“We were commissioned — I believe the word is ordained — to compel every manifestation of worldly power, glory, wisdom, and exaltation to yield to and obey the majesty of God, in full accordance with God’s Word. We were ordained to feed the sheep and drive away wolves, and all by God’s Word. We were …
No Derivative Light
“We were not sent to preach about the perfections of a perfect by distant star, cool and twinkling against a black, velvet sky. We were not even sent to preach a moon, reflecting derivative light — we are not servants of the ruler of the evening. We were sent to preach a blazing sun, one …
And Not Like the Scribes
“What is it that overcomes the world? Is it not our faith (1 John 5:4)? We lament, Why does the world not believe? Well, when was the last time we commanded it to? When was the last time we spoke with authority, and not like the scribes?” (From With Calvin in the Theater of God, …
Preaching Drives the World
“In sum, our view of Scripture drives our view of preaching, and our preaching drives the world. If the world is not in fact driven, then we need to work our way back up the drivetrain and ask ourselves some hard questions” (From With Calvin in the Theater of God, p. 94).
Risky Business
“Who today thinks that the Bible open in the pulpit is a lit stick of divine dynamite, one that mere mortals are ordained and authorized to throw out into the world? How many preachers have sermons on file that they would not dare to preach without purchasing some extra life insurance first?” (From With Calvin …
An Authoritative Word
“The Scriptures are not a possession of ours, which we may put into the world’s balances to be weighed. Rather, the Scriptures are God’s scales, in which he places the entire world. They are the scales in which he places heaven and earth, and all the nations. He says to us, ‘Mene, Mene, Tekel, and …
Who’s Grading Whom?
“One day the schoolmarm in the one-room schoolhouse of modernity gave a test to all the kids in her class. The schoolmarm’s name was Mrs. Enlightenment, and one kid was named the Bhagavad Gita, another was the Koran, another was the Book of Mormon, and of course, a test was also given to the best …
Shiners
“But let us not honor [Calvin] by building a tomb for the prophet, thereby showing whose sons we really are. Let us not be good little ‘Calvinists,’ running the floor buffer of pat catechetical answers over the marble of theological genius” (From With Calvin in the Theater of God, p. 89).
Errant Inerrancy
“Men with solemn faces and a shaky donor base affirm the inerrancy of the Bible, and they also affirm that this is not inconsistent with the subtle truth that the Bible has mistakes in it. The serpent was craftier than alll the beasts of the field, having completed some post-doctoral work in Europe” (From With …
Had We Never Been Born
“A minister should ascend into the pulpit in order to declare what would have been true had he never been born. He is there to preach what was written in the Word before all ages. He is an ambassador, a herald. He is not up there to preach himself, but rather to be a servant …