Inbox: Booking It

In connection with the episode in Exodus 32 where God says, “Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book,” WD wonders, “What about those who repented (if any did)?”

Good question. I think this might be the first mention of such a heavenly “book” in scripture (assuming we take the reference literally), but similar language comes up in other places more than once. The Hebrew in Exodus is çêpher, an umbrella term for all kinds of written decrees, long and short, variously translated “book”, “letter”, “scroll” or “evidence”. The sense of the word is not merely a communication but a communication that has legal force.

That part we can all agree on. Don’t worry, it won’t last ...

Retro Christianity

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The Distance Between

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Too Hot to Handle: Coalition of the Unwilling

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Look It Up Your Own Self!

My biggest source of confidence in understanding and interpreting the scriptures has being looking in-depth for myself at the passages in which I’m interested before reading any commentaries or looking into any other educated opinions.

Sure, I’ll look at what others have written about the Bible — but only after I’ve spent a good long time establishing my own opinion about what the Holy Spirit was saying, trying to grasp the issues involved, and praying them through.

Other opinions are great, but they’re worth precisely what the commentator has invested in them. Which is often not quite as much as we think.

That’s not a complaint. It’s just math.

Recommend-a-blog (19)

Douglas Wilson meets Rachel Held Evans

Douglas Wilson. Ah, Douglas Wilson.

Yes, THAT Douglas Wilson: the one quoted in the notorious Gospel Coalition blog post about men, women, sex and authority, the same post that got Rachel Held Evans mightily agitated and for which its writer, Jared Wilson (no relation, so far as I know), was compelled to eventually apologize (though Jared’s dutiful groveling is now well and truly buried, probably by TGC, and I haven’t got the patience to seek out and link to the inevitable archived version; feel free to concoct your own conspiracy theories).

Doug Wilson remained gleefully unrepentant.

Quote of the Day (23)

Intellectual autonomy is a chimera, a mirage, a phantasm, a will-o’-the-wisp.

Most of us make our choices (be they heaven or hell, life or death, blessing or ruination) primarily on the basis of the testimony of others, not because of any independent intellectual exercise. Those who succeed in freeing themselves of the “outdated worldview” characterized by belief in the existence and authority of God have merely accepted the default assumptions of other, much more dubious would-be authorities.

Or put another way, “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools”.

Valley and Peak

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The Worship of Angels

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Why Do Christians Worship?

[NFL fans will not miss the obvious; this post was written well prior to the acquisition of Manning’s second (and final) Superbowl ring — Ed.]

Prior to the Superbowl, there was much discussion about Denver quarterback Peyton Manning.

Everybody seemed to want to know where Manning rates on the list of all-time football greats. It was not a subject debated only by the talking heads on TV. Jim Rome rambled on about it on my car radio. It came up at work. It came up at my local diner. Even people who would otherwise be uninterested in football seemed to have an opinion about Manning’s legacy in the two weeks between conference finals and the big game — and even more so during the game itself.

It is in the nature of mankind to have something to say about greatness.

Too Hot to Handle: Tom Becomes a Redhead

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

Worship is one of those polarizing subjects.

At one end of the spectrum you get Christians for whom everything is worship; hence terms like “worship team” and “worship leader” and so on. Such a concept of worship is so broad as to be almost meaningless. At the other end you have the ritualists, whether they are Catholicized and liturgical or simply traditionalist evangelicals with very rigid ideas about what a church’s corporate worship ought to entail. Such a view of worship fails to deal adequately with Romans 12:1.

Both extremes claim scriptural evidence for their positions, though I would argue that both views of worship are too limited. Everything in the Christian life may be done worship-fully, but choosing to worship remains a specific and deliberate act.

Higher Learning

The martyrdom of John Lambert came up in discussion with my fellow blogger IC last week. Lambert was burned at the stake in 1538 for refusing to retract his objection to the doctrine of transubstantiation. As he died, Lambert is reported to have cried out over and over again, “None but Christ! None but Christ!”

