O Canada!
A Canadian woman and a Saudi woman were arguing about which country was better.
The Canadian said, “Canada has more than its share of problems, but at least here I can freely walk up to Parliament Hill, head to the Prime Minister’s office, and loudly complain, ‘Mark Carney, I don’t like the way you’re running this country.'”
“But I can do that in my country too!” the Saudi woman exclaimed. “I’m free to walk up to the palace, go to the King’s office, and loudly complain, ‘King, I don’t like the way Mark Carney Harper is running Canada!'”
Source: Adapted from a Reagan joke about Russia and the US
4 of a kind
Grace and Mercy are two words with distinct meanings…but do you know what they are?
Through sheer repetition some Christian words seem to blend into each other and we forget their distinct meanings. But their differences do matter. Below are three short definitions that describe the following four words: Grace, Mercy, Justice and Persecution.
- not getting what you do deserve
- getting what you do deserve
- getting what you don’t deserve
Test yourself. Do you know what definition applies to each word? The answers follow:
- Not getting what you do deserve, is God is merciful when He doesn’t send us to hell. We deserve to go to hell, but fortunately Christians don’t get what we deserve.
- Getting what you do deserve, is God’s justice requires that sinful man be punished. Jesus took our deserved punishment on Himself and thus fulfilled God’s requirement for justice.
- Getting what you don’t deserve is Persecution. If justice is about getting punished when you do something bad, then persecution is about getting punished when you’ve done nothing, or done something good (like handing out a Bible in China). Persecution is, therefore, getting something bad that you don’t deserve. This definition is a little tricky, however, because it can also be a good thing to get what we don’t deserve. That’s exactly what Grace is! Our salvation and adoption as God’s children is ours entirely out of grace – we have done nothing to merit this reward. It is through grace alone.
Another reason everyone should study economics
A story is told about an old man who was called silly names by the neighborhood kids and he couldn’t get them to stop. Then he hit on an idea. The next day, when the children gathered around him, shouting their taunts, he told them that next week he was going to pay them to insult him – if they came on Tuesday, four days later, he would give them each a dollar to shout their insults at him. They agreed, and the immediate impact was that the children stopped hassling him – it seemed they were saving up their insults. Then, come Tuesday, the man did as he promised, giving each of the little bullies a dollar for shouting insults at him. Then he announced that he’d pay them the next day too, but just 50 cents each.
Wednesday they all gathered again, threw their insults, and were given 50 cents each. Afterwards the man announced that he’d only pay them a penny for their insults tomorrow. “A penny?” the ringleader complained, “that’s not even worth it.” And they never taunted the man again.
Source: adapted from Michael Hodgin’s “1001 More Humorous Illustrations for Public Speaking”
Do you like being corrected? David did.
We’re supposed to love correction. Not throw a fit in response to it, or even stoically accept it. No, we’re supposed to love it. Proverbs 9:8 is just one of the texts where God makes this point:
Don’t reprove a scoffer, lest he hate you.
Reprove a wise man, and he will love you.
God tells us that reproof is, in fact, a sign that He loves us: “whom the Lord loves, He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives” (Heb. 12:6). This verse makes good sense to any parent – it’s a lot easier to not discipline our kids, to just let it go this time (and the next, and the time after that), but if we love them, then we want to teach them what’s wrong and right, and that will necessarily involve reproof of some sort.
Still, “love correction” is a hard command to follow, so it struck me when I came across King David’s response to the prophet Nathan’s rebuke. As you’ll recall, Nathan came to David after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba, and murdered her husband to cover it up (2 Samuel 11-12). Nathan came with condemnation, and a curse. Though David confessed his guilt, Nathan informed the king that the LORD would kill the child that he had conceived with Bathsheba. And the child did die.
We would all understand it if David didn’t think all that kindly of Nathan after that. But, despite his great sins, David was still a man of God, and he shows this in his response to Nathan’s reproof. In 1 Chronicles 3:5 we read that, of the four sons David had with Bathsheba, one was named Nathan! Here, then, is a man who was reproved, and seems to have loved the messenger who brought him that correction.
