Eikon: a Journal for Biblical Anthropology
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GROUNDS FOR DIVORCE: HUMANITY AS THE DIVINE RECOVERING FROM WHY I NOW BELIEVE THERE IMAGE IN GENESIS 1:26-28 BIBLICAL MANHOOD AND ARE MORE THAN TWO Peter Gentry WOMANHOOD Wayne Grudem Reviewed by Andrew Naselli A Journal for Biblical Anthropology VOLUME TWO Spring 2020 ISSUE ONE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF DENNY R. BURK, Professor of Biblical Studies, Boyce College EXECUTIVE EDITOR ANDREW T. WALKER, Associate Professor of Christian Ethics, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary MANAGING EDITOR COLIN J. SMOTHERS, Executive Director, Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood EDITORIAL DIRECTOR MATTHEW DAMICO BOOK REVIEW EDITOR JONATHAN SWAN EDITORIAL BOARD DANIEL AKIN, President and the Ed Young, Sr. Chair of Preaching, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary JASON DUESING, Provost and Associate Professor of Historical Theology, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary PURSUE J. LIGON DUNCAN, III, Chancellor/ Fully PURSUE CEO and the John E. Richards Professor Fully MINISTRY of Systematic and Historical Theology, Prepared. MINISTRY Reformed Theological Seminary Prepared. AT CEDARVILLE WAYNE GRUDEM, Distinguished Research AT CEDARVILLE Professor of Theology and Biblical Studies, For His UNIVERSITY. Phoenix Seminary For His UNIVERSITY. Purpose. RESIDENTIAL M.DIV. OR MIGUEL NUÑEZ, President, Ministerios Purpose. ONLINERESIDENTIAL M.MIN. M.DIV. OR Integridad & Sabiduría CONSERVATIVEONLINE M.MIN. THEOLOGY JEFF PURSWELL, Dean, Sovereign Grace Pastors College ACCELERATEDCONSERVATIVE THEOLOGY K. ERIK THOENNES, Chair of Biblical COMPLETIONACCELERATED OPTIONS and Theological Studies and Professor of COMPLETION OPTIONS Theology, Talbot School of Theology CEDARVILLE.EDU/ THOMAS WHITE, President and Professor CBMWCEDARVILLE.EDU/ of Systematic Theology, Cedarville University CBMW ISSUE ONE 13 4 THE “FRANTIC PASSION FOR 102 ON THE IMPORTANCE OF PURPLE” CONFESSIONAL THEOLOGICAL Michael Haykin EDUCATION Jason K. Allen 8 RECOVERING BAVINCK’S THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY BOOK REVIEWS: Contents Colin J. Smothers 109 RECOVERING FROM BIBLICAL 16 IN MEMORIAM: MANHOOD AND WOMANHOOD Issue 1 SIR ROGER SCRUTON Reviewed by Andy Naselli Paul Shakeshaft 152 THE CONSERVATIVE SENSIBILITY 25 WHAT DOES “ACT LIKE MEN” Reviewed by Jeremy J. Lloyd MEAN IN 1 CORINTHIANS 6:13? Denny Burk 158 THE MADNESS OF CROWDS: GENDER, RACE, AND IDENTITY 28 THE NEW GENDER GNOSTICS Reviewed by Samuel D. James Craig Carter 162 GENDER IDEOLOGY: WHAT DO 40 A NATURAL THEOLOGY OF THE CHRISTIANS NEED TO KNOW? SEXES Reviewed by Alex Tibbott Brad Littlejohn 166 GENDER ROLES AND THE 46 GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN THE PEOPLE OF GOD 2020 ELECTION Reviewed by Sam Emadi David Closson 171 FRESH LIGHT OR LESS LIGHT? 56 HUMANITY AS THE DIVINE ‘MEN AND WOMEN IN CHRIST' IMAGE IN GENESIS 1:26-28 Reviewed by Sharon James Peter J. Gentry 192 UNDERSTANDING 71 GROUNDS FOR DIVORCE: WHY I TRANSGENDER IDENTITIES NOW BELIEVE THERE ARE MORE Reviewed by Brianna Smith THAN TWO Wayne Grudem 80 ABORTION IN THE WORK AND WITNESS OF THE EARLY CHURCH Nathan Tarr 98 METHODISM AND THE COMING SCHISM Mark Tooley 2 ISSUE ONE 3 MICHAEL A.G. HAYKIN The Ancient Paths The “frantic passion MAKING ANCIENT TYRIAN PURPLE Purple was a highly prized color in the Old Testament world of the ancient Near East, where it was associated with for purple”: Ancient royalty and prestige and power.1 In part, purple was so highly valued because obtaining it entailed monumental Fashion, Snails, and the difficulties. According to the Roman scientist Pliny the Elder, who died in the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79, the best purple dye in the ancient Near East was Murex Bandaris Advance of the Gospel manufactured at the Phoenician city of Tyre.2 The raw material out of which this dye was manufactured was obtained from the glandular secretion — or tears, as the Christian commentator Isidore of Seville poetically put it3 — of a carnivorous sea snail, which contemporary science knows as the Murex bandaris. Somewhere around twelve thousand of these snails had to be harvested from the sea to produce merely When I took what was called Church what we put on our bodies? And even if 0.05 of an ounce of dye.4 A foul stench History I and Church History II in he was, how does that have any bearing emanated from the Phoenician factories 1974–1975, the normal year-long survey on the history of the church? manufacturing the dye, which were of church history given to first-year understandably placed on the outskirts ¹See, for example, Proverbs 31:22; theology students, I do not recall hearing Now, the answer to that first question is of the city. Tyrian purple, as it was Song of Solomon 3:9–10, 7:5; Daniel 5:7; Esther 8:15. anything about clothing and fashion. an easy one. Yes, ever