In a Nutshell

Tidbits – August 2026

Great truths from small children

Never hold a dustbuster and a cat at the same time.
Only Grampa can make money come out of your ears.
If you want a kitten, start out by asking for a horse.
Puppies still have bad breath even after eating a tic tac.
Never ask your 3-year-old brother to hold a tomato.
Don't hit back – they always catch the second person.
Dogs will guard your bike, but not your food.

Sources: as discovered across the Internet

Hocus pocus!

Everyone knows that the phrase “Hocus Pocus” is a part of many magic acts, usually right after the wand waving, and right before the puff of smoke. But did you know it has its origins in the Mass?

When the priest held up the Communion bread he would speak a few words in Latin. The actual words used are the same ones Jesus spoke at the Last Supper: “This is my body.” In Latin that becomes Hoc est corpus meum. For the common people this would seem a lot like magic since Roman Catholics believe the priest is able to turn the bread into the actual body of Christ. So in their minds, he said a few magic words, and poof, suddenly the bread was transformed.

Source: 1001 More Things You Always Wanted to Know About the Bible

Boys, do you want this to happen to you?

Dinosaurs didn’t read. And now they’re extinct.

Why five-dollar bills are pro-life

Scott Klusendorf is always a captivating speaker, but the kids' attention became a little more fixed when he started waving money around. "Who wants this $5 bill?" A chorus of "Me!"s filled the gym. He waved the crisp blue note one more time, and then suddenly crumpled it up tightly in the palm of his hand. "Who wants it now?" Forty arms shot up once again. He dropped it to the ground and started stomping on it. "What about now?"

After throwing the much-abused bill to one lucky member of his audience, Scott got to the moral of his money message. "Why did you still want the bill, even when it looked different, and even when it was much smaller?"

The children all knew the answer to that one, "Because it was still worth the same!"

Right – the bill's worth wasn't affected by its size, or by what it looked like. And the very same thing is true for people too. We are all worth the same no matter our size, or what we look like. The unborn might look different, and might be smaller but they have the same value as all humans.

Jubal was way ahead of his time

Organs are the universal instrument in most of our churches, with pianos filling in only where organs can’t be had. But why do we love organs so?

After asking that question to a number of people the most interesting answer I got was, “Because organs are in the Bible.” Yes, it is true – if you look up Genesis 4:21 you’ll find that Jubal was “the father of all such as who handle the harp and organ.” This is a rather remarkable achievement when you consider Jubal was only three generations removed from Adam. The organ also pops up in the most musical book of the Bible, the Psalms. “Praise him with stringed instruments and organs” (Ps. 150:4).

It turns out though, that this is too good to be true. The King James is the only translation that uses the word organ. Other versions translate the Hebrew word ugab found in these two texts as either flute or pipe.

Why did the KJV go with organ? Well, one reason may have something to do with what happened when the Old Testament was translated from Hebrew to Greek. Ugab became the Greek word organon.

Source: What the Good Book Didn’t Say

How to evangelize without converting anyone at all

Charles Finney was an American Presbyterian pastor whose preaching sometimes had quite the edge, including a satirical sermon credited to him titled, “How to preach without converting anybody.” Highlights included:

Talk about Christ as an infinitely friendly and good-natured being. Talk about “Jesus as a gentleman” who would never offend anyone. Ignore the temple cleansing or any of those scathing rebukes of sinners and hypocrites which so often made His hearers tremble.
Focus on friendship above all. Then, once you have made a new friend, avoid talking about any doctrines that are offensive to the carnal mind, lest you risk losing the friendship.
Avoid all heat and enthusiasm in your delivery, so that you never make the impression that you really believe what you say.
Make appeals to the emotions, and not the conscience, of your hearers. Ask your listeners “Do you want a better marriage?” or “Do you want to be happier?” Don’t ask them if they have kept the Ten Commandments.
Talk about Jesus, but don’t talk about sin or hell. Tell them about the savior, but make it unclear why they need to be saved, or what they need to be saved from.

Source: Adapted from Charles Finney’s “How to preach without converting anybody.”

The inexplicable Jewish Bible

Have you ever wondered how Jews interpret Old Testament passages that foreshadow Jesus? That question was answered in a Larry King Live some years ago. On a show that featured Rabbi Harold Kushner and Pastor John MacArthur as guests, a caller phoned in to ask about Abraham’s sacrifice of his son Isaac. The answers the rabbi and the pastor gave were revealing:

Rabbi Harold Kushner: “That stirring Genesis chapter 22 about the command to sacrifice Isaac is one the I have never really been happy with. I’m sorry that we read it every year at the high holidays because I can never make sense of it.”

John MacArthur: “Can I add a comment?”

Larry King: “Go ahead.”

John MacArthur: “I think the reason, if all you accept is the Old Testament, you have a problem with the story of Isaac is because the story of Isaac is a picture of God giving his Son Jesus Christ as an offering for sin, and that’s where the imagery there is brought to its fullness.”

Familiarity breeds contempt?

In 2 Corinthians 6:14-15 Paul uses some strong contrasts to explain why Christians should not date or marry unbelievers. He says:

"Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?"

Powerful stuff, but it is also something our young people have heard before…and ignored before. It is possible, however, to use biblical imagery in a new and fresh way – Tom Seidler showed how to do it in an article in Evangelicals Now (back in July 2003). Since we are alive in Christ, and unbelievers are dead in Adam, Tom’s advice to teens was very simple: “Don’t date a corpse.”

