“I don’t think that I’m a good Christian. I know I’m not. But even if I’m a bad one, I am one.” — Vox Day
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Thursday, April 23, 2020
Ten Commandments That Failed
It seems morbid, perhaps, to be raising the topic of 9/11 going on two decades later. It was a
sad, bitter moment, one that we might all wish to forget.
But wisdom does not always come quickly, and events of this magnitude take a very long time to
understand. There are some things which are best left unsaid in the heat of
the moment, but are better brought slowly to the surface when due time has
passed. Such is the case with what I am writing today.
Even now, the fall of the World Trade Towers is not an easy subject.
Wednesday, April 22, 2020
Fifth Business
Facing pressure from his publisher to explain the meaning of his new book’s title, Canadian novelist Robertson Davies cooked up the following phony quote:
“Those roles which, being neither those of hero nor Heroine, Confidante nor Villain, but which were none the less essential to bring about the Recognition or the denouement were called the Fifth Business in drama and Opera companies organized according to the old style; the player who acted these parts was often referred to as Fifth Business.”
I read the otherwise-rather-grubby novel in my teens and the only part of it that stuck with me was the term Fifth Business. It seemed like a very apt description of a lot of people’s lives, I thought at the time.
They used to be called bit players. Nowadays we give them awards and call them character actors.
Labels:
Baptism
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Christ
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John the Baptist
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Recycling
Tuesday, April 21, 2020
Above My Pay Grade
“That’s above my pay grade,” said the former senator.
It was 2008. The subject was abortion. Presidential candidate Barack Obama had been asked, “At what point does a baby get human rights?”
At bare minimum, his response indicated an aversion to being
pinned down on the subject and a desire to avoid conflict over the issue as he
campaigned to be president of the United States of America. There were “larger issues” at stake, he
undoubtedly thought. He was prepared to let evil slide for the sake of what he
perceived to be the “greater good”, which presumably included his assumption of the presidency.
Monday, April 20, 2020
Anonymous Asks (89)
“Is physical healing part of Christ’s atonement?”
There is a sense in which it is. Revelation speaks of the
leaves of the tree of life, which are “for the
healing of the nations”. We also read that in the New Jerusalem, “death
shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning,
nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
Without the sacrifice of Christ we would have none of this to look forward to.
All our hopes for eternity are tied up in him. Everything we have now and
ever will have is a direct result of his death on the cross.
But that’s obviously not what’s being asked.
Labels:
Anonymous Asks
/
Healing
Sunday, April 19, 2020
91 and 19
You will surely remember Psalm 91.
That’s the one which begins, “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty ...” It’s often
attributed to Moses, and is famous for being very comforting — I heard it read
at a funeral recently — and even more so for being quoted
by Satan in his temptation of the Lord Jesus.
It also includes two statements which we might be inclined
to try to apply to nasty little flu viruses that kill people, among other
things: “For he will deliver you from ... the deadly pestilence” and “no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent.” On a
quick reading, it sounds as if dwelling in the shelter of the Most High and
making God our refuge is the ticket out of most of the unpleasant and disturbing
things that can happen to us in this life — not just new and virulent diseases, but
war and
wild beasts and even
unfortunate accidents — as well as being the absolute guarantee of
a long life. What a sweet spot to live in!
But does 91 really apply to COVID-19? Can Christians reasonably claim its promises in connection with the current pandemic?
I hate to be a party-pooper, but a careful reading of scripture does not
allow us to appropriate this familiar psalm for our own comfort quite so freely.
Saturday, April 18, 2020
Time and Chance (32)
“A man’s got to know his limitations.”
I have a feeling that’s an old Clint Eastwood line from somewhere. At any rate, the next six verses
of Ecclesiastes are all about human limitations in a fallen world. Verses 19
and 20 have to do with mankind’s moral limitations, verses 21-22 with our interpersonal limitations, and verses 23-34 with our philosophical limitations.
Basically, we are sinners who don’t get along. Moreover, outside of God’s word, we are incapable of
coming up with any reasonable explanation why that might be. We don’t act
right, we don’t socialize right, and we don’t think right. That’s a fairly
hefty indictment.