since God clothed known, was literally worth more than its ²For the association of Tyre with purple dye, see 2 Chronicles 2:7. Yes, there was much about the “big” our first parents after the Fall, he has been weight in gold, and purple-dyed fabrics ³Nancy MacDonell, “Fashion with a names in church history — Athanasius interested in what we use to cover our commanded exorbitant prices. As Pliny past: The Path of Purple From Pliny to Prince,” The Wall Street Journal and Augustine, Anselm and Aquinas, nakedness (see, for example, 1 Tim. 2:9). noted of ancient fashion, “it adds radiance (Saturday/Sunday, January 4–5, 2020): D3. Luther and Calvin — but nothing about The answer to the second question is more to every garment,” and this led to what he ⁴Mark Woolmer, “Masters of the clothing. After all, surely God is not complex, as shown by the following mini- called a “frantic passion for purple” among Mediterranean: The Phoenicians,” National Geographic History (May/ really interested in what we wear and history of the color purple. the upper and middle classes of his world. June 2018): 17, 19. 4 ISSUE ONE 5 THE CHRISTIAN SELLER OF PURPLE (v. 14) — led to her baptism and to her encouraging Paul to use her home as a base "...the Lord used the wealth that Now, jump forward to one highly of mission in the city of Philippi. significant mention of this color of clothing in the New Testament. In Luke’s Book of If one reads through the Book of Acts, Lydia had obtained...to serve Acts, we read that when the Apostle Paul it is apparent that when Paul went with came to the city of Philippi in A.D. 49, the gospel to a new city, a key part of his he met a woman named Lydia, who was mission strategy was to find a place where Paul’s preaching and teaching originally from the city of Thyatira in the the churches that were founded through Roman province of Asia (modern-day the preaching of the gospel could meet Turkey). Ethnically, she was Greek, but she for distinctively Christian worship and about the Lord Christ." had come to believe that the Jewish Old fellowship. So it was that in Philippi, Testament contained the truth about God the Lord used the wealth that Lydia had and the world, and thus she regularly met obtained by the selling of purple clothing with a number of sincere Jewish women to to rich and elite women — women who pray and worship (Acts 16:14–15). had a “frantic passion for purple” — to serve Paul’s preaching and teaching about We are also told by Luke that she was “a the Lord Christ. dealer in purple” (v. 14), which meant that she either sold the dye, or, more likely, The God who so made the Murex bandaris sold purple-dyed clothing. Either way, that its glands contained the base for purple Michael A.G. Haykin is chair and she would have been a woman of wealth appears to have had a greater purpose in professor of church history at The and substance. Her regeneration by the mind than the making of a snail, wondrous Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Director of the Andrew Fuller Holy Spirit — “the Lord opened her heart” though that be! Center for Baptist Studies at Southern. 6 ISSUE ONE 7 COLIN J. SMOTHERS But that Bavinck was alive to see the state of and our world today. This distance strains the family today! Those of us used to tracing our modern egalitarian sensibilities, and the familial ills of twenty-first century their reasoning makes us uncomfortable America back to the sexual revolution may — especially when they speak about man be surprised by Bavinck’s assessment from vis-à-vis woman. the first decade of the twentieth century — a full half-century and an ocean away from MALE-FEMALE DISTINCTION the American ‘60s. Recovering Bavinck's Bavinck’s aim in The Christian Family Bavinck’s The Christian Family is one of is familial reformation according to the the best — it could be argued the best — Word of God. Where then does he begin? book-length apologies for the family in In the same place divine revelation begins: The Christian Family print today. It is not my intention here to “Scripture proceeds from the distinction summarize or even extensively review the between man and woman” (64). As a man careful and convincing argument Bavinck of biblical conviction, Bavinck pursues makes in The Christian Family. The book familial reformation in the same way as is short enough that you would be much Scripture. In this way, it is extraordinary better served to get a copy for yourself and noteworthy how prominent male- and read it in a sitting or two. Instead, female distinction is in The Christian my purpose is to highlight key themes Family — it is perhaps the most pervasive I see missing in today’s discourse on theme in the book. Throughout, Bavinck Imagine, if you will, a divinely- Bavinck wrote The Christian Family in a marriage and the family, and to provide extols male-female complementarity and designed institution perfectly tuned day animated with revolutionary spirits.