“And believe me, the lordship of Jesus over everything will always have opprobrium heaped on it. Who wants to be a nutter? Keep it respectable, champ. Keep your head down. Read those books, certainly. Enjoy them in your study, friend. No harm in that, but don’t go to extremes. Keep your head down. The only …
Biblicism and Nature’s Law
Cornelius Van Til once said that the Scriptures were authoritative in all they addressed . . . and they addressed everything. This is as true as it gets, but we all need to be a little bit more careful—“for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light” (Luke …
And Dale Did a Good Job
“Redemptive-historical preaching, as commended by many today . . . requires preachers to act as though the first three chapters of Ephesians had been written by the apostle Paul and the last three chapters contributed by Dale Carnegie” (Empires of Dirt, p. 255).
Getting Evangelicals Born Again
“The proclamation of grace without an actual movement of the Spirit’s grace is nothing but tiny works, cerebral works, the work of sitting on your butt listening to sermons about it . . . The experience of grace is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ actually saving people. Of course, we tell them about …
Salvation and Slavery
Introduction: In an earlier exchange that I had with Thabiti, he acknowledged that Scripture contains “angular texts” on the subject of slavery. He is one of the few who does acknowledge this—most expositors who claim to believe in inerrancy are content, if the subject is Scripture on slavery, to blow sunshine in all kinds of …
The True Law/Grace Divide
“For a legal heart, everything is law. For a gracious heart, everything is grace. When the Spirit is moving among a people, you do not stumble them by telling them how to love their wives, bring up their children, work hard at their jobs, and so on. No reason to snip out the last three …
Death Panels
I am emerging from a few weeks that were more hectic than usual, during which time I didn’t have as much available time for tracking the news as I normally do. And so it was that the horrific Alfie story from the UK only registered with me slowly. I say this so that no one …
And He Has a Point . . .
Starbucks and Identity Politics
As delicious as it is to see a lefty corporation like Starbucks getting the full treatment, and as fun as it would be to simply let the unfolding drama of the left devouring the left continue apace, my sense of duty stirs within, and so I shall try to snatch a snippet of edification from …
There is a Narrative Arc Here
“The Church and the unbelieving culture are not two static realities that have to be balanced somehow, but are rather characters in a story. The Church and culture are not two pieces of furniture that have to be permanently arranged in accordance with the laws of feng shui (Empires of Dirt, p. 249).