The Kingdom of Self vs. the Kingdom of God

Justin Taylor posts:

From Paul Tripp’s chapter, “War of Words: Getting to the Heart for God’s Sake,” in the forthcoming book, The Power of Words and the Wonder of God:

I would ask you again to be humbly honest with yourself as you are reading. If I sat with you and I listened to recording of the last month of your words, whose kingdom, what kingdom, would I conclude those words are spoken to serve? Would it be the kingdom of self with its self-focused demandingness, expectancy, and entitlement? Would I hear a person who is quick to criticize, quick to judge, quick to slam, and quick to condemn, because people are always violating the laws of your kingdom? Is the greatest moral offense in your life an offense that someone makes against the laws of your kingdom? When this happens do you use words as a punishment or as a weapon? Do you use words to rein this person back into loyal service of the purposes of your kingdom of one?

Or would I hear you using words of love, honestly, encouragement, and service because your heart is taken up with the big-sky purposes of the kingdom of God. The entire law is summarized by a single command. If you had written that, what would you have written next? I probably would have written, “Love God above all else.” But that is clearly not what Paul writes. He writes, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Why is that an adequate summary of all that God calls me to? Oh, it is important to get this truth. It is only when I love God above all else that I will ever love my neighbor as myself. It’s only when God is in the rightful place in my life that I will treat you with the love that I have received from him. Brothers and sisters, hear this. You don’t fix language problems, you don’t fix communication problems, and you don’t fix word problems horizontally first; you first fix them vertically.

For more, see:

• Paul Tripp, War of Words: Getting to the Heart of Your Communication Struggles
• Paul Tripp, A Quest for More: Living for Something Bigger Than You

Leviticus 16:21-22

“In Passion Week, as I was reading Bishop Wilson on the Lord’s Supper, I met with an expression to this effect — ‘that the Jews knew what they did, when they transferred their sin to the head of their offering.’ The thought came into my mind, ‘What, may I transfer all my guilt to another? Has God provided an Offering for me, that I may lay my sins on His head? Then, God willing, I will not bear them on my own soul one moment longer. Accordingly, I sought to lay my sins upon the sacred head of Jesus.”

Charles Simeon, describing his conversion, in H. C. G. Moule, Charles Simeon, pages 25-26.

(HT: Ray Ortlund)

A plea for doctrinal clarity

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“We meet it most [a general ecumenical outlook] in the form of an all-pervasive climate of opinion which dislikes anything that is really distinctive in doctrine or in life, which demands, indeed, ever less emphasis on doctrine, on definition, or on ethical principle.

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“Never was a time when polemics in any form was at such a discount. There have been periods in history when the preservation of the very life of the church depended upon the capacity and readiness of certain great leaders to differentiate truth from error and boldly to hold fast to the good and to reject the false; but our generation does not like anything of the kind. It is against any clear and precise demarcation of truth and error.”

- D. Martyn Lloyd Jones

(HT: Todd Pruitt)

Loosing our life for Christ’s sake

This ‘sermon jam’ of John Piper was compiled from a message at ‘Together for the Gospel’ 2008. I was there! It’s as stirring now as it was then.

You can hear the whole message, How the Supremacy of Christ Creates Radical Christian Sacrifice, here.

(HT: Allsufficientgrace)

The regeneration of all creation

I’m off to Uganda in a few days for two weeks teaching ministry. This is the book I’m taking with me. Here’s a great quote from it:

“Our renewal is tied to the eschatological renewal of the creation. We cannot separate our present spiritual regeneration from cosmic regeneration because our present restoration to life is the first stage in the eschatological restoration of all creation to its proper vitality and relationship to God. We are the firstfruits.

The goal of redemption is nothing less the restoration of the entire cosmos. The scope of redemption is truly cosmic. Through Christ, God determined ‘to reconcile to himself all things’ (Col 1:20). Matthew 19:28 speaks of the renewal (the word is ‘regeneration’) of all things. Acts 3:21 also indicates a cosmic regeneration when it says that Jesus must remain in heaven ‘until the time comes for God to restore everything.’

Why must God regenerate, give new life and direction to, all things? Because the entire creation has been drawn into the mutiny of the human race (Rom. 8:19-24). Because man’s fall affected not only himself but also the rest of creation, redemption must involve God’s entire creation.”

