In his book, ‘The Beauty of the Lord’, Jonathan King makes a wonderful case that Beauty can be properly identified as a synonym for the glory of God. The implication is that Beauty is a divine attribute. King mentions such passages as Psalm 27:4; 96:6; and 145:5,12 which portray images of the crown, kingdom, and sanctuary of the Lord. These passages directly link to the theological concepts of God’s sovereignty and the kingship of Christ. This connection between the glory of God and Beauty is important because it generates a category for us to objectively evaluate whether something is beautiful or ugly.

Technology shapes the character of our everyday lives. Without it, we would have great difficulty getting to work, having our morning cup of coffee, and reading this article. My problem with technology is not that we have it, but that we have allowed it to shape our lives in a way that we barely recognize. What I mean is that technology is no longer a means of Godly stewardship, but that it now establishes its own worldview. 
The technological worldview urges us to buy, build, trade, and relate with the world in a way that resembles a vending machine. I put x in and out comes y. For example, many people go to work not because they know that it will stimulate the economy by producing valuable goods and services, but rather because it will give them a paycheck. Perhaps another example: the contemporary evangelical scene sees people attending church either because of the spiritual experience or to manipulate God by doing their Christian duty. In an extreme example, one could think of the use of pornography in American culture. Such a phenomenon arises out of a technological impulse that demands ease of access to something that—in a God ordered society—takes time, commitment, and genuine relationship to obtain. 
In a word, the technological worldview is bland. It’s ugly; and it’s ugly for some very specific reasons. My point in this article is to show that the only antidote to the technological worldview is a return to the classical and protestant vision of Beauty. 
Art, Technology, and Idolatry
At the outset, I want to make it clear that when I am discussing technology, I do not necessarily mean technological tools. These are things that can be genuinely useful and fall in line with the biblical notion of stewardship. I readily admit that technological tools have a place in God’s world, but it is the worldview behind the creation of tools that we ought to question. 
As I mentioned above, the technological worldview is ugly and in light of statements about beauty and ugliness it’s appropriate to turn to the topic of art. While art can certainly ascend to true beauty, there is an inherent danger in the human pursuit and use of it. In fact, it is the dangerous temptation that art poses to humanity that has aided in the development of the technological worldview. Technology has emerged out of a desire to reach the highest of human potential. While this aspiration is not entirely bad—think of all the lovely devices that you and I use to our genuine benefit—it has also caused us to become extremely self-centered and goal oriented. 
It is for this reason that I have taken to calling the technological worldview “the idol of the self.” This idolatry arises in the sphere of art as well. In his work of public theology, Abraham Kuyper writes about art and its dominion over humanity. While he does not directly correlate his work on art with technology, a retrospective eye sees the point clearly. He argues that, 
The human race cannot exist without a king. Once it has closed its eyes to the glory of Jesus’ kingship, the presence of sin could mean only one thing: humanity would proclaim itself king over nature, the world, and all of human life…what sets the tone and acts as the instrument for the new enthroned-humanities dominion is art, and it is through art that modern life attempts to satisfy its thirst for the ideal.1
Here we can see that the sphere of art and the sphere of technology occupy the same space. They both seek to “satisfy the thirst for the ideal.” By observing Kuyper’s further remarks, we notice an even stronger correlation between the two. He writes, “What art and religion have in common is that they depend on inspiration.”2 Here, Kuyper exposits the defining feature of art, religion, and technology. Even though he does not mention technology, its origin and the arts’ have a strong correlation. 
Both technology and its devices are derived from inspiration. This claim is rather obvious in regard to devices as they require an inventive mind to create them, but technology’s inspiration may not be so clear. Technology, unlike its subsequent devices, relies on inspiration not as a process, but as a fountainhead. The technological worldview presupposes inspiration by inventors, scientists, and the like in order to fuel their creation of inspired art: their devices. Thus, technology is not a virtueless endeavor, as it rises from human creativity to taking the place of religion as the inspired worldview. 
