When we bring a baby home from the hospital, even though that baby doesn’t speak English, we begin speaking to the baby in English anyway. In fact, we speak English to the baby at the hospital. We do this, not because we are confused on the point, but rather because we understand that this is …
An Earthbound People
Our Father and God, You have established Your Church as a royal priesthood in this world, and so we intercede for the nations of men now, confessing on their behalf so that the grace of Your forgiveness will soon be extended to them all. Father, we confess that we have become an earthbound people, a …
Inescapable Politics
Jesus Christ has ascended to the right hand of God the Father. This does not mean that He is now on the other side of the universe. It actually means that His authority is suffused throughout the entire universe. And this is inescapably political. Jesus is a king. Not only is He a king, but …
Math Problems in a Dark Room
I appear to be scratching an itch with this short series, and so here is the same point from another angle. When I was in the submarine service, I recall one time when we were at battle stations during a drill. I was a quartermaster, in the navigation department, which put me in the control …
The Barkity Barkity Midnight Dog
In order to sort some important things out, we have to do some further work on the relationship of giver and gift. I propose to begin by discussing the relationship between created giver and created gift, and then moving up to the much more complicated relationship between the Uncreated Personal Giver and the created personal …
A Full Tank of Gas and Lots of Wyoming Ahead
A week or so ago, I wrote about Piperian Hedonism 3.0. Following that, a friend helpfully pointed me to Chapter 11 of John Piper’s book, When I Don’t Desire God. That chapter is entitled “How to Wield the World in the Fight for Joy.” And that chapter is filled, of course, with Piper’s usual exegetical …
Fruitful Anger
“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 …