“That’s a pincer movement. Religions themselves have failed and the secular world. It is the overwhelming dynamo of society. I’ve said for years, secular societies influenced religions much more than religions have influenced secular society in the last hundred years,” Prager noted during the interview.

Much of the loss of religion in our society, Prager observed, is based on Americans forgetting the influence of their faith.

“People forgot what their religion is about, you know. They went on automatic pilot. They didn’t teach their kids what America means. And so America doesn’t mean much to most kids. And the same with the religions, Judaism and Christianity. They didn’t teach their kids why the religion is so relevant to society,”

Prager notes, “I’m not blaming them.” Instead, he highlights, “I’m just describing a reality. That’s what happened. They didn’t convey the meaning, and so the kids just dropped it.” //

You know who opposed Soviet communism? Pope John Paul II from Poland, and Muslims in Afghanistan, and the Jews in the Soviet Union. These were the nemeses of the Soviet Union. You either worship the God of the Judeo-Christian world or the god of Marx. That’s what it really amounts to,” Prager shared. //

“I can tell you what has worked for me,” Prager answered. “For almost half a century explaining to people rationally why God and the Bible are necessary. That’s why I’ve embarked on this massive project of a five-volume commentary on the first five books of the Bible called the Rational Bible.” //

“My vehicle to God is purely through reason. I admit I don’t have a mystical bone in my body. I envy people who do, but I don’t. My vehicle to God and religion is purely through reason. But I have found that that is the most persuasive way to touch people, at least to the times in which we live,” Prager explained.

This is how the prosecution framed the case during the trial.

Prosecutor Anu Mantila said it is quite clear that Räsänen has a freedom of religion, but that does not exclude responsibility in using Bible verses.

“If so, the views of the Bible have supplanted the Finnish Constitution”, Mantila said.

The prosecutor made a distinction between the internal and external side of religious freedom: people are allowed to think what they want, but the expression of faith can be restricted. “I emphasise that freedom of thought and conscience is unrestricted. This court does not address the religious views of the Bible and homosexuality. It is addressing the expression of these views.”

The prosecutor reiterated her earlier position that human deeds and identity are indistinguishable. “When one judges deeds, the whole person is judged. Actions cannot be separated from identity because actions are part of identity. Understanding deeds as sin is derogatory”.

According to the prosecutor, the insulting nature of Räsänen’s expressions is obvious. Offensive is emphasised by the focus on sexual identity, the “core of humanity”. //

A decade ago, Archbishop Charles Chaput, then archbishop of Philadelphia, wrote a must-read essay on Christianity’s challenge in America.

Catholics need to wake up from the illusion that the America we now live in—not the America of our nostalgia or imagination or best ideals, but the real America we live in here and now—is somehow friendly to our faith. What we’re watching emerge in this country is a new kind of paganism, an atheism with air-conditioning and digital TV. And it is neither tolerant nor morally neutral.

As the historian Gertrude Himmelfarb observed more than a decade ago, “What was once stigmatized as deviant behavior is now tolerated and even sanctioned; what was once regarded as abnormal has been normalized.” But even more importantly, she added, “As deviancy is normalized, so what was once normal becomes deviant. The kind of family that has been regarded for centuries as natural and moral—the ‘bourgeois’ family as it is invidiously called—is now seen as pathological” and exclusionary, concealing the worst forms of psychic and physical oppression.

My point is this: Evil talks about tolerance only when it’s weak. When it gains the upper hand, its vanity always requires the destruction of the good and the innocent, because the example of good and innocent lives is an ongoing witness against it. So it always has been. So it always will be. And America has no special immunity to becoming an enemy of its own founding beliefs about human freedom, human dignity, the limited power of the state, and the sovereignty of God.

Paivi Rasanen spoke to The Federalist about her free speech case that has huge implications for Christians across the West. //

“I was happy to have the possibility to also tell the gospel—the solution to the problem of sin—in front of the court and in front of the media,” she said. Speaking about the first day of her trial, which occurred in January, Rasanen said, “When so many people were praying for the day, God also answered the prayers. It was quite a hard day, but I thought it was a privilege to stand for the freedom of speech and the freedom of religion and stand for the truth of the Bible.” //

“I would characterize the day as a modern-day Inquisition or heresy trial,” Coleman said in a phone interview from Helsinki last month after the trial’s first day. “And the heresy was that Paivi and Bishop Juhana were on trial against the new sexual orthodoxy of the day.” //

The deeply theological nature of this case has been clear throughout, Rasanen said, putting courts in a “very odd situation” of litigating permissible religious views inside a constitutional democracy that claims to guarantee the freedoms of speech and religion. //

The prosecutor also charged Rasanen falsely, she said, with believing that homosexuals are not created by God.

