For your attention

1. Did Jesus never address same-sex “marriage?” – Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., responds to an argument made by some proponents of homosexual “marriage” – that Jesus never spoke about the issue.

2. How to help a daughter know the true meaning of beauty – Brandon Barker, a blogger for the Village Church in Dallas, offers some brief tips on teaching a daughter to know what beauty truly is in a culture where it is distorted. Among his recommendations: “Pray, beg, plead. Our best laid plans are feeble compared to the craftiness of Satan, and we are desperately dependent on the Spirit to do what only the Spirit can do: open her eyes to Jesus.”

3. Forgiveness can transform a life – Pastor Mark Fox tells a beautiful story of the power of forgiveness demonstrated by a Kenyan to his natural enemy and the gospel effect that resulted.

4. ‘Explanations are a substitute for trust’ – Tullian Tchividjian, senor pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., blogs about some wrong ways to respond to suffering and the right way to respond. He says, “[W]e don’t need answers as much as we need God’s presence in and through the suffering itself. The truth is that when it comes to suffering, if we do not go to our graves in confusion we will not go to our graves trusting.”

5. Why complementariansim, not patriarchy – Don Carson, professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in suburban Chicago and a founder of The Gospel Coalition (TGC), explains why the coalition’s leaders think it is better to use complementariansim than patriarchialism or traditionalism in talking about the biblical view of male-female relationships. He says, “ In this case it is not so much a particular term that TGC wishes to defend, as the theological stance the term seeks to summarize, because we are convinced that the theological stance to which it refers is not only biblically mandated but also for our good -- something to rejoice over rather than to rebel against. And we are unaware of any other word that encapsulates this position as well, while remaining relatively clear of distorting baggage.”