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Parenting

A theology of cleaning?

Solomon was a wise man. But as a king, he passed over some vivid illustrations in the futility chapter of Ecclesiastes. Allow me to add the mother’s version of “chasing after wind”:

The dishes are cleared and hasten back to where they lie dirty.
The laundry is washed, and returns to the dirty hamper
– around and around goes the laundry, and on its circuit it returns.
The children’s stomachs are not satisfied with lunch, nor their appetites with supper.
Vanity of vanities…

I don’t know how Solomon would respond to that, but honestly, as I chase after my three small whirlwinds with vacuum and cloth in hand, I’m overwhelmed by the futility of it all. I’d far rather be reading something… or making something … or doing something “important,” something better than this mindless pecking away at dirt.

I needed a theology for cleaning.

So, between the rubbing and scrubbing, I’ve been doing a bit of reading. I’ve found some good news for us belabored housewives: cleaning is kingdom work! Chipping away at that eternal pileup of toys in the living room, dirty laundry on the floor and handprints on the walls is eternal stuff because God is glorified by our cleaning. And in a small way, we work alongside Him in redeeming and restoring this broken world. Let’s dive in…

God is pleased with our work

We worship a God who loves cleanliness. If you don’t believe me, have a peek at the book of Leviticus, which sparkles and squeaks right down to the quarantining of moldy fabric (Lev. 13:47-59). Yet God Himself cursed work in the Garden of Eden, filling it with thorns and thistles... and dust, dirt, and ick.

Even in a world of cursed ground, work – and housework – is also a blessing. God blessed Adam and Eve with a job in the Garden of Eden. When we serve Him joyfully and cheerfully, be it ever so mindless a job, we glorify Him through it. I like to picture our heavenly Father, smiling and pleased with me as I do battle with bathtub scum. Will my husband notice our scrubbed tub? Probably not, but God will!

The Lord also urges us to invite Him into the daily grind. Paul’s instruction to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:16-18) surely doesn’t stop at cleaning. It’s sandwiched right between rejoicing always and giving thanks in everything. The one leads us to the other. So I can thank God for the beautiful invention of a toilet while scrubbing it (and it is beautiful – imagine life without toilets! or washing machines, gulp).

We Dutch women have a little saying we like to whip out on occasion –“cleanliness is next to godliness.” It’s found… absolutely nowhere in the Bible. But the desire to meet up to community standards and maintain a Pinterest-worthy house is definitely still there, and still one we have to battle regularly! So let’s apply Paul’s exhortation to work heartily as for the Lord and not for men… or for mothers-in-law, picky friends, or nosy neighbors.

God is honored in both our work and our resting

When my oldest was about three, she came up with this brilliant idea. “Mommy,” she said, “we have should have two mommies. Then one can do all the work while you play with us!” And on that particular day, I was almost ready to agree with her.

Thankfully, rest isn’t just given but even required.

There’s a pitfall I find myself slipping into on occasion – viewing myself a bit like a slave (yes, there’s some over-the-top exaggeration there!). But it can feel like that – some seasons are a long marathon of cleaning and caring for everyone else.

Our all-knowing God actually commanded the Israelites to rest. Commanded, as in, not optional. In Deuteronomy 5 He reminds them that they were slaves in the land of Egypt, and He rescued them with a “mighty hand and an outstretched arm.” Freedom comes with the luxury – the prescribed luxury – of rest.

God uses the term “rest,” not “me-time.” We live in a hyper-entitled world that constantly tells us, “You deserve it, mama, go settle on the couch with your phone and a glass of wine.” While these things aren’t bad of themselves (in small doses!), they aren’t rights. And I find myself quick to claim them as rights (not the wine, but the doom-scrolling). But rest is above me-time as Greek salad is above ramen noodles.

God built rest into the rhyme and rhythm of creation, to be enjoyed on the Lord’s Day as worship and praise to Him. It’s a foretaste of the eternal rest which Christ has won for us. When we rest, we worship Him. We need to guard that rest or it will slip away!

Enlist your kids!

My mom always wanted to hang this proverb in her kitchen: “Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.” Comparing us kids to oxen was, well, rather accurate. As a good Dutch mom of six she had to embrace a lot of mess! She went beyond this to a complete application of the proverb: she faithfully harnessed her “oxen” up for work. This was probably a lot harder on her ears than it was on our hands, but it taught us to work faithfully and well. It was one of the best things she gave us, and I’m grateful for it. I remind myself of that as my four-year-old moans and groans through his daily task of putting away the clean silverware every day.

We clean alongside God Himself

That’s a truth so glorious it almost sounds heretical, but there are multiple levels to this. First off, there’s the cleaning of creation. It’s truly incredible how God has built cleaners into creation to maintain and purify it. Tides sweep the shorelines, scavengers and fungi devour rotten materials, rains wash the land, trees filter the air. There’s even a bacterium that can turn massive oil spills into harmless carbon dioxide and water within weeks. These are God’s janitorial taskforce on earth, restoring, refreshing, redeeming creation.

As we beat back weeds and submit the garden to order, as we scour scum and change diapers, as we restore peace and order once again to our belabored homes, we join God in the redemption of creation. That’s a pretty incredible calling.

It’s all a reminder

The constant demands of cleaning also point to our spiritual state. As Christians, we are in a constant cycle of conviction, confession and repentance. We come to God, the purifier of our souls, for redemption on a daily basis. He doesn’t get tired of the same old work on the same old soul. So, when we pick up our kids’ dirty undies off the floor for the umpteenth time, may it be a reminder to us of God’s faithful cleaning.

One day, the oxen will be gone and the stall will be (moderately) clean. And we’ll miss those dear little cows with all our hearts. But for now, we get to share in the glorious, everyday task of redeeming the universe with God. So if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a kitchen to redeem!

Economics - Home Finances

A business tithe on sales?

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Assorted

Blessed are the caregivers

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Science - Creation/Evolution

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Interview with an artist

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News, Pro-life - Euthanasia

No jail for man who admits to killing his partner

“An Ottawa man who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of his ailing husband has been sentenced to two years less a day of house arrest for an act the judge called ‘in every respect an assisted-suicide mercy killing.’” So began a news story from the CBC, which went on to explain that Philippe Hébert, 74, killed Richard Rutherford, 87, on April 15, 2022. Rutherford was struggling with health challenges and a recent cancer diagnosis, and Hébert was tired and stressed by Rutherford’s condition, compounded by fears that Rutherford would be isolated due to Covid restrictions. At the sentencing hearing on February 17, Justice Kevin Phillips explained the light sentence by noting that Rutherford wanted to die. “Phillips said despite the killing being ‘close to murder,’ Hébert was honouring the ‘last wish’ of his husband and friend. Rutherford had the mental capacity to make that decision, and given his medical condition it was understandable, the judge said.” The CBC story, and others like it, painted a picture of how Hébert was a model citizen and was surrounded by supporters in the court room. In law, as in journalism, words matter a great deal. In this case, the reader is led to feel understanding, and perhaps even gratitude, for Hébert’s willingness to honor the “last wish” of his partner. But if we avoid the euphemisms and speak the plain truth, a very different picture emerges. According to the National Post, Hébert woke up to find that his homosexual partner Rutherford was crying. Hébert claims that Rutherford couldn’t go on living and wanted him to help him end his life. In response Hébert promised he would end his own life after killing Rutherford. According to Hébert ‘s testimony, he used an incontinence pad to suffocate Rutherford, then attempted to end his own life, and called 911 for help. Of course, with Mr. Rutherford now dead, we have no idea whether he actually asked to be killed. Decisions and media coverage like this only further erode the sanctity of life. When Canadian law treats murder as medicine, then how can society be all that critical of someone who takes it upon himself to deliver that “treatment”? When killing-is-caring is logically extended, what protection does it give to others who are vulnerable and may be seen as a burden to their caregivers? There is only one line that can be drawn here: that no one should murder another (Gen. 9:6) because our lives are not our own, but entrusted to us by our Maker. That will be too Christian for many, but then we can challenge them to offer any other standard that can hold scrutiny. What other line can they propose that won’t be struck down as by a court because it unfairly limits others? If it is compassionate to murder someone suffering from cancer, why isn’t it compassionate to offer the same “treatment” to someone suffering from depression? By what standard – once God’s law is abandoned – can any one be denied this inexpensive, immediate, and sure cure for suffering?...

