The End of Evangelism

The most recent version of this post is available here.

That Day and Hour

 The most recent version of this post is available here.

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

The most recent version of this post is available here.

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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Debunking Baptismal Myths #5: Faith By Proxy

Tired of this yet? Me too. I promise: last one.

We’re looking in depth at a series of objections raised by one of our readers to the Protestant argument that one must be a believer to be baptized.

Two of these are specific to a single verse in Acts 16, so we’ll deal with them together. They concern the baptism of a woman from Thyatira and those of her household.

Higher Learning

A more current version of this post is available here.

Recommend-a-blog (5)

I don’t think we’ve posted much on the subject of biblical commendation. If we have, I didn’t tag it appropriately and can’t find it now. [IC, that’s a really unsubtle cue …]

Happily, even if we fail to deliver, there remains a blogosphere. James Gibbons makes three timely and relevant observations about commendation in a post that you should read if you’ve ever thought about serving the Lord outside your own local church.

Currently, the practice of commendation is poorly understood among evangelicals and completely irrelevant in high churches.

Too Hot to Handle: Bury or Burn?

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Debunking Baptismal Myths #4: Trump Cards and Semantic Ranges

We’re looking in depth at a series of objections raised by one of our readers to the Protestant argument that one must be a believer to be baptized.

One such objection cites the words of Peter to Jews in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost right after the Holy Spirit had come upon the disciples. The sound from heaven of a mighty, rushing wind drew Jews from all around, and upon their arrival they found a group of Galileans mysteriously speaking in languages ranging from those of Mesopotamia to those of Crete and the Arab nations.

Two Crowns

“And after twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head …”
(Matthew 27:29)

This event is recorded in three of the gospels and has become the basis for many paintings over the centuries. A crown of thorns is commonly referenced in pop culture and there are relatively few who aren’t familiar with the Christian source of the image.

But pause for a moment and ask yourself this: where would someone get a crown of thorns? These are not naturally occurring items that come easily to hand at a moment’s notice. Instead — as the gospel accounts tell us — such a crown needs to be woven together; it would actually require some skill, care and time.

Traitors at the Table

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Chasing Equality

Everybody wants to be equal. It’s the way of the world.

But equality means different things to different people. When hardline feminists or politicized homosexuals say they want equality, what they really mean is superiority. They are looking to acquire a trump card through which they will be able to dictate how they are treated — and even thought of — by the rest of society.

Not “equal” exactly, is it.

There’s also the question “Equality by what metric?” to consider. If by equality we mean that every human being ought to be considered as strong, smart or useful to society as every other, we are clearly talking rubbish.

That’s easy to say from my position of “privilege” as a white male, of course.

Christ Where He Doesn’t Belong

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Debunking Baptismal Myths #3: Baptizing the Household

We’re looking in depth at a series of objections raised by one of our readers to the Protestant argument that one must be a believer to be baptized.

One such objection cites New Testament references to the baptism of entire households. Though there is no evidence at all to demonstrate that this involved anyone other than believing family members, it is suggested that this provides support for the practice of infant baptism.

Too Hot to Handle: The “No Harm” Argument

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Many Fishers and Many Hunters

In France: the Telegraph declares “the exodus has begun”.

In Germany, according to the BBC, “anti-Semitism is acceptable again”. They tell the story of a rabbi who no longer wears his skullcap in certain parts of Berlin after being assaulted last year. 

And The Tower says Denmark — all of Scandinavia, really — has become “home to a scary, new form of anti-Semitism”.

Universal Human Rights: The Christian Legacy

The most current version of this post is available here.

Debunking Baptismal Myths #2: Baptism and Belief

We’re looking in depth at a series of objections raised by one of our readers to the Protestant argument that one must be a believer to be baptized.

First off, Protestants would almost universally concur with the statement that it is possible to be baptized and not be a believer. Not good, but certainly possible. It happens. Rightly or wrongly, evangelical churches vet prospective candidates for baptism quite thoroughly in the hope of avoiding that exact situation. Baptizing an unbeliever — and possibly giving him or her a false sense of security about whether he or she has actually found peace with God through faith in Christ — is something most Christians want no part of.

Breaking Your Own Compass

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A Horse Plunging Headlong

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Debunking Baptismal Myths #1: Suffer the Children

The scripture is certainly open to interpretation, and just about every possible interpretation of every possible verse has probably been advanced by someone or other since the Bible was compiled early in what is now referred to as the Common Era.

