Protecting Sola Scriptura from Sophism, Part II: Arguing from Authorial Intent

The discovery of the logical base of the language used by an author is parallel to the discovery of the logic the author is using in order to communicate his intended point within a text. This means that authorial intent is the logical base that must be discovered through the contextual clues that exist within the referential world of the text. Calvin argued, “It is the first business of an interpreter to let his author say what he does say, instead of attributing to him what we think he ought to say” (Preface to Calvin’s Commentary on Romans). As Vanhoozer comments, “The author is the foundational principle in what we might call the traditional metaphysics of meaning. According to this standard picture, the author is the sovereign subject of the sign, the one who rules over meaning, assigning names to things, using words to express thoughts and represent the world” (Is There Meaning in This Text? 40 digital).

Although the idea of authorial intent has been challenged by postmodern philosophies such as those advocated by Derrida, these authors defeat their entire movement by communicating their ideas in languages that assume that their audiences will understand their authorial intent to undo the idea of authorial intent. In other words, as is the case with logic itself, the assumptions of its legitimacy must be assumed in order to disprove its legitimacy, and thus it becomes self-defeating.

Of course, most Christian interpreters will not argue from atheistic worldviews that give rise to subjectivism. They will agree with the idea that one must find the authorial intent of a text in order to discover its original meaning. The question becomes, What is authorial intent?

Authorial intent is the logical base of all communication. When someone attempts to communicate anything, whether explaining an advanced idea or asking someone to pass the salt, he attempts to be logically understood by his audience. He will therefore use language and references within the audience’s understanding of the world to communicate to them.

What this means is that authorial intent of an ancient author is rooted in the ancient language of the author and the referential world of the author, not the language and referential world of the modern interpreter.

When we come to biblical interpretation, this is often the most misunderstood concept of authorial intent. The search for authorial intent is often reduced to what I refer to as “soundslikegesis,” where the modern reader assumes that because the text sounds like X to him, that is the intent of the ancient author who may be lightyears away from him in terms of his language and referential world.

To give an example of this, missionaries often have a hard time translating the word “God” in Chinese Bibles. The closest word for God in Chinese, I am told, is the word tao as in the word Taoism. Of course, the word tao refers to an impersonal lifeforce that pervades all of creation and is not understood as a personal being. As a result, the Chinese Christian may read his Chinese Bible and assume what he considers the “plain reading” of the text, mainly that God is an impersonal lifeforce that pervades all living things. But the real question is not what the Chinese reader of his translation thinks the word tao sounds like to him but what the original word meant to the biblical author and his ancient, religious audience.

Absent of a shared linguistic and referential world, the words Elohim, theos, “God,” and tao only correspond to one another superficially. Even in our own Western context, the word “God” can refer to so many different things that to use the word is to simply be ambiguous until further referents are added to it by more descriptive words that would provide a larger context for the purposes of exposing authorial intent in its use.

This means that the “plain reading” to the modern interpreter is not necessarily authorial intent, and in fact, is often a method of eisegesis that ignores authorial intent, since it places the modern readers referential world into the text by assuming that what the text sounds like to him is what the author intended to convey.

What this ultimately assumes, then, is that the modern reader, and his modern world, along with all of the referents that come with it, is the intended audience the author had in mind when he attempted to communicate his ideas through the biblical text.

This, of course, is not likely true. In fact, I would argue that God communicated through these ancient men and their ancient references so that the entire world would have a key to understanding the Scripture, perhaps, in times such as ours when its meaning has been reduced to the subjective whims of the modern reader.

What this all ultimately means is that the key to understanding the text is authorial intent and the key to understanding the authorial intent is reference-filled context of the author’s literary work and the author’s world his words reference.

We will explore the implications of this for hermeneutics and exegesis, and how one who is being consistent with the logic of language should argue to establish a legitimate interpretation of the text, in subsequent posts.

Protecting Sola Scriptura from Sophism, Part I: Introduction to the Problem

 I suspect that you’ve listened to countless debates and read countless books concerning issues that seem to all come down to the way someone interprets the Bible. Many people just throw up their hands and pick a position because they just cannot figure out which interpretations are true. So many things sound reasonable to them. The Bible just seems to be a giant inkblot and every man, woman, and child subjects its meaning to his own whims. Who can really come up with the authorial intent when possibilities seem endless. Language can be bent left and right to support multiple views of just about any subject one might imagine.

