Baylyblog: Out of our minds too...

Books for little men...

Tim Bayly — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 14:45:12 +0000

A brother in Christ sent this e-mail and I wonder if you dear brothers and sisters of Baylyblog might have a few suggestions? Would you please make comments with your suggestions?

Friends, ...I wonder if you could give me some book suggestions for my son? (He) is seven years old and just starting to read with abandon. He's actually a fairly good reader for his age and is reading at nearly a third grade level (he's finishing up first grade next week).
I'm especially interested in story books that get the male imagination in gear. By no means need it be explicitly "Christian" literature, but definitely literature which teaches character (the virtues). And ideally, too, books where boys are boys, and girls are girls—without apology.
Even if you had a list of great books that David could grow up into (i.e. he might not be quite ready for them now but may be in the next year or two), that also would be super.
If you could suggest anything at all, or could point me towards some Great Books For Kids list, I'd greatly appreciate it. (My wife) and I are eagerly looking for good substitutes for the omnipresent television.

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Comments working again...

Tim Bayly — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 18:10:39 +0000

Comments are working again. Thank you for your patience. And thank you, Lucas and Joseph, for your constant helpfulness behind the scene.

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"Doulos" and the NASB: "...voluntary submission to deity..."

Andrew Dionne — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 03:43:21 +0000

Reading of the ESV translation committee's new concern that the word "slave" (translation of the Greek doulos) has "irredeemably negative associations and connotations," I wondered how my preferred translation, the New American Standard Bible, handled the same word (and the prefixed version, sundoulos, which generally they translate by adding "fellow," as in "fellow slave."). The NASB mostly renders it "slave," but at a number of places, it has "bond-servant,"—a fact which stood out to me when I began preaching through the book of James last year. James 1:1: "James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,...".

Here's the frequency of each of the NASB's various translations of doulos... (including the plural form and both singular and plural of sundoulos):

"Slave(s)"—103 times

"Bond-servant(s)"—25 times

"Bondslave(s)"—6 times

"Servant(s)"—4 time

I was curious about the variety, so I emailed the Lockman Foundation to ask for an explanation. Here's the response:

The use of the term "slave" is a complex issue, one which we continue to review given its connotations. The NASB has the terms "bond-servant" and "bondslave" in places where "slave" might sound harsh for the context, though the three words all mean the same thing since "bond" refers to "bondage". Of course "fellow" is included for the Greek sundoulos. The NASB translators felt that in all of these places a softer term than "slave" was justified because the relationship is one of voluntary submission to deity, though the duties and obligations are not thereby mitigated.

When you look through the specific verses, a pattern emerges, confirming their explanation...

Overwhelmingly, "slave" is used where the context is one of earthly, economic slavery or when that slave/master relationship is used as an example in a parable.

On the other hand, "Bond-servant" or "bondslave" is selectively used when referring to specific people and their relationship to God: Mary (Luke 1:38, 48), Simeon (Luke 2:29), the Apostles (Acts 4:29, 16:17, 2 Cor. 4:5), Paul (Rom. 1:1, Gal. 1:10, Phil. 1:1, Titus 1:1), Timothy (Phil. 1:1), Jesus (Phil. 2:7), Epaphras (Col. 1:7, 4:12), Tychichus (Col. 4:7), pastors (2 Tim. 2:4), James (James 1:1), Peter (2 Peter 1:1), Jude (Jude 1), John (Rev. 1:1), God's people (Rev. 1:1, 2:20, 7:3, 11:18, 19:2, 19:5, 22:3, 22:6), and Moses (Rev. 15:3).

So, though the NASB asserts that the words "bond-servant," "bondslave," and "slave," all mean the same thing, her translators chose to use the softer term in those places where the master is God because it better expresses a "voluntary submission to deity."

Seriously? Anyone see a bit of a problem there?

Do we hate authority?

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Meeting Valerie Kyriosity in person...

Tim Bayly — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 03:30:12 +0000

Today Mary Lee and I had the joy of meeting Valerie "Kyriosity." Valerie was passing through on the way to the wild west and did us the kindness of stopping in Bloomington for lunch. We'd never met her in person although we'd known her through her excellent contributions on her own and other's blogs. Thus it was good finally for all of us to meet in person.

But more than meeting, it was good to be able to correct some wrongs I'd committed two years ago when I was the cause of Valerie taking a hiatus from commenting on Baylyblog. At that time, Valerie expressed her disapproval of something I'd recommended and in my response I was fairly intense and offended her. We exchanged several private e-mails with each other about the matter and I left that e-mail exchange thinking I'd won back a friend. But I hadn't. So today Valerie was faithful in raising the matter with us over lunch, providing me a chance to go back and apologize and assure Valerie that, back then and since, I've only thought well of her all the time.

Which causes me to say that online relationships aren't easier, but harder to maintain because we don't worship and pray and eat together. We're only disembodied brains hitting keyboards. So if I have offended you (or offend you in the future), would you please send me a private e-mail letting me know of my wrong and giving me a suggestion about what I ought to do to correct it? And if the e-mails don't help, let's talk by phone and see if we can patch things up.

Where there are many words, sin isn't lacking. So let's be faithful to do our work of giving and receiving forgiveness here on Baylyblog as we do in our marriages and families and church households of faith. Thank you to all of you who see my sin and continue to love me despite it. May love cover a multitude of sins among us.

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Why not confess our faith by cultivating masculinity and femininity in our church life...

Tim Bayly — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 18:47:07 +0000

(NOTE FROM TB: Under another post, a series of questions were asked concerning Clearnote Church, Bloomington's practice of women in leadership. Here I respond to those questions.)

Dear (Sister),

I'm responding to your questions below. Thanks for asking them--they're the same questions everyone has. And by the way, I'm sorry it's taken so long. I've been doing a bunch of things that have precluded my active involvement in Baylyblog recently.

>>From what I understand the PCA to believe, it makes sense that you don't have women pastors or women on your governing board (elder board).

Isn't that a sort of weak-kneed way of putting it--that not having woman elders ordained to rule and teach and govern the men and women of Clearnote Church is what we or the PCA "believe," and that it "makes sense" given those idiosyncratic beliefs?

Since Scripture isn't clear on it, we can debate polity. But once we have elders who guard and rule and exhort and teach and govern the flock, there is no debate whether those elders should or should not be men. Scripture requires it and it has been the universal practice of the Church until the past fifty or so years of unprecedented rebellion against the Father Almighty.

>>But I'm not sure why you bar women from other activities during a worship service.

We don't, dear sister. Here's a link to our church policies concerning sex and leadership. In that document, we explicitly state that it's acceptable for women to make announcements, read Scripture portions, and pray during Lord's Day corporate worship. Women have done so and occasionally do so in our worship. I'm not sure why you thought otherwise.

