The accounts of Resurrection Sunday morning in scripture seem to indicate that the resurrection of Jesus bodily from the tomb was a surprise—to the women who went there, to the disciples, and to Jerusalem. Mary supposed Jesus was the gardener and asked him where they had taken Jesus’ body. It’s understandable that someone rising from the dead would be an event doubted by most people, but the evidences of this event should have been there to see. This was not an unexpected miracle but rather a prophecy meticulously made and fulfilled in the eyes of all.

The Old Testament predicted the resurrection.

The only thing necessary to see the prophecy of the resurrection in the Old Testament is to believe that Isaiah 53 is messianic. The chapter traces in wonderfully poetic fashion the Story of a divine substitute who grows up in anonymity (verses 1-3), …

Read the rest of this post here: The Resurrection of Jesus Should Not Have Been a Surprise – Proclaim & Defend — or just listen to the podcast.

Today we continue discussing our latest edition of FrontLine, the March/April issue focused on the topic, “Is Conservativism Enough?”

This week, we are talking to Bud Steadman, who is now a “Missions Mentor” with Baptist World Mission, previously serving as the Executive Director of the Mission and before that spending many years in the pastorate. He is also currently Chairman of the FBFI Board and a good friend, as I too spent many years serving under Baptist World Mission.

His topic is “The Ultimate Failure of the Moral Majority.” This is a look back at what seemed to be a burgeoning Christian movement into politics in the eighties. It succeeded in getting Christians involved in politics, but as an organization it collapsed in on itself, with its leaders spinning off into other related political organizations.

Dr. Steadman evaluates the history of the movement and its problems as a lesson to Christians and their involvement in politics in our present day. If you are a regular listener to this podcast, you would share with us and with the Moral Majority in similar kinds of political concern. The question remains, however, how should we work to solve those political concerns?

Dr. Steadman attempts to answer that question from the history of the Moral Majority. It provides at least a cautionary tale for us. We should not make the same mistakes now, and we certainly should be clear on the every day mission of the church. Jesus gave us our mission and we can’t sacrifice the mission for politics, no matter how admirable the political goals might be.

I hope you find our discussion helpful.

Bud Steadman’s article is available on our substack right away for paying subscribers. We have previews for everyone else. I hope you will join with us and support the ministry of the FBFI by becoming a paying subscriber.

Bonus link: FBFI Statement on Christian Nationalism – Proclaim & Defend

The Contents & Editorial for the March/April FrontLine:

Is Conservatism Enough? – Proclaim & Defend

The Article:

The Ultimate Failure of the Moral Majority

Pharisees were the religious megastars of Jesus’ day. They were generally viewed by the populace as deeply committed, genuinely spiritual, and on fire for the Law of Moses. To us, the word Pharisee is synonymous with hypocrite or religious legalist, but much of that is the result of what the gospels later said about them, not what people thought of them at the time. In our context, they would sell books, attract lots of followers on social media, and have lots of adoring fans. There have been such popular “Christians” in recent years that turned out to be fakes. Jesus sees through all of that. He knew their hearts—just like He knows mine.

In Matthew 23, Jesus rebukes the Pharisees severely. He describes them as hypocrites only interested in what people think, and then declares eight woes upon them. It might be interesting to see how Jesus’ rebuke of the Pharisees in Matthew 23 compares with the Talmud’s criticism of the Pharisees written between 300 and 500 years later (https://chavrutai.com/talmud/Sotah/22b).

The Talmud says that there are seven types of false Pharisees. …

Read the rest of this post here or just listen to the podcast.

Today we introduce our latest edition of FrontLine, the March/April issue focused on the topic, “Is Conservativism Enough?” Last week, we posted an interview with one of the authors, David Saxon.

This week, we are talking to the Associate Editor of this edition, Gordon Dickson. He also contributed an article called “Christ or Conservatism?” which will be part of our discussion.

We are living in troubled times. The political left increasingly attacks the pillars of our civilization, especially those Christians hold near and dear. How should we counter their attacks? Should we counter their attacks? How much time should Christians give to any political involvement we might take part in? What is the mission of the church, after all?

