Students of apologetics are familiar with some of the traditional arguments for the existence of God – the teleological argument from design, the cosmological argument from first cause, and so on. I would like to suggest another one. I do not really know what to call it, but the argument is directed against one of …
Oriented by the Second Coming
We rarely notice our bones, and consequently, we rarely notice what is in them. Certain assumptions have been with us in the West for so many centuries now that we readily hold that this is just “how things are.” We think it is all so obvious, forgetting that our culture at one time was taught …
Reformation and Revival
Important distinctions must always be maintained between true God-given revival and man-made revivalism – as capable writers are doing elsewhere in this issue. But at the same time, confusion on this entire subject is so rampant that we perhaps need to refine our vocabulary even further than this. Revival means “coming to life again.” Something …
Teachers and the Tongue
We sometimes miss the context of the oft-repeated teaching of James concerning the sins of the tongue. In the fifth verse of his third chapter, he shows us how the words of the tongue are a small spark that can create a forest fire, burning down a great wilderness. But he began that section by …
Not a Relationship, but a Religion
Revivalism is actually the religion of magical technique. This religion is an ancient one, but the contemporary American form of it is revivalism. The purpose of all such religious technique is to control and manipulate the god who serves those adepts who want to worship themselves under cover of worshiping him. Through certain techniques, what …
The Loss of Poetry
The causes are not easy to identify, but poetry has fallen on hard times. Poetry today huddles in its prescribed little ghettoes – the sentimentalism of greeting cards and cupboard poetry, the small clutch of arcane poetry journals with a circulation of thirteen, self-absorbed adolescents scribbling pages of navel-gazing free verse, nationally-ignored poet laureates, and …
Keep Your Lid On
If an autobiographical note can be permitted, I spent a number of years in Christian ministry before I came to the Reformed faith. I recall one time when I was witnessing to members of a cult, one devoted to works righteousness, and my presentation of grace successfully provoked the same objection that Paul had to …
A First Century Church
It is not uncommon to hear modern Christians say that they attend a New Testament church. Making all due allowances for what they might mean, my first reaction is along the lines of why would you want to do that? Drunkenness at the Lord’s Supper? Controversies about bacon, idolatry, and circumcision? Now if the intention …
What We Know That Ain’t So
It is the glory of a king, Solomon tells us, to search out a matter. The psalmist tells us that the works of the Lord are great, and that everyone who has pleasure in them searches them out (Ps. 111:2). Consequently, we see that science, rightly understood, is a glorious thing. This has particularly been …
Why “Nothing” Is Important
If there is any place where the bone-chilling ugliness of our modern world is both displayed and advanced, it is in the liturgical poverty of the modern evangelical world. And surprisingly, one of the reasons for this is the church’s embarrassment over the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. We have a real problem with this. …