But there's something beneath your statements that I want to address. Implicit in these questions is that the proper orientation of Christians today should be toward opening up more leadership positions for women... After all, the world sees us as insecure men looking for opportunities to extend our sexual hegemony for generations to come, and those women who are so self-deprecating or insecure that they find such insecure men attractive, so why not shake the world off the trail by promoting women to public positions of leadership? Why not have women serve the Lord's Supper? Why not have women read Scripture? Why not have women make all the announcements? Why not have women usher? Why not have women lead the people in prayer? Why not have women "at the table" (as they say) in elders and deacons meetings where they may finally provide their unique insight and wisdom? Why not, if doing so makes it clear we respect women and aren't condescending toward them? And of course this has the added benefit of proving to the world that Christians are reasonable. Evolved. Sufficiently progressive as not to embarrass you if you hang with us. Not clueless fuddy duddys, but hip posers who know which microbrew is in the ascendancy this very, very second!

>>Please understand that I'm not knocking your views. I'm somewhat confused. Other Anglican denominations more conservative than the one to which I belong (the Anglican Church in North America) may hold to many of the same views as yours about what is appropriate for women to do in public worship, but they almost always have at least one woman on their governing body (vestry), while you don't. I know that's not the case in Fr. Bill's Anglican denomination, but it's true in others.

Dear sister, I really don't want to get into a discussion of polity, here, but a vestry council has no spiritual authority over men of the sort Scripture demonstrates when it records for us that they appointed elders in every city. Elders are chosen by the people and set apart for their work of teaching and government by the laying on of hands and prayer. I have no problem with any church appointing women to any board or council they want and naming that board and council anything they want and giving that board or council any work they want as long as it doesn't involve women teaching or exercising authority over men. In the Church of Jesus Christ, women are not allowed to do so. This is reserved for men, and the New Testament indicates this responsibility was delegated to men holding the offices of deacon and elder.

>>...why is having a woman lead a congregational prayer taking authority over men? She isn't teaching men how to pray in the same way that she might teach a Sunday School class with both men and women where she teaches on the meaning of each of the clauses in the Lord's Prayer?

Have you ever had someone preach through their prayer? It happens all the time that prayers are actually mini prophetic words or exhortations or rebukes, and it's unseemly because it's unbiblical for women to do so to the men of the congregation. Of course a better way of avoiding this is to teach souls that prayer is speaking to God--not man--and that there's a better way of rebuking or exhorting or encouraging Christians publicly than doing so under cover of prayer.

Beyond that, there's the question of worldview. In our rebellious age, wouldn't it be good to show our faith and generosity toward God's wonderful gift of sexual diversity by looking for opportunities--particularly in public--to have men lead women and children and other men? Why would we want to be a part of the stingy and parsimonious and faithless approach to sex that permeates our world, always looking for ways to blur the nature of manhood and womanhood? To hide the obligations and gifts and duties and beauties of manhood and womanhood?

Which is to say that, after decades of myself looking for every opportunity to show the insignificance of sexuality and how utterly and boringly progressive I was in lockstep with this utterly progressive and boring world of ours, I repented. Now I look for opportunities for women to demonstrate their female nature and men to demonstrate their male nature because doing so is a confession of faith on my part and theirs.

So women lead the congregation in prayer and singing and announcements and the reading of Scripture in our worship, occasionally. Such things we believe do not constitute a violation of the "silence" commanded by Scripture. Yet we do so within two parameters: first, that the general feminine principle we cultivate within our corporate worship is women's silence; and second, that the general masculine principle we cultivate within our corporate worship is men speaking and teaching (which is to say men leading).

We love women being feminine and men being masculine and we look for ways of giving women opportunities to grow in femininity and men in masculinity. Plus God be blessed, we have been given many young men with leadership potential and we do our best to develop it by having them lead and we have been given many young women with leadership potential and we do our best to cultivate it by working with other women, serving their husbands, and becoming mothers and grandmothers and (for the church) mothers in Israel.

>>Is it wrong for a woman to serve as usher? Does a woman usurp authority from men by finding an seat for a man arriving just before the start of the worship service or taking up the offering?

No, but if you have men or boys willing to do so, why on earth would we say "no" to them so we could have future wives and mothers and Lydias doing so? Were all our fathers and mothers in the faith of past generations complete idiots? Misogynists? Just as a thought experiment, let us imagine that they had good and Biblical reasons for their practice, and then do our best to find those reasons before throwing them out?

>>And finally, if a woman is a lay reader of a scripture passage (maybe this is something you allow; I don't know), she's reading from the Bible verbatim, not commenting on the passage. So why could be this considered teaching or taking authority over men?

Women read Scripture in special seasons of the year

>>Or do you bar women from them because you to give men more opportunities to serve your church?

Well, actually, as I said before, we do not bar women from them. But yes, we do look for opportunities to have men grow in leading the congregation (which is to say other men). This is our contextualization. This is our confession of faith.

And we are fully convinced this is the witness our androgynous age needs from followers of Jesus Christ concerning the beautiful diversity of manhood and womanhood.

Love,

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Clearnote Church, Bloomington's statement on the meaning and obligations of sexuality in congregational life...

Tim Bayly — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 16:42:12 +0000

(Note from TB: Often I've had calls from pastors and elders asking for help working through the issue of what is and isn't appropriate for men and women to do in their congregation. Some years ago Clearnote Church, Bloomington adopted such a statement drafted for us by one of our pastors at the time, Rev. David Wegener.
It's clear from a recent comment that readers of Baylyblog don't know Clearnote Bloomington's practice on these matters, so I'm taking this opportunity to post the statement here for the good of the church at large. It it would be helpful, please do circulate this statement--or even adopt it as your own.

Clearnote Church, Bloomington's Understanding of the Biblical Responsibilities of Men and Woman in Congregational Life

Adopted by Clearnote Church, Bloomington Board of Elders in November, 1999

1. All men and women are equally created in the image of God and therefore are equally worthy of our honor and respect...

