The Great Servant Leadership Mistake
Introduction: In her next chapter, Aimee Byrd continues a similar pattern. She says a lot of good things, like a handful of pearls with no thread to make a necklace. But she also says some worrisome things, and then third, she assembles part of what she says to support her central non sequitur. After addressing …
Book of the Month: September 2018
Knowing Christ by Mark Jones is a worthy companion volume to J.I. Packer’s classic Knowing God. It is a work of devotional theology or, if you prefer, theological devotion. Nancy and I read this one together aloud, bit by bit, and that was a good way to work through something as dense and as hand-packed …
Psalm 91/Under the Shadow of the Almighty
Introduction: According to a tradition among the Jews, if a psalm is not attributed to anyone, then the credit should go to the author of the previous psalm. There is no basis for being dogmatic about it, but this would mean that Psalm 91 was composed by Moses. The reason this is suggestive is that …
Appropriate This
So let me explain it to you once again, one more time. If a white girl wears a Chinese dress to the prom, she is guilty of “appropriation.” If another girl wears hoop earrings, she is also guilty of “appropriation,” but now in a different direction. If a fraternity hosts a Mexican dinner and the …
Defrauding a Brother
I don’t have a great deal to say about this next chapter—on Christ as our Elder Brother—because most of it is very good. The mistake that Aimee Byrd is making is the same one again. She says a number of valuable things about the biblical relationship of brothers and sisters, some of them even glorious …
Under Lock and Key
Introduction: A few weeks ago, I wrote something that caused some consternation in some predictable quarters. I said: “But here are some different examples. This one is taken from the world, not from Scripture, but we can learn something about the world from it. Why, if a woman sleeps with a hundred men, is she …
Striking While the Irony is Hot
Introduction: Aimee Byrd is very aware of a mistake that would, in this kind of cultural analysis, be a very easy one to make. I am glad she is aware of it because it shows she is actively trying to avoid making it, and that is all to the good. Unfortunately, this awareness has not …
What the Ornithologist Knows
In her fifth chapter, Aimee Byrd helpfully offers some qualifications (and/or exceptions) to what she has been generally arguing for. She makes the important general point that temptation and sin in this area is devastating and really bad. And she also says some really good things in this chapter about how the law does not …
I, Not the Lord
It has been a few days, but I was asked to respond to a piece here from a friendly critic of my fictional letter to a wife who was preparing to leave her husband. The central thing that I would like to contest is this: “In fact, this piece straightforwardly reverses what God actually says. …