In this next chapter of Hebrews we begin a short introduction to the nature of Christ’s priesthood and intercession for us. The writer of Hebrews is then diverted into a discussion of immaturity and apostasy before he returns to this theme in the middle chapters of his book. “For every high priest taken from among …
Blogs and Accusations
It has come to my attention that an announcement was made to the Warfield list concerning a web site that has been set up by a member of our church, a site that has been recycling a number of old accusations against us. I am confident that many of the readers of the Warfield list …
The Lewis and Clark of the Soul
“Lewis and Clark didn’t return from their trip and say, ‘Well, we didn’t find the Northwest Passage, but we did find ourselves.’ But that is the spirit of Bobo travel. Our travel dollars are investments in our own human capital. We don’t just want to see famous sights; we want to pierce into other cultures. …
Play Skillfully
“This may seem like a commonsense observation, but relativism in aesthetics is constantly trying to undermine the obvious. When the Bible tells us we are to ‘sing to Him a new song; play skillfully with a shout of joy’ (Ps. 33:3), this means there is such a thing as musical skill. The Lord has not …
Nameless Others
Chesteron had a famous comment where he spoke of tradition as the democracy of the dead. He thought we ought not to exclude someone’s voice from a discussion on the technical grounds that they were not still alive. The point was well-taken, but there are some discussions and arguments where voices ought to be excluded. …
A Situated Idahoan
In his fifth chapter, Grenz introduces us to the forerunner of postmodernism, to the voice crying in the wilderness — Fredrich Nietzsche. The philosophers of modernity (who bookended that age when rationalistic charismata were still being given to men) were Descartes and Kant (p. 84), and this gives us the approximate dates of 1650 to …
Ah, Texture
“But to demonstrate their superiority to such people, the educated elites prefer to build environments full of natural irregularities. For the Bobos, roughness connotes authenticity and virtue. So the educated elites love texture . . . Really rich Bobos will hire squads of workmen with ball-peen hammers to pound some rustic wear into their broad …
Vouchers and Neutrality
“So we either have to grant that we may be taxed so that a Buddhist parent may be funded to instruct his kids that Buddhism is true, or we must say that Buddhist education and Christian education are the same for most of the day. Support for vouchers among Christians reveals that we have not …
Tie Goes to the Runner
I need to begin with a couple of jokes that you may have heard before. But they are offered not so much for the joke value as for what they illustrate about the power of interpretive grids, which is the point of this post. There was a guy who was convinced that he was actually …
My Soul Is Broken With Desire
Minister: Lift up your hearts! Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord! Can this poor man a servant be? Deal bountifully with me, That I may live and keep Your Word, That I might walk and never stray, In all the blessings You poured out. And if You open both my eyes, I will …