Theology

Should a Christian ever be discontent?

She sat across from me, sipping coffee, her forehead wrinkled with unhappiness. She’d struggled for two years in a job that clearly made her miserable, and which everyone else thought she should quit. But she couldn’t quite agree, wondering if there was a reason God had blessed her with the position. “I’m trying so hard to be grateful,” she said. “I just want to be satisfied with what I have.” **** My friend’s words hit me right in my chest. I didn’t know what to say, because I’ve struggled with the exact same issues. When is it okay to give up on the path you’re currently traveling on? When is it okay to quit and change what you’re doing? We know God has a reason for everything He brings into our lives, so doesn’t it just make sense that we should figure out that reason – figure out how to glorify Him in this situation – before we think of moving on to something else? But like so many other situations in life, we often don’t understand the invisible plans of God, or know what His goal is for us in our current season of life. And so we can be left unsure if it is okay to move on to something else, or if God means for us to learn contentment where we are. Often, when we find ourselves feeling like I or my friend felt in that moment – recognizing the strain of dissatisfaction running through our lives – we respond with guilt. We might think this discontent points to a lack in our spiritual lives. But is discontent always wrong? Dissatisfaction certainly can be caused by a spiritual lack. We humans never are satisfied with what we have. We never have enough. If we had the power to change everything in our lives, we still would not feel fulfilled. But this does not mean we should never take our discontentment seriously. Discontent might be the motivation to change something in our lives that needs changing. The value of discontent When we look at other people’s lives, it’s easy to recognize what’s causing them unhappiness, and it’s easy to say they should change these things. In fact, we often wonder why they don’t. This person is still young, so why don’t they try a new career? Or this person has the freedom to move, so why don’t they try living in another city? But when it comes to ourselves, we see how hard it is to justify our choices to make changes. Is “unhappiness” really a good enough reason, when we know we’re called to be content? To get here we've struggled, we've prayed, we've relied on God to achieve things – and by the grace of God we have achieved them. We know, because our strength was so weak and we needed God's strength so much to get where we are today, that our current situation is straight from the hand of God. What we need to know is if we can be grateful for God’s gifts while still choosing for change. No wonder people hesitate to make a change! One way forward is to consider when feelings of discontent have value. This is not to say discontentment should be embraced, but that the feeling can point us to areas of our lives we do actually have power over. So let’s look at discontentment a bit more closely. We shouldn’t be content with just this world First, there are some obvious things God intends for us to be discontent about. We are not supposed to be content with the fallen state of the world. We are supposed to be content that all things are in the hands of God, but we are not supposed to look at injustice be pleased about it. Some of our dissatisfaction points us to the new creation we are looking forward to. When we recognize that we never feel fully fulfilled, we also recognize that we are waiting for eternal fulfillment. We live with “eternity in our hearts” – we have a vision of an ideal kingdom this world cannot live up to. This also means that life’s frustrations, dead ends, and futility were never meant to be part of God’s good creation. No wonder we react so strongly to them. And yet, while we understand this, we also understand God is still holding all the threads of our lives in His hands. We cling to His promise that in him everything that seems meaningless has meaning. We shouldn’t be satisfied burying our talent There’s another aspect of discontentment to consider. Contentment ought to be separated from passivity. A wrong emphasis on contentment can make us believe we’re not allowed to change anything in our lives. But contentment and passivity are not the same thing. Perhaps discontentment may be a challenge to us. We may hide behind “contentment” because we’re afraid to take the risk of change, because we might fail if we try something new. But our dissatisfaction could hint that we are not reaching for goals that we could try to reach. We are not risking the bumps and falls that might develop our skills. Discontentment might tell us we are meant to challenge ourselves. And if we are taking the easier path without really thinking it through, our emotions may be a sign something is wrong. We should consider whether we need to choose a more challenging goal. If we do not separate contentment and passivity, it can result in a fatalistic determinism. We might conclude that wherever we happen to be, that is where God placed us so it must be where He wants us to be, and therefore we should be content. But this cuts off the possibility that God also blesses us with opportunities. Determinism leads us to say—You’re still single? God must not want you to be married. You’re poor? God must not want you to be rich. Don’t try to achieve anything. Just wait peacefully. Don’t try to change. Everything you’re meant to have will just happen if it’s meant to be. But clearly this is an unbiblical message. Learning contentment from Paul Contentment is still a good thing, and it is a virtue to be pursued in our lives. After much struggle, I’ve realized that while there may be something behind the vague sense of discontent that so often crops up in our lives, and that these reasons can be addressed, contentment is still the goal, not discontent. How, then, should we pursue contentment while avoiding utter passivity? There are a few things to keep in mind. Content even as we strive First, contentment is about where you are in the present moment. It is not a denial of any change in the future. When Paul talks of being content in all circumstances, he was working towards a goal, and the circumstances occurred while he was attempting to achieve it. Having a goal does imply you expect to cause change in the future. So perhaps it is not the goal you’re supposed to avoid having, but the discontent over the difficulties that spring up on the way to the goal. It may in fact turn out to be that the goal is not one you’re meant to achieve, but contentment in all circumstances includes contentment during the deep disappointment that hits when you don’t achieve your goal. In other words – strive! Keep striving! But be ready to be content with what the Lord brings you. Content in suffering Another caveat is that contentment in Scripture, including the contentment passage in Philippians 4 (“I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content”), is mentioned in relation to suffering. It is an approach to situations that are not in Christians’ control. When life is hard, especially when life is hard as a result of being Christians, Christians are to be content. So the intent is not to say, “don’t change your life path,” but rather, “I know you’re suffering, and this is where you can find comfort.” These passages also emphasize that no circumstances of life ever prevent us from being saved by God – whether in chains or free, whether rich or poor – no one needs to be discontent because their circumstances prevent them from truly being Christians. If such circumstances did exist they would surely be reason for despair—but thanks be to God there are none! We can be content because our circumstances do not prevent our salvation. Content when we have choices and when we don’t We all suffer in some way, but in comparison to many Christians in the Bible we are faced with an endless array of choices – we can choose a career, we can choose a spouse, we can choose where we want to live, we can choose to travel, we can choose our level of education. It’s not a surprise the Bible doesn’t predict that we in the future would be faced with this array of choice, and advise us on how to wrap our minds around the dizzying display. And therefore it is not a surprise when we try to apply biblical principles to our choices instead of our sufferings, and end up at the conclusion that we should never desire anything, and never try to achieve anything. But rather than arriving at this conclusion and automatically accepting it, we should think about whether this is really correct. We are to be content in situations we can’t change, including those which are really, really hard. But our contentment in the present moment doesn’t prevent us moving from one choice to another in the future. Second, we often think contentment means being stationary unless we’re sure God means for us to move. But Paul did not always sit and wait until absolutely sure that God was sending him somewhere else. If he was called by the Spirit he followed, but he continued to work and preach in all places while waiting for the Spirit’s call. He often made plans to go to different places, or to start new missions. When the Spirit of God prevented him from preaching throughout Asia Minor, he continued trying in place after place until he reached the sea – only then did he realized he was being called to Macedonia. In other words, sometimes we are not sure what we should do, but we do not necessarily have to wait for a firm confirmation from God before every action. Content in the day-to-day faithfulness Lastly, we are often discontent with our lives not because of the goals but because of the mundane tasks and the drudgery. Our actions seem so little, and so dull. We cry, like me and my friend did when we were having coffee, “I just want to work in God’s kingdom!” But perhaps the cathedral builders did the same, as they painstakingly placed stone on stone for hundreds of years, unable to see the buildings we’d gasp at in wonder today. Perhaps our grandparents did the same as they struggled to get their children to listen to a Bible story, not knowing if the generations who’d follow would do the same. When we ask God to use our lives according to His plans, we sometimes suppress a fear that God doesn’t want us to go anywhere, or do anything. This is our fear when we walk into the office and face a mountain of paperwork that needs to be done but hardly seems worthwhile – am I really contributing to God’s kingdom, we wonder? But our God is not a God of waste. If we are to be ordinary, it will be worthwhile. Our call to contentment brings us to a new understanding, where ordinary labour is not undervalued. We are not pressured to all conform to the mould of world-changer. We can put our hand to the task in front of us without fear our efforts will be washed from the earth, because we know they’re seen by the eyes of God. Conclusion What, then, is contentment? First, it is a focus on the kingdom of God, not the kingdom of the world. It shifts our focus from yearning for the things of this world, such as money, fame, or power. We can trust there are eternal things that we are building, and contentment means that we can rest. Second, it is not a struggle with God over what can’t change. While we are not called to passivity, in our lives we will sometimes be told “no.” This is where we are most often tempted to fight, not necessarily with our actions, but with a rebellious spirit that insists on despising the situation forced on us. Only by looking to God in His Word and in prayer will we find the strength to turn back to contentment again. When my friend and I left the cafe, our lives were still the same as when we had come in. Yet somehow Christian company and very good coffee gave us new capacity to rest in the goodness of God. Harma-Mae Smit blogs at HarmaMaeSmit.com. This article was first published in July 2018....

