Dan Popp column
Dan Popp is a Christian, a husband, and a small-business owner. Writing has been part of his profession since the late 1970s. He and his wife of more than 30 years, Vicky, live in Ohio.
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October 15, 2011
I'd like to recap the principles of Christ-like charity I've mentioned so far, then add a few more. We said that:
Christian giving is centered on Christ. . . .
Dan Popp
October 8, 2011
The New Testament, without going into details, gives us a pretty clear hint of what a fully Christian society would be like. Perhaps it gives us more than we . . .
Dan Popp
October 1, 2011
Strangers devour his strength, and he knows it not. — Hosea 7:9a (ESV)
The initial article of this short series showed an example of good giving that . . .
Dan Popp
September 22, 2011
For God so loved the world, that He gave....
I've written more than a few times about what Christian giving is not. So it seems incumbent on me to explain . . .
Dan Popp
September 8, 2011
Everyone belongs to everyone else. — Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
It would be funny to hear charges of right-wing racism, secret desires to lynch . . .
Dan Popp
September 1, 2011
People forget that Barack Obama is a white man. He has the same number of white parents as black parents, and apparently no one may deny that he is a black man . . .
Dan Popp
August 22, 2011
How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg. — Abraham Lincoln
If we were to write . . .
Dan Popp
August 12, 2011
If nothing works, why don't we do that?
If there are an infinite number of alternate universes, surely this is the only one where Barney Frank and Chris Dodd . . .
Dan Popp
August 5, 2011
Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch! — Lewis Carroll
. . .
Dan Popp
July 26, 2011
A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species. — . . .
Dan Popp
July 17, 2011
The base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are. — 1 . . .
Dan Popp
July 8, 2011
So be as wise as snakes and as innocent as doves. — Jesus (Matt. 10:16b, CEV)
Once again, thanks for taking time to participate with us in the Romans . . .
Dan Popp
June 29, 2011
The opening of Romans 15 is actually the summation of what Paul has been saying since Chapter 12: Although we've received the gifts of repentance, faith, . . .
Dan Popp
June 17, 2011
All things are lawful, but not all things edify. — 1 Cor. 10:23b, NASB
"Doubtful things" is an old-fashioned term for actions that aren't spelled out . . .
Dan Popp
June 5, 2011
...not avenging yourselves, beloved, but give place to the wrath, for it hath been written, "Vengeance is Mine, I will recompense again, saith the Lord." — . . .
Dan Popp
May 24, 2011
As your discussion leader here at the Romans Book Club, I don't mind telling you that I'm relieved to have arrived at Chapter 12. In the first two-thirds of . . .
Dan Popp
May 11, 2011
At that time, says the LORD, I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people. — Jeremiah 31:1, NRSV
The audience . . .
Dan Popp
May 1, 2011
A great symphony may begin with a simple theme. Then the maestro leaves that melody and introduces another. When he returns to the original motif he expands . . .
Dan Popp
April 21, 2011
If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead. — Jesus (Luke 16:31b ESV)
We've been . . .
Dan Popp
April 12, 2011
For he said to them, "This is the rest; give rest to the weary, and this is the tranquility," but they would not listen. And the word of the Lord shall be for . . .
Dan Popp
March 30, 2011
Helpful as they are, chapter and verse breaks in the Bible can obscure connections. The original recipients of Paul's letter to the Romans, when they got about . . .
Dan Popp
March 21, 2011
See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.... Isaiah 49:16a, RSV
I believe in predestination. Well, of course I do; I'm a Christian, and it's in . . .
Dan Popp
March 11, 2011
This one's dedicated to my sister, Jean.
For all who are led by God's Spirit, and they alone, are the sons of God. [Romans 8:14 Con]
That nuclear . . .
Dan Popp
March 1, 2011
Welcome, or welcome back, to the Romans Book Club. Like many of us, the wretched man of Chapter 7 was baffled as to why he couldn't obey God. Who will deliver . . .
Dan Popp
February 19, 2011
Of whom does the prophet say this? Of himself, or of someone else? (Acts 8:34b, NASB)
That's the controversial question surrounding the latter part of . . .
Dan Popp
February 9, 2011
"I Have Lost My Clay," said the golem.
YES, said Death, THAT IS STANDARD. YOU ARE DEAD. SMASHED. EXPLODED INTO A MILLION PIECES.
"Then Who Is This Doing . . .
Dan Popp
January 31, 2011
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you're gonna have to serve somebody. — Bob Dylan
We paused our trek through Romans at Chapter 6, . . .
Dan Popp
January 20, 2011
The first two-and-a-half chapters of Romans are devoted to humanity's root problem: rebellion, which brings wretchedness, religiosity and ruin. The next two . . .
Dan Popp
January 10, 2011
In Adam's fall, we sinned all.
That opening line of a children's primer was the first sentence printed in the New World. I think it's still true that if we . . .
