This is the fourth part in our series of clips from D.A. Carson's talk at Different by Design 2009. Having walked through the argument in 1 Timothy 2, Carson now moves on to deal with Paul's qualifications for elders and deacons in chapter 3.

Part 1 on "Permit" can be seen here.

Part 2 on "Authority" can be seen here.

Part 3 on "Adam before Eve" can be seen here.

You can listen to all of Carson's address here.

I'll never forget where I first heard a Christian speak cogently about the sovereignty of God. It wasn't any of my theological heroes. It wasn't J.I. Packer or John Piper or R.C. Sproul or John MacArthur or John Calvin or Jonathan Edwards. It wasn't my seminary professors. No, I first heard about God's "absolute control of all events and all people" as the children's catechism puts it, from Ernie Harwell, a legendary announcer of Major League Baseball games, a man so great at his craft, he was inducted into the baseball hall of fame in 1981.

His confidence in God came during a frustrating time in his brilliant career. It was the early 90s and Harwell was being forced out by new leaders in the Tigers front office and an overzealous marketing director at the radio station for which he had labored for decades. But, due largely to the overwhelming outrage by the sports-viewing public in Detroit and across the country, Harwell was retained and many of those behind the attempted ouster were themselves shown the door. I'll never forget the godly Harwell's response when asked if his Christian faith had been tested by the events. "No, God is in charge of every sparrow that falls from the sky. If He wants me to continue on as announcer for the Tigers, I will. If He doesn't, I can't force my way back in. My life is completely in His hands and he always does what is right." Amen.

Harwell returned to the booth and stayed until retirement in 2002. A native of Georgia, my own home state, Harwell became an American icon while announcing baseball games on radio and television for 55 seasons, including 42 for Detroit. Harwell also did games for the New York Giants, Brooklyn Dodgers and Baltimore Orioles.  Harwell is famous for the easy-going manner with which he announced games.  As a young baseball-mad boy with little else to do in rural north Georgia, I fell asleep many a summer night to the sound of Ernie's soothing southern drawl emanating from my transistor radio. Millions of baseball fans can tell the same story. Sadly, in an age when retired athletes typically serve in radio and television broadcasting booths, Harwell is among the last of a dying breed in baseball - an announcer who was so beloved that he was as much a part of the Detroit Tigers experience as the players themselves.  So beloved was Harwell, a statue of him now sits outside Comerica Park, the Tigers' new ballpark.

Last month, the 91-year-old radio broadcaster learned that he is dying of a cancerous tumor in his bile duct. God converted Ernie Harwell at a Billy Graham crusade in 1961 during spring training in Lakeland, Fla. One of the founders of Baseball Chapel -a formal Lord's Day chapel service for baseball players - Harwell is known and respected across baseball as a humble, unashamed disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. And now he is dying like a humble, unashamed follower of Christ. Doctors expect Harwell to live about six months, but he is clearly dying well. When asked whether he was worried about dying, his answer was reminiscent of Paul's attitude in Philippians 1. "If you worry, that's like telling God that you don't think he can handle things. It's a slap in the face of God," said Harwell. ""My confidence is in God. Long ago, I gave my life to him. My life is in his hands."

Harwell and his wife Lulu have been married for 68 years and have seven grandchildren. When asked how he wants to spend his final months before the call to glory arrives, Harwell said he wants to do all he can to serve his wife with the time he has left. This is how a Christian man dies well, living out Ephesians 5 to the end. Ernie Harwell, the announcer, is noted for his simple, yet ornate home run call - "It's gone." Ernie Harwell the man is noted as a Christian who lives for the service of others to the glory of God. Many a budding announcer and young journalist have experienced his Christ-like kindness and his selfless focus. I met him briefly at the World Series one year and count it as one of the great moments of my former career as a newspaper journalist.

"I try to live my life the way [God] wants me to," Harwell said in his biography, Ernie Harwell: My 60 Years in Baseball. "I try to be kind to people, no matter who they are. One thing I have done is I have tried to help young announcers. I've listened to tapes, talked to them about what they could do to improve or to find opportunities. It's something I feel I have to pass along."

"I've seen so many people in the public eye turn people off, and I decided I wasn't going to be like that. Often, when someone meets me, it will be the only time. You could really hurt someone's feelings. I try to live by the old golden rule."

Ernie Harwell will be sorely missed in baseball and far beyond, but he has given us a godly man's picture both in life and in death. May the Lord richly bless Ernie and Lulu in Ernie's final days as a citizen of the city of man. Very soon, his faith will become sight and death will be swallowed up in victory. And of that, Ernie Harwell is abundantly confident.

In our latest installment of Unchanging Truth, Gender Blog is highlighting a series of articles from Nancy Leigh DeMoss on how modesty relates to biblical womanhood.

The following excerpt is from the first article in DeMoss' series, "Caution! Your Clothes are Talking." It was published in the Fall 2003 issue of JBMW.

If I tell you that there's a woman coming down this church aisle in a long, white, formal dress, what would you say is probably the occasion? It's a wedding; she's a bride. How did you know? Because clothing communicates.

If I tell you there's a teenager bundled up in a snowsuit, mittens, a wool hat and a scarf would you agree with me that the teenager is probably not on his way to a picnic?

Clothing and appearance send a message. They can communicate our occupation or an occasion we're marking. In some of the world's religions, women are clearly identifiable by their dress.

Clothing can communicate something about our socio-economic status. You can look at some people and think, "She looks like a wealthy woman." Or you might look at another woman and-purely on the basis of her clothing-say, "She doesn't look like she comes from a financially stable background."

