"Oh, what a tangled web we weaveWhen first we practice to deceive . . ." Sir Walter Scott Introduction: How it started . . . This famous summary ...
How Feminumbulum Got Into Everything
Letters in the Electoral Backwash
Letter to the Editor: One thing is puzzling me. Since they can rig elections, why didn't they also rig 2024? Jennifer Jennifer, three things occur to me. One is that ...
The Justified Church
“Our corporate justification as the Church was Pentecostal. God publicly vindicated us, owned us as His people, and established us in the world as His own righteous people. This means that the Church as the Church is justified, just as the Church is elect, and redeemed, and so forth. But this also means that non elect covenant members, while truly attached to the body, are nevertheless an incongruity—spots and blemishes that will be removed as the Bride is made radiant. But in the meantime, until they are removed, we have to learn to deal with non elect members of the Elect One, and unjustified members of the Justified Body.”
Just a Slaughterhouse
Introduction: Okay, so this was much less of an ordinary election, and much more like a richly deserved paddy-wonking. There are many aspects of this gaudy thing that need to be analyzed with loud hoots of joy, along with some aspects that need to be given the Burkean stink eye. So here goes. I have …
A Damning Graph & a Non-NQN Post
Introduction: I want to begin by explaining what I believe to be the import of a graph that I saw circulating last week, and which I also retweeted—while asking folks to stare at it while meditating thoughtfully. Now that was too quick and too glib for some needed context, which I want to provide now, …
Definitionally Related
“In the historic Protestant view, good works are inseparable from biblical salvation. They are not a condiment to flavor a ‘raw’ justification, but rather are definitionally related to justification. Justification and sanctification are not like salt and pepper, or ham and eggs—two things that go well together. They are definitionally interrelated, like the terms husband and wife. If there is no wife, then by definition there is no husband. If there is no husband, then by definition there is not wife. Apart from sanctification, justification does not exist. Apart from justification, sanctification does not exist.”
Ain’t It the Way
Geneva and Rome
“We have already considered what the Bible teaches about justification and the justified individual, considered as an individual. In this limited sense, the historic Protestant position on justification is correct, and the Roman Catholic understanding of individual justification as a process involving an infusion of righteousness is wrong.”
United Rightly
“Christ did not die so that we might live. He died so that we might die, and He lives so that we might live. Our life is not tied to His death—our life is tied to His life. But we cannot be tied to His life unless we have also been united with Him in His death.”
Wimpathy
Introduction: A few years ago, Joe Rigney caused something of a stir when we recorded an episode of Man Rampant together in which he made a crucial distinction between sympathy and empathy. We might call the latter “untethered and toxic empathy” for short. Sympathy is simply fellow feeling, and we have good New Testament examples …