Proof The Bible Is True

Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologists have unearthed a road running from Jerusalem’s gates and the Pool of Siloam to the Temple. “Jesus would have walked on this newly excavated road to the Temple Mount”, said Moran Hagbi, one of the directors of the excavation. The archaeologists also discovered evidence of the last battle between Roman forces and Jewish rebels which resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70. Read More: Archaeologists discover road on which Jesus walked from Pool of Siloam to temple

American Bible Society has released its fifth annual study of America’s most Bible-minded cities. Once again, the Southeast dominates the list of cities that show strong engagement with God’s Word and strong belief in the accuracy of the Bible. For the second year in a row and fourth out of the last five, Chattanooga, Tennessee, is the most Bible-minded city, followed by Birmingham, Alabama, and Roanoke/Lynchburg, Virginia. The only top-ten city outside the Southeast was Springfield, Missouri (#7). ABS spokesman Arthur Satterwhite says, “For us as American Bible Society, this survey helps to inform our work in the U.S. as [More]

The latest census in Australia has shown a dramatic fall in those who identify as Christian, and a significant rise in those with ‘no religion’. For the first time in its history, the proportion of Australians who say they have ‘no religion’ (29.6 per cent) overtook the number who identify as Catholic (22.6 per cent), according to analysis of Australia’s 2016 census by The Guardian. In 1996, just 0.6 per cent of the population marked ‘no religion’ on their census, but has seen a dramatic shift in the following decades. In 2001 the figure was 16 per cent, which nearly [More]

“It appears, even among those calling themselves Christians, that Britain is now solidly in a post Christian era.”  Admin British people, especially Christians, are increasingly more accepting of same-sex marriage, abortion, pornography, and sex before marriage. Conducted in 2016, the latest edition of the British Social Attitudes survey found acceptance of same-sex relationships has increased particularly rapidly in the last four years, especially amongst Christians. A strong majority of the UK public, 64 per cent, now say same-sex relationships are “not wrong at all”, up from 57 per cent in 2013 – the year before gay marriage became legal. On [More]

Support for same-sex marriage has soared to records levels in the US with all religious groups showing a rise in approval for gay relationships.   Latest figures from Pew Research reveal Americans are in favour of same-sex marriage by almost two-to-one with recent shifts meaning even Baby Boomers (aged 53-71) are now in favour of allowing gay and lesbian people to marry.   Reuters For the first time as many Republicans support gay marriage as oppose it with more than three-quarters of Democrats in favour, data published on Monday showed.   Read More: Evangelicals support for same-sex marriage rises – [More]

Harvest America 2017 is being held in the University of Phoenix stadium and everywhere else by simulcast, and is intended by Harvest America creator evangelist Greg Laurie to address a country in need of hope. Not only is the event expected to fill the Phoenix stadium, it is being simulcast it thousands of host locations –…

Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal church Are Christians betraying the Great Commission? The world is facing a religious revolution. Within the century, if current trends continue, Islam, already the fastest growing religion, will outpace Christianity to become the largest faith in the world. In Europe, once called “Christendom,” Christianity has all but collapsed as Islam continues…

  This year marks the 500th anniversary of one of the most important events in history, the Protestant Reformation.   The world is converging on Wittenberg in eastern Germany this summer, where 500 years ago a local professor of moral theology is said to have nailed 95 theses to a church door, and by that single act, changed the world.   Germany is now in the middle of a yearlong national celebration. But Luther’s time was rarely this colorful and tidy as re-enactments today. The 1500s in Germany were cold, muddy, dreary and rude. Luther’s Time: Back to the Future [More]

Splintered into small congregations meeting secretively in the homes of fellow church attendees, the members of a house church in China’s southern Guizhou province penned a letter describing how government persecution obliterated their finances, imprisoned and tortured their leaders, and fractured their thriving church body. Beginning with the church’s founding, the members of Huoshi Church traced its entire history with the government, insisting that the Communist Party abused them despite their attempts to comply with the law, which included reporting on all of their activities to the local religious affairs and public security bureaus. As the church quickly swelled into [More]

