So check this out. Emergent Christians and pomothinkers like to emphasize that the faith is a story with a storyline, and want to deemphasize the rigid creedal and doctrinal aspects of the faith. Let’s just leave that last bit aside for a moment, and take a closer look at these “story Christians.” The most striking …
In Case You’re the Kind Who Likes to Keep a Joke Around
I put the Dalai Bama image on a few t-shirts and mugs here. I am not sure, but I think Frank Turk made his millions this way.
The North Wind and Rain
“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11) Growing Dominion, Part 151 “The north wind driveth away rain: so doth an angry countenance a backbiting tongue” (Prov. 25:23). Nothing brings out the backbiting tongue like a little bit of success. And of course, a person who goes into business ought not …
But a Concession to Nutritional Knowledge is Not a Concession to Nutritional Mysticism
“Does he seriously hope to pass off this rhapsody on meat and starch as a treatise on cooking? Does he actually think that anyone who has the least notion of what is involved in a balanced diet would condescend to settle down in the waistland of gravy and spaetzle he praises so extravagantly? Well, believe …
Stupid Wrangles Sown
Anopheles means unprofitable. It is used twice in the New Testament, both times in a moral sense. The first instance is this: “But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain” (Tit. 3:9). Stupid wrangles sown produce a harvest to match. The second usage does …
Wisdom Accumulates
“A certain minister may quickly compose a sermon, but you must remember that this is the result of the labour of many years. Even he who, according to common parlance, speaks quite extemporaneously, does not really do so; he delivers what he has in previous years stored up. The mill is full of corn, and, …
A Triumph of Glutinosity
“It is in strudel dough that the glutinous properties of flour enter the new Jerusalem in a triumph of elasticity” (Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb, p. 118).
Wild Disobedience
The word anupotaktos is used four times and is translated in various ways. One is as disobedient, referring to a kind of behavior Paul tells that with one of the uses of the law (that of civil restraint), it was not intended for righteous men (who are already self-governed). The law was intended for the …
Far Better Actually
“Better that Demas should forsake us, than that he should abide with us, and import the world into the church” (Charles Spurgeon, An All-Round Ministry, p. 295).
Sounds, Sights, and Usually Some Skin
“Images have a way of evoking an emotional response. Pictures have a way of pushing rational discourse—linear logic—into the background. The chief aim of television is to sell products and entertain audiences. Television seeks emotional gratification. As a visual medium, television programming is designed to be amusing. Substance gives way to sounds and sights. Hard …