—Michael D. Williams, Far as the Curse is Found (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2005), 275-276

(HT: Of First Importance)

John Stott: Is Man Basically Good?

“Much that we take for granted in a civilized society is based upon the assumption of human sin. Nearly all legislation has grown up because human beings cannot be trusted to settle their own disputes with justice and without self-interest. A promise is not enough; we need a contract. Doors are not enough; we have to lock and bolt them. The payment of fares is not enough; tickets have to be issued, inspected and collected. Law and order are not enough; we need the police to enforce them. All this is due to man’s sin. We cannot trust each other. We need protection against one another. It is a terrible indictment of human nature.”

- John Stott, Basic Christianity

(HT: Josh Harris)

Be Courageous, Mr. President

From last weekend’s sermon by John Piper:

The primacy of expositional preaching

Mark Dever:

“Expositional—a sermon which takes the point of the text as the point of the sermon . . . an exposition of Scripture simply seeks to uncover, explain, and apply the divinely intended meaning of the text.”

“. . . expositional preachers are modern day prophets, serving merely as conduits through which the Word of God may flow into the people of God in order to do the work of God in them.”

“Pastoral authority is directly related to Authorial intent. The preacher only has authority from God to speak as His ambassador as long as he remains faithful to convey the Divine Author’s intentions. This means that the further the preacher strays from preaching the intention of the text, the further his divine blessing and God-given authority are eroded in the pulpit.”

“Does a commitment to expositional preaching mean that I should never preach other kinds of sermons? No. Topical and biographical sermons still have value. It is sometimes helpful to address a certain topic by culling and presenting Biblical information. And it is sometimes instructive to study the life of a Biblical character and draw practical implications for today. The point is that, as a consistent diet, expositional preaching is most healthy for both the preacher and the congregation.”

“There are more ways to preach expositionally than plodding through one phrase or sentence at a time. The length of the text is immaterial to the question of whether or not the sermon is an exposition. As long as the point of the passage is used as the point of the message, a sermon qualifies as expositional—length notwithstanding.”

“The point of any Biblical text is to accomplish God’s purposes in the hearts and minds of God’s people. So if the sermon amounts to no more than a wordy commentary devoid of application, it has missed the bull’s eye at which true exposition always takes aim.”

“. . . we may legitimately preach a single expositional sermon on the whole Bible, a whole testament, a whole book, a whole narrative or parable, one paragraph, one phrase, or a single word—as long as we are preaching the intended point of the selected meaning unit.”

(HT: Adrian Warnock)

CJ Mahaney – ‘The Cup’

(HT: Sovereign Grace Blog)

Lloyd-Jones: Living Water

I’m just about to leave to preach in a friends church. My text is, 2Tim.1:6,7. My title is, ‘Fanning the flame’. I pray that preacher and people alike share this expectation and encounter described here by the Doctor.

My thanks to Justin Taylor for posting this:

Crossway has now published Living Water: Studies in John 4–56 previously unpublished sermons by Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

Here is an excerpt:

Possibly one of the most devastating things that can happen to us as Christians is that we cease to expect anything to happen. I am not sure but that this is not one of our greatest troubles today. We come to our services and they are orderly, they are nice ‒ we come, we go ‒ and sometimes they are timed almost to the minute, and there it is. But that is not Christianity, my friend. Where is the Lord of glory? Where is the one sitting by the well? Are we expecting him? Do we anticipate this? Are we open to it? Are we aware that we are ever facing this glorious possibility of having the greatest surprise of our life?

Or let me put it like this. You may feel and say ‒ as many do ‒ ‘I was converted and became a Christian. I’ve grown ‒ yes, I’ve grown in knowledge, I’ve been reading books, I’ve been listening to sermons, but I’ve arrived now at a sort of peak and all I do is maintain that. For the rest of my life I will just go on like this.’

Now, my friend, you must get rid of that attitude; you must get rid of it once and for ever. That is ‘religion’, it is not Christianity. This is Christianity: the Lord appears! Suddenly, in the midst of the drudgery and the routine and the sameness and the dullness and the drabness, unexpectedly, surprisingly, he meets with you and he says something to you that changes the whole of your life and your outlook and lifts you to a level that you had never conceived could be possible for you. Oh, if we get nothing else from this story, I hope we will get this. Do not let the devil persuade you that you have got all you are going to get, still less that you received all you were ever going to receive when you were converted. That has been a popular teaching, even among evangelicals. You get everything at your conversion, it is said, including baptism with the Spirit, and nothing further, ever. Oh, do not believe it; it is not true. It is not true to the teaching of the Scriptures, it is not true in the experience of the saints running down the centuries. There is always this glorious possibility of meeting with him in a new and a dynamic way.

