We now come to the sin of subversion. The edict from the Jerusalem council, seeking to reassure the Gentile Christians, said that certain men who claimed to be representing the thought of the church leaders were actually just troubling people and subverting (anaskeuadzo) souls (Acts 15:24). The way they were doing this was through insisting …
Or By Being Run Through a World-Class Sound System
“Nonsense does not improve by being bellowed” (Charles Spurgeon, An All-Round Ministry, p. 42).
A TV Panel of Caterpillars
“So, let me add that Christianity is, and always has been, and always will be, not just essentially a religion of hope, but in itself, the most stupendous hope the world has ever known. Only Incarnate god would have dared to hold out to us all, mere men and women of every sort and condition, …
Dandelion Fire
Well, here is the cover art for the next one. One minor problem is that Random House has delayed the release slightly. Oh, well. The good news is that this is one is not a page turner only because you find yourself clutching the book too tightly to turn anything.
Good and Necessary Consequence
Lane has picked up our discussion of faith as evangelical obedience here, and Tim Prussic has captured the problem with Lane’s argument in the second comment there at Green Baggins. The issue is not really an exegetical one — I granted in an earlier part of our discussion that his exegesis pointing to sanctification is …
Seeing the Light of Hard Copy
This is the much referenced CT debate in book form, with two new introductions — one by Christopher Hitchens and one by me. I am really grateful the online exchange is seeing the light of hard copy, to mix a metaphor. Now, for the very first time, atheists and Christians can buy a really suitable …
Trying to Make Natural Revelation Convenient
If something is inexcusable, we mean that it is really bad. The Greek word for this is anapologetos, and the apostle Paul uses it twice — once in Romans 1 and another time in Romans 2. In the first instance, he says that those who live lives of moral defiance, in the light of what …
Strongly Visual
“Whereas Crashaw renders an atmosphere by evoking a myriad of fleeting images from baroque sacred art and Jesuit emblem books, the Protestant poets often interpret biblical and sacred metaphors in images which are, like the Protestant discrete emblems, strongly visual, logically precise, and elaborately detailed” (Lewalski, Protestant Poetics, p. 197).
Serve Him With What You Have, and All You Have
“When grace abounds, learning will not puff you up, or injure your simplicity in the gospel. Serve God with such education as you have, and thank Him for blowing through you if you are a ram’s horn, but if there be a possibility of your becoming a silver trumpet, choose it rather” (Charles Spurgeon, An …
News As the Ephemeral Foundation of the Air Castle of All Media
“But, of course, the essential quest has been for news. This is the Unholy Grail, the ultimate fantasy on which the whole structure of the media is founded. Shouted down a telephone, tapped out on a teleprinter, carried breathlessly to the stone to catch the edition, beamed by satellite through the stratosphere, whispered confidentially in …