Spurgeon's Cigar

I'm a voracious consumer of information. Most of that information is scholarly and complex because of my academic interests and writing topics. But I also consume what is termed "the news," and I do my best to give a fair ear to news sources both on the left and on the right. I'm somewhere in the middle. That "fair ear" includes the current debate over whether or not masks help prevent COVID-19 or not, so I understand why my friends and colleagues have conflicting opinions about masks, thus the title of this essay, "To Mask, or not to Mask." With regard to the First Amendment and the right of free speech, I have taught the COTUS in depth and word-by-word almost every year since 1987; I've written one book on the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment; I have an in-depth understanding of Enlightenment deists' theory of natural rights and its impact upon the Founders even though I cannot count the number of times I've told a

By Rembrandt - www.gardnermuseum.org : Home : Info : Pic, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6812612 Excerpt from ETERNITY'S GATE: Reflections on Sorrow and Suffering, Trials and Troubles THE STORM Standing atop a little hill, verdant and fragrant with pine, and melodic with a thousand blended notes sung by a feathery choir, a loving father and trusting child looked toward the far horizon. In his left hand the father held a telescope; with his right hand he gently clasped his child’s fragile fingers. To the southwest, a great storm approached like a black fist rising ominously from earth to heaven, its cloudy fingers scratching the sky above their heads and choking the morning sun. Silver lightning strikes descended from the storm’s belly and struck the earth, followed by loud booms of thunder. “Son,” the father asked, “how far away is that storm?”  “I don’t know, Daddy,” replied the little boy; “Do you know how far away the storm

Henri Rouart and His Daughter Helene by Edgar Degas "How Would You Like to Spend the Day with Daddy?" Blazoned upon most of our memories are the terrible images of September 11, 2001. Some of us even bear the indelible memory-scar of our emotional shock that day. But I want to share with you a different memory from that day, and a different emotion. Schools throughout Dallas went on immediate lock-down, and panicked parents fled to those schools to pick up their most precious cargo. One of those parents had two offices, one in Dallas and the other in the World Trade Center. Thankfully, that day, that daddy was in Dallas. When he arrived at the school, the principal summoned the daddy’s little first-grade girl. The daddy was standing outside the entrance to the elementary school when she appeared. He bent down, took her up in his arms, and said, “How would you like to spend the day with Daddy?” Our current atmosphere feels like September 11th,

By Ferb1972 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0 pl, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39901125 I remember four events in my lifetime when the pallor of fear blanketed American society.  My earliest recollection is the Cuban Missile Crisis . My mother picked me up from fifth-grade dismissal in her silver-grey Mercury Comet. The expression on her face mimicked Munch's The Scream . I could feel the terrifying apprehension in her voice when she said, "Hal, we're going to have nuclear war." That pallor of fear lasted from October 16-28, 1962. My next memory of an all-pervasive pallor of fear occurred almost one year and one month to the day on November 22, 1963. In what until that moment seemed a safer and more innocent world, my junior high permitted 7th-9th grade students to leave campus for lunch. My habit was to walk to Sadler's Restaurant in Jacksonville, Texas - 100 miles east of Dallas - and eat a flat-top-grill hamburger or a chicken fried stea

(Leon Bonnat, 1880 - Public Domain) The following material is copyrighted and cannot be copied or transmitted in print, digital,  electronic, or any other means without express written consent of the author. Direct quotations  or paraphrases are permissible within the legal boundaries of "fair use." Excerpt 16: "Job and God's 'Terrible Majesty' ”  from Chapter IX: "God's Terrible Majesty" TERRIBLE MAJESTY: Biblical Aesthetics and the Recovery of Authentic Fear (Publication date: soon, D.V.) The magisterial connotation of Elohim intensifies when OT writers complement the pluralis majestatis with the precise Hebrew word for “majesty” - hod. Amazingly, the first instance of hod as a descriptor of Elohim’s “majesty” occurs in Job 37:22 when Elihu declares, “with God is terrible majesty.” This inaugural declaration of God’s majesty immediately reenforces our thesis that sublime consciousness of God inherently involves an ex

“Look, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.”   Isa 44:16 God has always confirmed His presence among His people with a physical sign.    Manna was an obvious one.  God’s sufficiency to meet a daily requirement for sustenance is what sustained His people.  Their physical need was met by supernatural provision.   The tabernacle was another.  It provided the space whereby spiritual atonement for sin might take place.  Physical, ritualistic sacrifices were made there.  An unblemished animal was sacrificed as evidence that supernatural pardon of sin was not only possible but had actually occurred.   Signs always point to something beyond their own manifestation.  The meaning of these occurrences, as spectacular and strange as they often were, transcends their own utility.   In fact, God’s presence being marked by a sign happens so often throughout the Scriptures that a pattern is established.  From Moses to Pentecost exa