Here are some of my reading goals for 2016.
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All by Michael Hansen
Lewis teaches us that the best way to defend children from believing in falsehoods is NOT by telling them that fairytales aren’t real. Rather, by inculcating the just sentiments that fairytales offer, children WILL be able to better defend themselves from falsehoods of the worst variety.
We must submit to the place that God put us in His creation. Modernity refuses to do this. The Modern man must be either God or meaningless manner. The Modern man ignores the wisdom of Solomon.
According to Schindler, the Christian church quietly obeyed the voices of the Enlightenment which told the church which compartment of the modern life it could have a say in; namely the realm of spirituality and personal religion.
Lord only knows much ink has been spilled over Jesus’ famous words “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Matthew 5:17).
We are characters in a story, we are not the author. We are placed in the plot and given roles. We enter stage right or stage left and are called upon to recite our lines and act.
Jesus has initiated this glorious redemption and he has ascended to the right hand of God the Father Almighty from whence he has poured out His Spirit on His Church who will continue the work of redemption until all of Christ’s enemies have been made a footstool under his feet (Psalm 110:1).
By allowing the Gospel of Matthew to tell the story it wants to tell (rather than telling the story of a doctrine) Leithart brings out
Once you begin to understand the ways in which the Bible refers to itself, you begin to peel back layers to passages that before were seemingly shrouded in mystery and hid their glory from you.
In the end, it should not matter whether the fetus is human life or not. Humans are to view the world through the understanding that they are in dynamic relationship to everything around them.
C.S. Lewis makes an argument that “good reading” consists in laying down one’s own point of view. This, Lewis explains, is a type of “dying,” but in this dying, we find that we truly become ourselves as we escape ourselves.
Especially in today’s climate where we seem to be increasingly okay with war, Rhett Butler’s words are music to the ears. It always strikes me as odd that those who are so adamant about being duped by the government never stop to think that the government could be duping them when it comes to war. If you listen to the rhetoric about Israel then it is so clear the way that we attempt to make war sacred in our own day as well.
As American
We value “realistic” stories over “fairy-tales.” The problem is that these realistic stories are all too often void of true beauty and imagination yet blatantly promote some “social or ethical or religious or anti-religious ‘comment on life.’” This is one of the main avenues that we have been deceived as a culture. We have sought to avoid deception through the very means that deception is most likely to come: “realistic” literature.
If we want to “follow Jesus” then it makes no sense to shun His Body the church. That is why Paul says that it makes no sense for a husband to treat his wife
The main distinction Lewis makes between the literary and unliterary person can be seen in their approach to literature.
Eschatology must submit to the story of Scripture and follow the story as it leads us to Christ. Too often eschatology (and theology in general) has abandoned the narrative of scripture. This can only lead to confusion and ultimately away from Christ.
History belongs to God. He is the great author. To look at periods of time in history and assume that God is not acting is to think like a pagan.
Unfortunately, it is this type of pragmatic unliterariness that so pervades many Christians’
No doubt there are many morals and messages held in the great works of literature. However, to approach a work of literature with the sole intention of mining these things is to approach literature as an unliterary person. In the case of the literary person, they approach a great work with the main intention to sit under the author’s tutelage. In this