On My Post on Facebook Asking You About Harry Potter

[This post is a follow-up to the question I posted today on Facebook about whether I should read the Harry Potter series.]

Alright. Thanks all for your input today. I was not calling for divisiveness, but I knew that saying “Harry Potter” would bring you all out in full flourishes. You did great.

Just a couple thoughts and then an answer…

• Yes, it is! The “magic” in Harry Potter is the same thing as the magic in Narnia and LotR. Accepting it in one and rejecting it in another is a problem.

• You all don’t know many of each other and didn’t see that some of you were speaking tongue-in-cheek for part of the time at least.

• I’ll be writing/speaking more on it in the next school year, but let us be really clear that the Bible has many, many objectionable elements in it, much more varied than Harry Potter. The Bible as a movie would be rated R in parts. The matter is how those elements are treated. Condemning a work because it contains something you don’t like isn’t just cause. The fact is that there must be conflict, there must be something that makes everything ugly and need redemption. That’s what makes a story good. Conflict/problem is what makes every story not a documentary/infomercial (and even documentary is enhanced by conflict).

• If you’re struggling with people enjoying Harry Potter, I think that I Cor 8 should be your guide.

• If you’re struggling with people being offended by Harry Potter, I think that I Cor. 8 should be your guide.

• For meat!? For Harry Potter!? Are we willing to make mincemeat of the bonds of Christ? Don’t!

I don’t need to write a response, because one has already been gracefully and beautifully written. I read it last summer, and it helped swing me over to officially be willing to read/listen to the series (not sure I’m interested in the movies, but we’ll see if it’s convenient to watch them).

The fact is that “we turn to stories and pictures and music because they show us who and what and why we are.” (Madeleine L’Engle).

The best position I’ve read on the matter was written by Andrew Peterson. He said in part,

Let me be clear: Harry Potter is NOT Jesus. This story isn’t inspired, at least not in the sense that Scripture is inspired; but because I believe that all truth is God’s truth, that the resurrection is at the heart of the Christian story, and the main character of the Christian story is Christ, because I believe in God the Father, almighty maker of heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ his only begotten son—and because I believe that he inhabits my heart and has adopted me as his son, into his family, his kingdom, his church—I have the freedom to rejoice in the Harry Potter story, because even there, Christ is King. Wherever we see beauty, light, truth, goodness, we see Christ. Do we think him so small that he couldn’t invade a series of books about a boy wizard? Do we think him cut off from a story like this, as if he were afraid, or weak, or worried? Remember when Santa Claus shows up (incongruously) in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? It’s a strange moment, but to my great surprise I’ve been moved by it. Lewis reminds me that even Father Christmas is subject to Jesus, just as in Prince Caspian the hosts of mythology are subject to him. The Harry Potter story is subject to him, too, and Jesus can use it however he wants. In my case, Jesus used it to help me long for heaven, to remind me of the invisible world, to keep my imagination active and young, and he used it to show me his holy bravery in his triumph over the grave.

The full article is called “Harry Potter, Jesus and Me.” Please follow the link and go read it. Every word. It is seasoned with grace and addresses the wide array of problems that were brought up today. It will be an encouragement to the proponents, also.

Thanks for taking part.

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Sometimes We Can’t See Past Lunch

It’s 6:15a. I’m in my office and my tongue is ready; I’m already thinking about my lunch today at Swanky’s Taco Shop, where I’ll meet up with a friend. I’m pretty excited, because I’ve tasted it before, and the flavor can enchant my senses a month later…as can other foods.

At home, I think Christie and I do a good job of remembering that our children are not ours. They are God’s. We have them for a very limited time and that these 18 years with each of them are fleeing. It really hits home when we will take down the crib today or tomorrow. My Dad made it; we love it. After 5 kids, it’s in beautiful condition, and and we’re not expecting  to see it again until we set it up for our first grandson in 15-20 years [Karsten would be breaking a 7 generation (at least) streak if he has a girl first].

When I’m in school vision mode, I usually have enough gumption to mention how we are building this school not just for our kids but for our kid’s kids. People like the idea usually, but don’t know what I mean. I need to do a better job teaching them.

I love the story of New College Oxford’s oaken beams. The founders had a long-term (500 year plan) that I hope was on purpose. The stories are sketchy and inconsistent though.

Now Jeff Bezos (founder and CEO of Amazon.com) is part of a big project…a really big project. It’s a 10,000 year clock. Here’s a one-page website that shows the work being done: 10,000 Year Clock.

