Christian Questions Bible Podcast

Did you know that Jesus raised three different people from the dead? Most of us remember the raising of Lazarus and the dramatic scene when Jesus has the stone removed from the tomb and Jesus says with a loud and commanding voice “Lazarus come forth!” It is an event that sends chills down your spine as the power of God and the voice of Jesus conquer death. As dramatic as this was, it was only one of three such death to life events. The other two while different, relate to this account in showing just what it means for Jesus to conquer death and evil.
Jairus’ daughter was only twelve years old when she became gravely ill. Jesus happened to be in town when she was sick, so Jairus sought him out and emphatically begged him to come and heal her. Jesus agreed, but seemed to get sidetracked on the way and the young girl died before he got there. Jesus raised her – he woke her from the sleep of death. So, what are the similarities and differences in these two accounts? Is there a significant connection to the true meaning of conquering death and evil?
There was a young man who died in Nain (a city in Israel) and he was the only son of a widow. She would now be destitute and the funeral procession was proceeding down the street when Jesus showed up. He stopped the procession and raised the young man back to life. Dramatic? Yes! But what does it mean? How is it connected to the other two events to tell us details about what it means to truly conquer death and evil?
Check out our broadcast from March 20, 2016 “How did raising others to life prepare Jesus for death?” and see the surprising connections for yourself. These are three inspiring stories that blossom into an amazingly descriptive narrative that details the battle of life and death being waged by the forces of good and evil.

ISIS has become a household name.  Most of us don’t even know exactly what the initials stand for, but we do know what the ideology stands for:  Terrorism, violence and crimes against those who don’t think, act and believe the way that they do.  Somehow these radical Islamist terrorists seem to believe that by brutalizing, maiming and murdering those of different ideologies - those who are content to live and let live - they are showing their power and strength.  What they actually show is that they are heartless, mindless and without any true religion. They are just blindly violent men.
With this being said, we have to ask the question, because of the indelible mark that ISIS and other radical Islamic terror groups have made on our world in this present century, do they show up in Bible prophecy in any way?  Did God foresee their degraded and evil ways and essentially tell us that they were coming?
To work on answering such a question, we had David Stein join us for our conversation.  David is a good friend and a fellow student of the Bible and always has a studied and thoughtful take on biblical prophecy and perspective.  He stressed that we are all students of prophecy and not prophets, and therefore our understanding of the deep things of scriptural foresight are certainly subject to interpretation and clarification as time goes on.
Here are a few of the basic points we looked into:
What does the Bible have to say about Muslims?  Many of us assume that Arab nations are all Muslim and therefore any Scriptures that focus on those Arab nations must be focusing on Muslims.  This is far from true! Arabs are NOT mostly Muslim and the Bible actually does give us a way of seeing the differences between these nations and the religion in Jeremiah 9.
Not only does the Bible give us that distinction, but we believe it also goes as far as to identify the two primary factions within Islam, the Sunnis and the Shiites.  One of these identified factions had produced far more violence than the other and the Bible seems to bear this out as well.
So, is ISIS in the Bible?  Yes, but not in the way that we might think.  What does the Bible say about them and about radical Muslim extremists?  Check out our broadcast from March 13, 2016 and find out, as there are some surprising and encouraging answers!

ISIS has become a household name.  Most of us don’t even know exactly what the initials stand for, but we do know what the ideology stands for:  Terrorism, violence and crimes against those who don’t think, act and believe the way that they do.  Somehow these radical Islamist terrorists seem to believe that by brutalizing, maiming and murdering those of different ideologies - those who are content to live and let live - they are showing their power and strength.  What they actually show is that they are heartless, mindless and without any true religion. They are just blindly violent men.
With this being said, we have to ask the question, because of the indelible mark that ISIS and other radical Islamic terror groups have made on our world in this present century, do they show up in Bible prophecy in any way?  Did God foresee their degraded and evil ways and essentially tell us that they were coming?
To work on answering such a question, we had David Stein join us for our conversation.  David is a good friend and a fellow student of the Bible and always has a studied and thoughtful take on biblical prophecy and perspective.  He stressed that we are all students of prophecy and not prophets, and therefore our understanding of the deep things of scriptural foresight are certainly subject to interpretation and clarification as time goes on.
Here are a few of the basic points we looked into:
What does the Bible have to say about Muslims?  Many of us assume that Arab nations are all Muslim and therefore any Scriptures that focus on those Arab nations must be focusing on Muslims.  This is far from true! Arabs are NOT mostly Muslim and the Bible actually does give us a way of seeing the differences between these nations and the religion in Jeremiah 9.
Not only does the Bible give us that distinction, but we believe it also goes as far as to identify the two primary factions within Islam, the Sunnis and the Shiites.  One of these identified factions had produced far more violence than the other and the Bible seems to bear this out as well.
So, is ISIS in the Bible?  Yes, but not in the way that we might think.  What does the Bible say about them and about radical Muslim extremists?  Check out our broadcast from March 13, 2016 and find out, as there are some surprising and encouraging answers!

