FBI Raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Residence is Not “Just Politics”

FBI Raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Residence is Not “Just Politics”

Aug 15, 2022 | Politics & Government, Uncategorized

I’ll confess I have a bad attitude toward Christians who think there is something like “just politics.” Or who think the “culture wars” are a waste of time because we need to get down to the important business of saving souls or focusing on “spiritual” things. Or who think that Democrats and Republicans are just two sides of the same political coin, you know flip it, and it doesn’t much matter which you choose. Or, as I’ve written about before, those who think there is some kind of moral equivalence between the left and right in our country, or that there is an “extreme” right just as there is an “extreme” left. There is not. The left, as I’ll explain, is entirely radical and extreme, and the Democrat Party along with the media, and all elite culture, has been taken over by the left. With the FBI raid on Trump’s residence last week, even many Trump haters had to reluctantly admit that the Democrats jumped the shark, bigly. This was Banana Republic, totalitarian, thug state stuff that will destroy America if allowed to stand.

I’ll get to what destroying America might look like, but the left is fundamentally communist, driven by totalitarian thugs, who when they lie speak their native language. Instead of truth, they believe in the will to power, might makes right, any ends justifies the means of their political ideology. Their self-righteousness is stunning. It’s breathtaking when you look at the history of American politics and realize one of our two political parties has been taken over by Marxists, regardless of what they chose to call themselves. I would encourage Christians to see such political and cultural battles in spiritual terms because, well, they are spiritual! There is no such thing as “just politics.” And as Christians we can’t say, well, we’re not “into politics.” In Ephesians 5 and 6, the Apostle Paul is giving Christians instructions for how to live, and the implications are civilizational, not merely personal. In the middle of chapter 6 he says this:

2 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

I hear this quoted often, but it is important not to take this out of the context of the entire letter of Ephesians. Speaking of God’s “incomparably great power for us who believe,” Paul gives us the context and implications of this power:

That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22 And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

What we are involved in every day in every moment of our lives is cosmic in every sense of the word, huge, ginormous, utterly inconceivable to us. While we do political and cultural battle against human beings, we are wrestling with things far beyond our comprehension, which is why we get on our knees daily and pray to the God who raised Christ from the dead. This spiritual war we are part of, and the daily battles we engage with ourselves and others, is not merely personal and moral. It is also societal.

This brings us to a distinction most Christians haven’t considered, or haven’t thought enough about, that between the church and the kingdom of God. I certainly haven’t, and I’m just beginning to learn the implications and why they are so important. They are not one and the same thing, and confusing the two creates all kinds of problems. The former consists of God’s people, those Jesus came to save, and the latter is Christ’s rule over all things, in heaven and on earth. It’s interesting to look at the two words in the gospels. Church is used only twice, and that just in Matthew, while Kingdom is used 120 times. This doesn’t tell us that the concept of the kingdom of God is more important than the church, but it is safe to say it is just as important. Some Christians might say that statement borders on heresy, which is an indication of a deep confusion about the issue. Let’s briefly look at the two words.

The Greek for church is ekklésia- ἐκκλησία, and it means those who are called out. It wasn’t a religious word until Christians started using it to indicate the bodies of people who believed Jesus was the Messiah. As you can see from Acts and the epistles, church became a common term for the called-out Christians. Kingdom is basileia- βασιλεία, the realm in which a king sovereignly rules. You’ll see the problem I’m trying to identify in the definition: ‘”Especially refers to the rule of Christ in believers’ hearts – which is a rule that “one day will be universal on the physical earth in the Millennium.”‘ Actually, that is exactly what the kingdom does not mean. Go back and carefully read the Ephesians 1 passage. Does it say anything about a Christian’s heart or a millennium? Nope. In Revelation 1:5 we’re told Jesus is “the ruler of kings on earth,” present tense. Christ’s rule is universal, right now, over all things, including over us. Just because we, or others, rebel against the king doesn’t make him any less a king, nor the ruler of all things.

