Tommy Mann

There is an interesting figure mentioned in the book of Jeremiah. In 7:18 we learn, “The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven.” Who is this queen of heaven? She is only mentioned here and three times in chapter 44, where the Israelites insist they will continue to worship her instead of the Lord.   Most scholars believe this was Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess of war and fertility. Archaeologists have discovered statues and other images of her in ancient Israel, a place where Ishtar never should have been, but King Manasseh imported idol worship during his reign. This was a silly primitive practice.  But today there is a modern queen of heaven that is just as silly to worship. Roman Catholics use this title for Mary, the human mother of Jesus. They pray to her, asking her to ask her Son to do things for them, not realizing they can talk directly to her Son and enter “boldly before the throne of grace (He...

At the Presidential Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, President Obama seemingly equated Christians with ISIS. 48 hours after the world watched in horror as ISIS thugs burned a Jordanian man alive, the President warned of Christians being on a “high horse,” and called for them to remember their own shortcomings. While the free world is still waiting for Mr. Obama to actually do something about this disgusting evil presence, we will have to settle for another lecture; ironically, this condescending lecture included a call for humility.   The President cited the Crusades as a time when people did horrible things in the name of Christ. He specifically mentioned Christ over and over, yet has still never identified terrorists as doing their evil in the name of Allah or Mohammed. Today he said their evil is done in the name of “religion.” The problem with using the Crusades against Christians is three-fold. 1, the Crusades were a thousand years ago; 2, the Crusades were done by ...

This book is not at all what I expected, and that is not a bad thing. The subtitle of the books is “The Presence and Power of our Heavenly Guides and Guardians,” which led me to believe that the book would use the Bible to teach on angels. Going in, I thought I would be reading a handbook on the occurrences of angels in the Bible. Instead, Joel Miller admits that the Bible gives us little insight in regards to angels. The author does use some Bible verses, but his primary sources are early church writings and iconographers. If a person is looking for a good, thorough manual about what the church fathers thought about angels, than this is a good book. Drawing from the iconographers, Miller also includes several pictures, or “icons,” of angels carrying on their work. It is important to point out that when we are dealing with people, there is always room for error (compared to when we use Scripture alone). So some of the duties of angels as laid out by the...