Thinking Theologically About Racial Tensions (Series)
After many hours of editing, and with many thanks to our communications staff at the church, I’m able to post as a single PDF the five articles on racial tensions I wrote over the summer. The document contains the four articles on “Thinking Theologically about Racial Tensions” and the one article about race and American history.
- Introduction (Part 1)
- Image of God (Part 2)
- Sin and Guilt (Part 3)
- Life Together in the Church (Part 4)
- Addendum: With Liberty and Justice for All
As I said in the first article:
As Christians, we should always be eager to reason carefully and winsomely from God’s Word. While I don’t believe every controversial issue surrounding race in this country is theological in nature, I do believe that every culture-wide conflict is bound to have a number of theological issues at its core. The issues in the early church may have looked like practical disagreements about meals and food and ceremonies, but the apostle Paul saw in them the most important issues of the gospel. Paul always brought his best theology to bear on the most intractable problems facing his people. We ought to do the same.
The issues are just as relevant as they were a month or two ago and will likely continue to be relevant for the foreseeable future. Hopefully, by having the series in one printable document, Christians and churches may be better able to read through the series and share it with others (whether everyone agrees with all of it or not).
You can download the PDF here.
Kevin DeYoung (PhD, University of Leicester) is senior pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, Council member of The Gospel Coalition, and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte). He has written numerous books, including Just Do Something. Kevin and his wife, Trisha, have nine children: Ian, Jacob, Elizabeth, Paul, Mary, Benjamin, Tabitha, Andrew, and Susannah.
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God’s Good Gift in Making us Men and Women
Is there any one aspect of human life that has affected every other aspect of human life more than being male or female?
While my life is certainly not reducible to being a man, everything about my life is shaped by the fact that I am male, not female. My wife’s whole life is shaped by being a woman and not a man. Each of my nine children (yes, we wanted to start our own baseball team) are undeniably and monumentally shaped by being boys or girls. And yet how often do we stop to think that it didn’t have to be this way?
God didn’t have to make two different kinds of human beings. He didn’t have to make us so that men and women, on average, come in different shapes and sizes and grow hair in different places and often think and feel in different ways. God could have propagated the human race in some other way besides the differentiated pair of male and female. He could have made Adam sufficient without an Eve. Or he could have made Eve without an Adam. But God decided to make not one man or one woman, or a group of men or a group of women; he made a man and a woman. The one feature of human existence that shapes life as much or more than any other—our biological sex—was God’s choice.
In an ultimate sense, of course, the world had to be made the way it was, in accordance with the immutable will of God and as a necessary expression of his character. I’m not suggesting God made Adam and Eve by a roll of the dice. Actually, I’m reminding us of the opposite. This whole wonderful, beautiful, complicated business of a two-sexed humanity was God’s idea. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27). The whole human race is, always has been, and will be for the rest of time, comprised of two differentiated and complementary sexes. This perpetual bifurcated ordering of humanity is not by accident or by caprice but by God’s good design.
And why?
What is at stake in God making us male and female? Nothing less than the gospel, that’s all. The mystery of marriage is profound, Paul says, and it refers to Christ and the church (Eph. 5:32). “Mystery” in the New Testament sense refers to something hidden and then revealed. The Bible is saying that God created men and women—two different sexes—so that he might paint a living picture of the differentiated and complementary union of Christ and the church. Ephesians 5 may be about marriage, but we can’t make sense of the underlying logic unless we note God’s intentions in creating marriage as a gospel-shaped union between a differentiated and complementary pair. Any move to abolish all distinctions between men and women is a move (whether intentionally or not) to tear down the building blocks of redemption itself.
Men and women are not interchangeable. The man and the woman—in marriage especially, but in the rest of life as well—complement each other, meaning they are supposed to function according to a divine fitted-ness. This is in keeping with the ordering of the entire cosmos. Think about the complementary nature of creation itself. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). And that’s not the only pairing in creation. We find other sorts of couples, like the sun and the moon, morning and evening, day and night, the sea and the dry land, and plants and animals, before reaching the climactic couple, a man and a woman. In every pairing, each part belongs with the other, but neither is interchangeable. It makes perfect sense that the coming together of heaven and earth in Revelation 21–22 is preceded by the marriage supper of the Lamb in Revelation 19. That God created us male and female has cosmic and enduring significance. From start to finish, the biblical storyline—and design of creation itself—depends upon the distinction between male and female as different from one another yet fitted each for the other.
Sexual difference is the way of God’s wisdom and grace. It was there in the garden, there in the life of ancient Israel, there in the Gospels, there in the early church, will be there at the wedding supper of the Lamb, and was there in the mind of God before any of this began. To be sure, manhood and womanhood is not the message of the gospel. But it is never far from the storyline of redemptive history. The givenness of being male or female is also a gift—a gift to embrace, a natural order of fittedness and function that embodies the way the world is supposed to work and the way we ought to follow Christ in the world. Let us, then, as male and female image bearers, delight in this design and seek to promote—with our lives and with our lips—all that is good and true and beautiful in God making us men and women.