Disputes over government surveillance devices in house churches continue in China’s coastal Zhejiang as officials cut power and water supplies to several area churches and the homes of church leadership at the beginning of June. Members of Tuanqian Village Church in Rui’an, a county-level city in Wenzhou, Zhejiang, spoke with reporters on June 4, saying that after their church refused to install government surveillance equipment, they lost power and water to several buildings associated with the church. Read More: Further denials of water, electricity for house churches in Wenzhou – China Aid

“Brother Matthew” is a pastor and church planter in South Asia, working among Muslims to share the gospel. After threats against his life and an attack on his brother, he was encouraged by family members to leave his country. He fled to a safe place, but God clearly called him to go back to his home country, in spite of the danger. Matthew obeyed, and since his return he’s seen explosive growth in his church planting work. Matthew says persecution is something God uses to purify and unify the church, and further it’s something that every Christian should be ready [More]

Got an extra Bible in the house? Jason Woolford of Mission Cry said there’s a way to put it to work. Mission Cry distributes Bibles and Christian literature all over the world, and you can help too.   “When you think about sending a total used book value of $300 million to 171 nations, those were Bibles and Christian books that were either going to be recycled, thrown out, or sitting on somebody’s shelf,” said Woolford. “Instead it has truly changed the landscape of this entire world.”   (Photo courtesy of Mission Cry) Take the Kenya distribution center. Woolford said [More]

It’s a thrilling time to be involved in Bible translation, as workers are helping millions of people who speak unwritten languages have access to the Bible in their own languages. According to Wycliffe Associates President and CEO Bruce Smith, unwritten languages are “the last and the least” of the languages that have yet to receive Scripture. But the advancement of technology has helped to address this problem; national translators are now being provided with Bible Translation Recording Kits, which consist of a computer tablet with pre-loaded software and a microphone. Smith explains that the translators can use this digital tool to translate [More]

Using your phone in a place of worship is typically looked down upon. But in a near future, religious patrons might be encouraged to take out their phones, point their camera at the Bible, and watch the story of the sermon unfold in real-time.   Augmented reality (AR) is a consumer tech trend that is picking up speed, with gadgets like Microsoft’s HoloLens and apps like Pokémon Go, and the technology is now entering the worship space, too. Religious institutions all over the world have started to experiment with AR capabilities. Some use it to enhance their weekly brochures or Christmas invitations and others offer [More]

If you ask a woman what she’s looking for in a man, she may tell you wants him ‘tall, dark and handsome’. If you ask a woman what she’s looking for in a Christian man, she may still want him ‘tall dark and handsome’, but will start to list specific traits he must have to make him the whole package.   There are many characteristics men hold that women love. However, for Christian men, there’s an extra spark that captures a woman’s heart. A nice looking man who is in good shape, dresses well and possesses all the characteristics below [More]

Many born-again Americans are “missing the mark” when it comes to the accuracy of their biblical beliefs. That’s according to the latest data from pollster George Barna. A recent survey by the American Culture & Faith Institute finds that only 30 percent of born-again adults have a biblical worldview. According to that survey, almost 90 percent of them describe God as the “all-knowing, all-powerful creator and ruler of the universe” – but only one in four believes “as sinners, people are not basically good.” Sixty-three percent believe someone can earn their own way to heaven. (See other findings in table [More]

A recent nationwide survey found that the number of freshmen attending America’s colleges who have left their faith over the past three decades has skyrocketed. After analyzing the religious affiliation trends of first-year college students, Computer Science professor Allen Downey – who teaches at Olin College in Needham, Massachusetts – disclosed that the statistics from the Cooperative Institutional Research Program’s (CIRP) 2016 Freshman Survey conducted at UCLA indicate that the number of students identifying as “nones,” who do not belong to a religion, has dramatically increased. “The number of college students with no religious affiliation has tripled in the last [More]

A record-low percentage of U.S. adults believe that God created humans in their present form, according to a Gallup survey.   Thirty-eight percent accept the strict creationism view compared with 38 percent who believe man developed with God’s guidance and 19 percent think God had no role in man’s evolution, according to the Gallup poll.   It’s the first time since 1982 — when Gallup asked the question with the same wording — that belief in God’s direct creation of man is not the most-common response.   Read More

