In the song “With God on Our Side,” Bob Dylan famously criticized the American predilection to confidently claim that our personal and political endeavors are touched by God, “Oh, my name, it ain't nothin', my age, it means less. The country I come from is called the Midwest. I's taught and brought up there, the laws to abide. And that the land that I live in has God on its side.”

Now Dylan is no theologian, but he does highlight an interesting dilemma, and he causes us to ask some serious questions. What do we make of claims in politics and culture, that God favors a particular side or position? What makes these claims credible and what makes them dangerous? How does a Christian truly discern if God has providentially aligned himself with a man, a movement, and institution or a cause?

Today on the Postscript we will be discussing this subject from the perspective of history. What can be learned from observing historic instances in which people, Christians in particular, have made the claim that God was on their side?

To have this discussion, we have invited Dr. Thomas Kidd, Research Professor of Church History at Midwestern and the John and Sharon Yeats Endowed Chair of Baptist Studies. He has written numerous books on church history and Baptist history. 

Read Dr. Kidd’s book God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution

To be “filled with the Spirit” is a biblical phrase, often used but rarely understood. Some would use the phrase to describe either another Christian's character or a moment when someone seems to have divine inspiration. Most commonly, the term “filled with the Spirit” is used to describe sudden ecstatic behavior. What is clear is that the church struggles to understand what the Bible means when it says:

Eph 5:17 Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord [is]. 18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; 19 Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;
Today on the Postscript, we have Pastor Brian Clark, church planter, author, and Biblical studies instructor at LFBI, to discuss this topic with Brandon Briscoe, provost of LFBI. Brian will help us gain a biblical answer for what it means to be filled with the Spirit and how it affects our life and ministry.

Visit https://lfbi.org/learnmore

The trumpet is one of the most often used symbols in all of scripture. We see, particularly in the Old Testament, that the sound of a trump was used to gather an assembly, to call soldiers to war, and to draw people into worship. The Bible presents us with trumpets that call us into Christ’s arms, and trumpets that mark destruction during the tribulation.

How do the trumpets differ, and how do they help us better understand God’s grand design? Today, provost of Living Faith Bible Institute Brandon Briscoe has invited James Fyffe, faculty professor of Missiology at the Living Faith Bible Institute to do a BIble study on the topic of the "trumpets" of Scripture.

Visit https://lfbi.org/learnmore