Author: Tim

• Roman 8.3-7

  The experience of victory in the NT hinges on something like “attention to the matters of the Spirit”.

• J.R.R. Tolkien, to his son: “…the real soul-mate…”

  Quote Details: J. R. R. Tolkien: Nearly all marriages, even… – The Quotations Page Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might be found more suitable mates. But the…

• Unknown…”Dogma Keeps us away from the ditches.”

  I salvaged this from a web site that’s gone now. I don’t have the writer’s name: “Forget the checklists. Dogma doesn’t get us in. Dogma keeps us away from the ditches. They are the chewed up skid marks along grassy shoulders and rubber- and blood-smeared concrete medians that mark places of past carnage. Dogma aren’t…

• New Bracelet Acronym: JPTT (Just Preach the Text)

  From the Fearsome Pirate: Simple advice on how preaching might not suck.  Simple advice on how a church might not suck.

• The Human Face is a Set of Liturgical Conventions

  At times you might have been told you don’t smile enough. Everyone is right, of course, to say that an insincere smile is bad, and right that just smiling alot is not a useful goal in itself. But there is a common assumption in all this that is not false but just not true enough…

• Credo ut Intelligum: I Affirm Before I Solve The Puzzle

  In spite of what the Reformers did or didn’t intend, the Protestant world in fact does now have a canon-within-the-canon — let’s call it a canonlet.  It is comprised of about 3 sentences from Paul which you can recite in under thirty seconds, and these perennial struggles for “the heart of the gospel” are simply…

• The Saints Say the Same Thing

  About 30 years ago I was stunned when I read Watchman Nee argue that there is simply no biblical basis for dividing the church for any reason other than geography. Nee has been demonized in some evangelical quarters, but read his vision of overcoming denominationalism by working together in practical ministry, and be amazed. Incidentally,…

• Michael Spencer: Captured by the Gospel

  Hard Times for the Gospel « Eating Words I wholeheartedly recommend Michael Spencer’s essay “Hard Times for the Gospel: A Rant.” Simply outstanding. A few choice lines: “The Gospel is simple. It’s free. It overturns us and our little party. It says things we don’t want religion to say, but that’s ok, because it’s not…

• The Soft Bigotry of Tourist Environmentalists

  Excellent article on rich environmentalists who want to keep third world villages “quaint”. Townhall.com::Enemies of the Poor::By Roy Innis Why haven’t the UN and its Human Rights Council spoken out about the institutional racism that is being perpetrated in the name of “saving the planet”? Where are the US civil rights groups, news media and…

• On Socialization In Randomly Collected Groups

  In a room of 100 public school teachers, do this little thought-experiment (don’t tell them what it is about): 1. Ask them to write down 3 traits they like about themselves, and the people who, in each case, they most learned that trait from. 2. Ask them to write down a moment in their lives…