David Vogel

Pastor of Kannapolis OPC in North Carolina

[David Vogel @davidcvogel]

I don't disagree, but we have to be very careful to "Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord." The pot may rejoice in the skill of the potter, and even take a kind of pride in His work, but it is shameful folly to imagine we deserve any credit for contributing an uncommon sort of clay.

The instinct to self-congratulatory moral comparison is the Pharisee's, not the Christian's. The Christian affirms with Paul, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all."

[David Vogel @davidcvogel]

Good question, thanks. Actually I have no quarrel with point four, as long as we stipulate (1) it is painting with the broadest of brushes, (2) the difference is relative, not absolute, and (3) other groups of people have their own besetting sins.

Regarding the first three, my disagreement is with the word "disdain" as applied to men in point three. It is a semantic disagreement, but semantics matter: "The mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart" (Matt. 12:34).

In American English, disdain carries a note beyond mere objective condemnation like that which Paul offered in Titus 1. It has an edge of prideful comparison ("God, I thank You that I am not like other people," Luke 18:11) and of animosity toward the other. There is both righteous and unrighteous judgment, and I think "disdain" as a concept pulls us toward the unrighteous side. Again, it's a semantic question. One could define "disdain" in a way which is unobjectionable, but I don't think that's the natural connotation.

[David Vogel @davidcvogel]

@DanielPike3_36 I respect your willingness to make an argument here. I think it falls short for the following reasons:

1. There is an important distinction between a sharp but substantive criticism, vs. a slur without any content other than contempt. Quoting a countryman calling the Cretans "evil beasts," especially in combination with the other two more specific descriptions of sin, communicated a meaningful moral judgment. This is different from the generalized contempt of a racial slur. Therefore Titus 1 does not support Michael's contention.

2. Crete was a nation, not a race. (Cretans included Minoans, Greeks from multiple waves of settlement, Romans, and a smattering of other Mediterranean peoples.) Naming characteristic national sins is different from using a slur to express contempt for a group of people based on skin color. So, again, the analogy Michael was attempting fails.

3. Your Matthew Henry quote on Matt. 15 expresses exactly the point I was making. Jesus was comparing Gentiles to dogs to illustrate a specific point about their access to "the Father's table" at that particular point in history. This is far from expressing generalized contempt via a slur. Again, Michael's evidence does not support his thesis.

4. Neither you nor Michael interacted in any meaningful way with Col. 3:8, which is only one of a number of Scriptures which condemn the sort of language he advocated in the OP.

[David Vogel @davidcvogel]

@spanglermt No, though I did argue the weight of the evidence supported it.

But even if I had suggested a daily booster shot, that's an irrelevant ad hominem because you cannot defend your position on biblical grounds.

[David Vogel @davidcvogel]

Start with modernist materialism, end up with sympathetic magic. We cannot kill our sense of the numinous, but we have managed to give it brain damage.

[Fan Commentary: Joe Rogan Recaps @JoeRoganRecaps]

Joe Rogan calls out his producer Jamie for laughing when medical doctor Zach Bush says that simply looking at hieroglyphics can reverse inflammation in the body:

ROGAN: “Jamie thinks emojis are the next hieroglyphics. I think he’s right.”

BUSH: “Hieroglyphics actually carry a form in their shapes that carry an incredible medical response when you look at them.”

ROGAN: “So there’s something unique about their shape that’s able to have this effect?”

BUSH: “The shape creates a waveform and you can reverse inflammation just by looking at it.”

ROGAN: “Are there papers and studies written on this?”

BUSH: “There’s an 80 year old guy in Egypt who’s brilliant on this. He’s designing the 5G networks in Switzerland with shapes in harmony with the biology around the network.”

ROGAN: “So you can just look at these hieroglyphics without understanding the context of what they mean and they will transmit something towards you that reverses inflammation?”

BUSH: “Yes.”

JAMIE: “😂😂😂”

ROGAN: “Jamie how dare you laugh at that. Did you find anything about this online?”

JAMIE: “I can’t find anything, but I’ll look harder I guess.”

ROGAN: “We’re going deep today. I’d like to know how they measured the inflammation. It might be possible.”

BUSH: “A sort of vibrational impregnation occurs. Part of the new information leaves and imprint on the energy system which is you.”

[David Vogel @davidcvogel]

"Cursed by God"? No. I do not think God curses his own bride, even if he might chasten a denomination for corporate sins, including schism.

None of the seven churches in Revelation 2-3, even the worst, are warned that God may curse them.

I wonder if you really mean "judge" here?

[David Vogel @davidcvogel]

What sort of speech is Paul forbidding when he says, "there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting" (Eph. 5:4) and "But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth" (Col. 3:8)? Hard to see how these prohibitions can meaningfully exclude anything if they permit the language in the OP.

[David Vogel @davidcvogel]

This (which is not about basketball) is why culture matters more than law. Rules/laws always leave loopholes and imbalances which will be exploited over time, absent a culture which values the spirit behind the law.

[Christian Heiens 🏛 @ChristianHeiens]

If given enough time, the rules will always be gamed in order to subvert the game itself and defeat the purpose of the contest in the first place.

This is inevitable because the rewards are too great. The point is never to have a good time or even to entertain the audience. The point is to win. So the rules will be maliciously “followed”, even as the animating spirit behind them dies.

This tweet isn’t about basketball.

[David Vogel @davidcvogel]

I think this past Sunday was my favorite sermon in my almost-complete series through Hebrews. https://t.co/yJPekum2oE

[David Vogel @davidcvogel]

Probably a better question would be: Are you prepared to love (in the active, particular way you seem to be using the word) any one of those 8B people who happen to enter your sphere?

