The annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention wrapped-up last night. A strong majority of SBC messengers voted in favor of the Sanchez/Law amendment (61%), but it fell short of the required supermajority (66%). So that effort is now dead. Some take-aways: 1. It is very clear that majorities of messengers at the last three conventions want this amendment. But it is very difficult to get a supermajority to pass a measure when the platform opposes it. The platform mounted strong opposition the last two years. 2. I thought the amendment had a good chance of reaching a supermajority until the platform warned messengers during the debate that the amendment…
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Did Aristotle Really Say that Women Are Deformed?
Aristotle has regularly been pilloried by modern writers (and especially feminists) for saying that “The female is as it were a deformed male.”1 New feminist Prudence Allen, for example, argues that this statement from Aristotle among many others renders him morally retrograde in his views on women.2 It may be the case that he is guilty as charged. I do not intend to adjudicate that point. I do wonder, however, if his statement about women being “deformed” has been rightly understood on its own terms. The Greek term translated as “deformed” is peperomenon, and it literally means maimed or mutilated. Figuratively, it denotes something like incapacitated.3 But Aristotle’s usage of…
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Resurrection Hymn
O Jesus, Savior of my life, My hope, my joy, my sacrifice, I’ve searched and found no other one Who loves me more than you have done. So I denounce my lingering sin Whose power You have broke within My ever weak and faithless frame. Its vigor’s crushed in Jesus name. For your death did at once proclaim, The Godhead’s glory and my shame. And you did seize my cup of guilt And drank all that the chalice spilled. No condemnation now I dread Because you went for me instead To bear the curse and wrath and rage, To pay the debt I would have paid. Yet your work finished…
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The Ground of All Human Assurance before God
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The Innermost Meaning of the Cross
“But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand.” -Isaiah 53:10 “God put [Christ] forward as a propitiation in His blood through faith, in order to demonstrate His righteousness.” -Romans 3:25 “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us– for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.’” -Galatians 3:13 “It is those who cannot come to terms with any concept of the wrath of God…
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Who Can Come to Jesus – John 6:36-51
I recently listened to an old country song that I haven’t heard in a long time. It came out the year I graduated high school—Bonnie Rait’s ballad “I Can’t Make You Love Me.” It’s a beautiful melody with absolutely depressing lyrics. It’s a about a woman who keeps going back into the arms of a man that she knows doesn’t love her. And she says, “I can’t make you love me if you don’t You can’t make your heart feel something it won’t Here in the dark, in these final hours I will lay down my heart and I’ll feel the power But you won’t, no you won’t ‘Cause I…
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I Am the Bread of Life – John 6:22-35
What kind of Christianity is it that desires the fruit but not the root? Is it really Christian for someone to say, “I’ll take Jesus’ gifts—life, social order, morality, beauty, law, the western tradition and western culture—I’ll take all of these gifts from Jesus, but I don’t want Jesus.” What kind of Christianity is that? It’s the kind of “Christianity” that allows you to hate Jesus while insisting that you benefit from his gifts. Some people may call that Christianity by slapping the label “cultural” on the front of it, but might I suggest that such a thing is no Christianity at all. At best, it is a form of…
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How Rejecting Gender Essentialism Can Lead to Transgenderism
On this week’s CBMW podcast, we discuss how egalitarian error can lead to transgender error. In Christa McKirland’s chapter in Discovering Biblical Equality (3rd ed.), she argues that some transgender people need to discern whether sex-change surgeries or hormone therapies “can be done in submission to the Spirit and in order to become more like Christ.” It is astonishing that this perspective appears in what purports to be an evangelical work on gender. That is what we discuss below. How Rejecting Gender Essentialism Gets You Transgenderism – On this episode, @DennyBurk, @colinsmo, and Jon discuss a chapter from the egalitarian book Discovering Biblical Equality called “Image of God and Divine Presence:…
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The Gospel on Joe Rogan’s Podcast
I just finished listening to Joe Rogan’s stimulating interview with a Christian apologist named Wes Huff. It really is a fascinating conversation, and I want to commend it to you. The occasion for the interview is Wes Huff’s “debate” with atheist Billy Carson late last year. I stayed up late last night and watched the debate. Huff dominated with facts and evidence, and he did so in a kind and winsome way. It was so one-sided, that Carson subsequently tried to keep the debate from seeing the light of day and sued Huff. It’s a big mess and has gotten a lot of commentary online, which is how Joe Rogan…
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Top 10 YouTubes of 2024
It’s time for my annual posting of the Top 10 YouTube Videos of the Year (see last year’s list here). This ranking is totally unscientific, and I gave up many years ago on limiting it to only ten videos. Only one person was polled to compile this list—yours truly. This year’s slate of videos has both humor and humanity with some other odds and ends thrown in. If you think I’ve left something out, let me know. I’ll think about adding an “Honorable Mention” category at the bottom. Enjoy! If you’re interested, here are links to lists from previous years: 2023 | 2022 | 2021 |2020 | 2019 | 2018…
