Showing posts with label Submission. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Submission. Show all posts

Sunday, March 03, 2024

Quote of the Day (46)

I’ve told this story before, but it perfectly illustrates the mentality addressed in today’s quote.

In the mid-eighties, I was introduced to a fellow college student who claimed to be very interested in Jesus Christ, but had a “few” questions about the Bible first. I naturally offered to help in any way that I could. He handed me a list of familiar posers along the lines of “Where did Cain get his wife?”

Okay, the issues seemed important to him, so fair enough.

Wednesday, August 03, 2022

Quote of the Day (43)

The always-excellent Antemodernist performs surgery on a post about Romans 13 and submission to authority from Stand to Reason’s Jonathan Noyes:

“Suppose a stranger walks up to you and declares himself a king and says he is your king, and by virtue of his authority over you, he compels you to pay taxes and serve in his militia. A bit strange, and you’d probably pretend to take a phone call to get away. Mr. Noyes, if he is consistent, cannot do this. He’d be disobeying authority.”

Like many of our readers, I have been struggling with this issue since early 2020. Prior to that point, if you had asked me when Romans 13 does not apply to Christians, I would have promptly answered, “When we are told not to preach the gospel.” That much I was sure of. Beyond that, I’m afraid I hadn’t given the illegitimate exercise of authority much thought. Since then I’ve had to give it plenty, the results of which you can find here and here.

Antemodernist has obviously been doing a fair bit of thinking as well.

Monday, February 04, 2019

Anonymous Asks (25)

“In dealing with authority, how can I explain things or make a point without sounding argumentative or disrespectful?”

The circumstances are not spelled out for us here. Is this a young man who wants to correct a Sunday school teacher, boss or professor on a point of fact? Is this a daughter who finds her father’s house rules restrictive and hopes for a little more freedom? Is this a sixteen year old pulled over in dad’s car for being five miles an hour over the speed limit who would like to know how best to negotiate his way out of a ticket? We do not know.

Fortunately, I think the biblical answer is not wildly different either way.

Saturday, March 03, 2018

One Bad Idea

Left uncontested, one bad idea can do astonishing damage.

When humanity fell, taking all of creation with it, the cause was a woman who defied the revealed will of God … and a man too weak to either call her on it or to take responsibility for his own sin.

A bad idea went uncontested. Today, generation after generation pays through the nose.

Again: assuming the Muslims are correct and that Ishmael is legitimately an ancestor of Muhammad, virtually every rocket launched into Israel from the Gaza Strip since 2001 can be attributed to a woman who proposed another really bad idea … and a man too weak to call her on it.

Abraham and Sarah, the Golan Heights sends its thanks.

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

What Does Your Proof Text Prove? (8)

It’s That Man Again was the most successful British radio comedy of the WWII era. One of its more famous sketches featured a pair of handymen named Claude and Cecil who were so excessively deferential they never managed to get anything done. Cecil would say, “After you, Claude,” and Claude would reply, “After you, Cecil,” and that would pretty much be the end of that.

The writer of the Daily Reflection at The High Calling is having his own “Claude and Cecil” moment.

Thursday, September 29, 2016

Inbox: Mutual Subjection in 1 Peter 3

One of these things is not like the others ...
Margaret Mowczko’s argument from 1 Peter that husbands should be subject to their wives was addressed in this space in October 2014 and reposted here a few weeks ago.

But Marg has refined her argument since 2014, and I think it’s only fair to update my critique to deal with her most recent points.

Marg feels I missed her main point (in either iteration of her post).

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Timing Is Everything

I came across this quote one night last week:

“It is astonishing how often a book or article gives false information; and if we rely on such a work too heavily, our exegesis will be badly skewed. Even ordinarily careful scholars make mistakes …”
— D.A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies

Only a day later I happened to encounter a bit of badly skewed exegesis that is, just as Carson warns, the direct result of relying on false information. Naturally, it leads down an increasingly familiar and doctrinally-errant road.

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

No Getting Around That

Rachel Held Evans vs. John Piper? Who could resist weighing in? Not me.

Some background: My favorite popular Christian blogger Rachel Held Evans has been sharing with her readers how well ditching “strict gender roles promoted by conservative evangelical culture” in favor of “a relationship characterized by mutuality and flexibility” is working for her and her husband Dan as they welcome their new baby into the world.

