Lost Pages

I have a list of Christian books that people always assume I have read because I am a pastor. I have often wondered whether the underlying assumption is that I have a lot of time so I am supposed to have read them. I suspect the it is more likely that such books are regarded as "essential" so not reading them is quietly intepreted as a dereliction of personal spiritual care.  C S Lewis Screwtape Letters is one of those books. As it turns out I believe I had read the book when I was a young. Though the circumstances escape me. It is therefore entirely possible that I have simply come to believe that I had read it. Not that it matters any more because I recently read the book, just to make sure I do not forget, and of course get to grips with it.. Hence the reason I am talking about it now. What is the book about? The Screwtape Letters is a novel by C. S. Lewis that was first published in 1942. Screwtape is a senior devil writing to a junior devil, his nephew, Wormwood, on ho...

Theologian John Frame in his excellent large book The Doctrine of the Christian Life presents an approach to ethics that has been very useful to me in how I analyse difficult moral questions. Frame says that "ethical judgement involves the application of a norm   to a situation by a person" .  When we have a problem there are three pieces of information we need to reach an informed ethical judgement : the situation, the Word of God, and person with the problem. These are summarised in the triangle of ethics below The situational perspective  examines the situation or problems. It asks, "what are the best means of means of accomplishing God's purposes?". That is, how can we take the present situation and change it so that more of God's purposes are achieved? Here we explore the consequences of our actions. We ask, "if we do this, will it enhance the glory of God?". Will it please God in the end?