(Genesis 1:26-28, Romans 13:7, 1 Peter 2:17)

2. All Christian men and all Christian women enjoy equally the benefits of being redeemed by Jesus Christ. They have eternal life, their sins are forgiven, they have been declared righteous by God, they have been adopted as His sons, they have received the Holy Spirit, who has given gifts to each one just as He wills. (John 3:16, Romans 3:21-31, 8:9, 1 Corinthians 12:11, Galatians 3:26, Colossians 1:13,14)

3. The husband is the head of his own wife. This means he has authority over her and is to exercise this authority by leading her, protecting her, providing for her and loving her as Christ loved the Church. (Genesis 2:15-25, Ephesians 5:22-33, Colossians 3:19)

4. That the husband is the head of the wife does not imply his superiority nor her inferiority. God the Father is not superior to God the Son though God is the head of Christ. The Father and the Son are coequal members of the Holy Trinity. They are equal in person, yet different and complementary in role and function. So in marriage, the husband and wife are equal in creation and redemption, yet they are different and complementary in role and function. (1 Corinthians 11:3)

5. The wife is to submit to her own husband as the Church submits to Christ. He is to have the final say in disagreements. (Ephesians 5:22-24, Colossians 3:18)

6. In corporate worship it would be appropriate for women to join in congregational prayers, to read Scripture, to sing and to testify. Men should preside over worship and do the preaching, Scripture lessons and pastoral prayer. If there would be an occasion where a doctrinal, Scriptural matter was under debate in public worship, women should keep silent during such discussion. At such times, the pastor or elder presiding over the discussion will request the men of the church to be the participants in the discussion. (1 Corinthians 11:5, 14:15, 29-35, Colossians 3:16-17, 1 Timothy 2:8, 11-12)

7. Godly, strong, humble men called by the congregation and the elders are to fill the offices of pastor and elder and deacon. Deacons should be assisted in their work by godly, mature widows and older women with spiritual maturity, selected by the elders. The adults in the Church should be taught by the pastors and elders and other mature Christians with the gift of teaching whom the leaders designate. Normally, men will teach classes containing men, starting with high school and continuing through adulthood. Also, small groups containing men will have a male leader who does the teaching. (1 Timothy 2:9-15, 3:1-13, 5:1-16, Titus 1:5-9, 2:3-5)

8. The Holy Spirit has given many women the gift of teaching. This gift is properly exercised when women teach children and other women. Though much teaching goes on in the normal give and take of congregational life, women are not to teach men in the Church in any formal sense. (Colossians 3:16-17, 1 Timothy 2:12-14, 2 Timothy 1:5, 3:15)

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Between two fires: the plight of Syrian Christians...

David Bayly — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 14:32:19 +0000

Today's New York Times contains a fascinating and troubling article on the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church over Russian policy in Syria.

Troubling, not in what it says about Russia or the Orthodox Church, but in what it says by implication about the Church in America where nary a voice is raised in defense of our persecuted brothers and sisters across the middle-east even as our nation goes about promoting Islamic governments dedicated to the eradication of Christianity from the region of the world in which God inaugurated His Kingdom.

When was the last time you preferred the religious commitments of the Russian president to those of the president of the United States? If not before, that day is now here. The money quote from the article:

Three and a half months ago, intent on achieving a commanding win in presidential elections, Vladimir V. Putin sought support from Russia’s religious leaders, pledging tens of millions of dollars to reconstruct places of worship and state financing for religious schools.
But Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the patriarchate’s department of external church relations, did not ask for money. The issue of “Christianophobia” shot to the top of the church’s agenda a year ago, with a statement warning that “they are killing our brothers and sisters, driving them from their homes, separating them from their near and dear, stripping them of the right to confess their religious beliefs.” The metropolitan asked Mr. Putin to promise to protect Christian minorities in the Middle East.
“So it will be,” Mr. Putin said. “There is no doubt at all.”

Two-thirds of Iraq's Saddam Hussain-era 1.5 million Christians are now gone, disappeared from modern Iraq, according to the Times article. Moving on from Iraq, in Libya, Egypt and now Syria, the United States has continued its policy of siding with Islamist insurgent movements against governments which protected Christian minorities.

The article closes with a quote from an emigrant from Syria:

Usama Matar, an optometrist who has lived in Russia since 1983, said he did not harbor any illusions about Russia’s motives for defending Syrian Christians like himself, whom he called “small coins in a big game.” But he said there were few international players taking notice of Eastern Christians at all.
“The West is pursuing its own interests; they are indifferent to our fate,” he said. “I am not justifying the Assad regime — it is dictatorial, we know this, it is despotic, I understand. But these guys, they don’t even hide their intention to build an Islamic state and their methods of battle, where they just execute people on the streets. That’s the opposition, not just the authorities. And we are between two fires.”

Who would have thought twenty years ago that the primary great-power promoter of Islam in the middle-east would be the government of the United States, and the primary defender of Christianity in that region Russia? May God give us courage and conscience to stand with our brothers and sisters persecuted by American policy.

I don't know about you, but the situation kind of reminds me of Maurice Ogden's poem...

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Therefore, confess your sins to one another...

Andrew Dionne — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Many object to the practice of confessing sins to one another, believing they need only confess their sins to God. Those who hold such a belief reason other brothers and sisters are not to be trusted with such confessions and, in the end, lack the power to do any good in the situation. Certainly all sins should be confessed to God. No one denies that. But categorical refusal to confess our sins before one another is a rejection of the gracious goads God uses to bring us to repentance and our brothers' effectual prayers. Only an unbeliever wouldn’t want those helps...

There are sins of such a serious character they should be confessed only in formal circumstances--before an elder board and/or the police. Yet, those sins with which we have made peace or we like to attribute to our personalities (outbursts of anger, grumbling, bitterness, anxiety, greed, lust, discontentment) should be confessed before brothers or sisters (not in mixed company) in more regular and casual settings. True humility and a godly desire for growth in holiness demand such confession from us. It is hard to do this, especially as our pride and love of sin prefer the cover of darkness, anonymity, and silence.

While preparing a sermon on James 5:16-18--a text reminding us of the power of our brothers' prayers in helping us overcome confessed sins--I found the following quotes in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together. I hope they spur us on to greater faithfulness in confession of our sins.

To whom should we make a confession? According to Jesus’ promise every Christian believer can hear the confession of another [John 20:23]. But will the other understand us? Might not another believer be so far beyond us in the Christian life that she or he would only turn away from us without understanding our personal sins? Whoever lives beneath the cross of Jesus, and as discerned in the cross of Jesus the utter ungodliness of all people and of their own hearts, will find there is no sin that can ever be unfamiliar. Whoever has once been appalled by the horror of their own sin, which nailed Jesus to the cross, will no longer be appalled by even the most serious sin of another Christian; rather they know the human heart from the cross of Jesus. Such persons know how totally lost is the human heart in sin and weakness, how it goes astray in the ways of sin – and know too that this same heart is accepted in grace and mercy. Only another Christian who is under the cross can hear my confession. It is not experience with life but experience of the cross that makes one suited to hear confession. The most experienced judge of character knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the cross of Jesus. The greatest psychological insight, ability, and experience cannot comprehend this one thing: what sin is. Psychological wisdom knows what need and weakness and failure are, but it does not know the ugliness of the human being. And so it also does not know that human beings are ruined only by their sin and are healed only by forgiveness. The Christian alone knows this. In the presence of a psychologist I can only be sick; in the presence of another Christian I can be a sinner. The psychologist must first search my heart, and yet can never probe its innermost recesses. Another Christian recognizes just this: here comes a sinner like myself, a godless person who wants to confess and longs for God’s forgiveness. The psychologist views me as if there were no God. Another believer views me as I am before the judging and merciful God in the cross of Jesus Christ. When we are so pitiful and incapable of hearing the confession of one another, it is not due to a lack of psychological knowledge, but a lack of love for the crucified Jesus Christ.

The root of all sin is pride… I want to be my own law, I have a right to my self, my hatred and my desires, my life and my death. The mind and flesh of man are set on fire by pride; for it is precisely in his wickedness that man wants to be as God … In the confession of concrete sins the old man dies a painful, shameful death before the eyes of a brother. Because this humiliation is so hard we continually scheme to evade confessing to a brother. Our eyes are so blinded that they no longer see the promise and the glory in such abasement.

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The Hive, SCOTUS, and Obamacare...

Brian Bailey — Thu, 31 May 2012 13:30:44 +0000

Lately, the Liberal Hive has been buzzing menacingly at Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kennedy. These two justices are seen as dangerous sympathizers to overturning much if not all of Obamacare. A recent New Yorker piece by one of the worker bees, Jeffrey Toobin, offers a rare peek into the High Court’s inner sanctum . . . but it's really a glimpse into the Liberal Hive’s own inner recesses.

First, notice Toobin’s selective indignation. Toobin chastises Roberts for his work in the 2009 Citizens United case, accusing the Chief Justice of hypocrisy and breaking a promise during his Senate confirmation hearings to respect prior Court precedents. In Citizens United, the Supreme Court overturned its 2003 case that had upheld a federal campaign finance law. Yet Toobin spared the liberal wing of the Court when during an oral argument it criticized an 1886 Supreme Court case recognizing the constitutional rights of corporations. Toobin also withheld condemnation from Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down a Texas anti-sodomy law. In the process, the Court also voided its 1986 case that had upheld an anti-sodomy law.

What gives? Toobin told us SCOTUS precedent is important, nearly sacrosanct. But what Toobin shows us, over and above his decibel level, is that judicial fidelity to the Constitution itself means nothing to liberalism if it obstructs any of liberalism’s grand projects, such as the very illiberal project of politicizing all of life and centralizing political power in D.C. Toobin is agitated by the disturbance of precedent, but only those cases that by a suspicious coincidence advanced liberal outcomes.

Second, note Toobin’s rough treatment of Justice Kennedy, the Court’s inveterate swing voter. The definition of a swing voter is someone who fails to vote consistently for liberal outcomes and whose voting pattern evinces no discernible philosophy of law. Let this be a lesson to all of us who seek the mellifluous praise of the chattering class or at least the avoidance of its enmity. To maintain the flow of honey and avoid the nasty stings, you must toe the liberal line in every important case. No deviations. Got that? As Justice Kennedy did, you can vote to uphold Roe v. Wade, you can vote to overthrow anti-sodomy laws, but if you dare threaten a historic consolidation of federal power—watch your step.

You’ll subject yourself to contemptuous smears and withering denunciations from the likes of Toobin. Kennedy, according to Toobin, “tend[s] to swing wildly from one direction to another” and is “an extremist of varied enthusiasms.” Toobin portrays Kennedy as a Roberts toady who downright “relishe[s] saying ‘what the law is.’”

There is no ultimate concession to or compromise with the Hive after which a man is free to resume independent thought and action. The chattering class will expect him to stay bought. He shouldn’t anticipate its grudging respect for his occasional, irrepressible bursts of individuality. It can never respect a conservative compromiser. It may like him, but it will never respect him. In fact, to the degree that it has reaped benefits from the conservative’s past compromises, it will detest and censure any reassertion of independence.

Third, note Toobin’s description of the Deputy Solicitor General’s meltdown at the first oral argument of Citizens United. The Solicitor General’s office is an elite cadre of federal court litigators respected by the Supreme Court. When asked whether the federal campaign finance law could be used to ban a 500-page book that ended with a sentence “And so vote for X,” the Deputy Solicitor General told the Court yes. Toobin attributes this unhelpful response to the Solicitor General’s scrupulous adherence to Court precedent and honesty about bad facts. But the Solicitor General should be criticized for failing to defend the First Amendment, whose text and historical underpinnings would have provided a sound basis to just say no. If the advocates would have relied on the Tenth Amendment and the simple doctrine of enumerated powers, resort to the First Amendment would have been unnecessary. Congress has no enumerated power to regulate campaign speech.

There is marked similarity between the Deputy Solicitor General’s argument in Citizens United and the Obamacare oral argument. So something else may be going on. At the Obamacare oral argument, the Solicitor General was unable to articulate any limiting principle to Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause. This astonished and dismayed even liberal observers. He had argued before the Supreme Court in 17 other cases, so inexperience and nervousness likely weren’t to blame.

What may be happening is that the federal government under the Obama Administration has given up on the charade of articulating limiting principles. For many decades, the federal government has bucked the text, history, and structure of the Constitution. It then has to somehow fabricate principles out of the tangled mess of presidential, congressional, and judicial departures from the Constitution, errors that have compounded over decades. Imagine how tedious and dispiriting that work would be. Add to that impossible task the Obama Administration's arrogant lust for power and it's not hard to imagine a ban on concessions to "limiting principles."

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Are Philip's daughters an argument for female preachers...

Gary Knapp — Wed, 30 May 2012 20:27:23 +0000

On the next day we left and came to Caesarea, and entering the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven, we stayed with him. Now this man had four virgin daughters who were prophetesses. As we were staying there for some days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. And coming to us, he took Paul's belt and bound his own feet and hands, and said, "This is what the Holy Spirit says: 'In this way the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.'" When we had heard this, we as well as the local residents began begging him not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, "What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but even to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus." And since he would not be persuaded, we fell silent, remarking, "The will of the Lord be done!" (Acts 21:8-14)

Walking into K-mart this past Christmas season, I passed a woman at the Salvation Army kettle ringing a bell and singing Christmas hymns beautifully. “That’s nice,” I thought. On my way out this same woman was on her cell phone and as I walked by I heard her talking about the sermon she had preached the Sunday before.

Many might take the passage at the head of this post as a justification for a woman to preach: I mean, the passage tells us Philip the Evangelist had four daughters who were prophetesses…

How easily we dismiss what the Bible has to say to us. Our ears work fine when it comes to the Bible and others but somehow we think God has nothing to say to us that would challenge our lives and life pursuits. As it comes to the roles of men and women and instruction in the Word, God could not have spoken more clearly:

A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. But women will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint. (1Timothy 2:11-15)

Note that the reasons the Bible gives us that women should not teach men are not cultural or tied to the first century A.D. Both reasons are rooted in creation and thus are just as true today as ever: Eve was not created first, but Adam (that is, God was saying something through the order in which He created the first two people); and Adam was not deceived in the fall but Eve (the Bible making an issue here of the woman’s discernment and judgment).

