Introduction: We know that all Scripture is God-breathed, and is profitable for teaching and correcting. This does not mean that we gravitate to Nehemiah 3 as naturally as we do with Psalm 23 or 1 Corinthians 13, but it does mean something. The Text: Then Eliashib the high priest rose up with his brethren the …
Where the Problem Started
“The declension of culture in America is comparable to well-meaning but naive parents who raise a child without discipline and without instilling self-control and who are then shocked at the extent of the rebellion apparent when that child gets away from home. The extent of our current rebellion can be seen in our cultural parade …
Ezra Nehemiah 11
Introduction: Repentance may be felt (and usually is felt) at a deep emotional level. But this does not remove the need to be careful and deliberate in how things are set right. The Text: Now when Ezra had prayed, and when he had confessed, weeping and casting himself down before the house of God, there …
Ezra Nehemiah 10
Introduction: Times of reformation are not times when sin goes away, when no recurring temptations present themselves. Rather, history reveals periods of reformation as those times when the sin was dealt with as it should have been, often at great cost. Reformation is not like a figure skater gliding smoothly across the ice; it is …
Odd Bedfellows
After I posted DeeplyGrieved.com (a few posts down), my wife mentioned to me another important “indicator that something is screwy” that I had missed. Once someone has enlisted in what I call “the fellowship of the grievance” (FOG) all other differences with other members of that fellowship fade into the background. Adversaries become cobelligerents, and …
Humor Is Resistance
Malcolm Muggeridge, who knew his totalitarians (and the liberals who loved them) once said, “To laugh is to criticize . . . Humour, that is to say, is a kind of resistance movement, which is sometimes indulgently tolerated, sometimes barely tolerated, and sometimes not tolerated at all.” George Orwell, who also knew something about the …
The Chattering Classes
[Speaking of Carlyle] “The danger, as he saw it, was in the distraction: ordinary men and women turned to ‘art,’ and the worship of art, only when they had nothing more important to do or to think about. And idle humans – bored humans – were not whole humans. They were shells, chattering away to …
Victims and Justice
In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, when Edmund betrayed his sisters and brother, he did so because he felt that he was the victim. This is how the world of rationalization, revenge, and treachery work. And this, of course, has a profound effect on perceptions of justice. In his book The Scapegoat, Rene …
Worship As the Key to History
We are continuing to address the great theme of Christ’s supremacy over the angels. Here in this passage, His greatness is declared in His work of creating and dissolving all created things, and in His mediatorial reign. And: “You, LORD, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work …
Still A Deadly Mistake
In September of 2004, N.T. Wright gave an address for a symposium on “Men, Women and the Church.” That talk can be found here. The conference was apparently sponsored by an organization (CBE) dedicated to the egalitarian position on women ministering in the Church, and Wright (who supports the ordination of women) was there to …