Herein lies the root of the problem. The technological worldview is a form of idolatry. Art, technology, and religion always derive their inspiration from the divine, but that “does not mean that art—or technology—itself acknowledges and recognizes this circumstance.” In its purest form, the quest for technological tools is not an unworthy pursuit in the realm of God’s created order. However, as Craig Gay notes in his work on Christian interaction with technology, it is an abandonment of the Christian worldview that drove the technological worldview into its idolized position.3 
When the technological worldview takes root in a society, it takes on the role of divinity. No longer is technological progress achieved in light of God’s inspiration, but technology itself becomes the inspiration for human creativity. In The Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin writes, “whenever scripture asserts the unity of God, it does not contend for a mere name, but also enjoins that nothing which belongs to divinity be applied to any other.”4 In North America, the technological worldview is widely assumed and left unquestioned. The problem with this disposition is that it passively allows technology to take on the role of inspirator, where the bible attributes inspiration to God alone. It is, therefore, idolatrous. 
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We are two thousand years removed from being eye-witnesses to the crucifixion of Christ, to the breaking of His body and spilling of His blood to wash away our sins. Yet we still come each week to this spiritual manna as a means of tasting and seeing the goodness of God in the sacrifice of His only Son. Even as it sets our eyes upon Christ’s once for all sacrifice, it also gives us the opportunity to present ourselves as living sacrifices, laying down ourselves and taking up Christ as take of the bread and cup.

Exodus 18 is a positive unfolding of chapter 17. Exodus 17 began with Israel quarreling with Moses, placing God on trial, and God Himself taking Israel’s rightful judgment. It then ended with a nation of Gentiles attacking the weak and weary Israel. Exodus 18 is the reverse. In this first half, we begin with Jethro, an upright Gentile, hearing the good news of Yahweh’s deliverance of Israel and believing. The chapter will then conclude with the LORD using Jethro to instruct Moses in how to properly judge the people.
As for our present text, this family reunion of Moses and Jethro is filled to the brim with implications for how we ought to proclaim the gospel and what a proper response to the gospel looks like.
Reunited // Verses 1-7
Our text opens with the reintroduction Jethro, whom the text makes abundantly clear was Moses’ father-in-law. Verse 1 states that Jethro “heard of all that God had done for Moses and for Israel his people, how the LORD had brought Israel out of Egypt.” Jethro probably heard of these things through the merchants and travelers coming from Egypt. We must, of course, remember that the ten plagues likely took place over a span of several months rather than the couple of weeks that we subconsciously tend to imagine. Thus, Jethro was likely learning about everything that was happening only a week or so after each event.
Furthermore, verse 2 tells us that Moses had sent Zipporah and his two sons back to Jethro’s house at some point. The majority of commentators seem to think that Moses sent his family away before actually arriving in Egypt or perhaps after Pharaoh’s first refusal in chapter 5. Some even believe that Moses had divorced Zipporah by sending his family away to Jethro’s house, but the arguments for such a thought are not at all compelling. While the text simply does not tell us when or why Moses sent his wife and sons back to Jethro, I tend to think alongside Calvin that he did so whenever Israel came into the wilderness. Perhaps Moses even sent them with the intent of Jethro coming to see him, since Moses clearly had a great respect for his father-in-law.
Verses 3-4 interestingly repeat to us the names of Moses’ two sons and their meanings, though previously only Gershom was named back in chapter 2. Gershom, which sounds like the Hebrew word for sojourner, was named during Moses’ new life in the wilderness of Midian, where he was separated from both Israel and Egypt, the peoples which were his home. Eliezer means God is my help, for Moses said, “The God of my father was my help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh.” Eliezer’s name was a testimony from Moses that God had delivered him from Pharaoh’s desire to have him put to death for murdering the Egyptian. Indeed, even after living in Midian for forty years, Moses still clearly feared the sword of Pharaoh since God specifically told him in 4:19 that “all the men who were seeking your life are dead.”
But while Moses named his sons as a testament of God’s providence over his own life, I believe they are repeated here to help us see God’s providence over all of Israel through his servant Moses. Israel as a nation sojourned in Egypt for more than four hundred years, and they were brought out by the unilateral help of the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Jethro’s coming to Moses at the mountain of God likely means that Israel was still camped at Rephidim, which was evidently near Horeb/Sinai but not yet at the base of the mountain. It is possible that Jethro sent word to Moses of his coming in order to give proper homage to Moses, for as Stuart notes:
Indeed, it can be argued that Jethro was actually using the presence of Zipporah and the boys to ensure his own acceptance by Moses, whom he now encountered not as an escaped Egyptian alone but as the leader of a great nation of people that had just distinguished itself by beating the Amalekites in war, something Jethro and his Midianites could not expect to do.[1]
This is not so difficult to imagine, especially if Jethro was in fact scraping for every report he could find of Moses and his doings in Egypt. Recall that 12:3 said that after the first nine plagues, “the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s servants and in the sight of the people.” So, before the night of the exodus, Moses was more respected by the Egyptians than Pharaoh himself, making Moses more popular than the most powerful man in the world. Such status can easily change a person for the worse. Thus, Jethro would not be a fool to wonder if Moses was still the meek sojourner that shepherded his flock for four decades.
