INTRODUCTION: We come now to a very potent expression of the biblical take on blind wealth in the face of inexorable death. As we treat the subject of our riches, let us take care, first, to remember the whole counsel of God on this subject, and let us take even greater care to not allow …
Why Sexual Issues Are To Be Front and Center
Our culture’s wholesale abandonment of biblical ethics in matters of sexuality — what I have recently called pomosexuality — is the direct and immediate result of a failure of the Church to proclaim and live out life in Christ, life in the gospel, life in the triune God. So the way out of this impasse …
The Shaman and the Chicken Bones
I once read a quip as a tag line on the bottom of someone’s email that was really quite profound — it said that if your pastor says that the wine in the Bible was really grape juice, then how can you believe anything he says? Whenever someone stubbornly clings to foolish and thrice-disproven notions, …
Hard Truth and Soft Comfort
As you first start coming to grips with your responsibilities in your son’s defiance and rebellions, you will have sort through the attempts at comfort that many Christian friends will offer. You will also have to learn how to reject the same suggestions that proceed every human beings natural inclination to self-justification. That false comfort …
Financial Crisis in a Nutshell
Or, perhaps I should say, “financial crisis in a nuthouse.” Here is the basic reason why you should be urging your congressman to vote to keep Congress out of any financial rescue operation. The perpetrators of this crisis are brazen, and they are also in Congress. And in this last week, I have seen them, …
Snow in August
“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11) Growing Dominion, Part 154 “As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, so honour is not seemly for a fool” (Prov. 26:1). Sometimes tenderhearted employers try to steer wayward or deficient employees by means of false praise. They render praise in the …
Pastry is Bread Transfigured
“Paradox is the only basket large enough to hold truth. It is the very simplicity of bread which provides the foundation for all the complexities that man has wrought with flour. The violin is an astonishingly plain piece of business, carried beyond itself by craftsmanship: Stradivarius, Guarnerius, and Amati have gone down in history because …
How Sin Lies
The word apate refers to deceit and deceitfulness. One of the remarkable things about Scripture’s use of this word is that the majority use concerns the deceitfulness of sin, and not deceitfulness as sin. There is of course Christ’s reference to the deceitfulness of riches in His parable. “He also that received seed among the …
And Where Is He In Your Preaching?
“In forming your system of astronomy, where do you put the sun? If you are not clear on that cardinal matter, your scheme will be a failure. If you have not found out the true ‘tabernacle for the sun,’ I am not very particular as to where you put Mars or Jupiter. Where is Christ …
Sex, Violence, and a Grand Identity
“Paganism can take a variety of forms, but when all is said and done, the system boils down to three simple postulates—sex, violence, and a grand identity . . . For four centuries the Protestants tried to hold them back, but the dam was breached. The gods are back in town” (Arthur Hunt, The Vanishing …