A commonplace in Christian circles understands the events surrounding the first Palm Sunday as a demonstration of the “fickleness of crowds.” But there are good reasons for questioning this common assumption. On the next day much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, Took branches of …
Vanity in Prayer
In this passage Christ strikes at the heart of religiosity. Christ has no use for spiritual showboating, even if it is of the most subtle variety. The Father sees the heart in our acts of charity; He also sees the heart when we come into His presence in prayer. “And when you pray, you shall …
God’s Daughter-in-Law
Minister: Lift up your hearts! Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord! Almighty God, everlasting Father, gracious Lord, we worship You now in Your triune holiness, knowing that we cannot worship You or approach You in any other way. We pray to You, Father, lifting up Your name because we know that Jesus taught …
A Divine Comedy
In the resurrection of Christ from the dead, we see the banishment of the old pagan idea of tragedy. The history of the world, in the light of the resurrection, is actually a divine comedy. And Christ rose from the dead in the middle of human history so that we might know the end of …
Routine
We celebrate the Lord’s Supper every week, considering it the culmination of our service of covenant renewal. But to many of our fellow believers, this fact by itself smacks of ritualism or superstition. “Why do this so often? Do you keep forgetting?” Well, on one level, yes, we keep forgetting. We believe that we are …
Style Over Substance
The story is told of the preacher who had prepared a manuscript of his sermon, and in the margin of one section he had scribbled a note to himself. “Argument weak. Shout here.” The phenomenon can be seen in many settings. Lousy rock bands often invest significantly in dry ice and laser light shows. All …
Joy Set Before You
In our day, biblical marriage is mocked in two ways. The first is by those who pretend to be friends of the institution, but who live in a manner that overthrows the pretence entirely for anyone who knows them. The second way is usually more honest, and mocks the name of biblical marriage while rejecting …
Murder and Folly in Atlanta
The courtroom shooting in Atlanta has served to illustrate, as though we needed another illustration of it, the mind-numbing stubbornness of the current PC codes. The murders of the judge and two others occurred, along with an apparent fourth victim later, because a large, muscular defendant was escorted to court, guarded by a female sherriff’s …
When Satire Hits the Glass Ceiling
Sometimes the life of a satirist is a lonely calling. You do your best to call your fellow man back to the permanent things, and away from the follies of the hour. You use hyperbole, trying to accentuate the worst features of contemporary errors so that people will see those errors in stark relief, realize …
Liberty and Law
“But liberty always implies a standard, and this standard always brings with it an antithesis. This means that he who says ‘free from’ must also assert a specified ‘free to.’ A man cannot turn away from something without simultaneously turning to something. Liberty always assumes an appeal to law” (Future Men, p.76).