(Editor’s note: The following article was written by David Phillips, general secretary of the Church Society, the oldest evangelical organization in the Church of England. The article originally appeared in its entirety here .)

My personal tutor at theological college was Michael Vasey. Michael was, I believe, opposed to the ordination of women as presbyters (priests). But when the General Synod voted in favor of this he is reported to have said that if the Church could do so despite the teaching of Scripture then it must follow that it could not object to homosexual practice. Accordingly in his book ‘Strangers and Friends’ published three years later he set out to argue from Scripture that the Church should change its mind.

In a similar vein in 2003 the then Bishop of Oxford, Richard Harries, argued in an article in the Daily Telegraph that “The Church has got it wrong in the past - there's no doubt about it. I think you can take the view that, just as the Church eventually abolished slavery, so they ended up in favor of votes for women, so they voted for the ordination of women, and this is just one more issue where the Church has got it wrong.” His argument was that the Church had got it wrong on homosexual conduct.

There are many who sincerely believe that it is right for the Church to ordain women as presbyters, and wrong for it to endorse homosexual practice. Although some have argued this distinction forcefully I am convinced that the acceptance of one almost inevitably leads to the acceptance of the other. Some will find this conclusion offensive but I find it rather obvious.

The same argument?

First then, are the cases different? Some argue that the ordination of women is a ‘second order’ issue because it concerns church order whilst sexual conduct is a ‘first order’ issue because it concerns salvation. I am far from comfortable with this distinction because I believe that the ordination of women as presbyters is contrary to Scripture and I am not willing to suggest that it is therefore unimportant or less important. Nevertheless, I do think many see the two issues as differing in degree. The distinction of first and second order is also not shared by those in favour of both. They see both as fundamental matters of justice and of the openness of the gospel. They therefore consider both to be first order issues and they are not going to rest having achieved one without achieving the other.

Some do argue the case as to why the Bible supports one and not the other, but I find the arguments badly lacking. I simply cannot see that the passages to which they plead actually support what they claim. For example some use the long list of women who are engaged in the Lord’s work in Scripture to claim that women should be involved in the Lord’s work, but none of these roles are as presbyters. The jump to say that they should be presbyters, when the Bible itself confines it to men is unwarranted.

Others sadly seem to set up a straw man. They argue as if only Anglo-Catholics are against women priests and because Anglo-Catholics have a defective view of ministry then the opposition to women as presbyters must be wrong. This conveniently but disingenuously ignores the fact that evangelicals argue from Scripture that women should not be presbyters. It is also unfair to Anglo-Catholics many of whom do also argue from Scripture that women should not be presbyters (priests).

Erwin Lutzer loves homosexuals. Fortunately, he loves them enough to tell them the truth and to share with them what the great apologist Francis Schaeffer called “true truth.” Moody Press recently released an expanded and revised edition of Lutzer’s book (originally published in 2004) called The Truth About Same-Sex Marriage: 6 Things You Must Know About What’s Really at Stake. As advertised, Lutzer writes both with deep compassion for homosexuals and with biblical depth and clarity about the seriousness of the deadly deception of homosexuality.

The Truth is as much a call to the church to love homosexuals and minister compassionately to them as it is a defense of traditional biblical marriage. But, make no mistake, Lutzer is clear and firm in upholding God’s good blueprint for marriage. Several things drove the longtime pastor of Moody Church to write the book, including a concern for the current younger generation in America, a generation that is being bombarded by messages that promote gender and sexual confusion and seek to normalize a lifestyle that Scripture calls sin. Writes Lutzer:

I thought of the young people in our churches who are growing up sexually confused as they are daily exposed to the pro-homosexual message of our culture. I wondered what messages same-sex marriages would communicate to them—what would same-sex marriage tell them about marriage, parenting and role models? At this point, I knew we had to speak to the issue.

Lutzer calls for an eyes-wide open awareness in the church of the issues at hand: there is much at stake in the church’s loving, but firm teaching on homosexuality. He upbraids the church for offering little resistance to the wholesale redefinition of family that has taken place over the past two decades and encourages a loving, but clear response.

Let no one say that we have to choose between loving homosexuals and opposing same-sex marriages. Biblically, love is defined not as license to legitimize sinful behavior of any kind, but love helps us see that there is a better say. Obviously, we must be as concerned about our own sins as we are about the sins of the homosexual community. We must be concerned enough to speak out about any action, heterosexual or homosexual, that violates God’s intended plan for marriage and family.

[This post originally appeared on Dr. Mohler's blog on January 21, 2010.]

The fact that children and teenagers now spend a good deal of their lives connected to electronic devices is hardly news. We are now accustomed to the knowledge that teenagers are seldom seen without wires in their ears and a cell phone in their hand as they multitask their way through adolescence. Now, however, there is good reason to believe that these young people are far more connected than we have even imagined.

