Can Christians Use the Language of Masculinity and Femininity at All?
Yes, but with considerable care—because masculinity and femininity are low-definition cultural scripts rather than prescriptive theological categories, and the more precise biblical language is the language of discipleship: faithfulness, love, wisdom, and obedience.
Does Jesus Exhibit Masculine Characteristics, or Faithful Ones?
Jesus exhibits faithful ones. His mission-focus, boldness, sacrificial love, and obedience unto death are human virtues on display in a man's life—and labeling them "masculine" risks restricting to male disciples what Scripture calls every disciple to imitate.
Does the Bible even speak about abortion?
Abortion is not addressed directly in the Old or New Testaments, but several passages bear on the question of life in the womb. References to babies in the womb in Genesis 25:22 and Luke 1:41 suggest that prenatal life acts and responds to external stimuli, and other texts point to God’s personal knowledge of individuals before birth. The Bible does not offer a single proof text but provides a theological framework that shapes Christian convictions about when and how life begins.
Does the Bible Have a Theology of Masculinity?
No—not in any straightforward sense. Scripture has a great deal to say about men in their specific roles (husbands, fathers, elders, kings), but it does not organize its teaching around the category of masculinity; its evaluative standard for male characters is not "is he masculine?" but "is he faithful?"
How Does a Theological Disposition Form Differently Than a Set of Beliefs?
A theological disposition is the pre-reflective, instinctual sense that the Triune God is infinitely more relevant than any other actor or factor—and it forms differently than beliefs do. Beliefs operate at the level of deliberation and can be listed; a disposition operates beneath deliberation, shaping what the disciple does before he has time to think. Formation requires long participation in embodied communal practices, not only instruction in correct propositions.
How Does Disciplined Inquiry Hold Together the Four Ways of Knowing?
Disciplined inquiry is the fourth pillar of the Thinking Christian Framework, organized by the Quad: four questions drawn from four ways of knowing that train Christians to think well about specific claims and arguments. Most disciples treat discernment as a purely propositional procedure, but knowing-that is only one of four modes—alongside knowing-how, knowing-from-a-point-of-view, and knowing-by-being. The Quad holds all four together so that discernment engages the full range of what is actually happening in any situation.
How Does Jesus's Authority Relate to His Sex?
Jesus's authority comes from the Father and is rooted in his identity as the Son, not in his biological sex. His maleness is coincidental to the authority he received—not its basis—and his authority is offered as a model for the whole church, not a masculine subset of it.
Is discipleship an optional part of salvation?
Discipleship is not a second-stage option for the especially devoted. The separation of conversion from discipleship is a theological and structural problem that produces Christians who believe a set of propositions without being formed into the people Christ's authority requires.
Is Jesus the Paragon of Masculinity or the Paragon of Humanity?
Jesus is the paragon of humanity, not masculinity. His life, death, and resurrection reveal what a human being surrendered to God looks like—and categorizing his characteristics as specifically "masculine" creates the incoherent implication that women imitating Christ are imitating across a gender divide.
Should Christians Celebrate the Ten Commandments in Louisiana Classrooms?
Christians should be slow to celebrate state-mandated Ten Commandments displays because political institutions tend to flatten “God” into a generic civic deity and absorb biblical material into American civil religion. The result produces good citizens rather than disciples of Christ, confusing wholesomeness for holiness. Being inspired by the Bible is fundamentally different from living under its authority, and Christians should not mistake one for the other.
What Do 1 Timothy 6:1 and Titus 2:5 Teach About Christian Public Conduct?
Both passages warn that Christians' conduct can cause God's name and teaching to be slandered, establishing the principle that faithful witness is shaped through everyday conduct—and that winning a political battle at the cost of the gospel's credibility is a trade Christians cannot afford to make.
What Do Jacob, Esau, and David Tell Us About Biblical Masculinity?
They tell us Scripture is not particularly interested in masculinity as a category. Esau was the hairy hunter and Jacob the smooth tent-dweller, but the covenant narrative commends neither as “manlier”; David played the lyre and killed Goliath, but the text treats both as theological signs, not as a balanced masculine ideal.
What Does Genesis 6 Teach about Boundary Crossing?
Genesis 6:1–4 teaches that human rebellion is not only a matter of breaking moral rules but of transgressing the boundaries by which God ordered creation. The flood narrative shows that erasing God-established distinctions produces disorder severe enough to require divine de-creation. Boundary-crossing is not merely an ethical failure but a structural assault on the order God built into reality.
What Does Hebrews 11 Reveal About Male and Female Faithfulness?
Hebrews 11’s “hall of faith” evaluates men and women by the same standard—faith under difficulty—offering Abel, Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Rahab, and Gideon as models to the same audience, which undermines the idea that faithfulness looks fundamentally different for men and women.
