Taken in that simple context, the Obama metaphor makes some sense. It might even find some justification from the Bible, in its various warnings against pride and arrogance. Problem is, though, that the Obama warnings didn't come in a Sunday school class or as a theological treatise against pomposity and self-centeredness. They came in the middle of a political campaign for the office of president.

So John Piper and others coined the expression complementarianism. One of its virtues was its newness: it did not (yet!) have a history of wretched connotations. Denotationally it encapsulated what many of us were trying to say

The Bible is God’s Word written. As an atheist, Libby Anne does not affirm this, but it’s a significant difference. Christians aren’t so freed up in their understanding of the Bible. So, we believe God graciously gave the Scriptures to man when humankind was in the dark. The Bible is what He wanted written down, and this same body of literature uses masculine pronouns and metaphors extensively in reference to all three Persons of the Trinity.

According to the Gospels, the gospel is not about the afterlife, but what “kingdom” you belong to here and now. Jesus talks a lot about the “kingdom of heaven” (or “of God”), and this is commonly misunderstood as a kingdom “up there” somewhere. But read what Jesus says about the kingdom. It is about the rule of God on earth, with Jesus as king.

In a society that celebrates sexual freedom and personal rights to sexual expression, why the collective outrage over Sandusky’s acts? Does not today’s ethic insist Sandusky has a right to his own sexual fulfillment, however he chooses to attain it? Does he not have the right to engage in sex where he wants, with whom... Continue Reading

The fourth commandment is part of God’s moral law binding all generations.  I try to avoid unnecessary work on the Sabbath.  I try to avoid shopping at Wal-mart on the Sabbath.  I try to avoid eating out on Sunday.  I try to go to both morning and evening worship services on Sunday.  However, I do... Continue Reading

Tri-Perspectivalism is a distinctly Christian theory of knowledge. Frame introduces his thought to the world in his book The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God. Thus by saying it is distinctly Christian, unlike most philosophical schools of epistemology that lean heaviest into human experience and reasoning, Frame’s thought is an epistemology of revelation. This means... Continue Reading

Someone reminded me recently that I included the word should a few times in a recent book. The person thought this was a bad thing, but I don’t agree. Should is a perfectly fine word.

Still more broadly the term is also used of those Christians who insist on extra-biblical standards of behavior and judge godliness accordingly. For some it is zippers instead of buttons. No hair touching the ears for men. No jewelry for women. No slacks for women. No movies. No playing cards. And so on it goes. I’m sure you’ve heard of them. Extra-biblical standards of behavior are used to measure godliness. Legalism.

There seems to be a consensus among historians that the Puritan approach to the Sabbath reflected in the Westminster Standards is distinctive in the seventeenth-century context for its rigor and that this distinctiveness is to be at least partly explained in terms of the social and economic context of seventeenth-century Britain.