Presuppositions
When a little boy asked his grandfather whether he’d been on the ark with Noah, his grandfather had to laugh, and assured the boy that no, he had not been on the ark.
“But grandpa,” the boy asked, “then why didn’t you drown?”
Are we conservatives?
Dave Rubin, Douglas Murray, and the DailyWire’s Spencer Klaven are all self-described “gay conservatives,” and how can that be? It’s because “conservative” is a term that has meaning in comparison. So long as a position can be placed on a spectrum, there will always be liberal and conservative versions. If an anarchist wants to destroy all of Western Civilization, and I want to destroy only half of it, I would be the conservative anarchist. And if a couple of college ethics professors want to euthanize all disabled babies now, and I want to wait a few years, I am the conservative eugenicist in this conversation. In much the same way, conservative and gay go together just fine too.
That’s why God’s people need to understand that if we want to express our loyalties clearly, we need to come out as Christians, not conservatives. Conservative Christians even, but not simply conservatives.
Showing and telling
A half dozen writing tips that highlight what’s to be done, and how not to do it.
- Don’t use a big word where diminutive verbiage will suffice.
- Check carefully to see if you any words out.
- Avoid clichés like the plague.
- It’s generally a good idea to be specific.
- Colorful, vivid, descriptive, multi-layered adjectives are overdone.
- Don’t re-use the same words. Use different words. Other words.
Done before the first down
Notre Dame’s famed football coach Knute Rockne wasn’t above employing psychology to give his team an edge. A legend is told of how, when he was about to face the much better University of Southern California (USC) team, he spent the week beforehand scouring the city of South Bend for its largest men. He found a hundred, all 6’5” or taller, and every one of them weighed 300 pounds or more. Then he decked them out in Notre Dame uniforms and the pads and helmets only made them look even bigger.
When it was game time, he marched them out. One after another, these giants ran onto the field, right past the opposing players. The USC coach kept telling his guys, “They can only field 11 men at a time,” but it didn’t matter. None of them played a minute, but the opposition was so intimidated at the sight of them that they dropped passes, committed fumbles, and even ran into each other in their crossing routes. And Notre Dame won the game.
Did it happen? Maybe. But the reason the story is told is because this sort of thing does happen. Think of the men who spied out Israel and got intimidated by the giants of the land before any battle was even fought. Consider today’s battles and how often God’s truth is more loudly defended by non-Christians like Ben Shapiro or Jordan Peterson than by us – we’ve run from the battle and left it up to others, scared of what we might, but haven’t yet, had to face. How often are we beaten before we’ve even begun?
Thankfully, our God is not just mighty – bigger than any giant on the football field sidelines, or standing in front of a Canaanite army – but He is also gracious and forgiving. So let’s fall on our knees, and get ready to put up our fists when God next calls us to fight for His glory.
Source: adapted from Michael Hodgin’s “1001 More Humorous Illustrations for Public Speaking”
That speck in your neighbor’s eye
The faults we spot so easily in others may well be the ones we excuse in ourselves. Of course, there is some artistry in our self-deception – we aren’t going to bluntly say, it is wrong for my kids to be curt and impatient, but I’m allowed to be. No, we’ll say it’s wrong for them, but then relabel our own conduct as something more acceptable or even admirable, as this poetic ditty demonstrates:
Stubbornness we deprecate;
firmness we condone.
The former is our neighbor’s trait;
the latter is our own.
Source: Michael Hodgin’s “1001 More Humorous Illustrations for Public Speaking”
Berra-isms
Major league player and coach Yogi Berra had quite the way with words. Here are a few of his most famous “Berra-isms,” with wisdom to be found, if you’re willing to ponder.
- It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.
- If you don’t know where you’re going, you might not get there.
- Ninety percent of the game is half mental.
- You can observe a lot by watching.
- When you come to a fork in the road, take it.
- If you can’t imitate him, don’t copy him.
