Sharpening Iron - Volume 16, Issue 5

Value is determined by rarity. Or, so we're told. No one else grows blue veins of mold through their torso from this particular cave. That would make us special. And French. Also expensive.

But if we want to be truly valuable, we can hardly compare ourselves to Roquefort. Too much of it around.

Perhaps we are the whale's cheese. The narwhal that is. The milking process is extremely difficult and also banned by international treaty. The narwhal is not harmed. But despite our best attempts, the narwhal milk will not give us a cheddar as sharp as we like. We are very rarely creamy. The cheese is rare enough, but hardly metaphorically representative.

Buffaloes are attractive animals. But as far as cheese goesm they are already cliche. Nobody wants to imitate the Italians. They glean what they consider to be the only real mozzarella from water buffaloes.

Cat milk? Didn't even try. Mongolian mare's milk? Close, but still off. Thought we had something with grizzly milk. At least in theory. It tastes and smells sort of like limburger, but more like a dumpster.

Back to the aquatic. Milk from the blind dolphins of the Ganges was rare enough but horribly unhealthy. But the Amazon is a much cleaner river, not being considered holy.

We are pink Amazonian dolphin cheese. Sharp enough, with a taste as disconnected from reality as the creature it come from. This cheese makes us feel special. Fantastic with any wine that isn't also pink, and cramps the cheeks only slightly. The only downside comes on nachos or grilled cheese sandwiches. It just won't melt right. But we're not sure that we do either. And we're the same color, when our shirts our off.

From You:

BE QUITET
Dear Editor,
Nathan Wilson, your articles are getting boring and you need to be quiet for a while.

BAPTIST COVER
Dear Editor,
Just received and read the issue, "Minds and Mammon." In the Cave of Adullan there is a reference to the worship leader of Thomas Road Baptist Church learning how to work a crowd from Wayne Newton. As a former Baptist myself, it would appear that that is simply a cover story to explain why someone recognized him in the casino. Gambling is not OK, while being someone's disciple IS OK.

OLD CHRISTMAS
Dear Editor,
We were just re-reading an old Christmas issue of C/A [14.5]. The article "Mary Bursting" by Douglas Jones is one of the very best articles I have ever read. Just thought he may like to know.

WHY THE CULDESAC?
Dear Editor,
My computer monitor sits on my desk and glows with the black type of your magazine that has opened wide its pages to sing the joys of the Lord's Day, to frown at the menace of pietism, etc. I have smiled to see such wisdom written. Why then does such wisdom end at the dinner table, living room, workbench? My computer moniter has an eye-tearing blurrrr in its middle. The Rev. Wilson I know is clear, witty, wise. . . Why then this Auburn Avenue stuff? The new covenant is with God's elect only. No one burns who was chosen to the new covenant. All bought by the blood of the new covenant go to Heaven. Faith grows in a regenerate heart only. It can never die. The seed of God's word grows up tares on a hard heart, in a thorny heart. No works. Dead faith. Withered stalk. Fruitless vine. Judas was a false brother. A man pretending to be a husband cannot commit adultery against his pretended wife. A gold ring and a verbal promise to fidelity do not a lawful marriage make! (See Massachussetts. See Herod of JTB fame. See one who puts away his wife to marry another. See Romans 7.) Baptism is the sign and seal of union with Christ, which is only by God-given eternal election unto God-given faith, unto God-given justification, unto God-given fidelity, unto God-given resurrection of the just at our Lord's Coming again. The church is born from Christ's side, not the sign of Christ's side. Baptism is the sign of the covenant made, not the making of the covenant. Was Abraham in the covenant of grace before or after circumcision? Was Abraham in union with Christ before or after circumcision? Baptism brings no man into union with Christ, but rather is the sign and seal by which God confirms His covenant to all in union with Christ. Some receive baptism but not union. This is objective. Not all who say Lord, Lord objectively will go to heaven objectively. Not all who bear the mark of the washing of sins by Christ's blood and Christ's Spirit are clean! This is objective. What is hidden now will be naked to all. What is seen in a glass darkly will be seen in the light of glory of the Son of God in our flesh. Leave the tares until harvest, that the wheat may grow. Apostasy and regeneration are water and oil. A man falls into Hell through the baptismal font, but a man born of water and the Spirit can never die. There are no exceptions. This is the objective meaning of baptism. Of all God has given Christ, He loses none. All born again God has sealed forever. If you agree with all this, then I do not understand the clouds. If a Christian is anyone who says "Lord, Lord," then a Christ is anyone who says "I am He." The church needs Rev. Wilson. We need him to preach the covenant as faithfully as he preaches creation, married life, childrearing, education, politics, courtship, the history of the Incarnation, Psalm-singing, the Trinity. You are my fathers and my brothers. Why this road to nowhere?

Douglas Wilson replies: It is hard to know how to differ because I agree with so much of this. But suffice it to say that everything you say about members of the new covenant, I would say about the elect members of the new covenant. The one place where we clearly differ is in the marriage illustration. If we agree (as we do) that there are such things as spurious marriages (e.g. Massachusetts), it does not follow that every marriage in which adultery was committed must never have been a true marriage to begin with.

From Us:

From You: