The Blessed Worldview

How did this end up as the first verse of the very first Psalm anyway? Think about that for a while.

“Blessed is the man who walks not
 in the counsel of the wicked,
 nor stands in the way of sinners,
 nor sits in the seat of scoffers.”

A warning about testimony, perhaps? Agreed, it doesn’t look good when a child of God associates with wicked people, or sinners, or scoffers. He or she might be thought to be one of them.

Only problem is, the Lord did, right? Sinners, at least.

Myth, Allegory, Metaphor

Tim Challies has a few relevant queries about the way theistic evolutionists allow their scientific opinions to trump scripture:

1. If the description of the creation of the world is either just a vague metaphor for what actually happened or perhaps some kind of allegory, where do we determine that historical narrative actually begins?

My comments: The can of worms we open when we allegorize the creation narrative is quite a bit bigger than we may think.

Too Hot to Handle: Spare Some Change?

The most recent version of this post is available here.

I Want to Die

The most recent version of this post is available here.

The David Connection

It occurred to me while reading through the Gospel of Mark that the significance of many little things perfectly obvious to Bible students or people with a Christian upbringing is probably quite lost on first time readers, especially those whose background is not Jewish.

Little things like the words of the blind beggar Bartimaeus, who cried out to Jesus, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” That “Son of David” thing must have been important: after all, the blind guy kept repeating it despite everybody around him trying to hush him up.

He wasn’t the only one. That title was something Jesus heard regularly.

The Redhead Returns

None of us knows God perfectly or understands him in every respect.

That statement will not come as a shock. To believe the human intellect capable of grasping the Infinite is ignorance and arrogance in near-equal measure. Theologians generally acknowledge this, and those who have seen God’s glory are frank in expressing it. Job said, “I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes”. Isaiah cried, “Woe is me! For I am lost”.

That said, John equates eternal life with knowing the true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. So while our knowledge of God may be incomplete, it is absolutely vital that the things we DO know about him are accurate.

What’s Behind the Scenes

The Christian’s nemeses — world, flesh, devil — do not all operate precisely the same way.

The world allures us. Flesh betrays us. But neither worldly attraction nor physical desire require an active intelligence operating behind the scenes. I tend to think Christians who blame Satan and his scheming agents for every bad choice they have made are probably ascribing to the powers of darkness a greater level of interest in their personal affairs than is really the case. In our fallen world, it is likely that most of our failures are a combination of our own inclination to self-destruct and the detritus of lives that have done so already.

But not always.

The Lone Voice

Earlier this year I sat in a gathering of fellow believers listening to a passionate speaker grossly misapply scripture to his subject (that is, when he wasn’t skipping past the supporting references in his PowerPoint presentation entirely).

The meeting had to do with the perceived need for a particular sort of social activism, but that’s unimportant: the issue could as easily have been anything. The point is, context was ignored, facts were misstated, commands to national Israel in specific situations were given universal application, differences between saved and unsaved were obscured, and so on. Put politely, it was a mess — or so it appeared to me.

But from the sorts of questions posed to the speaker after his presentation, I was sure I was the only person in the entire room who felt that way.

Quote of the Day (25)

Last Monday, Prime Minister Trudeau addressed Muslims in an Ottawa mosque. I almost managed to refrain from commenting, but here goes.

Never mind that the particular imam connected with that mosque happens to be a member of a group considered a terrorist organization. Never mind that the women in Trudeau’s entourage had their heads covered in deference to Islam in their own country; that’s all fine and to be expected from a Liberal government.

No, the real kicker was Trudeau’s subject: Canadian values.

Too Hot to Handle: He Ain’t Baptist, He’s My Brother

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Where Would You Rather Live?

Not all choices come out the same

God brought thirteen tribes out of Egypt to be a people for his own possession, but only ten-and-a-half of those tribes actually settled in the Promised Land.

The remainder seized the opportunity to claim land they had won from unexpected battles on the far side of the Jordan River rather than wait to receive an inheritance in Canaan.

This was not the best idea they ever had.

Timing Is Everything

I came across this quote one night last week:

“It is astonishing how often a book or article gives false information; and if we rely on such a work too heavily, our exegesis will be badly skewed. Even ordinarily careful scholars make mistakes …”

— D.A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies

Only a day later I happened to encounter a bit of badly skewed exegesis that is, just as Carson warns, the direct result of relying on false information. Naturally, it leads down an increasingly familiar and doctrinally-errant road.

