I have written a couple of times before about the “labels” the writers of the Old Testament used for the cities, towns, nations and people groups in their histories. These men wrote centuries after the events they described, for audiences unfamiliar with any helpful historical context and detail. In many cases, the ethnicity of the people who lived in any particular geographic location about which they were writing had changed drastically in the intervening years, giving rise to potential confusion.
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Sunday, July 27, 2025
Wednesday, May 14, 2025
Semi-Random Musings (42)
Some people are naturally more reactive than others, but everybody has moments in which their words and actions are the product of pure emotion rather than common sense, let alone real wisdom. A few days ago, we posted here about David’s very public emotional reaction to the death of his son Absalom at the hand of David’s nephew Joab, the commander of Israel’s army, in violation of the king’s own edict to keep the rebel safe. It was the natural reaction of a loving father, but the optics were horrible coming from a head of state in whose cause many loyal men had just fought and died.
Thankfully, David had time for a sober second thought or two, or at least so it seems.
Tuesday, April 08, 2025
Semi-Random Musings (41)
At its leanest and meanest, the Reformed package requires some variant of Calvinism, plus Covenant Theology. Supersessionism and/or postmillennialism are often associated with these but are not, so far as I know, mandatory in order to call yourself Reformed. Some of these concepts fit together better than others; for example, supersessionism harmonizes quite naturally with CT. If there is only one covenant people through all the ages, it follows that someone has to be in and someone else has to be out.
Not all these theological components fit together quite so well as that pair.
Wednesday, February 12, 2025
Semi-Random Musings (40)
“So now give me this hill country of which the Lord spoke on that day …”
Caleb son of Jephunneh is eighty-five when he speaks these words to his fellow senior citizen and current leader of Israel’s armies, Joshua son of Nun. Joshua and the high priest Eleazar are in the process of dividing the largely-conquered land of Canaan by lot to assign territory to the various tribes. In the middle of this, Caleb comes to ask a personal favor. In the process, he does some reminiscing.
He’s casting his mind back to a particular day forty-five years in the past.
Sunday, January 12, 2025
Semi-Random Musings (39)
For almost nine years, I have been reading the New Testament as closely as possible to the order in which I believe its writers composed its various component letters, gospels and prophecies. That’s well over a dozen times through. As I have commented here, it’s a very different experience from reading the NT in the order we find it in our Bibles. The intended significance of certain passages is much more obvious when you read your mail in the order the mailman actually delivered it.
The relative importance of Paul’s teaching about the return of Christ positively jumps out at the Bible student who stops to put his reading material in chronological order.
Tuesday, September 03, 2024
Semi-Random Musings (38)
Exodus 6:2 plainly states that while God appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as God Almighty (El Shaddai), he did not make himself known to them by his personal name YHWH. This confuses some readers. One asks, “Why does God say he didn’t reveal his name ‘Yahweh’, when he obviously glaringly did so in Genesis, many, many times?”
Some of the answers one gets to such a question on a public forum like Stack Exchange are truly horrendous. One respondent suggests the writer of the Exodus passage believed it, but the writer of the Genesis passages believed differently. Let’s just say the apostle Paul would beg to differ, as would the Lord Jesus.
Sunday, August 11, 2024
Semi-Random Musings (37)
After almost eleven years and nearly 4,000 posts, my closest friends are getting a little warier about our conversations and emails, suspicious that almost anything interesting they may introduce in conversation will probably end up on the blog in some form or another. That’s not entirely true — I try to respect people’s privacy. If you’re just spitballing a theological idea with me by text or email, I won’t quote you on it, and I certainly wouldn’t use your name. You may change your mind about it next week, after all.
That said, if you’ve refined your thoughts sufficiently to voice them from the platform or put them up online, it’s game on. Maybe my pals are right to be cautious!
Wednesday, July 24, 2024
Semi-Random Musings (36)
For years, conservatives have conserved next to nothing, hamstringing their own cause by refusing to use the very effective cancel culture tactics of the militant left. These are certainly unpleasant, but a philosophy that maintains it is better to lose nobly than win ugly and which disapproves of what you say but defends to the death your right to say it (even when it’s rank wickedness) simply does not work in war, however dignified and mature it may appear.
That includes culture war.
