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            News You Can Use              

By David Bachelor, PhD

From Utah to Washington to Israel, the Bible is the subject of some headlines this week. This famous document made news by being banned by a school district in Utah.  It was also cited by President Biden in his national message for Pride Month. The most significant Bible-inspired story originates in Israel. This Scripture story is worthy of closer scrutiny even in the parts of the world that do not believe the Bible.

On June 4th, International news agency AFP released a story titled, “The Israelis Set for New Jewish Temple on Al-Aqsa site.” The story is running on MSM.com, Yahoo.com and on France24.com. The article is about a group called the Temple Institute who are gathering “all of the objects deemed necessary for Jewish rites” when God’s temple is rebuilt. The objects being collected are not noteworthy in themselves. It is the real estate where the Temple Institute wants to use these objects that makes their collection newsworthy, “Known as Temple Mount to Jews and revered as their holiest site, the compound has for centuries housed Al-Aqsa mosque, the third most sacred place in Islam.”

According to the Bible, God told David where the original Temple was to be built (2 Sam 24:18-19).  After the Babylonians destroyed this first temple, it was rebuilt during the time of King Cyrus of Persia (Ezra 1:2). This second Temple is where Jesus was dedicated as a baby (Luke 2:27). It is also where he drove out the dove merchants and money changers (Matt 21:12). The Romans destroyed the second Temple in 70 A.D. The only remnant of the second Temple compound is the Western or Wailing Wall revered and visited by both Jews and Christians. For over 500 years the rest of the Temple mount was vacant. Sometime after Muslim forces conquered Jerusalem in the sixth century, the Al Aqsa Mosque was built. This chronology (minus the Biblical references) was included in Reuter’s April 6 story, “Factbox: Where Is Al Aqsa Mosque and Why Is It So Important in Islam?”

Back to the original AFP story, the article describes the real estate in question as, “…a point of perennial tensions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict… A combination of religion and politics…this is a nuclear reactor, so an explosion there blows up everything.” This ‘nuclear reaction’ is a reference to how Muslims would respond to Al Aqsa’s destruction. To Christians and Jews, rebuilding the Temple would trigger an even bigger event. The AFP article notes that the Temple Institute believes, “[R]econstruction of the Jewish temple some 2,000 years after its destruction…will accelerate the arrival of the messiah.” The New Testament predicts an arrival at the rebuilt Temple, but it won’t be the messiah. Christians are warned the Antichrist “…will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God” (2 Thes 2:4). Jesus told his disciples, “When you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ described by the prophet Daniel, then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains” (Matt 24:15-16).

The American headlines about the Bible seem tepid compared to the AFP third Temple story. Even if the article’s Islamic ‘nuclear reaction’ does happen, Christians should not despair. Jesus gave us this promise, “When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Luk 21:28).”