Q & A

/Category Archive for "Q & A"

wrote in Archaeology and the Bible, Bible Manuscripts and Textual Questions, General .

Question: During your recent trip to teach in Dallas, I mentioned to you an article published recently, challenging the authenticity of the Dead Sea Scrolls.  As promised, here are the links: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1885421,00.html?cnn=yes Here is a 2nd article: http://mideast.blogs.time.com/2009/03/18/more-doubts-on-dead-sea-scroll-auth ors/?iid=sphere-inline-bottom While I don’t have a speicfic question, I would appreciate your general opinion of the articles. […]

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wrote in General, Miracles, Reliability of the Bible .

Question: An athiest friend asked me about the story of Jonah being eaten and thrown up by a fish.  She said that this seemed imposible. How can I explain this to her? Answer: Your friend is right that the story of the swallowing and later regurgitation of Jonah alive on the third day is impossible.  […]

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wrote in Bible Interpretation, General, Miracles, Reliability of the Bible, Supposed Inconsistencies in the Bible, Theology and Doctrinal Questions .

Questions and Answers: 1] In Matthew 8;12 Who are the subjects that Jesus is talking about? "The subjects of the kingdom" are the Jews who do not receive Jesus.  One can generalize this to include anyone who has been saved but later chooses to ignore his own calling, but in the context, Jesus is telling […]

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wrote in General, General Apologetics, Philosophy, Practical Christianity .

Question: Someone once said something like this "Even if someone tells me the truth, I will above it hold God’s truth". I can go online and search for the ark of the covenant, or Noah’s ark, and I can find all sorts of lies. I can go online or to libraries and find books talking […]

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wrote in General, Other Religions, Versions of the Bible .

Question: How would I go about defending the Bible translation as  accurate in comparison to the New World Translation that the Jehovah Witnesses use? Answer: First of all, I do not want to discourage you, but I am afraid that the majority of Jehovah’s Witness believers are so well trained to not think or ask […]

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wrote in General, General Apologetics .

Question: I believe in God and all that his Bible says. So my question is in answering unbelievers who think we (humans) were put here by extraterrestrials. To me that idea is very silly, yet they seem to have their own set of  "evidences" that confirms their beliefs. what do I say to these people? […]

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wrote in Church History, General, Resurrection of Jesus .

Question:  From the Bible’s point of view, what is the meaning of Easter?  Should we celebrate it? Answer:  From the biblical perspective Easter has no meaning.  In other words, the particular celebration on a set day of the year of the resurrection of Jesus is not mentioned or even hinted at in the Bible.  Having said that, […]

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wrote in General, Other Religions .

Question: Many Islamic apologists claim that the Quran contains scientifically accurate information regarding embryology, can you comment on  this? Answer; Muslims have a problem in the intellectual realm.  This problem is that on the apologetic level they cannot compete with Christianity.  They do not have fulfilled prophecy.  They do not have miracles confirming the message.  […]

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wrote in Bible Interpretation, Daniel, End Times, General .

Question:  As I review the Questions & Answers section, I find it interesting that you DISAGREE with eschatologists (you call "futurists"), who believe teach that the 7 WEEKS of troubled times in Daniel 9 actually represents the 7 YEARS of the Tribulation.  Yet you think it valid to claim that a "DAY" in Genesis 1 […]

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wrote in General, Science and the Bible, The Flood .

Question:  A comment regarding the question of "If Noah’s Ark landed on Mt. Ararat, how did animals get to North and South Amaerica?". Your response was "I do not know the answer." Then, you proceeded to share a few theories.  I believe that the answer is in the Bible! We understand that the continents were […]

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wrote in Creation, General, Science and the Bible .

Question:  I recently read an article on your website by William Golightly entitled Genesis and the beginning of Humanity.  The author made a few points that were very new to me. The main point was that evolution took place in Humanity before Adam and Eve, and that when they evolve to a certain level, God began to […]

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wrote in General .

Question: Hair rebonding is very epedemic in Filipinos as of this time…can that can be considered as vanity?  Answer: I have no idea, as I do not even know what hair rebonding is.  Peter encouraged women, or more specifically wives, that their beauty should not consist chiefly of outward things and elaborate hairstyles or the […]

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wrote in General, Theology and Doctrinal Questions .

Question: You say in your article that "Jesus said in Matthew 5:17-20 that he fulfilled all the requirements of the Law, so that we are free of the need for that Law".  So….. you are telling me that  I can commit adultery, murder, steal, covet, lie, have many other Gods, worship images take the name […]

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wrote in Church History, General, Theology and Doctrinal Questions .

Question:   Who was the 1st person to say that Jesus was God?  I’ve heard a lot of people say that early Christians believed that Jesus was nothing more than a great prophet. Which leads to the question, how do we know that Jesus really is God, and not just a prophet? Answer: That is […]

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wrote in Bible Manuscripts and Textual Questions, Church History, General, Reliability of the Bible .

