Honest Giving

“Now the great Pauline principle here is ‘mind thine own business.’ Tend to thine own knitting. You do this, not because you are telling the rest of the body to get lost, but rather because you need to acquire something before you can give it. You cannot give what you do not have, and cannot have something to give unless you came by it honestly.”

Mines of Difficulty, pp. 44-45

Two Wills

“And remember there are also times when the two kinds of wills intersect. When Jesus died on the cross, it was the will of God (Luke 22:42; Acts 4:26-28) even though it was accomplished by wicked hands (Acts 2:23). The violation of God’s preceptive will by Judas, Herod, Pontius Pilate, and the Sanhedrin was the instrument God used to accomplish His decretive will. We must always remember that God is God, and we are not.”

Mines of Difficulty, p. 40

Breathing the Same Air

“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