Years ago, Eugene Peterson introduced me to the remembrance of Holy Saturday. Since then, I have found myself identifying with the quiet discouragement and fear of Holy Saturday than the climactic terror of Good Friday or the triumphant victory of Resurrection Sunday. I have inhabited many Holy Saturday seasons, and this day has become important to me. In between Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday is Holy Saturday. Jesus is buried. A day when God seems silent. A day when the exhale of the death of Good Friday has stilled, and, quiet.

If your definition of faithful Christianity is defined by where you stand on the left-right spectrum, someone will always outflank you and claim to be “more faithful.” We need to replace the horizontal axis of liberal-conservative with a vertical axis of orthodox-suborthodox. The liberal-conservative axis served a purpose as a new form of teaching calling itself “liberal Christianity” came into influence. In contrast, orthodox Christianity often defined itself as “conservative,” that is, “conserving” the historic, orthodox faith. Things have changed.

Reconciled diversity ("one") is as intrinsic to the church as purity ("holy"). In fact, the less homogeneous and more diverse a church becomes ethnically, culturally, socio-economically, generationally, the more holy and pure it becomes. When I first started wrestling with this (and living it out) more than a decade ago, the multiethnic church was the thing. Now it’s seen as imperialist/colonial (from the left) or woke/liberal (from the right). But I still believe it’s God’s best, despite the real challenges.

🧵Three issues that @jamesrwoodtheo1's essay on @timkellernyc provokes. First, the issue of Tim Keller’s receipts. Wood aims to be charitable to Keller and express great appreciation for Keller’s ministry. He doesn’t argue that Keller was wrong before, but that Keller’s approach is wrong now.

Tri-tip with Mansmith’s for my womansmith. California style.

Tri-tip or “Santa Maria Steak”

So James White responded to my brief thread on his engagement with @MattMBarrett. Quick thoughts

1. I never saw him ask for clarification.

2 White’s work was a “takedown” in a very definite sense—he was trying to show how Barrett’s argument doesn’t work (ie take it down) 3. “Thomas’s commentaries” refers to his commentaries on Scripture, not commentaries on Thomas’s work.

Am I a hero? No. I’m just a guy who buys cheap tools from Harbor Freight to fix the blend door actuator in his American car. Update: it’s not going well. Thoughts and prayers pls

Augustine is my favorite theologian. He was a bi-cultural pastor in an out-of-the-way town. He was biblical and brilliant. But he had his quirks and blind spots, and the problem came when the medieval church (dazzled by his brilliance) turned his quirks into dogmas. The church, ironically, by becoming overtly Augustinian to the letter became less Augustinian in spirit. Truly following Augustine would have led the church to subject all thought to Christ, Scripture, and the Rule of Faith, rather than just taking Augustine’s word as dogma.

One of my questions after reading Sondergger on the Trinity a few months ago Thoughts on Trinitarian analogies from my dissertation for your Sunday evening enjoyment

The exodus of black leaders and churches from the SBC threatens the credibility of her witness more than critical race theory—and it ain’t even close. Black churches are not leaving the SBC because they want to affirm CRT. They are leaving because certain people are using CRT as a smokescreen to avoid dealing with racial injustice, and prominent leaders in the SBC are choosing a side—the wrong side.

In between Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday is #HolySaturday. Jesus is buried. A day when God seems silent. A day when the exhale of the death of Good Friday has stilled, and, quiet. In between the catatrophe of Friday and the eucatastrophe of Sunday is the almost unbearable waiting of Saturday.

We live in a #HolySaturday world. A world in waiting. A world groaning in between rebellion and resurrection.

I think this article by Carl Trueman really misses the mark, for a number of reasons.

firstthings.com/web-exclusives… 1. It names only disqualified leaders and doesn't address those leaders from @collinhansen's original book (2008) who are still leading well. For example, Hansen had chapters on @JohnPiper/@hopeinGod and @albertmohler/@SBTS.

This article (along with misunderstanding SBC polity) makes a mistake I keep seeing: the assumption that words, concepts, or tools of a philosophical worldview can never be separated from that worldview for use within a different worldview.

thefederalist.com/2019/06/18/las… The Christian tradition has often used words, concepts, and tools from non-Christian or even un-Christian philosophical systems (Platonism and Aristotelianism to name two).

Ruth personifies the OT "quartet of the vulnerable": poor, widow, orphan, resident alien.

Each aspect of her identity compounds her vulnerability: A poor person is more vulnerable than a rich one.