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In a Nutshell

Tidbits – September 2025

Ping Pong

by Jay Adams

“A soft answer turns away wrath. But a foolish word stirs up anger.” – Proverbs 15:1. Every time I read that Proverb, I think of Ping Pong.

How’s that?

Oh... it just seems to illustrate the principle in the proverb so well!

Don’t get it.

You see, many Proverbs are pictured principles of portable truth.

What about Ping Pong?

Oh! Here’s what I meant. One player slams a ball as hard as he can. What happens after that?

Dunno.

The other guy has to move away in order to receive it. It drives them farther apart.

Yeah? And……?

And if he slams one back just as hard, or harder, that separates them all the more.

Sure.

But if he simply answers the slam with a gentle return by merely holding his paddle still in receiving it, the ball barely goes back over the net and...

…and that draws them closer together.

Right! So what’s the principle in the picture?

Don’t slam people?

I give up.

Taken, with permission, from www.nouthetic.org where you can find more of Jay Adams’ wit and wisdom.

When's the last time an elephant called you on your birthday?

I've always been bad with names – so bad that, back in high school, I just called all my teachers "sir" (which worked great, except with Miss Schoen). I’ll sometimes be told about how “an elephant never forgets,” as some kind of challenge or encouragement to do better. But really, what do elephants even need to remember? Where they left their car keys? Nope, because elephants insist on walking everywhere they go. What about putting the milk back in the fridge? Don’t need to remember that either, because elephants are totally fine with lukewarm milk. Do they know any of the provincial capitals? No siree, because where they’re from they don’t have provinces. What about all their spouse’s coworkers’ names? Not only do elephants not have coworkers, they don’t have names! I mean, when we’re born, right there in the hospital, we get slapped with Harry, Sally, Fred, or Brooke – so many names to remember! But elephants? They don’t even have a place where the elephants are named! If an elephant never forgets, it's only cause he's got nothing to remember!

So, yes, I do need to get better at people’s names… but don’t get me started on elephants!

We do have fun here

Last month, RP staff was batting around new catchphrases for our Real Talk podcast. All sorts of ideas were shared, including some solid ones by our Executive Director Mark Penninga. But the last on his list struck me as curious: “a place where the elephants are named.” I thought he was having fun, ending his serious list with one that was just plain silly so, to add to the joke, I pledged that if we didn’t pick it, it was so good I’d have to use it in my Nutshell column. So I did, in the joke above. Turns out, though, the joke’s on me. Only afterwards did I realize Mark was referencing the “elephant in the room”… which we do indeed need to name. Just not Harry, Sally, Fred, or Brooke!

Domination, no. But dominion, yes.

One key difference between secular environmentalism and biblical stewardship is the role they see for Mankind. While environmentalism is a broad movement with differing views, secularists will see Man as merely a part of Nature – and a potentially disruptive, destructive part at that. Meanwhile, God has placed us at the pinnacle of His creation, and given us a role in managing it. Art Caden and Caleb Fuller (featured on a recent Real Talk episode) give a great summary in their Christian economics primer, Mere Economics:

“‘Filling’ and especially ‘subduing’ might sound aggressive, but it’s the language of Genesis 1, where God issues his first command:

‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion of the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’

God’s first command to humanity, believe it or not, is ‘reproduce.’

“This Creation Mandate establishes people as God’s stewards on earth, dispelling a host of fashionable economic misconceptions about creation along the way. That humanity is to ‘fill’ and ‘subdue’ suggests that creation is not a museum where only the daintiest white-glove treatment is permitted. From the beginning, God told people to develop and cultivate creation’s potential….

“Genesis 1 also shoots down the opposite error, that we can do whatever we please. God calls his creation ‘good,’ which means earth mustn’t be stripped bare or treated as a cosmic trash heap, as in 2006’s Idiocracy or 2008’s WALL-E. Humanity is to exercise “dominion” – stewardship that cultivates creation’s nascent possibilities for the good of the creature and the glory of God. We are not permitted to exercise ‘domination,’ whereby one’s gain is another’s loss. The fundamental question for mere economics becomes: How do we avoid stumbling headlong into either a refusal to cultivate or a drive to dominate creation?”

Ten conversation starters

Going out for a date with your spouse became almost impossible once the kids arrived. But now, when you’ve finally pulled it off, you can’t think of anything to talk about except the kids!

Don’t worry. In their book Love Talk Starters, Les and Leslie Parrott outline 275 questions that are guaranteed to get your conversation going. Here are a few:

How would you finish this sentence: “My spouse is gifted at…”
Think of a time your mom or dad apologized to the other. What have you learned about apologizing to your spouse from your parents?
Can you name a spiritual goal you have as a couple? If not, is there one you can set together now?
What topic of conversation do you most fear discussing with your spouse?
What would be the perfect way for your spouse to wake you up in the morning?
On a scale of 1-10, how would you feel to receive a brief call from your spouse just to say, “I love you”? How do each of your ratings differ?
When your spouse is ill, how would you rate your bedside manner? From your spouse’s perspective, what would improve it?
What patterns of behavior, for better or worse, did you establish in your first year of marriage?
What word of advice would you give to a couple about to be married?
What is the most tender way your spouse says, “I love you” without using words?

If you believe in evolution then why not teach prostitution?

Renton Maclachlan is a New Zealander with a gift for getting to the heart of a matter. What follows is an extract from a 2008 speech in which he asks the provocative question, “Why shouldn’t prostitution classes be run at high schools?”

“Taught in various ways from the bottom to top of the educational system is the idea that life, the universe and everything is the result of blind, impersonal, purposeless, and amoral forces. That we are not the Creation of a personal moral Creator and thus are not subject to any rules such a Creator may have set for our behaviour. There is no higher law or higher Lawgiver. We are the lawmakers, and we will make any law we like.

“On this basis, Parliament legalized prostitution, making it just another service industry – like selling hamburgers, or teaching…. For four years at Onslow College I did woodwork and tech drawing, and then the Careers adviser arranged for me to visit a number of building outfits to see if I liked the idea of becoming a builder. Building is a valid service industry for students to train and find employment in. So now that prostitution has joined building as a valid service industry, why shouldn’t prostitution classes be run at high schools like technology classes are, and why should career advisers not arrange trips to brothels for aspiring prostitutes?

“In a Darwinian world, the type of world presupposed throughout most of the educational sector in New Zealand… no valid objection can be raised.”

While the world has no basis to raise objections, we all know such a class would be wrong. So... why? While the world has no basis for objection, God's Word tells us why we would all – Christian and unbeliever – object anyway. It's because His law is written on our hearts (Romans 2:14-15). We all know better, even when we pretend not to.

You can't multiply wealth by dividing it

"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it." – Dr. Adrian Rogers

Great free Calvin biography

John Piper has republished T.H.L. Parker’s 1954 biography of Calvin and made it available online as a free download. It is a short book, only 127 pages, that can be read in an evening, and it is well worth doing so. You can find it at DesiringGod.org here.

Lyric o’ the month

The band MercyMe, taking on their own biggest idols in "So long to self," on their album Coming up to Breathe

Well, if I come across a little bit distant
It's just because I am
Things just seem to feel a little bit different
You understand

Believe it or not, but life is not apparently
About me anyways
But I have met the One who really is worthy
So let me say

So long, self
Well, it's been fun, but I have found Somebody else
So long, self
There's just no room for two
So you are gonna have to move
So long, self
Don't take this wrong, but you are wrong for me, farewell
Oh well, goodbye, don't cry
So long, self

Stop right there because I know what you're thinking
But no, we can't be friends
And even though I know your heart is breaking
This has to end
And come to think of it, the blame for all of this
Simply falls on me
For wanting something more in life than all of this
Can't you see

Farewell, goodbye
So long self

C.S Lewis on “Should you risk asking her out?”

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully around your hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable." – The Four Loves, chapter 6

Taming the terrible tongue

“One of the first things that happens when a man is really filled with the Spirit is not that he speaks with tongues, but that he learns to hold the one he already has.” – J. Sidlow Baxter

Different sort of dictionary S-Z

Suburbia: Where they cut down trees and put in streets named after them.
Tact: making a point without making an enemy
Tattoo: permanent proof of temporary insanity
Toothache: The pain that drives you to extraction.
Vegetarian: Old Indian word for bad hunter.
Vocabularian: A person who makes up new words.
Volunteer: Take on work that makes no cents.
Weed: an unloved flower
Worry: interest paid on trouble before it falls due.
Yawn: An honest opinion openly expressed.

