“When the book of Esther opens, Haman and Mordecai were already looking coldly at each other across the saloon, right hands twitching just above their holsters. Haman was an Agagite, a descendant of the Canaanite Agag, the king of the Amalekites, the king whom Samuel executed when Saul failed to. And Mordecai was a descendant …
Both Bad Moves
“As the leaven worked its way through the Christendom, religious forms of this man-centered mentality began to pervade the Church. In the ‘liberal’ sections of the Church, it took the form of exalting the intellect of man over the Scriptures. In the ‘conservative’ sections of the Church, it took the form of exalting personal conversion …
You Can’t Fill a Glass With an Empty Pitcherr
“Hollow theology cannot result in full lives” (A Primer on Worship and Reformation, p. 16).
Using Your Stuff
“Love is the measurement of all things spiritual. But the Bible teaches that love is defined by our behavior in the world of matter . . . from where I sit, the New Testament talks about Christians glorying in their doctrine and consequently loving one another with their bodies and all their stuff” (A Primer …
Camo-Contemporary
“The reason the contemporary expression is not noticed is because everything about it is so commonplace. The forms of contemporary worship are not hard to see because they are spiritual; they are hard to see because they have thoroughly taken on the color of their surroundings. While it is true that angels are hard to …
Well, Lookee Here
“When modern man finally figured out how to navigate across oceans (hooray for us!), and when Captain Cook first reached the Hawaiian Isalands, what did he find there? Well, he found people. It appears that some ancient men with rudiemtnary technology knew how to sail across the Pacific; otherwise, they wouldn’t have done it. They …
The Duty of Irrelevance
“There are at least two kinds of irrelevance. One is the irrelevance of offering a bicycle to an oyster. But there is another kind of irrelevance entirely, and that is the practice of setting forth the gospel of light and righteousness to those who love their darkness and iniquity. We are commanded to be irrelevant …
True Center
“All cultures have a cultus at the center. The center of every culture is its worship. There is no such thing as a religion-less culture, and the same is true of all sub-cultures” (A Primer on Worship and Reformation, p. 12).
Into the Deep Fog Actually
“Modern evangelicals have a ravenous hunger to be hipper than thou. They have a deep and covetous hunger to be cool — and so we have bestselling authors, Grammy award winners, trademark lawyers, Designer Bibles with Study Notes for just about everybody, rock bands with guys filled with middle class white guy angst, earrings, and …
What We Put Up With
“Like the ancient Corinthians, modern evangelicalism suffers fools gladly. The point is not that every individual in the contemporary Church is a scoundrel. The point is that there are many scoundrels, doing very well, thank you, and the rest of us put up with them. This is our sin: we suffer fools gladly” (A Primer …