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In a Nutshell

Tidbits – January 2025

Flying Duck Orchid

God's inventiveness is sometimes so shockingly inventive, it might make you laugh out loud. This is a real flower called the "Flying Duck Orchid" that actually looks like the bird in flight (see above).

Is Christianity good for the world?

God's critics love to attack all the good He gives. But Gary Bates, the former CEO of Creation Ministries International, once told a short story that shows just how apparent God's goodness is, even to those who try to deny it.

"Two of my colleagues were speaking on an Australian Christian radio station a few years ago....and a young geology student....told my colleague that Christianity was "not much good," and that she was drawn to religions like Buddhism or Islam. My colleague asked her what country in the world she would choose in which to raise her future children.

“'Australia, of course,' she replied.

"He shot back: 'If it couldn’t be Australia, what would be your next choice?'

“'Umm … America, I guess … or maybe England.'

“'And if that isn’t possible?'

“'Well,' she replied, hesitating, 'probably Germany … or Switzerland …'

"After she had been prodded to consider several more, my colleague pointed out that she did not cite any predominantly Buddhist or Islamic nations. Her ‘wish list’ was made up entirely of countries that most would define as having a Christian foundation (despite their rapid decline into secularism)."

My colleague wrote: “Of course, our young lady’s choices were neither unusual nor surprising. Not even the most vehement Christian-bashers would prefer to bring their children up in Iran, Burma, Saudi Arabia or the like. But rarely would any of them make a connection between their choice of countries and the Bible.”

SOURCES: Gary Bates' 2013 End of the year letter; He culled the story from Dr. Carl Wieland's "One Human Family"

On reputation

“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”

– Coach John Wooden

Hebrews 12:6-7 in fiction

In Russell Hoban's Bedtime for Frances, Frances is having some troubles staying in bed. Thankfully, when Frances has once again gotten out of bed and padded to her her parents' room, her Father knows just what to say.

"'How can the wind have a job?' asked Frances.

"'Everybody has a job,' said Father. 'I have to go to my office every morning at nine o'clock. That is my job. You have to go to sleep so you can be wide awake for school tomorrow. That is your job.'

"Frances said, 'I know, but...'

"Father said, 'I have not finished. If the wind does not blow the curtains, he will be out of a job. If I do not go to the office, I will be out of a job. And if you do not go to sleep now, do you know what will happen to you?'

"'I will be out of a job?' said Frances.

"'No,' said Father.

"'I will get a spanking?' said Frances.

"'Right!' said Father.

"'Good night!' said Frances, and she went back to her room.”

On the pull of power

"Power is a poison well known for thousands of years. If only no one were ever to acquire material power over others! But to the human being who has faith in some force that holds dominion over all of us, and who is therefore conscious of his own limitations, power is not necessarily fatal. For those, however, who are unaware of any higher sphere, it is a deadly poison. For them there is no antidote."

– Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Two great lines from a great book

"Don't trust in your strength, because there is such a thing as pride.
"Don't despair in your weakness, because there is such a thing as forgiveness."

– Trevin Wax, from his "Clear Winter Nights"

Democracy needs Christ as King

“If you want to defend democracy, you must first understand why. It’s not because the people are always right, as some hyper-democrats have claimed. Remember that, given the choice, the people cried, 'Give us Barabbas!' The reason we defend democracy is that, in a fallen world, no man or woman can be trusted with absolute power; so those who govern must be made accountable to those they govern.

“But the electorate, in turn, must have a standard to which the government is held accountable – a fixed standard of right and wrong. And unless that standard is transcendent – from a source higher than the shifting tides of public opinion – society will inevitably descend into the Law of the Jungle: 'Might makes right.' The transcendent, immutable standards of Biblical justice and compassion are the only reliable protection for the weak and helpless."

– Ron Gray, former leader of the Christian Heritage Party of Canada

A peculiar blessing

“I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had absolutely no other place to go.”
– attributed to Abraham Lincoln

7 one-liners

Give Satan an inch and he'll become a ruler.
Morality, like art, consists of drawing a line somewhere.
Don't put a question mark where God put a period.
When it comes to giving, some people stop at nothing.
A Bible that is falling apart probably belongs to someone who isn’t.
If evolution is true, why do mothers have only two hands?
Give God what’s right…not what’s left.

SOURCE: from material circulating the Internet

A man in a pit

A man fell into a pit and couldn’t get himself out.

A liberal came along and said, “I feel your pain.” A conservative walked by and said, “Only bad people fall into pits.”
A politician promised, “We’ll pass a law banning pits.” An optimist said, “Things could be worse.” A pessimist claimed, “Things will get worse.” A news reporter wanted the exclusive on the pit. A socialist was angry there weren’t more rich people in pits. A capitalist left to look for investors to build a toll bridge over the pit. A self-pitying person said, “You haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen my pit!” A fire and brimstone preacher thundered, “You deserve your pit!” A psychologist noted, “Your mother and father are to blame for you being in that pit.” A self-esteem therapist said, “Believe in yourself and you can get out of that pit.”

A Christian, seeing the man, said, “Jesus would want me to help you out of this pit,” took him by the hand and lifted him out.

Source: adapted from a bit in Cal and Rose Somra’s "More Holy Humor"

The wit and wisdom of Will Rogers

Years ago, comedian Will Rogers got a laugh when he noted: “We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business?” Today governments in North America and Europe are using this method to deal with prostitution, illegal drugs and gambling. They’re turning Rogers’ small, gentle joke into a big bad one.

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In a Nutshell

Tidbits – December 2024

Red flags apply to politics too John Piper thinks that deciding who you are going to vote for is a lot like picking out a potential spouse. In both c...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – November 2024

Burke’s best Most have probably run across Edmund Burke’s most famous quote: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to ...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – October 2024

How red tape kills wealth Some years back, Hernando de Soto wanted to discover why capitalism worked so well in the West, but didn’t seem to work a...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – September 2024

Lord of the Rings on dating If you’re having trouble mustering the courage to ask out the girl you’re interested in, just know you aren’t alone...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – August 2024

English is a funny language Have you ever seen: • a shoe box? • a kitchen sink? • a ball park? • a home run? • a hot dog stand? • a picket fence? • a square dance? • a hole punch? • a horse fly? 2 AM at the same time everywhere Have you ever missed an online meeting because you’ve gotten confused about the time zones? Sure, the fellow in Ontario wants to meet at 3, but you’re in BC, so does he mean your 3 o’clock or his? And what about the guy in Australia – is his 3 your AM or PM? Turns out there is a solution to this dilemma, a time-zone-free universal clock that results in everyone’s 1 PM happening at exactly the same time, no matter country or continent. If that strikes you as odd, then consider the “universal time” we already have in place: months. Here in North America, December is a snowy month – it’s winter for us. But meanwhile in Australia, December is the middle of their summer. If we were to keep months the way we keep hours, then they should really be having a summer month like June when, halfway around the globe we are having our wintery December. That would allow us to both have wintery Decembers, which would make it a bit easier for Santa and his sleigh to land on their roofs without doing any damage to the shingles. But it would make it confusing to have to wonder what month it is in another country. So I like our universal months. Now we just need to do the same thing for our 24-hour clock so that 2 AM here is happening at the exact moment as 2 AM in China, Australia, the Netherlands and everywhere else. There is already a “Coordinated Universal Time” (with the not quite in the right order abbreviation of UTC) that’s used by airplanes. Way simpler to know when you’ll arrive if you aren’t subtracting all the time zones. Everyone around the world should have the exact same time…at exactly the same time. Then when it came time to schedule a meeting it’d be easy for everyone to know when it’s actually happening. But what about Daylight Savings Time (DST), you might ask? How would UTC work with DST? It doesn’t. But let’s all agree that Daylight Savings Time is annoying, so when we make the shift to UTC, we’ll also get rid of DST and be all the better for it. So what say you? Math that kids will like Children’s picture book author Amy Krouse Rosenthal liked to make word equations. Here are a few of her funniest: • somersaults + somersaults + somersaults = dizzy • (patience + silence) + coffee = Poetry • (patience + silence) + beer = Fishing • blaming + eye rolling ≠ sincere apology • chalk + sitting = school • chalk + jumping = hopscotch • chores ÷ everyone = family If you plant corn… I don’t know Dudley Hall, but I do like his common-sense take on Galatians 6:7: “If you plant corn you’ve given up your options about what the fruit’s going to be. If you plant corn, you’re going to get up corn. And Scripture says, ‘Be not deceived; God is not mocked. Whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap.’ “If you sow to the flesh, if you sow to your selfish desires, that’s the fruit. You go I don’t want that fruit; I want a better fruit. Well, you’ve gotta go backwards. You can’t just change the fruit. You have to go back and decide, what do I have to plant to get that?” There is no neutrality in education The Organization of American Historians proclaims itself as the “largest professional society dedicated to United States history.” But what sort of history does it teach? • Getting the Story Straight: Queering Regional Identities • Supporting Pregnant-Capable Students in Abortion-Ban States • Teaching K–12 History in an Educational Culture War: What Scholars Can Do to Strengthen Antiracist Education • Queering Work: LGBT Labor Histories Notable quotables on favoritism “The axiomatic error undermining much of Western Civilization is ‘weak makes right.’ If someone accepts, explicitly or implicitly, that the oppressed are always the good guys, then the natural conclusion is that the strong are the bad guys.” – Elon Musk “Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you give testimony in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd, and do not show favoritism to a poor person in a lawsuit…. Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits…” – Exodus 23 “Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” – a slogan journalist William Randolph Hearst, and many journalists after him, embraced. Noble sounding, and so much so that many a pastor has claimed it as a good slogan for the mission of the Church. But the pivot point here is on who you think the afflicted are. If you believe the weak, the poor, or the various sexual and ethnic minorities are always the afflicted, and if you’ve already decided Christians, or men, or the rich, are always the comfortable, then it isn’t such a good slogan after all. How many? With our long-lasting LED lightbulbs I wonder if the “how many ____s does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” jokes might go the way of all those old “how many _____s does it take to switch out a buggy wheel?” quips. You sure don’t hear those anymore! So, before they all go dim, here are some of the best bulb bits. How many… • …babysitters does it take to change a lightbulb? None – they don’t make Pampers that small. • Appliance sales men? Just one, but for this week and this week only. • Folk musicians? One to screw it in, and one to complain that it’s electric. • Evolutionists? None – they are sure that it’ll just happen if you give it enough time. • Skateboarders? One, but it’ll take him 100 tries. • Optimists? One, and he doesn’t need a lightbulb – he knows the old one is just screwed in too tightly. • Pessimists? None – they won’t bother, because they’re sure the wiring’s shot too. • How many real men? None. Real men aren’t scared of the dark. Going all Philippians 4:8 on sports In Dean Register’s Minister’s Manual he tells a story about a pastor, Leith Anderson, who grew up as an avid fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers. One year his father took him to a World Series game where his beloved Dodgers were playing their hated cross-town rivals, the New York Yankees. Anderson was sure his Dodgers were going to win, but he was bitterly disappointed when they never even got on base and lost the game 2-0. Years later Anderson had an opportunity to share his World Series experience with another avid baseball fan. “It was such a disappointment,” he told the man, “the Dodgers never even got to base.” “You mean you were actually there?” the man asked in amazement. “You were there when the Yankees’ Don Larsen pitched the only perfect game in World Series history? That must have been amazing!” Anderson had been so wrapped up in the rivalry that he missed out on appreciating the most dominating pressure-packed pitching performance ever displayed in the baseball finals! Sportsmanship at its core is about remembering that the guys on the other team are our opponents, not our enemies – fellow human beings made in God’s image. Recognizing that won’t cut into our intensity, but should cut down on our cross-checks. While we’re always going to cheer on our hometown, if we eliminate the hate we’ll also be able to appreciate a brilliant performance by the other team’s guy. Educational viewing? “All television is educational television, the only question is, What is it teaching?” – Nicholas Johnson Saying “I love you” A woman in an adult creative-writing class didn’t quite know what to make of her homework assignment. She had to write different ways to say “I love you,” each of which had to be 25 words or less, and they couldn’t include the word “love.” After she spent ten minutes scratching her head, the woman’s husband came up behind her and started massaging her shoulders. As he loosened up her shoulders and neck she was finally able to start writing. Here is what she submitted to her instructor: • “I’ll get up and see what that noise was.” • “It looks good on you, but you look even better in the red top.” • “Cuddle up – I’ll get your feet warm.” SOURCE: Adapted from joke in the February 1990 Reader’s Digest submitted by Charlotte Mortimer Standing up for the unborn here, there, and everywhere! “If we speak in church, we’re told it’s too political; if we speak in the political arena, we’re told it’s too religious. If we speak in the media we’re told it’s too disturbing; in the educational realm, it’s too disruptive. On the public streets, it’s too distressing for children; in the business world it’s too controversial, in the family, too divisive, and in a social setting it’s just impolite. “So if abortion is wrong, where do we go to say so? The answer is that we have to stop looking for a risk-free place to fight abortion, and speak up in all those arenas. Let’s stop counting the cost for ourselves if we speak up, and start counting the cost for them if we are silent. The pro-life movement does not need a lot of people; it needs people who are willing to take a lot of risk.” – Roman Catholic priest Frank Pavone speaking against those who say they are pro-life, but object to the issue of abortion being raised in a particular “arena.”...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – July 2024

