Most falsehoods don’t come with handy labels |
“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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Wednesday, September 30, 2020
Witnessing and Misdirection
Put them on the spot, and people won’t always tell the truth.
They may throw up smokescreens, use cover stories, ask questions they don’t really want answered, tell outright lies — engage in every variety of misdirection.
This comes as no surprise to anyone with the
gift of evangelism, or anyone without it who tries to talk to people about the Lord. Where the subject of faith is concerned, it takes wisdom and experience to discern what really matters.
At least initially, people tend to be least candid about the things that mean the most.
Labels:
Christ
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Evangelism
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Holy Spirit
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Recycling
Tuesday, September 29, 2020
Marching to Where?
I’m a bit cautious about the practice of grabbing verses out
of the Old Testament and some parts of the gospels for the benefit of Christians living in
the Church Age.
Notwithstanding the fact that there is centuries of
historical precedent for appropriating Israel’s promises to ourselves in
hymnology and liturgical language, this practice is quite unnecessary: the church has its own unique place and promises in the plans
of God.
Generally speaking, when we replace our own promises with those made to
national Israel, we are trading down.
Monday, September 28, 2020
Anonymous Asks (112)
“What’s the difference between reincarnation and resurrection?”
The concept of reincarnation is a component of many religions, the
four largest of which originated in India: Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism and
Jainism. Greek philosophers like Plato, Socrates and Pythagoras promoted
something similar, as do Spiritists, Theosophists and numerous smaller, tribal
societies, as well as some of the more obscure sects of the Abrahamic
religions.
Obviously then, not all believers in reincarnation believe
precisely the same things. Forgive me if I generalize a bit.
Labels:
Anonymous Asks
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Reincarnation
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Resurrection
Sunday, September 27, 2020
Saturday, September 26, 2020
Mining the Minors: Jonah (1)
Christians may be sorely tempted to concede their point, or at least to downplay the necessity for a
historical Jonah. As a result, students of the Bible have taken many different
positions with respect to the historicity of the book of Jonah, and with
respect to its intended meaning. William R. Harper, editor of the October 1883
edition of The Old Testament Student, has provided an outstanding summary of ten of these positions
here.
Labels:
Jonah
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Mining the Minors
Friday, September 25, 2020
Too Hot to Handle: He Ain’t Baptist, He’s My Brother
In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.
Tom: Quick quiz, IC: How many different local churches have you been part of? I’m not counting churches you’ve visited, but just
those you would have considered “my church” for a period of time;
churches in which it would have been notable to others if you weren’t there.
Immanuel Can: Um … rather more than most people, I suspect. I’ve been regarded, for some time, as a
regular attendee of … I make it 14. I might be missing one or two. My
youth and early adult years were marked by a lot of moving around, so it wasn’t
a product of unhappiness in most cases. How about you?
Tom: Eight. Second question: How many of those churches were in the same town as one of the others?
Labels:
Church
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Denominationalism
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Faithfulness
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Recycling
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Too Hot to Handle
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Unity
Thursday, September 24, 2020
Between Museum and Megachurch
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Labels:
Church
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Megachurches
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Obedience
Wednesday, September 23, 2020
The Language of the Debate (2)
The Christian media urgently wants Christians to stop believing —
and even more importantly, to stop circulating — what it calls “conspiracy
theories”. I previously came across and responded to one of the earliest of these calls to cease and desist back in September of last year, and lo and behold, here are a whole bunch more folks writing almost exactly the same thing Aaron Brake wrote at Stand to Reason, and maybe even more so.
Interfaith Now says Christians “have to do better”. Christianity.com says,
“Let’s unite together in spreading God’s truth, not rumors!” Relevant magazine argues
that Christians only believe in “conspiracies” because they need
to feel like they are in control. Christianity Today insists, “Gullibility is not a spiritual gift.”