Labels:
Ecclesiastes
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Morality
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Philosophy
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Society
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Time and Chance
Friday, April 17, 2020
Too Hot to Handle: Days of Programs Past
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Labels:
Too Hot to Handle
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Youth
Thursday, April 16, 2020
A Dose of Worldliness
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Labels:
Christian Music
Wednesday, April 15, 2020
God’s Photo Album
The Bible is full of pictures.
Now, illustrations — whether they are symbols, metaphors,
or even when they come in the form of full-blown parables — are not
reality, and it does us good to keep that in mind. They are useful snapshots in
which we may catch glimpses of ourselves, of God, and of spiritual truths we
might otherwise miss. To ensure we don’t, God has given them to us in a form we
can easily process and relate to, one which often stirs an emotional reaction
that can bring us to repentance, awe, appreciation or some other good state. For
example, Nathan’s story about the
poor man’s ewe lamb drove David into a righteous rage ... until he
realized the story was all about him.
Labels:
Figurative Language
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Parables
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Symbolism
Tuesday, April 14, 2020
Can a Mormon be Saved?
In a recent post, Amy Hall at Stand to Reason entertains the possibility that some Mormons may be saved. It’s a
thoughtful piece, and Hall describes several conversations she’s had with LDS
members that are enlightening as to the differences between Mormons and Christians
in terms of our hopes, goals and understanding of Jesus Christ and what he has
done for us. In the end, she concludes a saved Mormon is theoretically possible but doubtful.
I found myself more or less agreeing with Hall: LDS theology
is pretty far removed from the Christian faith in many respects. It would be
difficult to imagine attending an LDS gathering for any great length of time
without cluing in to that fact.
Labels:
Denominations
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Orthodoxy
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Salvation
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Sects
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Stand to Reason
Monday, April 13, 2020
Anonymous Asks (88)
“What should I say when someone morally offends me?”
When you set out to correct people, one of several things may
happen: (1) they reject your advice and never think about it again; (2) they
reject your advice now, but take it to heart later when they have time to
reflect; (3) they accept your correction politely, but only in order to
get you to stop talking and go away; or (4) they accept your correction
politely and actually learn from it.
It also happens occasionally that your intended target rejects
your advice, but other people come to know of it and benefit from it. That
is not the ideal outcome, but it is still a pretty good one.
Labels:
Anonymous Asks
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Offences
Sunday, April 12, 2020
The Fate of the Coward
We are living in scary times. People are afraid.
Biblical fear can be good or bad. Perfected
love banishes it, but in a fallen world, fully mature love is a rarity and
fear still serves the
occasional valid purpose in God’s dealings with us. For one, Christians are
encouraged to bring our pursuit of holiness to completion “in the fear
of God”. For another, fear sometimes gets your attention in a busy world when
nothing else will.
Our modern translations tell us one of the things the
miracles of Christ regularly produced was awe,
usually accompanied by giving glory to God. The word for “awe” in Greek is phobos, more commonly translated “fear”.
This is fear at its most useful.
Saturday, April 11, 2020
Time and Chance (31)
Anecdotal evidence is not
conclusive in any court, but it’s still evidence. What you have observed in
this life has a profound effect on what you believe. What you think you’ve observed may have an even
greater influence on you.
So what is it that really matters? What sort of life would your neighbors call “good”? There are very few
people out there who haven’t yet decided. Some of them are making very silly
choices, but they are still making them. Having “seen everything” (in their estimation),
they are now deciding what course of action makes the most sense for them. If
you ask them nicely, they will often tell you why.
Labels:
Choices
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Ecclesiastes
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Time and Chance
Friday, April 10, 2020
Too Hot to Handle: Crippling the Response
In which our regular
writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.
Ah, the coronavirus! I was so determined not to go there in
this space. Then it threatened to go on and on and on, and then it became such
a feature of our current media experience as to be utterly inescapable. After
that, it changed the way we do most everything, at least for the foreseeable
future. And still we left the subject alone; after all, if you want the latest
on COVID‑19, you can get that absolutely anywhere, right?
