I Got Water in My Gospel

A Message The May Help Save Your Marriage

I had the privilege of attending a Marriage in Ministry Conference on the campus of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary last week. It was an amazing event. They've posted some of the talks on Southern's website, and here is my favorite, from Russell Moore on "Maintaining Moral Purity in Marriage."

Simply amazing.

Moral Purity in Your Marriage from Southern Seminary on Vimeo.

The Option of Inerrancy

Andrew Wilson:

There are a bunch of reasons for that: theological (what would it say about God if his word was incorrect?), anthropological (isn’t the idea of the pot telling the potter that he got it wrong somewhat problematic?), even Christological (Scripture is affirmed as both divine and human, like Christ, and to use the latter to argue for the flawed nature of the former could pose substantial problems for our view of Jesus - which is evident when you find people saying that Jesus, in his humanity, made a mistake about the historicity of Adam). But inerrancy also matters because it rules out what I call “the option of errancy” when interpreting Scripture. Put simply, this is the idea that if you don’t believe Scripture is inerrant, then when faced with a biblical “difficulty” (whether a genuine challenge or, more commonly, something you as an interpreter don’t like), you can always say that the Bible is mistaken on that point. You may claim that you don’t want to use it - and that may be true - but if needed, you know the option of errancy is sitting in your back pocket, like a Presidential veto, as a last line of defence.  

It works like this: Why did God command the Israelites to destroy Canaanite cities? Maybe he didn’t. Maybe they only thought he did. Why did God say such fierce (and, frankly, offensive) things in Ezekiel? Maybe he didn’t. How can we follow a God who sentences people to hell forever? Maybe he doesn’t. Shouldn’t we believe in a historical Adam, since Paul did? Maybe Paul was wrong. But didn’t Jesus strongly imply the garden story was historical? Maybe Jesus was wrong, too. Why will Jesus return as the one who treads the winepress of the fury of God Almighty? Maybe he won’t. And so it continues.  

If you don’t have the option of errancy, on the other hand, you have to do some serious thinking about the parts of Scripture you don’t like. What do the conquest stories, or the doctrine of hell, teach us about divine holiness, human sinfulness, wrath, judgment, and the gospel? How can we balance our understanding of scientific evidence with biblical affirmations about creation? (I’m thinking a series on this might be needed this Autumn; I’ve staved it off for a year, now.) What does the triumphant warrior Jesus depicted in Revelation do for our Christology, or our eschatology, or for that matter our prayer life?

HT: TGC

Questions for Those Who Support Abortion

Kevin DeYoung:

What shall we call the unborn in the womb? 

If the entity is a living thing, is it not a life? If your person began as a single cell, how can that fertilized egg be something other than a human being? Isn't it more accurate to say you were an embryo than that you simply came from one? 

So when does a human being have a right to life? 

Shall we say size matters? Is the unborn child too small to deserve our protection? Are big people more valuable than little people? Are men more human than woman? Do offensive linemen have more rights than jockeys? Is the life in the womb of no account because you can't hold him in our arms, or put him in your hands, or only see her on a screen? 

Shall we make intellectual development and mental capacity the measure of our worth? Are three year-old children less valuable than thirteen year-olds? Is the unborn child less than fully human because he cannot speak or count or be self-aware? Does the cooing infant in the crib have to smile or shake your hand or recite the alphabet before she deserves another day? If an expression of basic mental acuity is necessary to be a full-fledged member of the human community, what shall do with the comatose, the very old, or the fifty year-old mom with Alzheimer's? And what about all of us who sleep? 

Shall we deny the unborn child's right to life because of where he lives? Can environment give us value or take it away? Are we worth less inside than outside? Can we be justly killed when we swim under water? Does where we are determine who we are? Does the eight inch journey down the birth canal make us human? Does this change of scenery turn "its" into persons? Is love a condition of location? 

Shall we reserve human dignity only for those humans who are not dependent on others? Do we deserve to live only when we can live on our own? Is the four-month old fetus less than human because she needs her mom for life? Is the four-month old infant less than human when she still needs her mom for life? What if you depend on dialysis or insulin or a breathing apparatus? Is value a product of fully-functioning vitality? Is independence a prerequisite for human identity? Are we worth only what we can think, accomplish, and do on our own? 

