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 …
Tangible Signs, Tangible Seals
We have considered what our confession of faith states about the Lord’s Supper specifically, but we can also be blessed by thinking through the biblical basis for the claims it makes about sacraments generally. First, what are the sacraments? Of course there are two of them—baptism and the Lord’s Supper. And because they share the …
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. …
More Leepike News
Nate’s first book with Random House was Leepike Ridge, and they are due to release it in paperback this July. The cost in this go-round will be $6.99. New cover too.
Sin Came Before the Jews Did
It is not surprising that the book of Romans, the book that shows the revelation of God’s righteousness, does so against the backdrop of man’s sinfulness. There are so many uses of the words we have been considering that we will have to divide our treatment of this book in two, with the first installment …
Foppery in a Minister
“As for sensible men, and especially the sturdy workmen of our great cities, they utterly abhor foppery in a minister . . . It is a pity that we cannot persuade all ministers to be men, for it is hard to see how otherwise they will be truly men of God . . . A …
Ah. Just Some Men. I See It All Now.
“Humanitarianism is saviorhood, an ethic perfectly suited to the theology that divinizes man. But the theology that divinizes man, it turns out, only divinizes some men” (Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, p. 87).
A Mysterious Absence
The word hamartano is used once by Luke in Acts, where it is rendered as offend (Acts 25:8). The apostle Paul was defending himself against Festus, and says that he has not offended in any way — whether against the law of the Jews, or against the temple, or against Caesar. He was not standing …
Don’t Preach Like a Specimen of the Third Sex
“‘Rustic coarseness’ is quite refreshing after one has been wearied with inane primness. Well did Cicero exhort orators to adopt their gestures rather from the camp or the wrestling ring than from the dancers with their effeminate niceties. Manliness must never be sacrificed to elegance” (Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, p. 299).