Spring Baseball in West Texas

I have the luxury (misery?) of attending a couple of baseball practices and one game this weekend.  Forecast- 50 mph winds with a high of around 45 degrees.  I'm not sure God had West Texas in mind when He invented the idea of outdoor sports.  At least not from the first of March to the end of April.

It could be worse...we could have a ping pong tournament or a game of badminton scheduled...

Why Is the Gospel So Incoherent?

I'm reading Michael Horton's The Gospel-Driven Life right now, and I ran across this paragraph that says a lot more than the number of words in it indicate-


“The gospel is unintelligible to most people today, especially in the West, because their own particular stories are remote from the story of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation that is narrated in the Bible. Our focus is introspective and narrow, confided to our own immediate knowledge, experience, and intuition. Trying desperately to get others, including God, to make us happy, we cannot seem to catch a glimpse of the real story that gives us a meaningful role.” (p. 71)


I think Horton is right...when we try to fit God and His story into our life narrative, it doesn't work. We have to fit our life narrative into His story (metanarrative?) for things to work right.

If Jonathan Edwards Were To Preach Today...

…his sermon would have to be titled, “Somewhat dysfunctional (but well meaning) victims in the hands of an empowering God.”  At least, that’s what our culture would demand he preach. That’s NOT the gospel.  And the demons laughs as this impotent substitute is presented to thousands of people marching toward hell, but with a high self-esteem. “If people today find the preaching and teaching of sin and the cross irrelevant, it is only because we, like Israel, have dulled their sense of God’s holiness and righteousness.” (M. Horton, Gospel-Driven Life, p. 51) If we claim a God with no wrath, then we offer the cross as a solution with no problem.  Edwards was right in 1741, and he’s still right today, in spite of what is popular in evangelical Christianity.  We are sinners, and sin makes God angry.  We need to be saved, alright…not from our low self-esteem, but from God’s wrath.   And He has provided the means (the cross) and the sacrifice (His son) to propitiate that wrath. THAT’S the gospel.