This all simply leads to a claim that we believe in an impotent sola Scriptura, and therefore, an impotent Bible, that cannot lead us to any absolute and convicting truth that must be proclaimed authoritatively to the exclusion of all other truth claims, as long as the Bible can be used to support them. Our claims to have the Bible as our supreme authority are negated as soon as we start to argue from other sources of authority and abandon the Bible as sufficient to accomplish the goal, or as soon as we start using the Bible as a support absent of its proper exegesis and logical application. 

What I want to do today is to discuss one major means to figuring out who is making a biblical argument and who is only seemingly making one. It is my contention that many are simply duping themselves and their hearers due to a lack of paying attention to the distinctions between logic and rhetoric.

I would argue that Scripture is built upon the principles of logic because it is communicated through the logic of language. Regardless of what language one speaks, there are universal principles of communication to which everyone who wishes to understand or be understood must adhere. This means that language not only has a logical base but it also functions with a logical trajectory. What that means is that, not only must it be interpreted within the logical parameters of its linguistic principles but it must also be applied in logical trajectories that are connected to its base. Hence, there are logical and illogical inferences that arise either from the logic of the language or from that which is in opposition to its logic.

I would argue that those who are arguing from the logical base of the language of a text and its inferences can be identified as those who are exegeting Scripture and applying it within the parameters of that logical base in distinction from those who are using Scripture as a part of a rhetorical argument that seeks to persuade by whatever means necessary.

In the former, the argument is filled with a logical use of grammar, syntax, lexicography, genre study, literary context, historical context, and canonical context along with logical arguments that do not utilize fallacious reasoning to come to their inferences of any further implications of the text and its applications.

In the latter, some of the elements of exegesis are ignored or unknown to the interpreter and/or logical fallacies are used to obtain an inference or application that is not supported by the logical base of the language used in the text.

I would further argue that this is the difference between the use of the Bible by a logician and a rhetorician. One gives rise to argumentation that upholds the doctrine of sola Scriptura and one upholds a type of argumentation that gives rise to sophistry.

Sophistry is derived from the Greek Sophists who did not necessarily believe that objective truth existed, or that it could be known if it did. Because of this, they argued to persuade others using whatever means possible: arguments from authority, tradition, emotion, experiential reasoning, ad hominem, consensus, etc.

Because sophistry tries to persuade rather than to come to the knowledge of what is absolutely true, its arguments are not directed toward discovery of what is true but rather an assumption of the chosen position, regardless of its actual truth, that must be supported by whatever means possible. This also means that Scripture becomes one of the many things used in order to persuade a hearer of that position rather than the ultimate authority that is mined for its intended meaning.

What I am trying to get at here today is that if we do not practice a logical understanding of language in our interpretations and applications of Scripture then we are liars when claiming to adhere to sola Scriptura. In order to truly uphold that doctrine, we must respect not only what God communicated, but how He communicated it. That is to say, that if God communicated to us, we do not respect His Word unless we also respect the logic of communication that participates with God in good faith to receive the intended meaning and applications of that communication.

Now, how does this all help us discern what is argued in debates and books and sermons and on social media or at the Thanksgiving table? If someone is using a rhetoric that misuses the logic of exegesis, i.e., eisegetes by leaving out the necessary elements to do so, or argues illogically either by false inference or one of the many other ways of appealing to alternate authorities, as the few mentioned above, rather than logically exegeting the text and logically inferring its applications in order to support their point, this person’s conclusions are to be discarded as having been legitimately substantiated.

It is not enough to proclaim that we all believe in the ultimate authority in the Bible. If our arguments do not conform to that proclamation we will find ourselves arguing as mouthpieces of the devil instead of God. As the Christian life must not only proclaim truths in declarations but also with displays of the applications of those truths, so also the proclamation of sola Scriptura must not only be proclaimed but displayed in our arguing for our positions.

It might seem that everyone is doing this, but to the trained ear, that is a far cry from the truth. Most people who are arguing from the Bible are actually not holding positions that are logically supported by it if proper exegesis and the logical inferences thereof were being deployed.

