I have written on the distinction between jus ad bellum, conditions that justify going to war in the first place, and jus in bello, the standards required by God in the conduct of war. We have to keep these distinctions straight because, if we don’t, we are going to muddle just war theory hopelessly. But …
Multiplied Mercy
One of the curious ways that Scripture expresses the mysteries surrounding God’s kindnesses to us is with the word multiply. He put us into this world to multiply in fruitfulness, and when He brought us out of the darkness of sin, it was with multiplication in mind. In the early days of the Church, the …
Molten Reformation
When theology does what it was designed to do, which is flow through the streets of our nations like molten lava, it doesn’t behave very much like a cold museum piece of basalt, something that used to be lava centuries ago. To follow the logic of the Lord Jesus, we should remember that He once …
Vegetarianism Involves More Than Liking Your Veggies
Every Christian longs for the day when this sorry world will be put completely to rights. One of the features of that day will be the destruction of our weapons, their transformation to peaceful use, and we will shut down the Naval Academy and West Point, their services being no longer required. As I said, …
When Mercy Is Cruel
Abraham Lincoln once asked how many legs a sheep would have if we called the tail a leg. “Five,” came the answer. No, Lincoln replied, it doesn’t matter what we call it, a sheep will have four legs regardless of what we say. The Bible gives us the categories of mercy and cruelty. Both of …
Topsy Turvy Judgments
In his book on the psalms, C.S. Lewis commented on the difference between the Jewish view of judgment and the Christian view. The Christian, he said, thinks of judgment as a criminal trial with himself in the dock. The Jewish mentality thought of it as a civil proceeding, with himself as the plaintiff. This explains …
Mercy and the Divine Warrior
If we talk about “balancing” the attributes of God, we can easily fall victim to our own metaphor. These are not discrete elements that can be placed on a balancing scale, with justice making the left side go down, and mercy making the right side go down. Rather, God intervenes in our story, and He …
Bankrupt Mercy an Oxymoron
We have established that without justice and righteousness, mercy cannot be mercy. Those who universalize mercy are therefore adversaries to true biblical mercy, and are simply apostles of sentimentalism. But we must do more than simply list God’s attributes, as though they are all simply lined up like cans on a shelf. The Bible teaches …
Maybe I Don’t Wonder Why
The inflation rate in Zimbabwe was last month at about 2.3 million percent, thanks to their ruler-thug who refuses to leave office. And strident insistence, such as we might find proceeding from an Anglican episcopal seat, that we apply the ethics found in the parable of the Good Samaritan to international situations such as this …
Mercy and No Mercy
One of the great dangers confronting those who would give themselves to mercy ministry is that of forgetting the antithesis. Biblical wisdom always remembers the antithesis, and places it where God has placed it. Forgetting the antithesis frequently consists of selecting a biblical virtue, absolutizing it, and using it to contradict or “balance” other biblical …