The Kaiser Family Foundation has just released a new study on the online lives of children and teenagers, and the statistics are simply astounding. America's children and teenagers are now spending an average of more than 7 1/2 hours a day involved in electronic media.

As the report states:

As anyone who knows a teen or tween can attest, media are among the most powerful forces in young people's lives today. Eight-to-eighteen-year-olds spend more time with media than in any other activity besides (maybe) sleeping -- an average of more than 7 1/2 hours a day, seven days a week. The TV shows they watch, video games they play, songs they listen to, books they read and websites they visit are an enormous part of their lives, offering a constant stream of messages about families, peers, relationships, gender roles, sex, violence, food, values, clothes, an abundance of other topics too long to list.

Online, All the Time

The report is the third conducted and released by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Just five years ago, the foundation released a second study that indicated young Americans were spending an average of nearly 6 1/2 hours a day with media.  Now, young people have found a way to devote another hour to media use, catching the researchers by surprise. As Donald F. Roberts, a professor emeritus of communications at Stanford University, remarked: "This is a stunner." He told The New York Times, "In the second report, I remember writing a paragraph saying we've hit a ceiling on media use, since there just aren't enough hours in the day to increase the time children spend on media. But now it's up an hour."

And it's not just that these kids are devoting 7 1/2 hours of their daily lives to media immersion -- their multitasking means that they somehow consume nearly 11 hours of media content in that 7 1/2 hours of time. Over the last ten years, young people have increased their consumption and use of every type of media with one exception -- reading. As the researchers make clear, the vast increase in the amount of time teenagers are able to access the media is due almost entirely to the fact that their mobile phones allow an online life that can be carried in the pocket (and in far too many cases, taken to bed). "The mobile and online media revolutions have arrived in the lives -- and the pockets -- of American youth," notes the report. "Try waking a teenager in the morning, and the odds are good you'll find a cell phone tucked under their pillow -- the last thing they touch before falling asleep and the first thing they reach for upon waking."

The report indicates that 66 percent of kids now own their own cell phone, while 76 percent own an iPod or other MP3 player. Interestingly, these kids are using cell phones as mobile media devices, rather than as telephones. Young people spend an average of only a half hour each day talking on their cell phones, but their use of these devices for the consumption of media consumes far more time.

The report also offers a portrait of the media-saturated character of the average American home. That home now contains an average of 3.8 televisions, 2.8 DVD or VCR players, at least one digital video recorder, two computers, 2.3 console video game players, and assorted other media devices ranging from CD players to radios. In an amazing percentage of these homes, the television is on virtually every waking hour.

Media in the Bedroom

Even as the family home is populated with various media devices, the bedrooms of America's children and teenagers are virtually saturated with media. "More and more media are migrating to young people's bedrooms, enabling them to spend even more time watching, listening or playing," the researchers report. An amazing 71% of all children from age 8-18 have their own television in their bedroom, and half have a video game player and/or access to cable. These kids have computers, too. Almost a third own their own laptops and the majority have easy access to a computer, usually with broadband Internet connections.

In most homes, parents are setting few rules for media use -- or no rules at all. The majority of teens and tweens reported that their parents have set no rules about the type of media content they can use or the amount of time they can devote to media consumption. When parents do set rules, they are far more likely to set rules about the type of content that can be accessed, rather than the amount of time that is devoted to media use. A good percentage of parents who do set rules, often leave them unenforced.

Parents should note this statement from the report: "Children who live in homes that limit media opportunities spend less time with media. For example, kids whose parents don't put a TV in their bedroom, don't leave the TV on during meals or in the background when no one is watching, or do impose some type of media-related rules spend substantially less time with media than do children with more media-lenient parents."

Media Use, Grades, and Personal Contentment

Another important section of the report indicates that the young people who spend the greatest amount of time with media report lower grades and lower levels of personal happiness and contentment. The researchers stated that their study "cannot establish whether there is a cause and effect relationship between media use and grades, or between media use and personal contentment." They added: "And if there are such relationships, they could well run in both directions simultaneously."

All this should serve to awaken America's parents -- and all who care for America's young people -- to the level of media saturation that now characterizes the lives of American youth. As The New York Times declared in its headline, "If Your Kids are Awake, They're Probably Online."

There is no turning back from the digital revolution. It is not realistic for most families to declare a principled disconnection from electronic media and the digital world. Nevertheless, this important report serves as an undeniable warning that America's young people are literally drowning in an ocean of media consumption. There is every reason for parents to be concerned about dangers ranging from the content of this media, to the way digital saturation changes the wiring of the brain, to the loss of literacy and the reading of books, to the fact that many teenagers are far more connected to their friends through social media than to their own families in their own homes. Teenagers are forfeiting sleep and other important investments of time because they experience panic when they are digitally disengaged for even a few moments.