One lesson of the parable seems to be that we may be surprised and uncomfortable with whom God brings us to "neighbor." If God providentially brought you past a Nigerian beaten and bloody by the side of the road, are you prepared to be a neighbor to him?

(BTW, please do not read any position on immigration into my question above. None is intended.)

[David Vogel @davidcvogel]

Thanks, Gemini, but I was really just trying to save a couple seconds by getting a link to the Bible passage.

[David Vogel @davidcvogel]

@ReallyOldLife "Helpful" (in WLC 99) is relevant, but less pointed than "removing it, and all monuments of idolatry" in WLC 108.

[David Vogel @davidcvogel]

Since everyone is talking about Nazis today: Yes, the Nazis were against some bad things, such as communism and the social liberalism of their day. (The motives and sincerity of that opposition is a different question.) But yes, they opposed some bad things.

That does not make them good.

There are more ways to be wrong than to be right. Sparta rejected some typical Athenian sins; that didn't make Sparta a virtuous place. Babylon was a genuine threat to Assyria; that didn't make Hezekiah wise or righteous when he welcomed the Babylonian ambassadors.

The enemy of your enemy is not always your friend, and they certainly aren't always a friend of your God.

[David Vogel @davidcvogel]

The latest Ogden video reminded me of their “Black people can join our church, but only if they renounce black culture” thing.

Like their Black People Membership Class includes sections on "Put Down the Collard Greens" and "Don't Go to the Barbershop."

Obviously, every Christian must leave behind the sinful aspects of their culture. But merely saying that doesn't build much of an audience. So Ogden has to declaim "black culture" generally.

Of course, when the original clip went viral last year, they defended themselves by saying they call out "white sins" too, like "feminism and Marxism and communism." But I've yet to see a clip of them demanding that white would-be members renounce "white culture."

When you get in the habit of judging with unequal weights and measures, sometimes you end up with a neopaganism-promoting Nazi at your Christian conference.

[wanye @xwanyex]

Software engineering is a great little insight into how capitalism works more broadly in that developers have spent the last 50 years making new tools that everybody else has to learn, inventing new libraries, working on projects that threaten to make everybody else's engineering skills obsolete, and this all culminates in AI tools that some people think will totally eliminate the profession.

And so it's natural to ask yourself, "why?" Why would they do this? Why would an industry make the tools to make themselves obsolete?

There's a simple answer: it's because people have *individual* incentives that override the collective incentives. Software engineers are in *competition* with each other. They aren't a single, coherent, cooperative entity.

And it's the individual incentives that are operative.

This is true all throughout capitalism. Many socialist arguments are built on an inability to understand this core fact.

[Niels Hoven 🐮 @NielsHoven]

This is such an interesting insight

When I read my old favorite books with my kids, I'm struck by how independent the kids are.

They're exploring woods, picnicking in rowboats, exploring woods, having adventures on secret islands, all without a grownup in sight

But books today would never condone such dangerous behavior! The kids must be kept safe!

But kids want to read about danger and excitement, so books have to portray everyday life as extremely high stakes.

It's like a recipe for neuroticism

[Andrew Snyder @Andrewnsnyder]

They did what was required of them, which is the point of the book, and a demonstration of that beautiful strength of the faithful.

"'You have done what was required of you,' said the Director. 'You have obeyed and waited. It will often happen like that. As one of the modern authors has told us, the altar must often be built in one place in order that the fire from heaven may descend somewhere else” (C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength).

[Wes Huff @WesleyLHuff]

The first problem with the report is that no one involved within the team is a formal archaeologist, and therefore, their findings are based not on expertise of how to go about proving their findings but hobbyist speculation. This is not an appeal to authority, this is an appeal to the evidence and the proper means to analyze it. There is something to say for the fact that if you haven’t been trained in stratigraphy you don’t know what you don’t know.

This is shown in how they’ve derived their data with the use of ground penetrating radar. GPR in archaeology is heavily limited by soil composition, environmental factors, and interpretation challenges. It works poorly in clay, silt, or waterlogged soils due to signal attenuation. The process cannot identify materials and the images presented cannot differentiate rocks, water, unusual soil formations, or plant root systems. You simply don’t know what you’re looking at with GPR alone.

While the ark site has produced wood claimed to date to thousands of years ago, none of these tests meets scientific standards, and the only formal tests show the wood instead appears to belong to the 7th century AD. This discrepancy between claimed age and actual dating undermines the credibility of physical evidence.

According to Genesis 8:4, Noah’s Ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. But the modern site of Mount Ararat has only been called that since the 13th century, whereas early Christian and Jewish tradition instead pointed to Mount Qardu (now called Jabal Judi).

The broader issue is that the precise location of Ararat remains unknown, making any specific claim about physical remains inherently speculative. Without independent archaeological corroboration and reliable dating methods, sites like Durupınar cannot be definitively established as authentic ark remains.

The boat-like physical formation isn’t even an unusual feature on modern Ararat and many of these almond shaped convex structure can be found in the region. “It looks like a boat to me” just doesn’t amount to real evidence.

Also, I am aware this is the site Ron Wyatt was reporting as the Ark decades ago. Believe me, I watched more than I should have from his VHS series in the 90s and ‘00s. I’m going to be as kind as I possibly can with this one: with as much respect as I can muster, Ron Wyatt was not an archaeologist, Ron Wyatt was a conman.

[David Vogel @davidcvogel]

One of the best things about LibreOffice is that when I accidentally hit the "Insert" key it asks me if I meant to (NO) before I get mad trying to figure out why my document suddenly started devouring itself.