When the Lord is pleased to reveal His wisdom to us, we must take very great care not to add our own improvements. “And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed” (Mark 1:35-45). In the book of Mark, Jesus is …
A Medieval Puritan
“I am not arguing that [Edmund] Spenser was not a Calvinist. A priori it is very likely that he was. But his poetry is not so written as to enable us to pick out his own beliefs in distinct separation from kindred beliefs. When a modern writer is didactic he endeavours, like Shaw or M. …
Authority to Apportion
“The steward has no say in determining what goes into the larder; it is stocked for him by the householder. But it is his responsibility to decide what comes out of it, and when, and in what measure. This is another aspect of the steward’s faithfulness, this time not to the householder or the goods, …
Follow the Leader
“And what you told me about the evils done by Christians—these people were Christians in name only. They disobeyed the word of Christ and they were led astray by the desires of their hearts. The Bible says, ‘The heart of man is deceitful.’ Because of this, you will see no difference between the actions of …
The Dull Pornographer
“Yet literal-mindedness is not honesty or fidelity to truth—far from it. For it is the whole experience of mankind that sexual life is always, and must always be, hidden by veils of varying degrees of opacity, if it is to be humanized into something beyond a mere animal function. What is inherently secretive, that is …
Living Out the Will of God
“But if a man stops to get the will of God in tying in shoe, or on making a lane change, he will soon be experiencing what might be called piety paralysis. God governs the world; we are not competent. Our lives are a mist. This does not mean we are to throw up our …
Muddy Water
“These quarrels hinder men’s judgments. If the water is muddy, we cannot see what lies at the bottom” (Burroughs, Irenicum, p. 276).
Church Sign Smackdown
What if there were a web site that allowed you to generate your own church signs. There is? You could perhaps wind up with a battle of the church signs. HT: Scott Linn
Just Goes to Show
The happy fallout from the NYT article continues. Here is my former undergraduate advisor, Nick Gier, telling the sorry tale of how I squandered the legacy of my UI philosophy degree. First, Gier has clearly opted for a different strategy in his response to this article — some of his fellow Intoleristas have been fit …
The Holy One of God
We begin here with Christ’s teaching ministry. This leads directly to a public exorcism in the synagogue, followed by a private healing at Simon and Andrew’s house, and then, when the word got around, many healings and exorcisms at the front door of that house. “And they went into Capernaum; and straightway on the sabbath …