Chad and Emily Van Dixhoorn speak about Gospel Shaped Marriage: Grace for Sinners to Love Like Saints (Crossway, 2022). While many books on marriage cover the same well-trod ground and even follow a common formula, this book is distinct. Drawing from Scripture and the writings of Puritan minister William Gouge, Augustine, and others, they provide a brief assessment of the biblical design for marriage and offer real-world advice on married life from a grace-filled perspective.

Chad Van Dixhoorn (PhD, Cambridge) is professor of church history at Westminster Theological Seminary and an OPC minister. He is the author of Confessing the Faith and God’s Ambassadors and editor of The Minutes and Papers of the Westminster Assembly (1643–1652).

Emily Van Dixhoorn (MAR, Westminster Theological Seminary) is a stay-at-home mom who leads and loves Bible studies and women’s retreats. Her first publication was a study guide to the book Confessing the Faith, a commentary on the Westminster Confession of Faith. Chad and Emily have five children.

Chapters

• 00:07 Introduction
• 01:38 Introducing Gospel-Shaped Marriage
• 09:08 What to Look for in a Spouse
• 15:53 Growing with Your Spouse
• 19:36 Marriage and the Fourfold State
• 28:28 The Early Morning Orange Juice Incident
• 32:07 Gouge and Biblical Submission
• 42:33 Serving Others Together
• 52:37 Hopes for the Books
• 55:01 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Chad Van Dixhoorn, Emily Van Dixhoorn

Dr. Carl R. Trueman joins us to speak about his significant new book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution (Crossway), in which he addresses the factors undergirding modern culture’s obsession with identity. Sexual identity in particular has dominated public discourse since the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision in 2015. Tracing influential thought from Augustine to Marx and beyond, Trueman explains the historical and intellectual phenomenon of the modern conception selfhood. Trueman writes,

My aim is to explain how and why a certain notion of the self has come to dominate the culture of the West, why this self finds its most obvious manifestation in the transformation of sexual mores, and what the wider implications of this transformation are and may well be in the future.

Dr. Trueman is professor of biblical and religious studies at Grove City College. He is an esteemed church historian and previously served as the William E. Simon Fellow in Religion and Public Life at Princeton University. Trueman has authored or edited more than a dozen books, including The Creedal Imperative, Luther on the Christian Life, and Histories and Fallacies. Trueman is a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Carl Trueman

Here are some clear cut commands—not therapeutic suggestions. Paul is not only explicit about the standard to which Christians are called, he is also explicit about why we are to obey that standard.

Participants: Jim Cassidy, Mark A. Winder, Mark Jenkins

Participants: Camden Bucey, Glen Clary, Jeff Waddington, Jim Cassidy, Lane G. Tipton

Tertullian is famous for saying, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church” (Apologeticus, Chapter 50). The persecution of Christians isn’t an objectively good thing, yet in God’s providence, he can and does use evil for good (Gen 50:19–20). I was saddened by the U. S. Supreme Court’s decision to legalize homosexual marriage nationally, but we should interpret these events in light of God’s omnipotence, wisdom, and ultimate desire to bring glory to himself. Government endorsement of homosexual marriage is not pleasing to the Lord, but that does not preclude him from using it to build his Church and advance his kingdom. When the United States government makes decisions clearly opposed to both special and general revelation, we are reminded that Christians are a pilgrim people. In his common grace, the Lord has given the civil government as a blessing to the world to restrain evil and promote justice (cf. Gen 4:14–16; Rom 13:1–7). However, God’s common grace—including its institutions—ultimately serve the purposes of his special grace. God has delayed final judgment and given indiscriminate non-salvific blessing because he has more people to save. He has elected people whom the Spirit has yet to apply Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. Therefore, this present age is a mixture of redeemed and unredeemed, of covenant keepers and covenant breakers, of those in Adam and those in Christ. The Church exists in this present evil age as a body of believers whom have been called out of darkness into Christ’s marvelous light (1 Pet 2:9). The Church does not find its identity in the present evil age. As those found in Christ, we are a pilgrim people sojourning unto our homeland in the age-to-come, the New Heavens and New Earth. Indeed, “our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil 3:20). We must recognize eschatological tension here. On the one hand, Christians have been redeemed and presently are seated with Christ in the heavenly places (Eph 2:6). We have come to the heavenly Mt. Zion (Heb 12:18–24). Yet on the other hand, a Sabbath rest remains for the people of God (Heb 4:8). Let us therefore strive to enter that rest (Heb 4:11). The U. S. Supreme Court’s decision will not cause the world to end immediately. But even when the world that now exists (2 Pet 3:7) does end, it will end with the glorious and climactic victory of Jesus Christ.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified (Romans 8:28–30).

Remember that this glorious image of Christ is formed in us first through suffering. We are conformed to Christ’s suffering so that we too might share in his subsequent glories (Phil 2:5–11; 3:10–11). Let us not be surprised or defeated when God’s law is challenged by our governments. This is to be expected. Indeed, it is but one providential way through which God purifies his Church and testifies to the world of his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.

Jeff Waddington, Jim Cassidy, and Camden Bucey speak about biblical manhood and womanhood from the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology. The conference, held annually at Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, PA, is organized by the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Carlton Wynne, Gabe Fluhrer, Jeff Waddington, Jim Cassidy

Participants: Camden Bucey, Jared Oliphint, Winston Smith

Participants: Michael A.G. Haykin, Nick Batzig

Links

• Rick Phillips on Christ the Center episode 30: Cultural Relevance, Mercy Ministry and the Social Gospel
• Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals

Bibliography

Other Formats

• Zotero RDF
• Dublin Core RDF

Participants: Camden Bucey, Jim Cassidy, Josh Walker, Nick Batzig, Rick Phillips