—
Maundy Thursday note:
We couldn’t get to God so he came to us – and met us at the most ordinary of locations, the dinner table.
—
Puritan marriage advice from William Whately:
“Love is the life and soul of marriage, without which it differs as much from itself, as a rotten apple from a sound [one] and as a carcass from a living body; yea, verily it is a most miserable and uncomfortable society, and no better than a very living death….Next to the pleasing of God, make your main business to please each other.”
—
“At table (at least as the Synoptic Gospels- Matthew, Mark, and Luke-tell it), Jesus clearly said, “Do this,” not think about, meditate upon, or have deep feelings for this. In going against centuries of church practice and the majority of Christians at worship today, we not only in effect have excommunicated millions of God’s people from the Lord’s Table but also have given many the false impression that we would rather talk about Jesus than to be present with Jesus, and that following Jesus is a matter of what we think or feel rather than what we do.”
— William Williamson
—
AI is poised to be the greatest economic disrupter in history. It is likely to destroy more women’s jobs than men’s jobs, and more white collar than blue collar jobs. Are we ready? What does an AI world look like?
—
“God” does not mean whatever we want it to mean. God has defined and identified himself.
—
“Only he who believes is obedient and only he who is obedient believes.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer
—
Speaking of Bilbo Baggins preparing to face Smaug the dragon, J.R.R. Tolkien says, “He fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait.”
This is what Gethsemane is all about. Before Jesus faces Satan the dragon at the cross, he fights the real battle as he wrestles with his Father’s will in prayer alone: “Not my will, but your will be done.”
—
“What the Christian sees as discipline, the world calls abuse. What the Christian sees as order, the world calls control. What the Christian sees as truth, the world calls intolerance. This is not new. It is the same pattern Jesus experienced and the same pattern the prophets endured before Him.”
— Uri Brito
—
Feminism is socialism and socialism is feminism.
—
“The principle of change has been a spiritual one and the progress of Western civilization is intimately related to the dynamic ethos of Western Christianity, which has gradually made Western man conscious of his moral responsibility and his duty to change the world…
The history of Christendom is the story of the progressive vindication of this tremendous claim which not only made the Church a far more dynamic social force than any other religious body that the world has known, but diffused its influence through the whole of Western civilization and affected spheres of thought and action far removed from the direct influence of religion…
The only final end to which Christian action can be directed is the restoration of all things in Christ. All Catholic teaching on social action during the present [20th] century has been based on the doctrine of the universal Kingship of Christ, which is the Church’s answer to the universal claims of the totalitarian systems….in so far as the Kingship of Christ is recognized not as a theological abstraction but as a social reality, the divisions of Christendom will be transcended and the human race will realize its organic unity under its Divine Head.”
— Christopher Dawson (HT: Peter Leithart)
—
“Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.”
— Adam Smith
—
Soft on crime policies destroy civilization. Dealing with crime swiftly and justly (including the death penalty/public executions) is crucial to maintaining social order. The glorious social order of Christendom, with its high degree of social trust and cultivation of beauty, was built and maintained in large measure by capital punishment. About 1% of each generation was executed, for centuries, and the result was that criminality was very low, society was safe, and harmony prevailed.
https://www.theamericantribune.news/p/how-hangings-built-a-glorious-european
—
“Liberalism prepared the way for the complete secularization of society by making a sharp division between the public world of economics and politics and the private world of religion and intellectual culture.”
— Christopher Dawson
—
“Yet we do not suggest that God was ever inimical or angry toward him. How could he be angry toward his beloved Son, “in whom his heart reposed” [cf. Matthew 3:17]? How could Christ by his intercession appease the Father toward others, if he were himself hateful to God? This is what we are saying: he bore the weight of divine severity, since he was “stricken and afflicted” [cf. Isaiah 53:5] by God’s hand, and experienced all the signs of a wrathful and avenging God.”
— John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.16.11
—
A hymn we sing during Lent is “O Lord Throughout These 40 Days.” This is the second verse, sung to Jesus:
“You strove with Satan, and you won;
your faithfulness endured;
lend us your nerve,
your skill and trust
in God’s eternal word.”
This verse is a great prayer when we face stress, fear, and anxiety. Because of our union with Christ, he can “lend” us what is his.
Jesus had nerves of steel under incredible pressure.
He can lend us his nerve.
He can lend us his strength, strengthening us to face any situation.
He can lend us his skill, granting us wisdom to face the difficulties of life.
He can lend us his love, enabling us to kill bitterness, forgive our enemies, and pray for those who persecute us.
He can make sharers in his trust in his Father so we can keep clinging to the eternal Word even in the darkest of times.
He can keep us from having a failure of nerve. He can keep us from stumbling. He can give us the victory.
Think of the Garden of Gethsemane.
Jesus was in agony over what was coming.
In answer to his prayer, the Father did not take him out of those difficult circumstances but led him through those circumstances.
In the same way, the Father may not make our path easier, but he is with us as we walk it.
And if Jesus lends us his nerve, we can be confident as we face hardships on the path before us. Through him, through God’s eternal Word, we can triumph over Satan, over sin, over temptation, even as he did.
—
“In the earlier Middle Ages, the State in our sense of the word hardly existed. There were a vast number of political and social units—feudal fiefs, duchies, counties and baronies, loosely held together by their allegiance to king or Emperor. There were Free Cities and Leagues of Cities, like the Lombard Commune or the Hanseatic League. There were ecclesiastical principalities like the German prince-bishoprics, and the great independent abbeys. Finally there were the religious and military Orders—international organizations which lived their own lives and obeyed their own authorities in whatever country of Europe they might happen to be situated.”
— Christopher Dawson
—
“The primary cause of the secularization of Western culture has been the religious divisions between Christians.”
— Christopher Dawson
—
“At the roots of the development of Western freedom and Western democracy there lies the medieval idea that men possess rights even against the state and that society is not a totalitarian political unit but a community made up of a complex variety of social organisms, each possessing an autonomous life and its own free institutions.”
— Christopher Dawson
—
The current sexual paradigm of our culture boils down to this: Men have duties, women have choices. Men have responsibilities, women have options.
—
“Why then does the Holy Spirit not manifest himself today in the multiplicity of languages? But he does … Today the whole body of Christ does speak in the languages of all peoples, or, rather, if there are any tongues in which it does not yet speak, it will. The Church will grow until it claims all languages as its own.”
— Augustine
—
“Modern war is in large measure push-button war, anonymously fought by people who have never seen their enemy alive or dead and who will never know whom they have killed. Nor will the victims ever see the face of the enemy. The only connection between the enemies is the machinery with which they try to kill each other. Such a technologically dehumanized war is bound to be morally dehumanized as well. For the operator of the machinery, the experience of target practice is hardly different from that of a real attack, and an attack upon a military installation is for him indistinguishable from that upon a civilian target.”
— Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations
—
Nick Freitas > Nick Fuentes
I’ve really come to appreciate Freitas’ work over the last several years. This video is a great example of the solid work he is doing:
https://youtu.be/k3iUOP61smQ?si=CTiekHYlYtqQPoHX
ADDENDUM, DISCUSSING THE PODCAST: I haven’t followed Walsh on the war so I can’t comment on that but on most cultural topics, I think Walsh gives a pretty sensible take from a conservative Roman Catholic perspective.
I do think Freitas’ comments on Candace sounded right – though I’ve never listened to her, what I hear about her theories/conspiracies about Charlie just seem too far fetched to be true. Such a broad conspiracy violates what we know about fallen human nature. And if her theories were true, you’d never go about exposing it the way she is, especially if you actually cared about justice. That said, there are some real oddities about Charlie’s death…
On Fuentes and race – one major problem with it is that races are not static and it’s not obvious what things should be ascribed to race (a biological category) versus other factors (especially religion).
For example, the ancient Romans considered the Britons so dumb, they wouldn’t even make decent slaves. 1500 years later, those same people ruled the whole world from their tiny island. What changed? They Christianized.
Before the “war on poverty” and the welfare state, the black illegitimacy rate in America was lower than it is for whites today, and black households were rising in wealth faster than whites (which is what stoked a lot of racial animosity from “white trash” who did not want blacks to pass them on the socioeconomic status ladder).
Anyone who thinks whites cannot sink back to where they were in their pre-Christian condition is underestimating depravity. In fact, white apostasy would probably be a worse state than white paganism. Whites may have built the greatest civilization in history thus far, but that doesn’t mean we will keep it. Having a great civilization is not a timeless feature of whiteness. And it’s not as if whiteness was the only factor in America’s rise to greatness. America was built by WASPs – white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. America is not the product of whiteness; it was the product of whiteness mixed with a very specific religious worldview. Whites without that religious worldview have not always been so impressive. Mix whiteness with egalitarianism or Marxism and the results are very different.
The problem with Fuentes is that his approach is more likely to degrade whites than elevate them – even though probably 80% or more of what he says is technically true. My issue with Fuentes is not that he says untrue things so much as the fact that the total package he presents is just not going to bear good fruit in the long run. Judge a tree by its fruit — what kind of fruit will Fuentes produce in the men who latch on to him as “followers”?
It’s hard for for me to consider Fuentes a devout Catholic – it seems more likely he instrumentalizes his religion to further his agenda. Being Catholic provides him with a lot of cover. I wonder if he goes to mass every week. Who is his priest, and what does his priest think of his positions?
Racial genetics provide a limiting factor – some races will probably never produce a Newton or Einstein or a Michael Jordan – but within those parameters, there is all kinds of room for variation and change over time.
Freitas would be fine with “pattern recognition.” But racial patterns are not fixed in nature. There actually aren’t that many immutable characteristics that accompany race. Culture, religion, political incentives, etc. are all massive factors, and they are certainly the factors we should focus on.
One thing that elevated whites for generations is the fact that about 1% of the population was executed in every generation – they dealt with crime severely and thus maintained law and order, high social trust, safe cities, etc.
When we ascribe the mainstreaming of porn, the corruption of Hollywood, etc., to Jews, are we identifying them as an ethnic or racial or religious group? While we can be straightforward and honest about how secularized, progressive Jews have promoted all kinds of subversive evils, Orthodox Jews are more culturally and politically conservative, as a group, than evangelicals are, as a group. So what do we do with that? Something other than race is at play. To put it another way, Jews who practice historic/Talmudic Judaism are very conservative. Jews who are secualr/progressive are really no different from other secular/progressive people.
If I want to cast a net that is going to catch as many of the bad actors as possible, while not wrongly implicating good people, I am not going to limit my assessment to racial categories. So, for example, it’s not Jews per se, but progressive Jews, Marxist Jews, etc., who drive the corruption. Same with blacks – black criminality is highly, highly concentrated amongst inner city fatherless blacks. If we do an analysis of white people, we also have to specify – about 40% of whites are highly progressive and are thus partaking in the destruction of our civilization. It’s about double that if we focus on college educated white women, so the gender component also has to be factored in, if we want to really be accurate. But obviously whites in general and white women in particular weren’t always this way, anymore than blacks in America were always the way they are today.
Racial reductionism is likely to cause as much injustice as it purports to solve. There is a reason the Bible has very little to say about what we call race — it’s just not the most relevant or decisive factor in most discussions.
