the Proclaim & Defend Podcast

I arrived home yesterday from two weeks of ministry in the Philippines. Sandy and I were able to minister in two FBFI related meetings, one in Cebu hosted by Pastor Rogelio Baladjay at Bible Baptist Fellowship Church in Mandaue. The church is an energetic and active congregation, and they treated us with such a servant’s spirit. The entire church participated in the conference, including many wond...

We bring you another interview from the March/April edition of FrontLine Magazine which was on the theme, "The Self-Deception of Substance Abuse." Our guest today is Ben Hicks, the Associate Pastor at Colonial Hills Baptist Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. Ben has joined our podcast before and is a frequent contributor to FrontLine and to Proclaim & Defend. Ben has done a lot of work on the topic...

What we often presume. Our imagination about the world prior to the Great Flood is likely highly inaccurate. We typically think of a planet sparsely populated with limited technological advancements and primitive living conditions. We might speculate that it was more advanced than we typically consider, but nothing like our modern age. Looking at the biblical data might lead us to an entirely diff...

Today we're joined by Dave Shumate to discuss his article, "Why Marijuana Is (Still) Wrong." This is part of a series of podcasts from the March/April edition of FrontLine magazine on the theme, "The Self-Deception of Substance Abuse." As marijuana legalization spreads across North America—now legal in 24 states for recreational use and 39 states for medical purposes—Christians need stronger argum...

Let me introduce you to Jay Jay and Alex. God began to change their lives on Easter Sunday of 2024 when they attended church at the invitation of Alex’s parents. Last Sunday, Jay Jay was baptized, and Alex rejoined our church. That day was the culmination of a year-long journey in their lives, and years of prayer on the part of others. Alex grew up in our church and wandered from the Lord in the y...

Our interviewee for this session is no stranger to most of our listeners, Dr. Jim Berg. Dr. Berg teaches at Bob Jones Seminary, where he held many teaching and administrative positions through his career. I recall many years ago taking an early morning class from him, we talk about it in the video. There have been many other points where our lives connected. He has been a life-long blessing to me....

It is possible. In fact, you likely have been a mouthpiece for Satan at one point or another in your Christian life. From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day. Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Far be it from You, Lord; t...

This edition of the podcast introduces the March/April 2025 edition of FrontLine on the subject "The Self-Deception of Substance Abuse." Our culture has long been plagued by the use of intoxicating substances which bear a heavy cost in the lives of many. Some may dismiss our concerns as legalistic and destructive of Christian liberty, but probably no home in America has not been touched by substan...

This message is scrawled on a prayer request card, sitting in front of me on my desk. Tears come to my eyes as I read it. I just ask the Lord help me thru this mental storm I’m going thru myself and give me, my mom, my grandma, and my siblings the strength to go through these dark times in life. Hopefully, the Lord can forgive me for my deep, dark, mistakes. And since I am going to leave soon, the...

My wife texted me this morning. Here is how the exchange went, The question has spawned for me some meditation regarding how we function in the Christian life and common errors in our thinking about being pleasing to our God. Consider what others have said regarding the centrality of our union with Christ. … For the rest of this post, see here: Seeking a More Perfect Union – Proclaim & Defend or j...

Today marks the final conversation from the January/February edition of FrontLine, "AI: Developing a Christian Perspective." We've had a lot of conversations talking about AI, how it works, some of the ethical concerns it brings, and ways to use it in ministry. This last conversation from the magazine has a different focus. We are turning from primarily technology to a conversation about ministry...

Which is Better for Evangelism, General or Specific Revelation? One picture is worth a thousand words. However, there are many things that are impossible to communicate in pictures. The beauty of the Grand Canyon can be more easily communicated in a large mural, but the value of liberty is more easily communicated in an essay than a photograph. Pictures and words are the difference between general...

