In a Nutshell

Tidbits – June 2026

O Canada!

A Canadian woman and a Saudi woman were arguing about which country was better.

The Canadian said, "Canada has more than its share of problems, but at least here I can freely walk up to Parliament Hill, head to the Prime Minister's office, and loudly complain, 'Mark Carney, I don't like the way you're running this country.'"

"But I can do that in my country too!" the Saudi woman exclaimed. "I’m free to walk up to the palace, go to the King's office, and loudly complain, 'King, I don't like the way Mark Carney Harper is running Canada!'"

Source: Adapted from a Reagan joke about Russia and the US

4 of a kind

Grace and Mercy are two words with distinct meanings…but do you know what they are?

Through sheer repetition some Christian words seem to blend into each other and we forget their distinct meanings. But their differences do matter. Below are three short definitions that describe the following four words: Grace, Mercy, Justice and Persecution.

not getting what you do deserve
getting what you do deserve
getting what you don’t deserve

Test yourself. Do you know what definition applies to each word? The answers follow:

Not getting what you do deserve, is God is merciful when He doesn’t send us to hell. We deserve to go to hell, but fortunately Christians don’t get what we deserve.
Getting what you do deserve, is God’s justice requires that sinful man be punished. Jesus took our deserved punishment on Himself and thus fulfilled God’s requirement for justice.
Getting what you don’t deserve is Persecution. If justice is about getting punished when you do something bad, then persecution is about getting punished when you’ve done nothing, or done something good (like handing out a Bible in China). Persecution is, therefore, getting something bad that you don’t deserve. This definition is a little tricky, however, because it can also be a good thing to get what we don't deserve. That's exactly what Grace is! Our salvation and adoption as God's children is ours entirely out of grace – we have done nothing to merit this reward. It is through grace alone.

Another reason everyone should study economics

A story is told about an old man who was called silly names by the neighborhood kids and he couldn’t get them to stop. Then he hit on an idea. The next day, when the children gathered around him, shouting their taunts, he told them that next week he was going to pay them to insult him – if they came on Tuesday, four days later, he would give them each a dollar to shout their insults at him. They agreed, and the immediate impact was that the children stopped hassling him – it seemed they were saving up their insults. Then, come Tuesday, the man did as he promised, giving each of the little bullies a dollar for shouting insults at him. Then he announced that he’d pay them the next day too, but just 50 cents each.

Wednesday they all gathered again, threw their insults, and were given 50 cents each. Afterwards the man announced that he’d only pay them a penny for their insults tomorrow. “A penny?” the ringleader complained, “that’s not even worth it.” And they never taunted the man again.

Source: adapted from Michael Hodgin’s “1001 More Humorous Illustrations for Public Speaking”

Do you like being corrected? David did.

We’re supposed to love correction. Not throw a fit in response to it, or even stoically accept it. No, we’re supposed to love it. Proverbs 9:8 is just one of the texts where God makes this point:

Don’t reprove a scoffer, lest he hate you.
Reprove a wise man, and he will love you.

God tells us that reproof is, in fact, a sign that He loves us: “whom the Lord loves, He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives” (Heb. 12:6). This verse makes good sense to any parent – it’s a lot easier to not discipline our kids, to just let it go this time (and the next, and the time after that), but if we love them, then we want to teach them what’s wrong and right, and that will necessarily involve reproof of some sort.

Still, “love correction” is a hard command to follow, so it struck me when I came across King David’s response to the prophet Nathan’s rebuke. As you’ll recall, Nathan came to David after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba, and murdered her husband to cover it up (2 Samuel 11-12). Nathan came with condemnation, and a curse. Though David confessed his guilt, Nathan informed the king that the LORD would kill the child that he had conceived with Bathsheba. And the child did die.

We would all understand it if David didn’t think all that kindly of Nathan after that. But, despite his great sins, David was still a man of God, and he shows this in his response to Nathan’s reproof. In 1 Chronicles 3:5 we read that, of the four sons David had with Bathsheba, one was named Nathan! Here, then, is a man who was reproved, and seems to have loved the messenger who brought him that correction.

Presuppositions

When a little boy asked his grandfather whether he’d been on the ark with Noah, his grandfather had to laugh, and assured the boy that no, he had not been on the ark.

“But grandpa,” the boy asked, “then why didn’t you drown?”

Are we conservatives?

Dave Rubin, Douglas Murray, and the DailyWire's Spencer Klaven are all self-described "gay conservatives," and how can that be? It's because "conservative" is a term that has meaning in comparison. So long as a position can be placed on a spectrum, there will always be liberal and conservative versions. If an anarchist wants to destroy all of Western Civilization, and I want to destroy only half of it, I would be the conservative anarchist. And if a couple of college ethics professors want to euthanize all disabled babies now, and I want to wait a few years, I am the conservative eugenicist in this conversation. In much the same way, conservative and gay go together just fine too.

That’s why God's people need to understand that if we want to express our loyalties clearly, we need to come out as Christians, not conservatives. Conservative Christians even, but not simply conservatives.

Showing and telling

A half dozen writing tips that highlight what’s to be done, and how not to do it.

Don't use a big word where diminutive verbiage will suffice.
Check carefully to see if you any words out.
Avoid clichés like the plague.
It’s generally a good idea to be specific.
Colorful, vivid, descriptive, multi-layered adjectives are overdone.
Don’t re-use the same words. Use different words. Other words.

Done before the first down

Notre Dame’s famed football coach Knute Rockne wasn’t above employing psychology to give his team an edge. A legend is told of how, when he was about to face the much better University of Southern California (USC) team, he spent the week beforehand scouring the city of South Bend for its largest men. He found a hundred, all 6’5” or taller, and every one of them weighed 300 pounds or more. Then he decked them out in Notre Dame uniforms and the pads and helmets only made them look even bigger.

When it was game time, he marched them out. One after another, these giants ran onto the field, right past the opposing players. The USC coach kept telling his guys, “They can only field 11 men at a time,” but it didn’t matter. None of them played a minute, but the opposition was so intimidated at the sight of them that they dropped passes, committed fumbles, and even ran into each other in their crossing routes. And Notre Dame won the game.

Did it happen? Maybe. But the reason the story is told is because this sort of thing does happen. Think of the men who spied out Israel and got intimidated by the giants of the land before any battle was even fought. Consider today’s battles and how often God’s truth is more loudly defended by non-Christians like Ben Shapiro or Jordan Peterson than by us – we’ve run from the battle and left it up to others, scared of what we might, but haven’t yet, had to face. How often are we beaten before we’ve even begun?

Thankfully, our God is not just mighty – bigger than any giant on the football field sidelines, or standing in front of a Canaanite army – but He is also gracious and forgiving. So let’s fall on our knees, and get ready to put up our fists when God next calls us to fight for His glory.

Source: adapted from Michael Hodgin’s “1001 More Humorous Illustrations for Public Speaking”

That speck in your neighbor’s eye

The faults we spot so easily in others may well be the ones we excuse in ourselves. Of course, there is some artistry in our self-deception – we aren’t going to bluntly say, it is wrong for my kids to be curt and impatient, but I’m allowed to be. No, we’ll say it’s wrong for them, but then relabel our own conduct as something more acceptable or even admirable, as this poetic ditty demonstrates:

Stubbornness we deprecate;
firmness we condone.
The former is our neighbor’s trait;
the latter is our own.

Source: Michael Hodgin’s "1001 More Humorous Illustrations for Public Speaking"

Berra-isms

Major league player and coach Yogi Berra had quite the way with words. Here are a few of his most famous “Berra-isms,” with wisdom to be found, if you’re willing to ponder.

It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.
If you don’t know where you’re going, you might not get there.
Ninety percent of the game is half mental.
You can observe a lot by watching.
When you come to a fork in the road, take it.
If you can’t imitate him, don’t copy him.