Assorted

How to catch Ice Age Man using digital reindeer

What would happen if we assumed ancient man was intelligent? One man did just that, and I haven’t been able to stop talking about it since. Which, incidentally, is a substantial reason to have 10 children, all of whom you homeschool. Captive audience. Professor John O’Shea is an archaeologist with the University of Michigan who likes to read. (It’s a good habit. Highly recommend.) One day, he was reading a book about subarctic reindeer* hunters and the stone structures they use to direct the animals. He was also studying a topographical map of the bottom of Lake Huron. The map included a feature known as Six Fathom Shoal, a continuous underwater ridge connecting southern Ontario to northeast Michigan. During the last days of the Ice Age, that ridge would have been above water, separating Lake Huron into two lakes. As John studied the map and read about the hunters, he realized that the ridge would have been a great place to hunt reindeer thousands of years ago. So he took a team and scanned the lake bottom. It wasn’t easy. The underwater ridge encompasses hundreds of square miles of lakebed, and just reaching the site required a 60-mile trip over unpredictable water. Expectations were low. Often the weather was too dangerous to even think about sailing, but on the rare occasions when they could get out of their port in Alpena, they used side scanning sonar to create a map of the lake bottom. One day, by “dumb luck” they stumbled upon something that maybe only John would have expected or recognized; a line of rocks. Stick with me here. On the leftside, of course You see, reindeer are essentially British. They like queues. Lines. Geometry, one might say, is their love language. To direct reindeer, a hunter can create a line on the ground, usually with stones – sometimes it amounts to a low fence This is called a “drive line.” When the reindeer encounter the line, even though they could easily jump over it, they will often walk alongside it wherever it leads. Not unlike Harold and the Purple Crayon. The line of rocks John O’Shea found on the bottom of the lake looked a lot like a drive lane. Further investigation by a tethered, unmanned underwater robot, and later, divers, revealed it was indeed a man-made drive lane, pointing towards a corral and a blind where the hunters could wait to kill the animals. An incredible, career-changing, history-making discovery. But it gets better. Next, John teamed up with Bob Reynolds from Wayne State University, and together they created a digital topographical map of Six Fathom Shoal during the Ice Age. They simulated rain, and the map filled with rivers, lakes, waterfalls, marshes and creeks. They enlisted botanists to look at the landscape and predict where different plants would have grown. And once the computer world was complete, they did the next sensible thing. They turned an entire herd of AI reindeer loose on the landscape. Initially, the AI reindeer had an annoying habit of walking off cliffs, gliding on stiff, pixelated legs to a swift digital death. The programming took a while to tweak, but as the weeks went on, the AI reindeer took on an increasingly lifelike set of behaviors. The herd was sent from one side of Six Fathom Shoal to the other, and patterns emerged as they learned which routes were best. Then John’ team asked modern reindeer hunters from Alaska and Canada to walk through the virtual landscape on computers, pointing out the best locations for blinds, campsites, and caches. They took intelligent human beings and asked them where they would hunt and then assumed that ancient man would hunt in the same places. Shocking. With this information in hand, they returned to inspect the sea floor. And that’s how they discovered a hunting structure they called “drop site 45.” Right in the location pinpointed as a choke site for the AI reindeer. This hunting site is the most sophisticated of its kind discovered to date. It includes a drive line, blinds, fire pits, and stone rings that indicate places where the hunters may have camped. They also found stone structures identical to those used by modern subarctic hunters to store caches of meat during the freezing winter months. Further investigation revealed stone tools, including one made with obsidian from Oregon. Yep. Oregon. Wagontire, Oregon, to be exact, over 2,000 miles away from the underwater ridge where it was found. Not bad for Ice Age hunters. “None of this matches the models we had about peoples in this region… you have to go back and be like, ‘All right, now we have this new data, what does that mean for what we thought about peoples that were living in the Great Lakes?’ You have to rewrite the story.” – Ashley Lemke, Professor at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Breaking down or evolving up? She’s right, of course. The models she’s talking about are based on the assumption that humans evolved from ape-like creatures, stumbling out of the dull fog of an animal existence to come to a shocking realization: “Fire… hot?” Of course we had never looked for evidence of Ice Age structures at Six Mile Shoal before, because the odds of such a creature building anything were slim. But what could we accomplish if we started with the assumption that man was created intelligent and capable, as the Bible teaches? Adam and Eve, coming straight from the hand of the Creator, had perfect genes. Those genes have only deteriorated a little more with each generation that passes. So those Ice Age hunters could well have been more intelligent than you or I. Computer models and sonar can recreate the Ice Age shorelines along the entire globe. What would happen if we looked at those maps and asked where we would build our cities, ports or villages? In some places, accumulated sediment has probably buried any Ice Age structures, but some remain. At the moment, our preferred method of finding these sites is dumb luck. That’s how we discovered a similar hunting drive line under the Baltic sea. The entire underwater world of Doggerland was also discovered by a series of accidents. What if we trusted the Biblical account enough to use less accidents and more “AI reindeer”? Shannon Skaer is an ancient history aficionado, homeschool mom, science nerd, and beekeeper. She lives in a small logging town in Oregon with her very own hero and their ten children. Her life could best be described as a love affair with beauty – which explains the number of babies – and her greatest joy is to know God, from whom all beauty comes. Find out more about her at www.shannonskaer.com. ***** *Reindeer is the fun name for Caribou. For this article, I refer to them as “reindeer” because I’m not a party pooper, and neither are you....