Our conversation today is a little different than most of the others we've done. I'm talking to Dave Lowry, who contributed an article in the middle section of the January/February FrontLine magazine. We call this section "the pastor's insert" but of course, it isn't just for pastors. Dave's article providentially fit right in with the theme of this edition, which was, "AI: Developing a Christian...

Just before the Zelensky Oval Office fiasco last week, Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) posted this on X. “Just finished a meeting with President Zelensky here in Washington. He confirmed that the Ukrainian people will not support a fake peace agreement where Putin gets everything he wants and there are no security arrangements for Ukraine,” It is a shocking admission. While it is permissible for Senat...

We are discussing the January/February edition of FrontLine on the theme, "AI: Developing a Christian Perspective." Our guest today is pastor David Huffstutler, a fellow board member of the FBFI, and author of the article, "Does Homework Have to Be Human?" We discussed issues that come up in the classroom with the use of AI. There are benefits and pitfalls and we try to give a survey of both. Here...

Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. I just preached this message on Sunday, and in studying the passage, I saw something there that I had not noticed in my 35-plus years of ministry. I have quoted this passage thousands of times, but I did not see it. And yet, it is just so obvious. Most of the time, the les...

We are discussing the January/February edition of FrontLine which had the theme: "AI: Developing a Christian Perspective." In today's episode, we explore Erik Hanson's thought-provoking article "Who's Afraid of AI?" which examines the growing concerns surrounding artificial intelligence from a Christian perspective. Erik covers some of the history of AI and addresses the concerns many people expre...

There is a compelling exegetical case for congregational church government. That case is so compelling that structuring a local congregation in any other way seems to be disobedient to the pattern of polity laid out in the New Testament. While there are many other passages, these key passages indicate not only how the early church functioned, but that this was laid out in scripture as the Holy Spi...

We are discussing the January/February edition of FrontLine, “AI: Developing a Christian Perspective.” Our guest this time is Mike Riley, who wrote the article, “In Our Image and Likeness.” What follows is an AI generated introduction! The rise of artificial intelligence has brought with it not just technological challenges, but profound ethical and theological questions about how humans should in...

The Times of Israel just ran a post (which was linked at Realclearreligion.org) entitled “Dismantling USAID is a moral and strategic tragedy” claiming the effectiveness of and call for the preservation of USAID. The following is the essence of this story. Make no mistake about it: USAID was and is indispensable, no matter its faults. The Trump administration’s wholesale demolition of the agency wi...

We are talking about FrontLine magazine on this podcast, interviewing authors of our articles as they come out. The theme of the most recent edition of the magazine is “AI: Developing a Christian Perspective.” Our author today, Erik Hanson, wrote an article for us called “Developing a Biblical Perspective on Technology.” It’s an introduction, laying the groundwork, for a more detailed discussion o...

The recent government memo directing all federal agencies to stop all government grants and loans has raised many questions. The administration aimed to review everything and find government waste and fraud. Many left-wing NGOs received billions in federal aid, but among the left-wing appropriations were also billions in funding for the social efforts of more mainstream evangelical organizations....

We are embarking on a series of conversations with the authors from our January/February edition of FrontLine which was on the topic, "AI: Developing a Christian Perspective." I was in an airport recently and decided to pick up a book to read on the plane. Since I've been talking to our authors on this topic, I took a book on the subject of AI. The lady who sold it to me said, "To tell the truth,...

Remember the prisoners as if chained with them—those who are mistreated—since you yourselves are in the body also. Hebrews 13:3 Are the prisoners that we should remember only those who are being mistreated, or should we also remember those who are believers who have legitimately broken the law, or have been caught in a legal/political grinder? I have been thinking lately about how the principle of...

With this edition of the podcast, we complete all the interviews I recorded with the November/December FrontLine authors. There were a few writers who couldn’t come on due to scheduling reasons, but I think you will have a good sense of the topics we covered if you listen to the ones we were able to get to. Besides the feature articles, each magazine also has regular columns that various writers b...