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – May 2026

On logic Sherlock Holmes and his faithful companion Dr. Watson once went on a camping trip. Some hours after they lay down for the night and went to ...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – April 2026

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In a Nutshell

Tidbits – March 2026

Still true in some places… Johan had left Edmonton to go up northward, near Neerlandia, for a bit of skydiving. Late Sunday evening he was found in...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – February 2026

For want of a comma In her best seller Eats, Shoots and Leaves, author Lynne Truss highlighed the importance of commas with the story of a Panda who ...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – January 2026

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

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – December 2025

Go Ukrainian While canvassing for money-saving ideas I came across one appropriate for this season. As many of our readers know, the Dutch traditionally exchange presents on December 5th, three weeks before most other people do it. But did you know that the Ukrainian will exchange gifts on January 7th? Just imagine how much money could be saved if we did all our shopping in those after-Christmas, Boxing week sales? It seems, to be truly Dutch is to go Ukrainian! Words will hurt us Do you say “gay” when you're talking about homosexuality? Jerry Johnson wants you to stop. In a commentary some years back he made the case that the choice of terms used in a debate can determine who will win it. For example, in the abortion debate the other side wanted to be known as “pro-choice” and wanted us to be called “anti-choice.” But if we had allowed the debate to be about choice, rather than life, well, we would have lost right there – who wants to stand with the anti-choicers? So it was strategically important that we highlighted the truth behind our position and fought to be called “pro-life.” It is just as important, then, that we make careful use of the right terms in the many other cultural debates we are involved in. Johnson suggests the following alternatives to what we most often hear in the secular media. Instead of a government “stimulus” to talk about government spending, we need to respond with the more accurate “spending spree. When mention is made of everyone getting their “fair share,” we need to identify this for what it is: “socialism” or “covetousness.” We need to stop using the term “gay marriage” and talk instead of “homosexual unions.” And in his most creative substitution, Johnson proposed an alternative to “regulate.” “When they talk about ‘regulate,’ as in regulations, what they really mean is ‘constipate.’ They want to back-up progress.” On public schools “Is there an idea more radical in the history of the human race than turning your children over to total strangers, who you know nothing about, and having those strangers work on your child’s mind, out of your sight, for a period of twelve years? Could there be a more radical idea than that? Back in colonial times in America if you proposed that as an idea, they would burn you at the stake, you mad person! It’s a mad idea!” – John Taylor Gatto, former teacher, in the 2011 documentary IndoctriNation: public schools and the decline of Christianity in America The 6 greatest toys ever Some years back, Geekdad.com blogger Jonathan H. Liu compiled a list of "The 6 best toys of all time." Parents in search of the perfect presents may benefit from his wisdom. His top 6 were: 1. Stick 2. Box 3. String 4. Cardboard Tube 5. Dirt 6. Water Selective skepticism In a departure from his usual crime or political fiction, some years back British writer Jeffery Archer wrote The Gospel According Judas. It mimics the style and verse-by-verse layout of the four Gospels, but is told from the perspective of Judas Iscariot, who Archer portrays as misunderstood. What’s intriguing about the book is what Archer leaves in – Jesus still cures leprosy, makes the blind see, and casts out demons – and what he leaves out. He has Judas specifically deny that Jesus ever turned water into wine. Why the problem with this particular miracle? As Archer explains in the glossary: “if it had been true, Jesus would have changed about 120 gallons of water into wine!” Archer’s selective skepticism is quite befuddling (Jesus can heal the blind, but 120 gallons of water is too much for Him?) but also quite familiar. In Reformed circles, when it comes to the Origins debate – whether God used Creation or Evolution – there are some who think it natural to believe that God created the Sun out of nothing, but impossible to think that, as Genesis 1 depicts, He created light before the Sun. For them, that is a sticking point, and a reason to doubt that the text is literal. To question a six-day Creation but profess belief in the Resurrection of Christ is to be, like Archer, selectively skeptical. Both events are miraculous and “unscientific” so why believe what the Bible says about the one, while questioning what it says about the other? Quote of the month "I am reminded that one old saint was asked, ‘Which is the more important: reading God's Word or praying?’ To which he replied, ‘Which is more important to a bird: the right wing or the left?’” - A.W. Tozer Joke of the month In our culture, husbands and fathers are regularly belittled, which is why "dumb husband" jokes just aren’t funny. Except this one. Wife to husband: "Could you please go shopping for me and buy one gallon of milk, and if they have eggs, get a half dozen." A short time later her husband comes home, carrying several bags. Wife: "I wanted one gallon, why on earth did you bring home six?" Husband: "They had eggs." Adapted from a joke circulating the Internet Questions for young men Some years back I heard a wise old pastor pass along 21 questions he might ask potential suitors for his daughters (though both of them are now married). He noted the questions weren’t to be used in a “wooden checklist fashion”; instead he was offering them as a source of inspiration for other fathers. His list can be divided into five categories. There are questions that address the suitor’s: Spiritual life – “Do you attend worship every Lord’s Day” “When was the last time you read the entire Bible” “Have you ever had a period of spiritual rebellion?” Relationship with family/parents – “What is your relationship like with your mom?” “Would you agree that this will likely be the way you will be treating my daughter ten years from now?” Ability to provide + work/financial goals – “What are your debts?” “How much did you make last year?” “What do you believe God has called you to do vocationally?” “What steps have you taken to reach that goal?” Regard for your daughter – “Describe my daughter to me.” “Why do you think you would be a blessing to her?” Sexual/moral conduct – “Do you have a problem with pornography?” Live-in girl friend two years before you became a Christian? Live-in girl friend six months after you became a Christian?” His questions are direct and I suspect few Christian young men have had to face such a barrage. But once the shock wears off, the value of each of these pointed queries becomes evident. Do we want to let polite niceties get in the way of properly assessing the measure of a man looking to date our daughter? The questions can also serve as a wake-up call to young men, whether or not a girl’s father is involved. They are questions we can benefit from asking ourselves. When is the last time you’ve read the entire Bible? Why do you think you will be a blessing to this girl you want to date? Are you a leader ready to be the spiritual guide in your families? Are you a godly men? These are good and necessary questions. And if we don’t have good answers for them we need to repent and seek God’s help to be the sort of men that godly fathers want for their godly daughters. Sermons and sleep The life of a missionary brings with it challenges big, small, and even comical. What follows is from Dr. Bredenhof’s missionary memoir The Gospel under the Northern Lights, which is about his time working among natives in northern BC. One of the lesser challenges was not having a church nursery at Wit'at Reformed Fellowship. We'd gone through that already with Julie. Now she was okay with sitting in church and we started the process again with Emeline. There were moments that I'd be preaching and Emeline was inconsolable. Rose was trying to keep the two oldest in line and comfort a crying baby. It was impossible for her to do it by herself. One Sunday things were so bad that I took Emeline in my arms and held her against me while I was preaching. There she finally fell asleep. That reminded me of an old ditty by Charles Spurgeon. He said “It is an ill case when the preacher Leaves his hearers perplex'd - Twixt the two to determine: “Watch and pray,” says the text, 'Go to sleep,' says the sermon." That was probably the only time I hoped the sound of my words would put someone to sleep. (The Gospel under the Northern Lights can be purchased at lulu.com/spotlight/wesbredenhof.) Great pro-life slogans Love lets live – Abort73.com Kill the patient, not the pain – Euthanasia Prevention Coalition What if you’re wrong? – as seen on a pro-life billboard A person is a person, no matter how small – Dr. Seuss’s Horton Hears a Who The answer to a crisis pregnancy is to eliminate the crisis, not the child – Jeannie W. French Birth before death – Abort73.com ...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – November 2025

