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God’s good design for men and woman

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It is sometimes thought that in Genesis chapters 1 and 2 we have two entirely separate and self-contained creation accounts, so different as to be incompatible.

But they are neither contradictory accounts, nor carbon copies of one another.

Claire Smith discusses the similarities and differences most helpfully:

When we look at these two accounts we see there is sameness and difference. They are not conflicting accounts, but they are not carbon copies either. Each makes its own distinctive contribution.…

Toward a biblical theology of sexuality

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Leaving, for the moment, specific issues to one side, what does the big picture of sexuality in the Bible look like?

What follows is based on Ian Paul’s helpful overview (here and here).

1. Sex is God-given

The church has often struggled with this, partly because earlier generations have assumed that 1 Cor 7:1 (‘It is good for a man not to touch a woman’) represented Paul’s own view (rather than that of his correspondents). …

Abide in Christ

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What does it mean to ‘abide in Christ’?

Sinclair Ferguson writes:

The exhortation to “abide” has been frequently misunderstood, as though it were a special, mystical, and indefinable experience. But Jesus makes clear that it actually involves a number of concrete realities.

First, union with our Lord depends on His grace. Of course we are actively and personally united to Christ by faith (John 14:12). But faith itself is rooted in the activity of God.…

Nine arguments for a ‘non-affirming’ position on same-sex relations

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Preston Sprinkle provides the following summary of his argument in his 2015 book People To Be Loved: Why Homosexuality Is Not Just An Issue:

  1. The Bible talks a lot about marriage yet only affirms heterosexual marriages. This isn’t decisive in itself, but in Genesis 2 Eve’s femaleness seems to be a necessary prerequisite for her marriage to Adam – a marriage that becomes the prototype for all God-sanctioned marriages (Gen 2:24-25).
  2. Jesus highlights sexual difference in marriage, even when he didn’t need to (Mark 10).
…

The pre-existence of Jesus in the Synoptics

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According to Bart Ehrman, the Synoptic Gospels teach that the human Jesus was at some point ‘exalted’ to a divine status, but not that he was pre-existent.

But, responds New Testament scholar Simon Gathercole, this is to ignore the significant number of ‘I have come’ statements found on the lips of Jesus.  Here are some of them:

And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.…

What is transgender propaganda doing to our children?

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Sometimes, we need to move from the general to the particular, from statistics to personal experience, to really feel the impact of the ‘sexual revolution’.

Denny Burk quotes the heartbreaking words of a mother whose daughter has ‘transitioned’:

Like any parent, I felt betrayed when I found out a pediatric endocrinologist, someone who knows how powerful our bodies’ natural hormones are, would teach my 16-year old daughter to inject herself with testosterone, a primarily male hormone known and documented to have many horrible side effects on young girls including male pattern baldness, vaginal atrophy, infertility, and an increased risk of heart disease and cancer.…

‘The Lost Message of Paul’ – The neuropsychology of sin

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One of the strangest chapters in Steve Chalke’s The Lost Message of Paul is chapter 24 – ‘Wired’.  Strange because it doesn’t really belong in a book about Paul and his theology.  Also strange because one has to wonder how competent Chalke is to deal with some of the subject-matter of this chapter.

Let me see if I can make some sense of what he’s trying to say.

While we all tend excuse our own bad behaviour (we are good people affected by bad circumstances), we are much more ready to attribute others’ bad behaviour as due to failed personal morality (they are bad people). …

Handling Bible difficulties

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In The Big Book of Bible Difficulties, Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe identify a number of mistakes people make when approaching the difficulties and alleged contradictions of the Bible.

Although these authors’ view of biblical inerrancy is not one that commands my complete agreement, I am happy to offer (with a few minor modifications) their main points on the subject of approaching Bible difficulties:

1. Assuming that the unexplained is inexplicable: Humility requires that we admit that we don’t have all the answers. …

The reliability of recollective memory

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What factors tend to increase the reliability of recollective memory, and how do these relate to the historical reliability of the Gospels?

Richard Bauckham identifies the following:

  1. Unique or unusual events. The gospel stories clearly fit this category, as many of the events, such as healings and exorcisms, are unmistakably unusual.
  2. Salient or consequential events. Gospel stories often involve landmark or life changing events that would create vivid memories in people who witnessed them.
  3. An event for which a person is emotionally involved.
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Numbers in the Bible

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There are some strange things going on with numbers in the Bible – especially in the Old Testament.

How do we make sense of them?

Basics

The biblical use of numbers should be understood in the same sorts of ways that we should understand other parts of God’s ancient revelation: in its historical and cultural context.  It is unreasonable to expect number to be used with anything like the degree of precision that we expect nowadays.…