Get Behind Me, Sluggard

“We may prefer to keep the sluggard at a distance, to view this lazy creature only through binoculars or zoo glass. But somehow, he finds a native habitat in every soul, even the most hardworking. When the alarm buzzes, he paws the snooze. When a work project calls for relentless focus, he quietly opens a new browser tab. When some unwelcome duty faces us, one we’ve already put off too long, he nevertheless counsels, ‘Tomorrow’.”

If Satan Wrote a Book on Parenting

“If Satan wrote a book on parenting, he would want people to regard children as mostly a bother, as a choice that tends to hamper happiness as much as it enhances or amplifies it. He would want parents to think more of the financial cost, the cost to a free and affluent lifestyle, or the cost to vocational progress. He would want couples to dread children even more than they desire them.”

Gathering Application

“How can the preacher take this ancient text into the midst of a group of modern people and hope to see it made relevant and vital to their experience in the world? How can the preacher faithfully build bridges out of solid exposition into a congregation whose lives are varied and, in many instances, opaque to one another?”