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – July 2026

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In a Nutshell

Tidbits – May 2026

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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 a tree by a farmer. “What happened?” asked the farmer. “My parachute didn’t open!” Johan replied. “Of course not,” said the farmer. “Around here most nothing opens on Sunday.” Even if your wife is a ninja…. In his book, This Momentary Marriage, John Piper takes on the task of teaching men what it means to be men. Building on Ephesians 5:21-33 he points out a number of roles males should take on including one he wishes was “too obvious to need illustration,” that of protector. He notes that this role is not given on the basis of ability, but gender alone – this is what real men do: “If there is a sound downstairs during the night and it might be a burglar, you don’t say to her, ‘This is an egalitarian marriage, so it’s your turn to go check it out. I went last time.’ And I mean that – even if your wife has a black belt in karate. After you’ve tried to deter him, she may finish off the burglar with one good kick to the solar plexus. But you’d better be unconscious on the floor, or you’re no man. That’s written on your soul, brother, by God Almighty. Big or little, strong or weak, night or day, you go up against the enemy first. Woe to the husbands – and woe to the nation – that send their women to fight their battles.” Great podcast for the kids If you’re looking for a podcast to play for your kids on a long drive or family trip, you may want to check out Angela O’Dell’s explicitly Christian “Real Cool History for Kids.” These 15-minute-or-so episodes are aimed at kids 6-12, and with more than 150 to choose from mom and dad can pick a topic that will interest them too – O’Dell covers everyone from Queen Elizabeth to Karl Marx and Charlie Kirk to Bonnie and Clyde. Our family has been listening off and on for years now, and have really enjoyed tackling two or three at a time. She is very clear about bringing a biblical worldview to the show (and in her dinosaur episode, she even comes out as a 6-day creationist!) – I don’t know that we’ve ever heard a take we didn’t agree with. Check out “Real Cool History for Kids” at AngelaODell.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. Chesterton and Charlie on Original Sin Chesterton spoke of how some religious sorts were disputing whether Man was even in need of washing – was he actually sinful? How ridiculous, Chesterton argued, for men incapable of even imagining sinlessness in their dreams, to “deny human sin, which they can see in the street.” “Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.” Charles Spurgeon made the same point this way: “Any man who declares children to be born perfect was never a father. Your child without evil? You without eyes, you mean!” Pious sounding evasion When evangelist Ray Comfort first heard the St. Francis of Assisi quote, “Preach the Gospel; where necessary, use words” it, rather ironically, left him “upset beyond words.” This quote is used to encourage a type of “lifestyle evangelism” that involves “less talk, and more walk.” Instead of preaching the Word to their unbelieving friends and neighbors, Christians are supposed to just let their light shine by living good lives. There is something to this idea – God tells us we can impact the unbelieving with the way we live our lives (1 Pet. 3:1-2). But that doesn’t negate the need to use the Word (Rom. 10:14). Comfort exposed the empty piety of the St. Francis quote with a story. In a refugee camp thousands of children were on the brink of starving to death even though there was food enough to give them. Why weren’t they being given the food? Because one of the aid workers had held up a sign that said: “Feed the starving children. Where necessary, use food.” Such an approach would be insane, but, Comfort insists, no more so than thinking we can preach the Gospel without using words. Earth thrown in “If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were those who thought most of the next. The apostles themselves, who set out on foot to convert the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English evangelicals who abolished the slave trade, all left their mark on earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this one. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in.’ Aim at earth and you will get neither.” – C.S. Lewis Are creationists pitting Scripture vs. science? We who hold to a recent (in the last 6,000 years or so), six-day creation are sometimes accused of pitting Scripture versus science. After all, doesn’t mainstream science tell us the universe is billions of years old? Now, if that’s what we’re calling “science” then it is true, us six-day sorts do know we’ve got a problem. But when mainstream scientists hold as their a priori assumption that only naturalistic explanations are valid, they’re the ones picking a fight. After all, Romans 1 and Ps. 19 affirm (as do our own eyes) that all of creation testifies to its supernatural origins. And that’s not the only Scripture vs. secular science conflict. Genesis 1:27 declares “male and female He created them” but the medical and psychological experts won’t stand for such binary bigotry. The Bible says children are a blessing but we’ve got experts lamenting each new addition’s carbon footprint. While God presents life-long monogamy as best, mainstream science says it simply isn’t natural...though homosexuality is. Yes, this is science – of a sort – pitted against Scripture, but the conflict isn’t of our doing. If we are troublemakers it is only because, standing as we are on the firm foundation of God’s Word, we refuse to be moved. As Douglas Wilson put it: “The Bible teaches that Adam produced death. The opposing view has to say that in some manner death produced Adam.” Those are the two sides, and there is no reconciling them. We who follow a God/man who died and rose, can’t avoid a fight with any and all who say dead men don’t rise and the supernatural isn’t. That’s the fight to be had. So let’s rise to it! Reagan’s principal, on parenting Ronald Reagan remembered his high school principal fondly, recounting how he had his priorities in place. And as principal he was standing in loco parentis and so there is a reminder here how parents should prioritize: “I was in the principal’s office once in Dixon High School, and I wasn’t there just to pass the time of day. Well, at one point he said to me, ‘You know, I don’t care what you think of me now. I’m only interested in what you think of me fifteen years from now.’” Can you put that in writing? In a recent issue of Focus on the Family’s magazine, parent Renae Green shared how she was teaching her 11-year-old to stop tattling. “I told my children that I would only accept and review written complaints.” Implementing this new policy has her daughter thinking twice – is her brother’s behavior annoying enough to warrant working through the paperwork? And, most of the time, her answer is, no. Too proud to seem weak Walter Dean Myers is a children’s author I haven’t read, but his own story sticks with me. Money was tight, and his mother was an alcoholic – when he was 14 she stole the money he’d been saving up to buy a typewriter. His janitor dad, not rich by any means, stepped in and bought the typewriter for Walter instead. But that was the last time his dad showed any interest in his son’s writing. Walter went on to write over 100 books, and, as he told his own son in an NPR interview, Walter’s dad “never said anything good about my writing…. And that really, that really hurt, that really bothered me.” Walter tried to get his dad’s attention by turning some of his dad’s own stories into published work. “I would show them to him, and he would never comment on them. So, when I did that, then I said, he hates me. You know, he hates me.” When his dad was dying, Walter brought him the book he’d just published, “And he picked it up and he looked at it, and then he just laid it down.” It was only after his dad died, and Walter looked through his papers, and saw they were all signed with an X, that he realized his dad didn’t know how to read. And that’s why he’d never said anything about his writing. So here was a son too hurt to ask why his dad wouldn’t read his work, but, hitting closer to home, a dad, too proud to let his son see his shortcoming. Parents, we’ve all learned lessons the hard way, and while those might be embarrassing moments, if we want our kids to sidestep some of the troubles we blundered through, we will need to share our weaknesses. There is such a thing as sharing too early, or too much, but, as this sad story shows, we can be tempted to share too little....