Are you passing the baton? “My dad….made a great commitment in my life and had given me many things to pass on. His father had given him things to pass on. And what I have, I have passed on. You have to take it, develop it, learn it, and pass it on to somebody else. This is a relay race, and we are all involved.” – John MacArthur on the importance of telling the next generation what we have learned about God. Knowledge doesn’t save “The devil is a better theologian than any of us and is a devil still.” – A.W. Tozer. A third way God’s name can be used in fiction In a March 16, 2015 post titled “Fiction and the Third Commandment” Douglas Wilson continued a discussion that began in the February 2015 issue of Reformed Perspective. In that issue, I asked why so many Christian fiction authors have their characters taking God’s Name in vain. I argued that there were only two ways God allows us to use his Name. God says we can use his Name to talk to Him. And we can also use his Name to talk about Him. That meant that a writer may not use God’s name simply because his heroine has stubbed a toe and he want the readers to understand that it really hurt. In his post, Pastor Wilson noted that there is one more proper use Christian authors can make of God’s Name – an author can depict someone sinfully abusing God’s Name without being guilty of abusing it himself. As evidence, Wilson pointed to Christ’s parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18. Jesus tells us that both men were praying in the temple but whereas the tax collector was penitent the Pharisee prayed: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.” The Pharisee here is neither talking about God, nor talking to Him (bragging isn’t prayer) but rather is blaspheming God. What we have here, as Wilson notes, is a "…fictional depiction a high violation of the Third Commandment, committed by a character in a bit of prose composed by the Lord Jesus Himself." Since Christ does it, we can be sure that it is indeed permissible to depict characters taking God’s name in vain. If that strikes you as strange (and it did me) the key point to understand is that in Luke 18, while Jesus is depicting someone taking God’s Name in vain, his purpose is still to honor God’s Name. This third use of God’s name is an easy thing to mess up, which is why Wilson concludes with a caution to writers who are considering making use of this third way: they need to carefully assess whether they are skilled enough to pull it off. This is not the sort of thing to fail in the attempt. Don’t just think about it “The smallest good deed is better than the greatest good intention.” - unknown No need for false modesty “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.” – C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity The (honest) rich get rich by making us all wealthier God told us not to covet, but there are many, particularly in the government, who want to assure us it’s fine to demand what the rich have. They tell us it’s only fair to make the one per cent pay way more because when we look over the fence at all they have we can’t help but notice that it is quite a lot. Sure, God told us to stop looking over the fence (Ex. 20:17), but the world insists that all this ogling is okay because our neighbor’s wealth, well, a lot of it is really ours in the first place. The way they tell the story there is only so much wealth to go around, so our rich neighbor could only become wealthy by taking from the poor folk like us. And it’s about time he gave some of it back. That’s what they say …but as you might suspect, folks who tell us it is okay to do what God forbids often don’t have their facts straight. The truth of the matter is that, so long as our rich neighbor didn’t get their money from piracy, bank robbing or lobbying the government, he likely got his money by earning it. And if his money was earned, then this neighbor of ours didn’t take anything from anyone, but actually gave more than he got. As commentator John Stossel explains: "It is instinctive to think of life as a zero-sum game – if I win, you lose. Politicians think that way because that’s how their world works. And lawyers who sue people think that way – you either win or you lose. "But in business, you only win if you give your customers something they want. If you make a big profit, it doesn’t mean you took it from the customer. The customer voluntarily gave you his money. He felt he gained something too. It is why you get the weird double thank you moment when you buy anything. If you bought a cup of coffee this morning, you gave the cashier a buck, and she said, 'Thank you.' She gave you the coffee, and you said, 'Thank you.' “'Thank you.' 'Thank you.' "Why both? Because you both felt you won. "But that’s just not intuitive. It’s intuitive to think Bill Gates made $50 million because he took $50 million from other people. If that’s the case, how come there is so much more wealth in the world now with all these billionaires? They didn’t take a big piece of the pie. They baked lots of new pies and then took a big piece." An approved Christian pick-up line "Hey baby, wanna come back to my place? My parents are home." Matthew Henry would have hated The Hunger Games On the night that the author of Matthew Henry's Commentary was robbed, he prayed a prayer that showed his understanding of just how blessed he was, and how, when it comes to harm, it is much better to receive than to give. "I thank Thee first because I was never robbed before; second, because although they took my purse they did not take my life; third, although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth, because it was I who was robbed and not I who robbed." SOURCE: Chris Craig's book "Becoming a Person of Prayer." There is some question if this really is a quote from Henry. Wikiquotes says no, but several other sources, including Chris Craig's book, say yes. Now it all makes sense Johannes Gutenberg is best known as the first man to print a Bible using movable metal type. But did you know he kept his metal letters in drawers, called cases, with all the capital letters stored in an upper case, and the small letters stored in a lower case? That is the reason that even today, capitals are known as "uppercase" and small letters as "lowercase." Add a word, ruin a Christian book About a decade back, a meme circled the globe that had people tweeting famous Christian book titles with one-word additions that, had they been real, would have completely ruined the book. For example, C.S. Lewis's Surprised by Joy became Surprised by Joy Riding. Other notables include: Till We Have Smiley Faces (C.S. Lewis) Dave Ramsey's complete guide to money laundering Don’t Waste Your Life Reading (John Piper) The Silver Rocking Chair (C.S. Lewis) The Pilgrim’s Progressive (John Bunyan) Calvin Klein’s Institutes The Lion, the Witch, and the Locked Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis) Orthodoxy Schmorthodoxy (G.K. Chesterton) Strange Camp Fire (John MacArthur) One title was actually improved with an addition; Joel Osteen's Your Best Life Now became Your Best Life Isn't Now. "Okay then, if you cross this line..." Two aged orthodox Anglican priests knelt side-by-side in the trendy new diocesan cathedral, waiting for their bishop’s Easter service to begin. It commenced with a lonely, eerie wisp of Tibetan bells wafting through the rafters. Then a chorus of plucked hand-harps took up the icy harmonies. After the bell ringers and harpists came a dancing troupe of near naked young men in red speedos, streamers flying from their wrists. Then something new – six women in purple robes shouldering a litter which bore a larger-than-life-sized Buddha. The bishop brought up the rear, her tresses plaited with white and red ribbons hanging from the edges of her mitre, her brocaded cassock matching the thurible in her hand. One aged priest turned to the other and said, “Just one more thing, and I’m outta here!” SOURCE: Abbreviated version of a joke on Tim Bayly's blog baylyblog.com/blog/2013/10/silence-them That silver lining Father: "Well, son, with marks like these, at least we know you're not cheating."...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – October 2025