What is the impact of all this media saturation on the soul? Of course, that is a question that must be posed to America's adults, as well as to our children and adolescents. At the same time, parents bear a responsibility many are clearly forfeiting.

The Courage to Disconnect

Dr. Michael Rich, a pediatrician at Children's Hospital Boston and director of the Center on Media and Child Health, told The New York Times that the media use of America's young people is so pervasive, it is time to stop arguing over whether this is positive or negative. Instead, he suggested that we should simply accept media as a constant part of children's environment, "like the air they breathe, the water they drink and the food they eat."

This is advice Christian parents cannot follow. We cannot simply accept that constant media saturation is now a fact of nature and a matter of constant need. These technologies and devices have their places, but the role of parents is to establish rules that protect children and teenagers from being dominated by technology and an army of digital devices. At the end of the day, parents must find the courage and wisdom to know when to disconnect.

In his new book, A Sweet and Bitter Providence: Sex, Race, and the Sovereignty of God ( from Crossway ), John Piper points out that one of the major elements of the Old Testament story of Ruth is a breathtaking portrayal of biblical manhood and womanhood. The story of Boaz’s serving as kinsman redeemer to Ruth and of her pursuit of God through this redeemer are powerful illustrations of the way in which Scripture depicts the nature of marriage in Ephesians 5. Piper writes:

The book of Ruth is a portrait of beautiful, noble manhood and womanhood. The greatness of manhood and womanhood is more than sex. It is ore than a throbbing love story. In a day when movies and television and advertising and the Internet portray masculinity and femininity in the lowest ways, we are in great need of stories the elevate the magnificent meaning of manhood and womanhood. In making sex the main thing, the modern world is losign the glory and beauty and depth and power of what sexuality becomes when it runs like a deep and mighty river between the high banks of righteousness. Ruth and Boaz are extraordinary. Men and women today need heroes like this.

Ruth is also a profound love story, Piper writes, one that, above all, points readers to the final and greatest Redeemer. God seems to have gone all out to include a Moabite woman in the genealogy of Christ, Piper points out. God gives readers a glorious picture of His grace that eventually came to its fullness in Christ.

The application of this glory to us may be felt most personally when we focus on Ruth herself. How are we included? All the calamities of this story seem designed to get a Moabitess into the genealogy of Jesus. Ruth is one of the four women mentioned in Matthew’s genealogy (Matthew 1:5). God pursued her. He turned the world upside down, you might say, to include Ruth in the lineage of his Son. Surely this is significant for us. Does it not mean that God’s blessings are free and undeserved? Ruth was an idolatrous Moabitess before God pursued her (1:15). She did not merit this pursuit. It was free. That is the way God pursues you and me.

As always, Piper’s book is filled with Gospel-centered exegesis and application and, like all his other works, is a clearly-written ode to the glory of God as revealed in His Word. This work serves as an excellent companion to the study of Ruth.

A few weeks ago, my fellow Gender Blogger John Starke gave two delightful posts on godly husbands and wives from Puritan pastor Richard Baxter’s phenomenal work A Christian Directory. While researching the Puritans recently, I ran across another pertinent section in Baxter’s Directory in which he provides men with 10 motives for providing spiritual leadership for their wives and children. As they are principles derived from Scripture, they certainly remain pertinent for fathers today. Baxter (1615-1691) is best-known for his pastorate at Kidderminster in England during the tumultuous 17^th century, during which time he produced many great written works that remain in print including the Directory, The Saints Everlasting Rest and The Reformed Pastor.

The 10 motives (edited slightly to contemporize the language):

1. The holy government of families (by fathers) is a considerable part of God’s own government of the world, and the contrary is a great part of the devil’s government.
2. An ungoverned, ungodly family is a powerful means to the damnation of all the members of it.
3. A holy, well-governed family tends  not only to the safety of the members, but also to the ease and pleasure of their lives.
4. A holy and well-governed family doth tend to make a holy posterity, and so to propagate the fear of God from generation to generation.
5. A holy, well-governed family is the preparative to a holy and well-governed church.
6. Well-governed families tend to make a happy state and commonwealth. A good education is the first and greatest work to make good magistrates and good subjects, because it tends to make good men.
7. If the governors of families did faithfully perform their duties, it would be a great supply as to any defects in the pastor’s part, and a singular means to propagate and preserve religion in times of public negligence or persecution.
8. The duties of your families are such as you may perform with greatest peace, and lease exception or opposition from others.
9. Well-governed families are honorable and exemplary to others.
10. Holy, well-governed families are blessed with the special presence and favor of God.

Fathers, hear and heed the wise pastor Baxter.