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“The year was 2081 and everyone was finally equal.” So begins Kurt Vonnegut’s incredible dystopian short story, Harrison Bergeron. The short, fictional piece prophetically depicts the extremes to which an authoritarian government might go in order to create a society in which each and every individual is “equal” to all others on every conceivable plane. […]
There is an incredible line in the second volume of The Lord of the Rings in which Bilbo describes his current emotional state to Gandalf the wise wizard: “I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread.” I am sure many […]
I can almost guarantee that at some point in the last six months, you nearly threw the remote through your flat screen and blurted out, “What are they thinking?!” I might be able to answer that question: They weren’t. When you nearly launched your remote and asked that question, it was partly exasperation, and partly […]
The Bible begins and ends with statements related to the concept of time. The first verse of Genesis includes a time marker, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” while the penultimate verse of the Bible includes a reference to time as well, “Surely I am coming soon” (Gen. 1:1; Rev. 22:20, […]
People from history are strangely and frustratingly complex. Few are as wicked as the devils; none as pure as the angels. This gives us good reason to be equally careful in erecting statues to honor them as in tearing them down. Jonathan Edwards was such a complex individual. His theological genius is hardly challenged today, […]
I cannot wait to hear the sounds of children laughing and playing again in the Narthex. I cannot wait to share hugs with a dozen surrogate grandparents who dote on my kids as their own. I can’t wait to shake the hands of the greeters without worries of hand-sanitizer scarcities running through the back of […]
According to Scripture, Mathuselah was the oldest living human being on record. Genesis 5:27 tells us that he was given some 969 years to live in all. Imagine what one could do with all that time: the books you could read, the essays you could write, the degree programs you could pursue, the home repair […]
When I transferred my ordination credentials from the EPC to the PCA, and moved from Florida to Western Pennsylvania, I began my new life and ministry in the historic Ascension Presbytery. In doing so, I took up residence in a cultural milieu quite different from the Bible Belt. The Pittsburgh area is, after all, significant […]
There are two possibilities — and only two — about our lives. Either everything matters or nothing matters. On the one hand, it is possible that nothing matters. It does not matter what you eat or what you drink. It does not matter whether you go to college or live in your mother’s basement. It […]
Keep Up Your Biblical Greek in Two Minutes a Day: Volume 1 / Volume 2 Keep Up Your Biblical Hebrew in Two Minutes a Day: Volume 1 / Volume 2 by Jonathan G. Kline Hendrickson, 2017 370 pages each (hardcover), $39.95 each When I turned forty years old, I crested the hill of my physical […]
I have been searching for joy my entire life, and I believe I am not alone. If pastor and theologian Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) is correct, then we are all on the same quest. The reason is because we were created for joy. Yet the quest to find it—that is, true spiritual happiness—often leads us to […]
It is taken for granted’in mainline circles, at least’that traditional belief in hell is a relic of the past. More liberal Lutheran and Reformed denominations imagine that the doctrine of God's everlasting punishment is not only unnecessary but actually contradicts a proper view of God and his gracious love as celebrated by their confessions. Since […]