It's marvelous how quickly advocates of women teaching men dismiss these statements of the Apostle Paul as cultural, appealing instead to the sense of call a women has--a sense none of us are allowed to judge.

Now to Philip’s daughters…We are told in the narrative that Paul and Luke visit Philip at his house. While in Philip's house, God sends Paul a message. Now, Paul is in a home that has four prophetesses in it. If it were fitting for women to give instruction to men in the things of God wouldn’t any of these women have fit the bill?

But what does the Bible tell us? It tells us that the message comes not from any of the four women but that God sent a man, a prophet named Agabus, to reveal His will to Paul. Why? I would urge thoughtful Christians to consider this question: why did God send a man to this household to reveal His will to Paul when four prophetesses already lived there?

The answer is as obvious as we want it to be. God did not give instruction to Paul through Philip’s daughters because it is not God’s will for women to give instruction to men--but the reverse. I’ll wait a moment for the gnashing teeth to stop. Many will grumble and make accusations, “chauvinist”, “bigot”, “bully”, none of which are true. If we are to make accusations about motives and hearts, should we not start with those who disobey direct commands of Scripture regarding God’s will for the sexes? Far from an argument for women preaching to men, Philip’s daughters are an argument against it.

But what about Deborah? Rules always have exceptions and God was pleased to make an exception to His law in the work of Deborah. Yet God's exception is no justification for our denying His law. It is a perverse age that builds its laws on exceptions to the rule.

Then what about Priscilla working with her husband, Aquila, to explain "the way of God more accurately" to Apollos (Acts 18:25,26)? Note the text doesn't say Priscilla explained things to Apollos. We are told Priscilla and her husband, Aquila, both were explaining things to Apollos--they worked together. Thus Priscilla was not a woman teaching a man. She was a wife helping her husband, and privately.

What a beautiful thing it is to witness women living out their calling, instructing other women, especially those who are younger, in life and in the faith (Titus 2:3-5). It is a women’s privilege to instruct children: their own and the children God brings to their church or into their lives by some other avenue. It was Eve’s privilege to eat from many trees in the garden, only one was kept from her. In the same way, God has granted women the privilege to teach many, yet we find many women, like the first Eve, not content with what God has granted but determined to have what has not been granted.

The Church in our day will not know God’s full blessing until we as His people demonstrate a willingness to obey. Men, don’t think there isn’t something for you and I to repent of here. Are you lovingly teaching and leading your wife and children? Are you lovingly leading and teaching the people of your church? Never forget men that our disobedience and failure to fulfill our duty before God has been the source of many temptations for women to teach and preach to men because we won’t. It doesn’t exonerate them but our guilt is great.

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Feminism

Femininity & modesty

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Observations on RUF at a southern campus...

Nathan Miklovic — Wed, 30 May 2012 01:58:53 +0000

(Nathan Miklovic, a member of Christ the Word PCA, attends the University of Alabama where he is active in leadership of the campus Reformed University Fellowship--the campus ministry of the Presbyterian Church in America. Nathan will begin his junior year as an accounting major this fall.)

For the past two years, I have been involved in RUF on Alabama’s campus. There are several solid ministries on Alabama’s campus with Reformed leadership including Navigators and Campus Crusade (or “Cru,” if you prefer). Over the years I have observed the work of all three of these ministries, being good friends with leaders and participants in each. I have found that RUF has definite strengths as well as several troubling weaknesses:

Strengths of RUF (especially at Alabama):

I greatly commend Ryan Moore, our campus minister, for paying for Covenant Eyes for the guys in RUF and for preaching against sexual sin in sermons that were uncomfortable to sit through but vitally necessary (especially on a college campus). Ryan also fights drunkenness among RUF students--a prevalent sin on our campus.
As an ordained minister, Ryan answers to a church’s session. Thus RUF leadership is directly accountable to the discipline of a church, unlike other ministries whose leaders could potentially teach heresies completely unchecked. Fortunately, at Alabama both Navs and Crusade are blessed to have reformed leaders but this is certainly not the case elsewhere in the United States.
The worship music is what initially drew me to RUF over other campus ministries; most of the other campus ministries have very “contemporary” worship (i.e. wishy-washy and effeminate). At RUF, we love (perhaps even too much) our hymnody which has decidedly more meaningful lyrics than the average contemporary worship tune, not to mention a more scriptural foundation.

Weaknesses of RUF:

Trinity PCA, my Tuscaloosa church home, hosts dozens of mission groups which come to help with tornado relief (a huge tornado tore through Tuscaloosa last May). The mission groups come from churches around the south, as well as from campus ministries at various southern schools. One assistant pastor at Trinity noticed a contrast between the RUF’s and the other campus ministries that Trinity hosts. His observation, which I wholeheartedly agree with, is that a “subculture of license” seems to accompany RUF. This especially manifests itself in the topics of conversation and language used. Students in RUF do not give a second thought to using crude language and crude jokes. I have seen this firsthand at Alabama’s campus, but in talking to my pastor and others it seems to be a problem ubiquitous in RUF. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in The Cost of Discipleship, discusses the necessity of simple single-minded obedience: “We are excusing ourselves from single-minded obedience to the word of Jesus on the pretext of legalism and a supposed preference for obedience ‘in faith.’” Even though Paul commands that “there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks” (Ephesians 5:4), we in RUF suppose that it’s acceptable to swear as long as we “don’t cause anybody to stumble.” After all, we have the “freedom in Christ” to make crude jokes. We say it is legalism to demand the elimination of impure language from our vocabulary, but all along we are simply trying to avoid the obligation of literal obedience.
Another observation is that RUF kids don’t know their Bibles as well as they should. The Navigators demands a deeper knowledge of scripture than RUF. Most of my Navigator friends spend time in intense scripture studies and dedicate serious effort to scripture memorization in ways that RUF students don’t. One would expect the only specifically reformed ministry on campus (i.e. RUF) to take the lead in this area, but the non-denominational Navigators have showed us up.

I love RUF at Alabama. I think we have one of the best RUF ministers around and I hope to see us grow in holiness in coming years.

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Debate over the approval of woman officers continues within the PCA...

Tim Bayly — Mon, 28 May 2012 16:27:50 +0000

At a blog frequented by Reformed pastors holding membership in the PCA, there's been a discussion of whether or not the PCA's polity should be changed to allow women to serve alongside men in the office of deacon. In the midst of comments back and forth, one man warned the others that they should not allow culture to determine their position. This led to another men having something close to a hissy-fit over anyone at all--anyone! mind you!--questioning his integrity by implying he was influenced by our feminist culture.

As a rule, I don't comment on other blogs. In this case, though, I did and here's the text of what I said...

* * *

Interesting discussion I'd like to add a couple things to.