What has this to do with politics and the culture wars? Only everything! If you read through all the passages where Kingdom is used in the gospels, it is clear it has far more to do then with mere morality. In the same passage, Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to a mustard seed and yeast. A small thing and a little bit, it grows and encompasses all. Daniel 2:44 gives us a glimpse of the kingdom that will shatter all other kingdoms and it shall stand forever. When Jesus came, he brought the kingdom: “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Teaching us to pray, Jesus said, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.” Now! And that includes politics, which is no less “spiritual” than those things we consider “spiritual.”

I didn’t get to what destroying American might look like, but an FBI raid on a former President’s home is certainly part of it. Different standards of justice, double standards, for the political opposition, as we see in the prisoners who were part of the so-called “insurrection,” is most definitely part of it. I will explore this in my next post, but when there is no God, no Christ, things in a society can get very nasty, as we’re seeing around us everywhere.

Deuteronomy 4: Theological Implications of God Rescuing His People from Slavery

Deuteronomy 4: Theological Implications of God Rescuing His People from Slavery

Aug 13, 2022 | Theology, Uncategorized

In my last post I focused on some of the uninvented takeaways from this chapter, or why I think it couldn’t be made up. Briefly, if it was, the author was a liar, and the Bible is a worthless piece of trash. Not that I feel strongly about it or anything. You’ll remember the writer (Moses, we believe, and the topic of a future post) kept repeating the eyewitness nature of the Exodus. As God rescued his people from slavery in Egypt, they saw his amazing works among them and heard his voice. Either it happened, and they did see and hear these things, or they did not. There is no in between. If it did not happen pretty much the way portrayed in this chapter and in the Pentateuch, I’m just not interested. I have better things to do than believe lies are true, and then base my life, and death, upon them. Don’t you? But I am convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the Bible records true history, which is why I wrote Uninvented, hoping I might help other Christians grow in their confidence that the Bible is indeed what it proclaims itself to be, God’s revelation of the redemption of his people.

There is also, however, the theology to consider, the truths of this redemption for we who believe the Bible is in fact God’s word. Jesus said in Matthew 4:4 quoting himself from Deuteronomy 8:3 that, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” This substance we take from his word is theology. You may know theology is the study of God. Any word ending in ology is the study of something, and in this case of theos, or in Greek, God. So, in reading and meditating on Deuteronomy 4 theologically, we’re trying to discover something about the being and nature of God, and there is a lot here to discover. Here is a brief overview of the book of Deuteronomy from Chuck Swindoll:

Deuteronomy means “second law,” a term mistakenly derived from the Hebrew word mishneh in Deuteronomy 17:18. In that context, Moses simply commands the king to make a “copy of the law.”1 But Deuteronomy does something more than give a simple copy of the Law. The book offers a restatement of the Law for a new generation, rather than a mere copy of what had gone before. Deuteronomy records this “second law”—namely Moses’s series of sermons in which he restated God’s commands originally given to the Israelites some forty years earlier in Exodus and Leviticus.

The older Israelites are beginning to die off and will not be allowed to enter the promised land because of their rebellion, so Moses is re-telling the law to the new generation following Joshua across the Jordan. Moses himself will only catch a glimpse of the promised land because he too didn’t trust God, but one day he will enter the eternal promised land with us.

Which brings us to the profound theological truths in this chapter. Our tendency as self-centered sinful human beings is to, no surprise, to be self-centered. As I’ve said a multitude of times in blog posts, sin is well defined as Incurvatus in se, Latin for being turned or curved in on oneself. This is more profound than being selfish or self-centered, an obvious human malady, and for most of us overcome to one degree or another as we grow older and mature. We learn that self-obsession doesn’t really pay, so we are able to see things beyond our own self-interest. Spiritually, however, the self is a more pernicious foe, and deceptively subtle.

