Category Archives: Family & Society

Ten Commandments for the Marketplace

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Sharing the concern of the Book of Proverbs for taking faith into the marketplace, Dr. Carnegie Samuel Calian has developed

“Ten Commandments for the Marketplace”

1. Treat individuals as sacred. People are more than means to another’s end.

2. Be generous. The benefits will exceed the cost in the long term.

3. Practice moderation. Obsession with winning is dehumanizing and idolatrous.

4. Disclose mistakes. Confession and restitution are necessary means to restoring ethical character.

5. Arrange priorities.…

Masters and slaves in Christ

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In the course of a discussion about Jonathan Edwards and slavery, John Piper notes:

I believe that the New Testament ordered human relationships in Christ in such a way as to transform the master-slave relationship into something so different from “owner” and “property” that what remained was no longer recognizable as slavery in the traditional sense. To say it another way, when the New Testament instructions to masters and slaves were obeyed, what was left of the master-slave relationship was not a relationship of owner and property.…

The three worlds of Evangelicalism

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This is based on this article by Mike Judge, which is itself based on an article by Aaron M. Renn.

The original article assumes an American context, so not all of the ideas fit neatly into the situation here in the UK.

Over the past half-century or so, the culture has passed through three phases with regard to how it views evangelical Christianity.

Phase 1 was largely positive.  The church, its ministers and its members were regarded with respect. …

The gospel and social involvement

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In Issues Facing Christians Today, John Stott urges evangelicals to a greater commitment to the social implications of the gospel.  This requires careful rethinking of our theology.  Stott speaks:

First, of “a fuller doctrine of God” in which we recognize that God is not confined to the religious dimensions of life or concerned only with his covenant people. Citing prophetic oracles against the nations, Stott comments, “It is clear from these Old Testament passages that God hates injustice and oppression everywhere, and that he loves and promotes justice everywhere.”…

Gender pairs in Jesus’ teaching

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Sara Parks makes some interesting observations about ways in which *Jesus often used both male and female examples in his teaching.

Jesus often taught the same lesson twice, using male- and female-oriented examples:

  • the mustard seed and the yeast (Mt 13:31f)
  • the ravens and the lilies (Lk 12:22-34)
  • the lost sheep and the lost coin (Lk 15)
  • the widow and the lepers (Lk 4:25-27)
  • the persistent neighbor and the persistent widow (Lk 18)
  • the Queen of the South (Lk 11:31) and the men of Nineveh (Lk 11:32)
  • the lost sheep and the lost coin (Lk 15:4-10)
  • farming and spinning (Mt 6:26-29)
  • bread-making and fishing (Mt 7:9f)

In some of these pairs, no people are mentioned at all. …

Did Paul abandon his wife?

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Wyatt Houtz (The PostBarthian) asks, ‘Why is it so difficult for Christians to accept that Paul abandoned his wife?’

Houtz’s thesis is that it is likely, from the available evidence, that Paul had been married but that he had his wife had separated following his conversion to Christ.

Here are the main steps in the argument.

1. Paul had been married.  It is unthinkable that Paul, as a strict Pharisee (Phil 3:4-6; Gal 1:13-15; Acts 9:1f), would not have been married. …

The biological basis for gender-specific behaviour

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Based on Gregg Johnson, in Recovering Biblical manhood and womanhood, ch. 16.  1997.  Available online.

1. Ethological observations

Among most higher social mammals males

  • are more aggressive
  • take dominant leadership roles
  • are more territorial and competitive
  • are more reactive and less cautious

Females:

  • are more involved in parenting
  • tend to socialise more horizontally and equally with other females
  • are cautious in mating, seeking out more dominant males
  • are more concerned with parenting, nurturing and maintaing pair bonds
  • are less confrontative and combative and more interested in building and maintaing social bonds
  • are peacemakers, seeking conformity to group expectations

From anthropological studies:

  • ‘Males are almost always the rule makers, hunters, builders, fashioners of weapons, workers in metal, wood, or stone.’
…

Marriage: more than a metaphor

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In Eph 5:31, Paul quotes from Gen 2:24 –

‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and will be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’

The apostle adds, in the next verse:

‘This mystery is great—but I am actually speaking with reference to Christ and the church.’

Daniel Blanche comments:

‘I do not think the Bible presents marriage as a metaphor for the gospel.  As I understand it – and I confess freely that I am no literary theorist – metaphor is a way of relating two things or concepts which have no (or at least no necessary) real (that is, ontological or conceptual) connection; it is allusive, linking two things which are not directly linked in order to shed light on one or the other. 

…

Everybody’s marriage affects everyone else’s

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‘You conservative Christians are welcome to your own views about marriage.  The fact that we support gay civil marriage doesn’t affect what you do at all.’

Derek Rishmawy comments on this view, expressed in the following way by David French:

‘For those who believe gay marriage is morally wrong for Biblical or other religious reasons, this decision changes nothing. Churches can still speak out against sexual immorality and can still choose not to perform gay weddings.

…

Lessons from John Newton on the slave trade

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It is well known that John Newton (author of ‘Amazing Grace’) was a converted slaved trader.  What is perhaps less well known is that his rejection of slavery post-dated his conversion to Christ by some decades.  It was only in later life that he renounced slavery and the slave trade, writing up his thoughts in the tract Thoughts on the African Slave Trade.

David Robertson draws a number of lessons from Newton’s experience.  What follows is mainly in Robertson’s (and Newton’s) own words.…