What we ask of you as students of New College Franklin is not easy. But if you leave here at the end of four years with finer phrases, with quick answers, and good grades, you will have purchased relatively little for much. You will have squandered a very special opportunity. You are here to do … Continue reading An Informal Charge to Incoming and Returning Students 2020-2021
To the first Adam, the warning was given that if he were to eat of the forbidden tree, dying he would die. You will certainly die (Gen. 2:17) This word was final and irrevocable. Yet this word was not the final word. It was incomplete, waiting for its completion in Christ Jesus who said: I am … Continue reading Yet you shall Live
When God first created, he spoke forth the names of his creatures, and they were. When God redeems a man, he speaks his own name silently within that person, and God lives ever more in him, and he in God. Continue reading The Silent Word of God
If you had long known your friend’s face (having lived with him day after day), what would happen if you met his father? You might have the experience of looking upon something or someone you knew very well, even without having known his very person. Or if you had walked through the rooms of a … Continue reading A Pattern Revealed
I made the case in the first part of this series that to be in the body, at least in this life, is to be apart from God. But how can we be apart from the one in whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28)? I do not mean that he … Continue reading The Order of the Body (Limits, Part 2)
You, O Lord, have made us human persons and as such, we long for the bodily presence of those we love. The theme of community and of bodily presence has been at the forefront during these days of social distancing. The season has provided an opportunity to recall truths concerning of our bodily existence. It has … Continue reading Let the Blessings of this Life have their Place (Limits, Part 1)
At a climatic moment in C.S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength, Ransom must reveal himself as a master, as possessing spiritual authority to another master of ages past. Remarkably, it is not through supernatural works or through a test of strength that this is done. Instead, it is in the revelation of knowledge, the knowledge and … Continue reading Great Syllables of Words that Sounded like Castles
The life which is in you came from God. And that God may call upon your life at any time. And because he is the Master of that life, because he is the Author of that life, because it is his and you are his, and because he is Life, when he calls, your shall … Continue reading The Life which is in You: for Holy Saturday
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46) What is the forsakeness of our Lord? What mystery does Scripture unfold here? What do these final words of our Lord teach us? They teach us to hope. For Christ was truly allowed to suffer death upon the cross. And yet, while he was allowed … Continue reading On the Forsakeness of Christ: A Good Friday Meditation
Each week, when my children come over, they ask me, “What’s the plan for today?” When I arise, do I turn to God and ask him what the plan is? Do I ask him what he would have me do? Or do I expect God simply to bless my own objectives? Do I assume that … Continue reading What’s the Plan for Today