The clock should make us remember to stop wasting our life today dabbling in fleeting joys and inanity. Invest in eternal things: like schools, like kids, like missionaries, like big ideas. Yes, by all means play your video games, watch your baseball and hone your corn hole skills, as part of living today. But God and people live forever. Invest in them.

Apologia – At the same time, let’s be clear: you are not wasting your life if you don’t have a 500 year plan or aren’t involved in a 10,000 year project. But you must be remembering what things really last. Ecclesiastes gives us very simple instructions (set in a bigger context) for enjoying life: “Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.”  Solomon says that these simple things are God’s gift to us. That which your hand is doing is what is best for today. Do it heartily as unto the Lord.

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Why Google Can’t Compete With a Classical Education

To rear our kids to be learners and thinkers requires skills well-beyond information retrieval. We as moderns with our high-powered phones often feel well-educated because the facts we need are so close by; mere seconds of typing and waiting separate us from knowing all sorts of truths. I have more than once replied to an innocent fact-wondering family member or friend who asked a simple question, with a flick of my phone-filled wrist and a caustic,  ”Is my Google better than yours?” From the Chronicle of Higher Ed yesterday,

When it comes to the materials of learning, we should impress upon students the importance of carrying these materials around in their own heads.  Facts about the Civil War, scientific laws, poems by Emily Dickinson . . . these are not just items to retrieve when a situation calls for them.  They are rightly part of a youth’s character and sensibility.  The Gettysburg Address isn’t just a text on the syllabus to be invoked at test time.  The cadences and assertions should be internalized forever.

The danger of Google is that it’s so convenient that it turns the materials of history, science, literature, art, and politics into information, not learning.  In a Google-ized classroom, we lose the practice of education-as-formation.  And the more we let search engines function in student work, the less we can expect that students will remember our instruction once the semester ends. — Google Memory 

We have already left the abacus, the cubit, the slide rule and the butter churn behind. We have found efficiency in new things, and that’s ok. Today we have hard talk about what we must perhaps give up tomorrow (paper books, cursive, multiplication tables, spelling lists, fossil fuels!) and to educators, it hurts to say too much.

Technology is coming, and that’s ok.  But tech is replacing our knowledge-level, utilitarian hardware. It cannot replace our logic or rhetoric skills that make us more fully human, or at least give us the opportunity to do so. Technology is primarily efficient, not beautiful (though it be shiny).  Technology cannot instill virtuous childhood. A search engine cannot cultivate a child’s mind; it can only deliver the seeds.

A water wheel cannot grow crops, make bread or even grind wheat. It’s sole job was to receive product and deposit product. In so doing, it moved other parts. The water wheel did a great job doing what it was supposed to do. It was a great technological feat that saved lots of labor (though there were probably purists who continued to sell hand-threshed or oxen-ground wheat in the specialty stores). It came and went.

Our knowledge retrieval systems will come and go. 150 lb. encyclopedia sets came and now they are long gone. Google is here and will be replaced tomorrow with something better.

But let us not confuse these methods of retrieval with what they are not. They are not education, and an education that concerns itself primarily with facts and fact objectives and pounds towards its testing deadlines is missing the great bulk of what education truly is.

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Incoming Bookumentary

My favorite book is getting a documentary, and I am excited. Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl is loved and hated and incredibly difficult to explain and understand.

Click here to give the book a $10 chance. It has interesting reviews on Amazon. Feel free to start with the 1 star ones.

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What Will It Look Like When Christians Start Winning the Culture War?

Well it starts with food and coffee…sort of.

Here is an article that centers that question on Moscow, Idaho…home of Douglas Wilson.

Evangelical vs Liberal: A Report from the Pacific Northwest

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David Horowitz Probes the Heart

This is helpful in defining the moderate Muslim position.

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Screwtape Letters

I own this set, but haven’t heard it yet. This video reminded me to chuck it to the front of my queue on my audio book listening.

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Christians and Halloween

It’s a month away, and we have spent almost a full month getting hammered by the black and orange advertising in the stores. Halloween 2010 is almost upon us.

Honestly, there’s not much I like about Halloween and never has been (except Almond Joy). I used to rebel as a kid when it was time to head to fall festivals dressed up as Bible characters. I would go dressed like a tennis player (so I could serve in the King’s court) or a bandit (thief in the night) trying to avoid wearing another shepherd-still-in-his-bathrobe scene that the church was already full of.

As an adult, I have tried to avoid the whole scene too, even before kids. Christie and I have sat in the dark and ignored the knocking before, and that was probably wrong on our part. We were wasting Halloween.

The last few years, I see how I’ve been wasting it. This article I read yesterday was very helpful:

Living with missional intentionality means that you approach life as a missionary in your context.

