THE WEEK IN BRIEF
This week, the pressure outside the Church and the confusion inside it both deserve our attention.
Saudi Arabia faced a sustained Houthi missile-and-drone campaign reaching toward Riyadh and key energy infrastructure. On the Temple Mount, Jewish prayer became more visible during Yom Kippur. And just south of the Mount, archaeologists announced the discovery of a remarkable Second Temple-period purification complex dating to roughly the time of Jesus.
Inside the Church, four stories raise a different kind of warning. One congregation openly celebrates LGBTQ identity as part of God’s “holy intention.” An Episcopal priest preached that “God is trans” and suggested the risen Jesus “transitioned.” Another minister used Jesus’s bread-and-stone illustration to interpret her transgender identity. And at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin, longtime pastor Jim Rigby has publicly questioned foundational Christian claims, including the bodily Resurrection.
These stories are not all the same. Some involve serious error. Some move closer to heresy—the rejection or corruption of a truth essential to historic Christianity. And some raise the harder question of apostasy: whether a church can retain Christian language while abandoning the apostolic faith.
That distinction matters. Discernment is not served by calling every disagreement heresy. But neither is the Church served by refusing to name a departure from faith when the Gospel itself is at stake.
MIDDLE EAST WATCH
Saudi Arabia Under Sustained Pressure
What began as a dramatic attack toward Riyadh has become something more important: a pattern.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi movement claimed missile and drone attacks against Riyadh and Saudi energy infrastructure during the week. Reuters reported attacks against “sensitive” sites near the Saudi capital and pressure on the Yanbu energy hub on the Red Sea. The fighting is no longer confined to Yemen or the shipping lanes. Saudi territory itself is under sustained pressure.
The regional response is worth watching. On September 22, the foreign ministers of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan jointly affirmed Saudi Arabia’s right to defend itself under international law. That does not create a prophetic coalition, and it would be irresponsible to call it one. But it does show how quickly older rivalries and newer partnerships can shift when Iran and its proxies increase the pressure.
For students of biblical prophecy, Ezekiel 38–39 remains worth knowing because Persia is named in the text and because the prophecy describes a future coalition moving against Israel. But Scripture gives us fixed points; today’s alliances are moving pieces.
JERUSALEM WATCH
Prayer on the Mount
The Temple Mount remains one of the most sensitive pieces of real estate on earth—and one of the most important places in biblical history.
During Yom Kippur, Jewish prayer on the Mount became more visible. Reports described hundreds of Jewish visitors ascending the site, with prayer books in use and public prayer occurring under police supervision. This follows a broader trend in which Jewish religious practice on the Mount has become more open than it was in earlier years.
That does not mean Israel has formally abolished the long-standing status quo, under which the Islamic Waqf administers the religious compound while Israel controls security. Jordan and Muslim authorities continue to object to changes in Jewish prayer practice, and the issue remains politically and religiously explosive.
For Christians, the significance is obvious without sensationalism. This is the location of the First and Second Temples. Jesus taught there. The apostles knew it. Biblical prophecy repeatedly brings Jerusalem into view. None of that tells us that a Third Temple is about to be built. It does tell us that changes on the Mount deserve careful attention.
BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY WATCH
Purification at the Foot of the Temple Mount
This week’s strongest archaeology story comes from the area immediately south of the Temple Mount.
Archaeologists announced the discovery of an unusually well-preserved purification complex from the late Second Temple period. The complex includes three large mikva’ot—Jewish ritual baths used for ceremonial purification—a large plastered pool, a paved plaza, and an extensive water system. One of the ritual baths reportedly survives to its full height with a vaulted stone ceiling.
Researchers date the construction to around A.D. 10, placing it in the period when Jesus was alive and when enormous numbers of Jewish pilgrims came to Jerusalem for the biblical festivals. Its location and scale strongly support the interpretation that it served people approaching the Temple in a state of ritual purity.
What does the discovery prove? It directly confirms the presence of substantial purification infrastructure beside the Temple during the Second Temple period. It helps us picture the physical world described in the New Testament and the importance of ritual purity in Jewish life. It does not prove that Jesus, an apostle, or any other named biblical person used these particular baths.
