Tried with Fire: I’ve Got This!

Tried with Fire: I’ve Got This!

Is self-reliance a virtue or a vice? The Bible includes passages that appear to answer this question with a yes. It also includes passages that appear to answer it with a no. In favor of self-reliance, the book of Proverbs counsels industry as a way of avoiding...
Tried with Fire: I’ve Got This!

Thoughts on Baptists and Independence

[This essay was originally published on September 25, 2015.] Sometimes things that look alike are actually quite different. One mushroom cooks up into a delectable repast, while another that appears almost identical can kill. A gold nugget will buy a new car, but a...
Tried with Fire: I’ve Got This!

Vocation and Vocations

[This essay was originally published on February 5, 2016.] The Reformers erected the doctrine of calling in reaction to the Romanist distinction between clergy and laity. At the time, Catholics recognized only two vocations: the calling to consecration (which...