“On the question of athletics, the true extremes are worship of the body and contempt for the body. These views come quickly into play when a school board is deciding whether the school should field a football team or build a gymnasium or sponsor a girl’s volleyball team. One contingent maintains that the school was …
From Cain and Abel Down
“It is not only in myths that brothers are simultaneously drawn together and driven apart by something they both ardently desire and which they will not or cannot share — a throne, a woman or, in more general terms, a paternal heritage” (Girard, Violence and the Sacred, p. 63).
But That’s What Everybody Always Calls It
My oldest daughter was recently talking with her youngest son, Judah, who is almost two. He is just moving into that time of life when he is able to identify various parts of his head. “What’s this?” she said. “Chin,” he said. “What’s this?” “Cheek.” And on it went, with him doing very well . …
Comments on Comments
This last week, after there was a comments pile-up here in the discussion of the Ligonier situation, a reasonable question was raised by David Bahnsen, which was, why have a comments feature at all? Ironically, my wife and I had just been talking about the same thing, and then after the question was raised here, …
He Will Destroy All Battle Gear
Minister: Lift up your hearts! Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord! God is known through Judah’ hills, His Name is great in Israel. Salem holds His dwelling place, His tent of praise on Zion’s mount. He breaks the arrows and the bows, The shields and swords, all battle gear. Our God is greater …
Read All About It
One of the characteristics of modern assumptions about the Bible is that in the Old Testament God dealt with His people in more physical or earthy ways, and that in the New Testament His promises and deliverances are of a more spiritual (meaning ethereal) nature. Thus, we don’t expect God to actually deliver us from …
Our Tree of Life
When God created Adam and Eve, and placed them in the Garden, He also provided them with food. Not only did He provide them with their daily food, hanging from the branches of all the trees in the Garden, He also provided them with sacramental food, the food that was fruit of the Tree of …
The Table Fences In
Do not presume for a moment that in this meal the Lord Jesus Christ is a hapless victim. He became a victim, once for all, at a particular point in history. But God vindicated Him, raising Him from the dead, and He was ushered before the Ancient of Days, and was a given a throne …
The Rest That Works
We are discovering that celebration is hard work. We are in the middle of a great season of personal and corporate celebrations—graduations from high school, from college, weddings, and so forth. This is a time of great joy, and joy naturally calls us to work so that we might give fuller expression to that joy. …
The Ten Words
So we now come to the Ten Commandments. As with everything, context should govern all our understanding, but this is especially important when we are considering the question of law. “And this is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel . . .” (Dt. 4:44-5:33). We have to understand the grace of …