—
America was founded and grew as a WASP nation. America was built by mixing whiteness with a very specific form of Protestantism.
Mix whiteness with egalitarianism or Marxism and the results are very different. Just having a lot of whites does not guarantee a great society. The religion/worldview of those whites will be decisive.
Russia today is 81% white. America is 57% white. But America is still a better place to live because the underpinnings of our society are still superior.
(When people say “why can’t white people have a homeland?” – I’m quick to point out that whites have had many homelands all to themselves for much of history – if we gave them up out of toxic empathy or because of progressive policies, that’s our own fault. But there are still very dominant white places in the world today – but they’re not all great places to live. Iceland, Poland, Finland, Norway, etc. are all 90%+ white right now, though a few of those countries are shifting rapidly because of high immigration and low birth rates.)
—
Interestingly, most Jews in the world today are “white” by most definitions – though modern Israel does not keep racial data.
It’s rare to hear anyone ever refer to Jews as “persons of color.”
Whoopi Goldberg uses the Holocaust as an example of white on white violence.
This is interesting:
https://www.futureofjewish.com/p/are-jews-white-i-dont-know-and-i
A quote from the article:
“While those on the Far-Right tend to like Jews more if they are seen as white, the Far-Left likes them less if they are seen as white.”
Of course, there’s also this classic from Ryan Long:
—
The destruction of the black family through the welfare state was very intentional.
Gilder’s Men and Marriage book documents this very well.
If you pay young black girls to have kids out of wedlock, and take the welfare benefits away if they marry the father, what are you going to get?
No people group would able to resist that perverse incentive structure, including whites.
The white family is now in worse shape than the black family was in the 1950s in many respects – more single parent homes, more divorce, etc.
—
“You can’t get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first.”
— C. S. Lewis
—
Old sermon notes, repurposed for X:
A full atonement theology is embedded in Mark’s account of the Jesus’ passion in chapters 14-15:
At the same time the High Priest is cursing Jesus, Peter is cursing himself. But Jesus, who should be blessed rather than cursed, will bear the curse on Peter’s behalf. Peter called down curses to save himself; Jesus bore up under curses to save others.
Noticing these sorts of connections has huge theological ramifications. Sometimes people wonder why the gospels do not really seem to have much of an atonement theology (with rare texts like Mk. 10:45 serving as exceptions). How could the gospels record the most important event in history without telling us what it all means? Do we have to go to the Pauline epistles to get an interpretation of the cross? Did the evangelists have a theology of the atonement? Actually, they do, but we have to read between the lines to catch it. There is nothing wrong with reading the gospels through a Pauline lens (we expect inner biblical consistency, after all), but the gospels themselves already provide all the basic categories we need:
· The gospels use priestly language (e.g., “laying hands on”), which shows the cross must be understood as a sacrifice in fulfillment of old covenant Levitical shadows. The fact that the cross is coordinated with Passover reinforces this theme. Jesus is the Passover Lamb, which connects with victory over false gods, exodus from death, new creation, forgiveness, etc. This also means, ironically, that the priests of Israel fulfill their priestly office in spite of themselves. They have been offering sacrifices over and over; now, unwittingly, they are finally going to offer up the final and effective sacrifice.
· The High Priest tears his robes which according to Leviticus 10 unleashes wrath on the people (the priests robes correspond to the veils in the temple, protecting people from God’s holy presence and holding back wrath). Of course, that wrath is going to fall on Jesus, so his death is propitiatory. He will step in the way of the wrath as it pours out, protecting and covering his people. Paul teaches this in Rom. 3, but it is already embedded in the gospel narrative. The torn robes also demonstrate disqualification from office (cf. Dt. 21; 1 Sam. 15; etc.), so the trial/cross point to the end of the old covenant era. There must be a new priesthood, as Hebrews demonstrates.
· The language used at the Last Supper not only indicates that a new covenant is being inaugurated to replace the old covenant, but strongly suggests that the Eucharist (and thus the entire Christian liturgy) is replacing the temple, with its liturgy and sacrifices. The language at the Last Supper also points to a new exodus, as N. T. Wright has pointed out. Finally, the language is an echo of Isa. 53, indicating that when Jesus pours out his life, he will bring life to many. (On all of this, see Riki Watts’ book on the new exodus in the gospel of Mark.)
· The language of the cup in Gethsemane points to Jesus drinking curse and wrath on our behalf, taking the judgment we deserve (cf. Ezek. 23:32ff, etc.).
· When Peter calls down curses on himself, where do those curses land? Obviously on Jesus. Peter commits blasphemy but Jesus dies in his place as a blasphemer. The sin of Peter is exactly what Jesus is charged with. Substitution and curse bearing (in fulfillment of Torah) are clearly implied by the narrative structure. If the very crime Peter is guilty of is the charge that results in Jesus’ death, there can be no question that, as Luther said, Jesus dies for and as Peter the denier and blasphemer.
· Barabbas (= “son of the father,” and thus representative of every man) is set free and Jesus dies in his place. Again, this is substitution atonement in narrative form. Jesus dies as a robber/bandit, the very thing Barabbas was actually guilty of.
· Simon the Cyrene carries Jesus’ cross. As Stott has pointed out, every Christian is both a Barabbas (set free because Jesus dies in our place, the innocent in the place of the guilty), but also a Simon (called to carry our crosses, thus participating in Christ’s self-denial and death).
· The disciples are scattered when Jesus is arrested/tried/crucified. But they are reunited in his resurrection. The head is severed from the body, but then body and head are rejoined in new life (cf. the miracle pattern in Mark’s gospel). Thus, we need to develop a sociology of the atonement, or an ecclesiology of the atonement, so to speak. The cross not only brings us back to God, it reunites us to one another.
· The cross and resurrection go together; the injustice of the cross (at a human level) is overturned at the resurrection. Thus, the cross and resurrection together reveal the righteousness of God. The cross and resurrection are the victory of God over sin, evil, and death. Christus victor clearly emerges from the narrative.
We could go on, but the point should be clear: There is a very clear atonement theology embedded in the details of the evangelists’ narratives. Atonement theology is not just a Pauline thing; it is written right into the narrative of the cross itself. The evangelists actually give us all the categories we need to develop a full blown theology of the cross.
—
X post from 12/8/25:
The heart of the gospel is penal substitutionary atonement. Sin deserves wrath. If Jesus did not endure that wrath as our substitute, we are still under the curse. Salvation comes through propitiation, and in no other way. Jesus is our Savior – but what does he save us from? Not merely our mistakes or failing to fulfill our potential or low self-esteem. He saves us from the divine wrath we deserve.
But in order for Jesus to bear that wrath, he has to be fully God and fully man – fully God so his sacrifice will be of infinite value, and fully man so his sacrifice can count in our stead. So the incarnation is the heart of the gospel as well. Only one who God and man, two natures in one person, is fit to be our Savior.
To put it another way, the gospel is the incarnation and the cross, Christmas and Good Friday. The gospel is the person and work of Jesus. Or to be more succinct, Jesus himself is the gospel.
ADDENDUM: Is believing PSA (penal substitutionary atonement) necessary to salvation? Doesn’t it pit the Father against the Son?
That may be the way some people (mis)characterize PSA, but it isn’t the historic doctrine, which is fully trinitarian. God the Father so loved the world that he gave his Son to propitiate the wrath of whole Godhead – including the Son’s own wrath – against our sin.
As I’ve written elsewhere:
“We need to be careful to do justice to the simplicity of God here, lest we set God against himself. God is not schizophrenic, with his holiness and love internally warring against each other. All of God is involved in all that God does. All of his attributes are equally ultimate. It is a distortion of the divine being to speak of justice as being more basic than love. There is a tension to be found within the Bible’s storyline, to be sure, but it is not a tension within the life of God. Rather, it is a tension between God and sin. That tension is resolved into perfect harmony at the cross, where the Triune God, in absolute holiness and love, achieves our salvation and defeats sin.
Further (while I am on this topic), we should be careful how we understand propitiation in Romans 3:25. We must dispense with the notion that the loving Son came (merely) to appease the wrath of an angry Father, or to persuade the Father to love us, or to acquire merits that would leverage the Father’s favor towards us. After all, the Father’s love for us sent the Son in the first place (John 3:16); even if we choose to speak of the Son’s obedience “meriting” the Father’s mercy to us (as John Calvin did), we still have to ask what merited the sending of the Son in the first place. The gospel, like creation itself, has its origins in the unmerited, unbounded love of God. The only alternative is to fall into an infinite regress. Yes, the Father’s wrath against sin must be propitiated, but the Father himself provides the sacrifice that accomplishes this propitiation. He is not propitiated so that he can love sinners; rather, he loves sinners, and therefore sets forth his Son as propitiation for them.
Also, note that the Son is wrathful against sin every bit as much as the Father, such that his wrath must be propitiated as well. In that sense, the cross is the Son’s self-propitiation. Our whole redemption is the project of the Triune God, from beginning to end. Each person of the Godhead has a unique work in the economy of redemption, yet those distinct roles interpenetrate one another as the persons act in perfect concert with one another.”
trinity-pres.net/essays/_publis…
—
From 10/15/25:
Many in the early church had a strong understanding of substitutionary atonement and justification by faith. An example of the very Protestant understanding of the heart of the gospel is found in Mathetes “Epistle to Diognetus”:
“But when our wickedness had reached its height, and it had been clearly shown that its reward, punishment and death, was impending over us; and when the time had come which God had before appointed for manifesting His own kindness and power, how the one love of God, through exceeding regard for men, did not regard us with hatred, nor thrust us away, nor remember our iniquity against us, but showed great long-suffering, and bore with us, He Himself took on Him the burden of our iniquities, He gave His own Son as a ransom for us, the holy One for transgressors, the blameless One for the wicked, the righteous One for the unrighteous, the incorruptible One for the corruptible, the immortal One for those who are mortal. For what other thing was capable of covering our sins than His righteousness? By what other one was it possible that we, the wicked and ungodly, could be justified, than by the only Son of God? O sweet exchange! O unsearchable operation! O benefits surpassing all expectation! That the wickedness of many should be hid in a single righteous One, and that the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors!”
—
From 10/31/24:
Jesus is never anxious.
ADDENDUM, CONCERNING HIS PRAYER AND APPARENT FEAR/ANXIETY IN GETHSEMANE: It’s a great question, one that goes beyond any theologian’s ability to fully answer. Obviously, there was no sin on his part in Gethsemane, so he was not anxious or fearful in that sense. But I certainly think he was emotionally horrified at the prospect of the cross, not only the physical suffering and the shame, but the cup of divine wrath he would soon drink to the dregs. If there are non-sinful forms of anxiety or fear (and perhaps there are – see 2 Cor. 11:28), then he experienced them. He certainly experienced grief and pain to the fullest extent.
—
Many Christian women married to good Christian men do not treat their believing husbands half as well as 1 Peter 3:1-6 commands Christian wives to treat unbelieving husbands. A wife should stand by her man, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer. A wife be in subjection to her husband, submitting to his mission.
