Read the first part of this series here.

Amazing Mom

Grace is an amazing mom to our five children. She works incredibly hard, never complains, and has sacrificed a great deal over the years for me, our children, and our ministry. She feels the pain of my critics and gets furious when people assume they know me but have no idea since they see me for an hour a week on the stage and have no clue who I am or what I am like the rest of my life with her and the kids. She’s had people pretend to be her friend just to try and get into our life because they want power, influence, and/or employment. She’s been cussed out by complete strangers for decisions the elders made that she had nothing to do with. She’s had to deal with people showing up at our home demanding our time and even threatening our family. She’s had to share me with the world and weep many times when I catch a flight. She’s had to serve ungrateful people who took so much of her time and energy that I became frustrated only to then receive even more demands and threats of anger or manipulative guilt if she did not continue to do what they wanted when they wanted how they wanted.
Through it all she’s learned to be my friend. Grace is the one person I know will be with me in forty years. And I will still close my eyes every day and think about holding her hand then too.

Grace is not like me.

I can be brash, intense, overbearing, ill-worded, and the like. She is patient, loves to counsel people, has hope for everyone, and serves anyone. I learn a lot from her example, and praise God I have gotten to grow up with her through high school, conversion, and college, all the way from our teens to our thirties.

This Sunday I will share her with Mars Hill Church and those who tune in online. When I preach the story of the Peasant Princess from the Song of Songs, I will be teaching from a series of love letters between a husband and wife. As we do often at Mars Hill, we will open up some time for live text-message questions from our campuses and, following the sermon, Grace and I will try our best to answer them so as to be of service. To be honest, I’m a bit anxious. I’ve preached live to crowds of ten thousand people without even getting a bit nervous and could literally take a nap before getting up to preach. But the thought of having the person I love, cherish, and care for the most with me makes me anxious. I am Grace’s defender and protector and friend. I know that her role will be misunderstood by some, and her answers picked through by critics who have made it their life mission to act like Judas in the name of Jesus. So, before I share my Grace with you, I wanted you to pray for a few things, if you would.

Prayers

1. Pray that people understand that she’s not preaching but rather practicing Titus 2 by coming in to answer women’s questions about marriage and sexuality that frankly I have no wisdom on as a man.
2. Pray that she and I do a good job threading the needle when answering the questions.
3. Pray that we can help the people in our church because we love them and have given our entire life to them.
4. Pray that people will understand that she is not an employee of the church, does not lead anything at the church, and as a mom with five young children is focused on her family in this season of life and cannot meet with all the women and deal with all the issues that some will want her to.
5. Pray that she and I will see more of our future through this process. Grace wants to work alongside of me in ministry for the rest of our lives and we’re wondering if, one day when our kids are grown and we’re in a different season of life, she should be teaching women and encouraging pastors’ wives, as that is her heart.
6. Pray that I honor her well publicly as I should.
7. Pray that I can get her to laugh loudly a few times from the stage because it’s awesome.

Sitting Down with J.I. Packer
Perhaps my favorite time in Orlando was spent in a small group with Dr. J. I. Packer. It is hard to overestimate Packer’s impact on evangelical Christianity. The graciousness he afforded me to sit on a couch and ask him questions for more than an hour was humbling and helpful. He is very clear minded at age eighty-two and he remains incredibly conversant, insightful, and witty. Impressively, his words are impeccably precise.

On Homosexuality
As we sat on the couch together, he explained that Anglicanism is patterned after the ancient Roman governmental system so that a bishop has jurisdiction over a geographic area. However, this long-established ecclesiological pattern has been breached because Anglicanism is suffering from “heretical bishops.” By “heretical bishops,” Packer was referring to those bishops who sanction homosexual activity. He explained that the “heretical bishops” won support for their position following much lobbying. This sadly required Bible-believing Anglican churches to come under the authority of other orthodox bishops outside of their geographic area rather than remain under “heretical bishops.”

Homosexuality: A Heretical Issue
When asked about calling those who support homosexuality and profess to be Christian “heretical,” Packer very carefully and insightfully explained what he meant. He began by saying that as Christians we are tempted to sin in many ways, including homosexuality. However, because God has saved us through Jesus and empowered us with the Holy Spirit, we are to practice ongoing repentance of sin and rejection of sinful desires. He explained in great detail that he perceives the approval of homosexuality to be “heretical” because it denies a fundamental aspect of the gospel—namely repentance. Packer explained how for six years he called his Anglican Diocese to repent of their sinful support of unrepentant homosexual activity, to no avail. Eventually, his own archbishop sought to pull his license (essentially his ordination or credentials) as a punitive measure. In the end, Packer, along with roughly thirty Anglican churches, came out from under their “heretical” leadership to form a new Anglican alliance.
Returning to the issue of denying a fundamental aspect of the gospel (repentance), he explained that 1 Corinthians 6:9–11 says,

"Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."