“According to her [the prosecutor], you cannot make a distinction between a person’s identity and his or her actions,” Rasanen said. “So she said if you condemn the act, you also condemn the human being and say they are inferior.”

On the contrary, Christians believe that all humans are sinners and have equally ineffable value to God. They believe humans’ worth can absolutely be separated from their actions. Otherwise, humans stand forever condemned for everything they’ve ever done wrong.

Christianity teaches that God is willing to forgive all sins. All that’s required is to confess those sins. This also means Christians consider homosexuals and transsexuals as they do everyone: equally precious, forgiven, welcomed, and loved by God.

3. A Temple Mount banquet hall
   A luxurious public building located next to the Temple Mount has been excavated and opened to public tours. Part of the building was first discovered by British archaeologist Charles Warren in 1867, and the site was partially excavated in 1966. Now that the excavation is complete, archaeologists have dated its construction to A.D. 20—during the lifetime of Jesus.

The building contained two identical chambers, separated by an elaborate fountain. The luxurious nature of the facility and its adjacency to the Temple Mount indicates it was probably used by the elite members of the first-century Jewish community, the families of the high priests, and other leading religious figures.

Archaeologists say it was damaged by an earthquake in A.D. 33, then later rebuilt and reconfigured into three vaulted halls. The destruction date suggests possible evidence of the earthquake recorded in the Gospel accounts at the crucifixion of Jesus. //

We know that King Solomon fed his guests beef, lamb, venison, and poultry, in addition to bread, cakes, dates, and other delicacies. But … bananas?

The amount of water needed to grow bananas makes them an unlikely fruit in ancient Israel, but a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported some unexpected remains were scraped off the teeth of Canaanites and Philistines who died in the late second millennia B.C., the period of Solomon’s reign. Teeth don’t lie: They ate bananas.

The dietary evidence indicates “a dynamic and complex exchange network connecting the Mediterranean with South Asia,” according to the report. Christina Warinner, a Harvard anthropologist and one of the lead investigators, said the imported fruit may have been dried, like modern-day banana chips.

Two Christian leaders in Finland stood trial in Helsinki on Jan. 24 for publicly stating the Bible’s teachings on sex and marriage. Longtime Member of Parliament Paivi Rasanen and Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola defended in court their decision to write and publish, respectively, a pamphlet explaining Christian teachings about sex and marriage.

In the trial’s opening arguments, which will resume on Feb. 14, Finnish prosecutors described quotations from the Bible as “hate speech.” Finland’s top prosecutor’s office essentially put the Bible on trial, an unprecedented move for a secular court, said Paul Coleman, a human rights lawyer with Alliance Defending Freedom International who is assisting in the Finns’ legal defense and was present during Monday’s trial.

“The prosecutor began the day by trying to explain that this case was not about beliefs and the Bible. She then, and I’m not kidding, she then proceeded to quote Old Testament Bible verses,” Coleman said in a phone interview with The Federalist after the trial concluded for the day. “Trial attorneys, Finnish trial attorneys who have been in and out of court every day for years, said they didn’t think the Bible had ever been read out like that in a prosecution.”

Never before has a Finnish court had to decide whether quoting the Bible is a crime. Human rights observers consider this case an important marker for whether Western governments’ persecution of citizens for their speech and beliefs increases. //

“The majority of the day was about the role of the Bible in society,” said Coleman, an Englishman who listened with the aid of translators. “The prosecutor on more than one occasion questioned whether we in Finland follow Finnish law or the Bible, as if these things are so inherently contradictory that you have to choose one.”

The long day in court concluded with the prosecutor cross-examining Pohjola about his theology, Coleman said, “asking his interpretation of the Bible, just straight-up theology.” The prosecutor even asked the bishop, apparently without awareness of the historical import of this question, “Does he follow God’s law or does he follow Finnish law?” Coleman noted with astonishment.

“I would characterize the day as a modern-day Inquisition or heresy trial,” Coleman concluded. “And the heresy was that Paivi and Bishop Juhana were on trial against the new sexual orthodoxy of the day.”

