May/June 2018

Antique fountain pen on parchment.

From the Editor May/Jun 2018

As I sat in church a few weeks ago, a friend I hadn’t seen in a long time turned around to tell me how cute my grandchildren are. My first thought was, How would you know what my grandchildren look like? They live 600 miles away. And then it dawned on me: Facebook!

Inside View May/Jun 2018

Nowadays, trying to discern between truth and fake news is a full-time job. Such is also the case with the distinction between Israel and the church. I believe God’s Word clearly teaches Israel is not the church, and the church is not Israel…

Silhouette of man speaking.

Scrubbing the Nazi Stain

Someone who stands before a faucet many times a day scrubbing up for fear of germs and general contamination suffers from mysophobia. The condition, which can lead to extreme anxiety, disrupts normal contact with others…

Map of the Middle East.

Is Iran Forcing Israel Into War?

In a dramatic escalation of tensions along Israel’s northern border, an Iranian attack-drone recently violated Israeli airspace. Israel shot down the drone and then sent warplanes into Syria to take out the command center that launched…

Christian Persecution May/Jun 2018

CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION is the worst it has ever been, according to a recent study by Christian persecution watchdog Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). “In terms of the numbers of people involved, the gravity of the crimes committed…

Happy Birthday, Israel!

For years I had a dream. I wanted my hometown baseball team (the Cleveland Indians) to play the Chicago Cubs in the World Series. I had adopted the Cubs when I lived in Chicago. Both teams excelled at losing…

The New Titans

It rarely snows in Washington, DC. So when the big North American blizzard known as Snowmageddon dumped more than two feet of snow in the U.S. capital in February 2010, shutting down the federal government for an unprecedented four days…

Using the New World of Connectivity

Pastor David Lemming logs onto social media almost every day. He stays in touch with his people by encouraging them with a Bible verse, linking last week’s sermon so they can watch it online, and sometimes giving them a glimpse into the sermon he’s preparing for the following Sunday….

The Cyber War Against Israel

Facebook. YouTube. Instagram. Twitter. For most of us, these sites serve as entertaining outlets where we post pictures, share opinions, and watch videos of cats (so I’m told) or of a deer eating a snowman. (That one was viewed several hundred thousand times.) But for Israel, social-media platforms have become…

Echo Chambers of Hate

Every 83 seconds, someone uploads an anti-Semitic post to social media. In 2016 alone, more than 382,000 anti-Semitic posts appeared on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram1—many of which were never removed—denying the Holocaust; portraying the Jewish people as genetically inferior…

Five Facts You Should Know About Israel

Have you ever wondered why the Jewish people have been scattered throughout the nations of the world more consistently than any other people? Why anti–Semitism persists in rearing its ugly head repeatedly throughout history? Why Nazism specifically targeted the Jewish people for genocide in the…

What If Abraham Had Never Existed

“Abraham never existed, but his cousin did!” said one of my professors during a graduate course on Israel’s early history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He believed Abraham and all the…

The Day of the Lord

1 Thessalonians 5:1–3: In 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18, we saw that Christians (both dead and living) will be raptured to be with Christ when He appears to receive His church. But what about those left behind?…

Unexpected Grace

Harry was one of those unforgettable characters. We were climbing a mountain during a thunderstorm when he said he needed to tell me something…

Israel in the News May/Jun 2018

A wave of anti-Semitism has been washing over Poland after the country banned all speech that suggests Polish complicity in the Holocaust, and the nation’s Jewish community is worried…

Apples of Gold May/Jun 2018

It is written in Isaiah 49:6, “I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles, that You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.” People are coming to Israel from the ends of the…