“But to be tender of everyone in a fallen world is actually to be cruel. To be tender of the lambs is to be tender. To be tender to the wolves is to be cruel to the lambs. This is why Christ was tender of the little children who were brought to him, and He …
Full of Surprises
Not having said anything about the monkeyshines of the erstwhile CO, Captain Honors, of the U.S.S. Enterprise, allow me to do so now. Since the videos that cost him his command were a few years old, the first thing that occurs to me is that he was probably done in by some competitor. We can …
Parenting Young People I
INTRODUCTION:When it comes to parenting, you have often heard me say that our parental responsibility does not consist in getting young people to grit their teeth and conform to the standard. The task before us is to bring up our children in such a way as to love the standard. This is not possible to …
Whether Rough or Smooth
One of the traps we fall into is that of defending ourselves both coming and going. We tell others that “all we ask” is that if someone has a problem with what we are doing, that they simply come to us with it. Talk to me, we say, and not about me. And there is …
Eating Grace By Grace
One of the glories of the new covenant is that we get to eat and drink our salvation. In the Garden of Eden, our first parents were privileged to eat their communion with God in the tree of life. And after our fall into sin, it is significant that the gospel is presented to us …
Loving Smooth Words
Father and God, we confess to You that as a nation we have not wanted the prophets to do anything but prophesy smooth words. We have hired flatterers and liars, and spin doctors, and then when the unavoidable truth comes upon us, we wonder why we were not warned. We chase away any who would …
A Hunka Hunka Burning Love
Here is yet another reason why I am glad the word risible is still around. Is the evangelical church on the verge of a “gay awakening? Jay Bakker, son of Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye, and now a pastor in a Brooklyn nightclub, thinks so. Lest anyone laugh at his dismissal of what he calls …
And Biscuits in the Oven
Frances Fox Piven has now told us that the Tea Party is all about sex, and I would like to be the first conservative to rise in an oblique defense of her crazy point. She says that the teapartiers grew up in an America when there was a steeple in every quaint little town, and …
If It’s Not Baroque . . .
“For a Christian rhetoric, perspicuity is the foundation of al the canons of style. Clarity of thought must always be the preacher’s aim. Clarity is the basic beauty of eloquent oratory and the driving power that persuades one’s listeners. The beauty of teaching is making clear the truth, for it is in the truth itself, …
Neither Skeletal Nor Boneless
“We sometimes have trouble understanding how tenderness and strength can go together. In order to be strong, we harden ourselves in a wrong way, a way which makes tenderness impossible. Or we opt for tenderness, and render ourselves incapable of functioning” (Beyond Stateliest Marble, p. 149).