This article is adapted from the opening chapter and closing section of my new book, Men and Women in the Church: A Short, Biblical, Practical Introduction published by Crossway.Kevin DeYoung (PhD, University of Leicester) is senior pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, Council member of The Gospel Coalition, and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte). He has written numerous books, including Just Do Something. Kevin and his wife, Trisha, have nine children: Ian, Jacob, Elizabeth, Paul, Mary, Benjamin, Tabitha, Andrew, and Susannah.
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Life and Books and Everything, Season 2
I can think of a lot of reasons why I’m sick and tired of coronavirus (I’m not literally sick!). But if one good thing came out of the shutdown for me personally, it was starting up a podcast with my friends Justin Taylor and Collin Hansen.
After an initial run of ten episodes, we are back with a revamped second season. We’ve added a producer, sponsors, future guests, and a new look. If you are interested in hearing the three of us talk about Life and Books and Everything, visit this link or check us out on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
In Episode 1 of Season 2 we discuss our summer reading lists, how to balance the pursuit of safety and trust in God’s sovereignty, Grace Community Church’s decision to gather indoors for services in California, and whether the Big Ten should have canceled football? We are very pleased to have the first episode sponsored by Crossway. In particular, we want to highlight the book by Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers. It’s been getting rave reviews. Check it out.
Timestamps:
Introduction + Book Giveaway Announcement with Crossway [0:00 – 4:50]
Summer Reading [4:50 – 29:47]
Collin’s summer reading:
The Future of Christian Marriage by Mark Regnerus
Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide by Tony Horwitz
The Minutemen and Their World by Robert A. Gross
Lead: 12 Gospel Principles for Leadership in the Church by Paul David TrippJustin’s summer reading:
Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz
Redeeming the Great Emancipator by Allen C. Guelzo
Reconstruction: A Very Short Introduction by Allen C. Guelzo
Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War by Tony Horwitz
The Panic Virus: The True Story Behind the Vaccine-Autism Controversy by Seth MnookinKevin’s summer reading:
Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World by Laura Spinney
The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race In America by Shelby Steele
Manliness by Harvey C. Mansfield
Great Society: A New History by Amity ShlaesHow can we understand the balance between the pursuit of safety and absolute confidence in God’s sovereignty? [29:47 – 45:38]
Grace Community Church and their choice to gather indoors for services in California and the challenges facing churches in the pandemic [45:38 – 59:50]
Should the Big Ten have canceled? [59:50 – 1:11:40]Kevin DeYoung (PhD, University of Leicester) is senior pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, Council member of The Gospel Coalition, and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte). He has written numerous books, including Just Do Something. Kevin and his wife, Trisha, have nine children: Ian, Jacob, Elizabeth, Paul, Mary, Benjamin, Tabitha, Andrew, and Susannah.
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Life and Books and Everything: John Piper Talks Books
New year, new episode!
John Piper and I talk about the books that made him who he is. We explore the topics of purpose, retirement, leadership, ministry, and writing, and we dive into his forthcoming magnum opus on Providence.Books and More Books:
New Morning Mercies: A Daily Gospel Devotional, by Paul David Tripp (get 30% off)
Thinking God’s Thoughts: The Hermeneutics of Humility, by Daniel P. Fuller
The Unity of the Bible: Unfolding God’s Plan for Humanity, by Daniel P.Fuller
Freedom of the Will, by Jonathan Edwards
The End for Which God Created the World, by Jonathan Edwards
The Religious Affections, by Jonathan Edwards
Validity in Interpretation, by E.D. Hirsch
Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer, by C.S. Lewis
A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C.S. Lewis
The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, by John Owen, introduction by J.I.Packer
Communion with the Triune God, by John Owen
The Glory of Christ, by John Owen
How to Read a Book, by Mortimer Adler
Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, by John Piper
The Religious Life of Theological Students, by Benjamin B. Warfield
The Christian Ministry, by Charles Bridges
The True Excellency of a Minister of the Gospel, by Jonathan Edwards
Lectures to My Students, by Charles Spurgeon, especially “The Minister’sFainting Fits” and “The Blind Eye and the Deaf Ear”
Preaching and Preachers by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Walking with the Giants, by Warren Wiersbe
Listening to the Giants, by Warren Wiersbe
Giant Steps, by Warren Wiersbe
Tony Reinke on modern technology
Reformed Dogmatics by Hermann Bavinck
Systematic Theology, by Wayne Grudem
21 Servants of Sovereign Joy: Faithful, Flawed, and Fruitful, by JohnPiper
Augustine of Hippo: A Biography, by Peter Brown
William Tyndale: A Biography, by David Danielle
Jonathan Edwards: A Life, George Marsden
Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography, by Iain Murray
To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson, by Courtney Anderson
Portrait of Calvin, by T.H.L. Parker
Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther, Roland Bainton
A Sacrifice of Praise: An Anthology of Christian Poetry in English from Caedmonto the Mid-Twentieth Century
The poetry of George Herbert
What Jesus Demands from the World, by John Piper
Desiring God, by John Piper
Spectacular Sins: And Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ, by John Piper
Providence, by John Piper (Pre-Order at Westminster Books)Kevin DeYoung (PhD, University of Leicester) is senior pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, Council member of The Gospel Coalition, and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte). He has written numerous books, including Just Do Something. Kevin and his wife, Trisha, have nine children: Ian, Jacob, Elizabeth, Paul, Mary, Benjamin, Tabitha, Andrew, and Susannah.