I've been told by a Korean sister who was in our congregation that Korean households are ruled by women. This helps to explain Korean polity. Clearly the Korean church needs to be reformed in this matter and we must not be faithless approaching that work. Also, those working with the church in Africa should take note of this fruit within the Korean church as they consider the influence of outsiders on their continent: for instance, that ninety-five percent of microfinance loans go to women.

The corrosive influence of culture on this discussion is so clear as to be hum-drum and any of us who consider ourselves to be beyond this sort of sin are quite inadequate in our self-knowledge and need to bone up on original sin and total depravity. In one of his essays on deaconesses, Warfield demonstrates how carefully culture should be considered in any changes related to woman officeholders:

We need not doubt, then, that the church has a distinct right to organize the work of woman after either of the fashions toward which the minds of Presbyterians turn when they speak of “deaconesses.” Bare right, however, does not vindicate wisdom. And it is to be hoped that there will be careful consideration of all the implications and, we may add, complications of the proposed action before the churches commit themselves irrevocably. Meanwhile, there is rapidly arising, in the natural course of affairs, a strong incitement toward in some way reducing to churchly character and to some sufficient form of ecclesiastical oversight, the whole sphere of woman’s work. Woman’s work does not wait to be organized. Women have already organized their own work in the church; and with a zeal and success which shame the prevailing apathy of Christian men, women have worked out for themselves a whole series of institutions which, while the church sleeps, may perchance grow fatally to overshadow its official and authorized agencies. To shut our eyes to the dangers inherent in these gigantic voluntary associations would be as silly as it might prove to be suicidal. Nor is it an adequate annulment of these dangers to plead that the loving loyalty of our women to our church system has shown itself to be as great as their loving zeal for God’s work. This is true, and deserves highest praise. But we must bear in mind the important principle pointed out by one of the brothers Hare--that the essential character of no theory or institution is adequately expressed in its inaugurates, since they make the institution, while it is the institution that makes the next generation of its administrators. The essential principle of every organization comes out sooner or later in its working; and independent and voluntary agencies show sooner or later that they have both independence and will of their own. There lie within the bosom of the great beneficent organizations of woman’s work, as they are at present developing without adequate points of union with the official church machinery, many hidden dangers to the church’s whole structure and efficiency, some of which can scarcely fail to shake the church of the next age, unless some way be now discovered by which the whole system may be not merely recognized, but, in a Scriptural manner, incorporated into the body of the church’s own activities, subjected to its lawful courts, and organized in accordance with its essential structure, so that it may become a harmoniously working part of the one organic whole. The simple revival of the congregational deaconess seems scarcely able to meet all the necessities of the case. And hence Dr. McGill, working on that conception of what a deaconess should be, no less than Dr. Charteris, working on the other, provided for a broader scheme. The real question is, How may woman’s work be organized so as to make it part of the church work and not extra-ecclesiastical? ...The practical wisdom of the church is face to face with a real problem, to settle which, with loyalty to God’s word, to his church, and to all the interests that are involved, will test its quality. Meanwhile, we counsel patience and prudence, and look on with much interest and many doubts.

Many of Warfield's observations above, including his accusations of "the prevailing apathy of Christian men" and the church "sleeping," are instructive concerning the freedom with which Christian men in such debates have accused one another of sinful influences and tendencies. To react by protesting that I could never sin in such a way and I abhor such insinuations against my lily-white pristine character simply demonstrates spiritual immaturity. We need to read dead fathers; but more, to study up on original sin and total depravity and sanctification.

It would purify this debate over woman officers if Reformed men would discipline themselves to indicate and inquire of others if they are promoting a change in polity which would result in woman "deacons," or woman "deaconesses;" and if woman deaconesses, whether those woman deaconesses would serve under the authority of the church's male deacons and would be guarded from the exercise of authority over men? A refusal to make these distinctions is the heart of the equivocation that allows Tim Keller and his Redeemer churches to cloak themselves with the authority of Early Church practice and Calvin and Warfield principle. But anyone who spends two seconds studying Early Church practice or Calvin and Warfield knows what Tim Keller is doing and promoting is unprecedented across church history. A woman is the director of his diaconate, presiding over all his deacons--that should be a clue, men.

Finally, there's no question the ordination of women to the office of deacon is the necessary step in the process of ordaining women to the office of elder and pastor. Years ago when I was serving in the PC(USA), I was subscribed to a journal of Reformed Theology (if you could dignify the publication with the word 'theology') that ran an article by a feminist summarizing the history of the ordination of woman pastors in Reformed denominations worldwide. I still have the article although I'm in Pittsburgh right now and can't provide the citation. But I found two things instructive: first, she said that every church that opened the offices of pastor and elder to women first opened the office of deacon to women. There were simply no exceptions to this rule; and second, that when she interviewed leaders of Reformed ecclesiastical bodies still prohibiting women from holding the offices of pastor and elder and asked them why they had not yet taken the step, not one of them responded citing Scripture. Rather, every one of them pointed to cultural presssures and prejudices as the determinant of their polity.

Now of course it is true we all easily mistake subsequence for consequence. It is also true that interviewers hear what they want to hear. But I left that article wiser, I think, and have never forgotten the feminist's observations.

Today in the PCA as everywhere else across all man's history, we are easily duped by Satan and we know not ourselves. If true religion is, as Calvin puts it, self-knowledge combined with the knowledge of God, the more we grow in our knowledge of God, the more we will grow in our own self-knowledge, and therefore the more we will grow in our ability to echo the (older) Apostle Paul when he testified that he was the chief of sinners.

What has this to do with this debate?

Everything. We are duplicitous. We are conniving. We are equivocators. We are timid. We are faithless. We are blind. And every last one of us is seized with a desperate fear of not appearing sufficiently progressive.

We have many pieces and sources concerning woman deacons/deaconesses. Check them out here.

With love,

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Deacons - Deaconesses

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"I believe in God the Father Almighty"...

Tim Bayly — Sat, 26 May 2012 21:01:00 +0000

Here's a post by Michael Foster giving you four good reasons to make plans now to attend the 2012 Clearnote Fellowship Conference, "I Believe in God the Father Almighty."

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Kudos to Lolo...

David Wegener — Fri, 25 May 2012 17:22:21 +0000

This past Tuesday ESPN aired a documentary on Lolo Jones, American hurdler extraordinaire. In the interview she mentioned she is a virgin which led to the internet and air waves echoing with snickers...

Jones was the favorite to win the women’s 100-meter hurdles at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, but she hit the 9th hurdle and ended up 7th. She handled this disappointment with grace. If she qualifies for the U.S. Olympic team next month she’ll get another chance at Olympic gold, but this time she won’t be the favorite. That place belongs to Sally Pearson of Australia. However, as Jones knows all too well, upsets happen so we can root for her.

Miss Jones told ESPN that remaining a virgin has been the hardest thing she’s ever done--harder than training as an elite-level hurdler. Good for her. It is hard work and it’s a fight that many kids from Christian homes have given up.

