In The Nick of Time

O Father of lights, with Whom is neither variableness nor shadow of turning, from Your hand receive we every gift, each one good and perfect. Naught have we of our own; nothing do we possess that we were not given. Our open hands know not for what they grasp, but discover themselves filled with goodness and blessing from Your bounty.

The night before He was crucified, Jesus spent an extended period teaching His disciples. Apparently He began teaching His disciples while they were in the upper room, then continued to teach them as they left the room and walked toward Gethsemane. Part of what He taught them centers upon the image of the vine and branches, reported in John 15:1-8. Specifically, in the context of this image, Jesus uttered the command to “abide in me.”

The election is over. The candidate who was favored by most Christian conservatives did not win. So what comes next?

In one way, the election of Barack Obama is very good news for biblical Christians. It gives us the opportunity to demonstrate how our Christianity affects real life. We simply have to live what we say we believe.

One of the marks of the emerging churches is a certain kind of rejection of the distinction between the sacred and the secular. Of course, pious people have always insisted that none of life is secular, that all of life is (or ought to be) lived as worship to God. The pietistic approach is to extend the rubric “sacred” to all of life so that even life outside of church is regarded as sacred.

Word arrived earlier this week that Pillsbury Baptist Bible College will cease operations in December. This announcement was not entirely unexpected. Nearly two years ago, announcements were made nationwide that if the situation did not improve, Pillsbury would be in jeopardy. Those of us in Minnesota have been watching the slow strangulation of our college ever since.

Read Part 1.

Let me talk to all you younger guys out there. I’m on your side—I agree that younger leaders have something to contribute and should be heard. I don’t think that they should have to wait until they’re forty to get people to listen to them.

The fundamentalist movement was built by young men. Many of the leaders during the modernist-fundamentalist controversy were in their thirties and even their twenties. The most prominent leaders, men like T. T. Shields and J. Frank Norris, were only middle-aged. Younger men are typified by Robert T. Ketcham, who gained a national reputation as a leader in the controversy during his early thirties.