No one even knows how to bake bread Our new Prime Minister is very sure he has just the right recipe to get the country’s economy going, and his plan involves more governmental control. But what if an economy is too complex for such top-down control? That’s the case Walter E. Williams (1936-2020) makes when he highlights how no one, on their own, would even have the know-how to bake a loaf of bread: “We’re all grossly ignorant about most things that we use and encounter in our daily lives, but each of us is knowledgeable about tiny, relatively inconsequential things. For example, a baker might be the best baker in town, but he’s grossly ignorant about virtually all the inputs that allow him to be the best baker. “What is he likely to know about what goes into the processing of the natural gas that fuels his oven? For that matter, what does he know about oven manufacture? “Then, there are all the ingredients he uses – flour, sugar, yeast, vanilla and milk. Is he likely to know how to grow wheat and sugar and how to protect the crop from diseases and pests? What is he likely to know about vanilla extraction and yeast production? “Just as important is the question of how all the people who produce and deliver all these items know what he needs and when he needs them. There are literally millions of people cooperating with one another to ensure that the baker has all the necessary inputs. It’s the miracle of the market and prices that gets the job done so efficiently. What’s called the market is simply a collection of millions upon millions of independent decision makers not only in America but around the world. Who or what coordinates the activities all of these people? “Rest assured, it’s not a bakery czar.” Hollywood romance ain’t right Hollywood tells us that there is one special someone, one soulmate, just one person out there who, as Jerry Maguire put it, completes us. Blogger Matt Walsh sums up the Christian position in one sentence: “I didn’t marry my wife because she’s The One, she’s The One because I married her.” How many did you know? By one estimate, there are 170,000 English words in common usage. Here a baker’s dozen of some that our kids probably don’t know, but you might. How many can you define? Answers are at the bottom of the page. • Agog • Dawdle • Defenestration • Discombobulate • Flibbertigibbet • Gobbledygook • Hullabaloo • Kerfuffle • Lollygag • Malarky • Skedaddle • Snollygoster • Verklempt A trick that’s a treat The Dutch have, through the years, earned a reputation for being wise with their money. We, after all, invented the Dutch treat, which halved the cost of dating! But while we worked hard to earn this reputation, we can’t just rest on our laurels and hope to retain our penny-pinching crown. In other words, what have we done lately? I've canvassed Dutch people across the world asking them for their best money-saving ideas (if you have any, please pass them on) and here's one that’s appropriate to this time of year. It seems a particularly smart Dutch mother used to send her children out trick-or-treating early. Very early. The children would hustle door to door, as quick as they could. Then, when they had enough, they would run on home to their mother, who would proceed to divide their bounty into two piles: one of stuff they liked, and the other of all the candy they didn’t want. She then handed out this second pile to the trick-or-treaters who came to her door! This is the sort of stuff that will let us keep the Dutch thrifty reputation intact. Why governments mismanage the economy You’d be hard-pressed to find, in the Bible, a role for the government in “managing” the economy. And you’d find plenty of texts warning against arrogance (Prov. 26:12, Rom. 12:3, etc.). Along those lines, one argument against big government is the capabilities of the people it puts in charge of billion- and trillion-dollar decisions. It’s a task that’s beyond any man, and all the more obviously so in recent instances. Was Justin Trudeau ever an astute businessman? Joe Biden? Canada now has a prime minister who has an extensive economic background, but with other people’s money. In contrast, an entrepreneur has his own skin in the game, and when he blows it, he pays the price. A politician is playing around with others’ money, and if his plan doesn’t work, the politician can hide the impact by saddling the next generation with the cost of his failure. That leaves politicians with a motivation to take risks that businessmen never would. Here's three more reasons that government is prone to economic mismanagement. “The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.” – Thomas Sowell “What our nation needs is a separation of 'business and state’ as it has a separation of 'church and state.’ That would mean crony capitalism and crony socialism could not survive.” – Walter E. Williams “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.” – Milton Friedman English is a silly language No wonder it’s hard to spell correctly. As Bernard Shaw once pointed out, ghoti could quite logically spell “fish”: with the gh from the word enough, the o from women and the ti from nation. Now do you get it? Some years back in an issue Faith in Focus, Dick G. Vanderpyl told the story of Jack, and his blasphemous coworker. Jack was a good Christian lad, so when his co-worker started taking the Lord’s name in vain, Jack asked him to stop. Unfortunately, no matter how Jack begged him to stop, this guy just couldn’t do it. It was an ingrained habit! Well, one morning, just as they were starting work, Jack decided to use a different approach. When his workmate started swearing Jack started swearing back, not using God’s name, but instead using Queen Elizabeth’s name as an expletive. That got his mate really riled up, and he demanded that Jack stop abusing his Queen. “If you can abuse my Lord and King, I can abuse your Queen,” Jack responded. Though the whole incident almost resulted in a punch-up, in the end Jack’s mate laughed, apologized, and never swore around him again. Homeschooling: the why and why not One objection to homeschooling is that homeschooled children may not fit in with the world around them. One reason parents choose to homeschool their children is so that they won’t fit in with the world around them. More tricky treating If you’re not a fan of the blood and gore associated with Halloween, take a curmudgeonly stand this year and reserve most of your sweets for the sweet. When a cute little princess shows up at your door, give her a huge handful of goodies. An adorable fuzzy bear deserves at least a few Mars bars and a couple of those really good chocolate doppler candies. A courageous knight might even be worthy of a giant milk chocolate letter “C” (for courageous). The forces of evil should not fare as well. Dark sinister skeletons, for example, only rate a tootsie roll at best, while a guy with an ax stuck in his head should get no more than a breath mint (the undead probably have bad breath). This discriminatory candy giving is even more fun when a ghoulish zombie shows up on your doorstep at the same time as a lovable puppy dog. Give the Zombie his due, and then watch his eyes grow as the lovable puppy get richly rewarded. Have a happy Halloween everyone! Answers from the top of the page Agog – very eager and curious to find out what’s what Dawdle – to lollygag Defenestration – tossing folks out a window (happened so often in Prague during the Reformation that they had to come up with a word for it) Discombobulate – to confuse or disconcert Flibbertigibbet – a flighty, silly chatterbox Gobbledygook – nonsense speech, coming from babies or intellectuals Hullabaloo – quite the kerfuffle Kerfuffle – a commotion or goodly amount of fuss Lollygag – to move slowly, especially when speed is required Malarky – complete and utter nonsense Skedaddle – to leave, quickly Snollygoster – an unprincipled politician Verklempt – to be overcome with emotion...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – September 2025

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

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – August 2025

Husbands, build up your wife R. Kent Hughes in Disciplines of a Godly Man, on Churchill at his very best: “Winston Churchill once attended a forma...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – July 2025

Roses are red… They come in red, Also yellow. For the right gal, Risk red, fellow. Deep thoughts from Cookie Monster “It weird that we c...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – June 2025

A one-question test During an episode of the TV drama West Wing, the President of the United States has to figure out whether a boatload of Chinese r...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – May 2025