7 debunked evolutionary “evidences” As Dr. Jonathan Wells has documented in his books Icons of Evolution and Zombie Science, there are long discredited “evidences” for evolution that keep popping up in science textbooks. Why do evolutionists use these bad examples? Because, as lies go, these are pretty compelling ones, especially to high school and college students who don’t know better. And they use them because they don’t have any better evidences. Click on the links below to learn more. Galapagos finches – Darwin though changing beak sizes was a great proof. But the back and forth change only showed a built-in adaptability. Junk DNA – Evolutionists presumed the majority of our DNA was just non-functioning remnants of our previous evolutionary stages. Wrong. Vestigial organs – Evolutionists presumed that parts of the body they didn’t understand were just useless remnants of previous evolutionary stages. They were wrong again. Backward retina – Our eye isn’t designed the way evolutionists would design it, so they thought that was evidence of bad – i.e. unguided – design. But it’s not bad; it’s brilliant. Haeckel’s embryos – Embryos of different species were drawn to make it look like we all start life looking the same. But reality is quite different. Miller-Urey experiment – This intelligently-designed experiment done in a controlled lab setting is often cited as proof that the building blocks of life could come about by sheer luck, in the great outdoors. Homology in vertebrate limbs – Both frogs and humans have five digits, so does that show we evolved from a common ancestor? Well, no, as we now know very different genes can be at work here. Go to Creation.com, AnswersInGenesis.org or ICR.org to find out more about each of these. Education is never neutral There is a quote circulating the Internet, commonly attributed to Dr. R.C. Sproul and which certainly reflects his views, but that I haven't been able to trace directly to him. Regardless of whether he said it or not someone certainly should have. “There is no such thing as a neutral education. Every education, every curriculum, has a viewpoint. That viewpoint either considers God in it or it does not. To teach children about life and the world in which they live without reference to God is to make a statement about God. It screams a statement. The message is either that there is no God or that God is irrelevant. Either way the message is the same.” One paraprosdokian deserves nine others A paraprosdokian is a turn of a phrase that might seem to be heading in a certain direction, only to then take a sudden twist. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian, any more than standing in a garage makes you a car. Always swim or dive with a friend. It reduces your chance of shark attack by 50%. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate. Don't let the village raze your child. Everything comes to those who wait… except a cat. Two guys walked into a bar; the third one ducked. I used to play piano by ear. Now I use my hands. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad. Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read. – Groucho Marx Last night I removed all the bad food from the house. It was delicious. Tim Keller on Anglo-Saxon warriors and their feelings It is for the sake of “authenticity” that we now have men saying they are women. It’s how they feel, so the world has to take them as they identify. But what this supposes is that we are our feelings, and these emotions define us more certainly than anything else. It also assumes those feelings are so set in stone, so utterly unchangeable, that if our body runs counter to our feelings, it is our body that needs to be changed and not our feelings. To clear up this confusion, Tim Keller uses a thought experiment (from his book Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Scepticism) to demonstrates that our feelings don’t define us. “Imagine an Anglo-Saxon warrior in Britain in AD 800. He has two very strong inner impulses and feelings. One is aggression. He loves to smash and kill people when they show him disrespect. Living in a shame-and-honor culture with its warrior ethic, he will identify with that feeling. He will say to himself, That's me! That's who I am! I will express that. The other feeling he senses is same-sex attraction. To that he will say, That's not me. I will control and suppress that. “Now imagine a young man walking around Manhattan today. He has the same two inward impulses, both equally strong, both difficult to control. What will he say? He will look at the aggression and think, This is not who I want to be, and will seek deliverance in therapy and anger-management programmes. He will look at his sexual desire, however, and conclude, This is who I am.” This highlights how there is something outside us that defines us. The unbeliever may just attribute it to “culture” but even he’ll have to admit that he is more than his feelings. Keller continues: “…we receive some interpretive moral grid, lay it down over our various feelings and impulses, and sift them through it. This grid helps us decide which feelings are ‘me’ and should be expressed – and which are not and should not be. So this grid of interpretive beliefs – not an innate, unadulterated expression of our feelings – is what gives us our identity. Despite protests to the contrary, we instinctively know our inner depths are insufficient to guide us. We need some standard or rule from outside of us to help us sort out the warring impulses of our interior life.” So what the world needs to hear from Christians then, is: Your feelings are answerable to a standard that is outside of yourself. Your culture can only offer an ever-changing, baseless standard. Your Maker made you for a purpose, and we can only be our most “authentic selves” when we yield to the One who knows us better than we know ourselves. A tribute of sorts Reagan once shared a quip about a teacher who had: “…taught her class about magnets and all their properties and then several weeks later gave a test and asked them what it was that was spelled with six letters, began with an M, and picked up things. Eighty-seven percent of the class said, ‘mother.’” Reason to pray For those who find prayer difficult, there are many reasons to persist, one of which Willem J. Ouweneel lists in The Heidelberg Diary: "There is a peculiar element in the Catechism's answer that we should not overlook. God gives his blessings 'only to those who pray continually.' Here, a direct causal link is seen between our prayers and God's answers. Some people feel that God's sovereignty implies that he cannot make himself dependent on what humans ask. If God would depend on humans, in whatever small way, they argue, this would ruin his sovereignty. They overlook the fact that, apparently, God has sovereignly decided to involve human actions and decisions as well as prayers in his ways with the world..." SOURCE: (h/t Jan Broersma) On the value of one plus one “…there are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematician that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one. That is why, in spite of a hundred disadvantages, the world will always return to monogamy.” – G.K. Chesterton 11 things to do instead of screens Summer is here and as blogger Arlene Pellicane noted, “more free time usually morphs into more screen time.” While the pull of screens might persist, there is so much your kids can get up to. Here are 11 suggestions, but a 12th might be to have your kids create their own activities list. Play ultimate frisbee, or create your own backyard frisbee golf course. Wash your car… and your neighbor’s or grandparents’. Take an online course (programming, logic, Dutch, etc.). Have a yard sale for a good cause. Canvass for donations, make posters, etc. Create a list of books, with your parents’ help, that you should read before you leave home… and then read some of them. Play a board game. Change some of the rules to invent your own version. Do a chore, unasked, every day. Design and create a pro-life chalk picture for your driveway. Write, and draw, a series of stickman comics. Recruit a friend to do it with you. Get outdoors, swimming, biking, rollerblading, paddleboarding, or whatever. Compliment three people a day. Are you interruptible? If it ain’t an emergency your kids shouldn’t interrupt, right? That’s a good general rule, because we want our kids to be patient, and not think the world revolves around just them. But we also want them to understand God gave them parents to be there for them. So it can be overdone. As I heard noted on a podcast, even Jesus was “interruptible” – the woman who reached out to touch Jesus (Luke 8:43-48), and the men who lowered their friend through the roof (Mark 2:1-12) weren’t waiting patiently. Busy parents need to note that it is often the unplanned conversations that really matter. Yes, your daughter might already be late for bed, but if she’s sharing now, right before you’re heading out her bedroom door, maybe you’re the one who needs to learn some patience… so you can stop and listen. There is a balance to be had, but if you want your kids coming to you with their troubles – and you should want that – then you need to be interruptible. Not just a G-rating You have three kids wondering what they can do, and meanwhile laundry still needs to be folded, and you haven’t even begun figuring out what dinner will be. “What about a movie, Mom?” That sounds like just the idea, an animated classic, with a nice safe G-rating of course. But wait just a second! The authors of a 2014 study called “Cartoons Kill” compared death in kids’ films with adult dramas and found that main characters were more likely to die in the kids’ movies! If you find that hard to believe, consider what happens in just a few of Disney’s biggest hits: Bambi – Bambi’s mother is shot by hunters The Lion King – Simba’s father is murdered Frozen – Elsa and Anna’s parents are drowned Tarzan – Tarzan’s parents are killed by a leopard Finding Nemo – Nemo’s siblings and mother are killed by a barracuda The Fox and the Hound – Tod’s mother is shot The researchers concluded: “There was no evidence to suggest these results had changed over time since 1937, when Snow White’s stepmother, the evil queen, was struck by lightning, forced off a cliff, and crushed by a boulder while being chased by seven vengeful dwarves.” While “effects of exposure to animated depictions of death have not been studied,” one experimental study showed an impact: “…children who watched a movie about drowning were less willing to try canoeing than other children.” The study’s authors wanted parents to understand that while animated films may have a G or PG rating, they can still have a death count comparable to adult films. Hay mon! My hearing isn’t quite what it was, and I’m determined to have as much fun with it as I can. So I shared the joke when I couldn’t figure out what it was that my neighbor’s dad was up to that day. This 60-something gentleman has his own karaoke machine, so when his wife said he had left “to reggae,” it at least seemed possible. It turned out, however, that the retired farmer had gone “to rake hay.”...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – June 2024

