The Tulip Driven Life

By: Thomas Clayton Booher Here is a previous post in this series:  Here If one is going to write about three youngsters who are summoned from planet Earth to another planet in a galaxy not that far away (only 2.5 million light years), they have to have a way to get there. How far is 2.5 million light years, anyway? Matt, one of the three siblings of the novel, the youngest to be exact, was roused from his sleep their first night on the planet because Caleb, his older brother, left a desk lamp on. Matt was pretty dreary. After all they had had a longer than usual day (literally) and a late night of it. He would have called out to Caleb to take care of the little problem, but Caleb was snoring away, which apparently signaled there was nothing that would awaken him short of a not so gentle shake. Matt might have thought of throwing his pillow, but if that didn’t work, he’d have to get up for sure, just to get his pillow back. It might have been worth the try, but I su...

By: Thomas F. Booher As we were going through our class on the WCF and catechisms, our professor commented on chapter XV of the confession. He said there were those during the time of the Westminster divines and the writing of the WCF that would preach the positive side of salvation, of faith in Christ, but not the negative, repentance. This chapter in the confession emphasizes the need to continually preach repentance, and not just faith. That was a problem then, and it is a serious problem of our day as well. Below is a brief paper I wrote on the need for ongoing repentance.  Faith and repentance are inseparably connected by the Lord Jesus Christ in Scripture (Mk. 1:15). They are like two sides of the same coin. It would be concerning, then, if ministers of the Word and parishioners pitted faith against repentance. My concern is that this has happened, and I would like to refute this sentiment particularly as it is expressed in the following form: For the believer, f...

By: Thomas F. Booher I took an art appreciation class a few years back in college. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I learned a lot about paintings, sculptures, carvings, and the artists themselves. I even learned, in some generic sense, how to interpret the paintings, and why they were painted the way they were. Perhaps I even gained a rudimentary understanding of how to make art as well. The farthest thing from my mind, however, was learning how to paint in art appreciation class. No, I wanted to understand art and the artist, to see something of its skill and worth, its beauty. But be an artist? Try and practice what I learned from art appreciation class? Perish the thought! In a sense, I think this strikes close to what is wrong with our churches today. We view church, Bible conferences, the whole Christian life even, as theology appreciation class. We want to know something of God's Word, we want to grasp Jesus Christ with our mind. We want to see what He has done for us, and...

By: Thomas F. Booher I'm blowing the horn right here, right now. Many reformed churches aren't living up to their name. It's time we wake up to this, find out why, change, and call others to change. For God's glory. If you know me or have followed my posts closely, you probably already know that I grew up in a PCA church my whole life. Yet never did I hear the doctrines of grace in my home church. It wasn't until  I went off to a secular college that I heard of the reformed faith. That was five years ago. Now I am a convinced Calvinist, and I hold to reformed/covenant theology. I am also convinced that many reformed churches aren't reforming. I believe God uses this to convict me to become a pastor more than anything. To preach, but more, to shepherd. To write blog posts like this and call out the institutions and people I am in rank with. Maybe you think my accusations are crazy, my concerns misplaced. Maybe you think I am crazy, ignorant, too narrow-mi...

By: Thomas F. Booher I can still remember watching shows centered around family when I was young. Very young, like seven. You remember them: Family Matters, Growing Pains, Full House, The Cosby Show. Family Matters held on til 1998; Growing Pains 1992; Full House 1995; The Cosby Show 1992. Now look at the lineup of shows today on stations that you would expect to be family oriented. Let's take the obvious one -- ABC Family. They boast shows such as Pretty Little Liars, Switched at Birth, The Vineyard, Twisted, and yes, Baby Daddy. With exception perhaps to The Vineyard, I think you get the idea of what these shows are about, and not only are they not about the traditional family and its values, they are diametrically opposed to them. It's not as if going back to the family sitcoms of 20 years ago will fix things -- obviously it was on the brink of extinction even at that point. The actors in those shows have track records that indicate they weren't really much for f...

By: Thomas Clayton Booher I have always enjoyed science fiction, and more recently, fantasy. I read The Gods of Mars , by Edgar Rice Burroughs as a young lad, and was pleased when Carl Sagan mentioned in Broca’s Brain that he also did at about the same age. He was more erudite than I, however. He later looked back upon it and his youthful fascination was dampened when he realized that it was far more fiction that it was science. His point was that the best science fiction has its roots in scientific fact. His novel, Contact , was written on that premise, and it was a good read. I tend to agree with him. There are deep wonders in the creation no matter which direction we look in. We can look outward and marvel at the billions of galaxies whose sizes alone are incomprehensible populating a volume of space that is billions of light-years across. Or we can look in the other direction until we encounter subatomic particles that take up only billionths of an inch. There are k...

By: Thomas F. Booher Teenage angst is one of the main themes that runs throughout Captives, and I think it's the best part of the book. I was just as interested, if not more interested, in how the characters from Glenrock would react and behave in their new environs (and the temptations that come with it) as I was in how Levi, Mason, and the rest would save them. This, in fact, is the first question Jill Williamson asks in her discussion questions at the end of the book, and I am glad she has them there. Being a 23 year old man, recently married, expecting a child in exactly a month, I can still remember what it was like to be single and looking. The desire to be loved, to give love, to make love, that's what's on the brain of the teenage boys and girls in this story, and that's how it is in real life. Also, the sticky temptations, such as Mason and Omar both having affections for their brother's fiancee -- that's real too. One thing I want to poke at, h...