Why Jewish kids don’t have peanut allergies

It turns out, little bits of exposure often and regularly help to build immunity. A few people make the connection to thoughts and ideas in the public square. ‘Children raised in bubbles, not afforded the rigour of pushback, never taught bit by bit to be strengthened and tempered against a future in which their views are going to be challenged, inevitably succumb to the intellectual equivalent of anaphelactic shock.’

Where should your mission budget go?

Eddie Arthur picks up on some comments I made recently and explains why you shouldn’t necessarily send the whole of your missions budget abroad. It’s also worth checking out Eddie’s follow ups here and here.

From plight to solution and back again

‘The view we take of the plight of human beings in sin will affect our understanding of salvation as the solution to sin. If sin is a trivial problem, it requires only a trivial solution. If sin is serious, it demands a serious solution.’

When the unbeliever departs: the aftermath

My sister posted this article from the gospel coalition, which spoke directly to her experience. Here is her quote: ‘Wow. Well it is not often I talk about this at all, but this absolutely almost word for word sums up everything that happened when D left almost 2 years ago. It’s good to know I’m not alone and so grateful for loving family and friends who have supported me and [my son] in the last couple of years.’

The comfort of a moral cretin

Derek Rishmawy writes about a ‘problem’ with Calvinism and notes that the issue, as raised by Roger Olsen and David Bentley Hart, actually applies to all truthful theological statements stated crassly in the wrong context.

What is an Evangelical? (podcast)

I was having a discussion about this with my Dad just a few nights ago. Helpfully, this came up in my blog reader. Don Carson gives an excellent talk on who can, or can’t, be defined as Evangelical.

From the archive: When pragmatism overtakes scripture

‘The perniciousness of pragmatism prowls around every corner. Why do so many neglect the biblical model of church leadership, the plurality of co-equal elders? Because the CEO business model is seen to work. Why do people very often end up overemphasising even good things (like pastoral care, evangelism, prayer, teaching) to the detriment of other equally good and right things (like pastoral care, evangelism, prayer, teaching)? It’s because pragmatism tells them it works.’