“If you will be as dry as sawdust, as devoid of juice as the sole of an old shoe, and as correct as the multiplication table, you shall earn to yourself a high degree in the great university of Droneingen, but if you wake up your soul and adopt an energetic delivery, and a natural, …
Dancing ACLU Lawyers
One of the problems with using Constantine as a marker is that there is a tendency to anachronism, attributing to him any subsequent malfeasance on the part of Christians in power. But the Constantinian settlement was, by and large, a tolerant one. Lactantius, the early church father who tutored Constantine’s children, was an apologist for …
And at the Heart
“True authority and true submission are therefore an erotic necessity” (Fidelity, p. 87)
Whether Fine Foppery or Foppish Finery
“The centre is not here. They that wear soft raiment are in king’s houses, but the King of kings cares nothing for the finery and foppery of ecclesiastical parade” (Spurgeon, Eccentric Preachers, p. 25).
About as Unique as a Pint of Salt Water
One of the foundational temptations for us as we consider our forms of social organization is the temptation of thinking that we are unique, and that no one has ever been in the soup we are in. Globalization, the Internet, micro-chips, frankenfood, and wireless hot-spot coffee shops all make it impossible for us to even …
Still a Shame
“If gold ruste, what shal iren do?For if a preest be foul, on whom we truste,No wonder is a lewed man to ruste;And shame it is, if a prest take keep,A shiten shepherde and a clene sheep.” (Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, ll. 500-504)
According to His Truth
INTRODUCTION:The background to this psalm is found in 1 Samuel 23, and it is a testimony to David’s faithfulness to God in the midst of much unfaithfulness to him. David had delivered Keilah from the Philistines, but the Lord told David that they would turn him over to Saul. He then went to the wilderness …
Talebearing and the Teenager
For you young people, this part of your life is a white water stretch of the river. And one of the most treacherous rapids that you will need to navigate is the challenge presented by the sins of others, and by the glaring sins of others. When do you keep silent, and when do you …
The Gift of Faith and Joy
If there is any good in this life, it is enjoyed as the gift of God. If God gives the gift, and the capacity to do more than just hold that gift in your hand, then joy is possible. This is true of our physical life, our physical food, and it is true of our …
Without Holiness
Father, we acknowledge that You are the holy God, and that we have somehow believed that we could rest in Your favor without being holy, and without appealing to the name of Jesus Christ, the only name capable of making men holy. We confess that our nation thinks of itself as amiable and well-meaning, and …