Introduction: Forgiveness makes it possible to “start over.” The power of forgiveness is enormous—the reason it is so infrequently employed is because it transforms everything, and not because it is “a dud.” Last week we addressed what forgiveness is (a transaction), and how to understand it when the other party is being difficult. We now …
Sabbath After Sabbath
Father in heaven, we glorify Your name and we lift up our hearts to You. Thank You for all the kindness You bestow, day after day, week after week, Sabbath after Sabbath, year after year, and generation after generation. We know that we are utterly dependent upon You and we ask You to show Your …
Generalizations
Dear visionaries, The best thing about progressive tolerance is that great popping sound it makes when you stick a pin in it. Robert says that “to condemn an entire race based solely on the actions of a small percentage of that race” is inhuman. He goes on to make other observations. Condemn an entire race? …
A Response of God to Laziness
“A boy who is allowed to drift downward into this sin [laziness] is also being prepared for a life of poverty . . . (Prov. 6:6-11). God does not just promise poverty to this young man, He promises that it will come upon him like a thug with a gun. In the good providence of …
World Battles Zondervan
The good folks at World magazine have been fighting the good fight with the Bible-mongers over at Zondervan. This fight has revolved around the efforts of the latter to market a version of the Bible (the TNIV) that has “gender-accurate” pronouns. This, apparently to distance themselves from the gender-inaccurate translation they did earlier, called the …
The Devangelical, Demergent Church
One of the great problems with devangelical postmodern, post-Christians is that when it comes to the text of Scripture, they are tone deaf. They make a great dither about things like narrative and poetry, but do not understand the most basic elements of the scriptural narrative. That is, they are like someone reading a detective …
The Perseverance of the Elect
This is the one aspect of the gospel which the natural man thinks he might be able to like. But like all spiritual truth, the natural man can only love the truth through a distortion of it. We should therefore begin with misunderstandings of the doctrine: 1. The Existence of Distortions: “If you teach the …
Cranky Discipline
“Related to this, a wise father rejoices in the fruit of his discipline. This is why many ‘disciplinarians’ are not disciplinarians in the biblical sense at all. They discipline because they are annoyed or irritated; they are almost impossible to please and they go through life like a crate of crankcase oil. But a ‘wise …
Theology to Make the Teeth Ache
J. Gresham Machen was once speaking with B.B. Warfield about whether the mainstream Presbyterian church (at the beginning of the twentieth century) was going to split over the issue of liberalism. Warfield said that it was not possible, and his reason for this is that “you can’t split rotten wood.” Machen was to go on …
Yet More Stuff on the Shroud
The good folks at St. Anne’s Pub have interviewed Nathan on the fascinating subject of the Shroud of Turin, and that interview is available for a listen here. While you are there, take a look at the other stuff they have available.