These are the kinds of questions we are addressing in this issue of the magazine. I hope you will pick up a copy and think carefully about the work of our authors on the subject.

For this interview, here are the key topics:

* The relationship between biblical Christianity and political conservatism

* The danger of merging gospel with political ideologies

* The importance of gospel transformation over societal reform

Gordon’s article is available on our substack right away for paying subscribers. We have previews for everyone else. I hope you will join with us and support the ministry of the FBFI by becoming a paying subscriber.

And now for my interview with Gordon Dickson.

Bonus link: FBFI Statement on Christian Nationalism – Proclaim & Defend

The Contents & Editorial for the March/April FrontLine:

Is Conservatism Enough? – Proclaim & Defend

The Article:

Christ or Conservatism? - the Proclaim & Defend Podcast

“Is God for us or for them?”

God is not a Republican. He is certainly not a Democrat. He is also not American. He is not Canadian, Russian, Ukrainian, British, French, Egyptian, Iraqi or Iranian. Shockingly, He is also not Israeli. Jesus was Jewish (and from the tribe of Judah) by blood, but that is different than present political nationality.

Our tendency in any conflict--be it a war or political fight--is to claim that God is on our side. There seems to be biblical precedent for making such a claim. In Haggai 1:13 the prophet makes the incredible claim that God is on their side.

Then Haggai, the Lord’s messenger, spoke the Lord’s message to the people, saying, “I am with you, says the Lord.”

But wait a minute!

Is that exactly what God is saying? “I am with you” didn’t mean the same thing in Haggai’s day as we mean by the phrase in our common vernacular. There is a difference between saying that God is on our side and saying that God is “with you.” In this context, “with you” means that they were now enjoying God’s approval and blessing. But that blessing was the result of repentance.

Read the rest of this post here, or just listen to the podcast.

We begin this week to look at our latest edition of FrontLine, the March/April issue focused on the topic, “Is Conservativism Enough?”

The topic we are addressing is Christian political philosophy. Should Christians be involved in politics, trying to effect political change, and if yes, how and how much should we be involved? Should churches be involved?

I had intended to interview our Associate Editor for this edition to kick things off, but we were thwarted by events outside of our control, the last straw being a massive power outage that kicked me off the internet for over twelve hours. I am still getting over the shock! (Just kidding.)

We will record that interview next week. In the meantime I talked to David Saxon, who is a professor at Maranatha Baptist University. Dave has been on the podcast before and always brings a depth of historical insight into the understanding and application of Biblical teaching.

His article is called: “Purpose or Result? Is the Moral Transformation of Society a Current Goal of the Church?” He is really taking on the idea that the goal of the church as an organization should be to take in hand political power to effect social change. This is distinct from individual Christians exercising political liberty to achieve political ends through political activity. I hope as we discuss this you will grasp the subtle distinction between these complementary ideas and find help in informing or adjusting your own political philosophy biblically.

As always, Dave’s article is available on our substack right away for paying subscribers. We have previews for everyone else. I hope you will join with us and support the ministry of the FBFI by becoming a paying subscriber.

The Contents & Editorial for the March/April FrontLine:

Is Conservatism Enough? – Proclaim & Defend

The Article:

Purpose or Result? Is the Moral Transformation of Society a Current Goal of the Church?

I had some difficulty getting Co-pilot to generate a theme image for this post. It seems that Microsoft considers an image depicting child-sacrifice objectionable. Shocking.

One of the intellectual dilemmas about the Genesis 22 story is the issue of human sacrifice and the command of God. On one hand, God commands Abraham to make a child sacrifice, which clearly seems immoral. Yet Abraham is commended by God for being willing to obey in such an objectionable act. Was God being insincere in His command and if so, shouldn’t Abraham have said, “No, God. Child sacrifice is evil.”

We need to unpack this question because it touches our daily walk and the temptations that we face regularly.

There is a difference between testing and temptation.

The problem is that the same words, both in Hebrew and Greek, are used for both ideas. James 1 says that we should face various trials with joy in verse 3 and then says that God does not tempt us with evil in verses 13 and 14.