Yes, Dan is helping Rachel out by changing diapers, doing laundry, rocking the baby and making pot after pot of coffee.

Bravo, Dan.

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Inbox: Things Jesus Did for Women

Martin van Creveld is an Israeli military historian and theorist who, oddly enough, has written perhaps the best and most all-encompassing book I’ve ever found on the subject of equality. Equality: The Impossible Quest is not a theological book and van Creveld is not, to my knowledge, a Christian, but his diligent retracing of the historical development of the equality myth as it relates to all aspects of human interaction is well worth the few hours it takes to digest.

If equality was the original order of mankind (and it wasn’t, as demonstrated in an earlier post on this subject), something has gone very, very wrong.

Monday, January 18, 2016

Under the Shadow

People do things. Things good or bad, generous or selfish, trustworthy or manipulative, wise or horrendously ill-considered.

Paul tells the Corinthian church that the people of Israel were examples. The things that they did in the desert on the way to Canaan and the things that happened to them as a consequence of their behaviour were written down to instruct us, “on whom the end of the ages has come”.

It seems reasonable to assume this is true of most of Bible history: it happened, not randomly but with divine purpose. And we can benefit from observing the mistakes and successes of those who lived thousands of years before us, avoiding the former and pursuing the latter.

Monday, April 06, 2015

Unintended Consequences

When they passed the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) in 2007, it is quite unlikely that the U.S. congress anticipated that their little bill would trigger a cereal grain price jump of 67.4% in 2012 or that the rise in food prices would plunge nearly 70 million people into what the World Bank calls ‘extreme poverty’. The Houston Chronicle details the extent of the problem here.

Monday, October 27, 2014

Timing Is Everything

A more current version of this post is available here.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Inbox: Subordination in Eternity Past

Forgive the “eternity past” reference in the title, please. Eternity is eternity. Calling it “past” or “future” is an accommodation to a linear existence taking place within time, at least so far as our senses permit us to determine, a state of being that seems highly unlikely to accurately describe that which characterizes God.

Tertius is causing trouble again. I’m paraphrasing here, but he’s asking, in connection with this post
“Can you show from Scripture whether the roles within the Godhead (specifically the submission of the Son to the Father evident during his life on earth and subsequent glorification) were characteristic of the relationship between Father and Son in [eternity past, as we have agreed to refer to it, for the sake of distinguishing it from the eternity we have to look forward to].”
When faced with a theological dilemma of this weight, I know where to turn for help. My mother tosses her hat in the ring:
“How about, ‘Then I said, “Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book”.’ ”

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Inbox: Marital Breakdown

In response to this post Tertius and Susan T. Foh seem to be in agreement. Susan’s position on Genesis 3:16 was advanced by Ted Hildebrandt in the Westminster Theological Journal. Tertius says:
I’m with Ted’s explanation; at the least there seems to be nothing in the immediate context to forbid it. Secondly, 1 Cor. 14:34-37 reinforce it, as does 1 Tim. 2:12. Thirdly, having spent some 50 or more years marriage counselling I have observed that much marital breakdown occurs when either a man fails to fulfil his role as a protector and provider or a woman competes with his leadership. She may do this by asserting her ‘rights’ or manipulating her husband into doing what she wants.
To which I can only add three more passages in the New Testament that also reinforce this interpretation, which are the subject of this coming Monday’s Bible Study 06.

Saturday, January 04, 2014

Unintended Consequences

When they passed The Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) in 2007, it is quite unlikely that the U.S. congress anticipated that their little bill would trigger a cereal grain price jump of 67.4% in 2012 over 2011, or that the rise in food prices would plunge nearly 70 million people into what the World Bank calls ‘extreme poverty’. The Houston Chronicle details the extent of the problem here.

Good Intentions

What prompted the EISA? We are told it was the desire to reduce dependency on foreign oil, scale back greenhouse gas emissions and keep the price of gas down. None of these are bad ideas. While I am as easily attracted to conspiracy theories as the next guy, I doubt the average elected representative planned on starving the third world to reduce U.S. gas prices.

But the unintended consequences of the Act have caused and continue to cause near-incalculable damage.