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A La Carte (4/3)
- 04/03/09
- 9
The Magician's Nephew
Russell Moore writes about The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and The Magician's Nephew and gives his take on which comes first. I agree with him. "The Magician's Nephew is what would be called in today's film lingo a "prequel," rather than a beginning. The narrative takes place chronologically before the other stories. But it makes sense only when read after them. That's because it ties together loose ends and throws further light on the origins behind some of the characters and plotlines readers have already grown to know."
ESV Free for Kindle
The ESV is currently available for the Kindle for free!
The Europeanization of America
Mark Steyn: "Most Americans don't yet grasp the scale of the Obama project. The naysayers complain, oh, it's another Jimmy Carter, or it's the new New Deal, or it's LBJ's Great Society applied to health care... You should be so lucky. Forget these parochial nickel'n'dime comparisons. It's all those multiplied a gazillionfold and nuclearized - or Europeanized, which is less dramatic but ultimately more lethal."
The Modesty of Personal Restraint
Lydia Brownback pens a fantastic article about single women and the modesty of personal restraint. Though most people, when they think of modesty think of necklines and hemlines, "We are just as prone--if not more so--to overexpose what's under our skin. Revealing too much about ourselves is immodest too."
The Public Rebuke of False Teachers
James MacDonald: "I do not view Brian as an 'erring weaker brother,' worthy of sympathy or olive branches, but rather as a dangerous false teacher who repackages mainline liberal theology. (Have the past 50 years not been adequate to see how liberal theology empties churches and damns souls?) More dangerous still is that McLaren packages his false teaching and denials of Scripture as solutions to some of the excesses currently plaguing evangelicalism--the danger being his winning over of young people who have legitimate complaints about the current church, but who lack the discernment to see that his solutions are often unbiblical even when his critiques are fair."
Easter and Commercialism
Slate suggests why Easter stubbornly resists the commercialism that swallowed Christmas. "So what enables Easter to maintain its religious purity and not devolve into the consumerist nightmare that is Christmas? Well, for one thing, it's hard to make a palatable consumerist holiday out of Easter when its back story is, at least in part, so gruesome. Christmas is cuddly. Easter, despite the bunnies, is not." And incisive quote: "Easter is an event that demands a 'yes' or a 'no.' There is no 'whatever.'"
With the Debt, I Thee Wed
Owen Strachan looks to the reality of so many young couples entering marriage burdened with huge debts.
The Blackaby View of God's Will
Dan Phillips is looking at Henry and Richard Blackaby's very popular but very faulty view of God's will and making decisions.
Russell Moore writes about The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and The Magician's Nephew and gives his take on which comes first. I agree with him. "The Magician's Nephew is what would be called in today's film lingo a "prequel," rather than a beginning. The narrative takes place chronologically before the other stories. But it makes sense only when read after them. That's because it ties together loose ends and throws further light on the origins behind some of the characters and plotlines readers have already grown to know."
ESV Free for Kindle
The ESV is currently available for the Kindle for free!
The Europeanization of America
Mark Steyn: "Most Americans don't yet grasp the scale of the Obama project. The naysayers complain, oh, it's another Jimmy Carter, or it's the new New Deal, or it's LBJ's Great Society applied to health care... You should be so lucky. Forget these parochial nickel'n'dime comparisons. It's all those multiplied a gazillionfold and nuclearized - or Europeanized, which is less dramatic but ultimately more lethal."
The Modesty of Personal Restraint
Lydia Brownback pens a fantastic article about single women and the modesty of personal restraint. Though most people, when they think of modesty think of necklines and hemlines, "We are just as prone--if not more so--to overexpose what's under our skin. Revealing too much about ourselves is immodest too."
The Public Rebuke of False Teachers
James MacDonald: "I do not view Brian as an 'erring weaker brother,' worthy of sympathy or olive branches, but rather as a dangerous false teacher who repackages mainline liberal theology. (Have the past 50 years not been adequate to see how liberal theology empties churches and damns souls?) More dangerous still is that McLaren packages his false teaching and denials of Scripture as solutions to some of the excesses currently plaguing evangelicalism--the danger being his winning over of young people who have legitimate complaints about the current church, but who lack the discernment to see that his solutions are often unbiblical even when his critiques are fair."