Thankfully, Jethro had nothing to fear. In Numbers 12:3, Moses himself tells us, “Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all the people who were on the face of the earth.” Since the Holy Spirit inspired Moses to write those words, we gladly affirm that they are true, and indeed they must be. To be able to write about how meek you are without taking pride in your meekness is meek indeed! Though Moses was the quite literally the most powerful man in the world, most significantly because he was the instrument of the Almighty Creator but from a worldly vision also because he overthrew Pharaoh, he “went out to meet his father-in-law and bowed down and kissed him.” Moses did not send servants out to greet Jethro and then aim to impress him with his power and prestige. No, Moses went out himself and gave great respect to his father-in-law.
Such genuine display of humility and love is what made Moses the great man of God and leader of Israel that he was. Indeed, it is the same sort of meekness and humility that Jesus continuously and perfectly displayed. Moses was displaying the mindset of Christ, which Paul described in Philippians 2:3: “Do nothing from selfish ambition, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.”
Proclaiming the Gospel // Verse 8
After Moses and Jethro asked each other about their welfare, they entered Moses’ tent and began to talk. What did they talk about? Then Moses told his father-in-law all that the LORD had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, all the hardship that had come upon them in the way, and how the LORD had delivered them. Although Jethro had already heard the news about the exodus and the plagues, now he heard it from the horse’s mouth. Now Moses himself recounted everything that God had done. He shared his testimony with Jethro, that is, he told him the good news of how the LORD rescued Israel.
Take note of the three parts to this verse. First, Moses told Jethro of all that the LORD did to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians. This meant that Moses told his father-in-law the account of the plagues and Israel’s exodus from Egypt. Second, he told Jethro about their hardships along the way.
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The most important exhortation in complementarianism is not for women to sit down, but for men to stand up. That is the most important exhortation: for men to act like men; for their eager posture that we see hints of already here in the garden—that the man and the woman are created with a unique design: to be a helper, to be a leader.

I’m here to talk about the beauty of complementarianism. I’m going to take it for granted that at the Gospel Coalition National Conference, that there is more or less a shared understanding that complementarianism is a good thing. It may not be a shared understanding when it comes to the particulars of what that looks like in the church or in the home, but I’m going to take it as a shared understanding that this is a talk and a conversation among friends—among people who recognize that God has made men and women, and He’s made men and women differently, and He’s given to them different roles and functions to fulfill within the church and in the home. Hopefully that much we can agree on, and if we agree on that much that’s an awful lot.
I’m also going to take it as a base-level sort of assumption that part of being complementarians is an understanding that men—qualified, gifted, called men—are to be in the ordained leadership of the church, in particular as pastors and elders (perhaps there’s differences among us on the role of deacons or deaconesses). But what I want to help us to see from the Scriptures, I hope, is that biblical manhood and womanhood—though it is that—is more than that. Some people have begun to use the language of “narrow” or “broad” complementarianism. A narrow complementarianism might say that, “Yes, we see that there are differences between men and women, but those are rather narrowly constrained and confined; and the husband is to be the head of the household from Ephesians 5, and that women ought not to be elders and pastors from 1 Timothy chapter 2. Beyond that and beyond the specific realms of those leadership dynamics within the house and within the church, there isn’t much else that we dare to say.” That would be a narrow complementarianism. A broad complementarianism would be one that says, “While those things are true and fundamentally true and perhaps fundamentally clear, there are other things in Scripture which indicate to us that being a man and being a woman cannot be simply defined according to a few rules in the church and in the home. In other words, there is a broader conception of what God means when He creates us as male and female.”