Tom: But then The New York Times started blaming
evangelicals for “crippling
our coronavirus response”, and there you are: turns out it was time to
start talking about it here. Not being an expert of any sort, I don’t want
to discuss the virus itself, where it came from, how it is spreading, and what
might be done about it; nor do I want to speculate about what the total
bill for fighting this thing will be. I simply want to talk about the
church and its response to the crisis.
Labels:
Authority
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COVID-19
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Obedience
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Too Hot to Handle
Thursday, April 09, 2020
The Beautiful and the Not-So-Good
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Labels:
Beauty
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Book Reviews
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Christianity Today
/
Mark Galli
Wednesday, April 08, 2020
Word for Word
“If you don’t have access to the original language, stick with a
word-for-word translation like the NASB ...”
There is a common misconception, usually among those who are
only familiar with a single language, that it is possible to translate Hebrew
or Greek — or any other language, for that matter — word for word. I used
to believe it myself. It is not the case, and the translators of the NASB would
tell you themselves that they have not attempted any such thing.
Labels:
Bible Translations
Tuesday, April 07, 2020
A Tale of Two Rebukes
One generation and three chapters of holy scripture apart,
two powerful men experienced God’s correction. One handled it right. One
didn’t.
Both were good men with a notable character flaw. One
accepted instruction, while the other became offended and died obdurate.
Perhaps in comparing their stories we may see ourselves in
one or the other.
Labels:
2 Chronicles
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Correction
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Humility
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Pride
Monday, April 06, 2020
Anonymous Asks (87)
“Are our dreams from God?”
There are all kinds of theories about what dreams are, what
they mean, and the purpose they serve for human beings. One theory is that dreams
are our brains attempting to derive meaning from meaningless stimuli,
attempting to create order out of chaos. Sigmund Freud saw them as a window
into the unconscious. Psychologist Rosalind Cartwright says dreams “help
us process new, emotionally important information and add it to our conceptual
memory system”. Sleep scientist Robert Stickgold says there is “precious little
on which dream researchers agree”.
That about sums it up. From a scientific
perspective, the answer is that we don’t know what purpose dreams serve, or if
they mean anything at all. Where dreams are concerned, we cannot be certain
about much of anything.
Labels:
Anonymous Asks
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Dreams
Sunday, April 05, 2020
Tyrants and Pushovers
Nobody likes a tyrant. I don’t imagine anyone ever did even
when, as is so often claimed today, tyranny was the defining feature of
patriarchal leadership in the secular world, in church government, and even
sometimes within families. At least this is what we are led to believe.
I have no doubt a significant number of the horror stories
about the abusive leadership of times past are perfectly true, and should serve
us well as cautionary tales. But I very much doubt all of them are.
Labels:
Elder
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Leadership
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Servant
Saturday, April 04, 2020
Time and Chance (30)
Much of what we read in
our Bibles is not what we might call “inspired”: the choice of English words
made by translators; the marginal commentary; beginnings and ends of verses;
chapter and passage headings ... all these things were simply not
subjected to the same level of divine control which the writers of scripture
claim for the Greek and Hebrew text itself.
This being the case, once in a blue moon something done by a translator or publishing house works against
our ability to discern the meaning of a text. One of my brothers is fond of
pointing out how many times a chapter division in our English Bibles has obscured
his understanding of a passage which should rightly flow right on without pause,
and did so in its original form. Sometimes the answer to a question posed at
the end of chapter 3 (where you probably stopped your daily reading) is to
be found three verses into chapter 4 (where you have probably
forgotten what it is answering by the time you read it tomorrow).
Labels:
Adversity
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Ecclesiastes
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Time and Chance
Friday, April 03, 2020
Too Hot to Handle: The Rapture and the Wrath of God
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Labels:
Dispensationalism
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Premillennialism
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Rapture
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Revelation
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Too Hot to Handle
Thursday, April 02, 2020
Youth Problems Part 2: Life in Suspended Animation
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Labels:
Christianity
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Faith
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Growing Up
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Youth
Wednesday, April 01, 2020
Doesn’t Always Mean What We Think It Means (6)
We have been talking about brothers and brotherhood.
Brothers share DNA, parents, history, culture and sometimes values.
Ideally at least, brothers feel a sense of high obligation to one another and
always have each other’s backs.
