PeopleName: Matthew

Jesus Loved Women

It is fun to see the ways Jesus loved women, emphasizing their equality, all the while upholding the asymmetry between the genders. It makes me want to honor women likewise, as He did.   Read Matthew12:46-50 closely: While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. But he …

In Every Phase of a Woman’s Life, Jesus Meets Her: A Mother’s Day Sermon

A Lover or A Mother or What? Especially for a woman, what she does, and so who she is, can change radically from one phase of life to the next. A woman in different phases of life has different needs. Proverbs 31, the Old Testament chapter, describes the “virtuous wife” as a super-woman who seems to do so many different …

Should Women Be Quiet?

You might expect that the funny Greek word that means meekness, πραῢς, (pronounced something like pra-oose’), would appear a lot in the New Testament, since it sounds like such a Christian virtue. Not so. The word only appears four times in the New Testament, three of those times in the gospel of Matthew. (There is a related word, but that …

Looking at The Trinity Without Diverting Our Eyes: Reply to Claire Smith, PART V

One of the most interesting conversations the book, enGendered, seems to spawn concerns the nature of things between the Members of the Triune God. Whereas this topic is often avoided for fear of speaking heresy, I suggest that there is too much in the Scriptures that encourage us to find the ground of our relationships in the Persons of God–even …

Christ is Masculinity Extraordinaire

In relationship to His Church, Jesus Christ demonstrates the archetype of masculinity in its pure form. (In another context, Christ shows us where femininity came from also.) The apostle Paul calls forth the excellency of Christ becoming our husband in 1Corinthians 11:2-3, while Ephesians 5:22-33 explains it more fully, two examples among others. So if you want to see a …