Tidbits
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In a NutshellTidbits – 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…
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In a NutshellTidbits – July 2026
How he learned he needed to preach Mark 2:28 Some years ago, on an early Sunday morning, a young Dutch pastor faced a quandary. A…
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In a NutshellTidbits – June 2026
Done before the first down Notre Dame’s famed football coach Knute Rockne wasn’t above employing psychology to give his team an edge. A legend is…
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In a NutshellTidbits – May 2026
On logic Sherlock Holmes and his faithful companion Dr. Watson once went on a camping trip. Some hours after they lay down for the night…
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In a NutshellTidbits – April 2026
Some is better than none “There is nothing wrong with starting a hefty book like Calvin’s Institutes and only getting a hundred pages read. Think…
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In a NutshellTidbits – 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…
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In a NutshellTidbits – 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…
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In a NutshellTidbits – 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…
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In a NutshellTidbits – 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…
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In a NutshellTidbits – 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…
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In a NutshellTidbits – 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…
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In a NutshellTidbits – 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…
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In a NutshellTidbits – 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…
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In a NutshellTidbits – 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…
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In a NutshellTidbits – 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…
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In a NutshellTidbits – 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…
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In a NutshellTidbits – 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….
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In a NutshellTidbits – 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…
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In a NutshellTidbits – 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 –…
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In a NutshellTidbits – January 2025
Flying Duck Orchid God’s inventiveness is sometimes so shockingly inventive, it might make you laugh out loud. This is a real flower called the “Flying…
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In a NutshellTidbits – 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…
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In a NutshellTidbits – 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…
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In a NutshellTidbits – 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…
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In a NutshellTidbits – 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…
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In a NutshellTidbits – August 2024
English is a funny language Have you ever seen: • a shoe box? • a kitchen sink? • a ball park? • a home run?…
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In a NutshellTidbits – July 2024
7 debunked evolutionary “evidences” As Dr. Jonathan Wells has documented in his books Icons of Evolution and Zombie Science, there are long discredited “evidences” for…
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In a NutshellTidbits – June 2024
Good parenting is time-consuming In The New Tolerance, authors Josh McDowell and Bob Hostetler recall the method one dad used to teach his teenage son…
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In a NutshellTidbits – April 2024
Benefit of boredom There’s a certain sort of belonging that comes out of boredom. One of my formative young experiences was spending four years in…
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In a NutshellTidbits – March 2024
The world’s only pro-life comedian? Nicholas De Santo is an Iranian-Italian who performs what he calls the “only pro-life stand-up act” which, he notes, also…
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In a NutshellTidbits – February 2024
Financial potty training While the illustration mentions a VCR tape, the point is as sharp as ever. The late Gary North (1941-2022) got this from…
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In a NutshellTidbits – January 2024
It was the best and worst of times “The Christian only has to endure this world, this is as bad as it gets for us….
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In a NutshellTidbits – December 2023
“You better watch out!” It’s nearing that time of year again, when you might hear the chorus of a familiar Bing Crosby hit. I always…
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In a NutshellTidbits – November 2023
Practice makes better I had a friend who makes it a point of pride not to open doors for women because. “Women are just as…
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In a NutshellTidbits – October 2023
Halloween in a small American town I live in a delightful and occasionally comical small town where the church-attending Christians make up a solid majority…
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In a NutshellTidbits – September 2023
Season your words “Every day, our words could write a book of 50-60 pages (cited by John MacArthur in his sermon ‘Exposing the Truth About…
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In a NutshellTidbits – August 2023
All sorts of time to talk with God Some years ago a friend told me about a plan she had put into motion – she’d…
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In a NutshellTidbits – July 2023
When they call God “she” Remaking God in their image, homosexual “pastors” are professing Him to be a “her.” That’s blasphemy by God’s standards, of…
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In a NutshellTidbits – June 2023
Those wild and crazy Vikings! You may have learned in school that Vikings visited North America long before Christopher Columbus did, but I bet you…
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In a NutshellTidbits – May 2023
Get ready to be reviled “Pastors need to teach their people about how to handle with grace being looked down on more than ever before….
