On the Friday morning before the recent Desiring God National Conference, I had the privilege of meeting together with a number of men to discuss various issues surrounding the central topic of racial reconciliation. The most immediate reason for the meeting was my recent online interaction with Thabiti Anyabwile, coupled with the fact that I …
Decorum and Decency
“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11) The Basket Case Chronicles #131 “Now in this that I declare unto you I praise you not, that ye come together not for the better, but for the worse” (1 Cor. 11: 17). Paul here returns to the subject of the Lord’s Supper, …
Book of the Month/October 2013
Reading is an odd thing. If it is a delight, as it clearly should be, then reading a book that is about reading should be like . . . eating ice cream that is about ice cream. Except that it is not like that. The failure of that metaphor is probably one of those imponderables, …
Rooted in the Heavens
The blogging has been light because I have been in Minneapolis for the Desiring God conference, which has been wonderful. The other speakers were John Piper, Phil Ryken, Kevin Vanhoozer, and Randy Alcorn, all of them speaking on some aspect of C.S. Lewis’s contribution to our understanding of the faith. The talks have been superb. …
Ten Theses on Postmodernism
This post originally ran May 10, 2010. 1. Truth is objective, ultimate, absolute, personal, alive, and triune. 2. Because of this ultimate reality, it is possible for creatures who were fashioned by this living God to know Him as the personal and ultimate truth, as well as to know lesser truths in the created world …
Delenda Est
I recently received a thoughtful question from a reader that I decided should be best addressed in a separate post. The question was generated by my exchange with Thabiti some months back, and there is no real point in trying to resurrect an old comment thread. So here we are. The question goes like this. …
Is Someone Trying to Tell Me Something?
I want to tell you about something that has happened to me twice, in the span of just a few days. Then I will try to draw out an edifying lesson from it. Last Sunday, I was reading one of Peter Leithart’s books — Ascent of Love — to accompany my reading of the Divine …
True Alignment
“The basic Christian duty is to be pro-God and align everything else in accordance with this. When we absolutize things like ‘life,’ ‘marriage,’ or ‘family,’ we routinely get into trouble. When John the Baptist confronted Herod, he was not being pro-marriage, but rather anti-marriage (Mt. 14:4)” (For a Glory and a Covering, p. 139).
Washing the Devil’s Face
“When we are advocates in a bad cause, pleading for any impious, unjustifiable act; when we baptize sin with the name of religion, and with our oratory wash the devil’s face, this is to be servants of men” (Thomas Watson, as quoted in Hughes, Expository Preaching With Word Pictures, p. 213).
No Emotional Hostage Taking
In order for a minister’s family to fit with the qualifications that Paul addresses in Timothy and Titus, there has to be a large measure of intentionality in it. Such families do not happen in fits of absentmindedness. The minister and his wife are obviously where it starts, but as the kids get older they …