Through the first half of the book, Mark repeatedly asks a question in various ways. That question is, “Who is this man?” The question is finally answered in Mark 8:29. Jesus is the Christ. Now in this section, the question begins to be built up and posed through various conflicts. “And again he entered into …
The Greatness of Martin Marprelate
“Martin [Marprelate] himself had of course a serious intention and must, for all his motley, be regarded as a heroic figure. Nor have I any sympathy with those who make prim mouths at him for introducing scurrility into a theological debate, for debate was precisely what the bishops had suppressed. Those who refuse to let …
Cut the Road Straight
“This is surely what Paul meant when he told Timothy to be ‘a workman who has not need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth’ (2 Tim. 2:15). The verb, orthotomounta, means literally ‘cutting straight’. It was employed of road making and is, for instance, used in the LXX of Proverbs 3:6: ‘He …
God Is Love
“When I was living as a Muslim in Egypt, I was always puzzled by a little saying that the Christians used to put on their cars or frame in their shops. The phrase of Allah Mahabe, or God is love. These two words are never put together in the Quran. I always thought, I wonder …
Aristocracy is Not Deity
“[Virginia Woolf] protests and complains as a woman and as a writer, but above all as a human being, who has discovered with bitterness that being born privileged does not alter the conditions and limitations of human existence” (Theodore Dalrymple, Our Culture, What’s Left of It, p. 75).
Saving Faith Shivers at the Spectacle
Green Baggins has resumed his treatment of my book, “Reformed” Is Not Enough, and so we come now to the chapter on apostasy. But before we get to that, Lane addresses a question I raised earlier about the difference between a corrupt church and an apostate church. As Lane puts it, “The question, then, is …
Deliver Us From the Obvious
When the Lord is pleased to reveal His wisdom to us, we must take very great care not to add our own improvements. “And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed” (Mark 1:35-45). In the book of Mark, Jesus is …
A Medieval Puritan
“I am not arguing that [Edmund] Spenser was not a Calvinist. A priori it is very likely that he was. But his poetry is not so written as to enable us to pick out his own beliefs in distinct separation from kindred beliefs. When a modern writer is didactic he endeavours, like Shaw or M. …
Authority to Apportion
“The steward has no say in determining what goes into the larder; it is stocked for him by the householder. But it is his responsibility to decide what comes out of it, and when, and in what measure. This is another aspect of the steward’s faithfulness, this time not to the householder or the goods, …
Follow the Leader
“And what you told me about the evils done by Christians—these people were Christians in name only. They disobeyed the word of Christ and they were led astray by the desires of their hearts. The Bible says, ‘The heart of man is deceitful.’ Because of this, you will see no difference between the actions of …