As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
“Only by modeling true community, oriented towards the transcendent, can the church show a rapidly destabilizing world of expressive individuals that there is something greater, more solid, and more lasting than the immediate satisfaction of personal desires.” - Carl Trueman
The other pastor and I recently finished teaching through the Book of Judges. We each alternate teaching Sunday School and the morning sermon; switching back and forth each week. It fell to me to teach Judges 19.
I don’t teach narrative verse by verse. Instead, I usually teach the passage by crafting several questions from the text that seem to get to the heart of the matter. I’ll discuss one of those questions here.
What’s gone so wrong in Judges 19?
“Given these difficulties, my church’s elders decided we wanted to spend time intentionally shepherding our people to think rightly about our identity as a gospel community as well as our responsibility to one another and the world in these divided times.
“I write this short piece on complementarianism with this new generation in mind. It is not my aim to give a comprehensive account of every biblical nook and cranny; you can find that elsewhere. What I want to do here is to give a concise, re-presentation of why I am a complementarian, and why I believe you should be, too.” - CBMW
“What follows is not a review of The Third Option but rather a meditation on its central thesis, that our attitudes and behavior toward our fellow human beings must take full account of the fact that they were created in God’s image.
“Although Paul does not directly allude to the image of God in this text, the fact that God made man in His own image, enduing him with rationality, morality, and volition, would seem to be implied by this capacity for seeing God in his environment. By any account, having such a capacity is good.” - Dave Saxon
“I also intend to advance an overarching vision of humanity that is consistent with ancient and biblically driven views of the human and that, at the same time, is commensurate with and informed by contemporary reflections from the sciences. In other words, don’t let the word ‘introduction’ throw you.” - Ref21
“You are not going to want to miss Craig Carter on the philosophical underpinnings of transgenderism, Brad Littlejohn on natural theology and the sexes, Nathan Tarr on abortion and the early church, or Wayne Grudem on why he changed his mind over the grounds for divorce” Eikon is available free in PDF form. - CBMW
The questions I’ve raised above are not ivory tower speculations. I believe these questions are important to answer if we are to understand fully the implications Christ’s temptation as well as his victory over temptation for you and me. Consider the following three points of practical application:
Discussion