What language is to be used to speak to, or about, a friend who is transitioning to the other gender?
Without answering this question directly, J. Alan Branch urges us to consider both the implications of Scripture and the requirements of compassion.
So, if I choose not to conform to transgender vocabulary, I might ask:
‘First, have I prayed for the person in question and are my actions motivated by love both for the truth and for the person?…
‘[Joseph] came to a town called Nazareth and lived there. Then what had been spoken by the prophets was fulfilled, that Jesus would be called a Nazarene.‘
Where does it say in the prophets ‘that Jesus would be called a Nazarene’?
This wording is not to be found in any of the prophets. In fact, Nazareth is not mentioned at all in the Old Testament. Bethlehem, on the other hand, had a higher status as the ‘city of David’.…
Christian Zionist writers are apt (too apt, in my opinion) to brand those who disagree with them as peddlers of ‘replacement theology’, as teaching that the church replaces Israel in God’s purposes.
Now, I will not dispute that some non-Zionists do use the language of ‘replacement’ (or something similar), and are perhaps give the impression that, in their view, God has washed his hands of his historic chosen people. The gospel has been taken away from the Jews, and given instead to the Gentiles.…
Here’s a precis (with a little bit of re-jigging of wording and order) of Jared Wilson’s helpful post.
Your sermons shouldn’t be too short, because:
Your sermons should be too long, because:
1 Cor 7:14 – ‘The unbelieving husband is sanctified because of the wife, and the unbelieving wife because of her husband. Otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy.’
What is the meaning of ‘sanctified’ and ‘holy’ in this verse? Several options may be considered:-
1. That it is about the regeneration of the unbelieving partner. According to this view, Paul would be stating that the unbelieving spouse has become regenerate through the believing partner. …
What does it mean to ‘submit to one another’? And what does it mean for wives to submit to their husbands?
1. Some think that it means that everyone is to submit to everyone else
Wives to husbands, husbands to wives, children to parents, parents to children, and so on. In this case, ‘to submit’ would have to mean, ‘care for one another and put one another’s needs first.’ …
1 Corinthians 11:3 – ‘Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.’
Ephesians 5:23 ‘The husband is the head of the wife as also Christ is the head of the church.’
Much discussion has taken place over the meaning of kephale (‘head’) in these contexts.
Bartell (Men and Women in Christ) remarks that no writer earlier that Paul had used the kephale metaphor to apply to the relationship of a man to a woman.…
Martin Davie observes that, taken together, these two accounts make six points about the creation of humankind.
First, we learn that human beings do not exist by chance. God, who created the universe in general, also decided to create human beings in particular and…everything that God creates is ‘very good’ (Genesis 1:31), including the human race.
Secondly, we learn that God created human beings as male and female from the beginning…
Thirdly, we learn that it is as male and female that human beings are the image and likeness of God…In God’s kingdom…the special role he has assigned to humanity is that we should serve as his ‘under-kings,’ vice regents or stewards.…
The argument goes like this: the Bible does not outright condemn slavery, but it sows the seeds for its eventual demise. There is a ‘hermeneutical trajectory’; a ‘redemptive spirit’ that leads inexorably (if painfully slowly) to abolition.
The same is true (it is argued) with regard to male and female roles. The Bible assumes, but does not prescribe, some kind of hierarchical structure. But the same ‘trajectory’, or ‘redemptive spirit’ leads us to abolish that structure, and to treat men and women just the same.…
It is too often assumed that the gospel needs to be heard by unbelievers, but not by believers. The gospel exists to convert sinners; once converted, we can move on to other things.
This is a fallacy, as Cameron Smart shows. I summarise eight reasons why seasoned Christians need to hear the gospel on a regular basis.
