The Plodding Preacher

People hate gender because they hate God. Only time will tell if they can successfully brainwash a generation into thinking gender is as insignificant as they think God is. Jesse Johnson http://thecripplegate.com/maybe-you-havent-noticed/

In honour of the Janks, Bible translators in Venezuela, who will be with us this Sunday: Thigh, Breast or Door? The Joys of Learning a Tonal Language Hey, can you go close the   thigh ? Oh, I mean the… breast ? Nope…the   door ...that’s it…the   door ! How could we get these words so mixed up? Let us just tell you that they have the exact same consonants and vowels. And if they have the exact same consonants and vowels then they are the same word that has several different meanings…right? Wrong. We have now officially entered into the realm of tonal languages where meaning is differentiated not just by different vowels and consonants but also by the pitch of one’s voice. So (we think) “door” is said with a higher pitch where “breast” starts low and then goes to a high pitch on the second syllable. “Thigh” starts low and then the pitch drops off. And these changes in one’s voice determine what the word means.   Go to this missionary page and read the rest o...

By   ROD DREHER   •   May 21, 2015, 5:15 PM So, a Canadian Christian jeweler custom-made a pair of engagement rings for a lesbian couple, Nicole White and Pam Renouf, at their request. Later, when they found out that the jeweler personally opposes same-sex marriage,   they went to pieces  and demanded their money back. From the CBC’s report: “They were great to work with. They seemed to have no issues. They knew the two of us were a same-sex couple,” White said. “I referred some of my friends to them, just because I did get some good customer service and they had good prices.” That was before one friend went in to purchase a ring for his girlfriend — and instead found a distressing sign. It reads: “The sanctity of marriage is under attack. Let’s keep marriage between a man and a woman.” The couple now believes the rings they ordered will have been tainted by having been fashioned by jeweler Esau Jardon’s hands, given what impur...

How sweet is rest after fatigue! How sweet will heaven be when our journey is ended .   – George Whitefield

"Sophisticated sinners concoct sophisticated reasons for thinking sin is not sin." D.A. Carson

I was just reading an article by a progressive Christian on the sentencing of the Boston Marathon Bomber.  The gist of the article was that it is inconsistent for Christians to claim to be pro-life, while still upholding the death penalty.  Statistically, he quotes a Barna poll which reported that only 8% of Protestants believe Jesus would support the death penalty. I have to admit this was a new one for me.  I have never run across someone who believes the death penalty is wrong because it is inconsistent with a pro-life stance.  However, I believe that the writer' argument is in fact anti-life - not pro-life. It always amazes me that when the death penalty debate arises, that those who seek its abolition always seem to speak of the value of the life of the murderer.  Few of them ever mention the value of the life of the victim.  You see, the victim was a person made in the image of God.  As a consequence, that victim was of inestimable ...

American Mythology– You Can Be Whatever You Want to Be May 14, 2015   by   Ben Witherington When I was young (and foolish), I wanted to be Spiderman, or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof. I even once leaped off a large dollhouse in the backyard of a neighbor, to impress a girl. I broke my arm. It was a crystalizing moment for me at nine years of age. I realized there were limits to what I could be despite the Army poster then in vogue with the slogan ‘Be All You Can Be’. There were various things I couldn’t be, and one of them was Spidey, the old webslinger. Some fantasies die hard, and some, mercifully die a quick death in youth. I bring this up because it’s clear enough to me that America has become rather delusional on the subject of ‘you can be whatever and whoever you want to be’. For example, on the news last night was a closing story about a family with a Downs syndrome child. Pictures have circulated all over the internet of this child apparently flying. ...

“People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.” ―   D.A. Carson

“We are summoned to know him only on his terms. He is not known on our terms. This summons is heard in and through his Word. It is not heard through our intuitions.”   ― David F. Wells , God in the Whirlwind: How the Holy-love of God Reorients Our World     

                                     It’s Come To This: Having Good Parents Is An ‘Unfair Advantage’ By Elise Hilton “One way philosophers might think about solving the social justice problem would be by simply abolishing the family. If the family is this source of unfairness in society then it looks plausible to think that if we abolished the family there would be a more level playing field.” “Why are families a good thing exactly?” “We should accept that lots of stuff that goes on in healthy families—and that our theory defends—will confer unfair advantage.” One of my co-workers thought he was reading an article from the satirical website The Onion. Alas, that is not the case. No, these are quotes from philosopher Adam Swift 1 , who believes we must acknowledge the “fact” that children growing up i...

Only God Himself fully appreciates the influence of a Christian mother in the molding of character in her children. ~ Billy Graham

It is not often these days that I find myself agreeing with anything in a secular newspaper, but this one is spot on. If You Want to Destroy Your Church, Follow Liberals’ Advice Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417931/if-you-want-destroy-your-church-follow-liberals-advice-david-French by DAVID FRENCH May 5, 2015 2:24 PM This past weekend, noted progressive-Christian writer Rachel Held Evans published a widely shared and widely read piece in the Washington Post decrying the Evangelical church’s shallow attempts to appeal to Millennials by trying to make church “cool.” Ms. Evans critiques hashtag campaigns, young-adult groups with names like “Prime” and “Vertical,” and concert-style worship services. She mocks talk of “market share” and “branding,” and in so doing sounds every bit as traditionalist as those who despise the praise choruses of the typical Evangelical megachurch and long for the simple “old-time religion” of their grandparents. But that’s not real...

The notion is that the world is to be conquered by our conformity to it. This is as contrary to Scripture as the light is to the darkness. C.H. Spurgeon

Self-Examination and the Supper  by Doug Wilson When it comes to observance of the Lord’s Supper, and especially when it comes to regular, weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper, there are a number of questions that we have to address and answer. One of them is what devout preparation for participation looks like. Paul teaches us that we do have a duty to examine ourselves. He uses the same word— anakrisis —in a couple of different places. “But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup” ( 1 Cor. 11:28 ). “ Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?” ( 2 Cor. 13:5 ). This means that the issue is not whether preparation for the Supper consists of self-examination. Of course it does. The problem is that a great deal of confusion exists over what constitutes lawful and sane self-examination. We must take it as a given that se...

Christianity Today magazine which once was the flagship for all things Evangelical now reports on exciting new trends (tongue firmly in cheek) such as this one: A devout Christian couple from Florida are championing an unusual evangelism technique – swinging. Christy and Dean Parave met online eight years ago, and began swinging after being approached in a DIY store. They now regularly swap partners with other couples. While most would regard sexual promiscuity as conflicting with their religious beliefs, the Paraves, who both compete as bodybuilders, believe that they can use their newfound connections to share the Gospel. Umm. . . Well let's start with the obvious - they are not devout, nor are they Christian.  Further, how can a "Christian" publication report such a practice without any hint of rebuke from Scripture?

  The Father of the universe has   a Son; who also, being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God . And of old He appeared in the shape of fire and in the likeness of an angel to Moses and to the other prophets; but now in the times of your reign, having, as we before said, become Man by a virgin . . .” (Justin Martyr,   First Apology , 63.   ANF , I:184)