Everybody wants to know what the future will look like and with all of the myriads of ways we can connect with each other, we certainly are not shy about telling others what we personally think the future will bring.  Depending on the school of thought that you come from, looking ahead one hundred years or so might be exciting or devastating.
Will the human race screw up planet earth so badly that it won’t be inhabitable?  Are we causing global warming - or cooling - that will destroy life?  Will we ruin things with careless handling of biological diseases, will robots rise up or will it be zombies or will we just nuke the planet into oblivion?  If the world doesn’t end in the next hundred years by human cause, then what about super volcanoes or asteroids or even gamma rays from the sun?
You get the point - the future can be a scary mystery and your school of thought will dictate that. If the world doesn’t end, then what kind of place will it be?  Will technology rule?  Will humanity get along?  Will today’s world powers be tomorrow’s world powers?
So many questions and so little time!  The Bible actually has a lot to say about the future of both humanity and of planet earth.  This is a book  filled with prophecies of the future - the challenge is interpreting and understanding them in the way they were meant to be understood.
In our March 6, 2016 broadcast titled “What will the World Look Like in the 22nd Century?” we put many Bible prophecies together to establish a timeline of events from our present industrialized era and into the future. What we found was this:  God actually does have a pre-determined plan for the future of humanity and of earth and that plan has been operating in stages.  The present stages (several of these overlap) that we are in are the Christian-spiritual-judgment stage, the pre-really-big-trouble stage and the return-of-favor-to-Israel stage.  These are all transition times; the world is dramatically changing on several levels as we speak and God really does have it in hand.
What is to come?  Lots of really good things!  We could tell you here, but you owe it to yourself to check out the broadcast and see for yourself.

Everybody wants to know what the future will look like and with all of the myriads of ways we can connect with each other, we certainly are not shy about telling others what we personally think the future will bring.  Depending on the school of thought that you come from, looking ahead one hundred years or so might be exciting or devastating.
Will the human race screw up planet earth so badly that it won’t be inhabitable?  Are we causing global warming - or cooling - that will destroy life?  Will we ruin things with careless handling of biological diseases, will robots rise up or will it be zombies or will we just nuke the planet into oblivion?  If the world doesn’t end in the next hundred years by human cause, then what about super volcanoes or asteroids or even gamma rays from the sun?
You get the point - the future can be a scary mystery and your school of thought will dictate that. If the world doesn’t end, then what kind of place will it be?  Will technology rule?  Will humanity get along?  Will today’s world powers be tomorrow’s world powers?
So many questions and so little time!  The Bible actually has a lot to say about the future of both humanity and of planet earth.  This is a book  filled with prophecies of the future - the challenge is interpreting and understanding them in the way they were meant to be understood.
In our March 6, 2016 broadcast titled “What will the World Look Like in the 22nd Century?” we put many Bible prophecies together to establish a timeline of events from our present industrialized era and into the future. What we found was this:  God actually does have a pre-determined plan for the future of humanity and of earth and that plan has been operating in stages.  The present stages (several of these overlap) that we are in are the Christian-spiritual-judgment stage, the pre-really-big-trouble stage and the return-of-favor-to-Israel stage.  These are all transition times; the world is dramatically changing on several levels as we speak and God really does have it in hand.
What is to come?  Lots of really good things!  We could tell you here, but you owe it to yourself to check out the broadcast and see for yourself.

Attitude – it is simply one of those things that we just don’t think much about, but probably should.  Your attitude pretty much governs most everything about you…  You go to work one day with a lousy attitude and guess what?  You have a lousy day!  Go to work the next day with a great attitude and your day can be great instead.  The moral of the story:  it makes sense to pay attention to and to adjust your attitude.
Jesus understood attitude.  He really understood not only the importance of a good and godly attitude, but he also understood what shapes our attitude.  Better yet, he taught us how to put it all together so that we can learn how to successfully manage and elevate our attitude.  How did he do that?  By way of a parable of course!
In the Parable of the Great Dinner, the dinner host pre-invited his special guests.  When the time for the feast came and they were notified, they all had excuses as to why they could not come.  The host is undaunted by this and invited some of the lame and crippled people from town to come in their place and then invited people from far and wide to come as well.  Those who were the privileged and intended guests lost out because they were just too busy elsewhere.  Their attitudes stunk!  In the Parable, Jesus lists the three different types of excuses they used and they all revolved around Me! Me! Me!  The bottom line is that in their attitudes of self-preoccupation, they said "no" a sacred invitation from God and therefore lost a sacred opportunity.
What are the secrets of understanding and controlling attitude?  There are several, but one of them is to understand the simple ingredients of our attitude.  Think of it like a math equation: Desire + Perceived Opportunity = Attitude.  Once you begin to observe and apply this simple formula, you begin to take the steps necessary to actually control your attitude.
In addition to this equation, what can we do daily to put ourselves in a place in our minds that draws us towards the sacred grace of God and away from the “me” excuses of life?  Check out our Christian Questions broadcast from February 28, 2016, “Does Christianity Need an Attitude Check?” and see just how clearly defined attitude control can be and how you can give your own attitude new altitude!