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – February 2026

For want of a comma In her best seller Eats, Shoots and Leaves, author Lynne Truss highlighed the importance of commas with the story of a Panda who enters a bar, asks for a meal, then shoots the bartender and exits. When the Panda is asked why he took this violent turn, he opens up a dictionary, and points to the entry on Pandas where it says that "The Panda eats, shoots and leaves." A badly placed comma did the bartender in! Clearly then, commas are important. Just take a look at what mayhem can occur when commas are taken out of these sentences or placed in the wrong spot. I love, love, love cooking my husband and my kids. You have a voice, like Celine Dion. Let's eat everyone. Slow children at play Attention: this restroom only for disabled elderly pregnant children. My heroes are my parents, Margaret Thatcher and William Wilberforce. I like shooting hoops and all of the New Kids on the Block. Sincerity isn't enough "If you sincerely drink poison, it will kill you: if you sincerely cut your throat, you will die. If you sincerely believe a lie, you will suffer the consequences. You must not only be sincere, but you must be right." - C.H. Spurgeon Attributes of God: Patience We read in Genesis 6 that God was grieved by the great wickedness of Man, and decided to blot out this wickedness, and start again with Noah and his family. What often gets overlooked in the story of the Flood is what it may tell us about God’s patience. I use the word “may” here, because while what follows is not simply conjecture, it also isn’t certain. So don’t forget that very important “may." It isn’t much of a leap to think that it would have taken Noah and his sons years to build the Ark. All that time, their actions would be a witness to the wicked that God’s coming judgement was coming. But God was patient for more than just those few years. In Genesis 6:3 we read that God has appointed for man a limit of 120 years. This has been interpreted by some as a new limit that God was going to give to how long men could live. Previously men has lived hundreds of years, but that would stop now. This seems a plausible interpretation, as no one today lives any longer than 120. But a better way to understand this passage might be as a 120 year countdown to the coming judgement. This fits in well with the context of the surrounding chapter, and if this is the proper understanding, it means that the wicked were given more than a century to turn repent! But now consider this: Noah’s grandfather was Methuselah, who was born 969 years before the Flood and died the very year of the Flood. When Methuselah was born, almost a millennium before the waters covered the Earth, his father Enoch may have given him a prophetic name (note that “may” again). According to several sources, "Methuselah" can be translated two different ways, as either "Man of the dart or spear" or "his death shall bring judgment.” If the latter is the right way, then it means God gave a warning almost a thousand years beforehand of his anger, and his coming judgement. While these two interpretations are not at all certain, they do match up well with what we learn about God's loving patience elsewhere in the Bible, like in 2 Peter 3:8-9: "...with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance." On debate Leonard Read was a free market advocate who had (at least!) a couple very good thoughts about debating: Do not argue – first present a better idea. No bad idea is ever overcome by attacking those who believe it. Creationism vs. theistic evolution "The Bible teaches that Adam produced death. The opposing view has to say that in some manner death produced Adam." - Douglas Wilson The case for educational freedom "I hope...that we may return to the principle of freedom for individual parents in the education of their children in accordance with their conscience... let us be perfectly clear about one thing – if liberty is not maintained with regard to education, there is no use trying to maintain it in any other sphere. If you give the bureaucrats the children, you might just as well give them everything else" – J. Gresham Machen Why English is a fun language... A clever farmer taught his sow to sow seeds. Then he got his geese to take a gander at whether the produce produced was ready to gather. The cows were called on to collect the farm's refuse but refused – berry bushes by the bins brought a bear, which the cowed and cowering cows found unbearable. The farmer thought shooing it by shooting his shotgun was worth a shot. His errant aim missed the beast's broadside and while his dove dove, and his duck ducked, a hen was hit, with one wing winged. The farmer wound the wound and presented a present to the unfortunate fowl. Then he bribed the bear to bear the burden of taking out the trash. Poetic to the end Christian poet and hymn writer Isaac Watts (1674-1748) showed evidence of his talents as a very young age. In Douglas Bond's biography of the man, The Poetic Wonder of Isaac Watts, Bond gives this example: ...one evening during family worship at the dinner table his father read Scripture and guided family prayers, Watts spotted a mouse climbing up the bell pull and began to giggle. Rebuked by his father, who asked him why he was laughing during prayer, Watts replied: There was a mouse for want of stairs Ran up a rope to say his prayers. His parents, amazed at the boy's ability to rhyme in his head without writing the lines down on paper, encouraged his rhyming – for a while. As children will do when encouraged, Watts began rhyming all the time. Annoyed by the incessant rhyming, his father forbade him to do it – and he meant it. Isaac soon forgot and fell back into rhyming. Taking him over his knees, Watts Sr. prepared to lay into his son's backside with the switch. Then young Watts rather unconvincingly cried: O father, do some mercy take And I will no more verses make. Why there should be a high bar for teachers "A student is not above his teacher but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher." – Luke 6:40...

History

Carried

Listen to me, you descendants of Jacob, all the remnant of the people of Israel, you whom I have upheld since your birth, and have carried since yo...

Assorted

The definition of patience

Patience. It’s a word we would never bother looking up in the dictionary because we already understand its meaning. But sometimes a well-known word ...

Theology

Proverbs: a different sort of devotional

“Do you have a devotional that you would recommend?” I get asked this question in various forms from time to time, and I think my answer someti...

Christian education - Sports, Theology

God and the 2014-15 Seattle Seahawks

All about God’s sovereignty, Man’s free will, and American football ***** When the editor suggested I write a piece about American Football, I w...

RP is looking for a Managing Editor!

Are you looking for a meaningful and long-term career where you can devote your time to equipping Christians to think, speak, and act like Christ? With thankfulness to God, the Reformed Perspective Foundation is looking to expand our team and mission with a significant new role: MANAGING EDITOR (FULL TIME) This new role will serve as the operational backbone of the team. He or she will keep all of RP’s content moving seamlessly from start to finish. A key function will be to ensure content is published in a timely way and blesses as many people as possible through a variety of mediums. Depending on qualifications and experience, we also welcome assistance with creating content (e.g. journalism or video production). The goal for the successful candidate is to work towards serving as the “integrator” for the RP team, as modeled in the Entrepreneur Operating System (EOS). He or she will help enable RP to achieve our long-term goal of expanding our reach to the USA, Australia, and the broader Christian community in Canada. We are looking for someone who is: Excited about devoting their life to advance our core purpose (helping Christians to think, speak, and act in Christ); Is fully committed to furthering our core values: Biblical: faithful to God’s Word and the Reformed confessions; Inspiring: a catalyst for action and a connecting to hearts Real: applying God’s Word to the nitty gritty of life Celebratory: Christ is LORD and has already won! Very organized and efficient; Excellent with utilizing technology; Comfortable with managing the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS); A great communicator, including with people who work remotely; Friendly and kind while being able to ensure things get done; Self-motivated; Humble; Looking to serve long-term (ideally a minimum of 5 years). The position will report to the Executive Editor, Mark Penninga. Duties will include: Work towards managing the RP team processes/systems, including running meetings and ensuring goals are being tracked and met; Ensure content submissions are received, thanked, and followed-up; Schedule content deadlines; Assigns tasks and deadlines to writers, editors, designers, and fact-checkers and ensure they are kept; Develops creative ways to make content go further through new technology and other mediums (electronic, audio, video, etc.); Oversee roll-out of contests/presentations/conferences (to fit with organizational schedule); Tracks analytics of all content; As much as possible, proactively guard the organization from censorship and similar challenges; Depending on qualifications, assist with content production (writing, podcasting, video production, etc.). Salary/wage: Open to negotiation and in-keeping with industry standards. Location: Our office in Smithers, BC. Deadline for applications: August 15 (We will keep the position open till it is filled. We reserve the right to not fill the position or to extend the deadline). Requirements: Must be a member in good standing of a confessional Reformed church in Canada or the US (a church that upholds the Three Forms of Unity or Westminster Standards). Six month trial period required. Interested? To apply, please send an application to RP’s Executive Director Mark Penninga ([email protected]). Please include a resume, at least two references (including an elder or pastor), and a letter introducing yourself and explaining your qualifications for the position....

History

Our heroes have feet of clay

You find them everywhere. They’re the people we look up to. They sing, they dance, they play hockey, they win battles and they found nations. They’re our heroes. You know the people: George Washington, Wayne Gretzky, Winston Churchill, or Ginger Rogers. They’re larger than life figures that do larger than life things flawlessly. We want to be like them. Unless you’re Canadian. When an Internet poll asked Canadians who their heroes were some of the results were predictable, like Terry Fox, but there were also a few less likely individuals. Don’t misunderstand: these people did some incredible things and were certainly larger than life. However, they were also hopelessly flawed. John A. One man who topped the list was Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A Macdonald. It is to Sir John A. that much of the credit goes for the founding of the Dominion of Canada in 1867. He helped pull together a disparate bunch of English Canadian Reformers and Tories and united them with French Canadian Bleus. Then he got the British to bully Nova Scotia and New Brunswick into a grand confederation of colonies that formed the nucleus of the present day Canada. While that’s impressive, Canadians know Sir John A. in a more intimate way than that. You see, as most Canadians are aware, Sir John was bounced from office in 1873 for the Pacific Railway Scandal that involved suggestions of bribes, patronage, and all kinds of corruption. Additionally, the prime minister was a habitual drunkard. It was no secret for he bragged about his drinking, yet Canadians forgave him, returning him and his party to office in 1878. There are other unusual Canadians as well. William Lyon Mackenzie King made the list of heroes for his impressive job of shepherding Canada through the Second World War. If that doesn’t sound impressive, keep in mind that when Prime Minister Borden tried to guide the country during the previous world war, he succeeded in alienating French speaking Quebec, and much of the farming population, as well as accidentally splitting the opposition Liberal party in two. King kept peace and tranquillity, while Borden created a political crisis that threatened to undo Canada. Though a master politician, Canadians were aware of King’s oddities, including consulting with mediums, and talking to his dead dog – stuffed and sitting on the mantle. Rebel Riel Louis Riel was also on the list of heroes. While the man who initiated the only rebellions Canada has ever had may seem an odd choice as a hero, to many Western Canadians Riel is exactly that. With his rebellions at Red River and then in the North West Territories, Riel was probably the first Westerner that ever made “the East” sit up and take notice, and to perpetually alienated Westerners, that makes Riel a hero. However, Riel was a religious fanatic, believing himself a prophet and in communication with God. He had spent time in a mental asylum, and at the time of the 1885 Rebellion may have actually been mentally unbalanced. E is for equal rights...and also eugenics In its heroes, Canada is an equal opportunity employer. One of the most significant women to make the list was Emily Murphy. A successful writer under the pen name Janey Canuck, a Member of the Canadian Parliament, the first female police magistrate in the British Empire, and a participant in the landmark “Persons Case” that gave Canadian women legal status as people, Murphy has had her reputation tarnished in recent years. The United Farmers government of the province of Alberta enacted the Sexual Sterilization Act in 1928 that allowed for the sterilization of the mentally incompetent and others unfit to parent. This version of eugenics, repugnant to most modern Canadians, was strongly backed by the otherwise progressive and reform-minded Murphy. Conclusion Canadians choices for heroes have been odd. The less savory facts behind the lives of most of Canada’s heroes are well known and thoroughly documented, but Canadians picked these people anyway. Someone once told me that you can’t tell an American something bad about their heroes. They don’t want to know about George Washington’s dismal military record as a British lieutenant, and they won’t listen if you tell them that Thomas Jefferson had slaves on his plantation. They certainly don’t want to hear any suggestions that Martin Luther King cheated on his wife, or may have plagiarized his dissertation. But Canadians are different. They know the weaknesses of their heroes and accept them for that. The Bible also contains some unusual heroes, “heroes of faith” like Noah, Abraham, and Rahab. Noah got drunk, Abraham denied that Sarah was actually his wife, and Rahab was a prostitute. These were flawed people, but by God’s strength, they were allowed incredible moments and even years to do deeds that we still remember today. We look back at them, and we look up to them for those deeds. Heroes are not flawless people. They make mistakes, but that doesn’t negate the good that they’ve been allowed to do. That doesn’t mean we can’t look up to them, but it does mean we can’t idolize them. It’s healthy to know that even great women and men have feet of clay, for it reminds us who is ultimately in control. James Dykstra is both a student and teacher of Canadian history. This article was first published in June 2017....

