A Non-Christocentric Reading of Psalm 112

Recently I sat through a sermon on Psalm 112. It was a workshop in moralistic non-redemptive-historical preaching. It wasn't that the content was awful or the exhortations uninspiring, but the preacher missed the essential component of the passage and read it in a Judaized fashion. While disappointing it generated some great and edifying conversation for the drive home.

Antithesis and Caesar's Coin (Matthew 22.15-22)

I have often mentioned the 'coin' episode in Matthew 22 as an occasion in which Evangelicals and other Sacralists attempt to make an argument for citizenship and civic duty. They believe the terminology 'render unto Caesar' is some kind of imperative to be engaged in the affairs of Caesar, economics, politics and the like.

Wisdom, Bitterness and Blessed Hope

As the years go by I've seen apostasy, experienced betrayals, watched people drift away, seen people exposed as something other than what they were thought to be.

It's both sad and startling. People you once thought were so solid turn out to be houses built on sand, seeds sprouting on rocky ground. I've watched others drowned by foolish and hurtful lusts, choked by weeds and many who live by lying to themselves about everything they do and the whole of their motivations.