Meditations

Overcoming Entertainment FOMO

by Ben Zornes · Jul 16, 2025

A major blind spot for modern Christians is in their entertainment choices. You must remember that at almost every turn, and regardless of the medium, modern entertainment isn’t created in order to draw you closer to Christ. It isn’t crafted to edify you. It isn’t designed to increase your delight in God.

All too often, Christians assume that Hollywood, Billboard, Fox, ESPN, Snapchat, Disney, and all other media corporations are neutral. This is simply naïveté at best, or self-delusion at worst. You must be discerning. But don’t pretend to be discerning when you’re actually just indulging. You cannot treat your engagement with media indifferently.

Imagine a row of ten mushrooms. You must pick one to eat. However, you’re informed that eight of them are poisonous, one will send you on a psychedelic trip, and only one is actually edible (with enough butter & garlic). Would you not take your time? Would you not do your research? Would you not make absolutely certain that your selection was the edible one?

Modern media operates on a currency of FOMO. An important way to combat this within yourself or with your children, is to simply sit down and do a Bible study as it relates to some sample of pop culture. Teach your kids to evaluate the truth claims found in the latest blockbuster movie, the latest hit song, the latest video game. Again, don’t indulge, discern.

Start by discerning in your reading, watching, and listening habits, which direction your heart is aimed. A family movie night can be edifying, but not by automatically flipping on the latest Netflix slop. Being discerning people requires you to be active and not passive when it comes to your household entertainment choices. Before setting your heart on some show or song, ensure your heart is set on Christ alone.

What Hell Is

by Ben Zornes · Jul 15, 2025

The world is fundamentally broken into two sorts of people: those who starve themselves by unbelief and those who are fed by faith. Adam reached for the forbidden fruit prematurely, and brought about a curse upon the land, such that food was only obtained by severe hardship and toil. Esau craved the stew which his younger brother had cooked up, and he found himself cut off from the blessing of the firstborn. Israel was given manna from heaven, but by their greedy hoarding found the heavenly bread inedible due to worm infestation.

In one place David likens the wicked to lions prowling for a feast of the righteous: They have now compassed us in our steps: they have set their eyes bowing down to the earth; Like as a lion that is greedy of his prey (Ps 17:11-12). In response to this, David cries out “Arise, O LORD, disappoint him, cast him down!” Such men have their portion in this life. They are colorfully described in one place as being “inclosed in their own fat.”

So then, if you insist on feasting on the delicacies of worldliness, if you insist on devouring those that are righteous to gratify your insatiable lusts, you’ll soon find yourself eternally hungry. After all, that’s what hell is: eternal un-satisfaction. Quenchless thirst. Weariness with no rest. Desire with no fulfillment.

But that isn’t what’s upon this table. Find here death that’s actually life. Self-denial that blossoms into everlasting gratification. You are brought here to be fed by the Hand of God with the Life of God. Those devour everything in their path end up starving. However, those who humble themselves to be fed by God, never suffer lack. Here is an everlasting storehouse of desire satisfied. Here is an everlasting fountain of pure water for your thirst. Here is life Himself. Here is Christ.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…

The Whole Story on the Table

by Ben Zornes · Jul 10, 2025

The Gospel really is staggering, and the Gospel is what you feed upon here. This table is a feast of all the stories of Scripture. The stories of creation and flood, patriarchs and plagues, the prophetic warnings and the psalmists’ strains, the life, death, resurrection, and conquest of Christ, and the apostolic witness are all plated on this table.

We see this principle vividly in the plagues which we’ve recently been considering. God struck down His only-begotten Son, in order that you might be redeemed. God sent darkness upon Christ on the cross, in order that you might walk in the light. God mocked all the idols of Egypt in order to show to you their utter impotence. God showed how hard-hearted an unbelieving tyrant’s heart can be, in order to certify to you that saving faith in God is absolutely and entirely a gift of sheer and undeserved grace.

All the wonders done in Egypt were undertaken by Jehovah for one reason: God has freed you that you might worship Him rightly. This is why He made you, and this is why He redeemed you.

Every story of the Bible leads you to this very point: worship God alone. You cannot serve Him if you are a rebel. You can’t worship Him if you’re wearing the chains of another master. You cannot please Him if you harden your heart to His invitation to the feast. You cannot render praise to Him if you lift your hands to Dagon, or Baal, or Ra, or Zeus, or a Golden Calf.

The whole story of the Bible is here on this table. You were damned by your sin, but God has made a way for you to join Him at His banquet. And that way was made by the broken body and spilled blood of Christ. He is the story of the Bible.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…

The Me & the We

by Ben Zornes · Jul 9, 2025

Cultures tend to overemphasize one of two things: the “me” or the “we”. You currently live in a highly individualistic culture that emphasizes the me. Everything revolves around you as an individual. But this hasn’t always been the case. Even other modern cultures heavily emphasize the “we”. Think of the regimentation of Chinese military parades. The individual is lost in a sea of people. Historically, this is what the royal “we” intended: the populace summed up in one monarch.