News

Court rules that Emergencies Act against “Freedom Convoy” was unlawful

Four years ago, in February 2022, Canada’s federal government invoked the Emergencies Act for the first time since it was enacted back in 1988, granting itself extraordinary power to break up the truckers’ convoy that assembled in Ottawa and elsewhere to protest Covid policies. By invoking the Act, the government received the power to prohibit citizens from assembling, as well as freeze bank accounts of those involved in the protests, and even ban and freeze crowdfunding, among other measures. In January of this year, the country’s Federal Court of Appeal made a unanimous decision, agreeing with the lower court ruling from 2024, that the government had not been legally justified to making use of the Emergencies Act. The court ruled that the protests “fell well short of a threat to national security.” The court also found there simply wasn’t sufficient evidence to back up the government’s claim that the convoy posed a threat of serious violence. “When all these legal and factual considerations are taken into account, we fail to see how the could ‘reasonably believe’ that a threat to national security existed at the time the decision to invoke the Act was made.” This decision is a good example of why civil governments need checks and balances on themselves, given our sinful human condition, and particularly a check on the age-old thirst for more power. The legislative and executive branches require the accountability and safeguards that are supposed to come from the Constitution, through the oversight of the judicial branch. For Christians, obeying the Romans 13 command to “be subject to the governing authorities” isn’t as simple as submitting to whatever the Prime Minister or Governor General orders in a given moment. In this case, it was the Prime Minister and Governor General that were acting illegally, and not the private citizens – the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Constitution Foundation, among others – who successfully challenged them in court....

Entertainment

You might relate to Mary Bennet, but you’re not supposed to imitate her

Mary Bennet gets a lot of good press. In Pride and Prejudice, she is one of the heroine Elizabeth Bennet’s three younger sisters, and she’s known as the bookish one. Maybe because readers of Pride and Prejudice may be bookish as well, we tend to feel the story overlooks her, so many a blog post, and articles, and even sequel novels have been written bemoaning this. This is in spite of the plentiful evidence that Jane Austen herself did not like her. Despite Mary being bookish, Austen did not mean to point to her as a character that we should imitate. This is astonishing, as the bookish girl is a pretty strong stereotype for female heroines by now – just think of Belle in Beauty and the Beast, Hermione in Harry Potter, or Jane Eyre. All of them readers, some a bit know-it-all, but all with a heart of gold. The character of Mary Bennet is swimming directly against the current in this matter. And readers relate to Mary – many of us know what it feels like to be “plainer” than those around us, to feel less intelligent even though we’re desperately trying to appear smart, to feel like no more than a background character in someone else’s story. Who can’t relate to wanting some distinction of your own, even if it’s not beauty? We like books about bookish characters proving themselves because we’re reassured that our bookishness will not be our undoing, and that someday those around us will realize that our bookishness has value.” But Jane Austen does not give us that satisfaction with Mary. Evidence of dissatisfaction with Mary’s story can easily be found. Both The Guardian and The Atlantic have written articles about the proliferation of sequels about Mary Bennet, which include: The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet, The Forgotten Sister, The Pursuit of Mary Bennet, and of course, one called There’s Something About Mary, Bennet. Many, many authors have seen potential in her character, and clearly many readers want to read about that potential. So what are Mary’s faults, according to Jane Austen? It’s not that she’s bookish and plain. It’s that she appears to read only in order to lecture others about what she’s read. She appears to practice music only in order to draw attention to herself with it. As a result, neither her speeches on the books she reads nor her performances on the piano avoid sounding “affected.” “Mary had neither genius nor taste; and though vanity had given her application, it had given her likewise a pedantic air and conceited manner, which would have injured a higher degree of excellence than she had reached.” In other places Austen defends the reading of books and applying oneself to improving oneself, but Austen never vindicates these aspects of Mary. She really doesn’t do much with her character plot-wise, and demonstrates that her way of being is just as “silly” as the younger sisters Kitty and Lydia’s way of living. Mary does not get a character arc or much development at all. She has no romantic events come her way either. I don’t think Jane Austen was against bookish girls. I don’t think she was subtly fighting against education for women, or against women having an opinion. I think she had a more complex idea here. What Jane Austen is trying to show is how one trait, overemphasized and over-developed, can be ridiculous. It’s kind of amazing how, despite all of Mary’s deficiencies in beauty and intelligence, her self-absorption is still derided as vanity by Austen. This is an important point! We like to think if we haven’t been given all the advantages other people have, we’re protected from vanity. We’re given a free pass to focus on ourselves, because after all, we aren’t as advantaged as everyone else. People should recognize and encourage us in what we do have. However, this very lack of humility can prevent improvement in the areas we might have relative strength in! It’s Mary’s air of condescension that makes her sisters dislike her speeches more – no one likes to be talked down to. Her piano-playing, while better than some, is less pleasant to listen to because of how conceited she makes it sound – she’s all-too-aware she is more skilled than Elizabeth. Her vanity in these things prevents her from using her gifts in a way that would actually give pleasure to other people (and Elizabeth proves you can give some pleasure to a listener even without being the best piano-player ever). And her vanity likely prevents her from even seeing the ways her gifts fall short of what she thinks they are. She doesn’t improve in the areas of attitude and mannerisms because she doesn’t think she needs to. Love is more excellent Does this mean she deserves to be laughed at by her sisters, or shamed by Mr. Bennet at the Netherfield ball? Of course not. Mr. Bennet’s treatment of her, in particular, is meant to highlight his shortcomings as a father and his insensitivity to what might improve his daughters’ characters. Now, if Mary actually is meant to have a character arc, perhaps one of Elizabeth’s or Jane’s attempts to rein in their younger sister’s vanities would sink in. As it is, we as readers are only left with the impression her vanity leaves on us, with the implication it is a warning – do not get so consumed in creating your own space for your own gifts that you blind yourself to how useless they are to anyone outside yourself. This is basically the opposite of every “find yourself” message in novels and media that is so common. Because, what is the reason we develop our gifts and talents? God did make each one of us unique, and he didn’t intend for some gifts to be laughed at or looked down upon. But He does have a purpose for our gifts. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul talks about the body and how each member belongs, even the parts that seem weaker. Yet Paul goes on in 1 Corinthians 13 to talk about a “more excellent way” – love. Our gifts are to be used in love, to build others up. No one should look down on another, and at the same time those who feel “less honorable” should remember their role is indispensable because it builds up others, not just themselves. We can draw inspiration from another Mary in Scripture, who humbly sat at Jesus’ feet to learn from Him. She was interested in study, to the extent she seemingly neglected other practical tasks. It’s not study that is the problem. But her attitude of humility, and her interest in things that really mattered, made her different from her Austen namesake. She focused her eyes on Jesus and what He called her to do, rather than her own motivations. A moral of the story So perhaps for us bookish types, we can take the message that there’s nothing wrong with being bookish, but it’s our attitude to others as a result that can be the problem. Even if others don’t understand us, it doesn’t give us justification to feel superior to them. Even if we are actually better in one area than someone else we know, rubbing that in everyone’s faces will not help anyone else, and can even be destructive to ourselves. But then again, this is not meant to be the main message of the novel – Mary is merely one of dozens of Austen side-characters that demonstrate how one over-developed characteristic renders one ridiculous. It’s Darcy and Elizabeth who get character arcs, and who change throughout the novel. Austen uses their story to tell her message. Though if you look at how Austen takes down her main character’s characteristics of “pride and prejudice,” maybe Mary Bennet’s characterization does support the overall theme of the novel after all. What about you? Do you find yourself with a lot of sympathy for Mary Bennet, or do you find her tiresome (as her sisters did)? Was Jane Austen too harsh on her? Harma-Mae Smit loves exploring how faith interacts with daily living, and diving into local history! She lives in Edmonton with her husband and daughter, and you can learn more about her at her website HarmaMaeSmit.com....

