“We have only waded ankle-deep in faith as yet. We though the water very cold and chill when we timorously ventured in; but having tried it up to the ankles, we have found it good and pleasant. Let us advance until we are breast-deep, yea, and deeper. Blessed is that man who gets his feet …
But the Westminster Confession Is Not a Rubik’s Cube
“Well, brethren, to sum up a great many things in one, faith is to us a great enlargement of our souls. Men who are morbidly anxious to possess a self-consistent creed, — a creed which they can put together, and form into a square, like a Chinese puzzle, — are very apt to narrow their …
Evil as Slave
“Sin and death are, like the Gibeonites, hewers of wood and drawers of water for the Divine purposes; and, though they know it not, when the Lord’s enemies rave and rage most, they fulfil His eternal purposes to the praise of the glory of His wisdom and grace” (Charles Spurgeon, An All-Round Ministry, p. 17).
Which Is Why It Takes Courage
“A minister should not preach before the people, but he should preach right at them; let him look straight at them; if he can, let him search them through and through, and take stock of them, as it were, and see what they are like, and then suit his message to them” (Charles Spurgeon, Lectures …
Is This Checkmate?
Here is a quick response to Lane’s latest, and then I am content to move on. First, I don’t object to detailed grammatical exegesis, and I don’t object to it in the Thessalonians passage that Lane was dealing with. I was simply pointing out that we were talking about the kind of problem that remains …
The Great Cretan Gaffe
A few weeks ago, N.T. Wright responded to a few of his critics on the debt relief issue here. A more detailed interaction needs to wait for another time, but I want to put a few thoughts up now. As Wright himself put it, “I don’t have time for a full answer, but I hope …
No Monochrome Deity
As you read the newspaper, as you follow political campaigns, as you watch the evening news, you will see outrage after outrage. But I am not referring to the outrages of private criminals, which can certainly be horrendous. I am referring to the outrages of our elected officials, our appointed justices, our magistrates. Now all …
Cutting the Throat of Sin
“I do believe in my heart that there may be as much holiness in a laugh as in a cry; and that, sometimes, to laugh is the better thing of the two, for I may weep, and be murmuring, and repining, and thinking all sorts of bitter thoughts against God; while, at another time, I …
A Worksy Sounding Word
Lane has responded to my post on “jumping and obeying,” and confesses himself a bit puzzled. And I, speaking for myself, am puzzled also. Lane took me as objecting to grammatical and dogmatic parsing generally, when I was only objecting to it as a means of solving non-existent problems. Just for the record, I am …
Go, Therefore
“We are to go out into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature, not to stop in our chapels waiting for every creature to come in to hear what we have to say. A sportsman, who should sit at his parlour window, with his gun loaded all ready for shooting partridgees, would …