Letters for Fun and Profit

I was wondering if you could share how your community/churches organize and execute your Psalm Sings and events in the community. Are they more or less your version of an evangelism ministry? Where you are worshiping in the public square as the Body of Christ, in view of an unbelieving world to either mock or be drawn in by? I would like any guidance/tips on these public events from a Church who has been doing it for a while. Thank you again.

Mark

I have seen you make the point a couple times recently that the crowd at Palm Sunday, and the mob at the crucifixion were two SEPARATE crowds. Scanning the archives, I found an article titled “the Crowds of Palm Sunday,” which fleshes that point out more. I’m curious to know why you think that possibility seems to be ignored in modern hermeneutics, and why you find it so significant to maintain it? This question was brought to mind this Sunday when we sung Stuart Townend’s “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us.” That includes the lines,
“Behold the man upon a cross,/My sin upon His shoulders;/Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice/Call out among the scoffers.”
I was curious if your opinion on the Palm Sunday crowd causes you to take issue with that line of the hymn as well?

J

I’m a big fan of your work, but I’m particularly fascinated with the way you preach and with your sermon notes. I’ve never encountered a pastor who summarizes the whole text and then brings out a handful of applications. Usually, other expository preachers (myself included) will give a brief introduction, break the text into 2-4 Adrian Rogers-style alliterative points, and draw the whole thing to a conclusion. Would you mind walking us through your sermon prep process from text selection to the finished product, and talk about how you developed your particular style of preaching over time?

Wendell

Let’s say you have two guys who are violently hostile to one another. Guy One has expressed violent hostility toward you also and has even shot pellets at your kids and tried to poison your dog. You suspect that Guy Two has sometimes taken advantage of you, and he has a reputation for being a sharp dealer, but he expresses admiration and affection for you and has invested in your business in such a way that he stands to lose a lot if you fail. Assuming every single thing in this paragraph is true, you would be a fool not to root for Guy Two to win that fight.

Daniel

My best Friend is Jewish. It starts and stops right there for me. I think the devil is clearly trying to derail the Spirit’s work in our conservative Reformed evangelical circles by muddying the waters with antisemitism, which I do not think you are guilty of.
I’m postmillennial, so I don’t believe the devil will ultimately be successful, but it is so frustrating to see how so many are being led astray—as in why does this even have to be a discussion point!
But perhaps the way people’s true colors are being shown through all of this is a feature, and not a bug, and this is why God is allowing this to happen. You need something to separate wheat from chaff/weeds after all.
Thank you for fighting the good fight and holding fast to Scripture—which I firmly believe is the key to staying on the path, without falling into either ditch.

Joe

Educational Insights for a Rural Rector?
As a long-time follower of various Moscow media, I have often heard pastoral counsel in the realm of education. Generally, I have seen praise for homeschooling intentionally pursued and for classical Christian schooling whenever feasible. I wondered, however, if your advice permutates for pastors and people in rural and very small towns (of less than 1000 residents). In such smaller settings in generally conservative states, it is still advisable for both parties to pursue alternative schooling methods to the public school? Or if the church body is sizable enough (at least for a notable presence at the local school, if not necessarily to found their own institution), would it be prudent and strategic for the church leaders and laity to prioritize/pursue public schooling in the attempt to maximize local impact with limited manpower and resources?

Frederick

I am a 21-year-old woman from Indiana, and as I’ve benefited from listening to your content on dating and marriage, I thought I’d ask you a question that has been brewing in my mind for some time. In short, I want to get married, but I can’t find a solid Christian guy anywhere; what should I do?
For context, I am reformed, a Classical Conversations graduate, and now in my last year of nursing school at my local state university. I live in the country and attend a PCA church plant where there are very few people my age. I attend a college ministry group, but the guys there are rather immature and theologically squishy. I’m looking around and wondering: where are the solid Christian dudes? What should I do about my dilemma? I’ve already sought my parents for counsel, and I would love to hear what you have to say since you’ve had to navigate these waters already. Thank you for considering my question and for all the content on Canon+!

Natalie

How do you deal with a parent who did you great wrong both during childhood and continuing into adult years, but the parent won’t acknowledge it or deal with it? I mean serious, ongoing issues that detrimentally affect the possibility of a relationship in a major way?