Star Trek, Salvation and Sermons

The most recent version of this post is available here. 

The Commentariat Speaks (4)

Broken Arrow asks a perfectly sensible question:

“Pretend for a minute you are a 28 year old, white male, Millennial. Your current girlfriend had an abortion when she was 19, owes $24,000 in student loans for a worthless degree, and works as a receptionist for $16 an hour. You owe a little less but have been in and out of work since 2008. You have a college degree in Computer Science, but most of your money has been made in manual labor after your job was outsourced, which is pretty good money when you can find the work. You have no health insurance, but are paying the Obamacare tax.”

Sounds like an eerily familiar scenario so far.

Recommend-a-blog (21)

Michael Patton is a writer, blogger and president of Credo House Ministries. He is also, as he puts it, “waiting to die”.

This is where our readers usually check out, and I don’t blame you. On this blog, posts that are obviously about death are among our least-read, a fact that doesn’t surprise me at all. I suspect this is true across the board: after all, who wants (naturally, at least) to think about dying? In some ways, even Christians can be as uniformitarian as atheists: we know full well that we are all “waiting to die”, but a world without me in it still seems difficult to imagine.

I’ll see if I can find a great big gravestone picture to make the post’s subject especially obvious.

Lost Territory

“Here’s what God has given you. All you have to do is go and take possession of it. So what’s holding you up?”

In essence, this is Joshua’s message to the last seven tribes of Israel. Having established themselves as a nation in Canaan by taking 31 hostile cities in a relatively short period, it only remained to settle the rest of the people in their God-given inheritance. No Canaanite king or combination of kings ruling in the territory nearby was strong enough to push Israel back into the wilderness and deny them the Promised Land. All they had to do was finish the job, which would require each tribe to win a series of minor conquests — skirmishes, really, compared to what they had been through already.

Previously they had won battles as a nation. Now Joshua would see what the individual tribes were really made of.

Too Hot to Handle: Digital Christianity

The most recent version of this post is available here.

The Commentariat Speaks (3)

In a post entitled “Why is God So Selfish?” a commenter is perplexed about the things God does primarily for his own glory:

“God didn’t make this world for us, He made it for Himself. He made it to show off how strong and powerful and perfect He was. We were supposed to be His little mirror that He could stand in front of all day and look at Himself. He’s just a show off, and now all I can think of is that when you pray to Him to ask for help, is he really helping you because He knows He should, or is He doing it to show off what He can do?

God just seems selfish to me, and how He wants us all to worship Him, and practically bow down at His feet, and anyone who does otherwise is sent into a fiery pit. You know who that reminds me of? Adolf Hitler.”

Uh, yeah, okay. The implicit question here is not an uncommon one; so common, in fact, that even the obligatory Hitler comparison barely registers. Dawkins and Hitchens said worse.

Reading Too Much Into It

I believe every single word of scripture is God-breathed.

While observing that the vocabulary, syntax and idiomatic language of holy writ retain the characteristics of individual human authorship, I am confident each of these things was in every case perfectly superintended by the Holy Spirit of God. Thus Paul does not write exactly like James, who in turn does not write like David or Moses. Yet all not only spoke the word of God, they spoke the very words of God.

Let’s start with that. Even if I end up somewhere not everyone may like.

Straight Talk

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Anti-Invictus

Here is the apostle Paul describing his gospel to the Romans:

“I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience …”

“… through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations.”

That’s an awfully funny way to put it, don’t you think? Bring the Gentiles to obedience. The obedience of faith. Those sorts of catchphrases could put people off.

Inbox: Some Sound Advice

A request for prayer about an upcoming opportunity with unsaved relatives generates the following response from a sibling:

“What’s really weird about your note is that apparently [noted evangelist who is much better than I am at such things] wasn’t invited to dinner.

Go figure.

I guess I’m left to understand that his particular set of attributes and skills are not wanted/needed and the Lord has other plans in mind for the time that require different abilities.”

Okay. Well then. Don’t stop on my account.

Excuse Me, May I Borrow Your Spear?

How many ways can activism and advocacy go wrong? Let’s see ...

As I’ve pointed out in this space already, this crazy election cycle finds Christian opinion all over the map in ways I’ve rarely seen before. For every Wayne Grudem explaining why you should vote Trump, there’s a Thabiti Anyabwile or a Rachel Held Evans pointing out reasons why another Clinton presidency may be preferable (not to mention there’s at least one Douglas Wilson holding his nose and calling for a principled boycott).

