Snapshots and Synapses

Why should anyone go to church? Isn't it enough to love God and love others? And aren’t so many churches filled with hypocrites and money-grabbers? I get more from reading my Bible than hearing someone speak a dumbed down or hyped up sermon spattered with a few Bible verses, so why should I waste my time in a church service? Besides, I have been hurt and betrayed by church people. Why subject myself to further pain? Around this time of year over 20 years ago I was given a series of visions that showed how many people would leave church. That doesn’t seem so strange now, but even when I wrote why  I don’t want to go to church , it was a new phenomenon. Re-reading my post, it rings more true today. I can give you the bottom line:  We go to church because God says we need it.  My walk with Him is stronger today because I listened, albeit reluctantly, and I understand the purpose of church as a result. There are pastors who can’t make that claim. I know that for a fact becaus...

How Should Christians View Jews? I'll start answering this question by pointing out that the most effective lie is a half-truth. The half-truth leaves holes in between the whole truth, making it believable yet incomplete, the vacuum between facts pulling in all sorts of false assumptions. That is why the US court system makes witnesses swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It does not ask someone to tell "their truth" because the truth is true regardless of how someone perceives it. The truth is not subjective, changing with the perspective of the individual; rather, it is objective, unchanging and factual. Artemis II was not created with opinions or subjective perspectives. It's mission was successful because scientists applied objective facts when building and designing the spacecraft and its flight plan. In the same way, your opinion and my opinion about the Jewish people don't matter from a biblical perspective. Yes, there are dif...

I believe the Lord told me how to prepare for the “End Times”. Now to be technically correct, we have been in the End Times since Jesus ascension to heaven, but now we are near the end of the Age. There’s so much I could elaborate on that topic, but I believe it might take away from instead encouraging you to read this handbook for the end of the age . Written nearly a decade ago, it remains true and relevant to the world we live in now.

AI & Humanity See "Is AI a Threat to Humanity?" ( Part 1 and Part 2 ) for more context. If this question is of interest to you, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has a couple articles worth reading, especially as how the first, short post relates to the second one: What Your AI Knows About You   Over 4,732 Messages, He Fell In Love With an AI Chatbot. Now He’s Dead. What does AI know about you? According to the first article above: "Try asking your bot: What do you know about me? How do you tailor your responses to me? What are my likes and dislikes? "The results might be surprisingly personal. ChatGPT learned that I love cilantro, and my style is best described as “functional minimalism.” Meanwhile, Claude, which I’ve been using more recently, listed details so specific I’d have to redact them here." The first article explains how AI's ability to learn about you makes it valuable, but in light of the second article and other points I'll note here, I w...

I’m re-posting my 15 year old thoughts for Easter. Don’t let the title fool you; it’s not Easter that’s absurd. But you’ll see what I mean… Easter: An Absurd Celebration

 I’m again going to post a previous blog since it embodies what I would otherwise write again: Who Is this Person, Jesus?

 Rather than writing something new, I thought it better to revisit a post from 2021:

  The question “What happened to biblical orthodoxy?” is a complex question. It implies “something happened”, and to be honest, most people reading this now are probably struggling with other questions, such as “What is biblical orthodoxy” and possibly “why should I care?”. So, let’s start there. What is Biblical Orthodoxy, and Why Should I Care? BibleHub provides a very nice description of orthodoxy below: In a general sense, “Orthodoxy” refers to right or correct belief, drawn from the Greek words orthos (“straight” or “correct”) and doxa (“belief” or “glory”). Within Christian context, it denotes the set of doctrines historically affirmed by the Church and tested by Scripture (cf.  2 Timothy 3:16 : “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness…”). Throughout history, “Orthodoxy” has been shaped by essential creeds-such as the Nicene Creed (A.D. 325) - which define foundational Christian tenet...

When I met my wife, I was recently separated from the Navy and she was an intern for a congressman. Within a year, I proposed, and 6 months later, we were married. There was so much that we didn’t know, that we were trying to figure out. We had both recommitted our lives to Jesus shortly before meeting, and although I had a bachelor’s degree and experience as a naval officer, finances were tight. I was trying to figure out a vocational path and praying for God’s leading. He led me, but didn’t give me the answer I wanted to hear. I clearly heard Him tell me that it didn’t matter what I did vocationally so long as I took Him with me. I asked my spiritual mentors at the time if that sounded right, and they all affirmed it. On one hand it was freeing and on the other hand it was frustrating. I wanted a clear answer, and instead I was given freedom and along with it: responsibility. At that time, Dr. James Dobson, a christian psychologist, had a radio ministry called Focus on the Family, an...

I believe we have largely forgotten what authentic manhood looks like. I’m not referring to the physical or biological attributes of being a man. Those are obvious regardless of how someone wants to “identify”, and I’m not planning to waste words on that topic. I’m referring to masculine behavioral attributes. The truth is that behavior can be positive or negative, and some behaviors are simply toxic. But I’m also not going down the rabbit hole of toxic masculinity in this short blog other than this: toxic behavior has no gender even if we have the tendency to associate a behavioral trait as belonging to a specific gender. So there is no “toxic masculinity” or “toxic femininity”; there is simply toxic behavior. These toxic behaviors are like counterfeit money; regardless of the gender associated with a certain behavior, the action itself is a poor imitation of the behavior that godly men and women should exhibit. So continuing with the analogy of counterfeit money, we should study the ...