Labels:
Conspiracy
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The Language of the Debate
Tuesday, September 22, 2020
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
My youngest son has an amazing memory for detail. If you
play him a song he’s familiar with, he can tell you when he first heard
it — year, month and sometimes day — where we were and what we were
doing at the time, and probably what video game was released that week.
I, on the other hand, can go back into the ComingUntrue archives, read a two-year-old
post, and wonder “Who wrote that?”
It was usually me.
Monday, September 21, 2020
Anonymous Asks (111)
“How often do you need to say ‘amen’?”
This is kind of a different question, because it’s really
more a matter of etiquette than morality.
Amen is one of those weird words
that is exactly the same whether you’re looking through a Greek or a Hebrew
concordance. It’s a Hebrew word that Greek-speaking Christians in the early
church picked up and used to mean the same thing it meant within Judaism. In
the King James it is often translated as “verily”. It is an affirmation of
agreement. It simply means “indeed”, “so be it” or “absolutely”. Sometimes it
means Yeah, me too. I feel that exact feeling, I think that
exact thing and I want exactly that to happen. “Amen” is
convenient shorthand for all that.
Labels:
Amen
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Anonymous Asks
Sunday, September 20, 2020
Time and Chance: The Post-Game Show
The heavens declare
the glory of God and God’s invisible attributes have
been clearly perceived in the things that have been made; our Old and New
Testaments are in absolute agreement on this. Even if the Creator had never
uttered a word to his creatures, men would be without excuse.
We would also be hopelessly confused, frustrated, and
conflicted, grasping for an explanation of meaning and purpose that forever
eludes us, feeling the pull of eternity in bodies destined only for the grave.
Labels:
Ecclesiastes
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Revelation
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Time and Chance
Saturday, September 19, 2020
Time and Chance (54)
We have arrived in our study of Ecclesiastes at what the Preacher calls “the end of the
matter”. The matter under consideration, if you have a long memory, was this: “What
does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?” What is the point of man’s existence? Why
are we here? This was the question he set out to answer.
Through twelve chapters, the Preacher has undertaken the task of examining the
experience of being human from every possible angle in hope of gaining insight
into its meaning and purpose, always using only what he could observe and infer
from the input of his senses. What he discovered was that when you approach the
big questions of life in that way, the experience is frustrating and the
answers elusive.
Labels:
Ecclesiastes
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God
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Meaning
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Time and Chance
Friday, September 18, 2020
Too Hot to Handle: After COVID
In which our regular writers toss around subjects a
little more volatile than usual.
Immanuel Can: I’m noticing a very common
theme springing up in news organizations and on the internet right now. There
are lots of articles talking about the changes to society that will persist
after the COVID-19 crisis is over. For instance,
ABC says the major things that
will remain different will be: more automation and more work-from-home options
in employment, increased telemedicine, stricter travel regulations and precautions,
and more virtual education. Another media source predicts masks everywhere,
no more handshakes, loads of anxious parents, closer cliques, more centralized
government control, smaller cities ... and a whole bunch of other things.
All that’s speculation, of course. But some of it’s probably going to turn out
to be right.
It seems what’s missing from such articles, Tom, is any reflection on what all the
shifts will do to local congregations of Christians. Of course they will be
subject to the same changes as anyone else, for starters. But are there any
special concerns that Christians should take note of? What trends do you
see as either opportunities or ominous possibilities for Christians after COVID?
Labels:
Church
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COVID-19
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Too Hot to Handle
Thursday, September 17, 2020
Wednesday, September 16, 2020
What Does Your Proof Text Prove? (13)
“Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the
desires of your heart.”
The commendably-honest Sarah Frazer acknowledges she once
believed this familiar promise in Psalm 37 meant “I can
have anything I want.” If so, that would be quite a promise, but it
would reduce God to a mere term in a larger equation, where if you treat that term
a consistent way, you can always expect a predictable outcome.
Nice deal if you can get it, but quite a comedown for the
Creator and Sustainer of the Universe to be reduced to a component of your personal math
problem.
Let’s suggest that might not be the verse’s intended meaning!
