There is a national attack on family today. Lets think about it. Today, more women are raising kids alone than ever. Rather that is from going to sperm banks or through a sexual relationship and now even adoption has gained popularity especially in Hollywood. Marriage itself is now old fashioned. We are at our highest rate as a nation as it relates to living together out of wedlock. Many have opted out of the marriage in exchange for a “deep and personal commitment” (I am not talking about the legal aspect but the real community commitment). And marriage itself is pretty much a joke. Getting divorced is as easy as trading in your car. I hear commercial after commercial talking about you should be happy and not stuck is the rut of a bad marriage. To make matters worse the Church herself has made divorce and remarriage as easy and pressure-less as joining the Usher Board.

Yep… marrige my friend is a weak institution and is getting weaker as we speak. And as marriage gets weaker, so will the family and as the family gets weaker so will the Church and as the Church gets weaker so goes the community. Marriage my friend is a fundmenatal conerstone of human existence,  without it we become less human. It is odd that out of all the words God chose to use to describe His relationship with His Elect, the word bride stands out the most. Israel is called the Bride of God even to the point where Hosea is used to illustrate the relationship Israel has with Her Groom and then the New Testament uses the phrase numerous of times, to the point where Paul says “and gave Himself up for her” describing the atoning work of Christ.

Thus we see that marriage is important and the language God chooses to use to describe His relationship with those He calls to Himself. So what does this mean for us?

The most important implication is that of one flesh, permanency, a union that can’t be broken. I believe the bible teaches that permanency of marriage. This is especially true if we look at Christ’s relationship with us. If we believe that nothing can separate us from Christ as Paul so eloquently pens in Romans, then how is that our marriage being a picture of Christ and the Church, can somehow ignore this implication? The only reason I can think of is to satisfy our own fleshly desires not the revealed will of God.

Another implication is that of MARRIAGE SUPERCEDES ALL OTHER EARTHLY RELATIONSHIPS. This includes parental, sibling and even your own children. One of the gravest errors in marriage is the error that your children come first, or that your natural family comes before your spouse. Especially under the philosophy that “my real family will always be there for me”. That thought process is not from God AT ALL. God puts our marriage relationship only second to our relationship with Him, which He makes marriage the most important relationship closing the loop anyway. Paul writes ” a man shall leave his mother and father and cleave to his wife”. Folks I will be honest and say any other thought process is a trick of our adversary.

The applications are quite simple. Your spouse comes first, you are the treat them the way you would treat your own body, you are to talk with them as you would your own self, you are to sacrifice and provide for them the way you would your own self, you are to be tender, gentle, kind, patient, forgiving, nurturing even to the point of DEATH. Because that is what you would do for your own survival and now she is you and he is you and you are one.

We have to take marriage seriously. It is one thing we can offer as light to a fallen world. While marriages are dissolving everywhere, especially Hollywood, we should be praying for a renewed passion to save every marriage at all cost. Why? Because it is a direct reflection of what Jesus is doing with us. The Gospel is a stake and can be greatly misunderstood if we don’t get this right. So it is timeout for such passive attitudes, because Satan is active, determined and is holding no cards. God bless.

“There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues, the most dominating virtues of human society, are created, strengthened and maintained” ~~ Winston Churchill

Calvin Clark is the greatest pastor in the world. Hands down anything that I know, everything that I value and almost have the things I find myself revisiting came from his mouth but even more importantly his example. Calvin would always tell us that the family is the nucleus for the church. Each successful church will be built around successful families and thus investing in families was his number one priority. Families once healthy can then extend themselves to others and become safe havens of care, exhortation, admonishment and so forth. Each family is a mini-church in and of itself and can extend the graces of God.

A wife and kids is one the greatest discipleship tools known to humanity. It will expose every selfish crack and hole in our charachter. A family will overextend you, drive you to pray fervently and ultimately test your faith in a way unknown to those without them. You have to be everything and to make it even more important you are the first and primary representation of Jesus Christ and the Gospel to them.