Update: Tullian shares another good quote from the Doctor.

Sharing in the Life of the Resurrected Christ

“The relationship between the exalted Christ and the Spirit is the cornerstone of Paul’s teaching on the Christian life and the work of the Holy Spirit. The presence of the Spirit is the presence of Christ (Rom. 8:9-10; Eph. 3:16-17). Life in the Spirit has its specific eschatological quality because it is the shared life of the resurrected Christ, in union with him. The radical edge of Paul’s outlook stresses that at the core of their being (”the inner man” or the “heart”), Christians will never be more resurrected than they already are! Christian existence across its full range is a manifestation and outworking of the resurrection life and power of Christ, the life-giving Spirit (Rom. 6:2ff.; Eph. 2:5-6; Col. 2:12-13; 3:1-4).”

- Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. “Resurrection and Redemption: How Eschatology and the Gospel Relate“

(HT: Of First Importance)

The Greatest Preachers

“Throughout the history of the church the greatest preachers have been those who have recognized that they have no authority in themselves, and have seen their task as being to explain the words of Scripture and apply them clearly to the lives of their hearers. Their preaching has drawn its power not from the proclamation of their own Christian experiences or the experiences of others, nor from their own opinions, creative ideas, or rhetorical skills, but from God’s powerful words. Essentially, they stood in the pulpit, pointed to the biblical text, and said in effect to the congregation, “This is what this verse means. Do you see that meaning here as well? Then you must believe it and obey it with all your heart, for God himself, your Creator and you Lord, is saying this to you today!” Only the written words of Scripture can give this kind of authority to preaching.”

-Wayne Grudem, Bible Doctrine, p. 40.

(HT: Justin Childers)

How does the will function in salvation? – R.C. Sproul

A necessary condition for justification is faith. Right? And faith involves an active embracing, and trusting in Christ-and in Christ alone. In that sense it involves some action of the will. It involves some step of embracing Christ. Now we’re not saying-Luther isn’t saying, Augustine isn’t saying-that the human will is not involved in salvation. When I have faith in Christ, I am the one who is trusting, I am the one who is believing, I am the one who is choosing him, and I am choosing him freely. That’s not an issue. We all agree on that.

The question is, What has to happen before that person will choose Christ, will embrace Christ? When I say I have to embrace Christ in order to be saved-I have to have faith in order to be saved, I have to ask the next question: How do I get the faith? Can I choose to believe out of my dead, sinful nature? Or must I be spiritually raised from the dead and be given eyes to see and a heart to respond positively before I ever will respond positively? What Reformed theology says, what Augustine was saying, is that we are by nature spiritually dead. God can offer us salvation until kingdom come-but he does more than offer it.

He resurrects our souls from the dead. He does a divine and supernatural work in us called regeneration. He quickens us, and every mother knows that “quickening” is the sense of the presence of life in the womb. It is the Holy Spirit who changes the disposition of our souls, which prior to this work has no desire for Christ. We’re still choosing. When we’re dead in sin, we’re still alive to sin, and we’re making choices all the time. But the choices are always according to what we want. That’s what freedom is. That’s why Augustine, in a confusing way, said that man still has a liberium arbitrium; he still has a free will. But what he lacks is libertas (liberty); he’s still free to do what he wants. That’s his condemnation. We still choose sin because that’s what we want.

The freedom we lack is the ability, in and of ourselves, to change our hearts that are enslaved to these wicked desires; only God can surgically repair that captivity. In other words, we are in bondage to our own desires, which are wicked, until God changes the disposition of our hearts. Once he does that, he is releasing the will from its prison. And we’re no longer now in bondage. Now we have the desire for Christ, and we freely choose Christ, but not until God-and only God-liberates us.

(HT: Symphony Of Scripture)

Taking God’s side against sin

“I often tell my congregation that when it comes to battling sin in our lives, the difference between Christians and non-Christians is not that non-Christians sin whereas Christians don’t. The difference is found in which side we take in the battle. Christians take God’s side against sin, whereas non-Christians take sin’s side against God. In other words, a Christian will sin, but then he will turn to God and his Word and say, ‘Help me fight against sin.’ A non-Christian, even if he recognizes his sin, effectively responds, ‘I want my sin more than God.’“
-Mark Dever

(HT:  Reformed Voices)

“Dyed with Jesus’ Blood”

From Michael Haykin.