Good examples like Jones need to be held up as models for today’s young athletes. Everyone knows there are plenty of bad ones. Yes, I’m aware of some of the photo-shoots in which Lolo has participated, but I still want to commend her warmly.

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Current affairs

Holiness

Sports

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Charles Hodge: the Presbyterian pope (part I)...

David Wegener — Fri, 25 May 2012 15:15:32 +0000

A Review of Paul Gutjahr, Charles Hodge: Guardian of American Orthodoxy

Disclaimer: Paul’s son, Isaac, and my son, John, have been good friends since they were in the same 6th grade class at University Elementary School. After our return from Zambia last year, they’ve played on soccer teams with Isaac a lightning quick and reliable defensive back and John a tall and strong forward. I know Paul as a believing Christian and passionate supporter of both of his soccer-playing sons. In part, he will know me as someone, how shall I put it … who “dislikes” some of our local soccer referees.

Soon after the death of his father, Archie Hodge wrote a biography (published in 1880) of the great Princeton theologian, Charles Hodge. Banner of Truth recently reissued that bio. No other biography has appeared until late last year when Paul Gutjahr, a professor of English at Indiana University, published his; then Andrew Hoffecker published another titled, Charles Hodge: The Pride of Princeton. Oxford University Press published the former and the latter was published by P&R in its American Reformed Biography series. After spending many years at Grove City College, Hoffecker is now professor emeritus of Church History at Reformed Theological Seminary, Jackson.

Recently, I sat down with Paul for an interview. Gutjahr’s dissertation dealt with the history of Bible publishing in America, so to work on Hodge was somewhat of a new direction for his research. He told me he had always wanted to write a biography but wasn’t sure whom to choose as a subject. For several reasons, Charles Hodge proved an ideal candidate.

Paul wanted to work on someone who was an honorable man... Yes, we need biographers of Hitler and Mao, “but that wasn’t going to be me.” If you’re going to live with a subject for many years (this project took ten years), it’s better if you like the man and if he’s one who had a positive influence on his age. Hodge’s influence is well known. He taught the New Testament and theology to more students in the 19th century than any other professor. Whilst the influence of his books is trickier to establish, his commentaries, his articles and his systematic theology reached thousands and he is still read today.

Gutjahr also believes in the need for historical mentors and, once again, Hodge fit the bill. His letters display a wonderful sense of humor and his home was known to be a place of delight for all who entered it.

Hodge loved his family and all but one of his eight children turned out well. He took an interest in those things that interested his children. One child was interested in playing the violin, so Hodge also learned to play the instrument. Another child was interested in rabbits and so Hodge bought a bunch of them. Paul and I were amazed that Hodge’s children played in his study while he worked. Would that we could have such powers of concentration.

Paul also hoped to work on someone whose papers were all in one place (to cut down on travel) and that fit Hodge, also. Princeton Seminary was very kind and generous in giving him access to Hodge’s letters and diaries and everything he needed to write this biography. The seminary is celebrating its bicentennial this year and both Paul and, most likely (we’re guessing) Andrew, were trying to publish their works in time for that. Paul’s biography came out in February 2011 and Hoffecker’s several months later. Unfortunately, OUP wasn’t so careful in their copy-editing, so there were a number of typos in the first hardback edition. (Most were corrected in the paperback edition.)

When I asked Paul what parts of the biography he enjoyed the most, he mentioned two areas: Hodge’s family life and the end of his life. What is remarkable about the Princeton theologian is that his own father died when he was six months old and his mother never remarried. How did he become such an excellent father when he didn’t really have a father? Gutjahr thinks it was two older men in Hodge’s life who served as his models and mentors: Archibald Alexander (for whom Hodge named his first son), and Samuel Miller. Princeton Seminary’s first two professors were godly examples for Hodge. Paul was also impressed with the end of Hodge’s life; so many Christian leaders don’t end well, but Hodge did, and it was a joy for Gutjahr to behold.

One of Paul’s goals in writing the biography was “to bring out the human side of Hodge.” Yes, he had a great mind, but he also had a great heart. Converted during a revival at Princeton College, Charles always spoke and wrote with an experiential dimension. Hoffecker’s biography, which Paul warmly commends, labors to bring out this aspect of Hodge’s life as well. Those who think a confessional theology cannot be wed to real godliness and a vigorous pursuit of holiness need to read Hodge (and his mentor, Alexander).

The greatest challenge for Paul in writing the biography was to figure out how to maintain the reader’s interest. Once he settled in at Princeton Hodge never moved, and his theology was famous for not changing. Plus, Hodge was a thinker, a teacher, a writer. This could mean the biography would be boring but I didn’t find it so. Short chapters, lots of illustrations and pictures, and trying to put Hodge in his historical context were each helpful.

Gutjahr is sympathetic to Hodge’s theology although it is not his own. If he had to write the biography over again, he would inject more of his own interpretations into it. Some biographies of theologians give summaries of the books they wrote. I recall reading Eberhard Busch’s biography of Karl Barth and he did summaries of Barth’s books as they came up in the chronology of Barth’s life. That wasn’t Paul’s goal. He already had to cut 150 pages from his manuscript and Oxford reduced the font size to get more words on each page. Summaries would have made a long book even longer.

One Evangelical magazine named Gutjahr’s bio the best biography of 2012, so his hard work has been rewarded. I commend it. In a second post I will detail some of the highlights of Hodge’s life.

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A technical introduction to the new BaylyBlog

Lucas Weeks — Thu, 24 May 2012 16:47:32 +0000

In my previous post, I introduced BaylyBlog readers to a few of the new features of the site. In this post, I will introduce a few of the technical details:

We are using a slightly modified LAMP stack. Instead of Apache, we're using Ngnix as our server to improve overall performance of our sites. The rest is pretty standard: Ubuntu Linux, MySQL, and PHP.
Joseph got a head start on me on this one, but I'll add it here also: we are running Apache Solr on a separate VPS to handle all the indexing and retrieval of content. In other words, it's the backbone of all the search functionality, and, like Joseph said, it provides the handy "Related Content" block for us.
There is an enormous number of content management systems and web application frameworks out there, but we've chosen Drupal for our sites. This site is no exception. Drupal has its quirks, but we love it. It is a veritable swiss-army knife of website and web application development, so it gives us the ability to build many different kinds of sites. We're willing to muck around in the code as we build websites if necessary, but we'd prefer not to. Drupal gives us that flexibility.
The fonts you see were chosen by Ben Crum, and we'd like to thank Google Fonts for providing them.
The images you see in the side bar, and any new images included in blog posts, will be hosted over on Amazon S3. We hope this will improve overall site performance. It will also mean that we won't have to worry as much about hard drive space on our server.

Again, thanks for taking a look! We hope you like it.

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Welcome to the new BaylyBlog!

