Some of you may have wondered what kind of economic disaster I have been warning you about. I have been urging you to set aside resources to share in hard times, and to practice a real koinonia kind of love now. What am I talking about? In the words of Amos, I am not a …
Wrongly Fencing the Fridge
I have urged you all to begin preparations that would enable you to love others in economic hard times, but this has not been intended to urge you to become selfish today for the sake of the possibility of loving someone tomorrow. The very best preparation for loving someone tomorrow is loving someone today. If …
Love Will Never Be Devalued
There is quite a striking difference between fear and prudence. The Scriptures tell us that we ought not to call “conspiracy” whatever the worldlings are calling conspiracy, and I would want to apply this to the breathless and panicked way that some have of responding to economic threats. Whenever an idol is toppled, this ought …
Your Very Own Deacons’ Fund
As we watch the global economy, we are often dismayed or shocked. We are not dismayed or shocked at the fact of disaster—we live in a fallen world, and we know that disasters happen from time to time. But we are watching a slow-motion, self-inflicted, suicidal disaster. God has struck our leaders with a judicial …
Sins of our Fathers
One of the results of our individualism is that we have come to believe that each generation starts from scratch. We believe that no one is in any way accountable for the deeds of their fathers. This neglects, of course, what we know about the entry of sin into the world in the first place. …
Lead Us Not to the Cliff Edge
Instead of fleeing temptation, we sometimes want to figure out where the technical sin line is, and then walk the line just on the right side of it. But dallying with sin in this way really is morally questionable. It may not be explicit sin, but it is teetering on the edge of it. The …
Vindication From the Presence
In a world full of bumps and conflicts, we all want vindication. This is entirely natural, but we have to remember that the people who were entirely in the wrong want vindication as much as anybody else. In fact, they frequently want vindication much more than the innocent or wronged parties do. They demand it, …
Come, Let Us Reason
When God invites us to reason together with Him, He invites us to think about something that makes plain sense. When men are given over to what they call the pursuit of reason, they are often trying to manufacture something that doesn’t make sense except to a select few. God stoops and offers to wash …
Herod’s Soldiers at the Family Reunion
Being convicted of a sin is not the same thing as feeling vaguely bad about it. In Scripture, conviction is described as being “cut to the heart,” it is a heart-piercing. Jesus was born into this sinful world in order to deal with sin—to really deal with it. He is no false prophet, that we …
Christmas Answers Two Errors
During Christmas time, we celebrate the fact that the Second Person of the Trinity, the eternal Word of God, permanently took on a human body. This means that the problem of the “material” as such has been solved. The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (John 1:14). But there are two problems to be …