Other than in rare cases of Solomonic excess, one only has a
few literal siblings. All others are only “brothers” in a figurative sense. On
the basis of the Old Testament, I have compared brotherhood to the layers
of an onion, in which the highest level of responsibility lies toward those at
the center of our lives and radiates out through the “layers” of immediate
family, then extended family, tribe and nation.
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
Doesn’t Always Mean What We Think It Means (5)
The majority of times the word “brother” is used in
scripture, it denotes a male sibling, a family relation, someone swimming very
close to another in the gene pool, a son of the same mother, father or both. In Hebrew, the word “brother” is 'ach,
in Greek it is adelphos.
In this literal sense, Cain and Abel were brothers, Isaac
and Ishmael were brothers, James and John were brothers. Little more need be
said about that.
Monday, March 30, 2020
Anonymous Asks (86)
“How can I become more spiritually
discerning?”
Great question. Discernment is something to which every Christian should aspire. Maybe the wisdom of Solomon is not a realistic goal, but each one of us can get better at making
clear distinctions between things that please the Lord and things that don’t.
Let me suggest five ways we can start moving in that direction.
Labels:
Anonymous Asks
/
Discernment
Sunday, March 29, 2020
Inbox: To the Youth Group
Last week, a youth
leader we know sent the following email to the young people in his local church. I thought it made a great point, and he was kind enough to allow us
to share it here.
Good morning everyone,
Students, your March Break 2020 is drawing to a close. I wonder:
if someone had asked you on Saturday, March 7th how you would describe
your March Break today on Saturday, March 21st, would your description have
been anywhere close to how it actually unfolded?
The dramatic shifts in just two weeks get me thinking that there is probably something in the
Bible that can provide some wisdom for us to shape our lives to. Of course
there is, so the tricky part is to limit ourselves to just two selections for now.
Saturday, March 28, 2020
Time and Chance (29)
Much of Ecclesiastes is
observational rather than directly instructive. The Preacher tells us the
things he did, the things he has seen, and what he thinks about it all ...
then leaves the reader to decide how he ought to behave in light of the information
shared with him. The first six chapters of Ecclesiastes contain only three
“do” or “do not”-type commands.
These next few verses of
chapter 7 are a little more pointed.
Labels:
Anger
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Ecclesiastes
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Time and Chance
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Wisdom
Friday, March 27, 2020
Too Hot to Handle: The Pagans Weigh In
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Labels:
Church
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Paganism
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Too Hot to Handle
Thursday, March 26, 2020
Christian, or just ‘christiany’?
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Labels:
Churchianity
/
Reality
Wednesday, March 25, 2020
The New Creationism
I’ve gotten far too used to seeing creationists adopt a more
or less defensive posture, taking issue with what purports to be intelligent criticism
from a scientific perspective, but usually amounts to nothing more than derisive
sniping. The non-scientific media relentlessly harangue creationists over views they haven’t read and don’t understand in favor of secular
views they also haven’t read and couldn’t coherently articulate in any case.
These apologetics are of some limited use; however, because they are
almost completely defensive, they cannot do much to rehabilitate — let
alone popularize — the creationist position in the public sphere.
Labels:
Book Reviews
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Creationism
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Evolution
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Genesis
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Theistic Evolution
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
The Forgotten Virtue of Shame
“You’re body-shaming me,” lectures the tubby,
well-propagandized primary school girl, heading off her mother’s forlorn
attempts to get her to order a salad instead of yet another side of large fries.
“Fat shaming is dangerous,” opine the editors of Psychology Today. Well, we can certainly
concede that certain forms of it are impolite.
Wikipedia says the term “slut-shaming” is a derogatory expression
used by feminists to “reclaim the word slut and empower women and girls to have agency over their own sexuality.” I’m not
sure that’s world’s most helpful agenda, but there you are.
Labels:
1 Corinthians
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Matthew
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Offences
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Shame
Monday, March 23, 2020
Anonymous Asks (85)
“Does the Bible say to ask Jesus into your heart?”
If there is anything in the Bible that may have given rise
to this very popular expression, it is probably the risen Lord’s generous offer
to members of the Laodicean church in Revelation: “Behold, I stand at the door
and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” Obviously it is not literal. Eating symbolizes fellowship, fortifying and encouraging the
believer and delighting the heart of Christ.