We should creatively engage our neighbors with the Gospel. This is a great way to get started (read those last three words again).

Read the article here: Why All Good Christians Should Celebrate Halloween

And this is the same tone, Halloween – Trick or Retreat?

The first link requires an HT to Tim Challies, and he authored the second article (2007).

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Burn Your Netflix Account

Douglas Wilson says you should if if you use it like most people do.

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This Might Offend the Sweet Farts Crowd

A boy raised on great literature is more likely to grow up to think, to speak, and to write like a civilized man.

Tom Spence wrote a great editorial for last Friday’s Wall Street Journal, “How to Raise Boys Who Read.” It’s worth the read if you know any kids. Boys are way behind girls on reading habits, and I don’t know that I would even be satisfied with girls’ reading habits.

The publishing companies have started throwing the paper version of “shock and awe” at our boys with unconscionably, base content. Instead of trying to sell books by the true, good and beautiful path; they are following the private-things-made-open route. Proverbs says that, “Folly is joy to him that is destitute of wisdom; but a man of understanding walks uprightly.”

One obvious problem with the SweetFarts philosophy of education [read the linked article for more info] is that it is more suited to producing a generation of barbarians and morons than to raising the sort of men who make good husbands, fathers and professionals. If you keep meeting a boy where he is, he doesn’t go very far.

The little boy in this picture belongs to me. He would love these base books. He and his other three brothers could sit and laugh and scorn and chortle with them all day long. It would make him very happy.

But if I have received a commission to parent him, if I am going to be held accountable for how I do it, if I believe Proverbs, if all this important speak in Scripture is true that children are a heritage unto the Lord, then I must not allow him to revel in these things or allow them to shape his thinking. I must not let him to be saturated in it, because he would be all-in, and the desire for perverseness would roll bigger and bigger.

There is so much truth, goodness and beauty to revel in. There are so many heroic stories he must learn, so many brave hearts that he must meet, so many honors that must captivate his mind. I must put the best before him.

Sweet Farts is admittedly getting too much attention here, even in this post. It’s on the cusp. But there are plenty of other low-level books our culture is reading and loving.

(Now go read the article at the link above.)

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Asked What He Thought of the Online Social Community…

Wendell Berry said,

You’re not in community with someone until you’ve pulled their cow out of a ditch or spanked their child.

(From a Rabbit Room post by Andrew Peterson)

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Facebook Rules

Facebook. In so many areas of life it’s no longer an if, no longer an option. With 500 million users it is quickly becoming a near-essential tool for families, for businesses and yes, even for churches.

The good news is that Facebook has a lot to commend it; there many things it does very well and thus there are many ways in which Facebook can assist pastors and other ministry leaders. The bad news is that there are also (and inevitably) ways in which it can hinder ministry if not used well. Today I want to look at Facebook as a ministry tool and suggest a few ways in which it can help and hinder. Because of practical limitations I cannot tell you how to go about setting up an account, but at least I can give some suggestions on what to do once you’ve already joined and started to be active.

Read more: How (and How Not-To) To Use Facebook for Ministry – Tim Challies

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Doom and Gloom

I’m all about doom and gloom, aren’t I?

This video is about simple math, making babies, evangelism, thankfulness for immigration from Mexico, and culture dominion. At least that’s what I got out of it…I guess.

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The Devil Has No Stories

This is a beautiful idea that George Grant covers. The whole video is good, but the specific idea of import starts at 3:15 and goes through the 4-minute mark.

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How Many is Too Many Kids

Starting when we had three very little kids we noticed the looks. It increased quite a bit with four boys and so did the many opportunities to talk to people. Now that there is a girl in the mix, too, it’s even greater. When my family goes in public, we get stares, we get people visibly counting our kids with their lips, we are a conversation starter of our own. We get to talk to lots of people about it. Sometimes their looks even warrant me starting the conversation with something like: “Yes, we have a lot of fun; Yes, we’re really tired.”

We don’t experience contempt like this story below accounts, and I think he is too harsh. But we do cause people to wonder and stare, usually in happy awe, usually with compliments.

But still, much of this article below is too true…deplorably so. God didn’t dictate a universally-applicable number of children each family should have. But the proud desire for more ease , the condition of the world, and even probably finances are not reasons to stop having kids.

How strange to live in a world where loving children casts one in infamy. Having a family with many children implies a backwardness and primitivism that is deemed unbecoming in the developed countries of the West. Large families, it is thought, exist only among religious weirdoes or the teeming hovels of the Third World.

