Warfield’s little book The Plan of Salvation is one of the few books that I have read three times. The first time was in 1988 when I was first becoming a Calvinist, and it was no doubt part of that bumpy but wonderful process. I read it again the next year. I read it a …
Baby Oil on the Bowling Ball
If I may, I would like to ask your permission to go up the stairs three at a time here. Great. Glad that’s all set. What I mean by that is that I want to assert a number of things together in order to indicate a pattern. The argument for some of these things has …
Book of the Month/January 2015
This month the book of the month is a brace of books. You should get them together, and read them both. Together they address the central political issue of our day, one that rests underneath whatever the turmoil of the moment might be. The doctrine of the lesser magistrates is one of our lost doctrines, …
A Year of Fresh Outrage
Tomorrow a new year of fresh outrage begins, and so I want to take a few moments to encourage those Christian preachers, writers, thinkers, and bloggers who are, out of biblical principle, sailing contrary to all the prevailing winds. It is harder to sail this way, but when you are done, more that is worthwhile …
39 and Counting . . .
So today marks our 39th anniversary together. That is a long time to be married to the kind of woman who is, as my father put it the other morning at our Christmas breakfast banquet, “amazing.” I haven’t really gotten over it, but, on the other hand, why should I?
Lila
Title: Lila Author: Marilynne Robinson Genre: Fiction Publisher: Macmillan Release Date: October 7, 2014 Pages: 272 Abandoning her homeless existence to become a minister's wife, Lila reflects on her hardscrabble life on the run with a canny young drifter and her efforts to reconcile her painful past with her husband's gentle Christian worldview. Wonderful description, …
Sexual Smithereens
In a remarkably prescient joke, Bob Hope said this back in the seventies. “I’ve just flown in from California, where they’ve made homosexuality legal. I thought I’d get out before they make it compulsory.” As we look at what remains of sexual ethics in America — the old sexual norms that somebody took a weed …
The Dawning of Indestructible Joy
Title: The Dawning of Indestructible Joy Author: John Piper Genre: Religion Publisher: Crossway Books Release Date: August 31, 2014 Pages: 94 This book of 25 devotionals from John Piper helps readers refocus and meditate on the one thing that makes the Christmas season worth celebrating: the birth of Jesus, Israel's long-awaited Messiah. Nancy and I …
Racial Animosity
The cross of Christ deals with real sins, not imaginary ones. It deals with real sins by offering free and full forgiveness. It “deals” with imaginary sins by enabling us to see them for what they are — vain constructions of our own imaginations. When it comes to issues of race, the cross of Christ …
The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats
Title: The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume I: The Poems Author: William Butler Yeats Genre: Poetry Publisher: Simon and Schuster Release Date: June 15, 2010 Pages: 576 The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats includes all of the poems authorized by Yeats for inclusion in his standard canon. Breathtaking in range, it encompasses the …