If the unborn life is human life, what can justify snuffing it out? Would it be right to take the life of your child on his first birthday because he came to you through sad and tragic circumstances? Would you push an 18 month old into traffic because she makes our life difficult? Does a three year-old deserve to die because we think we deserve a choice? 

What do you deserve now? What are your rights as a human person? Did you have those same rights five years ago? What about before you could drive? Or when you used training wheels? Were you less than fully human when you played in the sandbox? When you wore a bib? When you nursed at your mother's breast? When your dad cut your cord? When you tumbled in that watery mess and kicked against that funny wall? When your heart pounded on the monitor for the first time? When you grew your first fingernails? When you grew your first cells? 

What shall we call the child in the womb? A fetus? A mystery? A mistake? A wedge issue? What if science and Scripture and commonsense would have us call it a person? What if the unborn child, the messy infant, the wobbly toddler, the rambunctious teenager, the college freshman, the blushing bride, the first-time mother, the working woman, the proud grammy, and the demented old friend differ not in kind but only in degree? Where in the progression does our humanity begin and end? Where does life become valuable? When are we worth something? When do human rights become our rights? What if Dr. Seuss was right and a person's a person no matter how small? 

Why celebrate the right to kill what you once were? Why deny the rights of the little one who is what you are?

Gospel Presentation on Fire

Jackie Hill brings it.



HT: Tim Brister

Music Video of the Week - Andrew Peterson

Andrew Peterson - "Rest Easy"

Did Jesus Preach the Gospel?

Yes. He did.

Preaching is Heralding

I pray this description will apply to my preaching one day.

What Is Preaching? from Desiring God on Vimeo.

Can't Wait for the iPhone 5

Looks fantastic.



HT: Zach Nielsen

Interview with John Piper on Sanctification

Been meaning to post this for a while, but never got around to it. Tim Challies did an interview with John Piper about issues related to sanctification. The entire interview is great, but I thought this last question and answer were particularly helpful.

How can you know if you are making progress in your sanctification and how can you know how much progress you are making? Is sanctification something that can be measured? 

Paul believed that sanctification has degrees. You can grow. He prays that “your love may abound more and more” (Phil. 1:9). He says the Thessalonians are pleasing God and tells them to “do so more and more” (1 Thess. 4:1). He tells the Corinthians that God will “increase the harvest of your righteousness” (2 Cor. 9:10). And prays, “May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all” (1 Thess. 3:12). 

But the New Testament does not quantify these degrees. “More and more” and “increasing” are discernible but not measurable. That is, while length is quantified in inches and feet. Holiness does not have similar measuring units. 

So how do you know you are making progress? There is a paradox here. On the one hand, greater holiness is greater victory over sins. But on the other hand, greater holiness is greater sensitivity to and hatred for sin. So it does not follow that becoming more holy will mean becoming more happy with oneself. You may be a better person tomorrow and feel worse about the smaller corruption that remains. 

But there are ways to discern growth. One is that those around you will see it and confirm it. Another is that you will see some of it. You will feel the weakening of some temptations as love for Christ pushes the desirability of sin far away. You will feel drawn to holy acts that once were burdens. And you will have holy sorrow when you omit them, not just guilt over a duty neglected. You will see the preferences in your life change. What was once supremely desirable is trumped by a superior desire for Christ and his word and his way. And you will confirm your heart change in action. Action that becomes less burdensome as love grows. “This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3). 

We can and should make progress in sanctification. And we can and should be aware that it is happening. This will encourage us that God is at work in our lives. And it will humble us because progress will mean we can see more clearly how far we have to go and how small are our advances. And how much we will always need a great Savior.

The Gospel vs. Pat Robertson

Russell Moore:

In a recent broadcast of The 700 Club, a woman sent in a question about a man who wouldn’t marry her because she has children who were adopted internationally. If they were her “own” biological children, he would have no problem, she said. But because they were adopted, he saw too much risk. Host Pat Robertson’s female co-host bristled and said he was acting like a “dog.” Robertson disagreed. 

He said the man “didn’t want to take on a United Nations,” and that, after all, you never know about adopted children; they might have brain damage and “grow up weird.” 