Some of my friends say there is evidence that during the reign of Constantine and the meetings at that time, many scholars met and decided which books to put in the Bible and eliminated others that didn’t fit their agenda and they changed the wording of many of the verses and deleted others.  Yet the […]

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wrote in Bible Interpretation, General, Theology and Doctrinal Questions .

Question: What are the diseases associated with demon possession in the New Testament (for example in Matthew 4:24; Luke 8:27, and Luke 8:26-39.)?  Also, during the time of Jesus, what was the meaning of being possessed by a demon? Answer: Many commentators have noticed a similarity between the symptoms of demon possession described in the New Testament […]

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wrote in General, Philosophy, Theology and Doctrinal Questions .

Question: What is the point of, or the reason for, the difference between the premodern notion of “reason” and the modern notion? What are the pluses and minuses of each? 2.      How do you think reason is related to : (a)     authority (b)     love (c)     intuition: (d)     mysticism (e)     symbolism (f)     hope 3.      How .   […]

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wrote in Bible Interpretation, Creation, General .

Question: Please explain to me Genesis 2:21-23.  It’s about God creating woman by taking one of the ribs in man(adam).  It says that God created man from the dust thru the breath of his nostrils.  Why did God create woman by taking one of the ribs of the man?  What is the purpose or lesson that i […]

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wrote in Daniel, General .

Question:  And another question about Daniel. I’ve calculated the date to 31-32 A.D. and other scholars do that as well, but wasn’t Jesus born like 6 or 7 B.C ? If he only lived 33 years, that would make him riding into Jerusalem at 27 A.D. Isn’t that date incorrect then? Answer:   You need to get […]

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wrote in General, Other Religions, Theology and Doctrinal Questions .

Question: I have a friend who is a member of Seventh Day Adventist. He mentioned  the observance of Sabbath days (Saturday), and the Law according to the Old Testament. He said that when Jesus died the ceremonial law has been fulfilled while the moral law still stands. is this true?  They don’t eat pork and […]

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wrote in General, History .

Question: What year did Jesus get baptised? Answer: We cannot say with absolute certainty the year Jesus was baptized, but using biblical data we can give a date with an uncertainty of one year or, at most two or three years. To establish the date of the baptism of Jesus, one must first establish the […]

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wrote in Church History, General, Practical Christianity .

Question: I have heard that Christianity has a lot of pagan influence, can you comment on this? Answer: Believe it or not, this is actually a fairly complicated question.  There are several aspects of how to answer the question.  First, how much Pagan influence was there in the original Christianity taught by Jesus and the apostles.  […]

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wrote in Bible Manuscripts and Textual Questions, General, Supposed Inconsistencies in the Bible .

Question: Our senior high pastor recently resigned and tit was brought to light what he thought were termed inconsistencies, which made him doubt the inerrant quality of the Bible. For example, in the same verse of scripture 2 Sam 8:4 the different versions don’t agree.  The youth in my group want to know why the different versions differ, […]

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wrote in Creation, General, Science and the Bible .

Comment:  I am not impressed with your endorsement of "theistic evolution".  This position is nothing more than a fence-straddling compromise to make evolution mutually compatible with creation and it will never work!  Evolutionists simply refuse to allow God the glory to suddenly and spectacularly create, as in "Let there be light" (Gen 1:3) and "He […]

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wrote in Bible Interpretation, General .

Question: Please explain to me the meaning of the passage in Hebrews 10:26-31.  "It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." Answer: The Passage in Hebrews is talking about those who, once becoming a Christian, choose to return to willful sin over a continued time, making a mockery of […]

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wrote in General, Theology and Doctrinal Questions .

Question:  I get confused sometimes with interpretation in general of the Bible. Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, etc. All have different forms of theolgical understandings of scripture that has resulted in various denominations. Why, and how do you decide which one to agree with more or less?? Answer: The particular false teachings you are […]

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wrote in General, Practical Christianity, Social Issues .

Question: I have been reading some articles on Wikipedia lately about different categories of sexual preference and gender identities.  One interesting category is "intersexual people."  These people are ones whose biological sex is ambiguous because they have both male and female anatomies.  Many in the past and even today believe that such people cannot be […]

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wrote in General, General Apologetics, Miracles .

Many atheists seem to dismiss the belief in the "supernatural". Is the word supernatural in the Bible? Are Christians making assumptions, or portraying God in a way that is non-Biblical.  I probably haven’t thought about this much, but saying "supernatural" means saying "magic" or "impossible" to a non-Believer. How can we explain this to a […]

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wrote in Creation, General, Science and the Bible .

Question: Do you believe that those who believe in theistic evolution will be pleasing to God on judgement day? Why are Christians turning to the world views and compromising the basics of God being the Creator? Is it appalling to any other Christian Leaders in the fellowship of ICOC that leaders are encouraging this type of […]

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