Tuesday, June 18, 2024
Semi-Random Musings (35)
From the department of “It’s All Been Done Before”, my ongoing trek through the last several thousand years of humanity’s follies continues with the first volume of the Cambridge Medieval History, which takes us from Constantine through the twelfth century.
Constantine is most notable for “converting” and subsequently making Christianity the official religion of the then-declining Roman Empire. This act led to a few moral reforms for those who lived at that time. (The newly empowered state religion frowned, for instance, on the cruelties of the Roman amphitheatre, crucifixion and the widespread practice of exposing unwanted infants, especially girls.)
It also compromised the church in ways we are still dealing with today.
Tuesday, April 30, 2024
Semi-Random Musings (34)
It is often quite incorrectly believed that evil is a product of stupidity and that the answer to stupidity is education, which, generally speaking, it is not. In fact, in a fallen world, the relationship between intelligence and cruelty is actually the inverse of what we might expect: with increased intelligence comes increased capacity for creativity in evil-doing, and for taking senseless pleasure in the injury of others.
If you doubt this, try googling “nasty dolphins”.
Sunday, February 04, 2024
Semi-Random Musings (33)
Mark’s list of the twelve apostles includes the names of two fathers: Zebedee and Alphaeus. Matthew includes the same two fathers, and Luke includes Alphaeus.
If you wonder why, look no further than their sons, both of whom are called James. To distinguish between them, the gospel writers use the names of their fathers as what are called disambiguators, phrases that clarify the author’s intended meaning.
Good thing too, or the New Testament could get pretty confusing.
Tuesday, December 05, 2023
Semi-Random Musings (32)
Jonathan Noyes’ latest post at the Stand to Reason blog asks “Do You Know What Your Child Is Being Taught about Sex?” It’s a decent primer for Christian parents with children in the public school system, at least with respect to the issue of what is actually being taught. I don’t think Noyes has missed much in describing the variety of poisons to which our children are being exposed.
Where Noyes missed the boat completely is in failing to address how the school system is disseminating its propaganda. In the end, the delivery method matters more than any particular offensive and ungodly bit of misinformation.
Tuesday, August 01, 2023
Semi-Random Musings (31)
Sometimes witnessing doesn’t work, even when you do it to the best of your ability and everything initially appears to go swimmingly.
I’m sure you’ve had the experience. I know I have. I used to be a great believer in dialectical arguments and persuasive apologetics. I would study up a storm to answer a question from scripture that I believed might be important to someone’s salvation or growth in Christ.
I’m not saying a good apologetic never works, but there are things even the most polished and articulate argument can’t possibly accomplish.
Wednesday, June 21, 2023
Semi-Random Musings (30)
“When iniquities prevail against me, you atone for our transgressions.”
This first phrase nicely encapsulates the condition of the believer. Iniquities do not characterize him. Iniquities do not magnetically draw him the way they once did. Iniquities are not his goal or the meaning of his life. Iniquities are an enemy with which he is perpetually in contention.
Occasionally iniquities even prevail. For a moment only.
Sunday, February 05, 2023
Semi-Random Musings (29)
Three unrelated thoughts about failures of memory.
Critics of dispensational teaching frequently insist that it cannot be valid because we do not find it discussed explicitly in the writings of the church fathers or, to the best of our limited knowledge, throughout the next couple of millennia of church history. I have always found that a weak argument, not least because both our knowledge of church history and of the opinions of the church fathers are so fragmentary. In fact, precious truths are far more easily lost than we might think.
Perhaps that’s why Proverbs says, “Buy truth, and do not sell it.” Some things are invaluable.
Sunday, January 01, 2023
Semi-Random Musings (28)
Somewhere back in December — wait, I should be able to do better than that.
December 11, 2013 was our first post ever. So this post, published on December 10, 2022, marked the completion of our ninth full year of daily publication, though I didn’t notice at the time. Today’s post means we’ve published across eleven different calendar years, for whatever that’s worth. So we thank the Lord for unanticipated longevity and for the endless wonders of the word of God and the person of Christ. We have yet to beg anyone for subject matter.
Let’s just say that in 2013 I didn’t really expect we would still be writing blog posts in 2023. I didn’t expect not to either. In 2013, that sort of thing was just too far away and too unreal to spend time thinking about.