I am taking a deep breath here and reciting Beatitudes to myself. I had promised never to mention Robertson here again. Every few months he says some crazy scandalous thing. He blames 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina on gays and lesbians, cozies up to the Chinese coercive and murderous one-child policy, counsels a man that he can divorce his Alzheimer’s-riddled wife because she’s “not there” anymore. 

Let me just say this bluntly. This is not just a statement we ought to disagree with. This is of the devil. 

The last go round, Robertson “clarified” his statements on a man leaving his sick wife. Didn’t mean to say it was right, he said, just that the man’s got to have some companionship and a divorce is better than adultery. Please. Robertson’s defenders said to me in letters and calls and emails that Robertson is just not what he used to be mentally and that you ought to hold him to a lower standard. That would be true if people were tapping his phone, or going to his house and recording conversations. However, man is on television, representing to millions of people what Christianity is about. 

The issue here isn’t just that Robertson is, with cruel and callous language, dismissing the Christian mandate to care for the widows and orphans in their distress. The issue is that his disregard is part of a larger worldview. The prosperity and power gospel Robertson has preached fits perfectly well with the kind of counsel he’s giving in recent years. Give China a pass on their murderous policies; we’ve got business interests there. Divorce your weak wife; she can’t do anything for you anymore. Those adopted kids might have brain damage; they’re “weird.” What matters is health and wealth and power. But that’s not the gospel of Jesus Christ. For too long, we’ve let our leaders replace the cross with an Asherah pole. Enough is enough.

Read the rest.

A Satirical FAQ on Christianity for Non-Believers

Thought this was pretty funny. It's just a joke, so hopefully nobody takes it too seriously.

There’s a brand new thing out there that has been confusing and frightening people lately: Christians. The first prominent Christian anyone ever heard of was probably Tim Tebow, and his appearance on the national scene was quite alarming to many, as his “Christian” behavior was seen as quite odd and new. More recently, people have learned about Dan Cathy and are disturbed to discover that some businesses may possibly be owned by Christians who express Christian-type views. And then there is Olympic champion gymnast Gabby Douglas, whose constant profession of faith in God is so frightening that an extremely bewildered author wrote an article about her in Salon. 

Since ignorance is what leads us to fear something (unless we’re talking about platypuses, as the more you know about them, the scarier they are — did you know they’re poisonous?), I thought I’d write an FAQ about Christians to help explain what these strange new people are, so everyone won’t be all freaked out about them.

Here's a taste of the FAQ:

How long have Christians been around?While many people see Christians as a brand new and quite scary thing, records show Christians have been around since at least the 1950s, and maybe even much earlier. 

What are their beliefs based on?It’s a book called “The Bible.” It’s full of thousands-of-years-old religious writing, which Christians believe to have been written by men inspired by God. It’s very long. 

I see many Bibles are labeled “Holy Bible.” What if I got a non-holy version?Immediately return it for a refund. 

The Bible is full of really old values, with lots of outdated views on things like sex. Do Christians actually follow this thing?Indeed they try. Their view is that while society and technology change, the fundamental nature of man doesn’t, and neither do the values God gave us. Thus, the Bible is something they find relevant and expect people to read and follow many years into the future, like Harry Potter.

Why Is The Gospel Coalition Complimentarian?

Collin Hansen:

Probably all of us who share The Gospel Coalition's vision to renew our faith in the gospel of Christ and to reform our ministry practices to conform fully to the Scriptures have been asked, "So why is TGC complementarian? Are you saying only those who uphold male leadership in the home and church believe the gospel?" 

If you've ever wondered and asked the question yourself, we hope you'll watch this video featuring TGC founders Don Carson, Tim Keller, and John Piper. Keller opens with a hermeneutical argument about what sometimes happens when we apply arguments in favor of egalitarianism to biblical passages that relate directly to the gospel. He also explains why TGC's confessional statement and theological vision for ministry go beyond basic gospel doctrines to include such issues as gender roles. As Piper explains, TGC wants to say things that protect the gospel, display the gospel, and release the gospel for human flourishing. And our current age demands that believers model and argue the biblical case for Christ-like headship.

Why Is TGC Complementarian? from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

What's Wrong with Patriarchy?

Don Carson:

In their defense of complementarianism, several Council members in The Gospel Coalition have been known to preface their remarks with the insistence that complementarianism is not to be confused with either patriarchalism or with mere traditionalism in men/women relationships. To some observers, however, all three expressions are roughly synonymous. So why do we insist on the difference? 

