Sublime

For a wise articulation of this point, see Michael Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014).

Sin has entered the world and distorted how men and women relate to one another. Men transgress by turning their responsibility to lead into a privilege so that they tyrannically abuse their authority or abdicate their responsibility and descend into abject passivity. Women try to subvert male leadership by contesting their leadership or by

Sacred Scripture, taken as a whole, highlights three states of identity and relation between the sexes. There is the original order, described in the first two chapters of Genesis. In this order, sexual difference is understood and experienced as gift, as a source of fruitfulness and love. There is a dynamic balance between sameness and difference,

This is what our covenant is—a commitment of mutual trust. Leaders “go first,” so if any leader will not serve humbly, he forfeits the expectation that a church member under his authority will submit joyfully. That member may submit under fear or coercion, but that is not the submission we’re after. Leaders must lead, not push. Leaders must serve,

Don’t let the path of other people’s lives make you second-guess your own. There are millions of people, from all walks of life, who God wants to meet with His message of love. If you take Jesus to the people around you, and I take His love to the ones around me, we’ll cover a lot more ground.

This is a picture of Christ, and it’s fitting, because Christ, the older brother, offers Himself for the guilt of us, the younger brother.

In our thirst for deeply personal