We Can Both Be Wrong, But …

One thing must be understood about interpretation, and that is this: It is very possible (though unlikely, given that the Holy Spirit was given to guide us into all truth) that every extant interpretation of a verse is wrong, and that believers in general have not yet grasped the meaning of a particular passage. In other words, we might all be wrong.

Too Hot to Handle: Church Is Too Easy

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Impossible to Renew [Part 2]

Having established the context, therefore, we may move on to a closer look at the passage in question:

“For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.” (Hebrews 6:4-8)

This Passage does NOT Refer to Christians

Several phrases are used here which seem to imply that the audience are believers: they have been “enlightened”, they have “tasted the heavenly gift”, they have “shared in the Holy Spirit”. This is strong language to use of the unsaved. Doesn’t it, then, refer to Christians? Despite the controversy on this subject, we believe that the answer is no.

Impossible to Renew [Part 1]

This passage in the book of Hebrews has caused consternation to many a believer, and been the source of much controversy among Christians generally:

“For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.” (Hebrews 6:4-8)

Eternal Insecurity

Read superficially, it strikes fear into the heart, for it seems at first to imply that those who have put their faith in Christ for salvation can lose that salvation.

Infinite Improbability and the Multiverse Hypothesis

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By Special Request

Stephen Fry’s little burrowing friend ...

Probably to his regret, in the process of trashing the Christian God comedian Stephen Fry ran into the logic buzzsaw that is libertarian Vox Day.

Fry was doing an interview for an Irish television show called The Meaning of Life. When asked if he thought he would get to heaven (Irish interview shows apparently ask more intelligent questions than their American counterparts), he decided to pontificate on the character of God.

Sceptics, Seekers and Opponents

Some fences are not for sitting

Vox Day has an interesting piece on the subject of A Manual for Creating Atheists by Peter Boghossian, a book written with the purpose of teaching, in Boghossian’s own words, “how to talk people out of their faith”.

Day makes the point that Boghossian’s position could not be more distant from that of authentic scepticism: “Boghossian’s very stated purpose is in direct and explicit opposition to everything Sextus Empiricus advises, beginning with ‘suspension of judgment’ ”.

Naturally a reader engages him on this.

When the End Comes

So what will you do when the end comes? It’s a really good question.

Relax, this is not another regular instalment in my frequent “end of the world looms imminent” meme. I’m not thinking about the end of our current world order, or about the end of the Church Age, or even about the end of our own natural lives.

The quote comes from Jeremiah, actually, and “the end” has to do with the time that God’s judgment falls. That’s not God’s eternal judgment concerning where your or I will spend eternity, and it’s not God’s future judgment of the world and its nations. It’s the point in life, individually or corporately, in which things get so bad and so damaging and so pointless and selfish that God simply cannot fail to step in and demonstrate the folly of our ways in a very tangible, painful way during this life.

Too Hot to Handle: Baptized Into What?

The most recent version of this post is available here.

The Implacability of Hatred

Some bright spark (okay, got it now, it was a former Dutch cabinet minister, not just your garden-variety bright spark) last week suggested a unique solution to bring about peace in the Middle East.

Ready? Okay, here it is: Force Israel’s entire population to move to the United States.

Leave aside all the other current mid-east hotspots, the “Arab Spring” that turned out to be an Islamic Spring, ISIS, U.S. failure to change hearts and minds on the ground in Iraq and so on, and let’s suppose Herman Heinsbroek’s idea has a hope in Hades of actually bringing about lasting peace in Palestine.

Whistling Past the Graveyard

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Christianity Lite

 The most recent version of this post is available here.

Saturn and Uniformitarianism

Maggie McKee at Nature.com has an interesting piece on the difficulties that a number of recent scientific discoveries pose for uniformitarians, several of them related to study of the planet Saturn.

For instance, Saturn’s rings, which are 90% water ice, should be darker than they are if they were actually formed 4 billion years ago as originally assumed. Comets and asteroids shed dust that in theory ought to darken the rings over time. So the rings are either younger than previously thought, or … something.

Vessels of Another Sort

Stephen Fry alleges that of all languages English “has the largest vocabulary … by a long, long, long, long way”. The language columnist of The Economist disagrees, or at least provides sound reasons why Fry may not be correct.

