The Scriptures teach us in countless places that we are to be unsurprised when God’s faithful ones come under attack. When they tragically come under attack from fellow Christians, the charge against them is (obviously) not that they have been faithful, but rather unfaithful. This also should be no surprise. Jesus was executed for blasphemy, …
God’s Own Metaphor
“Puritan poets . . . knew that part of their work in this world was to wean their affections from the unmixed love of it. But they also knew that this world was God’s metaphor for His communicable glories and that another part of their duty was to see and utter that metaphor, to use …
Flat On Purpose
“Whereas modern artists assume that the artist, like all human beings, is a unified personality, postmodernists work from the assumption that self-identity is itself an illusion. Modernists, believing the artist is a unique individual, strive for a unique style. Postmodernists work with a collage of different and often recycled and mass-produced styles. Modernists are ‘deep,’ …
Where is the Olive Tree?
“And this is why we remember the words of Irenaeus who said, and said well, that ‘where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God; and where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church.’ Where is the olive tree? The answer of Scripture is plain: Where there are olives” (Mother Kirk, p. …
The Sanctimonious Veil of Myth
“Why? Because Job protests his innocence to the end. If his ‘friends’ had succeeded in reducing him to silence, the persecutors’ belief in the scapegoat’s guilt would have been unanimous. This belief would have prevailed so totally that every future account of the affair would have been given by people sharing it. We would have …
To Get the Chimps Jumping?
When accusations are brought against anyone, it is crucial for all potential participants, witnesses, or observers to think of the matter biblically. This is because it is perilously easy to fall into that species of do-goodism that wants to uproot the tares, but that kind of do-goodism is at root diabolical. This is true of …
Kicking This Particular Can Down the Road
All right, then. More on Steve Wilkins. Actually, this is more on the sociology and demographics of the thing. From where I sit, in the Idaho nickel seats, this is what the lay of the land looks like. I have urged every Reformed believer who has had any interest whatever in the federal vision controversy …
Like a Rock
Minister: Lift up your hearts! Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord! Lord, who can live with You? Who can dwell within Your tent? Who can live upon Your holy hill? The one who walks straight up, The one who does the just and right, The one speaks the truth within. He does not …
Fellowship and Office
Once there was a young man who worked for a retail store that was owned by a fellow Christian, and his job was that of a cashier. Although he was tender-hearted, he was also undisciplined and weak-willed, and when he was running short on funds one month, he “borrowed” from the till one day with …
Blessed and Broken
“And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body” (Matt. 26:26). As Jesus was instituting this Supper among His disciples, note in particular what He did with the bread. He picked it up, and then He …