GH

Good day. I am a grade 12 student from South Africa and recently I have been listening to your podcasts and have found them really insightful. Thank you for your work! The matter I would like to address today, as mentioned above is one of marrying young. In our modern culture marrying young is definitely something that is more and more frowned upon and everyone seems to first achieve a level of individual “success” before even considering marriage. Now my girlfriend and I have been dating for about 2 years and the thought of marriage is definitely something that has been on our minds from the start, as we said from the start that we are dating to marry. The Lord has been really good to us and we are really thankful for the past two years and really feel a real call to marriage. The whole “dating” concept also just feels like it doesn’t really fall within God’s design for marriage, as one cannot give yourself totally to the other person because you are not married yet, but it makes it hard if you are so certain about this. The dating concept feels a bit “worldly” and therefor also the motivation to marry as soon as one can. Boundaries are also something we regularly talk about.
Do you have any kind of advice for marrying young, as I am only 18 (Grade 12) and my girlfriend 19 (1st year University)? Especially maybe for how marriage and having kids will work if you marry at a young age, because let us say one marry in a year’s time, how do you manage kids while still studying? Is some form of birth control even an option? This is all things we are thinking about at the moment and your take on this would be wonderful.
Thank you so much!
God bless

Rico

Thank you for all that you do. I will be marrying my fiance this upcoming March and I wanted ask a question about birth control. A few years ago, before we knew each other, her doctor prescribed getting an IUD (not for sexual reasons), but to help with her menstrual migraines. Now that we are getting closer to our wedding date we’re having wonderful conversations about children, and sex within marriage. We want to honor the Lord above all else, and due to this, I want to get your thoughts on her IUD. Is this something that dishonors God? should she have it removed immediately? Prior to having children or, when we are getting closer to start trying? Blessings.

SES

Regarding the Image of the Triune God and Christ’s covering in worship. If Moses’ veil (kaluma) covered his face, and the covering of 1 Cor 11 (katakalupto) are both rooted in the Greek kalupto, how can it not be an additional cloth covering? Or was Moses a Nazarite and covered his face with his hair? And when Paul says “for her hair is given to her for a covering” it’s a totally different Greek word for covering (peribolaion). Can you please untangle this.

Steve

My wife and I have been married several decades and have married children with families. We are in the late autumn of our years and thank the Lord, still fairly healthy. I am retired. We are both on social security with two checks: mine and my wife’s (who was a homemaker and whose check is based on a percentage of mine). Our house it paid for and we have relatively few necessary expenses.
We used up my retirement savings within a few years due to undisciplined and unwise spending. Nothing necessarily extravagant but just sort not being careful and living somewhat beyond our means. As head of my home I bear the responsibility. If push came to shove, I think living frugally, we could live off our social security; and I am in the process of coming up with a budget to do that . . . but it would be nice to have a nest egg for a cushion.
Well, about the time the retirement savings was running out, my wife received an inheritance from her parents. It is by no means a fortune, but in my calculations, if we spend it carefully, by God’s grace it should carry us to our last years without undue hardship.
I have told my wife that we need this inheritance money to last and take us comfortably into our last years on earth. And after a little resistance, realizing the reality of the situation, she has been on board with this. I have been managing this inheritance money along with all the other money as well as paying the bills, shopping for groceries, etc. Out of respect for her and her inheritance I make sure anything I do concerning it is totally open and I consult her and tell her, and get her OK whenever we have to bring over any money to pay bills, etc.
As it regards our household, I view her inheritance just as I would regard an inheritance from my own parents: It would go into the “general fund” of our home and be used for savings and/or bills and general spending . . . not for me to spend all on myself, etc.
Is the wife’s inheritance any different?
I mean am I on solid biblical grounds to maintain that the inheritance she got from her parents isn’t her own “spending money” to spend however she wants to? . . . but rather belongs to both of us to use in agreement like any money e.g. that I had earned.
Although in fairness, I would be more likely to buy a shop tool, etc. from my own earned money without running it by my wife first, than I would ever do with her inheritance money.
My concern/question is:
As head of the home and of my wife, biblically, what is my relation to my wife’s inheritance? And how does what all I said above agree with or contradict it, etc.?
Please let me have your unvarnished assessment/analysis/rebuke/scorn/advice/correction, etc. I greatly appreciate it.
Thank you

Robert

The White/Mahler Debate
A Modest Naming Proposal—Christian Federalism
I’m a 34-year-old, properly fathered male. I left social media after 2016 and only recently dipped back into X because of Grok. That experiment ends shortly—what a mess.
After reading Stephen Wolfe when Canon published it, finishing Hazony’s Conservatism, watching the Mahler debate, and reading “The Dangerous Secret Your Young Men Are Keeping” (per your X post), I’ve come to a simple conclusion:
We should abandon the term Christian Nationalist and adopt Christian Federalist instead.
Despite the valuable insights from both Hazony and Wolfe, the nationalist label now signals something it shouldn’t—something dark, loud, prima facie sinful, and unhelpful. Rather than spend the next decade clarifying what we don’t mean, we could pick a term with historic weight, theological grounding, and conceptual clarity. Federalist fits the bill.
Thanks for your time. God bless.