Labels:
Anonymous Asks
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Salvation
Sunday, March 22, 2020
The Biblical Procedure for Church Discipline?
“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
From time to time we come across believers referring to this
famous passage in Matthew as the “biblical procedure for church discipline”.
Labels:
1 Corinthians
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Discipline
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Matthew
Saturday, March 21, 2020
Time and Chance (28)
Many years ago I went for
counseling. A man with a big white beard (I am so not making this up) asked me a number of questions, listened
quietly to my responses, then assured me I was a good person and that
I should not be down on myself.
Needless to say, I never went back. I can’t
tell you whether he was right or wrong, but I can tell you he had taken all of
twenty minutes to reach his conclusion. He was pronouncing on my life in utter
ignorance. He could have made a more meaningful diagnosis of my situation by
hurling darts at a dartboard.
Advice is only useful when it comes from people with actual knowledge. That is true whether we are
talking about praise or criticism.
Labels:
Ecclesiastes
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Flattery
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Oppression
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Time and Chance
Friday, March 20, 2020
Too Hot to Handle: The Garment Stained by the Flesh
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Labels:
Same-Sex Attraction
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Stand to Reason
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Too Hot to Handle
Thursday, March 19, 2020
Youth Problems Part 1: Double Jeopardy
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Labels:
Christianity
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Faith
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Growing Up
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Youth
Wednesday, March 18, 2020
Stricken Sheep
“Then David spoke to the Lord when he saw the angel who was
striking the people, and said, ‘Behold, I have sinned, and I have
done wickedly. But these sheep, what have they done?’ ”
People who are characteristically righteous always have an
outsized sense of their own relative culpability. That is probably a good
thing. A tender conscience toward sin and a heart which always looks to get
right with God are qualities to be valued and pursued. God is often more
generous with his assessment of righteous men and women than they are with
themselves.
But a preoccupation with our own personal responsibility can
also be a bit like wearing blinders.
Tuesday, March 17, 2020
The Commentariat Speaks (18)
“Are you one of those people who say that
there are actually two different Gog and Magog events?”
Good question. I may have looked into it before, but my last serious attempt to unpack Bible
prophecy in detail was way back in the nineties. I wouldn’t attempt to
answer a question like that without going back to the scriptures and refreshing
my memory. So I begged off answering until I had time to take a more careful
look at the text.
This week I had plenty.
Labels:
Dispensationalism
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Magog
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Premillennialism
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The Commentariat Speaks
Monday, March 16, 2020
Anonymous Asks (84)
“Does Christianity need to develop a new gospel adapted to today’s world?”
If the Christian faith was merely the invention of man, and
if Christians were permitted to market it to the world in whatever way seems
like it might work best, this could be a good idea. After all, brands grow
stale over time and need to be refreshed. And in a consumer world, it’s
whatever makes the sale for you. The customer is always right.
In this case, however, the “customer” is going to hell.
Labels:
Anonymous Asks
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Gospel
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Witnessing
Sunday, March 15, 2020
Satan Unleashed
A reader of the book of Revelation writes:
“Doesn’t the Pre-Mill version of Satan’s release seem weird? In it
Jesus has physically ruled over the nations for a thousand years. Don’t you
think they’d have learned something? And then Satan just waltzes out of his
prison, goes, ‘Hi, it’s me, your old pal Satan!’ and EVERY nation goes, ‘WE LOVE
YOU SATAN, LEAD US PLZ!!’ I mean, how long does it take to get to that
point? A few weeks? A month? How does that work?
In the Pre-Mill view, doesn’t it also seem weird that the nations don’t
go, ‘Wait, things are happening JUST like in that book Jesus has been talking
about for a millennium. But hey, following Satan still seems like the best
idea!’ How could they possibly get confused over this?”
The way a reader reacts to Satan’s release and the events
which follow it in Revelation 20:7 very much depends on what he believes
about the Millennium: its intended purpose(s), its governing conditions, and the
people over whom Jesus Christ will rule.
Personally, I find the reaction of the nations in
Revelation 20 all too plausible.