Looks to me like Ivey did the honorable thing in speaking truth about sodomy. Looks like his wife is cutting him off after the Bulls cut him from the team. It might not be wise for him to share his marriage and family problems online, but I can certainly see why he’s in distress. Maybe there’s more to the story. Prayerfully, it has a happy ending for the Ivey family.
ADDENDUM: I’m sure there’s A LOT more to the story of their marriage than any of us will ever know. Normally, it would not be any of our business. But they are public figures, for better or worse. If she stood by him through all their prior mess when he was in sin, she should certainly stand by him now when he’s taken a stand for what it is good. If she stood by him through all his problems, but abandons him over this, it will look like she stuck with him just for the money. That might be an unfair impression, but that’s what it looks like. I don’t follow the NBA so don’t know much about Ivey, but I pray their marriage survives and thrives.
—
“A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.”
— H. Richard Niebuhr, summing up liberal theology
—
Psalm 75:8
[8] For in the hand of the LORD there is a cup
with foaming wine, well mixed,
and he pours out from it,
and all the wicked of the earth
shall drain it down to the dregs.
Isaiah 51:17
[17] Wake yourself, wake yourself,
stand up, O Jerusalem,
you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD
the cup of his wrath,
who have drunk to the dregs
the bowl, the cup of staggering.
Jeremiah 25:15-16
[15] Thus the LORD, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. [16] They shall drink and stagger and be crazed because of the sword that I am sending among them.”
Ezekiel 23:32-33
[32] Thus says the Lord GOD, “You shall drink your sister’s cup
that is deep and large; you shall be laughed at and held in derision,
for it contains much; [33] you will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow.
A cup of horror and desolation, the cup of your sister Samaria;
Matthew 26:39
[39] And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”
On the cross, Jesus drank the cup of God’s wrath against our sin. He drank a cup of cursing on Golgotha so that we might drink a cup of blessing at his table. He drank the cup we deserved to drink, a cup of hellfire, so that we could go free.
—
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
—
“My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, ‘You’re tearing up the grass’; ‘We’re not raising grass,’ Dad would reply. ‘We’re raising boys.’”
— Harmon Killebrew
—
“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals.
Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them.
One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for me to live without breaking laws.
Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s in that for anyone?
But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed or enforced nor objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt.”
— Ayn Rand
—
I don’t totally agree with this, but it gets at something important in the current context:
Men: I think, therefore I am.
Women: I feel, therefore it is.
Here’s a wrinkle: Men are emotional, but usually make rational decisions. Women are rational, but usually make emotional decisions.
The one time a man abandons reason/logic in his decision making is when he chooses a wife – that becomes an emotional decision because men are the real romantics, looking for the fairy tale, in which he will be unconditionally loved as her hero. The one time a woman abandons emotion for cold, hard logic is in choosing a husband – that becomes a rational, pragmatic decision based on whether or not he meets all her criteria, particularly in the area of provision (hypergamy). When he is choosing a wife, he turns to song and poetry. When she is choosing a husband, she gets the calculator out.
—
Men are taught how to treat women, but not what to expect from women. Women are taught what to expect from men, but not how to treat men.
—
“We are forced to postulate something which will account for the fact that a group of first-century Jews, who had cherished messianic hopes and centered them on Jesus of Nazareth, claimed after his death that he really was the Messiah despite the crushing evidence to the contrary.”
— N. T. Wright on how the bodily resurrection of Jesus best accounts for the historical evidence
—
Why are so many young people not getting married and don’t want kids?
There are many reasons but at the heart of it is a leftist worldview and leftwing propaganda. The left does not want to get married, have families, or own property. Leftism is anti-human.
—
In the Bible, heaven is masculine and earth is feminine. We learn this truth on the first page, in Genesis 1. A great deal of truth is revealed by keeping that reality in mind, and a great deal of truth is lost if this reality is obscured (which happens in English translations, since our nouns do not have gender).
Heaven and earth were made for one another, to become one. No wonder the Bible unfolds as a kind of love story between God and his people. The original marital union of man and woman in the garden pointed to a cosmic union of heaven and earth and, beyond that, the ultimate union of Christ with his bride, the church.
The Bible tells one long cosmic story that begins and ends with marriage; marriage wraps itself around and is threaded through the whole story. The Bible is bookended by weddings. The original union of man and woman in Genesis 1-2 is already pointing ahead to the “happily ever after” ending of Christ and his church.
Masculinity and femininity are the foundational archetypes of Scripture. This is why our culture is so lost and confused. We don’t know what masculinity and femininity are so we cannot “read” the big picture story of what God is doing in history. Sex is about the gospel and the gospel is sexual. Getting the gospel wrong leads to sexual chaos, and sexual chaos blinds people to the beauty and reality of the gospel message.
—
“And whoever sees me sees him who sent me.” (John 12:45)
God was not acting out of character when he stooped to wash the disciples feet, when he went to the cross, when he was buried in the tomb. When we see Jesus doing these things, we are seeing what God is like. Jesus is turning the life of God inside out for all to see. He is showing us that God has always been the God of self-giving love, a fountain of love always overflowing, a God of humble glory. When Jesus suffers, bleeds, and dies for his people, he is showing us the true and living God. He is not renouncing the divine glory by going to the cross; he is expressing the divine glory. Divine glory is cruciform. The divine glory is manifested supremely in sacrificial love.
The real God is not the egotistical power hungry god the atheists reject. He is not the Force of Stars Wars, nor the Higher Power of the therapists, nor the Unmoved Mover of the philosophers. The true God is a God who humbles himself, who stoops to serve and cleanse his people. He is not a God above getting his hands dirty to reclaim and rescue his people. He is the God of overflowing love and mercy, who comes to us, indeed, becomes one of us, even though we rebelled against him, in order to redeem us.
Do you want to see God? Do you want to know what God is like? Look to the manger and cross. Look to the foot-washing in the upper room and the empty tomb on Easter Sunday. Look at these, and behold your God!
—
Fred Cousins is truly a great American hero. Matthew Crawford tells the story of Fred’s genius:
“Stumped by a starter motor that seemed to check out in every way (it had the specified impedance through its windings, and turned freely in its bearings) but wouldn’t work, I started asking around at Honda dealerships. Nobody had an answer; finally one service manager told me to call Fred Cousins of Triple”O” Service. “If anyone can help you, Fred can.”
I called Fred, and he invited me to come to his shop on Goose Island. This is an island on the Chicago River, just west of the Loop. It is an industrial wasteland, eerily quiet and desolate. As I would learn later from Fred’s Snap-on dealer, who had serviced the area for over twenty years, the building next to Fred’s was a rendering plant where animal parts were reduced to glue.
The dealer claimed to have firsthand knowledge that the local mob used the place to dispose of human bodies with some regularity. A big car would back up to the loading bay and the workers at the plant would be told to take a long break.
I followed Fred’s directions to an unmarked door on a blank-looking warehouse. He opened the door with a hard and somewhat skeptical look on his face, then instantly softened when he saw the starter motor in my hands. We climbed the stairs to the second floor, which was all his, then entered a space that had been partitioned off from the rest of the warehouse. There were two lifts; each held a Ducati at eye level. Crowded around the shop were Aermacchis, MV Augustas, Benellis, and some other Italian makes I had never even heard of, as well as quite a few Hondas from the 1960s and ’70s. They were bathed in the slanting light of a Chicago winter in late afternoon; one wall of the shop was solid windows from waist level up.
Fred told me to put the motor on a certain bench that was free of clutter. He checked the impedance, as I had done, to confirm there was no short circuit or discontinuity. He spun the shaft in its bearings, as I had. He hooked it up to a battery. It moved ever so slightly, but wouldn’t spin. Then he grabbed the shaft and tried to wiggle it side to side. “Too much free play” He suggested the problem was the bushing that located the end of the shaft in the motor housing—it was worn. When a current is applied to the windings, it produces not only a torque but also an initial sideways force. Free to move too much (per-haps a few hundredths of an inch), the rotor was binding on the motor housing. Fred scrounged around for a Honda motor. He found one with the same bushing, then used a “blind hole bearing puller” to extract it, as well as the one in my motor. Then he gently tapped the new, or rather newer, one into place. The motor worked. Then Fred gave me a succinct dissertation on the peculiar metallurgy of these Honda starter motor bushings of the mid-seventies. Here was a scholar.”
(Excerpted from Shop Class as Soul Craft, p. 106ff.)
—
“The man who works recognizes his own product in the World that has actually been transformed by his work: he recognizes himself in it, he sees in it his own human reality, in it he discovers and reveals to others the objective reality of his humanity, of the originally abstract and purely subjective idea he has of himself.”
— Alexandre Kojève
—
“The satisfactions of manifesting oneself concretely in the world through manual competence have been known to make a man quiet and easy. They seem to relieve him of the felt need to offer chattering interpretations of himself to vindicate his worth. He can simply point: the building stands, the car now runs, the lights are on. Boasting is what a boy does, who has no real effect in the world. But craftsmanship must reckon with the infallible judgment of reality, where one’s failures or shortcomings cannot be interpreted away.
Hobbyists will tell you that making one’s own furniture is hard to justify economically. And yet they persist. Shared memories attach to the material souvenirs of our lives, and producing them is a kind of communion, with others and with the future. Finding myself at loose ends one summer in Berkeley, I built a mahogany coffee table on which I spared no expense of effort. At that time I had no immediate prospect of becoming a father, yet I imagined a child who would form indelible impressions of this table and know that it was his father’s work. I imagined the table fading into the background of a future life, the defects in its execution as well as inevitable stains and scars becoming a surface textured enough that memory and sentiment might cling to it, in unnoticed accretions. More fundamentally, the durable objects of use produced by men “give rise to the familiarity of the world, its customs and habits of intercourse between men and things as well as between men and men,” as Hannah Arendt says. “The reality and reliability of the human world rest primarily on the fact that we are surrounded by things more permanent than the activity by which they were produced, and potentially even more permanent than the lives of their authors.”
Because craftsmanship refers to objective standards that do not issue from the self and its desires, it poses a challenge to the ethic of consumerism, as the sociologist Richard Sennett has recently argued. The craftsman is proud of what he has made, and cherishes it, while the consumer discards things that are perfectly serviceable in his restless pursuit of the new. The craftsman is then more possessive, more tied to what is present, the dead incarnation of past labor; the consumer is more free, more imaginative, and so more valorous according to those who would sell us things. Being able to think materially about material goods, hence critically, gives one some independence from the manipulations of marketing, which typically divert attention from what a thing is to a back-story intimated through associations, the point of which is to exaggerate minor differences between brands. Knowing the production narrative, or at least being able to plausibly imagine it, renders the social narrative of the advertisement less potent. The tradesman has an impoverished fantasy life compared to the ideal consumer; he is more utilitarian and less given to soaring hopes. But he is also more autonomous.”
— Matthew Crawford
—
Matthew Crawford captures perfectly the misery of modern managerialism:
“A manager has to make many decisions for which he is accountable. Unlike an entrepreneur with his own business, however, his decisions can be reversed at any time by someone higher up the food chain (and there is always someone higher up the food chain). It’s important for your career that these reversals not look like defeats, and more generally you have to spend a lot of time managing what others think of you. Survival depends on a crucial insight: you can’t back down from an argument that you initially made in straightforward language, with moral conviction, without seeming to lose your integrity. So managers learn the art of provisional thinking and feeling, expressed in corporate doublespeak, and cultivate a lack of commitment to their own actions. Nothing is set in concrete the way it is when you are, for example, pouring concrete.”