Most people do not realize they are doing this. Most people eisegete and then call it exegesis. Most people argue for applications that are merely false inferences, having added additional assumptions into the text. 

In no way do I mean to imply that people are doing this from some sort of malicious intent. We are simply a culture that has been saturated with poor logic and an abuse of language. We are more emotional than rational, more needing to be affirmed than reproved, more dependent upon traditions and peer pressure than we would like to admit. But God must be exalted above all of this, and we who proclaim His Word to others must make sure of the quality of our arguments before they leave our tongues lest we give the impression that the Bible is only one of many authorities, or worse, that God has produced nothing better than an inkblot that is incapable of giving any sure direction toward which we must sail.

The Shepherd of Hermas: A Lesson for the Modern Church Critic

One of the most iconic songs of the 80's was Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror." The song was all about if you want to change the world, what you really need to do is change yourself because you are a part of the world that needs to be changed. The more people who focus on themselves, the more the world will change. It's a ground-up type of philosophy that I find to be very much a Christian idea. 

There is an early Christian book that teaches a similar sentiment. The Shepherd of Hermas, although not canonical, was nonetheless considered by early Christians to be one of the most important books for believers to read. It is the most widely attested book besides a couple of the Gospels and even appears as the final book in Codex Sinaiticus, which is one of the most well-known and reliable codices from which many modern translations adopt their readings.

The book has many important things to say but one of the most important in my mind is the image of the church that appears to Hermas as an old, worn out woman who is viewed as ugly because of the sins and shortcomings of her children. The woman appears to Hermas and tells him that he and his household need to repent. As he continues to repent and grow in the faith, the woman reappears to him, but each time that she does, she gets younger and more beautiful, finally appearing to him as an amazingly beautiful bride adorned in all of her glory. 

It is interesting that this scene begins with Hermas viewing her as old and ugly. Yet, the rebuke is not for her to make herself more beautiful but rather for Hermas to repent and grow out of his immaturity. What this essentially presents to us is that when we are in our most sinful and immature state, we see the church as ugly. By "ugly" I mean that we don't like it. It's not attracting us. It holds no influence over us and instead we can do nothing but critique how it lacks beauty.

When we grow in Christ, we begin to see that our disdain for the body of believers of which we are a part becomes a vision of Christ's glory. It is a green oasis flowing with water in the midst of an ugly wasteland. 

In other words, the Body of Christ isn't ugly. It never was. It is cleansed by the blood of Christ and even its blemishes will soon be wiped away. Instead, we are the ugly ones and we project the frustrations of our own ugliness, the disorder of our own lives and households, onto the church and cannot see the beauty of Christ that it reflects.

Think on this, Disillusioned Christian, the world thinks the church is ugly too. When your view and the world's view of the Body of Christ is in agreement, that speaks more to where you are than where the church is.

Hypercritical people who have a need to fix every jot and tittle in what is almost surely a case of obsessive compulsive disorder created by the lack of complete control in their own lives and households don't need to be catered to but rather told that the imperfections they see are due to their own vision, not what exists in reality. Their high and lofty expectations for what the church should look like need to be applied to themselves and their own households, or to put it in the words of Christ, they need to "take the log out" of their own eyes and then they will see clearly to take the speck out of their brothers' eyes.

Of course, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, so these people think that if they only were like someone else's church, if they only lived in some other area, if they only had some other spouse, if they only had some other family, etc., the world would turn right as rain. But what they fail to realize is that the ugliness is within. God Himself cleansed the world with a flood, and yet, sin blossomed anew. And why wouldn't it? Sin first came about in paradise. That's because one's environment does not dictate whether one will choose ugliness. It only exposes whether one has the desire to do so. 

Because of that very Augustinian (i.e., non-heretical Pelagian) idea, the imperfect church is beautiful. It is beautiful because in its imperfections it exposes our imperfections. It shows our lack of patience, blindness to the good around us, discontent and frustration with our lack of being gods who have complete control, etc. Its imperfections bring out that we are spoiled, ungrateful children who look to find reasons to complain and find fault rather than reasons to be thankful and praise God. It exposes where we have failed to realize that the gospel has given us hope and in hope a positive outlook to see beauty in God's people even when they are ugly to fleshly eyes. 

