The Inaugural Post

My wife made me do it.

Well, maybe not. But her gentle prodding and Abraham Piper's recent post tipped the scales in favor of entering the blogosphere.

The main purpose of the Fool's Gold blog is to promote thoughtful, winsome engagement with various facets of culture in the name of Jesus. This goal may expand or contract like a pair of lungs, but I hope the process will always be life-giving.

Why the name Fool's Gold? I'll give three reasons, and none of them have to do with geology or deception:

1. I'm bad with dates.

My memory is a bit like a month-old razor: sharp in some spots, but painfully dull in others. I once read an article in National Geographic about a woman with an encyclopedic memory. On any given day, while blow-drying her hair in the morning, she would rehearse what she had done on that particular day in years past.

I'm not like that.

To supplement this deficit, I figured it would be helpful to coin a title that would serve as a memory cue should anyone ever ask me the precise date I started this blog. You never know when the question might come up on Final Jeopardy. I'd hate to let Alex Trebek down. Being that today is April Fool's day, it seemed fitting to include a portion of the phrase in the title. Fool's Gold sounded like a better option than April Showers, so it stuck.

2. I need to be reminded to flee folly.

The Bible is stuffed with descriptions of the fool: "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God'" (Proverbs 14:1 ESV). "Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered" (Proverbs 28:26 ESV). Particularly relevant for blogging is Proverbs 18:2 (ESV): "A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion." I need the constant warning that, apart from God's grace, I will reject God and prefer self-sufficient grandstanding. I hope the name Fool's Gold will sober me to this danger.

3. I need to be reminded to pursue folly.

The message of Jesus Christ crucified is foolishness to many. "For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men" (1 Corinthians 1:20-25). The message of a murdered Savior is folly to the world, but it is this fool's Gold.

With this explanation I smash the dedicatory wine bottle on the stern of the H.M.S. Fool's Gold. May she sail through the waters of culture with humble, biblical care.