—
Overall, this is a pretty even-handed article on evangelicals, Roman Catholics, Hegseth, and the current pope on Trump’s war with Iran:
https://unherd.com/2026/03/is-america-fighting-a-holy-war/?edition=us
—
God made the world in 6 days about 6000 years ago.
Genesis 1 is clear about the days of creation – but if there is any doubt, the wording of the 4th commandment in Exodus 20 should settle it.
Genesis 5 and 11 give us chronologies for the express purpose of providing a timeline going back to Adam. Biblical religion is historical religion and chronology is the backbone of history.
The NT draws doctrinal and ethical implications out of the historicity of the creation account. See, e.g., Mark 10:6-9, 1 Timothy 2:9-15, 1 Cor 11:1-16.
If the creation account is not taken as history, many other things taught by Scripture (especially sexual ethics) collapse.
ADDENDUM: The textual debate is worth having. I’ll stick with the MT for now, but the apostles certainly pulled from the LXX at times. Debating whether biblical chronology dates creation approximately 6000 or 7500 years ago is a good discussion to have – the larger point of my post is that the Bible clearly intends to give us an unbroken chronology back to the beginning. The Bible is a history book, telling the true story of the cosmos, and chronology is the backbone of history.
—
Far too many modern pastors spend far too much time explaining what the text of the Bible is NOT saying rather than what it IS saying. A few examples:
I’ve been in conservative paedobaptism churches where, when an infant gets baptized, the pastor spends far more time explaining what is not happening than what is happening. 1 Peter 3 says, “baptism now saves you,” but by the time the pastor is done with the text, it means “baptism most certainly does not save you.” The language of the Bible is not explained in a way that we could make it our own and speak like the apostles did about the sacrament; instead, the language is completely negated. The pastor is not at home in the language of the Bible, so his people never will be either. Paul calls baptism “the washing of regeneration” in Titus 3, but by the time the pastor gets done with the text, the one thing baptism is not is “the washing of regeneration.” Romans 6:3ff, Acts 2:38, Galatians 3:27, 1 Corinthians 12:13, and other passages likewise get explained away rather than explained. This even happens in churches where the pastor has sworn to uphold the teaching of the Westminister Standards which explicitly call the sacraments “effectual means of salvation.” The sacraments get redefined as ineffectual symbols.
Here’s another test case: When Jesus blessed the children who were brought to him in Matthew 19, he said “for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” But by the time the pastor gets done with the text, he has argued for the exact opposite position: children are not actually members of the kingdom and the kingdom does not actually belong to them. The pastor might point out that being born into a Christian home does not automatically save, that grace cannot be transmitted by natural reproduction, and so on. All well and good. But then why did Jesus say what he said and what did he mean? The pastor never actually gets around to that. The result is that the pastor is not training his people to embrace the Bible’s way of speaking. He is training them to explain it away. A text that has rich and powerful implications for Christian mothering and fathering is drained of its force and application. A text intended to train believing parents in how to view and treat their children leaves them confused rather than encouraged.
Likewise, when some pastors teach on a wife’s submission to her husband, it’s qualification after qualification: “Submission does not mean obeying him when he tells you to sin.” “Submission does not mean enduring physical abuse.” “Submission is does make the wife a doormat who never gets to share her own thoughts with her husband.” All perfectly reasonable qualifications to make, of course. But far too many pastors never actually explain what it does mean. The pastor never plainly restates what the text says so plainly (and repeatedly). The Christian wife is given no concrete, practice guidance in how to be a wife. Her positive duties are never driven home. The pastor apologizes for the Bible more than he applies the Bible. By contrast, when the same pastor teaches on husbands loving their wives, all the positive duties are stressed, and usually in an unconditional way. There is all too often an asymmetry in the way way roles and duties are taught in marriage: wives are only told what they do not have to do, while husbands are told what to do. A simple, straight-forward text gets mangled and silenced.
A final example: James 2 says, “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.” Again, many pastors explain this away. The pastor explains what the text is not saying – that good works cannot earn salvation – which is a fine point to make. But the congregation is never told, in no uncertain terms, what James meant and why he said what he said. The pastor balks when it comes to insisting on works as a necessary component of salvation, flowing out of faith as its fruit. He fails to make the point the text is making about the necessity of obedience in the lives of Christians – that while we are not saved on account of good works, neither can we be saved without them. His preaching becomes practically antinomian because he is so afraid of sounding legalistic (apparently a concern James did not share). The same pattern happens with the other texts that describe a final judgment according to works – John 5:29, 2 Corinthians 5:10, etc.
The net result of this kind of thing is that Christians never get comfortable using the Bible’s own language. They are not taught what many texts actually mean and how they should be applied. The fierceness of the Bible’s teaching is tamed and domesticated. The Bible is not allowed to do its challenging and convicting work in the hearts of the people. It’s as if the pastor is protecting his people from the hard-edged truths of the Bible by blunting their force and impact rather than bringing them into direct contact with its counter-cultural truths. This kind of preaching seeks to muzzle the Bible rather than unleash it in people’s lives. This kind of preaching is driven by an agenda other than exegeting and applying the plain meaning of texts.
Every pastor will admit some texts of the Bible are hard to understand. But many very plain teachings of Scripture are offensively simple and rather than letting the text stand on its own and say what it says, many pastors reshape and repackage the text so his congregation does not really have to wrestle with it. This is a form of pastoral malpractice.
—
Observation #1: In the old covenant tabernacle/temple, the glory of God dwelt between two cherubim on the ark of the covenant.
Observation #2: Jesus was crucified between two thieves.
Observation #3: When Mary looked into the empty tomb, she saw the grave slab where Jesus body had been laid between two angels.
Conclusion: Jesus is the glory of God.
—
“The dog is the most faithful of animals and would be much esteemed were it not so common. Our Lord God has made His greatest gifts the commonest.”
— Martin Luther
—
“On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realized the new wonder; but even they hardly realized that the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of the gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the evening but the dawn.”
— G. K. Chesterton
—
Proverbs 18:22 says, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing.” But to find something, you have to seek it.
—
When Mary came to the empty tomb, she began weeping because the body of her Lord was not there.
She turned away and Jesus, standing there but not recognized by Mary, asked her, “Why are you weeping?”
She supposed him to be the gardener and answered him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”
Was she wrong to see Jesus as the gardener?
No, not exactly.
Who was the original gardener in the original creation? Adam.
Who is the new gardener in the new creation? Jesus.
This is John’s clever way of showing us who Jesus is: a new Adam inaugurating a new humanity in a new world.
To take this one step further: The New Adam has just awakened from his death-sleep. His side has been pierced. And what does he find, upon waking, in the garden? A woman, a symbol of his bride.
The correspondences of John 20 with Genesis 2 are as numerous as they are obvious.
—
“… there is one thing in which the parallel between the Lord’s own commission and that of His Apostles seems not to hold good. God sent His Son to die an atoning and reconciling Death, and the Lord certainly did not send His Apostles to die for sin. But supposing that the Lord, instead of ascending up to heaven, had continued to dwell on the earth, how would He have forgiven sin? would He have repeatedly offered Himself up to God afresh? No. He would have forgiven men by the application of His past atoning Death. And that is precisely what He commissioned His Apostles to do. They were to apply, to communicate the benefit of, to make men partakers of, the one all-sufficient Sacrifice.”
— M. F. Sadler on John 20:21-23
—
I came across one of my old Facebook posts from April of 2022. It’s fitting to republish it here as Easter draws near:
Some memes are funny and accurate. Other memes are misleading or even dishonest.
There is a meme going around right now that says something like, “In the interest of biblical accuracy, all preaching about the resurrection this Easter Sunday will be done by women.”
One does not have to appeal to the more obvious texts that address the question of women preaching (like 1 Timothy 2:9-15) to see how false this meme is.
Just go to the accounts of the resurrection in the gospels. What do we do find?
Do we find women having private conversations about what they saw at the empty tomb? Yes.
Do we find women leading gathered assemblies as public preachers/teachers? Absolutely not.
In other words, the resurrection accounts change nothing with regard to what is fitting, permissible, and appropriate in church life.
Jesus himself is the primary public proclaimer of the resurrection on Easter Sunday. And he is the one who presides over the Eucharistic meal on Easter Sunday. In the post-resurrection era, liturgical leadership is still masculine.
The resurrection does not overthrow God’s original created order in which men and women have distinct roles. The resurrection restores and glorifies that created order. Beware of memes that have the appearance of cleverness but contradict the plain teaching of Scripture.
—
“The love of husband and wife is the force that welds
society together. Men will take up arms and even sacrifice their lives
for the sake of this love. St. Paul would not speak so earnestly about
this subject without serious reason; why else would he say, “Wives, be
subject to your husbands, as to the Lord?” Because when harmony
prevails, the children are raised well, the household is kept in order,
and neighbors, friends, and relatives praise the result. Great benefits,
both of families and states, are thus produced. When it is otherwise,
however, everything is thrown into confusion and turned upside-down.”
— John Chrysostom
—
People are trying to get me to use AI and I don’t even like automatic transmissions. Hank Jr.’s song “Dinosaur” pretty much describes me. I like things old school and analog. Yes, I use a smartphone and post on X. But I do so under protest.
—
Effeminate husbands turn their wives into lesbians. Unsubmissive wives turn their husbands into faggots.
For marriage to be what it’s meant to be, the husband has to be hard and the woman has to be soft. That’s both biblical and biological. We have more data on male/female attraction than almost any other topic in sociology or psychology and yet some Christians still prattle about “mutual submission” and other garbage.
—
We have more data on male/female attraction than almost any other topic in sociology or psychology and yet some Christians still prattle about “mutual submission” and other garbage. No red blooded Christian male is ever going to sign up for a “mutually submissive” anything. It’s disgusting. It’s asexual and anti-sexual. It’s anti-natural. And it never works.
All a Christian book or sermon on marriage needs to do today is state the obvious truths that most people are too blind to see or too cowardly to talk about.
—
There is mutuality in marriage, but it is the mutuality of a dance – you bless the other by doing your part, not by doing the same parts.
I find it interesting that in same context Paul talks about mutuality in the strongest possible terms (1 Cor 11:11), he also gives the most extreme account of sexual differentiation we have in the whole Bible (1 Cor. 11:3, 8-9).
—
The Bible’s teaching on marriage is offensively simple.
The man needs to act like a man, hard and strong. He needs to lead with indomitable decisiveness and wisdom borne of competence.
The woman needs to be soft and feminine, sweet and submissive.
That’s pretty much it. Everything else is window dressing.
—
When it comes to the catholicity of the church, vibrant disunity is preferable to sclerotic unity.
—
“How shall we labor with any effect to build up the church, if we have no thorough knowledge of its history, or fail to apprehend it from the proper point of observation? History is, and must ever continue to be, next to God’s Word, the richest foundation of wisdom, and the surest guide to all successful practical activity.”
