“It should not be surprising that after I have urged the establishment of a mere Christendom for some time, questions about the First Amendment might arise. It would appear that I am trespassing on the sacred precincts. It would seem that I am strolling across the manicured lawns of the Temple grounds, in order to have a better shot at kicking one of the sacred geese.”
An Essential Thing
“You can have true Christian churches that don’t baptize the right way. You can have real Christian churches that sing the wrong kind of songs. You can have genuine Christian churches that have adopted unedifying forms of church government. But you can’t have Christian churches that have the wrong God. And biblical marriage is one of the creational established and central confessions of faith concerning the nature of the true God.”
Virgins and Volcanoes, p. 6
And In Some Cases, a Really Bad Job
“The elders of the Church do not rule over auto mechanics, or garbage collection, or interior design. First, it is none of their business, and secondly, they would do a bad job.”
No Salt or Sap
“There is nothing more suffocating than being trapped in a Christless Christianity. A Christless Christianity is all ‘Thou shalt not. Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch.’ These things are of no value, Paul says in Colossians, in checking fleshly indulgence (Col. 2:22-23). A Christless Christianity is not really Christianity at all: it has no blood in it, no salt in it, not sap in it. It’s not alive.”
Keep Your Kids, p. 119
The Wine of Red Forgiveness
Introduction: So it has been a while since I blogged my way through a book, and I have now decided to rectify that situation. I was recently browsing in one of my favorite bookstores—Aunties ...
Nothing Else to Give
“The principles here is that you export what you manufacture. Whatever your fields are growing, that is what gets loaded onto the ships. Whatever your life and heart are cultivating, that is what you are going to give to your kids. You can’t give anything else.”
Keep Your Kids, p. 114
Letters on the Threshold of the Dog Days
Letter to the Editor: No jitney politics; no banana republic . . .Just consequences for crimes. That's all. If someone loses an election, that is not a crime and should not . . . EVER . . ...
The Cassandra Effect
“The difficulty manifests itself when accurate predictions are made about moral deteriorations. In such cases, vindication is usually no vindication at all. By the time the predicted moral deterioration is complete, nobody is in any moral shape to analyze what just happened.”
Virgins and Volcanoes, pp. 3-4
Legalism Is Not When Someone Loves God More Than I Do
“Application is not legalism. Obedience is not legalism. Legalism is inventing your own standard. But doing what God said to do the way that God said to do it is not legalism at all: ‘hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it; that it may be well with thee.’”
Keep Your Kids, p. 112
Gamaliel, Hot Heads, and Pan-Flashes
Introduction: Early on in the book of Acts, the apostles were hauled in because of their disruptive preaching, and after they told the Council that they were going to obey God and not them, the ...