Category: Books and Culture

“Catechized by our digital world, we think we have conquered distance when we really haven’t. Our letters have gotten much more sophisticated than they were in Paul’s day, but our ‘face-to-face’ communication is not really the equivalent of being there. Our texting, and Zoom meetings, and online sermons, and POD books, and blogs, and phone calls, are just souped-up letters. They are not an adequate replacement for in-person community. Paul would have used them all, but he still would have yearned to be with the Thessalonians, in the same room, breathing the same air, and not through a mask either.”

Mines of Difficulty, p. 36

“So the diamonds of the promise can only be found in the mines of difficulty—and some of those mines go very deep. But there are other mine shafts that are filled with nothing but useless rocks, and many thousands have spent their lives down in those holes.”

Mines of Difficulty, p. 32

“We glory in tribulations, not because we are masochistic, but because we know that the rocky pathway winds up to the great mountaintop city. Still, we somethings look at the immediate landscape, which can be pretty grim, instead of looking at what is really happening. We look at how hard the path is, instead of where the hard path goes.”

Mines of Difficulty, pp. 30-31

“We have gotten to the point where we define vile behavior as any behavior that provokes someone else into behaving in a vile fashion. We look at rioters and blame the people who never riot.”

Mines of Difficulty, pp. 29-30