With that said, I want to focus on something near and dear to my heart and make a real challenge. The BLACK CHURCH HAVE FAILED BLACK FAMILIES IMMENSELY!!!!! Now I say that with great reservation but I say it none the least. Blacks make up 35% of the total imprisoned population, yet only 18% of the total population, 72% of blacks are born out of wedlock, go do the math. Go to your wal-mart and count the first 10 blacks you see, 7 of those would be born into single homes. 50% drop out of school (58% for males), and the list goes on and on and on.

The lack of focus on strengthening, challenging and exhorting the family is what I believe to be the number one problem in the urban community. Where there is no family there is no foundation of discipline, structure, admonishment and I hate to say this but development which includes emotional, psychological and spiritual. The black family is almost nonexistent. Most young black men and women are headed by single parents and if the stats are correct 90%+ by black women.

There will be no cure for the woes of young blacks. Now I want to say this goes the same for whites, but you only need to look at the stats to clearly see the disparity and why I am not too much focusing on this. You can pump billions of dollars in schools, give free medical care, earmark billions for scholarships, billions to feed and billions to rebuild parks and other recreational areas. None of these will matter if blacks stay out of the will of God and continue the trend of raising children outside of the biblical context of family.

The church has to have a family intitiative and this is more than just marrying blacks who are shacking up. This means educating, counseling, informing and using the pulpit as a means to communicate God’s truth about sexuality and the family. This means discussing the things I mentioned honestly and openly and then challenging the congregant personally on why they continue to contribute to this trend. That means not making excuses and getting in the face and the lives of those God has placed in your care (or you have placed in your care by allowing them to join your church). This my friends is not a game. The lack of focus on the family has destroyed the black community, spiritually, economically, socially and psychologically. When being a “pimp” is encouraged, even to the point of greeting one another as “what up pimp”. When being a playa’ is praised, when the more women you sleep with garners acceptance and less garners rejection, we have to stop and ask ourselves, what in the hell is wrong with us as a society?

I am not saying that all pockets of racism have dissolved as I don’t believe that. I am not saying that the unemployment rates for the same qualified individuals are not alarming. I am not even saying that institutionalized racism, Jim Crow and slavery did not contribute to the current problem. What I am saying is that we have to make some hard choices, be honest with ourselves and then say “judgment starts with the house of God”. If the black church wants to help blacks then it will start with the issue of family. Other than that we are wasting our time because all of the woes will continue to get worse, you can build the million dollar home on a  five thousand dollar foundation if you want, but I promise you, you will ultimately have a five thousand dollar home.

Let me first clear something up (hear comes the caps). IF YOU BELIEVE THAT STAYING HOME AS A MAN OR WOMAN IS SOMEHOW BETTER THAN GOING TO WORK EITHER YOU DON’T HAVE KIDS OR YOUR KIDS ARE SECOND TO BABY JESUS AS IT RELATES TO BEHAVIOR.

Child rearing, cleaning up after children, trying to feed children, dealing with sick children and child discipline are the toughest things you will ever do in your life. And only an arrogant son of a gun would somehow think that what they are doing is harder than raising children and also that guy is most likely not involve in the day to day activities of homemaking. So if you believe that somehow stay at home dads are getting off easy by “just having to stay with the kids” . You are deaf, blind and dumb. I am involved with changing diapers, disciplining, feeding, cleaning up after, potty training, going to football and baseball practices and helping with the eduction of my children and let me tell you this.

 If I could work from 8-9 everyday and let my wife stay home with the kids I would in a heartbeat. Women who stay home should get 80-90% of their husbands disposable income bi-weekly! She is working 100 times harder than he is (regardless of his profession) and any man who does it, well……. you my friend are a special individual. But on to my post.

What Does the Bible Say?

