Melanie Phillips was recently interviewed by National Review Online concerning her new book: The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth, and Power.
What is most interesting is this book was written by an agnostic who defends the Judeo-Christian worldview as one most consistent with truth.  That is, the root of the current fascination with deception, the willingness to believe in the presence of facts stating otherwise, is the postmodern preoccupation with avoiding the truth at all costs.

We have seen this ideology in the form of the Emerging Church movement, or as they like to say now, the “dialogue”.  They simply cannot bring themselves to say something is true or false.  It is anti-Christian, anti-God in that it denies God and His Word the authority to define truth.  When THE truth of God is abandoned then truth eventually is abandoned as well.

Thus we have millions deceived into voting for a radical, communist for U.S. President, millions who still believe in manmade global warming in spite of no evidence.  We have a State Department that refused to say that radical Muslims are behind terrorist attacks even when the terror groups claim responsiblity.  We have a world that blames Israel for all the problems in the Middle East in spite of the fact that it is the only democracy in the area.

More than thirty years ago, prophecy books predicted mass deception in the time leading up to the rapture of the Church.  We are seeing that fulfilled right before our eyes today.  Listen to what Paul predicted 2,000 yrs ago:

There has probably never been a time in human history when the Word of God has been more accessible yet more unread. We’re living in a time of superficial Christianity on the part of many people, and the postmodern culture has invited persons to be on a spiritual quest of their own devising rather than to follow the path of biblical Christianity. Millions and millions of people have only some vague concept about the Bible. They know it’s about God, and some know it’s about Christ, but beyond that, they have no real understanding of what the Bible is and how they are to obey it and know it. I think the biggest issue here is the failure of the Church to teach its own people. Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Tags: bible, reading, Mohler

For the purposes of this review, I am going to look at three different platforms:

• Logos bible software for iPad
• Laridian Pocketbible
• E-sword Live in a Safari window

I will use John 1:1-5 as my test passage in which I will look up two Greek words, one commentary, and one topical search.

Logos

"1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

To find out if the "Word" in the above verse is logos or rhema, you need to hold down on the word which pops up a screen asking if you want to search or do a word study. Then you get Hebrew words for "Word" as well as Greek although you pressed on a New Testament word.  Logos doesn’t tell you if logos or rhema is used in this verse, to get that information you need to look for your reference in a long (100+) list of verses.  Finally, the definition Logos: word.  The second word in our study is "life" which in verse four of our study is zoe. Definition by Logos? "Life."

One commentary is offered in the free account at Logos – that of Jamisson, Faucett and Brown.  Five verses are offered as cross referencing.  I could not see nor figure out how to do a topical search.

Pocketbible

First of all, let me say it is much easier to navigate the bible itself  in Pocketbible. Secondly, I can find no way to see which Greek word is associated with an English word in a verse. The JFB commentary is offered along with Scofield Notes and Treasury of Scriptural Knowledge (all public domain works).  I found it extremely hard to open up JFB and look up the verse.  Bear in mind I cut my teeth on computers back when Radio Shack had the TR-80.

Live E-sword

The interface is laid out in familiar bible study fashion with the bible on one side and either dictionary, commentary, or topical study on the right. What bibles do you get for free? AMP, CEV, ESV, GNT, GNT-TR+, GW, KJV, KJV+, LIT and NASB. Commentaries? Barnes, Clarke, Henry, JFB, MHCC, PNT, RWP, and Wesley.  Dictionaries? Easton, Faucett, Hitchcock, ISBE, Smith and Webster.  Lexicons? BDB, Strongs and Thayer. Topical studies? Nave and Torrey.

What Greek word is "word"? Touch it and a tool tip pops up with logos and the Strong’s definition by default.  The right pane also changes to reflect your search. Tabs above the right pane allow you to switch from lexicon to commentary to dictionary with ease. Cross referencing gave me 23 references for John 1:1-5.

Summary

The race isn’t even close.  E-sword, which is free, completely swamps the competition.  Looking up the Greek word used in a verse is a breeze.  The commentaries and dictionaries are linked bringing up relevant information instantly.