Regardless, there are only so many available words in any given language, and sometimes a writer of scripture elects to use similar language to describe vastly different spiritual scenarios.

Does it Build?

These could probably
go anytime too ...

Earlier this year I sat in a small local church full of nice, friendly people who had come to hear what turned out to be a pretty decent, relevant and biblical message from a visiting preacher. It was an inner-city congregation on a typical Sunday morning.

Prior to introducing the speaker, the man designated to open the meeting led the congregation in a hymn. We opened beat-up, dog-eared hardcover hymnals to the hymn number he gave us.

Together we sang the hymn that follows.

Too Hot to Handle: Your Bible Is An Anachronism

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Pastor, Get A Job

Adam Russell posts a short piece on “The Bi-Vocational Life” at churchleaders.com promoting the tentmaking lifestyle. His thesis, that work and ministry are not mortal enemies, is actively contested in the comments section, where a number of pastors who have lived the bi-vocational lifestyle make the point that, well, it isn’t a lot of fun and you don’t ever get a day off.

If I respond with “Poor babies”, am I going to draw heat?

Okay, I’ll dial the rhetoric back a notch or two.

Reading the Tea Leaves

The Gangster and the Amish.

Ok, that’s a fairly weird combination, I grant you, and sounds like a really bad Lifetime Network movie. Hang with me for a minute or two because there really is a sort of odd connection with what I have in mind.

The Amish

The Amish are an intriguing group remarkable for their passivity and lack of involvement. At some point a long time ago they drew a hard line between modern society’s choices and their own. They effectively said “this far and no further”, and in large measure they have maintained that line. I don’t particularly want to join them nor do I think their example is a great one for Christians to emulate; we ought to be in the world to be effective for God but we shouldn’t be of the world. That line between “in” and “of” may be a hard distinction to retain some days, but retreating entirely from the world as the Amish have done strikes me as unfortunate and unfulfilling.

Something Better

Benjamin West, The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise

Genesis 3:24 is one of the sadder verses in Scripture. It says this: “So he drove out the man”.

Adam and Eve have sinned. Fellowship with God is now broken — perhaps from Adam’s understanding it is broken irreparably. Did Adam then slink in shame out of the garden? No. Did he run in abject fear? No. 

Adam delighted in the garden; he loved where he was. It’s clear he and Eve did not want to leave even after they had sinned. How is it then that they did leave? God drove them out.

Amillennialism and Isaiah 60: Five Problems

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Recommend-a-blog (4)

Bible teacher Jack Spender tackles a tough but relevant subject in a post called “When Should an Aged Elder Step Back?”

It’s a good question, and one to which the answer is not necessarily about the number of years you’ve lived, but more about effectiveness and planning for the future of the local church.

The author is Brethren, but his reflections and suggestions are relevant to any Christians that still observe the New Testament principle of recognizing or ordaining elders, with or without a paid pastor. There is a time to serve and a time to get out, and far too many do not recognize when the latter has arrived.

Room for Vengeance

There seems to be no end to the number of people who feel themselves personally responsible for the execution of justice.

There’s former rugby player Steve Waterfield who, waking to find a burglar in his apartment, was disinclined to simply let him make a run for it. He declared to himself, “Right son, you’re getting a whacking”, blocked the doorway, beat the trespasser bloody and left him reeling.

Too Hot to Handle: Stomaching Veganism

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Eden and Relationships

We’ve been working through some basic ideas about God’s character that spring from His actions in an environment where sin does not impede our view of the relationship between God and man. Though there is a day coming when the relationship between heaven and earth will be free and unrestricted once more, it has not been that way for a long, long time and certainly not in your experience or mine. In fact, it hasn’t been clearly observable since Eden ...

Why Your View of Prophecy Matters

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Witnessing and Misdirection

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Room in My Heart

What do we mean when we talk about “living on” in one another’s hearts?

We certainly say it enough.

Thomas Campbell said, “To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die”. If the content of our eulogies and obituaries indicates anything at all, then it seems we believe him.

Taken literally, Campbell’s statement is categorically untrue. Even if we firmly believe in Christian resurrection or some kind of afterlife, we recognize that death creates a disconnect between us and those we love that cannot be bridged this side of eternity. In the physical sense, dead is dead. But that is neither what Campbell means nor what we mean when we mourn using similar language.

Will You Be Considered Worthy?

A worthy successor to Queen Elizabeth?

When we use the words “worth” or “worthy” in English, we are often thinking primarily of value or merit. For instance, when we ask, “What’s he worth these days?” we are really asking “What is the total value of his assets?” When we say, “I don’t think that’s worth my time”, we mean that the activity in question lacks merit.

So when the word “worthy” comes up in the New Testament, like when Paul talks about Christians being “considered worthy of the kingdom of God”, we may initially think he’s talking about eternal salvation.

Certainly some people do.

Three Kinds of Peace

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Too Hot to Handle: The Big Story

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Inbox: Unreceptive Hearts

Qman comments on Spiritual Treachery:

“The most obvious reasons are that, being omniscient, both the Father and the Lord Jesus are well aware when men and women have receptive hearts and when they don’t, and they tend not to entrust valuable truth to those who care nothing about it.”

With regard to the above point, I have not yet seen you deal with the argument below (maybe I missed it) which is a typical, but fairly valid, response to the above from the Ag[nostic]/Atheist crowd. I think IC may have dealt with it in a different forum but I forgot.”

Marching to Where?

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That Guy Outside Starbucks is NOT Jesus’ Brother

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Lies, Myths and Misinformation: Missionaries Are Destructive

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Recommend-a-blog (3)

This might be one the best blog posts I’ve read from anyone of any denominational stripe.

If that sounds like dangerously high praise, give me a moment to convince you.

Andrew Heard starts by telling us that “The most dangerous people in our Christian community are the leaders and evangelists who not only long to see growth but who also have the closest sympathy with the needs and concerns of the sinners we are seeking to reach.”

Really? Seems a bit counterintuitive.

No Equivalency Here

After all his trash-talking of Christianity over the years, it’s unusual to see Bill Maher have a moment or two of unexpected lucidity on the Charlie Rose show:

*     *     *     *     *

Bill Maher: There are illiberal beliefs that are held by vast numbers of Muslim people.

Charlie Rose: A vast number of Christians too.

BM: No, no. That’s not true. Not true. Vast numbers of Christians do not believe that if you leave the Christian religion you should be killed for it. Vast numbers of Christians do not treat women as second-class citizens. Vast numbers of Christians do not believe that if you draw a picture of Jesus Christ, you should get killed for it.

Too Hot to Handle: Outspoken Faith or Poor Judgment?

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Spiritual Treachery

 The most recent version of this post is available here.

Bring on the Hired Guns

So how much should you pay your pastor?

No, really, that’s the question.

Patrick Traylor poses it in this article. Patrick is an elder to quite literally thousands at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., as well as a lawyer by profession. As an elder, the man knows megachurches. As a lawyer, he ought to know all about compensation.

But is he right about what the scripture teaches on the subject?

Don’t Check Your Privilege

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The Positives of Negatives

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Too Hot to Handle: Rule Upon Rule, Line Upon Line

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Eden and Variety

Has to be squash in here somewhere ...

We’ve been considering Eden and the lessons we learn there about who God is and how He chooses to relate to His creation. Before the Fall we have a unique view of God that is unfettered by sin and the concessions sin has made necessary. Eden shows us God moving in His creation in the way He wishes, without constraint. As such it is one of the best places to see God’s character.

We began by noting that God desires to bless His creatures. In fact, He delights to bless and it is His first and favourite work. For mankind, being blessed is also a delight. Working and being given work to do was a delight. Fellowship was a delight. The name “Eden” literally means “delight” and so it was — a delight to both God and mankind.

Something else that we pause to note about Eden; there was an astounding variety.

When Everything Crashes and Burns

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Inbox: A New Year’s Challenge to Elders Everywhere

My partner in crime Immanuel Can is, like many other masked men, currently vacationing in Parts Unknown.

But in the interest of giving you all a break from another day of … well … me, I offer IC’s rather thought provoking list from last week which may have gone unremarked in the comments section of a previous post.

I consider this not so much a general rebuke to elders as what seems to me to be a fairly useful checklist. IC and I both know elders who do the job wonderfully.

Rhetoric and Dialectic

Cry of the Prophet Jeremiah, Ilya Repin, 1870

If we were to read only the King James Version of the Bible, we might be forgiven for imagining that there is some sort of distinctive manner in which its characters converse or write on God’s behalf; some sort of major communication hurdle which either repels us or needs to be laboriously surmounted over time.

