“The Bible tells us that it is legitimate to mark someone’s position in a particular culture or society by how they dress. Having students on the way home from school recognized as students is fully in keeping with a general human pattern, and is observed in Scripture and seen regularly in other situations. To illustrate, …
The Centrality of Peripherals
“In all this, we must remember the centrality of peripherals. The point is not to favor the peripherals instead of the center. That would be the sin of majoring on minors, swallowing camels, and all the rest of it. Rather, the point is that on this question the Christian world has fallen into the fallacy …
Wearing Sweats Into the Throne Room
“We find that in Scripture, salvation is frequently pictured for us in the image of wonderful clothing: ‘Awake, awake! Put on your strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city! For the uncircumcised and the unclean shall no longer come to you’ (Is. 52:1). Granted this is a metaphor, but …
Vocabulary of Obedience
“Put another way, the Bible does not tell us whether the British or the American military salute is ‘more proper’ than the other. But it does require the fact of the salute. Expressions of honor are common to all human societies, and the Bible requires that we honor others and maintain such expressions of honor. …
Principles and Methods
“Naomi instructed Ruth to keep this in mind when she presented herself to Boaz: ‘Therefore wash yourself and anoint yourself, put on your best garment and go down to the threshing floor . . . (Ruth 3:3). The point being made here is a very simple one. The Bible reflects what we all know to …
Play Skillfully
“This may seem like a commonsense observation, but relativism in aesthetics is constantly trying to undermine the obvious. When the Bible tells us we are to ‘sing to Him a new song; play skillfully with a shout of joy’ (Ps. 33:3), this means there is such a thing as musical skill. The Lord has not …
Vouchers and Neutrality
“So we either have to grant that we may be taxed so that a Buddhist parent may be funded to instruct his kids that Buddhism is true, or we must say that Buddhist education and Christian education are the same for most of the day. Support for vouchers among Christians reveals that we have not …
Food Stamps for Conservatives
“Third, vouchers expose the essential hypocrisy of many of our attitudes on public policy. Educational vouchers are nothing but food stamps for conservatives. It is remarkable how often we do not see the principle involved. We simply react to some ‘wasteful’ program, defining wasteful as ‘someone else getting the money.’ Until we learn to fight …
Vouchers and State-Sponsored Theft
[Speaking of school vouchers] “This essay is not calling for tax revolt — a refusal to pay taxes because I am being stolen from. Rather, the point is that we should stop clamoring for yet another program that would require the government to steal still more. The reason we are stolen from is that we …
Or Eminent Domain Maybe
“The Bible teaches that the civil magistrate may require a certain level of taxation (Rom. 13:6-7) and that Christians are required to pay those taxes cheerfully. But the Bible also teaches that civil authorities are capable of breaking God’s law, including His prohibition of stealing. Even if Ahab had had his wits about him and …