“More and more it has occurred to me that the big issues between the Anabaptists and the Reformers of classical Protestantism are still among the biggest unresolved agonies of modern American Protestantism.” Hughes Oliphant Old, The Shaping of the Reformed Baptismal Rite (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1992), p. x.
The Yeast of True Service
Growing Dominion, Part 3 So God has assigned to us the responsibility of exercising dominion in the world. He has done this in the cultural mandate given to Adam, in the cultural mandate that was renewed with Noah, and then, ultimately, in the Great Commission that was given to followers of Christ after His resurrection. …
Shooting Past Each Other
A battlefield is a bad place for the naïve, but once there was a young man who through a series of circumstances found himself in just that position. He was not fearful, but in his naiveté he thought that the great conflict going on around him was simply an enormous misunderstanding. The reason this happened …
The Food of the Gospel
Jesus commands us to labor for the food which endures more than just a short time — food which endures to everlasting life. He tells us also not to give ourselves in idolatrous labor for that food which necessarily perishes. Jesus says that the Son of man will give us the bread that does not …
Vintage 3
Blended, rich, mingled smooth like sanded oak. Light, not frivolous. Her taste is fruit with weight, textured chocolate. Wood-aged in the barrel, For all these years with me. She is my tawny port.
Autumn
Laughing rain, a glorious train, Mercy comes in showers. Falling leaves and dripping eaves, Autumn’s fading hours. Noisy reds take to their beds, Yellows start their fading. The pale sun arcs and golden sparks Dim in joyful shading.
Kill Bills
Not that I want to see them, or encourage others to see them, but allow just a few brief comments on the Kill Bill movies. The extreme violence they contain are sometimes defended as being too cartoonish or ritualistic to be taken seriously, and so we can go and just enjoy the “over the top” …
Deuteronomy or Democracy?
A recent book that insightfully discusses the defining mythos of America is The Myth of the American Superhero [John Shelton Lawrence and Robert Jewett, Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2002] The authors discuss manifold expressions of that myth, from The Virginian, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and the Lone Ranger, to Spiderman, Jaws, Batman, Star Trek, and …
From His Holy Hill/Psalm 3
We are told in the book of Job that man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. In the third psalm we discover what it means to find our rest and comfort in God alone. When David fled from Absalom, it was one of the greatest troubles of his life. “LORD, how are …
Curve Ball
Once there was a young man who decided that he understood what he had been taught, and not only this, he decided that he understood it far better than his teachers did. His teachers were of course very concerned about him. This is something that all young students go through, but sometimes a student is …