“When the liturgy becomes so complicated that it demands the sort of highly conventionized sermons . . . the original purpose of preaching begins to fall from sight. Instead of explaining the Scriptures, the sermon explains the liturgy” (Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures, Vol. II, p. 165).
And You Shall Receive
“Demanding respect is the quickest and most efficient way to lose it. Rendering respect is the biblical way to give, and, in the giving, to receive back what was given in another form” (Beyond Stateliest Marble, p. 112).
Underlining Has Come a Long Way
The technology is getting better by the minute — just check this out. But what we really need is a program that will let us mark up other people’s Bibles. That could be edifying.
Ministers and Porn
Our friends at Covenant Eyes have let me know about a very helpful resource. This is a free online book they have made available on the problem of ministry leaders who struggle with porn. You can check it out here.
Books n’ Songs 2010
Now that 2010 just has just a day or two left in it, I thought it would be a safe time to list my top ten books and songs for the year. But I need to qualify this. These are not necessarily books or songs that were published or released this year. This was simply …
And Will Be Again
“Our day and age, still under the shadow of the Enlightenment, naively imagines that the doctrinal sermon is boring and that sermons like these must have been tedious. A less beclouded day will probably recognize this prejudice as a rather peculiar form of pietistic agnosticism. The history of preaching is filled with examples of great …
The Way It Did
“But history happened the way it did and not some other way. One of the most irritating characteristics of many modern writers is their inability to keep their current ideological crusades out of their reading (and rewriting) of history. We see Attila the Hun sweeping across Europe, and we want his army to contain more …
The Queen of Sheba and Disheartened Anabaptists
First, before we can do business, we have to set aside a number of popular assumptions garnered from various hymns, sermons, and Far Side cartoons. The New Jerusalem is not a figure of Heaven, the final eternal state, but is rather a glorious image of the Christian Church. This is explicit in a number of …
Ecclesiastical Dress Ups
“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11) The Basket Case Chronicles #23 “I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, …
A Zombie Apocalypse Would be Worse
 Some sins, Paul tells us, run out in front of a man, while others bring up the rear. Some are screamingly obvious, while others are more subtle (1 Tim. 5:24). This means that in Bible-believing churches, cavorting with prostitutes, shooting out street lights, and knocking off convenience stories is generally frowned upon. But other …