As a young Christian, my faith was primarily about my choices and decisions. God laid out the conditions, and I decided whether I would obey or not. If I jumped through the hoops, God and me, we were good, if not, well, I had to work harder. It was more about what I did for God, than what God had done for me in Christ. When I was introduced to Reformed theology by a “chance” encounter in February of 1985, I experienced a proverbial Copernican revolution. Instead of my Christian faith revolving around me. my experiences, choices, will, decisions, I now saw how it revolved around God’s work for me in Christ. The gentlemen who introduced me to this radical theology, known as Calvinism, suggested I read a systematic theology (I’d never even heard the phrase before) by the great 19th century theologian Charles Hodge.

Hodge said something that perfectly captured my newfound understanding: Christianity is the work of God in the soul of man. Our self-centered tendency, however, is to see our faith as God responding to our work, and not us to his. In other words, law not gospel. In Deuteronomy 4 we see it is God who initiates the relationship with his people, and it is he alone who saves them:

20 But as for you, the Lord took you and brought you out of the iron-smelting furnace, out of Egypt, to be the people of his inheritance, as you now are.

34 Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?

35 You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; besides him there is no other. 36 From heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you. On earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from out of the fire. 37 Because he loved your ancestors and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of Egypt by his Presence and his great strength, 38 to drive out before you, nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you into their land to give it to you for your inheritance, as it is today.

And throughout Deuteronomy, he reminds them that they were “slaves in Egypt,” and would still be slaves if not for his mighty saving power. This is true for us too! It is God’s work alone, his power, that raises us spiritually from the dead, changes our sinful heart of stone, to flesh. In theological terms, this is called regeneration, or the transformation of our beings from his enemies to his children. Only then, our hearts transformed, can we put our faith, our trust in Christ. Our rescue from the slavery of sin was “by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the Lord our God did for” us in Christ!

Uninvented: Did the Israelites Hear God’s Voice? Deuteronomy 4

Uninvented: Did the Israelites Hear God’s Voice? Deuteronomy 4

Aug 10, 2022 | Uninvented

Deuteronomy 4 is an amazing passage both in Uninvented and theological terms. I will address the former here and the latter in my next post. If you’ve read Uninvented, you will know I was tempted numerous times to pontificate on the incredible theology in certain passages, but my focus had to remain on my uninvented argument. The question in the book was always, did this happen and in just this way, or not. Was it made up by the authors, mere human fiction to further a religious agenda? Or was it history, and happened pretty much the way the narrative presents it happening? It is either one or the other; there is no in between. One either has to accept the entire narrative or reject it all. Any partial acceptance or rejection is completely arbitrary and requires some human authority to determine what should be accepted and what should not. If we compare how scholars’ approach other ancient literature to how they treat the Bible’s historical claims, we’ll see just how arbitrary and biased they are. The reason is as simple as it is unjustified.

Critics for several hundred years have insisted that anything claiming to be supernatural in the Bible, the miraculous, had to have been invented, made up, fiction, because those kinds of things, those not explained by purely natural, material phenomena simply cannot happen. This, as I contend, is rank, anti-supernatural bias without any justification other than worldview preference. Bob is a materialist (the material is all that exists, there is no spiritual reality), so Bob cannot accept anything that contradicts his materialist worldview. Coming to the text begging the question like this means the reader must reject anything that cannot be explained “naturally.” If we come to the text without that bias, and not rejecting God’s existence and power a priori (i.e., beforehand), we can see if the narrative evinces realness, or verisimilitude as I discuss in the book.

Deuteronomy 4 is a tremendous example of a stark choice readers have. Either the author is lying, or he is telling the truth. The authors of the Bible throughout claim to be eyewitnesses to the works of God for his people. These were not events as portrayed in fairy tales that happened a long, long time ago in a land far, far away, where maybe little snippets of possible historical fact are embellished over time to make up a coherent grand historical narrative. Fairy tales or legends don’t tell coherent grand historical narratives over 2,000 years like the Bible, which even the critics agree is one of or the greatest works of literature in history. As I said over and over in the book, the Bible doesn’t read at all like the myths and legends critics insist it is, and this chapter is an excellent example of why.