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In a NutshellTidbits – April 2023
Media-created news If you feel a need to know all that’s going on in the world around you, it’s important to understand how little the…
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In a NutshellTidbits – March 2023
Why is so much Christian fiction bad? Back in the June 30, 2007 issue of WORLD magazine, Marvin Olasky “interviewed” the long-departed novelist Flannery O’Connor…
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In a NutshellTidbits – February 2023
What Darwin didn’t know Darwin, ignorant of the inner workings of the cell, could imagine them to be simple. But the more we learn of…
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In a NutshellTidbits – December 2022
Just ain’t the same “Watching church on a livestream is like watching a fireplace on TV: you can see everything with no warmth.” – Charlie…
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In a NutshellTidbits – November 2022
Chesterton saw it coming… A hundred years ago, in the Aug 14, 1926 edition of the Illustrated London News, G.K. Chesterton wrote a column that…
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In a NutshellTidbits – August 2022
Great Communicator on communication and diaper changes Ronald Reagan was nicknamed “The Great Communicator” for his ability to connect with his listening audience. But that…
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In a NutshellTidbits – June 2022
If you ain’t Dutch… Readers from a Dutch background are undoubtedly familiar with the slogan, “if you ain’t Dutch, you ain’t much.” Those same readers…
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In a NutshellTidbits – May 2022
A gentle answer to a rude question Christian comedian Phil Callaway recently told a story about a lady who thoughtlessly questioned whether he should ever…
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In a NutshellTidbits – April 2022
Treasure your parents, pastors, and good teachers “You don’t live long enough to learn from experience.” – Jewish proverb “We frequently know more, not because…
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In a NutshellTidbits – March 2022
Junior knows best? In a recent review, Roman Catholic film critic Steven D. Greydanus argues that we’re seeing an expansion of the old doofus/domineering dad…
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In a NutshellTidbits – January 2022
On books “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” – Groucho Marx When…
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In a NutshellTidbits – December 2021
Seasonal dad joke When a hotel sponsored a chess tournament they held it in their main lobby. That was a mistake, as it turned out…
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In a NutshellTidbits – November 2021
Chesterton on whether love is blind The world tells us that we shouldn’t try to change those we love, that if we really love them…
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In a NutshellTidbits – October 2021
Evolving “facts” When a student visited his old university during a 20-year reunion he discovered that his old Evolutionary Science professor was still working there….
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In a NutshellTidbits – August 2021
Now, that’s a Nicaean pun! A self-described “heretic,” famous for formerly being the lead singer of a popular Christian band, got some attention this summer…
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In a NutshellTidbits – July 2021
Is it in the Bible? Many common phrases either have their origins in the Bible, or are direct quotes from the Bible. But some phrases…
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In a NutshellTidbits – June 2021
Proverbs for social media Solomon was born 3,000 years before tweets and status updates became a thing, yet his wisdom applies all the same. “Sin…
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In a NutshellTidbits – May 2021
Walter Williams on his income inequality with Michael Jordan Does the tenth commandment still apply if our neighbor is Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, or Michael…
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In a NutshellTidbits – April 2021
Richer than you knew Today’s complaints about “income inequality” mask the fact that, in the West, anyone who can afford a smartphone is richer than…
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In a NutshellTidbits – March 2021
On mundane faithfulness… “Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help mum do the dishes.” – P. J. O’Rourke Francis Schaeffer on being a…
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In a NutshellTidbits – February 2021
Sign seen on a… Whatever your business, there’s a pun for you. Here are some signs that probably never were but definitely should be… IRS…
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In a NutshellTidbits – January 2021
Silent Cal speaks American president Calvin Coolidge was so close-lipped his nickname was “Silent Cal.” A popular joke told about him had an attractive young…
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In a NutshellTidbits – December 2020
A million monkeys “Someone once said that if you sat a million monkeys at a million typewriters for a million years, one of them would…
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In a NutshellTidbits – November 2020
Famous phrases from the Bible The influence of God’s Word on our culture is such that even those who have never cracked open a Bible…
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In a NutshellTidbits – October 2020
Move just one stick to fix the equation I thought there were three right answers, but after posting a version of this to Facebook, friends…
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In a NutshellTidbits – September 2020
When the pastor fell asleep Maybe you already knew that Charles Spurgeon was called the “Prince of Preachers,” with more than 3,500 published sermons. But…
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In a NutshellTidbits – August 2020
What would King Solomon do? A policeman arrested two men and confiscated a pair of loaded dice. In court, each man accused the other of…
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In a NutshellTidbits – July 2020
