We have established that without justice and righteousness, mercy cannot be mercy. Those who universalize mercy are therefore adversaries to true biblical mercy, and are simply apostles of sentimentalism. But we must do more than simply list God’s attributes, as though they are all simply lined up like cans on a shelf. The Bible teaches …
Thanksgiving 2008
Comes now another Thanksgiving, and I have to say that I can’t get enough of them. This is a glorious harvest home music festival, one that strikes all the right notes. One of the things I have noticed over the years is that the so-called sons of Issachar (1 Chron. 12:32) tend to be on …
Maybe I Don’t Wonder Why
The inflation rate in Zimbabwe was last month at about 2.3 million percent, thanks to their ruler-thug who refuses to leave office. And strident insistence, such as we might find proceeding from an Anglican episcopal seat, that we apply the ethics found in the parable of the Good Samaritan to international situations such as this …
Different Kinds of Differences
Lane thinks that I am taking him to task because he simply affirms that saving faith must contain the element of notitia, which I also affirm. Lane requires this of adults, but argues that even infants have nascent understanding, a view I am also sympathetic with. The reason I said that Lane was (unwittingly) messing …
War, Theft or Fraud?
Bush the Second is responsible for many Problems in Our Midst, but one of the worst of them is the legacy of “compassionate” conservatism. Conservatism with a heart is the kind of conservatism that won’t ever veto anything, no matter how financially insane it might be, and consequently is the kind of conservatism that doesn’t …
Saving Smarts
Here comes my latest reply to the ongoing discussion at Green Baggins. Lane is interacting with the section entitled “Reformed Catholicity” in the FV Joint Statement. As an illustration of just how much we are talking past each other, Lane says that this “statement in and of itself does not necessarily exclude all works from …
For Some It Has to be Hard
“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11) Growing Dominion, Part 155 “A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the fool’s back” (Prov. 26:3). As much as tenderhearted people might wish it to be otherwise, there are some people who cannot be communicated with …
The Heart of Romans/Romans 3
INTRODUCTION: The gospel is not faith, but the gospel cannot be understood or appropriated apart from a living and evangelical faith. As the Westminster confession puts it, the faith that justifies is “no dead faith” (11.2). Another name for “not dead” is alive, or living. The gospel is objective and outside of us. But the …
Called to Be an Apostle
The message on the first seven verses of Romans is now posted here.
Mercy and No Mercy
One of the great dangers confronting those who would give themselves to mercy ministry is that of forgetting the antithesis. Biblical wisdom always remembers the antithesis, and places it where God has placed it. Forgetting the antithesis frequently consists of selecting a biblical virtue, absolutizing it, and using it to contradict or “balance” other biblical …