Biblical complementarity

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Andrew Wilson is Teaching Pastor at King’s Church London.  He has written a piece on biblical complementarity.  I’m not convinced by everything that he writes.  But I do think that it’s one of the best accounts of this hotly-contested topic that I have seen.

Here are some highlights.

1. Creational differentiation

From an undifferentiated chaos (Gen 1:1), God formed a cosmos full of complementary distinctions:

  • Light and darkness
  • Day and night
  • Water above and waters beneath
  • Sea and land
  • Sun and moon
  • Male and female
  • Days of work and day of rest
  • Cain and Abel
  • Holy and profane

Complementarity, then,

‘is written into creation.

…

1 Sam 16:1-22 – A man after God’s own heart (sermon notes)

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Notes of a sermon preached at Holy Trinity, Norwich, on Sunday 14th February 2021.

Text: 1 Samuel 16:1-22

There is a habit, in the Old Testament, of individuals ascribing a name to God that describes something that he has done, or something he has revealed about himself.

I think it the first instance of this is Hagar, who in Gen 16:13 names him as ‘The God who sees me’.

Elsewhere, God is name as the Lord

  • who provides
  • our peace
  • my banner
  • who heals
  • my shepherd

Let’s take a similar approach with our Bible passage this morning. …

Luke 2:39 – No room for a flight into Egypt?

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Luke 2:39 So when Joseph and Mary had performed everything according to the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.

This statement is held to be at variance with that of Matthew, which implies that they resided in Bethlehem for some months after the birth of Jesus (i.e. until the visit of the Magi) and states (Mt 2:14) that they then took Jesus to Egypt.

Gundry (Commentary on Matthew) argues partly on linguistic grounds:

‘Luke says that the Holy Family went back to Nazareth when they finished the ceremonies in the Temple (Luke 2:39), i.e.,

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The Bible is a heterosexual book

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It just is.  Martin Davie writes:

‘This is a point that is well made by the American writer Michael Brown in his book Can you be Gay and Christian?  He asks the question why there are only a tiny number of biblical verses that directly address the issue of same-sex sexual relationships.  His answer to this question is to draw an analogy with a book of recipes for sugar free puddings that has an introduction that explains why sugar should be avoided.…

2 Samuel 1:26 – ‘More special than the love of women’

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Summary: It has been claimed by some revisionists that the relationship between David and Jonathan was of a sexual nature.  This is implausible, since it imports modern concepts and ideas into the ancient text.

In detail:

In 2 Samuel 1:26 David laments:

I grieve over you, my brother Jonathan!
You were very dear to me.
Your love was more special to me than the love of women.

Their relationship has been introduced in 1 Samuel 18 –

18:1 When David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan and David became bound together in close friendship.…

Manton on judgment according to works

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Thomas Manton (1620-1677) dealt with the subject of judgement according to works in a series of sermons on 2 Corinthians 5:10 – ‘For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due to him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.’

The proposition he draws from this verse is that ‘there will certainly come a day when every person that ever lived shall be judged by Christ according to his works.’…

Self-enquiry

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Abstracted from Practical Religion, by J. C. Ryle, chapter 1.

(1) Do we ever think about our souls at all?

Thousands of English people, I fear, cannot answer that question satisfactorily. They never give the subject of religion any place in their thoughts. From the beginning of the year to the end they are absorbed in the pursuit of business, pleasure, politics, money, or self-indulgence of some kind or another. Death, and judgment, and eternity, and heaven, and hell, and a world to come, are never calmly looked at and considered.…

Luke 22:36 – ‘Sell your cloak and buy a sword’

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22:35 Then Jesus said to them, “When I sent you out with no money bag, or traveler’s bag, or sandals, you didn’t lack anything, did you?” They replied, “Nothing.” 22:36 He said to them, “But now, the one who has a money bag must take it, and likewise a traveler’s bag too. And the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one. 22:37 For I tell you that this scripture must be fulfilled in me, ‘And he was counted with the transgressors.’…

May we speak of male and female roles?

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Well, of course we may.

But, to focus the question down: May we speak of indelible, God-given, complementary roles for men and women?

Kevin Giles (What the Bible Actually Teaches on Women) is a strident critic of this notion, and I want to look carefully at his concerns.

I’ll begin with a summary of Giles’ critique.  Then, I’ll offer a few comments by way of response.

Giles credits George Knight III with the ‘invention’ of evangelical complementarianism, in his 1977 book New Testament Teaching on the Role Relationship of Men and Women.…

This is no way to have a theological debate

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Kevin Giles, in his What the Bible Actually Teaches on Women (Cascade Books, 2018) selects one major ‘conversation partner’ from the complementarian side as a foil to his egalitarian interpretation of Scripture.

That ‘conversation partner’ is God’s Design for Man and Woman: A Biblical-Theological Survey, by Andreas and Margaret Kostenberger (Crossway, 2014).

I have discussed elsewhere some of the substance of this debate.

In this post , I would like to consider how Giles treats the Kostenbergers and their work.…