The next essay in Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry is by Bryan Estelle, and is entitled “The Covenant of Works in Moses and Paul.” Estelle is plainly acquainted with a vast amount of theological and biblical studies literature, and his close handling of that literature is obviously competent. If footnotes were biceps, this thing would …
Intimacy and Awe
How can intimacy and awe coexist? It is the work of God alone. The Holy Spirit enables us to cry out, “Abba, Father!” and the same Spirit is the one who teaches us to hallow God’s name as we pray to Him. The Holy Spirit is, after all, a holy Spirit. He could no more …
Worshiping in the Will of God
As faithful worshiping Christians, we all want to live our lives in the will of God. Unfortunately, this has led many Christians into the unbiblical practice of trying to find the will of God beforehand, in order to be able to go do it. This practice seems very pious, but it actually little more than …
Edifying Doggerel
“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11) Growing Dominion, Part 111 “He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord; and that which he hath given will he pay him again” (Prov. 19:17). In many places and in many ways, the Bible teaches that generosity is not money …
Profound Frustration
“Muslim society has a hard time explaining what caused the loss of power and prominence . . . Whatever index one looks at, Muslims can be found clustering toward the bottom, whether in terms of military prowess, political stability, economic development, corruption, lack of human rights, health, longevity, or literacy” (Daniel Pipes, Militant Islam Reaches …
Essential Bunyan
“Such passage seem to me the essential Bunyan. His prose comes to him not from the Authorized Version but from the fireside, the shop, and the lane. he is as native as Malory or Defoe. The Scriptural images themselves take on a new homeliness in these surroundings” (C.S. Lewis, Selected Literary Essays, p. 140).
Loving to Read for Obvious Reasons
“It is no exaggeration to say that reading has shaped our civilization more than almost any other factor and that a major impetus to reading has been the Bible” (Gene Edward Veith, Reading Between the Lines, p. 19).
Scholarship Chasing Its Tail
[The] “authority of truth means that hard study was not just a matter of scholarship chasing its tail. Questions are to be raise for the sake of finding answers. A wise pastor knows that splitting the difference between the right answer and the wrong answer will only result in another wrong answer” (Mother Kirk, p. …
Disturbing the Disturbed
“Disturbing the corruptions of men who will oppose out of malice is not something to be greatly regarded. When Christ was told that the Pharisees were offended He cared not for it, but made a great matter of the offending of any of His little ones” (Burroughs, Irenicum, p. 114).
The Guy in the Teapot
Not surprisingly, Richard Dawkins places the evolutionary process at the center of his argument. “This book will advocate an alternative view: any creative intelligence, of sufficient complexity to design anything, comes into existence only as the end product of an extended process of gradual evolution” (p. 31, emphasis in the original). This might be hard …