Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. When His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man, and not wanting to disgrace her, desired to put her away secretly. –Matthew 1:18-19 The key thing to note about Joseph’s character is in verse 19. The text says that Joseph was “a righteous man.” A righteous person in Matthew’s gospel is one who has an obedient trust in the promises of God revealed in the Old Testament. A righteous person cares about what God says. He trusts what…
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A friendly response to Wesley Hill’s “thought-experiment”
I am really grateful that evangelicals seem to be moving toward a serious conversation about homosexuality. Two articles in particular seem to be driving some recent online discussions. One is a piece in World magazine profiling a lesbian chaplain at Wheaton College. Another is a piece by Michelle Boorstein in The Washington Post about the “celibate gay Christian” movement. Both of these articles have provoked disagreement and spirited discussion about what it means to be a same-sex attracted Christian. I am not going to try and rehash all that has been said up to this point. I invite you do to take a look at the links in this post…
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Does the Bible teach that women can be deacons?
I have been preaching through the Pastoral Epistles at my church, and a few Sundays ago I delivered a message on deacons from 1 Timothy 3:8-16. You can listen to the sermon below or download it here. The second point of the sermon focuses on verse 11 and deals with whether Paul intends for women to serve as deacons. This is a controversial question, and I obviously don’t treat it exhaustively in this sermon. Nevertheless, here’s where I came down.
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Is same-sex attraction sinful? Charles Hodge sheds biblical light.
A few weeks ago, I sat on a panel at the Evangelical Theological Society discussing the question “Is Same-Sex Orientation Sinful?” Owen Strachan moderated the discussion among three of us who presented papers on the subject: Wesley Hill, Preston Sprinkle, and yours truly. Both Wesley and Preston have posted on the session. Craig Sanders has written a report as well. I am currently working on a book about sexual orientation, and much of what I presented to the panel was a rough version of what will appear in that book. So I will hold back on rehashing the entire argument here. If you want to read my paper, send me…
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Doug Wilson’s gut-punch to theistic evolutionists
Doug Wilson delivers a gut-punch to the theistic evolutionary group Biologos. You should read the whole thing, but here is an excerpt: The clear tendency of the BioLogos outlook is to consider young earth creationism as the ultimate academic faux pas. Young earth creationists are not just in error, they are embarrassing. But students in our schools are being taught any number of embarrassing things — like marriage consisting of one man and one woman, for example. An essential part of our training is to show our students how scholarly tongue clucking is not an argument. So learning how to resist the academic cool shame on this point is a…
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Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith square-off over Ferguson and New York
Two days ago, I mentioned Charles Barkley’s recent remarks affirming the Ferguson grand jury’s non-indictment. Since then, fellow commentator Kenny Smith has penned an open-letter that sharply disagrees with Barkley’s strident tone. Yesterday, Barkley and Smith faced each other on the set of TNT’s “Inside the NBA.” Instead of discussing basketball in the opening segment, they spent about ten minutes talking out their differences. Shaq made some comments as well. Be warned that Barkley has some salty language near the end, so you might not want to watch this one with your kiddos around. Nevertheless, I think it’s helpful to hear conversations like this one.
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Godless virtue is no virtue at all
I’ve been reading through Jonathan Edwards’ treatise on The Nature of True Virtue. This book can only be properly understood in connection with Edwards’ earlier work The End for Which God Created the World. In that earlier work, Edwards shows that God is the first and best of beings and that the purpose of all things in God’s universe is to glorify God’s own magnificence and goodness. In The Nature of True Virtue, Edwards argues that true virtue consists in having one’s heart attuned to that great reality—the glory of God. Virtue, therefore, can only exist in those who know and love God above all else. Edwards says it this…
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What’s wrong with reparative therapy?
I have expressed my own concerns about reparative therapy on this blog in the past. But Heath Lambert has perhaps the most thoroughgoing critique from an evangelical perspective that I have yet seen. He focuses his attention on the work of Joseph Nicolosi and writes, I am convinced that one of those unbiblical approaches to change is reparative therapy. Reparative therapy (RT) is infamous in the current cultural context. It has received scorn in the media, politics, and psychology. Many people, including Christians, have embraced it because of the promise of change it holds out to homosexual men and women. Because of the controversial nature of the therapy it is…
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Evangelicals meet to discuss sexual orientation in San Diego this week
This week the 66th Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) will be held in San Diego, California. I will be there to participate in a special session on sexual orientation. As I have said elsewhere, I think that we evangelicals have not yet thought our way through to biblical clarity on this issue. Among evangelicals who are otherwise close to one another confessionally, there is still a range of opinions about how to think biblically about sexual orientation. There are some who recognize same-sex orientation as an identity category that is beyond moral scrutiny. There are others who deny that Christians can even make faithful use of the…
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Death, Be Not Proud
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery. Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then? One short sleep past,…