Tried With Fire

Beyond Authority and Submission: Women and Men in Marriage, Church, and Society - Rachel Green Miller, P&R Publishing Company, 2019, 273 pages. Newton's third law of motion states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is true in science, and unfortunately, this is true in theology. Attempts to correct a problem can create an equal and opposite problem by reacting in fear, and I've seen this take place in the gender wars. But what if it's time to get off the pendulum, stop reacting, and see what the Word of God says? This is why Beyond Authority and Submission is such an important book.  Rachel Miller first examines what the Bible says regarding authority and submission. Spoiler alert: submission is rooted in our humanity, not in a particular chromosome pair. God has sole power and authority to whom all of creation is subject, including all of mankind. Any human authority is derivative and temporal. Thus the Bible admonishes chil...

Here is a link to a recent Sunday school class by my pastor, Ryan Davidson, on the Christian and Depression, and Anxiety.  He's a professional Christian counselor as well as a pastor, so he has experience with the issue. It's a 1-class overview, but I found it very helpful. This is a related post on anxiety by Rachel Miller - Anxiety: My Thorn in My Flesh

I've posted this quote by Carl Trueman before, but it bears repeating: "[T]he doctrine of God is a more complicated matter than the authority of Scripture, When someone starts to tinker with the doctrine of Scripture, many Christians instinctively feel that something nefarious is being done. But when someone starts to tinker with the doctrine of God, many simply assume that very clever people are engaged in improving the tradition." 1 I believe this is happening with the doctrine of the Eternal Subordination of the Son (ESS.) This doctrine believes God the Son is subordinate to the God the Father in role but not in substance, but this subordination is not just for the purpose of redemption but perpetually. I do not agree with ESS and believe it is inconsistent with the classical doctrine of the Trinity. This may seem esoteric, but our understanding of God is the bedrock on which our beliefs rest. If we get God wrong, then any doctrines that follow, which are pretty mu...