Elizabeth, responding to a pastor’s recent tweet, says we teach our children they are whole. What say you? “Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection…As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, “Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody.” … [My dark side says,] I am... Read more
From Thom Rainer: An experiment I tried several years ago, though, might prove instructive. When I was a pastor in St. Petersburg, Florida, I gave a survey to the twelve deacons in the church (I jokingly said we had eleven good deacons and one Judas!). I listed several congregational responsibilities and asked them to share the minimum amount of time I should average in each area each week. I listed about twenty areas; but they were free to add other responsibilities to... Read more
Imagine a world where the worst of offenders or the least conforming or the most offensive — in other words, sinners — are restored to the table of fellowship. That’s what Jesus exhorts the Pharisees and legal experts to imagine when he tells the parable of the “prodigal son” (which you can read after the jump). Again, the Pharisees and legal experts are offended by Jesus’ behavior of welcoming tax collectors and sinners to the table. Jesus’ response is to... Read more
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The impact is evidently softening. From Adam Grant: WHAT makes some men miserly and others generous? What motivated Bill Gates, for example, to make more than $28 billion in philanthropic gifts while many of his billionaire peers kept relatively tightfisted control over their personal fortunes? New evidence reveals a surprising answer. The mere presence of female family members — even infants — can be enough to nudge men in the generous direction. In a provocative new study, the researchers Michael Dahl,... Read more
A few weeks ago I started a series on a book by Gerald Rau Mapping the Origins Debate: Six Models of the Beginning of Everything. In this book Rau tries to categorize and organize the various views that Christians take on the question of origins. He outlines six models and then analyzes how the philosophy behind each model impacts the positions that people take on the origin of the universe, the origin of life, the origin of species, and the... Read more
Imagine a world, Jesus once told his followers, where lost people get found. Jesus told three such parables, we call them the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son. I want to dabble with the first two today. We need to begin at the beginning: Jesus is eating with the wrong people: tax collectors and sinners. They are as much a stereotype as the Pharisees and legal experts who are inspecting Jesus’ evening behaviors at meals. We’ve got... Read more
From Derek Leman: In Weight of Glory, Lewis calls this a “desire for our own far off country.” That may sound like a leap of logic, but it is a supposition. We “remain conscious of a desire which no natural happiness will satisfy.” And if we admit that this is true, suppose it is because we were made for another world. If we started with that supposition, we would expect to find longings for our true world in this one. The longing... Read more
Same-Sex Marriage and the Law By David W. Opderbeck. David Opderbeck is Professor of Law at Seton Hall University Law School and is a doctoral candidate in Philosophical Theology at the University of Nottingham. He blogs at Through a Glass Darkly. As everyone knows, the Supreme Court has finally announced its decisions in this term’s “gay marriage” cases, Hollingsworth v. Perry and United States v. Windsor. This is the second of six (I think) posts I will offer on these... Read more
Parables sometimes get a bum rap. For too many and for too long Christians have read the parables as illustrations of propositions found more clearly in other texts. So, it is argued, Jesus gives a parable about the pearl of great price — a parable that seemingly tells his followers to give it all up for the value of that pearl. The story, so it is understood, is almost cute and surely it is clever, but if you want the... Read more
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