Labels:
Desire
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Psalms
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What Does Your Proof Text Prove?
Tuesday, September 15, 2020
That Guy Outside Starbucks is NOT Jesus’ Brother
God bless the poor.
In fact, I don’t even have to ask him: we’ve been told he will;
at least inasmuch as their poverty is primarily one of the spirit.
But we should pray for the poor, of course, and share as we are able. We should care, we ought to avoid partiality and we need to act. Our faith does not amount to much if it does not make us compassionate in a very practical way
toward those in need, and toward those who may have started life at a huge
disadvantage, or have encountered trials and troubles we have never
experienced.
But that guy outside Starbucks who invades your space — the one with the tatty green or brown jacket, bad breath, body odor and uncomfortable social habits — while he may be made in the image of God and deserving of whatever we
are able to do for him for that reason alone …
Sorry, that guy is just not Jesus’ “brother”.
Labels:
Mason Slater
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Matthew
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Poverty
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Recycling
Monday, September 14, 2020
Anonymous Asks (110)
“What should a believer do before he dies?”
Some denominations prescribe rituals to be administered by
the church in a man or woman’s final moments on earth, and perhaps this week’s
question is coming from someone with that sort of ecclesiastical background.
If religious routines are what the dying are calling for, we
would not wish to rob them of their comfort, but I should probably point
out that we do not find any commands at all about “last rites” in our Bibles.
The Christian is neither obligated to perform them nor to have them performed. It
may even be that the practice encourages a false sense of security about one’s relationship
to Christ and one’s eternal destiny.
That would be very unfortunate indeed. In any case, it’s not
the sort of preparation we are going to discuss today.
Labels:
Anonymous Asks
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Death
Sunday, September 13, 2020
Act Like What You Are
Clean living requires an act of the will, and acts of the
will require a changed mindset — at least if they are going to stick for
any length of time. Down through the centuries, men and women who sought to control
their natural appetites have attempted to “live clean” with different goals in
view.
Plato taught the suppression of fleshly desires in order to
free the soul to search for knowledge. The Stoics disciplined themselves to manage their emotions in order to uphold
what they believed was the essential dignity of human nature. Kant advocated moral asceticism in hope of cultivating virtue. Monks of various religious orders idealized
poverty, fasting and celibacy as ways of expressing devotion to their gods.
Labels:
2 Corinthians
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Adoption
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Holiness
Saturday, September 12, 2020
Time and Chance (53)
With the advent of the internet, we have become all too used to people sharing their opinions
with us.
Editorializing is far from a new activity — human beings have engaged in it for millennia. What’s new is the
sheer scale of useless bloviating made possible through social media. More
information is fine, but information bereft of both authority and coherence is
not worth the effort it takes to process.
Back in Ecclesiastes, the Preacher is about to tell his readers something similar.
Labels:
Authority
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Ecclesiastes
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Time and Chance
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Wisdom
Friday, September 11, 2020
Too Hot to Handle: The Christian Globalist
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Labels:
Globalism
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Nation
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Too Hot to Handle
Thursday, September 10, 2020
Wednesday, September 09, 2020
If It Happens Again I’m Leaving
Doug Wilson is not the only Christian blogging about the
phenomenon of people leaving a church over the issue of compulsory mask-wearing,
but he’s probably more quoted on the subject than most. Responding in a
recent post to questions from believers frustrated by the stand their own
elders have taken over the issue, Doug has (perhaps inadvertently) opened a
larger can of worms than the mask issue itself, which is the authority of
elders to bind the consciences of those under their care over matters about
which scripture is silent.
And the mask issue is certainly that.
Labels:
Church
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COVID-19
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Douglas Wilson
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Elders
Tuesday, September 08, 2020
Inbox: ‘Systemic’ Racism
God gave a plethora of laws to Moses on Sinai, yet they did not make for a perfect society because people are not perfect. Individuals observed those laws from time to time, and in doing so, benefited from them. But on a national level, Israel would not — nay,
could not — follow those laws, notwithstanding the fact that they were
morally excellent, decent, orderly, and
taught lessons humanity absolutely needed to learn, not to mention they
pointed to Christ. So God gave them, man received them, and the result was systemic failure.
