“Our Lord was angry in the incident of the man’s withered hadn, but the end result of His anger was a healing and glory given to God. The end result of man’s anger is broken crockery” (Joy at the End of the Tether, p. 72).
Direct Appeal
“The point to note and remember is that direct, personal appeals in preaching will evoke a response from your audience. As we have argued, if you never use that approach you will miss a very important element in effective preaching” (Wagner, Tongues Aflame, p. 271).
Things That Go Bump in the Night
Quite a few years ago (in 1989, in fact), I edited a small volume of essays on cosmology and other things that go bump in the night, in which a few of us refuse to be embarrassed by the embarrasing parts of the Bible. Thanks to the amazing powers of print-on-demand, that volume is now …
Christ as the Ziggurat of God
This is Ascension Eve, and we are celebrating the ascension of Jesus Christ above all the heavens. But what does it mean “to ascend”? The symbolic value of high and low is obvious to us—heaven is up and hell is down. Exaltation is up, and humiliation is down. Kings ascend to the throne, and the …
Defunding the Idolstate
The secularist does not believe that God occupies any space above human society. And because it is obvious that there is room above human society, the secularist state aspires to get into that room. To modify the words of Augustine, or Pacal maybe, there is a God-shaped vacuum above the king. Once we decide that …
Saints and Sinners
“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11) The Basket Case Chronicles #1 “Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be …
That Takes Some Idiot
James Davison Hunter’s next chapter is a very fine review of cultural changes throughout the church’s history. He plainly demonstrates the importance of many of the active agencies that effect true cultural change — the place of networks, the role of elites, the contribution of wealth, etc. Hunter reviews some of the great shifts in …
An Insurrection Rather
For those who like to read political tea leaves, the next place to look is Arizona. I am not talking about the turmoil concerning their immigration law, but rather the primary contest between McCain and Hayworth. I have said before that I think we are in the early stages of a tax revolt, and each …
A Gnarled Key to Many Worlds
“We are familiar with the picture of a spoiled rich child with a family room full of expensive toys. He sits there in the corner, engaged in a furious sulk. Meantime, across town another little boy is filled with the goodness of life, running around in his back yard all afternoon, wonderfully occupied with a …
Continuity Preaching
“Discipleship preaching is ‘continuity preaching’ — moving from the familiar to the unfamiliar, from the routine to the challenging, from immaturity to maturity” (Wagner, Tongues Aflame, p. 230).