Labels:
Dispensationalism
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Millennium
/
Satan
Saturday, March 14, 2020
Time and Chance (27)
If we took the first thirteen verses of Ecclesiastes 7 on their own, we might initially think
they belong in the book of Proverbs. They are fairly standard Hebrew proverbial
couplets (with the occasional interjection).
This is not the first time the form is used in Ecclesiastes. There are a few couplets sprinkled
through chapters 1, 4 and 5, and we will encounter more in chapters 8,
10 and 11.
What is different about the proverbs we find in Ecclesiastes in that they do not skip around from
subject to subject with anything like their usual apparent randomness, but
instead serve the book’s larger treatise. They are thematically linked to one
another, to what comes before them, and to what follows them.
Labels:
Death
/
Ecclesiastes
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Time and Chance
Friday, March 13, 2020
Too Hot to Handle: Break Out the Marshmallows
In which our regular writers toss around
subjects a little more volatile than usual.
This is an interesting take. The Independent brings us the story of Joseph Atwill, who has written a book entitled Caesar’s Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus.
Atwill says Christianity is actually a
“system of mind control” developed by the Romans to “produce slaves that
believe God actually decreed their slavery.”
Tom: Who knew, Immanuel Can? Our whole faith is nothing more than the product of a first century propaganda campaign. Fortunately someone finally figured that out for us. Or not.
Labels:
Incarnation Myths
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Recycling
/
Too Hot to Handle
Thursday, March 12, 2020
Wednesday, March 11, 2020
The Commentariat Speaks (17)
A Baptist pastor weighs in on the question of when the
church began:
“The church didn’t begin at Pentecost, it began when God called Abram out of Ur of the Chaldees. All who believe are descendants of his promise.
Nothing has stopped his church for over 4000 years and nothing can.”
Reply to this sort of thing in 180 characters? You have to
be kidding. It’s one reason certain social media platforms are inferior places
for Christian discussion. They foster snappy rhetorical flourishes, but
discourage nuanced analysis. That doesn’t make them useless, but it certainly
limits their usefulness.
I suppose one might reply, “It depends how you define ‘church’.”
That may get the attentive reader thinking. Or not. So let’s try something
a little longer-form.
Labels:
Church
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Pentecost
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The Commentariat Speaks
Tuesday, March 10, 2020
Not An Idiot
The books of Chronicles cover much of the same historical
material we find in the books of Samuel and Kings, sometimes in near-identical
wording. This provokes legitimate questions: Do we need both? Our Bibles are
bulky enough already without including a whole lot of duplicated material. What
do the books of Chronicles offer us that Samuel and Kings do not?
There are several possible responses to those questions, but
the short answers are “Yes” and “Quite a bit.” I am working on a
comparative study of the two sets of narratives and hope to get into that
subject more extensively later this year in this space if time permits. Though
more or less the same time periods are covered, there are numerous variations
in content and wording that make each account useful to readers in different
ways.
Labels:
1 Chronicles
/
2 Samuel
/
Contradictions in Scripture
Monday, March 09, 2020
Anonymous Asks (83)
“Why isn’t the Bible in chronological order?”
If the Bible were nothing more than a history text, organizing it chronologically would be perfectly
sensible. But when you have a book that contains history, law, poetry, wisdom
literature, prophecy and moral teaching that interprets history for us, the
question becomes considerably more complicated.
Labels:
Anonymous Asks
/
Bible
/
Bible Study
Sunday, March 08, 2020
Under the Tower of Siloam
Individual guilt differs
from corporate guilt, and individual repentance from corporate repentance, not
just quantitatively but qualitatively.
That’s going to require a
fair bit of explanation, especially for Christian readers born into our
hyper-individualistic Western culture. Most of us only think about the matter
of corporate guilt when we find ourselves summarily dismissing Progressivist
ravings about race- or gender-based privilege. We rightly reject being held
responsible for the long-term social impact of patterns of historical behavior in which we have
never engaged and from which we do not personally benefit. “Each of us will
give an account of himself to
God,” we say.
Full stop, move along now.
Labels:
Guilt
/
Luke
/
Nationalism
/
Repentance
Saturday, March 07, 2020
Time and Chance (26)
The much-maligned Donald
Rumsfeld, former U.S. Secretary of Defense under President George W. Bush, once
said this: “There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know.