— Philip Schaff
—
“It ain’t so much the things we don’t know that get us into trouble as the things we do know that ain’t so.”
— attributed to Mark Twain
—
The cross is the victory of all victories.
—
“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”
— Tertullian (160 AD-240 AD)
—
“The state — or, to make matters more concrete, the government — consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get, and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time it is made good by looting ‘A’ to satisfy ‘B’. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advanced auction on stolen goods.”
― H.L. Mencken
—
This is precisely why it was such a colossal mistake to begin trading with China, especially under the guise of “free trade.” It’s impossible for two nations to engage in free trade when their play by different rules and have entirely different value systems. America should have no more entered into with China than the Israelites would have engaged in trade with the Amalekites.
—
Since the Second Great Awkening, many pastors and churches have reduced their whole mission and ministry to one thing: Getting people converted.
Obviously, evangelism is important. But there is more to the mission of the church than just getting sinners converted. There is more to the Christian life than just getting converted. What is the converted man supposed to do after conversion?
The Great Commission exists for the sake of the Creation Mandate. We obey Matthew 28:16-20 so that Genesis 1:26-30 can be fulfilled. The Christian life is not a void after conversion. It is to be filled with the good works God prepared in advance for us to do. Those good works include the whole of our vocation.
To put it another way, the Great Commission is not just about conversion, it’s about discipleship, which means it’s about obeying all that God has commanded. And his first command to the human race is found in the Creation Mandate. The creation mandate has two basic components: multiplication and dominion, family and work.
Reducing the mission of the church to conversion has led to Christians retreating and surrendering. It has left the church vulnerable to alien ideologies like wokeness, feminism, and socialism.
—
“Many men misunderstand what marriage is for.
They treat it as a lifestyle upgrade instead of a vocation ordered to definite goods.
They think marriage exists to meet their needs (comfort, sex, admiration, peace, etc.).
In reality, marriage binds a man to give himself.
To build a stable domestic society and actively help his wife and children flourish.”
— Will Knowland
—
“Well done is better than well said.”
—Benjamin Franklin
—
“To be happy at home is the end of all labor.”
— Samuel Johnson
—
Progressives don’t really need to try to ramp up persecution of Christians in America because pastors and their congregants usually cave before the woke the mob as soon as it calls them names. Christians in America, for the most part, are no threat because they self-cancel and self-silence as soon as anything true/biblical becomes controversial. It doesn’t take for them to get steered by the left into a rather benign spot.
—
Too many pastors fear progressives more than they fear God.
—
“The “social conservatives” were right about everything. We have been right about everything for decades. Literally everything. We told you that if you tolerate euthanasia even for the terminally ill, even for the “extreme cases,” very soon it will be used to put down anyone the state deems inconvenient or burdensome. And that is exactly what has happened, just as we said it would.”
— Matt Walsh
—
Settlers built America. Immigrants came later, to take advantage of the freedom and opportunity those settlers created.
—
A feminist is a woman who, after you open the pickle jar for her, will tell you that you did it the wrong way instead of telling you “thanks.”
—
Postmillennialism means that in terms of the overall arc of history, it’s always a bull market for the kingdom of Christ.
Whereas John MacArthur said “we lose down here,” postmillennialism says “Christ wins down here.”
—
Husbands, if you want your wife to feel like a woman around you, you have to act like a man around her.
—
What’s ironic about the feminist slogan “the future is female” is that feminism destroys the future. You can either have women’s “liberation” or you can have a civilization with a future – but you can’t have both.
—
In Isaiah 6, the prophet sees the glory of God — the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up. The glory of God exposes Isaiah’s sin, and he cries out “Woe is me, for I am lost.”
But then Isaiah is forgiven — a seraphim touches his lips with a burning coal from the altar. Isaiah is forgiven, transformed, and strengthened.
The Lord asks for a messenger. And the same prophet who moments before exclaimed “woe is me!” now says “send me!”
This is the pattern of the Christian life — the same blazing glory that exposes the horror of our sin and also reveals the greatness of God’s grace. We move from guilt to forgiveness to mission, from being undone with a sense of our wickedness to being strengthened for service to kingdom.
—
The cross of Jesus reveals both the magnitude of our sin and the magnitude of God’s grace. The cross reveals the greatness of our sin, even as our sin reveals the greatness of God’s mercy.
At the cross, we see the just God becoming the Justifier of the unjust. The cross reveals our need and God’s provision to meet that need. At the cross, the holy God atones for our unholiness without compromising his own holiness.
—
Toxic masculinity on display:
—
Some people think Jesus taught as ascetic message and idealized a a life of poverty or simplicity. But did Jesus really preach asceticism? Did he really castigate owning anything above the bare necessities and call for us to live a minimalist lifestyle? Is it true that the godlier you are, the more you’ll pare down?
Those who hold this view would say that desiring anything above the essentials is greed. They will tell us if we have worldly goods that another person lacks, we have effectively stolen them from the person with less.
Those who take this view see Jesus as a quasi-socialist, a kind of first century Fidel Castro or Bernie Sanders, who attacked wealth and privilege and championed the poor unconditionally. They point out that Jesus elevated the pursuit of heavenly treasure above earthly treasure. Jesus, and Paul after him, called on God’s people to give generously and (at least at times) radically to help others in need.
But then there are those who say Jesus taught a message of abundance. He said “seek first the kingdom of God…and all these things will be added to you.” What are those things that will be added to us? In the context of Matthew 6, they are earthly goods. Just as the lilies are clothed in splendor greater than Solomon, so we can know our God delights in giving us an abundance of gifts. Luxuries do not have to be seen as evils for which we should be ashamed, but gifts for which we should overflow with gratitude.
Jesus promised an abundant life (John 10:10). He said that sacrifices made for him would be paid back, even to some degree even in this life (Matt. 19:29).
Scripture is full of righteous, godly men who were wealthy, from Abraham and Job to Joseph of Arimathea and members of Caesar’s own household. Jesus told parables in which the successful entrepreneur is the hero. He told parables about multiplying talents and making a return on investments and doing what you want with your own property. At times, Jesus sounds like a free market capitalist who has no interest in income equality.
How is it people can read Jesus’ teaching and come to such opposite conclusions? It’s not because Jesus contradicted himself but because his teaching on money is sophisticated, not facile. Who is right — those who teach as ascetic Jesus or those who teach an abundance Jesus?
It is certainly true that Jesus gave fierce warnings about wealth at times. But (following Jerry Bowyer and his magnificent book Takers Versus the Maker) we need to pay attention to when and where those warnings about wealth are given. His warnings about wealth and his attacks on wealthy individuals are concentrated entirely in the region of Judea when he is interacting with society’s ruling class. Note this carefully: Jesus’ warnings about wealth are not universal, they are focused on a particular group of people in a particular place. Every single example we have of Jesus speaking out against wealth and privilege occurs in or around Jerusalem where he meets powerful people who are part of the cultural and political elite — men like Zacchaeus in Luke 19, the rich young senator in Matthew 19, and the money changers in the temple. The people Jesus confronted about wealth are precisely those people who got rich off the backs of others, through a corrupt system of taxation and what we today would call cronyism.
This is not to say other groups of people are immune to the dangers of wealth. After all, other passages of Scripture (Deut. 8, Ecc. 5, various texts in Proverbs) do give more universalized warnings about the dangers and deceptions of wealth. But Jesus is polemical with the “takers” (as Bowyer calls them), not the “makers.”
We can draw easy analogies with our own day. Who would Jesus direct his harshest warnings about money against today? Not working class or middle class Americans who work hard producing something other people value. No, he would target the government bureaucrats and politicians who can use the state’s monopoly on violent extraction of wealth to enrich themselves at the expense of others. Have you ever wondered why two of the very wealthiest counties in the US are Montgomery County in Maryland and Fairfax County in the Virginia, two counties that happen to straddle Washington DC? Where does all that wealth come from? Not all of it is gained through corruption, but a lot of it is. The money comes from taxation (that is to say, from you and me), and from cronyism, e.g., backroom deals and insider information. This is what was happening in the first century and it drew the ire of Jesus. How is that people with rather ordinary levels of wealth get elected, go to DC, and 5 years later are ultra-wealthy? Why are those living inside the beltway so much better at picking stocks?
Note that when Jesus was in Galilee where there were middle class and upper middle class and sometimes quite wealthy small business owners (e.g., Zebedee, who clearly had a prosperous fishing enterprise), Jesus never attacked people for their wealth. These were farmers, carpenters, fishermen, etc., who generally got their wealth in honest ways in a market economy. They provided for themselves fair and square by serving others and providing goods that others valued. Jesus never criticizes honest wealth gained through hard work — and he was around many of these sorts of rich people who had gotten their gain in legitimate ways. We know from archaeology that Galilee in general was not a poor region. Of course, he did find things to criticize in Galilee (e.g., their ethno-exclusivism in Luke 4), but greed was not the main problem.
But when Jesus got close to Jerusalem, his tone shifted with regard to money. As he encounter the elite, he found many wealthy people who got their wealth from others by using Caesar’s power for their own benefit (e.g, tax collectors) or by corrupting the temple system. These are people who enriched themselves by extracting wealth from productive people. They might have provided some benefit to society but their wealth was not gained through a process of free exchange but through coercion. They had the power to oppress others economically and they often did so.
This is the point: Those who have to compete in a free market to make a living are less susceptible to oppressing the poor than those who have their hands on the levers of political power and can take money by force. Not all taxation is theft since tax money can have legitimate purposes, but those who have the power to tax must be very scrupulous about how they use that power, lest they fall into the pit of greed. It is very easy to use the power of the state to abuse people economically. (In Jesus’ day, this was also a danger for Jewish religious leaders since the temple was a kind of liturgical monopoly, but that is not as much of an issue in our day.)
There are a lot of implications of all of this but here is one: So far from being a socialist, Jesus actually attacks the very type of people who would administer a socialist system. Jesus was not a proto-socialist, he was firmly anti-socialist. After all, socialists use the power of government to pick winners and losers, to redistribute wealth as they choose. The entire system is predicated on cronyism. The government uses its monopoly on taxation to gather up wealth from the “makers” and distribute that wealth as it sees fit to the “takers.” But the biggest takers of all are often the government elites and bureaucrats themselves. It is a system that is inevitably corrupt — but the greed of the takers is disguised as “generosity” or “equity” or with some other benign term. The people who would run the socialist system are the very people Jesus attacks in the gospels.
Judas is perhaps the best example of this — and Bowyer points out that his surname indicates he was most likely a Judean. We also know he maintained the moneybag, ostensibly for the purpose of helping the poor, but he actually stole from it to enrich himself. He acts like a “social justice warrior” in John 12 when he criticizes Mary’s anointing of Jesus with expensive oil. Judas disguised his greed as concern for the poor — just like so many politicians today. When Jesus tells the rich young senator to go sell all, imagine him confronting Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi — these are they types he is warning about wealth. They talk about helping the poor but they game the system in their favor. People are right to be upset about how the economy today is rigged by the well connected elites, just as the people hated first century tax collectors for running a corrupt system, overcharging what the state required and pocketing the rest since no one could stop them. The powerful elites who prey upon those beneath them are condemned by Jesus — and should be condemned by us as well.
