Just a quick point for the record. In partisan politics, spin doctors will seize on any event and work it to fit with the agenda, the talking points, and the memo that they got just before going on the air. In a presidential debate, a candidate could perform at about the level of Miss South …
Monsters or Sinners?
Chapter Five is where David Gelernter and I part company most drastically, for reasons easily anticipated. In this chapter, Gelernter tackles the subject of Abraham Lincoln, “America’s last and greatest founding father.” As usual, Gelernter is uncannily accurate in his description, and flies wide of the mark in his evaluation. Lincoln was the great founder …
The Preacher and His Notes
“Our Lord God wishes himself to be the preacher, for preachers often go astray in their notes so that they can’t go on with what they have begun. It has often happened to me that my best outline came undone. On the other hand, when I was least prepared my words flowed during the sermon” …
The Rule of What You Can’t See
“It is remarkable that God has committed to us preachers the ministry of the Word for the ruling of men’s hearts, which we can’t look into. But this is the office of God, who says to us, ‘Preach! I shall give the increase. I know the hearts of men.’ This should be our comfort, even …
Living with Actual People
Learning to live in genuine community is one of the central goals that we have set for ourselves. And, to be honest, we did not set the goal—it is set before us in Scripture as one of the basic elements of the Christian faith. We are one in Jesus Christ, and this is not to …
The Table at the Center of the World
God has fashioned the human race in such a way that sitting down for a meal is the center of all family life. Guests are certainly welcome, but in the day-in and day-out pattern of living, the meal is the center. This is one of the reasons we can tell that the modern family is …
Catholic Evangelicalism
With the FV controversy in mind, I was asked this last week whether I considered myself more “basically”evangelical or more “basically” Reformed. With the one qualifier that if you believe both, then to answer the question is not to say which you believe to be “more true,” let me address it this way. As I …
The Cruciform Heart
As we seek to gather in our hearts and minds the message of this wonderful book, we can see the heart of it here in the last passage. Just as we need to summarize, so does Paul. Ye see how large a letter I have written unto you with mine own hand. As many as …
When Missing by a Hair Means Missing by a Mile
“There is one other general point I would emphasise here before we leave this matter of the content of the sermon; and that is that we are to preach the Gospel, and not to preach about the Gospel. That is a very vital distinction, which one cannot easily put into words, but which is nevertheless …
Heaven Forbid
“However strange it may seem to Westerners, the much-publicized virgins promised to Islamic martyrs in Paradise is no myth or distortion of Islamic theology. Muhammad painted a picture of a frankly material and lushly sensual Paradise for his followers—containing everything a seventh-century Arabian desert-dweller could possibly dream of: gold and fine material things, fruits, wine, …