In a Nutshell

Tidbits – February 2026

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

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 t...

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 pl...

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 cook bacon, and bake cookies.” “Cookie dough is the sushi of desserts.” “Surely if tomato is fruit, that make ketchup a jam.” “What was the best thing before sliced bread?” Caterpillars are crazy cool The wonder of how caterpillars become butterflies is so mysterious that in 2009 zoologist Donald Williamson suggested, in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that butterflies and caterpillars were, basically, two different organisms that at some point in their evolution accidentally mated. His theory was ridiculed by others, and the same journal published a rebuttal soon afterwards, but it highlights just how wonderfully weird caterpillar/butterflies are – evolutionists are left grasping at straws to explain them. When a caterpillar undergoes metamorphosis, the caterpillar parts of its DNA are described as being “turned off” and the butterfly parts are then turned on – it undergoes a complete remodeling. In fact, if a caterpillar were to lose a leg, it would have no impact on how many legs it would then have in butterfly form. There are two complete and utterly different bodies, wrapped up in one amazing creature. Our God is amazing…and fun! Source: Ted Olsen’s “Are Butterflies a New Creation” posted to ChristianityToday.com on Feb 19, 2014 Facing insults I When Jesus told us to turn the other cheek in the face of personal attacks (Matt. 5:39) He gave us a very powerful witnessing method. One of the most effective ways to respond to ad hominum attacks (or in plain English – insults) is to simply absorb the insult. Don’t get angry, don’t strike back, just absorb it and go on. This approach can be incredibly effective. For example when Roseanne Barr, the infamous comedian, stated that pro-lifers were all a bunch of perverted old men who just wanted to force women to get pregnant so they could molest their kids, the proper response was not indignant rage (although that is an understandable response). As pro-life speaker Scott Klusendorf demonstrated, the proper response is to absorb the insult and get back to the main point: “Yes Roseanne, the pro-life movement is just a bunch of perverted old men – even all the pro-life women – and all we want to do is molest your kids…but what does that have to do with whether or not the unborn are human?” Someone might call Christians stupid. Turn the other cheek, absorb the insult, and respond: “Maybe I am stupid…but can you show me why I’m wrong?” Insulting you is simply a way for unbelievers to avoid dealing with the rather uncomfortable truth you are confronting them with. So let them denigrate you, and keep the focus on the truth. Best dad joke ever? When does a joke become a dad joke? When the punchline becomes apparent. There’s something about the beat About a dozen years ago, around 2012 or 2013, I went through the year’s top 100 songs with a group of college-age young people. Someone had excerpted clips from each hit and then strung them all together, and the challenge I pitched the group was to identify how many songs were clearly attacking God’s truth, and how many weren’t. Each clip was only something like 10 or at most 20 seconds long. Yet in just that blink of time, of the first 10 songs we heard, something like 8 were clearly wicked, I think one might have been an instrumental, and one was okay… at least for the ten seconds we heard. At least 8 out of 10 were simply evil. What is it about Pop/Rock that has it trending in this direction? And lest you think that’s a recent turn, Jamie Soles shared on his blog (jamiesoles.substack.com) that the top 10 nearly a half century ago weren’t any better. “1979 was a bad year for the Canadian and American public. The number one song, the song they loved the most, was a guy lusting after an underage girl (My Sharona – The Knack); the number two song was celebrating prostitution (Bad Girls – Donna Summer), number three was a mindless dance song (Le Freak – Chic), the number four song was Rod Stewart hitting on everybody (Do You Think I’m Sexy?), and Gloria Gainor got dumped by some guy in the number six song, and she is ANGRY about it (I Will Survive). In number seven, Donna Summer is back, declaring how she will sleep with any man who is warm (Hot Stuff), and in song number ten the girly-voiced Robert John is sending his illicit lover out the back door while his wife is coming in the front, all the while encouraging her to remember with fondness the good times they had (Sad Eyes).” Might it be better now? If you run your own experiment with this year’s hits, I’d love to hear about your results. How do you witness to a Jehovah's Witness? In one of his many YouTube videos, Ray Comfort highlights a simple, biblical way to confront the JW at your door about their belief in salvation by works. He asks them what he could do to be saved if "there's a knife in my back." Can they tell him how he could enter the Kingdom of Heaven if he had just three minutes left to live? Their answer? There is nothing to be done, because he doesn't have time left to do the good works necessary. So Comfort then asks: "What about the thief on the cross? He was dying; he got saved. He just turned to Jesus. He couldn't go anywhere. And he was saved by God's grace, and that's how you and I can be saved. It's not by works of righteousness that we do - how can we earn everlasting life? It's a free gift of God." Roses are red II Violets are blue So we are told Are they lonely Or simply cold? Adam’s rib Since Eve was created out of Adam’s rib there is a popular but erroneous misconception that men today have one less rib than women. Interestingly, even Adam might not have been short a rib: this bone, if carefully removed leaving the surrounding periosteum membrane intact, can grow back. Facing insults II Another very effective way of responding to insults is to ask for a definition. “Umm… you just called me a homophobe – I’m not quite sure what you mean by that. Could you explain?” “It means you’re scared of homosexuals!” “But I’m standing right here talking to you. Do I seem scared of you? If that’s the proper definition it doesn’t seem to apply to me, does it?” “Well, then you’re an intolerant bigot!” “I’m sorry, but I’m confused again. Could you explain what you mean by ‘intolerant’?” “It means you hate anyone different than you.” “Well, I do disagree with you but I hope I’m not coming off angry or hateful. Is disagreement the same thing as hate? Because if it is, well, then since you disagree with me, you must be hateful, and consequently an intolerant bigot as well. Is that right?” Newspaper finds Some headlines and newspaper ads from years past... Catnapper prowling community, owners fear Gambling alone won’t draw crowds ’83 Toyota hunchback - $2000 Lawyer says client is not that guilty Grocery stalker wanted Free puppies: ½ cocker spaniel – ½ sneaky neighbor dog So good someone should have said them Some of the very best quotes may never have been said. Or, at least, not by the folks they are linked to. For example, Luther, when asked to recant his writings, declined, and is said to have told the Emperor, “Here I stand. I can do no other.” While the sentiment is certainly Luther’s, whether this verbiage came from his lips is up for debate. What follows are quotes whose origins are disputed, but whose awesomeness is certain. “Comparison is the thief of Joy.” – attributed, but disputed, to Theodore Roosevelt “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” – attributed to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but seemingly never sourced “If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.” – commonly attributed to Martin Luther, it is by Elizabeth Rundle Charles, in her novel The Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul; you have a body.” – attributed to C.S. Lewis, but seemingly not found in his writings “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing – they believe in anything.” – attributed to G.K. Chesterton, but likely originating as a summary of his thoughts by biographer Emile Cammaerts Roses are red III If you believe Violets are blue, What color are Oranges to you?...

