Tommy Mann

  In 1 Kings 3 we read about King Solomon and his famous demonstration of wisdom. When two women came to him, both claiming to be the rightful mother of an infant, Solomon asked for a sword to be brought to him so he could divide the child in two and give each woman half.   The rightful mom said she would rather give the baby to the other woman than to see her son hurt, and thus revealed herself to be the true mother. But in that same chapter, before the king is threatening to divide a baby, he shows us that he was divided within himself. Here is what the third verse says: “Solomon loved the LORD, walking in the statutes of David his father, only he sacrificed and made offerings at the high places.” How is it possible to love the Lord and offer sacrifices at the high places? That means he brought offerings to other gods, the ones worshipped by his many wives. Solomon followed the practice of political polygamy, marrying the daughters of other heads of state to form alliances. ...

We all learned about the water cycle when we were in school: through the steps of precipitation, evaporation, and condensation, water cycles from the sky to the ground in a continuous loop (there are other steps in the process, but that is what most of us learned in elementary school). The Bible speaks to this cycle. In Ecclesiastes 1:7 the author observed: “All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full.” It is amazing to think about how much water from streams flow into the sea. Consider this: every single day the Mississippi River dumps 518 billion gallons of water into the Gulf of America, and that is just one of thousands of rivers doing the same thing. But the seas are not full. That water is going somewhere. In the 17 th  Century scientists figured out this puzzling water cycle. But the Bible actually cracked the code long before these scientists did. In Amos 9:6 the prophet asked and answered his own question:  “Who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them o...

  Do you find yourself constantly wishing you had more? You wish you had more or better clothes, more money in the bank, a newer car, or a larger house. When we look around at other people, especially pictures we see posted to social media, it is easy to fall into the trap of wishing we had what other people have.   In Christianity we try to walk a delicate balance as it relates to our material possessions. We must learn to avoid the two extremes. On the one hand some say that the best way to demonstrate humility is to give up everything and live in poverty. On the other extreme are those who say that if you are really living the Christian life then God would be showering you with every blessing imaginable. Some people in poverty think that is proof that they love God more, while some in prosperity think that is proof that God loves them more. The truth is there are godly people that are both haves and have nots.   The goal of the Christian should be to learn contentment....

  In last week’s column I talked about some of the evidences for the existence of God, including the ontological argument. I want to continue with that thought today and write about the teleological argument for the existence of God. From the Greek word  teleos , which refers to something’s ending or completion, this argument looks at the fact that we see things in nature that bring themselves towards their natural completion on their own. There seems to be an invisible force steering things in nature towards their fulfillment.   Thomas Aquinas used the illustration of an acorn and an oak tree. An acorn looks nothing like an oak tree, but we know that it is the seed that produces the mighty tree. But who or what causes an acorn to develop until it turns into an oak tree? The random chance arguments of Darwinism cannot account for this (did chaos cause intelligence?). Because acorns grow into trees it is evident that something or someone is causing them to do this. An inan...