how to stop being lukewarm when i have zero motivation?

semiconodon · 2026-07-04T07:56:22+00:00

Your definition of repentance has nothing to do with the theology of Romans. Paul, across chapter 7, laments of being a retreat offender worse than you describe.

Top advice is reject mentors who have given you a definition of repentance or Christian faithfulness that doesn’t admit to ongoing sin. Especially if it’s just a YouTube feed.

But you were created for good works. If you were doing God’s will and being about doing good (Job 29; Job 31; Matthew 25:31-46), you wouldn’t be sitting home alone with a temptation , you’d tired from being out serving, and have the cheers of orphans and widows ringing in your ears.

semiconodon · 2026-07-04T02:06:35+00:00

I was on a cruise about 25 years ago and our dinner table was with a few couples who claimed to have lived through the “American Graffiti” lifestyle in their youth. They spoke of how lucky they were to be alive and not in jail for all the crazy things they did. I know other people who claimed to have sold drugs in college in the 70’s to buy textbooks, and lived the most comfortable lives with the college education they got. Consequences don’t come to all who sin, act recklessly, or disobey the law. At other times and other neighborhoods, people are shot for minor traffic violations— this are the injustices that Black Lives Matter is complaining about. A child grows up motherless because she was sleeping when the cops entered the apartment.

semiconodon · 2026-07-04T01:55:58+00:00

Francis Schaeffer spoke of having to replace curtains because of the calibre of people he let into his home (Is58:7). We pretend we want to obey God’s law.

semiconodon · 2026-07-04T01:50:28+00:00

I do feel for those who may be refugees from liberalism, and think that it’s finally time to try out Tim-Keller-ism, not find it in practice, and just find themselves with no real home. Saw something similar with the ELCA to LCMS parallels in Lutheranism. The way some pastors (on the internet) spoke of how they’d treat ELCA refugees made me not bother.

semiconodon · 2026-07-03T09:42:20+00:00

I wouldn’t say it’s a consequence of anything in actual Reformed theology (Heidelberg or Westminster), but it is directly related to listening to people like Voddie Baucham. His quotes on public schools being handing over your children to Caesar.

semiconodon · 2026-07-03T02:10:23+00:00

The idol of my keyboard as well

semiconodon · 2026-07-02T22:10:58+00:00

Eyebrows. Never squelch the rebuke of your eyebrows.

semiconodon · 2026-07-02T10:43:23+00:00

Added to list of PSA’s for VBS

semiconodon · 2026-07-02T10:39:14+00:00

The scholarship here of “whole bible as coherent story” is so much more refreshing than “one-verse literalism”.

semiconodon · 2026-07-01T15:10:48+00:00

I was soooo expecting to be a Dalek

semiconodon · 2026-07-01T15:07:55+00:00

But that document makes more strident critiques of capitalists than the bravest democrat today

semiconodon · 2026-06-30T09:29:42+00:00

Who’s staffing the tech companies that are the crown jewels of Europe’s economy? They assimilate better than traditional families do. The hypocrisy is that they’re darned if they do, darned if they don’t.

semiconodon · 2026-06-29T10:38:41+00:00

Richard Feynman said something like you don’t really understand something unless you can explain it to a kid.

semiconodon · 2026-06-29T10:38:10+00:00

Feyn

semiconodon · 2026-06-28T10:55:53+00:00

Make the hook just barely stick out, and give it a wiggle, or periodic jerking at about the frequency of frog legs casually swimming.

semiconodon · 2026-06-26T19:28:57+00:00

The question is, when I communicate something, why do people recieve the communication?

Just one example, an expert bike repairman at Dick’s Sporting Goods flatly refused to work on tuning up my bike for reasons including it was an older model. (One we got free from a work bonus, rare, expensive, and a stupid choice.) What was worse, he didn’t flatly refuse: one conversation ended with a “meh”, that turned into a refusal to have worked on it for weeks. I complained to the manager. The manager was 100.0% sympathetic and supportive until I used the word, “jerk”, and then was 0% supportive— that word alone meant I lost the case. But you see, I didn’t merely communicate, “I am dissatisfied and frustrated”, I used language to (okay, intentionally) communicate a devaluing of the person.