The imperfections of the church are there for our sanctification and woe to the man who finds a church that is perfect in his eyes, for that would surely be a judgment of God over his life. He will find himself in a counterfeit church, a cult, if in fact it is everything he wants and will now be kept from any exposure of his sinful disposition in the world.

Now, of course, if there is a church body in absolute unrepentant sin, it is ugly; but that is because there is a serious question as to whether it is actually the body of Christ at that time. Christ Himself has that local body under judgment for its compromise and will take away its lampstand from His temple if it does not repent. 

But if you go to a church that is the Body of Christ and all you can see is its imperfections, then you are not looking at the church as it truly is but in a mirror that likely reflects the disorder in your own character, household, and mind. Our consumeristic mentality feeds into our naturally judgmental minds. We are the ones who have the standards that need to be met if this church is a "good one" or not. "No one said hi to me." "I don't like the way they do communion." "I don't like the way the preacher said that." "This person offended me." "I don't like their music." "They're disrespectful in their casual dress." "They're too stuffy in their formal clothes." "I don't like where they meet." "I don't like when they meet." "They're too intrusive into our lives." "They're not involved enough in our lives." "They're too liturgical." "They're not liturgical enough." The thoughts of fault-finders are a radio turned up loudly to drown out the sins they themselves are committing against the church, fellow believers, their spouses, their children, etc. 

The solution is not to try and clean out every single particle of dust in every nook and cranny within the Body of Christ, but rather to do as the lady of Hermas commands, i.e., repent and ask forgiveness for yourself and for your household, i.e., "take a look at yourself and make a change." Only then will the church's beauty be restored to your sight. 

Why Jesus Could Break the Sabbath Law and Still Remain Sinless

 People are usually upset when I point out to them that Jesus broke the Sabbath. We know this because He actually says it, but most people miss it because He says via implication. For instance, In John 5:16-18, the text says the following.

And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. 

Jesus says that by healing on the Sabbath, the Pharisees are right. He was working. This undermines any attempt from some people to argue that healing on the Sabbath isn't working. Jesus Himself confirms that it is. 

Furthermore, John confirms that the Jews wanted to kill him because he was breaking the Sabbath, confirming that Jesus' working on the Sabbath was actually breaking the Sabbath law. Many attempt to try and argue that John is only saying that the Pharisees thought Jesus was breaking the Sabbath law when he really wasn't, but this is negated by (1) Jesus just said He, in fact, was working on the Sabbath day which is to break it, and (2) the text doesn't say "they thought" He was breaking the Sabbath, but rather that He was actually breaking it.

In Matthew 12:1-8, the Pharisees accuse the disciples of breaking the Sabbath by harvesting food on it, which in fact is a violation of the Sabbath.

At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. 2 But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.” 3 He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: 4 how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? 5 Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? 6 I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. 7 And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. 8 For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.” 

Jesus' response is not that the disciples technically weren't breaking the Sabbath, as many try to argue. Instead, his argument has three supporting points to it: (1) That there are examples in the OT of people breaking ritual law for moral reasons and are therefore guiltless, and (2) What God actually desires is for His people to show their devotion to Him by their love toward others and not rituals, and (3) He is actually the Lord of the Sabbath and therefore can choose to observe or dismiss it.

1. The first example He cites is that of David and his men going in and eating the showbread which Christ reminds us "was not lawful for them to eat." In other words, they broke the ritual law. The second example is that of the priests who work on every Sabbath day, which Christ says "profanes" the Sabbath. In each case, these people are considered innocent to God. 

2. The reason why they can be still considered innocent to God when breaking a ritual command is because there is nothing inherently evil in breaking a ritual command nor inherently good in observing it. God could have made the Sabbath Tuesday or made no Sabbath at all. There is no inherent goodness to it. It's a picture of a theology and ethic, not the theology and ethic themselves. Hence, it can be broken without transgressing the inherent character of God's goodness. In other words, it isn't really moral. It's just moral to obey God. If God expresses that He wants it set aside in view of an actual moral principle, that moral principle takes precedent. That is also why one ritual command (e.g., baking showbread on the Sabbath and setting it out) can override another (e.g., observing the Sabbath).