That distinction is important. Archaeology is most useful when we let the stones say what they can say—and do not force them to say what they cannot.
APOSTASY & THE STATE OF THE CHURCH
Four Stories. One Question: Who Defines Christian Truth?
Trinity Lutheran Church — Greenville, South Carolina
Trinity Lutheran, an ELCA congregation, does more than say LGBTQ people are welcome. Its own website says that being gay, transgender, or bisexual is part of God’s “beautiful and holy intention for creation.” The congregation also lists Patrick Preacher as its “Pastor for Queer Ministry and Belonging” and has hosted queer-led worship. The issue is not whether sinners should be welcomed into church. Every one of us comes to Christ as a sinner in need of grace. The harder question is whether the Church may bless what the Scriptures call sin, and whether conduct being publicly affirmed rather than repented of should be represented in the leadership of the church.
The Rev. Flourish Klink — New York
A sermon that resurfaced this week was preached in March at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine during its Celebration of Trans Joy and Resilience. Klink’s own published sermon removes any doubt about the wording. “God is trans,” Klink said, before arguing that Jesus had been identified as a boy at birth even though God is beyond male and female. Klink then went further, speculating that the risen Jesus was beyond male and female and saying, “I think that Jesus transitioned.” The Bible certainly teaches that God is not a biological male in the way a human being is. But Klink moves beyond that truth and reads modern transgender categories back into the incarnation and Resurrection where Scripture does not.
The Rev. Sarah Hobbs — England
Sarah Hobbs has described spending more than 30 years asking God to release her from being transgender. She later reconsidered those unanswered prayers through Jesus’ words in Matthew 7 about a father giving his child bread rather than a stone. Hobbs concluded that she had “been given bread all along” and had mistaken it for a stone; in a later account she stated the conclusion more directly: “being transgender was bread and I was mistaking it for stone.” Her story is deeply personal, but the interpretive question remains. Matthew 7 teaches that our Father is good and gives good gifts. It does not teach that every persistent desire, experience, or identity must therefore be a gift from God. The danger arises when our experience becomes the key to determining what Scripture means, rather than allowing Scripture to test our experience.
The Rev. Jim Rigby — St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Austin
St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church is also the longtime church with which Texas state Rep. James Talarico has publicly identified. The Texas Tribune reported that Rigby baptized Talarico and that the church has been formative in his life and politics. That connection makes the congregation especially visible, but it does not prove that Talarico personally holds every theological position taught by Rigby or other St. Andrew’s clergy.
The theological concern stands on its own. Rigby has publicly rejected a literal understanding of Christ’s Resurrection and has said it is possible Jesus rose but also possible His body was stolen. More recent reporting records him rejecting the virgin birth as well. These are not disputes over worship style, church government, or the timing of the end times. They concern claims at the heart of historic Christianity. Paul makes the stakes of the Resurrection unmistakable: “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile” (1 Corinthians 15:17).
Error, Heresy, and Apostasy Are Not the Same Thing
Christians need to use these words carefully. Error simply means teaching something that is false. Christians can be wrong—even seriously wrong—without abandoning Christianity. Heresy is narrower and more serious: it is teaching that contradicts or corrupts a truth essential to the Christian faith, especially what Christians have historically confessed about God, Jesus Christ, the Resurrection and the Gospel. Apostasy goes further still. In the New Testament, apostasy describes falling away from or abandoning the faith once professed. Not every error is heresy, and not every person who says something heretical can automatically be declared an apostate.
That is why we should judge teachings more readily than we judge hearts. We can compare a statement with Scripture. We cannot see another person’s soul. But the progression still matters: tolerated error can become settled teaching; settled heresy can reshape a church; and eventually a congregation may continue using Christian words while abandoning the faith those words once expressed.