Or was it?
Labels:
Government
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Inbox
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Racism
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Repentance
Monday, September 07, 2020
Anonymous Asks (109)
“If God loves the world, why does he make people choose between loving
him back or spending eternity in hell? That sounds more like an ultimatum than
love.”
I agree: that choice does sound a bit like an
ultimatum. The Bible also frames it as a
command.
Why is that? Why is there no third option where God simply
leaves me alone to do my own thing, and I leave him alone to do his?
Surely a policy of benign indifference would be more loving than condemning
millions of people to a lake of fire.
I wonder what simply leaving humanity to its own devices
would look like ...
Labels:
Anonymous Asks
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Choices
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Hell
Sunday, September 06, 2020
Semi-Random Musings (21)
Most of our readers would not be aware that I have been
at the office almost non-stop these last few weeks as a consequence of a
plethora of COVID-related staff absences. That’s not because even a single employee
of hundreds across the globe has contracted the coronavirus — so far as
I know, they are all healthy as horses — but because almost nobody currently
working from home has any enthusiasm about returning to work in the current
environment, and the corporate powers that be are even less enthusiastic about
ordering them to do so. The vast majority of my co-workers seem content to hunker
down in their basements doing not too much of anything until sometime in Spring 2021.
Yeah, sure … that’ll be the end of it. Right.
Labels:
Choices
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Church
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COVID-19
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Semi-Random Musings
Saturday, September 05, 2020
Time and Chance (52)
Just this week, a friend of mine took his three-and-half-year-old grandson hiking through
a local terraced cemetery. As they climbed, they stopped to read a gravestone
together at every level. Recognizing the shape of the recurring word forms, the
little boy soon began to repeat phrases like “In loving memory” and “beloved
wife”.
When the two returned home to tell Grandma what they had been up to, her agitated
response was, “I hope you didn’t tell him what the numbers mean.”
Yeah, those numbers …
Labels:
Age
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Ecclesiastes
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Time and Chance
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Youth
Friday, September 04, 2020
Too Hot to Handle: The Chosen
In which our regular writers toss around subjects a
little more volatile than usual.
The Chosen is a largely-crowdfunded, independent, ongoing video series which debuted on
YouTube in April 2019 with the goal of retelling the gospel stories mainly
from the perspective of their minor characters and emphasizing the
life-changing nature of their interactions with the Lord Jesus. In the words of
Josh Shepherd at Christianity Today, its creators aimed for it to be “faithful to the biblical text while gritty in tone”.
Tom: Hmm. In my opinion, the grit is definitely visible, but not necessarily
off-putting.
Labels:
The Chosen
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Too Hot to Handle
Thursday, September 03, 2020
Who Your Friends Are
“You are those who have stood by me in my trials.”
In my youth I had two friends with whom I was
particularly close. Both were highly talented, creative, driven and smart. It
was only a matter of time until both made good in the world and became
successful, wealthy and celebrated.
But when I met them all that was yet to come. It wasn’t
apparent yet that they were going anywhere. They were in a high-risk career
line, trying to catch that key break that many folks thought might never come.
“Get a haircut, and get a real job” was the advice they heard a lot.
Too bad for the naysayers. Both hit the big time.
Labels:
Christ
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Identity
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Soren Kierkegaard
Wednesday, September 02, 2020
Tuesday, September 01, 2020
A Sheet of Glass
Now and then when I’m unable to write a new post for one reason or another, I’ll recycle something from our archives, generally without comment. But I couldn’t help but notice that this end-of-2014 post about the suddenness with which change comes to our world was definitely NOT inadvertently prophetic. Not one bit. Really.
