The Very Marchiest of Letters

Is it time to consider the theological ramifications of aliens? That’s not a joke. It would cause me tremendous doubt if indisputable evidence comes out about there being other life forms . It seems a rewriting of many if not all bedrock Christians claims would need to be reimagined.

Jimmy

Does national Israel (i.e. the government, not the physical descendants of Abraham) have any theological implications, or is it just a nation whose government is geopolitically convenient (as opposed to, say, Afghanistan)?
In other relationships between nations, these United States are clearly the thought leader. Swaziland has basically no impact on US government ideology or direction. Canada is the little brother and everyone knows it. The UK might have once been the thought leader, was a near-peer for a while, and might not be so much anymore. Israel tries to punch above its weight in this area. Shouldn’t we be particularly cautious not to be submissive when nations seek to lead? China does, and we are rightly suspicious. Why should we be less cautious with the state of Israel?

Plain Plainsman

Do you read any translations of the Bible done by individuals? Thoughts as to advantages vs. disadvantages compared to committee-based translations?
Also, what do you think about the translation of the divine name (YHWH)? Do you see any major trends in translation on the horizon? Any trends that need to be retired?
Thanks!

Caleb

I had a tidbit of an idea related to product/resource creation . . . I noticed the Femina daily quote calendar on the Canon website. It would be neat to have different versions of those related to topic. Like Christian Leadership, Parenting, Ancient Wisdom, etc. Getting to supply the best quotes of old about all of those topics definitely interests me and is something I would consider purchasing. Just food for thought. I have found your insights related to parenting and family extremely useful as we recently adopted a baby boy. Our first child. Thanks for all you do,

Chris

What are your thoughts on investing in the stock market? Should we as Christians do it? Do you do it? If Christians ought NOT do it, how best can we be wise with our money to take financial care of ourselves in our latter years and leave a (monetary) inheritance to our children? And how does the parable of the talents come into play here, if at all?
I understand the parable of the talents is not referring specifically to finances, necessarily but does it extend into it and how? Many Christians we speak to use this parable to justify using the stock market (and pretty much forget the original intent). My husband is in his late 40’s and does not have any sizable retirement set aside for the future while his siblings are all sitting on sizable ’empty-nest eggs’. We are not sure how to go about preparing for our financial future in a God-honoring way but want to do right. How would you council us?

Rebecca

You mentioned Sabbath dinners in your video on in-laws. My wife and I were each raised in nominally Christian homes but aspire to build a family with rhythms like your Sabbath dinner. Can you explain those dinners to someone with zero experience with them growing up, maybe the general details and how you went about building it into a rhythm?

AH

I hope you are doing well. I am curious, what are your thoughts regarding this claim?
“Homosexual people can be Christians if and only if their attraction to the same gender stays private, they don’t ‘act on’ those desires, and/or if they remain celibate for the rest of their lives.”
I believe the claim mentioned above belongs to what I think may be called “Side-B Christianity.” I believe such people can be saved, and through repentance and faith, counseling, and prayer, can find themselves either struggling less with the sin or no longer struggling with it. Such people can still marry someone of the opposite gender in the Lord. They don’t have to hold that sin as their permanent identity, just as a kleptomaniac doesn’t have to find their identity in their kleptomania. I would think keeping people in a state of believing their sin is still their identity violates 2 Corinthians 5:17. I’ve become rather convinced that the attraction itself is sinful, but I would like to know your thoughts.
Thank you!

ON

I have 2 questions about the spiritual discipline of fasting.
I had never given it much thought as it was not taught nor encouraged specifically at my Church. In part I can understand this as Jesus instructed us to perform it privately. But I also feel like it might just be a discipline that has fallen by the wayside. Also I think of Esther asking the Jews to fast and pray for her as giving her encouragement.
So my first question: is there a place for telling others that you are prayerfully fasting for them during a hard time or telling others that you have fasted and found it beneficial?
Secondly, I found fasting emphasized in a spiritual discipline book that I was reading during a season of attempting a one meal a day diet for the purposes of reaching a healthy weight. Now I have trouble not thinking about the weight loss benefits when choosing to do a spiritual fast. This seems to take away from part of my purpose of prayerfully fasting. How can I moderate this or am I being a weaker brother with an overactive conscience?
Thank you for you continued serrated wisdom!
P.S. I am loving your dad’s books that have been added to Canon plus!

Stephen

For several weeks your Friday blog has had some links deleted. I assume it is done by the gatekeepers who object to something you have printed in the blog. I also assume I am not the only subscriber who is experiencing this difficulty. Are you aware that this is happening and do you know why?

Howard

Thanks for your ministry. Our church has gotten itself in quite a mess. The head pastor was arrested for drunk driving in late December and it was found out the he lied to the church about the circumstances surrounding the event, how much he drank, etc. The elders dismissed him because it was the third event that he’d had with public drunkenness in the past several years. (There were more events and a clear pattern of too much drinking but those three involved other church members/public events.) The pastor then showed up with the cops to kick the elders out of the building because “his attorney said their names weren’t on the church founding documents” but then he decided to leave for good and start another church.
Our good friends are friends with the pastor and spent several weeks calling members of our joint small group lobbying them to leave the church and go to the new church that the old pastor was starting. The husband in particular has spent a lot of time trying to “explain the other side and how the elders were wrong and should have restored the pastor to the head pastor role” but it’s really meant that he’s been divisive, causing multiple families to leave the church. Additionally, since the pastor’s firing two months ago, they have not reached out to us, despite our previous usual routine being to hang out once a week.
I respect your opinion and would be curious on your take for what is our responsibility to the church regarding not socializing with a (former) church brother that’s being divisive versus maintaining our friendship with them. What advice would you have?

