When we gather together as the people of God, remember that we are the redeemed of the Lord. Our characteristic note should therefore be one of exuberance and joy. Accept no substitutes, particularly the substitute of carnally generated joy. We are called to worship God in the joy of the Holy Ghost. We are commanded …
Suburban Supernova
“It’s as if Zeus came down and started plopping vast towns in the middle of the farmland and the desert overnight. Boom! A master planned community! Boom! A big-box mall! Boom! A rec center, pool, and four thousand soccer fields! The food courts come first, and the people follow. How many times in human history …
Trying to Keep the Bible Current
“When folks, even learned folks, actually, especially learned folks, start discovering that what the Bible has been saying all along is reawlly what we here in our own day have only just recently discovered, they are just half a step away from saying that it does not really matter what the Bible has been saying …
The Real Action Is Elsewhere
Jesus told the parable of two sons who were told to go work in the vineyard. One said he would go and did not. The other said he would not go, and then went. “Which one was obedient?” Jesus asked. The recent posts that I have offered on Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy have certainly …
Ezra Nehemiah 17
Introduction: Nehemiah and those with him have continued to make good progress. When they have nearly completed their work, their adversaries try a few remaining tricks. The Text: Now it came to pass when Sanballat, and Tobiah, and Geshem the Arabian, and the rest of our enemies, heard that I had builded the wall, and …
All the Western World’s An Ad
“The forces that affect it [our modern secular culture] are in the West the great commercialized amusement industries and in the East the forces of political propaganda. And I do not think that Christianity can ever compete with these forms of mass culture on their own ground. If it does so, it runs the danger …
The Table Set Before Time Began
“So the way of salvation can be found not in affirming the truths of orthodoxy with a long face, but rather by coming to see and know that the words of God are life itself. They are refined gold, they are honey to the lips, they are aged wine, they summon us to a banquet …
Loyalty As Grace
In a recent debate with an atheist, I was asked why I was a Christian. I replied that it was because my mother had spanked me. But I admit that this needs to be filled out a bit, and when we do, we will discover that the explanation is releveant to our discussions over the …
Legacy
“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11) Growing Dominion, Part 83 “A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children’s children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just” (Prov. 13:22). We must begin by noting that some people are called to leave no inheritance (some …
Orthodoxy As Habit of the Body
“Orthodoxy requires all our faculties, our reason, our imagination, our bodily habits, our affections. Straight thinking is inconsistent with crooked lives. Faith without works is dead; stories without dragons are boring; worship is a matter of sound doctrine and well-cooked meat on the grill; and a god chained to earth, however noble the portrayal, is …