Free Republic

Buzzfeed reporter Charlie Warzel, who claims inspiration from the biblical Mark of the Beast, has his hand implanted with a payment chip and lives for a month wallet and cash-free.  This report is beyond disturbing and shows how utterly debased the secular mind has grown in just the last few years.  Now, not only is this kind of thing not shied away from, but unbelievers are actually finding inspiration in Revelation 13:16-17 for what a cashless society should look like. Here is his article, amazingly titled "Satan's Credit Card: What The Mark Of The Beast Taught Me About The Future...

On May 15, Al-Alam TV broadcast a report on the opening of the third International Holocaust Cartoon Contest in Tehran. The exhibition features caricatures of Israeli PM Netanyahu, comparing him to Hitler and to ISIS terrorists. The organizer, Shojai Tabtabai, said that the exhibition was "a response to the publication of cartoons by the French Charlie Hebdo magazine, which affronted the Prophet Muhammad, as well as an expression of [our opposition] to the massacres perpetrated against the Palestinian people." Reporter: "As a form of expression of the Palestinian cause, and in the context of the massacres, perpetrated by the Zionists...

Some thoughts I've been stringing together over the Labor Day weekend involve Heaven, the New Jerusalem, the Tabernacle, and the Temples. In the Old and New Testaments, the Hebrew and Greek etymology of the words that translate to atmosphere, space, and what we commonly, in our language, refer to as "Heaven", are the same.  In the Bible, Heaven is the sky, the stars, and the place where God dwells "behind the veil". "I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know,...

We have lost the great art of Bible meditation today, and we are the poorer for it. In 1987, newsman Ted Koppel gave a classic commencement speech at Duke, in which he famously said that Moses didn’t come down from Mt. Sinai carrying the “Ten Suggestions.” Note what Koppel then said about television and our ability to concentrate: “Look at MTV or Good Morning America and watch the images and ideas flash past in a blur of impressionistic appetizers. No, there is not much room on TV for complexity.” We have been losing concentration power through the constant stimulation of...

Faith vs. works.  Christians have debated this topic for two thousand years and still do.  At the heart of the debate you have two (seemingly) opposing sides: Team Faith says works are not required for salvation.  Salvation is received by grace through faith alone (John 6:28-29, Ephesians 2:8-9, Romans 4:5, Romans 11:6, Galatians 2:21).  They believe that making works a requirement for salvation ignores the very message of the Gospel that Jesus died for our sins and rose again (1 Corinthians 15:1-4), which the Apostle Paul calls "of first importance."  This is Christianity 101.  If Jesus died for your...

Atheists bash hotel Bibles: They’d prefer a Darwinian replacement! by Paul Price A recent article from The Christian Institute reported that the US-based ‘Freedom From Religion Foundation’ is now asking for ‘Bible-free’ bedrooms to be offered in hotels.1 For all of us who have been following the cultural trends in the West, this development should hardly come as a surprise—the anti-God agenda has been making further and further encroachments into traditionally Christian strongholds, as more and more of the culture has become saturated with secularism. The atheist group cited the actions of the Travelodge hotel chain, who removed all Bibles...

These are some of the most common lies that many Christians have fallen victim to.  I hear many of these quite frequently and in years past have even fallen for some of them myself.  The enemy has used each of these lies to sow great discord, apathy, and fear in the Body of Christ.   It's time to dispel them all. 1. "I must do _____ to be saved or keep doing _____ to stay saved." This is what virtually every religion teaches, but not true Christianity.   Unsurprisingly, every "Christian" cult teaches this as well.  The very definition of...

HOOD RIVER, Ore. (KATU) - The view from the Belmont Drive Missionary Baptist Church is beautiful, but many say the messages outside the church are downright ugly. The reader board now displays two messages. The first reads, "Wake up Christians. Allah is not our God. Muhammad not greater than Jesus." The second says, "Only the Bible is God's word. 'Holy book.' Koran is just another book." "I literally had to stop and back up and make sure I saw what I saw, and I was profoundly offended and upset by it," Eric Cohn said. [Snip] "I was really annoyed...

This is the second in a series of essays on the duty of Christians in civic affairs, adapted from Kevin Kookogey’s weekly radio address and podcasts at advancingchurch.com. This week we begin our examination of questions from listeners. 1. Christians should be informed about politics, but should they really determine which political side is correct? How can one claim that it is important for Christians to be informed about politics if the conclusion one draws from the information is deemed irrelevant or off limits? It is, after all, conclusions that lead one to act and to act is to take...