On what constitutes a call to the ministry:

“Now we need numbers in the Ministry. The plenteous, perishing harvest wails out a despairing cry for more laborers. But we need purity more than numbers; we need intelligence more than numbers; we need zeal more than numbers. Above all, we need consecrated men, men who have stood beneath the Cross, till their very souls are dyed with Jesus’ blood, and a love like his for perishing millions has been kindled within them.”

[Basil Manly, Jr. A Call to the Ministry (Greenville, South Carolina: G.E. Elford’s Job Press, 1866), 16].

Revisiting The Shack

John Fonville posts this excellent review. I am amazed at how many Christians are singing the praises of ‘The Shack’. A sign of our biblically-ignorant, and doctrine-depreciating times? For further important critiques of this misleading book, check out articles by Paul Grimmond and Tim Challies.

This is an abreviated version of a longer review (9 pages) by Dr. DeYoung. For those who would like to read the longer review, click here: Revisiting The Shack and Universal Reconciliation.

Revisiting The Shack and Universal Reconciliation

James B. De Young
October, 2008

Seldom does one have the opportunity to review a work of fiction written by a friend that has risen to the top of best seller lists. Recently The Shack has been approaching sales of three million or more. There is talk about making a movie of the book.

What is so unusual about this success is not only that the novel is ostensibly a Christian work of fiction but that it also espouses a view of God that is creative but biblically challenged. It is novel both as literature and as theology. But does Christian fiction have to be doctrinally correct?

A brief look at the book uncovers an unremarkable plot. Willie retells the story of his friend, Mackenzie Phillips, who as a child was abused by his father which left him bitter toward God, the Bible, and the ministry. When his youngest daughter is kidnapped and brutally killed in a mountain shack, Mack’s anger freezes his total outlook in sadness and despair. Years later God invites him to return to the same shack. He encounters the Trinity in the form of a large African woman (“Papa” =the Father), a Jewish carpenter (=Jesus Christ), and a small Asian woman by the name Sarayu (=the Holy Spirit). These three lead Mack to discover a fresh meaning of God’s love for him and forgiveness.

Who is the author? For more than a dozen years I have known William P. Young. We have discussed much theology in a “think tank.” Over four years ago Paul embraced universal reconciliation and defended it on several occasions. He claimed that universalism changed his life and his theology.

The core belief of universal reconciliation asserts that love is the supreme attribute of God that trumps all others. His love reaches beyond the grave to save all those who refuse Christ before they die. God’s love will even conquer fallen angels and the Devil himself who will join the saints in heaven. This view of future destinies claims many texts that seem to teach that the reconciliation that Jesus accomplished on the cross extends to all creatures (Rom. 5:18; 2 Cor. 5:16-20; Col. 1:19-20), that all will lovingly confess him as Lord (Phil. 2:6-11), and that God’s will that all be saved (1 Tim. 2:4) will be accomplished without fail.

After the The Shack was written, the editors worked over a year to eliminate its universalism (as they assert on their web site). Paul now disavows universalism. Yet like all universalists he affirms that he “hopes” that none will experience eternal suffering. But the critical question is this: Does universalism remain in the book? By comparing the creeds of universalism with The Shack one discovers that many tenets of universalism and other errors are implicit in the book.

1. Universalism subjugates God’s justice to his love. The creed of 1878 asserts that God’s attribute of justice is “born of love and limited by love.” The novel asserts that God “cannot act apart from love” (p. 102, 191), that God “chose the way of the cross where mercy triumphs over justice because of love,” and that God did not choose “justice for everyone” (164-165).

2. The creed of 1899 asserts that God “will finally restore the whole family of mankind to holiness and happiness”; there is no future judgment. Similarly Paul denies that Papa (God) “pours out wrath and throws people” into hell. God does not punish sin; it’s his “joy to cure it” (120). Papa “redeems” final judgment (127). God will not “condemn most to an eternity of torment, away from his presence and apart from his love” (162). To judge is to act contrary to love (145).

