“Remember, you are not sent to whiten tombs, but to open them” (Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, p. 314).
Scotch, Hotch, and Potch
Lane has taken a moment to answer my question here, and so I guess it is now my turn to respond. This is the way the controversy is framed by our opponents, and there are some basic structural problems with it. They say that if you want to affirm the gospel in the way our …
Lost Fire
“There is, no doubt, such a thing as feeding the brain at the expense of the heart, and many a man in his aspirations to be literary has rather qualified himself to write reviews than to preach sermons. A quaint evangelist was wont to say that Christ hung crucified beneath Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. It …
So Spit on Your Hands, and Throw Your Necktie Over Your Shoulder
“If we are not zealous, neither will they be. It is not in the order of nature that rivers should run uphill, and it does not often happen that zeal rises from the pew to the pulpit” (Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, p. 306).
A Reformed Mead Hall
In my previous Auburn Avenue post, which had to do with the concept of merit, a good discussion broke out. But in the course of the comments a couple stray points were raised near the end that I really wanted to get Lane’s response on. And because the recently re-published work of Robert Rollock had …
So Put Food on the Table, Man!
“Dogs often fight because the supply of bones is scanty, and congregations frequently quarrel becaue they do not get sufficient spiritual meat to keep them happy and peaceful. The ostensible ground of dissatisfaction may be something else, but nine times out of ten deficiency in their rations is at the bottom of mutinies which occur …
And Throwing Elbows
Yesterday the sermon was on competition.
Unintended Consequences
In the recent posts about global justice and the related microcosm issue of help for panhandlers, one of the points I have sought to make is that swell intentions are not even close to good enough. Here is another example of that principle, a little closer to home. In the latest Atlantic Monthly there is …
Restoring From Within
We are still in the season of the resurrection, and we would do well to continue to focus our hearts on the meaning of life from the dead. The fact that Jesus was raised in the middle of human history, and not at the very end of it, means that God has not abandoned this …
Ministerial Milquetoastery
Let me say at the outset that I am persuaded by the arguments. I have no problem with ministers discharging their office while robed, and I also have no problem with ministers who wear a collar in public — as long as, of course, they aren’t driving around like crazy giving other motorists the bird. …