“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11) Growing Dominion, Part 40 God blesses open-handedness, and yet there is such a thing as giving away the store. What is the difference between the two? The law of God requires open-handedness, and a generous spirit. The gleaning laws of the Old Testament, …
Keeping the Kids in Line
Dear visionaries, Steve notes that the initial question asked of me has gone unanswered in the flurry of discussion. “What should we tell our daughters?” We should teach them what we believe, which is that men are called by God to sacrifice, love, lead, provide, protect and honor, and women are called to answer this …
The Conscience of Saul of Tarsus
Before his conversion on the Damascus road, did Saul of Tarsus wrestle with a troubled conscience? Now I believe that he did, and have argued for this take in the special issue of Credenda entitled “A Pauline Take on the New Perspective.” I am happy to grant that a troubled conscience in a Pharisee like …
Story Adorns Virtue
“Too often Christian parents simply seek to make the rightness of virtue apparent to their sons. But that is the easy part. The difficulty lies in making virtue altogether lovely, which is what happens in the right kind of story” (Future Men, p. 106).
God And Your Stuff
In this portion of His great sermon, Christ brings us to the subject of our material possessions, and our attitudes towards them. The teaching of this section can perhaps be summarized this way. God does not mind His people having things; He forbids things having His people. “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on …
Secret Tunnels
Someday I hope to write a full account of the last two years’ worth of controversy. Such an account would have to cover the waterfront — young fatheads, illegal gambling, slavery, Intoleristas, the bearded lady incident, postmodern encroachments into the conservative Reformed world, Auburn Avenue theology, N.T. Wright, and the Shroud Indignation Support Group. One …
Terri Schaivo and Postmodern Law
As Andrew Lytle noted, we like to think of ourselves as modern men, but actually we have the affliction of being momentary men. Because we are momentary men, sound-byte men, the problem with political and civic conflicts is that everything reduces to pushing and shoving in the present, and no one really cares about consistency …
Laughingstock
The Shroud of Turin is an amazing artifact. And it has also been amazing to me to watch as my son figured out a plausible way to account for how it may have been made. But an amazement beyond all these has been brought on by watching those with an inability (or in some cases, …
The Death Lobby Overeaches
As I write this, it looks as though all legal options are exhausted in the fight for Terri Schiavo’s life. It also looks like the option of intervention by Gov. Bush is extremely unlikely. If Gov. Bush had decided to send in the National Guard, it would have been a constitutional exercise of a governor’s …
Saul As Torah-Breaker
I am continuing with some occasional remarks on various aspects of N.T. Wright’s work. “What, then, was the agenda of Saul of Tarsus? We may draw it together in three points. First, he was zealous for Israel’s God and for the Torah. This was a matter of personal piety, no doubt, and of fervent prayer …