Moses here is re-telling the Israelites’ history of their Exodus from Egypt, and how God rescued them, as he says, “from the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his own inheritance.” The key to this passage, and the challenge before us, is a phrase he uses multiple times, that what happened in their rescue was something they witnessed “with their own eyes.” We only have two options when reading this passage: either the author is telling the truth, or he is not. Critics contend it is the later. Deuteronomy, they claim, was written sometime during the Babylonian captivity of the Jewish people in the fourth century BC, not by Moses a thousand years previously. If the critics are right, the author is fabricating a story he knows is not true. On the other hand, if we don’t come to the text assuming miracles can’t happen, thus begging the question, we can let the text speak for itself and see if it reads real. You decide:

9 Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them. 10 Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when he said to me, “Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children.” 11 You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while it blazed with fire to the very heavens, with black clouds and deep darkness. 12 Then the Lord spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice.

15 You saw no form of any kind the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire.

33 Has any other people heard the voice of God speaking out of fire, as you have, and lived? 34 Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?

35 You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; besides him there is no other. 36 From heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you. On earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from out of the fire.

If this is fiction, then the Bible is a monstrous lie. If the critics are right, then there is absolutely nothing of value to be found in the Bible’s pages. I’m not interested in moral lessons told as “nobel lies.” On the other hand, if we’re willing to let the Bible speak as what it claims to be, God’s revelation of the history of the redemption of his people, we’ll let the text speak for itself.

This passage, of course, doesn’t stand in isolation, and it is the grand historical narrative from Genesis to Revelation that makes this passage so powerful, and read so real. God is continuing to reveal himself to his people, those he rescued from slavery in Egypt, allowing them to “hear his voice” so they will know that this God is unlike the gods of any of the other nations on earth. Which is a good segue to the amazing theology in the passage, the topic for the next post. 

Why Libertarians Are Not Our Friends

Why Libertarians Are Not Our Friends

Aug 6, 2022 | Politics & Government, Uncategorized

I recently wrote about why libertarians are not conservatives, and I want to comment on an article I recently read that continues my education about this topic. I became a “born-again” Christian, as we called it back then, in the fall of 1978. I was 18, and as ignorant and naive as all 18-year-olds are. That started an odyssey of learning that only intensifies by the day as I continue to learn a basic truth of maturity: The more I know, the more I realize I don’t know. It’s one of the reasons I Corinthians 8:2 is one of my favorite verses in the Bible. Also, realizing that all knowledge and wisdom is found in God himself, tells us knowledge is limitless, boundless, and as infinite as he is. That means we will be learning, literally, forever. How exciting is that!

What his this to do with libertarians, you ask? For me, libertarianism is a symbol of a life-long struggle to figure out my political philosophy, although I wouldn’t have put it that way until very recently. Part of this life-long learning process always included politics, but not as an all-encompassing philosophy. Maybe I didn’t think that was possible or necessary, I’m not sure, but I wasn’t compelled to grapple and get into the weeds of what I believe about human governance. Now I am. This drive is part of the questioning everything mentality that has overtaken me with the advent of Trump, more because of those who opposed and despise him, than the man himself.

As I went through my college experience growing in my Christian faith, I came across Francis Schaeffer, and because of him I realized I was a political conservative. I started reading the once great National Review (it went full-on NeverTrump in 2015 and lost all credibility), and the Wall Street Journal editorial page. This must have all happened after the 1980 election because (again, just between you and me) I voted for Jimmy Carter. My dad was a Catholic, Italian, Democrat, and he would never change, so having given up the Catholic part I figured I’d stick with the Democrat. I gladly can’t change the Italian.

