Death by Love

Driscoll and Breshears give us a solid biblical treatment of issues facing many today. In terms of content, I find little to complain about. The introduction to penal substitution is brilliant. Nevertheless, the idea of reading letters meant to confront someone else’s stuggles with sin and/or dispair does seem a little wierd, even if the advice is good. Driscoll doesn’t pull any punches and I’m left feeling quite uncomfortable in places. Maybe that’s a good thing; after all, sin is a big deal and it should be dealt with seriously.

Driscoll’s explanation of modern biblical relevance is worth taking note of:

The gospel message comes from God to the culture but does not eminate in any way from the culture, though it must be effectively communicated to all cultures. Because of this, the truth of the gospel of Scripture is binding on all peoples, times, and places.

Adam & Eve or Adam & Steve?

Here‘s a quote from an interesting article from my friend Hugh Bourne’s blog by Xander Coomber on a recent debate organised by the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM).

…after the debate I chatted to Clive [Gardner] about celibacy outside of marriage or a civil partnership. His response was to say that he would not confront a couple in his church that were sleeping together before marriage/civil partnership, because given our culture it’s an unrealistic to ask people to be celibate. But the Bible wouldn’t agree with this position, rather we are shown that in intercourse and marriage a man and a woman become ‘one flesh’ (Gen 2:24). Clive told me that he would however confront incest, or underage sex because these acts are illegal. Surely we cannot say that God’s standards for holiness change with our culture or are dependant on the laws of the land. The culture in Corinth said that sexual impurity was great, but God, through the Apostle Paul told them otherwise. To say that sex outside of marriage is acceptable because the culture says it’s acceptable is a typical post-modern perspective and goes against what the Bible says, it is to say that the perfection we see in Eden and God’s order within creation is no longer relevant to us now.

So I would like to ask Mr. Gardner in response, if creation is how God intended this world to be then why did He create Adam and Eve, and not Adam and Steve? Why did God create His perfect world with females as the males’ companion? (Gen 2:18-24) If God had meant for Adam and Steve, then why would He not have made it this way? So why Adam and Eve, and not Adam and Steve?

The battle with sin

 In his book Battling Unbelief John Piper gives some great insight into the fight against sin:

Battling unbelief is another way of saying “living by faith in future grace”. The unbelief is the failure to trust the promises of God that sustain our radical obedience to the future…

Battling unbelief and fighting for faith in future grace means that we fight fire with fire. We throw against the promises of sin the promises of God. We take hold of some great promise God made about our future and say to a particular sin “Match that!” (Rom 8:13 – putting to death the deeds of the body)

John Piper – God’s plan included sin

Piper shows how God’s plan to glorify his Son through the cross included sin from before the beginning.