Everyone has an opinion, and most of us have reasons for it, however arbitrary and weird they may seem to others. Good. God would like that. “Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.” The effort to vote intelligently and consistently with one’s conscience is a noble one.

Too Hot to Handle: Missionaries and Mindgames

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

Tom: We’re discussing IndoctriNation: Public Schools and the Decline of Christianity in America, a movie about the evils of the public school system.

The filmmakers tell us most American children from Christian homes are being discipled daily by pro-choice secularists, atheists, evolutionists, politicized bureaucrats, far left unions and oftentimes even child molesters, and that they are the subjects of a “vast program of social engineering designed to eradicate the Christian faith from American life”.

I noted a Franklin Graham quote in the movie trailer, IC, where he seemed to advocate sending our children to school as little missionaries of a sort. What do you think of the wisdom of that approach?

Taking 31 Kingdoms

When I read Romans 12, I get a bit overwhelmed. There’s a lot there, after all.

This should not surprise us. Paul’s “therefore” in verse 1 follows not only the wonderful doxology at the end of chapter 11, but really follows logically out of the entire argument presented beginning in chapter 1 with the words, “The wrath of God is revealed ...”

It’s as if in chapter 12 he now tackles the question “How should we then live?” Okay then.

Inbox: Me and Western Civilization

Disclaimer time!

Living in the post-Christian West will not save you. There is nothing magical about the values embraced by America’s founding fathers that confers grace to the human heart, makes men and women right with God, or causes them to be in any way preferable (from God’s perspective) to their fellow human beings steeped in paganism or in blundering around in religious darkness.

Being born into a society where the Christian message still has a residual influence, however diminished, does not make us Christian. Recognizing and appreciating its benefits does not grant us brownie points for cleverness, though it is clear those who do not value what they have been given are ignorant of history and poorly informed about the many drawbacks of living elsewhere.

Someone Else’s Stuff

Erick Erickson wants to give away your stuff. [Caution: language in linked post]

Technically, I suppose, he wants YOU to give it away. But he would also like you to give away your wife’s stuff, your neighbour’s stuff, your co-worker’s stuff and your children’s and grandchildren’s stuff. So it amounts to the same thing, right?

As a Christian, I have to draw the line at such extravagant generosity.

Inbox: Timing Is Everything

God’s timing is always impeccable.

The gospel spread like wildfire in the first century precisely because God had put all the pieces in place centuries prior. As James noted when the apostles and elders gathered in Jerusalem to discuss the issue of imposing the Law of Moses on Gentiles, “from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues”.

Ironically, the fact that the whole world of James’ day had access to an obscure set of Jewish laws was a function of Israel’s disobedience.

A Kiss on the Lips

When I lie to you, I have wronged you. On some level I know it.

Immediate repentance and a request for forgiveness can fix that, although asking and receiving forgiveness for some of the stupid, pointless lies we tell can be humiliating. It rarely works out like a sixties TV confession where Ward pats Beaver on the head and says, “That’s okay, son, we all make mistakes; the important thing is being man enough to admit them” — after which everybody goes for ice cream.

More often the person you have wronged looks at you like you have three heads.

Under Construction

Twice each day for the past two weeks, my morning constitutional has taken me past an older house in the middle of major renovations. Each day, any remotely attentive passer-by could observe two to three men on the job along with all the requisite heavy equipment, trucks and supplies. A radio blasted encouragement as the construction crew scurried back and forth.

And ... nothing happened. Not a thing. From the street, there was no observable progress whatsoever.

In a way, it reminds me of many of us.

Too Hot to Handle: Where Would You Like to be Judged?

The most recent version of this post is available here.

The Meaning of Life in Three Rounds

On paper, the apostle Paul vs. Solomon, king of Israel doesn’t add up to much of a fight.

If you get them both in their primes, Solomon has world class trainers and equipment and the most lavish possible facilities in which to prepare, along with all the wisdom in the world with which to strategize.

Paul, on the other hand, is almost guaranteed to be convalescing after any or all of a recent stoning, beating or flailing, as well as taking his regular buffeting from a messenger of Satan. There’s also an off chance he has not eaten recently or that he’ll miss a scheduled bout because he’s serving a jail sentence or pulling a Robinson Crusoe somewhere in the Mediterranean.

In short, on the physical plane Paul is a pushover (though he does have a disturbing tendency to beat a ten count when his opponents are sure he’s done and dusted).

On the spiritual plane, though, Solomon is fighting with both hands tied behind his back.

