My college Greek professor taught me more than simply how to read the Greek New Testament. He also instructed me that to be a theologian I would have to learn my “ABCD’s.” That was my prof’s acronym for “A Built in Crud Detector”—only he didn’t use the word “crud.”

The executive staff of the Missouri Synod’s Commission on Theology and Church Relations has issued a statement about the NIV 2011 and its use of inclusive language. It’s four pages long, but the bottom line is in the final paragraph. We find the NIV’s Committee on Bible Translation decision to substitute plural nouns and pronouns for masculine singular nouns and pronouns to be a serious theological weakness and a misguided attempt to make the truth of God’s Word more easily understood. The use of inclusive language in NIV 2011 creates the potential for minimizing the particularity of biblical revelation and, more seriously, at times undermines the saving revelation of Christ…

Last week, Carl Trueman asked why groups like The Gospel Coalition and Together for the Gospel include complementarianism in their confessional commitments. In short, Trueman thinks it is inconsistent to elevate the importance of a secondary issue like complementarianism while routinely downplaying the importance of other secondary issues like baptism and the Lord’s Supper. He writes:

I have a general complaint about the way that some preachers approach preaching on the Song of Solomon. The content of the Song is sometimes cited as the Bible’s permission-slip to deliver salacious sermons about sex. I think this is wrong-headed. The Song of Solomon gives us a poetic depiction of the marital act that is cloaked in symbolic language. Should not preachers exhibit similar discretion when speaking about the marital act? Shouldn’t our speech about sex be more discreet and indirect than it is provocative and explicit? It seems to me that preachers would do well to explain what the Bible says using the same level of discretion that…

Don Carson, Tim Keller, and John Piper had a discussion last April about why the Gospel Coalition is complementarian. Many people have asked why a group that majors on the primary issue of the gospel would put so much emphasis on a secondary issue like complementarianism. That’s a fair question to which these three men give good answers. Keller argues that the gender question is only “indirectly” a gospel issue. The egalitarian hermeneutic has the potential to undermine not only gender roles, but also the gospel itself. There is much more to this discussion, and I encourage you to take it all in from the video above.

Over the last several years, Southern Baptists have been having a pretty intense intramural debate about Calvinism. In a conversation that sometimes generates more heat than light, I am glad to see a recent conference that was more constructive. The conference was called “Calvinism: Concerned? Curious? Confused?” and it featured a panel of four Southern Baptist leaders who addressed the division in the SBC over this issue. Speakers included David Dockery, Frank Page, Hershel York, Kevin Smith, and Steve Lemke.