More Americans now believe that the Bible is a book of fables and history than those who believe it’s the literal Word of God, a Gallup poll released Monday has found, and even fewer than a third of Christians say it’s to be taken literally. “Over the past three decades, Americans’ view of the Bible as the literal Word of God has been declining, while their view that the Bible is a collection of fables, myths and history recorded by man has been increasing,” Gallup observed about the poll, which was conducted of 1,011 American adults between May 3–7, with [More]

Research shows only 17 percent of practicing Christians have a biblical worldview. So if that’s the case, then what do they believe? It turns out that 61 percent of Christians who attend church at least once a month and say their faith is very important to their lives and self-identify as a Christian also believe some tenets of New Age religions. Jeff Meyers of Summit Ministries, which, along with the American Faith and Culture Institute, put the numbers together, says this is a serious problem. Read More: What are believers believing exactly?

Sometimes in prayer we really need to speak what’s on our minds and hearts. Other times, we really want to hear God speak.   For a student who’s struggling to choose a school, sweethearts contemplating marriage, a parent who’s worried sick for a child, an entrepreneur considering a new risk, for nearly anyone who is hurting, or floundering, or fearing . . . hearing from God becomes important. Urgent.   It so happens that an incident from the Bible may help you listen. It’s an account from the life of Samuel, recorded in 1 Samuel 3, and it offers 7 [More]

Three years ago, feeling gratitude seemed impossible to me. I’d just found the strength to leave a physically and emotionally abusive marriage while pregnant with my first child, and life as I knew it was falling apart. Then, I received the sweetest gift. While at work, a package came for me from one of my vendors—a green journal with the word “Gratitude” written across the front. “What could I possibly be grateful for right now?” I thought. Then, I turned to the big “G” in the sky for answers: Google. I scrolled through gratitude articles that told me why I should be more [More]

Mama and Papa had started calling me “Black Velvet” when I was a baby, the tenth of their 18 children and the first to be born after they moved to Florida from their Bahamian homeland. When friends from the islands came to visit, they’d say, “Let us see the American one, the one with the velvet skin,” and Mama would proudly hold me up so everyone could admire my flawless nut-brown complexion.   Then, when I was eight, a bouncy little girl with glossy black braids, the dreadful skin problem began. Rough scales and unsightly red patches all over my [More]

One of my favorite episodes in Scripture has Jesus telling his followers that the more they give, the more they will receive. It cannot be otherwise, he explains, because God will never be outdone in generosity.   The concept of tithing is explained in a different part of Scripture. It’s the idea that the first fruits—perhaps 10 percent of one’s earnings—should be given to God as an act of faith. (The actual money can be given to charity or to church.) It sounds simple, but putting it into practice is very difficult.   We all have reasons for not giving [More]

“Tanya” is a Christian worker in Central Asia, living and ministering in a country where she must always be cautious about what she says openly and who she says it around. Listen to hear how Christians in the former Soviet Union are carefully sharing the gospel, and are willing to endure persecution if that’s what it takes to see God’s love spread to their countrymen. As a mom and a pastor’s wife, Tanya shares how the threat of persecution impacts the way Christians raise their children to follow Christ. You’ll be inspired as Tanya shares how Christians living under persecution [More]

Listen this week for an update on the church in Nepal, especially how the church has been impacted by Nepal’s recent adoption of a new constitution which included anti-conversion provisions.   Michael Huff has been the leader of Operation Mobilization in Nepal and is now based in the US helping to mobilize Christians to take the gospel all over the world. Listen as Michael shares how OM is working to raise up Christian workers and evangelists in Nepal, and some of the lessons Nepali Christians have taught him during his years of ministry there.   He’ll share how two Christian [More]

When God called Leanna to missions she was a young woman fresh out of college. Then God specifically called her to a part of South Asia known as “the graveyard of missionaries.” He led her down a different path from most foreigners at the time; Leanna lived in a village, drinking dirty water, sleeping on a grass mat and subsisting on lentils and rice. As she lived through the hardships of village life she was able to introduce people to a God greater and more powerful than the millions of Gods in their faith: Jesus Christ.   Listen as Leanna [More]