The ninth commandment prohibits judicial deceit and corruption, and we now come to the portion of Deuteronomy that treats this commandment. While lying is a way to break the ninth commandment “downstream,” the commandment is actually prohibiting “false witness” or what we would call “false testimony in a judicial setting” against one’s neighbor. We see …
A Question of Relative Strength
“A suicide bomber may be a weak weapon, but not against a suicide culture” (Mark Steyn, America Alone, p. 210).
But Not the Formality of an Open Mind
“Obviously, my point of view is that the four-hundred-year imperial dominance of typography was of far greater benefit than deficit. Most of our modern ideas about the uses of the intellect were formed by the printed word, as were our ideas about education, knowledge, truth and information. I will try to demonstrate that as typography …
The Real Problem
“When we are confronted with worship services conducted by Kuba the Clown, and we marvel at the flag drill team over by the baptistry, we are tempted to attack the weirdness, instead of the doctrinal confusion which preceded it and produced it. That preceding foolishness is always an abandonment, diminution, or alteration of the gospel …
Some Reasonable Questions
A group of ten PCA pastors have written an open letter about the PCA Study Committee on the “Federal Vision, New Perspective and Auburn Avenue Theology.” In the second paragraph of this letter, these men say, “We are not FV men.” Nevertheless, they have a number of very reasonable questions about the report, and good …
The Office of a Bishop (1 Tim. 3:1-7)
INTRODUCTION: Given the nature of the Church, and the message we have been given, it is important for the leadership of the Church to evidence in their lives the fact that the gospel works. In Christ we are proclaiming a new way of “being human,” and because this is true, we take all comers, all …
A Really Curious First Priority
“After September 11, the first reaction of just about every prominent Western leader was to visit a mosque: President Bush did, so did the Prince of Wales, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, the prime minister of Canada and many more. And, when the get-me-to-the-mosque-on-time fever died away, you couldn’t help feeling that this …
Take This Blog, For Instance
[Speaking of McLuhan] “I believed then, as I believe now, that he spoke in the tradition of Orwell and Huxley—that is, as a prophesier, and I have remained steadfast to his teaching that the clearest way to see through a culture is to attend to its tools for conversation” (Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death, …
Some Grim Moses
“Far too many contemporary Christians are gathered around the foot of our postmodern golden calf, not because they want to worship the thing, but just because they like to dance — they like the driving backbeat. Questioned by some grim Moses on their presence there, they say, ‘Why? What’s wrong with dancing/'” (Mother Kirk, p. …
Banker Bait
When James I famously said, “No bishop, no king,” he was testifying to the truth an important and obvious principle. In any society where the Church is present in significant numbers, the worship and government of the Church will drive the shape of civil society. This is the case whether or not the worship and …