Translation that busts a gut “During my time of study in Amsterdam several decades ago, I personally experienced this challenge of translation. One day I…
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In a NutshellTidbits – June 2020
Is this love? How can a parent help put a daughter’s crushes in the right context? How can we help her view this boy with…
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In a NutshellTidbits- May 2020
Graphic Pictures… The image is outrageous, but the act itself’s okay? That picture’s met with fury… But, the killing is okay? Imagine our sheer terror,…
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In a NutshellTidbits – April 2020
Are we only after better-behaved pagans? Christians have made a habit of advocating for Christians positions without advocating for them as Christian positions. So we…
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In a NutshellTidbits – March 2020
It’s so easy to get things wrong While doing evangelism, Christian apologist Ray Comfort will often ask his conversational partner a series of quick trick…
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In a NutshellTidbits – February 2020
Lightbulb moment I was in my 4th-year neurophysiology course, learning about the brain, when the professor used a curious word: “think.” As in, this is…
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In a NutshellTidbits – January 2020
Why fossil fuels are a blessing According to Kathleen Hartnett White, in her study Fossil Fuels: The Moral Case “man-made emissions of carbon dioxide have…
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In a NutshellTidbits – December 2019
Darwin’s theory and Kipling’s Just So Stories Brett Miller is a cartoonist for the website Creation-Evolution Headlines (CrEv.info). While his other cartooning efforts are great,…
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In a NutshellTidbits – November 2019
On breaking your TV habit Want to cut down on your TV watching but find it a battle? Gary North has an idea he put…
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In a NutshellTidbits – October 2019
Doing homework on Sunday? “When I was in college and seminary, I made what was a bold decision at the time and committed, along with…
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In a NutshellTidbits – July 2019
Doubt your doubts… “We don’t just need answers for people’s difficult questions. We need questions for people’s easy answers.” – Andrew Wilson (as seen at…
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In a NutshellTidbits – June 2019
As seen on a t-shirt We live in an emoticon, headline-reading, 280-character tweet, fly-by-level-of-engagement world. But short doesn’t always mean shallow, and to demonstrate, here’s…
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In a NutshellTidbits – May 2019
The world’s love hurts In a presentation by Jonathon Van Maren on euthanasia and assisted suicide the pro-life apologist repeatedly cited Proverbs 12:10b “…the tender…
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In a NutshellTidbits – April 2019
Strong men can laugh “Moderate strength is shown in violence, supreme strength is shown in levity.” – G.K. Chesterton An iPhone Hack to Try “Two…
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In a NutshellTidbits – March 2019
Chesterton on whether love is blind The world tells us that we shouldn’t try to change those we love, that if we really love them…
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In a NutshellTidbits – February 2019
Satire, impactful satire Turnabout is fair play Rebutting a secular argument can be as simple as applying its logic more broadly. Samuel Sey (@SlowToWrite), a…
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In a NutshellTidbits – January 2019
Why did the _____ cross the road? One of the wonderful things about children is that they are a new audience. Dads, they haven’t heard…
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In a NutshellTidbits – December 2018
Feminism’s two errors “[Feminism is] the heresy that women and men are not fundamentally different and that women ought to be as much like men…
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In a NutshellTidbits – November 2018
Lame Dutch joke of the month A Canadian and a Dutchman were out riding horses. Canadian: “We’ve got quite the set of fine horses here….
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In a NutshellTidbits – October 2018
How to be a revolutionary When a Christian conference is titled “How to enrage the culture” you might think it would be encouraging radical and…
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In a NutshellTidbits – September 2018
What parent wouldn’t love this present? One of the biggest, most expensive presents we will ever give our children is Christian schooling. But do our…
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In a NutshellTidbits – August 2018
Help wanted: men “Imagine that in those ages past, Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and their [associates] had said: ‘The world is out of order. But if…
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In a Nutshell
Tidbits – July 2018
A most wonderful secret “What does it feel like?” I asked. “To have a whole new person growing inside you?” My mom sat down on…
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In a Nutshell
Tidbits – June 2018
FUTURECASTING Dr. Kathy Koch has a saying that reflects the biblical thought Paul express in 1 Cor.15:33. She notes, “Show me your friends, and I…
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In a Nutshell
Tidbits – May 2018
“Pastor, I already know how to farm better than I do” In an April 16 post at nouthetic.org, Donn R. Arms recounts how, as a…
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In a Nutshell
Tidbits – April 2018
“Wait…what?” As our family has been reading through the Bible, certain passages (starting right off with Genesis 4) make it necessary to at least touch…
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In a Nutshell
Tidbits – March 2018
John Calvin on abortion “…the fetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being…and it is almost a monstrous crime…
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In a Nutshell
Tidbits – February 2018
Never a better time… It’s so easy to get caught up in what’s going wrong with the world that we can lose sight of all…