I quickly learned the conservative movement Reagan represented consisted of those who embraced a traditional/religious view of reality, and libertarians who did not. A lot of libertarians, as I found out, are religious, but their political philosophy is driven more by the conviction of the primacy of liberty, than by what their religion might say about the human condition related to politics. It’s complicated, as I discovered and have been frustrated by ever since. I was clearly part of the traditional/religious wing of the movement, but I didn’t exactly know why I wasn’t a libertarian. I do now, but I’m still working through exactly what my political philosophy looks like. A piece at American Greatness called, “Libertarians are Not Our Friends,” helped me to better understand why I am not one of them. The author’s conclusion is true if a bit overstated:

All thinking persons know—and evidence abounds—that libertarians with anti-statist mentalities are dangerous, ideological, illusory, and impractical. Taking a one size fits all approach to every situation is wrongheaded and totally misguided. It is philosophically illogical and amounts to policy stupidity. It is zealotry at worst and naïveté at best.

His assessment gets to the heart of why I’m finally understanding libertarianism is not an ally of true conservatism, and why the American Founders were not libertarian at all. The pure liberty of the libertarian is a universal abstraction that doesn’t exist in life and fails to consider the lived existence of actual human beings.

God made man his own image primarily as a moral and not choosing creature. In other words, it’s not the choosing that determines the morality of the thing, but the thing chosen, or not. This brings us to Aristotle’s concept of telos, or purpose, a famous concept in the history of Western thought. He asked why things exist, and discovered four causes, the ultimate reason being the final cause or the reason for its existence. This idea gets us close to the idea of morality. Something is moral not merely because God says it is, and thus morality is not arbitrary, not merely God’s will. Rather, morality, what is right and wrong, good and evil, is a reflection of the being of God himself, an extension of that being into the nature of things. That is deeply profound for a whole host of reasons, not the least of which is it proves God’s existence, and that reality is not mere matter in motion that came together by chance. 

To make this point, I told someone recently, that means what is moral is not determined by our preferences, as when we prefer chocolate to vanilla ice cream. Things are wrong or right, good or evil, not because of what we prefer, but because they are, and it is our job to discover whether they are one or the other.

The reason liberty, or the freedom to choose, can’t be our ultimate good is because what is chosen is more important than the choosing itself. If we choose evil, the choosing is evil; if we choose good, the choosing is good. The choosing itself cannot be a moral value. The Founders of America understood this. Just two months prior to the ratification of the Constitution in September of 1787, the Continental Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance. In Article 3 they wrote:

Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.

And the religion and morality they are talking about is Christian religion and morality. It is the religion and morality, and the choosing informed by those, that determine good government and happiness, not the choosing itself.

This isn’t to say that along with Patrick Henry we shouldn’t cry, “give me liberty or give me death!” And mean it. One of the most precious things we’ve inherited from our Creator through Christ through Christian Western civilization is our liberty, and it is our Christian duty to defend it. But liberty is not libertarianism, which is an ideology that tends to promote license, and doing whatever we want or whatever we choose. That is called anarchy which eventually leads to tyranny. Only when God’s law is the law of the land, can there be true liberty, and tolerance, but that is a topic for another post, or book.

Uninvented: Who Invents a Talking Donkey as History?

Uninvented: Who Invents a Talking Donkey as History?

Aug 4, 2022 | Uninvented

One of the strange things about the Bible is that most of it is written as straight-ahead historical narrative, but many of the stories don’t read like any history we’ve encountered outside the Bible. The story of a talking donkey would have to be at the top of that list. If you want anyone to believe a story you’re writing, would you include a talking donkey? So, why put a talking donkey in a story if you want people to believe you’re writing history? That’s a good question. In the first chapter of Uninvented, I give a brief overview of the history of biblical criticism. To understand that history, and its skepticism about the Bible’s historicity, we must understand the Enlightenment assumptions that inform the critics’ perspective.