Joke o' the month Two cars were waiting at a stoplight. When the light turned green, the man in front didn’t seem to notice. The woman in the car behind him did though, and she started pounding on her steering wheel and yelling at the man to move. But he didn’t. The woman began to go ballistic inside her car, ranting and raving at the man and pounding on her steering wheel and dash. When the light turned yellow the woman let out a long blast on her car horn, flipped him off, and screamed something out her window about “male drivers.” This finally got the man’s attention and, looking up, he saw the yellow light so he put his foot on the gas and scooted through the intersection just as the light turned red. This left the woman practically beside herself with rage – the man had made her miss her chance at getting through the intersection! In mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up to see the barrel of a gun held by a very serious-looking policeman. He told her to shut off her car and “keep both hands where I can see them.” She complied, speechless at what was happening. When she got out of the car, the policeman quickly cuffed her and hustled her into his patrol car. Too bewildered by the chain of events to ask any questions, she was driven to the police station, fingerprinted, photographed, searched, booked and placed in a cell. After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell, opened the door, and escorted her back to the booking desk, where the original officer was waiting with her personal effects. "I'm really sorry for this mistake,” he said, “but when I pulled up behind your car you were blowing your horn, flipping that guy off, and cussing a blue streak at the car in front of you. When I noticed your ‘Choose Life’ license plate holder, the ‘No Jesus, No Peace; Know Jesus, Know Peace’ and ‘Follow Me to Church’ bumper stickers, and the chrome plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk I naturally assumed you had stolen that car." Source: Adapted from a joking winging its way around the Internet Where do babies come from? Perhaps one of the best non-explanations ever, from a Waltons episode: little girl: “So where did you find me pa?” pa: “I found you hiding behind one of your mother’s smiles.” Death penalty discussion In a discussion on the death penalty I came across a Reformed Christian who was adamantly against it but only because he wanted to give the convicted murderer as long a time as possible to repent. He was worried that if this killer was going to repent on Wednesday, but was executed on Tuesday then his executioners would have effectively sent him to hell. What this brother was overlooking is what God has taught us about His own power – if God has predestined this murderer to heaven, then nothing that man could ever do would supersede God’s plan for that killer. This Christian was Reformed, but in his argument he was adopting an Arminian view of the death penalty – he denied God’s ability to choose His followers from before the beginning of the world. Not all values are equal "Once upon a time we knew what to do. A British district officer, coming upon a scene of suttee, was told by the locals that in Hindu culture it was the custom to cremate a widow on her husband's funeral pyre. He replied that in British culture it was the custom to hang chaps who did that sort of thing. There are many great things about India – curry, pajamas, sitars, software engineers – but suttee was not one of them. What a pity we're no longer capable of being 'judgmental' and 'discriminating.'” – Columnist Mark Steyn The Bible as a textbook The Siloam Tunnel in Jerusalem is an engineering marvel ahead of its time. Built by King Hezekiah the tunnel burrows a third of mile south to connect a spring outside Jerusalem with the Siloam pool within the city walls, giving the city a secure supply of water they could count on even when besieged. But while the Bible credits Hezekiah with this amazing tunnel’s construction (2 Kings 20:20), for years critics argued that it was built five hundred years later, in about 200 B.C. The Bible’s critics were wrong, of course, and eventually the proof came. In a September 11, 2003 Nature article geologists from Hebrew University described how they had carried out carbon-14 analysis on wood, coal and ash found in the plaster walls of the tunnel. They also ran isotopic tests on the uranium and thorium present in stalactites hanging from the tunnel’s ceiling. The test results corroborated the Bible’s account and left critics look for new ways to disbelieve. Our God is different There is only one real God, so if Muslims worship a being who created the universe and who will judge it, and Christians also worship a God who is both Creator and Judge, does that mean we are both worshipping the same God? No. God is more than just an abstract idea; He is more than his job description. God is a real person – three persons in one, in fact. The Muslims’ god never had a son (they would say it is blasphemous to even suggest such a thing). He never sent that son as a mediator. Their god never humbled himself taking on human flesh, and he most certainly never died on a cross to save them from their sins. So how can their god be our God? Put this in human terms for a moment. Imagine that someone comes up to one of my friends and claims to know me. "I know the editor of Reformed Perspective." "Oh you do, do you? Well what is he like?" "Oh, he has black hair, is three feet tall, and hates basketball." "Sorry" my friend might reply, "You don't know Jon, and the reason I can tell you that is the person you describe is not Jon - Jon is tall, grey-haired, and loves basketball." "But I’m sure the guy I know is editor of RP. Doesn't Jon edit RP?" "Yes he does, but the guy you’ve described is most definitely not the RP editor" God has revealed himself to us and when Muslims describe their god it’s clear they aren’t describing God. They’ve got the wrong person. And it’s up to us to tell them so. As seen on t-shirts and church and protest signs... A faith that demands nothing, and costs nothing, is worth nothing – seen on a church sign There is no God but YHWH and Moses is His messenger – written in Arabic on a t-shirt Let a wife make her husband glad to come home, and let him make her sorry to see him leave – Martin Luther Guns don’t kill people; Abortion clinics kill people – another t-shirt Christians keep the faith, but not from others – church sign Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip – Will Rogers quote For every action, there is an equal and opposite government program – circulating on the Internet Choose life: it’s better than the alternative – should be on a t-shirt Ignorance is bliss? Since terrorists often do what they do to get attention, we shouldn’t even report their names. That’s the thinking of psychiatrist and terrorism expert David Hubbard. In his book Winning Back the Sky, he recounts a number of terrorist incidents and names the pilots, policemen and victims involved, but the terrorists are left nameless or are designated with the letter X. As he puts it, “I believe we must give recognition to committed and courageous people, rather than to those who are destructive.” Egyptian gods take a beating Author James Nickel calls the ten plagues “one of the greatest blessings that ancient Egypt ever received from God.” A blessing for Egypt? Yes, the ten plagues didn’t just show how powerful the true God was and is, but also showed how powerless the Egyptian gods were. The first plague turned the Nile into blood, showing that Khnum and Hapi, two gods associated with the Nile, were powerless. The plague of frogs mocked Heket (Heqt), a goddess with the head of a frog. The plague of darkness strikes at the very heart of Egyptian worship, humbling Ra the Sun god. The final plague, the death of all the firstborn, mocked Pharaoh himself, who was worshipped as a god – he couldn’t even save his own son and heir. So God blessed the Egyptians by bringing judgment on their false gods (Numbers 33:4). And in Exodus 12:38 it sounds like some of the Egyptians took to heart what God was showing them, and joined up with the Israelites. Source: Nickel’s "Mathematics: Is God Silent?" and Logos Quarterly Volume 3, Numbers 3 and 4 Deep thoughts • We live in a society where pizza gets to your house before the police. • Count your blessings! Recounts are OK. • Midwives help people out. • Quit griping about your church; if it was perfect, you couldn't belong. • Archeologists make the best husbands; the older you get the more interested he becomes. • Get the last word in: Apologize. "Poem" of the month: Clothes by BarlowGirl Clothes aren't what they used to be They don't seem to fit you and me, anymore Modesty is out the door Flaunting what we've got and more is in Yeah, it's in They're sayin' "Don't ask why, just wear what we say You'll look like a model if you'll only obey To get the attention, just do what we say" Pay so much for clothes so small Was this shirt made for me or my doll? Is this all I get? I looked so hot but caught a cold I was doing just what I was told To fit in We're sayin' "Let's ask why, don't wear what they say Don't want to be a model; they can't eat anyway That kind of attention will fade with the day So, I'll stand up and say… Clothes that fit are fine Won't show what's mine Don't change my mind I'll be fine Did Jesus have long hair? Does the 2nd commandment forbid making depictions of Christ? One of the most popular Christian TV shows of today has no problems with doing so, and the many Christian fans of The Chosen must agree. Can we, so long as we don’t intend to bow down before it, make a picture or image of Christ? To answer that question, I'm going to offer up a practical objection: even if the 2nd Commandment did allow it, how could we actually pull it off? Back in 2004, Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ was loved by Roman Catholics and Evangelicals alike, and there was even a seeming uptick in interest in Christianity for a time after the film's release, much as is being said of The Chosen's impact today. But how accurate was the film’s portrayal? It was a brutal film by all accounts, and Gibson's emphasis on Christ’s physical suffering seems to have overshadowed His infinitely more significant spiritual struggle. Some have suffered worse than Christ did physically, but no one suffered more so spiritually. So when the physical is emphasized how accurate is the impression left, of what Jesus actually endured? Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 11:14 are a good indicator that Jesus did not have long hair: “if a man has long hair it is a dishonor to him.” But what does every film portrayal of Christ do? Portraying Jesus with long hair – especially in the 60s but still today – presents Him as a “peace and love” persona. But is that a fit for the Jesus we read about who had harsh words for the Pharisees and performed a violent cleansing of the temple. And He talked an awful lot about hell too. The Chosen offers a swarthier Jesus, more in keeping with His Middle Eastern heritage, but the actor is still an attractive man, and we have Scriptural reason to think Jesus was not so (Is. 53:2): ""He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him." Worse still, the many paintings and films that show Jesus as a tall Anglo-Saxon, making him more attractive to Europeans (though for all the wrong reasons) but probably less so for people on other continents who may not have liked white men. I've sometimes wondered how purportedly Christian nations could ever have been anti-semitic – how can you hate Jews when your Lord was one? – and I'm left wondering if these misportrayals of Christ might have had a hand in it. If you paint Jesus as white, clearly you've forgotten He was not. So even if the 2nd commandment doesn't forbid depiction of Christ (and to be clear, I think it does), I'll argue that the many ways we keep getting it clearly and sometimes terribly wrong would be good reason to, in humility, steer clear. But by reading Scripture, we can indeed encounter Jesus as He really was and remains....

