Getting a New Testament Vision for Your Marriage

"We must recover the New Testament's vision for marriage as an aspect of discipleship and as a reflection of God's unbreakable faithfulness" (Vanhoozer, Faith Speaking Understanding, 155).

Disciples of Christ and Marital Fidelity

"One of the most important ways disciples act out the reconciliation that is in Christ is by practicing marital fidelity" (Vanhoozer, Faith Speaking Understanding, 154).

My Life for Yours, or Your Life for Mine

With the recent revelations and growing scandal vis-à-vis Planned Barrenhood, Doug Wilson continues to write to keep the troops moving apace. Here's a snippet from his latest foray:

God created the world, and He configured it in such a way that there are only two possible ways for persons to interact. They may follow the example of the Lord Jesus, and say “my life for yours,” or they may walk in the way of Cain, who slew his brother, saying “your life for mine.” Those are the only possible options, and for sinners the former way is closed to us and impossible unless the free grace of God intervenes. But when it intervenes, we are then able honestly (albeit imperfectly) to say “my life for yours."

And a little further on:

Everyone in authority — like kings, or parents — has been placed in a position where they will use their authority in line with their fundamental creed. And remember, that creed is either grounded in the gospel, and is “my life for yours,” or it is grounded in self, and must therefore necessarily be “your life for mine.”

What Is a Covenant?

A covenant is a "relationship involving an oath-bound commitment" (Gentry and Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant, 132).

What Is a Covenant?

"A covenant, in its normal sense, is an elected, as opposed to natural, relationship of obligation under oath" (Hugenberger, Marriage as a Covenant, 11).

Looking Away from Abortion

A sober piece by Ross Douthat of the New York Times: "Looking Away From Abortion."

Here's an excerpt:

The reluctance to look closely doesn’t change the truth of what there is to see. 

Those were dead human beings on Richard Selzer’s street 40 years ago, and these are dead human beings being discussed on video today: Human beings that the nice, idealistic medical personnel at Planned Parenthood have spent their careers crushing, evacuating, and carving up for parts. 

The pro-life sting was sweeping; there are reportedly 10 videos to go. You can turn away. But there will be plenty of chances to look, to see, to know.

The Need for Prophetic Edge

Over at First Things, Peter Leithart says some important things, including this:

There is an opportunity here to forge or strengthen local coalitions of churches. In some cities, pastors’ associations have issued statements affirming biblical marriage. That’s good and needs to happen across the country. But those statements will be most effective if they have a prophetic edge. Saying what’s right is necessary, but it’s not enough. Pastors need to be willing to say that other churches are wrong, and dangerously so.

Abortion in Decline in America

R. R. Reno:

Abortion is declining in America. A recent report puts the drop at 12 percent nationwide since 2010. Part of the decline undoubtedly stems from pro-life legislation in a number of states. But a broad cultural change also plays a role. We’ve succeeded in convincing the public that abortion is bad. That’s true even among people who think it’s a “tragic necessity.” This success has been hard won. It’s been a long struggle, and it continues. But as we face bad news about marriage, let’s keep this success in mind. In our permissive, nonjudgmental culture, it’s possible to move people toward sanity. In spite of all the damage done to marriage, it’s possible to rebuild a social consensus that, however imperfect (and what consensus for 300 million people won’t be?), encourages people to do the right thing, which is to restore the link between male-female sexual union, children, and lifelong marriage.

—R. R. Reno, "While We're at It," First Things August/September (2015): 68.

The Next Great Heresy

Chesterton back in 1926, speaking with real insight into real states of affairs:

For the next great heresy is going to be simply an attack on morality; and especially on sexual morality. And it is coming, not from a few Socialists surviving from the Fabian Society, but from the living exultant energy of the rich resolved to enjoy themselves at last, with neither Popery nor Puritanism nor Socialism to hold them back . . . The madness of tomorrow is not in Moscow, but much more in Manhattan.

—G.K. Chesterton, "The Next Heresy," in G.K.’s Weekly, June 19, 1926.

HT: Our Transgressive Daisy Chain

Now That's a Good Question

"'I was born gay!' 'Gender is a social construct!' Hmmmm . . . which is it?"

—Doug Wilson, Our Transgressive Daisy Chain

To Meddle, or Not to Meddle?

The Twenty-First Century Face of Feminism

Over at National Review, Mary Eberstadt has just penned an insightful piece on what is going on with feminism today. Please do have a look. And please don't let the provocative language in the beginning keep you from pressing on to the end. It gets more and more insightful as it presses on.

