Disqualified pastors and riotous children
Contrary to modern opinion, a pastor with unbelieving or debauched children is prima facie disqualified from ministry.
The grace of stoning
Contrary to hypocritical modern sensibilities, God’s penalty for certain sins is not brutish or draconian, but gracious and loving. By confusing softness and niceness with grace and love, we have produced a society in which mothers freely murder their children, and men shamelessly commit indecent acts with other men.
Why is Lazarus in the tomb four days?
I don’t know for sure, but there are some patterns that might fit.
Why people are weird about head coverings
By instantiating a symbol of a larger spiritual pattern, they hope to instantiate the whole pattern. The Enlightenment didn’t escape magical thinking; it intensified it.
Seven things that are essential for understanding God’s creation & our place in it, but seem completely insane to the modern mind
A sort-of-manifesto about what Smokey and I are doing with our True Magic project—and why it matters.
How God requires Christians to vote
Voting is an act of representative rulership. As such, it fundamentally represents Christ, and is subject to his clear laws. Christians therefore do not have the option of voting for anyone other than a man after God’s own heart.
Not veiling is a sin just like not baptizing your babies
Contrary to a common objection bandied about today, there is nothing sectarian about head covering, and to disallow it on such grounds is grossly inconsistent with how these very same people approach other important doctrinal disagreements.
The hair is not the only covering in 1 Corinthians 11
It is impossible for the covering that Paul is speaking about in 1 Corinthians 11 to be merely the woman’s hair. Verse 6 makes this reading incoherent, and verse 15 directly signals that it is wrong by using a different word for covering than the rest of the chapter.
Prayer and prophecy are not just supernatural gifts in 1 Corinthians 11
Prayer and prophecy in scripture can be supernatural gifts. But they can often be exercises of our natural faculties too. Paul’s use of these terms is broad, and certainly encompasses what women do in worship today.
James 2 is obviously talking about forensic justification. Denying this produces dead faith
Don your fighting trousers.
The calling of Nathanael and the symbolism of trees and high places
How did Jesus see Nathanael beneath the fig tree? Why does Nathanael respond with an amazed confession of Jesus’ identity? How does Jesus’ promise that Nathanael will see angels ascending and descending fit into this?
Everything Everywhere All At Once—a review
As the historical ordering principles of our culture disintegrate, we try to find meaning in the idea that our alternate lives might be better. But infinite potentiality devours meaning; it cannot create it.
A response to the Lamb’s Reign hit piece
In which I explain some rather critical errors in John Reasnor’s analysis of my views on faith and justification.
Sign the Cornerstone Challenge Statement on the primacy of Christ’s rule
A foundational document of the newly-launched Repent NZ, outlining the biblical teaching on the primacy of Christ over every domain, and its implications for the relationship between Church and State.
The religious significance of Covid, excursus: is masking magic?
Understanding the religious nature of man, and the symbolic patterns he follows in worship, helps us to understand the rationale behind ancient magic—and ask some disconcerting questions about whether it is reasserting itself in the modern day.
The religious significance of Covid, part 2: the symbolism of face-covering
Understanding the religious nature of man, and the symbolic patterns he follows in worship, helps us to understand the disturbing nature of mask mandates, and the idolatry implicit in obeying them.
The religious significance of Covid, part 1: pandemic response as idolatry
Understanding the religious nature of man, and the symbolic patterns he follows in worship, helps us to understand the seemingly irrational response to Covid—and the Church’s gross dereliction of her duty.
Why I cannot worship at your lockdown-compliant church
At what point does a difference of opinion about submission to state authority become a difference in worship? When the submission to state authority functionally unseats Christ as the head of that worship.
My submission to parliament against the COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill (No 2)
Posted verbatim for the encouragement and instruction of other Kiwi Christians.
The scandal of lawless and rebellious Christians
Why are so many Christians today pretending submission to God while they openly defy his authority? Why are they encouraging hatred of neighbor and approving of rebellion, while condemning other believers seeking, with fear and trembling, to submit?
Excommunicated
Facing false charges in a judicial process that denied the presumption of innocence, the right to be fairly tried before being condemned, and the right to speak in my own defense, I was found guilty of slander, false teaching, and division, and excommunicated from Trinity Reformed Baptist Church.
I oppose marital corporal punishment
Years ago, I assessed what the Bible says about marital corporal punishment. Contrary to wise counsel, I did some of my thinking out loud among my enemies. Now, screenshots of my comments are used to perpetuate a rumor that I support wife-beating. This is false, and always has been.
Should women learn self-defense?
Maybe, but they shouldn’t rely on it, and there are more important things for them to learn to keep them safe.
Head coverings #1: the logic of glory and veiling
While head covering debates get mired in disagreement about cultural customs and what Paul meant about the angels, they ignore the central logic of 1 Corinthians 11—that only one glory should be on display in worship. Veiling still matters in the modern day because God’s glory still matters in worship—and that is what is at stake.
Is Psalm 82 depicting actual gods?
TL;DR: yes, but accusing someone who believes this of polytheism or liberalism is semantic mischief.
Is a triune God like a square circle?
Yes—if you’re a two-dimensional being who is trying to understand a cylinder.
It’s Good To Be A Man
In partnership with Michael Foster, I have launched a new website dedicated to developing a positive doctrine of masculinity.
