The Two Selves

photo © 2009 Lisa Omarali | more info (via: Wylio)   Despite all of this talk about grace, we all know that there remains a struggle with errant desire. There is no use beating around the bush, we still love sin. No clever reasoning or poetic and beautiful writing can cover or change this fact. […]

Martin Luther’s Conversion

photo © 2009 Heather Kennedy | more info (via: Wylio)   Can you believe this? I’m reading through R.C. Sproul’s classic book ‘The Holiness of God’ and he has this quote from Martin Luther describing his own conversion. This could have been a page right from this very blog. Check it out: “I greatly longed […]

God the Impoverished

“”Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had, and bought it.” Matthew 13:45, 46, NASB. I got this idea from reading Peter Rollins’ little book ‘The Orthodox Heretic’. Once the merchant went and sold all […]

The Theory Students

Once there was a crusty old music teacher who taught the 3rd and 4th semesters of music theory at a famous music college. As he was explaining the details of the neapolitan 6th chord to the class, one of the students, a theory major, sent a text message to one of his friends: “How will […]

Parable of the two young music students

Once there was a great music teacher who only took a few of the most gifted and promising students. One of his students was a very disciplined young man, hard-working and eager to please. He had not at first wanted to play, but he realized it was something that pleased his mother, and because he […]

More about moral and aesthetic good

I want to start by recapping the last post’s argument about this. I have to say that this is an important and seminal thought for me. In human experience we have a problem in that the idea of moral and desirable good are split – we are often wanting what we know is wrong, and […]

Moral good and desirable good

I want to delve into something today that may at first seem like nit-picky hair-splitting semantics. I think that if you will persevere and read to the end you will find that it is most profound and is deeply foundational to our idea of grace and the real motivation for living the Christian life. In […]

Why does Christianity obsess over Law, sin, guilt, and forgiveness?

To the uninitiated, Christianity’s obsession with sin can seem off-putting. We don’t like to constantly face what is wrong with ourselves, and no one wants to talk about it. You hear all this talk about God and love and yet it immediately descends into talk of morals and guilt and forgiveness. The idea of grace […]

Joy Over It

This is one of my favorite passages: “”Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, “who, […]