by | Oct 2, 2010 | Bible, Theology
In 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, Paul writes, “3And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. 4In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory...
by | Sep 21, 2010 | Books, Culture, History, Theology
Apparently it’s open hunting season on Ayn Rand, beginning with Gary Moore’s “Ayn Rand: Goddess of the Great Recession,” and picked up by Ben Witherington’s “Randian Libertarianism—-An Anti-Christian Credo.” I’m...
by | Sep 13, 2010 | Bible
In Gen. 34, we read that two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, are alone capable of slaughtering an entire city of freshly-circumcised Hivite men “when they were sore” (Gen. 34:25) to avenge their sister Dinah, who had been raped by a prince of the...
by | Aug 22, 2010 | Bible, Church, Culture, History, Theology, Worship
Jonathan Fitzgerald chronicles an increasing trend among evangelicals: frequent conversions to Catholicism. He writes: Croslow’s interest in Catholicism began over six years ago when he was a sophomore in high school. At the time, Croslow’s Midwestern evangelical...
by | Jun 8, 2009 | Bible, Preaching, Theology, Worship
I was driving home from a wedding in Tennessee yesterday morning, and so I listened to a sermon on the radio in hopes of having some kind of substitute (however insufficient) for missing church. I found a couple that I had no interest in listening to beyond the first...
by | Jun 5, 2009 | Church, Preaching, Theology
The other night, I introduced my wife to one of my favorite movies, Ladykillers. (Allison did not like it, by the way.) I have seen it many times before, but I have never heard/understood/appreciated this line from the sermon at Marva’s church, which you might...
by | Jun 3, 2009 | Books, Church, Culture, History, Theology
I have been thoroughly enjoying Perry Miller’s The Life of the Mind in America, which presents a highly complex picture of early American Christianity. One of the interesting issues he describes is the unique way in which Christians in America achieved a form of...
by | May 29, 2009 | Bible, Church, Theology, Worship
My Bible reading plan takes me through the book of Isaiah at the beginning of every summer, and one of the things that I have newly appreciated this time around is Isaiah’s versatile use of wine imagery. Isaiah uses wine in at least three major ways, as far as I...
by | May 27, 2009 | Bible, Church, Theology
Biblically speaking, humanity’s nearness to God is more complicated than we often imagine. For example, the hymn “Nearer My God to Thee” would suggest that closeness to God is always a good thing, but this simply is not the case. Rather, the Bible...
by | May 26, 2009 | Books, Church, Culture, History, Preaching, Theology, Worship
I have been reading the second volume of Iain Murray’s comprehensive biography on D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, having read the first volume last year. It is a bit tedious at times, but only because Murray made the conscious choice to include more, rather than less,...