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 refugees are really Christian. If they are, they’ll get to stay in the US, since they would be true refugees from China’s persecution of Christians. However, they might only be claiming to be Christian so that they will be able to stay in the US. The President has to figure it out so he summons one of the refugees to the White House, and asks him a simple question. “Can you name any of Jesus’ disciples?” He didn’t ask him a theological or doctrinal question, but instead tested the man’s Bible knowledge. If the man was really a Christian he was expected to know basic well-known parts of his Bible. It was not an unreasonable expectation, and on the television show the Chinese refugee passed the test with flying colors, naming all twelve. But would we do as well? Do you know your Bible well enough to name all twelve disciples? Quiz your family - answers can be found at the bottom of this article. Did you hear the one...? Did you hear the one about the three-legged dog who walked into a saloon? He sidled up to the bar, pulled out his gun and fired a shot in the air to get everyone's attention. Then he barked, "I'm looking for the man who shot my paw!" Did you hear the one about the bear who rumbled into a saloon and said, "I'd like a grilled.............. cheese." The bartender asked, "Why the big pause?" "I'm a bear." Did you hear the one about the world's worst thesaurus? Not only is it terrible, it's terrible. Don’t make big out of little While the Bible never names the “principle of proportionality,” it does presume it, teaching us not to treat small things as big, or big things as small. In Matt. 7:3-5 Jesus teaches us not to correct a small fault in others, even as we overlook our own big sins. Then in Matt. 23:23, the Pharisees are taking to task for tithing mint, but neglecting the love of God. Today our society also treats as unimportant what is big (God, the plight of the unborn, the sanctity of marriage, etc.) and treats the small as big, Osychologist Jonathan Shelder detailed some examples in a series of tweets: “What psychologist Ellis called ‘awfulizing’ and ‘horriblizing’ has become a culturally-accepted to speak and think It wasn’t upsetting, it was trauma I wasn’t annoyed, I was harmed They’re not difficult, they’re toxic I wasn’t uncomfortable, I was unsafe It wasn’t disagreement, it was gaslighting It wasn’t words, it was violence “In this way, we transforms life’s unavoidable difficulties into the Most Important Thing in the Universe And ourselves into the Main Character in the Universe.” This sort of narcissism ignores that there are truly horrible and awful happenings in the world. Every time little is made out to be big, it makes it more likely that the truly wicked will be ignored. So Christians mustn’t be like the boy who cried wolf. Screen-fasts seem to be trending! A CRC publication called Christian Courier asked readers to go on a screen-fast, and in the May 5 issue, editor Angela Reitsma Bick reported on the results. Her volunteers went one to three days without their phones. That’s not a lot of time, but they still learned some lessons. One gentleman, Dan DeBruyne, a physiotherapist, went just one day, and was anxious about all the unanswered texts he assumed must be piling up. At day’s end he realized, yes, there were 16, but only a couple were actually important. He shared, “It was an exercise in humility. To think I am required to be reachable 16-18 hours a day has an air of pride about it.” He also noticed that setting his phone aside, even for that one day, allowed him “quiet moments of daydreaming.” He was able to be “fully engaged playing with my daughters and making more eye contact during conversations.” His brief digital detox also allowed him to “realize how frequently I look to my phone to fill silence. How frequently I try to drown out any ‘still small voices’ with newsfeeds, friends’ photos or memes.” So how about? Are you up for RP’s own social media screen-fast? See the details here. Democracy from the comfort of your home? Mail-in ballots and e-voting are supposed to be the very latest improvements to the democratic process. The touted benefits are that it should increase voter participation by making voting quicker and easier. But do we really want to make voting any easier than it already is? As it stands now, we have to vote once each for the federal and provincial governments every four years or so. That works out to an average of once every two years. Traditional elections require us to leave the house and walk or drive to the nearest poll. If you’re a city voter the whole process will take about half an hour, and if you live in the country it may take up to an hour (or two if it’s snowing). That works out to an average of 15 – 60 minutes of voting time per year. And still, only about half the country is willing to spend the time to go out and vote. Electronic voting promises to make the process less time consuming, down to an average of around 2 minutes per year, and it consequently promises to increase voter turnouts. The downside is that the increase in voters will be made up of people who only started voting when it would take less than 15 minutes of their time! Per year! Instead of making voting easier, we should make the whole process a good deal tougher. Next election we should tell all the voters in Edmonton that their polling