Everything turns on the connotations of the words involved, the mental associations conjured up by various expressions. An unrelated example may help. At the denotational level, one might suppose that a "Calvinist" is someone who stands in the theological tradition of John Calvin; at the connotational level, however, in some cultural contexts a Calvinist is thought to be a fatalist, while in still other contexts just about everyone supposes that a Calvinist is uninterested in evangelism. One may wonder if such people have ever heard of George Whitefield or Charles Haddon Spurgeon, but in any case both the ignorance of history and the abuse of terms are in some social contexts pretty strong. Because of my commitment to evangelism, I have once or twice been labeled "a Finneyite Calvinist." I am still unclear as to which of the two terms is more greatly abused. 

In a similar vein, while "patriarchalism" may refer, rather neutrally, to a social order in which fathers rule, the mental associations connected with the term may be hugely variable. For some, it may conjure up order, stability, and fathers of the "Father Knows Best" variety. When one examines family breakdown in many of our communities, with fathers known rather more for their absence than for anything else, a little "patriarchalism" may have its attractions. On the other hand, for many others "patriarchalism" conjures up macho condescension toward women, self-promoting arrogance at the expense of "the little woman," and even (God help us) terrifying sexual abuse. Why would any Christian organization want to defend such grotesque distortions of what God has ordained? Similarly, "traditionalism" in male/female relationships calls to mind, for some older Americans, the stable families of the Eisenhower years (even while all sides acknowledge that the white picket fences sometimes enclosed more unseemly realities), but for many others "traditionalism" is associated with nothing more than preserving the status quo. If one associates that status quo with a refusal to overcome manifold injustice, then traditionalism itself is evil. 

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 does not present men and women as if they are interchangeable in every respect, save for the fact that only the woman has a uterus and can therefore produce babies. Rather, both men and women were made in the image of God and are of equal worth before him, but in God's good design they fit together in mutually complementary ways that go way beyond mere sexual mechanics. The substance of this complementarianism has to be filled out by careful and reverent study of Scripture, study that is as suspicious of agenda-driven traditionalism as it is of agenda-driven egalitarianism. 

Terms rarely remain unaffected by the changing currents of ongoing robust discussion. Some neologisms stand the test of time (e.g., "Trinity"); others slither into well-deserved oblivion. In this case it is not so much a particular term that TGC wishes to defend, as the theological stance the term seeks to summarize, because we are convinced that the theological stance to which it refers is not only biblically mandated but also for our good---something to rejoice over rather than to rebel against. And we are unaware of any other word that encapsulates this position as well, while remaining relatively clear of distorting baggage.

Encouragement for Young Preachers

I found this post by Russell Moore very helpful and encouraging:

Last night, I received an email from a young minister who is discouraged. He’s just starting out in ministry, and says his preaching is terrible. He’s trying to improve, but is just starting out, and is mediocre. I addressed this here a while back, but I decided to reiterate this point because I hear from a lot of young ministers who are similarly worried. Here’s what I think. 

Your first few sermons are always terrible, no matter who you are. 

If you think your first few sermons are great, you’re probably self-deceived. If the folks in your home church think your first few sermons are great, it’s probably because they love you and they’re proud of you. If it’s a good, supportive church there’s as much objectivity there as a grandparent evaluating the “I Love You Grandma” artwork handed to them by the five year-old in their family. 

So your first set of sermons, unless you’re very atypical, are probably really, really bad.
So what? 

The great thing about Christian ministry is that Jesus doesn’t start all over again with his church every generation. He gives older men in ministry who shape, disciple, and direct younger men in ministry. This includes (although it’s not limited to) critiquing your sermons. 

Your sermons will be critiqued. You want them to be critiqued, and harshly. 

Now you don’t want them critiqued harshly by your congregations (and a critical attitude toward your pastor’s preaching, church members, is not a fruit of the Spirit). But you want them critiqued, and you want them critiqued now. 

Your sermons will be highly critiqued early on in your ministry, when you’re still being shaped, or you’ll just be left alone. 

The great preachers you hear or that you read about in your church history books are almost never those who were preaching great sermons from the very beginning of their ministries. 

Great preachers are the ones who preach really bad sermons. The difference is that they preach really bad sermons when they’re young, and are sharpened for life by critique.  

