Scripture contains two fundamental principles when it comes to the eating of sacred meals. The first principle concerns what we eat, and the second principle concerns with whom we eat. The answers to these questions for Christians are, respectively, bread and wine, and with all who call upon the name of the true God. Excluded …
You Didn’t Have To . . .
C.S. Lewis once commented on our tendency to guard against the error we are least likely to fall into. Faced with a flood, he says, we break out the fire extinguishers. And so we guard against what we think are the pressing temptations of our day, and over time we come to think that the …
National Sellf-Deception
Father, Your Word calls us to speak without deceitful lips. And yet our sinful nation, which has so much sin to confess, does not even bother to confess sin falsely. We think that we have no sin, not as sin is defined in Your Word. And it is at just this point that Your Word …
Football Players or Pirates?
I don’t believe in complicating economic discussion more than is necessary. The Bible requires some form of capitalist society in the basic commandment, “Thou shalt not steal.” This command presupposes the institution of private ownership — private property as a divine institution — and sets up a fundamental protection against assaults on the right to …
Underlying Assumptions About God’s Grouchiness
Let me simply note that the American people have a deep faith in certain things that actual science cannot touch. We can measure this faith by looking at the areas in which our politicians and regulators are allowed to hassle us, and the areas where we will not allow them to speak reassurance to us. …
Even to the Academic
“For Paul it is the work of the Holy Spirit in the preacher and in the congregation which gives preaching its power. This is not some stuffy arcane wisdom, not some legalistic tradition, but rather a living, enlightening power that imparts life even to the old, the jaded, and the academic” (Hughes Oliphant Old, The …
Scarlet Letters, Inc.
“The question of law is another area where the Puritans are greatly misunderstood. The modern mind has a vision of Massachusetts Bay as haven for wannabe ayatollahs and manufacturers of scarlet letters” (Beyond Stateliest Marble, p. 29).
Plain Speaking
“What Paul means is plainly that Christ sent him to change human hearts through the preaching of the gospel, not to impress them with his literary eloquence” (Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures, p. 191).
When Gratitude Should Kill Envy
I don’t really know what is more out of kilter — nonbelievers looking at this kind of thing without enormous gratitude to God, or soft leftist believers refusing to look at this kind of thing because it throws a spanner into their politics of envy. We should remember that Jesus Himself said that gaining the …
As If By Magic
“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11) The Basket Case Chronicles #20 “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritual discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). According the apostle, there are two …