November 3, 2025
I have started a mini-series on the Problem of Evil as part of my larger series on Answering God’s Critics. There are two episodes thus far, with many more to come. If you’ve ever struggled to answer why a good and powerful God would allow evil, this series is for you.
Listen wherever you get podcasts, or at https://thinkingtobelieve.buzzsprout.com.
October 6, 2025
I’ve always assumed that David had sex with Bathsheba once. However, the text says that when David first saw her, she was bathing to purify herself of her uncleanness (2 Sam 11:1-5). This is referring to the bathing a woman would undergo after her menstrual cycle ended. Since one is least fertile immediately following menstruation, this suggests that David’s fling with Bathsheba was no one-night stand. Bathsheba probably remained with David for a number of days before returning to her house, during which they had sexual relations multiple times. If so, David’s sin was not a one-time mistake, but an ongoing sin.
September 18, 2025
Here’s how a parenthetical statement can provide interesting insights about the provenance of a Biblical book. Mk 15:21 says, “And they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross.”
Identifying Simon as the father of Alexander and Rufus only makes sense if Mark’s audience personally knew Alexander and Rufus. Mark added “the father of Alexander and Rufus” to help his audience identify the particular Simon who helped Jesus carry His cross.
August 25, 2025
I asked chatGPT to assume the role of the Apostle Paul, and write a speech that he would give to a joint session of the U.S. Congress if he were to be brought back to life in 2025 and invited to speak. I told GPT to address matters pertaining to modern American politics, society, and morality, and write the speech in the voice of the Apostle Paul using his NT epistles as the foundation. The result was very interesting. Here is what I got:
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, once appointed to the nations, now called to speak again.
Madam Speaker, Mr. President, Members of Congress,
I stand before you not as a politician, nor as one seeking favor, but as a man sent long ago to carry the message of a kingdom not made by human hands. I speak today not as a flatterer of nations, but as one entrusted with truth—truth that cannot be silenced by time or culture, nor reshaped by the desires of men.
August 15, 2025
People say you shouldn’t demonize your political opponents, such as calling them “evil.” That may have been true when the differences in the two parties were mainly related to economics and foreign policy. Indeed, it would be foolish to demonize those who have a different tax policy than we do. But today, far more separates the two parties than economics and foreign policy. Each party has taken sides on major moral issues. Moral issues pertain to good and evil, and thus a party should be considered good or evil depending on what moral issues it is advancing. If one party is consistently using its power to advance moral issues that are evil, then it follows that we should consider the party itself to be evil (and by extension, the office-holders and candidates representing that party).
July 30, 2025
I posed a moral dilemma to a few Christian thinkers, but none were able to provide a fully satisfactory answer. While I think most ended up at the right conclusion, no one could really articulate the moral principles used to come to that conclusion. So I thought I would pose the dilemma to AI and see what it had to say. Could it provide any additional insights into Christian moral reasoning? I chose to use ChatGPT and Gemini. I will reproduce the chats below for your reading pleasure, but I would like to make several observations first.
July 25, 2025
One of the things I find most frustrating is the fact that most conservatives in America don’t consider abortion an important issue, particularly when it comes to how they vote in the political realm. Fox News, in partnership with the Associated Press, issued a 2024 voter analysis that reveals just how little Republicans care about the abortion issue. Consider the following data points:
If we ever hope to outlaw abortion in this land, not only do we need to convince more people that abortion is wrong, but we must help them to understand why it matters so much and encourage them to translate their moral ideology into political action.
July 18, 2025
In light of the rising popularity of socialism in this country, we need to talk about economics. Why? Because economic theories have both a moral foundation and moral implications. As such, Christians ought to care about and critically evaluate economic theories. May 16, 2025
Yesterday was the actual day Jesus ascended into heaven 1,992 years ago. To coincide with this momentous day, I published my first episode exploring the theological and practical significance of the ascension. March 28, 2025
Trinitarians typically baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit based on Matthew 28:19. In contrast, Oneness Pentecostals (OPs) typically baptize in the name of Jesus Christ based on Acts and the epistles. Which is the proper baptismal formula?
OPs have been debating this issue for over 100 years. It’s part of the movement’s DNA. Meanwhile, most Trinitarians are oblivious to the debate. Those on both sides who engage in the debate tend to focus only on the Biblical data. The historical data contained in the writings of the post-apostolic church fathers is typically ignored. When it is cited, it is often cherry-picked or misused. As a result, I have written a research paper that seeks to examine both the Biblical and historical data fairly.