stations are in Calgary, and vice versa. A 700-km round trip, once every couple of years. Now that's something that could improve the democratic process! Grandpa...? A little boy asked his grandfather if he had been on the ark with Noah. The grandfather chuckled a little and told his grandson that no, he had not been on the ark. The confused grandson asked, “Then why didn’t you drown Grandpa?” Democracy and polygamy don’t mix Some years back, political scientist Tom Flanagan pointed out how polygamous marriage may be more harmful than homosexual "marriage"... at least for democracy. In his National Post article, “Democracy, polygamy, and the sexual constitution,” Flanagan argues that polygamy is detrimental to constitutional democracy. Democracies throughout the Western world are all monogamous, and constitutional democracy was only adopted in non-Western societies like Japan and India, when they too, accepted monogamy as the norm. Flanagan doesn’t believe monogamy causes democracy – there are monogamous societies like China that are dictatorships. But he does believe that widespread polygamy is detrimental to democracy. Areas where polygamy is popular like the Sub Saharan Africa, or parts of the Middle East are also areas where constitutional democracy has made the least progress. But why? Three reasons. First, polygamy almost always involves one (usually rich) man with multiple wives, which leaves many men with no chance of marriage, since there are fewer available women. Without the responsibilities of having to provide for a family, men are more inclined to crime. Studies in the US have found that crime is higher in areas where men won't marry the mothers of their children and won't, consequently, take on family responsibilities. A surplus of aimless, frustrated males also seems to make wars more likely, and generally creates instability, which is detrimental to democracy. Finally, as more men are left without wives, women become valuable as commodities. They are used as bartering chips to seal alliances and are treated as little more than property. And pieces of property don’t usually get to vote. Flanagan concludes that if we want to preserve democracy, the state must take a stand against polygamy. Making it work In the West, many pick partners based on qualities that may disappear over time: looks fade, intellect dulls, and charm may become cloying. The very qualities that made us fall in love initially, when gone, may have us thinking we've fallen out of love. The arranged marriages common in Asia and Africa aren’t based on attractive attributes or qualities. Instead of spending time wondering who they should marry, these couples are forced to figure out, given the person they are married to, how they will make it work. So they know right from the start that marriage is something you have to put effort into, and that love is something that can be built up. I'd never want an arranged marriage, but the West would benefit if they understood better that a good marriage takes work. Quotables “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” – commonly, but probably wrongly, attributed to Edmund Burke “When you choose the lesser of two evils, always remember that it is still an evil.” – Max Lerner Atheists are living in the wrong world Every met a morally outraged atheist? What’s that about? That’s akin to… well, it’s akin to a flat earther taking a vacation trip round the world. In the Spring/Summer 2025 issue of Barnabas magazine, Owen Pikkert told a story about a flat earther who wanted to go on an exciting holiday. When his travel agent pitched the idea of polar circumnavigation – crossing both the North and South Poles – he had objections: The trip was too long. It was too expensive. Parts of the trip would be cold. His travel agent could have tried to solve these objections, perhaps by finding a discount rate, or providing blankets. “Or she could observe that the flat-earther is living in the wrong kind of world. For his objections presuppose that the world is spherical. In other words, he is borrowing from the spherical world in order to critique some aspect of the spherical world. Surely he should not raise such objections. Or, better yet, surely he should give up on a flat earth.” Debate can be a powerful way to discover the truth; so notes Prov. 18:17. But debate can also be a tool of obfuscation (as can the use of big words) by bringing up what’s irrelevant to hide what’s important. Parents experience this downside when a teen caught out past curfew starts asking why his brother gets away with so much more than he does. His parents shouldn’t go there, should they? When an atheist starts attacking God we shouldn’t go there either. Instead we need to demand the atheist explain on what basis he’s condemning anything or anyone at all. The purposeless pitiless universe his worldview proclaims doesn’t have wrong or right – it doesn’t care. So he needs to either live out his worldview and stop complaining, or admit to atheism’s shortcomings and reject it. But in the meantime we shouldn’t treat his moral objections seriously – it’ll only make him think he has a point (Prov. 26:4-5). Answers What are the names of the twelve disciples? Simon Peter, Andrew, James (the son of Zebedee), John, Phillip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, James (the son of Alphaeus), Thaddeus (Lebbaeus), Simon, and Judas....