The fundamental belief of these critics, going back some three hundred years, is anti-supernaturalism. For a variety of complicated historical, philosophical, and cultural reasons, Western intellectuals began to see the universe as a closed system. The world was merely matter, and cause and effect moving that matter, with no room for a God to interfere. Miracles messed with this, so miracles in the Bible had to go. I call this question begging anti-supernatural bias. To “beg the question” is a logical fallacy that means to assume the conclusion without having to prove it. So, a talking donkey? Don’t be ridiculous! Everyone “knows” donkeys can’t talk, therefore, the story of a talking donkey in Numbers 22 must have been made up. It can’t be history because, well, donkeys don’t talk. Question begging at its finest. But let’s get rid of the anti-supernatural bias and look at this story another way.

One of my arguments in Uninvented is that if someone wants to write a believable story, they won’t put stuff in the story that is clearly unbelievable, unless it really happened. If you’re an Enlightenment rationalist any miracle is unbelievable, but if you’re not, some miracles in the Bible are more believable than others. This is where we come to the talking donkey story of Numbers 22. If you’re not familiar with the story, Balaam is a prophet, and the king of Moab, one of Israel’s enemies, is asking for Balaam to curse Israel. He tells the king he can only say what God tells him to say, and it is most definitely not to curse Israel. God was angry with Balaam because he really wanted the rewards the king of Moab could give him, rather than being faithful to what God had said, so the Lord had a donkey rebuke him. When you read this on the surface it sounds like some kind of fairy tale, or a tall tale like the fish getting bigger and bigger with each telling:

21 Balaam got up in the morning, saddled his donkey and went with the Moabite officials. 22 But God was very angry when he went, and the angel of the Lord stood in the road to oppose him. Balaam was riding on his donkey, and his two servants were with him. 23 When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand, it turned off the road into a field. Balaam beat it to get it back on the road.

24 Then the angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path through the vineyards, with walls on both sides. 25 When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, it pressed close to the wall, crushing Balaam’s foot against it. So he beat the donkey again.

26 Then the angel of the Lord moved on ahead and stood in a narrow place where there was no room to turn, either to the right or to the left. 27 When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, it lay down under Balaam, and he was angry and beat it with his staff. 28 Then the Lord opened the donkey’s mouth, and it said to Balaam, “What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?”

29 Balaam answered the donkey, “You have made a fool of me! If only I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now.”

30 The donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your own donkey, which you have always ridden, to this day? Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?”

“No,” he said.

31 Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with his sword drawn. So he bowed low and fell facedown.

32 The angel of the Lord asked him, “Why have you beaten your donkey these three times? I have come here to oppose you because your path is a reckless one before me. 33 The donkey saw me and turned away from me these three times. If it had not turned away, I would certainly have killed you by now, but I would have spared it.”

34 Balaam said to the angel of the Lord, “I have sinned. I did not realize you were standing in the road to oppose me. Now if you are displeased, I will go back.”

With an anti-supernatural bias, you dismiss it immediately as invented, unhistorical, something added to the narrative to maybe teach a lesson about obedience to God. However, without the bias you can ask yourself, why include this in the story if it isn’t real? Everyone knows, even 3,500 years ago, that donkeys can’t talk. If the person who wrote the story, and we believe it to be Moses, wanted to be believed, why write this unless it really happened? And as Christians, we believe in God who is the Creator of everything out of nothing, an all-powerful being to whom nothing is impossible. If he wanted donkey to talk to make a point to a wayward prophet, who are we to say that is not possible?

Regarding miracles specifically, as Christians we don’t have to beg the question and assume miracles can happen, therefore this happened. However, our assumptions do influence how we view the text, and all people come to the text with certain assumptions. We, however, don’t come to the text with an anti-supernatural bias, and dismiss miracles out of hand; that begs the question. Our assumptions are rather more reasonable and logical. God is the Creator of all things out of nothing, an all powerful being who by definition can do anything. As he said to the 90 year-old Sarah when he told her she’d have a child in a year, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” No! This talking donkey story is like every other miracle presented in the Bible, muted, mater of fact, part of the historical narrative. Biblical miracles don’t read at all like legends and myths the biased critics insist they are, including a talking donkey.