Wash your hands

Apropos to this blog’s whimsical (IMNSHO) title, washing your hands after making a difficult decision can help you get past it. But sometimes it isn't enough.

Impossibilities

The amazing Justin Taylor posted this: Imperatives – Indicatives = Impossibilities. It expresses something I have been trying to say for a long, long time, but never found the right words.

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Ultimate trust

If the history of slavery ought to teach us anything, it is that human beings cannot be trusted with unbridled power over other human beings — no matter what color or creed any of them are. The history of ancient despotism and modern totalitarianism practically shouts that same message from the blood-stained pages of history.

— Thomas Sowell

What is this message?

[I]ngredients of preaching and teaching that we might want to link with the gospel would include the need for the gospel (sin and judgment), the means of receiving the benefits of the gospel (faith and repentance), the results or fruit of the gospel (regeneration, conversion, sanctification, glorification) and the results of rejecting it (wrath, judgment, hell). These, however we define and proclaim them, are not in themselves the gospel. If something is not what God did in and through the historical Jesus two thousand years ago, it is not the gospel. Thus Christians cannot ‘live the gospel’, as they are often exhorted to do. They can only believe it, proclaim it and seek to live consistently with it. Only Jesus lived (and died) the gospel. It is a once-for-all finished and perfect event done for us by another.

— Graeme Goldsworthy

And lives that death may die

I know Easter has passed by for the year, but I can’t help posting these lyrics, the words to one of my favorite hymns. I don’t think it has a match anywhere for the simplicity, directness, power of the worship it expresses.

Crown him with many crowns,
the Lamb upon his throne,
Hark! how the heavenly anthem drowns
all music but its own.
Awake, my soul, and sing
of him who died for thee,
and hail him as thy matchless King
through all eternity.

Crown him the Lord of life,
who triumphed o'er the grave,
and rose victorious in the strife
for those he came to save.
His glories now we sing,
who died, and rose on high,
who died, eternal life to bring,
and lives that death may die.

Crown him the Lord of peace,
whose power a scepter sways
from pole to pole, that wars may cease,
and all be prayer and praise.
His reign shall know no end,
and round his pierced feet
fair flowers of paradise extend
their fragrance ever sweet.

Crown him the Lord of love;
behold his hands and side,
those wounds, yet visible above,
in beauty glorified.
All hail, Redeemer, hail!
For thou hast died for me;
thy praise and glory shall not fail
throughout eternity.

The Best

If you have been a Christian for over, say, 5 years, it is nearly certain you have heard a sermon about King David committing adultery and murder. I have heard many. This one is the best I ever heard. Settle in: It's over an hour long.

Worship of Idols

I have not (yet) read the articles that this article points to, but they come from a trusted source. Bob Kauflin is an associate of C.J. Mahaney. If you don't know who that is, you should find out.

Update: I have now read these, and I recommend them highly.

More than a teacher

Preaching about Mark 10:1–12:

Jesus was more than a teacher. Did you notice that in our passage? Even up there in verse 3. You know when the Pharisees asked him the question, look at what He said: “ ‘What did Moses command you?’ He replied.” Veeery interesting. Not us like the humble good rabbi should say, but you, as if Moses never commanded Jesus anything.

And even more so when you look again at verse 5 and you think about it for a minute. “ ‘It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,’ Jesus replied.” You see what Jesus is doing there? It is something unheard of for a rabbi to be doing. Jesus is speaking of the motive behind God's law that Moses gave. Huh! Okay, how could he do that? That seems … hmm … Maybe there's a verse in Deuteronomy I didn't know about where God says this. Yeah, you read through all of Deuteronomy, all of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, you won't find any verse like that. How could Jesus claim something like this with a straight face --- unless he was, himself, claiming to know the mind of God, because he was claiming, himself, to be God?

— Mark Dever

Can you believe it?

Here's another article about The Shack. This one's an indictment of us for falling for this stuff.

The Shack as Christian Literature

If anyone is actually reading this, there's a new(ish) essay about The Shack over at Christianity Today. It points out how, in several ways, this silly novel is sub-Christian.