The Week-est Link, March 7, 2008: Rap, and lots of Sovereign Grace

1. Sovereign Grace recently posted a review of what sounds like a terrific rap cd. It's by Tony Reinke, assistant to Sovereign Grace director C. J. Mahaney. I haven't heard the album in full, though I've heard it in parts, and I can say that Tony hits the nail on the head, and reveals that rap, though it may sound strange to some, can actually prove to be a very theologically friendly style of music. All the lines that rappers say (far more than most singers of other genres) provide Christian rappers with the opportunity to speak a whole lot of truth. Check out the cd Tony reviews and hear a few tracks from Shai Linne's "Atonement" (hint: click on the "boombox") (HT: Justin Taylor)

2. Here's another link related to Sovereign Grace: check out the welcome video from the denomination's flagship church, Covenant Life. Covenant Life is one of my favorite churches in the world. This video shows a few hints of why it's such a great church: the people are theologically concerned, the church is very friendly and joyful, and visitors are made to feel welcome even as they are instructed in truth. I am regularly encouraged by this church, and I would encourage you to check it out. You don't need to agree with all its doctrine to see that Covenant Life is a very healthy large church, something of a model for the rest of us.

3. CBMW just linked to a post I did on masculine provision. If you have already read the post, then use this link as an opportunity to tool around the site and see what else is there--they have a plethora of interesting, helpful resources.

4. A JC Penney commercial, of all things, tipped me off to this gorgeous song. It's by Allison Krauss and Robert Plant and it's called "Killing the Blues" from the Raising Sand album. I highly recommend it.

That's all for today--have a great weekend, everyone.

When a Trailer Park is Just Right: On Manhood and the Duty to Provide

"A man who really gets Ephesians 5 is the kind of man who will be willing to work two jobs and live in a trailer to enable his wife to be the primary caregiver of his children."

This line comes from a recent blog post and CBMW journal contribution by Dr. Russ Moore. I appreciated Dr. Moore's post, entitled "Pastoral Leadership and the Gender Issue: What Does Courage Look Like?" Moore raised a number of good points in the brief post, but none affected me more than that made in the line quoted above. In our milieu, I would imagine that this comment would sound strange to many ears. Why on earth would anyone live in a trailer park if they don't (absolutely) have to? In a materialistic society (and a materialistic church, maybe?), there is perhaps no sharper ideological razor to be applied in making familial decisions than that of economic concerns. Ockham would (not) be proud.

What do I mean here? Simply this: many of us in American evangelicalism so prize material comfort that we will allow almost nothing to impede our pursuit of it. So, for example, when it comes down to determining such basic questions like where we will live and how we will live, we are often quite ready to sacrifice things like family time, home life, and discipleship with things like a nicer home, more cars, better accouterments. I am not against these things or a nice standard of living on their own terms, but I am against them when they compromise the quality of our family life. Somehow, we have allowed the culture to whisper into our ear and convince us that it is better to be wealthy--on whatever scale and by whatever measurement--than it is to be together. We don't realize in making this exchange that we have taken the culture and its ideals as our guide. Accordingly, we have left the Word and its wisdom behind. The Scripture teaches us that the things that truly matter cannot be measured in dollars and cents, even though many--the Proverbs famously groups the materialistic masses under the moniker "fool"--believe the opposite. They think, in their fallen condition, that it is actually better to have cars than laughs, toys than time, renovated bathrooms than healthy marriages. The result? Husbands and wives alike work themselves into the ground, and the children suffer and grow angry, and the family slowly falls apart, the cycle to be damningly repeated again a generation later.

