The Berean Call Podcast

Best remembered for its remarkable tower, Genesis 11 tells us this was more than just an upright structure; it was a city assembled with a cause. 

“Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens,” reads the famous chapter. “Let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” 

Tom welcomes back his guest Mike Oppenheimer as they continue their fascinating discussion on UFOs and Extraterrestrials, including the Nephilim.

Join Dave and Tom as they engage in an in-depth, verse-by-verse examination of the Gospel of John. We hope you will be challenged and convicted as you listen to these insightful, exegetical discussions compiled from nearly four years of Search the Scriptures Daily radio programs. Open your Bible and get ready for an edifying pilgrimage into God's Word.

Question: Psalm 137:9 is a verse which has bothered me for years: “Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.” How can Christians oppose abortion, yet believe in a God who encouraged Israel to slaughter infants and to rejoice in doing it? I’ve had non-Christians throw this verse at me and I can’t give them a good answer.

Response: I, too, puzzled over this verse for years. Then one day I realized what should have been obvious: it was not God’s people who committed this horrible atrocity. Israel never conquered Babylon. It was the Medes and Persians who did so. The psalmist is not condoning such barbarous behavior. He is simply warning Babylon that she will be crushed by invaders—and that just as she rejoiced in destroying Jerusalem, so her conquerors will rejoice in destroying her, including her innocent infants.

This is number 234 in our series of “Get Biblical Understanding.” In this session we’re reading many but certainly not all of the biblical verses that have to do with The Heart.

The heart addressed in this series is not the physical organ within our body but rather the non-physical aspects that pervade humanity, which is at the center of our spiritual and mental life. Only God knows our heart and from Him alone comes our only true insights.

PHILEMON 1:10-12 I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds: Which in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and to me: Whom I have sent again: thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels [heart]:

PHILEMON 1:20 Yea, brother, let me have joy of thee in the Lord: refresh my bowels [heart] in the Lord.

HEBREWS 3:7-10 Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.

The message of this treasured epistle is just as clear and convicting today as it was to the early churches of Galatia: We are justified by grace through faith alone - not by works of the law.

Join T. A. McMahon and radio guests (Greg Durel, Mike Gendron, and Jim McCarthy) as they discuss this powerful Pauline epistle and its relevance to your daily walk.

Join Dave and Tom as they engage in an in-depth, verse-by-verse examination of the Gospel of John. We hope you will be challenged and convicted as you listen to these insightful, exegetical discussions compiled from nearly four years of Search the Scriptures Daily radio programs. Open your Bible and get ready for an edifying pilgrimage into God's Word.

Question: I was very upset by the answer from you about the reason you prefer the KJV.... I need you to please send me several examples of what you consider "serious" errors [in modern translations]. I would also be very appreciative of some reading material that the lay person can understand...or names of some sources....

Response: Thank you for your recent letter challenging me regarding my support of the KJV. This question is too complex to deal with in a brief letter, but let me try once again. You asked for sources.

The best case against "KJV only" is presented by D. A. Carson in The King James Version Debate: A Plea for Realism. He points out, in "eight key Christological verses (Jn 1:1,18; Acts 20:28; Rom 9:5; 2 Thes 1:12, Tts 2:13; Heb 1:8; 2 Pet 1:1)... the KJV fails to underscore the deity of Christ in four." Most modern translations do as well or better. The NIV scores in seven of the eight. Even Thomas M. Strouse, though strongly criticizing Carson, admits these four KJV failures (Jn 1:18; 2 Thes 1:12; Tts 2:13; 2 Pet 1:1) and explains them as "a textual problem (Jn 1:18) and the other three are translational problems." Even its defenders must admit to some flaws in the KJV.

Critics fault the KJV because it comes from a Greek New Testament which was put together by Erasmus in 1516, later improved by Theodore Beza and Robert Stephanus. The latter's fourth edition in 1551 is "substantially the Textus Receptus," according to Jasper James Ray, one of its most fervent defenders. Too late in time, say the critics, and too few manuscripts as its source. Yet this was basically the Greek text that had been accepted by the Greek church in the East for centuries (the Roman Catholic Church in the West used the Latin Vulgate), earlier manuscripts from which the Greek Bible came having been worn out and discarded. Modern translations (some are worse than others, the RSV in particular) come from a Greek text developed by Westcott and Hort (two scholarly heretics) based largely upon Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, which, though older, are clearly corrupted.

This is number 233 in our series of “Get Biblical Understanding.” In this session we’re reading many but certainly not all of the biblical verses that have to do with The Heart.

The heart addressed in this series is not the physical organ within our body but rather the non-physical aspects that pervade humanity, which is at the center of our spiritual and mental life. Only God knows our heart and from Him alone comes our only true insights.

COLOSSIANS 2:2 That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ;

COLOSSIANS 3:15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.

1 THESSALONIANS 2:17 But we, brethren, being taken from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, endeavoured the more abundantly to see your face with great desire.

1 THESSALONIANS 3:13 To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.

2 THESSALONIANS 3:5 And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ.

1 TIMOTHY 1:5 Now the end [purpose] of the commandment is charity [love] out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned [genuine]:

2 TIMOTHY 2:22 Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

The message of this treasured epistle is just as clear and convicting today as it was to the early churches of Galatia: We are justified by grace through faith alone - not by works of the law.

Join T. A. McMahon and radio guests (Greg Durel, Mike Gendron, and Jim McCarthy) as they discuss this powerful Pauline epistle and its relevance to your daily walk.

View the full series: https://www.thebereancall.org/galatians

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