I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. (Matthew 5:44) In my country, the word enemy is not a metaphor. It is not a difficult coworker or a cousin who says cruel things at weddings. It is a siren at three in the morning and …

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is …

Scripture, Not Sensation: Why Theology Cannot Be Built on Visions Healthy theology cannot be built on private visions. It must be grounded in the text—its language, its context, and its coherent witness. My conclusions do not arise from what someone claims to have seen in a vision, during a coma, …

In another article, I already addressed the meaning of the Hebrew word olam, so often translated as “everlasting” in English, and demonstrated that it does not mean endless time. That mistranslation imports later theological assumptions into the text and obscures the original biblical sense, where olam speaks of an age, …

Matthew 23:2–3 in Context, History, and Theology One verse, lifted from its setting, can be made to carry far more weight than it was ever meant to bear. Matthew 23:2–3—“The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you”—has often been invoked to …

Every year in Israel, life comes to a complete halt for one day. Shops close. Roads empty. Even the noise of ordinary existence falls silent. For twenty-four hours, an entire nation stops—not as individuals in isolation, but together. Whether religious Jew or secular, citizen or outsider, everyone is caught up …

“Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven” (Mark 3:29) Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (“the Unforgivable Sin”) was not a general sin that anyone in any generation could accidentally commit — it referred to a very specific historical situation. Jesus was speaking to the religious leaders of …

When you look at the fruit of a tree, you can tell what kind of tree it is. That was Jesus’ simple but profound test for truth: “You will know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16). If we apply this same test to Islam, the results are sobering. The fruit …

While I disagree on certain points, there are aspects of liberal Christians that I deeply admire, particularly their profound grasp of God’s mercy and compassion for all and their emphasis on loving our enemies more fully. That said, I think there’s a blind spot. War may not be the morally …

The story of Israel begins not with a nation, but with a man who would not let go of God. In the midnight struggle by the Jabbok River, Jacob wrestled with the divine until daybreak, and there received a new name: Israel — “the one who strives with God” (Genesis …