One of the lesser known doctrinal themes in Scripture is the idea of ethical reversals. Sometimes the reversals are connected to classes of people, and other times to ethnic groups or nations. Whenever ...
Pharaohs and Herods
The Teacher, Not a Student
“Similarly, the Bible meets no standard; the Bible is the standard. Defenders of the Word too often act as if the Bible is an exceptionally bright student, always acing every test we might devise for it.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 242
Last Letters of a Bedraggled Year
Letter to the Editor: I was wondering if you are familiar with cognitive dissonance theory. I had heard of it, and just recently heard an argument that the New Testament writers followed ...
The Last Shall Be First
“In the same way, those who abandon all hope of autonomous creativity amaze the world at their creativity. The one who is creative is the one who knows he cannot be.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 239
Deuteronomy and Harvest Weight
Introduction: One of the reasons that Christians get into a muddle about how their sanctification should look is that they don't know how to fit the blessings of the material world into it. Not only ...
A Question, Certainly
Where the Gods Spring Forth
“The pagan hates the idea of creation because of the divine sovereignty that follows from it, but he loves the idea of morphing—rearranging stuff . . . In anti-Christian thought, matter is this eternally existent Play-Doh-type stuff that can be re-arranged creatively by other bits of stuff called artists or scientists. This is possible because the splendor is thought to be resident within the matter. The autonomous artist assumes he is the point on the surface of the chaos where the gods spring forth.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 238
There Will Always Be Some Kind of Sacrament
“My concern is that this objection to baptizing infants arises, but there is no objection to taking those same kids to summer youth camp thirteen years later in order to have them all throw pine cones in the fire as a sacramental indicator of their commitment. A rejection of God’s sacraments will not give us no sacraments but substitute sacraments.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 235
Born Into An Organism
“God never establishes Himself as an individual’s Father without giving that person countless brothers and sisters. This is another way of saying that there is no salvation outside the church.”
The Cultural Mind, pp. 234-235
The Almost Christmas 2022 Letters
Letter to the Editor: I am working on a sermon on idolatry and remember you recommending Schlossberg’s “Idols for Destruction” on your Plodcast, along with another book on idolatry. ...