her nationality made classmates ‘uncomfortable,’ another Israeli was assaulted at the business school, a staff member taunted me with a machete and challenged me to debate the Jewish involvement in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, our hostage posters were defaced almost daily, and professors published antisemitic cartoons without facing discipline.”

A common refrain heard from many anti-Israel activists is that Israelis are “settler-colonialists.” They deny Jews’ historic connection to Eretz Yisrael–the land of Israel–by portraying Zionists as imperialists coming from abroad to dispossess indigenous natives. 

A University of Michigan Diversity, Equity, and inclusion (DEI) staffer named Rachel Dawson, for example, was recently fired after it was discovered she allegedly made comments that Jews–whom she apparently called “wealthy and privileged” people who “control” the university–have “no genetic DNA that would connect them to the land of Israel.”

But Bella Ingber, a New York University Psychology student, would beg to differ. 

Ingber states that Zionism and Judaism are inextricably connected. She mentions a trip to Israel in which she visited Biblical sites: “It seemed that no matter where I walked, where I looked, where I stood, the Jewish historical presence–both physical and spiritual–was there, irrefutable, supported by centuries of evidence.”

https://www.campusreform.org/article/book-review-young-zionist-voices-/27255

[TBC: History, Archeology, and most important of all, Scripture reports the presence of Israel in what is known as Israel. And, it is correctly pointed out that, “While the Romans expelled the majority of Jews in 70 CE, the Jewish people have always had a remnant in the land of Israel. A portion of the Jewish population remained in Israel throughout the years of Jewish exile while the rest settled around the world and became the Jewish diaspora. In particular, Jewish communities existed throughout much of this period in what is known as the Four Holy Cities: Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed (Tzfat), and Tiberias.]

That being the case, it is quite clear that to understand what a man or woman really is, we must look beyond the physical body. The body is temporary. But what about the life, which is clearly not part of that body but gives it consciousness and meaning? Consciousness exists in a nonphysical dimension. The body did not create its own consciousness. A dead body cannot give life to itself. Life must come from another dimension, and when it leaves the body, there is no medical or scientific way to call it back.

Back to the question of life. What is it? Is it found in the chemical composition of the body? Obviously not. Chemicals, no matter what form they take, do not have any life in themselves nor can they give life to anything. How do we know this? Even if medical science reached the point where it could gather together, and in the right order, the exact chemicals of which the body is composed, it would take more than such incredible engineering to give life to these chemicals. Left on their own, no matter how lifelike when first sculpted, they would obviously deteriorate into a lifeless pile of what this “body” was made of—mere chemicals.

Uncovering animal tracks and trackways in sedimentary rocks is a testament to the Genesis Flood.1–4 Fascinating discoveries continue to be made with the latest trackway (200 footprints) being unearthed in Oxfordshire, England.5 The longest trackway is estimated to be 492 ft (150 m) in length and is probably longer. And therein lies the problem.

Many who are involved with uncovering these incredibly old footprints do not realize this remarkable physical evidence is a two-edged sword. Yes, they are beautifully preserved prints of extinct animals, but they cannot be as old as evolutionary theory states due to multiple catastrophic agents of erosion. If the earth is 4.6 billion years old, virtually every square inch of the Earth’s surface would experience a host of erosive events.

Earthquake and tectonic activity…no doubt would have occurred [on dinosaur trackways] many millions of times. Earthquakes of all magnitude on the Richter scale would have happened over and over again. In addition, there would also be many millions of years’ worth of meteorites, tsunamis, bitter cold, hail, volcanoes, climate change patterns, Ice Ages, tornadoes, flooding, windstorms, drought, lightning, hurricanes and meteorological activity of all sorts.6

In addition, English paleobiologist Richard Butler made an interesting statement regarding the formation of this trackway, “We don’t know exactly what, but it might be that there was a storm event that came in, deposited a load of sediments on top of the footprints, and meant that they were preserved rather than just being washed away.”5 Storm event? A load of sediments? This observation certainly supports the Flood as described in the early chapters of Genesis. The article also stated,

The prints are so beautifully preserved that the team have been able to work out which animal passed through first - they believe it was the sauropod, because the front edge of its large, round footprint is slightly squashed down by the three-toed megalosaurus walking on top of it.5

The footprints are so pristine that even after the supposed 166 million years scientists were able to identify which dinosaurs the prints belonged to. Evolutionist Emma Nicholls, a vertebrate paleontologist from Oxford University, said the three toes “are very, very clear in the print.”5 Perhaps it’s because they were made only 4,500 years ago.

The creatures making these fascinating tracks were 100% dinosaurs created on Day 6. The tracks are well-preserved like one would expect from catastrophic flood deposits. And finally, their amazing preservation rather than being totally destroyed isn’t what one would expect after supposedly 166 million years of nonstop erosive forces.

References

1. Thomas, B. and T. Clarey. 2018. Dinosaur Tracks Back Noah’s Flood. Acts & Facts. 47 (2): 11–14.
2. Clarey, T. Dinosaur “Superhighway” Explained by Global Flood. Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org August 28, 2018.
3. Sherwin, F. Fossil Amphibian Footprints. Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org April 13, 2023.
4. Thomas, B. Pterosaur Tracks Show Traces of the Great Flood. Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org September 2, 2009.
5. Morelle, R. UK’s Biggest Ever Dinosaur Footprint Site Unearthed. BBC. Posted on bbc.com January 2, 2025.
6. Sherwin, F. Another Arch Collapse at a National Park. Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org September 26, 2024.

https://www.icr.org/article/dino-trackway-leads-to-young-earth/

A friend had been in a bit of a debate about the teaching on Hell. Someone he knows had taken a departure from the biblical teaching on Hell and in the process redefines terminology and purpose. He doesn't like Hell and frankly, neither do I BUT my likes or dislikes do not really matter. One of the objections is that God tormenting someone eternally does not demonstrate God's justice or serve any "redemptive" purpose. He really misses the point on those and many other issues. There is nothing in Scripture that states or implies that God is doing the tormenting. Torment is the result of being separated from God. Second, Hell was not intended to have a "redemptive purpose." That is what the sacrifical death, burial and resurrection were for and any who call on His Name are redeemed. In "Apologetics Short-Takes, #2," Dr. Donald Williams poses the question a bit differently, "If God only creates what is good, what can we say of Hell?" : 

“MY ANSWER: Is it good that God’s justice be given ultimate expression? Is it good that the finally unrepentant not be able to shake their fists in God’s face and get away with their rebellion with no consequences forever? Is it good that evil be finally quarantined so that it cannot mess up the rest of the universe forever? [Heads nod “Yes” after each question.] Hell in itself then is not an evil thing (though it is regrettable that some people will insist on being there); it is in fact a positive good.”

Dr. Williams then goes on to address various issues that are very important in the discussion of God, Hell and humans.

https://mailchi.mp/d39be91900d9/the-art-of-deception-selling-the-narrative?e=169825fd77

Remember what turned Mortimer J. Adler from agnosticism to belief in God: he discovered the difference between humans and all animals, a chasm that no evolutionary leap can span. What makes a human being? Not his skeletal structure or the capacity of his brain. It is the ability, said Adler, to form conceptual ideas and express them in words. Neither conceptual ideas nor the words that express them occupy physical space or have physical substance—but they are real nonetheless. Right here, in this simple truth, the atheist materialist is dealt a death blow.