Seventeen82

  If you enjoy movies like I do, maybe you recognize th at  iconic line  that serves as the title of this article . Admittedly, it’s not on the same level of recognition as “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” or “Go ahead, make my day.” or even “I’ll be back.”, but if you love movies, you may just remember where it comes from. Let’s have a little fun here.  Use your imagination.  It’s 1945 and you’re at the Corleone compound in Long Island, New York. You’re  what could be called   “ the muscle ” , or at least part of it, and you’re stationed outside of Don  Vito  Corleone’s office door.  It’s  his daughter’s wedding day , and big shot movie star Johnny Fontane, looking downcast, has just walked into Don Corleone’s office  see k ing  a favor  from  his godfather, THE godfather .  Through the door ,  you hear the famous movie star describe a situation that has  defeated  him and ...

  During the persecution of Marcus Aurelius, around 170 AD, there lived a girl named  Blandine .  Blandine  was a 15-year-old girl. She was a Christian slave - and she , along with other Christians ,  was arrested for their faith. She was tortured so horribly that it was said of her tormentors “they did not know what more they could do to her.” Her fellow believers attempted to shield her from the torture because she was small and frail, but over and over she confessed “I am a Christian” Eventually they tied her to a stake and set wild beasts on her - but according to legend, the wild beasts wouldn’t touch her. Daniel 6 gives us a similar story. We have another believer set before wild beasts - and like the story from church history, the beasts would not touch him. It’s a story we’ve all heard - of Daniel and the lions' den - and how God shut the mouths of the lions. If we aren’t careful with this text, we might find yet another reason to make Daniel the hero. W...

In the early 1990’s I was introduced to Francis Schaeffer’s book and film series  How Shall We Then Live.  I n the book , Schaeffer chronicles the cultural and intellectual history of western society from the fall of Rome up until 1976 when his book was first published. He was seeking to show what  had shaped  the present culture and brought about  the ultimate decline of the Christian worldview  a nd its influence on society.  In 1976 ,   Schaeffer  had hoped that his generation might “ turn from the greatest of  wickednesses , the placing of any created thing in the place of the Creator, and that  [it]  may get its feet out of the paths of death and may live.”  He had hoped that an uncompromising faithful biblical witness of the Christian faith might turn back the trajectory toward destruction. Sadly, Schaeffer’s hope has not been realized.  In  fact,  things have  become far worse throughout the west...

(Note to Readers: authors who do not send a pic get my favorite pic of them as the pic for the article. Love you Andy)   Dear James,  I wanted to thank you for speaking so honestly in your recent letter/essay in  S eventeen82  and although I am on the other side of the female deacon issue, I wanted to offer some reasons why I wasn’t discouraged by the recent Synod and why I don’t think you necessarily should be either. Let  me begin by confessing that I too was once something of a reluctant presbyter. While I enjoyed most session meetings, for several years I found myself dreading going to presbytery meetings and absolutely hated going to the PCA General Assembly ,  which I found to be immensely discouraging year after year . One year I  actually asked  my session if I could give it a miss entirely, and they wisely answered, “No.” As a result , from the time I was first ordained as a Ruling Elder in 1997 till my departure from the PCA in 2020 , ...