Snapshots and Synapses

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...