[The] “authority of truth means that hard study was not just a matter of scholarship chasing its tail. Questions are to be raise for the sake of finding answers. A wise pastor knows that splitting the difference between the right answer and the wrong answer will only result in another wrong answer” (Mother Kirk, p. …
Tolerating the Wrong Things
“We think that it is good simply for a man to love, for example, forgetting that it depends entirely upon what he loves. After all, John told us to love not the world, or the things in it. We believe it is a sin to hate, forgetting that this depends on what we hate. Is …
The Jackhammer of God
“If our hearts were a slab of concrete, and we wanted to keep them that way, our desire to have them caressed with a feather duster would exhibit no love of tenderness, but rather the contrary. The one who really wanted a tender heart would be calling for the jackhammer. Hard words, hard teaching, are …
Not Draped in Tinsel
“We should be preaching in such a way that sinners are altered, but never accommodated. We should be preaching in such a way that the truth is adorned, not draped in tinsel” (Mother Kirk, p. 76).
Who Actually Needs to be Accepted?
“The point of preaching is never to make Christ acceptable. But in a man-centered era, this is automatically thought to be the task of the preacher — how to make God acceptable to man. The problem which confronts us in the Bible is actually quite different. The real problem is one of sin, and how …
Men Like Tozer
“Of course, some might object to quoting a writer like Tozer, a man outside the Reformed tradition, but we live in confused times. So men like Tozer might be worth half a dozen of our contemporary pretty boys, men who subscribe to the Westminster Confession because they think they might have read it once” (Mother …
Bland Leading the Bland
“The churches today are effeminate because effeminate men with wireless mikes and cardigan sweaters stroll around a platform chatting with the congregants in a nonthreatening and relational way. The churches are leaderless because we are nervous about prophetic preaching, and settle instead for bland and balanced leadership teams. The churches have no sense of the …
More Church Fights
“If a man were to see his wife being attacked by rapists, all his professions of love and deep concern are meaningless unless he fights for her. Under such circumstances, a refusal to fight does not stem from a love of peace, but rather from the now-revealed contempt he has for his wife. In the …
A Little More Standing Around
“A sound hermeneutic of anything can never be sustained without discipline. If a man wants a garden full of weeds, he does not need to do a thing. If a man wants his ability to play the piano to get rusty, he needs to do nothing. And if a church wants its lampstand removed, in …
Evangelical Devolution
“Whatever disagreements existed among believing Christians in the era after the Second World War, evangelicals at that time were clearly doctrinal vertebrates of some description. But in recent decades, we have added more than a little money to the movement, some academic respectability, a lust for influence, and the result is the widespread existence of …