Democracies are heavy on the me, while communism insists absolutely that there must be no “mes” only we. Both suffer from a defective understanding of the me and the we.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but in Biblical church government we find both the me and we perfectly ordered. You aren’t an isolated individual, nor are you indistinguishable from the rest of the host of saints. Our heavenly Father promises us each a new name––there’s the me––but together we form an innumerable host of redeemed saints––there’s the we.

I want to apply this to church government as we continue this congregations formation as its own particularized church. Each family has a variety of members. Each family has a head. That head speaks on behalf of the various me’s of the family in things like elder and deacon elections. Further, within an elder board, each elder labors to represent those under his care as he joins the other elders in deliberations. He functions as a me, and then once the elders vote, the result is “we have decided.”

Presbyterian polity is not a dry academic topic. Rather, it’s how each “me” in the congregation finds their voice represented; it ensures the we does not swallow everything up. However, it also fends off rampant individualism as it allows us, as one body to say things like, “We confess, we believe, and we proclaim.” In this way we hear personal responsibility harmonized with corporate unity.

Birth & New Birth

by Ben Zornes · Jul 7, 2025

Consider how scripture compares & contrasts birth and new birth. You exist, not by your own will, but by a choice of your father. This applies also to your spiritual rebirth; as James puts it, “Of the Father’s own will begat he us with the word of truth (Jas 1:8).” Further, earthly birth is marked by labor’s blood and water. While the new birth is also marked by water representing Christ’s atoning blood, Jesus expounds that it is marked by water and the Spirit.

Put all this together. The new birth isn’t the work of your own will. It’s Your Father’s pleasure to beget you. Baptism is a mark of the Father’s will to beget. Nevertheless, the water must not be alone. The Spirit must blow. The Spirit blows in the preaching of the Word. He blows as parents discipline their child in true faith. He blows in our psalms sung in sincere hope. God blows as He pleases. Therefore, we trust that He is also pleased to blow here, at baptism’s waters.

So welcome our brother to Jesus Christ…

Everyone is a Hypocrite

by Ben Zornes · Jul 2, 2025

Every human is a hypocrite. Say you were to stand outside a busy shopping mall in order to survey the broad population about their moral framework. Ask people what they believe to be right or wrong, what their primary moral guidelines are, and what they believe evil to be you would certainly get a great deal of variety. However, if you followed up that survey with a question about whether they have perfectly kept their own moral framework, every honest participant would need to admit that they broke their own moral code.

Culturally, we live in a world governed by rules and regulations. Some of these laws are better and more biblical than others, but we are surrounded by a dense forrest of litigiousness. But though we have our rules, we commonly break those rules while insisting we are keeping the spirit of those rules.

Yet if we really took a long and honest look at ourselves, we not only are breakers of the letter of the law, we are breakers of the spirit of the law. Our hypocrisy is deep and wide. It transcends lines of liberal and conservative, male and female, and national borders. It is the condition of man. He holds up standards for others that he himself does not attain to. You are, on your own, blackmailed by your own moral inconsistency.

This is why the new birth which is offered to us in Christ is of absolute necessity. The Christian is one who acknowledges their great sinfulness, but not to bemoan it or wallow in it, but to confess it, be rid of it through the forgiveness which the Father gives, and to overcome it by the Spirit’s power at work in us. Only by honest confession is the blackmail of your moral hypocrisy rendered powerless.

An Astonishing Meal

by Ben Zornes · Jun 30, 2025

This meal is both simple and astonishing. It is simple in that it is made up of simple and common things, a loaf of bread, a cup of wine set on a folding table covered by a nice white tablecloth. But we really should be astonished in considering this simple meal. Many traditions try to jazz up the simplicity in order to make the sign itself astonishing. But we must look at this simplicity by faith, and see that it is what the sign signifies which takes your breath away.

The astonishment is two-fold. First, God guarantees that in drawing to this table in true faith, we draw near to feast with Him. Here we dine with the Divine One. We are seated at the cosmic VIP table. We are made guests of honor in the heavenly banquet hall. We––who were once scandalous sinners, who were treacherous rebels, who defied the God who made us––are welcomed here by the Father, because of the Son’s redeeming blood, and by the new life which the Spirit has given us. This really is astonishing. You, a sinner, are brought here to dine with God.

But there is a second astonishment found here. The reason we can feast here with God as righteous and redeemed saints, is because Christ took upon Himself our damnation. The One who had known no fear or faltering, the only One who was never morally inconsistent, was broken like bread, and crushed like the fruit of the vine. He did this for you, and there is nothing left for you to do in order to obtain this great gift. He simply calls you to believe all this, and so receive all this. He comes to feast with sinners, and these sinners can come as righteous saints because Christ was made accursed for You and for me.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…