“Horses are not to be judged by their bells or their trappings, but by limb and bone and blood; and sermons, when criticised by judicious hearers, are largely measured by the amount of gospel truth and force of gospel spirit which they contain. Brethren, weigh your sermons. Do not retail them by the yard, but …
A Special Form of Naivete
“One convention has been replaced by another. When I attended a bourgeois bohemian funeral in Paris recently, it was I who stood out in my dark suit and tie—so provincial, so conventional! Everyone else looked as if he or she had just popped into the cemetery after a bit of shopping in the local grocery …
Taking the Show on the Road
“The principle here is that you cannot export what you do not have, and, if you try, you will only wind up exporting what you do have. Whenever Pharisees go on a mission, the result is Pharisaism overseas. When scriptural ignorance goes on a crusade, the result is crusading ignorance. The applications to our situation …
Just After the Nick of Time
You all know that those who are interested may order 100 Cupboards from Canon Press. Right? Right. Now for some reason, best known only to themselves, the good folks at Random House determined that they wanted to release this book on December 26, just after the nick of time. But this great present/wrong day problem …
Mooning the Ref
These are not talking points. These are just remember points. You don’t have to say anything, or “talk” to anybody about them. All you have to do is remember these things as you watch the unfolding saga continue. For ease of remembrance, I have just listed ten of them. 1. To keep things simple, the …
Forgiven and Forgiving
The message yesterday was on forgiveness, both receiving and extending it. The name Jesus was given to the Lord because He was to save us from our sins. The heart of the new covenant contains the promise of forgiveness of sin. The message can be heard here. The date and texts are right, but the …
Let All the Earth Keep Silence
The third vision of Zechariah, that of the measuring line, promises a glorious future for Zion. The promise of that future has not yet been completed, but enough has been fulfilled for us to know that God always keeps His prophetic word. “Then I raised my eyes and looked, and behold, a man with a …
The False Finish
“I have known men tantalize us with the hope that they were drawing to a close, and then take a fresh lease two or three times; this is most unwise and unpleasant” (Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, p. 62).
The Funniest Convention
“But the kind of originality that everyone shares is not the kind of originality that modern romantics require in order to feel fully individuated in mass society. What they need is original originality, or meta-originality, as it were. This sets up the equivalent of an arms race, with more and more extravagant gestures required to …
What Strange Corruptions
“Luther, in one of his epistles, said that there was no wickedness, no cruelty, that Zwingli did not charge him with. And in another epistle he complained that Carlstadtius was more malicious against him than ever any of his enemies had been. And as for Oecolampadius, Luther was so provoked against him that he called …