Last night I read through a small booklet that was really quite good — it was called The Easter Answer, and addressed the problem of harmonizing the various accounts of Christ’s resurrection appearances. The author, Stephen Kingsley, is a fellow Idaho pastor who addressed our NSA Disputatio a few years back. In this booklet, he …
Up to My Waist in Global Warming, Shovel in Hand
Okay, I had to shovel my walk again this morning. Our Ponderosa pine are beautifully flocked again. We have had more snow than I ever remember having here. Snowfall records are shattered in Spokane. My truck hasn’t been out of four-wheel drive in weeks. As a friend asked me at church yesterday, where is Al …
A Tenuous Grasp on the Rules of Evidence
What would you say if someone told you that you could determine whether or not you were allergic to peanut butter, or peanuts for that matter, by putting a dollop of peanut butter on the back of your right hand and extending it out parallel to the floor? And that if you could keep your …
Tell the Wizard What He Wants
Once there was a boy who had a very unfortunate experience. He lived in a fairy tale, and this is why he was not very surprised when a wizard stopped him on the way home, and asked where he was going. The boy said nothing, because he had learned a long time ago that the …
Accepted Weekly
It is no accident that our service of worship concludes, or culminates, in the Supper. In response to the summons of the Lord, we have called on His name. We have confessed our sins, knowing that we cannot enter into the holy place of worship apart from His cleansing and forgiveness. We have consecrated ourselves …
Christ the Soldier
Even if we differ with it, and even if we differ with it sharply, we are all still affected by the idea of Jesus as the prototypical hippie. Those who adopt the idea may do so with the applause of pacifists, or with a Nietzsche-like disdain. But it is a very common and very influential …
Better Than That
John famously begins his gospel by saying that the Word was in the beginning with God, and that the Word was God. We have two things associated here that we don’t normally associate — identity and togetherness. I am me, but I don’t normally think of myself as being with me. I am generally close …
Hitchens on CBN
CBN has now posted the half hour show that Christopher Hitchens and I recorded with them in October. A number of clips from this show do appear in the documentary, but the show ought not to be confused with the documentary. The same goes, incidentally, with the debate that occurred at Westminster, which has its …
Merry Christmas 2008
Stories organize our lives, and the stories that won’t or can’t do that are false stories. The stories that orient us, that place us back where we should have been, the stories that bring redemption, are called true stories. They go by other names if you listen to the tellers of false stories — legends, …
BBQ Pit in Narnia
Here’s a quick snap of our front yard — I remember George Grant was here one time in February, and he made a great deal of fun of our snow-covered barbecue, as though to live in a place where spring has to arrive makes the idea of cooking meat outdoors untenable — but I digress.