Crowdfunding has raised millions for ‘The Chosen,’ an ambitious series exploring characters from the New Testament. Fans have already chipped in enough for three seasons—and are driving ticket sales for a Christmas special coming to movie theaters. //

The success of the series is a powerful reminder to Hollywood that faith-focused projects can sometimes become breakthrough hits. But what makes “The Chosen” even more of an outlier is the way it is supercharging the crowdfunding model to sustain production through multiple seasons. Though “The Chosen” is free to watch, viewers have poured $40 million and counting into its production budget, enough to pay for three out of a planned seven seasons. The costs of building the new production facilities, on a 1,200-acre camp owned by the Salvation Army, are being covered by a smaller group of the show’s fans.

The Chosen' is pioneering an innovative delivery method with potentially groundbreaking implications for content creators, particularly faith-based ones.

“The Chosen” is both an app and a television series. It is both the largest ever crowdfunded entertainment project, and a Christian program about the life of Jesus. It’s also flying under Hollywood’s radar. That’s quite alright by creator Dallas Jenkins, who says his team’s outsider status allows the show “to be really nimble.” //

The one-app-one-show structure is critical part of “The Chosen’s” innovation, alleviating the option paralysis so often induced by browsing big streamers. “If you want to watch this show, you don’t have to sort through a bunch of other shows on another streaming service, you can literally just get our show. And that’s what I think could be the future,” Jenkins said.

“Some people have said, ‘Oh, I can’t wait till you get picked up by a big studio, and we said, ‘We wouldn’t have developed a brand new technology and gone this whole route if we wanted to get picked up by a big studio,” Jenkins insists. “We’re not doing this to be sold, we’re doing this to create a whole new alternative for people.”

Q:

The Mormon church claims to be the true church and yet there have been billions of people that have become Christian in the last 2,000 years based on what Jesus Christ did on that cross.

The Apostle Paul put it this way at 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, "Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, vs2, BY WHICH YOU ARE SAVED if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you have believed in vain, vs3, For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, vs4, and that He was buried and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures."

So why do we need "Another Testament of Jesus Christ" when the first testament, i.e the Bible, (specifically the New Testament) has proven sufficient to save one's soul?

In fact, Jude 3 says, "Beloved while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints/holy ones."

Jude is urging Christians to struggle to defend the Faith. The Greek word "Epagonizesthai" comes from the fierce competition of the athletic field. Believers must fight with all their strength to preserve "the faith" which was handed down to them. "Hapax" means "once for all." The gospel is fixed, not to be revised or have somebody else with another "gospel/testament" show up.(Galatians 1:8-9).

A:

Mormonism teaches that salvation comes through Jesus Christ, like any Christian faith.

A:

What does Mormonism have to offer in regards to salvation that Jesus Christ had not already accomplished?

In some sense, nothing. The atonement of Jesus Christ is what saves us. Faith in Jesus Christ is what saves us. The scriptures, however many they may be, can only lead us to Christ but never save. An illiterate person can be saved. But in this sense you have to question what any denomination has to offer, or what the visible church had to offer that made it a good idea to establish one in the New Testament. Or even what 98% of the Bible "has to offer".

However, Jesus has also said that we need to be baptized (John 3:5). In his time, he gave his apostles authority to baptize in his name. Without this authority, a baptism is just going through the motions. We believe this authority was lost early in the church history and restored by angels who conferred this authority to Joseph Smith. So in that sense, the true church should have authority to perform ordinances that Christ described as necessary for salvation.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints claims to be a restoration of the original church Christ founded. Literally the church of Jesus Christ. Whatever it was that having a church in the first place offered, is what "Mormonism offers".

Andrew T. Walker
@andrewtwalk
I could dunk on this, but honestly, look at what our culture does to our young. This video is of prey, not predator. By destroying normative, life-giving boundaries, we are subjecting our young to endless delusion and vain searching. Revival, revelation, and reason can heal.