Mediocre preachers are those who start off with sermons that are, eh, pretty good, but they’re never critiqued and thus never grow. 

So if you’re early on in ministry and you preach a bad sermon, so what? You’re in a train of previously bad preachers that extends from Moses to Aaron to Simon Peter to about every good gospel preacher you’ve ever heard with your own ears. 

Your bad sermon says nothing about your future. If you’ve got folks in your life saying, “Hey, that was a really bad sermon,” that does indicate something about your future, so praise God for it. It’s probably a sign that God has something for you to say, for the rest of your life.

Winning Like a Christian Hedonist

From Desiring God:

Pride is an ugly thing whenever it shows itself. It tinges the cuteness of the smallest toddler declaring their independence and self-centeredness with screams too young for words. It stains the honor of the elderly grandfather losing control of his temper and tongue. And it rears its head on the field of athletic competition time and time again. 

Over the last couple weeks, the Olympic Games have proven this, especially in the greatest triumphs. It’s difficult to explain, and sad to witness, but evidently even the most elite athletes feel obligated to defend their domination of the field with exaggerated declarations of their greatness. 

One decorated swimmer compares himself to Michael Jordan as the greatest ever in his sport. Meanwhile a wildly celebrated sprinter proclaims, “I’m now a legend. I’m also the greatest athlete to live.” 

What is it that compels the most gifted and successful people to clarify their own significance, especially when all the news outlets, Facebook timelines, and the world’s retweets stand ready to do it for them? 

Why do they never realize that these embarrassingly prideful sound bytes are splashes of mud on their otherwise sparkling performances? Why do they allow themselves to forever scar the memory of their victory? 

Sadly, it’s no different for us who, instead of winning gold medals, more often lose, disappoint, and leave our friends, family, and co-workers relatively unimpressed. Pride.
Though ours may not be plastered on billboards or edited for the latest frontpage story, it is as ugly and pervasive in the things we say and attitudes we carry. Our pride boasts when we win; and it wallows in self-pity when we come up short.

Music Video of the Week: Needtobreathe

Needtobreathe - "Keep Your Eyes Open"

Sunday Morning [Video]

This gave me a chuckle. Some of it seemed pretty familiar...

Call It What It Is - The Westboro Cult

Denny Burk:

I grow weary of editorials and commentators who make facile comparisons between orthodox Christianity and the fringe group known as “Westboro Baptist Church.” Just this week, The Baltimore Sun published an editorial comparing Chick-fil-a president Dan Cathy to the Westboro extremists. I know not everyone can be a religion reporter, but this kind of ignorance of the basic differences between mainstream evangelicals and Westboro hatred is inexcusable. 

That is why I’m throwing in my lot with Marty Duren, who urges media-types to change the way they refer to Fred Phelps’ infamous church. Duren writes: 

To All Media Outlets, Reporters, Writers and Editors: 

It is abundantly clear to most Americans that the “Westboro Baptist Church” is neither “Baptist” nor a “church” according to any commonly accepted meaning of either word. As a Christ follower, and a long time church attender, I enter this plea to stop using the phrase “Westboro Baptist Church” in favor of the more accurate “the Westboro cult.” 

Whether or not folks will heed Duren’s advice remains to be seen. In any case, cultprobably would be a better description of what Westboro Baptist Church really is. Maybe a new designation would help reporters not to make spurious comparisons like the one made in The Baltimore Sun. Read the rest of Duren’s argument here.

Dear Stay-At-Home Mom

Trevin Wax:

Dear Stay-at-Home Mom, 

You are a gift of God to your husband and your kids. 

But you don’t always feel that way, do you? 

There’s a low-level feeling of guilt that creeps into your heart from time to time. 

Sometimes it bubbles over into tears, usually on lonely, difficult days. 

You scan blogs and read books about being a good mom. You find some helpful tidbits here and there, often from women who are grandmothers now. Women you can learn from but who seem to have forgotten the struggle. They seem to have it all together. 

In your heart, you want to be the kind of mom who trains up kids to make a difference for the kingdom. You know it’s an honor to be entrusted with these kids. You know you’ve only got one shot. You want to be the mom who teaches them the Bible, models how to pray, and trains them up in the fear of the Lord. 

But most of the time you feel like you’re barely holding it all together. 