Christian education

Where has all the creativity gone?

Education needs to be about great books and great ideas... **** "Is This the Worst-Ever Era of American Pop Culture?" That was the question asked by...

Theology

#3 - The unknown Commandment

“You shall not take the Name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His Name in vain.” – Exodus 20:7 ...

Assorted

In Christ

The antidote to works righteousness and the anxiety, exhaustion, and resentment that comes with it. ***** I used to enjoy rock climbing. At least, I...

News

Court case seeks to force religious groups to provide euthanasia

Parenting

The part about parenting I didn't find in any parenting book

I tend to be a fairly methodical person, so what does a methodical person do to prepare for parenthood? Why, read a small library of biblical child training books, of course. But after going through those books (as helpful as they were), I wanted to compare what I had read with the source of all that godly wisdom: the Bible itself. While studying Scriptural passages on child training, I encountered a principle I had not read before. Maybe there are books out there that do mention this principle and I just haven’t read them. It’s even possible that the books I read mentioned this principle, and I just somehow missed it. Whatever the case, I was amazed that I hadn’t heard it before. I’m convinced it may be one of the most important tools in one’s parenting arsenal. Tell your kids what God has done What is this hidden, or overlooked, parenting secret? Simply put: share your testimony with your children. This involves not just the story of how God brought you to faith, but also the countless instances where God delivered or strengthened or encouraged or provided for you. The first several verses of Psalm 44 give us an example of how personal testimonies can affect the lives of future generations. This psalm is actually a lament (see the second half), but it begins with declarations of unwavering trust in the Lord, based largely on the writers’ knowledge of what “our fathers have told us” (verse. 1). Stories from the “days of old” have led the sons of Korah to trust in God’s saving power and not their own strength. Notice how often, in just the first two verses, they point away from themselves and toward God (emphasis mine) …our fathers have told us The work that You did in their days, In the days of old. You with Your own hand drove out the nations; Then You planted them; You afflicted the peoples, Then You spread them abroad. A parent’s testimony is a powerful means of grace for children, because it points to tangible expressions of God’s faithfulness. Sharing is a privilege Sharing one’s testimony isn’t a burden or a chore; it is a privilege and a joy. As C. S. Lewis has pointed out, an enjoyment of something often isn’t complete until that enjoyment is shared. You know you really enjoyed a movie or a book when you tell everyone else about it. The telling itself is the consummation of your enjoyment. Consequently, the writer of Psalm 71 begs God not to let him depart until he has had the opportunity to declare God’s strength and power to the next generation: Now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God, do not forsake me, until I declare Your strength to this generation, Your power to everyone who is to come (vs. 16-18). Sharing stories of how God has worked in our lives is a great way to help our children see the manifold effects of the gospel. It helps them see how mercifully and graciously God treats us, even as we struggle with our own sins and inabilities to live up to His perfect standards. The design of this God-centered focus is so that our children may set their hope in God – not in their own ability to obey Him. As Psalm 145:4 puts it, “One generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts.” The narrative of our stories involves innumerable instances of God’s saving and sanctifying work. This practice of sharing our testimony needn’t be turned into a legalistic pursuit. Rather, our testimony is simply the story of what God has done; instructing our children is no more a “work” than me telling my wife about my day at dinnertime. Our testimony is all about who God is, what He has done, and what He has promised to do. It is the overflow of past grace that points us all toward future grace. For our children’s benefit – as well as our own – may we remember and recount God’s faithful deeds to our children. May we vividly paint a picture of our Father’s awesome wonders in action. May our stories draw the hearts of our children toward God’s loving embrace. May we delight in His wondrous works so that we relish each and every opportunity to share them. And may our sharing be the consummation of our own delight in the Treasure of our souls: God Himself. Cap Stewart blogs about movies and the arts at CapStewart.com and his substack. This article was first published in 2017....