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 describ...

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 – Ch...

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 do nothing.” Quite the punchy point, but like all wisdom, a man can sidestep it without too much effort: maybe good men need to get busy, but what can little ol’ me do? Well, Burke had a response to this sort of thinking too: “No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.” My new favorite knock-knock joke Part 1 Knock, knock. Who's there? Cows. Cows who? No, no, cows don’t who, they mooooo! Part 2 Knock, knock. Who's there? Owls. Owls who? Indeed they do. Popsicle babysitting A few years back, this was quite a thing in some Canadian Reformed Churches – popsicle babysitting. The premise is that every church has a lot of mothers in need of babysitting, who are also willing to do some babysitting. So every mom who wants to sign up is given 30 popsicle sticks, with each stick worth an hour of babysitting for one child. If you want another mother to babysit your four children for two hours, you’ll have to “pay” her eight sticks. That mom would then have 38 sticks to “spend” and you would be down to 22. If you quickly become low on sticks that means that you had better start babysitting someone else’s kids to build up your stick reserve. All babysitting requests and offers are handled via group emails. As one of the organizing mothers put it, “This gives you the option to have a ‘guilt-free’ sitter” because they don’t cost you a cent. So you can go out and have a good, inexpensive date night, or bible study, or doctor’s appointment, or whatever! I don't know if this is still a thing, but if not, maybe it should be again. 10 truths from a man with one eye Vivek Ramaswamy is a part of Donald Trump’s incoming government, earning his spot there with his uncommon amount of common sense, and his impressive ability to articulate it. As an observant Hindu who rejects Jesus as Savior, he is, however, blind to what matters most. Still, a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind is going to be able to see far better than most, even if his sight is still impaired. In a discussion with Tucker Carlson he shared that he holds to 10 truths, and he was able to articulate all 10 off the tip of his tongue: • God is real • There are 2 genders • Fossil fuels are a requirement for human prosperity • Reverse racism is racism • An open border is not a border • Parents determine the education of their children • The nuclear family is the greatest form of governance known to mankind • Capitalism lifts us up from poverty • There are three branches of government in the United States, not four • And the US Constitution is the strongest and greatest guarantor of freedom in human history God has given us His Word to allow us to see even more clearly, and He charges us in 1 Peter 3:15 to always be ready with an answer for the hope that is in us. So, if we were asked to articulate our own lists of truths, would we be ready? And what would our one, two, or ten truths be? Truth vs. tolerance “If anybody comes along espousing some message and asking for tolerance, you can be sure it’s error because error demands tolerance, whereas truth demands scrutiny.” – John MacArthur Ventilation by Jay Adams Not too long ago there was a psychological theory called “ventilation.” I’m not sure whether or not it has died out everywhere yet. But theory or no theory, it’s still seems to be a popular idea – If you’ve got something churning inside, you’d better get it out, for your own good. “What’s wrong with that?” Well, several things. I think I’ll just mention two. First, the self-centeredness of it is apparent. Who cares what happens to the other guy when I take out my ire on him—I’m the one who counts! “Well, I can see that. What’s the second thing?” Let me read you what God says about the issue in Proverbs 29:11: “A stubborn fool fully ventilates his anger, but the wise, holding it back, quiets it.” “Wow! Didn’t know God had spoken about the matter!” Quite explicitly. Who wants to make a fool of himself? And it doesn’t hurt you to “hold it back” as the Freudians thought, either. In fact the more you work yourself up into a lather that finally spills out, the worse things get – not the better. Not only for you – but for everyone around you. And first thing you know, you have to go around seeking forgiveness. To vent your anger is foolish in every way you can imagine. For sure, ventilation isn’t an option for the believer. Something to think about, eh? “Yea!” SOURCE: Reprinted with permission from Jay Adams’ June 1, 2009 entry at www.nouthetic.org/blog. High view of sex It’s an irony that chastity is portrayed in today’s popular fiction and film as being a matter of prudishness, as if only those who hate sex would fail to indulge in it whenever and with whomever. It is not the chaste, but their opposite – the promiscuous – that can best be likened to sex-hating prudes. The prude and the promiscuous both share a low view of sex: the prude thinking it something so unattractive as to be done without, the promiscuous thinking it so ordinary as to be done with everyone and anyone. The chaste, however, think sex is special. So special in fact, that we need to protect it, treating it as we would gold. We reserve it as a special gift as to be shared only with our intimate other, and even then, only after promises have been made, and two lives have been bound together. We don’t hate sex; we treasure it, protect it and love it! A one-question test on the 5th Commandment “Do you honor your mother and father? I’ll ask you one question to see if you do… Is your room clean? What does it mean to honor them? To obey them, right?” – Earl Taylor Jr., an American Civics teacher, to a class of students who all seemed to think they honored their parents, but most failed this one-question test. Post-secondary miseducation isn’t new When I hear from nieces and nephews about the woke nonsense being pitched to them in university today, I can offer a strange bit of encouragement: at least it’s nothing new. Two decades back, it wasn’t transgenderism, but another ideology that was not to be questioned. At least one of your profs was going to make you ingest Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth documentary, which had a generation worried about the planet’s certain, and imminent demise! It didn’t matter if you were taking English, Engineering, Medicine or Physical Education, you were going to see it! Three decades ago, R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. had this harsh evaluation, which seems every bit as topical today: “In college one is exposed to a vast amount of information that is quite untrue, and it is most unjust that one should have to demonstrate one’s mastery of untruths to graduate – one has to go even further to graduate with honors.” And William F. Buckley Jr. articulated his own indictment of post-secondary education more than seventy years ago: “I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University. Not, heaven knows, because I hold lightly the brainpower or knowledge or generosity or even the affability of the Harvard faculty: but because I greatly fear intellectual arrogance, and that is a distinguishing characteristic of the university which refuses to accept any common premise. In the deliberations of two thousand citizens of Boston I think one would discern a respect for the laws of God and for the wisdom of our ancestors which does not characterize the thought of Harvard professors – who, to the extent that they believe in God at all, tend to believe He made some terrible mistakes which they would undertake to rectify; and, when they are paying homage to the wisdom of our ancestors, tend to do so with a kind of condescension toward those whose accomplishments we long since surpassed." Spurgeon on the need for earnest preaching “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.” “You may depend upon it that you may make men understand the truth if you really want to do so; but if you are not in earnest, it is not likely that they will be. If a man were to knock on my door in the middle of the night, and when I put my head out of the window to see what was the matter, he should say, in a very quiet, unconcerned way, ‘There is a fire at the back part of your house,’ I should have very little thought of any fire, and should feel inclined to empty a jug of water over him.” SOURCES: C.H. Spurgeon’s Lectures to my Students and The Soul Winner Lyric o’ the month Addison Road’s What do I know of Holy? I made You promises a thousand times I tried to hear from Heaven But I talked the whole time I think I made You too small I never feared You at all, No If You touched my face would I know You? Looked into my eyes could I behold You? I guess I thought that I had figured You out I knew all the stories and I learned to talk about How You were mighty to save Those were only empty words on a page Then I caught a glimpse of who You might be The slightest hint of You brought me down to my knees What do I know of You Who spoke me into motion? Where have I even stood But the shore along Your ocean? Are You fire? Are You fury? Are You sacred? Are You beautiful? What do I know? What do I know of Holy? What do I know of Holy? What do I know of wounds that will heal my shame? And a God who gave life "its" name? What do I know of Holy? Of the One who the angels praise? All creation knows Your name On earth and heaven above What do I know of this love? ...

