Joe Rigney has a lengthy piece at the Desiring God website reflecting on God’s Sovereignty and the problem of evil. The essay is, of course, written in light of recent events in Connecticut. Here’s a bit from the introduction: Does disaster befall a city unless the Lord has done it (Amos 3:6)? What about a school? I don’t say that lightly. I realize what I’m saying. Or rather, I know what the Scriptures are saying. I’ve wept with parents as they watched their child die slowly of an incurable disease. I’ve watched dementia rob me of my father, taunting me and my family with his slow death. I realize that…
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Heath Lambert on the Problem of Pornography
Heath Lambert has an outstanding article in the most recent issue of JBMW. The article is about the problem of pornography, and Lambert’s take on the whole issue is particularly practical and helpful. He opens with this: Pornography is the defining sexual sin of our day. In Christian circles adultery and homosexuality often capture more headlines, but I am persuaded that in terms of sheer numbers they cannot hold a candle to the devastation of pornography. Last year I counseled six people struggling with homosexuality and around eighteen caught in adultery and fornication. I don’t know exactly how many I helped who were locked in pornography, but the number is…
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Fall 2012 Issue of JBMW
The Fall 2012 issue of JBMW has some fantastic resources in it, and it is available now for free from the CBMW website. Contributors include John Piper, Tim Challies, Tony Reinke, Heath Lambert and more. I’ll be highlighting some of the articles here in days to come. For now, you can download the entire journal here or link to specific articles within it below. The table of contents is below.
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Tom Schreiner to offer course on Luke at TGC 2013
As far as New Testament scholars go, Tom Schreiner is the best of the best in my view. Those of you who are attending The Gospel Coalition conference this Spring will have the opportunity to study with Schreiner in a special course offered in conjunction with the meeting. You can earn six hours of transferable course credit through Southern Seminary [view syllabus]. Students will attend exclusive lectures, panel discussions, and events featuring renowned professors and pastors throughout the conference. For more about this opportunity and an interview with Schreiner about the course read here.
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A Social Network Christmas
The guys at Igniter Media produced this year before last, and I still like it.
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Another Postscript on Wright’s Remarks
Doug Wilson adds a postscript to his earlier remarks about N. T. Wright’s misinterpretation of key biblical texts concerning gender roles. In particular, Wilson turns his guns on Wright’s translation of 1 Timothy 2:12, and in light of this I would add a postscript to my earlier remarks as well. According to a 2004 conference address, Wright offers this translation: I’m not saying that women should teach men, or try to dictate to them; they should be left undisturbed (1 Tim. 2:12). My main point of contention here is that Wright employs an English idiom that has no basis in the Greek text. The idiom is the one that starts…
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Mary Kassian Reviews “Year of Biblical Womanhood”
Mary Kassian has a helpful review of Rachel Held Evans’ “A Year of Biblical Womanhood.” At the heart of Kassian’s critique is Evans’ consistent caricature of complementarianism. Kassian writes: Sadly, the complementarianism portrayed in A Year of Biblical Womanhood is just another tiresome straw (wo)man argument. I think Rachel’s publicity stunt confuses rather than clarifies the issues. Most complementarians who read the book are bound to feel gravely misrepresented, misunderstood, and even hurt by it.
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The Priority of Learning Biblical Languages
The following quote from Martin Luther is well-known in evangelical circles. Nevertheless it seems that every generation of evangelicalism has to struggle with the priority of Greek and Hebrew in theological education. For this reason, I think it’s worth reminding ourselves from time to time of Luther’s sage words. It’s a reminder to educators to hold the line. It’s an encouragement to students to remember the goal of their toil—to know God through His word.
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Why was Rachel Held Evans on the roof?
Proverbs 21:9 says, “It is better to live in a corner of a roof, Than in a house shared with a contentious woman.” Doug Wilson excoriates Rachel Held Evans’ interpretation of this text, saying: What Evans did was this. Whenever she caught herself being verbally inappropriate, she put a penny in a jar, and every penny represented a minute she had to go up and sit on the roof of her house. This is where I clear my throat tentatively, not sure I could have heard this right. But I did, and there are three obvious things that can be mentioned right off the top. First, the text says that…
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Some Positive Reviews of “A Year of Biblical Womanhood”
I’ve noted two negative reviews of Rachel Held Evans’ new book A Year of Biblical Womanhood, but we would do well to note the appearance of three positive reviews as well. They are written by scholars of the Bible, and each of them generally commends Evans as a reliable guide to the interpretation of Scripture. They even suggest that she has a more sophisticated hermeneutic than her complementarian critics. In their own words: Ben Witherington – “Rachel Held Evans is not just another woman using the Bible to write about women’s experiences. She actually is quite adept at Biblical interpretation and has done some good reading and research and exegetical…