Wednesday, December 07, 2022
Semi-Random Musings (27)
I have written once or twice about the use of disambiguators in scripture. These are the little bits of information the Bible’s writers supply in order to help us distinguish James (the brother of Christ) from James (the brother of John) or Mary (Magdalene) from Mary (the mother of Jesus).
The Benaiah who served David and Solomon is consistently called the son of Jehoiada. Good to know. With that disambiguator appended to his name it’s impossible to confuse him with two later Benaiahs mentioned by Ezra and Ezekiel, or with Benaiah of Pirathon, another man of valor in David’s service.
Tuesday, June 28, 2022
Semi-Random Musings (26)
Unless you come from a megachurch background where the primary influence on your Sunday praise fodder is the Hillsong catalog, you are probably familiar with the name Isaac Watts (1674-1748), lyricist of several absolutely wonderful old hymns. The three I know best are “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”, “O God, Our Help in Ages Past” and “Jesus Shall Reign”.
Many of Watts’ hymns paraphrase psalms.
Wednesday, April 13, 2022
Semi-Random Musings (25)
I have always liked the story of Phinehas, Aaron’s grandson. For the uninitiated, Phinehas was a young priest who took it upon himself to execute the son of a Simeonite tribal chief in the act of committing adultery with a Midianite woman by impaling the two on the same spear. As a child, I found his rather decisive move a bit daring (not to mention violent), but also commendable and brave.
After all, a spontaneous impalement is both unilateral and very final. It tends to inspire the neighbors to murmur things like “I say, old boy, don’t you think that’s a bit drastic?” Or worse.
Tuesday, January 18, 2022
Semi-Random Musings (24)
I have found myself thanking the Lord for some strange things lately. One of them is death. Another is the limits of human memory.
The mind of God is a staggering thing to contemplate. The moment we do so we are almost guaranteed to get something wrong. Nevertheless, enough has been written about it in scripture that we can be confident there is nothing God does not know, no prayer he does not hear, no burden of which he is not aware, and therefore no care or adverse circumstance in which he is unable or unwilling to provide grace.
That’s pretty amazing.
Tuesday, August 31, 2021
Semi-Random Musings (23)
I have seen the future of the church. It is non-institutional, non-sectarian, untraditional, discreet, highly portable and deadly serious. These are all good things.
That’s my conclusion after a week away up north with a group of 11 Christians of varied backgrounds, denominations and convictions from all over our province. What drew us together was a pair of mutual friends and our love of Christ, not any particular theological compatibility or shared history.
Here is my concern, and it’s a big one: in our movement toward what sure looks like the inevitable next phase of church life in North America, we are in danger of leaving our leadership behind.
Tuesday, January 12, 2021
Semi-Random Musings (22)
Sunday, September 06, 2020
Semi-Random Musings (21)
Sunday, May 10, 2020
Semi-Random Musings (20)
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Semi-Random Musings (19)
Sunday, January 05, 2020
Semi-Random Musings (18)
Sunday, November 10, 2019
Semi-Random Musings (17)
Tuesday, October 01, 2019
Semi-Random Musings (16)
Tuesday, September 03, 2019
Semi-Random Musings (15)
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Semi-Random Musings (14)
Sunday, June 09, 2019
Semi-Random Musings (13)
Wednesday, April 03, 2019
Semi-Random Musings (12)
Wednesday, December 26, 2018
Semi-Random Musings (11)
Sunday, October 28, 2018
Semi-Random Musings (10)
Sunday, September 30, 2018
Semi-Random Musings (9)
Tuesday, June 12, 2018
Semi-Random Musings (8)
“Darwinism was once a well-fortified castle, with elaborate towers, moats, and battlements,” says author Tom Bethell. “Today, however, it more closely resembles a house of cards, built out of flimsy icons rather than hard evidence, and liable to blow away in the slightest breeze.” So begins Darwin’s House of Cards: A Journalist’s Odyssey Through the Darwin Debates.
What isn’t initially obvious is that the “debates” in view are almost all in-house, which to me is a big selling point. Rather than rehash the arguments of creationists, Bethell has instead elected to draw his citations primarily from a murderer’s row of big names on the other side of the table who stray here and there from Darwinian orthodoxy.
As you might anticipate, where weaknesses in their case have come to light through disagreements in the evolutionist camp, these have not always been well-publicized.