It is in the backdrop of such tragedy that Dr. Moore makes his point, and that I concur. If we could accept a little less luxury, many of our families would know far more health than they do. If we would accept a lower standard of living, more of our mothers could mother, more of our children could flourish, and more of our churches could know a fresh level of quality by the investment of older women in the lives of young women. If we could reject the American "dream" of material prosperity and see a trailer-park or an apartment complex through gospel lenses, we would see that it is no horrible thing to live as poor people when we have a joyful, gospel-centered, God-glorifying family that pulses with love and hope. Nowhere do the biblical authors instruct us to see such circumstances as a curse. No, if God is the Lord of the home, and the husband and wife fill their roles, and the children obey their parents, then the family is rich, rich beyond the wildest dreams of the wealthy secularists up the street who has great wealth in the bank but tragically little in the heart.

Again, this is not to say that wealth is wrong. It is not, and some Christians have a great deal of it and do not allow it to compromise a healthy home. Sadly, though, many do allow earthly values to drive their decision-making and home life. This problem--and its solution--begins with the husband. If he will commit to taking on the burden of the family's finances, to providing for his home though it may cost him much, then he sets his family up to flourish. If he gives them a vision of life together that is not driven and dictated by the culture and its ideals, but a biblical vision that prizes the principles of God's Word as they relate to the home, then he charts for them a course of great blessing. With his family, he may know times of great hardship and trial. He will have difficult nights, and sleepless days. He will see others entertaining themselves more and exhausting themselves less, and he may even question the wisdom of his path. But he will turn over and over to God's Word and its vision for masculine leadership and provision, and he will know, if only by the mustard seed of faith, that if it must be, a trailer park is not only enough--it is just right.

The CBMW Website: An Essential Resource in a Gender-Confused Age

I want to encourage you to go to a new resource on the Internet: the CBMW Gender Blog. This site, which debuted just a little while ago, is already one of Technorati's top-rated blogs. This blog, published by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, provides excellent, pithy material on the matter of gender. If you have not already, bookmark this site, tell your friends about it, and check it regularly. Led by President Randy Stinson, a man known for his robustly scriptural home, and directed by a godly, gifted man named David Kotter, it is fun to read, passionate about biblical truth regarding gender, and destined to educate its regular readers on things that matter.

Gender (by which I mean sex) is a matter of great importance. If you do not presently think this, I would challenge you to rethink your understanding of this topic. Gender is the fundamental earthly reality of the human race. Whether you are a man or woman determines almost innumerable things about the way you live, though you may not even recognize this. What's more, the Bible has a great deal of things to teach us about gender. The Bible is not a gender-blind book written to a sexless audience. There are many texts that apply equally to all people, but the Bible sketches from beginning to end a portrait of biblical manhood and biblical womanhood. There is of course no one book that touches exhaustively on this subject, but this is not the way the Bible constructs doctrine, is it? No, the biblical theology movement has taught us that doctrines and ideas are developed progressively through the Bible--there's a bit given here, a bit given there, and by the end of it, we've got a textured, many-colored understanding of a certain doctrine composed of the work of varied authors writing in varied times. Do not commit the easy fallacy of thinking that the Bible does not have much to say about gender roles simply because there is no one extended section on the matter. To repeat, this is not the way the Bible teaches us about most any important matter. All our major doctrines--salvation, the person of God, the afterlife, to name just a few--are developed over many years and through the writing of many authors.

With this apology for a clear biblical theology of gender thus stated, it is also true as I have said above that gender is the fundamental earthly reality of our existence. God's creation of Adam and Eve--each of a different gender--was not some divine afterthought in a creative jag. No, God was saying something to us when He created two people of distinct genders. He was saying that gender is hugely important, and He went on to show us that He gave distinct roles to men and women. All this to say that the CBMW website and blog reflects this reality and promises to educate a confused world--and, sadly, a confused church--about biblical manhood and womanhood.

Also, the Gender Blog is currently featuring a blog I wrote a few weeks ago on the "Goof on the Roof." If you have not read this piece, I would encourage you to visit the site. Read the piece. Then, read other pieces. There is a ton of good stuff on this blog. Join with me in supporting this important resource in an age when biblical gender roles are debased, forgotten, or just plain ignored, whether by the man in the street or the Christian in the pew.