“Which brings up another point: why is it that the “supremacists” among us behave the way they do? If there is a kid in seventh grade who is busy heaping contempt upon the heads of the fifth graders, it is likely that he is not exactly the class genius. He is struggling to fulfill his …
Words and Decimal Places
“But words do not have decimal places. Neither do flowers and volcanoes. The eye can see but cannot do logarithms. A toddler can catch a ball but cannot do the math necessary to enable him to do so. Symbols or numbers in a mathematical formula have a denotation but no connotation to speak of. The …
But For the Grace of God
Minister: Lift up your hearts! Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord! God of ultimate wisdom, God of infinite, cascading wisdom, we worship You through the incarnation of that wisdom, our Lord Jesus. We give glory to You, for the earth is full of Your glory. We render thanks to You, because the earth …
Old Wineskins
As long as we live in this fallen world, we will be buffeted with at least two conflicting standards. The first is obviously the standard by which we are named—the wisdom of Christ, the aroma of the gospel, the scandal of the cross. But in the history of the Church, the competing standard that has …
Two Kinds of Losers
One of Christ’s most famous parables is that of the prodigal son. It could also be called the parable of the self-righteous brother, or the parable of the longing father. What it teaches us about God the Father is quite remarkable, and to a certain kind of religious mind and heart, also quite scandalous. Once …
You Are Here
As part of my neo-fundamentalist masochism, I have been reading quite a bit of quasi-postmodern Christian writing lately, and the more quasi I read the more queasy I get. The latest entry that has found its way into my briefcase is Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christian. One of the most frustrating aspects of …
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
In Scripture, one of the consistent prayers that God’s people offer up in the midst of harassment from their adversaries is that those adversaries would fall into the pit that they are busy digging. The Bible points to the reality of this in many ways. “You reap what you sow. The judgment with which you …
Tolerance and Common Ground
Morning visionaries! Steven identified my subtle and nuanced discourse as a “nice rambling response” and pointed out that I did not answer his question directly, which is true enough. So here is my direct answer. People who would not choose one another for fishing buddies can nonetheless tolerate one another and live in blissful co-existence. …
All Epistemologists Used to be Toddlers
“When we have come of age, we should look back on the process and see that where we came from does not define who God is. God reveals Himself to the mature mind as ultimate and transcendant. Our experience does not contain Him or define Him. But His sovereign majesty does contain our experience. In …
Rejoicing in It All
Our Father and God, we rejoice in Your holy day, and we thank You for it. We rejoice in the food that is set before us, and we thank You for it. We rejoice in the fellowship that You have given to us in one another, and we thank You for it. We rejoice in …