Watch Over Your Heart

"Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life (Prov. 4:23). The heart of man is his worst part before it is regenerated, and the best afterward; it is the seat of principles, and the foundation of actions. The eye of God is, and the eye of the Christian ought to be, principally fixed upon it. The greatest difficulty in conversion is to win the heart to God; and the greatest difficulty after conversion, is to keep the heart with God." (John Flavel, Keeping The Heart [Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 2019], 13)

Read Some Portions Of Lydia McGrew's Upcoming Book On John's Gospel

She's posted the first chapter and the conclusion of the book.

What's wrong with illegal immigration?

Philosopher Bill Vallicella makes a number of good points regarding illegal immigration.

"When Amazon erased my book"

As many know, conservative Catholic political philosopher and ethicist Ryan Anderson (PhD, Notre Dame) had his book When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment removed from Amazon mere days ago. This represents the latest battle in the culture wars. A battle which is all the more pressing in light of Biden's Equality Act. The left and its sympathizers will seek to cancel even the most reasonable, informed, and charitable voices if the voices dissent from leftist convictions or commitments. Anderson writes about all this and more in his First Things article "When Amazon erased my book". I don't agree with everything, but it's still worth a read.

For now, people can still purchase Anderson's book on Encounter Books (the book's publisher), Christian Book, Barnes and Noble, and other bookstores.

Update. From Ryan Anderson:

Update 2. From Abigail Shrier:

Read the rest of the thread.

Lydia McGrew on Pastor Coates

"We must obey God rather than men" (Lydia McGrew)

The Greatest Song Will Always Be The Song Born Of Suffering

"Suffering will stop, but singing will not. But suffering will not be forgotten. Because we will sing about it for all eternity — not ours, but Christ's. [Revelation 5:9-10]… Singing will remain, rooted in suffering, forever. The greatest song will always be the song born of suffering. We will never forget the price Jesus paid so that forgiven sinners could sing with everlasting joy. So, take heart. Though singing is sometimes stopped by suffering, nevertheless, our most common experience in this world is that singing sustains in suffering. And if the slain Christ is your song, then for you (and all the redeemed) the day is coming when suffering will be no more, and singing will follow the end of suffering forever." (John Piper)

Inconsistencies In Some Anti-Christian Views Of The Paranormal

Bruce Greyson, one of the leading researchers of near-death experiences, recently wrote a book on the subject, which is coming out soon. You can read a story from the New York Post about it here. The book and the media coverage of it provide further reasons for Christians to be prepared to discuss paranormal issues.

Here are some relevant comments from a recent discussion I participated in:

Laymen's Lounge interviews Frame

Here's a brief but edifying interview with Prof. John Frame. (And I never would have guessed Prof. Frame's favorite movie is Casablanca! A classic movie I've never seen.)

By the way, for those who don't already know, the Laymen's Lounge has a lot of good interviews and other resources.

The two deaths of Ravi

"Apologetics After the Two Deaths of Ravi Zacharias" (Doug Groothuis)

Materialism and mysteries

Prof. James Anderson responds to Bart Ehrman's (I guess one could call it) mysterian materialism in his post "Materialism and Mysteries".

Is physical determinism reality?

Natural law arguments against same-sex marriage

Jason Engwer and Lydia McGrew, among others, recently made several helpful comments about same-sex marriage and related issues. Their comments are well worth reading and taking to heart.

Lydia alluded to natural law arguments against same-sex marriage. Here's Tim Hsiao outlining the general argument:

Making sense of the Ravi Zacharias scandal

I've read and seen several Christians reflecting on the Ravi scandal. I think the person who gets closest to what I'd want to say is David Wood. It's a long video, but Wood makes several insightful observations and as is often the case Wood is keen in his psychological analyses.

The Akedah

Regarding God testing Abraham's faith by telling Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a burnt offering in Genesis 22:

I think there's dramatic irony in Gen 22. The events of the story turn out to be the opposite of what one would have expected at the climax of the narrative.

My understanding is human sacrifice to various gods occurred among many ancient Neareastern cultures. An ancient Neareasterner (like Abraham) might not unreasonably expect Yahweh to be like these other gods too.

Yet Gen 22 has a twist ending. The twist ending of the story is that Yahweh isn't like other gods.

Quite the contrary. Yahweh doesn't demand Abraham sacrifice Isaac. Rather Yahweh "provides" a ram caught in a thicket by its horns for Abraham to sacrifice. As such, Abraham learns Yahweh is the God who "provides", not a god who takes. Yahweh is the God who unilaterally blesses his followers, not a god who requires things in a quid pro quo fashion from his followers. Yahweh is the merciful God, not a god who must always exact his pound of flesh. Yahweh blessed Abraham because Abraham trusted Yahweh, not because Abraham literally killed and sacrificed his son Isaac in exchange for blessings like a pagan god might wish. These are the kinds of lessons Yahweh imparted to Abraham - and to us.

So this was a happy reversal of fortunes from Abraham and Isaac's perspective. They didn't have to do what they thought they had to do.

What's more, this happy reversal of fortunes in turn points to the One who reversed their fortunes - namely, Yahweh. Such that Abraham and Isaac, along with the audience, are led to ask: what kind of God is this, this Yahweh? Yahweh is not like heathen gods. Instead Yahweh is the God of promise, provision, blessing, grace.

Ed May's Materialism

Alex Tsakiris recently interviewed Stephen Braude. He makes a lot of significant comments during the interview, but a segment I found especially interesting was one about Ed May. You can click on the link just provided to watch that segment on the YouTube video of the interview. Braude's comments about his private interactions with May are worth hearing. You can listen to Tsakiris' interview with May here. And here's a post I wrote about the significance of the interview.

How To Argue Against Same-Sex Marriage

It's still important to argue against it, though few people are doing it. See here for an overview of some of the relevant arguments. And here's a post where I discussed how I expected the issue to develop after the Supreme Court's 2015 decision, given the nature of the American people. Much of what I said there is still applicable. But we've now had several more years of political developments, and the large majority of Republicans and Christians have shown themselves unwilling to discuss the subject much, if at all. Life consists of more than politics, though, and how people view marriage is important in non-political contexts, not just political ones. Changes outside of politics can, and often do, lead to political changes. But the arguments for a Christian view of marriage ought to be made, even if we don't get the political changes we want.

See here for some comments I made about the significance of holidays like Valentine's Day in this context.

A Good Discussion Of The Death Of Judas In Matthew And Acts

James Bejon recently wrote a Twitter thread on the subject, which I had seen linked by Peter Williams. And here's a PDF of the text in the thread, if you'd prefer that. However many of Bejon's points you take a position on or agree with, there's a lot of valuable material there to consider.

If The Type Gives Confidence

"The angel feared the blood [Exodus 12:23]; for he knew of what it was a Type; he shuddered, thinking on the Lord's death; therefore he did not touch the door-posts. Moses said, Smear, and they smeared, and were confident. And you, having the Blood of the Lamb Himself, are ye not confident?" (John Chrysostom, Homilies On Hebrews, 27:1)

How objective are near-death experiences?

Sean McDowell just interviewed J. Steve Miller on near-death experiences. Here's a comment I posted there on the subject.

The Eye Of The Beholder

Lydia McGrew has posted a new video announcing the release date for her upcoming book on the gospel of John and quoting some of the endorsements for it. Here's the table of contents for the book.