Pastor John Piper has an excellent little message that he preached last week to the Fidelis Foundation Pastors Luncheon. It’s a practical piece on the benefits that occur in and for families and churches when a Complementarian view of gender takes root. Once again, it’s a homerun. For anyone interested in some of the ways that Complementarianism works out practically, you’ll appreciate this message. “Some Sweet Blessings of Masculine Christianity” – by John Piper (Sermon Notes)

Don’t miss Michael Gerson’s column in today’s Washington Post. Here’s a snippet: James Watson, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist who helped discover the structure of DNA in 1953, recently pronounced the entire population of Africa genetically inferior when it comes to intelligence. And while he hopes that everyone is equal, “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true.”

Does God permit divorce? Not all evangelicals agree on what the Bible teaches on this question. David Instone-Brewer has written a scholarly book on the subject, but his recent article in Christianity Today has stirred up some conversation in the blogosphere. Instone-Brewer argues that God allows for divorce in cases of adultery, abandonment, and physical/emotional neglect. John Piper has responded that Instone-Brewer’s conclusions do not faithfully render the Bible’s teaching. Piper also argues that divorce is not allowed under any circumstances. Andreas Köstenberger responds to both of these articles arguing that Jesus permitted divorce in cases of adultery and abandonment.

The Dallas Morning News has a brief story on Bible translation titled “Christian consumer’s guide to the Bible(s),” and they mistakenly categorize The Living Bible as a translation. It is not. When a Bible is rendered from one language into another, we call it translation. Translation happens anytime a scholar or a group of scholars reads the Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew originals and then translates them into a receptor language (like English in our case). There are two basic philosophies of Bible translation: (1) Formal Equivalence, which is a word-for-word approach to translating, and (2) Dynamic Equivalence, which is a thought-for-thought approach. All translations of the Scriptures fall somewhere on…

Christianity Today‘s Colin Hansen has a feature on the Gospel Coalition titled “Tethered to the Center.” Be sure to read the whole thing, but here are the closing lines: “Imagine an evangelical movement led by churches that grow by multiplying, preach with theological substance and winsome apologetics, encourage holiness among members, engage their communities in areas such as politics and art, and even share economic resources and welcome the poor. Who can argue with these aims? If the Gospel Coalition’s churches can pull this off, they will have a much easier time persuading other evangelicals to return to the theological center.”