Easter and Commercialism
Slate suggests why Easter stubbornly resists the commercialism that swallowed Christmas. "So what enables Easter to maintain its religious purity and not devolve into the consumerist nightmare that is Christmas? Well, for one thing, it's hard to make a palatable consumerist holiday out of Easter when its back story is, at least in part, so gruesome. Christmas is cuddly. Easter, despite the bunnies, is not." And incisive quote: "Easter is an event that demands a 'yes' or a 'no.' There is no 'whatever.'"
With the Debt, I Thee Wed
Owen Strachan looks to the reality of so many young couples entering marriage burdened with huge debts.
The Blackaby View of God's Will
Dan Phillips is looking at Henry and Richard Blackaby's very popular but very faulty view of God's will and making decisions.
I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a husband to Aileen and a father to three young children. I write books and blogs for fun while doing web design and consulting for a living. I worship and serve at 
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Comments (9)
I'm heading over to read this article, but just yesterday we received a flying in the mail with the following banner:"Easter costs less at WalMart!"
I want to remember what it really cost...
I do not at all agree with your assessment of Lydia Brownback's article. I am sick and tired of articles trying to portray women, especially single women, as nothing more than a temptation for men. Single women are no more prone to over-sharing than are married women...or men, for that matter. I've worked with too many men who think every person, male or female, in sight wants to know all their emotional and relational problems. Over-sharing is unhealthy for anyone, period. Everyone should have close friends whom they trust and can talk to - not everyone they know. But seeking to sexualize all male and female relationships is wrong. Paul told Timothy to treat younger women as sisters, with all purity!!! He didn't say avoid them, or don't talk to them, or don't be their friend. Jesus had female friends. We need to be models of purity in our culture, whether male or female, married or single, not either give in to impurity or flirtatiousness (which I consider a sin with anyone but your own spouse), nor living like the opposite gender has nothing but sexual thoughts about us. That is stupid, untrue ... and unbiblical. Live and work like pure brothers and sisters.
In the article on McLaren, MacDonald mentions Paul's condemnation of Hymeneus and Philetus. That's more appropriate to the situation that he might realize -- McLaren has recently embraced the heresy of full preterism(more accurately called hyperpreterism or neohymenaeanism). Even if his emergent beliefs weren't enough to brand him a heretic, his denial of the future bodily return of Christ and the bodily resurrection and judgment of the dead would be.
Sue makes some good points about male-female friendships, and I think we ALL do well to heed Brownback's thesis, not just single women. We are prone to much self-deception in this arena, and because there is a much larger "singles"culture than in the past, there is much greater temptation to believe that "we're just friends" when in reality much more is at work. Many have been hurt by thinking that they were "just friends" only to find out later that much emotional capitol has been invested.
Mark Steyn is one of the funniest and most insightful political commentators out there today. Thanks for the article. He makes his points with a bit of wit, but there's nothing funny about what's coming given our present course.
Regarding the article on debt, I am thankful that I was born in one of those socialist hell-holes across the Atlantic (UK) where the government paid for my college education out of taxes.
Peter - YOU might be thankful, but your descendants won't be when the money runs out and your country is under Shariah Law and there is no UK anymore.
The re-ordering of The Chronicles of Narnia by the publisher is one of those things that makes me hopping mad. Whoever came up with that idea simply could not have known the story well -- not really well. The Magician's Nephew is a "prequel," or a "flashback" that makes ten times more sense when you've read the other books. I would almost go so far as to say a person encountering the story for the first time, and reading The Magician's Nephew first would justifiably be bored by parts of it. Only when you know that what's happening is the beginning of the Narnia that you already love is it compelling.
Peter - the government didn't pay for your education, the people who pay taxes paid for your education.
Thanks for linking to the review of the Blackaby's book on Pyro by Dan Phillips. That was a well written article and drew many true conclusions.
Obama is spoken of in Col 2:8 "See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits1 of the world, and not according to Christ."