Wednesday, October 09, 2013

God So Loved The World



Crucifixion is the most horrific and torturous type of death, perfected by the Romans, to inflict the maximal amount of pain upon the one crucified. This execution consisted of a person being affixed to the cross by having a single nail driven between both of his feet, and one nail in each of his palms or wrists. The person is thus hung in a manner in which the downward force makes it immensely difficult to allow air into the lungs, leading to death by asphyxiation. The only way to stop the immense feeling of suffocation is by pushing up on the nails in your hands and feet, causing excruciating pain, in order to allow the slightest bit of oxygen to flow into your lungs. When the Romans were feeling merciful, they smashed the victim’s legs with a giant mallet in order to speed up the agony. And, yet, Christians believe that God the Father sent his only begotten Son, who is innocent and free from all sin, into the world for the specific purpose of dying on the cross for the salvation of guilty and sinful men. ...

Continue reading my most recent article, The Providence of God and the Cross of Christ, over at Homiletic & Pastoral Review

Friday, October 04, 2013

The Theological Aesthetics Of Sherlock Holmes


"There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion. It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers."

-Sherlock Holmes, The Naval Treaty