Unpop Culture

It’s not a pleasant discovery to make when you’re late for work. My heart experienced that sick, sinking feeling as I realized that our car was stuck in the garage with no way to get it out. For some inexplicable reason, I had left the keys in the ignition the night before. Not content with that level of carelessness, my psyche had also decided to leave the keys turned so the battery was engaged—all night long. Our car’s precious energy slowly drained out while Shannon and I slept blissfully unaware. To make matters worse, I had driven forward into the garage the night before, making it impossible for another car to reach our engine with standard length jumper cables. (In my defense, it takes me 20 minutes to safely back the car into the garage without busting through a wall, so I was just saving time and repair costs.) Throughout the day, I was painfully aware of the inconvenience of not having a car. It was, I think, a good illustration of the old adage, “You don’t know...

Looking back, I realize I should have been more aware of what was coming. I had definitely seen enough signs. And yet the true nature of the approaching changes never really struck me—not until reality itself pulled me into its clutches after my daughter’s birth. I guess it’s like they say: there are certain things you just can’t know or understand until you experience them. You see, I was expecting to enjoy my newborn daughter. What I didn’t expect, and what I wasn’t fully prepared for, was being drastically bulldozed over by an overwhelming array of euphoric emotions and paternal affections. Yes, I expected my daughter to be like a heartwarming drink from a fresh fountain of God’s goodness. But I have discovered that fountain to be more like a perpetual geyser. I am soaked to the bone, and being this drenched has never felt so amazingly good. I should have known what was coming when Chloe, my niece, was born and subsequently stole my heart. Being involved in her early lif...

The Expulsive Power paraphrase Part 5 The previous words have, I hope, served in some degree to provide practical help to those who are desperate “not [to] love the world,” but who feel that their fleshly desires and tendencies are too strong. There is no other way to keep the love of the world out of our hearts than to “keep [ourselves] in the love of God” (Jude 21). And there is no way to keep ourselves in the love of God other than by “building [ourselves] up on [our] most holy faith” (Jude 20). The denial of the world is impossible to those who reject the gospel. But not loving the world is possible, even as all things are possible, to the one who believes the gospel. In closing, let us consider one more illustration. Picture a man who could stand on the edge of the world and observe its abundance: rich produce and culinary delights, luxurious homes, the joys of human companionship, and all the other blessings the earth can offer. If he turned around after takin...

The Expulsive Power paraphrase Part 4 To do your best at any particular job, you want to use the most effective tools. Trying to deny worldliness without faith is the same as trying to work without the right set of tools. As we have begun to see, the most effective tool—indeed, the only effective tool—for turning us from lovers of the world into lovers of God is the gospel. It is only in the gospel that God stands revealed as an object of confidence to sinners. It is only in the gospel where our desire for Him is not chilled by the barrier of guilt that hinders every approach not made through Christ, our mediator (1 Timothy 2:5). The gospel brings us hope, with which we draw near to God. To live without hope is to live without God, and if the heart is without God, the world will then have control over it. The world’s control over the heart is destroyed only when a person sees and embraces God as revealed through Christ. Then we no longer look on God with terror as an ...