The most recent version of this post is available here.
“Love often manifests itself in giving people what they can’t appreciate and don’t want, and
in demanding from them precisely what they most want to retain for themselves.” — Tom
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Thursday, January 11, 2018
Wednesday, January 10, 2018
Clerks and Dossiers
“Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins; the enemy has
destroyed everything in the sanctuary!”
That Psalm 74 is a doozy, and it doesn’t
easily resonate when we try to apply it to church life in 2017 in our (comparatively)
easy-going Western world. The Asaphian contemplation of Zion in ruins appeals
to me poetically and dramatically, but in our day the “sanctuary” (assuming any
of us would recognize a sanctuary if we saw one) is not burning, and the
enemies of God have not recently taken their axes to the dwelling place of his holy Name.
Well, not visibly anyway.
Labels:
Psalms
/
Spiritual Warfare
/
Witnessing
Tuesday, January 09, 2018
Better Than Good
I don’t mean that I’m likely to find myself
imposing an archaic, rigid moral framework on others — there’s not much
danger of that sort of legalism. But I tend to default to a very binary view of
the will of God. Black and white. On and off. Good and evil. Avoid the bad stuff
and you’ve had a good day. And I’m probably not alone in that.
I didn’t get up this morning hoping,
praying and planning to express Christ to others in the very best possible way.
I should’ve, but I didn’t.
Labels:
Excellence
/
Philippians
Monday, January 08, 2018
True Diversity
We’re all about diversity these days. Multiculturalism and
immigration policies in North America are bringing us into contact with
different cultures, backgrounds and assumptions that were not on the radar of
our parents and grandparents unless they were world travelers.
Paul notes that in the body of Christ, diversity in the type, use and context of spiritual gift is both
acceptable, anticipated and actively empowered by God:
“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and
there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers
them all in everyone.”
So in our roles and service in the church, Christians are indeed diverse. But in
other ways, don’t all believers have to be more or less the same?
Labels:
Character
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Personality
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Recycling
Sunday, January 07, 2018
On the Mount (12)
It was entirely ingenuous, I think. There
was nothing calculating about the teenage girl who asked it. I don’t think she
was looking for a pass on any particular sin of her own; she was just curious
how God works.
I was discussing a portion of the Sermon on
the Mount in Sunday School — the part where the Lord says, “Everyone who
looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in
his heart.” I wasn’t trying to be especially relevant or anything, but you know
teenagers.
So she says, “But if you’re already guilty
before God just from looking, why wouldn’t you just go ahead and act on
it then?”
Good question.
Labels:
Adultery
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Lust
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Matthew
/
On the Mount
Saturday, January 06, 2018
A Late New Year’s Thought
I’ve always been kind of a non-conformist. Can’t post a New Year’s thought on New Year’s. Almost didn’t post one at all. You may have noticed IC usually writes almost all the seasonal posts here. If something’s expected, I have real difficulty delivering.
I just don’t much like marching in lockstep or following the crowd. If I find myself
surrounded on my way from Point A to Point B, my first question is “Where
are we going and why are we going there?” My second question is “Who’s
leading us?” by which I really mean, “Does this person have even the foggiest
notion what he’s doing?”
That wariness is a product of having followed
a bunch of people who, well … didn’t.
Labels:
Leadership
/
Psalms
Friday, January 05, 2018
Too Hot to Handle: How I Didn’t Meet Your Mother
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Labels:
Church
/
Marriage
/
Too Hot to Handle
Thursday, January 04, 2018
Infinite Improbability and the Multiverse Hypothesis
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Labels:
Multiverse
/
Probability
Wednesday, January 03, 2018
Looking Past the Millennium
The so-called “Lord’s
Prayer”, prayed by millions over centuries, includes the request that “Your
kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
That line is taken as
mere aspiration by many and blithely ignored by many more. Lately it doesn’t
get recited much in public at all. But the kingdom is coming, and it’s coming
here. One wonders exactly how that will go over.
The millennial kingdom
of Jesus Christ is a “must”, as G.B. Fyfe puts it.
Labels:
Millennium
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Peace
/
Postmillennialism
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Prophecy
/
Psalms
Tuesday, January 02, 2018
God’s Great Data Repository
How does the next
generation come to know who we are and what we have learned? Our wisdom, our
knowledge — our very selves, if that were possible — need to be
passed on. In doing so, it is thought, we give our own lives meaning. On their
way to the grave, even hardened materialists appeal to the notion that they
will somehow “live on” in the memories of those with whom they interact. That
hope is illusory: human memory degrades with astounding rapidity.
The invention of
electronic data storage appeared to provide a solution.
Monday, January 01, 2018
Children in the Marketplace
As Rachel Held Evans
is always telling us, Christians in the West have it real good. And for once,
she’s not completely wrong.
