We now come to the beginning of the Lord’s ministry in Judea (v. 1). As in Galilee, it is characterized by teaching the people. The first subject to be addressed in this section is the much-troubled question of divorce and remarriage. We see here, as elsewhere, the close connection between the two great commandments. “And …
Keeping the Edge
“Every workman knows the necessity of keeping his tools in a good state of repair . . . we shall usually do our Lord’s work best when our gifts and graces are in good order, and we shall do worst when they are most out of trim . . . We are, in a certain …
Feeling Good About Behaving Badly
“This is the lie that is at the heart of our society, the lie that encourages every form of destructive self-indulgence to flourish: for while we ascribe our conduct to pressures from without, we obey the whims that well up from within, thereby awarding ourselves carte blanche to behave as we choose. Thus we feel …
Socialism Preys On the Guilty
“Now it is quite true that a wealthy man can be saved — look at Abraham — but it is equally true that hte Bible is filled with stern warnings about the seductions of wealth. Modern Americans are among the wealthiest people ever to have lived. So sure, when we consider the warnings of Scripture, …
The Hand of the Lord On Presbyterians
“Isaiah 9:21: ‘Manasseh against Ephraim, and Ephraim against Manasseh, and they together against Judah. For all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still.’ When we are thus one against another, the anger of the God is not turned away from us, and we may fear His hand will …
Concrete Secularism
The last chapter of Darryl’s book is obviously the one in which he steps up, wraps up, and sums up, and of course it is also the place where some of our more obvious disagreements come to the fore. Darryl’s basic assumption is that the coming of Christ ushered in a new relationship between church …
Crucified Law
Green Baggins has moved on to Chapter 20 of RINE, in which I argue that the law of God was crucified in the death of Jesus, and raised to life again. Lane does not appear to have a problem with the chapter at large, but is not convinced by my handling of Colossians 2:13-17. He …
Hellfire and Damnation
We come now to an element of our Lord’s teaching that many would like to ignore. Unfortunately for them, the Lord taught the doctrine of eternal punishment in many settings and in many ways, and it is impossible to ignore this doctrine of His without ignoring Him. And this is precisely what our modern reinterpreters …
Costly Homiletics
“There are plenty of popular preachers, but not many powerful ones, who preach in the power of the Spirit. Is it because the cost of such preaching is too great? It seems that the only preaching God honours, through which His wisdom and power are expressed, is the preaching of a man who is willing …
Grit, Grime and Grease Are All Most Real
The heroin addict “was under the influence of the idea that some aspects of reality are more real than others: that the seedy side of life is more genuine, more authentic, than the refined and cultured side—and certainly more glamorous than the bourgeois and respectable side. This idea could be said to be the fundamental …