Lucas Weeks — Thu, 24 May 2012 07:26:00 +0000

Joseph, Ben and I are very happy to present the new BaylyBlog! We hope you like what we've done to the place. Please take some time to look around. And while you check out the new design—I think Ben did a bang-up job, myself—you can also take advantage of a few of the new features:

The most important new feature for our users is the search functionality. Joseph worked hard on this one, and it really paid off. Every single blog post ever written on BaylyBlog has been indexed, and you can find it easily by typing something in the search box. When you arrive on the search page, you can filter search results down by blog tags and by publish date. You vaguely remember a post about trebuchet's and pumpkins, but you're not sure when it was posted? That's easy to find.
David and Tim can now feature particular posts that will appear in the slideshow at the top of the site. They can feature any one of the thousands of posts, making it easy to bring important topics back to mind.
The side-bar is now much more helpful and much better organized. David and Tim can now promote conferences and events more prominently. Blog tags are helpfully sorted by usage, giving the user an idea of the relative importantance of the tag. A recent comments block, along with a recent comments feed, is listed. And the links to other blogs and ministries don't seem so imposing now that they are no longer in one big list.
Another great feature Joseph provided is the "Related Posts" block that will appear at the top of the sidebar when viewing a single post. By his own admission, he spent a couple hours going through old posts that were suggested to him as he was working on the site.

Again, we hope you enjoy the new blog. If you see anything out of place, don't hesitate to contact me. Happy reading!

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Go down to your local abortuary...

David and Tim Bayly — Mon, 21 May 2012 11:26:33 +0000

There are a number of reasons we love the Sprouls, most definitely including Vesta and RCJr. Here's another. Praise God for this faithful shepherd. (TB, w/thanks to Nate)

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City of man - city of God

Gratitude

R2K (Radical Two Kingdom)

Reformed world

Abortion euthanasia...

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Honor to whom honor is due...

David and Tim Bayly — Mon, 21 May 2012 11:00:42 +0000

While we're on the subject of money...

Over the years countless times I've given thanks to God, but also to Dad and Mom Taylor (Ken Taylor and Margaret Taylor), for the way they handled the money God poured out on them.

One of the minority of privately held Evangelical publishers left standing today is Tyndale House Publishers and it's owned entirely by Mom Taylor now that her husband, Ken, passed away a few years ago. (Prior to his death, Dad owned 51% and Mom 49%. Sweet, huh?)

Tyndale House has published a number of best sellers and Dad held personal copyright on some of the best-selling books in the Evangelical publishing world including the Living Bible and The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes. Then of course, Tyndale's goose that lay ten thousand golden eggs was Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series which reached sales (books and related merchandise) of over a billion dollars.

Add up the numbers and you'll see how high on the hog Dad and Mom could have lived and how much money they could have left their children...

Although they have been extraordinarily generous to their children and grandchildren, their money has not gone to their family, but to the work of the Lord. And when Mom passes into the presence of the Lord, all of Tyndale House will be owned by Tyndale House Foundation--not the family. Even the family home and land will go to Wycliffe Bible Translator's Seed Company.

Countless ministries, churches, seminaries, missions, and charitable works owe their existence to the godly liberality of Dad and Mom Taylor.

Could it have been otherwise?

Yes, and had it been otherwise, it's likely I would have been corrupted by the deceitfulness of wealth. You see why I praise God for Dad and Mom? As anyone in Wheaton can attest, they lived (and Mom still lives) frugally and humbly. And trust me, some quite famous authors would be embarrassed to have a comparison of the lifestyle they and their family members have as a result of Tyndale House royalties if it were compared to their publisher and his descendants.

One final more personal note. Readers who have been on Baylyblog for years know how intense I am and have been in opposing gender and race neutered Evangelical Bible translations. Maybe only one Bible translation of the past twenty years has escaped these corruptions and, sadly, Tyndale House Publishers led the way with their New Living Translation. My criticism of their work on the NLT began in our family kitchen about twenty years ago, now, when Dad brought home the NLT's galley proofs of Romans and I saw 'adelphoi' had been mistranslated 'Christian friends.'

That said, each summer we gather as the Taylor clan up at what we call "the Michigan House." Mom is the queen bee and her descendants now include 28 grandchildren (our Taylor is the youngest) and around 55 great grandchildren. We eat in a tent and a number of us stay in a nearby Super Eight. Which is to point out that we love each other. This is the way across the years.

Now one of Dad and Mom's sons, Mark, is the CEO of Tyndale House. Mark and I have known each other since he was a senior and I a sophomore in our church's youth group. Mark and I have talked and e-mailed each other about our disagreements concerning Bible translation and there have been times our relationship almost didn't survive. But God has been kind to us. The love of Christ has prevailed and we have continued to love each another despite our deep opposition to each other's work surrounding the New Living Translation.

A couple months ago I told Mark how very thankful I was for his godly character evident in his marriage and fatherhood, but also in his leadership of Tyndale House Publishers. As I said to him, he could have profited from his leadership of Tyndale House for the benefit of his own home and family, but he's never built himself a dream home or bought a fancy car and his children have never had the edge taken off their difficult years as young couples raising little children and struggling to get by. So this is my tribute to another Evangelical leader who is unlike a number visible in an earlier post, but rather quite like John and Noel Piper.

Praise God for Dad and Mom Taylor's godly and holy example of not allowing wealth to deceive them, but rather giving it all away. Now, praise God for Mark and his most excellent wife, Carol, who are themselves setting the same example to all of us watching and cheering them on.

With deep gratitude to God, I present Tyndale House Foundation IRS Form 990 (2010).

(TB)

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Coming up Wednesday...

David and Tim Bayly — Mon, 21 May 2012 10:05:34 +0000

This Wednesday Baylyblog's new design will go live. To help with the transfer we'll be shutting down comments for a day or so, likely starting Tuesday evening. So if you run into problems commenting Tuesday night or Wednesday, please be patient.

The work that's gone into the new design has been heavy since we're not simply switching from one blogging software to another--TypePad to WordPress, for instance. Baylyblog is being transformed into a site running on the open source content management platform, Drupal.

There are a number of features this will allow, but search is the big winner...

For years we've not been able to have the majority of Baylyblog's content available to readers because of TypePad's' absolute page limitation of fifty posts. So if a particular subject has three hundred posts, only the most recent fifty have been accessible. The only way around this is the Google search box, but that's so basic as to be of limited use.

Drupal will allow readers access to every post; but better, it will allow searches that drill down into the content as far as the reader wants by keyword, subject, date, etc.

There are other great benefits Drupal and our designers are giving us, but we'll let you check it out in a couple days.

We're excited and very, very thankful to Joseph Bayly, Ben Crum, and Lucas Weeks who have done tons of work designing the new site and assuring the safe transfer of 3,953 posts, 30,994 comments, who knows how many images and PDFs, and 6,449,098 words. May God bless you, men.

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