Your house cleaning can’t keep up with your kids’ mess-making. 

The kids embarrass you by acting up right when your guests arrive. 

Your husband doesn’t get just how worn out you are by the end of the day. 

You come to the end of your patience. You lose your temper. Then you feel worse. 

The last thing you consider yourself to be is a “good mom.” And you think to yourself, It’ll be a miracle if my kids turn out okay. 

And – surprisingly – that’s right where God wants to meet you. The place where you admit your powerlessness and your need for Him... 

Read the rest. Really good stuff from Trevin.

Music Video of the Week: Andrew Peterson

Andrew Peterson - "Dancing in the Mine Fields"

Give No Offense? Another Take on Chick-fil-A Day

Stephen Altrogge:

I don’t think we can separate the issues of free speech and homosexuality as neatly as everyone claims. Regardless of your intent in going to Chick-Fil-A, we as Christians made a collective statement to the world. We said, “We will band together as Christians against your homosexual agenda. We are against your homosexual agenda.” No one may have said this individually, but this was the overall effect of the demonstration. We Christians hunkered down on our side while the rest of the world hunkered down on their side. We circled our wagons against the attacks of the wicked. Disagree all you want, but that’s how it is being interpreted by many people. 

Trust me, I’m all for traditional marriage and I believe in free speech. I need free speech so that I can continue to proclaim the gospel boldly. I don’t want restrictions on gospel proclamation. I want to protect those values. But I strongly believe that we need to find more winsome ways to do it. We may have won the Chick-Fil-A battle, but I don’t imagine that we won any unbelievers to Christ. 

Am I too worried about offending people? I don’t think so. I’m more than willing to offend people for the sake of the gospel. The gospel is an inherently offensive message, and I’ll proclaim the offensive gospel of grace and repentance until my dying breath. But I don’t want to offend unnecessarily. In 1 Corinthians 10:31-33 Paul said: 

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved. 

Paul sought to avoid offense in order that people might be saved! As Christians, we must keep that goal before us  - the salvation of many. Paul was willing to lay down his rights to eat whatever he wanted in order that people might be saved. 

The primary problem with the Chick-Fil-A battle was that there were very few words used. The watching world did not hear our love for the lost, our love for Christ, and our desire to see them know the truth. It didn’t feel our compassion. It simply saw a bunch of fired up Christians eating chicken sandwiches. To me that doesn’t seem like the best way to defend the First Amendment in the name of Christ. 

So yes, let’s defend the First Amendment, but let’s do it in a gracious, winsome, God-centered, Bible-saturated ways. In 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 Paul said: 

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ… 

The primary weapon that Paul is talking about is the weapon of the truth! So yeah, let’s fight against the arguments of the world, but let’s do it by graciously speaking the truth, just as Jesus did and Paul did. Let’s work to protect what we value, but let’s do it with the truth, not chicken sandwiches. Write to your paper, engage in public debate, write your representative, blog, have coffee with your homosexual friends, and do it all with grace and truth. I love how John Piper regularly writes in to his local newspaper. Preachers, boldly proclaim the full counsel of God. Let’s proclaim the name of Christ in a way that shows just how glorious, wonderful, and attractive he is. 

And when we speak the truth, let’s expect to be persecuted. After all, Jesus said that we would be hated by all men for his name’s sake.

Where Is the Same-Sex Marriage Fight Going?

This is a pretty forthright and chilling quote from Masha Gessen, a Russian-American journalist:

It’s a no-brainer that we should have the right to marry, but I also think equally that it’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist [cheers from the audience]. 

That causes my brain some trouble. And part of why it causes me trouble is because fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we are going to do with marriage when we get there—because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie. The institution of marriage is going to change, and it should change. And again, I don’t think it should exist. And I don’t like taking part in creating fictions about my life. That’s sort of not what I had in mind when I came out thirty years ago. I have three kids who have five parents, more or less, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t have five parents legally…. 

[After my divorce,] I met my new partner, and she had just had a baby, and that baby’s biological father is my brother, and my daughter’s biological father is a man who lives in Russia, and my adopted son also considers him his father. So the five parents break down into two groups of three…. And really, I would like to live in a legal system that is capable of reflecting that reality. And I don’t think that’s compatible with the institution of marriage.

