The task of exegesis is to unpack from the text what is already there. The task is not eisegesis, to import what it would be pleasant for me to find were I to have my druthers. If I go on a trip without my wife, when I get to the motel room, one of my …
How Could It Not?
Just a few things to say about the Ted Haggard mess. For some important background, please check out these posts (here and here) from the Bayly brothers. There are two important points to take away from this most recent evangelical moral disaster. The first is that this was certainly hypocrisy, but it was not the …
A Self-Condemning Head Case
The Lord’s Table is the place where we are to overflow with gratitude and thanksgiving. It is not a time for us to curl up into a little ball of sorrow or remorse. If there has been sin in your life, and of course there has, then there are other times to deal with that. …
A Remote Control With New Batteries
The Word of God tells us in countless places that we are to live with a view toward everlasting consequences. God tells us that our motivation in this should be hunger for blessing from Him. The moralistic philosopher Kant tried to teach us that a deed is not really moral unless it is done from …
An Unholy Hat Trick
“When men cease to aspire to the ideal, the good, to self-restraint — whether in their arts or their lives — they do not just stand still, but actually turn the other way, finding self-fulfillment in self-indulgence, and in an obsession with those three ultimate expressions of the totally self-centred life: sex, violence and insanity” …
Embodied Education
“But one of the glories of education is the opportunity to hear the truth come out of a human being with blood in the veins and air in the lungs, and not just off a printed page” (The Case for Classical Christian Education, p. 198).
Instead of “A Life for an Eye, a Life for a Tooth”
“As a matter of fact, the imitation involved in revenge tends toward more violence, for it tends to repay the violence it avenges ‘with interest.’ It tends to escalate the violence. The ancient injunction, ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,’ was an attempt to keep revenge from spinning out of control” …
Yet Another Sabbath
Gracious God and Father of Jesus, we thank You for the arrival of yet another Sabbath. Thank You for the gift of worship tomorrow morning, and for the gift of preparation for that worship now in this meal together. We thank You that the food represents countless hours of human labor and diligence, up to …
Lenny Bruce Tags It
One of our local adversaries, Nick Gier, had a letter in the paper last night entitled “‘Intolerista,’ and proud of it.” He was referencing a recent article in the Spokane paper, which was, despite Nick’s praise, a fairly decent article. There were some mistakes in it, and of course, Nick seized on those mistakes as …
Without A Bucket
I am currently reading three new books by Peter Leithart — the commentary on Kings, the book on Second Peter, which are both outstanding, and the book Deep Comedy, which promises to be the really fabulous one. I am not very far into them yet, but am certainly far enough in to see that Peter …