Despising the Clans

I was working on Thursday’s post on denominationalism when I came across a little statement in Jeremiah that may give us some insight as to how the Lord feels about divisions in the church.

Sorry, this one needs a little setting up, as I’m not going to assume all our readers are currently engrossed in simultaneous study of the Old Testament prophets.

Straight Talk

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Too Hot to Handle: The New Atheists are Scared (or Angry)

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By Any Other Name

Pretty, but you get better light when it’s in one piece ...

What is the church, really?

If we want to understand the concept as God designed it and as he sees it, we have to start with the New Testament. The truth about the church cannot be known any other way. Sure, there are lots of invented, historical ways in which we may conceptualize the church. But if we believe in the inspiration of the Bible, this is where we need to begin.

Recommend-a-blog (6)

The Christian blogosphere: you get content or you get good delivery. One rarely seems to find the two together.

Rachel Held Evans’ site and many like it are state of the art, if you can stomach the social justice whining: nice graphics, clean presentation and efficient messaging perfectly calibrated for her target audience. She and others like her market themselves and their opinions with a scrupulous professionalism and — oh yeah —reliably mutilate scripture on an almost-daily basis, if you enjoy that sort of thing.

Meanwhile numerous well-written and biblical posts get ignored because their authors haven’t the wherewithal to format them attractively and make them even slightly readable or their host sites convenient to navigate.

An Ill-Advised Shortcut

I dislike buzzphrases, I really do. I dislike them especially in the spiritual realm.

When we employ the words of scripture, understanding what they mean and using them in their appropriate context, we are safeguarded by the Holy Spirit who carried along each human author as he wrote. If the Lord himself could say “not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished”, we can confidently affirm that, in this fallen world, we are as safe as it is possible to be in sticking close to the language that God himself has used to communicate his thoughts to mankind.

There are still plenty of ways to err in trying to pass on truth, of course, but we are that much closer to authorial intent in preserving the Author’s language.

Jargon terms and trendy attempts to encapsulate scriptural concepts, on the other hand, are horribly prone to misapplication.

The term “spiritual abuse” is one such buzzphrase.

Quality Control

Knowledge is not enough.

We know this, of course. Where the Christian life is concerned, it’s first principles that real blessing is reserved for those of us who not only hear the words of Christ but who act on the wisdom we have heard. Believers who are satisfied with mere exposure to truth are kidding themselves. There is no reward for head-knowledge, and neither testimony nor substance in the Christian who prides himself in it.

Do Christians Hate Science?

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Liars and Motivation

Positivity and truth are not interchangeable

What drives a person to say something he or she knows is false?

When the stakes are fairly insignificant, without some counterbalancing sense of right and wrong, almost any trivial motive will do: desire for attention or status, concern about the potential consequences of an action we’ve taken and now wish to disclaim, a wish for petty revenge on a rival or even a distaste for the conflict and complications that often arise when one is completely honest.

But what about when the issues at stake are significant, maybe eternal? Whatever would possess someone to lie about the testimony of God?

Too Hot to Handle: Facts and Opinions

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One of These Things …

… is NOT like the other.

Christianity. Feminism. Not an easy fit.

That’s not just my take; it’s the view of both Christians and feminists.

“Cognitive dissonance” is a term used to describe the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time. Normally, those who really understand third-wave feminism and genuinely grasp Christianity ought to experience mental stress trying to reconcile the two. At bare minimum a healthy dollop of discomfort is in order. Don’t take my word for it or dwell too much on what feminism may have meant in previous generations. Go look at what it means now and tell me if, when each is rightly understood, the  ideological common ground between the two systems is anything but microscopic.

Of course, if you don’t realize your beliefs are incompatible, no dissonance occurs.

Metaphorical Mites

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The End of Evangelism

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That Day and Hour

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How Saved Are You?

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The Emptiness of the West

In a post entitled “ISIS and the Missing Christ”, Andrew Klavan points out that in the post-post-Christian western world, there’s no “there” here:

“As much as I believe in capitalism as a method of economic development, a capitalist life is empty without spiritual content. Indeed, as much as I believe in individual freedom as the only worthwhile goal of any political system, individual freedom too is empty without spiritual content.

It is in that emptiness that militant Islam grows like the cancer it is.”

Too Hot to Handle: Sexuality and Public Education

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What Are You Worth to God?

I may enjoy sports a bit too much — I’ll watch virtually anything involving competition and victory or defeat. Being a lifelong Cleveland Browns fan, I have become intimately familiar with the defeat side of the competition equation. 

But because I’m a sports fan, I’ve chosen a very common sports object — a baseball — with which to draw a parallel.

There are three distinct ways to value anything at all, including either a baseball or a human life.

The Faithful Have Vanished

“The faithful have vanished”, David wrote.

Not that the faithful have been exterminated and evil has finally won the day. Not that the faithful have apostatized or lost their salt.

They’ve vanished. Elvis has left the building, folks.

This is not simply David’s personal experience here. No way, not without at least some exaggeration or hyperbole. Matthew Henry says, “It is supposed that David penned this psalm, in the latter part of Saul’s reign, when there was a general decay of honesty and piety, when religion, truth, and righteousness, seemed ready to expire, and every kind of wickedness was without control.”

Yeah, I suppose. Maybe.

So You Want to Serve God ...

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