In order for us to harness their energy, words must be given limits. They must be moulded into […]
Category Archive: Random
Words make things happen. They can make a life better or worse. They can make the human heart […]
When you pray, pray with reverence and joy, knowing that what you say and how you say it […]
The thing about forever is that we only think of it in its cutest terms, like how you would love to spend eternity with the one person that makes your heart do backflips every time you see her. That, in itself, is a wonderful, kilig-inducing idea. Except for a few snags, like these:
1) Eternity is a long time. If we go there now without transformation, we will bring with us all our sin baggage. Just do the math. You carry your own imperfections; the other person will carry her own flaws. Put that together and add “forever” to the mix, you get imperfect union that doesn’t ever end. It’s actually just marriage without the option of dying.
Just some random thoughts about common grace and the wild success of AlDub and Adele.
In the local scene, Alden Richards and Maine Mendoza did it again, only this time it was much bigger than before. I am sure that I don’t need to belabor the fact that their event at the Philippine Arena was unprecedented. What I am more fascinated about is the reason why we are all going crazy over this two. What were Mendoza and Richards doing in Bulacan anyway? The short answer, I suppose, is that they were falling in love. Or at least they were acting like they were falling in love. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the remarkable proof they give us that love is probably the most compelling force in the world.
There are many more real-life situations to draw from in the Old Testament than in the New— many more historical narratives that reveal to us men and women who are realistically portrayed, ‘warts and all’, in their encounters with God. But the difficulties we met in the historical narratives of the Gospels and Acts are increased when we come to the Old Testament narratives. We cannot simply transfer the experiences of the past wholesale to today. There are two dangers to avoid in regard to historical narrative:
The persecution of the true church, of Christian believers who trace their spiritual descent from Abraham, is not always by the world, who are strangers unrelated to us, but by our half-brothers, religious people, the nominal church. It has always been so. The Lord Jesus was bitterly opposed, rejected, mocked and condemned by His own nation. The fiercest opponents of the apostle Paul, who dogged his footsteps and stirred up strife against him, were the official church, the Jews. The monolithic structure of the medieval papacy persecuted all Protestant minorities with ruthless, unremitting ferocity. And the greatest enemies of the evangelical faith today are not unbelievers, who when they hear the gospel often embrace it, but the church, the establishment, the hierarchy. Isaac is always mocked and persecuted by Ishmael.
Most of us are constantly faced by the reality that there are many things we cannot afford in […]
Etienne Gilson on St. Francis of Assisi: It is clear that he never condemned learning for itself, but […]
October 28, 1787 Wilberforce realized the need “for some reformer of the nation’s morals, who should raise his […]
Reaction to page 213: The three fundamental principles of theology: First, God is the essential foundation, the source […]
Our knowledge of God is the imprint of the knowledge God has of himself but always on a […]