If you read the New Testament, there is no and I do mean no way anyone could come to the conclusion that a man staying home is sin. If someone uses 1 Timothy 5:8 as a foundation for taking such a position, then you should immediately be suspicious of whatever they say going forward and you maybe want to reassess anything they have said in the past that you agree with. It is bogus and has nothing to do with a man working outside of the home or working inside of the home.

Each family has to evaluate their goals, talents and their economic environment and make a decision that is good for the family. Listen if my wife was a doctor and we decided to have a family and just say I was a teacher, but we had the personal conviction that putting our child in daycare would be detrimental to either our spiritual goals or even our social goals for that child(ren) then there is nothing in the bible preventing me from staying home and allowing my wife the freedom to use her God given talent to make the world a better place.

Let me explain something the type of work in the bible, well was labor intensive, labor intensive jobs are traditionally men centered just because of the physicality of such jobs. Heavy lifting, exposure to heat and cold conditions,  risk of being attacked…. these types of things, while not exclusive to males, may be better suited to someone who has the physical makeup to handle such conditions.  Again this is not exclusive to males because I know some women who could handle these conditions without a problem (and probably more women could also but social conditioning has psychologically effected people putting them in gender roles).

Today, however, our economy and work environment isn’t geared towards a specific gender. Either sex could be an accountant, either sex could be a doctor, lawyer, dentist, teacher, business owner, insurance agent, computer engineer, plant manager, real estate agent, psychologist, scientist, professor, graphic designer, mechanic, customer service rep, pilot, bus driver, physical therapist, beautician, computer programmer and politician. Because of technological advances and the use of machinery and almost everything we do a woman can even easily do things that they were probably incapable of even 50 years ago. It is just plain wrong to assume anything else.

What Those Who Are Against Stay At Home Dads Really Think About Women

What I hear (though many would outright deny this) is that women are only good for laying down, getting pregnant and standing up and taking care of these babies! Outside of your domestic skills you are practically worthless. They make women who decide to work while their husbands stay home, helpless victims who don’t know any better, because if they did they wouldn’t make such a decision. As a matter of fact it makes no sense for a husband who can generate 50K of income annually to work while his wife who could generate 100K stays home and tends to the welfare of the home. I am in finance and to me that is incurring a 50K loss every year and not sound business principles.

Women are not inferior creatures who need to rescued by strong brute men! They are created in the image of God just like their male counterparts and can contribute more than their ovaries to the world. It is actually shameful for Christians who mock the Muslim world for their views on women yet are only a half-inch in front of them, barely able to see them over their shoulder! If you look carefully the current Feminist activist have a huge platform to stand on because of this mentality. A woman who decides to work and their family decision is the for the dad to stay home for the overall benefit of the family is not a victim. She may be applying her God given wisdom constructively.

What It Says Of The Men Who Stay

What it says to men is that they don’t have the ability to nurture, care for, protect nor raise their children. Their primary purpose is to donate sperm and instill discipline. I have even heard someone say that if a man needs to work two jobs to obey God then they should do it. That is about the second dumbest thing I have ever heard (the first is that we actually have a president who was not a U.S born citizen).

If you need to work two jobs to even get close to what your wife can make at one job then my friend you are actually disobeying scripture. Husbands have the same responsibility as their wives in the development of their children. Women don’t have an ounce more (unless you take Titus 2 and make it the center of the Christian family) of responsiblity in the development of their children than husbands.  What may be more ironic is that the husband may actually be wired to be the better care provider than his wife ( a wiring that comes from God).

Please don’t let some dogmatic uninformed individual (I don’t care how many followers they have) tell you that men can’t stay home. Either gender can stay home and each family has to make that decision themselves. You have to ask , what is good for my family, what is good for me as an individual, how are we wired and what is good for us economically speaking (maybe the husband can take online courses to help the family economically or his own career personally). Listen the bible is silent on this issue and so we have to be also. Too many people overstep their boundaries and when they do they should be put in their place (lovingly of course).

