In recent years, it has become de rigeur to say that the stories of the Bible ought not to be read in ways that reduce the message to simple little Sunday School lessons. And of course, as with all such things, there is a sense in which this is perfectly acceptable, and in certain ways …
A Music Minister With Little Cymbals Between His Knees
My post on Mozart and Vince Gill got a friendly rejoinder from Scott Cline, and that rejoinder can be found here. I have a few things to say in response, but not a ton, because I think in some places we are arguing the same (basic) point with different vocabulary. But we shall see. Scott …
Conservative and Progressive
INTRODUCTION:This is Ascension Sunday, which means that we are going to be reminded of the absolute authority of the Lord Jesus Christ in every realm. Because we are currently in a political season, and we are in this season in a time that is politically swollen, we need to come to the Scriptures as the …
The Supper As Rainbow
The world has sinned since the time of Noah, and there have been times when the world has sinned most grievously. But though the world has sinned, the Lord has nevertheless promised that this sinful world will never again be under water. In an analogous way, the saints of God have sinned since their conversion—and …
Take Your Hands Away
The central lesson we must learn as we approach God in worship is the lesson of honesty. Confession of sin is agreement with God over what constitutes sin, and in order to do this we have read two things rightly. We have to read the text rightly, which is harder than it looks, and we …
Son of Jonah
In the famous exchange between Jesus and Peter after the resurrection (John 21:15ff), a lot of attention is paid to the question about the word for love that Jesus uses. While that is a worthwhile question, I think we should also spend some time on the fact that Jesus calls Peter “the son of Jonah” …
High Hearted, Not High Arted
“High church Puritan thinking begins with the authority of the Word of God, and one of the first things we are told in Scripture is that God has established enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. An understanding of this enmity, this antithesis, must undergird all that we do” …
No Kidding
“I was once visiting my grandmother’s home in a tiny, sleepy farm town in Nebraska. While there I saw a bumper sticker that said, ‘You don’t see much in a small town, but what you hear makes up for it'” (5 Cities, p. xiii).
That Seamy Chain of Syllogisms
Marriage is a political act, and not an individual choice. How you marry is a way of testifying to what city you belong to. Who defines marriage? The difficulty we are having in our generation in answering this question shows how theology shapes and drives everything. If God created the world, and put one man …
Maturity Grows
“As Scripture tells the story of the world, it begins with a garden, and it ends that story with a Garden City” (5 Cities That Ruled the World, p. xi).