Pastor Gabe's Old Blog

Donald Trump is not David or Solomon. He is not the Apostle Paul. He's not Samson. He isn't Nebuchadnezzar or Cyrus either. He's Donald Trump. To try and mirror him with any of these biblical characters is nothing but eisegesis -- imposing something on the text the reader wants it to say but it doesn't actually say. The bias should be obvious. If Trump can be Nebuchadnezzar or Cyrus, why can't Hillary? And why is Trump only comparable to someone like Kings David or Solomon, Samson or Paul, and not someone like Kings Saul or Ahaz, Balaam or Simon the Magician? I've made a comparison before between Trump and Ahaz . King Ahaz refused to ask the Lord for help just as Donald Trump has refused to ask God for forgiveness. At last year's Family Leadership Summit, Trump was asked if he has ever asked forgiveness for his sins. "I don't bring God into that picture," he said. Consider the story of Simon the Magician, who had everyone in Samaria be...

In 1 Timothy 4:13, the Apostle Paul instructed, "Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching." Later he wrote, "I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching." Yet there are liberal theologians who argue that we don't need to use the Bible when we preach. We can talk about Jesus without the Bible, they say, what He said and what He did, even though we don't know about any of that without the Bible. Ironically, they have biblical arguments to explain why they don't need to preach from the Scriptures. (If all of this sounds confusing, that's because it is.) The following is a response to the five most commonly (mis)used passages. This is part 2 of my critique of Andy Stanley's 7,500 word article in ...

"First, the elephant in the room," says Andy Stanley, beginning a 7,500 word apologetic argument published by Outreach Magazine  on Friday. "I believe the Bible is without error in everything it affirms. I believe what the Bible says is true, is true." So there you have it. Stanley believes the Bible is inerrant. Only, not really. The article follows recent scrutiny incurred by Stanley when he said at a conference last month that if he were the evangelical pope, he would tell pastors to take the spotlight off the Bible and put it on the resurrection. The silly thing is: you don't know about the resurrection without the Bible. In that same conversation with Dr. Russell Moore, Stanley openly and proudly admitted that sometimes he preaches entire sermons without ever quoting Scripture. Stanley doubled-down on his statements when, in a sermon the following Sunday, he said that the old Sunday school song, "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells...