Verba Sparsa
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Angela Rigas and the “God-given right” to possess and use guns with no restrictions whatsoever
So Angela Rigas, Michigan state representative for the district in which I live, considers red-flag laws (extreme-risk protection orders), universal background checks, and requirements for safe storage of guns to be violations of the Second Amendment. Most Americans do not. Americans (and Michiganians) have differing opinions on all sorts of things. On some questions relating…
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Unofficial notes on the 1/16/2022 Caledonia Community Schools board meeting
I attended the January 16 meeting of the Caledonia school board and took notes. These are my personal, unofficial notes. There are certainly omissions, and there may be errors. The videorecording of the meeting was posted yesterday, so you can verify anything there. For the public comment section, I have added the hour/minute/second reference for…
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Fears and hopes
These are the remarks that I read during public comment time at the Caledonia Community Schools board meeting this evening. First, to the three elected in November: congratulations. To the four continuing: you have served well. Thank you. Here is what I fear, and what I hope. First: what I fear. I am one of…
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Propaganda and news: there’s a difference
Printing a disgruntled partisan politician’s one-sided press release as a news article? Five points off for the Sun and News (an excellent local newspaper).
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Pay your democracy tax: support newspapers
I delivered the Richmond Times-Dispatch to two routes in my hometown by bicycle six days a week throughout my middle school and high school years. After I added the second route my father insisted on driving me around the route in the ’63 Fairlane on Sundays and when the weather was horrible. I was up…
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No, you do not have a right to your own opinion
Habitual insistence on the sovereignty of one’s own (or one’s own faction’s) opinion is incompatible with Christian discipleship and culpably destructive of Christian community.
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January 6, Angela Rigas, and the way forward
Yale historian Timothy Snyder has posted a 15-fact summary of the January 6 committee’s report. You should stop now and read it if you have not already. I said yesterday (in a FaceBook post) that no one can be surprised by continuing revelations of Trump’s misdeeds. Anyone with clear moral vision knew what Trump was,…
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School Board Meeting 12/12/2022
These are the notes that I took during the meeting. To verify details, see the meeting video when it is posted, and the official minutes. I captured text from the slides that were shown on the monitors in the room and included it in my notes. Here are what I consider the high points of…
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Remembering a funeral at a wedding
Every morning my iPad Pro somehow chooses a picture to feature in the little photos gadget on its home screen. This morning it is this photo from July 21, 2021. Here my mother, Dolores, is seated on the little side deck of her house in Hopewell VA with my niece Lauren. This is the house…
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Thanksgiving: a lesson from Psalm 107
Thanksgiving isn’t just a day. It is the fundamental, permanent stance of a follower of God.
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In Memoriam: Gordon D. Fee
Gordon Fee was an Eerdmans author. He was also my teacher. Here is my brief tribute—along with some memorabilia that my fellow Fee fans and NICNT fans may appreciate.
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Should community Facebook pages allow political posts?
Moderators ban “political” posts because we have a defective understanding of what “political” means.
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Through the storm
What if you are in a storm, surrounded by enemies and headed for shipwreck? And what difference does it make if God is there in the storm with you?
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In absentia
In case anyone wonders why the verba are even sparser here than usual these days, it’s because most of my meager time and energy for this sort of thing are going into my campaign website and Facebook page. That’s right, friends, I’m running for office. Please do have a look at those two places. [As…
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IAQ: How can I get you to block me?
I rarely block people. When I do, it is for these reasons.
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CRT in the textbooks! (not)
Notes on the struggle with false accusations (CRT!) in one West Michigan community’s conversation about social studies curriculum.
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Acquiescence is complicity; love requires truthtelling
Until we have agreed that we will speak truthfully and respectfully to and about each other, and that we will not choose as our representatives people who are unable to do either, we cannot hope for progress on anything else.
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JAMES ERNEST FOR CALEDONIA COMMUNITY SCHOOLS
James Ernest for Caledonia Community Schools: A Platform. I am a candidate for school board trustee. Vote for me in November.