SOURCE: various emails making their way around the Internet

Full Article

Dating

8 reasons you should not have sex outside of marriage

Parenting

J.C. Ryle on teaching our children to pray

In his book "Duties for Parents," J.C. Ryle encourages parents to take seriously the admonishment in Proverbs 22:6 to “Train up a child in the way h...

News

Saturday Selections – Aug. 30, 2025

Great illustrations of the government's limits Big government presumes that its bureaucracy is omnicompetent, able to manage for its citizens the job...

Theology

I won't go with you: abandonment as an act of love

Politics

What if everything was about God?

It struck me, just recently, that I’ve been regularly promising to praise God’s Name “among the nations.” This pledge, to talk about God outside of church, out in the world, with non-Christians, comes up again and again in the songs we sing each service (Ps. 18, 57, 108, etc.). And, just recently, God gave me an opportunity to talk about Him with more than a hundred thousand people, sharing His views on a local political issue. God made it happen This year our public library system asked voters to approve a roughly 66% increase in taxpayer funding. The way things work here, an official “voters’ guide” is sent out to everyone, and it includes both the reasons for and against every proposed levy. Who writes up those reasons? Whoever volunteers first. So, I recruited my wife Janice, and the two of us, along with one other gentleman from the area, became the three-person “Against Committee.” Why was I against more money for the library? It’s because our solidly Christian town has a very unchristian library. The local branch is run by people who put on big Pride Month displays, even in the children’s section. This Spring, I bumped into a neighbor by the picture books section, and as we were chatting, she started sifting through the shelves, looking for treasures. But what she kept discovering was one disgusting picture book after another. They were about sexual development, or pushed gender-confusion and other LGBT themes, and were intended for kids barely old enough to read. Neither of us knew what to do with her growing stack. I ended up checking them all out, not because I wanted them, but because, with no late fees being collected anymore, I could at least keep these out of circulation for a good long while. That’s all I was thinking at the time. But I still had those books on my desk when this voters’ guide opportunity popped up. Turns out, God had provided me just the ammunition I’d need for my write-up. What kind of win? While I wanted to focus on how the library was opposing God and what He’s said about gender and sex, the third person on our Against Committee wanted a focus on the money. Making it about the money could broaden the appeal to anyone in the county who cared about their pocketbook. Surely that was a bigger group than just the concerned Christians! Asking for a two-thirds increase is significant, so he had a point. It’s also a familiar point. When it comes to politics, Christians tend to bring forward fiscal issues, or other generally conservative points, rather than anything explicitly Christian. In this case, if more people care about money than God, isn’t the winning strategy obvious? The thing is, not all wins are wins. In 279 BC, King Pyrrhus of Epirus defeated the Romans at the Battle of Asculum, but at a devastating cost to his own army. Ever since then the term Pyrrhic victory has been used to describe a win that leaves the victor weaker than before. In Christians’ engagement with the world, we will, for the sake of some perceived short-term victory, overlook the long-term consequences that come with excluding God from the public square. We wonder why our culture is turning from God, but if, for strategic reasons, God’s own people won’t profess His Name in politics, who are we expecting will? Every square inch The world is the LORD’s, and consequently, the Devil is always and forever trying to get us to overlook, downplay, or deny that. In this library skirmish, the real issue wasn’t how much, but rather Who the library was opposing. So, what kind of win would it be if we had to shut up about our LORD to get it? If the Devil could choose to make us focus on either money or God, wouldn’t he choose money every time? The devil’s win is getting Christians to self-censor their praise and rob God of the glory that is His due. Thankfully, while the third member of our committee wanted money mentioned, he was happy to keep God central. After some back and forth, this is what we sent out to 140,000 eligible voters: Argument Against In the opening chapters of Genesis we learn that God made us male and female (Gen. 1:27) and sex is intended for marriage (Gen. 2:24). Our library system actively opposes these truths, and wants more money to do so. They oppose God in their teen section where Beyond Magenta shares an account of oral sex with a six-year-old. Despite this being brought to the library’s attention, they didn’t pull the book. That opposition is apparent even in the picture book section. Your preschooler can pull My Princess Boy off the shelf and ask you whether boys should wear dresses too. Being You: A First Conversation About Gender will teach them that “it’s okay to wonder: Am I a girl? Am I a boy? Am I both? Am I neither?” And Everybody is a Rainbow depicts naked genitalia. A $600,000 home currently pays about $155 a year to this system – the library wants to up that almost $100, to $252. We have increasing food, electricity, housing, and gas costs – that’s what we need our money for. We most certainly don’t need to give more money to a library that’s opposing God-given truths and sowing confusion, even among the littlest. The voters’ guide only allowed us 200 words, but the debate was also being had in the local paper. The paper published an article arguing for the increase, touting the library as somewhere safe to go. I got 300 words, in a letter to the editor, to share how God knows best what is best for us, and a library pushing transsexual confusion on little kids isn’t safe at all. Three kinds of objections Objections came in three sorts. Folks noted that, if it was about the money, borrowing from a library can save you a lot of money. That was a decent point, and it underscores the danger of what could have happened if we’d made this minor point our major one – we would have wasted all our energy on a matter that doesn’t matter. Another objection was along the lines of “Don’t force your God or your views on me.” But this objection applies better to their position than to ours. Christians don’t want to be forced to pay even more money to support views our Lord opposes. Meanwhile, the library and its supporters want to force us to cough up cash for their agenda. The irony was heavy. The third objection was over the definition of words like “safety,” “love,” and “gender,” and whose definition we were going to go with, the Left’s or God’s. A real win The vote went against us, and now we’ll have to hand over even more money to a library that’s shown it hates God. In the past that kind of result might have gotten me frustrated. This time I’m just grateful. God gave me an opportunity to praise His Name in public, and He made it easy for me. He put the committee sign-up sheet in front of my face, and so pre-arranged things to get my neighbor to track down the obscene picture books I could cite as horrible examples. Then He got a couple hundred words about Him sent out by a State that hates Him to over one hundred thousand voters who don’t normally hear about Him. It was a political campaign with the focus on God. Because everything is about God. And He is amazing....

Internet

Screen-fast strictness – how tough is tough enough?

The screen-fast sign-up form had a space for “My listed exceptions” where people could list the important but limited screen-usage that their life and job required of them. Unfortunately, after the screen-fast began, we started hearing from people who didn’t sign up because they thought no exceptions were allowed. Shucks. I wish we’d managed to be louder about the possibility of exceptions, since we wanted to give everyone every reason to participate. For many this was more about turning away from social media than screens. Some listened to podcasts instead of watching videos, even if that meant they were using their phone. Exceptions maybe, but good ones. So, come next time, your screen-fast could like this: “We didn’t do any internet browsing (I searched for recipe inspiration via books!), or anything that could become a time waster/rabbit hole. We did have to order some needed items that came up (quick order and done), checked email once day in case there was committee work that needed attention (unlikely but possible this time of year). I spent more time in real books (loved that!) and no browsing/scrolling in bed before lights out (probably my favorite part), and used messaging as needed for necessary communication (though for extended chats, phone calls happened too, more than usual). I didn’t open Facebook or Instagram (my biggest time wasters) at all. My husband didn’t open Facebook Marketplace or Varagesale (his scrolling vices).” Some also thought the “the ‘rules’ were vague, and left too much for interpretation so creating an excuse...was easy at times.” Good point – the exceptions might allow some of us more flexibility than we should take. For example, I fully planned for my family to go just 9 days, because part way through the fast we had a 5-hour plane flight. I thought that would be too long to be stuck in one seat without a video to pass the time. But my wife encouraged the kids to read, play card games, chat, and watch the scenery out the window, and they all did just fine. It was wonderful that we didn’t just wimp out. Here’s how some fasters used creativity and determination to keep their screen usage to an absolute minimum. “Went camping with the family…..Had to get out our old GPS to find where we had to go. Left the phone home.” “Early on the kids kept coming up with reasons to go online – a recipe they needed, some piece of music they wanted to play, and we got a little Pharisaic, letting them ask their neighbor friend to help download whatever. It still meant that, instead of turning to a screen, they had to interact with a friend.” “I did take the opportunity to sift through some of my parents CD collections and listen to music that way…” “We found it very helpful to become aware of our instant gratification culture in the family. Suddenly Amazon shopping was off the table and if somebody needed something they had to wait until we went to town.” “The hardest thing for my wife and I is that about twice a week we would watch a show in the evening together. Otherwise, I found it freeing but not super difficult.” “I was in kitchen and realized I was missing an ingredient for dinner. Usually, I would just grab my phone and Google substitutes or a recipe for what I'm missing. During my screen-fast I had to thumb through a cookbook, or just wing it.” “…we had a 4-hour drive during the challenge where they would normally get a tablet to watch shows. Instead, we picked out a couple fun fidgets, coloring books and new crayons, and I read them a chapter book. On the way home… even though the 10 days were past, the kids didn't ask for a tablet once!? So how hard is too hard? When it’s so hard you don’t think it’s possible to do it. When is it too easy? Maybe it’s like weight training – if you don’t strain, what’s the gain?...

Theology

Practicing the Sabbath: on living out the 4th Commandment

It is not uncommon. Under pressure at the office or on the job, at school or right at home, vacation can’t come soon enough. “Ah,” we console ourselves, “Three weeks away from it all, filled with hiking, camping, touring, biking, sailing, and maybe even a trip to Disneyland itself.” When it finally arrives, we throw ourselves into our leisure, making the most of every moment, wringing every last drop of excitement out of our all too brief respite from the drag of our daily grind…and come home plumb worn out. We go back to working, lamenting the brevity of our respite, grudgingly facing the unwelcome demands of the job once more, trapped into knowing we have no other choice: it’s the only way to keep the wolf from the door. Whatever happened to real, solid rest, the kind that refreshes our spirits so deeply it reinvigorates us all the way down to the very depths of our beings, or, as Psalm 23 would describe it, “restores our souls”? Vacation is not enough What happened is that we confused rest with respite, as if a 30-second timeout in the fourth quarter makes athletes as full of energy as when the game began. A vacation is merely a respite (which we all need, just like a good night’s sleep); it’s far from the kind of deep rest the Bible calls a “Sabbath.” Vacations don’t cut it; real Sabbaths do. No wonder our Father commanded that we practice Sabbath every week and he used plenty of words to insist upon it. Have you ever noticed that in the NIV, the Exodus 20 version of the 4th commandment is 99 words long? The final five commandments, altogether, take up just 53 words. God has almost twice as much to say about remembering the Sabbath day than He does about murder, theft, adultery, lying, or coveting combined, suggesting to us that one of the most powerful defenses against immorality of all kinds is (did this ever occur to you?) a soul saturated to the full with God’s kind of deep rest. And then, as if to give it even more firepower, would you observe that it’s the only commandment which reinforces its demand by insisting that we face up to the compelling reality that this is what God Himself did, as if to both warn us that we best follow our Creator if we know what’s good for us, and besides, call us to humble ourselves enough to learn just how to do it from His example. If you came home tired from vacation, or, more seriously, if you sense a weariness in your soul so deep that not even a full night of sleep (induced by medication), or a day of surviving demands (eased by your regular dose of Xanax) gives you the kind of relief you crave, perhaps it’s time to seriously reconsider practicing Sabbath as devoutly as you practice your fitness routine. In other words, have you ever considered fitting, into the rhythm of your week, a 24-hour period where you stop living as a human “doing” and actually enjoy living as a human “being”? If you’re even slightly curious enough to keep reading, then let me be audacious enough to prescribe for you the pathway to deep rest: watch how God rested, and then, go and do thou likewise. The commandment makes it as simple as imitating God. Of course, where it gets complicated is trying to figure out just how God did it. But He has not left us without a description: He finished his work: “Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing (Gen. 2:1-2a). He savored the goodness of his workmanship: “God saw all that He had made, and it was very good (Gen. 1: 31). He ceased from all working: “…so on the seventh day He rested (NIV footnote: “ceased”) from all His work. …because on it He rested (NIV footnote: “ceased”) from all the work of creating He had done (Gen. 2:2b, 3b). Each dimension deserves such careful scrutiny, we’ll ponder them one at a time. Finished work God entered into his Sabbath by first having completely finished the work he set out to do during his “work week.” If we are to enter into deep rest, we simply must get our work done first. The commandment is firm on this: Six days you shall labor and do all your work. Finish your homework, your housework, or your assignments at the office. If you have work that was supposed to have been finished during your six days of labor, and could have been finished, but wasn’t due to your own procrastination, I can virtually guarantee this: that undone work is going to infect any rest you try to find on your “day off.” It will weigh on you. It will preoccupy you. You’re compromised! Now I can just hear it already: “My work is never done.” A mother’s work is never done. A farmer’s work is never done. A teacher’s work is never done. True enough, but then God’s work is never done either. Jesus said that his father was always at his work to that very day (John 5:17). But, what was finished was the work of creating. That was completed. True enough: much remained to be done in this creation. There was no pizza or lasagna. Nobody had written poetry yet, and the only music came from birds because there were no violins. There was so much yet to do, which we call culture. But the work of creation itself was fully completed. Every day has its task; every week, its duties; every meeting, its agenda. You want to know what really kills our rest? Work that should have been finished, and could have been finished, but isn’t finished. Unfinished assignments absolutely bar the way into joyful rest. So, be like your Father. Do it. Get ‘er done, even if you have to work extra hard as your particular work week approaches its final day or hours. Nothing relaxes us more than being able to look back upon a truly finished task, be it anything from a reading assignment, having made the required number of sales calls, or having done our rounds in the hospital. The finest picture of such profound rest in Scripture is the utterly still body of the One who had just said, “It is finished” lying quietly and calmly in a borrowed grave even while His spirit savored the joys of Paradise. Imagine the depth of His holy rest having fully drunk the cup of God’s wrath to the very last drop! Can there be any rest deeper than that? The wonderfully good news of the gospel is that, through Jesus, we are called and welcomed to enter into and savor that finished work. There is no richer Sabbath. Savoring accomplished work When He finished creating, God savored his accomplishment. Scripture puts it like this: “God saw all that He had made, and it was very good” (Gen. 1: 31). That is how He entered into His rest. Now that is something most of us moderns hardly take the time to do. Look back? Savor what you’ve done? Who has time for that? Who even thinks of that? Especially on our days off! We’re just glad to be away from the scene of the grind. I recall a breakfast I had with a friend, a highly paid professional in a tough line of work: lawyering! His iPhone lay next to his plate. His eyes darted toward it frequently as we munched on our muffins. I could tell he was preoccupied. I asked him, “Don’t you ever give yourself a break from that thing?” “I can’t,” he said; “in fact, I can’t afford to.” “When do you ever rest?” I probed. “Well,” he said, “I try to rest on the weekends but….” I waited. “But what?” Then he opened a glimpse into his uptight world I’ve never forgotten. “I never get a full weekend of rest because already on Sunday afternoons, right around 3, every week, it starts,” he continued. “What?” I asked. “This tightness in my gut; I can just feel the pressure rising. The stuff waiting for me in my office on Monday morning starts forcing its way into my mind, and from that point on, I’m toast. I can forget about getting any more rest.” “In other words,” I gently teased, “you actually show up at the office about 17 hours before your body gets there?” “You’re not kidding!!” he moaned. I suspect my friend has plenty of company. Our driven hearts are forever pushing us forward, even to the point that we are so focused on what lies ahead, Monday pushes itself up into our Sundays, as unbidden as acid reflux, and as sour. Not so the Trinity! As God entered into His rest, this is the exercise He went through at the end of the sixth day: He looked backward. He surveyed his workmanship. He paused to delight over it. He admired the beauty of Eve, marveled at the masculinity of Adam. He saw all with His all seeing eye and rejoiced over every one of His works. That’s the exercise God Himself went through as He entered his rest. He studied what He had done, and celebrated it. In fact, He ended every day savoring what He had done on that particular day, but at the end of the sixth day, He savored the whole panorama of His creativity, from the light He created the first day to the light-clothed humans He created on the sixth, and He rejoiced over all his works (Psalm 104: 31). A second key to entering a place of deep rest calls us to imitate God and look back, savoring all that He enabled us to do during the previous six days. The doctor looks back in her imagination upon the faces of the patients she has treated. The waitress, the customers she has served. The trucker, the loads he delivered. The teacher, the lessons his students learned. Looking back moves the soul from anxiety to celebration as it disciplines itself to survey the beauty of a steady stream of accomplishments, each a trophy to the God who was right there empowering us every step of the way. That simple exercise has immense power to lay a soul down into deep rest by stiff-arming the intrusions of future “undones” as it relishes the joys of past “dones.” For what the soul is doing at such moment is supercharging itself with wonder and gratitude at the remarkable faithfulness of God who was right there with us during every moment of those six days past, assuring it that so much went well, once again. I wonder if my neighbors just might think I’m nuts. Like all good Lyndenites, I edge, trim and mow my lawn faithfully every Saturday. It’s a rite around here. When finished, I stow my equipment and then do something which, if they are watching, might suggest to them I’m a little “off.” I take a good ten minutes and just walk around my lawn, and yes, frankly, I admire what I and my equipment have just achieved! I marvel at the sharp edges around the flowerbeds and savor the smells of newly mown turf. Odd? No. Like God? Yes. Now God did something there that is crucial to being able to rest. He affirmed his work as valuable; He gave it worth. He savored its beauty. He celebrated His accomplishment. The three persons of the Trinity rejoiced in what They had made, rejoiced in Their workmanship. They stopped, turned around (unlike the other six days which were all forward looking, this was backward looking; from all the undone work ahead to the finished work behind), looked back, and They delighted in Their finished work. Do you ever do that at the end of your work week? Your day of rest begins by looking back. Let’s say you deliver and pick up mail. Do you ever think back to all the people you serve every week by bringing them their mail? Think of the hundreds of people who every week find something in their mailbox they have just been waiting for – and you brought it to them. Now that is something to savor, to celebrate. Most of us try not to think about our work on our day off. Not God. God entered his Sabbath by ruminating, savoring, delighting in what he had just done. One of the key elements of deep rest is savoring a sense of accomplishment. This is what shelters us from the tyranny of future tasks charging in and infecting our rest. You rest when you learn to resist this “Oh, there is so much I have yet to do” (which is very true for all of us) to “But look at what we have managed to accomplish.” We are so driven by the demands of the future that we have forgotten to pause and take delight in the regular accumulation of the accomplishments of our lives. Ceasing from all work There is a third Sabbath practice to consider, but be forewarned: you may not like this. In fact, you may think I’m just being a fussy old legalist. We cannot truly Sabbath, unless every 7th day we totally cease, as much as is reasonably possible, our daily work for 24 hours and refuse to come anywhere near it. We don’t even check our phones for work-related text messages. Why? Because of the explicit prohibition in the commandment itself: “On it you shall not do any work.” Worship? Yes! Play? Sure. Work? None. Zilch. Nada. When deadlines, demands, homework and duties bear down on us relentlessly this may seem hard. Who can afford this, especially in today’s highly competitive, low profit margin, economy? Close up shop, one day a week? Ridiculous. Students stay away from studies a full day in every seven? Sure way to flunk out! Really? Are you so sure it’s ridiculous? Have you checked that with conservative Southern Baptist Truett Cathy, who, from the beginning in 1946 insisted that his fast food Chick-fil-A restaurants be closed every Sunday? Today there are over 2,200 of them, and they are flourishing. In 2014 the chain was #9 in total profit among all fast food restaurants, but #1, by far, in profitability per store. Each store earned $3.2 million vs. second place McDonalds at $2.6 million. They have been #1 in customer service for years. Rested and cared for employees are much more industrious and compassionate, and the result is customer loyalty that creates long lines in the drive-in lane and tidy profits at the bank. And they are closed everywhere, every Sunday. But perhaps that’s not convincing. Then consider this remarkable story. My town of Lynden, Washington has a mother, Phoebe Judson, who founded our city, arriving here in 1871. She promoted Sunday closure. Here’s why. In May, 1853, Phoebe and her husband Holden joined a covered wagon train near Kansas City hoping to reach Washington Territory by mid-October, a distance of more than 2,000 miles over the rough Oregon Trail. Like all wagon trains, they elected a captain. His word was the law. Well, they chose Rev. Gustavus Hines, only to be surprised one Saturday night when he announced the train would never travel on Sundays. Phoebe was shocked. They had half a continent to cross, at oxen pace (15-20 miles per day on a good trail), with at least four mountain passes and innumerable river crossings ahead of them. She sat in her wagon and just fumed. One family deserted the train and joined another. On their first Sunday, while they stood still, one train after another passed them by. But, being the daughter of a minister herself, Phoebe felt they had no choice but to honor their captain’s scruples. They started out again on Monday, bright and early, only to reach their first river cross on Tuesday evening. A long line of wagons stretched out ahead of them, waiting for the single “ferry” to carry them across. They waited 3 days. On Saturday they resumed the journey, only to be told they would still rest the whole next day. Phoebe was livid. This made absolutely no sense to her. Still, the minister’s daughter obeyed. Then, a few weeks later she began to see scores of dead oxen, mules and horses along the trail. They had been driven so relentlessly, they had collapse and died. She grudgingly admitted that perhaps the animals needed a day of rest. A few weeks later, she ruefully admitted that maybe the men needed it too, since they walked most of the time. Then she slowly began to notice that as they worshipped, ate, rested and even played together on Sundays, it had a remarkably salutary effect upon people’s spirits. There was less grumbling, more cooperation. She even noticed that they seemed to make better time the other six days. Finally, what totally sold her on the value of the Sabbath happened one Sunday evening: the family that had deserted them came limping into their campsite, humbly asking to rejoin them. She had assumed they were at least a week ahead; in fact, they had fallen behind. Their own wagon train had broken down! Of course they welcomed them back. And so it happened that they reached their destination in plenty of time, as friends, and out of the 50 head of cattle with which they began, only two were lost. Conclusion May I be so bold as to caution us about spiritualizing the meaning of the Sabbath commandment so much that we forget its literal and physical side? Bodily stepping entirely away from all work for 24 hours is clearly what is prescribed. Its benefits are enormous. For one day, it moves us from life as a “human doing” to life as a “human being.” For one day, it compels us to recalibrate our hearts back to the stubborn fact that “…God is the only source of everything good, and that neither our work and worry nor His gifts can do us any good without His blessing” (L.D. 50, Q&A 125). For one day it allows our souls to catch up with our bodies, or vice versa! For one day it arrests our drive for profits by reminding us that our real wealth is not in what we have but in whom we love and in who loves us. For one day it slows us down enough to ease our anxiety over reaching our destination to actually enjoy the journey. And for one day it brings us back to that Light, in Whose Light, we see the light which brightens every day. Rev. Ken Koeman is a retired pastor living in the quite restful town of Lynden, WA. A version of this article first appeared in Christian Courier and is reprinted with permission. It was first printed in RP in February 2018....

News

Saturday Selections – Aug. 23, 2025

Distinguishing between Soft and Hard Christian Nationalism Because certain Reformed folk support a form of Christian Nationalism, others will be strongly against it... but what exactly is the it they are against? After all, as John Stonestreet notes in the video below, the term has a broad variety of definitions. If we were to let the Left define the term, you might hear them equate any Christian political involvement as being an attempt to bring in a theocracy that would require everyone to make the choice to either go to church or go to jail. Thinks that's an oversimplification? Just remember the women who came out to protest Canadian Reformed politician Sam Oosterhoff while wearing the red outfits from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. That book and TV series is based on a future "Christian" dystopian theocracy that perpetuates ritual rape. And what did Sam Oosterhoff do to deserve such a malicious, ridiculous protest? He's a professing Christian, and he's in politics. That's just like Atwood's dystopia, so they say. So, before you say you aren't a Christian Nationalist, you'll want to ask what definition is being used. If all that's meant is Christians acknowledging God is sovereign over the political realm too, do you want to side against that? (John Stonestreet also moderated a 90-minute debate on Christian Nationalism here.) Economic nationalism is a dead end Some Christians who reject any sort of "Christian nationalism" will rally around the notion of a Canada-first "economic nationalism." But why would nationalism be good so long as it is economically, and not religiously, motivated? I don't know the answer to that question. The linked article isn't Christian, but highlights how any sort of economic nationalism – Liberal- or Conservative-run – presupposes that whoever the Prime Minister will be, he will know better than you as a consumer what products you should buy, for what prices, and from whom. That's what tariffs, supply management, and business subsidies are about. Any sort of economic nationalism also presumes that whoever our PM will be, he will know better than you as a producer whether your business should be taxed, or whether you can be one of the lucky companies to be gifted taxpayer dollars. But history shows that top-down management of a country's economy doesn't work because no one is smart enough to know best for everyone else what they want and need. History has shown it, so this columnist didn't have to make an explicitly Christian argument to counter economic nationalism. But we didn't have to wait for the Soviet Union to fall, and for China to struggle, or for Canada to go through its own socialist doldrums to know better already. Any sort of biblical understanding of Man's fallen nature, our susceptibility to temptation, and our fallibility would have made the point already, long before we would have had to endure the painful consequences that always come with economic arrogance. That, then, is a reason not simply to reject economic nationalism, but to stop being shy about sharing God's truth. We can save our neighbors pain, both eternally and here in this life as well by sharing the truth about Man and his limitations. We do need a supreme intellect to lead us, but that will only be found in our God, not our government. Why it’s important to read bad books about bad ideas "A meme on social media quotes my colleague Glenn Sunshine as saying, 'If I had a gun with two bullets, and I was in a room with Hitler, bin Laden, and Jean Jacques Rousseau, I’d shoot Rousseau twice!' Glenn insists he never said that, but then quietly admits he wishes he had." Killing for organs - who could possibly object? When murder becomes medicine – when euthanasia is legal – then it's inevitable that the line is going to be pushed on when someone is "dead enough" for organ donation. When doctors don't think life is sacred, then what worry is there, really, if someone in a bad state has their life ended a little prematurely? The slippery slope is no fallacy when the world can't find any brakes to stop the slide. The only answer is a complete return to understanding that our lives are gifts from God, and thus not ours to dispose of as we might wish. Why Christians shouldn't use IVF "...IVF kills twice as many babies as abortion. there are a million babies aborted every year, but IVF kills almost 2 million babies a year." Jimmy Clifton's "Proof of God" An intriguing anti-evolution, pro-life song... ...

Internet

Less screens = more life

What we learned by stepping away from our phones for 10 days ***** We were hoping for 200 to sign up. Turns out a lot of us were ready for this �...

News

Saturday Selections – Aug. 16, 2025

Life's building blocks: everything, everywhere, all at once (1 minute) You can build some of the basic elements of a cell in a lab. But there's no pr...

Theology

The Lifelong Battle

I hate it. I love it. I’m held in its grip. Its power’s alarming. I feel myself slip. It draws me with offers Of quiet and rest, Of freedo...

Assorted

Why I don’t have a bucket list

Admittedly, to get guilt tripped into a camping trip exposes character weakness on my part. When someone bounds up to you, excited as a kitten encount...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – August 2025

Husbands, build up your wife R. Kent Hughes in Disciplines of a Godly Man, on Churchill at his very best: “Winston Churchill once attended a formal banquet in London, where the dignitaries were asked the question, ‘If you could not be who you are, who would you like to be?’ Naturally, everyone was curious as to what Churchill, who was seated next to his beloved Clemmie, would say. After all, Churchill would not be expected to say Julius Caesar or Napoleon. When it finally came Churchill’s turn, the old man, the last respondent to the question, rose and gave his answer. ‘If I could not be who I am, I would most like to be’ — here he paused to take his wife’s hand — ‘Lady Churchill’s second husband.’ The old boy made some points that night. But he also said it for everyone who has a good marriage.” One step to a balanced budget Billionaire Warren Buffet once proposed a one-point plan to ensure the United States would always have a balanced budget. It was a half-serious, half-genuine, 100-per-cent-genius suggestion. And it's equally applicable in Canada. "You just pass a law that says that any time there's a deficit of more than three percent of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election. Yeah, yeah, now you've got the incentives in the right place, right? ….If you guys can't get it done, we'll get some other guys to get it done. The only problem: the people who would have to pass such a law are the same people who would lose their jobs." Worst names In an old copy of Reader’s Digest, one letter writer noted that their relatives had gotten married in the Boring Baptist Church. It was a curious name. Might it have come about as a reaction to the seeker-sensitive marketing that has churches hyping that "We have a great band, a puppet ministry for the kids, and the very best coffee bar in town!" But no, this is simply what the folks in Boring, Oregon called one of the local Baptist churches. A bad name, to be certain, but better than what the congregations have to deal with in Falls, Virginia. Who wants to say they go to a Falls church? Clues for the clueless Modesty is a battle that every upcoming generation seems keen to wage. So if your teens are either wearing their clothes too high or too low, here's a couple tips that may be hepful. BOYS: If their pants hang low, arrange for the little sister to point out: "Freddy, I can see your panties!” That should do it. GIRLS: This line might be best delivered by mom, or maybe grandma: "If you can’t sit down in it without being indecent, it isn’t decent.” Playing at religion C.S. Lewis, in Miracles, wrote about sinful man's tendency to pretend to seek after God. But what may come of even that when the Holy Spirit is involved? “It is always shocking to meet life where we thought we were alone. ‘Look out!’ we cry, ‘It's alive!’ And therefore this is the very point at which so many draw back – I would have done so myself if I could – and proceed no further with Christianity. An ‘impersonal God’ – well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness inside our own heads – better still. A formless life-force surging through us, a vast power that we can tap-best of all. But God Himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at an infinite speed, the Hunter, King, Husband – that is quite another matter. There comes a moment when the children who have been playing at burglars hush suddenly: was that a real footstep in the hall? There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion (‘Man's search for God!’) suddenly draw back. Supposing we really found Him? We never meant it to come to that! Worse still, supposing He had found us!” A bumper sticker worth 1,000 words A good question can be a powerful thing (as Jesus demonstrated in His earthly ministry). Spurgeon – the rap If you've got reservations about rap, that's understandable – like rock and pop, most of it is horrible. But consider also what a Reformed rapper can do with this genre. Here's Shai Linne, with part of Verse 3 from his ode to Charles Spurgeon. (Click here to hear him perform it.) To observe this servant is extremely instructive One word about Spurgeon is he was productive Preached Jesus - no speakers - loudly he’d shout it Each week packed houses of crowds in the thousands His sermons were published - sixty-two volumes He worked almost like he just knew he would die soon Made mad disciples, passed on his knowledge Established a school to train pastors in college Sold out to the Lord Jehovah, his portion Also he built two homes for the orphans A monthly magazine, plus he wasn’t too busy to write books - about a hundred and fifty God’s grace in Spurgeon was manifest But remember, the best man is a man at best Yes, he struggled with depression - consistently sick, kid Both he and Susannah, physically afflicted He experienced as a servant of Jesus The power of God made perfect in weakness Later on comes complications His stands for orthodoxy got him shunned by his denomination But through all the hardship and all the controversy He never stopped relying on the sovereign God of mercy And when he had finished pressing towards the goal He entered into heaven at the age of fifty-seven His life is a case of God’s grace effectively At work in sinners to leave a great legacy The proof is many years later in your speakers We’re praising Jesus for raising up the "prince of preachers." Don’t all religions lead to God? In Together for GOOD, Jay Adams gives readers a fictionalized conversation between Greg Cunninghamm, a pastor, and Bob Rawlston, an unbelieving man wrestling with the Book of John. One of the Bob's struggles is with John 14:6 where Jesus says, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." It is the exclusive claim of the last sentence that bothers Bob. "I always thought that whatever religion you accept, so long as you are sincere, it will ultimately lead you to God. But Jesus doesn't provide much room for anybody except those who believe in Him." The pastor has two responses well worth considering: "If all religions lead to God, surely He wouldn't be much of a God since He'd be a contradiction in Himself. You see, since every religion contradicts every other, and if all of their ways lead to God, then God Himself must be confused. You wouldn't want to believe in a God who says one thing today and the opposite tomorrow, one thing to one person and the opposite to another, I'm sure? ".... And think of this: if people can be saved from their sins some other way than by believing the Gospel, then Jesus' crucifixion was not only a senseless tragedy, but sending Him to die was a stupid, brutal act on God's part. No matter how you squeeze it, when you think rationally, you have to come to the conclusion that if there's one God, there can only be one way." Math to make you smile In Craig Damrauer’s New Math the author takes everyday language and gives the words mathematical definitions. Sometimes the results are insightful. His definition of a Ponzi scheme makes it evident that those that fall for them are, most often, looking to get something for nothing: Ponzi scheme = ROI – R – I (ROI stands for Return On Investment). Other definitions are merely humorous. Here are a half dozen of the best. MODERN ART = I could do that + yeah, but you didn’t PERSEVERANCE = if at first you don’t succeed + repetition DOG = cat + loyalty REVENGE = do unto others – as you would have them do unto you CHILDREN = joy – sleep LOSING ARGUMENT = you’re right + I’m sorry REALIST = pessimist + good PR Why read Christian biographies? In his article, "Brothers, read Christian biographies," John Piper explained why we should: “Hebrews 11 is a divine mandate to read Christian biography…. If we asked the author, ‘How shall we stir one another up to love and good works?’ (10:24), his answer would be: ‘Through encouragement from the living (10:25) and the dead’ (chap. 11). Christian biography is the means by which ‘body life’ cuts across the generations.” Danger of biblical biographies I once read a fictionalized biblical biography of Paul that left me thinking that he and James fought over whether we can be saved by works or faith. I learned later that this was the author inserting his own perspective, and, not yet discerning enough to sift what was biblical from what was fiction, I swallowed it all. Some years back, Joanna Voschezang, writing in the Faith in Focus denominational magazine of the Reformed Churches of New Zealand, expressed a similar concern: “ sub-genre within that of biography is a section which could just as well be entitled ‘Biblical Novels.’ There are a number of books that have been written about people in the Bible such as Rahab, Joshua, Moses and Tamar. These books are written with very little factual, biblical information to go on and yet an entire story has been made around it. The danger of these books is that they can color your view of that biblical character for the rest of your life and yet 95 percent of it will be conjecture on the part of the author. When it comes to the lives of those in the Bible it is best to stick with the original source – God’s holy Word!” The real thing In Charles Martin’s When Crickets Cry, the main character has a frank conversation about pornography with a young man named Termite. "Your mind imprints images, especially that kind, on the heart, so that ten and fifteen years down the road, when you're married and trying to make something out of your life, they come drifting back, bubbling up and reminding you how much greener the grass is outside your own bed. I have loved one woman in my lifetime...she's been gone five years, but, I've got enough memories to last a lifetime, and I wouldn't sell you a single one for every picture in every magazine around the world. And you know something– the ones where she has her clothes on are worth just as much as the ones without.... Love is no tool; neither is a woman's heart." ….Termite scoffed and shoved the last bite of jerky into his mouth “How would you know? You just said you’ve loved only one woman. I think you need to test-drive a few cars before you buy one." "You can buy that lie if you want, but if you're working for a bank, you don't study the counterfeit to know the real thing. You study the real thing to know the counterfeit.... From out of the heart, you speak. You put that crap in your heart, and you can't help but find it coming out your mouth. It'll color and flavor your whole person. Pretty soon, it'll eat you up." Cults flourish wherever the Church is neglectful Some cults are started by charismatic figures with large egos – they are quite happy to have the attention on themselves rather than God. But as Jay Adams explained, sometimes it is the Church that is to blame for the rise of a cult: "…as someone has said, 'Cults are the unpaid bills of the Church.' What does that mean? Simply this – whenever the church of Jesus Christ fails to emphasize some truth, and becomes imbalanced in one direction or another, it leaves room for a cult to creep in and take over that area of theology which it has neglected. You didn’t pay your bill, so someone else moves in to take possession of what was your God-given responsibility to teach in the first place. Take the days in which there was little emphasis upon eschatology. The Adventist cults gained favor. The period in which there was little concern for pastoral care led to the beginnings of the healing cults." From insult to insightful "The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false- for the urge to rule it.” Some quotes age well. This bit, from H.L. Mencken (1880-1956), was originally targeting Christian missionaries heading off to “foreign parts” and, in that context, was simply insulting. But today, when we have would-be environmental, economic, educational, and political saviors, all of whom are demanding more control and more power, Mencken’s words have become insightful....

News

Saturday Selections – Aug. 9, 2025

Four guys, one piano, doing a One Direction cover The Piano Guys, getting clever... Anything can be an idol "I have worshiped an hour of uninterrupted sleep. I have worshiped a number on the scale. I have worshiped a number in my bank account. I have worshiped a pregnancy test, a tidy to-do list, a stocked pantry, a nicer vehicle, a certain number of social media followers, my reputation, positive book reviews, the way I look or didn’t look, perfect obedience from my kids, a certain home aesthetic. And on and on the list goes. I have a heart that loves to produce idols, and unfortunately, so do you..." Keep our kids from the public school Kool-Aid "The world wants our children to buy into poisonous ways of thinking. These ways of thinking are destructive and dangerous. They’re Satanic." How voting with your feet helps "You vote every day when you go to the grocery store or the gas station, pay your rent, purchase a washing machine or buy a latte. You are voting with your feet and sending important messages about your preferences and desires to the folks who are trying to give you what you want... The private voting we do through economic exchange is possibly the most important voting that we can do: It brings about change, it helps us express our values and it serves the public good in awe-inspiring ways." AI and the threat of Mutually Assured Boredom "The great danger is that we increasingly find real, flesh-and-blood people boring. It’s already the case that many ordinary human interactions, filled with quirks, annoyances, and complexities, struggle to compete with nonstop entertainment from our devices. AI promises to exponentially expand our options for distraction, drawing us even further from genuine relationships, but this time by successfully imitating human conversation." Union leaders oppose family and life values Reformed church leaders have, over the years, had several different reasons to oppose union membership, including the Marxian ideology that underlies adversarial negotiations, and the claims that are made on employment that amount to theft – i.e., when strikers prevent others from doing the work they've abandoned, they are acting as if they (and not their employer) own the job. Then, as the article above highlights, in Canada, compulsory union dues have been used to promote "abortion, euthanasia, special rights for LGBTQ, same-sex marriage and transgenderism." Fortunately, in some jurisdictions in Canada, there is an option – on the basis of religious conscientious objection – to have your union dues redirected to an agreed-upon charity. What about the higher wages that are supposed to come with unionization? That happens. But as the video below highlights, that often comes with a cost, too. ...

News

Canada just about had a ballot as tall as you

On August 18, voters in the riding of Battle River–Crowfoot will go to the polls to elect one of the 214 candidates on the ballot. This is the largest number of candidates in Canadian history to compete for a single parliamentary seat, far surpassing the previous record of 91, which last occurred in the Carleton riding during the 2025 election. Pierre Poilievre was one of the 91 names on the 2025 Carleton riding ballot. Why are so many people running? Well, 201 of the candidates share the same official agent, Tomas Szuchewycz, and seem to be part of a protest group, called the "Longest Ballot Committee” (LBC). While the LBC may have some connections with the old satirical Rhinoceros Party (best known for its pledge to repeal the law of gravity), this time they are at least pretending to make a serious point. I say pretending because if they wanted to make a serious point, you’d think they would try to get the word out. But only 24 of their 201 candidates bothered to submit a website to Elections Canada, half of which linked only to YouTube music videos about the candidate. Another candidate's page stated, “I’m doing this out of spite” and said little else. Only a half dozen or so attempted a policy statement. And the LBC’s Bluesky page vaguely stated they wanted “decisions on election law” passed on to “an independent, non-partisan body, such as a citizens’ assembly to decide.” And how might someone get onto such a body? Appointed? If so, by who? Or elected? By what process? No ready answers could be found. The real reason for this flood of candidates can be traced to a 2017 ruling that struck down the $1,000 deposit requirement. The government defended the requirement as a way of heading off frivolous candidates, but Justice Avril Inglis rejected that argument. She pointed to the 27 Rhinoceros Party candidates who had run in the 2017 federal election and “apparently caused no harm to the integrity of the electoral process.” But 27 joke candidates spread across the country is very different from 200 running in one. The 2025 Carleton riding ballot, with 91 candidates (see picture), was one meter long. With the prospects of a two-meter long ballot this time, Elections Canada has gone with a write-in ballot. As a National Post article put it, “what would have been Canada’s longest-ever ballot has become its shortest-ever.” Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, running in this riding and now up against Long Ballot Committee candidates for the second time this year, made three suggestions that would stop the LBC from running hundreds of candidates again: Raise the bar for candidate nominations by requiring 0.5% of the population in any given riding to sign, not just 100 people (that would work out to about 400 people on average) Require that each signature in support of a candidate be exclusive, with no signatory permitted to endorse more than one candidate in the same election Restrict official agents to representing only a single election candidate at any given time While the LBC’s fuss is worth reining in, we shouldn’t want a lot of restrictions on who can run – too many restrictions could become a means for already organized big parties to squelch any smaller challengers from getting off the ground (like the Reform Party back in the late 80s). The third suggestion could hurt the Christian Heritage Party, which has a serious message to share, but not a lot of staff to go around. So, what’s the smallest change that could be made and still be effective? What could help, but not squelch? All that would be needed is Poilievre’s second suggestion. The 201 LBC candidates likely used the same 100 voters’ signatures again and again, but this change would have required them to get a total of 20,100 different people to nominate their candidates from a riding in which there are only 85,000 eligible voters. Ballot photo is adapted from a photo by Harry Kusumah Hidajat, and is used under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license. Editorial cartoon at the top was created with ChatGPT...

Assorted

Yea, all things

come not by chance but by His fatherly hand - Lord’s Day 10 ***** The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord. – Proverbs 16:33 The Heidelberg Catechism is both a confession and a summary of the doctrines of Scripture. The words of the Heidelberg can be easily understood, even though they convey the deep truths of the Bible. Two men, Zacharias Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus, were commissioned by Frederick the Pious (III), Protestant ruler and devout Calvinist, Elector Palatine of the Rhine (1559–76), to write this catechism for the people. Ursinus was a timid scholar, who preferred study to the limelight, and Olevianus was an eloquent preacher. Both were uniquely gifted and were providentially brought together by God to write the wonderful questions and answers in the Heidelberg. When our children were younger, my husband Anco and I spent much time in teaching them the Heidelberg Catechism. We considered Lord’s Day 10, dealing with the providence of God, an important section, and we took our time with its questions and answers. Question 27: What do you understand by the providence of God? Answer: God’s providence is His almighty and ever-present power, whereby, as with His hand, He still upholds heaven and earth and all creatures, and so governs them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed, all things, come to us not by chance but by His Fatherly hand. At the close of breakfast each morning, even at the risk of missing the school bus, we would recite the phrases in unison. These words were a spiritual intake that contained the past, the present and gave much confidence in the future. Odd but true The truth that God is totally in charge of all things, things that occur each day, has been a comfort throughout my life. There is a rather odd, and simultaneously humorous, story which I heard from my sister some forty or more years ago – a story which illustrates God’s providence. Because she is a truthful person, I believe it happened. It runs like this. A retired preacher was living out his days of retirement together with his wife in a two-story condo somewhere in the States. On Saturday mornings he was wont to take a bath in preparation for Sunday. One Saturday, as he was soaking in the tub, his wife let out a blood-curdling scream in the living room. It chilled him to the bone and he hopped out of his bath. In the altogether, he raced through the hall, into the living room, only to find his wife standing on a chair, totally upset. “What is it, Mary?” he asked, alarmed by her loss of composure. She pointed to the couch. “A snake,” she finally managed, “there is a snake under the couch.” “A snake?” he responded, slowly turning his head, searching the room. “Yes,” she went on, “I was watering the flowers and suddenly it crawled right by me and crept under the couch.” She again pointed to the couch. Cautiously Stan, the preacher, walked over and knelt down to take a peek. He couldn’t really see much as it was dark under the couch. As he was investigating, their dog came up behind him, nudging the pastor’s posterior with his cold nose. Thinking it was the snake, Stan promptly fainted, face-down, on the carpet. Mary, brave woman that she was, got down off the chair and hastened over to her husband. “Stan!” she called out, “Are you all right?” Stan, however, was out cold. Thinking that he’d suffered a heart attack, Mary ran to the phone and dialed for help, calling for an ambulance. The ambulance arrived just as Stan was recovering consciousness. Two men raced up the stairs, introduced themselves and skillfully maneuvered the pastor onto the stretcher they had brought with them. Gently and carefully covering him with a blanket, they took his blood pressure, finding it high. “Sir, it is possible you suffered a heart attack,” they explained, “and we’re just going to take you into emergency to make sure you are not in trouble.” Reassuring him and his wife in this way, they calmly carried him out of the room into the hallway. Standing at the top of the staircase, one of the two ambulance attendants began a slow descent, holding onto the foot end of the stretcher. The other man, also beginning to descend the stairs, suddenly dropped his carrying end. The snake, who had left the nether region of the couch, had quietly slithered into the hallway across his shoes. It startled the latter attendant to such a degree that he lost control over his end of the stretcher. Stan, the preacher, tumbled down the steps, breaking his left leg. The providence in this little story lies in the fact that two ambulance attendants were immediately on hand to give first aid to an aging preacher in a rather unfortunate, strange chain of events – events orchestrated by God. The attendants were there to help the preacher in his time of need as God intended. Our heavenly Father is One who not only sees everything beforehand, which is what providence essentially means, but He also brings about all He determines. Knowing and accepting the fact that God sees everything and brings events about can be a scary thought because it demonstrates that sinful man cannot hide anything from God. But providence is also comforting because it illustrates that God knows and cares for His people. God has us in the little things too Last week I had an unanticipated dental appointment. An infection in a bottom molar caused sudden and painful swelling in my left cheek. Resembling a chipmunk, I could barely open my mouth. The dentist immediately prescribed an antibiotic to take care of the infection. After the antibiotics had run their course, I had a second appointment – a consultation about what to do about a tooth that would very likely require an extraction. Like many people, I have anxiety, concern and wariness about sitting down in a dental chair. Yet, the morning of that second appointment my morning devotional had the heading of Psalm 81:10 which read: “I am the Lord your God, Who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.” Our God is a God of not just the things we consider huge in life, (such as cyclones and world wars), but also of the little things, the mundane and ordinary. The given text, prior to my dental appointment, made me grin. But the reality is that it also greatly strengthened and encouraged me. The truth of it is that we may be encouraged to ask God to bless us in all matters pertaining to our daily life. We may open our mouth as wide as we can and request whatever is needful. Spurgeon, in his Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith, gives the example of baby birds being fed by their parents. Squawking away, beaks open so wide you’d think they were going to split their little mouths, they are sustained. Spurgeon says: “God is ready to fill us if we are only ready to be filled. Let our needs make us open our mouths; let our faintness cause us to open our mouths and pant; yes, let our alarm make us open our mouths with a child’s cry. The opened mouth shall be filled by the Lord Himself. So be it unto us, O Lord, this day.”...

News

Can you track all the ways you’re taxed?

Each year the Fraser Institute observes a “Tax Freedom Day” – this year it happened on June 8 – that tracks Canadians’ total tax burden when...

How to stop taking the Bible for granted

“Scripture has never been easier to obtain, and Scripture has never been more difficult to absorb.” Let that sink in for a minute. I read th...

News

Saturday Selections – Aug. 2, 2025

Josiah Queen's Dusty Bibles As a tribute to everyone who participated in RP's just-complete screen-fast challenge, Josiah Queen's newest. Lunar...

Music

Music worth watching: a top 10

The only rules for how these videos were selected were that: no band could get more than one entry, and this specific song had to be solid – I haven...

News

Supreme Court of Canada upholds prostitution law

In an important decision that didn’t get covered by the mainstream media this July, Canada’s highest court made a unanimous decision to uphold key parts of the country’s prostitution laws. The law, passed in 2014, went after the Johns rather than the prostitutes, making it illegal to purchase sex, but not penalizing the selling of it. Why? The goal was to reduce the demand for prostitution while making it possible for those trapped in prostitution to leave without prosecution. Mikhail Kloubakov and Hicham Moustaine worked as drivers for a sex-trafficking business and were charged under sections of the prostitution law relating to procuring people for prostitution and benefitting from the prostitution of others. They appealed this all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, and also asking the court to declare the entire law to be unconstitutional, which could have left Canada with no restrictions on prostitution. ARPA Canada teamed up with the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) in a joint intervention before the court, arguing that the law be maintained to uphold human dignity and equality, and to expose the harm that results from commodifying sexual intimacy. Lia Milousis, a lawyer who worked on behalf of the EFC and alongside ARPA’s lawyer John Sikkema, expressed gratitude for the decision. As she noted in The Acacia Arc newsletter, “The Court notes that Parliament views profiting from the commodification of another human being’s sexual activity as inherently involving exploitation…. It deferred to Parliament, which I would say and the EFC and ARPA argued, is the correct approach.” The law is also being challenged separately in an Ontario case, which ARPA is also intervening in....

RP's 2025 Summer Photo Contest: Double the fun; two challenges in one!

This summer we’re doubling up on our photo contest with one challenge for the adults and a completely different one for the under 18 set. As always, the themes are meant as a springboard for your creativity and not any sort of limitation on it. So just try things, have fun, and share what you capture with all of us! Get out there and start clicking! ADULTS: People are cool. Why? Because we’re made in God’s image. We are fallen, but that Imago Dei exists still (Gen. 9:6) so we want you to capture striking images of people doing people things, because God made us special. UNDER 18: What’s your favorite _____? God has given us so much to enjoy, and we want you to find a way to share your favorites on film. A basketball nut? Then what’s the coolest basketball photo you can take? Really like bananas? I don’t know how you are going to take a dramatic banana picture, but it sure could be fun trying. Just start clicking, and see what you can do, with whatever you love. And be sure to include a line or two explain what about your favorite makes it so special. Categories: Children and youth (under 18) Adults (18+) Rules: Maximum 2 entries per person Must be an original photo, taken in the last 12 months Include a line to explain how the photo relates to the theme (max. 100 words) Provide permission to RP to publish your photo online and/or in print if selected Include the name of the photographer and photo title, and for the under 18 entries, the photographer's age. Prizes: Winner and runner-up, and a selection of other entries, for both categories will be printed in Reformed Perspective this Fall. Winner of each category will receive a $150 gift certificate from Reformed Book Services or Providence Books and Press; runner-up will receive a $75 gift certificate. Deadline: Send your photo (high-resolution) to [email protected] before Aug 1, 2025 ...

News

Saturday Selections – July 19, 2025

One man band This is an amazing performance – one guy sounding like a whole band – on quite the machine! "Scottie Scheffler's take on success in golf: 'What's the point?'" ESPN covers sports, not philosophy, so their article on how the best player in golf doesn't find fulfillment in winning stuck out from their usual fare. But as a secular media organization, they didn't dare ask the question the article raised: if winning golf isn't your reasons for getting up in the morning, what is? I don't know golf, and hadn't heard of Scottie Scheffler before, but I do know how to read between the lines. Scheffler was speaking to how what he spends most of his effort on didn't bringing him but the briefest moments of joy, and that's the sort of thing a depressed guy sitting at a bar might confess to you, or what someone who has found joy elsewhere is happy to admit. Scheffler didn't look like a sad barfly, so I did a bit of digging and discovered he is a professing Christian, and though ESPN's article doesn't share anything about Scheffler's true source of joy, he has been happy to share. They've found a mass dinosaur grave in Alberta... ... and it is seeming very Flood-related. Chip and Joanna feature gay couple on their show After Not the Bee reported on Chip and Joanna Gaines (of Fixer Upper fame) featuring a gay couple on one of their shows, Chip doubled and tripled down on social media, pulling out the most popular verse in the Bible "Do not judge" while ignoring all the rest of what the Bible has to say, including about same-sex relations. Chip called the questions coming his way "hate or vitriol" but as Franklin Graham noted, Chip wasn't acting loving himself. "While we are to love people, we should love them enough to tell them the truth of God’s Word.... His Word is absolute truth. God loves us, and His design for marriage is between one man and one woman. Promoting something that God defines as sin is in itself sin." Whatever happened to villains? With Disney recasting its biggest baddies as simply misunderstood, it's following a trend where there is no real wrong or bad. It's another sort of relativism, it'd seem. Do we want to force our religion on others? When you get hit with an accusation, a knee-jerk temptation can be to deny it. But when it comes to the charge of Christians wanting to force our religion on others, we need to plead guilty.... in part. God has no interest in hypocritical worship, so we should never want to force people to go to Church (see Amos 5:21-24, Is. 1:11–15, etc.). But stopping the murder of unborn babies and the infirm elderly is both biblical, and it is a restriction that should be universally applied. So yes, we do want to "force our religion" on others in the laws we want to make. However, while the you-just-want-to-force-your-religion accusation sticks, it actually applies much more so in the opposite direction, and the secular world has little reason not to violate consciences. That's why they'll try to destroy a Christian baker for not wanting to bake a cake to celebrate a same-sex commitment ceremony or gender "transitions." It doesn't matter if there is another bakery in town that could fill the order, this Christian must be punished. Or maybe you know euthanasia is murder, and want no part of it as a doctor or other health professional. You better refer them to another contract killer who will do the hit, or you could face reprisals. The secular ethos must be imposed. The fact is tolerance – within limits – is only a Christian virtue. The Western world has only the remnants of their Christian heritage to restrain them from "or else" demands and as those remnants fade, their religious demands will increase. ...

RP’s 10-day screen-fast challenge is going nationwide July 21-30

If you want to register for the July 21-30 nationwide challenge click here. If you want to learn more about why you should consider it, including some tips on how to go screen-free for 10 days, read on! ***** How many times are you scrolling on your phone or tablet each day? Do you have any idea? What pulls in your children most: books, games, physical activity, or a screen? Christian homes, including seniors, aren’t immune from the addictive nature of screens. Although screens and digital technology can be a great blessing, we have a very hard time keeping them in their proper place. But we want what should be our priorities – family, friends, and faith – to remain our priorities, don’t we? So enough talk. It’s time to act! The challenge Are you, or is your family, willing to go 10 days without screens and/or social media? Do you have the ability to function without them? It is one thing to say so, and another to do it. A 10-day social media and screen fast will open your eyes to the power that our devices have on our lives, and on our family’s lives. It will provide a window of time to experience what life is like without them. This break can also provide a fresh opportunity to very deliberately decide how you and your family will utilize these devices moving forward. It may be fun to invite another person or family to do this with you. If you are willing to give this a try, encourage your friends, care group, or others to do the same. Nationwide July 21-30 You can start any time you like, and there's no better time than now. But we're also trying to generate some positive peer pressure by having a nation-wide screen-free challenge for July 21-30. We can all do this together at the same time! Some generous supporters have recognized how important this issue is, so for the July challenge they are offering up a little extra motivation for us all. They have pledged to donate $10 per day for every day you manage to go screen from from July 21-30. The money will be split between two fantastic kingdom causes – Reformed Perspective and Word & Deed – to a maximum of $20,000 split between both causes. Go all 10 days, and that'll be $100 donated. Go just 8, and it will still be $80. If you manage just 1 or 2 days that will still be $10 or $20 donated... and a hard lesson learned on dependency. How long can you go? If you don't think you can, isn't that the best reason to try? A few tips Commit. Don’t allow yourself to make easy exceptions, even if you are having a hard day. For example, just because you are at someone else’s home doesn’t mean you can enjoy screens again. If your fast includes screens, but you still need screens for basic functions that are essential, ensure that you are only using your tablet and phone for those functions. For example, if you need a phone for directions, don’t take the opportunity to scroll the news. If you need a computer at work, or to write a report for a committee you are on, don’t let yourself go to other websites or play an online game. Turn your devices off and hide them. Take the TV off the wall. Make them difficult to access. Log out of your social media accounts so that it isn’t easy to open them. Move the icons of your apps so that the social media apps (including YouTube) are hidden. Come up with a plan: whenever you find yourself wanting to reach for a screen or open your social media, what will you do instead? It doesn’t have to be hard. Perhaps say a prayer, take a drink of water, try to memorize a verse (keep some verses on a piece of paper in your pocket), do a set of 10 jumping jacks, or read a couple of pages of a book you’ve been meaning to get to. Have alternatives waiting and ready for you and your children: books, magazines, art supplies, a soccer ball, a walk to the park, etc. Invite accountability: let loved ones know what you are doing, and ask them to check in on you regularly to see how it is going. Tell them not to let you off the hook! Don’t read this and conclude a screen-fast challenge is only important for youth or young adults. Be sure to check out our article "What can I do anyways? 35 screen-free alternatives." You can register for the July 21-30 nationwide challenge here. The results We would love to hear how this goes for you and what impact it had on you and your family. Please send the editor a note. Or send us a good ol’ fashioned letter via Reformed Perspective Box 3609 Smithers, BC V0J 2N0 We look forward to hearing from y’all, and sharing the results!...

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We do have fun here

Domination, no. But dominion, yes.

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If you believe in evolution then why not teach prostitution?