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 anywhere else. So de Sota and his research team headed to Lima, Peru to try to open a small one-person business – a garment workshop. They knew that this would involve paperwork, some permits and forms they would have to file with the government before they could open the business’s doors, but the total amount of paperwork was mind-boggling. The team put their efforts together and worked at the registration process six hours a day and it still ended up taking them 289 days to complete! And to add insult to injury, the cost of the process was $1,231, or roughly 30 times the country’s monthly minimum wage. Little wonder then, that there are few Peruvians starting businesses. Even the hardest working, and most industrious souls would find these costs, and this mountain of red tape too much to overcome. The team also investigated what it would take to build a house on state-owned land in Peru (the state owns much of the land): “To obtain legal authorization... took six years and eleven months requiring 207 administrative steps in 52 government offices.... To obtain legal title for that land took 728 steps.” The team found a similar state of affairs in countries such as Egypt, the Philippines and Haiti and Third World countries overall. In the West we can be thankful we don't have quite the level of bureaucratic regulation... though we do have politicians who are intent on having us catch up. If we're wondering why housing has gone up, red tape is certainly a factor. SOURCE: Hernando de Soto’s "The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else" and Wayne Grudem’s "Business For the Glory of God" “Be home on time for supper!” In Mike Huckabees's A Simple Government, he shared how Columbia University’s Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) has been researching the differences between teens who eat dinner at home frequently – at least 5 times a week – and those who do so infrequently – 3 times a week or less. They found some remarkable differences: Teens who ate at home infrequently were twice as likely to make use of tobacco and marijuana as those who at home frequently They were 50 percent more likely to use alcohol 50 percent more likely to get Cs or lower at school Elizabeth Planet, CASA vice-president, said, “The emotional and social benefits that come from family dinners are priceless.” A Christian might account for that difference by noting that dinnertime is a good time to do what God tells parents to do in Deut 6:6-7: “These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (Deut 6:5-7) Password problems Have you heard the one about the first-time computer user who chose as his password: “TarzanSherlockHolmesHamletCinderellaJeevesToadJulietEmmaGandalfLondon”? His computer told him it had to be at least eight characters long, and include at least one capital. SOURCE: Adapted from a joke in Marvin Olasky’s “Tax Time Coming” April 9, 2011 WORLD Cultural Christians are nothing new In the last couple of years, unbelievers Elon Musk, Jordan Peterson, and even infamous atheist Richard Dawkins have declared themselves "cultural Christians." Why? Because they understand that civil society requires the civilizing influence of Christianity. But, unfortunately, that hasn't gotten them to bow the knee to the God of Christianity. As intriguing as this phenomenon has been, it isn't actually anything new. In an old BreakPoint article by Chuck Colson called “The Gospel According to Jesse.” Colson shared another remarkable but incomplete turnaround. “Guenter Lewy of the University of Massachusetts... is the author of the book, Why America Needs Religion. Interestingly, Lewy is neither a Christian nor a theist. He originally set out to write a book with the opposite thesis: Why America DOESN'T need religion. It was to be ‘a defense of secular humanism and ethical relativism.’ But when Lewy researched the data, he reversed himself 180 degrees. Lewy discovered that Christianity has historically been a strong support for human dignity.... Lewy found that Christians exhibit measurably lower rates of marital conflict, divorce, prejudice, out-of-wedlock births, juvenile delinquency, adult crime, and other ‘indicators of moral failure and social ills.’ Though remaining a nonbeliever, Lewy concluded that Christianity is vital to creating a healthy, humane society. Lewy's research points to one reason why Christians are motivated to seek reform in the public arena: Objective evidence shows that living by biblical principles makes people happier and healthier.” Lyric of the month Jamies Soles is well known among conservative Reformed churches in Canada, but for those that don’t know of him, below are the lyrics of a song based on Luke 7:11-18 from one of his children’s albums “Fun and Prophets” which is available (along with more info) on the artist’s website SolMusic.ca. Gates of Nain My husband died, and now my son I'm all alone though the crowds have come I walk by this bier to a field of stones in my soul I know that death, it awaits us all.... I can't catch my breath from this dizzy fall All that I've hoped for Is lying still and cold in this crowd Crying aloud for the pain Weeping through the gates of Nain Through my tears I see the crowd has grown A Man approaches with compassion shown He says, "Do not weep." And our march of death and time stands still Nothing could prepare me for this What could have prepared me for this.... He spoke to my son, my dead son, my only son And He told him to arise, and he did! My boy sat up and then began to speak This man named Jesus gave him back to me The crowd was filled with awe, and they