Making it to home

Practical universalism isn’t very practical. It doesn’t help people become godly, anymore than hiring blind umpires makes baseball more exciting. The umpire can’t grade on a curve. He has to decide if the runner arrived before the ball, or the ball before the runner. But if the runner never arrives, he doesn’t have to decide anything. The answer is obvious. It doesn’t matter how fast a baseball player ran from second to third, it doesn’t matter how sincerely. If he doesn’t make it to home plate, he doesn’t score. It doesn’t count. If you never become the kind of person who wants to spend eternity praising God, it doesn’t matter how close you got to it. You won’t be forced to spend eternity praising God.

The cost of discipleship

“That is what we mean by cheap grace, the grace which amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of the repentant sinner who departs from sin and from whom sins departs. ”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

Elvaisms #1

My grandmother’s first language is German, and she began speaking English when the world was very different than it is today. Here are some expressions she uses:

Well, I better hyphenate in my room and get out of your hair.

Hand me a bobbing pin, will you?

I think it’s good to be interesting in what’s happening in the world.

There you are, my little fuddy-duddle, my little cat.

In defense of hypocrisy

First of all, hypocrisy is indefensible. Jesus criticized hypocrites, he didn’t criticize sinners. But we’re all hypocrites in one sense. We don’t live up to our ideals.

However, some ways of dealing with our hypocrisy are better than others. One way is to stop claiming to believe what we don’t practice. As in, I ain’t no hypocrite, I know I’m a sinner.

But something’s lacking there. The other way of dealing with our hypocrisy, much harder, is to stop practicing what we claim we don’t believe. Until I can do that, I’d rather be a hypocrite.

The truth is red-hot

The truth is hot and hard to touch. Unless it has lost its power, it will sometimes hurt you. The truth is salt and you have wounds. Unless it has lost its savor, it will sometimes hurt you. You can avoid this pain at the cost of your soul, but not forever.