Q&A: why should Christians attend church?
A reader asks on behalf of himself and his daughter. I briefly demonstrate that the Bible doesn’t just consider it normal to worship with other believers, but really a practice of such critical importance to our spiritual growth that avoiding it carries an expectation of furious judgment.
But what about businesswomen?!
Women in business are not usurping the father-rule that God made men to carry; they are exercising authority in matters of production. However, it is important to remember that God designed this to happen within the context of the household, not the emaciated quasi-household that is the modern corporation.
But what about Deborah?!
Deborah is widely regarded as a feminist icon; the only woman to rule God’s people well. But close attention to the text reveals that her rulership was a shame to Israel, rather than a glory.
5 clear reasons Christians should oppose female heads of state
Once the cultural blinders are removed, the evidence of Scripture against women ruling society is difficult to ignore. There are clear teleological, a fortiori, exegetical, inductive, and missional reasons for Christians to regard the rule of women, in the words of John Knox, as monstruous.
Are women made in the image of God?
Both Genesis 1:26–28 and 5:1–2 are plain in ascribing the image of God to mankind in the plural: male and female. Men alone cannot order the world in a way that fully represents God, and women alone cannot either. Only together can they completely carry his rule into creation by both subduing and filling.
Attraction v. arousal
Women are attracted by attributes which can paradoxically turn them off sexually. Neither are necessarily related to virtue—or necessarily not…but a Christian man must learn to balance them in a virtuous way.
Q&A: how not to throw out the biblical baby with the blue pill bathwater?
A Christian reader asks for advice in grappling with unplugging from blue pill conditioning without losing his faith. I suggest that the answers primarily lie in understanding the creation mandate, the fall, and God’s providence. These are key differentiators between the theology of biblical sexuality, and the ideology of red pill sexuality.
When italics won’t cut it
In which I find a difference of emphasis with Doug Wilson, and proceed to emphasize its importance.
Straddling the stallion and the mare
In which I hope to sharpen some iron with Doug Wilson over whether 1 Corinthians 7 really gives a believing spouse license to separate from a nasty piece of work.
It’s OK for a man to be a helpmeet
A progression of observations about Wesley Hill, based on his own testimony, that do not make him look very good.
Did Ezekiel’s prophecy against Tyre fail?
A long-time reader asks for help explaining to an atheist how Tyre is now a populated city, though it was prophesied to be made desolate. I illustrate how an atheist is really better off studiously avoiding this particular prophecy.
Applying torque to opposing corners of my Bible
Fundamentalists claim that I am mishandling Deuteronomy 22:5 by going beyond its literal meaning. I illustrate how their literalist hermeneutic makes nonsense of not only this passage, but all of human discourse.
Can badass female characters ever be redeemed?
The problem of ubiquitous feminist icons in media is not that they violate God’s design for women, nor that they are often one-dimensional Mary-Sues—it is rather that they generally glorify that which God declares inglorious.
Why a woman bearing the sword is an abomination to the Lord
Despite modern, feminist-conditioned sensibilities, carefully trained by modern, feminist media icons, there is strong evidence from both nature and Scripture that women in combat or enforcement roles are the sort of thing the Lord spits out of his mouth.
The fruits of (Radical) Two Kingdoms theology
What happens when you spend a generation insisting that God’s law is not part of God’s gospel, and that God’s gospel has nothing to do with politics—but then you still want to talk about righteousness and justice in society? You give up Moses in favor of Marx.
Does diachronic faith undermine perseverance and regeneration?
A reader asks whether adopting a Federal Vision-like perspective on faith and justification can stop there. Must it not logically lead us to deny the perseverance of the saints, and in turn the Reformed understanding of regeneration? I explain why I think this is broadly mistaken.
Works-righteousness: a square contractual peg in a round covenantal hole
In antiquity, the key distinction between contract and covenant was one of performance versus loyalty. This was widely understood and accepted; so how plausible is it that first century Judaism treated God’s covenant as a contract requiring performance, rather than as what it claimed to be—a covenant requiring personal fidelity?
Was Jesus an alpha male? Part 2: command
To properly understand intersexual dynamics, we need to ground them in human nature—which is fundamentally the image of God. This image consists in two related elements which are both encompassed by the term command.
Was Jesus an alpha male? Part 1: a trick question
Christians should not be forcing their view of authentic masculinity into a simplistic dichotomy based on evolutionary psychology—no matter how central that is to the conceptual nexus of the manosphere. God’s design for men is exemplified in Jesus; not in natural selection.
How to improve God’s Big Picture
Vaughan Roberts’ God’s Big Picture is a video series worth watching. It rightly emphasizes kingdom as the backbone of the gospel narrative, but suffers from some typically Western blind spots that water down that narrative in unfortunate ways.
Faith across time: is final justification unchristian?
Final justification does not add anything to the conditions of justification; nor does it entail that God grounds his verdict in our works rather than in his Son’s. On the contrary, final justification is on account of the very same faith that first joined us to Jesus and his vindication—and our works are a proper part of that faith.
Does God need the divine council?
Many people object that since God doesn’t need anyone to help him rule in the heavenly places, therefore there is no divine council. This objection is puzzling, since it is easily repurposed to “prove” that there are also no earthly rulers either.