In a discussion over at the CCEF podcast, some counselors suggest that there’s nothing necessarily biblical about men assuming the role of primary provider for their families. [audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/ccef/HH_-_TL2C_WS2C_CC2C_AR_-_is_it_OK_to_be_a_stay_at_home_dad.mp3] I think that Owen Strachan hits much nearer the mark when he argues that the biblical ideal does not treat men and women as interchangeable with respect to the provider role. He writes, The “Dad Mom” concept is a “man fail” in my view. Men are not called by God to be “working at home” as women are in Titus 2:5. The ground is not cursed for women in Genesis 3:17, but for men, whose responsibility it was to work outside of…
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Craig Blomberg on Church Discipline
Craig Blomberg has some helpful reflections on his blog about church discipline and the interpretation of Matthew 18:15-17. He has five points: 1. Nothing in this passage limits the sin to certain kinds of offenses deemed particularly serious. 2. A lot of minor offenses can easily just be overlooked, for the sake of keeping that same peace. 3. The different meanings of “witnesses” in English cause unnecessary confusion. 4. There really isn’t any way to make “tell it to the church” mean “tell it to the pastor” or “tell it to the elders” or some other subgroup of the church. 5. Treating someone like “a pagan or a tax collector”…
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Tony Larussa Announces His Retirement
Talk about going out on top! Tony Larussa announced today that he will be retiring as manager of the world champion St. Louis Cardinals. I can understand why he would leave now. How would he ever top this season? Answer: He won’t. This last season was a singular moment not only in his career but also in this history of baseball. Everyone likes to go out a winner, and he is leaving at the top of his game. Read about it here.
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How To Cope When Your Ministry Blows Up
Tullian Tchividjian’s new book Jesus + Nothing = Everything releases today, and this is one you will want to check out. The book is born out of a time of intense pain and personal turmoil in the author’s pastoral ministry. In 2009, his growing church plant merged with one of the most famous evangelical churches in America—Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. After being installed as pastor, however, the honeymoon was short lived. He writes:
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John Piper on Halloween
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Harold Camping Repents of False Teaching?
The Christian Post has a headline reading, “Family Radio Founder Harold Camping Repents, Apologizes for False Teachings.” I just read a transcript of Camping’s remarks, but I did not see any repentance there. The closest thing appears in the second to last paragraph of Camping’s statement, but the words are kind of muddled. In any case, it doesn’t sound “repentant” of the repeated false predictions that Camping has made. In Camping’s own words: Incidentally, I have been told that I said back in May that people who did not believe that May 21 should not be the rapture date, probably had not been saved. I should not have said that,…
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A Dagger Deep in the Heart of Texas
The Cardinals drove a knife deep in the heart of Texas last night. This one’s gonna hurt for a while. Congratulations to the Cardinals. They played like champions.
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Game 6 Wore Me Out
Some are already calling game 6 of the 2011 World Series the greatest World Series game ever played. That may be true, but it wore me out. I am a Rangers fan. Twice during last night’s game, we were one strike away from winning the franchise’s first ever championship. Twice! It was heartbreaking when what’s-his-name hit that last home run for St. Louis. I think I need to re-evalutate my priorities in life because I woke up this morning with a pit in my stomach about that game. I hope I’m wrong. I just had the sense that when we lost that game last night, we lost the series. I…
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Surprised by the Lead Singer of The Killers
Has anybody out there ever been a fan of The Killers? I remember their hit song from the mid-2000’s “Mr. Brightside”, and in light of that song the video above is a complete surprise to me. This is not what I thought the lead singer would be like. You have to watch until the very end to get the last surprising twist. After you’ve done that, go read Mike Pohlman’s reflections on the meaning of all of this.
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Jim Hamilton on the Removal of “Selah” from the NIV
Jim Hamilton takes issue with the decision of the NIV translators to remove the word “Selah” from the book of Psalms. He argues: For reasons textual, structural, intertextual, cultural, and theological the NIV 2011 should reverse itself on this point and put the word Selah back where it belongs: in the text. Hamilton concludes: When I read an ancient text from a different culture, I don’t want to look into a linguistic mirror. I would like for that text to feel a little foreign, to feel a little ancient. I don’t want it only telling me what I already know. This word Selah occurs over and over all across the…