#total depravity

A Leopard Doesn’t Change Its Spots

It’s election season and millions of Americans are weighing and evaluating the character of the candidates. Why would they examine a person’s character when deciding how to cast a vote? Because a leopard doesn’t change its spots. What those candidates have been in the past is a predictor of what they will be in the future. This is yet another phrase, another beautiful little idiom, that has been passed to us from the Bible—the King James Bible. The Expression A …

The Depth of My Depravity

Testimony—that’s a good Christian word, isn’t it? Each of us has a testimony, an account of how God extended his grace to us. And these testimonies are beautiful things, each one recounting the sovereign work of our great God. Now, much has been said about how we tend to prefer the testimonies that feature the most dramatic lows. We have all heard those tales that almost seem to revel in past sins more than feel regret for them. But we like …

Become a Patron

Flipping God the Bird

Gestures are funny things. Gestures have no intrinsic meaning, but they do have very important assigned meanings. Here in North America the simple thumbs-up gesture means “well done,” but in some other cultures it carries a meaning that is vulgar and offensive. Or just think of George W. Bush at his 2005 inauguration flashing the “hook ’em horns” gesture of the Texas Longhorns. Italians were shocked because they use that same gesture to indicate that a man’s wife is cheating …

Explaining the Problem Does Not Eliminate the Problem

To be human is to feel guilt. At least, to be a sinful human is to feel guilt. And most often we feel guilt precisely because we are actually guilty–guilty of offenses against man and God. R.C. Sproul addresses guilt, and the right and wrong ways to approach it, in this little quote from Pleasing God. A sad commentary on contemporary life is the frequency with which counselors seek to relieve people’s guilt problems by focusing on the removal of …

I Have Cursed You

Never mind all that stuff about “words will never hurt me.” Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words…words hurt worse. Somehow a full-out beating hurts less than a tongue-lashing. After the bruises have faded, the words remain dug in like daggers. I know people who are still deeply wounded by brutal words launched at them years or even decades before. No wonder, then, that the Bible so often warns us against angry words. And no wonder, then, that …

Will God Interfere With Our Free Will?

Some Christians see God as a kindly but passive observer of our choices. After all, God wouldn’t ever interfere with our free will, would He? Ask Jonah and a wry smile would come over his face.” This is how Colin Smith introduces a fictional anecdote from the life of the prophet Jonah: Would God ever interfere with our free will? Hmmm … let’s see. I had made my choice. I suppressed my conscience, steeled my nerves and, by a free …

When Freedom Is Captivity

It is the theme of so many movies, so many novels, so many classroom presentations and political discourses: Freedom comes in pursuing your deepest desires, whatever those desires may be. Be true to yourself, be unashamed in who you are, and you will find joy and fulfillment. Not too long ago I read the bestselling book Anticancer, written by David Servan-Schreiber. In this book he talks about the importance of a healthy immune system for battling against disease and lists …

A La Carte (10/22)

Blind Spots and Lane Changes – Thabiti reflects on leadership: “The problem with blind spots is you don’t see them. Blind spots make lane changes surprisingly dangerous. It happens in leadership, too. Leaders have blind spots. I know I do. We don’t often discover them until we’re making a change, adjusting course. You’re cruising along, changing lanes, and sometimes someone has to honk the horn real loud. Have you ever had that happen? I have.” Left Behind Reboot – The …

Nothing Nothing

Francis Schaeffer coined some interesting terms–things like true truth and nothing nothing. He wasn’t just being silly; he was making important statements about the world. Here, from He Is There And He Is Not Silent is his description of nothing nothing. We are considering existence, the fact that something is there. Remember Jean-Paul Sartre’s statement that the basic philosophic question is that something is there rather than nothing being there. The first basic answer is that everything that exists has …

Mutual Submission

There is a lot of debate over how to take the command in Ephesians 5:18-21 to “Be filled with the Spirit … submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” How you interpret this text is, for many, the dividing line between being egalitarian or complementarian in their view of the roles of men and women in general and husbands and wives in particular. The two main lines of interpretation are “Submitting to one another” indicates mutual submission, which …