Tune Up Your Teaching: Christian Song as Discipleship
Thanks for attending my session! As promised, here is a link to download a PDF of the PPT notes. Also, here are the notes from the seminar. **** BIG IDEA: Singing is not just for the worship ministry; singing should be used for discipleship in the church, home, and personal worship. Is there biblical warrant for using singing […]
“Lady Wisdom” a poem from Proverbs 1
Lady Wisdom calls in the streets above the noise she cries:“Simple ones, how long will you be deceived by wicked lies?Silly fools, you covet and seek a life that’s free to live.Scornful people, why do you mock the wisdom that I give?” Lady Wisdom dies in the way; she’s murdered by the mob. Wicked people […]
Clement of Alexandria’s “Christian Gnostic” in Stromateis I–II
In the introduction to his 1954 translation of Clement of Alexandria’s (c. 150–215) Paedagogus, P. Simon Wood expresses “hesitancy” on the part of Catholics due to Clement’s alleged Gnostic leanings: “While admiring his humanism and appreciating his richness of thought, it (the Catholic opinion) regrets some of the Gnostic developments of that thought.”[i] This hesitancy is rooted […]
“In the Shadow of the Temple” by Oskar Skarsaune.
Students of Scripture have long recognized the Jewish influence on the Christian church during the time of Christ and the Apostles. Even after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in AD 70, one might expect some residual effects to linger on into the second century. But Oskar Skarsaune, professor of church history at Norwegian Lutheran […]
What do Fortnite and Snapchat have in common with Internet Pornography?
Let me preface this article with this: Engagement with digital media and pornography is a complex issue. Please don’t equate the brevity of this article with the extent of these matters. There’s no way I can treat this entire topic in 800 words, but perhaps there is something here that might spawn some thought and […]
Clement of Alexandria’s Use of Music for Cultural Engagement
The early church fathers are often seen as hard-nosed killjoys when it comes to music. While it is true that the earliest Christians held a stringent view of music resulting in a restricted form of church music, some of the fathers, such as Clement of Alexandria (c.150–215), saw music as a worthy pursuit for the […]
“His Master’s Voice” and Passive Worship Culture
Most are familiar with the late nineteenth-century English painting His Master’s Voice. It features Nipper, a fox terrier, staring into a phonograph and listening to a recording of his recently deceased owner. In the early 1900s, a revision of this painting became the trademark of the Victor Talking Machine Company. A consumer who was looking […]
I’m an Award-Winning Writer. Also, I Have No Idea On Earth What I’m Doing.
I should probably have a separate blog category for “culture-making,” but in the meantime, I’ll tuck this post here. I really did enter a short story contest with Southern Writers Magazine, and I really did place in the top ten. So, if I’m an award-winning writer, and this is an award-winning story, is this now […]
A Thing Worth Doing—What Does That Even Mean?
The name of my blog, A Thing Worth Doing, is borrowed from the quote, “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.” While you chew on that, I’ll give you some background. The first time I ever heard this statement was from Robert Picirilli. He mentioned it to me after I presented […]
Seek Truth, Beauty, and Goodness . . . but Avoid “Cultural Snobbery”
The first time I heard the quote, “A thing worth doing is worth doing badly,” was from Robert Picirilli after I presented a paper on Leroy Forlines’s view of the arts. Much of what follows below on the topic of cultural snobbery is from that paper. The chief duty of man is, as the Westminster […]