What Does Jesus's Maleness Actually Tell Us About Discipleship?
Jesus's maleness tells us that the incarnation was particular—God became flesh as a specific first-century Jewish man—but it does not tell us that the characteristics he exhibited were specifically masculine. Being male is not the same as conforming to a cultural script of masculinity.
What Does Paul Mean by “Act Like Men” in 1 Corinthians 16:13?
Paul’s imperative andrizesthe (“act like men” / “be courageous”) is addressed to the entire Corinthian congregation, not just its male members, and in context it calls the whole church to maturity—contrasted with the Corinthians’ recurring childishness—not to a gender-specific masculine virtue.
What does the Bible have to say about the church and the state?
The political realm is a “secondary theater of witness” to God’s glory, and God establishes governing authorities even when they do not recognize his sovereignty. Christians honor governing authorities within the broader hierarchy in which God remains sovereign, following Peter’s call to honor the emperor while fearing God above him. The church’s commission and the state’s authority are distinct, and Christians must refuse to collapse one into the other.
What Does the Incarnation Teach Christians about Technology?
The Incarnation teaches that technology cannot substitute for embodied, self-giving presence in the world. Christ’s incarnation was not merely about physical proximity but about the self-sacrificial posture that prompted it—a posture technology routinely allows us to bypass. Christians must resist the pull toward dis-incarnation, recognizing that digital presence is not the same as presence in the flesh.
What Does the Tower of Babel Teach Us About Technology?
The Tower of Babel narrative depicts a recurring human pattern: when human capacity is unrestrained and unguided by God’s word, it organizes itself toward unity, security, and ascent on its own terms—and that pattern is reenacted in every technological era, including ours.
What Is the Biblical Nature and Role of Government?
Governing authorities are institutions established by God and accountable to God (Romans 13; 1 Peter 2), tasked with maintaining order and justice by restraining wrongdoing and encouraging good—a necessary but limited role in a fallen world.
What Is the Biblical Nature and Role of Law?
Law provides the standards by which governing authorities preserve order and administer justice within society—establishing boundaries for allowable behavior, providing mechanisms for addressing wrongdoing, and at times pointing toward an ideal—but law can define boundaries without producing the disposition to stay within them.
What Is Theo-logic, and Why Does Relationship Shape Rationality?
Theo-logic is the third pillar of the Thinking Christian Framework—the conviction that obeying God is always the best option, and that this conviction governs how Christians reason. It is not the reasoning of autonomous individuals weighing options but of disciples who trust the God revealed in Scripture and supremely in Jesus Christ. Relationship precedes rationality: theo-logic begins from allegiance to the Triune God, not from neutral first principles.
What Role Does Biological Sex Play in the New Testament’s Vision of Discipleship?
Biological sex is real and theologically significant in the New Testament—it shapes how we inhabit specific relationships and vocations—but it is not the governing framework for discipleship; sex conditions the form discipleship takes without replacing discipleship as the organizing category.
Why do Christians hold inconsistent views about life? What about the death penalty?
Abortion and the death penalty are separate yet interrelated questions that both touch on the sanctity of life but are not equivalent. Whereas abortion ends an innocent life as a private act, the death penalty is a state-authorized act within the governing authority God establishes—a distinction Scripture draws carefully in texts like Romans 13. Christians can hold coherent, if differentiated, positions on both by attending to these distinctions rather than applying a single principle mechanically.
Why do Christians only follow some of the Bible’s commandments and not others?
The Old Testament is Christian scripture—not outdated or irrelevant—but understanding how to apply its laws requires attending to how Christ fulfills and reorganizes them in the new covenant. Just because the Old Testament is the word of God does not mean its specific legislation applies to Christians in the same way it applied to ancient Israel. Christians must engage the whole canon with theological care, neither dismissing the Old Testament nor applying it as though nothing has changed.
Why Does the Great Commission Begin with Christ’s Authority Rather Than with Our Evangelistic Effort?
The “therefore” of Matthew 28:19 is load-bearing. Jesus’s claim to all authority precedes the command to make disciples, which means the church’s mission isn’t a strategy we undertake but the extension of a reign already in place.
Why is observing all Christ commanded a New Covenant reality rather than a return to law-keeping?
The New Covenant doesn't replace obedience with belief. It replaces an external law written on stone with an internal capacity for obedience given by the Spirit. Observing Christ's commands isn't works-righteousness. It is what life under the New Covenant looks like.
Why Should Christians Be Leery of Displaying the Ten Commandments in Schools?
Not because the desire to honor Scripture publicly is wrong, but because political institutions consistently strip biblical texts of their specificity—rendering the Triune God as a generic higher power, producing good citizens rather than disciples, and accelerating ACR’s substitution of civic morality for Christian confession.