“Sensible persons do not expect a garden to yield them herbs from year to year unless they enrich the soil; they do not expect a locomotive to work without fuel, or even an ox or an ass to labour without food; let them, therefore, give over expecting to receive instructive sermons from men who are …
Behind the Painted Scenery
“Real people are never cool; only their projected identities are. Smooth guys far too often have child support to pay. Fine dressers are often broke, party animals look a whole lot better at midnight than at four, and a lot of world-traveling backpackers are really just hiding from their parents” (Paul Grant, Blessed Are the …
William F. Buckley, R.I.P.
William F. Buckley went to be with the Lord yesterday, and I cannot let the moment pass without acknowledging, however inadequately, my many obligations to him. I attended high school in Ann Arbor, Michigan from 1968 to 1971, and those were, as some of you no doubt recall, zany times in a zany town. I …
Christ the Lord of Song
Our motive for all that we do is to be the glory of God — even if it is something as mundane as eating or drinking (1 Cor. 10:31). How much more should we be seeking the glory of God when we are in the act of worshiping Him? Certainly, most Christians would agree that …
Unclean in Different Ways
The word unclean is a translation from the word akathartos. The overwhelming number of times the word is used in the New Testament, it is to describe the unclean spirits that Jesus would cast out (Matt. 10:1; Mk. 1:23; Luke 4:33, and many others). It is used several times in Acts this way, and also …
Fling Away the Stilts
“I am persuaded that one reason why our workingmen so universally keep clear of ministers is because they abhor their artificial and unmanly ways. If they saw us, in the pulpit and out of it, acting like real men, and speaking naturally, like honest men, they would come around us . . . The vice …
And Is Catnip for Consumers
“Cool is the most powerful spiritual environment possible for advertisers” (Paul Grant, Blessed Are the Uncool, p. 18).
The Caricatured Puritan
One of the things I like to do is stick up for Puritans. If there is ever a contest for “most misrepresented” groups within the history of Christendom, the Puritans will certainly be in the final four, and would probably win the championship. Caricatured as stuffy, priggish, censorious, prim, prudish and more, the Puritans have …
Is Discipline a Mark of the Church?
Church discipline is relatively rare in the modern church and, because it is rarely done, when it is done, it is too often done poorly. As with everything, we have to turn to the Scriptures for guidance and protection. “I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet …
Keeping the Central Room Clean
The word akatharsia means uncleanness, and the New Testament uses the word to refer to moral uncleanness. In Matt. 23:27, Jesus refers to the Pharisees who are whited sepulchres outside, but inside are full of all uncleanness. The pagan Gentiles had the same problem, and God gave them up to uncleanness (Rom. 1:24). The Roman …