“Something is transfat, for example, when a baby carrot identifies as salty grease on the inside.”
Mines of Difficulty, p. 41
Two Wills
“And remember there are also times when the two kinds of wills intersect. When Jesus died on the cross, it was the will of God (Luke 22:42; Acts 4:26-28) even though it was accomplished by wicked hands (Acts 2:23). The violation of God’s preceptive will by Judas, Herod, Pontius Pilate, and the Sanhedrin was the instrument God used to accomplish His decretive will. We must always remember that God is God, and we are not.”
Mines of Difficulty, p. 40
Breathing the Same Air
“Catechized by our digital world, we think we have conquered distance when we really haven’t. Our letters have gotten much more sophisticated than they were in Paul’s day, but our ‘face-to-face’ communication is not really the equivalent of being there. Our texting, and Zoom meetings, and online sermons, and POD books, and blogs, and phone calls, are just souped-up letters. They are not an adequate replacement for in-person community. Paul would have used them all, but he still would have yearned to be with the Thessalonians, in the same room, breathing the same air, and not through a mask either.”
Mines of Difficulty, p. 36
The Mines of Difficulty
“So the diamonds of the promise can only be found in the mines of difficulty—and some of those mines go very deep. But there are other mine shafts that are filled with nothing but useless rocks, and many thousands have spent their lives down in those holes.”
Mines of Difficulty, p. 32
Look Up. Look Ahead.
“We glory in tribulations, not because we are masochistic, but because we know that the rocky pathway winds up to the great mountaintop city. Still, we somethings look at the immediate landscape, which can be pretty grim, instead of looking at what is really happening. We look at how hard the path is, instead of where the hard path goes.”
Mines of Difficulty, pp. 30-31
Cockeyed Responsibility
“We have gotten to the point where we define vile behavior as any behavior that provokes someone else into behaving in a vile fashion. We look at rioters and blame the people who never riot.”
Mines of Difficulty, pp. 29-30
A Sly Spin
“Notice that there are two elements here that Paul is concerned about. The first is the trial itself, and the second is the devil’s interpretation of it. Having a toothache is bad enough, but the suggestion that it is happening because God hates you is much worse. The deeper concern is the second one, the spin the devil puts on any trial.”
Mines of Difficulty, p. 29
A Fifteen-Dollar Yard Sale Violin
“Sermons are not sacraments, but I think it is fair to say that they are sacramentals. A sermon is not a lecture, or a talk. It is not a chat about the things of God. It is a declaration. But unless Christ picks it up and uses it for His intended purposes, a sermon makes the hollowest sound any mortal has ever heard. Christ speaks with authority, and not as the scribes (Matt. 7:29). But He has so much authority that he can even pick up a scribe and do wonderful things through him. Every mortal preacher is in this position, and needs to keep it in mind at all times. Remember how Paul once cried out in a holy despair: ‘Who is sufficient for these things?’ (2 Cor. 2:6). The best preacher in the world is nothing more than a fifteen-dollar yard sale violin. But when Christ picks that thing up, He still astonishes the world with the music He can make.”
Mines of Difficulty, pp. 24-25
On Not Flexing in the Pulpit
“The ministry is not to be used as a means of impressing the girls.”
Mines of Difficulty, p. 18
The Big Three
“When ministries go astray, it is very common for the problem to be located in one of three areas: glory, gold, and girls. And because sins are like grapes—they come in bunches—it is not unusual to find some ministries that shipwreck because of all three.”
Mines of Difficulty, p. 17