When we compare our
current situation to that of believers in Muslim-majority countries today, or
to that of the apostles or Old Testament prophets, or to saints throughout the
last two millennia who have been persecuted and even martyred for confessing
the name of Christ, there’s not a whole lot for us to complain about.
Still, even if it most
often takes the form of generalized online carping rather than direct personal
attacks, Christians in North America do encounter hostility now and again. Such
occasions provide good opportunities to assess exactly what it is to which the
unsaved are reacting so negatively.
Labels:
Christian Testimony
/
Persecution
Sunday, December 31, 2017
On the Mount (11)
After questioning the Lord Jesus, the high
priest stood up before the Jewish council and asked, “What is your decision?”
Mark’s gospel tells us, “they all condemned him to be guilty [enochos] of death.”
That same Greek word, usually translated “guilty”
or “liable”, appears four times in the Sermon on the Mount. It is legal
terminology. The Sanhedrin had no problem delivering its verdict, but it lacked
sufficient clout to carry out its sentence without Rome’s ratification.
In the kingdom of heaven, however, there
are no such inconvenient limitations.
Labels:
Disputes
/
Law
/
Lawsuits
/
Matthew
/
On the Mount
Saturday, December 30, 2017
Just As I Am
Aubrey Sitterson just
lost his job.
Until earlier this
month, Sitterson penned the long-running comic book GI Joe, a war series based on Hasbro’s successful toy
franchise. The book was canceled after its publisher determined projected sales
wouldn’t cover Hasbro’s licensing fees. The series has been bleeding red ink ever since Sitterson began making drastic
changes to a number of beloved characters in the name of inclusivity, re-imagining
whites as people of color and, if the PJ Media report is correct, even one bulked-up male soldier as an overweight
lesbian.
For a property
primarily marketed to men and boys, that last one’s an interesting choice, but apparently
not one that Hasbro, his publisher or (more importantly) Sitterson’s readers
were prepared to support.
Labels:
Acceptance
/
Self-Image
Friday, December 29, 2017
Too Hot to Handle: Terms of Engagement
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Labels:
Language
/
Progressivism
/
Too Hot to Handle
Wednesday, December 27, 2017
Two Swords
Consider this passage in Luke’s gospel for
a moment:
“And he said to them, ‘When I sent you out with no moneybag or knapsack or sandals,
did you lack anything?’ They said, ‘Nothing.’ He said to them, ‘But
now let the one who has a moneybag take it, and likewise a knapsack. And let
the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one. For I tell you
that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me: “And he was numbered
with the transgressors.” For what is written about me has its fulfillment.’
And they said, ‘Look, Lord, here are two swords.’ And he said to
them, ‘It is enough.’ ”
Two swords. Hmm. A call for a more militant
Christendom, maybe?
Labels:
Discipleship
/
Luke
Tuesday, December 26, 2017
On the Mount (10)
So begins our next
distinct section of the Sermon on the Mount, and since it’s a lengthy one, I
won’t reproduce it here in its entirety but simply link to the relevant
“paragraphs” or “subsections” for convenience.
I’m going to need to
make a few general comments about this section before diving into its
subsections individually, because they have so much in common.
There are six of these,
a number which in scripture makes me go “Hmm ...”
Labels:
Law
/
Matthew
/
On the Mount
Monday, December 25, 2017
What It’s All About
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to
appreciate some surprising things. In my twenties, I finally “got” Shakespeare.
How many people, like me, loathed him at first meeting, usually in high school?
I guess there are some things you just have to be old enough to understand. And
some people never do.
By my thirties, I suddenly found I had a
feel for non-fiction reading. In my forties, I developed a taste for
comparative religions and philosophy, then for apologetics. Now, in my fifties,
I suddenly discover that some of the music styles of songsters more celebrated
by my parents’ generation have started to speak to me with very strange
poignancy. Again, I guess sometimes you just have to reach an age.
Lately, I’ve found myself strangely
compelled by the work of Burt Bacharach.
Sunday, December 24, 2017
Saturday, December 23, 2017
Forgiven and Forgotten?
“The confession should be real and full, and at
once forgiveness and cleansing follow, though not often realised to the full at
once. David was forgiven the instant he confessed his sin in the presence of
Nathan, but later he wrote the 51st Psalm.”
“David confessed his sin and was straightway
forgiven, but the Lord dealt with him governmentally in three ways: ‘the
sword would never depart from his house,’ the child would die, and he would
receive the same treatment he had meted out to others (2 Sam. 12). So
that though sins are forgiven and forgotten in one sense, they are not
in another.”
— William Hoste, Bible Problems and Answers (1957)
Labels:
2 Samuel
/
David
/
Forgiveness
/
Psalms
Friday, December 22, 2017
Too Hot to Handle: The “Divinity” of Christ
The most recent version of this post is available here.
Labels:
Christ
/
Deity of Christ
/
Divinity
/
Too Hot to Handle
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