I would like to pass on to all of you some questions posed by a correspondent in Australia. He has been observing us toiling away here in our FV swamps, and sent on some questions that I thought were just grand, going right to the heart of the matter. If I were speaking to this …
There Are Only Two Men in the World
As we eat and drink in the fellowship of God, we need to remember that in this time of worship and communion, God is constituting and forming a new society. He is not just encouraging us in our private lives—although this is one result of what we do. There are only two men in the …
Worship Is Political
The modern world specializes in fragmentation. Everything is broken apart into little bits, so that autonomous man might have the illusion that this world can be controlled by man, piece by little piece. But we are Christians, who serve the God who made heaven and earth, and who then remade them in Jesus Christ our …
An Ear for Dialogue
“But this fault is rare in Bunyan — far rarer than in Piers Plowman. If such dead wood were removed from The Pilgrim’s Progress the book would not be very much shorter than it is. The greater part of it is enthralling narrative or genuinely dramatic dialogue. Bunyan stands with Malory and Trollope as a …
Those Who Don’t Stand for Something Will Fall for Anything
“Recognizing that a critical mass among Canada’s fine citizenry holds ultraliberal views, I fear that Canada will perhaps be the first western nation to spring a supremacist Islamic trap on its own foot” (Richardson, Secrets of the Koran, p. 165).
The Artistic Temperament
“The artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs . . . But in artists of less force, the thing becomes a pressure, and produces a definite pain, which is called the artistic temperament. Thus, the very great artists are able to be ordinary men—men like Shakespeare or Browning. There are many real tragedies of …
More Church Fights
“If a man were to see his wife being attacked by rapists, all his professions of love and deep concern are meaningless unless he fights for her. Under such circumstances, a refusal to fight does not stem from a love of peace, but rather from the now-revealed contempt he has for his wife. In the …
The Problem of the Old Testament
I just finished reading Inspiration and Incarnation by Peter Enns, a book that was, in unequal measures, edifying and frustrating. First, the strengths. Enns does a superb job, on a number of issues, of raising questions that easily frustrate traditional Bible believers. This is because traditional Bible believers want (in the name of inerrancy) a …
And God Will Send His Blessings Down
Minister: Lift up your hearts! Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord! Everyone who fears the Lord is blessed, All who walk in the ways assigned. Your meals will be the work of your hands, Happiness weighs your table down, And it will all be well with all your house. Your wife will be …
No Dessert for You
Once there was a young couple whose first child was approaching school age, and they had begun to talk seriously about what they were going to do. The problem was acute for them because they both came from families that had a lot of public school teachers in them. These were Christian people, but public …