I want to argue for the second of those categories. Not an infinite (there are stereotypes that we want to avoid—and I’ll talk about those along the way), but for a broad complementarianism that says God created man—male and female—in the garden; He created it good; He created them good; and He created them uniquely, that they might show forth the image of God. And part of that is to show forth the image of God in their differences.
Explaining Men and Women to Boys and Girls
I have eight kids. I’m amazed he got their names right—most days I don’t remember all of their names. I have five boys and I have three girls, and they are different—different in the sort of ways that you might imagine. These stereotypes aren’t always true, but stereotypes are there for a reason sometimes because they often are true. I have a son who sleeps with a small arsenal of knives and weapons under his pillow at night. If I ever have to move him or move his pillow, it makes a loud clunking metallic sound. Like good parents, we just let him have Swiss army knives in his pillow case under his bed. He has airsoft guns—not loaded (we’re good parents); various weapons in case bad guys would come into the house; he’s ready to do them serious harm.
And we have daughters, and they love many of the things that girls love to play with; and they are the people we hope will be taking care of us when we’re old. One time, not too long ago, we were in the car driving and I, with my wife, turned around and I just said, “Kids, who’s going to take care of your mom and dad when we’re old?” And without a beat, Jacob said, “Elsie will.” Very helpful. Probably that would be a better bet, that she might do a good job.
As they get older—they’re now ages three months through 15 years old—they keep doing new things, trying new things, learning new things, hearing new words, wondering what they mean; they have questions—lots of questions. And here is the central question that I want us to consider in our next 40 minutes together: What would you say—to an aunt or an uncle, or a mom or a dad—what would you say if your little boy says, “Daddy, what does it mean to be a man?” What would you say if your little girl comes up to you: “Mommy, Mommy! What does it mean to be a woman?” Hopefully we would have something more to say than, “You’re a boy: you can be a pastor.” What else might we say? Hopefully, you would say more than, “Well, nothing,” or “It’s simply a construct,” or “It means nothing at all, it’s whatever you want it to be.”
Now here’s what we should start by saying: “The first thing you need to know—son, daughter—is that you were made in the image of God. You are meant to show what God is like in the world; to be His little living image icon, representing Him, living like Him, speaking of Him, pointing to Him. That’s true for all boys and girls as they grow up into men and women.” And then I’d want to say to my son or daughter, “The next thing you need to realize is that you belong to Christ, and there are benefits of Christ and our position in Christ, and we want to grow into the person that we are in Christ.” In other words, I’d want to start with my son or daughter with these two doctrinal foundations in place: the image of God and our union with Christ. And actually, well before this point in my speech, my kids would be punching each other and they would be grabbing for Skittles or running out the door—so don’t think that any speech actually goes like that in my house. The kids know it often happens in the car or around the dinner table, I’ll say “Everyone quiet down, I have a Dad speech.” “Oh, a Dad speech again?” I give good Dad speeches. They don’t make it through, but they have good intent.
After attempting to lay these foundations—and you see what I’m doing there? Before we talk about what it means to be a man or a woman, and how those things are different, we do need to indicate how they are wonderfully the same. There is a sameness, in that we’re both made in the image of God called to bear forth that image in the world; and, if believers, we have union with Christ, growing into our fellowship with Christ. That’s what we want people to hear, whether you are a little boy or a little girl. But if they were still able to listen, I would want to talk to them about five categories: five ways men and women are different according to God’s good design. And I worked really hard to try to get these five points in some sort of mechanism whereby you can understand them, so A, B, C, D, and E. Pretty good.
A: “appearance”;
B: “body”;
C: “character”;
D: “demeanor”;
and E: (I had to cheat a little bit) “eager posture”.
Appearance, body, character, demeanor, eager posture—A, B, C, D, E.
Eager Posture
Rather than taking them in alphabetical order however, I want to take them in the order as they are revealed to us in Scripture, and that means we start with the E: “eager posture.” “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man shall be alone. I will make a helper fit for him” [Gen. 2:18]. A helper: this is, as we know, not a demeaning role to be a helper. Yahweh is often described as the helper of His people in the Old Testament, so to be a helper does not imply inferiority. But by design, according to the order of creation, the woman is to help her husband. That is her eager posture. And the man’s posture is to lead. We see that he was created first. We see in verses 19 and 20, he was charged with naming the animals. We see in verses 16 and 17, he was given the probationary command. And we see that—even though the record in Genesis 3 is that Eve took of the fruit and then gave some to her husband to eat—in Romans chapter 5, who is held responsible for that first sin? It’s a sin in Adam. So, we see Adam is the one held responsible for the transgression. 1 Corinthians 11:3: “The head of the wife is her husband.”