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All those who practice it (Psalm 111)
Psalm 111 is a beautiful psalm of praise. It praises the character of God not as an abstraction but as manifested in God’s works. Note the recurrence of “works,” “work,” “deeds,” and various action verbs (highlighted in pink in the photo). Note also that among God’s works are God’s precepts. God not only gives food…
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What Angela Rigas said at the school board meeting
State rep candidate Angela Rigas takes aim and fires off a wild shot at the Caledonia Community Schools.
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Keeping the Declaration of Equality
Another Independence Day rolls around. Heather Cox Richardson has written a brief essay for the occasion. You should read it. It refers, fittingly, to the Declaration of Independence. I want to say a little bit about the Declaration myself. Note that the document itself is not titled “Declaration of Independence.” We are in the habit…
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Story problems
Once you start down the road of insisting that the only permissible stories are ones that align with your sense of how the world ought to be, you are on the road to ideological indoctrination.
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Pray for Mike Pence (Do not congratulate)
David French, I see your Daniel 6 and raise you Luke 17.
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Needing redemption (Psalm 137)
The bright burning intensity of righteous anger may still fail to illuminate our desperate need for reconciliation. (a post by Jeff HansPetersen)
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On reading Psalm 93
The Lord is “robed in majesty,” yes, and high and lifted up, but the scripture he has given us: it is given through our own mouths, and portrays our own plight, is right down here on the ground with us, in the mud and the blood and the gore.
Keep readingRoe v. Wade and everything else
Praying the Lord’s Prayer again in the context of current events.
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SKANDAL! A Sermon on Mark 9:42–50
For American Christians today, Mark 9:42–50 conveys a stern warning from Jesus about confusing Christianity with nationalism and destroying the credibility of the gospel in other ways.
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“Social-justice warrior” as a term of abuse
Have you heard “social-justice warrior,” or the abbreviation “SJW,” used as a term of derision? I always think, when I hear it so used, that there is no clearer way to announce that you either are unaware of or reject the Bible and its God than to use SJW as a Schimpfwort, a hate-word, a…
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Why Christotrumpians admire Putin
The people who reduce the Trump-Biden choice to anti-abortion versus pro-abortion are victims and perpetrators of the same malignant fallacy as those who reduce the Russia-Ukraine situation to anti-transgender-rights to pro-transgender-rights.
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Illegitimate totality transfer (on praying Psalm 44)
Warnings from biblical lexicography James Barr was for many years, I think, the scholar most feared by other members of the biblical-studies guild. He had a knack for spotting and exposing fallacies that were widely accepted by his peers as standard practice. Probably the best-known example of his work was his book The Semantics of…
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Reading Matthew: Make disciples
Beginnings and endings of books can help us grasp and remember what the books mean. Recently I finished reading through Exodus and left some thoughts on what that book means in light of its ending. I have also just finished reading through the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew begins with a genealogy that grounds the meaning…
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Reading Exodus: Holiness means obedience
When you’re reading a text, some parts carry more weight than others. Even if every word matters, some words shape how you understand other words. If we’re reading well, and trusting the text, we could say that every word affects how you understand every other word. But in practice some words—some parts of the text—affect…
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What to do with suffering
How I make sense of the pain I saw in the hospital last week.
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The omicron spike matters
A personal anecdote to persuade you to get vaccinated and follow suggested safety protocols.
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abortion Angela Rigas board of education Book publishing Caledonia Community Schools Christianity & politics Christian nationalism Christotrumpism Covid-19 CRT deception delusion Democratic Party Dolores Ernest Dolores Lipp Ernest Eerdword evangelicalism fascism Heather Cox Richardson hermeneutics idolatry inerrancy Jesus Joe Biden John Brandow lies Lord's Prayer Luke nationalism patriotism prayer Psalm 1 Psalms Putin Republican Party School Board Scripture self-examination Tim Morris Timothy Snyder Trump Trumpianity Trumpism truth Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
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Verba Sparsa 