Bible In The News

The attack on an Israeli owned tanker in the Persian Gulf, last week has emphasized once again the rivalry between Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel in this volatile region.

This week in the news Ben and Jerry’s, a US-based company who sell ice-cream have decided to boycott Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the area that is biblically know as “the mountains of Israel”.

The concept of Jews being allowed to worship on the Temple Mount violates the "status quo" in Jerusalem at this point in time. Regardless of what politicians desire, this will soon be changed by the hand of Almighty God. 

On July 12 it was reported that an artifact from the time of the judges had been discovered, with a fairly clear inscription of the name Jerubbaal! On July 14 it was announced that a segment of Jerusalem’s First Temple city wall had been uncovered!

The ugly past of Canada's residential schools have been in the headlines. What is not always recognized is the record of the Catholic Church in particular, with abuse and forced conversions. John Billington addresses these issues and explains their significance in light of Bible truth.

This week was an awkward one for the Catholic Church. In a show of power, the US Conference of Bishops voted overwhelmingly to deny communion to the nation’s second Catholic president, Joe Biden, due to his support of abortion, and in another embarrassment, hundreds of unmarked graves were discovered in Canada at residential schools that were run by the Church. These events are part of a bigger picture showing the unprecedented influence of the Roman Church over the world's most powerful nations.

There are many empty homes in Arab West Bank houses, we investigate why.

In 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, the Apostle Paul warns the believers that there would be a falling away from the Gospel Truth, which they had been taught and had believed. In fact, he specifically says that this iniquity was already at work. This falling away or apostasy was restrained, but Paul says it would be revealed and would eventually be destroyed at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. This Christian apostasy was restrained by Paganism, the current religion of the Roman Empire at the time of the Apostle. When Paganism was removed out of the way by the armies of Constantine, a changed Christianity was the new religion of the Empire. The figure head of this falling away is called "that man of sin" who exalted himself above everything, “…so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.”

This week saw a coalition of unlikely partners join together to overthrow Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel was just at the center of world news with the Gaza war, now it returns to the forefront withe a political earthquake, which if the alliance holds with bring into power a completely diverse group, unlikely to be able to hold together. 

Tragically the worst violence in years has broken out in Israel between the Palestinians and the Israelis with Jerusalem being a focal point in the conflict. In today’s episode we look at this recent conflict in the light of Bible prophecy. Welcome to another Bible in the News.

The Peace agreement achieved by Donald Trump when President of the U.S. was short lived. The "Abraham Accords" brought together several Arab countries in an amazing peace deal with Israel which appeared to be fulfilling the prophecy of Ezekiel 38:14."Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say unto Gog, Thus saith the Lord GOD; In that day when my people of Israel dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it?"

Hello, this is Paul Billington bringing you another edition of the Bible in the news. An article in the Daily Mail had the headline:Open Air Bible Speaker Arrested as he Expounded Genesis chapter One Verse 27“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

The ‘Great Reset’ is a prominent idea put forward for refashioning the world. This is not a fringe concept — the World Economic Forum has a microsite dedicated to the ‘Great Reset’. Reseting our world entails changing all aspects of society and the economy. The World Ecomonmic Forum says, "In short, we need a 'Great Reset' of capitalism.” Capitalism is the economic basis for the Western world. The founder of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab says of Covid 19, “The pandemic represents a rare but narrow opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world.” One of the well known slogans of the "Great Reset” is that by 2030, “You’ll own nothing. And you’ll be happy.” In other words, you won’t own your own business, you’ll work for a large corporation like Amazon and the government will look after you. This may at first seem merely like a conspiracy theory or fringe idea, but spend a few minutes researching it and you

This week we turn back in time in light of a report on an exciting archaeological discovery in Israel that supports the historicity of the Biblical record with clear evidence of a Semitic alphabet existing at the time of Moses. This discovery supports the synchronization of the Biblical text with Egyptian history. A tiny pottery shard inscribed with ink unearthed at Lachish in Israel dates to 3,500 years ago and is the oldest Semitic text from the Southern Levant to use alphabetic writing, rather than pictographic.

This week we have seen Russian aggression again in the news as we would expect from Bible prophecies relating to the time period just before the return of the Lord Jesus Christ from heaven. 

The COVID-19 vaccine role out, seen by many as the lifeline back to normality and the end of the pandemic, has over the last few months become a political win for some politicians, and a disaster for others. Leaders of countries that put in early orders for the vaccine, such as the UK, Serbia and Israel have been quick to try to gain credit for the successful role out in their countries, while EU leaders have been in much more difficult positions

Bible students were interested to see that just this last week the Pope received the Prime Minister of the Ukraine. This is of real interest to us because it's another example of the western Catholic Church meeting with a leader from eastern Europe. As Christadelphians, we expect to see some form of unification of east and west at the time of the end. In fact this last month has been particularly interesting when we reflect on the activities of the papacy. At the beginning of the month, the Pope visited Iraq. This was of significance as it was the first visit the Pope has made to a foreign country, following over a year of lockdown. Headlines such as “Rome meets Babylon” were shown across the world.

A Brazilian once observed, "In Ireland even the cattle in the fields are either Catholic or Protestant. You can tell which by looking at them." 

Pope Francis’ visit to the Middle East comes at a time when the region has been dramatically reshaped. At a critical time for Iraq, for Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. Francis’ visit is presented as an effort to support Iraq’s struggling Christian community  and with a message of peace and tolerance for the region. However, the visit has powerful political messages.

This week saw the cementing of alliances between Russia and Iran being counterbalanced with an embryonic formation of Gulf State Military Alliance between Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the UAE.