Dan Popp
December 30, 2010
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into . . .
Dan Popp
December 21, 2010
Today it's a clichι to call Abraham "the father of faith" — but only because we don't understand its implications. The first-century Jews did. Paul . . .
Dan Popp
December 11, 2010
When the Romans Book Club last convened, we read this from the pen of the apostle Paul:
What then are we to say was gained by Abraham, our ancestor according . . .
Dan Popp
December 2, 2010
It wasn't long after God had emancipated the sons of Israel that many of them wanted to go back to Egypt.
But it's the same with us: When Jesus frees us . . .
Dan Popp
November 15, 2010
If it's possible that Paul's letter to the Christians in Rome is the most significant document ever penned, then Chapter 3 might be the pivotal chapter of that . . .
Dan Popp
November 5, 2010
After Paul had finished telling the religious people that they were no better in God's true accounting than the pagans, he wisely paused to field objections. . . .
Dan Popp
October 26, 2010
All our righteous acts are like filthy rags. — Isaiah 64:6b NIV
Welcome back to our Romans book club. Please use the coasters. At our last meeting we . . .
Dan Popp
October 16, 2010
Marley was dead: to begin with.
So opens Charles Dickens' beloved A Christmas Carol. It reminds me of the beginning of another great story — the . . .
Dan Popp
October 6, 2010
The Bible has proven itself over millennia to be the most valuable book that humanity possesses. Nothing else even comes close to coming close. But just as a . . .
Dan Popp
September 10, 2010
No enterprise can exist for itself alone. It ministers to some great need, it performs some great service, not for itself, but for others; or failing therein, . . .
Dan Popp
August 31, 2010
The "two consenting adults" test works only if there is no God. If God exists, and if He has been known to exterminate societies that make it all the way to . . .
Dan Popp
August 20, 2010
Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say? Jesus (Luke 6:46 NASB)
Some people are confused about Barack Obama's religion. Other people are . . .
Dan Popp
August 10, 2010
Speak, LORD, for Thy servant is listening. 1 Samuel 3:9 NASB
These days it seems that every time you turn around you hear another nonsensical leftist . . .
Dan Popp
July 29, 2010
Your money does not cause my poverty. Refusal to believe this is at the bottom of most bad economic thinking. P.J. O'Rourke
LeBron James is, from what I . . .
Dan Popp
July 20, 2010
Government "help" to business is just as disastrous as government persecution... the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by . . .
Dan Popp
July 15, 2010
Of the few scriptures that could be taken out of context to support the notion of Christian socialism, Jesus' prophecy about The Sheep and the Goats may be the . . .
Dan Popp
July 7, 2010
In the past few articles I've tried to bring forth biblical support for my argument that Jesus Christ was no socialist. But Stalin can also cite Scripture for . . .
Dan Popp
June 28, 2010
He who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. Hebrews 11:6b NASB
To say that God uses rewards and . . .
Dan Popp
June 17, 2010
So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall . . .
Dan Popp
June 8, 2010
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. Jesus (John 10:10)
To call Jesus a socialist . . .
Dan Popp
May 27, 2010
Some [who] oppose immigration reform are sitting in those pews, and you have to tell them that this is a manifestation of our living the gospels. Speaker of . . .
Dan Popp
May 3, 2010
An enemy has done this. Jesus (Matthew 13:28)
Ohio is a state in decline, if not free-fall. The left's War on Reality has made my state an increasingly . . .
Dan Popp
April 14, 2010
Reverend Obama doesn't want to be my "brother's keeper." He wants to be my money's keeper.
When the Federal Government tries to boost education, test scores . . .
Dan Popp
April 5, 2010
A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of . . .
Dan Popp
March 28, 2010
So great moreover is the regard of the law for private property, that it will not authorize the least violation of it; no, not even for the general good of the . . .
Dan Popp
March 19, 2010
By the pricking of my thumbs
Something wicked this way comes. Shakespeare (Macbeth)
I saw something disturbing today. It's a short video designed for the . . .
Dan Popp
March 11, 2010
Primum non nocere First, do no harm.
Prosperous people are healthier overall than poor people. Rich societies can afford things like better hospitals, . . .
Dan Popp
March 1, 2010
All systems either of preference or of restraint, therefore, being thus completely taken away, the obvious and simple system of natural liberty establishes . . .
Dan Popp
February 22, 2010
Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, . . .
Dan Popp
February 15, 2010
It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false . . .
Dan Popp
February 6, 2010
The days of the dole in this country are numbered. President Lyndon Johnson, August 20, 1964
As far as I've been able to determine, socialism has never . . .
Dan Popp
January 26, 2010
I am always afraid of your "something shall be done." Titus Maccius Plautus
Dear President Obama,
As I write this, you are polishing your "State of the . . .