March 25, 2025
My podcast series on the resurrection is still going strong. I’ve recently started my last sub-series within the larger series, focused this time on the Shroud of Turin. If you have never heard of it before, it’s the purported burial cloth of Jesus Christ, bearing the image of a crucified man. Many Protestants have dismissed it as a fake Catholic relic, and most non-Christians have dismissed it as a medieval forgery due to carbon dating tests in the 1980s. However, interest in the Shroud has not gone away, and for good reason. There is much more to the story. In this sub-series, I’m examining the mountains of evidence for its authenticity, and I’ll address questions related to dating, and more.March 17, 2025
We have a hard time understanding how the Germans allowed the Holocaust to take place. How could people so easily and so readily disregard the humanity of an entire group of people? How could they so callously kill millions of people? How could so many people who disagreed with the actions of the state stand by and do nothing? It’s not that hard to see how, really.March 7, 2025
I’ve just completed my subseries on Differences in the Gospels in my larger series on the Historical Evidence for Jesus’ Resurrection. In the final episode (#151), I provided my best attempt to construct what I call the “video view” of the events that transpired after Jesus’ crucifixion; i.e. what you would have seen if you had a video recording of the events. It incorporates every verse in the empty tomb and resurrection accounts from all four gospels. Here it is:
Mary Magdalene (Mary M), Mary the mother of James and Joseph, Salome, Joanna, and other women journeyed together to the tomb early Sunday morning before dawn to anoint Jesus’ body (Mt 28:1; Mk 16:1-2; Lk 24:1,10; Jn 20:1). They wondered how they would roll away the stone to gain entrance to the tomb (Mk 16:3). Unbeknownst to them, before they arrived, two angels appear at the tomb to open it for the women (Mt 28:2). Their appearance frightened the guards, causing them to flee and report the event to the chief priests (Mt 28:3-4,11-15). When the women arrived, they saw the stone rolled away (Mt 28:2; Mk 16:3-4; Lk 24:2; Jn 20:1). Mary M assumed someone must have taken the body, so she (and possibly one other woman[1]) left the group of women to tell Peter and the Beloved Disciple (BD) that Jesus’ body was missing (Jn 20:2).
February 20, 2025
Apologetics is a person-specific enterprise. We are not trying to convince some generic Joe Blow, but specific individuals we encounter. Our apologetic should be tailored to meet the needs of the person we are dialoguing with.
For example, when someone tells you they don’t believe in God, the first thing you might do is ask them why. Their answer will help you to better direct your response. If the lone reason they reject the
existence of God is because of the problem of evil, it won’t do much good to hit them with every offensive apologetic argument for God’s existence, beginning with a cosmological argument. No. You need to go straight to a defensive apologetic, showing the logical consistency between theism and the existence of evil.
February 5, 2025
I posted back in October that I was starting a podcast series on the resurrection of Jesus. That series is still on-going. Right now I’m in the midst of a sub-series focused on explaining so-called contradictions in the Gospels, particularly in the empty tomb, resurrection, and post-mortem appearance narratives. I spent three weeks laying the foundation for how we ought to approach and understand Gospel differences. The episode to be released this Friday will start to explore specific examples of differences in the empty tomb narratives. Check it out wherever you get podcasts, or at https://thinkingtobelieve.buzzsprout.com.
December 31, 2024
We are all searching for significance. We want to believe that our life matters. We want to feel like we are special. We want to know that our life has made a difference in this world. That’s why people seek to do extraordinary things. It’s why people seek fame. What we need to recognize is that we are already significant. We are made in the image of God. Our significance is rooted in God. We will never truly feel significant until we are in a close relationship with God.
November 1, 2024
I’ve argued that pro-lifers should vote for Trump and the Republicans this November despite their recent backpedaling on the pro-life cause, because allowing the Democrats to win will result in many more babies being murdered. We should always act to save the most babies possible. Since more babies would be saved under Trump than under Harris, we should vote for Trump and the GOP.
However, some pro-lifers have a different perspective. They argue that if we vote for Republicans next week simply because they are better than the Democrats, and they win, they’ll have little reason to revert the platform back to its strong pro-life position in 2026. If the GOP knows they can win elections without the pro-life vote, or if they know that pro-lifers will always vote for them because they are better than the Democrats on abortion, they will have no motivation to reverse course and re-adopt their former platform on abortion. Indeed, they are likely to deprioritize the issue going forward and continue making concessions to Leftists. So as a strategic move, these pro-lifers suggest that we let the Democrats win this election to teach the Republicans a lesson, namely that they need to be a strong and principled pro-life party if they ever hope to win another election.
October 15, 2024
What is the mark of the beast (Rev 13:16; 14:9-11; 16:2; 19:20; 20:4)? John the Revelator describes it in Revelation 13:16-17: “Also it [second beast] causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, 17 so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name.”
I’ve always thought of the mark of the beast (MOTB) as being some kind of physical branding or object on/in the hand or forehead that would allow one to participate in commerce under the Beast’s rule. Given the fact that technology has already been developed and tested that employs microchips in the hand or forehead, I considered it likely that the MOTB will be some sort of microchip that one is forced to implant in their body as a sign of their allegiance to the Beast and as a condition to engage in commerce.
October 9, 2024
I’ve begun a new podcast series on the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. The series will not only cover the historical evidence for Jesus’ resurrection, but also explore alternative (naturalistic) explanations, the evidence for Jesus’ existence, the theological and practical significance of the resurrection, questions and objections, our own future resurrection, an examination of the Shroud of Turin, and a harmonization of the gospel accounts of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Listen wherever you get podcasts, or at https://thinkingtobelieve.buzzsprout.com.
August 23, 2024
Government was God’s idea. It has a divine purpose: justice. As such, good government requires the participation of the just. We should care about that which God cares about. That’s why Christians should be informed about and involved with politics. To that end, I have started a new podcast series on political theology. I will address the Biblical teaching concerning government, the relationship of Christians to politics, principles for voting, the separation of church and state, the Christian foundation of the United States, etc.
Listen wherever you get your podcasts, or at https://thinkingtobelieve.buzzsprout.com/
Theosophical Ruminations
Thinking to Believe 