Good parenting is time-consuming In The New Tolerance, authors Josh McDowell and Bob Hostetler recall the method one dad used to teach his teenage son to see through the messages being presented in pop music. The son was allowed to buy any album he wanted so long as his dad listened to it beforehand. "If dad approved not only of the language but of the more subtle messages in the music, fine; if not... dad would always explain his decisions." At one point this father rejected three straight albums, which didn't leave his son all that happy. And it wasn't so easy on the dad either; he had to spend a long time listening to some lousy music. Nowadays parents might go song by song instead. But either way, by investing "quantity time" with his son – by slogging through track after tracj – this dad was able to equip his son to know and appreciate what was praiseworthy, and to see through what was shameful and unworthy. No biggie, right? "As my friend Terence McKenna used to say, 'Modern Science is based on the principle, Give us one free miracle and while explain the rest.' And the one free miracle is the appearance of all the matter and energy in the universe and all the laws that govern it from nothing, in a single instant." – Rupert Sheldrake A tip to talk to your kids about God by Jay Younts In Matthew 16, Jesus presents his disciples with a two-part question. It is a masterful question and one that parents can use with great benefit. Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” When the disciples finish giving their answers, Jesus makes the question personal. He asks, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter quickly proclaims that Jesus “is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” This question revealed the content of Peter’s heart. You can use this two-part question effectively to help you understand your children’s thoughts. For example: “Hey kids, what do you friends say is causing all of the damaging weather the country has been having?” “What do you think has been causing this weather?” or: “What do your teammates say about major league stars using performance enhancing drugs?” “What do you think about PED’s?” There are many, many possible situations that this two-part question can help you better understand your children. For this to be effective, your concern and questions must genuine. They should flow out of normal conversations. This is a tool to help you gather data. If you want to use this more than once, then don’t immediately correct an answer that you think is wrong. You are asking for their opinion, don’t penalize children for doing what you asked. Rather, use the answers you receive to help plan positive ways address your children’s thoughts and correct them if needed. It is always a good idea to follow Christ’s example in interacting with people. SOURCE: Reprinted with permission from ShepherdPress.com Good News vs. good advice What's the difference between good news and good advice? Douglas Wilson gives the illustration of a teacher who, at the beginning of the term tells students to take careful notes, study hard, and listen with attention. That is all good advice. However when exam day comes the teachers notices one student who is staring, just staring, at his blank test sheet - he's written nothing. The teacher could give some more tips: relax, clear your head, take some deep breathes. Those would all be good advice. But if the teacher says, "Scoot over - I'll take the test for you," that there is Good News! Socialist says something smart! "I'd rather vote for what I want, and not get it, than vote for what I don't want and get it." – Eugene V. Debs, Socialist candidate for President in the 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1920 American elections. Weighing words "There are two kinds of people who don’t say much – those who are quiet, and those who talk a lot." – Unknown (but pretty in accord with Eccl. 5:2, 9:17, Prov. 10:19, Prov. 18:2 & Prov. 29:20) G.K. Chesterton on dragons and monsters Chesterton valued reading fantastical fiction to children, or at least the sort where good triumphs. He wrote: “Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of . What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of . The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon. Exactly what the fairy tale does is this: it accustoms him for a series of clear pictures to the idea that these limitless terrors had a limit, that these shapeless enemies have enemies in the knights of God, that there is something in the universe more mystical than darkness, and stronger than strong fear.” A common Bible-reading blunder Some of people’s favorite Bible verses are actually misleading because they are isolated from their broader context. In the movie Soul Surfer, after Bethany Hamilton loses an arm to a shark attack, she grabs hold of Philippians 4:13 – “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” – as an assurance that she will again return to surfing. But when we look to the broader context in which this verse appears we see it is not about being able to do everything but rather about the author, the apostle Paul, being able to endure anything through Christ. In the January 2015 issue of Solid Ground (www.str.org) Greg Koukl succinctly summarizes what’s going wrong here: "A host of popular verses have been consistently misunderstood by well-meaning Christians because of a simple mistake they’d never make with other writings. Here’s their blunder: They think there are verses in the Bible. What I mean is, the numbers creating individual verses give the false impression that sentences or phrases stand on their own as spiritual truths. But they almost never do. When you ask, “How does this verse apply to my life?” you may be assuming it has significance – and therefore, application – disconnected from the larger narrative or flow of thought. That’s the problem. Most people would be surprised to discover there actually are no verses in God’s inspired Word. They were added 1500 years later. As a result, some of the most popular passages have been consistently misread by believers because the numbers got in the way." Evangelism is vital, but why? "Mission is not the ultimate goal of the Church. Worship is. Mission exists because worship doesn't. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man." – John Piper Bible reading blunder II As incendiary blog post titles go, this one was scorching: “The One Page of the Bible I’d Like to Rip Out.” But this truly was addition by subtraction: Chad Bird wants to rip out a page that is “blank except for three words: ‘The New Testament.’” As he explained: …it’s more than a page; it’s really a mind-set that this page represents. It’s the wrongheaded assumption that a radical separation exists between the Old Testament and the New Testament. This way of thinking dams up the waters of the first part of the Bible from the last part of the Bible. In reality, yes, the biblical stream flows deeply and freely from Malachi to Matthew, but too many Christians don’t see it that way. They see two, very distinct, often even opposing, bodies of water. They look to the left and see the “river of law” in the OT; and to the right they view the “river of Gospel” in the NT…. Rather than confessing that the writings of Moses and the prophets are Christian scripture, they treat them as Jewish scripture from which Christians might learn a few things. So you see, it’s not so much that I want to rip the page out of the Bible that divorces the OT from the NT, but that I want to rip that mindset out of the heads of modern Christians. Those forgiving privateers Spotted on a T-shirt: “To err is human; to ‘arr!’ is pirate.” Pierre vs. Justin on abortion Back in 2014 Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau announced that anyone running for his party in the next election would be expected to vote against any limits to abortion. In response pro-life Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott shared an old newspaper quote to contrast Justin Trudeau's views on abortion – as an unquestionable and absolute right – with that of his father, Pierre. Though the former prime minister eliminated most of the unborn’s legal protections he was against the unfettered access his son supports. In a May 25, 1972 article the then Prime Minister Trudeau was quoted in The Montreal Star saying: You know, at some point you are killing life in the foetus in self-defense – of what? Of the mother’s health or her happiness or of her social rights or her privilege as a human being? I think she should have to answer for it and explain. Now, whether it should be to three doctors or one doctor or to a priest or a bishop or to her mother-in-law is a question you might want to argue…. You do have a right over your own body – it is your body. But the foetus is not your body; it’s someone else’s body. And if you kill it, you’ll have to explain. It’s hard to determine which Trudeau’s position is the more detestable: the father who admitted that another body – another somebody – was involved and still wanted abortion to be allowed in many circumstances, or the son who has never made such an admission, but wants abortion allowed in every circumstance. Answering a fool In Proverbs 26:4-5 God says we shouldn’t argue with fools…except when we should. Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him. Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes. The danger in responding to fools is in coming off looking like them. So if a fool is just hurling insults in an online flame wars we shouldn't engage with that kind of folly, because we’ll be likely to come off like just another angry fool. But when a fool offers an argument, then we can answer his folly by showing where his argument will logically take him. So, in an online forum an abortion advocate wrote: I don't get why a human that lives 80 years with modern medicine is more important than a tree that lives 500 years. Long-living trees are more important than short-living humans? We can expose the folly here by following it to its logical end. And we will glorify God when we contrast this foolishness with the wisdom of what God says. Our response might look something like this: God says that man is the pinnacle of creation, but you place us somewhere behind trees. Do you live your life consistent with that belief? Do you read books? (You do know what those are made of, don’t you?) Have you sat around a campfire and enjoyed watching the flames dance over countless wooden carcasses? What is your home made out of? Your coffee filters? Do you use toilet paper? If you’re participating in the slaughter of trees your lifestyle shows even you don’t believe trees rate above humans. So reject your lie and explore what God has to say about his creation, and how Man is to care for it. And that begins with caring for the littlest and the weakest who are made in His image right from conception. One reason we want really smart cops In his book, The Notes, Ronald Reagan offered one very good reason why extra smart officers would be ideal. He shared a quip about a rookie cop who was asked, in an exam, how he would go about breaking up a crowd. The officer replied, “I’d take up a collection.”...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – April 2024

Benefit of boredom There’s a certain sort of belonging that comes out of boredom. One of my formative young experiences was spending four years in the Air Cadets, which I didn’t really have any interest in joining, but a friend invited me and I had nothing better to do. Collective boredom is even better – a great family memory is the enormous sandcastles we’ve built, again, not because of anyone in particular wanting to, but just because there’s only so long you can splash in the waves at the beach. As Ted Kluck wrote in his March 1 WORLD magazine column “An argument for being bored together,” boredom can be magical. He’s reviewing a movie, set in 1971, that he loved and I never saw because of its 35 f-bombs, so I’m not pitching the film. But I am also remembering the merits of boredom. "The Holdovers …is actually about the magic of being bored with other people, and the creativity and connection that comes as a result. You end up exploring campus buildings. You end up watching television together. You end up breaking bread together. Somebody gets hurt, and then cared for by the group. You hatch outlandish schemes together, and then carry them out. ….I daresay nobody will ever want to watch a movie about college (or boarding school) in 2024. What is there to be romantic about? 'We had a really nice class session on Microsoft Teams'? No thanks. "In a modern context, of course, we don’t have much of an opportunity to be bored together, in that we can carry our televisions, our stereos, our classrooms, and all of our conversations with us on our phones. We can curate and self-promote and move-make and side-hustle – all while standing in line at the supermarket. We never have to be bored. "As a result, we are probably very productive. But we are also – if anecdotal evidence as well as everything written in the past decade is to be believed – very lonely. Perhaps we need more unmediated time together, because relating to one another takes time. 3 Me jokes Me: I am soooo hungry! Horse (nervously): How hungry are you? Genie: You have 3 wishes. Me: I’m not doing this. I know that whatever I wish for is just going to come back and bite me in some way. Genie: It won’t. If it does, I promise I’ll give you infinite wishes. Me: Okay, then I wish for a boomerang with teeth. Genie: Well played sir, well played … Doctor: “It turns out, you have acute appendicitis.” Me (blushing): “Compared to who?” What’s wrong with the world? “In one sense, and that the eternal sense, the thing is plain. The answer to the question, ‘What is Wrong?’ is, or should be, ‘I am wrong.’ Until a man can give that answer his idealism is only a hobby.” – G.K. Chesterton (Aug 16, 1905 in a letter to the Daily News) “It’s me. I’m the problem.” – Taylor Swift “We should not ask, ‘What is wrong with the world? for that diagnosis has already been given. Rather, we should ask, ‘What happened to the salt and light?'” – probably John R. Stott Baby whale’s outboard motor is delivered first Could whales have come about via a step-by-step evolutionary process? Or does their make-up evidence a Brilliant Designer, Who created them just so, from the get-go? Geoffrey Simmons weighs in: "No one knows how blow holes came about, certainly not by small successive steps, or how the internal lungs became connected up to these holes in a way that prevents drowning. Or, how a massive communication center, found in their heads, came about. Or, how the ability to depressurize body segments during deep dives evolved. Calves are born tail first (they cannot go head first in case the process is too slow) and these newborns must rise to the surface immediately for air or else they will drown. The ability to swim must be present from the beginning. Trial and error would never have worked." Opportunity to honor God’s Name in Christian films I often get sent a “screener” link for upcoming Christian films. It’s a chance for me to watch the film online before it comes out in theaters so I can let RP’s readership know about a good one that’s coming to theaters soon. But more often than not, even in these Christian films, someone will stub a toe and let loose with an abuse of God’s Name. Very often it happens just once, but even so in film after Christian film, there it is: God’s Holy Name treated as an expletive. You know what you’ll almost never find in a Christian film? Actual expletives. Because Christians won’t stand for that. When it happened again with the latest screener, I sent the promoter this note: Thanks for the follow up. I did get the screener link. It looked intriguing but pretty early on someone took God’s Name in vain and that’s our one big no no, so it isn’t for us. I know that’s an unusual position, but it’s based on the holiness of God’s Name, and the fact that taking it in vain is completely unneeded. Christian studios manage to never use the F-word, so this isn’t a matter of realism. It’s that the F-word is treated with more “reverence” than God’s own Name. RP reviews movies that have violence, or some degrees of sexuality, or which delve into all sorts of dark topics (we reviewed Sound of Freedom, for example) but not movies that take God’s Name in vain. And, that one stand eliminates about 99% of movies, including the vast majority of Christian films too, which only underscores that need for us all to make the holiness of God’s Name more of an issue. Whereas folks might go to a movie for the sex or violence, no one goes to hear God’s Name taken in vain, so it has no upside for the producer. So why does it happen? Because Christians have treated it as so unimportant that there’s also no downside for the producer to do it. I got a very polite reply, and she promised to send it on to the film’s producers. There’s a real opportunity for us to effect a change here, if we’re willing to track down the production companies and send them a polite note. It might be as simple as googling the movie, and seeing if it has a website. If not, the production company probably will, and because these are mostly smaller companies, some will still have contact option. These are Christian filmmakers, so this isn’t due to any hatred of God; it’s just ignorance. Even a few notes making the same point could go a long way, because they’ll want to listen. Tradition, not simply for tradition’s sake Tradition is often the received wisdom of the previous generations, and shouldn’t be lightly discarded. But as Ronald Reagan pointed out in the anecdote below, it’s also important we understand why we maintain these traditions. “We can’t be like the fellow’s wife who used to cut off both ends of the ham before she cooked it. When he asked her why she did that, she said because that was the way her mother always did it. “One day, he got the chance to ask his mother-in-law why she cut off both ends of the ham before she cooked it. And she said because that’s the way her mother did it. “Came the holidays and Grandma was visiting and he told her about it and asked if that was true – why did she cut off both ends of the ham before she cooked it? She said, ‘That’s simple. I never had a pan big enough to get the whole ham in it.’” Awfully good oxymorons An oxymoron is a phrase that seem to be self-contradictory, but isn’t. The most common examples are just two words, like jumbo shrimp, plastic silverware, civil war, and unbiased opinion. But they can be larger too. “May I ask a question?” and “Less is more” are both complete sentences. The sardonic “Free advice is worth what you paid for it” shows how they can be employed for comic effect, as did baseball star Yogi Berra’s many oxymoronic turns such as: “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.” Other classics include: “It’s the little things in life that are colossal.” – G.K. Chesterton “Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use.” – probably Wendell Johnson “…the mercy of the wicked is cruel.” – Prov. 12:10 “Alas! Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that men never learn anything from history.” – George Bernard Shaw “I always advise people never to give advice.” – P.G. Wodehouse “Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea until they have something to forgive.” – C.S. Lewis ...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – March 2024

The world’s only pro-life comedian? Nicholas De Santo is an Iranian-Italian who performs what he calls the “only pro-life stand-up act” which, ...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – February 2024

Financial potty training While the illustration mentions a VCR tape, the point is as sharp as ever. The late Gary North (1941-2022) got this from a s...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – January 2024

It was the best and worst of times "The Christian only has to endure this world, this is as bad as it gets for us. But non-Christians have to enjoy t...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – December 2023

“You better watch out!” It’s nearing that time of year again, when you might hear the chorus of a familiar Bing Crosby hit. I always thought it...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – November 2023

Practice makes better I had a friend who makes it a point of pride not to open doors for women because. “Women are just as capable of opening doors as men.” True, but he's missed the point of this little politeness. Gifted with greater strength, men could use their power (and some brutes do) to dominate women. Proper Christian chaps in times past took a stand against this misuse and instead put their strength at women’s disposal, doing so in many different ways: helping with chairs, giving up their seat on the bus, carrying packages, holding the song book at church and, yes, opening doors for the fairer sex. It wasn’t that women were incapable – men were just practicing using their strength to help. They were engraining a habit, and modeling it to others, showing how gentle men behave. And since brutes continue to abound it’s clear that many men still need to practice and model this gentlemanly behavior. Pop Quiz Put your biblical knowledge to the test. Order the following events as they occur in the Bible beginning with “1” for the earliest and “10” for the last. Answers are at the bottom of this page. Daniel in the lions’ den Noah’s ark The giving of the Ten Commandments Elijah and the prophets of Baal Solomon building the Temple Samson and Delilah Jesus feeding the 5,000 Saul’s vision on the Damascus road Joseph and his coat of many colors The martyring of Stephen Nellie: a life worth living (27 min) “I’ll play football in heaven,” says John “Nellie” Nelson (1965-2009) who was born with arthrogryposis and couldn’t move any of his joints from his neck down. He was, nevertheless, an assistant football coach for one of the best football programs in the country. What he did with the little he was given showed these young men what living to God’s glory really meant. I first saw this at a film festival a decade back, and was delighted to discover it is now available for free on YouTube. Marital advice from the unmarried I got married later in life, and in my single days I wrote down some advice for the married me that I hoped would be. It was a few things that I, and some other singles, noticed about the very happiest of our married friends. They make it a priority to hug or kiss their spouses hello and goodbye. That mushy stuff may make the kids groan but it sure seems to keep mom and dad happy. While Dutch folk do have a tendency to tease the ones we love, happy couples are also quick to compliment their spouses (men, see Prov. 31:10-31 for a little inspiration). "Dating” is common – they find ways to regularly spend time alone together. While tonight it may have been your wife’s job to make supper, that’s no reason not to thank her for the wonderful meal! The happiest couples regularly thank each other, even for the ordinary routine work they do for one another every day. And the happiest couples grow spiritually together, not just reading the Bible together, but really studying it and praying together. A punny pastor Pastor John Barach posted this bit to his blog some years back, on pulpit exchanges: TERRY: "So when you have a pulpit exchange, you come here and our pastor goes to another church and that pastor goes to another church... It's kind of a domino effect!" ME: "No, Terry. It's the dominee effect." Fly the silly skies WestJet is a Canadian airline known for its humorous flight attendants. The following are some quips attributed to these flying funsters: "Welcome aboard West Jet Flight 245 to Calgary. To operate your seatbelt, insert the metal tab into the buckle, and pull tight. It works just like every other seatbelt; and, if you don't know how to operate one, you probably shouldn't be out in public unsupervised." "In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, masks will descend from the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the mask, and pull it over your face. If you have a small child traveling with you, secure your mask before assisting with theirs. If you are traveling with more than one small child, pick your favorite." "Weather at our destination is 50 degrees with some broken clouds, but we'll try to have them fixed before we arrive. After a very hard landing in Edmonton, the flight attendant came on the intercom: "That was quite a bump, and I know what y'all are thinking. I'm here to tell you it wasn't the airline's fault, it wasn't the pilot's fault, it wasn't the flight attendant's fault… it was the asphalt." Quote of the month “People should know what they believe and why they believe it, and they should know what they don’t believe and why they don’t believe it.” – Dr. Glen Martin A stolen gift In June street evangelist Ray Comfort's new bicycle was stolen, so he ended up going back to the same bike store to buy the very same bike again. He has already spoken with the store owner about God the last visit, so this time he asked the man about his family, and discovered that while he had two children, and had been with their mom for 15 years, they were not married. And this is what Ray then told him: "I told him that if he loved his girlfriend he would marry her. I talked about her eternal salvation and that he was making her a fornicator. I also told him that the Bible begins with a naked couple being commanded by God to have sex, that sex is a gift from God to humanity.... Then I told him a story of a little boy whose dad had a brand new $100 bill in his wallet that he was going to give him as a gift. Not knowing that, the son snuck into his dad’s room, opened the wallet and stole the money. The $100 was going to be his anyway, but he stole it and made something bad out of something that was going to be good. I said, 'That’s what you’ve done with God’s gift of sex.'" SOURCE: Ray Comfort's Facebook post of June 10, 2014 Anagram arrangements Sometimes the exact same letters can be used to say the same thing in another way, as happens in the anagrams below. Astronomer: Moon starer The eyes: They see The Morse Code: Here come dots Slot Machines: Cash lost in me Snooze Alarms: Alas! No more Z's A decimal point: I'm a dot in place The earthquakes: That queer shake Eleven plus two: Twelve plus one Butterfly: Flutter-by Vacation Times: I'm Not as Active Source: the world wide web Dad joke of the month Two atoms are walking down a road when one says, “Oh no, I’ve lost my electron!” “Are you sure?” asks the second. “Yes,” says the first, “I’m positive!” Source: 3-2-1 Penguins – The Cheating Scales of BullaManka Unromantic… or just thrifty? Rene Gutteridge’s romance novel My Life as a Doormat has a rather creative introduction on being a romantic on the cheap: "I’m practical. Practical people can be romantics. I don’t think the two contradict each other. Sure, I cringe when an insane amount of money is spent on a dozen roses, and as I watch them die their slow deaths despite the Evian and the aspirin tablet, I can’t help but wonder what better use there was for forty dollars. Can the feeling of holding roses really match saving the starving children of the world? I simply pose the question. "I’m getting sidetracked. The fact of the matter is that I just see romance differently. I see it in defined spaces, with reason and structure attached. Romance doesn’t necessarily need spontaneity either. Scheduled romance is certainly a viable option for busy people. There’s no reason why a bottle of wine can’t be sought out days ahead of time, why a horse-drawn carriage can’t be ridden in the off-season to save ten dollars. Practicality is a simple frame of mind that in all honesty offers more perks and functionality than such frivolousness." Bringing the Greek fire! “Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.” – attributed to Plato Answers for "Pop Quiz" The correct order of events is 2, 9, 3, 6, 5, 4, 1, 7, 10, 8 or Noah’s ark Joseph and his coat of many colors The giving of the Ten Commandments Samson and Delilah Solomon building the Temple Elijah and the prophets of Baal Daniel in the lions’ den Jesus feeding the 5,000 The martyring of Stephen Saul’s vision on the Damascus road ...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits - October 2023

Halloween in a small American town I live in a delightful and occasionally comical small town where the church-attending Christians make up a solid majority of the population. This is such a Christian town that when Halloween comes around, one of the local churches will set up a hot chocolate stand for our area, and you'll see a dad or two dressed up as a monkish Martin Luther, tonsure and all. When I first moved here Halloween fell on a Sunday, and I was impressed to see most of the kids did their trick-or-treating on Saturday instead. Then I was quite surprised when one of the trick-or-treaters at my door – a little princess – told me "my brother is the devil." Sure enough, there he came toddling up the path, a two-year-old dressed in a bright red satin, forked tail wagging behind. Lynden: it's a town where trick or treating on Sunday is verboten, but dressing up as Satan ain't no big thing. “The free market is a bathroom scale” “The free market is simply a measurement. The free market tells us what people are willing to pay for a given thing at a given moment. That’s all the free market does. The free market is a bathroom scale. We may not like what we see when we step on the bathroom scale, but we can’t pass a law making ourselves weigh 165. Liberals and leftists think we can.” – P.J O’Rourke Are you wearing anything ten years or older? About ten years back, Christian Courier's editor Angela Bick shared that her friends were surprised to learn that they weren’t wearing anything as much as ten years old. The surprise was probably prompted by the realization that 40 years ago the situation would have been quite different. Kids’ clothing in particular was treated differently then, with patches (and patches upon patches) being far more common. Darning socks was more common, and the resoling of shoes too. Whenever one generation decides to do something differently than the previous, it is worth a moment’s reflection - if you aren’t wearing anything from a decade ago, why might that be? Is it a result of shoddy manufacturing and living in a throw-away culture? Are clothes simply not made to last like they once were? Are we financially blessed, to the point that we don’t need to wear worn out clothes? Are we financially irresponsible, spending money on clothes when that money could be put to better use? Is it a matter of clothes being less expensive to replace than they once were? Might it mean we are overly concerned with keeping up with the latest fashions? The way it was… and could be? In the 1940s, in the Netherlands, most men worked six days a week at physically-taxing jobs. So, come Sunday it could be quite a struggle for these men to stay attentive through the church service, especially when it came time to pray and eyes were shut and heads were bowed. And to make it harder still, the prayers were quite often fifteen minutes long. In his wartime biography The Way It Was, author Sid Baron notes that to help these men stay awake it was the practice then to allow the option of standing during prayer. So throughout the church, as most bowed their head to pray, many farmers and laborers would rise. This practice is no longer common anywhere in Reformed churches, most likely because ministers no longer tax their congregation’s attention with fifteen-minute prayers, and because far fewer members do heavy physical labor. Still, it might be a practice worth reviving for some particularly sleep-deprived folk: the mothers and fathers of newborns! Brother, can you spare a dime? by Gregory Koukl You can't help having mixed feelings when people beg for food on the street. Your heart goes out to them, but you have reservations too. Is there a real need here, or is this just laziness disguised? Here's a simple solution. Give food to the poor by helping fill the cupboards of your local church feeding program. If your church doesn't have one, find a Christian facility that does. They make sure food goes to people with a genuine need, and the Gospel goes out along with it. Another alternative is to make up a couple of bags of food and keep them in your trunk. Include the kinds of things that can be opened without tools and eaten without cooking. Include plastic silverware that's sealed together with a napkin that you get from take-out food places. Then give it in Jesus' name. Welfare is not God's answer to the needs of the poor. Instead, He asks for charitable, responsible, obedient giving. Don't give money to someone begging in the street. Instead, send your money to a reputable Christian agency in your area, or give food in prepackaged parcels. You'll have the peaceful confidence you've really done something for the poor and homeless. SOURCE: Reprinted with permission from www.str.org Biblical, musical ABCs Jamie Soles is well known among conservative Reformed churches in Canada, but for those that don’t know of him, below are the lyrics of a song from one of his children’s albums “The Way My Story Goes” which is available (along with more info) on the artist’s website SolMusic.ca. “These Are They” Jesus said, “You search the Scriptures For in these, you say, your life will never end, Don’t be misled; the life you’re looking for Is found in Me, for I am found in them. And… "These are they, these are they, These are they which speak of Me.” Adam, Abel, Abraham, Aaron, Ammon, Amnon, Andrew, Abishai, Abishag, Abigail, Ahab, tell the world of Me. Ahaziah, Amaziah, Ahimaaz, Ahasuerus, Ahithophel, Abiathar, Ahitub, too, Asahel and Absalom, Abner and Abednego, Asa and Amasa, just to name a few. Now… These are they.... Boaz, Balaam, Barzillai, Balak, Barak, Baal, Babel, Baasha, Baruch, Benjamin, all tell the world of Me. Barnabas and Bethel, Bezalel and Bilhah, Benaiah, Belial, and Bashan, too, Bethlehem and Ben-Hadad, Beelzebub and Babylon, The Bible bubbles over with Me; how ‘bout you? Now… These are they.... Caesar, Caleb, Caiaphas, Canaan, Cain, and Chedorlaomer, Cushi, Chloe, Claudius, all tell the world of Me. Corinthians, Cyrenians, Cyrus and the Cretans, Cornelius, Capernaum, and Chimham, see? These are only part of it This is but the start of it Stories are your biblical ABCs! Now… All these stories, they show My glories These are they which speak of Me. Top 10 verses: important omission BibleGateway.com is a website that includes dozens of different translations of the Bible. It gets more than 8 million visitors each month, and back in 2011. when they listed their site’s most-searched for verses of the Bible, Collin Hansen at TheGospelCoalition.org noticed a startling omission among them. While the top ten includes verses that are often emblazoned on shirts, or are held up on signs at sports events (John 3:16 was the #1 verse) none of the top ten most-searched-for-verses talked about sin! It isn’t until verse #19 that sin is mentioned: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” It’s not surprising that talking about sin is unpopular. But the Good News of the Gospel only makes sense after we understand our own sinfulness, and God’s hatred of sin. Then it is good news indeed that God has sent us a Savior and Mediator! So it isn’t a surprising omission, but it is a glaring one. It should be polite to ask a woman’s age Our culture worships youth, so it’s no wonder they think it’s rude to make mention of someone’s age. But why do we think it’s rude? After all, the Bible speaks quite highly of the elderly, as it is with age that wisdom can come (at least among the righteous). That’s why Proverbs 20:29 notes that “gray hair is the splendor of the old” and Prov. 16:31 tells us: “the silver-haired head is a crown of glory.” Among Christians old should be excellent! 30% of Gen Z Americans would welcome gov’t monitoring inside their homes Nearly a third of Americans under 30 would welcome a government surveillance device in their homes, in the name of reducing spousal and child abuse. Clearly they haven’t been taught about the surveillance states of the past, like the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. And they must not know about China’s current “social credit system,” where citizens are constantly monitored and granted freedoms based on how obliging they’ve been to their government’s every requirement. And they haven’t read 1984 or any other dystopian fiction. That a third of American young people trust the government to watch their every move isn’t an endorsement of our political leadership’s trustworthiness, but is instead an indicator of how badly they are educating our youth in their public schools. Now Christians might think that if we aren’t doing anything wrong what does it matter if we are being watched? But do you spank your children? Might some government official somewhere want to recast as abuse what you know to be appropriate and measured? Do you teach your children that God made us male and female? Do you insist that marriage is between one man and one woman? What might the government think about that? To be constantly monitored is to be constantly assessed. And knowing, as we do, that our governments don’t measure right and wrong by God’s standards, we should fear the prospect....

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – September 2023

Season your words "Every day, our words could write a book of 50-60 pages (cited by John MacArthur in his sermon 'Exposing the Truth About Men’s Hearts'). As you consider the book that might be made of your words, what would it look like? Would it be a book you would like to give away as a birthday present? Would it be a book you could read to the grandkids? More importantly, would it be a book you would be content to sit down and read with the Lord?" – Rev. Andrew de Vries, in his article "Talk the talk" in the May 2013 edition of Faith in Focus Willpower! "I can't even imagine the self control required to work at a bubble wrap factory." – attributed to Bill Murray Technically true can be completely false Proberbs 18:17 tells us how important it is to hear both sides of a story: "The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him." In his book, How to know God exists, Ray Comfort recounts a story, that while not true, shows what can happen if you are stuck with hearing a story from just one source. "The story is told of a symbolic foot race that took place between Russia and the U.S. during the Cold War. The very best athlete from each country compete to see who was superior. The Amerian runner won. The next day, the Soviet newspaper headline read: 'Russia comes in second in big race; US comes in next to last.'" Best bumper stickers As seen on the back bumpers of cars all over... What if there were no hypothetical questions? Eschew obfuscation If you can read this, I can hit my brakes and sue you. If you ate pasta and antipasta, would you still be hungry? How is it possible to have a civil war? A day without sunshine is like, you know, night. Five out of four people have trouble with fractions Evolution is a non-starter "Survival of the fittest doesn't explain the arrival of the fittest." – Dr. Donald Batten, explaining in the documentary Evolution's Achilles' Heels, that while the process of natural selection can whittle down the a species to only the fittest few, it isn't a creative force – it pares things down, but can't explain the orgin of anything new. Host as you are Have you ever said, We'll start asking people over when... we tidy up the house, our kids our older our kids are better behaved we move into a larger place we get a proper dining room table we have time to shop for/cook a special meal But blogger Jack King encourages us to do away with the excuses and consider offering our guests "scruffy hospitality." He explains: "Scruffy hospitality means you’re not waiting for everything in your house to be in order before you host and serve friends in your home. Scruffy hospitality means you hunger more for good conversation and serving a simple meal of what you have, not what you don’t have. Scruffy hospitality means you’re more interested in quality conversation than the impression your home or lawn makes. If we only share meals with friends when we’re excellent, we aren’t truly sharing life together. Don’t allow a to-do list to disqualify you from an evening with people you’re called to love in friendship..... We tell our guests 'come as you are,' perhaps we should tell ourselves 'host as you are.' ....What does it look like to welcome people into my humility rather than my standard of excellence? The playroom may not be tidy. Our kids, who are lovely and enjoyable, may become noisy and cranky around 7 pm. Dinners may be sponsored entirely by Trader Joe's frozen section.... But why would I withhold an invitation simply because I can’t make dinner from scratch?" On reading children dramatic works "Since it is so likely that children will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage.” – C.S. Lewis, On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature Jesus' impact on our culture today Twenty years ago Preysbyterian pastor D. James Kennedy wrote a book exploring the question What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? As Kennedy noted, Christ's influence has been such that the whole world counts times as Before Christ (B.C.) and Anno Domini (A.D.) which is Latin for "in the year of the Lord." It is an irony, Kennedy writes, "that the most vitriolic atheist writing a propagandistic letter to a friend must acknowledge Christ when he dates that letter." But the irony doesn't stop there. The very same people who shake their fist at God benefit from Christ's influence. The following is a short list of some of the very best features of our culture and civilization that can be attributed, as Kennedy does, to Jesus' lasting impact: hospitals were started back in the Middle Ages by Christians slavery was abolished by Christians most universities were begun by Christians literacy for the masses was begun so that even peasants could read the Bible modern science was developed by Christians to investigate the wonders God has wrought we owe the seperation of powers in government to the Christian understanding of man's corrupt nature - if we can't be ruled by angels, then let us at least ensure no one devil gets his hands on all the power Capitalism and free enterprise are based on property rights found in the Bible the common man was elevated, and we began to have a higher regard for human life, based on the understanding all of mankind is made in God's image Henry VIII to Pope: "Go away, but the title can stay " For almost 500 years now, to this present day, British monarchs have gone by the title "Defender of the Faith." We were until last year ruled by Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas Queen, Defender of the Faith. The current King Charles is no longer officially known as "defender of the faith" in Canada, but retained the title as Great Britain's king. This title finds its origin back in 1521, when as a reward for service rendered, the Pope gave the English king this "Defender of the Faith" designation. What did Henry VIII do to warrant such an impressive title? He wrote a pamphlet titled, Declaration of the Seven Sacreaments Against Martin Luther. In it Henry defended the Pope and attacked Luther. But a scant nine years later this Roman Catholic "Defender of the Faith" broke with Rome, and started the Anglican church. In response the Pope revoked his title, but the English Parliament later restored it. So the official head of the Anglican church bears a title first awarded to the very first Anglican King by none other than the Pope. Photo credit: Shutterstock/ Michael Tubi...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – August 2023

All sorts of time to talk with God Some years ago a friend told me about a plan she had put into motion – she'd decided that on her drive to work each day she wouldn’t listen to anything in her car. Instead she would use that time to pray, to dwell on what God has done for her, and to sing to Him. She also brings different concerns to God each day of the week – I found out, for example, that on some Wednesdays she has prayed for me, asking God to equip me to be a good spiritual leader in my marriage. Every morning for the 40-50 minute commute to work it is just God and her, and she loves it. Then, on her afternoon drive home she listens to good audiobooks – anything from Narnia to Les Miserables or even an audio recording of the Bible. by Hannah P. (Age 13) At the time I'd occasionally listened to books in my car, but the one thing I never did was drive in silence. I think I’m part of a generation that finds too much silence an almost scary thing. I want talk radio; I want some music playing; I want the distraction. And consequently I wouldn't have thought of talking to God in my car. But I’ve rethought that some now. World’s toughest riddle Can you answer this riddle? According to one (very unreliable) source 97 per cent of Harvard students wouldn't have an answer within 5 minutes, while 84 per cent of kindergarteners would. Can you answer this riddle? I turn polar bears white and I will make you cry. I make guys taller and girls comb their hair. I make celebrities look stupid and normal people look like celebrities. I turn pancakes brown and make your champagne bubble. If you squeeze me, I'll pop. If you look at me, you'll pop. Can you guess the riddle? See the bottom of this page for the answer. Neither banana-eaters nor half banana "We also share about 50 per cent of our DNA with bananas and that doesn't make us half bananas, either from the waist up or the waist down." – Geneticist and evolutionist Steve Jones, making it clear that chimps and humans are not alike, even if they share some percentage of the same DNA. Faith is… On her long-running talk show Oprah would tell guests and audience members alike to just, “Have more faith!” But faith in what? That isn’t clear. During his Barrack Obama's first presidential campaign he encouraged his supporters to vote for "hope and change." But hope in what? In change? That's a rather uncertain idea to place our hope in. In his Truth Project video series, Dr. Del Tackett notes how the world has sucked the meaning out of words like “hope,” “belief” and “faith.” They want us to have hope in hope, and place our faith in faith. In contrast, our hope is anchored in, as Tackett puts it, the “truth claims of God, and the One who stands behind those claims.” What does it mean then, to have faith? Tackett give the illustration of a child preparing to jump off a diving board for the first time, into the arms of a parent, swimming below. “What an incredible faith we see in a child who stands on the end of the board. And everything within them tells them ‘Don’t jump!’ But they look at their mom or their dad and their faith and their trust in them overcomes what they feel. Our faith is not a feeling. Our hope is not a feeling. Our faith is what allows us to overcome our feelings….Those times you don’t feel like it, those times when you are sure there is no one there, what do we reach out and grab a hold of? Faith? No. Him! Even though you don’t feel it.” To kiss or not to kiss isn't even a question While the movie Fireproof is only middling. it has strong message about the importance of marriage: the tag line for the movie poster tells us to “never leave your partner behind.” The lead actor, Kirk Cameron, has some pretty strong views about marriage himself, and one of his non-negotiables is that the only woman a man should kiss is his wife. But how does an actor, who is playing the role of a husband trying to win back the affections of his wife, avoid kissing the actress playing his wife? The solution is simple enough, if a film’s producers are willing to get a little creative. To shoot the scene where the husband and wife characters kiss, Cameron's real-life wife, Chelsea Noble, stepped in. It was shot in the shadows so that no one would notice the difference between Noble and the actress, Erin Bethea, who played the role of the wife in the rest of the movie. by Hannah P. (Age 13) Quote of the month “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” – Groucho Marx Why are Christians less gullible? “When men stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing. They believe in anything.” So Chesterton is attributed with saying, though I'm not entirely sure you should believe that, because I haven't been able to track it down to a specific book or article yet. Regardless of whether he said it, someone certainly should have. Some years back Gallup released a poll on "What Americans Really Believe." It asked subjects about their beliefs on the occult. The report found that those who hold to traditional Christian beliefs were far less likely to hold paranormal beliefs than those who professed to be irreligious. For example, 31 per cent of those who never worship declared a strong belief in the paranormal and pseudoscience, compared to only 8 per cent of regular worshippers. Why are Christians less gullible? In telling His people quite a bit about the real spiritual realm, God has equipped us to see through these frauds and fakes. Easy 10-step program to raise a delinquent John MacArthur had some thoughts on raising children right that he shared by detailing how best to do it wrong. This, here, is his 10-step program guaranteed to deliver a delinquent. Spoil him. Give him everything he wants so you can get him off your back. When he does wrong, nag him a little, but don’t spank him. Protect him from all those "mean" teachers who want to discipline him from time to time. Make all of his decisions for him because he might make mistakes…and learn from them. Criticize his father to him or his mother, so your son or daughter will lose respect for his parents. Criticize others openly; criticize others routinely, so that he will continue to realize that he is better than everybody else. Whenever he gets into trouble bail him out. Besides, if he faces any real consequence it might hurt your reputation. Never let him suffer the consequences of his behavior... Let him express himself any way he feels like it. Don’t run his life; let him run yours. Don’t bother him with chores; do everything for him…then he can be irresponsible all his life and blame others when things don’t get done right. Give him a big allowance and don’t make him do anything for it. Believe his lies because it’s too much hassle to try to sort through to get the truth. Alien expert and apologist? Gary Bates is one of a kind: a Christian apologist and an alien expert. In his brilliant book Alien Intrusion, Bates argues there is a definite link between the extraterrestrial and the spiritual. It turns out that most people who claim to have been abducted by aliens have also been involved in occultic activity. So while there are too many UFO and alien incidents to just dismiss – something really is happening – Bates argues that instead of extraterrestrials, these incidents involve devils in disguise. If you want to know more about his book and the fantastic documentary based on it, check out his website AlienIntrusion.com. Too learned A young theologian name Fiddle Refused to accept his degree. He said, “It’s bad enough being Fiddle, “Without being Fiddle, D.D.” – author unknown Answer to the "world's toughest riddle." Can you answer the riddle? The correct answer is, no. That's the answer kindergarteners might well give quickly, which is the correct answer, since this riddle has no correct solution. The hypothetical Harvard students would refuse to give up, and so wouldn't give an answer within five minutes. SOURCE: adapted from something making the rounds...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – July 2023

When they call God “she” Remaking God in their image, homosexual “pastors” are professing Him to be a “her.” That’s blasphemy by God’...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits - June 2023

Those wild and crazy Vikings! You may have learned in school that Vikings visited North America long before Christopher Columbus did, but I bet you n...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits - May 2023

Get ready to be reviled "Pastors need to teach their people about how to handle with grace being looked down on more than ever before. I heard of Joh...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits - April 2023

Media-created news If you feel a need to know all that’s going on in the world around you, it’s important to understand how little the media acco...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits - March 2023

Why is so much Christian fiction bad? Back in the June 30, 2007 issue of WORLD magazine, Marvin Olasky “interviewed” the long-departed novelist Flannery O’Connor by asking her questions he then answered with excerpts from O’Connor’s book Mystery and Manners. Most interesting was O’Connor’s thoughts on Christian fiction: OLASKY: Why do you call lots of religious novels “sorry”? O’CONNOR: The sorry religious novel comes about when the writer supposes that because of his belief, he is somehow dispensed from the obligation to penetrate concrete reality. He will think that the eyes of the Church or of the Bible or of his particular theology have already done the seeing for him, and that his business is to rearrange this essential vision into satisfying patterns… by beginning with Christian principles and finding the life that will illustrate them…. The result is another addition to that large body of pious trash for which we have so long been famous. The 3 ways Hollywood gets truth wrong While reviewing 2011's Water for Elephants, WorldNetDaily.com’s Drew Zahn exposed the flaw underlying most Hollywood fare. Zahn noted that for “more than a century now four very distinct worldviews have been competing to answer one critical question: ‘What is truth, and how can you know it?’” The four worldviews include the one right one, and three that deny God is the source of all truth. From first to worst they are: Truth is from God: “Reality is revealed by Divine Truth (John 14:6)” so it is through God’s Word that we may know Truth Truth is defined by our reason: “The idea that God would define truth was eventually challenged by another notion, that man – in all his scientific, progressive wisdom – could determine truth on his own. This gave rise to the second competitor, rationalism, which argues that what we reason to be true must be true.” Truth is what you feel: “Yet a third worldview agreed that man defines truth, but insists it is a matter of the heart, not the mind. Sometimes called romanticism, this worldview argues what we feel to be true is true.” There is no truth: Finally, we have the notion of Relativism – that there is no truth at all Zahn notes that while the various worldviews have been debated among philosophers and theologians, “average Joes” all subscribe to the same one: “When push comes to shove, most folks eventually do what… feels right (romanticism). What we really, really want to be true, we usually insist is true, then stretch all bounds of reason and theology to prove it is true. In the end, romanticism usually wins.” In Water for Elephants this romanticism is evident in the central plot, when a young man connects with an older married woman, and the audience is expected to cheer this illicit affair because, well, the two of them just seem so right for each other! But if Water isn’t any better than typical Hollywood fare, one good thing can still be said about this film: it spawned Zahn’s insightful review! In need of laughing gas I haven't been to a dentist in a couple of decades. This joke had me rethinking that decision. Dentist: It’s a very good thing you came to see me. You’ve got the biggest cavity I’ve ever seen – the biggest cavity I’ve ever seen! Patient: I can hear you Doc, no need to repeat it! Dentist: I didn’t – that was an echo! SOURCE: A joke a day keeps the doctor away by Bob Phillips A musical Matthew 7:2 moment... As much as she tries not to, my daughter can't help but smile every time I hit a false note. So this one spoke to me. On our way home from church my young son asked me about Mr. Smith, a man sitting behind us during the service: “He can’t sing very well, can he?” It was true, but I didn’t want my son critiquing everyone’s singing so I explained to him: “Son, Mr. Smith sings from his heart, and that’s what makes it good.” Several days later my son and I were singing along to the car radio, when he stopped, turned to me, and said: “Daddy, you sing from your heart, don't you?" SOURCE: Adapted from a joke making its way around the Internet Can’t do better than the Bible… In the last couple of decades atheists like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have hit the top of the bestsellers list with their attacks on the existence of God. These prominent atheists were hoping to make doubters of us all. But Philip Yancey has a ready answer. Yancey may be staunchly Arminian, but he’s struggled with doubt for years and has a couple of insights worth sharing. He offers doubting Christians this bit of advice: “Learn to question your doubts just as much as you question your faith.” After all, atheists and the doubts they raise and the arguments they make are nothing new. Yancey sees their disciples on every campus he visits, but they don’t bother him. “When I speak on college campuses I like to choose the most skeptical, the most rebellious people - the kids who are reading newspapers instead of listening – and speak to them. And I tell them this, ‘I challenge you to find a single argument against God from the great atheists – David Hume, Bertrand Russell, Voltaire, people like that – that is not already included in the Bible!… I can find every argument – in the book of Job for example – that these great philosophers have used against God.” SOURCE: When God is hiding: A candid conversation with best-selling author Philip Yancey Red and yellow, black and white… Creationist Ken Ham has a solution to the problem of racism. All we have to do is make people understand their true origins: “ says all people are descendants of one man and one woman, Adam and Eve. That means there’s only one race of people… I remember after talking on this once a man told me, ‘When I filled out my census form and it said, “What race are you?” I wrote down “Adam’s.”’” SOURCE: DVD entitled Genesis: The Key to Reclaiming the Culture Curing the postmodern disease During the two years that RC Sproul's son taught university freshman English it became clear that many of his students had succumbed to the sickness of postmodernism. But Sproul Jr. was ready with a cure for their disease. In a 2006 speech he recounted how he administered the cure to one student: “ student in the back blurted out, ‘There’s no such thing as objective truth.’ Just like that. “And I said to him ‘you get an F in this class for this semester’ and then I went back to the conversation we were having. And, of course, in the corner of my eye, I could see his blood pressure rising, and his face getting redder and redder. And he’s holding his hand up. “‘Yes what is it?’ “What do you think he said? ‘That’s not fair!’ “I strung him along a little longer. I said, ‘I’m sorry. You must have misunderstood me. I’m not giving you the F because anybody stupid enough to say there’s no such thing as objective truth obviously deserves an F. That’s not my thinking at all! You misunderstood. No, I’m just giving you the F because I want to.’ And then I went back to the rest of the class. “He got madder. By now some of the students had figured it out. Some of them hadn’t, including that one. And he said, ‘I’ll tell the administration!’ “Finally I had pity on him and I said, ‘What are you going to tell them? Are you going to tell them I have failed to measure up to some external, objective, transcendent standard of what’s right and wrong? Because you told me there is no such thing!’ “‘Oh… okay. Well… I guess there is.’ “‘Welcome back to the human race,’ and then we went on with our business.” Quote of the month For your next road trip If you’ve gotten tired of the old favorite “99 bottles,” or thought it weird to hear your kids singing endlessly about consuming vast sums of a beverage they aren't even allowed to drink yet (some parents make it "99 bottles of pop" but that has its own problems), there is another song to drive you mad on your family expeditions. It's also an oldie, first being sung way back in the ’60s on The Shari Lewis Show. This is the song that never ends Oh it goes on and on my friends Some people started singing it Not knowing what it was And they’ll continue singing it forever just because This is the song that never ends…...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – February 2023

What Darwin didn’t know Darwin, ignorant of the inner workings of the cell, could imagine them to be simple. But the more we learn of the cell today, the more we discover there is to learn, and thus explain. And that’s a growing problem for evolution. It isn’t as if the more we learn, the more we begin to understand how life could have evolved – it’s the very opposite! As David Berlinski put it: “The cell is an unbelievably complex bit of machinery, unfathomably complex. And we haven't understood its complexity at all. Every time we look there seems to be an additional layer of evocative complexity that needs to be factored into our theories. Don't forget the eternal goal is to explain the emergence of this complexity, and if we're continually behind the curve because the complexity is increasing every time we look that eternal goal is also receding from view, not approaching. It's receding; it's becoming more and more difficult to construct a theory for that.” A granddad joke Grandpa always said “when one door closes, another one opens.” He was a great man, my grandpa, but a horrible cabinet maker. Wit and wisdom of Thomas Sowell While it’s not clear whether American economist Thomas Sowell is Christian – he almost never talks about God – his understanding of human nature certainly lines up with what the Bible says about our fallen state. Here are a few of his pithier quotes, along with a comment or two, “Fair” is one of the most dangerous concepts in politics. Since no two people are likely to agree on what is “fair,” this means that there must be some third party with power – the government – to impose its will. The road to despotism is paved with “fairness.”When there is no submission to God, His standards, and His definitions – whether of fairness, life, marriage, gender, and more – then there is no justice exercised, only power. There are three questions that would destroy most arguments of the Left. The first is – compared to what? The second is – at what cost? And the third is – what hard evidence do you have?Continuing from the point above, we can add one more – by what standard? When you want to help people you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.“Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.” – Prov. 27:6 One of the most important reasons for studying history is that virtually every stupid idea that is in vogue today has been tried before and proved disastrous, time and again.“…there is nothing new under the sun.” Eccl. 1:9b The strongest argument for socialism is that it sounds good. The strongest argument against socialism is that it doesn’t work. But those who live by words will always have a soft spot in their hearts for socialism because it sounds so good.“…with itching ears they will gather around themselves teachers to suit their own desires. So they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.” – 2 Tim. 4:3b-4 Fixing democracy in 1 step Every ballot needs a "none of the above" option. Then, if the “nones” won, the election would be run again with an entirely new slate of candidates – all of the original candidates would be disqualified. Questions for you and your kids I ran across a book by Les Christie, What if….?, which offered up 450 discussion starters for parents to tackle with their teens. The idea is great, the book only okay, because of the inclusion of some troubling questions. But what follows are some of the best. You and your teen can both try to answer them, either working through all the possible answers (including what the Bible might have to say) or just running through them quickly and then making up some questions of your own. So, what if: you could speak to the prime minister for 1 minute? you inherited a million dollars? the Internet went down? you could be your parent for a day? you could only read 10 books from now on? a store clerk accidentally gave you back $10 extra in change? a flood meant you could only save 3 things from your room? you could begin one new tradition in your family? you had to name three of your heroes? you had to pick a slogan to describe your life? Identifying as right In the recent online abortion debate between conservative commentator Michael Knowles and online “influencer” Brontë Remsik, a clever defense of the unborn also ended up highlighting why Christians can’t adopt “inclusive” language. Just short of the half-hour mark, the third-year medical student Remsik took Knowles to task for refusing to use terms like “pregnant people” rather than “pregnant women.” Brontë Remsik: It's interesting, you come into this conversation trying to hold this moral superiority, but when I use inclusive language – which it only takes a couple extra syllables to use inclusive language… Michael Knowles: To include who? BR: To include people who don’t identify as women but can become pregnant. MK: So, like a person who is born a woman and then identifies as a man and is pregnant. So, you’re telling me that to be a moral person I need to accept the idea that someone who is born a man can really become a woman. That’s a prerequisite of my being a moral person. BR: Yes, to me it is. Because if you are trying to deny someone of their identity and deny what their life experience is then that doesn’t seem like a moral stance to me. I want to be accepting and I want to respect people's life experiences. And I want to respect how they identify, and respect how they want to present themselves to the world. MK: I would like to identify, I do identify actually, as the correct person on this issue of abortion. I identify as being correct, and more correct than you on this issue. And I would just ask that you accept and affirm my identity. Do you? BR: You are not a medical professional, and abortion and pregnancy is a medical concern. MK: I’m just sharing my identity. BR: That’s not your identity. MK: That is my identity. I promise you that is my identity. Remsik understood that if she had accepted Knowles’ identity, she would have conceded the debate. The same is every bit as true in the gender debate where one side recognizes that God determines our gender, and the other insists that we do. Requests to address a man with female pronouns might be positioned as a matter of politeness, but such an act would, in fact, concede the argument. It would be to identify him as correct about being a her. Electric cars aren’t green “Let’s clear something up… Electricity is not a power source, it is a delivery mechanism. Electricity will never be a power source. So it is inappropriate and inaccurate to say ‘electric cars are green.’ The cars themselves are not green, they are the color of the fuel used to create electricity. Electric cars are only as green as the electricity they consume. And infrastructure they require, and storage they rely on.” – David Salch C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, and a whole bunch of t-shirts take down socialism My wife gave me a t-shirt screen printer for Christmas and since then I’ve been looking for some quotes worthy of being emblazoned across my chest. I’ve also been on an economics fix for the last year, so in keeping an eye out, I’ve seen a lot of t-shirts with pretty good socialism take downs. I also added a couple of longer quotes – from Chesterton and Lewis – that are either simply too long, or would necessitate me doing a few thousand push-ups or so, before my chest would be a wide enough canvas. But hey, maybe that’s just the motivation I need. “…those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” – C.S. Lewis in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology Don’t ask the government to fix problems they caused Nothing the government gives you is “free” Capitalism makes. Socialism takes. The F in Communism stands for Food Trust God. Not government. The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money Conservatives are such elitists: they think they can run their lives better than the government “Individual ambition serves the common good.” – Adam Smith Socialism: the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, the gospel of envy Child of God. Not of the State. “It may be said of Socialism, therefore, that its friends recommended it as increasing equality, while its foes resisted it as decreasing liberty…. The compromise eventually made was one of the most interesting and even curious cases in history. It was decided to do everything that had ever been denounced in Socialism, and nothing that had ever been desired in it…we proceeded to prove that it was possible to sacrifice liberty without gaining equality…. In short, people decided that it was impossible to achieve any of the good of Socialism, but they comforted themselves by achieving all the bad.” – G.K. Chesterton in Eugenics and Other Evils: An Argument Against the Scientifically Organized State Ideas to improve sports: basketball Basketball needs to eliminate free throws. When a defender fouls, the offense should get a point and keep the ball. Fouls on a shot would have the basket count if it goes in, and the offense would still keep the ball. There’d no longer be any “strategic” reason to foul, even late in a game. Bye-bye boring free throws! Two bodies involved Jeff Durbin is a Reformed Baptist pastor who, along with his church members, regularly witnesses in front of their local abortion clinic. In an exchange captured on their Apologia Studios YouTube channel, he had an opportunity to drive home the point that there are two bodies involved in any pregnancy. Man: What’s wrong with them being able to choose? Durbin: Who being able to choose? Man: Whoever. People should be able to do what they want with their bodies. Durbin: So, can I rape a woman? Man: No, you shouldn’t do that. Durbin: So I can’t do what I want with my own body, can I? Man: You can do what you want with your body. You just can’t do anything with anyone else’s body. Durbin: So, let me try this. A person should be able to do what they want with their own bodies. We shouldn’t be allowed to just abuse other people’s bodies. Man: Absolutely. Durbin: So, in the case of what’s happening inside there right now, the woman’s body is not dying. It’s another body, biologically distinct inside of her, that is being killed. I’m all for women doing what they want with their bodies. I’m in agreement with you actually, fundamentally, that we shouldn’t be able to harm other people’s bodies, which is precisely what’s happening in there. I’m glad you joined us. ...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – December 2022

Just ain’t the same “Watching church on a livestream is like watching a fireplace on TV: you can see everything with no warmth.” – Charlie Kirk Patriotism vs. nationalism: a useful distinction? In their column, “Should Christians be nationalists?” John Stonestreet and Timothy Padgett noted that the term “Christian nationalism” is being used by different people in very different ways. Some see it as “conflating the cross of Christ with the stars and stripes” while others equate it to white racism “dressed up in religious garb.” Still others, Reformed folk among them, are using the term to stake a claim for Christianity in the civic public square – they’d say they are simply denying that Christianity is something people should practice only in private, and that so long as we have nations,, we should seek for them to be Christian ones. When a term is being used to describe ideologies that range from the outrageous to the orthodox, that's more than a little confusing. So might it be useful to find an alternative? Sometimes we do have to fight for a term, like “marriage” and “woman,” because they have God-given definitions. Attempts to redefine here are rebellion against God, and the reality He has crafted. But not every word has to be a battleground; it's okay to never take back "gay." Of course, we shouldn't be naive about the fact that whatever terms we use, they'll be attacked too. We might not think of the dictionary as a key front in the culture wars, but the Devil is all about twisting definitions whether it's love, tolerance, family, and more. Thus, that a word is being twisted, isn't a reason to give up on it. But does the term “nationalism” have the same sort of importance? And might its historical associations with the Nazis (national socialists that they were) be reason enough to let this one go? I’m going to pitch patriotism and Christian patriotism as alternatives. They can and will be twisted too, but there is at least a little history that has already made a distinction between patriotism, and the nasty sort of nationalism. "’My country, right or wrong,’ is a thing that no patriot would think of saying. It is like saying, ‘My mother, drunk or sober.’" – G.K. Chesterton, in The Defendant “Patriotism means unqualified and unwavering love for the nation, which implies not uncritical eagerness to serve, not support for unjust claims, but frank assessment of its vices and sins, and penitence for them.” – attributed to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn “Patriotism isn't the same as nationalism. The former is a healthy love and respect for your country, but the latter is blind, total, and unrestricted support for any and all legislation, policies, or activities of a nation. Nationalism is the extreme, whereas patriotism is the goal, because good patriots know when to challenge their political leaders, laws, and policies when they become unjust or immoral.” – Fr. John Triglio Jr. and Fr. Kenneth Brighenti So, is it wrong to use the term “Christian nationalism”? No, but I am questioning whether it is smart. And the suggestion I’m making is that at this time and in this place, patriotism might be the less confusing term. Dad joke refresher There's a lot of pressure being a dad, first and foremost the expectation that we'll always have a joke at the ready. So dads, here's a helping hand, with some jokes worthy of you. Did you realize that incorrectly when spelled correctly is still spelled incorrectly? What has four letters, sometimes has nine, never has five, but always has six. Did you know that adding "ic" turns metal into its adjective metallic, but it doesn't work for iron? Isn't that ironic? If April showers bring may flowers, do you know what May flowers bring? Pilgrims! Did you hear I got a job offer to teach an English class in prison? Now I just have to consider the prose and cons. Did you ever read that, back in his day, the ladies thought that Samuel Morse was a dashing young man? My son asked me for a book mark. I told him, "Surely. Here's The Hobbit, and my name's Brian." He replied, "Thanks dad, but don't call me Shirley." I'm so proud. SOURCE: Hat tip to Al Siebring who was a source for some, and an inspiration for all, of these! A story you may have heard Garrison Keillor once told a story of a Saudi prince who badly needed a transfusion, but was of such a rare blood type that he was having trouble finding a match anywhere in the world. His doctors finally found a willing Dutch-Canadian who would do. (Keillor says it was a Scotsman, but I have a reliable source who says otherwise.) Grateful for this lifesaving gift, the Saudi prince bought the Dutchman a house on a hill overlooking the Fraser Valley and gave him a million dollars. But it wasn’t long before the prince needed another pint. This time he gave the man a bottle of Advocaat and a thank-you card. Because now he had Dutch blood in him. SOURCE: Adapted from Garrison Keillor, as told on “A Prairie Home Companion.” And with a hat tip to Sharon Bratcher Pro-life memes traveling the ‘Net Even since the overturn, earlier this year, of the 1973 Roe vs. Wade US Supreme Court decision that had legalized abortion in that country, pro-lifers have gotten a lot louder. And it is wonderful! Here are a few of the highlights We are unashamed of our narrow-minded opposition to killing human beings Killing a person on the basis of their size, level of development, environment, or degree of dependency is as arbitrary and immoral as killing a person on the basis of their skin color. Our society hasn’t progressed. We’ve just shifted our violence to a more vulnerable victim. “Abortion is not health care because pregnancy is not a disease.” – Dr. Haywood Robinson, former abortionist “If abortion is healthcare, slavery is job creation.” – Darrell B. Harrison Death is not a solution to foster care. Death is not a solution to abuse. Death is not a solution to rape. Death is not a solution to being unloved. Death is not a solution to suffering. Killing a child in the womb because they have the potential to suffer is not compassion A deeper pro-life proof “Abortion is a Christological heresy too. It would posit that Christ, in the womb, was at some point fully God but not fully human…” – “G.K. Chesterposting” on Twitter When the Church marries the science of the day “Moderns have been taught to regard the Galileo battle as a battle between faith and science. And science won out, three cheers, yay! Because the bigoted theologians were sticking to their guns and they wouldn’t listen to Galileo who was the purveyor of new knowledge, new wisdom. “But it was actually a clash between the old science and the new science. So the problem that the Church faced was that the people who were resistant to Galileo were churchmen who married their theology to Aristotle. They had married the teaching of the Bible to the best science of the day when they were going through seminary. And then Galileo came along disruptively. The lesson urged upon us is, always believe science over faith. But the lesson ought to be actually, don’t let your faith get co-opted by the current science because he who marries the science of the day is going to be a widow tomorrow.” – Douglas Wilson Dec. 1, on The Renaissance of Men podcast https://youtu.be/kT8Vrz96RFc A business tip for parents In his business The Advantage, Patrick Lencioni has some advice that I thought my kids should hear. I read them a bit on what Lencioni called the fundamental attribution error (FAE). This is “the tendency of human beings to attribute the negative…behavior of their colleagues to their intentions and personalities while attributing their own negative…behaviors to environmental factors.” That way that translates from the business world to the home front wasn’t immediately obvious to my littles, so I explained that if one little bumps another, an FAE might lead the bumped to accuse the bumper of doing that “on purpose!” even as the bumper might point to how narrow the hallway was, or how much mom was asking them to carry, to show how “it totally wasn’t my fault.” It is the victim accusing the bumper of malice aforethought, and the bumper pointing this way and that to everything except their own carelessness. We went on to have a fun little chat about how God wants us to “attribute to others as you would like others to attribute to you” (Matt. 7:12). Hollywood wisdom “You just have to believe man! You just have to trust it will all turn out right.” That’s a common sentiment found in many a movie, and not just the Christian sort, but even the Hollywood variety. In fact, it might be more prevalent there, found in everything from Polar Express to the trailer of the newest Indiana Jones film. It's there Indy explains: “I’ve come to believe that it’s not so much what you believe as how hard you believe it.” But as John Tweedy noted in a Facebook post, “The idea is always presented as wisdom, but it is really very, very stupid.” That Indy is expressing this sentiment is particularly ironic, he notes, because Indy “…has spent a whole franchise shooting, stabbing, crushing, and burning people because those people intensely believed wrong things. I’m pretty sure those Nazis believe in Arian supremacy. I’m pretty sure those cultists believed in Kali Ma. I’m pretty sure those Soviets believed in Communism. And they were all bad guys, not because they didn’t believe hard enough, but because they believed wrong…. Intensity does not redeem error. It makes error more damaging.” SOURCE: With a hat tip to Cap Stewart...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – November 2022

Chesterton saw it coming… A hundred years ago, in the Aug 14, 1926 edition of the Illustrated London News, G.K. Chesterton wrote a column that could be a commentary on our own time. The extreme skepticism that leads some to reject God was going to lead them to reject ever more of the real world. “The Declaration of Independence, once the charter of democracy, begins by saying that certain things are self-evident. If we were to trace the history of the American mind from Thomas Jefferson to William James, we should find that fewer and fewer things were self-evident, until at last hardly anything is self-evident. So far from it being self-evident to the modern that men are created equal, it is not self-evident that men are created, or even that men are men. They are sometimes supposed to be monkeys muddling through a transition stage before the Superman. But there is not only doubt about mystical things; not even only about moral things. There is most doubt of all about rational things. I do not mean that I feel these doubts, either rational or mystical; but I mean that a sufficient number of modern people feel them to make unanimity an absurd assumption. Reason was self-evident before Pragmatism. Mathematics were self-evident before Einstein. But this scepticism is throwing thousands into a condition of doubt, not about occult but about obvious things. We shall soon be in a world in which a man may be howled down for saying that two and two make four, in which furious party cries will be raised against anybody who says that cows have horns, in which people will persecute the heresy of calling a triangle a three-sided figure, and hang a man for maddening a mob with the news that grass is green. Thomas Sowell on those who can’t, critiquing those who do “The beauty of doing nothing is that you can do it perfectly. Only when you do something is it almost impossible to do it without mistakes. Therefore people who are contributing nothing to society, except their constant criticisms, can feel both intellectually and morally superior.” Secular isn’t a synonym for neutral “It turns out that, however you might wish otherwise, you eventually wind up wherever it was you were going. If you get on the plane to Chicago, and I would ask you to follow me closely here, you are going to land in Chicago. We are now arriving where a godless education must necessarily go. The public schools in America were not secular, they were godless. The public schools in America were not neutral, they were godless. The public schools in America were not even agnostic, they were godless.” – Douglas Wilson Wit and wisdom of Benjamin Franklin While best known as one of America’s Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin was also a printer, postmaster, scientist, diplomat, and inventor. On top of all that, he had quite the reputation as a public wit, spouting such well-known aphorisms as “Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead,“ “Fish and visitors stink after three days,“ and “Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults.” While he was likely not Christian (he seemed to deny Christ’s deity) many of his common-sense witticisms have some depth to them. Might it be because he was riffing off of the inspired Word? What follows are a few Franklin selections paired with texts that say something similar. Is the connection real or imagined? “Well done is better than well said.” “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” – James 1:22 “Fools need advice most, but wise men only are the better for it.” “The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice.” – Prov 12:15 “He’s a fool that cannot conceal his wisdom.” “A prudent person conceals knowledge, but the heart of fools proclaims foolishness.” – Prov 12:23 “He that lies down with dogs, shall arise with fleas.” “One who walks with wise people will be wise, but a companion of fools will suffer harm.” – Prov. 13:20 “Search others for their virtues, thy self for thy vices.” “…in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” –Philippians 2:3 Lyric of the month This might be an oldie but it is a real goodie from the Newsboys: Real Good Thing Born to sin / and then get caught. All our good deeds / don’t mean squat. Sell the Volvo / shred the Visa, send the cash to Ma Teresa. Great idea / the only catch is you don’t get saved / on merit badges. Doctor’s coming / looking grim: "Do you have a favorite hymn?" Check your balance through the years, All accounts are in arrears. Guilt is bitter. / Grace is sweet. Park it here / on the Mercy Seat. When we don’t get what we deserve, that’s a real good thing. When we get what we don’t deserve, that’s a real good thing. Why is only the other side quoting the Bible? In US politics one party is still acknowledging God’s Word as authoritative. And it’s not the Republicans. In an October debate with Florida governor Ron DeSantis, Democratic challenger Charlie Crist alluded to both Matthew 7:1 and 7:12 to, blasphemously, defend abortion and to justify allowing double mastectomies and other genital mutilations on children. “I believe that we need to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. It’s called the Golden Rule…. we’re all children of God. And that doesn’t mean that you are the one who’s supposed to judge what others are supposed to do, particularly women, with their bodies.” A month earlier, another prominent Democrat, California governor Gavin Newsom, ran billboards in Mississippi and Oklahoma that read: “Need an abortion? California is ready to help.” This offer of abortion was justified with Mark 12:31, included underneath, which reads “Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these.” Such mangling of the Bible for political purposes is nothing new of course. In the 2004 presidential campaign, the Democratic contender, John Kerry, called “Honor your Father and your Mother…one of the oldest Commandments” seemingly unaware that God gave all Ten Commandments at the same time. But even as Democrats continue to cite the Bible, it’s worth considering, why does it increasingly seem that the only folks willing to quote God’s Word are the murderers and mutilators? They do so blasphemously, taking God’s Words in vain… but in a strange way they, at least, are treating God’s Word as both relevant and authoritative in the public sphere. Hit back? It is a Christian parent’s repeated role to explain to their pint-size progeny that Jesus did not tell us to“do unto others as they did to us.” But, as Greg Koukl recently pointed out, there can come a time in debate or discussion when that is good advice – you may need to give as good as you got. It is the appropriate response when someone tries to pin you with what’s called the “Kafka Trap.” In his novel The Trial, Franz Kafka presented a Soviet-style interrogation where the denial of something would be presented as proof of guilt. So, for example: I think you have a drug addiction What? I do not! That just proves it – drug addicts always deny it! Today this Trap is most often used to accuse people of racism: if you deny you’re racist, that just proves that you are. When you’re hit with this you’re-hooped-either-way attack, Greg Koukl offers this tactic: do unto them as they’ve done to you ...accept his approach, then turn the Kafka trap back on him. Here’s an example: “I knew you’d say that, and I’m glad you did.” “What! Why?” “Because it proves you’re wrong.” “Huh?” “No one says that unless they’re mistaken. Don’t you see it?” “No.” “That’s even more proof you’re wrong. Sorry.” Or… “Do you know what ‘social justice’ means?” “Of course I do.” “That proves you don’t. No one who really understands social justice thinks he understands it.” Doing to others as they’ve done to you isn’t wrong here because this isn’t about revenge, but rather clarity. You’re exposing them for just how insubstantial their rhetoric really is. Coaches with a parenting tip for us all It’s said that practice makes better… but better at what? A basketball player that practices badly will engrain those bad habits. Then, whatever he might be doing wrong, whether it’s a high dribble, or putting no arc on his shot – he’ll actually get more consistently bad by practicing at it. And parents, the same is true for our children: if they’re mouthing off with regularity, or responding with the right words but the wrong tone, they are practicing being bad. And if that’s left uncorrected then they’ll get really good at being bad… especially when they hit the teen years. So just as it is important to practice basketball the right way, our kids need to not just say the words, but practice saying them the right way… lest they be practicing and reinforcing and engraining the wrong way. Free vs. free “There are constant calls from NDP candidates and MPs for free post-secondary tuition, free childcare, free dental care, free drugs (both pharmaceutical and recreational), free housing, free wifi . . . even free money (Universal Basic Income). The only thing they don’t want free is ‘dom’ . . . (as in freedom). They don’t want a free press. They don’t want free speech. They don’t want parents free to raise their children as they see fit. They don’t want a free conscience. They don’t want free thinkers at universities. – Christian Heritage Party leader Rod Taylor, “Socialism …on the Instalment Plan”...

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