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – April 2025

Trying to have your cake and eat it too A carving on a Cambodian temple built around 800 years ago seems to depict a stegosaurus. Christians know that dinosaurs and people lived at the same time, so this is no surprise for us. The artist might have seen a stegosaurus himself, or perhaps only heard a description passed on through the generations. But evolutionists say that dinosaurs died tens of millions of years before man appeared, and if that’s true then there is no way this artist could have seen a stegosaurus or had an accurate description of it passed on by word of mouth from one generation to the next – not if the span was millions of years! So evolutionists need to explain how this carving could have come to be. In an article on Smithsonian.com Brian Switek offers two possibilities that can be summed up as: 1. It doesn’t really look like a stegosaurus “If viewed directly, the carving hardly looks Stegosaurus-like at all. The head is large and appears to have large ears and a horn. The ‘plates’ along the back more closely resemble leaves, and the sculpture is a better match for a boar or rhinoceros against a leafy background.” 2. It looks so much like a stegosaurus it must be a hoax “There are rumors that it was created recently, perhaps by a visiting movie crew (the temple is a favorite locale for filmmakers), and it is possible that someone created something Stegosaurus-like during the past few years as a joke.” Watts was a wonder Isaac Watts (1674-1747) was a gifted poet and hymn writer, perhaps best known for Joy to the World and O God, Our Help In Ages Past. When he was a young lad, his gifts were already in full bloom, but they weren’t yet fully appreciated by those closest to Watts. In fact, as Douglas Bond recounts in his biography The Poetic Wonder of Isaac Watts, the poet’s mother didn’t even believe that the poems she was finding around the house were actually Watts’ own compositions. Sure, the boy said they were his, but what seven-year-old child could write like this? She assumed they must be poems he had memorized and then written down as his own. So, to put him to the test, she sat the boy down at the kitchen table and asked him to write her a poem. This is what he came up with. I am a vile polluted lump of earth; So I’ve continued since my birth; Although Jehovah grace does daily give me, As sure this monster Satan will deceive me. Come, therefore, Lord, from Satan’s claws relieve me. Wash me in Thy blood, O Christ, And grace divine impart. Then search and try the corners of my heart, That I in all things may be fit to do Service to Thee, and sing Thy praises too. After he showed it to his mother, she thought her suspicions were confirmed. This, clearly, was a copied piece, showing a theological depth far beyond the insight (let alone poetic ability) of any mere child. But then Watts told his mother to look at the first letter of each line for proof – the boy had crafted an acrostic that spelled out his own name, “Isaac Watts.” As Bond writes, "This was, no doubt, one of those moments that a mother cherishes and hides up in her heart. Imagine Sarah Watts’ wonder at her son’s gifting, but still more, the gratitude to God any Christian mother would have for so obvious a working of grace in her son’s heart." Credit card 101? Earl Taylor is an American high school principal who thinks it is vital our kids learn how to use credit cards responsibly while still at home. He proposed a two-step method that involved giving a son or daughter getting a card as soon as possible (16, 17, maybe 18) with two stipulations: 1) It has to be paid off in full each month 2) If there was ever a time when it wasn’t paid off in full, then the card would be cut up. And then the whole process could be tried again 6 months later. Let’s not whine John Piper wants us to know that sins aren’t something to complain about – whining isn’t the proper response. No indeed. As Piper puts it: "I hear so many Christians murmuring about their imperfections and their failures and their addictions and their shortcomings, and I see so little war! 'Murmur, murmur, murmur… Why am I this way?' Make WAR!" Great horrible puns • Class trip to the Coca-Cola factory. I hope there’s no pop quiz. • I did a theatrical performance about puns. It was a play on words. • Broken pencils are pointless. • They told me I had Type A blood, but it was a Type O. • It’s hard to beat a boiled egg in the morning. • The bride got a new name and a dress. • It’s hard to explain puns to kleptomaniacs because they always take things literally. • Someone left a pile of plastecine on my doorstep. I don’t know what to make of it. • Never trust an atom. They make up everything. • You want to know the key to being a successful mime? I’m not talking. • Can you think of anything nice about Switzerland? Well, their flag is a big plus. • While I usually refrain, I prefer to sing songs without their choruses. You can’t trust Hollywood?!? Hollywood tells us that there is one special someone, one soulmate, one person out there who, as Jerry Maguire put it, completes us. Blogger Matt Walsh sums up the Christian position in one sentence: “I didn’t marry my wife because she’s The One, she’s The One because I married her.” Why was Jesus silent? After he was arrested, Jesus replied to some of Pilate’s questions, and responded to a question by the high priest, but to their many false accusations he gave no reply – he stayed silent (Mark 15:5). The late Dr. D. James Kennedy, a popular American Presbyterian pastor last century, had an unusual thought as to why Jesus didn’t speak up. "Why was Jesus silent? Is it not often the case that a person is silent because he is giving tacit consent? Could that be the case? Many accusations were made against Him, and yet He denied none of them. Was He perchance guilty? In the answer to that lies the very heart of the Christian faith, and we must uncompromisingly declare that Jesus was silent precisely because he was guilty! He was guilty of everything with which He was charged. And He was guilty of many crimes for which He was not charged. He was guiltier than any man who had ever stood before the Sanhedrin. He was guiltier than the vilest miscreant who shall ever stand before the judgment bar of God. He was the guiltiest man who ever lived! But the guilt He bore was not His own. It was yours, and it was mine. 'The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6).' God hath made Him to be sin for us. Guilty – as charged (2 Cor. 5:21)." Ouch! But…yeah “If any man thinks ill of you, do not be angry with him, for you are worse than he thinks you to be.” - Charles Haddon Spurgeon G. K Chesterton on repetition To a dad’s distress, kids never tire of being thrown in the air. G.K. Chesterton thinks that, as we’re in the midst of doing it again, and again and again, we might not be properly appreciating the wonder of it all. Might our son or daughter be reflecting something of God in their unending enthusiasm? "….children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, 'Do it again'; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, 'Do it again' to the sun; and every evening, 'Do it again' to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical ENCORE."...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – March 2025