Read the whole article: The Contempt Shown to Parents of Large Families

HT: Dennis and Mistin Wilkinson

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The Health of a Nation Is Known By the State of Its Women

From all that I have read of history of government, of human life, and manners, I [have] drawn this conclusion, tha the manners of women [are] the most infallible barometer, to ascertain the degree of morality and virtue in a nation. All that I have since read and all the observation I have made in different nations, have confirmed me in this opinion. The manners of women, are the surest criterion by which to determine whether a republican government is practicable, in a nation or not. The Jews, the Greeks, the Romans, the Swiss, the Dutch, all lost their public spirit, their republican principles and habits when they lost the modest and domestic virtues of their women…

The foundation of national morality must be laid in private families. In vain are schools, academies and universities instituted if loose principles and licentious habits are impressed upon children in their earliest years. The mothers are the earliest and most important instructors of youth.

– John Adams (from Bringing Up Girls, p. 38, James Dobson)

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Sobering Enough?

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How to Disagree 101

When I read church history and read the biographies of great Christians I see how common it is for godly men to disagree on issues even as fundamental as predestination and free will. Having a perspective on these issues that is two thousand years wide is much more valuable than having a perspective that spans only a few years or a handful of books. Even when dealing with difficult issues, it is important that we display the kind of humility that Wesley forsook. We need to understand that greater Christians than ourselves wrestled with these issues and often came to differing conclusions, whether the topic is the doctrines of grace, the end times, the meaning and mode of baptism, and so on. We are so blinded by our sin and our corrupted powers of reasoning that we will never know the truth exhaustively. Studying the history of the church helps keep us grounded, showing that there is bound to be disagreement and hopefully showing how we can work together for the sake of Christ and his gospel despite such disagreement.

This is most of the concluding paragraph in a posting you should read entirely.

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TBAP’s 1000th Post

In honor of 1,000 posts, this video was produced especially for you TBAP readers to commemorate the significance that this blog makes on your mind and heart. I think the idea of culture-making is not too big of a word to use for something like this, and I trust you will continue your happy and loyal reading as we progress onward.

Please do not be put off as you wait for this video to load, this is a culmination video of great import. Really.

….oh, and grab the tissue.

In Honor of 1000 Posts

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How to Train Your Senses to Enjoy How to Train Your Dragon

Here is high-praise from Nate Wilson for How to Train Your Dragon. Really? A Gospel-echo in this movie?

Not to put too fine a point on it, I was stunned. I had expected it to look good. I had expected it to be exciting. But I hadn’t suspected a sophisticated reverence for traditional fairy tale.

How to Train Your Dragon and the Animated Film Wars

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I Don’t Want My Children to Be Happy

Happiness is fleeting, sweet babies. That means it doesn’t last. It’s a quick feeling that comes from a funny movie or a heart-shaped lollipop or a really good birthday present. It’s great. I love to be happy. But happiness is a reaction that is based on our surroundings. And our surroundings are so very rarely under our control. Even when–especially when–we think they are. So no, I absolutely don’t want you to spend your life chasing something that has so little to do with your own abilities. You’ll just be constantly frustrated.

Read the whole article here on It’s Almost Naptime.

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The Use of Magic and Literature

Doug and Nate Wilson tag team to free you from the stifled consternation that binds your conscience. Be free! Really good stuff.

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Television

The truth of this poem has already maybe prevented you from being interested in actually reading it. You’ll love this poem if you will take the time to read it.

Television

by Roald Dahl

The most important thing we’ve learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set –
Or better still, just don’t install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we’ve been,
We’ve watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone’s place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they’re hypnotised by it,
Until they’re absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,
They don’t climb out the window sill,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
And wash the dishes in the sink –
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
HE CANNOT THINK — HE ONLY SEES!
‘All right!’ you’ll cry. ‘All right!’ you’ll say,
‘But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children? Please explain!’
We’ll answer this by asking you,
‘What used the darling ones to do?
‘How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?’
Have you forgotten? Don’t you know?
We’ll say it very loud and slow:
THEY … USED … TO … READ! They’d READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching ’round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it’s Penelope.)
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter,
And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland,
And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and-
Just How The Camel Got His Hump,
And How the Monkey Lost His Rump,
And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul,
There’s Mr. Rate and Mr. Mole-
Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks-
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They’ll now begin to feel the need
Of having something to read.
And once they start — oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They’ll grow so keen
They’ll wonder what they’d ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did.

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We Are Far Too Easily Pleased

Great video that is a new take on this famous and pristine quote by Lewis. Far too easily pleased

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Sex Education

That point is well made in the previous post about Corrie ten Boom. Let it reign in your thinking that many of your burdens are too heavy for your children.