Of course a moment’s reflection would tell us this idea is nonsensical. When accurately rendered in a current iteration of English or any other language, the Bible is much easier to read and understand than is often thought. Its translators do their job more efficiently and with increasing frequency as years go by, which is very much to our benefit.

In fact, we often make understanding the Bible far more difficult for ourselves by failing to recognize in it the same features of language that we employ day after day in our own conversations.

Your Church Building is NOT the House of God

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Church Discipline and Membership

Let’s imagine a (hopefully semi-plausible) business scenario that may, if all goes well, turn into something of a parable.

We’ll say that I am a night supervisor working on a single floor of one of those corporate telephone solicitation colossi. I have under me perhaps a hundred employees coming and going on a regular basis. Some work on my floor only briefly before moving on to other departments. Others stay for years. I do not hire them, and I do not fire them. My role is simply to confirm that they have what they need to do their jobs and to work with them to make them better telephone salespeople.

Under these circumstances, I find myself writing an email to my department manager.

Thank You for the Failures

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Where “Judeo-” and “Christian” Part Ways

Apart from a saving knowledge of Christ, even the best of men quite rationally fear death.

We hear a great deal about our “Judeo-Christian heritage” in this country, as if Judaism and Christianity have so much in common that they can be lumped into a hyphenated modifier without further ado. And while Christianity has its roots in the sacred scriptures of Judaism, the specific conclusions Christianity draws from the Hebrew texts and the certainty with which it does so put it in a class all by itself.

Too Hot to Handle: Does Your Building Matter?

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Inbox: Someone Greater than Lawrence Is Here

Bernie passes on a quote from Winston Churchill about T.E. Lawrence that seems more than a little appropriate today:

“The world looks with some awe upon a man who appears unconcernedly indifferent to home, money, comfort, rank, or even power and fame. The world feels not without a certain apprehension, that here is someone outside its jurisdiction; someone before whom its allurements may be spread in vain; someone strangely enfranchised, untamed, untrammelled by convention, moving independent of the ordinary currents of human action.”

Merry Christmas!

Bernie
Immanuel Can
Tom

Joining the Choir

Is waving our arms absolutely necessary?

I make no claim to being world’s best listener.

When I advise someone to be patient, it’s most often because the thing they’re bothered about would not bother me in similar circumstances. So I consider that either they are worrying about something they have no control over (and therefore worrying pointlessly), or they are worrying about something over which they DO have control, but for reasons known only to themselves are unprepared to take the action required to deal with it.

Both types of unnecessary agitation are irritants to anyone of a pragmatic disposition.

Thus “be patient” from my lips often has the force of “please go away and flap your jaws elsewhere; I’m doing something more interesting”.

What does a choir have to do with patience? Give me a sec.

How Do You Love the Gospel?

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Resetting our Defaults

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Recommend-a-blog (2)

It’s only been a year and change, so I guess it’s about time I did another one of these.

Eddy Plett is a brave man. Talking candidly about mental illness (particularly one’s own struggles) is not universally greeted with enthusiasm in certain conservative evangelical circles.

Especially when you do it on the Internet.

Are We Teaching or Just Speeching?

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Too Hot to Handle: A Lack of Leadership

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Joy and Strength

The joy of the Lord is not just a fireworks display

I have on occasion been accused of pessimism. Unreasonably, I assure you.

But when, for example, I see a room full of grade school kids shouting out “The joy of the Lord is my strength,” at the prompting of a smiling Sunday School superintendent, unlike the cheery folk who enthuse over the fact that their children are (albeit unintentionally) memorizing scripture that will someday be of use to them, my first and far-too-natural instinct is to wonder if they have any idea what they’re singing and how many of them mean it.

The second and even less upbeat thing that often crosses my mind is to wonder how many of them really know the Lord, and how badly those who don’t (and even some of those who do) will seriously mess up their lives by the time they’re my age.

Bleak thoughts, no?

Rethinking the Platform

Okay, this one may be a little elaborate ...

It dawns on me that this blog is a pretty good opportunity to raise crazy notions about the church that might not get aired elsewhere.

Don’t panic, I’m not talking about heresy or even radicalism.

