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 …
Mercy As Transferred Glory
Scripture plainly teaches us that the entire created order is a revelation of God Himself. The world is a book, sometimes called general revelation. But of course the fact that the world is a book does not mean that everyone knows how to read. Mankind is adept at suppressing the truth in unrighteousness, and often …
No Soup Kitchens in the Resurrection
When the Holy Spirit moves in significant ways, He doesn’t usually specialize. One of the most striking features of reformations is how many things get addressed in them. In the great Reformation of the 16th century, doctrinal issues were on the table, as everyone knows, but it was also a liturgical reformation, a musical revolution, …
The Stimulus Packages Headed Your Way
I was thinking about the financial monkeyshines of the really smart people who have been running our major insurance companies, brokerage houses, and banks, and I was also thinking about the solons who are passing these lunatic bailouts, and a passage of Scripture came to me. It is not talking about high finance, but it …
Pinched Faces, Dehydrated Hearts, and Sticky Fingers
On Friday, a student asked me a good question at our weekly disputatio, a question concerning the Trinity in the world of giving and generosity. Does the free market, where each person is watching out for number one, undercut the work of the Trinity in our lives, as He works to make us overflow in …
Bar Stool Economics
A friend sent me this little thing making the Internet rounds. Thought I would pass it on. Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this: The first …
Heh
What Hath All the Smart People Wrought?
Just a few random notes on the unfolding debacle in our financial markets. Further bulletins will be forthcoming as events warrant. First, I wonder how much longer it will be before both presidential candidates realize that this is a complete game changer. To watch both sides in this thus far is like seeing the Martians …
Crapitalism
After a while words mean what they usually mean. If everybody misuses a word, and they do so for several centuries, then they have successfully changed the meaning of that word. Words like conservative or capitalist get shanghaied, and there you are, left muttering that you didn’t really want to conserve the Great Society, and …
Financial Crisis in a Nutshell
Or, perhaps I should say, “financial crisis in a nuthouse.” Here is the basic reason why you should be urging your congressman to vote to keep Congress out of any financial rescue operation. The perpetrators of this crisis are brazen, and they are also in Congress. And in this last week, I have seen them, …