“The Greek word for ‘mortify’ here [Col. 3:5] is an aorist imperative — in other words, it’s telling you to put it [your earthly members] to death and walk away from the carcass with your revolver smoking” (For a Glory and a Covering, p. 107).
More Than Enough Butterscotch
“This was not really supposed to mean anything in particular, but the elders were not about to press him on it. All they wanted was for smooth words to flow over them (and everybody else in the audience) like molten butterscotch, and it was looking as though they were going to get everything they were …
No Convenience Store Holiness
“There is such a thing as righteousness on the earth and righteousness within marriage. It is not the case that a backslidden Christian is under one hundred feet of water, and the godliest saint who ever lived is only under three feet of water, but both of them are equally wet. Rather, obedience and disobedience, …
The Racoons of Market Share
“During the scandal, before Chad had accepted the pressure to resign, these graphics impresarios had been just so many advertising hounds locked in the kennels of indecision, with the racoons of market share running through the woods pretty much as they pleased” (Evangellyfish, p. 202).
Done With Sin
“Sometimes those in the Reformed tradition have tended to emphasize our remaining sinfulness to such an extent that we begin to exhibit a stubborn willfulness about it. While a casual and breezy perfectionism is of course to be rejected — and rejected with loathing — it remains the case that God commands us to be …
That Jaw-Jutty Way
“He was professional, cut, chiseled. His slacks had a crease in them that could cut weeds if he walked through a field of tall grass, not that he did this very often. His one idiosyncratic feature was that he always looked like he was chewing beef jerky whenever he talked, but most people who even …
Never Shortchanged
“We have no ‘right’ to marital happiness by whatever means necessary (including easy divorce standards) . . . Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward, and our troubles vary. Some of us have trouble with our health, others with finances, others with difficult neighbors, and still others have family or marriage troubles. …
Completely Full
“Radavic couldn’t quite catch what he was saying, but Bradford could see the prosecutor’s neck get bigger. He had never seen a neck so full of righteousness” (Evangellyfish, p. 197).
God is the Absolute
“In other words, debates over the lawfulness of divorce are likely to produce a good deal of logic- and text-chopping — and this can happen in both directions. Men and women who want to absolutize marriage run into trouble, and men and women who want to relativize it run into trouble as well. Marriage is …
When the Glory Diminished
“Bradford watched in fascination as Radavic pulled open the thick wooden courtroom door and walked in, the embodiment of civic duty. After the glory subsided somewhat, three reporters followed him in” (Evangellyfish, p. 197).