Libs of Tik Tok
@libsoftiktok
Not a single word in this video makes sense //

Scott Douglas
@ScottMDouglas
·
Aug 3
Replying to
@andrewtwalk
Every time I think we've reached the line of despair, there's further to go. Had to look up what nounself was. Didn't even know this was a thing. May the Church proclaim the delight and joy in being "fearfully and wonderfully made" by our loving and good God. //

Joseph Bradley
@jbbradley31
·
Aug 3
Replying to
@andrewtwalk
One of the most heartbreaking things about being in youth ministry today is this exact problem: teenagers have dramatically declined into anxiety, confusion, and disassociation with the foundations of reality. It is truly “freedom into slavery”, and many don’t realize it.

It is true that in the Jewish Talmud and other Jewish documents we find statements such as “When a child experiences the taste of wheat (i.e., when it is weaned), it learns to say ’abbā and ’immā” (Berakot 40a in the Babylonian Talmud) (= our “dada” and “mama”).

However, even if the term abba began as a childish babbling sound (and this is far from clear), at the time of Jesus it was a regular adult word meaning “Father” or “my Father” (as terms of address) or “the Father” or “my Father” (as terms of reference).

That is, abba was not a childish term of the nursery comparable to “Daddy.” It was a polite and serious term, yet also colloquial and familiar, regularly used by adult sons and daughters when addressing their father. Ideas of simplicity, intimacy, security and affection attach to this household word of childlike trust and obedience. So to bring out the sense of warm and trusting intimacy that belongs to the word, we could appropriately paraphrase it as “dear father.”

They recount the story of Amy Medina, an American missionary in Tanzania, whose husband was teaching a class on developing a biblical worldview. Somehow, the subject of tattoos arose, and the class reacted so negatively to the idea of a Christian getting a tattoo that the missionary asked: “Which would bother you more: if your pastor got a tattoo, or if he committed adultery?” The class was unanimous. The tattoo would be more disturbing! //

In this case, as the conversation progressed, the missionary acknowledged that the Scriptures explicitly forbid both tattoos and adultery (Lev. 19:28; Deut. 5:18). The majority of American Bible-readers believe the tattoo prohibition to be irrelevant today, but the Tanzanians believe both commands are binding, and surprisingly, the tattoo represents something even worse than adultery. Muehlhoff and Langer explain the students’ mindset:

“Tattoos are associated with witchcraft and evil spirits. A tattoo, regardless of personal intentions, is a mark of ownership placed on your body that either confirms the influence of a witch doctor or an evil spirit over your life, or at the very least implies or invites such influence. Adultery is wrong, but surely even Americans think it is worse for a pastor to publicly identify with an evil spirit.” (69) //

Beginning with common ground helps us find greater clarity on where the real disagreement lies. One area presents itself quickly: the principles we use in applying biblical commands across historical and cultural contexts, as well as the difference between the covenants. As the discussion unfolds, it becomes clear that the debate isn’t over the authority of Scripture, but how we interpret this Old Testament command.

A second takeaway is the emphasis the students give to spiritual warfare. Faithfulness to one’s spouse is a moral mandate, for sure, and to break one’s covenantal vows is to fail morally. The tattoo, however (at least in this culture), is a public sign of allegiance to a witch doctor, evil spirit, or something supernatural. The Americans may object that we shouldn’t read African cultural concerns into every tattoo, while the Tanzanians may object that Americans too often underestimate or neglect the dynamics of spiritual warfare. (This cross-cultural discussion of how much or how little we should emphasize the powers and principalities is a subject I devoted several columns to last year.)

A third area of disagreement arises from the difference between living in a guilt/innocence culture versus an honor/shame culture. That’s the primary reason the students believed the tattoo was a greater scandal than the adultery. “Guilt before the law as opposed to shame before the community is valued differently in the two cultures,” Muehlhoff and Langer write (71). //

“The conviction spectrum does not eliminate disagreements but rather locates and clarifies our disagreements. The goal is that appreciating the common ground lays a foundation for respecting differing convictions. This opens the door to further conversation and hopefully to respectful compromises along the lines which Paul suggests when he exhorts those who are stronger in faith not to flaunt their freedom and those who are weaker in faith not to judge their brothers.” (72)

Actually, I think a fair and dispassionate reading of this article and the rest of Ms. Schumann’s work would say she is selfish (her irrational fears take precedence overall). If being opposed to the Constitution and our traditions qualifies one as unpatriotic, then bingo.

She and her experience are the focal point of everything she writes about…like, for instance, the book from which this essay was extracted. She is demanding that others give up something to make her feel better, while she gives up nothing. Her definition of “compromise” seems to be “how much of your stuff am I going to take.”

