Theology That Bites Back
This morning Nancy and I had a really fun time going down to watch our fourth annual Fourth of July parade. It was a blast, and for quite a number of reasons. Thousands of people turned out, and the parade entries were just one motorized slab of Americana after another. It was just the right …
“All societies are theocratic, with the only thing distinguishing them being the nature and attributes of the reigning theos.”
“We can all acknowledge that a father spitting in his daughter’s face is not something that we would call a great moment in child-rearing. This is obviously a family with some serious dysfunction going on. Nobody reading this should want to be that dad. So don’t be that dad. Not ever. But here is the point. Suppose I had gone a different route and said something like “Whatever you do, don’t be that daughter, man. Whatever she did, it must have been pretty bad.” Enlightened moderns everywhere would be aghast. They would be aghast for a reason, and that reason is the thing I want to point to. The striking thing here is that, even in such a grim scenario, all the social pressure in ancient Israel was applied to the daughter, and not to the father. She was the one who bore the shame” ‘If this happened, should she not be ashamed for seven days?’ This default assumption seems almost inconceivable to us. We tend to wonder, ‘Why was the father not arrested and charged?’”
Keep Your Kids, p. 72
“When you look around your home at a little sea of toddlers, you should look forward to the time when you’re sitting around a table with your grown children and their grown children, telling stories and laughing together. You are at one end of the table, and your wife is at the other end, and you’re talking about how God has used your family. That is the joy that is set before you. That is what you have your eye on as you trust God’s promises. Don’t look at the chaos and get sucked down into it as though it determines everything. It doesn’t determine anything.”
Keep Your Kids, p. 66
“I propose that as a nation we formally confess together that Jesus actually did rise from the dead. If you protest that this would kill the great secular experiment that is America, I would reply that the great secular experiment that is America appears to have already gone out behind the barn and shot itself already.”
Letter to the Editor: Hmmm. "What we need now are true and good men " . . . I'm not up on all the personalities , but what we we need is people to preach and teach the gospel and to disciple ...
“Mere Christendom needs to be thin when it comes to the differences between Lutherans and Methodists, Presbyterians and Baptists, and so on. But it needs to manage to do this without thinning out the contents of the Apostles’ Creed. It needs to be thick there.”
“When Christ went to the cross, there was love in the assignment of the mission, there was love in the execution of the mission, and there was love in the application of the mission; Father, Son, and Spirit. It began with love, and it will end with love. But never forget, there was agony in the middle. And that agony in the middle was not something other than love; it was love all the way through. And God determined to do it this way before all worlds . . . In the midst of everything, love is often no fun at all. The Lord Jesus did not go to the cross on an emotional high. And that is the love beyond which we cannot imagine anything greater. That is what we are to imitate.”
Keep Your Kids, p. 65
“That refusal to accommodate your feelings is what brings your feelings around. This is how your feelings become disciplined and learn to be obedient. Too many parents treat their emotions the same way that treat out-of-control kids. You know the kind: yard apes, curtain climbers. The only time parents can enjoy them is when they are exhausted and sound asleep.”
Keep Your Kids, p. 61