A Church Without Wings

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Repackaging God

God is who he is. This is first principles.

At least, this is what Moses was told when the angel of Jehovah appeared to him in a flame of fire in the middle of a bush that was not consumed, and it is the name by which Israel was to know him.

Today, God being who he is presents multiple difficulties for his followers. The differences between the culture in which God spoke to Moses and the culture in which we live are vast. The things God is, did, and continues to do often require that we explain him as best we can to others.

But in doing so, we must always be careful that we do not apologize for him. That would be a mistake.

Mastering the Pastor Disaster

The most recent version of this post is available here.

The Pastor of Disaster

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Don’t Check Your Privilege

A whole lot smarter than you think ...

Everywhere I look these days it seems somebody wants to tell somebody else why their opinion doesn’t count.

Not a parent? You should have nothing to say about child rearing. Not a veteran? Your opinion about war is uninformed by experience. Lack a uterus? You can’t possibly have a valid take on abortion.

Tal Fortgang wrote a piece about privilege that ran on TIME’s website back in May of this year in which he declined to defer to those who claim the high ground (we can’t really call it the ‘moral high ground’, can we?) on various social issues. He has encountered a steady stream of abuse for his temerity. His detractors, if I have this correct, consider him too privileged to hold a legitimate opinion on the subject of privilege.

Too Hot to Handle: The Judge of All the Earth

The most recent version of this post is available here.

What Lies Behind

What do we do with the past?

In one sense, obviously, not much. It is what it is. We can’t change it, we can’t rewrite it, and while we can reinterpret it, that may not be a particularly useful exercise if our current outlook is an honest one.

Still, how we process our past and how our thoughts about it affect us today are significant.

Transgression and Blessing

Perfect? No. But completely restored.

Can my sin be a source of blessing?

That’s not a trick question. There’s no “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” coming, don’t worry.

But it’s a legitimate consideration. A while ago, I exchanged emails with a brother in Christ who was deeply afflicted with guilt over things he had done after coming to know the Lord, and concerned that, given the magnitude of his transgressions, even deeply-felt regret, confession and a changed manner of life might not be acceptable to God.

Obviously good may come from repentance, but you wonder if any good can possibly come from the sin that (eventually) produced it.

Dear Dinesh: On Evil and Suffering

The most recent version of this post is available here.

A Lie from the Pits of Hell

Is it Rachab or Rahab? Well, it depends on your English translation of the New Testament, doesn’t it.

For some people, translations are a reason to get into a major snit. For example, this nice Jewish fellow says:

“The common teaching in churches is that Rahab the Harlot is listed in the genealogy of the Messiah. That is a lie from the pits of hell.”

From the pits of hell. Okay, then; that’s pretty serious. Let’s capitalize the word “harlot” too, just so nobody ever forgets where Rahab came from.

The Hope of Glory

Why can’t we all just get along?

I’ve been reading a fair bit of commentary by frustrated alt-right postmillennialist believers lately, folks for whom the reestablishment of Western Christianized patriarchy has become awfully close to an article of faith.

Their agitation is actually quite understandable, really. If your view of prophecy is that you are currently experiencing the thousand-year reign of Christ (or that the spread of the gospel should shortly serve to bring it about), at some point the evidence of your eyes has got to churn up some serious cognitive dissonance.

Right now, Satan doesn’t look all that “bound” to me.

Our Enemies Are By Themselves

A few years ago, an acquaintance in Northern Ontario was asked to take the funeral of a local man who had passed away unexpectedly. Nobody could say for sure whether the dead man did or didn’t know the Lord, so the speaker opted to give a clear gospel message.

When he was done, an older relative of the deceased, tears in his eyes, approached him to thank him for taking the funeral. To all appearances, this man was a secular success story; someone who, while apparently decent and moral, had shown little or no interest in the things of God for many years.

“I believe every word you just said,” he told the speaker. “I’ve wasted my life.”

Too Hot to Handle: Vote Hillary Because … Abortion

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

I’m going to stop using Rachel Held Evans as a whipping boy … er, girl … right after this election, I promise. Her leftism and contempt for evangelical conservatives has become so glaringly obvious that it no longer seems reasonable to consider her in any way representative of mainstream Christian thought. More importantly, she is now so predictably modernist that one may as well discuss the musings of secular humanists instead; their conclusions are just as wrong, but at least they make a passing nod to intellectual coherence.

Tom: Only promise me, Immanuel Can, that you will discuss this latest column of Rachel’s with me. Please, oh please. RHE believes American Christians should push the button for Hillary Clinton in November because … abortion. I kid you not.