Her rhetorical question is just stupid. The only way me giving up my guns saves a life is if you are accusing me of being a murderer-in-waiting. One might, with equal justice, demand, “If buying a gun meant saving a life (this is much, much more likely scenario than hers), would you do it?”

Her denigrating the faith of others because they don’t share her unreasoning fears is the action of someone who is actually using God as nothing more than a debate tactic. //

Then we have this, which seems theologically ignorant as well as manipulative and selfish:

If you know and love Jesus and are going to spend eternity in Heaven with him, why does the idea of not having guns anymore scare you so much?

When we recite the Lord’s Prayer, we say “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” There are no guns in heaven. When I pray this prayer, I ask that God would help me bring some of his kingdom to earth. I pray that, in the same way, there would be no gun violence here on Earth, just as there is no gun violence in heaven.

One hardly knows what to do with this. There is no food in Heaven, so why do you care about it here? And yet, one of the Christian Corporal Works of Mercy is feeding the hungry. There is no marriage in Heaven (Matthew 22:30), but it is a significant religious rite on Earth. //

What Ms. Schumann loses track of, along with a crap-ton of other things, is that the gun is nothing more than a value-free tool. It is much like a hammer or a wheel, or a screwdriver. What you do with the tool makes the difference. Murder was forbidden long before the invention of gunpowder. In Schumann’s view, owning a gun means that you, by definition, place gun ownership above being a Christian.

I don’t come from whatever religious tradition that spawned Ms. Schumann. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states in very strong terms that protecting others from harm is part of the Golden Rule. That extends to the use of deadly force if there is no other way. //

In Exodus, we are told we can kill a home invader at night. In Nehemiah, we are told to fight to defend our families. In Esther, Jews take up arms against an unjust ruler (sort of the main purpose of the Second Amendment). Jesus frequently uses the metaphor of a shepherd protecting his flock from thieves and robbers. Because a shepherd killed marauding animals (see David and his sling), one can assume He is not talking about hugging it out.

No matter how you come down on guns, we should be able to agree that murder is wrong, that self-defense is a right, that defending the helpless is an obligation, and that gun regulation is a secular policy argument and not theology.

One of Cyrus" first official acts after capturing Babylon was to allow the Jews to return to their land. This took place in his "first year" ( Ezra 1:1), that Isaiah, as king over all Medo-Persia including Babylonia (i.e, 538 B.C.). The writer of Ezra regarded539 B.C. as the beginning of Cyrus" reign probably because when Cyrus defeated Babylonia he gained authority over Palestine that had until then been under Babylonian sovereignty. //

About150 years earlier, Jeremiah had prophesied that the Babylonian captivity would last70 years ( Jeremiah 25:12; Jeremiah 29:10). Cyrus proclaimed his edict67 years after the first Babylonian deportation from Judah (605 B.C.). Important matters were put in writing in the ancient Near East. [Note: Breneman, p68.]

Ezra 1:2 reads as though Cyrus was a believer in Yahweh. However, Isaiah presented him as an unbeliever ( Isaiah 45:4-5). Evidently he was a polytheist and worshipped several gods. [Note: See Edwin M. Yamauchi, "The Archaeological Background of Ezra," Bibliotheca Sacra137:547 (July-September1980):200.] On the "Cyrus Cylinder," the clay cylinder on which Cyrus recorded his capture of Babylon, the king gave credit to Marduk for his success. He said he hoped the people under his authority would pray for him to Bel and Nebo. [Note: James B. Pritchard, ed, The Ancient Near East, pp206-8. Cf. Amelie Kuhrt, "The Cyrus Cylinder and Achaemenid Imperial Policy," Journal for the Study of the Old Testament25 (1983):83-97.] Probably Cyrus gave lip service to all the gods his people worshipped, but the evidence suggests that he did not believe that Yahweh was the only true God.

Apparently Cyrus knew about Isaiah"s prophecies concerning himself ( Ezra 1:2; cf. Isaiah 41:2; Isaiah 44:28; Isaiah 45:1; Isaiah 45:4-5; Isaiah 45:12-13).

He ". . . read this, and . . . an earnest desire and ambition seized upon him to fulfill what was so written." [Note: Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 11:1:2.]

Which King Issued the Commandment to Rebuild Jerusalem in Daniel 9:25? //

Daniel 9:1-2, “In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans; In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.”