3. As noted in Point 2 above, God can give commands and express what is most important so that His people set aside the ritual commands in order to obey God's ultimate desires in that moment. Hence, since Jesus is the Lord, He has declared His disciples innocent in breaking the Sabbath because they were hungry, He had them out and about, and He judges the matter to be a case of the preservation of life in a context of obedience that overrides the need to obey a ritual law.

Hence, in Mark 3:4, this story is followed by Jesus healing on the Sabbath and Christ responds to their condemnation of Him by showing that the creational principle to preserve innocent life, which is the entire thrust of the law, is good to do on the Sabbath. He states:

“Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?”

In other words, the moral principle can override the Sabbath law to do no work because the Sabbath law is not a moral law within itself.

This is why the new covenant is one of the moral law, not the ritual law. The pictures of the ritual law, in fact, are what is considered the old covenant. No longer will God make His people commit themselves to Him through the pictures, especially since Israel became confused with these and ended up just observing the pictures at the expense of the moral laws they represented. Instead, He would write the moral law on the minds rather than externally on tablets. 

This is why Paul says that he is not under the law anymore and when among Gentiles he does not practice the law (1 Cor 9:20), but v. 21 makes it clear that he is talking not about moral law, which he refers to as the law of Christ, i.e., the new covenant, but rather the ritual law. This could not be said if the ritual law were as binding as the moral law.

Likewise, in his statement to Peter in Galatians 2:14, "“If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?” Obviously, in the context, he says this to Peter because Peter is not observing the ritual law unless he is around Jews.

When speaking of the change in the priesthood, the author of Hebrews writes, For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well" (7:12). The new covenant does not have the same ritual laws that the old covenant has. 

Hence, Paul can argue against Jewish mystics who are demanding the ritual law be observed, "Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. (Col 2:16-17). 

And

One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. (Rom 14:5-10).

Instead, Jesus breaks the Sabbath by working on it. His disciples break the Sabbath by working on it. The priests break the Sabbath by working on it. Yet, they are all innocent because they broke no moral law by doing so.

A Tale of Two Masculinities

I always loved Christmas because it was one of the only times a year that I would get a new Star Wars toy. I remember one Christmas my parents had bought me some cheap space toy knockoff that wasn't Star Wars because they just thought I was into space toys in general. But as any Star Wars fan knows, there is no substitute for the real thing. There is Star Wars and there is everything else that wants to be Star Wars but isn't. Suffice to say, it wasn't a good Christmas in the mind of a five-year-old.

We have many cheap knockoffs in our culture when it comes to masculinity. Our culture has been recently infatuated with the question, "What is a woman?" In many ways, this question is not as important as its counterpart, which is, "What is a man?" If we can get that question down, the other will become clear. 

But before we can answer the question, "What is a man?" I want to explore how we make our version of men in our culture and why this is primarily the problem.

In the ancient and biblical world, men are a product of the nurture of their families until marriage. They learn responsibility in their father's family until that responsibility is transferred over to their new family. This is the reason a man leaves his father and mother, to cleave to his wife and begin a new branch of his father's household. Sometimes he doesn't leave at all but incorporates his new family into the responsibilities of the former.

Hence, he moves from family responsibilities to family responsibilities. Manhood is a role of familial responsibility, or as the ancient world would put it, love/devotion. He has sacrificed his time, energy, resources, desires, etc. for the sake of his father's family and now goes directly into that same role in his new family where he sacrifices his time, energy, resources, desires, etc. for the good of that family. Manhood is sacrificial responsibility.

This is what the Bible describes when speaking of the husband's role with his wife, but it should be extended to the larger family as well. He is the one who must provide and protect in the sacrifice of anything else he might want to do instead. He must learn from his father's family how to do that in order that he might teach his own sons to do the same, not only in word but in demonstrating it day by day.

Our culture, however, does something that completely derails this by having the son leave the home and enter into a period of "freedom." This is seen as a rite of passage. He is let loose to party. He is let loose to do whatever he was not allowed to do in his father's home. Now, he can make drinking his escape, be sexually indulgent, participate in lude conversations, etc. This is his break from responsibility if, in fact, he even had it at all in the modern family. 

