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A La Carte (8/9)
- 08/09/10
- 4
Congregations Gone Wild - An unusual op-ed from the Times: “The American clergy is suffering from burnout, several new studies show. And part of the problem, as researchers have observed, is that pastors work too much. Many of them need vacations, it's true. But there's a more fundamental problem that no amount of rest and relaxation can help solve: congregational pressure to forsake one's highest calling.”
MSB ESV - Phil Johnson is one of the first to see a MacArthur Study Bible in the ESV and he gives up a little bit of information about it.
How Many Books In the World? - “How many books have ever been published in all of modern history? According to Google's advanced algorithms, the answer is nearly 130 million books, or 129,864,880, to be exact.”
Gay Marriage - Carl Trueman has some interesting (and wise) things to say about gay marriage. “For people like myself, now in middle age, dislike of homosexuality came with the territory; our reasons for opposing it were more to do with our own cultural backgrounds than with any biblical argumentation. Our opinions on the issue may have happened to coincide at points with biblical teaching, but that was more by accident than design. We were basically bigots and we needed to change.”
NICOT Hosea - The New International Commentary on the Old Testament has just increased by one volume with the publication of Dearman’s commentary on Hosea. Westminster Books is offering a good discount on it (and even better deals when you buy more than one volume from the series).
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Comments (4)
I cringe when I see Christians use the term “gay” - a term made up to elicit positive images for a group who practices a sinful lifestyle. They are homosexuals. And the overwhelming majority are far from gay (original meaning). They are suicidal. Nothing happy or gay about that.
Re “gay marriage”: It really is more accurate to call it same-sex marriage. Some of the homosexuals and lesbians I know were once in traditional, heterosexual marriages.
This might be my 2nd (no more than third ;) time to comment on a blog of any sort. I heard a really good interview not too long ago with John Piper and D.A. Carson. In it John Piper brought up a really good point about how Christians ought to view homosexuality (http://vimeo.com/5822850). His point was that we should be more careful of describing certain issues as the world does. Homosexuality is a sin (as most readers of this blog would agree) as much as any other sin (see 10 commandments alone). But, we need to not call a homosexual, committed, even officiated by law relationship “marriage.” The term “gay marriage” or “same-sex marriage” should be repulsive to Christians. Marriage is the gift of God ordained from the beginning of creation to be between a man and a woman (once again, most of you don’t need an explanation here). We should call it (and it alone) marriage. All else is “so-called” or “false” or a perversion of marriage.
Okay. I’ve said enough.
Joseph
Ginger- I think you’d be hard pressed to demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of practicing homosexuals are suicidal. Do they have psychological issues at a higher rate than heterosexuals? Most definitely. But that’s a far cry from the overwhelming majority being suicidal.
Joseph- I’m with you on the true meaning and significance of the union of a man and woman before God. I call that marriage. That said, I also realize that the word “marriage” has a different meaning for most people. The rate of divorce is evidence of that. For most, marriage means “a non-binding legal status entered into by a couple who are more-or-less committed to one another”. Using the predominant definition of the word, then, same-sex marriage is exactly that: marriage. We can stiffen our chins and insist that “marriage” (the word) means what we understand it to mean, or we can recognize that language (unlike objective truth) shifts over time, and that the current definition of “marriage” is what it is. We might as well come up with a new term. “Covenantal union” maybe.
To address one point of Carl’s, he writes: “We can no longer assume our children will just agree with us on this issue; they are going to want arguments for holding that homosexual practice is wrong.”
I think he misses the point here. Convincing someone that homosexual practice is wrong is one thing. If you want someone (i.e. your children) to “agree with us on this issue” then you must convince him that not only is homosexual practice wrong, but that this implies we should prohibit homosexual couples from entering into the secular, legal designation called “marriage”.
Personally, I agree with Carl that homosexual practice is sin. I don’t agree with him that this implies homosexual couples should be prohibited from entering into the secular estate of “marriage”.