War is sometimes necessary but never desirable.  What we see in Iran is a failure to reconcile. No matter who started this conflict or what narrative you listen to, when the conflict becomes physically violent and when one or more parties in the conflict continues to be committed to the utter destruction of its opponent, the only way to peace is victory, removing your opponent’s ability to harm you.  The government in Iran is committed to the destruction of both Israel and the United States. It has oppressed the people of Iran. It has funded global terrorism and continues to seek nuclear weapons capability. What would it do with that ability? It’s not hard to imagine. So I am praying for a quick, effective and complete resolution to this conflict, for protection of innocents inside and outside of Iran, and protection for the military members of the multinational forces assembled against the Iranian government.  This is not just a war that affects Israel. It is stopping a ...

There’s a story in the Book of Acts about an Ethiopian man who is reading from the Book of Isaiah. The man was a court official, representing Queen Candace, so he would have been both intelligent and educated, considered competent to represent his kingdom, but he was unable to understand the Scripture until God sent Philip to explain it to him. Phillip, led by the Holy Spirit, approached the man and asked: “Do you understand what you are reading?”. The man replied: “How can I, unless someone guides me?” We can often feel that way, and people can blindly accept the teachings of a so-called Bible expert, looking for someone like Philip to explain things to them. In the process, we can lose sight of Who should be our Teacher. Now I’m not saying to disregard what others have to teach us; Proverbs tells us to seek many counselors  in the pursuit of wisdome. However, I’ve spoken with more than one person who sounded like that Ethiopian man, not knowing how to understand because they hea...

When I review how some popular AI platforms responded to my query , I wonder what the current state of AI truly is, and if it poses an “existential threat” to humanity. In other words: does AI pose a threat to the very existence of mankind? The short answer to the second part of my question is: absolutely not.  The longer answer is that while Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to completely destroy mankind, it will never succeed. I know this because I can trust the Bible. I can see how God has fulfilled so many prophecies and have confidence that He will ultimately fulfill all Biblical prophecies and in a literal sense. A hundred years ago, Biblical scholars believed that unfulfilled prophecies about Israel were more figurative than literal because they could not see a world where the nation of Israel could be reborn. That misunderstanding still persists in some churches today. But the Bible foretold both the diaspora and the re-establishment of Israel, and we can look...

How should we pray? Before answering that, I believe we should ask ourselves why are we asking? Do we want to know the best format or the best formula for prayer? Or maybe we desire to make our prayers more powerful. Perhaps we want to know why some people's prayers are answered but ours are not.  Some people may quickly respond: we should say the Lord's Prayer! Once Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he stopped praying, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples.” Jesus told them, “When you pray, say this: Father, let your name be kept holy. Let your kingdom come. Give us our bread day by day. Forgive us as we forgive everyone else. Don’t allow us to be tempted.” Luke 11:1-4  But some people looking for just the right formula may question this. Should we say the Lord's Prayer like we do in church or like Luke showed us in the passage above? Or should we follow the pattern in Matthew below? “When you pray, don’t be like hy...

This may be my blog, but the majority of this content I didn’t write. I wrote the prompt (see end of article) and queried 3 commonly available Artificial Intelligence (AI) engines. So this is not my analysis, but a compilation of AI’s threat to humanity from the perspective of M365 CoPilot, X/Twitter Grok, and Google Gemini. This is much longer than my typical post.  Because AI can often say things authoritatively yet incorrect, I've provided an  Author's Note where appropriate.

The United States of America had obviously not been formed when the Bible was authored, so “USA” and “America” are not words you’ll find in the Bible. However, that doesn’t mean that Bible prophecy is missing key points or that the Bible doesn’t have anything to say about the United States of America. It does mean that if there are one or more prophecies about America in the Bible, the prophecy will not clearly name the US. I have written before about America in the Bible. When I wrote America in the End Times ( Part 1 and Part 2 ) in 2021, I was concerned about the growing division in America. I also referenced Isaiah’s prophecy against Ethiopia (Isaiah 18). At the time I recall thinking of Ethiopia as a country, but believing Isaiah’s prophecy was about America because it referred to an unnamed country beyond the borders of Ethiopia. I have since realized that “Ethiopia” is the English translation for “Cush”, and that Cush refers to the land occupied by the descendants of Cush, whic...

“Why God?” is a cry people often make when they question why God allowed something to happen, but that is not what this short discourse is about. It’s actually more foundational, and while I’m not planning to prove anything, I am going to briefly describe why it’s logical to believe in God. While belief in God requires faith, it is not blind faith. There are multiple “logical” arguments that provide a rationale for belief in God and one practical decision matrix that even a child could understand. (I was that child!) Gr. Logos - word, discourse, reason  I don’t think it coincidence that Jesus was described by his close friend John as Logos. See John 1:1. In the beginning was the Word [gr. Logos], and the Word [gr. Logos] was with God, and the Word [gr. Logos] was fully God. These logical arguments for the existence of God are briefly described below. Cosmological Argument Gr. Cosmos - the order of the world or universe  aka Unmoved Mover or Prime Mover; the concept that cause...