Now, some people bounce back from this. They realize that this isn't what being a man really is. Being a man isn't freedom from responsibility and acting like a frat boy. It is the very opposite of that. Scripture tells us that being a mature man is a life of love and sacrifice. It is choosing to deny oneself what the world paints as freedom and joy in created things and calls us away to find our peace and joy in God and in the betterment of His people in their relationship with Christ. It is training up other men to be responsible, whether in your immediate family or in the church. 

Biblical masculinity chooses not to partake in the frat boy version of masculinity because it teaches men to glorify the party period of their lives and extend it into their families. I cannot count how many men I have known who neglect their families so that they can drink with the boys, end up committing adultery on their wives in one way or another, get into drugs, just spend the rest of their days in their child-like hobbies or donate their time to futility by watching countless hours of tv and surfing the internet on their phones. 

We have taught our men to escape, to abdicate, to spend their time in fruitless discussion, and to party; but we have failed to teach them that masculinity is taking responsibility for those in their families, to guard and protect children, to enter into discussions that edify young men and women, to engage in behaviors that communicate that Christ alone is our joy and peace and we need no created thing to be the idol of escapism because we are not trying to escape from the responsibility Christ has given to us. 

We show men how to submit by being in submission ourselves. We show men how to lead by leading as men lead, through the command of God's Word and not through the emotional manipulation of relationships. We act as fathers and not as frat boys. We show men how to run toward their families, to incorporate them into our lives, rather than how to find ways to avoid them.

Biblical masculinity is not how you take your alcohol or how many girls you can get. It isn't who wins in a debate on any topic that exists solely as a dominance contest, who wins at arm-wrestling or has the best stuff. But these are the things that have been ingrained into us as masculine because we learn that when one is grown up, he leaves his family and does these things. Freedom from responsibility, not taking on responsibility, is what we have subconsciously taught being a man is. 

There are of course its counterparts with women as well. Being a woman is the freedom to be a whore, get drunk, and do all of the unladylike things you're not supposed to do as a girl. But true womanhood is a life of submission to a man who is responsible for you and the family, and true manhood is taking upon the role of the one in that position of responsibility. 

If I am responsible for others, I will care about what they need to mature, not what I want to do in disregard of what they need. Applying that principle will lead down a path that many frat boys fear to tread because its applications will lead to the death of the frat boy's lifestyle. 

The culture I want to create in the church will be one of family, not individuality. A man off on his own is an individual and communicates that he is an island from his family. Instead, a biblical culture will emphasize the inclusion of family in our gatherings, the demonstration of responsibility in how wives and children are treated both inside and outside the home; and this will create an atmosphere of edifying conversations, a consumption of nothing but what the entire family should consume and partake in, and an elevation of Jesus Christ, along with the privilege of the responsibilities He has given us, as our joy and peace. 

The exclusion of family is repeating the same error of our culture. It elevates the freedom from family that our culture glorifies and is present in every broken marriage in our church. Yet, this very freedom creates eternal boys, not men.

In other words, there is no such thing as a man without the responsibility of family because there is no such thing as a man without him being a father. Manhood is fatherhood and all of the love and sacrifice that comes with it.

James Bond is our culture's masculine ideal, but he's a forever bachelor. John Wayne had three wives, having been divorced twice, and lived the type of masculinity that the frat boy would adore. But his masculinity wasn't biblical. Neither was the abdicating masculinity of the simp culture to follow. What I want to point out is that both of these supposedly contrasting masculinities are simply one and the same. They both abdicate in seemingly opposite ways but neither can claim the title of being truly masculine. 

If love is spiritual maturity as the Bible teaches, then he who loves the most is the most mature, and he who is most mature as a male is most masculine. Love is not some sappy feeling, it is not letting others indulge in whatever fancies them or having a gay old time with your buddies. It is sacrifice. It is edification. It is responsibility for the soul of the other. Anything less is a cheap knockoff. 

Part 2 of Gavin’s Discussion of Ken Ham and Genesis 1

 https://youtu.be/95B-NrAmS_U?si=ieCN8iG7f17H9pgv

The Interpretation of Genesis 1 and How Ken Ham Creates Unnecessary Divisions

 https://youtu.be/FL9t3O-1E7w?si=1_McBMy9z60yyZD8