This is a holy Table, to be sure, but it is the holiness of hospitality—not the holiness of separation and distance. The Bible teaches us both kinds of holiness. In the Old Testament, the first lesson was the lesson of consecration and holy separation. Holiness was set apart; holiness was not contaminated with common things. …
Honest Sentences
Confession of sin is acknowledgement of sin, and acknowledgement of sin is humbling. That is why we tend to avoid it. The problem is not the fact, the problem is the pride. In 1 John 1:9, the word for confess is homologeo. This word is a compound one, made up of the word for same …
Brian and Christie
Weddings are at the heart of the creation mandate, and weddings are a glorious exhibition of the new creation mandate as well. They form a parallelism—divine goodness for the earth, as well as a divine proclamation of heavenly realities. When God first created the world, everything was good. When our rebellion against Him plunged us …
Psychological Mint, Feelings Dill, Emotional Cummin
Jesus taught us to deal with the big stuff first. He said that the weightier matters of the law took precedence. The Pharisees of His day had justified their neglect of such things by making a big deal over how they tithed out of the spice rack. Look at us go, they seemed to say. …
With Whoops and Happy Yells
A few folks brought my attention to this, and I thought it would be good if I offered a brief response. I had answered a question about Eastern Orthodoxy for a CanonWIRED clip, and this was posted by a gent named Nicodemus as a response to that short video. First, I appreciate that the response …
Books Are Training Wheels for the Mind
My daughter Rachel reviews Nate’s book here. She captures the heart of it, and does a good job representing what a big deal the right kind of stories are. Stories do what they do because we read them at the right time and in the right way. But before we do that, we buy them. …
Any Kind of Fight
“Some Christians, reacting to panicked flame-throwing of fearful fellow Christians, have opted for the opposite error. Tepid, balanced, irenic, and boring, they follow in the steps of the Master, as conceived by effeminate painters of the Victorian era — their caricature of Jesus could have done advertisements for Clairol. For such Christians, any kind of …
And In Color
“In addition to being simple, the preacher’s words should be vivid. That is, they should conjure up images in the mind” (Stott, Between Two Worlds, p. 234).
Gaming the Game
Inside each capable administrator, there is a petty bureaucrat, yearning to get out. Inside each visionary, there is a wild antinomian, yearning to get out. Each one is suspicious of the inner other guy, when they ought to be suspicious of their own inner guy. Mission cannot be accomplished without visionary leadership. Mission cannot be …
Bagpipes and Fallacies
“When Dawkins lights into radical Muslims going crazy over the Danish cartoons, I am right with him. Something really needs to be done about those people. When he talks about how Pope John Paull II made way too many people saints, my Scottish covenanter blood begins to rise, and I start hunting around for the …