All that to say: It’s certainly true that Jesus cared for the poor and taught us to do the same. It is also true that he elevated heavenly treasure above earthly treasure. Caring for the poor, particularly fellow believers, is a Christian responsibility. But Jesus did not intend to make us feel guilty for enjoying wealth gained through hard and honest work. Ecclesiastes stresses that we are free to enjoy the fruits of our labors. 1 Timothy 6 makes the same point when it teaches that God provides all things richly for our enjoyment. There is a kind of asceticism that is demonic (1 Tim. 4), just as there is a kind of greed that is idolatrous (Col. 3:5). Jesus could be for or against wealth depending on how that wealth was acquired and how it was used. Wealth can be gained righteously or wickedly, and it can be used righteously or wickedly. There are righteous and wicked rich people, just like there are righteous and wicked poor people. The rich are not automatically condemned and the poor are not automatically justified. The world is more complicated than that.
—
Egalitarianism makes everyone and everything gay.
—
“The reality is that bull markets exist—and the arc of history is a bull market—because human ingenuity exists. The ability of human action to overcome the negatives of a fallen world and create an improving economic condition, evidenced in corporate profits, whereby we get the ability to buy that in the form of public and liquid stocks—that’s what the chart on the screen was measuring.
So I am a person who believes that the long-term thing is called a bull market. But along the way, there are things that you can call bull markets, and there are things you can call bear markets, and there are things called range-bound markets that we find ourselves in—and that is the clear testimony of history…What I know is that bear markets exist within the long-term reality of a bull market, and I invest in the context of a long-term bull market.”
— David Bahnsen
—
I am anti-anti-whiteness. But I am not pro-white, I am pro-Christ.
—
The man of hope is a man of action.
—
Lent is the season of glory and Holy Week is the week of glory.
It’s true that God reveals his glory in all times and places. His splendor radiates from everything he has made. But it is especially at the cross, in his victorious suffering, that his glory comes to ultimate revelation. The cross reveals the glory of God’s heart – the glory of self-giving love.
—
Democrats went off the moral rails long before the 1990s, particularly on abortion. But at least in the 90s there were still some Democrats who seemed to love America and want what was best for her, even if they were misguided in many ways. Clinton, for all his personal failings, signed into law the defense of marriage act, signed a somewhat meaningful welfare reform bill, and wanted to enforce immigration laws. Those were the good ol’ days compared to now.
Today, there are no more moderate Democrats. They’ve all been radicalized. Moderate, old school Democrats all became Republicans. The typical Democrat today hates his country and prioritizes illegal immigrants over his fellow citizens.
—
“You never met an old salt, down by the sea, who was in trouble because the tide been ebbing out for hours. No! He waits confidently for the turn of the tide, and it comes in due time. Yonder rock has been uncovered during the last half-hour, and if the sea continues to ebb out for weeks, there will be no water in the English Channel, and French will walk over from Cherbourg.
Nobody talks in that childish way, for such an ebb will never come. Nor will we speak as though the gospel would be routed, and eternal truth driven out of the land. We serve an almighty Master…
If our Lord does but stamp His foot, He can win for Himself all the nations of the earth against heathenism, a Mohammedanism, and Agnositicism, and Modern-thought, and every other foul error.
Who is he that can harm us if we follow Jesus? How can His cause be defeated? At His will, converts will flock to His truth as numerous as the sands of the sea… Wherefore be of good courage, and go on your way singing:
The winds of hell have blown
The world its hate hath shown,
Yet it is not o’erthrown.
Hallelujah for the Cross!
It shall never suffer loss!
The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge.””
— Charles Spurgeon
—
“The Scriptures, both of the Old and New Testament, clearly reveal that the gospel is to exercise an influence over all branches of the human family. immeasurably more extensive and more thoroughly transforming than any it has ever realized in time past. This end is to be gradually attained through the spiritual presence of Christ in the ordinary dispensation of Providence, and ministrations of his church.”
— A. A. Hodge
—
“The visible kingdom of Satan shall be overthrown, and the Kingdom of Christ set up on the ruins of it, everywhere throughout the whole habitable globe. Now shall the promise made to Abraham be fulfilled, that ‘jn-him andin bis secd all the families of the carth
shall be, blessedi and Christ, now shall besome the_desire of all
nations, agreeable to Haggai 2:7. Now the kingdom of Christ shall in the most strict and literal sense be extended to all na-tions, and the whole earth. There are many passages of Scripture that can be understood in no other sense What can be more universal than that in Isa. 11:9, For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.’ As much as to say, as there is no part of the channel or cavity of the sea any-where, but what is covered with water; so there shall be no part of the world of mankind but what shall be covered with the knowledge of God. So it foretold in Isa. 45:22, that all the ends of the earth shall look to Christ, and be saved. And to show that the words are to be understood in the most universal sense, it is said in the next verse, ‘I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear? So the most universal expression is used. Dan, 7:27
, ‘And the kingdom and
dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High God.’ You see the expression includes all under the whole
heaven.”
— Jonathan Edwards
—
“Before this second Advent, the following events must have occurred. The development and secular overthrow of Antichrist (2 Thess. 2:3-9; Dan. 7:24-26; Rev. 17, 18), which is the the Papacy. The proclamation of the Gospel to all nations, and the general triumph of Christianity over all false religions, in all nations (Ps. 72:8-11; Isa. 2:2-4; Dan. 2:44, 45; 7:14; Matt, 28: 12,20; Rom. 11:12, 15, 25; Mark 12:10; Matt. 24:14). The general and national return of the Jews to the Christian Church (Rom. 11)….”
— R. L. Dabney, summarizing biblical eschatology
—
“If the Church could be aroused to a deeper sense of the glory that awaits her, she would enter with a warmer spirit into the struggles that are before her.
Hope would inspire ardour. She would even new arise from the dust, and like the eagle plume her pinions for loftier flights than she has yet taken. What she wants, and what every individual Christian wants, is faith — faith in her sublime vocation, in her Divine resources, in the presence and efficacy of the Spirit that dwells in her — faith in the truth, faith in Jesus, and faith in God.
With such a faith there would be no need to speculate about the future. That would speedily reveal itself. It is our unfaithfulness, our negligence and unbelief, our low and carnal aims, that retard the chariot of the Redeemer. The Bridegroom cannot come until the Bride has made herself ready. Let the Church be in earnest after greater holiness in her own members, and in faith and love undertake the conquest of the world, and she will soon settle the question whether her resources are competent to change the face of the earth.”
— J. H. Thornwell on postmillennialism
—
James Henley Thornwell, diagnosing the ills of statism and democracy:
“Now whatever representations diminish the authority of the Divine law as the supreme rule, and make the State the creature and organ of popular will, as if an absolute sovereignty were vested in that, are equally repugnant to religion and the true conception of our government. An absolute democracy is the worst of all governments, because it is judicially cursed as treason against God, and is given over to the blindness of impulse and passion. I am afraid that in this matter we have trodden upon the verge of error, we have forgotten that the State is ordained of God, and that our relations to each other are those of mutual consultation and advice, while all are absolutely subject to Him.”
—
“The kingdom of heaven is continually growing and advancing to the end of the world.”
— John Calvin
—
“Christ was sent in order to bring the whole world under the authority of God and obedience to him.”
— John Calvin
—
What would the pro-headcovering crowd do if one of the ladies at church showed up with one of these gold beauties on her head?
—
“The problem with paedocommunion is that you would never excommunicate a three year old, so you are creating a functional age of accountability.”
It’s not that we wouldn’t excommunicate a young child – it’s just that it’s extremely rare to need to do so. I’ve never known a 3 year old apostate in my pastoral experience.
One case where a very young child could be excommunicated is if both parents stop going to church and apostatize. The entire family, young child included, would be excommunicated.
Another note on this: Scripture seems to indicate very young children are not just guilty of original sin but also commit actual sins, though I suppose it depends on how literally one takes a text like Psalm 58:3. See also Psalm 51:5. Accountability does not have an on/off switch. It’s a spectrum. Accountability increases over time with age and ability. Accountability for a very young child is minimal but I would not say there is no accountability whatsoever. Infants are subject to the curse of death. They have a sin nature. Folly is bound up in the heart of a child. Etc.
Apart from the paedocommunion issue, the Hodge/Thornwell debates over the revision of the Book of Discipline in the 1850s are interesting here. One of the issues debated was whether or not baptized (but non-professing/non-communing) children could be subject to discipline.
As I understand it, Thornwell wanted to revise the Book of Discipline to make it clear that baptized children still belong to the world and are not subject to discipline, whereas Hodge wanted them to be subject to censure even if they never became communing members. Might be relevant for those interested in studying this further in the Presbyterian/Reformed tradition.
—
“I will therefore give myself as a Christ to my neighbor, as Christ offered himself to me…
We ought… each one of us to become as it were a Christ to the other that we may be Christs to one another and Christ may be the same in all, that is, that we may be truly Christians…
And just as one member serves another in such an integrated body, so each one eats and drinks the other; that is, each consumes the other in every drink, and each one is food and drink to one another, just as Christ is simply food and drink to us. Through believing the word which the soul takes and receives into itself, we eat the Lord. My neighbor in turn eats me together with my possessions, my body and my life; I give him this and everything that I have and let him make use of everything in all his needs. In the same way when I in turn am poor and in trouble and need my neighbor, I’ll allow myself to be helped and served. And in this way we are made part of one another so that one helps the other just as Christ has helped us. This is what it means that we spiritually eat and drink one another.”
— Martin Luther
—
“It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour’s glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and must uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.
All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of
these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it
is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all
politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.
Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations — these are mortal, and their life is
to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work
with, marry, snub, and exploit — immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.
This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which
exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously — no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real
and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the
sinner–no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy
parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat
— the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.”
— C. S. Lewis
—
“He prays, but He hears prayer. He weeps, but He causes tears to cease. He is bruised and wounded, but He heals every disease and every infirmity. He is lifted up and nailed to the Tree, but by the Tree of
Life He restores us, yes, He saved even the robber crucified with Him. He dies, but He gives life, and by His death destroys death. He is buried, but He rises again; He goes down to Hell, but He brings up the souls; He ascends to heaven, and shall come again to judge the living and the dead.”
— Gregory of Nazianzus
—
TPC’s calling is to proclaim Jesus as king over Birmingham and press his crown rights into every area of life and culture.
—
This post makes several good points, but also indicates a bigger problem: Many things in our lives and our relationships should not be made public. People who use social media as a kind of public diary are making a huge mistake and undoubtedly have deep personal problems. Not all attention is good, and most online attention seeking is a form of narcissism. None of us were designed to make the most intimate details of our lives openly available to the public. Private things should generally stay private. We don’t need to know people’s sexual histories, the latest fight a couple has had, what you lifted in your most recent workout, or even what you had for breakfast. Social media is a kind of public sqaure. It’s a place for public discussion of public matters. Debate politics. Talk about culture. Engage in discussion over history or sports or movies. Argue theology. But keep the private details of your life where they belong — in private. Using social media to turn other people in voyeurs is a foolish misuse of the medium.
