In a perfect world, I wouldn’t have to preface my remarks with any of these qualifications, but then again, in a perfect world, we wouldn’t have our perennial crisis in the Middle East. And so it would be that I would not have to say anything at all . . . in a perfect world. …
Envy Impaled
Doug Jones was good enough to reply to my recent post on envy, and his reply showed up the necessity of making a couple of additional points. The basic point remains unchanged, although if I want the board to stay up I will have to put a couple more nails in it. First, the mere …
The Crawling Snake of Envy
I said recently that envy is the great invisible driver in our modern political conflicts. On what basis can I say this, and is this not a case of trying to read hearts? First, we see the simple statements of Scripture as treating envy as public, visible, identifiable. But first, hold your horses. A bit …
The Scruffiest You Ever Saw
Let’s begin by distinguishing two different kinds of resistance. In the first, let us begin by supposing a godless despotism that has been a godless despotism from its founding. There is no heritage of restrained government. If one of the subjects of this realm were converted to God, started preaching the gospel, and was told …
American Shakedown
Envy is the great invisible driver of all our modern political conflict. If there is any sin that self-deception intends to keep well out of sight, it is envy. If there is any vice that grows the more you try to placate it, it is envy. If there is a characteristic sin of our age, …
On the Lam for Jesus
And of course we should all know that Christians ought not to be scofflaws. We are to be among the best citizens a magistrate ever had — we should be diligent and hard-working, dutiful and responsible, so that we might put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. We should bake the best cakes in …
Sexual Justice
If you stick around, in just a moment I am going to be dealing with the problem created by registered sex offenders attending church. However, before we get there, I want to say something about the cultural context we find ourselves in. And that said, I want to warn you beforehand that the point I …
The Mind of a Free Man
Villainy is not honest. I mean, c’mon. This means that when rulers are ungodly, we should expect them to be like their father, the devil, who is the father of liars (John 8:44). When they lie, they speak their native language. Bitterness and cursing are under their tongue, but of course never at the press …
Facing the Facts
“Once we come to grips with the fact that covenant members can hate Jesus, and that many of them do, a robust evangelicalism becomes a scriptural necessity” (Against the Church, p. 153).
And Pretending You Don’t Have a System Just Means It Is Biblically Ungoverned
“The need to speak biblically to the people of God is central . . . This means that there is a sense in which we must insist that the people of God can be divided into two groups — tares and wheat (Matt. 13:25ff), sheep and goats (Matt. 25:32, those who have the Spirit and …