Temptation usually includes three elements: the tempted person (us as the main actors), the temptation (a choice of obedience or disobedience), and a tempter (an outside character pushing us toward disobedience). In the case of Eve in the Garden the elements were Eve, eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and Satan encouraging her to disobey the command of God. …

Read the rest of this post here, or just listen to the podcast.

This, Judge Phil Ginn wrote for Realclearreligion.com on the subject of Christians and culture. He was addressing an upcoming (March 8, 2026) feature on CNN entitled The Rise of Christian Nationalism. In the article, he includes CNN’s definition of Christian Nationalism as follows:

CNN is ostensibly defining Christian Nationalism as “an ideology rooted in the belief that our country was founded as a Christian nation, and that our laws and institutions should reflect Christian values.” Ms. Brown goes further to assert that the assassination of Charlie Kirk “radicalized” Christians into a feeling of being persecuted.

As with almost everything, the key to everything is not in what they say, but what they mean by what they say.

Was the U.S. founded as a Christian nation? …

Read the rest of the post here, or just listen to the podcast.

Today we have something different for you. Normally I’m interviewing one of our authors from our FrontLine magazine. I am in the process of recording interviews for our next edition of the magazine, so we will return to that in due course.

However, today I am talking to my friend Ben Hicks. He is the Associate Pastor at Colonial Hills Baptist Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. He works closely with me on Proclaim & Defend and is a key idea guy for us whenever we get together and talk.

At the beginning of the year, I like to make a post for P&D on Bible reading with links to Bible reading schedules. This is a big push I make for our church people every year as well.

Ben has a similar passion in his ministry. He published two articles on the topic in the first couple weeks of this year as well.

I thought it would be a good idea to put together a podcast partway through the year as sort of a “Booster Shot” for your Bible reading. We know what it is like to start the year with enthusiasm, but then for our interest to flag as life piles up on us. Both Ben and I want you to just pick up and carry on. We especially want you to develop the Bible reading priority in your daily life.

That’s what this conversation is designed to do. Together we talk about various insights we’ve gleaned ourselves on the subject of developing that priority. There are so many ways we can make our Bible reading fresh and we touch on some of them. I hope you find this helpful. I want to encourage you to pass it on to others if it might be helpful to them as well.

Now, at this point in the podcast I’m normally pointing you to a FrontLine article. We don’t have one this time, but I do want to encourage you to support the FBFI by subscribing to our magazine, following our blog, Proclaim & Defend, and this podcast. Your support helps us keep excellent content coming your way.

Our Proclaim & Defend articles on Bible reading:

From Ben:

When You Don’t Get Anything Out of Devotions – Proclaim & Defend

7 Tips for Regular Bible Readings – Proclaim & Defend

From Don:

Hear and Learn and Fear: It’s Bible-reading Schedule Time – Proclaim & Defend

Entertainment disguised as worship isn’t worship. It’s idolatry. Ignorant worship is not worship at all. The ultimate authority on worship is Jesus, and He explained Himself very clearly in John 4. Let’s consider it.

Situation

Jesus is in Samaria by choice. The Jews did not have dealings with the Samaritans. The Samaritans were the remaining vestiges of the Israelites who remained in the land of Israel during the Babylonian exile. They had intermarried with the occupying nations and were considered half-breeds and outcasts by the Jews who returned from the exile. They had continued the Samaritan form of worship begun by Jeroboam when he rebelled against Rehoboam after the death of Solomon. One significant aspect of the deviant worship of Jeroboam was the new location of worship. Jesus is next to a historical site. It is Jacob’s well. A well built by the patriarch Jacob, a common ancestor to the Jews and Samaritans.

Jesus waited for the disciples to return from the city with food. While He waited, a woman of the city comes to draw water. This is not a significant issue except that it was midday, the wrong time of day for the women to draw water. She was asocial outcast because of her many sins. When Jesus began to talk with the lady, she was at first startled, then intrigued by His words. He began to reveal Himself to her. The woman then brings up the subject of worship. …

Read the rest of this post here or just listen to the podcast.