“Men can strive no higher than obeying Allah’s will as revealed by his Prophet. There is no ‘revelation’ in Islam, meaning revelation of God’s nature, but only of his will and obedience to it. Human imperfection is not subject to improvement in the direction of God, and any such notion is blasphemous to a Muslim” …
Not That Simple
“Bloom implies that all popular music ‘has the beat of sexual intercourse.’ Taking exactly the same view, Steven Tyler of the hard rock band Aerosmith boasts: ‘It’s rhythm and blues, its twos and fours, it’s f***ing.’ In general, neither friend nor foe acknowledges that the monotonous beat of hard rock (and, indeed, of much rap) …
Audio Reading of Post
Keep It Short
“For example, the Bible requires that public prayer be kept as brief as possible, given the duties and needs we have in prayer. At first glance, this seems counterintuitive, but it only seems this way because our carnal flesh is very religious. The Bible says that God is in heaven, and that we are on …
Inflexible in the Joints
“Rigid, harsh, sour, crabbed, rough-hewn spirits are unfit for union. There is no sweetness, no amiableness, no pleasantness in them; they please themselves in a rugged austereness, but are pleasing to no one else in all their ways. They will abate nothing of their own, nor yield anything to others (Burroughs, Irenicum, p. 194).
Just and Fair (1 Tim. 5:17-25)
INTRODUCTION Justice and fairmindedness can take various forms, but it always reveals the same kind of heart. Remember that this giving heart has already been displayed in the section we just finished, in the discussion of widows. God loves the generous heart. THE TEXT: “Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double …
Teachers and the Tongue
We sometimes miss the context of the oft-repeated teaching of James concerning the sins of the tongue. In the fifth verse of his third chapter, he shows us how the words of the tongue are a small spark that can create a forest fire, burning down a great wilderness. But he began that section by …
Intervening Grace
“Thus the Lord himself is going to substitute his work for man’s, and he will build lasting cities, different cities, the true cities of Judah, cities which will be under another sign and controlled by a power other than Cain’s” (Ellul, The Meaning of the City, p. 27).
Islamic Fatalism
“Islamic predestination is particularly severe: it simplifies religion and so annihilates some theological difficulties, but at the price of a cruel fatalism” (Serge Trifkovic, The Sword of the Prophet, p. 66).
And Why Not?
“I do not use the word popular as the opposite of high, serious, or good. It cannot be stated too often, or too emphatically, that this usage is both illogical and ahistorical. In every period and place, it is possible to cite works that possess both popularity and artistic merit” (Martha Bayles, Hole in our …
Men From James
The ancient church, like the modern church, was not without its tensions and differences. Those tensions existed even among the apostles, and how they were addressed gives us direction and guidance. But of these who seemed to be somewhat, (whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me: God accepteth no man’s person:) for they …