Turning the Beat Around

The most recent version of this post is available here.

The Race Card

It’s on, ladies and gentlemen. The bell has rung, and the Gospel Coalition smackdown is underway.

In one corner we have respected theologian Wayne Grudem telling American Christians they should vote for Donald Trump. In the other, respected theologian Thabiti Anyabwile insists they should vote for Hillary Clinton. Meanwhile, out on the ring apron, respected theologian Douglas Wilson is explaining the rules of engagement to both parties while recommending Americans vote for neither candidate.

He’s also being called a racist on Twitter for the crime of daring to disagree with a black man, but we should be used to that by now.

Wow. This part is almost more fun than the actual election.

Programming or Persuasion?

I grew up watching something that worked. Not everyone has that experience.

My father loved my mother and vice versa. They were not perfect — nobody is — but they consistently modeled their Christian faith for their children. As a result, I and my siblings grew up conscious there was at least one worldview out there that produced a positive real-life outcome for those who held it.

Some people think that’s programming.

Flipping the Switch

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Inbox: Measuring the Wind

WD writes, “How does the Spirit work in a person’s life and how can one know He is?” An excellent question.

It’s also a question I wouldn’t dare try to answer in a single blog post, even if I thought myself an expert on the Holy Spirit’s guidance, which I don’t. But our reader’s question has been lurking at the back of my mind as I’ve worked my way through William Trotter’s little pamphlet on worship and ministry in the Spirit.

As much as impressions may be powerful things, I remain cautious about attributing to the Holy Spirit anything that is merely subjective, mystical or personal.

Too Hot to Handle: The Christian Globalist

The most recent version of this post is available here.

The Happy Ending

“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.”

— Orson Welles

Such a great line. If anyone knew how to tell a story, the legendary director did.

Life, however, does not neatly and naturally subdivide itself into an introduction, three acts and a tidy conclusion. We do not script our entrance or our exit, and we exercise minimal control over events occurring in between.

And all of it is very much open to interpretation.

Nobody Knows Where to Look

Try this on for size:

“The Russians are accused of trying to influence an American election. And how did they propose to disrupt our normal way of doing things over here? The answer is obvious when you think about it. They determined that they would tell the truth. When something like that erupts in the middle of a presidential campaign, nobody knows where to look.”

— Doug Wilson

Who knows what the Russians are trying to do, or if they actually have anything at all to do with the latest WikiLeaks infodumps? This is the craziest American election to occur in my lifetime, one in which interests are so wildly polarized that even the social and electoral havoc brought about by external meddling sounds like good news to some Americans, at least in the short term.

But more to the point, Wilson is right: truth is a terribly disruptive element.

The Commentariat Speaks (2)

Here’s an interesting idea: a religion that fits the people. An anonymous commenter says:

“Christendom is cancer. Pure and evil cancer. It is not a religion of white people. It is an Arabian religion which was imported. There was a fantastic interview with a Swedish woman on Red Ice Radio talking about the old gods and how they fit Sweden better because they gave role models to the people: a mother goddess, a warrior god and so forth. Christianity gives us a father figure and nothing else.”

Yes, you did read that correctly.

What We’re Here For

I don’t know how many people remember Rocky (1976), the boxing drama about a loan shark’s debt collector from the Philadelphia slums who gets a shot at the world heavyweight championship. It was released forty years ago, after all.

I saw it as a kid and don’t remember being particularly impressed by the story or enthralled by the characters. I found it all a bit grimy, if I recall. What stuck with me about the Rocky Balboa character, though, was that he just wouldn’t stay down.

Oh, he takes a beating alright.

Action, Meet Consequence

Do children bear the sins of the fathers or not? In one sense, absolutely.

Actions have consequences. My body and yours will not last forever because “in Adam all die”. The default mode of human existence is death, and every week, month and year on our march toward futility, decrepitude and (in some cases) eternal judgment drives home that reality.

Thanks, Adam. If it’s any consolation, I have no evidence from my own experience that I’d have done a better job as federal head of humanity.

When She Leaves

This morning’s office gossip is that my co-worker’s wife has left him. Didn’t improve my day any. But last week I replied to an email from a Christian friend in the same boat. A month before that, I corresponded with another believer married to a woman who had left her husband.

Researcher Shaunti Feldhahn, among others, insists the divorce rate among regular church-goers is actually way lower than previously thought (closer to twenty percent than fifty). If so, that’s a good thing. But if we’re going to pay attention to statistics at all, it’s hard to miss this one: 80 percent of divorces are filed by women.

