One of reasons a confused approach to food is increasingly common is because of a failure to apply the doctrine of the Fall to life around us. This can be seen in the very common use of the word natural as an unqualified term of praise. First, the doctrine. God created the world and all …
Can’t Tell the Players Without a Scorecard
Over the next few months, you will hear a goodish bit about all of these, four small books which have been the result of debating-the-atheists jag. Because I have already had to explain various confusions about which was what, I thought I should mention everything here, straight in a row. Sam Harris wrote a bestseller …
Therefore It Stays
“Nothing is more likely to become garbage than orange rind; but for as long as anyone looks at it in delight, it stands a million triumphant miles from the trash heap. That, you know, is why the world exists at all. It remains outside the cosmic garbage can of nothingness, not because it is such …
Eyeservice
The word anthropareskos is used twice in the New Testament, in the parallel letters of Ephesians and Colossians respectively. The word is translated as menpleaser, and refers to the lout who can be prevailed upon to work diligently only when the boss is watching. Servants are told to work obediently with fear and trembling, “not …
Yesterday’s Newspaper Exegesis
“The beast of the Revelation was reported to be Napoleon I, and then the creature suddently reappeared in his nephew, Napoleon III. By-and-by, the deadly wound was healed, and the Prince Imperial wore the dreadful honours of the prophetic book; but the prince is now dead, and it will be needful for the seers to …
Hatred Directed Upwards
“Egalitarianism, the prevailing and acceptable religion of our generation, teaches not a love of equals but a hatred of superiors” (Steve Schlissel, Christian Culture in a Multicultural Age, p. 146).
The Loving Eye
“There, then, is the role of the amateur: to look the world back to grace. There, too, is the necessity of his work: His tribe must be in short supply; his job has gone begging. The world looks as if it has been left in the custody of a pack of trolls. Indeed, the whole …
Ferocity
In English, the word fierce can represent virtuous characteristics or the opposite. A fierce opponent can refer to the guy playing across your son in a high school basketball game, or it can refer to a terrorist trying to blow things up. In the New Testament, the word is anemoeros, and its one use refers …
A Wing and a Prayer Is All Very Well, but You Need Two Wings
“I have heard of a brother who trusts in the Lord, and does not study; but I have also heard that his people do not trust in him; in fact, I am informed that they wish him to go elsewhere with his inspired discourses, for they say that, when he did study, his talk was …
Thump Thump Music
“A guilty conscience, such as our generation has, often tries to drown out consciousness in order not to be aware of the pain of guilt. Drugs, booze, and the pursuit of deadening pleasures of all sorts, the constant thump-thump music or the ubiquitous narcotic of television—all are ways to drown out the guilt of consciousness, …