It Was Necessary

The Greek language has a word we translate into English as “necessary”. It is anagkē, and Strong’s dictionary says it refers to some obligation “imposed either by the external condition of things, or by the law of duty”. It refers to a thing that had to happen. One example of its scriptural use is in Hebrews, where the writer says, “It was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.”

It was required. It had to happen that way. There was no other.

Pure Milk of the Word

From the Department of Very-Much-Intended Consequences, you may have recently read that AI companies are purchasing massive quantities of rare books, scanning the pages to “train” their algorithms, then shredding the original books. If not, you probably will soon.

If that sounds improbable considering the almost inestimable quantities of training data available to them free via public domain access on the Web, there is indeed a sort of twisted logic behind the ‘scan-and-destroy’ strategy.

Anonymous Asks (417)

“Should Christians take on mortgages?”

I’ve written on the subject of Christians and debt before in a number of different contexts (bankruptcy, school debt, credit cards, etc.) but to the best of my recollection, never at any great length about mortgages.

Okay, then. It’s well established in scripture that carrying debt is less than ideal.

Word Studies in Isaiah 52

The vast majority of chapter breaks in scripture are well considered. Still, once in a long while, you may find one that is less than perfectly helpful. Because tens of thousands of Christians daily read the Bible by chapter, the worst chapter divisions are the ones that break up content that really belongs together, interrupting the writer’s thought flow and making it difficult to follow.

What does that have to do with financial printing? So glad you asked.

Somebody Else’s Mail (16)

In his book The God-Shaped Heart, Timothy Jennings makes what I believe is a helpful distinction between two manifestations of divine rule in the world: design law and imposed law.

Design law includes things as disparate as gravity, love, motion, health, mathematics, friction, thermodynamics, authority structures, liberty, exertion, and so on — principles intrinsic to the proper functioning of our world and human society as designed by God. Do X, and Y will be the natural result, either for good or ill. Design law is just the way the world works.

Imposed law refers to both God’s commands and all other codes, rules, regulations and ordinances enforced with penalties, whether imposed by God or by men under his authority.

Too Hot to Handle: EDM in the ‘Sanctuary’

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Christianity Today notes a new trend in “worship”: electronic dance music. As writer Jeff Neely puts it, “layers of computer-programmed electronic backing tracks, quarter-note bass thumps, and cycles of musical ‘builds’ and ‘drops’, much of it set to a tempo around 130 beats per minute.”

*headdesk*

Tom: That’s my sister’s response, Immanuel Can, and I think it’s entirely apropos. Some things are beyond the pale. But perhaps we can use it as a jumping-on point to discuss the role of enthusiasm in worship, what sort of place the arts might have or not have in the context of local church gatherings, and so on.

That work for you?

Immanuel Can: Certainly.

“I Love You,” She Said Determinedly

A man and a woman are going to bed. It’s been a long day — work has been vexing, the children have been demanding, calls and emails have piled up, and best efforts at getting it all done have failed. Irritations have built up; and at times, the couple has actually been a bit snappish.

The husband is middle-aged, and somewhat dumpy and slightly graying. His earlier grumpy mood has subsided only into a plodding weariness as he gets ready to turn in. He’s left his slippers askew in the corner again, and hung his trousers over the chair instead of putting them in the closet.

The wife turns to her husband and says, “I love you.”

The Transparent Church

How important is transparency in church finances?

The question often arises in connection with shocking allegations of recently-discovered financial shenanigans in this denomination or that. These tend to proliferate wherever funds ripe for misappropriation are significant. For example, police in Kingston, Ontario recently investigated a local Catholic church for “financial irregularities” in the neighborhood of $600,000.

If you’re currently stumped trying to recall the last time your own local church had more than half a million dollars lying around for embezzlers to target, join the club.

Not His Market

The most effective lies are 90% truth. Satan proved that in the Garden of Eden, and he’s been exploiting the technique ever since.

Likewise, the most persuasive rhetoric ignores all inconvenient exceptions to its proclamations. Discussing the outliers takes time a rhetorician does not have. After all, rhetoric is about making a pithy point with emotionally compelling force, so shorter is better. In deliberately generalizing rather than carefully debating all possible pros and cons, a sophist makes an argument that hits his target audience right where they live, even if he leaves some significant percentage of the population stone cold.

Not his market. Too bad for them.

Anonymous Asks (416)

“What’s the difference between faith and belief?”

As far as the Bible is concerned, there is absolutely no difference between these two concepts. The same Greek word (pistis and members of its family) is translated both “faith” and “believe”. You may be surprised to find that the word “faith” does not appear in most English translations of John’s gospel. Yet he writes, “To all who did receive [the Word], who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”

That is unquestionably saving faith John is talking about, and he’s using the word “believed”. As far as salvation is concerned in scripture, the two words mean the same thing.

Too Light a Thing

“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

The Father is speaking to his Son. When that happens, we all need to prick up our ears. It’s bound to be important.

There are some stunning examples of this in scripture, all regularly quoted in worship services around the world.

Somebody Else’s Mail (15)

Sometimes God gets angry. When his servants sin egregiously, even they may become the objects of his righteous and thoroughly justifiable anger:

“The Lord was angry with me because of you.”

“The Lord was so angry with Aaron that he was ready to destroy him.”

“The Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the Lord.”

“He has cut down in fierce anger all the might of Israel; he has burned like a flaming fire in Jacob, consuming all around.”

But the consequences of God’s anger (not to mention its duration) are not always precisely the same.

Too Hot to Handle: ‘Good News’ Nihilism

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

English philosophy professor James Tartaglia has co-authored a 70-page study provocatively entitled “A Defence of Nihilism” which argues two main points: (1) that life is meaningless, and (2) we shouldn’t sweat it.

Somehow we are supposed to find this encouraging.

Tom: Canada’s CBC Radio recently gave Tartaglia and his Australian co-author Tracy Llanera the opportunity to air their views on its Ideas program. You can find a summary of that here.

IC, how on earth does one come to the conclusion that widespread belief in a meaningless existence “poses no significant problems or threats”?

Who’s Minding the Store?

I’m seeing more and more of those “self-checkout” units at the local stores. They always creep me out a bit. There just seems to be something really weird about the idea of walking up to a mechanical box, shuffling around my own transaction, and then leaving, going out of a store without passing by a person.

I feel as if I owe somebody some kind of explanation, like “Here’s my purchase, and here’s my money, and they match up; so don’t call the cops.” And then this person is supposed to give me the nod, like, “Okay, you’re alright this time; but when you come back, we’ll need to see each other again.”