Life's busy, read it when you're ready!

Create a free account to save articles for later, keep track of past articles you’ve read, and receive exclusive access to all RP resources.

Search thousands of RP articles

Articles, news, and reviews that celebrate God's truth.

Get Articles Delivered!

Articles, news, and reviews that celebrate God's truth. delivered direct to your Inbox!

A A
By:

Tidbits – 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 in place more than 40 years ago: “Put a price on your time.” He suggests putting a piggy bank next to your couch and whenever you watch a show you have to put in $1 for a half-hour show, and $2 for an hour show. If someone else is already watching something (and has already paid the price) you can join in for free (TV watching together is a step up from watching by yourself). Then at year’s end you count up all the money and send a check for that amount to your favorite charity.

“In short, put a price on your time. Pay the price. Economics teaches: ‘When the price rises, less is demanded.’ You will cut your TV habit by 50%. If not, make it $3.”

SOURCE: Gary North’s Tip of the Week, January 3, 2015

Luther and Aristotle on the need for balance and moderation

I’ve read that in Martin Luther’s first year at Wittenberg he had to regularly lecture on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. And while Luther didn’t seem a fan of the Greek philosopher, one of Luther’s more famous quotes is an echo of sorts to a passage in Ethics. Martin Luther once said:

“Human nature is like a drunk peasant. Lift him into the saddle on one side, over he topples on the other side.”

Long before, Aristotle spoke of the need for balance, and that there are two equal and opposite ways of getting things wrong:

“….the man who flies from and fears everything and does not stand his ground against anything becomes a coward, and the man who fears nothing at all but goes to meet every danger becomes rash; and similarly the man who indulges in every pleasure and abstains from none becomes self- indulgent, while the man who shuns every pleasure, as boors do, becomes in a way insensible; temperance and courage, then, are destroyed by excess and defect, and preserved by the mean.”

Of course, that a Greek philosopher said something doesn’t mean it is biblical. So is the need for balance a biblical idea? It can indeed be, and alcohol is an example. On the one hand God forbids drunkenness, but on the other, doesn’t require us to completely abstain – instead He calls for moderation. Another example might be sexuality and dress. On the one hand, we are called to modesty so lascivious or scandalous dress is forbidden, but we don’t all have to go around wearing burkas. There is a balance point between perverse and prudish.

The key then is to act as God commands us, and not simply react against one way the Devil is trying to lure us.

Reagan on Big Government

“Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.”

Ronald Reagan as quoted in The Reagan Wit by Bill Adler

Doubters should question their doubts too

“Some believers spend too much time doubting their faith, and not enough time doubting their doubts. Yes, there are some reasonable questions that thoughtful people have always raised about the Christian faith. But there are also some very good questions that faithful people should raise about their spiritual doubts:

  • Have I studied what God has to say on this question, or have I been listening mainly to his detractors?
  • Am I well aware of how this doubt has been addressed in the history of Christian theology, or has my thinking been relatively superficial?
  • Have I been compromising with sin in ways that make it harder for me to hear God’s voice and diminish my desire for the purity of his truth?
  • Is this a doubt that I have offered sincerely to God in prayer, or am I waiting to see if God measures up to my standards before I ask for his help?”

Phil Ryken, in Loving Jesus More 

Udderly marvelous

Back in 2013 Vince Rozmiarek got put in charge of his small town’s community center message board, and soon after starting posting puns to the big 6” by 4” outdoor sign. Now the two puns he posts each week are seen by the many driving by, and by the 84,000 folks who have signed up for the Indian Hills Community Sign Facebook page. While his puns tackle all sorts of topics, he can’t “steer” clear of farm jokes.

  • Cows have hooves because they lactose.
  • If a cow doesn’t produce mill is it a milk dud or an udder failure?
  • Ban pre-shredded cheese. Make America grate again.
  • Cheerful cowboys make jolly ranchers
  • Amish banks have cash cows
  • The pregnant cow soon became decalfinated
  • Award-winning cow. Outstanding in field.
  • I called my horse mayo, and sometimes mayo neighs.
  • Man assaults his neighbor with milk and cheese. How dairy?!?
  • If pigs could fly, imagine how good their wings would taste.