Dan Popp
January 12, 2010
How can a man be righteous before God? (Job 9:2b NKJV)
This is the Question of all questions, isn't it? More important than Where did I come from, or What . . .
Dan Popp
December 30, 2009
If government can create jobs, why do welfare programs exist?
The latest cowardly and incompetent attack by al Qaeda, on Christmas Day 2009, surely brought . . .
Dan Popp
December 21, 2009
Down with the great All which annoys me! Long live Zero, who leaves me at peace. The Senator, in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables
Some months ago my local . . .
Dan Popp
December 12, 2009
And these signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues; they will pick up serpents, and . . .
Dan Popp
December 2, 2009
When an unfortunate human being loses his grip on reality, he receives free care at what we used to call an asylum. When a lot of them crack up, they take over . . .
Dan Popp
November 24, 2009
The difficult thing about any religion, including Christianity, is that at some level there is a call to evangelize and proselytize. There's the belief, . . .
Dan Popp
November 9, 2009
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide people into two kinds, and those who don't. Unknown
I'm starting to think that one of the . . .
Dan Popp
November 2, 2009
I knew that my article The early church, the bread, and the wine would be controversial. I didn't expect, however, that it would be read as an attack. Let me . . .
Dan Popp
October 29, 2009
Communion. The Lord's Supper. The early Christians most often called this cherished rite "The Thanksgiving" which in Greek is "Eucharist." Instead of . . .
Dan Popp
October 20, 2009
You shall not murder. Exodus 20:13
The unborn child is a human life. Is that a new idea? Consider this assertion from a "Gender Studies" professor (and . . .
Dan Popp
October 9, 2009
Kids really do "say the darnedest things." And Leftists, being perpetual children, come up with some corkers. They're never funnier than when they're trying . . .
Dan Popp
September 22, 2009
Contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. Jude 3b, NASB
One of the more fantastical myths about the early church is . . .
Dan Popp
September 16, 2009
It is the glory of God to conceal a matter,
But the glory of kings is to search out a matter. Proverbs 25:2, NASB
This is not all Dan Brown's fault.
. . .
Dan Popp
August 31, 2009
Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. People have the right to expect that these wants will be provided for by this wisdom. . . .
Dan Popp
August 17, 2009
The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion. Karl Marx
When people say to you that government confiscation and . . .
Dan Popp
August 10, 2009
Democracy is the road to socialism. Karl Marx
The final No is daunting to contemplate. "No, you cannot take my property." "I will not let you indoctrinate . . .
Dan Popp
July 27, 2009
Probably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is the harm that we of moderate means do ourselves when we let the vices of envy and hatred enter deep into our . . .
Dan Popp
July 10, 2009
What the government gives it must first take away. John Strider Coleman
The movie Stand and Deliver is about an inner-city math teacher who "dedicates his . . .
Dan Popp
June 29, 2009
The dogmatism of science has become a new orthodoxy, disseminated by the Media and a State educational system with a thoroughness and subtlety far exceeding . . .
Dan Popp
June 22, 2009
No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make decisions for yourselves. But . . .
Dan Popp
June 9, 2009
The U.S. government is dictating to businesses what products they can sell, where, to whom, and for what price. It has set lower limits on the wages of some . . .
Dan Popp
June 1, 2009
Dear Pastor,
Over the years I've been privileged to work with a fair number of Christian ministers, of all stripes. This personal experience has given me . . .
Dan Popp
May 20, 2009
It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, . . .
Dan Popp
May 12, 2009
Socialism is not merely the labor question, or the question of the so-called fourth estate, it is above all things the atheistic question, the question of the . . .
Dan Popp
April 30, 2009
This column is dedicated to my father, who is not thanked enough.
In Loco Parentis
From the wild Irish slums of the 19th century eastern seaboard, to the . . .
Dan Popp
April 22, 2009
I have to beg the reader's pardon for all the "quotation marks" in this column. The office supply store had them "on sale" "All slightly dented punctuation . . .
Dan Popp
April 15, 2009
We have said that taxes are rightly due to fund government's God-given mission of protecting lives and property; and we've hauled several kinds of taxes before . . .
Dan Popp
April 7, 2009
In the first and second articles in this series I laid out five principles that could be part of a just tax system. Always keeping in mind that taxes are . . .
Dan Popp
March 28, 2009
In the first installment in this series I asserted that government exists to protect people and property, and that taxes are righteous, or "just," when . . .
Dan Popp
March 20, 2009
"There is no such thing as a good tax." Winston Churchill
Our civilization has declined to the point that we have forgotten why governments exist, why . . .
Dan Popp
March 13, 2009
Many Americans feel powerless to stop the outrageous and ongoing abuses by the federal government. They see as their only two choices: "write your congressman" . . .
Dan Popp
November 24, 2003
Everyone knows what happened on the date September 11, 2001. But what about 11/18/03? On that awful day America was attacked again by a more insidious . . .
