Lee Harmon's Blog, page 40

Matthew 16:18, Pope Peter

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

//It’s surely not my intention to discredit the Catholic Church, but one of its teachings doesn’t quite jibe with the Bible. It’s this idea that Peter was the successor to Jesus, the leader of the new community of Christians. The first Pope.

This doctrine is founded primarily upon today’s verse, in which Jesus seems to designate Peter as the foundation fo...

Book review: Coffee with Jesus

by David Wilkie

★★★★

Coffee with Jesus isn’t your everyday comic book. You think it’s easy putting words on the lips of Jesus, while avoiding the sacrilegious? I get the feeling that Wilkie toned it down just a little to take the edge off. He could have been much more pointed. Yet it really is as amusing as it is serious how Jesus pokes holes in our religiosity, just sipping coffee and offering advice. Jesus’ gentle sarcasm hits the mark time after time.

It’s a great book, but I have to point ou...

Ezekiel 37:13-14, The Spirit’s Arrival and the End of Time

And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves, And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live.



//Ezekiel, here, didn’t appear to be talking about a literal resurrection. His vision of the resurrection of dry bones relates to restoring the people of Israel back to their homeland. However, this verse in time began to play a role in eschatological dreams (For Jews, that means expectations about the coming age of their p...

Revelation 22:19, The Covenant of Revelation

And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

//This verse appears at the very end of our Bible, warning us not to tinker with any of the words in the book of Revelation. This threat surely doesn’t refer to the Bible as a whole, but to the covenant of Revelation … a covenant of a new heaven and new earth to come.

Yes, I said “covenant....

Matthew 26:57, The Unlikely Trial

And they that had laid hold on Jesus led him away to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were assembled.

//In the Gospel of John, there is no trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrin (the ruling council of the Jews). But the other three gospels tell of this trial, a sort of kangaroo court, in which Jesus is condemned by the Jews prior to turning him over to the Romans.

One wonders how this could be true. The likelihood of Caiaphas (the high priest) sending messengers around Je...

Matthew 7:14, Who Shall Be Saved?

Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

//Who will be saved? Just how strait is this gate? This is far too great a topic for a simple answer, but it’s a question that lends itself well to the spirit of my blog: that is, raising questions for contemplation. Consider these two contradictory verses:

For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. –Romans 10:13

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall en...

Book review: The Making of the Lamb

by Robert Harley Bear

★★★★

What really happened during Jesus’ “lost years” between his appearance at the Temple at age 12 and his ministry at about age 30? Did he grow up in Egypt? India? Or working with his father as a carpenter in Tiberias?

Bear’s story builds upon a medieval legend of Jesus visiting Britain, perhaps under the care of Joseph of Arimathea, who was in some versions of the legend Jesus’ great uncle and a tin merchant. Maybe you’ve read Gordon Strachan’sJesus the Master Builder: D...

Exodus 19:4, On Eagles’ Wings

You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.

//What a glorious picture this is, of God saving his people on the wings of an eagle! Does it change the picture if the word eagle–Hebrew nesher–is probably not an eagle at all, but a vulture? Note that the same Hebrew word nesher is translated differently in this verse:

The eye that mocks a father, that scorns an aged mother, will be pecked out by the ravens of the valley, will be ea...

Job 29:10, The Humbling of Job

The voices of the nobles were hushed, and their tongues stuck to the roof of their mouths.



//Job, says the Bible, was the greatest, richest man of his time. And he seemed quite aware of his greatness. Someday, take a glance at chapter 29. You’ll find a Job you may not recognize.

In this chapter, Job bemoans his fall from grace, and wishes for the old days. He used to be so much greater than everyone else that as he walked down the street the crowds parted for him. Noblemen fell into a hushed si...

Book review: Philosophy for Believers

by Edward W. H. Vick

★★★★

This is an introductory philosophy text, complete with worksheets, focusing primarily on the subject of the nature of truth and how we know something to be true. What makes this text unique is that it chooses Christianity for its playground.

Do not assume an argument will be presented justifying Christian belief. Apologetics is not the focus at all. The exercises and examples often relate to Christian thinking, but you’ll find little resolution. In fact, the discussion...