Subsequent to our conversation, IC sent me a link to a video clip of an episode from the otherwise-execrable TV series The Tudors, in which John Lambert meets his end. Interestingly, the show’s producers opted to change Lambert’s dying statement to “All for Christ! All for Christ!”

So what? Such minor tweaking of dialogue takes place all the time in the process of bringing real stories to big and small screens alike. It’s still a powerful scene, and the viewer’s sympathies are fully with Lambert, which is presumably the writers’ intent.

Still, there is a difference in meaning, and I think it’s one worth noting.

Traitors at the Table

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In Need of Analysis: Worship as a Lifestyle [Part 2]

“God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

We have been discussing worship as a lifestyle, a concept set out by John Piper among others, and how the recent discovery of a “worship lifestyle” compares with the way the word “worship” is actually employed throughout scripture.

First we drew a sharp distinction between two ways scripture uses the word: (1) to describe “acts of worship” (the public appearance) and (2) to refer to “worship” itself (the heart reality). Then we went on to establish that genuine worship is deliberate, sacrificial, obedient and informed by the character of God himself. It is not a mechanical, rote act, nor is it to be engaged in casually. It takes place at specific times, not at every moment of life.

In Need of Analysis: Worship as a Lifestyle [Part 1]

The subject of worship is currently getting a little more attention than usual in Christian circles, and that’s not a bad thing. We have John Piper to thank for this, among others who have written about worship as a lifestyle.

Piper starts by encouraging us to enlarge our thoughts of worship:

“… don’t think worship services when you think worship. That is a huge limitation which is not in the Bible. All of life is supposed to be worship.”

and goes on to describe eating at Pizza Hut to the glory of God, having sex to the glory of God and dying to the glory of God. So eating moderately, healthily and gratefully is worship; loving sex within the bounds of marriage is worship; chastity, too, is worship. “You are always in a temple,” Piper says. “Always worship.”

Tom Takes a Breather (2)

Long-time readers will probably remember that we did this in June last year, and it was so much fun (for me at least) that this year we’re doing it again. You’re currently reading our 921st consecutive daily blog post since December 2013. (To be fair, a little over 6% of those posts were recycled, but if you don’t tell, I won’t.)

I’m going to take this coming week to recharge my batteries and work on a few pieces without an immediate deadline looming, but really that’s just a convenient excuse to do this:

Christianity Without Christ

If you missed the goings-on in the streets of San Jose last week outside a rally for presidential candidate Donald Trump, you might have been the only one. Protesters waved Mexican flags and were caught on camera burning Trump hats, egging, punching and kicking Trump supporters and calling them “racists” and “fascists”. One police officer was assaulted. Video clips on YouTube show victims almost uniformly white and attackers almost uniformly Hispanic.

A minor skirmish, really, but we’re only in June. It’s a long way to November, and there’s no guarantee the election of a new president — no matter who he or she may be — will do anything to substantially ease racial tensions.

Too Hot to Handle: Unpardon Me

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A Tale of Two Speeches

Ah, Rachel Held Evans, what would I do without you?

Wait, I’m pretty sure I’ve used that opening line before.

Never mind. The point is that our good friend RHE has a few words to say on the subject of a commencement speech she gave back in 2003 upon graduating from a conservative Christian university and what, if given another shot at the same gig with proverbial 20/20 hindsight, she would say differently today.

Fair enough. I hope we’ve all learned something in the last 13 years.

Game Misconduct

Most hockey fans are familiar with it, though I suppose it happens less in international play than in the NHL.

Hockey has two minute penalties, five minute penalties, compound penalties like “double minors” and a variety of other ways of maintaining order. But it is only the rarest and most egregious offenses that call for ejection. The player who receives such a penalty is sent straight to the dressing room.

Game over.

It’s called a game misconduct, and something similar may happen to Christians.