C.S. Lewis on the danger of indulging in “outrage porn” The term “outrage porn” was coined by a New York Times writer, Tim Kreider to describe the way our culture seems addicted to seek out things to be offended by. More than 60 years ago, in his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis offered up his own assessment on this tendency in us. "Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first feeling, 'Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that,' or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally, we shall insist on seeing everything - God and our friends and ourselves included - as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed forever in a universe of pure hatred." Gay rights are not civil rights "...the gay revolution is not the successor of the civil rights movement of the 1960s; it is the successor of the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Getting a grasp on this, we get a grasp on where our culture is really headed, helping us recognize that our embrace of homosexuality (even the more committed, less promiscuous kind) is part of our larger descent into sexual anarchy." – Michael Brown, in Outlasting the Gay Revolution On campaign promises “The politician’s promises of yesterday are the taxes of today.” – Mackenzie King “The politician's promises of today are his taxes of tomorrow.” – Jon Dykstra Best pro-life slogan ever In defending the unborn it’s important we not be defensive. Ours is not some regrettable, embarrassing position; it’s the obvious one. And we need to act like that, making it clear to all who are confused that the only sane position is to be against killing babies. Too often we’re scared to defend the unborn. What if someone whose had an abortion reads our pro-life shirt and starts yelling at us? What if someone sees our pro-life bumpersticker and just goes off on us? Though the other side is defending the indefensible we let them go on the offensive, screaming us into silence. We need to set this debate aright putting the baby-killers in their proper place: the defendant’s bench. This slogan “Yes, I’m anti-abortion. Why aren’t you?” crafted by Students for Life does just that, first making it clear that of course we’re against killing babies, and then demanding an accounting from those who hold the pro-death position. What possible reason could anyone give to justify killing babies? Abortion is a great and obvious evil. This is the way we need to talk. Mensa jokes What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question? A photon was going through airport security when security asked him if he had any luggage. The photon replied, “No, I’m traveling light.” A German walks into a bar and ask for a martini “Dry?” inquires the bartender. “Nein,” the German replies, “just one.” SOURCE: Andy Simmon’s "25 Jokes that make you sound like a genius” in the Sept. 2014 issue of Reader’s Digest. “But the Bible promotes slavery!” “The answer to such people is that if they cannot understand books written for grown-ups, they should not talk about them.” – C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity on how we should approach people who attempt to ridicule the Bible by taking a small bit of it out of context (he was specifically addressing ridicule directed at the thought people playing harps in heaven – Rev. 14:2 – but his appoint applies more broadly) Psalm One Hundred and Sixty-Six Anyone who knows anything about Corrie Ten Boom knows that this was a woman of great faith – she hid Jews in World War II because she trusted the Lord would take care of her, no matter what might happen. In her autobiography The Hiding Place she also shows herself to be a women of great humor, recounting a version of this joke/riddle from those days. Do you know how Psalm One Hundred and Sixty-Six begins? But there is no Psalm One Hundred and Sixty-Six! It goes only to 150. Shall I recite it for you? Please do! “Shout for joy!” Ah, but that’s only the beginning of Psalm One Hundred! And Sixty-Six too! Words that mean their opposite (or close to) Stylist to customer: "I can clip your hair, certainly, but would you like me to clip it off or together?" The general manager was tired and wanted to resign. But the money was too good, so instead he decided to resign, this time with a four-year deal. Giving Forgetful Fred oversight of the packing led to many oversights. The UN gave us sanction to impose sanctions on Iran. It is scientific to say the Sun goes around the Earth Some Bible critics say that Joshua 10:12-14 can be used to show that the Bible is not trustworthy when it comes to scientific matters. Here we read that at Joshua’s command the Sun stood still and as we all know it is the Earth that moves, not the Sun. So this passage gets it wrong, right? Not so fast! Even today we talk about the Sun as if it moves – setting and rising – and no one complains that we’re being unscientific when we do so, or doubts our ability to be clear about other matters. For example, when a house builder says his latest building project will be done in six days we won’t assume he actually meant six million years just because we also heard him talk about seeing the sun rise that morning. Days still mean days even when someone talks about the sun rising. But let’s pick nits for the moment and consider if there is any way at all we can find fault with Joshua’s statement. Sure, it makes sense in common terminology, but it still doesn’t make sense scientifically speaking, right? Not so fast! It turns out it is perfectly valid, scientifically speaking, to talk of the Sun being in motion around the Earth. Why? Because motion is relative – i.e. it is measured compared to some other object. Most of the time the other object we are comparing our motion to is not explicitly stated – when we go driving, or running, or even biking, we are measuring our motion relative to the ground but we never actually state that. So when we say a train is traveling 20 miles an hour east, it would be more precise to say it is traveling 20 miles/hr. east relative to the ground. But the ground isn’t the only frame of reference we use – we can choose to use another. If a fellow was on this train, and walking 10 miles an hour towards the back (westward) we could say he was travelling 10 miles an hour eastward relative to the ground, or we could say he was moving 10 miles an hour westward relative to the train. Both are valid and true. When it comes to our Solar System we most commonly – because it has the strongest gravitational pull – speak of motion as it is compared to the Sun. And relative to the Sun it is the Earth that is doing all the moving. But we could choose a different frame of reference. Relative to the center of the Milky Way Galaxy the Sun is also moving. Now, if we chose the Earth as our frame of reference (a logical choice, since this is our vantage point) and described all motion relative to the Earth then we could say, scientifically and accurately, that it is the Sun that goes around the Earth! And that’s the reference point that Joshua chose to use. So Joshua 10:12-14 can’t be used to undermine the clarity of the clear six-day creation account in Genesis 1 and 2. In fact, if you find someone trying to do just that, we should instead understand this attempt as undermining the critic’s credibility! Innerancy: a small huge difference In his book Everyone’s a Theologian, R.C. Sproul notes how two very different positions on inerrancy can seem quite similar at first glance. He writes: "...note the difference in the following two statements: A. The Bible is the only infallible rule of faith and practice. B. The Bible is infallible only when it speaks of faith and practice. "The two statements sound similar, but they are radically different. In the first statement, the term only sets Scripture apart as the one infallible source with authoritative capacity. In other words, Scripture is the rule of our faith, which has to do with all that we believe, and it is the rule of our practice, which has to do with all that we do. "These words change their orientation in the second statement. Here the word only restricts a portion of the Bible itself, saying that it is infallible only when it speaks of faith and practice. This is a view called 'limited inerrancy,' and this way of viewing Scripture has become popular in our day. The terms faith and practice capture the whole of the Christian life, but in this second statement, 'faith and practice' are reduced to a portion of the teaching of Scripture, leaving out what the Bible says about history, science, and cultural matters. In other words, the Bible is authoritative only when it speaks of religious faith; its teachings on anything else are considered fallible." Jesus never said? In a guest appearance on the Piers Morgan Live talk show that used to run on CNN, the host asked Dr. Michael Brown about Jesus’ thoughts on homosexuality. PIERS MORGAN: "Can you point to a single public utterance by Jesus Christ – the Christ in Christianity – about gay people or about a gay lifestyle? Can you name one single thing?" DR. MICHAEL BROWN: "I’ll name you three for you Piers. Number one, in Matthew 5 Jesus said he didn’t come to abolish the Torah but to fulfill. He takes the central morals of the Torah to a higher level. In Matthew 15 he says that all sexual acts committed outside of marriage defile a human being, and in Matthew 19 He says marriage as God intended is the union of one man and one woman for life. Look, Jesus did not address wife-beating or heroin-shooting, but we don’t use that argument of silence .... We should love our neighbor as ourself, but that doesn’t mean that we approve of everything of our neighbor."...

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – February 2025

Are there little green men? While there seems no biblical reason to preclude finding simpler life on other planets – plants and even animals – Christians have good reason to doubt we’d ever find intelligent life. It’d be hard to fathom how they would have fallen in Adam’s fall, and how they could be saved in Jesus’ crucifixion, if they don’t share the same human nature both shared. So, then, what are we to make of the many claims of alien encounters? In his book Alien Intrusion, creationist Gary Bates makes the case that some of these were probably demonic encounters instead, with the fallen angels masquerading as aliens. Bates makes a good case, noting how many of the “abductees” were heavily into the occult at the time, which may have opened them to demonic possession. In a recent article, a secular writer, Ron Unz makes a very different case, also compelling, that it is all, or at least largely, pure bunk. He writes: “Sightings of UFOs and aliens have been reported for decades, but the only solid evidence provided usually consisted of a few blurry photos, unable to convince anyone except true believers and sometimes even plausibly accused of being faked. “However, that situation would have completely changed in 2009 with the release of the Apple iPhone 3GS, which introduced the feature of video recording. So for the last fifteen years, the vast majority of Americans have always been carrying those sorts of smartphones, which double both as still cameras and easy video recording devices. If a noteworthy UFO or some strange alien creature suddenly appeared, within seconds a powerful photographic or video record could be produced, documenting that reality in extremely convincing fashion. “Consider, for example, that immense UFO – larger than three football fields – that allegedly hovered over the heads of those five solid Maryland citizens at their dinner-party. If smartphones had existed in 1976, three or four of those individuals would surely have produced a convincing video record of that remarkable encounter, and with exactly the same scene captured from several different angles by such camera footage, a fabrication would have been impossible. Those Maryland eyewitnesses could have sold their collection of videos to our television stations for tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the reality of UFOs would have immediately become accepted worldwide. Yet although Dolan claims that America alone has ‘something like 10,000 genuine UFO sightings each year,’ absolutely nothing like this has ever happened.” His take? “I personally regard this argument from silence as absolutely conclusive evidence against the reality of such UFOs.” Christ or chaos Whether it’s folks on the cusp of becoming Christian, like Jordan Peterson seems to be, or outright atheists, like Richard Dawkins, there are a lot of people who like the notion of being “culturally Christian.” That’s the trappings of Christianity – the order, work ethic, inherent human worth, equality of the sexes, do-unto-others-as-you’d-like-done-to-you morality, and more that are the fruits of Christianity – but without having to actually bow at the feet of Jesus as Lord and King. Canadian apologist Wesley Huff took on this notion in a recent appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience. “I have a friend, Andy Bannister. He's out in the UK, and he says if you take Christ out of Christian, all you're left with is Ian. And Ian's a great guy but he’s not going to save you from your sins.” Again! Again! Again! A child never tires of being thrown in the air. In Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton wondered if, in this endless sense of wonder, they were more God-like than somber adults. “It might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life. … It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.” There are no atheists In his book Choosing My Religion, R.C. Sproul argues that “...I don't think too many people who have a firm hold on reality can technically be called atheists. Recently a man came to believe in God at a meeting of atheists. The speaker declared that he was going to give God three minutes to prove Himself by striking him dead. The man stopped speaking and stared at the clock on the wall. In perfect silence one minute passed, then two and at least three. As the deadline passed there was an audible exhalation of air throughout the room. People had been holding their breath. ‘I knew in that moment that we were a bunch of hypocrites. There wasn't a real atheist in the place,’ the man said.” There are no atheists II Romans 1:18-20 says that there are no true atheists; everyone, at some level, knows there is a God. As Paul puts it, "since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen... so that people are without excuse.” Sye Ten Bruggencate gave an illustrative example of this deep-down knowledge by sharing a conversation he had while doing street evangelism. “This fellow, in his fifties, he comes up on his bicycle. And he tells me that two of his brothers committed suicide. He said that after his brothers committed suicide, he swore at God. He was angry with God. “He happened to have a book on Hinduism on his bicycle that he had picked up at the dollar store just a day or two before. And you could tell that he'd read through it, because he wanted answers, or so he said. He said, ‘You know this Brahman, this oneness of being, I can get into that. I like it. This makes a lot of sense to me; I could get into Hinduism.’ “So I said to him, ‘Tell me, is that the God you were angry at when your brothers committed suicide?’ “He started crying. “People know... they know God exists.” Choosing to be blind A question every creationist has to confront at some point is, “How can so many very smart people be wrong about evolution?” One answer is provided in Ezekiel 12:2 where God describes Israel as a rebellious people that "have eyes to see but do not see, and ears to hear but do not hear." We’ve all been this willfully blind and deliberately blind sort at some time, and if you don’t recall it in yourself, you’ve surely seen it in kids – your son, standing there with a cookie in his hand, insisting that he doesn’t, in fact, have a cookie in his hand. Richard Lewontin once explained how this choice to be blind has also been made by secular scientists when it comes to evolution. To be clear, this is no creationist talking here: “We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” Limited RAM I was recently talking to someone who explained that they knew quite a bit about the Middle East, though “I can’t recall most of it right now.” I loved the way he put that. It’s one thing to have just the right response stored away somewhere in our brain, and quite another thing to be able to pull it up at just the moment we need it. I think many of us have this same problem – we might have an adequately-sized "mental hard drive" but it seems most of us have limited RAM storage. "Banned" books Cartoonist Eddie Eddings made this provocative suggestion on his blog: “When you see a display of ‘Most Banned Books’ at a bookstore or online – ask them why they didn't include the Holy Bible. It is not only the best-selling book of all time – it is also the most banned.” Wit and wisdom of Thomas Sowell Thomas Sowell is a 94-year-old American economist who may or may not believe in God – he never talks about Him – but who most certainly has a keen understanding of human nature. What follows are a half dozen quotes that highlight his biblically-aligned insights into man’s fallen nature. “What the welfare system and other kinds of government programs are doing is paying people to fail. Insofar as they fail, they receive the money. Insofar as they succeed, even to a moderate extent, the money is taken away.” “What exactly is your ‘fair share’ of what someone else has worked for?”“Much of what are called ‘social problems’ consists of the fact that intellectuals have theories that do not fit the real world. From this they conclude that it is the real world which is wrong and needs changing.” “One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who complain.” “There are 3 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?’” “How long do politicians have to keep on promising heaven and delivering hell before people catch on and stop getting swept away by rhetoric?” ...

