Two talks by D.A. Carson at the CBMW's
Different by Design 2009 conference in Minneapolis, co-sponsored by CBMW and the Fidelis Foundation:
Brent Nelson highlights these quotes:
Be very strong and clear on what the Scripture says. Try to work out the applicability fairly and even-handedly within the context of your local church. But don't turn that into the new legal structure for all Christians such that this is where you draw your line of demarcation. In other words: get the center right and think center-bounded set. Don't fudge on what the Bible says!
. . . If you come to the conclusion that that best articulated and sophisticated, knowledgeable exegesis of Scripture, carefully thought-through, can be graced with the word "complementarian"; if you come to that conclusion--stop apologizing for it. In other words, at some point you have to say, "This is for your good, it is for my good, it is for the church's good, it is for the culture's good. . . ."
God knows the design. He knows what he is doing. And so you cannot use your culturally-located questions to become a back-door way of saying that you're uncomfortable with exegesis. That it seems to me, leads to distortion in every domain.