Scripture treats apostasy as far more than an intellectual mistake. It is a falling away from the faith once professed—a turning from Christ rather than merely misunderstanding Him (1 Timothy 4:1; Hebrews 3:12; 2 Peter 2:20–22). The consequences are therefore eternal, not merely theological. Jesus said that the one who endures to the end will be saved (Matthew 24:13), and the New Testament repeatedly warns that abandoning Christ places a person outside the saving hope found in Him (Hebrews 10:26–31; 1 John 2:19; 2 John 9). These warnings are not given so that Christians can pronounce final judgment on another person’s soul. They are given because apostasy is deadly serious. The answer is not simply to win an argument or correct a doctrine. It is to call those who are wandering back to repentance, back to the Gospel, and ultimately back to Christ.
Testing the Four Cases
Trinity Lutheran: The clearest problem is serious doctrinal and moral error involving biblical authority, sexual ethics, repentance, and spiritual leadership. In the historic Christian reading of Scripture, publicly calling behavior holy that Scripture identifies as sinful reverses the text's moral judgment. I would not call the congregation apostate on that evidence alone. But when a church no longer allows Scripture to correct the culture—and instead asks Scripture to affirm the culture—the direction should concern us.
Flourish Klink: This goes beyond sexual ethics and reaches into what Christians believe about Jesus Himself. The theological term is Christology, which simply means the Church’s teaching about who Jesus is. Saying that God’s divine nature is not biologically male is not heresy. Saying that Jesus was wrongly identified as male and speculating that His Resurrection was a gender transition adds claims about Christ that Scripture does not make and conflicts with the New Testament’s presentation of the risen Jesus. I would describe this as a serious error about Christ with heretical implications, while stopping short of declaring Klink personally apostate.
Sarah Hobbs: This is best described as serious interpretive and theological error, not heresy on the evidence before us. The problem is how Scripture is being interpreted: a personal experience is used to determine the meaning of Jesus’ bread-and-stone illustration. However strongly Christians may disagree with that reading, the argument itself does not deny the Trinity, Christ’s deity, His bodily Resurrection or salvation through Him. Calling it apostasy would go beyond the evidence.
Jim Rigby / St. Andrew’s: This crosses a clearer line. Denying or reducing the bodily Resurrection to one possible explanation among others contradicts the apostolic Gospel in 1 Corinthians 15. The virgin birth is also part of historic Christian confession concerning the incarnation of Christ. Rigby’s teaching is therefore heretical in content by historic Christian standards. Whether Rigby himself is an apostate is a judgment about a person that requires more caution. But when a church repeatedly teaches, tolerates, or normalizes the denial of doctrines that the apostles treated as essential, the institutional question becomes unavoidable: has the congregation moved from error, through heresy, into apostasy—retaining Christian language while abandoning the apostolic faith?
A church does not cease to be Christian because someone makes a mistake. But when truths once confessed as essential become optional, symbolic, or objectionable, Christians have to ask whether correction is still taking place within the faith—or whether the faith itself is being abandoned.
RESPOND
What Should Christians Do?
First, watch without panic.
Headlines can move quickly, and prophecy speculation moves even faster. Know what Scripture actually says before trying to fit current events into it.
Second, test what you hear.
That applies to cable news, social media, pastors, priests, teachers—and The Issachar Watch. Acts 17 commends the Bereans for examining the Scriptures to see whether what they were hearing was true.
Third, know the Gospel well enough to recognize when it is being changed.
Jesus Christ died for our sins, was buried, and was raised. Our hope is not in our ability to decode the week. Our hope is in Him.
Finally, speak truth without losing love.
Christian discernment is not permission for cruelty. We can reject false teaching while remembering that the people involved are not enemies to be hated. Truth and love belong together.
PRAY
Pray for peace and restraint across the Middle East, especially for civilians caught between governments, militias, and missiles. Pray for Jerusalem and for wisdom among those responsible for the Temple Mount. Thank God for discoveries that illuminate the world of Scripture without asking archaeology to bear more weight than it can.
Pray also for the Church. Pray for pastors and teachers to love people enough to tell the truth, and to love the truth enough not to reshape it around the spirit of the age. Pray for those caught in confusion, that they would encounter Christ not as a mirror of themselves, but as Lord and Savior. And pray for us—that we would test everything, hold fast to what is good, and remain faithful.
SOURCES