As many of you know, the fracas this last week over the Steven Sitler situation occurred (for the most part) on a listserve discussion here in Moscow called Vision 20/20. I subscribed to it for the course of a few days, and then when it appeared that continued discussion in that setting would be counterproductive, …
Bitterness
Bitterness is something which tempts us to be distracted, and this keeps us from looking where God’s Word requires us to look. And because bitterness has deceived many, it is our responsibility to pray that the God of heaven would teach us to be wise about this great evil. And when they came to Marah, …
Northern Runs
I enlisted in the Navy while I was still in high school, but didn’t have to go in until the fall after graduation. There was nothing thought-through in this choice of service. I had grown up in Annapolis, my father was an Annapolis grad, and the thought of doing something other than joining the Navy …
Believing A Lie
In our earlier discussions of charges, perjury, etc. we showed that it is contrary to Scripture to allow slanderers and defamers a free hand. The Scriptures require us to sift and weigh evidence in order to avoid participating in the false accuser’s sin after the fact. A judiciary proceeding that does not require independent confirmation, …
Nameless Others
Chesteron had a famous comment where he spoke of tradition as the democracy of the dead. He thought we ought not to exclude someone’s voice from a discussion on the technical grounds that they were not still alive. The point was well-taken, but there are some discussions and arguments where voices ought to be excluded. …
A Situated Idahoan
In his fifth chapter, Grenz introduces us to the forerunner of postmodernism, to the voice crying in the wilderness — Fredrich Nietzsche. The philosophers of modernity (who bookended that age when rationalistic charismata were still being given to men) were Descartes and Kant (p. 84), and this gives us the approximate dates of 1650 to …
Glory, Greed, and Girls
The fact that they don’t have a foundation for it has not prevented philosophers from trying to come up with improvements on the Golden Rule that Jesus gave us. And without granting that they are in fact improvements, we might still benefit from looking at the ancient problem of selfishness from new angles. Kant’s form …
Protections for the Accuser
We have been talking about the rights of the accused in matters of justice. But in the tangled web of human experience, in many cases the accuser can rapidly become the accused. Then what do we do? The first thing to do, especially for all internet observers, is to maintain a heart check, a heart …
Two and Three Witnesses
It has been rightly pointed out that Matthew 18 is not talking about what many people assume it is talking about. Jesus is talking about one application of the biblical principles of justice; He is not talking about all of them. Not even close. For example, the situation He describes is limited to someone who …
You Can Climb Out of a Hole, But You Can’t Dig Out
We live in a day when few people, including many Christians, understand what justice really is. In this series, we are not talking about a conversation between friends, or between a husband and wife. If a wife were to ask her husband if he would mind not interrupting when their youngest daughter is trying to …