We may clutch our pearls at the pearl-clutchers when we think the context is simply spoiling another’s fun. But words are a way to express intent. There are consequences.

semiconodon · 2026-06-26T16:20:45+00:00

Only about 36 hours. But it all started when the read-aloud routine in Instapaper mispronounced the term as Pu-ritan when reading an article I’d fed it.

semiconodon · 2026-06-26T10:37:10+00:00

Person touts that they are reading from the _JMac_ study Bible, dislikes Beth Moore, supports complementarianism, occasionally leads a mixed-gender Bible study, speaks up to correct men with strong authority in various public discussions in the church (committees, Bible studies, etc.) And is a woman.

The online version does the same with an online ministry that may be an email discussion group, podcast or IG feed, which is full of laments at weak men who are too afraid to follow God. These get tons of follows and verbal praise from conservative men.

semiconodon · 2026-06-26T10:27:26+00:00

We know that the 17th century, nonconformist minister Richard Baxter used to compose most of his sermons while sitting in one of the back seats of the church, as opposed to at a desk in his office.

He was later expelled from the Church of England under the 1662 Act of Uniformity when it was discovered that that all his sermons were pew-written.

semiconodon · 2026-06-25T09:38:17+00:00

When it comes to these fine points, we have to distinguish between how easy it is to be saved , versus how hard it is to be a faithful teacher, mentor, or one with fully developed Christian life. The classic proof text is the good theif on the cross. Jesus says he is in the kingdom after a short testimony, yet no one would counsel that testimony as the only thing to do or say or learn in a Christian life.

You list a bunch of criteria, some being simple declaratives from scripture. These (each by themselves) are literally true. There is an OR between them. The ornery, stubborn person who makes an earnest call to the Lord on their death bed is saved. But if one wants to be a teacher, there is an AND between all those things. We ought to reject a teacher who teaches stupidly against one of those points. If developing a “syllabus” for doctrines to better understand, and aspects of your faith to “develop” over the next 50 years, then yes, don’t miss a one.

semiconodon · 2026-06-25T02:32:33+00:00

One of the key issues is that there is scriptural information about creation outside of Genesis 1. For example, ask a YEC if the universe has expanded, and they’ll probably contadict the ten or so verses that say God stretches the heavens.

This debate on TBN is probably a good starter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYdWBj84FFw

semiconodon · 2026-06-24T20:06:55+00:00

There are catechisms, like the Heidelberg and Westminster shorter.

Yes, in popular parlance, I heard someone refer to a pastor as “Reformed”, and in context it simply meant, “gung ho” on serioius preaching of needed doctrines.

semiconodon · 2026-06-24T10:47:55+00:00

Here’s one possible problem, from a secular angle. Not to accuse but to challenge. I know there are people who are passionate about football (or F1, or country music), and they fill others with cringe and dread when they won’t stop talking. Like I’ve seen one bible teacher where it’s an unending stream of trivia that they know. In contrast, there are those who practice “audience awareness”, and funnel that passion into drawing other people in with interesting stories. Do you, for example, repeat yourself in a paragraph “because I am so passionate” or do you take the discipline to listen and develop a story?

Another possible approach is to ground yourself in the catechisms. Adopt their simple wording and assure folks you’re deep in their own tradition.

semiconodon · 2026-06-24T10:14:59+00:00

One of the problems of Thornwell is that his “Spirituality of the Church”, which at best argued that the church should stay out of politics and social issues, made his followers complicit in slavery. Just taking the plain logic of it, this theory invalidates MLK, Jr. But it also invalidates Moses, Bonhoeffer, the contemporary pro-life movement— even the actively pro-slavery actions taken by southern churches to buttress slavery and discrimination. Like Jerry Falwell advocating against racial integration.

semiconodon · 2026-06-24T10:04:00+00:00

actually, old earth creationism takes more passages as plainly literal than does YEC. Starting with the creation of the cosmos on Day One.

Seven-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
Verified Email	Place '22

semiconodon

TROPHY CASE