A generation is coming that will not follow the faith of their fathers. They will go beyond the faith of their fathers. Like King Josiah, they will look at the promise of God’s Word and the state of typical religion, and they will choose to follow God’s Word. They will strive to make God’s Word alive in their world. They will not seek to entertain themselves in their minds, but will entertain God in their homes and hearts. They will not compromise. They will not leave God’s work undone.

Many modern “New Testament” churches claim that “they only go by the Word of God,” that their authority is the New Testament. Except, for the actual New Testament church, their authority was Jesus. The New Testament hadn’t been written yet. Continue reading “Calvin for Apostle”

Certainly, you can believe what you don’t understand. But you can’t believe what you don’t know. You can’t believe what people tell you you should believe. You can’t make yourself believe by studying what you should believe. No one can pressure you to believe. No one can embarrass you into believing. You can’t conform or out-orthodox or out-fox yourself into believing.
Continue reading “You can’t believe what you don’t know”

When at 14, I first heard the claim that Jesus was the son of God (somehow my previous church had missed this teaching), I remember that I was most offended by the specificity of the claim, not by anything else.

I reasoned, “There are five major world religions. What are the odds that I just happened to be born into the right one?”
Continue reading “Jesus had an eye color.”

What makes the gospel offensive is sometimes not its message but its specificity. We aren’t bothered by generalities about spirituality, but we bristle at specifics about our own lives. Continue reading “Don’t get specific with me.”

God has a will and work for us to do, and it doesn’t really matter how we get treated by others along the way. But he doesn’t intend for his purpose to be replaced by someone turning us into a doormat. If I’m going to be a martyr, I want it to be because God commanded it. I have been known to turn the other cheek very belligerently: “I’m laying down my life for you because of what Jesus did for me, buster. This doesn’t mean you’ve won over him or over me.” But that’s not exactly the right attitude! Also, we can replace God’s compassion with human sympathy: “You know, if you really cared about your neighbors, you wouldn’t sleep until they had all been converted”… or until you were hospitalized with exhaustion.

I’m thinking that the most important thing is to know where to take guilt. “Oh, I’m much worse than you think, worse than you accuse me of being. But I’m not depending on my own righteousness for my self-worth, and I’m not depending on my own strength to change. Is there anything else you’ve noticed about me that I should be aware of?” But it’s also important to discern when I need to repent and when the other person is mistaken.

When I say something, my goal should be to communicate. I should try to understand how my message will be received by the person I’m communicating with. The fact that they may not understand it should affect how I communicate my message. The fact that they do not receive it might affect how I communicate my message. But the fact that they may not like it should not affect my message itself. Continue reading “The case against politeness”

Pro-abortionists like to taunt pro-lifers for being so sure of ourselves. But one of the most convincing things about our side, actually, is that we wish we were wrong. Continue reading “I wish I were wrong.”

The other night, it occurred to me how much the Christmas story is a tale of international intrigue. A head of state meets with visitors from another country and tries to co-opt them into providing sensitive information about a suspected security threat. But the conspirators are warned and escape to an African nation. Continue reading “Jesus the Spy”