David

I just watched your Man Rampant interview with Robert Netzly of Inspire Investing. Wow. Thank you. My wife and I will be making some changes ASAP.
Also super stoked to have Joe Rigney at the Cedar Falls Bible Conference at the end of July speaking on “The Sin of Empathy.” I look forward to sitting in the back and watching the discomfort spread! Should be a good couple of days! If anyone wants to join us, the conference is free, Cedar Falls, Iowa is a cute little college town, and there is a great lineup of speakers!

John

What are your thoughts on having a children’s ministry that operates at the same time as the Sunday service? My church has a children’s ministry for 5th grade and under during the Sunday morning worship service (although the pastor has made it clear that he has no problem with the kids staying in the service if the parents want them to).
Do you believe it is ever wise to send your kids to children’s programming like that instead of keeping them in the general service? Having this programming also creates a major need for volunteers. Volunteers for the program are generally on a monthly rotation, and I’m wondering if it’s wise to have members miss public worship and the preaching the word once a month due to these programs?
As I’ve studied this issue, I have realized that children’s programming of this sort is fairly new in church history and that for most of church history, children were expected to attend the regular service and to sit quietly the whole time. People often justify children’s programming by saying that it’s unreasonable to expect children to sit quietly through the service. Given that this was the expectation for most of church history, is it our expectations and training of children that are currently lacking?
I would love to hear your thoughts,

Will

In response to “ So Your Kids Are Dating? | Doug Wilson”
Doug mentioned a blog article he wrote on questions a father can ask a suitor. Would you please link that for me?
Thank you.

Laura

Pastor, you made this claim: “Doxxing is a problem when people maliciously publish your home address in the hope that a mob will show up and start yelling at your kids. But it is not doxxing if the consequences are natural, measured, and appropriate to the situation.”
The problem with this logic is that the one doing the doxxing has absolutely no control over whether the consequences will be appropriate. You have no idea what will happen. I would argue from this that if you doxx someone and their lives are damaged or ruined, you are just as responsible for those damages as the mob or the unreasonable boss or rash pastor. If you shout fire in a theater and the rush kills someone, you are guilty. I think this is comparable.
Another detail that seems important to me is something like a jurisdiction argument. The principal situation or the parent situation you mentioned would be relevant. They have authority over the teacher or the child and a relevant need to know. But if someone is on X and they just don’t like certain ideas being spread (which is the context of this post), doxxing them or threatening them is simply silencing that idea without refuting it. In my estimation, they are out of bounds. They are responding to debates with not so subtle threats of potential violence. Refute the ideas on the platform or refuse to give it air by ignoring it. But the idea that Christians should be threatening people over debates online is something I can’t support.
I say this as someone who is not anonymous online and nearly lost my livelihood over a gentle reminder that citizens should be considered in the immigration debate. We live in ideological times, and Christians above all should be cautious about mimicking the world’s tactics.

BJ

I’m at the age where I’m making preparations for my demise. Naturally, that has led to the consideration of burial vs cremation; however, I discovered another alternative to cremation that turns your body into usable soil that can be used to nourish trees and plants. I don’t like the implications of cremation, biblically or otherwise, but to naturally accelerate the process of decay that happens in a coffin and be left with a product that can be put to good use seems like a good way to end this life. Do you have an opinion on this subject?
For reference, here is one such service that explains it well:
Am I missing something? I want to glorify God in my final decision.

David

“So why shouldn’t your church publish “your church is pregnant with twins” as an encouragement to other churches that are also pregnant with twins? Not all of them are, but not all of us are facing Galatian false teachers either, or Philippian teachers that were orthodox but envious, or Thessalonian harum-scarum teachers.”
You’re right, we probably should—especially after the fact when it was confirmed. We do certainly agree though that all prophecy in this age is of the “disposable” sort that is secondary to Scripture itself.

Ian

Thank you for including comments on your blog posts. They provide endless hours of amusement.

Ben