Here's a snippet:

Feminism has become something very different from what it understands itself to be, and indeed from what its adversaries understand it to be. It is not a juggernaut of defiant liberationists successfully playing offense. It is instead a terribly deformed but profoundly felt protective reaction to the sexual revolution itself. In a world where fewer women can rely on men, some will themselves take on the protective coloration of exaggerated male characteristics — blustering, cursing, belligerence, defiance, and also, as needed, promiscuity.

You can read the whole article (definitely worth doing) here. Which is the same place above where I urged you to go on ahead and have a look.

World Vision's Credibility Destroyed

Doug Wilson:

World Vision is a parachurch diaconal ministry. This means that the qualifications for leadership apply, and not just the qualifications for fellowship. And this means that the leaders of World Vision cannot just announce one day that a practice that God declared to be an abomination is now all right with them, and then two days later (after their financial support started to evaporate) drop that position like a hot rock, and yet remain qualified to provide moral leadership. They blew a huge hole in their credibility. Leadership being what it is, they can receive full and free forgiveness — but the hole is still there. The hole is still there because God wants it still there.

They destroyed their credibility, not me. The first step in restoring that credibility is to receive forgiveness. The second is behave in a way that shows that they understand that destroying their own credibility is what they did. The third is to recognize that credibility is something that is built over time, in the very nature of the case. They can’t just “have it back.” The next thing they should do is start accepting resignations. They sinned in a number of different ways, but one of the big ones is that they demonstrated that they were and are untrustworthy.

You can read the whole post here.

What Manner of Woman Is This?

The poise and ease with which my wife recently took care of a diaper gone bad (and I mean really bad) is a marvel of creation, almost otherworldly. 

I panicked. She performed. Flawlessly, seamlessly, promptly, as though she'd dealt with this dirty deed ten thousand times before. But I know she hadn’t. And she sang with cheer while going at the whole mess.

And by diaper gone bad, I mean as in defiling a great deal in its wake besides the diaper, leaving one usually delightful and cute little girl soiled and smelly, and toys and bed sheets and crib smeared with the unholy. 

What manner of woman I married is truly beyond mortal reckoning. But I know this: she is to be praised. May God “give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates” (Prov. 31:31). 

Women Will Be Saved Through Childbearing?

So what's going on in 1 Tim. 2:15? Women "will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control"? Really? Is childbearing being viewed as a means of salvation for women, either their own childbearing somehow, or Mary's bearing of the incarnate Son of God? Or should we understand this another way?

Perhaps at times we've made understanding this text more difficult than it need be. I don't think this text is speaking of childbearing as the means of a woman's salvation at all. I think there's a simpler explanation. So I offer my simple exposition. And, as you'll see, I'm taking "through," not as means, but in a local or spatial or experiential sense. As in, for example, I walked through the snow today to get to the mailbox. The snow wasn't the means by which I got to the mailbox, but I did go through it (in time and space, in experience) to get to the mailbox.

Now, in the immediately preceeding context, Paul has called upon Adam and Eve (1 Tim. 2:13-14) to support his point in v. 12. And by mentioning the woman's being deceived and becoming a transgressor, the fall comes into view. Then comes v. 15, the text that's thought to be difficult. But mention of childbearing out to be understood in the context of the fall, for that's what vv. 13–14 call for. And childbearing in Genesis 3, post-fall, comes with a curse, the curse of pain (Gen. 3:16). Undoubtedly there's thus an allusion to the curse of Genesis 3 in the mentioning of childbearing.

So a woman, as a woman (recall men and women are being distinguished here, and Eve is being pointed out as the one who was deceived first), is reminded of the curse with every child born, either her own, or another's. Yet here in 1 Tim. 2:15, Paul asserts that despite the curse of pain in childbearing (she's passing "through" childbearing)—which pain doesn't go away with her conversion to Christ!—she will be saved, upon the condition that she continues to believe and persists in a life of holiness and love in self-control. That is to say, she will be saved if she contiues to trust Christ in the path of obedience, or with an obedient faith, or a faith that works, even as she continues to experience the pain of Eve's fall into sin—as she passes "through" childbearing.

To Submit, or Not to Submit, That Is the Question

Which of the following may Evangelicals disobey? Or where do Evangelicals allow for disobedience? Or perhaps putting the questions that way is slanting things too much. After all, there are differences of opinion on some of these. Or maybe we can have differences of opinion on all of these. Things that make you go hmmm. . . .