There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t
know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we
don’t know.”
That may sound like bafflegab, but it’s actually a fairly lucid breakdown of the possibilities.
Labels:
Ecclesiastes
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Life
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Time and Chance
Friday, March 06, 2020
Too Hot to Handle: The Dwarves are for the Dwarves
In which our regular writers toss around
subjects a little more volatile than usual.
The term “postmodern” is not actually all
that modern. John Watkins Chapman used it in the 1880s in relation to art criticism. Umberto Eco has said that postmodernism is less a style or a period than an “attitude”.
The attitude comes out clearly in what is produced by postmodernists in their various fields: postmodern graphic design disdains traditional conventions such as legibility; postmodern music rejects beauty and sometimes structure; postmodern philosophers reject the concepts of subjectivity and objectivity. You get the general idea.
Tom: Immanuel Can, help me nail it down: what is postmodernism?
Labels:
Postmodernism
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Recycling
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Too Hot to Handle
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Worldviews
Thursday, March 05, 2020
Two Glories
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Labels:
David
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Glory
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Mephibosheth
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Worship
Wednesday, March 04, 2020
John Piper’s God
John Piper’s God is not someone I find particularly
appealing.
Piper’s Calvinist determinism makes his version of heaven a
scary place where every microscopic detail of human existence is examined, and from
which God himself administers rough justice to his subjects on the spot as he
sees fit, to believers and unbelievers alike, sometimes in the form of
really bad weather.
A rash of tornados across the U.S. in 2012 prompted Piper to
express his opinion in this post.
Labels:
Determinism
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John Piper
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Judgment
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Neo-Calvinism
Tuesday, March 03, 2020
Of Generals and Foot Soldiers
“Seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.”
Here is a tall order, no? How exactly do we seek God’s
kingdom?
Oh, I know we all have some kind of mental picture in view
when we pray “Thy kingdom come.” I certainly always do. During the eight years
of Barack Obama’s stewardship of the U.S., I regularly imagined the man’s
surprise at getting his just desserts one day. I look forward to all
deceivers being shown to the world for exactly what they are: right, left and
apolitical alike. I picture the enthroned Christ dispensing justice, the
wolf lying down with the lamb, and ultimate truth, love and discernment
dictating all aspects of world governance.
There are all kinds of ways we may picture the kingdom. But
seeking it? That’s something else. It seems like the sort of aspiration in
which one’s reach easily exceeds one’s grasp.
Labels:
Kingdom
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Luke
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Spiritual Warfare
Monday, March 02, 2020
Anonymous Asks (82)
“Should I wait for God to bring me a boyfriend?”
Let’s apply this “wait for God” principle to a few of life’s other important questions and consider
how much sense it makes, as well as the mostly likely outcome of waiting:
“Should I wait for God to deliver dinner?” (Starvation)
“Should I wait for God to provide me with a job?” (Chronic unemployment)
“Should I wait for God to wash my car?” (An unspeakably filthy vehicle)
Labels:
Anonymous Asks
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Providence
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Relationships
Sunday, March 01, 2020
Crazed Swine on a Gerasene Hillside
We do not have a whole lot of clear teaching in the Bible
about demons and precisely how they operate. It is evident from the various
accounts we have in the gospels that demons are capable of indwelling, tormenting
and periodically controlling humans who become susceptible to them, but we do
not know much more than this for certain.
Under what conditions do demons come and indwell a person? Where do
they go when they haven’t got a human being to play with? Why do they so
terribly fear the abyss, and what makes them crave human hosts while methodically working away at their destruction? None of these things are spelled out for us.
Labels:
Demon Possession
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Demons
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Luke
Saturday, February 29, 2020
Time and Chance (25)
As I write this, I haven’t had breakfast yet. I will shortly. There’s food in the fridge, and money in the bank if I opt to step out for a bite.
That covers this morning, and this afternoon, and maybe even the rest of this week. However, if I were to stop going to work, I would have a problem before long. The refrigerator would be empty, and the bank balance would dwindle until it hit rock bottom.
Labels:
Bread
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Ecclesiastes
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Time and Chance
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Work
Friday, February 28, 2020
Too Hot to Handle: Open Just A Bit Too Far
In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.
We’ve talked a lot about Calvinism here over the past two years. We have not
talked very much about Open Theism, also referred to as Dynamic Omniscience,
which might be said to be Calvinism’s very near-opposite.
By the time the Evangelical Theological Society adopted the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy in 2006, their decade-long internal debate over Dynamic Omniscience had pretty much petered out. ETS president Tom Schreiner says that for the ETS at least, the debate has
“simmered down”.
And yet today the Global Christian Center still lists what it calls the
“Open Theism Controversy” among its nine most important issues facing the evangelical church.
Tom: This particular idea about God is clearly not going away. In a nutshell, Immanuel Can, what is Open Theism?
Labels:
Greg Boyd
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Neo-Calvinism
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Open Theism
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Recycling
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Too Hot to Handle
Thursday, February 27, 2020
Wednesday, February 26, 2020
From the Cat’s Perspective
I’m sitting in the vet’s
office with a very unhappy young feline. She was okay in the car; a little curious
but not overly concerned. Now her tail is fluffed up like a feather duster and
she’s growling, a sound I’ve never heard from her before. The instrument poking
into her ears was bad enough, the prodding and squeezing of her abdomen was
worse, and then came the rabies shot and the growling if you accidentally touch
her where it now hurts.
To top things off,
this is only the preliminary round. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s getting
spayed in two weeks. That’s when things will really get ugly.
Tuesday, February 25, 2020
What Scripture Doesn’t Tell Us
Yesterday in this space I mulled over the question of whether or not pets go to heaven. The post was mostly speculative. Why? Because, as is the case with so many other topics of interest to us in this life, the Bible simply doesn’t tell us. God chose not to weigh in on that one, at least not directly. Sure, there are hints and clues and principles in scripture which we can draw on to lead us to some more-or-less-satisfactory conclusion, but nowhere do we find plain teaching that settles the matter beyond controversy.
This is true of many, many other subjects of interest to Christians today.
Monday, February 24, 2020
Anonymous Asks (81)
“Will my pet go to heaven?”
As a pet owner and lover, I have no small vested interest in the question myself. That said, given what I know of God, if it turns out that my much-loved critters do not appear beside me in glory one day, I will not be turning to my heavenly Father to complain. There is simply too much about my own consciousness that I do not know with certainty for me to speculate with any confidence about animal consciousness and its eternal value.
Some things we simply have to leave to God. If there is a distinction to be made between the concepts of faith and trust, I would not be able to tell you what it is. Among Christians, then, who have already committed our own selves to Christ for salvation, a little trust on these smaller matters is in order.
Labels:
Anonymous Asks
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Creation
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Heaven
Sunday, February 23, 2020
Are the Critics Right?
Christianity has been called a crutch, an opiate, a panacea and “wish-fulfillment”. The prevailing theory among its detractors is that we are fragile flowers who can’t cope with life and surround ourselves with comforting platitudes to escape having to face up to harsh realities like “We are all alone in the universe”, “Nobody loves me”, “There is no such thing as justice” and “Death is the end of everything”.
Additionally, we are often told people cling to Christianity because they can’t think for themselves and need to be told what to do.
These are arguments that may initially appear to hold water.
Labels:
Christianity
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Scepticism
Saturday, February 22, 2020
Time and Chance (24)
When he fell in battle with the
Philistines, his enemies decapitated him and fastened his body to the wall of the
city of Beth-Shan, publicly degrading him in death. And yet, as willful, proud
and chaotic as Saul’s reign over Israel had been, the courageous men of
Jabesh-Gilead came, probably at no small risk to themselves, took his body,
burned it, buried the bones and fasted seven days in memory of him.
As in most other nations, an ancient
Israelite burial was not merely a matter of being dumped into a hole in the
ground and covered by dirt. There were people who cared enough about Saul to
make it evident to the entire nation — not to mention its enemies — that
their king’s life, position and person were worthy of their loyalty and appreciation.
So Saul received a proper interment with the customary ritual observances.
Labels:
Burial
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Death
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Ecclesiastes
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Time and Chance
Friday, February 21, 2020
Too Hot to Handle: Five Questions About the Next Generation
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Labels:
Discipleship
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Too Hot to Handle
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