Packer was clear that those who do not call Christians to repent of homosexual activity are, as Scripture says, “deceived.” He told me that the first of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses was that the whole of a Christian’s life is to be one of repentance of sin. Any Christian who does not practice and promote repentance is denying an aspect of the gospel of Jesus Christ. When I asked how the denial of repentance merited the label of “heretical,” Packer said, “ “‘Heresy’ ought to be used when an aspect of the gospel is being denied.” He further explained that because God through Paul warns the Corinthians that those who practice homosexuality unrepentantly will be damned to hell, “Souls are put at risk every time homosexuality is tolerated.”

Starting a New Religion?
In keeping with Packer’s line of reasoning, I asked him if those who are “heretical” in promoting homosexual activity while declaring themselves to be Christian are in effect promoting a new religion based upon a false gospel, like Mormonism and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. He said, “You could describe it that way and it’s what they are doing.”

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My Time on the Road
I recently spent a packed week preaching and teaching in London and Brighton, England, with Newfrontiers Network and other organizations. It was a grueling schedule, but Pastor Scott Thomas, who directs the Acts 29 Church Planting Network, and I learned a great deal and met some amazing people whom we thoroughly enjoyed.
On the way home we stopped over in Orlando, Florida, at the International Christian Retail Show. I did my first-ever book signing there, which was fun since Crossway Books was gracious enough to give away over two hundred copies of Vintage Jesus, which I penned with Dr. Gerry Breshears. We ran out of copies and I shook hands, prayed for people, and signed books for more than two hours.
I was also honored to speak on “A Passion for People” from Matthew 9:35–38 at the 70th anniversary banquet for Crossway. They also debuted the English Standard Version Study Bible due out in the fall. Jerry Bridges, Wayne Grudem, J. I. Packer, and Lane Dennis spoke at the event as well. In attendance were R. C. Sproul, Jack Graham, Roger Nicole, and others whom I had the honor of meeting. I was one of the only people in the room not in a suit, as I somehow missed the dress code, but everyone was gracious despite my black button-up shirt with skulls and crossbones and matching Affliction boots covered in serpents. The entire night was very moving, and the debut of the ESV Study Bible is incredibly exciting as it promises to be the most thorough and helpful study Bible ever produced.

More to Come...

Any recovery of an authentically biblical understanding of men and women must begin in the Garden of Eden. It is there that we learn about the special creation of Adam and Eve. It is there that we read God's mandate to the first male and female. And, perhaps more importantly for this article's purpose, it is there in the garden that we are able to see the effects of sin and grace on the relationship between Adam and Eve. Of these lessons on the relationship between the sexes, it might be the case that the effect of grace on Adam and Eve's sin-broken relationship receives less attention than some other equally valuable biblical truths recorded in the first chapters of Genesis. This article will explore this perhaps neglected lesson on grace in the garden. It will do so by posing two questions: (1) Why does Adam call his wife Eve; and (2) What lessons does this surprise ending to the narrative of the fall teach us? Although this article will focus on Adam's role in acting in accord with the grace that he has received, other equally important considerations regarding Eve's transformation by grace could be developed as well.

Mars Hill Bible Church opened its doors in February of 1999 with a stated desire to exist as a "church where scripture would be taught in a new way, a way that would reach a changing culture."

Gary Knapp and his wife, Becky, were among the first members of the Grandville, Mich., church, which now numbers more than 1,000 members and some 10,000 weekly attendees. Knapp taught an adult Bible class at Mars Hill and led a small group in the church for more than two years.

Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis. By William J. Webb. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2001. 301 pp. n.p.

INTRODUCTION

Sometimes I wonder if egalitarians hope to triumph in the debate on the role of women by publishing book after book on the subject. Each work propounds a new thesis which explains why the traditional interpretation is flawed. Complementarians could easily give in from sheer exhaustation, thinking that so many books written by such a diversity of different authors could scarcely be wrong. Further, it is difficult to keep writing books promoting the complementarian view. Our view of the biblical text has not changed dramatically in the last twenty five years. Should we continue to write books that essentially promote traditional interpretations? Is the goal of publishing to write what is true or what is new?