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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 them 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 (16-74-1747) 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 the 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 has 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 mind. ‘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.”

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In a Nutshell

Tidbits – March 2025

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