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A La Carte (7/26)
- 07/26/10
- 10
The Trellis and the Vine - The paperback edition of The Trellis and the Vine is now out and Westminster Books has it for sale at half price. It is an excellent book and as close to a must-read as they get. Buy one for yourself and one for your pastor!
The Good Christian Girl - I like the beginning and middle of this article more than the end, but either way it still has some good and interesting things to say about loading young women with expectations. “Once there was a good Christian girl who dreamed of growing up, getting married, and having children. She read all the right books and did all the right things. She read about how she was a princess in God’s sight and how he wanted the very best for her. She committed herself to sexual purity, to high standards, and to waiting for the good Christian man that God was going to bring her.”
Humbled(?) Haggard - You knew this was going to happen sooner rather than later. “The Rev. Ted Haggard stood at a pulpit made from stacked buckets one recent Sunday and announced his resurrection.” Notable bits from the story: “He acknowledged grave lapses of judgment in the episode he refers to as ‘my crisis.’ But Mr. Haggard also said that in his sorrow and shame, he accepted too much guilt after the scandal broke. ‘I over-repented,’ he said.” And “Mr. Haggard, who said he draws a weekly salary of $300 from St. James, said he founded the church as an act of humble repentance, because it forces him continually to confront his sin.”
A One-Pixel Sun - This graphic (which takes a while to load) starts with the sun being a single pixel and shows the relative size of some of the other stars in the universe.
New Calvinism - R.C. Sproul was recently featured in the Orlando Sentinel. “At 71, Sproul is one of the old guard in what’s known as the ‘New Calvinism’ movement, which Time magazine identified in 2009 as one of the ‘10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now.’ Sproul has influenced a generation of younger conservative evangelists and this month announced the creation of a Bible college on his Sanford compound that could extend his influence for generations.”
Sketchy Characters - How accurate are police sketches? Here’s a round-up. The results are, well, not so good.
Information Overload - Here’s an old video where Ted Koppel discusses an issue that is still relevant.
I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a husband to Aileen and a father to three young children. I worship and serve as a pastor at 
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Comments (10)
That “good Christian girl” article comes across as a bit of a caricature - they should have had a follow-up where a different “good Christian girl”, recognizes fairly early on the folly of her well-meaning friends (as Job did) and instead consults Scripture for its superior wisdom and advice. Like Abigail, she recognizes that when men fail to take the initiative, it’s okay for women to pick up the slack (to the men’s great shame). Like Ruth, she hints and flirts and puts herself in the path of the guy she’s interested in. She commits her way to the Lord, and regularly brings her dreams and desires before him in prayer, but prefers God’s will over her own, and presents herself as a living sacrifice, even if it means some desires go unfulfilled. And like Sarah, the Lord works her story out according to his sovereign purposes, for His glory and her glorification, on his own timetable.
“I cuss now,” he said proudly.
Lord have mercy. :(
Very interesting article on Haggard. Funny that he says in one breath that he ‘over repented’ and in another denies that he struggles with homosexual temptation or that he did anything really wrong. Sounds more like under-repentance to me, or better yet, non-repentance.
The “good christian girl” article attempts to make a mockery of Biblical child raising. The author appears to be saying “it’s everyone else’s fault she ran off with a non-Christian.” The girl should have learned discernment early one, to be able to discern if the advice she was getting was Biblical advice vs. worldly advice. The girl attempts to please everyone else, swaying back and forth depending on the view of others, like “a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” (Jam. 1:8)
Regarding Rev. Haggard:
How does one “over-repent” ? The concept is as ludicrous as the idea of “under-sinning” wouldn’t you say…?
This man continues to need our prayers!
In Christ,
Dan H.
Re. Information Overload: And today we have the internet with Google, Facebook, blogs, tweets, twitters…what next?
Ecclesiastes 1:2 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
In re: The Good Christian Girl, she was trying to submit to people “over her,” in terms of their authority.
The whole “no dating” movement, while it may have been well intentioned, was not biblical. Neither would a “you must date” movement. Scripture does not forbid or require us to date.
But if a young woman is raised in a church/family that teaches that it is God’s will to avoid dating, you can hardly blame her for going along with it.
RE: The Good Christian Girl article. This article is spot-on, though I suspect many who are not single in today’s church simply will not get the many points the author made. Singles — from young to old — are utter bombarded with conflicting and condemning message. If you want to date and get marriage, there’s no shortage of uber-spiritual elite who will accuse the single person of being spiritual failure for not “just being happy with the Lord.” Yet, if the single person doesn’t pursue marriage, we have Al Mohler and his ilk lambasting Christians for staying single too long. It’s the ultimate “can’t do anything right” position. I do not at all condone the fabled girl’s choice to date an unbeliever, not at all. But as someone who has been involved in singles ministry and Christian singles issues for 10 years, the article is all to accurate, whether the armchair critics want to see the points or not.
I don’t know how many of those Good Christian Girls who suffered so from others’ expectations exist, but I think that’s a good article and good food for thought for all of us. We should fear to put anyone, young Christian men or women or anybody else, under bondage. Biblical purity is always the issue, rather than conforming to outward expectations.
Also, I agree about The Trellis and the Vine. It’s a very important book.
Great news about The Trellis and the Vine. It is not 50% off at Westminster anymore, but is 40% off at CBD. I could not access it by searching through the CBDReformed.com link here on the site, which seems unfortunate. Been looking forward to reading it.