A Twisted Crown of Thorns ®

Reformed. Christianity. Evangelism. Modern Culture.

Tag Archives: cripplegate

Sin Makes You…(Yeah) Stupid!

We do the dumbest things when we think no one’s watching or when there’s an inkling that we could get away with it. Yes, in my minds eye I do see that heavily pregnant lady in the London riots who matched into an Argos store  and looted goods with a toddler tucked under one arm and boxes of stolen goods in the other. Unfazed by the overhead CCTV, the young woman did not even bother to disguise her face as she calmly strolled out of the shop.

Sin makes us stupid. What’s more is I gleefully recently over heard that…

Distracted by Ducklings...

According to the FBI, most bank robberies are “Unsophisticated and unprofessional” crimes. Despite the ubiquity of all-seeing surveillance cameras, 76% of robbers don’t bother with a disguise, and 95% have no plan to conceal their spoils.

Case in point, Jack Shreiner. This criminal mastermind handed a New York City bank teller a note demanding money. She surrendered $7,791 in cash. After four days, our evil genius then decided the best place to stash his loot was in a savings account. The enigmatic part of his brilliant plan is that he selected the very bank he had just robbed. Perhaps he thought the teller had Alzheimer’s?

Another “unsophisticated” robbery allowed Detroit detectives to ferret out the villain almost instantaneously. This green hornet apparently believed strongly enough in …Read More!


Hey If I Were John MacArthur…

I have enjoyed Grace To You podcasts while half asleep on the train, while bleary eyed walking out of the Emergency Room and when chasing stray cats away from the back garden on weekends. Needless to say I have come to respect and love John MacArthur for his love for the gospel. But wait a minute, thats not all….

If I were John MacArthur, for one thing, I’d be able to throw a football further than anyone reading this post. But I would also be faced with a conundrum of existential proportions: What’s next?

[Recently], to the sound of thunderous ovation, Dr. MacArthur completed the expository preacher’s equivalent of landing on the moon. They say the space shuttle carrying Armstrong employed less technology than a modern coffee machine. By finishing the Gospel of Mark, MacArthur has preached on every verse of the New Testament, using less technology than a typewriter (a rollerball was his instrument of choice to handwrite every one of his thousands of sermons). 

For 43 years John tunneled his way with a worm’s-eye-view of the Greek grammar and syntax each week in his tiny home study, so that he could share the mined wealth of insight with a hungry congregation of 6000 members, and a waiting planet of innumerable Grace To You listeners. He set out to achieve this goal early in his ministry. It must have been the confidence of youth, bolstered by pro football and baseball scouts desperately wooing him, which fueled his “dream big” mentality.

A lesson learned: If your checklist for success is as mundane as “Big house, small wife, two cars parked outside a two-car garage full of junk, and a couple of kids” you set yourself up for midlife crisis. Either you attain your underwhelming goal and think, like the preacher in Ecclesiastes, “Is this it?” resulting in the purchase of a Harley Davidson, hair transplants, or home renovation. Or you fail to attain your dream of mainstream mediocrity and…find solace in the company of new friends like Prozac or Jack Daniels. …Hee hee. Read More!