Related to the above, this post from Isker makes good points. We have established an attention economy where people will do just about anything for clicks. We have attention addicts – or maybe we should call them attention whores. This particularly afflicts young women who are easily exploited (and in many cases are practicing self-exploration). The strategy might change with seasons of life but the end goal of attracting virtual attention remains. We have to think about how what we make public to the entire world can haunt others, particularly a spouse and children.
Isker is also right about the value of stigma. Society was a tualky far healthier when we stigmatized immodesty, fornication, single motherhood, divorce, mental illness, etc. Now we glamorize all of these things – and so, as the law of incentives remains undefeated, we get more of them. You always get more of what you glamorize and less of what you stigmatize.
—
This is either incredibly dishonest or wildly ignorant.
Obviously, non-Christians are not going to know all the biblical jargon Christians use. But journalists (or should I say “journalists”?) who report on Christians have at least some obligation to understand what Christians are actually saying. It’s really not hard to grasp what Pastor Potteiger is talking about here. The suggestion that he is advocating violence is insane. He’s actually hoping Talarico would be converted to genuine faith in Christ. He wants to see Talarico saved.
Every Christian has been crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20). Every Christian is called to die to himself, to take up his cross, to deny himself, to put his flesh (fallenness) to death.
One of Satan’s tactics is false accusation. Early Christians were accused of cannibalism and atheism. Some things never change. Satanic slander of good men is one of them.
—
Fuentes has a point here – the biggest political enemy we face is liberal women:
—
At the cross, Jesus did not renounce his divine glory; rather, he expressed his divine glory in the ultimate way.
It’s as if Jesus says, “Here, let me show you what it means to be God.” And then he laid his life down on the cross. He poured himself out in self-giving, sacrificial love.
The cross does not obscure who God is. It is the ultimate manifestation of who God is.
—
John 12:32:
“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
They thought they were lifting him up on a cross. In reality, they were lifting him up on a throne.
They thought they were crucifying him. In reality they were coronating him.
—
“Men became scientific because they expected Law in Nature, and they expected Law in Nature because they believed in a Legislator.”
— C. S. Lewis on Christianity and the rise of science
—
Pilate sneered, “What is truth?” when Jesus stood trial before him.
But then Pilate went on to speak truth, time after time. Indeed, Pilate, like Caiaphas in John 11, unwittingly preached the gospel. Consider the words of Pilate in John 18-19:
“Are you the King of the Jews?” Yes, he is the King of the Jews.
“So you are a king?” Again, yes, he is a king – indeed, he is King of kings, the kingliest king of all kings.
“I find no guilt in him.” This is true – Jesus is innocent. In fact, he is sinless, which qualifies him to be a sacrificial substitute for sinners.
“See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him.” Again, Pilate is right – there is no guilt in Jesus. The guiltless will die for the guilty.
“Behold the man!” Yes, Jesus is man – he a true man and in fact THE true man. He is exactly what God made man to be. He is the perfect man – the perfect human, the perfectly male human. He is the New Adam, come to crush the serpent’s head.
“Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.” For a third time, Pilate declares Jesus is righteous. Even as Peter denies Jesus three times, Pilate declares Jesus’ innocence three times.
“Where are you from?” Pilaye knows better than the Jews what questions to ask. Jesus doesn’t answer because there is no need. He has already explained that he came from above, from his Father.
“You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” According to Roman law, Pilate is right. But he only has power that God has granted him. The Jews though their plans were unfolding in Jesus’ death; in reality, it was God’s plan being fulfilled. Pilate believed he had authority and Jesus was on trial before him; in reality, Jesus is in charge and Pilate is on trial.
“Behold your King!…Shall I crucify your King!” Pilate speaks truth once more: Jesus is indeed king. The Jews answer with blasphemy, “Crucify him!…We have no king but Caesar!”
—
What did Jesus mean when he cried out from the cross, ‘It is finished” in John 19?
Certainly, Jesus was making a soteriological statement. “It is finished” means he has drunk the cup of divine wrath against human sin. He has paid for and cancelled our debts. He has won the victory over sin, death, and Satan. The work of accomplishing our salvation is finished. It is complete. Nothing more needs to be done. “It is finished” means sinners have been saved.
These are the elements of the claim from cross we usually focus on, for obvious reasons.
But there is another angle on this cry from the cross.
“It is finished” = “It is fulfilled.”
“It is finished” is not just a soteriological claim. It is a prophetic claim. John has told the story of Jesus’ death in such a way as to highlight numerous prophecies Jesus is fulfilling in his death. Some examples:
Psalm 22:18 is fulfilled in John 19:23-24.
Psalm 69:21 is fulfilled in John 19:29-30.
Exodus 12:43-46 and Psalm 34:20 are fulfilled in John 19:33.
Psalm 22:15-17 is fulfilled in John 19:34.
The piercing of Jesus’ side in John 19:34 fulfills the typology of the woman’s creation in Genesis 2. See also Zechariah 12:10.
And so on — there are too many examples for me to list here.
Of course, the Old Testament is not just a bundle of prooftexts that Jesus fulfills like he is checking off boxes. The Old Testament is a comprehensive and coherent story that points ahead to what Jesus will do. But these Old Testament texts show us clearly how Jesus brought the entire old covenant to fulfillment. His claim “it is finished” does not just mean he has completed the work of accomplishing our redemption. It means he has finished — fulfilled — the plan of God, as foretold and foreshadowed in the old covenant Scriptures. The Old Testament was a story in search of ending; “It is finished” means has brought that story to its fitting and happy ending. he has brought the story to a bloody but glorious conclusion. All the lines of old covenant revelation converge upon him at the cross. He has finished the old covenant by fulfilling its types, shadows, promises, and prophecies.
—
Holy Week sums up what the season Lent is all about.
We think Lent is about suffering and gore, fasting and himiliation, grief and agony.
Well, yes, but more ultimately Lent is about glory. It is the season of glory. The suffering and the gore of the cross are a revelation of God’s glory. The fasting and humiliation of Jesus reveal the humility of God in stooping to serve his people and use his infinite strength for our good. The grief and agony unveil the self-giving love at the heart of God.
—
What’s the best thing the pope has ever done with his ex cathedra powers?
—
Very interesting:
—
Genesis 3:7:
[7] Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
Luke 24:16, 30-31:
[16] But their eyes were kept from recognizing him….[30] When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. [31] And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight.
Adam and Eve’s eyes were opened to their shame and guilt when they ate from the forbidden tree. When we take the Lord’s Supper today, our eyes are opened to the glory of the risen Christ. The effect of the Satanic sacramental meal of Genesis 3 is reversed by Jesus’ sacramental meal in Luke 24.
—
Jesus’ words at the last supper, “Do this in remembrance of me” should really be translated, “Do this as my memorial.”
The Lord’s Supper is a covenant memorial. It is not about our act of remembering, but calling on God to remember his promises. At the table, we are memorializing the new covenant before God. Like the rainbow, another covenant memorial, the Supper is a way of calling on God to make good on his Word.
When we eat and drink the bread and wine, we are proclaiming Jesus’ death to the Father. God sees and remembers his covenant, to forgive us and bless us.
—
Note that at the Last Supper, Jesus offered two distinct prayers of thanksgiving, one over the bread, one over the wine.
This is why the Supper has also been called the Eucharist – the word “Eucharist” means Thanksgiving.
Adam and his wife failed to give God thanks before eating in the Garden on Eden. Man has failed to give God thanks ever since (cf. Romans 1:21). At the last supper, Jesus doubles us the thanksgiving – it’s as if he is making restitution for what Adam stole from God. And he is training is to be a eucharistic people.
How many churches today offer two distinct prayers of thanksgiving when they celebrate the Lord’s Supper? At the table, Jesus commanded his disciples to “Do this” – and so we should do what he said, including the double thanksgiving over the bread and wine.
—
John 18:18:
[18] Now the servants and officers had made a charcoal fire, because it was cold, and they were standing and warming themselves. Peter also was with them, standing and warming himself.
John 21:9:
[9] When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, with fish laid out on it, and bread.
Peter denied Jesus standing around a charcoal fire.
Jesus restores Peter standing around a charcoal fire.
—
“Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant and cut off his right ear. (The servant’s name was Malchus.) So Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?””
— John 18:10-11
Peter tried to be the hero. He is ready to take on a whole band of Roman soldiers. But Jesus doesn’t need a hero — he is the ultimate hero himself. Peter must learn the real heart of discipleship is depending on Jesus. It’s not what we can do for Jesus, but what Jesus has done for us that makes us true disciples.
Peter tried to save Jesus from the cross, not realizing Jesus is about to save him by going to the cross. Just as in Matthew 16, so in John 18, Peter stumbles over the cross. Peter was ready to die for Jesus – but what he needs is for Jesus to die for him. Only after Jesus dies for Peter’s sins, can Peter go on to die for Jesus in the right way.
Jesus lets Peter fall away later that night so he can learn his need for grace and strength that only come through the cross. The would-be hero betrays his Lord before a mere servant girl. Why? Peter thought he could stand in his own strength, so he fell. But having died for Peter, Jesus is able to raise him up again.
Peter thought salvation could come through the sword. But Jesus will save without a sword. Or to put it another way: He will save us by the sword that comes from his mouth – the sword of the Spirit, the preaching of God’s Word.
ADDENDUM: The sword cannot bring salvation. Only the cross does that.
But it does have a proper use in the hands of the redeemed
—
Judas was woke. Judas was a social justice warrior. Judas was a socialist. Judas feigned care for the poor as a way of lining his own pockets, just like today’s leftist politicians. Judas was an embezzler, cloaking his love of money underneath pretended care for the poor.
Not only that, but Judas was cheap. He complained that Mary of Bethany spent 300 denarii worth of perfume to worship Jesus. For a mere fraction of that (probably a tenth), Judas betrayed Jesus. Driven by greed, he would betray the innocent God-man to his death. Judas loved money and so he could steered by those who offered him money as a bribe.
“Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it.”
— John 12:3-5
—
“But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
— Matthew 3:7-12
Ah, yes, John the Baptist, model of winsomeness. No doubt, if he were around today, all the Big Eva pastors would rebuke him for being legalistic (since he demanded repentance and fruit) and harsh (since he threatened sinners with hellfire). But the truth is, we need more fire and brimstone preaching. We need more John the Baptist type preaching and less (as in none) Andy Stanley type preaching.
—
As users of hallucogenic drugs lose touch with reality, they gain touch with demons.
These drugs open the door to demonic deception and manipulation.
—
Theology matters because truth matters and truth matters because Jesus is The Truth.
—
“I think I can understand that feeling about a housewife’s work being like that of Sisyphus (who was the stone rolling gentleman). But it is surely in reality the most important work in the world. What do ships, railways, miners, cars, government etc exist for except that people may be fed, warmed, and safe in their own homes? As Dr. Johnson said, “To be happy at home is the end of all human endeavour”. (1st to be happy to prepare for being happy in our own real home hereafter: 2nd in the meantime to be happy in our houses.) We wage war in order to have peace, we work in order to have leisure, we produce food in order to eat it. So your job is the one for which all others exist.”
— CS Lewis on motherhood
—
“No nation can survive once women leave their domestic virtues and modesty.”
