Sep 17, 2017 | Explanatory Power
Death is ugly. Jesus himself agreed, as we can surmise from his response to the death of his friend Lazarus. Standing before the tomb where his dead friend had been buried four days Scripture says, “Jesus wept.” Why in the world would Jesus cry when in moments he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead? Because he saw, powerfully, what he created as good (Col. 1:15-17) experiencing the horrific effects of the Fall: Death. Paul says that “the wages of sin is death,” and the Lord God says to Adam in the Garden of Eden (Eve had not yet been created) that if he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he would surely die. This is why we cry. Death is . . . . wrong!
I felt emotions of despair this morning when I learned that Nabeel Qureshi, all of 34 years old, had finally had succumbed to the cancer that had begun to ravage his body a bit over a year ago. Part of the reason the death of this stranger effected me is because I’ve been praying for him since I learned of his diagnosis. Yet he experienced all too soon the wages of sin that we will all experience one day. There is nothing in life so as inevitable as death, and something we need to reflect on more.
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Sep 14, 2017 | Gratitude
Having moved to Florida a few months ago, I wasn’t exactly expecting to experience a hurricane so soon, especially given that where we moved (the Tampa area) hasn’t had a direct hit since 1921. I guess we’re just good luck! Of course I don’t believe in luck, but in the sovereign, providential hand of Almighty God. But we didn’t get to experience the hurricane because we chickened out and left the state to environs well north to stay with family for a few days.
The word gratitude is a strange one to associate a “natural” disaster, unless the disaster was somehow escaped. I put the word natural in quotes because the basic assumption of people who live in the 21st century secular West is that the universe, and nature, is a closed system. In other words, even if they admit a God into the picture, he/she/it is a God similar to what Enlightenment Deists believed about God. He was to them an all-powerful Creator who built the machine, got it up and running, and let it do it’s thing based on “natural” laws. Orthodox, Bible-believing Christians know of no such God.
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Sep 4, 2017 | Culture, Notable Quotations
I signed the Nashville Statement because I stand with Biblical orthodoxy, which is inseparable from God’s creation mandate and definition of gendered personhood found in Genesis 1:27: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female, he created them”. The soul is God’s fingerprint on humanity, but the gendered body—essentially and ontologically male or female—will also, for the believer in Jesus Christ, be glorified and resurrected in the New Jerusalem.
I signed the Nashville Statement because my conscience compels me so, because the promises of liberty on the world’s terms are false and deceptive, and because many who currently claim to have Christ’s forgiveness and salvation must be called to account for leading good people astray with false promises and filthy lies.
I signed the Nashville Statement because the wolves are prowling, and the lions are roaring, and because they are bold and proud of their heresy, and because you must be warned.
By God through the merit and power of Jesus Christ, here I stand.
—Rosaria Butterfield: “Why I Signed the Nashville Statement”
Sep 2, 2017 | Theology
In case you’re not familiar with the Burning Man Festival, it happens in the Nevada desert every year for nine days around Labor Day. And what a nine days it is.
I initially thought the title was a bit retrograde, a pre-feminist name for an event so post-modern that it goes full circle to become totally pagan. Look at the pictures and you’ll see what I mean: Woodstock on post-modern steroids. But shouldn’t it be called Burning Person Festival? My daughter quipped that maybe it is totally feminist after all because feminists want to burn men. I’ll confess, I hadn’t thought of that. But I think more is going on with the name, as I’ll conjecture below.
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Aug 30, 2017 | Truth
By now most Americans are familiar with “Charlottesville.” I understand there was a protest in that city that had something to do with race. A group of people called “white nationalists,” which I gather is not a good thing, and some Nazis, never a good thing, we’re protesting something. It’s not important. There was a ruckus, people were hurt, and one young woman was killed by a car driven by one of those “white nationalist” people. Ugliness all around. That another group of people was there who were not “white nationalists” doesn’t seem to have been an important part of the equation, so we were told.
As usually happens around events like these, the secular, liberal media always uses the occasion to affirm what a rotten racist country America is. We’re never allowed to put behind us that slavery was part of our history; white people will bear the guilt of America’s original sin forever. Those of the left are also consistent in their affirmation that America still suffers a race problem, and that white people need to admit it, and . . . . well, I’m not quite sure what comes after the guilt and shame of admitting I’m a racist, even if I don’t know it or think I am. Something about dialogue, and caring and . . . like I said, I’m not quite sure.
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