Articles by Theme
Articles by Art Katz available online and in PDF download format.
Psalm 96 – Bringing the Future into the Present
How would you label this psalm? What kind of a psalm is it? Does it celebrate the God of Israel’s past? Is it speaking of the present? Is it an eschatological psalm that speaks of the eternal future? My sensing is that it is definitely the future. Can you picture this psalm being sung in […]
Psalms 56 and 57: The Heart of Davidic Worship
Both of these psalms are psalms of persecution; one is about persecution from the Philistines, and the other is about persecution from Saul.
Reclaiming the Gospel
The very reduction of Paul’s glorious gospel to a formula for salvation to those who “accept” the Lord almost assures that what will follow will itself be nominal and fall short of the light of the glory which Paul proclaims.
Reconsidering John 11 in the Context of Isaiah 49
They wept for what they thought was irretrievable loss; He wept for their weeping—not understanding the sovereignty and purpose of God in the death of their brother. Should they not have suspected by His inexplicable but calculated delay a purpose in that death in keeping with His previous words to them of His role in Israel’s eschatological destiny?
Righteousness Exalts a Nation:
How prohibitive of any faith and hope for change is there in the oppressive realities that prevail in Africa. Yet our encouragement to the saints there was that the gospel is God’s answer in the otherwise foreboding conditions of poverty and the omnipresent struggle for subsistence everywhere visible.
Righteousness in the Old Testament
Righteousness as understood in the OT (Old Testament) is a thoroughly Hebraic concept, foreign to the western mind and at variance with the common understanding of the term. The failure to comprehend its meaning is perhaps most responsible for the view of OT religion as “legalistic”…but thanks largely to recent German scholarship, this important motif of biblical faith has been clarified.
Running the Race: ‘Smarty Jones’ and the Defeat at the Belmont Stakes
“Let us run the race that is set before us” in all patience and endurance, having something in reserve, not prematurely expending our necessary resources, keeping a wary eye out for the unforeseen and unsuspecting on our blind side, considering the entire distance always longer than we had at first thought, however a fraction physically, much more, infinitely longer when spent! Let us not be drawn into competitive bursts to assure our primacy, considering Him whose ‘mount’ we are in whose nail-pierced hands our reins are held. Let Him fully control our head and mouth, sensitive to His restraint, however light His touch. The race is His not ours. Putting aside the sin that so easily besets us, let us run so as to win.
Sent from God – Isaiah’s call
“Who will go for us?” The word “who” haunts me; it suggests very few candidates. How often do you find a believer who has risen above the prevailing culture and the correctness of his doctrine, who really knows God as God, who sees God as terrifying, stupefying and vast? When was the last time you met someone who has seen God in His greatest act, namely, the revelation of the nature of God in His suffering and death, which has ever and always been His nature? The only thing that the cross did was reveal what God always was and is; He is a servant, a sent one Himself.
Some Comments on Netanyahu’s Election in Israel: A Prelude to Coming Disaster?
While the upset victory of Benjamin Netanyahu may astonish, shock or delight one faction or another, what significance can it hold in effecting any real change in Israel’s perilous situation?
Some Comments on the Tragedy of September 11, 2001
The Shaking of All Things That Can Be Shaken There has been a great fall. More has come down than the great towers of the world’s financial center; it is the world itself that can never again be the same. What security, confidence or trust can mankind be assured when even its impenetrable symbol of […]
Some Pithy Statements
Idolatry is any religious practice that gives mankind a measure of religious and emotional satisfaction, and that alleviates their conscience and requires nothing from them. Religion is the propensity of men to take the holiest things of God in all of their well-meaning intention, and so to transfigure them as to rob them of their […]
Some Sober Prophetic Reflections (1993)
It seems as if God’s restraint is being increasingly lifted and removed from the world. There is a horrendous breaking-down and erosion of the most elementary values and decency. My soul is oppressed by the mounting hellishness, violence, mindless and conscienceless blood lust, terror and hatred. It is as if the whole moral order is unraveling, even the minimal legal restraints of society, to reveal the naked evil that is in the world.
Some Thoughts on Romans 10
“Calling on the name of the Lord” is no glib incantation, some vocalization to which someone may be coaxed or some mindless ‘decision’ made. It is the taking for one’s self the absoluteness of the Lordship of Christ in the forfeiting henceforth of all personal autonomy over one’s own life. Is it any wonder then that we see so little evidence of this transaction in the multitudes professing to be ‘saved’?
Some Thoughts on the Law and Grace
In my conversations with my unsaved rabbi friends, we frequently reach a snag. Though we are totally dedicated in our pursuit of the same God—I by grace, and he by Law—it is difficult for me to express why I am unable to “keep the commandments” he thinks incumbent upon any who profess to believe in God.
Some Thoughts on the Nature of Sin
As Karl Barth noted, “the very fact that we are sinners incapacitates us to recognizing ourselves as sinners.” We are not in a position to estimate and evaluate our own condition. Therefore, if there is going to be any revelation and understanding of the truth of our condition, both as individuals and as a nation, […]
Star Wars ‘The Phantom Menace’: An Ultimate Idolatry?
I wonder how many share with me the irritation of entering a public place to be confronted with life-size cut-out grotesques publicizing Star Wars and products linked to its promotion? This omnipresent mass-market overkill inundates the community, invades our privacy and gives no relief to those of us who despise the whole unsolicited entertainment-marketing blitz!
Summary of Israel’s Present Plight and Her Future Glory
However, there is a final suffering that must come before Israel’s lasting peace will be assured. Redemptive suffering that must precede the glory is the central theme of the prophetic and biblical tradition and understanding.
Teaching: A Moral Vocation
Teaching touches the lives of students in those things that have to do with moral questions: questions of meaning and questions of value. What is really true? What is really desirable? What is real? What is reality itself? Whether you are conscious of it or not, you are touching all of these questions every day, in one way or another; therefore, it is important that you become conscious of it and you need to ask yourself what do I consider moral, true, righteous and good? To be truly moral, one must be heedlessly ruthless against one’s self-indulgence in favor of what is right, no matter what the cost or consequence to one’s own comfort or that of others.
The Anatomy of a Prophetic Theme
On the heels of a conference sharing (K-312 through K-315), Art gives an insight into how prophetic themes are birthed that are in keeping with the stratagem of God for the hour and the purposes of God for the church in order that there might be on-time, present truth as it is in Christ Jesus.
The Arab and the Jew
The present crisis in Israel must be seen in the context of biblical understanding. It is the drama of a Jacob people called to be the Isra-el of God so as to bless all the families of the earth.