I’ve seen several peopl, including Rowland Crowcher, post this ”infographic” on Facebook. Since I’ve spoken quite a bit on “Family in the Bible”, and am due to speak to a leaders group from the NZ Christian Network on the “Theology of Marriage” really soon it makes me hopping mad! In one sense the graphic is “true”. [...]
Browsing Posts in Gender
Psalm 90 makes a fine reading for a new year. Through the psalm, time (and especially the haunting disparity between short brutish human time and the timeless divine reality) is a strong theme. The psalm is peppered with time words: dor generation in v.1 (x2) b’terem before in v.2 shanah year in vv.4, 5, 9, [...]
It’s the silly season, I’ve nearly finished the marking, but only “nearly”. So I needed some silliness. In an effort to demonstrate “scientifically” that Ruth was written by women I submitted the first chapter in various translations to the Gender Analyser. The results were uninspiring, it reckons with varying degrees of confidence that the chapter [...]
See also: Jesus and talk of God as father (part one) When thinking about Jesus’ talk of God as father it is useful to examine how, in fact, he pictured God the Father. What did he mean by calling God ‘father’? To set this question in context it is helpful to consider the cultural stereotypes [...]
In previous posts in this series I have been critical of Wayne Grudem’s interpretations of Gen 1-3: Biblical understandings of human gender: Part One: Beginnings Biblical understandings of human gender: How to read the Bible: Larger passages trump verses Biblical understandings of human gender: Part Two: The creation of human gender Biblical understandings of human [...]
On Facebook yesterday I was prompted to reflect on the oddities that our herd mentality imposes on humans. We often signal words that name these “herds” linguistically (rightly or wrongly)1 by giving nouns that name human herds capital letters. Thus I am catholic but not Catholic in my tastes.2 Capitalisation to indicate herd membership is [...]
At present I’m thinking and talking a lot about Jesus’ talk of God as father, and whether this naming of God means that Christians cannot think of God as (also) motherly. The Old Testament used both father and mother-language to speak about God, but it used both seldom. Language such as shepherd, kinsman-redeemer, king, rock, [...]
I have just posted another short section to my online discussable book on motherly talk of God Not Only a Father which addresses the question of how The Nature of Christ as a Man interacts with my ideas of the (non)gendering of God. Not Only a Father is an attempt at a new way of [...]
Many teachers argue Proverbs is not merely a collection of ethical or moral rules. We stress the role of this teaching in forming the person. We notice how often the real wisdom consists not in knowing the words but in recognising when they are applicable. Thus, “contradictory” proverbs may both be true, and both collected, [...]
In a previous post I dealt with Grudem’s first three reasons for claiming that we can see male headship in Scripture “before the fall”. His fourth reason: “The naming of the human race” seems to me disingenuous. He claims that God names humanity “man” in Gen 5:1-2. This claim depends on arguing that ‘adam is [...]