— John Adams, 1778
—
A note on working wives/mothers:
Too many married couples only consider the financial bottom line and not other things that have an equal or greater impact on the quality of their marriage and family life. The reality is that a woman’s “homemaking” work, if done well, really does take a lot of time/energy and it’s not good for a marriage if a wife is exhausted all the time. It’s good for a wife to have margin in her life. It’s not as much fun to be married to a wife who is tired or stressed all the time. In many ways, women are the glue that hold a home and the community together.
It’s also worth noting that a working wife often makes very little by the time all the other expenses are deducted out, especially if she cannot make meals and so you go out to eat more. It’s all part of the scam that is feminism.
The most important thing is for a wife to develop a vision for what it means to be the heart of the home — a homemaker. Most women today don’t think about being a “worker at home” much because we have hollowed out the home. But a well managed home is an invaluable blessing, and, again, takes a lot of effort and skill. I think some women have the idea that what happens at home is not important, or that there really isn’t anything to learn about being a wife — it will just all come naturally. That’s not true.
My wife did work the first few years of our marriage, but it was really a financial necessity. Once we had our first child, she was home full time. She went back to work on a partime basis at the school after all our kids were there. But the job was just 4 days a week, and had no take home work, so it left her with some flexibility while helping us cover tutition. Having her completely free in this stage of life is a great blessing. Sure, she could make a little extra money if she worked, but I value her flexibility and margin more than whatever paycheck she could bring in at this point. It’s not only a blessing to me, but to many others, that she has extra bandwidth — though she stays plenty busy! In general, a man’s life should be hard and a woman’s life should be soft — obviously the wife should work hard, like the man, but it should not be the kind of work that stresses and drains her. It should not be the kind of work that will harden or masculinize her. Bearing burdens (especially financial), protecting a wife from getting overextended, allowing her to have plenty of margin for ministry, hospitality, etc., are all ways a husband can lead his family well.
I see a lot of families where the wife works full time and they just seem exhausted and on the edge all the time. It’s no way to live, unless absolutely necessary. In those situations, all to often the most important things get neglected for the sake of maintaining a crazy schedule/lifestyle. Sadly, we live in a world in which the stay at home wife/mom is considered low status compared to the career woman, but this is exactly backwards. A man with a wife at home is making the ultimate flex in today’s world.
—
Note on the CREC, PCA, covenant children, and the way towards resolution:
Questions about covenant objectivity, sacramental efficacy, who can be called a Christian, and even apostasy, are really all fundamentally questions about the church. In fact, I would say this entire discussion boils down to who really believes what WCF 25.2 says about the church. But I’ll unpack that a bit.
WCF 25.2 says the visible church is the kingdom, house, and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.
WCF 28.1 says baptism admits the party baptized to the visible church — the kingdom, house, and family of God.
Note that everyone baptized enters the visible church.
That means every person baptized, including children, should be regarded as members of the kingdom, house, and family of God.
It’s just WCF 25.2 + WCF 28.1 — that’s sum total of the CREC view.
And that means that if someone abandons the faith and gets excommunicated, they have lost their membership in the kingdom, house, and family of God. We don’t have to say anything specifically about their regeneration (since that term has a variety of meanings in our tradition).
If we could just agree on those simple statements from the confession, I think everything else pretty much resolves itself and falls into place. That’s really all I would ask for: treat covenant/baptized children as members of the kingdom, house, and family of God.
My concern with the PCA on these issues is that, in general, they simply do not uphold the language and categories of their own confession and catechisms. I spent a lot of years in the PCA and rarely if ever heard the sacraments referred to as “effectual means of salvation” the way WSC 91 does. I rarely heard the threefold answer to WSC 85 articulated. I rarely heard the visible church described as “the kingdom house, and family of God.” The category of “common operations of the Spirit” in WCF 10.6 — operations of the Spirit common to covenant/church members who persevere and those who do not — was generally ignored.
Maybe I’m wrong, or things have changed since I left, but when I was in the PCA, most pastors objected to calling a newly baptized baby a member of God’s kingdom and family, even though the plain language of our confession demands it. I think this is because most of them are Baptists at heart, so what counts is not membership in the visible church, but some kind of conversion experience later on. That’s foreign to the the confession’s way of thinking.
As for calling baptized babies “Christians” the men who wrote the Confession, the Westminster divines, also produced a Directory for the Publick Worship of God. (https://thewestminsterstandard.org/directory-for-the-publick-worship-of-god/). In that Directory, in the section on “The Administration of the Sacraments,” they state, “Before baptism, the minister is to use some words of instruction, touching the institution, nature, use, and ends of this sacrament, shewing….That the promise is made to believers and their seed; and that the seed and posterity of the faithful, born within the church, have, by their birth, interest in the covenant, and right to the seal of it, and to the outward privileges of the church, under the gospel, no less than the children of Abraham in the time of the Old Testament; the covenant of grace, for substance, being the same; and the grace of God, and the consolation of believers, more plentiful than before: That the Son of God admitted little children into his presence, embracing and blessing them, saying, For of such is the kingdom of God: That children, by baptism, are solemnly received into the bosom of the visible church, distinguished from the world, and them that are without, and united with believers; and that all who are baptized in the name of Christ, do renounce, and by their baptism are bound to fight against the devil, the world, and the flesh: That they are Christians, and federally holy before baptism, and therefore are they baptized…”
Note that last line: According to the Westminster divines, covenant children are to be called Christians even before baptism — and are to be baptized for that reason. But how many PCA pastors would say they are baptizing a Christian when they baptize a baby?
The divines also apply the language of Matthew 18, Jesus saying covenant children belong to the kingdom of God, to infant baptism. Again, are we willing to say “for of such is the kingdom of God “ about our covenant children?
Basically, the CREC vs PCA debate over these things is high church Calvinism vs. revivalistic Calvinism. But the Westminster divines, whatever shortcomings they may have had, were definitely not revivalists.
—
A note on paedobaptism, paedofaith, and the Reformed tradition:
The Westminster divines did not address infant faith, but in their Directory for Public Worship, they called covenant children Christians even before baptism. At the very least, it would be odd to call them “Christians” if they have no faith (or seed of faith) whatsoever. Likewise, it would be odd for the Synod of Dordt to confess that covenant children dying in infancy are saved, but without faith (or a seed of faith). The early Reformers didn’t really develop the doctrine of paedofaith (hence my book) but it’s implicit in much of what they say about covenant children. The early Reformation put a big emphasis on the intellectual element of faith for obvious reasons given their context; the later generation of scholastics did even moreso, which eventually had a detrimental effect on the status of covenant children. Calvin’s doctrine of “seed faith” in covenant infants was still taught by a lot of Puritans, but it was never an emphasis and not developed. I wrote my book to address that lack of development.
What’s the alternative to paedofaith? All infants, including covenant infants, dying in infancy go to hell? Covenant infants are saved, but without faith, crerating a massive loophole in the ordo salutis (“justification by youth alone,” as Sproul, Jr. once put it)? Creating an age of accountability (which entails denying original sin)?
Since we have explicit declarations of paedofaith in Scripture, it’s the most obvious solution to the problem. That’s not to say we know everything about paedofaith that we’d like to know, but the more we learn about infancy from other domains, the more a theology of paedofaith makes sense.
WCF 10.3 says infants can be regenerated — but is possible to have regeneration without also being given the gift of faith, which in every other case would be the fruit of regeneration?
And then we still have to deal with the mentally incapcitated, the Christians who get Alzheimer’s and dementia in old age, etc.
Rob Rayburn’s paper “The Presbyterian Doctrine of Covenant Succession” is must reading — and his footnotes will give you a lot of other things to read. Rayburn relies heavily on Lewis Schneck’s “The Presbyterian Doctrine of Children in the Covenant,” which is also worth a read. Rayburn’s PCA position paper on paedocommunion is also worth looking at.
Cornelius Burges’ The Baptismal Regeneration of Elect Infants is worth reading — he was a Westminster divine so his book gives you an idea of the range of beliefs held by the divines themselves.
Thomas Manton was also a Westminster divine. I recently posted some of his thoughts on infant faith and the salvation of infants dying in infancy.
I did not use Manton in the Paedofaith book because his discussion is too meandering and I don’t agree with all of his language/qualifications. But he certainly affirmed seed faith and the salvation of covenant infants dying in infancy.
See also Leithart’s “Sociology of Infant Baptism,” “Daddy, Why Was I Excommunicated?,” and “Do Baptists Talk to Their Babies?” Jeff Meyers’ essay “Presbyterian Examine Thyself” is a good overview of the issues with 1 Cor 11.
—
A note on the half-way covenant:
To understand why the Reformed church in America has gone the direction it has, we need to understand the rigorism of the half-way covenant, which persisted in various forms for a long time after the controversy died down. In a nutshell, this is what happened: Some Puritans (who were obviously paedobaptists) adopted a very rigorous view of admission of the Lord’s Supper — much the way extreme Reformed Baptists do with baptism today. So in Puritan New England, you had a lot of people who were baptized as infants but never became communing members even though they went to church every Sunday and lived “normal” Christian lives. Were they members in good standing or not, even though they never came to the table? When those people got married and had kids, they wanted to get them baptized — but can the pastor baptize the children of non-communing (but not excommunucated) church members? Jonathan Edwards’ grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, along with other pastors, came to the conviction that the Lord’s Supper could be a “converting ordinance.” Stoddard proposed the “half-way covenant” as a solution — which got him a reputation for being lax. The logic that made the half-way covenant plausible downgraded the importance of the sacraments and put all the emphasis on the “conversion experience,” which paved the way for baptistic revivalism. A better solution would have been for Stoddard to fully affirm the church membership of baptized infants. But the half-way covenant controversy points to the fact that these matters have been controversial amongst Reformed people for a long time.
—
It seems to me paedocommunion is closer to the teaching of Calvin and Westminster than modern Presby-baptists.
WCF 25.2 (the visible church consists of thoe who profess the true religion and their children, and defined is the kingdom, house, and family of God) + 28.1 (baptism admits the one baptized to the visible church, which is the kingdom, house, and family of God) covers everything paedocommunionists in the CREC are getting at. Of course, some people might admit that baptized children are members of the kingdom, house, and family and still find a reason in 1 Cor. 11 to not give them the supper — obviously, that’s what the divines themselves did — but as Rayburn pointed out, at the very least, paedocommunion is consistent with classic Reformed ecclesiology and covenant theology. Traditional Calvinists and Presbyterians believed in the church membership of baptized infants — and thus, covenant nurture rather than crisis conversionism was their paradigm for parenting. We need to recover that.
—
Therapy culture medicalizes sin. It turns people inward on themselves rather than outward to Jesus. It alleviates guilt rather using conviction to drive the afflicted person to the gospel.
—
“Everything you think of as wokeness involves prioritizing the feminine over the masculine: empathy over rationality, safety over risk, cohesion over competition.”
— Helen Andrews
—
G. K. Chesterton explained wokeness 100+ years ahead of time:
““When a religious scheme is shattered, it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone.”
—
“All churches either rise or fall as the [pastoral] ministry doth rise or fall, (not in riches and worldly grandeur) but in knowledge, zeal and ability for their work.”
— Richard Baxter
TPC Pastor's Page 