Birth Control: In Light of the “Appointed Time”

“Is anything too hard for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son.” – Gen 18:14
Almost any time the topic of birth control comes up amongst Christian couples it is often centered around the proper timing of pregnancy. In fact, the [...]

The Holiness of Changing Diapers…ala Martin Luther

“Now observe that when that clever harlot, our natural reason (which the pagans followed in trying to be most clever), takes a look at married life, she turns up her nose and says, “Alas, must I rock the baby, wash its diapers, make its bed, smell its stench, stay up nights with it, take care [...]

Only the Sick need a Physician: Contraception and the Purpose of Medicine

Jesus told the Pharisees in Matthew 9:12, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” It was a stinging rebuke to the self-righteous laymen of Judaism, and a striking reminder of Christ’s purpose in coming to call, not the righteous, but sinners to repentance (v. 13). The parabolic [...]

The Straw-man of “Maximizing Children” in the Contraception Debate

“If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not satisfied with life’s good things, and he also has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he.” - (Ecc 6:3)

A “straw-man argument” is a logical fallacy [...]

Diluted Blessings: Our Deceptive Flesh and the Practice of “Family Planning”

“The blessing of the LORD makes rich, and he adds no sorrow with it.” – Proverbs 10:22
It does not take a fancy hermeneutic, nor a PhD in Biblical Ethics to understand this truth. Solomon teaches us in this verse that the blessings of the LORD are undiluted. What God calls a blessing is just that [...]

Albert Mohler Sermon Jam- “Living Dangerously”

From last year’s Southern Seminary convocation:

HT: Pursuing Holiness
That message inspired this post entitled, Living Dangerously…at Walgreens: What can our Purchases at a Pharmacy Tell us About our Theology?

Wartime Lifestyle

From DesiringGod.org:

Our Sins at Seminary (Part I)

(taken from two letters from John Angell James to his brother Thomas
James—on beginning his studies for the Christian ministry, circa 1811-1812)
“The subject of the present letter is to state the chief end and design with which you should enter on your preparatory studies, and the great importance of ever keeping that end in view.
It is [...]

The Complementarian Irony: How the Pill Burdens Women

Interestingly enough, if you marked the resurgence of the “natural family” among American Christians, I’m certain you would see it linked quite closely with a belief in complementarianism, which (as the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womenhood notes) is basically “that men and women are equal in the image of God, but maintain complementary differences [...]

Sexual Roulette: Contraception and the Nature of the Sex Act

After (ashamedly, I might add) allowing my subscription to Touchstone Magazine lapse for an issue, I received my first new issue this morning from the postman. Already it has showed itself again to be a resource well worth reading and wrestling with. Anthony Esolen, on behalf of the editorial staff at Touchstone, wrote a scathing [...]