Jeff

I am a 23 year-old newlywed (we married in May of last year), and both my wife and I have had our struggles with pornography prior to marriage. We sought counseling from our pastors and are seeing wonderful fruit of repentance and obedience in these areas.
One area, however, where I have continued to struggle is in the realm of what I call “emotional cheating.” I work in a nursing home with all-female coworkers, and sometimes I will find myself joking with them in the hopes of making them laugh (it feels good to make a pretty girl laugh), or I will catch myself wanting to protect/overly help them. At church events as well, I will sometimes notice that I too-long admire the smile of another woman in the congregation, or I catch my imagination begin to play alternate histories of if we had dated rather than me and my wife.
Obviously, I understand that lust is lust, and playing out and/or desiring sexual interactions with other women is that sin; but this sin feels related and yet distinct. How can I as a newly wed battle against this similar sinful temptation, and avoid emotional infidelity?
Sincerely,

JS

Do you know of any books (or have you ever written any articles, etc.) regarding the topic of parenting adult children? Especially for those who now have regrets/guilt about the way they approached things, children who failed to launch, are spendthrifts, not attending church, not great parents, and so on and so forth.
Thanks.

Tim

I was recently reading Richard Baxter and came across some interesting words on confession of sin. It was in a section titled “Cases and Directions About Confessing Sins and Injuries to Others”
Quote:
[Question II. What causes will excuse us from confessing wrongs to others?
Answer. 1. When full recompense may be made without it and no forgiveness of the wrong is necessary from the injured, nor any of the aforesaid causes require it. 2. When the wrong is secret and not known to the injured party, and the confessing of it would but trouble his mind, and do more harm than good . . . 7. In general, it is no duty to confess our sin to him that we have wronged, when, all things considered, it is like in the judgement of the truly wise, to do more hurt than good for it is appointed as a means to good, and not to do evil.]
What is your position on this?.

John

Can I get some practical advice? My wife and I were just talking about how circumstances affect us. For example, a super high stress job or five sleepless nights in a row.
We know there is no excuse for sin. But we also know, if we get two hours of sleep for several nights in a row, somebody is gonna snap at the kids.
We repent and hope we get sanctified enough to where this doesn’t happen.
How do we handle this stuff? We feel like goobers.

Thomas

What expectations does Logos school have in terms of the faith commitments of the families involved at the school? Do you allow families who aren’t part of a local church or who aren’t professing believers to send their kids there? Are the kids required to be believers by a certain age to continue attending?

Nick

Thank you for taking the time to write and make videos. I appreciate your wisdom and honesty in tackling issues many people don’t want to acknowledge. I am praying God will give many others, including myself, the strength and courage to be as bold as you have been in sharing His truth. You are one of my favorite pastors.

Suzanne

After long delayed plans, I am finally making it out west to visit an elderly relative who extended the invite through most of last year. However, after purchasing airline tickets, I realized a conundrum into which I was placing myself with the selected dates over the weekend. Most of that side of the family attend very liberal Protestant congregations, and my host’s home church in the hippie mountain town is a United Church of Christ, replete with a rainbow-stoled priestess and a website stuffed to the gills with rather unorthodox affirmations—or rather with unabashed affirmations of every element of modern secularism.
As a seminary grad and as her guest, I am a bit torn as what would be right or best to do here. Do I duck my head and take the opportunity to quietly study enemy territory that Sunday morning, hoping and praying for an opportunity after the services to discuss with her the gospel or the lack thereof (a la J Gresham Machen)? Or should I make prior arrangements to attend elsewhere out of a stand on Christian convictions about the lack of fellowship with a denomination and local body that has lurched so far into apostasy? My initial research shows the only other in-town options to be a Mormon church and a Catholic mission. I have a classmate and former roommate who also resides in the state and pastors a congregation, but he would be over a 90-min drive away.
Not sure if you have counseled congregants of your own who have faced such a conundrum, but I would appreciate any advice or insights you might have to share regarding how to navigate with truth, love, and tact in this scenario. I am certainly praying for such things in this forthcoming trip, and that I might be appropriately forthright and courageous in word or deed but not foolhardy or rash (as I may have been after the last time I sat through a church service with a lady preacher and got more than a little hot under my collar).

Call Me Ishmael

Have you ever heard of Christian Halls? And if so, what are your thoughts?
It’s supposedly a network (classically oriented) to help Christian communities offer their kids higher education, but still Christ-centered.
I was just informed that the Administrator of the school that I help oversee as an Elder of the sponsoring church had a meeting with some significant figures in our community about launching one of these Halls, and thought I would ask if you were privy of this structure at all. Thanks for your time!

Ben

Your book To a Thousand Generations really has messed me up . . . I’ve been a baptist all my life and now I find myself, a member in good standing, at a baptist church that I don’t want to leave, but with the conviction that I should have all my young children baptized. I know my pastors will never baptize them until they are able to make a profession of faith.
What are my options? I don’t want to create division in the body. And I also truly respect my pastor’s authority. Any counsel you can give from a distance? Have you ever heard of a Baptist church “outsourcing” baptisms for people like me who come to different convictions after many years of fellowship?

J