I have been thinking of opening the dialogue on this entire gay marriage issue, at least I hope this post will open some dialogue. With the recent Prop 8 reversal decision and the Christian uproar about it, I think it is time we finally have a heart to heart about the issue. Christians have to stop being hypocritical about this issue. The double standard is appalling, embarrassing and most of all dims the light that we are to share with a dark and cold world. So what do I mean you ask?

Let No Man Tear Asunder….

If the Church is to protect the “institution of marriage” then let me say the “institution” is about as safe as a runaway slave eating a popsicle in front of a slave trading post at high noon. Listen to me very carefully. The institution of marriage has been taken as a joke in American Christianity for as long as I can remember. And not only that the rules and regulations set in each state is getting easier and easier as I type. Is the church in an uproar about that? Not at all! I don’t see Christians lobbying State Representatives to make Divorce tougher. I don’t see people marching on Capitol Hill, in order to change the current trend of divorces in our culture. As a matter of fact I now see many churches starting “divorce care” ministries.

Now I am not saying that every Christian who gets divorce is responsible. Not at all. I am very sympathetic towards the victims of divorce. What I am saying is that the national average of about 40% of professing Christians who are getting divorced is no different than the 40-45% of non-Christians who are getting divorced and I promise you if I was a person who wanted to get married to the same sex I would pull that trump card right out of my back pocket and slam it down on the witness stand!

Christians are the NUMBER ONE reason for the decline in the view of marriage. Many Christians are getting married just as late as non-Christians, mostly due to the trend of pushing back adulthood and pursuing economical progress. Christians are getting divorced at the same rate, thus destroying the nucleus of the family, bringing hardship amongst the children they bear and setting the example for these children who will most likely respond the way they parents did in adversity. And not only that the church is doing very little (well sending people to see Fireproof may mean something but for me as an African American I didn’t identify much) to make any strides in this arena. Paul’s words in Ephesians 5 has had little personal effect on the “institution of marriage”.

A Church Full of Adulterers?

Let me ask a question. Which is worse? Homosexuality or Adultery? Why is it that we will remove and scorn the “homosexual” yet provide grace to the adulterer? I will tell you why. Because it would be very uncomfortable to remove people from our fellowship and risk losing people who are sympathetic towards their sin. Oh yes. Remarriage is a sin and not only that, it is a sin that we continue in if we continue in the “marriage”.

What I said may be hard to swallow but please don’t write me off if you have made it this far. Listen to the words of Jesus:

18 “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.

Now I didn’t say this Jesus did. We have no problem using Jesus’ words when they are comfortable but hard sayings like this are often glossed over. Again Jesus says “if you remarry or marry a divorced person you are in adultery”. I have come to the personal conclusion that a remarried person who was divorced from their spouse lives in perpetual adultery. I don’t believe Jesus ever recognizes that marriage. If so when does He start? At what point is the couple no longer committing adultery in their relationship? It seems like saying “sorry” but moving forward is not acceptable. To say sorry and then get married is open defiance and is no different than the Homosexual who gets married. The homosexual is doing for love right? Is there love any less than the person who is divorced (other than for marital unfaithfulness)? Just like a homosexual can’t romantically involve him or herself in a relationship with the same sex. Neither can the person who has been divorced against God’s revealed will.

The Salt Has Lost Its Saltiness/ A Light Has Been Covered With A Shade

We as the church have lost our right, downright forfeited our right to speak to others on the issue of marriage. Jesus says “take the log out of your own eye” and until the church gets serious about marriage and remarriage our ranting is worthless chatter. We have no legs to stand upon, our salt has no saltiness and our light has been dimmed. The judge who overturned Prop 8 is to be applauded for his honest assessment. Christians can not prove that gay marriage somehow effects the overall morality. The only point he missed is that the same standard Christians are superimposing on others they themselves do not subject themselves to. We have proven to be nothing more than a ban of hypocrites, yelling guilty while guilty ourselves.