Amy Hall has some observations at the Stand to Reason blog:

So Gessen is conflicted. She wants the unions to be treated the same, but she recognizes that, by nature, they create fundamentally different situations. And since the institution of marriage can’t accommodate a union that has only one woman and one woman (because another person—a man—is needed somewhere in the picture in order for a family to be created), she understands that an entirely new legal system must be created in order for the government to be able to address her situation. 

So here’s the thinking (a summary in my words, not hers): “I want all unions to be treated the same, but since we’re not the same, due to biological realities beyond our control, and since marriage can never work for the union and children I have, we need to drop marriage and come up with a new idea so we can all be the same under that new system.” Or even more succinctly stated, “You shouldn’t have marriage because we can’t have marriage.” 

Marriage can’t be separated from biological realities. And that’s why this upheaval won’t end when same-sex marriage is accepted—why Gessen’s ultimate goal is the end of marriage. 

I’m glad to hear her honesty about this.

Our Anger vs. God's

Tim Challies:

When I moved out of my parents’ home on the day I got married, I left behind a hole in the wall that I had punched in a fit of anger a few months before. At one of the first homes Aileen and I lived in I cracked a door frame when I tried to smash it shut, once more in a fit of stupid anger. My immature anger just sometimes boiled over and got me into trouble. I always felt like an idiot after acting out, but in the moment my anger got the better of me; I often surrendered to it. I am profoundly grateful that God, in his mercy, has blessed me and blessed my family by taking away much of the immaturity, the irrationality, the lack of self-control that caused me to lash out like an angry toddler. I still known what it is to be angry, but no longer tend toward violent reaction. 

According to one dictionary, anger is a strong feeling of displeasure, a kind of belligerence aroused by a wrong. And from experience I can say it is equally likely that it is anger aroused by a perceived wrong. If someone truly wrongs me, I may well express anger and do so with some justification. If someone slights me or otherwise damages my pride, it may also cause me to act angry but with no justification at all. Anger is inherently reactive, awaiting a trigger and then waiting to react in accordance with my nature....

...It is little wonder that man fears an angry God. If we believe that God is so much greater than we are, so much stronger, so much more powerful, and if we believe that God is capable of anger and wrath, then we have little choice but to fear him as a child may fear a parent. And, indeed, man’s history with deity, whether with the true God or with any number of idols, has often been a position of terror, seeking by deed or sacrifice to appease his wrath. And so often, I think, we confuse human anger with divine wrath, imposing our own sinful, irrational, emotional anger upon God’s just, perfect, holy wrath. No wonder, then, that we seek to appease him, to assuage our guilty consciences and to hope against hope that we may have turned aside his wrath for another day. 

And here it strikes me just how different the wrath of God is from my anger, from what we see in most human anger. Charles Leiter has said it well: “God’s wrath is not a temporary loss of self-control or a selfish fit of emotion. It is His holy, white-hot hatred of sin, the reaction and revulsion of His holy nature against all that is evil.” God’s wrath is revulsion. It is not mere emotion and is not at all irrational. It is so much more than emotion. You may know what it is to feel revulsion. Some time ago I heard of a woman who, upon finding out that her husband had been cheating on her, immediately vomited. It was as if her whole body was so affronted, so repulsed by her husband’s sin that it acted all on its own. Revulsion may be our reaction to a lukewarm sip of water when we were expecting ice cold or piping hot. We spew it out, repulsed. And this is sin to God. God’s wrath is a holy reaction, it is a holy and white-hot hatred of all that is evil. This is a good and just and fair reaction to something that is absolutely, fundamentally opposed to God’s very nature. Sin is against all that he is and all that he wants us to be. 

God’s reaction to sin is the good and necessary, the absolute best and perfectly just reaction. He will not act rashly in anger but will act justly in wrath. He willexpress this wrath against all sin. He must express this wrath against sin, because sin opposes all that he is as the perfectly holy creator of all that exists. How good it is, then, when we ponder God’s wrath, to know that his wrath has already been satisfied for those who trust in him. There on the cross, Jesus Christ took that wrath upon himself on behalf all those who were his own. There God required the just penalty due for that sin. And there the Father found perfect, eternal satisfaction for his wrath. And there you and I can turn our eyes and turn our hearts and trust and believe and know that Jesus Christ has paid it all.