1. "Let everyone submit to the governing authorities" (Rom. 13:1; cf. Tit. 3:1).

2. "You who are younger, submit to the elders" (1 Pet. 5:5; cf. Heb. 13:17).

3. "Wives, submit to your husbands . . ." (Col. 3:18; cf. Eph. 5:22; 1 Pet. 3:1).

4. "Servants, submit to your masters with all respect. . ." (1 Pet. 2:18; cf. Eph. 6:5).

In case you were wondering, the same Greek word is behind the word "submit" in all the verses listed here in one through four. Following the verses listed, some of the additional verses cited in parentheses (Heb. 13:17; Eph. 6:5) use different words that are often translated "obey" or the like.

Boy Meets Girl

Would you like to dance?

Lovely.

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely . . ." (Phil. 4:8).

Shallow Reductionism and Homosexuality

D. A. Carson on popular discourse about homosexuality:

Not for a moment should anyone deny that the evidence as to what "makes" a homosexual is extraordinarily complex. Few have matched the care and objectivity of the study by Stanton L. Jones and Mark A. Yarhouse. In popular discourse, however, virtually none of that complexity is allowed to surface in the public square. It is everywhere assumed that people are simply born that way, and that's all there is to it. Even if that were the case—and the evidence simply will not allow such shallow reductionism—it would not in itself establish that the practice of homosexuality is a good thing, absent a number of other assumptions

 —D. A. Carson, The Intolerance of Tolerance (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 134.

True Biblical Equality and—Then There's Egalitarianism

Doug Wilson on the biblical notion of equality and its modern distortion egalitarianism:

The Christian faith teaches and brings true biblical equality. The Christian faith also rejects egalitarianism, which is a false definition of equality. Christian equality can be described as equity, or even-handedness. Egalitarianism, in contrast, demands sameness, or equality of outcome. These two visions of equality are about as comparable as wet and dry. Think of it in terms of ten teenage boys trying to dunk a basketball: equity means that they all face the same ten-foot standard, and only two of them can do it—equity thus usually means differences in outcome. Egalitariansm wants equality of outcome, and there is only one way to get that—lower the net. Sameness of outcome requires differences in the standards.

—For a Glory and a Covering: A Practical Theology of Marriage (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2006), 90.

Gathering Together to Strengthen Marriages

This summer a group from our home church is getting together six Sunday nights to strengthen our marriages. Like caring for a glorious garden so it's not overrun with weeds, we're going to do a little planting, a little watering, and a little hoeing in community.

We'll be reading through Doug Wilson's For a Glory and a Covering: A Practical Theology of Marriage. I expect to do some blogging on the book along the way. Please feel free, especially if you're involved in the discussions, to interact and comment. If you're blogging on the book, I'll be sure to drop by and see what you're saying.

For those who'll be joining our jolly gatherings this summer (which Em and I are really looking forward to), I'm posting the marriage discussion schedule below. 

One more word about a word above. I say jolly gatherings, because "the joy of the Lord is our strength," and the strength of our marriages. And I say jolly, because I fully anticipate having a lot of fun with friends. 

Summer Reading Schedule for Marriage Discussion

June 10—Introduction and Part I: "Marriage and the Nature of God" 
                 (Chps. 1-5, xi - p. 26)

                 Discussion Focus: chps. 2 & 5

                 * Hosts: The Wencels 

June 24—Part II: "Marriage Is for Men and Women" 
                 (Chps. 6-8, pp. 29-53)

                 Discussion Focus: chps. 7 & 8

                 * Hosts: The Polenders

July 15—Part II: "Marriage Is for Men and Women"
              (Chps. 9-12, pp. 55-86)           
              Discussion Focus: chps. 11 & 12
              * Hosts: The Walters

July 22—Part III: "Marriage Is for Sinners" 
                (Chps. 13-16, pp. 89-108)

                Discussion Focus: chps. 14 & 16

                * Hosts: The Colberts

Aug 12—Part III: "Marriage Is for Sinners" 
                (Chps. 17-19, pp. 109-124)

                Discussion Focus: chps. 17 & 19

                * Hosts: The Wencels

Aug 26—Part IV: "Marriage Is Good" 
                (Chps. 20-23, pp. 127-149)

                Discussion Focus: chps. 21 & 23

                * Hosts: ?