Clothing also communicates a message about our values, our character, our attitudes. For example, you can look at the dress of some and tell that neatness is not a concern to them.

The Bible speaks of occasions when people would wear sackcloth as a sign of mourning or repentance. So, if someone was wearing sackcloth, he was sending a message about what was going on in his heart.

Scripture also indicates that clothing can send a message about our morals or the lack thereof. For example, in Proverbs 7:10 we read of the adulteress that she was "dressed as a harlot" (NASB). The woman is dressed in such a way that you can look at her and see that her motives are not pure toward this man.

In Genesis 38:13ff., we learn of a woman named Tamar, a widow who wanted to seduce a man to whom she was not married. Accordingly, she took off her widow's garments (v.14). Such garments were a specific type of clothing that would have communicated that she was a widow. Tamar, however, changed her clothes and put on the clothing of a prostitute, for the man she was trying to seduce knew her. In fact, he was her father-in-law. But when she changed her clothes, he didn't recognize who she was. He just looked at her clothes, and judging her to be a prostitute, he went in to be sexually intimate with her. Of course, I point that out not to justify him, but to demonstrate that clothing can send a powerful message.

It is just as true today that women are sending a message with their clothing. Many of them know exactly what message they're sending. Perhaps some others are naïve, having become so influenced by this culture that they don't know any other way to think about clothing.

You can read the rest of this article here.

Part 2, "Godly Garments," is available here.

Part 3, "Philosophies of Beauty in Conflict," is available here.

A good question to ask in order to gauge the importance of an issue is, "How closely related is this issue to the Gospel?" Some would probably accuse me of hijacking the Gospel if I related it too closely to gender issues. After all, gender has nothing to do with the forgiveness of sins, reconciliation, or substitutionary atonement. Being egalitarian or complementarian is not something that determines our eternal destiny as adopted children of God. Praise God this is true! Yet, a more penetrating question may be, "Do we stand to lose something of the Gospel if egalitarianism is assumed?" In my opinion, the overwhelming answer is Yes.

A biblical test-case can be seen in the flow of thought of Ephesians. The first two chapters show the general/universal understanding of the Gospel. The Gospel is, most fundamentally, God's plan of redemption on behalf sinners through Christ. Readers of this letter must, first and foremost, come to terms with Paul's emphasis on the Gospel being God's work despite human sinfulness. Other than faith, Paul doesn't attribute anything to the human sinner in the effectiveness of the Gospel. In fact, many argue that the entire phrase "For by grace you have been saved through faith" (2:8) is the "gift" that 2:9 is referring to. The conclusion of chapters 1-2 is that there is nothing peculiar about any individual sinner that would cause them to be the darling of God's saving work. Rather, as 2:4-5 tells us, salvation is to be attributed to the richness of God's mercy.

Chapter 3 of Ephesians affirms this conclusion. What God has revealed in Christ is redemption, not only for covenant Israel, but for Gentile sinners as well. If racial status cannot keep us away from the love of Christ, it is easy to conclude that social status, age, wisdom, or gender cannot either. And we see that the rest of the New Testament affirms this same conclusion.  The Gospel is for all those - every tongue and tribe - who repent of their sins and believe in the Gospel. Praise God for his infinite wisdom!

Interestingly, Paul does not end his letter with chapter 3. He knows that when the Gospel is believed, it is the power to change the life of the Christian. In other words, after one is forgiven of their sins and saved from the wrath to come, the Christian life cannot be simply reduced to moralism. Rather, the Gospel radically shapes how we live and make choices. So, for example, he writes at the end of chapter 4, "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you."  And also 5:2, "And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." Paul exhorts his readers to forgive one another and walk in love not because that is how we need to get along until Christ comes back, but because God in Christ loved and forgave us. Paul bases his Christian ethic on the cross of Christ. Interestingly, Paul's command to walk in love and forgive one another is still as universal as the Gospel. All those who are redeemed in the Lord are to love and forgive one another and even submit to one another.

However, Paul begins to apply the Gospel at a more particular level at the end of chapter 5. Up until this point, Paul displays how the Gospel functions universally to change the lives of Christians. Yet, from 5:22-6:9, Paul shows how the Gospel applies in particular to husbands, wives, parents, children, slaves, and masters. At a very significant level, the Gospel applies to a wife differently than it does to her husband. The Gospel informs a husband of God's design for him as a man in a way that is different than the wife. Interestingly, the Gospel does not blur gender distinctions, but, rather, gives them definition. Our identity as men and women and how we relate to one another is informed by God's saving work in Christ Jesus.

If egalitarianism is assumed, there are at least two aspects of the Gospel that we lose. Both are significant.

First, marriage, throughout Scripture, is used to portray God's saving promises and his covenant faithfulness to his people. If we lose the important distinctions between the roles of husbands and wives in marriage, then we lose a significant biblical understanding of God's work in Scripture and in redemptive history.

Second, a central concern of Paul in all his letters, especially Ephesians, is not only Gospel clarity, but also how the Gospel applies to the Christian life. If we have confusion as to how men and women ought to act and fulfill divinely intended roles in the Church, marriage, and family, then there will be confusion as to how to apply the Gospel to the Christian life. As we see in Ephesians 5, God has particular applications of his Gospel that are gender specific. If we lose the gender specificity, then we lose a divinely intended Gospel application.

This is the third clip in our series from D.A. Carson's talk at the Different by Design 2009 conference. In this clip, Carson addresses how we should understand Paul's appeal to the creation order (1 Tim. 2:13) in the argument of the passage.

Part 1 on "Permit" can be seen here.

Part 2 on "Authority" can be seen here.

You can listen to all of Carson's address here.