Only God’s Word makes sense of it all

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen — not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

C.S. Lewis, in Is Theology Poetry

Enjoyed this article?

Get the best of RP delivered to your inbox every Saturday for free.



In a Nutshell

Tidbits - 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 a friend, that we would not do homework on Sundays. No reading assignments. No papers.  No studying for tests. It meant rethinking my Saturdays, which meant being more thoughtful about my Friday evenings. I couldn't sleep till noon on Saturday, watch football, hang out with my friends all day, and go out to a social event at night and then play catch-up on Sunday. I had to make pretty drastic changes. “But I never regretted the commitment. Setting aside Sunday was a habit that served me well throughout all my studies. Sunday became my favorite day of the week. I was freed up to go to church more than once. I could go on a long walk or read a book or take a nap. The day became an island of get-to in an ocean of have-to. “How many of us think, ‘You know what?  Life is a little underwhelming.  I'm not very busy.  I wish the days could be more crowded.  I wish life could be more hectic.’ Very few people think that way. So don't you want a day where you can say no to many of the oughts in your head? Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a day of freedom, one day in seven where the other six days have no claim on you?” – Kevin DeYoung, in The 10 Commandments (h/t to Dr. Wes Bredenhof) Gotta serve somebody “So many political and theological liberals need a cause to substitute for their moral obtuseness on such issues as abortion and homosexual behavior. They’ve found it in the worship of animals and plants. “ - Cal Thomas A better sort of straw I've been pricing things out, and as near as I can figure: Plastic straws cost 4-5 cents each but they are becoming harder to find, and if you use one people think you are Hitler. Paper straws cost something similar or even cheaper...but they are paper straws. Enough said. Bamboo straws are 10-15 cents each and they still aren't as good as plastic. Meanwhile, you can buy a pack of Twizzlers for 2.99 at Wal-Mart with 60 pieces in it, which works out to 5 cents each. Nip off the top and bottom and you have not only a straw that works way better than paper, and is cheaper than bamboo, but it's even better than plastic in that you can eat it afterward. And it keeps getting better: turns out Twizzlers are even a "low fat" straw. More consistent inconsistency “Gender is constructed, but an individual who desires gender re-assignment surgery is to be unarguably considered a man trapped in a woman's body (or vice versa). The fact that both of these cannot logically be true, simultaneously, is just ignored.” – Jordan Peterson Atheism doesn't have answers On his website ProofThatGodExists.org, apologist Sye Ten Bruggencate has a collection of more than 50 of his favorite quotes. If you like these four, be sure to check out his website for more. “The atheist can’t find God for the same reason that a thief can’t find a policeman.” – Author Unknown “The theory that thought is merely a movement in the brain is, in my opinion, nonsense; for if so, that theory itself would be merely a movement, an event among atoms, which may have speed and direction but of which it would be meaningless to use the words ‘true’ or ‘false’.” – C.S. Lewis “Someone once said that if you sat a million monkeys at a million typewriters for a million years, one of them would eventually type out all of Hamlet by chance. But when we find the text of Hamlet, we don’t wonder whether it came from chance and monkeys. Why then does the atheist use that incredibly improbable explanation for the universe? Clearly, because it is his only chance of remaining an atheist. At this point we need a psychological explanation of the atheist rather than a logical explanation of the universe.” – Peter Kreeft “If there is no God, then all that exists is time and chance acting on matter. If this is true then the difference between your thoughts and mine correspond to the difference between shaking up a bottle of Mountain Dew and a bottle of Dr. Pepper. You simply fizz atheistically and I fizz theistically. This means that you do not hold to atheism because it is true, but rather because of a series of chemical reactions…. If there is no God, then all abstractions are chemical epiphenomena, like swamp gas over fetid water. This means that we have no reason for assigning truth and falsity to the chemical fizz we call reasoning or right and wrong to the irrational reaction we call morality. If no God, mankind is a set of bi-pedal carbon units of mostly water. And nothing else.” – Douglas Wilson ...