Can anyone recommend a particular publisher and version of the Geneva Bible which will contain the Reformers' notes? I want to get some feel for the Reformers' ideas on the relationship, limits, and obligations between the Christian citizen and the State. Thanks in advance!

LAPORTE, Ind., Feb. 16 /PRNewswire/ -- C. Jack Trickler presents a clear and accessible study of the people who wrote the books of the Bible, their motivations and the historical, political and social settings in which they wrote in his new book, "A Layman's Guide to Who Wrote the Books of the Bible?" (now available through AuthorHouse). Trickler discusses his own theories, as well as those of other religious scholars, to offer a thorough, well-researched argument. "When you get into the Bible, you see enough evidence that the Bible was written by humans that you have to say, 'Well, who...

Michael Voris makes it known that he was a homosexual and wishes that he had said so earlier.

"My" meekness is your strength for it is as you are moved only by the fortitude of My love that "True Zeal" then takes over and abides in you "As a River" forging and carving the path of My very will for your life "In Me" Acts 17:28 28 For in Him we live and move and exist [that is, in Him we actually have our being], as even some of [a]your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’ Matthew 5:5 5 “Blessed [inwardly peaceful, spiritually secure, worthy of respect] are the [a]gentle [the kind-hearted, the sweet-spirited,...

Few influences affect a man’s heart for God more than his wife, for better or for worse. She will either encourage his spiritual devotion to the Lord or she will hinder it. She will either enlarge his passion for God or she will pour cold water on it. What kind of wife encourages her husband’s spiritual growth? Proverbs 31:10–31 provides a profile of the wife who is worthy of her husband’s trust. Such a wife is the embodiment of true wisdom from God, causing the husband to confide in her with complete trust.“An excellent wife who can find? She is...

The United States will push for a two-state peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians until the end of President Barack Obama's mandate, Secretary of State John Kerry announced on Monday, according to AFP. Speaking in Washington to a conference held by J Street, Kerry said attacks like Monday's on an Israeli bus in Jerusalem only underlined the need for a negotiated solution. "Despite the fact that we have spent time and effort to try to get there for these past few years I can tell you that for these next nine months we will not stop working to find...

The answer is no. Now let’s explain. Doug Wilson has published an opinion that “taxation can be done right,” by which he means there is legitimate taxation according to the Bible. While I esteem much of Rev. Wilson, and there is tremendous overlap between us in general, I disagree with this sentiment, and I think it is important for the Christian’s overall vision of the future. I offer this intramural essay. Doug makes a distinction between taxation that is without biblical warrant and taxation with biblical warrant, and which we should therefore accept as normative for society. While we would...

Let’s begin by dispelling some myths about Christians and political affairs. A common misconception lurks among American Christians that politics can be separated from our beliefs and that the Church – the Body of Christ - should not be engaged in the political arena. Nothing could be further from the truth. Elections, conventions and politics are merely practical means for implementing a body of beliefs about the human condition. Every policy advanced, every piece of legislation passed and every opinion rendered by a court presupposes certain beliefs about the nature and relationship between humanity and government: from whom and how...

Certain texts of the Bible may have been written earlier than previously believed, according to a new research based on the handwriting analysis of ancient inscriptions. It is dated to be at least 600 B.C. and the presumption is that literacy was prevalent and the texts were composed in the kingdom of Judah, a city with biblical reverence, according to researchers from the Tel Aviv University. They suggest that the educational infrastructure to support Bible writing presumably existed at that time.

The American Library Association has revealed that the Bible is among the books most often challenged and called to be banned in libraries. "You have people who feel that if a school library buys a copy of the Bible, it's a violation of church and state," said James LaRue, who directs the Office for Intellectual Freedom for the American Library Association, according to The Associated Press. "And sometimes there's a retaliatory action, where a religious group has objected to a book and a parent might respond by objecting to the Bible." Guidelines for the Office for Intellectual Freedom have clarified...

Based on a statistical analysis of the results, and taking into account the content of the texts that were chosen for the sample, the researchers concluded that at least six different hands had written the 18 missives at around the same time. Even soldiers in the lower ranks of the Judahite army, it appears, could read and write... The study was based on a trove of about 100 letters inscribed in ink on pieces of pottery, known as ostracons, that were unearthed near the Dead Sea in an excavation of the Arad fort decades ago and dated from about 600...