But beyond what the scripture itself says, in this venue we’ve never tried to promote a particular agenda or denominational affiliation. Obviously we have preferences, but we’re not trying to sell people on ‘this brand’ or ‘that brand’ of Christianity, just Christ.

In this space we are trying to talk to a broad spectrum of evangelical Christians about the faith we have in common and to examine how that faith intersects with popular culture, the 21st century mindset and the modern church, among other things.

“In case I don’t make it back …”

Heading out to the airport last Saturday, a friend stopped by my desk, put her arms around me and said, “I’d better give you a hug in case I don’t make it back.”

She said it lightly but not frivolously. We’ve both watched a number of people slip into eternity in the last 12 months: her health-conscious forty-something dentist from a sudden stroke; a small businessman I used to say hello to every week unexpectedly diagnosed with a brain tumor; a friend’s mother whose passing was medically predictable but still jarred family and friends; and a fellow employee with some kind of wasting disease that remained undiagnosed until it was too late. There are probably more; those are just the recent ones.

David’s Covenant and the Resurrection

The most recent version of this post is available here.

The Gospel in Context

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Christmas Dreams, White or Otherwise

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Too Hot to Handle: The Social Gospel and Social Justice

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Was Christ Made Sin?

The latest version of Bernie's post is available here.

Making Straight Paths

We are coming up on a year of posting daily, so I thought it might be time to revisit our very first post ever, courtesy of the enigmatic and seldom-seen Bernie, who really started the ball rolling. — Tom

We are likely all familiar with the preparations involved for a visiting dignitary: the airport at which he will arrive is closed off to other traffic, the roads his motorcade must travel are cleared, a security perimeter is established and so forth. This has been society’s behavior for time immemorial — when someone important arrives, everything else is managed to ensure that the VIP can keep to their schedule in a way that is most comfortable and safe for them.

Do We Need Revival?

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Rabbit Language

“Hmm. How to proceed ...”

A Thanksgiving blog post (American, that is — I’m not running that far behind) has me thinking about freedom of speech, the Christian and the giving and taking of offence with respect to how we speak about those in authority.

Christians definitely disagree on this issue. I was in the U.S. last summer and heard them doing it. Naturally they were all doing it politely.

“It’s All Under Control …”

“Nothing happening here. You can move along any time now ...”

How many times have you heard that line?

If someone doesn’t come right out and say it (or something quite like it), a distraction is served up in the timeliest possible fashion. Remember Bill Clinton’s famous four-day bombing of Iraq just as the House of Representatives commenced his own impeachment hearing?

Or the problem may magically just go away, as in the disappearance from the news for the last month or so of anything whatsoever to do with the Ebola virus, when well over 1,000 Americans are now potentially infected.

Bad Ideas that Refuse to Die

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Too Hot to Handle: Evangelical Idiots and the Death of America

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Inbox: Richard Carrier’s Moral Philosophy

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Redistributionism and Jubilee

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Get a Cat, Richard

Not my cat, but close enough

I’m feeling inadequate today, for a number of reasons.

One is age. Okay, fine, relatively speaking I’m not all THAT old. Still, when you get out of bed in the morning and creak all the way to the bathroom and don’t feel like yourself until you’ve had your morning coffee (assuming you are still allowed by your doctor to drink coffee and of course always assuming that alcohol is not involved), you start to think about how much worse it may get.

Someone at the midweek prayer meeting I attend recently offered up thanks for the life of a fellow believer who just reached 110, more than twice my age. That is, to me, a daunting prospect.

The Hand of the Lord

Raphael: St Paul Before the Proconsul, 1515

I’ve been asked to open a Bible study on Acts 13:4-12 and decided to take the opportunity to share some of the thoughts that arise.

These nine verses mark the beginning of what is often called Paul’s first missionary journey, which began in Syrian Antioch. They relate the story of Elymas the magician.

It is unclear whether “magician” in this context means that Elymas gave wise counsel, knew a few parlour tricks or actually possessed genuine demonic power. The word magos, which the KJV translates “sorcerer”, is also translated “wise men” when Matthew employs it to describe those who came to worship the Lord Jesus as a baby (I suspect Matthew uses magos to mean “astronomers” or “scientists” rather than those who trafficked in witchcraft). In Acts 8, however, when used to describe Simon the magician who “amazed people with his magic”, it clearly speaks of gimmickry or something much worse.

In any case, Elymas had an encounter with the hand of the Lord that did not go as expected.