Think about it. This Christmas how many kids will be effected by gay marriage? Even if it were legal in all states how many kids will be effected? It is estimated that less than 1% of the population would get married (don’t forget not all gays want to get married just like not all heterosexuals want to get married). Do you know how many families will be effected by heterosexual divorce though? Millions! This doesn’t include those who are “legally” separated or just plain separated.

Listen to me. Everytime a “pastor” marries a person who has been divorced unbiblically they attack and degrade the institution of marriage. Everytime a Christian walks out on his/her family they are attacking the institution of marriage. The church is the first line of defense on issues of marriage, yet they rather attack the nonbeliever than having judgment begin with the household of God. It is much easier to deflect the deplorable trend of divorces that is attacking our country. The church is worried about having to marry “gays” yet they don’t even prevent the marriages they do have control over. Pastor’s stand behind pulpits yelling insults and demonizing gays yet they bless adulterous relationships quite often. I saw all of the pastors signing the “Manhattan Declaration” yet other than a couple of brief mentions they say little on divorce, yet have huge paragraphs about promiscuity and homosexual marriage.

Either the church takes a stand or shut up! We can’t protect the “instituion” of marriage if we are not going to take a stand on divorce and remarriage. Lets take the log out of our eyes before we march alway to Capitol Hill to take the stick out of others.

Tomorrow is Charity and my12 anniversary. What a wonderful woman to put up with me. I am very excited we are going to Texas De Brazil in Forth Worth, hopefully we can walk around downtown in the Sundance Square area for a little while and just hold hands and kiss with no kids to interrupt!

I put “biblical” in quotations for a reason. That reason is that I believe even the writers of the New Testament could have been conditioned by their environment. I know that says a lot about inspiration and all, but I have to believe that.

Cultural Conditions and Their Biblical Influence

I have to first say, I believe Paul to be a victim of his circumstances much like every other human in the world. This does not mean that I have to question everything Paul says, but I do have to question some things, especially in light of the environment and culture we find Paul in and the environment and culture we find ourselves in. Culture is fluid as I wrote before in the past, I believe the Gospel to be objective truth so any questions along the line of “well how do you know the Gospel is true” will be ignored

Here is why I believe the biblical authors to be influenced by their culture. Lets take Roman Slavery. Most Roman slaves were slave due to one of three reasons. 1. They were war captives. 2. They sold themselves due to financial hardship and poverty or 3. They were sold by their parents into slavery.

Now I don’t like it, but number 2 isn’t that bad. However, numbers 1 and 3 are totally unacceptable. Yet, we don’t see Paul ever telling Christians to release their slaves (I think it was estimated that the majority of people were slaves). He actually encourages slaves to be obedient and masters to be fair. I don’t know about you; however, that doesn’t seem to be a good answer, not even acceptable. No human being should ever “own” another human being. It is wicked, regardless of the circumstances. Now if you owe money and you must work it off, then fine; however, slavery/possession never seems right to me and Paul never addresses the issue directly, well in Philemon he does, but outside of that he doesn’t.

Another example would be Peter’s response to an oppressive government. No one has to submit themselves to an oppressive government. I am 100% for rebellion/revolt, even violent revolt for those being oppressed. Peter tells us to accept such persecution, I disagree (and so do most Christians in America).  Anyone who beats you because they disagree with you, enslaves you because the color of your skin, or attempts to take your land or posession is to be rebelled against. I think the Zealots had this right. So again these authors may have blind spots.

Manhood vs Womanhood

Not always, but usually, women were regarded as property under Roman rule. I think this is why Paul writes about husbands loving their wives as their own bodies and Peter talks about handling wives with care. Abuse was not abnormal for Roman husbands, including their children. Women had to accept their lot. Especially if they had no families. A woman with no family (which was not abnormal) in Rome often times became prostitutes just to eat on a daily basis, many were treated very harshly. Thus being a wife brought a double edged sword. You may not have to prostitute but you were subservient in that culture.

