Category Archives: Family & Society

Children need parents who are married

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An important study, published in September 2014, showed that children who live in a family with married parents are better behaved, and have higher educational and employment attainment, than classmates brought up by unmarried parents.

The government-backed research – part of the Effective Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education project  – analysed data from 3,000 children from early years up to 16.

The study identified a number of factors influencing future education and employment success.  These factors included size of family (children from smaller families tended to out-perform those from larger families) and the provision of pre-school education.  …

Family breakdown – ten shockers

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Prime Minister David Cameron has recently expressed deep concern about the epidemic of fatherlessness that is currently sweeping our nation.

Harry Benson, of the Marriage Foundation, has elaborated the cause for concern by setting out some shocking statistics.  They are presented mainly in his own words.  (They are addressed to Mr Cameron, but should be of interest to us all).

  1. 45% of teenagers studying for GCSEs are not living with both parents.  Source: Understanding Society 2009-2010 data.
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“Wives, submit to your husbands”

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I summarise a sermon by John Stott on Ephesians 5:22-33.  It is available as an MP3 down here.

Preliminary points

Historical – this teaching has often been used to justify oppression of women, but we cannot allow that fact to obscure its true and God-given meaning.

Cultural – our culture is very different from Paul’s, but we should accept the abiding truth of which this passage speaks, while accepting that cultural expressions of that truth will vary.…

Gone Girl

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With its foul language and a scene of horrific sexual violence, the movie Gone Girl cannot be recommended viewing.  Nevertheless, it invites some comment for its popularity and its potential influence on attitudes towards marriage (which are already becoming increasingly cynical).

A man (Ben Affleck) comes home to find his wife (Rosamund Pike) missing, and the house showing signs of a violent struggle.  He comes under suspicion for her murder.  The truth is, that she has framed him, having discovered that he has been having an affair.…

Love needs law

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It is often assumed that because love is the greatest thing, it is the only thing.

A married man falls for a woman who is not his wife.  “I love her,” he pleads.  “And she loves me.  I’ve never felt the same way about anyone else before.  We were made for each other.”

The same appeal may be used by a homosexual couple: “We love one another.  Why would anyone wish to deny us full expression of that love?”…

Renewing God’s world

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Renewed world

Salvation in Christ encompasses much more than personal spirituality.  Both the material world and its people cry out for freedom (Rom 8:18-25), and it is this that God’s redemption is moving everything towards.  Although the consummation is ‘not yet’, the people of God can, and should, work towards making this a reality ‘now’.

Chart from Drane, Introducing the New Testament.…

The Great Commission and the Cultural Mandate

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Does the Great Commission of Mt 28:18-20 supersede the cultural mandate of Gen 1:26-28?  Does the command to ‘go and make disciples of all nations’ replace the requirement to fill and subdue the earth and to rule over all living things?

At first sight, it might seem that this is indeed the case.  After all, the cultural mandate was given to Adam in Eden, as God’s image-bearer, in a state of innocency, prior to the Fall.  …

What if God has not joined together?

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In Matthew 19:6 (= Mark 10:9) Jesus quotes Genesis 2:24, and then says, “what God has joined together, let man not separate”.

R. Paul Stevens discusses three approaches to the vexed question of remarriage after divorce: (a) the textual/legal approach, which seeks to find out what Scripture says about permissible grounds; (b) a dispensational approach which asks whether the harder teaching of the Bible is for our own day or some other age; and (c) through a biblical theology approach, which seeks to connect the reality of Scripture with the reality of contemporary culture.…

Cake decoration for beginners

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I wouldn’t normally expect a satirical news show to make a point defending Christians (who, after all, are regarded as such soft targets for ridicule).  So I was surprised, and pleased, when Ian Hislop did precisely that on last night’s Have I Got News For You.

Judges in Northern Ireland have recently found a bakery business, run by Christians, guilty of discrimination for refusing to bake a cake that carried a pro-gay slogan.

Hislop simply asked what the outcome would be if a bakery run by Moslems was asked to bake a cake with a depiction of Mohammed on it.…

The morality of the Song of Songs

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Historically, interpreters of the Song of Solomon have steered away from a ‘naturalistic’ interpretation towards an ‘allegorical’ approach.

There can be little doubt that this was in large measure due to what was seen as the objectionable morality of the Song, if it was to be understood primarily as a poetic account of human love.  What are we to make of the Song’s rather explicit sexuality?

Tom Gledhill, in his volume in the Bible Speaks Today series (IVP), discusses this with insight and sensitivity.…