In my final chapter in my Isaiah 7:14 series, I wish to share a very personal story regarding the impact the Emmanuel prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 has had in my life. Allow me to just jump right into the story… A Most Surprising Conception In 2006, I got married. A year later, my wife and…
Over the past couple of days, I’ve shared some insights regarding Isaiah 7:14—it’s original context during the lifetime of the prophet Isaiah, and then how that impacts our understanding of Matthew’s use of Isaiah 7:14 in his story about the birth of Jesus. Today, though, I want to share more of a personal story of…
The Gospel of Matthew actually begins with a genealogy. It records Jesus’ genealogy through Joseph all the way back to Abraham. Most people, I assume, probably skip over those verses—all those “begats” get rather redundant. Besides, who cares? Why did Matthew put it in there anyway? Let’s just get to the story we all know…
One of the disadvantages of growing up in church, particularly Evangelical churches, is that from the time you step foot in Sunday School classrooms, you are inundated with Bible stories: Adam and Eve, Noah and the Flood, Abraham and Sarah, Joseph’s coat of many colors, the Plagues of Egypt, the Parting of the Red Sea,…
It’s Christmas, and if you have grown up in church (and probably even if you haven’t), no doubt you are familiar with Isaiah 7:14: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel.” Matthew 1:23 quotes this verse and claims…
Fruit Flies, Transformation, and Eternity Since I’m on the topic of fruit flies, let me make another point. Due to the short life span of fruit flies, scientists can observe generations upon generations of them in a short period of time. Typically, a fruit fly’s entire life is about 30 days. Let’s put that into…
In a recent Facebook thread on one of the sites I follow, a question was raised regarding the creation/evolution debate, specifically, on whether or not there was anything out there that actually celebrated how science, philosophy, and theology could inform one another. Well, in the last chapter in my book, The Heresy of Ham, I attempt…
The High Catholic Age didn’t just give the world monasteries, advances in technology, universities, revolutions in philosophy, the foundation for the natural sciences, and free markets (as if that wasn’t plenty enough). No, while all these advances were nothing short of world-changing, we would be betraying history if we didn’t also point out the era’s…
In this next to last post about the High Catholic Age (aka. “The Middle Ages”), I want to focus on something that may come as a surprise to most people—indeed I was surprised when I found out about it. What is the “it,” you may ask? Well, it’s something that still is often in the…
I want to note that what much of what is contained in this post was covered in a few previous posts I wrote in my series about Richard Dawkins. Still, for what should be obvious reasons, I wanted to have this material at this point in this series as well. Enjoy. Thomas Aquinas is most…