Being a man gave you special privileges and being a woman, well.. child bearing (and hopefully a male) brought you some type of security. But lets take it a step further. From the fall forward, women have been regarded as second class citizens. A woman was to take what was given to her and that was that. We see that from Genesis through the rest of the New Testament. Even in Hebrew culture the wife was considered the husbands property.

I would say that Western culture has made huge leaps on the development and equality of women. The women suffrage act was a huge leap but as of late, we now have women running for president. Women leading Fortune 500 companies, Women in positions of influence in our government, our first billionaire woman and women making breakthroughs in everywhere from Academics to Sports. To be straight-forward, we are realizing that women can do just about anything a man can do (I am doing P90X and it is a female who is kicking my butt).

Anyone who tells you that women are somehow different than man in an inferior tone is only perpetuating a 5000 year old lie. Those thoughts are rooted in the oppression of women and fallacy of “gender roles”. Now I am not against gender roles, because a man can’t breast feed nor have children. But this has nothing to do with roles, but basic biology, much like a woman uses the bathroom sitting down and a man standing up. Or women have ovaries and a man testicles.

The Bible and Gender Roles

Based off of the first two bullets, I believe that the bible may be wrong on gender roles and may be guilty of perpetuating some aspects of the curse. We have to remember that a woman being off work due to child bearing is part of the curse. We have to understand that most of the biological things we see as deficiencies is part of the curse. They were not part of God’s original design, they are sin-laden mutations that we have used to perpetuate things such as submission and headship.

Because of that we have undue pressures on families, especially Chritian families. We have been taught that a woman working outside of the home is going against God’s plan. The problem with that is that the work the husband does, which takes him away from his family and leaves a wife to raise children is part of the curse. We were never created to do such things, we were to live off the land in the cool of the Garden, not work overtime for a promotion.

Men have been taught, especially in certain traditions, that he is the priest, prophet and provider of his home. Yet we all were to be priest, prophet and providers of our home. There are men today whose wife is much more gifted at generating income for their family but because of their religious tradition are crippling their family. They believe that they are being disobedient to God (many preachers teach this foolishness) if they are the ones who stay home while their wives work. Others feel it is their responsibility to “wash their wives in the word” as Christ washes the Church. They believe they are the ones who are supposed to have the final say and make tough decisions, when they have a wife that is more wise and more gifted in these areas.

The pressure of such things are not doing a service to the stenghtening of the human family. Especially today where women actually have more opportunities. Wives feel smothered, many men feel undue pressure and the Christian family is divorcing at alarming rates. We really need to reevaluate our perspective on this, especially in an ever changing world and even more importantly in light of the fact that the biblical authors may have had some blind spots in certain areas.

Ephesians says this

25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

I want to discuss this verse and hopefully clear up some really bad interpretations of this text.

Jesus is Doing and Did This

First things first. NOWHERE does the bible say husbands are to wash their wives with the word (more on word in a few). Jesus is the subject in this text and He is performing (sanctifying) and has performed (cleansed) the church. Husbands are to do no such thing  to their wives. As a matter of fact to put it more bluntly a husband CAN NOT sanctify nor cleanse his wife. Often times this is used in conjunction or for support of a husbands leadership in the home on biblical matters, but I am sorry, this isn’t in the context of this section of scripture. Maybe we can find it elsewhere but we can’t find it here. Husbands posess no sanctifying power nor any cleansing power. Only Christ can cleanse and sanctify and this is in particular relation to salvation. Christ has taken His bride and cleansed her and set her apart by His work on the cross. Husbands posses no such power.

