I was talking last time about how couples today often make the decision to marry based on a feeling of being soul mates. I thought similarly too, in my time, when I decided to marry my wife: that this is what will make our marriage last. But we are getting things exactly backwards. The story goes that a pastor once …
I officiated a wonderful wedding last week. There was talk, as there always is, of whether these two would be right for each other. I told the guests why I was there and why I was confident to pronounce them “husband and wife.” Many people today feel like two people should get married if they are soul mates. I …
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 …
I am amazed at how often these days people commit hook line and sinker to a theory of something though it lacks a central answer. They hold a great certainty that their thing is The Truth along with a faith that “Oh, some details will be worked out later.” Okay, but what if said details are kind of the main …
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 …
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 …
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 …
I make a lot about emotional intimacy in marriage in the book, enGendered, calling it the key to a successful marriage. That is because passages like Ephesians 5:22-33, the quintessential marriage passage in the New Testament, describe marriage in those terms (his wife is as close as the husband’s own body, he washes her by word, he who loves his wife …
Hey, for those of you who missed previous conferences and events, and would like to catch one, come Affirm Gender with me at one of these upcoming venues. Peace Presbyterian Church is hosting a conference with Rosaria Butterfield and myself speaking on September 30. And here are some others…
Onward to answer more of Claire Smith’s criticisms of enGendered (politely dressed as questions—thank you kindly, Dr. Smith!). Dr. Smith questions what I’ve said the asymmetries of gender are. So let’s revisit whence masculinity and femininity, enGendered style, arise. When we listen to how the Bible distinguishes men and women in their callings to one another, we hear very …
