From Executive Director Owen Strachan: As CBMW is seeking support for our $30,000 matching campaign, we thought we would take this opportunity to introduce our readership to some evangelical leaders who support complementarianism and CBMW. Today, we interview Dane Ortlund, Bible Publishing Director at Crossway Books. Thanks for reading, and please join us in our campaign!
Dane Ortlund serves as Bible Publishing Director at Crossway Books in Wheaton, Illinois. He is the author of A New Inner Relish: Christian Motivation in the Thought of Jonathan Edwards (Christian Focus, 2008) and Defiant Grace: The Surprising Message and Mission of Jesus (Evangelical, 2011). He is a graduate of Covenant Theological Seminary (M.Div., Th.M.) and Wheaton College (B.A., Ph.D.). Dane is married to his college sweetheart, Stacey, and they have three boys. He blogs at Strawberry-Rhubarb Theology.
1. When did you become a complementarian, and what did that look like?
I grew up in a home where it was clearly understood and embraced that Dad was the loving head of the home, and Mom delighted to defer to that headship. So complementarianism made tacit sense to me as I grew up. It felt normal. Getting to know the Bible in later years confirmed those early intuitions. I saw in Scripture something different than the leveling of distinctions wrongly assumed to be healthy by the media and culture and even much of the church.
2. What role, if any, has CBMW played in your life and ministry?
I go to work every day to provide for my family, and when I go home I am finally responsible for the spiritual shepherding of my family. I don’t expect my wife Stacey to do these things; her role is different. So the vision held high by CBMW is given practical manifestation in my life and the life of my family on a daily basis. More specifically, the outstanding resources produced by CBMW, such as the ministry’s website and JBMW, are resources I trust and regularly consult.
3. Why do you support CBMW, and encourage others to do the same?
Because to the degree CBMW prospers, to that degree marriages will be healthy, families will be happy, sons and daughters will grow up in normalcy and sanity, wives will flourish, husbands will thrive, biblical truth will be adhered to, and the triune character of God will be most deeply appreciated. CBMW is a clear example of Christians seeking to subject the ethos of the culture to the teaching of the Bible rather than the teaching of the Bible to the ethos of the culture.
One resource friends of CBMW may wish to be aware of is Knowing the Bible, a series of study guides on the Bible written from a broadly reformed and complementarian perspective, seeking to provide a more theologically substantive alternative in the Bible study guide market. The first six volumes have just been rolled out; the whole Bible will be covered in six years.
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If you want to support CBMW’s $30,000 “GO BIG” matching campaign, we’d love to partner with you. Thanks for reading!
You, too, can help support the ministry of CBMW. We are a non-profit organization that is fully-funded by individual gifts and ministry partnerships. Your contribution will go directly toward the production of more gospel-centered, church-equipping resources.
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