“Many surrendered to, all were influenced by, the dazzling figure of Calvin . . . The fierce young don, the learned lady, the courtier with intellectual leanings, were likely to be Calvinists. When hard rocks of Predestination outcrop in the flowery of the Arcadia or the Faerie Queen, we are apt to think them anomalous, …
And No Fudging
“Well. obviously, the first thing you have to do is to deal with meaning of your text. At this point there is one golden rule, one absolute demand — honesty.” (Lloyd-Jones, Preachers and Preaching, p. 199).
River of Blood
“Islam is full of discrimination—against women, against non-Muslims, against Christians and most especially against Jews. Hatred is built into the religion. The history of Islam, which was my special area of study, could only be characterized as a river of blood” (Mark Gabriel, Islam and Terrorism, p. 5).
Sex as Metaphysical Greed
“Since sex for the homosexual is essentially an attempt to appropriate the masculinity that he feels lacking in himself from someone who seems to embody it, sex with girls has no purpose, since girls do not have what he lacks. Once construed in this way, sex becomes, essentially, vampirism” (E. Michael Jones, Monsters from the …
Rabbis in Trousers
“Now of course, Christ was not requiring rabbis to wear trousers (everyone wore robes) any more than He was requiring them to be cranky and sullen in the marketplaces, refusing to return greetings. As mentioned above, the point of His warning was the common temptation to have an undue love of such things. But He …
Scrawny Little Olives
After something of a lull, I am picking up my conversation with Green Baggins over my book “Reformed” Is Not Enough. Chapter 13 is on church unity, and Lane and I actually have a healthy bit of agreement here. For example, he agrees with me on the legitimacy of receiving Roman Catholic baptisms “in order …
A Preacher of Righteousness, Not Morality
While all the psalms are messianic, this fortieth psalm is a great and glorious messianic psalm. The New Testament plainly declares it to have been fulfilled in Christ, and, given this, we learn a great deal about what Jesus came to accomplish. “I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard …
The Puritan Epithalamion
“To be sure, there are standards by which the early Protestants could be called ‘puritanical’; they held adultery, fornication, and perversion for deadly sins. But then so did the Pope. If that is puritanism, all Christendom was then puritanical together. So far as there was any difference about sexual morality, the Old Religion was the …
And Don’t Forget Poetry. Or Fiction.
“This is really dangerous, and the way to counteract it is to prescribe balanced reading for yourself. What I mean is this. Read theology, as I say, but always balance it, not only with Church history but with biographies and the more devotional type of reading. Let me explain why this is so important. Your …
Intractable Reality
“Many times I tried to rationalize the kind of Islam I was practicing . . . I went to every interpretation of the Quran trying to avoid jihad and killing non-Muslims, yet I kept finding support of the practice ” (Mark Gabriel, Islam and Terrorism, p. 4).