At least for bible study on the iPhone/iPad, the best things in life are still free.

Tags: iPhone, iPad, bible, study

I’ve been reading John MacArthur’s book Ashamed of the Gospel in which he discusses the “downgrade” controversy between Charles Spurgeon and the Baptist Union in the early 1900′s.  Naturally, I did some searching and came up with some of Spurgeon’s own writings about the subject.

The question that I have been wrestling with in my own thinking is the inevitable clash between those who favor “truth at any cost” discernment ministries and those who favor “peace at any cost” unity advocates.  Jonathan Falwell recently tweeted:

RT @PastorTullian: F. Schaeffer said bitter divisions among Christians give world justification they’re looking for to disbelieve the gospel8:51 AM May 14th via Echofon

Now this may seem innocent enough until you read that Liberty University has recently been the subject of a small kerfluffle over the resume of their own Ergun Caner.  Said kerfluffle originated from online “discernment” bloggers.  To be fair, Liberty University has been professional and upright in their own investigation into the allegations and Dr. Caner has been willing to answer questions.

As I see it, two things happened here that can be useful in further discussions.  One is that a discernment “ministry” spent time and effort combing through someone’s resume to try and find a discrepancy.  I don’t think we can call this a productive use of discernment skills and time.  There are so many glaring and public instances of apostasy in the news today that one hardly needs to use a magnifying glass to read over footnotes in someone’s biography to find examples.  Discernment ministries will be more respected and treated with civility when they act the part of mature Christians.

The second lesson we can learn from in this debacle is the proper way to respond to questions raised about one’s ministry.  Liberty University did well in this situation by appointing a committee to investigate rather than just issue blanket denials.  Perhaps Jonathan Falwell’s tweets could have been a bit more restrained but over all I think they handled the situation well.

Another example of working well was the recent situation with Chuck Smith and Lighthouse Trails Research in which Pastor Smith responded and clarified his position without hiding behind a wall of “unity at any cost” or “touch not mine anointed”.

We would all do well as Christians to remember that upholding the truth and staying faithful to Scripture is of course vitally important but so is speaking the truth in love and being honest and open when confronted over issues rather than hiding behind tired and worn out clichés such as “touch not mine anointed.”

Tags: discernment, blogs, Liberty, “Chuck Smith”

This item from CNS News:

(CNSNews.com) - President Barack Obama’s overall approval rating stood at 49 percent for the most recent three-day period, and at 50 percent for the week ending May 8, but it would be lower than that if America consisted exclusively of people who attend church with some regularity.

Maybe church going Christians aren’t as deceived as previously thought.  At least they know enough not to like or approve of Obama.

Tags: Obama, church, approval, ratings

This news from Reuters today:

(Reuters) – The Episcopal diocese of Los Angeles ordained an openly lesbian bishop on Saturday, a move likely to stoke further tensions between liberals and conservatives in the deeply divided global Anglican Communion.

…is growing evidence of just how far the mainstream churches have fallen from a biblical worldview.  Ordaining women into the clergy is one thing that certainly is far from being universally accepted yet doesn’t quite fall into the realm of brazen heresy.  There are legitimate biblical viewpoints both for and against women in ministry.

What is clear is that the practice of homosexuality is sin ( Lev. 18:22; 20:13; Rom. 1:24,26,27).  It is impossible to say that the bible approves of homosexuality so one must either deny the scriptures the authority to speak in that area or attempt to so cloud the issues that the clear intent of the passages become the exact opposite of what they clearly say.  In other words, the flagrant homosexual pretending to be Christian must either deny the Scriptures’ authority over his/her behavior or they must invent a "new" way of interpreting the bible so that it doesn’t say what it actually does say.

A rough definition of sin might be expressed thus: "I know what the Scriptures, but I don’t like it, so I’ll do what I want anyway."  Romans 1:32 has God’s reply:

32 Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Tags: apostasy, church, lesbian, bishop

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