Jeremiah 25:12, “And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, saith the LORD…”

Jeremiah 29:10, “For thus saith the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.”

II Chronicles 36:21, “To fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbaths, to fulfill threescore and ten years.”

The Bible plainly teaches that Cyrus, in his first year, fulfilled the prophecy of Jeremiah by bringing to an end the 70 years of captivity and desolations when he decreed for the Jews to return to their homeland and for the city of Jerusalem and the temple to be rebuilt. Here are the key passages. //

II Chronicles 36:22-23, “Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing... //

Ezra 1:1-3, “Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, //

If Cyrus fulfilled the prophecy of Jeremiah by ending the 70 years of desolations on the city of Jerusalem, then Cyrus must have been the king that decreed for the rebuilding of Jerusalem at the end of the 70 years

Ezra 1:1-11 – Cyrus’s Decree
Summary
The decree of Cyrus the Great permitted the people to return to their homes in Jerusalem, thus ending the Babylonian exile and fulfilling Jeremiah's prophecy.
Analysis
The Babylonians dealt with conquered peoples by deporting them to Babylon where they could live in relative freedom and prosperity, perhaps accounting for the meager numbers of exiles who wished to return to Jerusalem with Ezra and Nehemiah. When the Persians defeated the Babylonians in 539 B.C.E., the policy of deportation as a means of dealing with conquered peoples changed. The Persians preferred that conquered peoples stay in their own lands (but pay tribute) worshiping their own gods (and praying for the Persians). This tolerant religious policy signaled the end of the exile for the people of Israel and led to Isaiah's description of Cyrus as God's "anointed" (messiah) in Isaiah 45:1, even though Cyrus was not a follower of Israel's God.

While they were in Babylon, Jeremiah had urged the exiles to accept their lot (Jeremiah 29:4-9). But he also announced that the exile would last only seventy years (Jeremiah 25:11, 12; 29:10), after which time the people would return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. These first verses of Ezra see the decree of Cyrus as the fulfillment of Jeremiah's words. Notice that Cyrus's apparently magnanimous offer is somewhat self-serving and that it is "the Lord" who "stirred up" Cyrus's spirit to make the proclamation, just as it was the Lord who "stirred up" the Assyrian and Babylonian kings who brought God's judgment upon Israel (1 Chronicles 5:26; 2 Chronicles 21:16) and who "stirred up" those exiles who returned to Jerusalem (Ezra 1:5). The majority of those people who returned at the stirring of God were members of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, the priests, and the Levites. But the text understands Cyrus's decree to mean that, though not all the exiles need return to Jerusalem, they all need to support the rebuilding of the temple (vv. 3-4).

Three major discoveries during the last century contradict the forecasts of scientific atheists, pointing instead in a distinctly theistic direction. //

In fact, three major scientific discoveries during the last century contradict the expectations of scientific atheists (or materialists) and point instead in a distinctly theistic direction.

First, cosmologists have discovered that the physical universe likely had a beginning, contrary to the expectations of scientific materialists who had long portrayed the material universe as eternal and self-existent (and, therefore, in no need of an external creator). //

This evidence of a beginning, later reinforced by other developments in observational astronomy and theoretical physics, not only contradicted the expectations of scientific materialists, it confirmed those of traditional theists. As physicist and Nobel Laureate Arno Penzias observed, “The best data we have [concerning a beginning] are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the first five books of Moses, the Psalms, and the Bible as a whole.”

Second, physicists have discovered that we live in a kind of “Goldilocks universe.” Indeed, since the 1960s, physicists have determined that the fundamental physical laws and parameters of our universe have been finely tuned, against all odds, to make our universe capable of hosting life. Even slight alterations in the values of many independent factors — such as the strength of gravitational and electromagnetic attraction, the masses of elementary particles, and the initial arrangement of matter and energy in the universe — would have rendered life impossible. //

Finally, discoveries in molecular biology have revealed the presence of digital code at the foundation of life, suggesting the work of a master programmer. After James Watson and Francis Crick elucidated the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953, Crick developed his famed “sequence hypothesis.” In it, Crick proposed that the chemical constituents in DNA function like letters in a written language or digital symbols in a computer code.