The plural of anecdote is not data, but I’m sensing a trend.

Too Hot to Handle: Minding the Store [Part 2]

The most recent version of this post is available here.

That Wacky Old Testament (6)

Some subjects are a bit … er … delicate. Particularly when you happen to be male.

Still, when the word of God addresses any human issue, we are ill advised to affect sensibilities more tender than the writers of holy writ charged with the responsibility of recording the Divine Will for us in the first place.

So, notwithstanding the queasy feelings that attend any serious investigation of the subject matter, let’s take a crack at it. Less hardy souls may feel free to pass on this one without incurring the critical judgment of their peers.

Pagans and Presbyterians

An abomination is no big deal.

So says Presbyterian gay rights enthusiast Linda Malcor, who has taken on the unenviable task of trying to prove it.

Malcor’s effort is herculean: she lists every reference to the word “abomination” (Hebrew to'ebah) in six different English translations and even provides a search tool so you can duplicate her results yourself if you wish.

Unfortunately I’m at a loss what Malcor expects Christians to do with her conclusions.

Clinging to Dust

The movies, sports, TV shows and entertainment pastimes I enjoy today can be evaluated as to their importance by comparing them with those I enjoyed 10 years ago, or 20. Can I even remember what I watched, sat through or read back then? How much that was really useful have I retained from any of it, and how much of it would I revisit if I could? Did I learn any lessons worth hanging onto from any of it? One or two, I would like to hope.

But most of it was dust.

That Wacky Old Testament (5)

Mothers have this thing about their sons. It’s natural, it’s powerful and it’s often entirely irrational.

Take, for instance, the mother of the Palestinian terrorist who killed an Israeli teen asleep in her own bed. Mom says her son was “a hero” who made her “proud”.

Okay, that’s a little extreme. But the mother of the Bataclan bomber who inadvertently self-detonated told reporters her son never meant to hurt anyone and may have been “stressed”.

Blissful Incoherence

Work with me here: the secularist mindset prizes this life — and this life only — since it cannot reasonably contemplate any other.

Further, having dismissed notions of God, sin, righteousness and judgment, the worldview that begins from an evolutionary viewpoint is unconcerned with the moral quality of the lives it seeks to preserve. It only matters that life exists, and therefore the taking of it is always “wrong”. This despite a couple of glaring logical inconsistencies: (1) in a random universe with no Creator, nothing can be objectively immoral, only inconvenient or undesirable; and (2) many of the same folks who deplore capital punishment are perfectly fine with the taking of innocent life in and outside the womb.

The Commentariat Speaks (1)

As long as it lasts, the phenomenon of blog commentary has provided us with a whole new way of engaging with one another. Sure, it’s a style of interaction with inherent limitations and attendant frustrations, but it has its moments now and then.

On the downside, reaction to blog posts is rarely deep or seriously considered, can be kneejerky and emotional, and is easily lost in a growing stream of similar reflexive expressions that disappear from view and public consciousness as quickly as the blog’s author can bang out something new for his/her readers to huff and puff about. Further, having expressed an opinion, a commenter often wanders off to Internet Parts Unknown, to work or to bed, leaving readers unable to ask, “Hey, wait, what did you mean by THAT?”

Too Hot to Handle: Minding the Store [Part 1]

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Golden Calves and Sacred Cows

Just another divine bovine ...

Anyone who has carefully read the New Testament through more than once will concede that most modern evangelical church meetings bear little resemblance to the gatherings described in the letters of the apostle Paul.

That alone doesn’t necessarily make today’s churches “wrong”: both local autonomy and format flexibility are built into the New Testament church. Thus some of today’s churches may be most accurately described in the words of a local city building inspector who referred to a nearby triplex as “legal non-conforming”.

He May Be Right, But ...

A great multitude I can’t number

I have trouble with this statement for a couple of reasons:

“Great as the harvest of sin has been, we believe that the saved shall vastly outnumber the lost. Nothing less will satisfy Christ. Remember that in the first age, before mention is made of the latter triumphs of the Gospel, John beheld in heaven a multitude which no man could number. This was but the first-fruit sheaf; let who will compute the full measure of the harvest!”

— F.B. Meyer, Christ in Isaiah

I’ve heard this one before, and Meyer may well be correct. Who can say? Perhaps in the end more human beings will be saved than lost. Love certainly likes to hope so.