Word Doesn’t Equal Bible

The next problem in this text is that “word” in this text (nor in most of the “bible”) doesn’t mean bible! We already have a faulty foundation to begin with, in the fact that husbands are superimposed on the text, the next and even more fundamental problem is that the word bible is superimposed on the word “rhema”.  This is downright horrible exegesis. The problem is that this substitution doesn’t just happen here, it happens in many interpretations and whenever we see “word” we automatically substitute that with bible and the fundamental rule of interpretation is that it can’t mean to us what it didn’t mean to them (unless of course the authors of what we call the NT gives us a little more light on something).

The Practical Outworking of This

The practical outworking of this is where I have the biggest problem, though I do think interpreting this text this way is bad, what is worse is how it is flushed out in families. Today this means, I have to go lead a bible study with my wife and this is fulfilling my duty of “washing her in the word”. So man are leading family worship times (I am not against this) and making their wives sit and listen through it (she must be submissive right and he must wash her right) and if not then some pastor/leader is telling them that they are not fulfilling their duty as a Christian husband when the entire premise is misguided at best or even heinously deceptive at worse. That means that a believing husband and wife are pushed under some phony legality that doesn’t even exist and they find themselves convicted over something that isn’t even instruction!

Some Final Thoughts

Here is what I am not saying. I am not saying that a husband shouldn’t study the bible with his family. I am not against family worship time and I am not saying that to do either is sin. What I am saying is that there is no biblical requirement to do such a thing in this portion of scripture. I would go even further to reject the notion that a husband is the “prophet, priest and king” of his home. The bible says no such thing. A husband is not to have the spiritual vision for the family. If your wife is a believer she is just as much a prophet and priest as you are and if your children are believers so are they. I do believe that Fathers are to instruct their children; however, nowhere does the bible say that husbands are to do this for their wives.  If you run back to the Old Covenant there may be some passages that allude to this (Deut 6:4-9) but I think the New Covenant priesthood usurps such text today.

I do believe that family “worship” is good. But family worship includes, serving together, loving others together, surrendering our rights to one another and shining the light of the gospel to others, in addition to studying the bible (though the bible itself never says studying the bible is worship). We have to be careful in what we teach others and what we call others to do. Some men may not even be qualified and the wife may be the more gifted teacher. This has nothing to do with leadership it has everything to do with giftedness. Maybe she has a greater understanding of the bible and may be more equipped to teach it. I have heard some preachers say “if your wife is more biblically equipped than you that is a problem”. That is horrible people! This isn’t some competition this is a union and to even let something slip out of your mouth like that is destructive.

Let Christ do the washing and we do the loving. Anything beyond that using this text is just plain wrong.

My good brother Hutch brought out some reflection in me on his comment on another post. Here is a dialogue he had with someone:

I once confronted a “Christian” couple who were getting a divorce with this: Have you ever considered being Christlike and forgiving your spouse? But you don’t know what they have done! What about not being a unmerciful servant and forgiving the smaller debt of your spouse in light of the insurmountable debt you had cancelled in Christ on your behalf? But you just do not know Mike! How about expressing your new nature in Christ? What about the love of God poured into your heart through the Holy Spirit that was given to us? What about the new heart? What about the circumcised heart? What about love, joy patience, goodness, gentleness…etc.

Why is your supposedly circumcised heart so hard?

Why can you not forgive and allow Christ to do a miracle in your life/marriage?

Why won’t you die to yourself?

You can’t express the nature of Christ towards your spouse?

Hmmmmmm. I’d be fearful…be afraid, very afraid. Something is horribly wrong.

Why is the Holy Spirit not bringing conviction into your heart?

 Those are really good questions. So the question is why? Why to all of these. Why is divorce so prevalent in our culture. We have more marriage ministries, marriage conferences, marriage parachurch ministries, women ministries, men ministries, divorce care, Christian counselors and for some reason divorce isn’t  going down AT ALL! It is actually rising by all statistics. Why is that? I have a very good idea.

We don’t believe the Gospel. Thats it. Our churches are packed full of people who do not believe the Gospel. They may affirm its fact, and may even enjoy what it does for them in its proclamation but they don’t believe it. Because if so it will begin to effect our actions. That is why divorce is so high. There are numerous books and now even box office topping movies on the subject of marriage, yet in spite of that we know people right now who refuse to be reconciled.