Last week, Matt Drudge linked to an article in The Guardian that informs us “we are
safer, richer and healthier than at any time on record”. In “Goodbye to one of the best years in history”, Fraser Nelson wraps up 2014 by reminding his readers that while it may have escaped
our notice:
- our lives now are more peaceful than at any time known to the human species;
- global capitalism has transferred wealth faster than foreign aid ever could;
- global life expectancy now stands at a new high of 71.5 years;
- traffic deaths are down by two-thirds since 1990; and
- there has never been a better reason for people the world over to wish each other a happy and prosperous new year.
While Mr. Nelson may have overlooked one or two little
atrocities here and there in his glowing report on the human condition, he makes
an effort to substantiate his claim that relatively at least we are doing
pretty well as a species.
Terrific for us, until things change. And change is coming.
Monday, August 31, 2020
Anonymous Asks (108)
“Why do we follow some Levitical laws and not others?”
Whenever we associate living the Christian life with following the Law of Moses, we run the risk of becoming
very confused. Surprisingly, the relationship between Christianity and Old
Testament Judaism is still much misunderstood today, even though the matter was
conclusively sorted out very early in church history. It’s a situation made
worse today by systems of theology that conflate the church with Israel.
But if we have our theology right, we will find Christians do not “follow Levitical laws” at all.
Labels:
Anonymous Asks
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Grace
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Law
Sunday, August 30, 2020
Incidentally …
An idle remark made in passing may tell us considerably more
about its speaker than listening to him lecture for an hour on a prepared
topic.
Likewise, it is often the case that the little “asides” made
by the writers of the New Testament in the process of teaching are as
interesting as — and sometime even more interesting than — the subjects
themselves.
Nothing in scripture is simply there to fill up space. Even
incidental comments are full of important truth.
Labels:
1 Corinthians
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Father
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Godhead
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Son
Saturday, August 29, 2020
Time and Chance (51)
As I have mentioned on more than one occasion during
our study of Ecclesiastes, the list of things its writer characterizes as “vanity”
in his thesis is lengthy. Over thirty different features of human existence are
so described, a partial list of which you can find here,
from hedonism to workaholism to discontentment and entropy.
Labels:
Age
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Ecclesiastes
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Time and Chance
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Youth
Friday, August 28, 2020
Too Hot to Handle: The Peasants Are Revolting
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Labels:
Politics
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Responsibility
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Too Hot to Handle
Thursday, August 27, 2020
Merged into the Mob
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Labels:
Collectivism
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Judgment
Wednesday, August 26, 2020
No Standing
The argument may be made that John Glover Roberts Jr.
is the most powerful man in America.
As the 17th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United
States, when Roberts says no, even the current president reluctantly backs down.
For that matter, lower court judges have blocked, delayed or nullified Mr. Trump’s
initiatives over the last four years on any number
of fronts.
Surprising, no?
Labels:
1 Corinthians
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Church
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Government
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Laws
Tuesday, August 25, 2020
Fake Piety
Fake piety is usually fairly transparent. Sadly, the fakely
pious are the only ones who do not know it.
Christians sometimes caution one another to be careful what
we confess, and this is not always a bad thing. A personal testimony full of interesting
and semi-scandalous details can serve as a source of enticement to those who
have little life experience, whose parents have sheltered them from the evils
in the world.
Monday, August 24, 2020
Anonymous Asks (107)
“What does the Bible say about capital punishment?”
The law of God received by Moses at Sinai gave instructions to the leaders of Israel
concerning the conduct of Israelites and the foreigners who chose to travel and
live alongside them. The penalties for religious and criminal violations of the Law
were identical for both nationals and foreigners.
Labels:
Anonymous Asks
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Capital Punishment
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Death Penalty
Sunday, August 23, 2020
Your Church Building is NOT the House of God
I’m hearing it all the time now in public prayer: “We thank
you, Father that we are able to freely gather in the house of God” and other similar thoughts, where the words “house of God” are unquestionably being used to describe the building in which we are sitting.