Assorted

That which bubbles up to the surface

The Reformed theologian R.C. Sproul, (1939-2017), is quoted as saying: “… laughter is precisely the kind of thing that will always confound scientists because it is so intensely human. It is that which bubbles up to the surface from the parts of us too deep to fit in a test tube. “Which is why it’s so funny, and telling, that they try. One of the most common forms of humor is when the prideful take a fall. The Emperor’s, shall we say, exposure, comes from this fertile field. How much more ridiculously prideful can man be then when he thinks he can come to a fundamental understanding of man? How can we not laugh when one of us takes another of us and earnestly tries to squeeze us under a microscope? And when our bellies begin to shake, instead of joining in the fun, the fool scientist sits down to take notes. “ That which bubbles up to the surface, that is to say, laughter, is a gift, and it is biblical. God gave us the gift of laughter. It is a good thing, for example, when we acknowledge something amazingly wonderful with a burst of happiness. Remember Sarah who, when she became a mother, exclaimed in Genesis 21:6: “God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me." Ecclesiastes 3:4 notes that there is a time “to laugh.” Likewise, Proverbs 22:17 notes that a “joyful heart is good medicine.” And Psalm 126:2, one of the songs of ascent, speaks about “mouths filled with laughter.” There are other instances, but these are enough to point to the fact that laughter, good laughter, is a gift from God and a healthy one. The Holy Spirit deemed Sarah’s laughter of such importance that her burst of joy was written down in Scripture – an illustration that acknowledgement of God’s goodness can be a time of sheer joy. The Spirit also deemed it important that Bible readers know that it is good for one’s health to shake with mirth. *** On the other hand, there are thoughtless words and “bad jokes” which can mock holy things. We have to be extremely careful in discerning what we may laugh at. There is foolish laughter, shallow laughter, and there are times when we ought not to laugh. Most people are familiar with the Reader’s Digest’s column entitled “Laughter is the Best Medicine.” As a matter of fact, waiting in a dentist’s or doctor’s office, many pick up the magazine and read the amusing stories which these pages relay – stories which cause wholesome smiles. As well, both parents and school teachers, often recount numerous delightful incidents of children redefining words, unwittingly bestowing warped meanings which generate heart-warming chuckles. Richard Lederer’s book of Anguished English records many funny bloopers and blunders in the English language. Here are some smiles unintentionally created by children during school hours. Q: “What is the capital of Italy?” A: “I” “Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston in 1809 and was found unconscious. Three days later, he died in 1849.” “A liter is a lot of newborn puppies.” “Some people can tell time by looking at the sun, but I have never been able to make out the numbers.” “The hydrogen bomb is sometimes called the itch bomb. I don’t know why.” “Our new teacher told us all about fossils. Before she came to our class, I didn’t know what a fossil looked like.” Misplaced and strange phrases, as well as grammatical errors, can entirely change meanings. These errors can feed our day-to-day existence with ear-to-ear grins. Newspapers, for example, often contain strange but chortling information. “The patient lives at home with his mother, father, and pet turtle who is presently enrolled in day care three times a week.” “She was numb from her toes down.” “She typed the list of numbers alphabetically.” “The patient’s vision was 20.20 in both ears.” “He has a long history of a short leg.” “The patient was bitten by a bat as he walked down the street on his thumb.” Norman Cousins, (1915-1990), was an American journalist. He was diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis in 1964, when he was 49 years old. Things looked so bad for the man that he was told by doctors to put his affairs in order. Upon hearing the diagnosis, Norman left the hospital and decided upon an unusual course of action. Firstly, he began to take an extremely high dose of vitamin C every day, and, secondly, he rented a movie projector and began watching comedies – comedies such as the Marx brothers’ films and Candid Camera reruns. It is recorded that Norman Cousins laughed and laughed until his belly hurt. He later wrote: “I made the joyous discovery that ten minutes of genuine laughter had an anaesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep.” Cousins died in 1990, not of a worsening of the Ankylosing Spondylitis condition, but of heart disease. The aforementioned book by Lederer also recorded guffaws of amusement generated by signs posted on public buildings. On a travel office: “Don’t take a chance on ruining your vacation – come to us and be sure.” On a gas station: “We’re out of Rolaids, but we’ve got gas.” On a furniture store: “We promise you the lowest prices and workmanship.” Outside a country-kitchen restaurant: “Restrooms/Please wait for a hostess to seat you.” On an office: “Would the person who took the stepladder yesterday please bring it back, or further steps will be taken.” In the countryside: “Quicksand warning! Any person passing this point will be drowned. By order of the District Council.” On a store: “This is the back door. The front door is around the back.” Outside a pre-school: “Please slow drively.” Signs in foreign countries, trying for perfect English, have also wreaked havoc with the English language, causing much amusement for tourists. On a building in Japan: “Beauty saloon.” On the wrapper of a Russian ice-cream bar: “Do not taste our ice cream when it is too hard. Please continue your conversation until the ice cream grows into a softer. By adhering this advisement, you will fully appreciate the wonderful Soviet ice cream.” In a Beirut hotel: “Ladies are kindly requested not to have their babies in the cocktail bar.” In a Shanghai buffet: “You will be able to eat all you wish until you are fed up!” Earth laughs in flowers. So said Ralph Waldo Emerson. We, however, live in times in which it often appears as if we can see nothing on earth about which we can chuckle or laugh. Rumors of war, economic distress, famines, hatred, a turning away from truth are reasons for sadness. And we do well to know this. Yet humor and laughter are important to the Christian life. God has created the emotion of laughter within us and, by virtue of that fact alone, we can treasure it. It can be perverted, so we do well to be careful. The preacher, Charles Spurgeon, (1834-1892), rejoiced in birds and flowers and many ordinary things around him. Yet he also often struggled with depression and personal tragedies. He remained, however, a man of great joy and humor, believing joy and humor to be vital in the life of a Christian. He loved to share good jokes with family, friends and colleagues. A fellow pastor and personal friend, William Williams, wrote about Spurgeon: “What a bubbling fountain of humor Mr. Spurgeon had! I laughed more, I verily believe, when in his company than during all the rest of my life besides. He had the most fascinating gift of laughter - and he had also the greatest ability for making all who heard him laugh with him.” Things which induce clean laughter or amusement increase our ability to perceive happiness and are a gift of God. Conversely, a somber Christian, one who never smiles or laughs, is often Christian devoid of gladness....

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – January 2026

Thrill seeking Ray Comfort is generally a pretty calm and tactful sort, but he has little patience for Christians who want to get a rush by jumping out of airplanes. "If you’re a Christian and you are tempted to jump, instead of catering to your thrill-seeking ego, think of someone else other than yourself. Think of those who love you and those for whom you are responsible. This injudicious world doesn’t know any better. You should. Think of the more than 150,000 people who die every 24 hours, and if you want a thrill, get up on a soapbox and tell dying sinners how to find everlasting life. That will kill your ego." Illuminating humor Q: How many actors does it take to change a light bulb? A: Only one. They don't like to share the spotlight. Q: How many aerospace engineers does it take to change a light bulb? A: None. It doesn't take a rocket scientist, you know. Q: How many visitors to an art gallery does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: Two: one to do it and one to say "Huh! My four-year-old could've done that!" Q: How many Dutchmen does it take to change a light bulb? A: Change? On "neutral" education "Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil." – C. S. Lewis What really matters in a marriage partner? What really matters in a marriage partner? Is it looks? Looks fade. Is it a man's ability to provide? Jobs and money can be lost. In his book Meaning of Marriage (pages 125-126) Tim Keller asks us to re-evaluate the way we evaluate potential marriage partners. "Most of us know that there is some truth in the stereotype that men overvalue beauty and that women overvalue wealth in a potential mate. But if you marry someone more for these things than for friendship, you are not only setting yourself up for future failure – wealth may decrease and sexual appeal will decrease – but you are also setting yourself up for loneliness. For what Adam needed in the garden was not just a sexual partner but a companion, bone of his bones, and flesh of his flesh. "If singles accepted this principle, it would drastically change the way people seek a marriage partner in our day. It is typical for a single person to walk into a room and see a number of people of the opposite sex and immediately begin to screen them, not for companionship but for attractiveness. Let’s say three out of ten look appealing. The next step is to approach those three to see what rapport there may be. If one of them will agree to go out on a date, and you get romantically involved, perhaps you will see if you can turn that person into a friend as well. This problem is many of your best prospects for friendship were likely among those you ruled out because they were too tall or too short, too fat or too skinny. "We think of a prospective spouse as primarily a lover (or a provider), and if he or she can be a friend on top of that, well isn’t that nice! We should be going at it the other way round. Screen first for friendship. Look for someone who understands you better than you do yourself, who makes you a better person just by being around them. And then explore whether that friendship could become a romance and a marriage." Great warnings Sign in store: “Unattended children will be given an espresso and a free kitten.” Where are they, and what direction are they heading? Douglas Wilson on two key questions to help us assess the state of public figures and private ones too: "First, just as we evaluate individual lives by the video, and not by the snapshot, so also we should measure churches, denominations, seminaries, and so on, in the same way. In short, there are two fundamental questions to ask — the first is where are they? and the second is what direction are they headed? "On a two-lane road between Heaven and Hell, two cars can be at the same place in the road, but still headed in completely opposite directions. To expand the illustration, one car can be closer to Heaven, but headed the wrong direction, and the same for another car closer to Hell, but outbound." Why public education can't be neutral "Obviously, the schools are not Christian. Just as obviously, they are not neutral. The Scriptures say that the fear of the Lord is the chief part of knowledge; but the schools, by omitting all reference to God, give the pupils the notion that knowledge can be had apart from God. They teach in effect that God has no control of history, that there is no plan of events that God is working out, that God does not foreordain whatsoever comes to pass. "Neutrality is impossible. Let one ask what neutrality can possibly mean when God is involved. How does God judge the school system, which says to him, 'O God, we neither deny nor assert thy existence; and O God, we neither obey nor disobey thy commandments; we are strictly neutral.' Let no one fail to see the point: The school system that ignores God teaches its pupils to ignore God; and this is not neutrality. It is the worst form of antagonism, for it judges God to be unimportant and irrelevant in human affairs. This is atheism." – Gordon H. Clark The deniers "If anyone could rationally be labeled a climate-change denier, it would be one of those who hold the absurd view that our climate was tranquil until we started to emit significant amounts of CO2." – Tom Harris, executive director, International Climate Science Coalition. Great warnings II In Sigmund Brouwer's The Lies of Saints, the hero, Nick, is helping out his friend Kellie who is laid up in the hospital, the victim of a particularly nasty car crash. Nick is a good friend, and the perfect gentleman – he knows she has a boyfriend, so he would never think to act on his attraction. Or so he thinks. But a pastor who knows both of them – the eighty-something Samuel Thorpe – is more than a little concerned. He knows that what a man intends can change quickly, given the wrong sort of circumstances. So when Nick pops by the pastor's office for a visit, Pastor Thorpe decides this is the time for a needed, awkward conversation. "'It's a ticklish business to be friends with a woman,' Samuel said, 'particularly one like Miss Kellie. She's fine-looking, and smart and of good character. I'm certain you're not blind to that. I doubt for that matter, that it's escaped her notice that a woman could do worse than land a man like you. But as you mentioned, she's in a committed relationship, Nick.... Now I'm not suggesting that you have or intend to do anything inappropriate. But it's like driving a car. Good drivers aren't the ones who can handle a car in a skid and keep it on the road. Good drivers are those who recognize when conditions are bad and take action not to get into trouble in the first place.' "'Kellie's in trouble,' Nick said. 'She needs help. That's all I'm doing.' "'You don't have to justify your motives to me. Just beware of them yourself. All I'm saying is if there's trouble way up the road, it'd be a lot better for you to see it coming and slow down before you reach it.'" Deep dad thoughts Why are pirates called pirates? I don't know - they just arrrrrr. I threw a boomerang months ago. Now I live in constant fear. Where do you take someone who has been injured in a peek-a-boo accident? The ICU I asked my son what he learned today, and he said: "Dutchmen like Sony, Scots like Yamaha, and Italians prefer Bose." I looked down at my little man and just shook my head. "Son," I told him, "don't you know those are just stereo types?" How do flat-earthers travel? On a plane. I once got a job at a canned juice company, and got along great with everyone there, but they had to let me go because I just couldn't concentrate. ...