3. Universalists deny a personal devil. He goes unmentioned in the book (134-137).

4. Paul reveals that the entire Trinity became incarnate, and that the whole Trinity was crucified (99). Both Jesus and Papa (God) bear the marks of crucifixion in their hands (contra. Isa. 53:4-10). These ideas suggest the heresy of patripassianism and modalism, that God is singular who assumes the different modes of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

5. Reconciliation is effective for all without exercising faith. Papa asserts that he is reconciled to the whole world, not only to those who believe (192). The creeds of universalism never mention the need to believe in Christ. Rejecting the idea that God willed humans to have a will that allows them to reject him is deterministic and coercive.

6. All are equally children of God and loved equally by him (155-156). In a future revolution of “love and kindness” everyone will confess in the power of the Spirit that Jesus is Lord (248).

7. The institution of the church is rejected as diabolical. Jesus claims that he “never has, never will” create institutions (178). This counters Jesus’ words in Matthew 16 and 18.

8 ) The Bible is only a revelation of God. In the novel it comes as an afterthought to other revelation (198).

Universalism began with Origen in the third century. In the sixth century it was condemned as heresy. In modern times universalism undermined evangelical faith in Europe and America. It opposed the Great Awakening in the 1730’s-40’s. By 1961 universalism joined with Unitarianism to form the Unitarian-Universalist Association, with its denial of the Trinity and the deity of Christ.

How does one answer the errors of universalism? From the Bible which I’ve cited at The Shack Review.com.

Near the beginning I asked: Does Christian fiction have to be doctrinally correct? In this case the answer is “yes,” for Paul’s intention is to teach theology throughout The Shack. If it is only fiction, why was universalism removed? Although a story may be quite helpful, if an author uses doctrinal impurity to teach how to be restored to a redefined God is one restored to the God of the Bible? Jesus warned that a house built on the wrong foundation will collapse (Matt. 7:24-28). So will a shack.

John Piper on the Economic Downturn

The Hopeless Dawn

My thanks to Ray Ortlund for posting this encouraging piece:

“The Hopeless Dawn” by Frank Bramley shows a young widow, who has just found out that her husband was lost at sea, being comforted by her godly mother-in-law. Notice the altar-like table, suggesting the Lord’s Supper. Notice the big open Bible on the seat by the window. The two suffering women are not alone. Christ is there.

Sooner or later every one of us is confronted with a hopeless dawn. Hopeless, as someone or something important to us is taken away forever. A dawn, because that very moment of overwhelming loss is the beginning of a new era. Christ is there.

I have met many men, in their 50s like me, who have simply lived long enough to get body-slammed by life in some unforeseeable, major way. Divorce, cancer, their business stolen out from underneath them, sued, a wayward child breaking their heart, and so forth. Previous successes make no difference and offer no protection. Sooner or later, the unimaginable comes and finds us. It’s just a matter of time.

What I am learning is that such a moment is not when I should say, “Okay, now I begin again.” Instead, it is when I can say, “Okay, now I begin.” Christ is there.

Suffering for Christ

by C.J. Mahaney

What constitutes suffering for the name of Christ? Often we recall the most severe examples of suffering—Stephen crying out to the Lord as enraged Jewish leaders hurled rocks at his body; Paul and Silas with feet shackled to a Philippian prison, still feeling the pain of their earlier beating; Jim Elliot and his four missionary friends rushed by armed Huaorani Indians. These are all graphic examples of Christians enduring great sacrifices for the advance of the gospel.

Scripture teaches (even promises) that all Christians will suffer, but these graphic examples are not the norm for faithful Christians in the West today. So what does suffering for the name of Christ look like in twenty-first century America?

During one panel discussion at the Together for the Gospel conference, Ligon Duncan and I interviewed our friend John Piper on this issue.

——

Ligon Duncan: John, you have done a pretty extended exposition on kinds of suffering, available on the Desiring God website. You have done it in different forms. You are addressing this very question that, that suffering just means taking a bullet or getting your head hacked off. You make a great point in that message about how any kind of suffering can become suffering for Christ if you will embrace it that way.

John Piper: If you pick a text on suffering and you try to apply it to cancer, when it is dealing with persecution, a lot of people will say, “I don’t think that applies to me, because that is really applying to getting suffering from somebody hurting you or saying something evil.” So I have developed an argument: All suffering that a Christian endures in the path of obedience is suffering with Christ and for Christ (though not in the same way).

And there are a couple of reasons for that.