A similar misconception is given voice by people who insist upon
referring to the auditorium in which a church meets as a “sanctuary”, as in (from
mother to child), “Don’t run in the sanctuary! Don’t make noise in the
sanctuary!”
These are not new Christians. It makes me wonder if they really know what the house of God is or what the term sanctuary means. I think in many cases they do, but have through inattention lapsed into language that is potentially misleading.
Labels:
Christ
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Church
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Hebrews
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House of God
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Priesthood
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Recycling
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Sanctuary
Saturday, August 22, 2020
Time and Chance (50)
Almost a year ago we started this weekly study in Ecclesiastes, and here we are in the
penultimate chapter. I have been poking along a verse or two at a time,
because it seems to me that this 3,000 year old treatise on the meaning of
life deserves our concentrated attention and rarely gets it.
Hey, Christians and unbelievers alike quote from Ecclesiastes all the time. There’s some great stuff in there for funerals. But when
was the last time you heard even a single sermon on the book, let alone a
series? I can remember maybe two in my entire life.
Labels:
Ecclesiastes
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Generosity
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Time and Chance
Friday, August 21, 2020
Too Hot to Handle: Which Beer Do Christians Drink?
In which our regular writers toss around
subjects a little more volatile than usual.
Everybody’s favorite political football Bristol Palin has written a column on the subject
of the Guinness Beer Company and its Christian origins.
Tom: This is not the first time I’ve come across
this story, Immanuel Can. In another generation, a Christian brewer turns out
to have been the voice of moderation and societal self control. But in some
evangelical circles today, Arthur Guinness would be taken to task for corrupting the
faithful. I mean, he sold alcohol for a living!
Is there a less cartoonish and more biblical position to be taken on the subject of
alcohol consumption, IC?
Labels:
Alcohol
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Recycling
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Romans
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Too Hot to Handle
Thursday, August 20, 2020
Wednesday, August 19, 2020
Resetting our Defaults
I’ve been thinking about platform ministry. Each church has its
own default set of practices observed week after week (with the exception of churches
that meet in living rooms and basements and don’t have platforms) and, other
than in the case of brand new churches, the choices that go into how teaching
and preaching get presented are rarely conscious ones. They are more often the
result of time, tradition and imitation of formats perceived to be successful
in other churches.
Labels:
Church
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Recycling
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Spiritual Gifts
Tuesday, August 18, 2020
Recommend-a-blog (30)
Alan Shlemon at Stand to Reason has written a thought-provoking piece called “How 2020 Is
Taking a Toll on Your Soul” about the effects of the internet in the last
five months on society in general and Christians in particular. To nobody’s
surprise, in COVID lockdown we have been spending record
amounts of time online. In the UK, the highest percentage increase in time spent
online is among those over the age of 54.
As a result, I’ve felt it and I’m sure you have too: that
indefinable malaise and “inordinate pressure to say the right thing”. Shlemon
argues it’s partly a consequence of the false sense of omnipresence and omniscience
social media inspires.
Labels:
Internet
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Recommend-a-blog
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Stand to Reason
Monday, August 17, 2020
Anonymous Asks (106)
“How can Christians say their religion is the only true one?”
Over fifty years ago, a Muslim who happened to hear my father preaching asked him a question very much
like this one. After listening to Dad for a time, he inquired, “Are you
actually telling us that Jesus is the only way to God?”
Ouch.
In a Bit of a Bind
My father was in a bit of a bind in that he was at the time a guest in a foreign country. His ability
to continue freely preaching and teaching there depended to a certain extent on
not rocking the boat unnecessarily. However, this was one of those questions
that cannot be evaded, ignored or put off to a more convenient time when there
might be fewer witnesses or a less potentially hostile environment.
Faithfulness to his Master demanded a straightforward answer, and Dad gave one.
Labels:
Anonymous Asks
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Exclusivity
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Gospel
Sunday, August 16, 2020
Acknowledging the Obvious
Why do we give God glory?
It’s a good question. I was introduced to the Christian faith as a small child, so the notion of
people gathering together to sing praises to God, to raise their hands in the
air, to pray fervently to someone they could not see, and say complimentary things about him to one another did not seem weird to me at all. It was what
I was used to, and when I was old enough to know how to imitate what these
folks were doing, I joined in too, even though at that point I had no
personal knowledge of Jesus Christ.
It was expected, so we did it.
Saturday, August 15, 2020
Time and Chance (49)
Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon |
It is said that every virtue carried to extremes becomes a
vice, which is probably true. Every good thing indulged in to excess does much the
same.
The previous few verses of Ecclesiastes 10 contrast a
kingdom run by self-indulgent drunks and gluttons with a kingdom administered
by wise, self-controlled princes and officials who know the proper place for leisure
and pleasure in their own lives. Obviously the citizens of the second kingdom
will have a better time of it than those of the first. The Preacher then
comments that attending to only your own desires rather than the objective
needs around you will end in disaster.
Labels:
Ecclesiastes
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Self-Control
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Social Media
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Time and Chance
Friday, August 14, 2020
Too Hot to Handle: Religious Scrupulosity
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Labels:
Religious Scrupulosity
/
Too Hot to Handle
Thursday, August 13, 2020
Fake News
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Labels:
C.S. Lewis
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Media
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Prophecy
Wednesday, August 12, 2020
Two Psalms
The Psalms are not only richly poetic but deeply personal.
That may be one reason so many Christians relate to them on an emotional level.
When saying goodbye even temporarily to someone we love, the natural instinct
is to reach for a psalm. Psalms touch our hearts in ways much of the rest
of God’s word may not.
Let me be very honest about that: I suspect much
of the time the Psalms touch us so powerfully because we don’t really
understand what they are about to any great extent. Figures of speech will do
that; they universalize thoughts that may actually be quite specific. So we feel
free to grab bits and pieces of the Psalms here and there to apply to our own
experience without worrying too much whether we are violating some principle of
exegesis.
They just feel right, and so we are at home with them. Even if at one level they are not
really ours.
Tuesday, August 11, 2020
Knowing Our Limitations
A few days ago we ran a post about the
will of God and the COVID-19 pandemic. In the process of researching what
God’s will meant to the Lord Jesus and his apostles, I came across a verse
that initially perplexed me, then later seemed to provide some interesting
insights into the subject. I did not bother to mention it in the COVID
post because it was one of those theological rabbit trails, heading off through
the forest from where we were at the time to somewhere entirely different. But
the questions raised by the verse certainly merit a full post’s worth of
consideration, and then some.
I’ve been mulling it over ever since, so let’s lay out the
problem that occurred to me and see where it takes us ... carefully, of
course.
Labels:
Gethsemane
/
Matthew
/
Will of God
Monday, August 10, 2020
Anonymous Asks (105)
If I were to discuss all the different ways some of these words have been used throughout history and
all the ways they each are misused throughout Christendom, this might turn into a five-parter. So let’s
keep it simple and just try to highlight what the Bible teaches about each as
they exist in the church today.
Labels:
Anonymous Asks
/
Pastors
/
Preacher
/
Priests
Sunday, August 09, 2020
Saturday, August 08, 2020
Time and Chance (48)
Many years ago I had an older Scottish boss. Unstereotypically
for a Scot with an accent so thick you could make peaks in it with a spatula, he had no
problem with his staff reading a book, chatting, or idling away our shifts —
but only under one condition: all the work in the shop must be finished and out
the door first. If our salespeople failed to keep us busy, that was their
problem. If we failed to deliver their work on time, it was ours.
So play by all means,
but play after you work.
Labels:
Ecclesiastes
/
Pleasure
/
Time and Chance
/
Work Ethic
Friday, August 07, 2020
Too Hot to Handle: Christians and Mental Health
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Labels:
Biblical Counseling
/
Mental Illness
/
Too Hot to Handle
Thursday, August 06, 2020
Universal Human Rights: The Christian Legacy
There is only one reason we have human rights: God.