Christian education

Teaching English from a Christian perspective, as brought to you by the Letter C

As Christians, we are rightly thankful for what has been brought to us by the letters A, B, and C, and the letters D through Z, through which we may read the word of God. Our culture, too, so highly values the ability to read and write that it supports the public school teaching of those skills, as well as the related skills of listening, speaking, viewing (the "reading" of visual images), and representing (communicating through visual images). But Christians have even stronger reasons for valuing language and communication, since we know a personal God, who communicates his love and glory to us. So how does a Reformed teacher live out his faith, and enable his students to live out their faith, in the Language Arts classroom? Well, unsurprisingly, given the title, there are (at least) six different things that make the Reformed language arts classroom distinct, all beginning with the letter C. Christ-Centered First of all, Reformed language arts teaching must be truly Christian, or to put it even more strongly, Christ-centered. Obviously this is true of all Reformed education, but what does it actually mean in the Language Arts classroom? For one thing it means Christ's birth, death, resurrection, ascension, and rule should be at the center of our discussions of literature and life. In Schindler's List, for example, Oskar Schindler is frequently spoken of as a kind of savior, since his factories kept many Jews out of the concentration camps. A Christian discussion of the film (or of the novel upon which it is based) will ask how Schindler fails as a "savior," and deal with whether Schindler himself recognized, directly or indirectly, his own need for the Savior. Other kinds of literature either exclude the possibility of salvation, or the need for it (since man is "naturally" good), or show it less directly as being accomplished by some character's heroic acts (or his or her "decision" for Christ). A Reformed teacher will discuss with his students how to react to the false gospels of our culture, and will demonstrate how even these false gospels show the need for the true Savior. Finally, Reformed Language Arts teachers will show and kindle passionate love for literature that fully acknowledges our need for salvation through God's grace alone, and demonstrates that Christ is both Savior and Lord. Covenantal Reformed Language Arts instruction is also covenantal. How? I am not referring simply to the fact a Reformed teacher teaches covenant children (although this is true). My point is that our communication must be a response of thankfulness (our obligation) to His love (according to His promise). This doesn't mean that we can't write for personal reflection or entertainment. It does mean, however, that our more personal writing will reflect on more than just whether we are meeting our own "personal goals" – something that government curricula take for granted as a primary focus of personal reflection. Rather, students should learn to make explicit their understanding of their relationships with God – to "meditate on your precepts and consider your ways" (Psalm 119:15) – and with others through Him. As far as our communication with others is concerned, our basic goal should be "speaking the truth in love" (Ephesians 4:15) and communicating "what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen" (Ephesians 4:29). For instance, the novels Peace Shall Destroy Many and The Chosen both deal with isolated religious communities' attempt to deal with the increasing secularism of the society in which they exist. Their response is to withdraw from that culture – an idea that is clearly less than fully faithful. A Reformed language arts teacher will encourage class discussion, journal writing, presentations, and essays about how and whether we fall prey to the temptation to withdraw, and what we might do about that situation of failing to be light and salt in the world. Cultural Education in a Reformed language arts classroom is also cultural. I have already mentioned that as Jesus commands in Matthew 5: 13 - 16, we are to be involved in the world around us. To do that, we need to know the culture in which we live – its idols, and how we may well be rather impressed by those idols ourselves. To gain that knowledge, we study literature - both contemporary literature for a glimpse of our own culture, and the "classics" for a glimpse of the roots of current ideas and attitudes. One other reason to study the classics has been given by C. S. Lewis, who recommended that we read at least two old books for every current one we read. Why? Because like a fish in an aquarium, we are living in our culture, so we may not even see its errors clearly. Lewis said that reading the books of the past is like putting on a new pair of glasses, because while old writers also made errors, they were different errors – ones that we have often learned to see through. At the same time, the old writers saw things about purity, love, and godliness that our own culture may have blinded us to. Counter-Cultural Although Reformed language arts education is cultural, it is also counter-cultural. For example, I use Frank Peretti's Prophet in my Grade Eleven media studies unit on journalism and news coverage. The novel rewards study in two ways. First, it sheds an interesting light on the way the news can be packaged to promote various agendas. Secondly, the novel has its own weaknesses, coming from a somewhat Pentecostal, and arguably Arminian, point of view, which can promote discussions about exactly how the Spirit does do His work among His people, and how God exercises His sovereignty in man's salvation. After we analyze both of these issues from a Biblical perspective, I challenge students to respond concretely to the errors of our culture by writing a letter to the editor and/or a critical or persuasive essay. Creativity The challenge of responding concretely, to both Christ and culture, brings us to the fifth element of Reformed language arts education: creativity. Though we must test (and challenge) the spirits of our age, we cannot stop with a purely negative and critical approach. We must also be positive, using our talents in communication to glorify God and build up the neighbor. This is why the students in each grade of my English classes must submit a piece of work to be published, or at least considered for publication, by someone outside the school. There are plenty of places to seek publication: the annual Remembrance Day Contest and various poetry contests, magazines like Reader's Digest and Reformed Perspective, and books like Chicken Soup for the Soul. Whether or not a student gets published, he or she must write a process paper dealing with the issues faced in crafting his or her work. Cooperation The aspect of Reformed language arts education that I find hardest to carry out is its communal/cooperative nature. When a baby is baptized, God’s covenant promises to him or her are witnessed by the whole congregation, the body of Christ. Two chapters in the Bible deal extensively with how the members of the body are necessary for each other's welfare: Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12. Covenant youth should be trained to seek the good of the whole congregation, to work together, to build each other up. Unfortunately, the students' all-too-human nature often makes this difficult, since group projects – setting up an assembly together, putting on a drama skit, or presenting a dramatic reading of a poem – often mean that some try to ride on the coat-tails of others. This can be avoided by giving each group member a distinct role and responsibility (as in the body of Christ), by cementing the cohesion of the groups with various team-building activities, by assigning groups smaller tasks with more supervision at first, and by assigning "group" work outside the school walls. For example, students can be assigned to write up the memories of older members of the congregation, for an anthology of anecdotes about various moments in history, thus requiring them to work with people they might rarely, if ever, talk to otherwise. The most challenging part of bringing out the communal aspect of communication, however, lies in encouraging more gifted students to support their fellow learners without short-circuiting their learning. The best way to meet this challenge is to ensure that the tasks a teacher gives his or her students are meaningful and thoughtful enough to require everyone's participation. However, equally important is the kind of examples students have seen of Christian cooperation within their school, churches, and families. How well do we, as adults, model a patient attitude toward those weaker than ourselves - neither ignoring them, as our competitive and individualistic society tempts us to do, nor taking their independence from them? Conclusion As you can see, Reformed language arts education is a colossal challenge, requiring caring, commitment, compassion, and consistency. A Reformed teacher must not only teach effectively, but also model the values he or she teaches. This can only be done, with many shortcomings (with which I am all too familiar), through the work of the Spirit, by the Word and prayer, and within the communion of the saints. I would love to hear from any of my fellow saints out there whether these thoughts have struck a chord. (There, I ended with a c-word.) This article was first published in December 2014....

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