"Brother Can You Paradigm?"

Jim Gilbert's headline, not mine.
But it's in the wish-I'd-said-that category.
@Large is one of the sites I check daily (actually he only posts two or three times a week but I can't remember when...he's not like me, he knows when to be quiet and writes only when he has something meaningful to say) and linked a few times since he began blogging in the Spring.
Here is a self-described Charismatic who hits all the right notes. He's getting wound up now like the preacher who leaves the pulpit, lays down his props, and walks down to the front of the sanctuary to preach, making eye contact with as many people as he can see. Get the point?

He's about to punch out a powerful word, so I'm giving you a head's up...

I've ingested, digested, even indigested the subject of worldviews and what it means to hold a biblical one. The purpose of this series is not to write a tome -- there are plenty of big, heavy books full of five syllable words already keeping the masses off topic -- but to provide an outline. And in the spirit of George Barna, I'm going to reduce the universe to seven, count 'em seven, simple points, which I'll explain in full by the middle of January....
Since Psalm 24 says, "the earth is the Lord's," I've decided to name these principles "The Ground Rules." Here they are:
***God is God, and no one else is God.
***Jesus Christ has been crowned King of all the earth, everyone therein, and everything they do.
***All of the Bible is authoritative for all of life.
***Righteousness works.
***Sin doesn't work.
***Judgment happens.
***The meek shall inherit the earth.

I think we Christians have bought into a bit of false advertising. Millions of us think the devil is more powerful than he is, that Lordship stops at the public schoolhouse door, that the first 39 books of the Bible count less these days, that righteousness circles the wagons and waits for Jesus while sin takes over the world, that we should be afraid of the future, and that the only way out is up.

But Jesus is no slumlord of the Rings, and the Battle of the Ages is not a squeaker. So enough subtlety on my part! Next post we'll examine Who's really calling the shots on Planet Earth. And I'll give you a hint: Satan is alive, but he is not well.

Go back a couple of posts and read some background. I have a feeling that Jim Gilbert is about to come on strong. He isn't another "Me, too" preacher. I don't think he's into pop theology a half mile wide and only inches in depth.

I remember a line from John Steinbeck in Travels with Charlie. He traveled all across the country with his dog Charlie and kept a journal. I don't remember what state it was, but one Sunday morning he went to church. It was a smallish country church with just the basics. Pews, friendly people, and a preacher who would tell it like it was. He said "I whited my sepulchre and went in" for a sermon to set him straight.
So get your sepulchre whited and go read.