Functioning computer code depends upon a precise sequence of zeros and ones. Similarly, the DNA molecule’s ability to direct the assembly of crucial protein molecules in cells depends upon specific arrangements of chemical constituents called “bases” along the spine of its double helix structure. Thus, even Richard Dawkins has acknowledged, “the machine code of the genes is uncannily computer-like.” Or as Bill Gates explains, “DNA is like a computer program, but far, far more advanced than any software we’ve ever created.”

No theory of undirected chemical evolution has explained the origin of the information in DNA (or RNA) needed to build the first living cell from simpler non-living chemicals. Instead, our uniform and repeated experience — the basis of all scientific reasoning — shows that systems possessing functional or digital information invariably arise from intelligent causes.

We know from experience that software comes from programmers. We know generally that information — whether inscribed in hieroglyphics, written in a book, or encoded in radio signals — always arises from an intelligent source. //

Stephen C. Meyer directs Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture in Seattle. His new book, "Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Discoveries that Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe," is now available from HarperOne.

Archaeologists in Jerusalem have uncovered the remains of a long-lost Byzantine church and the foundations of a 2,000-year-old Jewish ritual bath not far from an area believed to have been the site of the Last Supper.

The church, also known as the Church of the Agony and the Church of All Nations, was built on the spot where Judas is thought to have betrayed Jesus with a famous kiss before handing him off to Roman soldiers.

The church is decorated with finely carved stone elements, indicating its importance. Alluding to Jesus’s sacrifice, Greek inscriptions on the building’s floor read: “for the memory and repose of the lovers of Christ… accept the offering of your servants and give them remission of sins.”

And yet, “be careful what you pray for, you might get it!” portrays a Heavenly Father who waits up in heaven for a Gotchya! moment. Every prayer request put before Him is a “teachable moment,” every prayer for strength an opportunity to test your mettle, every prayer for patience an opportunity to run His children through the grinder of difficulty and frustration in the name of “growing” patience in His followers.

These do not seem like the actions of a heavenly Father to me, but those of a Heavenly Drill Sergeant. Who would dare ask a drill sergeant for a favor, lest he require fifty extra push-ups? //

Scripture instead describes a God who wants us to pray without fear. For everything and anything. To pray even when the prayers are ridiculous. Thomas wouldn’t believe eyewitness accounts of men he’d spent the previous three years with, men he surely trusted, and yet, Jesus granted Thomas’s desire, //

Do note that Jesus did not make Peter swim himself to shore in order to teach him perseverance or to teach him that walking on the water isn’t so important, really, and he should desire more holy and less ridiculous things. He just rescued him. Immediately. //

The Bible also abounds with accounts of those whom God made comfortable, with more than they needed. There was food left over after Jesus fed the multitude. (Mark 6:30-43) The widow who fed Elijah had food for many days after she fed the prophet. (1 Kings 17:7-16) Jesus made Thomas emotionally comfortable, (if you’ll forgive the modern idiom) even in his doubt. When Jesus called the disciples, he didn’t just give them enough fish, he gave them so many their nets started to break. (Luke 5:1-11) And when the wine ran out at the wedding at Cana? Jesus didn’t just turn the water into wine, he turned it into good wine. (John 2:10). Even Job, who is surely our best example of suffering and want save Christ himself, was restored two-fold at the end of his trial. (Job 42:7-16) //

If anything, this car is teaching me to hope again, to receive God’s good material gifts without fear that they will be snatched away in order to teach me a lesson. To ask my dear Father in Heaven just as I asked my dear earthly father when I was small. To understand that God sometimes grants abundance, and when he does, it’s because He is good, not because I am.

I keep coming back to John Piper’s description that as Christian exiles in this world, we live with brokenhearted joy. We are not in heaven yet and we won’t find it on earth, so we all, in some respect, live divided between two worlds. How glorious that even in the midst of a broken heart, we can find joy. In all things.

17“See, I will create

new heavens and a new earth.

The former things will not be remembered,

nor will they come to mind.

18But be glad and rejoice forever

in what I will create,

for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight

and its people a joy.

19I will rejoice over Jerusalem

and take delight in my people;

the sound of weeping and of crying

will be heard in it no more. //

22No longer will they build houses and others live in them,

or plant and others eat.

For as the days of a tree,

so will be the days of my people;

my chosen ones will long enjoy

the work of their hands.

23They will not labor in vain,

nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune;

for they will be a people blessed by the Lord,

they and their descendants with them.

24Before they call I will answer;

while they are still speaking I will hear.