Spurgeon's Cigar

I'm in Dallas for the next few days. I'm staying with a person who is my superior, and we have a witness in town. We ate dinner last night, and their conversation was full of rampant wickedness. What's my responsibility? If I'm at dinner hearing ribald humor, what do I do? Frankly, it's a perplexing situation for me. I didn't participate, but I didn't denounce either. Well, I did at one point in a passive-agressive way What am I supposed to do? Am I to just disengage, or am I to actively denounce, or something else?

The least understood aspect in the redemptive work of God is also the most important. It is this—the first cause and highest motivation of God’s redemptive work is for His own sake, or more specifically, for the sake of His own holiness. Contrary to the most popular “Christian” mantra of the day— Jesus Loves You and has a wonderful plan for your life , God’s chief concern is not the manifestation of His love towards men; rather, it is His own holiness. But what is holiness? “Holiness is self-affirming purity. In virtue of this attribute of his nature, God eternally wills and maintains his own moral excellence. In this definition are contained three elements: first, purity; secondly, purity willing; thirdly, purity willing itself “ (A.H. Strong). Wholly other is often how holy is described. Dorner writes, “that is holy which, undisturbed from without, is wholly like itself.” Most often we associate “self-affirming purity” to holiness and less often its equally important counterpart...

Some of you will recall that I wrote a piece in this space last year in the wake of the Heller case, where the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment protected an individual right to keep and bear arms (as opposed to the right being limited to the need for a militia or the like) and in the process struck down a law passed by Washington D.C. However, as many of you know the Bill of Rights initially worked only to restrict the federal government. For instance, “Congress shall pass no law” really meant the U.S. Congress only. Following the War of Northern Aggression, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were ratified by the States. Jurisprudence interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment (which specifically limits the powers of the several States) gradually incorporated most of the Bill of Rights as being applicable to the States. So Texas can’t establish a religion, conduct unreasonable searches and seizures, or engage in cruel and unusual punishment. Only recently have ...

I normally try not to bore people with shop talk, but I thought I'd share a work story from today. Today I tried a case where the Plaintiff sued my client for breach of contract. The Plaintiff was a temp company---companies come to this temp service looking for individuals to hire on a short-term basis. My client signed a contract (which was prepared by Plaintiff's attorney) with Plaintiff, agreeing to pay a certain amount per hour for the temp. The contract also contained this provision (I'm just using Plaintiff and Defendant to identify the parties): "If Defendant hires an employee of Plaintiff within 90 days of the employee's last day on assignment, then Defendant will pay Plaintiff a conversion fee, which is calculated by . . . ." The temp that was assigned to my client worked for about six months, until one day my client was rather late on a bill it owed to the Plaintiff (no dispute about this). Plaintiff called the temp and told him, "walk off the j...

Since my wife died on February 11, almost every morning I have awakened with a hymn in my heart. I know that is because people are praying for me, and to all of you who read this, I say, "'Thank you' for your prayers. They work." This morning's hymn was this, penned by the blind hymnist Fannie Crosby in 1869: Rescue the perishing, care for the dying, Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave; Weep o’er the erring one, lift up the fallen, Tell them of Jesus, the mighty to save. Rescue the perishing, care for the dying, Jesus is merciful, Jesus will save. Though they are slighting Him, still He is waiting, Waiting the penitent child to receive; Plead with them earnestly, plead with them gently; He will forgive if they only believe. Rescue the perishing, care for the dying, Jesus is merciful, Jesus will save. Down in the human heart, crushed by the tempter, Feelings lie buried that grace can restore; Touched by a loving heart, wakened by kindness, Chords that were ...

Does heresy bother you? Do heretical preachers irk you? Are you doubly perturbed by heretics who make a lot of money and who have large television audiences? Do the embers of anger burn within when a heretic becomes the face of American Christianity? I reckon some people don't care. In fact, I imagine that most Christians assume that "everyone" knows faith healers and prosperity preachers are nuts and don't worry about the deleterious effect they have on people's lives. I just can't do that; I can't avoid being genuinely angry at prosperity preachers because I've seen firsthand how they prey on the weak, poor, and desperate. I've also seen at least one great man of God drink the snake oil of a particularly evil prosperity preacher. Currently, I'm reading a book on the Word of Faith Movement, by Hank Hannegraaff, the famed "Bible Answer Man." (I like Hank---he's not a Calvinist, but he does good work, and he seeks a biblical answer...

I have been absent from this space for a while (absent in writing, not in reading), but I now make my return in a rather haphazard way. But you're accustomed to my haphazard ways, I'm sure. I just finished reading John Locke's Second Treatise on Government . Brilliance. Locke is one of those men we're taught to revere as a great thinker, but we're never challenged or encouraged to read his writings. It's been said that history affords all great men one sentence: Lincoln freed the slaves, Washington is the father of our country, and, if I may speculate, Obama is the first black president. In such a vein, Locke may be considered the father of liberal political thought. I cracked open his treatise ready to disagree with what I understood to be his basic premise: that all men are born free in the state of Nature (as opposed to under the law of a particular government). While Locke is an ardent defender of the basic tenet that men are equal and free, he does so on a ...