I use the word “posture” deliberately. Look, I know that the passage (verse 18 in particular) is talking about Eve—who will be the [wife] of Adam; and I’m speaking more broadly about the roles of men and women in biblical manhood and womanhood—but, the text that we see, especially related to the man, not all of them [are] specifically about his relationship to Eve, but rather about his posture as one who is given to be a leader.
Posture—think about posture. I use the word intentionally. You can slouch; you can sit very upright; you can be casual; you can be prim and proper; you can be formal. I use the word “posture” because we’re not talking here about an inflexible office, but rather an eager posture. It would be wrong—it would be sinful—for a husband to say to his wife, “You’re the helper; I don’t help you.” No, that would be wrong. This is not the same in every situation; it does not mean that men lead to the exclusion of helping; or the women help and they never are able to exercise leadership. We’re talking about what you are intentional to find and eager to accept. The wife is willing to be led, and the husband is eager to take the sacrificial initiative to lead. This has more to do, I think, with what men ought to be doing than what women should not be doing. The most important exhortation in complementarianism is not for women to sit down, but for men to stand up. That is the most important exhortation: for men to act like men; for their eager posture that we see hints of already here in the garden—that the man and the woman are created with a unique design: to be a helper, to be a leader.
Body
Second, then: “body”. So, A, B, C, D, E, but we’re moving out of order as we go through Scripture. Eager posture, and then body. The text I have here I’ll just read it to you. Leviticus 18:22: “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination.” “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman”—that’s Leviticus 18. In Leviticus chapter 20, it gives a similar prohibition; and in 1 Corinthians 6 and then in 1 Timothy 1, Paul—in making the prohibition against homosexuality—uses this word “arsenokoitês,” “arsenokoitês.” And all the scholars agree that this is the first time the word has been used; Paul made up a word. It’s harder to know what it means when Paul made it up, but it’s actually quite clear what it means because Paul—being steeped in the Old Testament—was clearly drawing from Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20, which if you could read in the Septuagint—that’s the Greek translation that Paul would’ve been familiar with—it uses those two words: “arsen,” meaning “man;” “koitai” meaning “bed” or “to take someone to bed.” The man shall not bed a man as he would a woman—that’s the prohibition [in] Leviticus 18 and 20, and that’s the word that then Paul puts together in 1 Timothy 1 and in 1 Corinthians 6.
The world says orientation is more essential than gender. The world says gender is a construct, and actions should correspond to our self-authenticated desires. The Bible suggests that gender carries with it its own oughtness; and that actions should correspond to divinely created identity. So, Paul takes “arsen” and “koitai” to say what Leviticus 18 and 20 said—namely, that as a man you have a body, and that body is uniquely fit together—this one flesh union—with a woman. It is not designed to be fit together in a one-flesh union with another man. There is an oughtness to gender; there is an oughtness to the body that you have been given by God.
I just gave a faculty forum at RTS last week, and I was going through this very fascinating book by Kyle Harper. He’s a professor at the University of Oklahoma. I don’t even know what his religious affiliation is, if any, but it’s on the sexual transformation from late-Roman antiquity into the Christian era. And if that doesn’t get you, I don’t know what will. But it’s fascinating, and one of the points that he makes—and his understanding of ancient Roman sources is phenomenal—but one of the transformations that took place is that in the Roman sexual economy, sexual deviance was a matter of social standing. That is, at the top of the social hierarchy were free Roman males. And yes—marriage was important; and yes—you were not to commit adultery with another married woman, or a free married woman. But it was understood in the Roman sexual economy that men needed to have sexual outlets. And so, for a man in his early years to have sex with prostitutes was not considered any sort of deviance; he can still be considered a virgin; for a man to have sex with prostitutes or with slaves, even as a married man, because it was considered a lower social status.
Very often, Roman men might have sex with young boys, called “pederasty.” It wasn’t a matter of orientation; it was a matter of—they thought—sexual overflow and needing an outlet for this desire.
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