As a related aside, let me state that I think that the topic of sex information, which was too much for Corrie ten Boom to bear in the early part of the last century, is not too much for our 10-12 year olds to bear. In his popular book for Christian men, Point Man: How a Man Can Lead His Family, Steve Farrar suggests that overt sex education should begin at home at about age 7. Seven! That seems very early, but in this culture it isn’t–no matter how sheltered many of us think our homes may be.

A good number of my friends with young children read this blog, and I’m not suggesting the whole scope and all the details and a wall of charts on the topic need to be laid out for our children, but some details need to be given, and the information needs to be presented from your vantage point, before it’s exposed grossly from someone else’s vantage point. In this polluted culture, Christian parents must proactively build a biblical, beautiful framework in our kids of sex, just as we strive to do for math, music and history.

Proverbs is a father’s letter of wisdom to his son. It can make a great springboard because it says so much about the topic. Also, Farrar’s book offers very, very helpful advice about speaking to your children about sex, and I strongly recommend it if you think you don’t know where to begin.

Perhaps we should discuss this more.

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Mulling What Was Never Considered

Our family this week watched the first of the six episodes of Ken Burn’s National Parks: America’s Best Idea. It’s a beautiful and moving history, tribute and call to the value and nature of the National Park System. I’m hungry for more and sure I’ll bring you deeper in as we go. The first disc (“The Scripture of Nature”) begins with this quote by John Muir:

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul.”

and ends with this stirring piece that you should spend some time chewing on:

The tendency nowadays to wander in wildernesses is delightful to see. Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life. Awakening from the stupefying effects of the vice of over-industry and the deadly apathy of luxury, they are trying as best they can to mix and enrich their own little ongoings with those of Nature, and to get rid of rust and disease. Briskly venturing and roaming, some are … jumping from rock to rock, feeling the life of them, learning the songs of them, panting in whole-souled exercise and rejoicing in deep, long-drawn breaths of pure wildness.

John Muir, Atlantic Monthly, 1898

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Protest Your Own Apathy

From Christ is Deeper Still:

A protestor against the Viet Nam war was trudging back and forth through the snow outside a Minnesota corporation.  A passerby asked him, “Why are you out here?  You’ll never change them.”  The young man replied, “I’m not doing this to change them.  I’m doing this to keep them from changing me.”

Whether it’s a natural disaster in Haiti or a human disaster in Washington, we keep on protesting — by doing good.  The disasters are so massive, we wonder about the impact of our efforts.  But our protests keep our own souls alive, even as perhaps we do a little good for others.

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Rut-Ro, Shaggy!

Things are not well on the Narnia set. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was due out in May ’10, but things are looking ugly in the battle of purity. C.S. Lewis would not roll over in his grave…he would be spinning!

‘Narnia’ Drifts from Its Vision

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Everything is Amazing and Still Nobody is Happy

This is a rougher clip than I am normally willing to post…but you’re a grown-up and can handle it. I don’t think I need to apologize, but maybe I just did. Sometimes is takes hard humor to get us to see how self-absorbed we have become…and how little we think of the Gospel as we go about life.

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The Story of the Determined Soldier

On December 26, 1944, Second Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda of the Japanese army was sent to the Philippine island of Lubang.  His mission was to resist the American advance, and he was ordered to fight on indefinitely.  Onoda never got word when the war ended some months later.  For thirty more years he went on fighting World War II.  He lived in hiding, came out at night to steal food from the villages, shot at people now and then.  About ten years into it he found a newspaper article about himself, but he thought it was a trick to get him to surrender.  The Philippine government dropped leaflets into the jungle, asking him to come out.  They brought loudspeakers in and shouted, “Onoda, the war is over.”  One day his own brother stood at the microphone and begged him to give up, but he didn’t believe it.  He fought on until 1974, when the Japanese government sent in his old commanding officer, Major Taniguchi, who ordered Onoda to surrender.  He finally gave up.

That man’s mind was trapped in 1945, he shut out the good news of peace and lost 30 years of his life hiding in the jungles, loyal to a lost cause.  We can be like him today, with our thoughts and feelings trapped in a war that ended long ago.

The night Jesus was born, the angels stepped up to the microphone and shouted, “Peace on earth” (Luke 2:14).  For 2000 years God has been dropping leaflets of the good news into the jungles of our minds.  Through his cross Christ won the victory over everything against us.  It’s time to give up our lost causes, come out of hiding and live again in a new, post-war world of grace, ruled by Christ.

Written by Ray Ortlund

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