glorified God "A great prophet has arisen among us! A great prophet has arisen among us!" A great prophet indeed has arisen for me And given me life again In the gates of Nain Are you wearing anything ten years or older? Angela Reitsma Bick, the editor of Christian Courier, once wrote about how friends were surprised to learn that they weren’t wearing anything that was as much as ten years old. The surprise was probably prompted by the realization that thirty years ago the situation would have been quite different. Kids’ clothing, in particular, was treated differently a generation ago, with patches (and patches upon patches) being far more common. Darning socks was more common, and the resoling of shoes too. Whenever one generation decides to do something differently than the previous, it is worth a moment’s reflection - if you aren’t wearing anything from a decade ago, why might that be? Is it a result of living in a throw-away culture? Are clothes simply not made to last like they once were? Are we better off, to the point that we don’t need to wear worn-out clothes? Or have we become financially irresponsible, spending money on clothes when that money could be put to better use? Might it be because clothes have become less expensive to replace than they once were? Or might it mean we are overly concerned with keeping up with the latest fashions? Prayer the way it was… and could be? In the 1940s, in the Netherlands, most men worked six days a week at physically-taxing jobs. So, come Sunday, it could be quite a struggle for these men to keep attentive through the church service, especially when it came time to pray, and eyes were shut and heads were bowed. And to make it harder still, the prayers were quite often fifteen minutes long. In his wartime biography The Way It Was, author Sid Baron notes that to help these men stay attentive it was the practice then to allow the option of standing during prayer. So throughout the church, as most bowed their head to pray, many farmers and laborers would rise. This practice is no longer common anywhere in Reformed churches, most likely because ministers no longer tax their congregation’s attention with fifteen minute prayers, and because far fewer members do heavy physical labor. Still, might it be a practice worth reviving for the most sleep-deprived among us, mothers and fathers of newborns? “The free market is a bathroom scale” “The free market is simply a measurement. The free market tells us what people are willing to pay for a given thing at a given moment. That’s all the free market does. The free market is a bathroom scale. We may not like what we see when we step on the bathroom scale, but we can’t pass a law making ourselves weigh 165. Liberals and leftists think we can.” – P.J O’Rourke Those not so ‘orrible Americans While speaking ill of Americans is a favorite pastime for many, there is a lot to love about them. One example – Americans are generous. In fact, the average American gives nearly four as much of his income, by percentage, as the average Canadian. And yet, that amounts to donating just 2 percent of their income (compared to 0.54% for Canadians). Christians who give a tithe of just ten percent of their income can, therefore, have almost 20 times the financial charitable impact of other Canadians, and quite a bit more than Americans too. SOURCE: Fraser Institute’s “Generosity in Canada and the United States: The 2020 Generosity Index” When two sinners become one I once had the pleasure of hanging out with a young couple who had never yet argued. Of course, if a newly married couple is expecting only bliss, it will be quite a shock when they go from this like-minded state to what might seem like a series of recurring arguments. If a couple has gone from always agreeing, to always arguing, what should they do? Well, it might help to know that many couples go through tough times, especially early on. When non-Christians go through these lows, divorce is an option some investigate – why stay married when you are both miserable? But an American study from a while back shows the benefits that migth come if they stick it out. “ouples… were asked to rate their marriage on a scale of one to seven, with one being very unhappy and seven being very happy. Those who rated their marriages a ‘one’ had incredible turnarounds just five years later – if they stayed together. In fact, 77 percent of those giving their marriage a very unhappy ‘one’ rated their marriage as a ‘seven’ after five years. Was there some breakthrough therapy involved? No. In fact, many did relatively little – they just ‘stuck it out’ and things got better.” “Two becoming one” (Gen. 2:24) is a difficult task for a couple of sinners to do, so it is inevitable that any marriage will go through some tough stretches. That’s why Christians can be so very grateful to God that, except in exceptional circumstances, He has taken the option of divorce from us. SOURCE: “Is There Hope for My Marriage?” by Amy Desai, J.D. as found on www.focusonthefamily.com way back on Dec. 11, 2010 Joke of the month Lady, to her doctor: “My husband, a marriage counselor, often refuses to accompany me to parties and get-togethers. He says that so many people spoil his evening by asking him for advice. Does this happen to you too?” Doctor: All of the time! But it doesn’t bother me anymore. Lady: What do you do? Doctor: “I have a wonderful remedy. When someone begins to tell me his ailments I stop him with one word: ‘Undress.’” SOURCE: Bob Phillips’ "The Return of the Good Clean Jokes"...

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.”...

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