One is that in suffering, the temptation is the same whether it is coming from cancer or slander. And the temptation is to say, “God is not good and it is not worth serving him, and escaping from this suffering in some sinful way is to be preferred.” Those are the same. And so the real battle is the same, whether it is coming from a physical thing or another.

Secondly, I don’t think historically you can draw a line between suffering from persecution and physical suffering. Just try to imagine a particular kind of Pauline persecution, like being whipped 39 lashes, five times (2 Corinthians 11:24). Well, let’s just take the third time. You can imagine what his back must have looked like—39 times five is a lot—and it healed five times. So the third time his back is turned into jelly again.

Now they don’t know anything about antibiotics. When they are done with him, they throw him on the floor and his back is now covered with dirt. What happens when your back is lacerated and it is covered with dirt? I’ll tell you what happens: infection happens. What happens when you get an infection? Fever happens.

Now which is the physical suffering here and which is the persecution suffering? Where are you going to draw that line between the fever and the lashes? Which is why I say that any fever experienced in the path of obedience—getting my sermon ready, making hard calls, staying up late with the suicide situation, and not enough rest and I have got this awful sore throat—tell me these are not the same suffering as being criticized for your ministry. It is the same essential suffering.

And so I think I can develop textual and thoughtful arguments for why almost all texts on suffering can help our people, whether their pain is coming from a difficult marriage, coming from slander, coming from cancer, or coming from wherever.

The issue is in all suffering, when we trust him and keep trusting him, we will find some evidences of his sovereign mercy toward me. And the source of it is a very minor part when it comes to the real battle down here of “Will I trust him? Will I hold on to him or not?”

C.J. Mahaney: Knowing you, John, and knowing your church, you have devoted much time to addressing the topic of suffering and to preparing your church for suffering. Why and how would you recommend that local pastors here do the same?

JP: Well, the why is because the Bible promises, “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22, ESV). It is a given that to come to Jesus is to compound your suffering, not minimize your suffering. Certain kinds of sufferings get minimized. The suffering that comes from drunkenness will probably go down. So don’t hear me saying nothing changes or is beneficial. That is not true. There are amazing releases for conscience. A lot of psychological things will improve, but others will get worse.

So, if you are now in a marriage where one of you is a believer and one is not, that is this sort of thing. They will suffer.

And the second is because you see it out there. You see the little Down-syndrome kids, and you see the people in the wheelchair, and you see the painful marriages that are out there. You see it, and you either are going to just ignore it, or you are going to give them something to help.

Third, I don’t think Christ is glorified anywhere more than when suffering people rejoice in him as their treasure. If everything is going rosy for all my people, the possibilities of us making a name for Jesus in the city is smaller than if things are going hard for our folks. Then the possibility of making a name for Jesus is greater. What the world wants to see is not for you to tell them, “Jesus makes things go well for me.” Things are going well for them, too, probably better than for you, and it is money and doctors that are doing it for them. So that argument has teeny-weeny effectiveness.

Rather, when neighbors know that the baby in your womb has a liver outside his body, no spinal column, and you have carried this baby to the end and they watch you, the possibilities of making much of Jesus are staggering.

Not many people see life that way. My job as a preacher is to help that mom, way before the pregnancy, get ready for it so that she has some resources. And one of the most satisfying things in ministry, guys, is to do this long enough so that you get a steady stream of testimonies that come to you at funerals and in hospitals and other places where a mom or a son or a relative just takes you by the hand and says, “So glad we have been at Bethlehem. We would be insane if we didn’t have a big God, if we didn’t have a strong God, if we didn’t have a sovereign God, if we didn’t have a holy God.”

I love those testimonies and I get a lot of mileage of late-night work out of testimonies like that, and they are pretty common stream.

We have got a lot of strong women at our church. They bear a lot of things. They endure pain through marriages and through kids that are disabled…Strong women are magnificent testimonies to Christ because, if they are complementarian, they are combining things the world can’t explain. They are combining a sweet, tender, kind, loving, submissive, feminine beauty with this massive steel in their backs and theology in their brains.

————

Listen to the T4G panel discussion here.

Trying to understand the Bible

When you’re trying to understand a passage in the Bible, weighing different interpretations, here is the ultimate criterion for deciding. Which one is “an interpretation worthy of God”?

The quote from Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Isaiah, II:458.

(HT: Ray Ortlund)