The crisis of leadership in our churches, businesses and governments is largely due to this one dilemma: men have been given power, but they are unprepared to handle it. The time of ruling is a tremendous test of character, for the king will be sorely tested to his influence in humility, for the benefit of … Continue reading When a Crisis Is Not a Crisis, But Sin
Quotes
It All Matters
"We can and must do in the present, if we are obedient to the gospel, if we are following Jesus, and if we are indwelt, energized, and directed by the Spirit, is to build for the kingdom. This brings us back to 1 Corinthians 15:58 once more: what you do in the Lord is not … Continue reading It All Matters
The Day of Adversity
It always cost time and money to do justice...And yet there are times when doing justice really costs. These verses talk about a time of trouble--literally, "the day of adversity." In times of crisis, from recession to government coups, the most vulnerable are most endangered, and to defend them puts you in the way of harm as … Continue reading The Day of Adversity
When the Church Becomes the World
[Secularization] advances rarely by external opposition but by a gradual process of assimilating the Christian drama, doctrines, doxology, and discipleship to the nihilistic plots of this fading age. The ultimate threat is never that the world will continue to be worldly, reducing reality to human flourishing and immanent frame, but that churches will fail in … Continue reading When the Church Becomes the World
Unchanging and Changing
Just as my assurance of salvation rests in the fact that God cannot change, my hope of sanctification rests in the fact that I can. What a greater disavowal of the gospel of grace than to claim it is capable of changing every sinner's heart but mine? Jen Wilkin, None Like Him
Do vs. Done
The law says, "do this", and it is never done. Grace says, "believe in this", and everything is already done. The first part is clear from what has been stated by the Apostle and his interpreter, St. Augustine, in many places. And it has been stated often enough above that the "law works wrath" and keeps all men … Continue reading Do vs. Done
More than an Underdog
The reason for this persistent story line of the Bible is not simply because the writers like underdogs. It is because the ultimate example of God's working in the world was Jesus Christ, the only founder of a major religion that died in disgrace, not surrounded by all of his loving disciples but abandoned by … Continue reading More than an Underdog
We All Believe
All knowing begins with what Michael Polanyi calls a "fiduciary framework." (fiduciary = pertaining to fides, "involving trust"): an interpretive framework that one takes initially on faith until it proves itself by yielding a harvest of understanding...If Polanyi is right, Christian theology is no worse of than modern science. Everyone has to have faith in something … Continue reading We All Believe
Forget Your Birthday; Are You Alive?
Conversion [to Jesus Christ] may be a crisis; it may be a process. Even a crisis like birth is really a process...It would be stupid to argue whether birth or growth is the more important element in our experience. We are born to grow. And so it is in the Christian life. Some can remember … Continue reading Forget Your Birthday; Are You Alive?
If Augustine Watched TV Today
Why is it that one likes being moved to grief at the sight of sad or tragic events on stage, when one would be unwilling to suffer the same things onself?...But how real is the mercy evoked by fictional dramas? The listener is not moved to offer help, but merely invited to feel sorrow --St. … Continue reading If Augustine Watched TV Today