“The responsibility assigned is pastoring the flock which is ‘among you.’ The responsibility to shepherd is limited to an identifiable flock. In Scripture, God never gives anyone undefined responsibilities. This is especially true of elders who are held strictly accountable for the work they do. Try to imagine a bookkeeper who had to give a …
Your Sleep Will Be Sweet
INTRODUCTION: Sleep is an important part of our lives, even though we can recall very little of it. We spend about a third of our lives asleep, which amounts to twenty-five years for a seventy-five-year-old man. And if the chief end of our lives is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, as the Shorter …
A Busy-Pants Foreign Policy
In his fourth chapter, Gelernter addresses the rise and development of the American religion in the course of our war for independence. “The American Creed [liberty, equality, democracy] combined with American Zionism [residue of postmillennialism] yielded a full-blown American belief system. These beliefs would be refined further; they would eventually supersede Puritanism and become the …
Like West Virginia Needs Coal
As just about everyone knows by now, Sen. Larry Craig was arrested in a public lavatory in June at the Minneapolis airport, and subsequently pled guilty to a misdemeanor — for disorderly conduct. The news just hit the fan yesterday, and our Boise paper, The Idaho Statesman, ran with a story on it. In his …
Really Obvious
The principle is firmly established already. Paul is building up to the point that false religion is the foundation of all false living. Just as believing lives are built upon the truth of God, so false lives are built on the lies of righteousness-mongers. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not …
What’s the Point?
“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11) Growing Dominion, Part 125 “An high look, and a proud heart, and the plowing of the wicked is sin” (Prov. 21:4). God evaluates all our business with the intent we have for that business in mind. In other words, He does not isolate …
The Draw of True Preaching
“My contention is that it is the pulpit itself that is ultimately responsible, and that when the pulpit is right, and the preaching is true, that it will attract and draw the people to listen to its message” (Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, p. 52).
The Order of Revelation Matters
“According to this idea, the violent verses of the ninth sura, including the Verse of the Sword (9:5), abrogate the peaceful verses, because they were revealed later in Muhammad’s prophetic career: In fact, most Muslim authorities agree that the ninth sura was the very last section of the Qur’an to be revealed” (Robert Spencer, The …
Rap as Ultimate European Whiteness
“As we’ve seen, obscenity is the preferred weapon of those willing to do anything to get a rise out of the public. The faces are black, but the strategy is European: Seek out a submerged, antisocial custom that is considered marginal even by its participants, drag it kicking and screaming to the surface, and celebrate …
Love and Polemics
We have already seen that the lines of descent from Sarah and Hagar are fluid. We are now coming to the great truth that the family resemblance borne in these lines is also obvious. Sons of Abraham do the works of Abraham. The text today closes on the threshold of Paul’s great description of the …