And it was a Christian who first discovered this and explained it to the world.
Eh?
Now, you might ask yourself this: if this is true, why was I not told? Why didn’t my teachers in high school, my instructors at college or my professors in my undergraduate explain this? Or if it’s true, then why is not every Christian trumpeting the fact from the rooftops?
The answer’s simple: Christians don’t know it, and other people don’t want to hear it.
Labels:
Christianity
/
Human Rights
/
John Locke
/
Recycling
Wednesday, August 05, 2020
COVID-19 and the Will of God
“It was God’s will.”
Ah, the magic phrase. You hear it said by devout people at
funerals, usually with palpable resignation. “He was taken before we were
ready, and we’re all hurting, but somehow we know — though we can’t quite
see how it might be since he was such a great guy and will be so profoundly
missed — that his untimely and painful death was God’s will.”
So that’s all right then. Even if it isn’t, really.
Labels:
COVID-19
/
Suffering
/
Will of God
Tuesday, August 04, 2020
Marching as to War
“... making supplication for all the saints, and also
for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to
proclaim the mystery of the gospel ... that I may declare it
boldly, as I ought to speak.”
This is not the only time Paul asks for prayer specifically for himself and for the work he was engaged in. Colossians 4 contains
a similar request, as do both Paul’s
first and
second letters to Thessalonica. We may take it this was an apostolic custom. The writer to the Hebrews does
the same.
I wonder why.
Labels:
Ephesians
/
Prayer
/
Spiritual Warfare
Monday, August 03, 2020
Anonymous Asks (104)
This is an excellent question for young Christians to resolve in their hearts and heads before it
becomes emotional and personal, especially in a cultural climate where we are repeatedly told
that pre-marital sex is not only not sinful, but healthy, normal human behavior.
Chaste teenagers are currently considered more than a little defective. Heaven help you if your dedication to sexual purity lasts into your
twenties.
So why have Christians always taught that sexual purity is so important?
Labels:
Anonymous Asks
/
Premarital Sex
/
Purity
Sunday, August 02, 2020
Thank You for the Failures
Some readers understand that concept very broadly. They see
that God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the
knowledge of the truth”, and conclude from it that God would prefer it if every
single human being on the planet were to turn from sin and self to Christ, who
is God’s only way of salvation.
This may very well be true, though I don’t think it’s
exactly what Paul was telling Timothy.
Labels:
Christ
/
Hell
/
Matthew
/
Recycling
/
Word of God
Saturday, August 01, 2020
Time and Chance (47)
Not all fools are avowed atheists.
All serious foolishness begins with the assumption “There
is no God.” But there are different ways of denying the existence of
God in one’s heart. One way is to do it like Richard Dawkins, who says it with
a lot of pseudo-scientific bother and fuss. He can’t stop thinking about it and
trying to prove it. Then there is the functional atheist. He never tries to
talk anyone out of their belief in God, and he certainly doesn’t write books
about God’s non-existence. He may even concede that God might possibly exist,
but he lives every moment of his life as if God does not.
Either way is foolish, but at least a Dawkins recognizes the
existence of God as a problem for his worldview and is working away at coming
to grips with it. The other fellow is perhaps in a worse state, as he never
thinks about God at all.
Labels:
Ecclesiastes
/
Foolishness
/
Time and Chance
Friday, July 31, 2020
Too Hot to Handle: No-Fault Separation
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Labels:
Church
/
Leadership
/
Leaving
/
Too Hot to Handle
Thursday, July 30, 2020
Blessed are the Hated
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Labels:
Christian Testimony
/
Hatred
/
John
Wednesday, July 29, 2020
On Knowing and Being Known
“But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them,
because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man,
for he
himself knew what was in man.”
To really know someone and to be known by them is one of the
greatest pleasures a human being may experience in this life.
It is also absolutely terrifying.
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