At the end of each year, I’m always curious to see which posts were the most popular since I think it’s an interesting window into the ideas people were struggling to work through and make sense of over the last year. And of course, if you missed any of them the first time around, now is the time to catch up. Enjoy this look back at 2021!
- What Motivates Sin (and How to Fight It) – “It’s when you think you’re missing out on something good that you try to grab things God hasn’t given you in a way he hasn’t allowed. You think you’re missing out on something wonderful and that you need to rectify that situation in order to have a truly fulfilled life, when in reality, the only way to truly miss out is by not being obedient in the situation God has you in right now. Even if that means there are some good things you will not have.”
- How Will the People in Heaven View Hell? – “This is the God we worship—the God who is both just and the justifier (Rom. 3:21–26). We see his good justice not only as good in itself, but also in light of his unexpected and beautiful role as justifier. Goodness on top of goodness. Glory on top of glory. And we will rejoice in him forever.”
- Christianity Is the Best Explanation for Reality – “Lewis believed Christianity provides a framework for understanding many commonsense ideas that people in our society affirm. I agree. If you listen carefully to what people claim are the powerful truths they live by, you’ll recognize that Christianity is the only worldview that can justify all of them. Consider the following claims about reality and how not every belief system can account for them.”
- Pro-Gay Theology Invents a New Sin – “Notice what pro-gay theology advocates have done. They’ve invented a new type of sin. They’ve taken an existing sin (homosexual sex) and divided it up into two flavors: sinful homosexual sex and non-sinful homosexual sex—a distinction foreign to the corpus of Scripture. It’s no longer homosexual sex that’s sin. It’s abusive homosexual sex that’s sin. The added adjective is a qualifier that creates a new sin. Now, people can allegedly sidestep the biblical prohibition against homosexual sex.”
- Escaping the Clever “Kafka Trap” – “Be alert for the linguistic baloney, and don’t be taken in by it. If it sounds silly, it probably is. The Christian doesn’t need verbal ruses like this, of course, because when someone has a sound, defensible idea, he doesn’t need semantic tricks to make his case. A straightforward appeal to the evidence is all that clear thinking requires.”
- Do Not Nod Your Head to Lies – “In order to maintain this level of a reality rewrite, the shame is necessary to keep the truth at bay. And shame will not be enough. Increasing force will no doubt follow. As Matt Anderson explained so eloquently years ago when people were merely ignoring the reality of the unique nature of the man-woman union (something that is not even as immediately apparent as the basic difference between men and women): ‘Same-sex marriage will lead to a soft-despotism because it has to.’ It has to in order to ensure everyone maintains the mirage.”
- Why the Puddle Analogy Fails against Fine-Tuning – “Some think the puddle analogy deals a critical blow against the fine-tuning argument. If the pondering puddle shouldn’t be surprised about its existence, we shouldn’t either. But does the analogy work? … The puddle analogy has a problem. And it’s a big one. It’s a false analogy. The analogy doesn’t work because getting a life-permitting universe is vastly different from getting a puddle-permitting hole.”
- When Spiritual Heroes Fall – “I cannot promise that these five principles will alleviate all your pain, quiet all your confusion, or quell all your anger when one of your spiritual heroes falls. These points have served me well for many years, though, and I trust they will guide you well, too.”
- Why Pronouns Matter…a Lot – “If pronouns really were ‘inconsequential little things,’ then why has so much ink been spilt—and, in some cases, livelihoods lost—for not getting them right? Because getting particular pronouns right means getting a particular narrative right. Here is what is at stake with those simple little words. We are being besieged by a worldview that is completely foreign to Jesus’ view of reality. According to this view, reality is not ‘out there’ in God’s world, but ‘in here’ in the internal world of feelings and personal beliefs.”
- The Claim about Homosexuality in the Film 1946 Is Irrelevant – “An upcoming documentary film claims the RSV translators of the Bible wrongly inserted the word ‘homosexuals’ in a New Testament passage back in 1946…. The good news is that it’s easy to spot the fallacies in this film. The bad news is that many people won’t.”