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 "Flyi...

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. Dilly-dallying when it comes to dating is common to many a man… and even a hobbit or two. As a certain Jesse Cox tweeted, in the Lord of the Rings films we see: “… Samwise Gamgee traveled across the world and carried his best friend up a volcano in order to gain the courage to ask out a girl who was already interested in him.” Samwise did finally get around to it, and his Rosie said yes, and they went on to have 13 kids. But hobbits live longer than we do, so if you’re going to have 13 kids too, don’t be dithering as long as Sam! Dads rock “If masculinity were truly toxic, then kids growing up without fathers would presumably be better off than those who have them. But they’re not.” – Noelle Thea I wish this guy had won The new girls' team? This past election I recognized the gentleman at the door as a fellow youth league basketball coach. He was running for the public school board, so we got to talking about what he’d do when the transgenderism the government was pushing made an appearance in our small town. What would he do if a visiting girls' basketball team included a couple of very confused guys? His answer? He’d get the guys' team to identify as girls, just for the day, then beat the out-of-towners by a hundred or so. And, hopefully, that would put an end to that. I’ve shared his plan with friends, and the question comes up: would it be honest? I think so, and far more honest than letting the transgender lie go unopposed. After all, no one involved in this stunt – on either team or in the stands – would think our boys are really saying they are girls. These young men would be making the exact opposite point, loudly and clearly, and be protecting our girl athletes too. If we wanted to be even more up front we could have our guys explain that they “identify as girls to the same extent that #3 and #11 on the other team are girls.” No lie there. We can see this sort of thing in the Bible too – consider how the prophet Nathan used an entirely fictitious scenario to have David judge his own adultery (2 Sam. 12:4). The Bible teaches (see also 1 Kings 20:27-43, not to mention Josh. 2:1-7) that there is a time when a lie can serve the truth. In this high school setting the real deception is on the other side, and the proposed stunt would only expose their lie. Last year Canadian powerlifting coach Avi Silverberg did something like this in his sport. The bearded Silverberg showed up at a women’s event, and then, according to the New York Post, he “casually bench-pressed nearly 370 pounds,” beating the previous Alberta women’s record by almost 100 pounds. And who held that record before him? A confused guy by the name of Anne Andres. Silverberg exited without explaining himself, but his point was quite clear. Christians could do something like this and be even clearer. The problem isn’t primarily that these confused men are ruining women’s sports. The real battle is over whether God made us male and female (Gen. 1:26-27). For the sake of our confused world we need to bring them God’s clear proclamation, and not simply the half measure of someone's common sense. Darkness is an opportunity to show the way, shining the light of the Gospel – it's an opening for evangelism, if we take it. Then and now “The early church wanted to know 'What must I do to be saved?’ Today’s church is asking, 'What can I do and still be saved?’” – Paul Washer Same outfit on repeat Author Amy Krouse Rosenthal once decided to conduct a year-long experiment that involved wearing basically the same outfit every day – a solid black top and gray pants, with the occasional black dress thrown into the mix. She had several of each, enough to make laundry easy to manage. She didn’t tell anyone about her experiment except for family and a few close friends. As she described the experiment, it seems like she didn’t even know why she was doing it. A bit of it was about how it might be freeing to never have to spend time thinking about what she would wear. But it wasn’t like she spent all that much time thinking about it in the first place. After more than six months of it, she was getting tired of her limited options, and found that “getting dressed was always easy but never pleasing.” Still, she finished off the year. And, after 12 months, here was her biggest illumination: “No one noticed. Not one single person ever said to me, Amy, why are you wearing those same gray pants and black shirt every time I see you? This information is equal parts humbling, depressing, and liberating." Humbling, yes, to realize that folks aren’t paying much attention to us. But liberating, too, because it means that as embarrassed as you might have felt today, folks probably aren’t going to remember how you tripped over your own feet. Getting cut down to size can be a very good thing, so long as we remember Who really is the center of the universe, and remember too, our special status, being made in His Image (Gen 1:26-27). Down low on the Down Under Did you know that boomerangs are Australia’s biggest export? And they're also their biggest import. A poem for the upcoming election season I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" No thing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away. — Percy Shelley, "Ozymandias" Hasn’t he heard “Boy named Sue”? “I don’t like country music, but I don’t mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means ‘put down.’” – Bob Newhart Best ads from the 2024 US election Election campaign ads are too often just name-calling but every now and again they say something significant. What follows are a few of this year’s more revealing ads. A Trump campaign ad highlighted how Kamala Harris has supported taxpayer-funded sex changes for prisoners. The ad’s tagline? “Kamala’s for they/them; Trump is for you.” In an ad for Kamala Harris, voters were urged to vote for change: “There’s promise that lies in change, and the time for change is now… it’s time for hope, for change….” The Babylon Bee spoof of the ad wasn’t all that different: “'I will fix things if you vote me into office,' says woman currently in office.” The Constitution Party ran an ad that pulled no punches: “… We’re reaping what we’ve sown. The blood of millions of babies cries for vengeance, and God hears their blood. We must repent as a nation to avoid the wrath of God for killing His children. That means we must stop voting for Democrats that murder babies by abortion." In a nostalgic turn, the Trump campaign shared Ronald Reagan’s closing comments from his 1980 debate with Jimmy Carter: “Are you better off than you were four years ago? Is it easier for you to go buy things in the store than it was four years ago? Is there more or less unemployment in the country than there was four years ago? Is America as respected throughout the world as it was? Do you feel that our security is as safe? That were as strong as we were four years ago? If you don’t think that this course that we’ve been on for the last four years is what you would like to see us follow for the next four, then I could suggest another choice that you have.” Thermostat, not thermometer "There was a time when the Church was very powerful – in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the Church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being 'disturbers of the peace' and 'outside agitators.' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were ‘a colony of heaven,’ called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment... By their effort and example, they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound….” – Martin Luther King Jr....

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.”...

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