You see the Gospel calls us to lay down our lives for others, regardless of the consequences and in spite of reciprocity. Now we can’t stop someone from divorcing us, and I know many who were the victims; however, in most divorces there is a mutuality, neither party is getting their way and because of that there are “irreconcilable differences”. As Hutch asked, you can’t die to yourself? You can’t sacrificially love others, you can’t forgive? You can’t look out for the interests of others? If you can’t do that a home, you definitely can’t do that in the church. Right?

Where is the heart of a servant in that? Where is the obedience to Jesus who says “love your enemies”? Where is the obedience to Paul who says “be like-minded, united, on one accord”, or “have this mind in you which was in Christ Jesus”. What about the instructions in Col 3:11-17? Where Paul says “loving one another, and forgiving one another, bearing with one another”? Or “put on love the perfect bind of unity”? What about  Ephesians 4:31-32 “forgiving one another AS Christ has forgiven you”? What about Romans 12:9-21, “outdo one another in showing honor”?  What about 1 Peter 1:22 or 1 Peter 4:8? How about 1 John 4:7-12?

You see if we aren’t doing any of these things at home, we can’t do them in the church and if we can’t do them in the church (meaning refuse) then whats the purpose. We don’t want to obey God, we want what we can get out of God. The Gospel is rooted in love, patience and kindness and if we can’t put that fruit on display in our own homes, we can’t do it anywhere else!

The Gospel is the reason we are committed to one another in love. Not the kids, they will leave one day, not the finances because we will be free one day, our friends and families, because they may forsake us. However, Christ will do neither and if He isn’t the glue of a marriage, it will most likely dissolve when the storms of life come crashing. We stick it out because He calls us to permanence and love so that we might be a reflection of His light in a dark and dead world. Will you obey?

“Only God can judge me”, “ain’t nobody perfect”, “who are you to be judging me”, “its none of your business what I do”, or “cast the first stone if you don’t have any sins”

Often times if you have engaged someone who professes Christ about their behavior you may have heard one of or more than often all of those statements above. What is sad is, often, it is the local congregations that enable such a mentality. This mentality usually begins with a misunderstanding of John 8 which says:

 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” 6 This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”]]

I know the textual arguments about this text, but since it is in most bibles and is taught often I am going to address this text as if it is inspired text.

The religious leaders came and brought Jesus a woman to be stoned. Now they were right and they were wrong. Actually both parties were to be stoned and someone can’t engage in adultery alone. So that is problem one. Problem two is that they came with the motive to not obey the Law of Moses but to trap Jesus, so that they can say He spoke against the Law of Moses, which they did often. The third problem is they had not realized that they were not without sin. But the real problem is that they didn’t realize that Jesus was ushering in a new law called Grace! You see stoning left no room for reconciliation, no room for restoration, no room to extend the same grace that was extended to them, every time that went to the Temple on the Day of Atonement. Christ’s Law is one of love, reconciliation and grace; however, this is not void of holiness and living by the Spirit. The last sentence is where I want to focus.

Often times it is sad but true. Many Christians want to pick up stones. They have no problem receiving the Grace of God, yet have a huge problem extending grace and reconciliation when people are overtaken in sin. They have a zeal for holiness, but forget that this holiness begins with love and grace, not law and condemnation. This is sad and has caused great problems for the Church at large. However, in the same breath I must say that the pendulum has swung so far in the other direction that to address issues of sin is taboo today. You see condemnation is contrary to Christ’s law. Are lives are to be oriented and fixated on grace and reconciliation.  However licentiousness is also contrary to the law of Christ because we are to be an accountable, refining, conforming, discipling community also. Here is how Paul puts it:

6:1 Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.

Allowing people to live in sin IS NOT LOVING and casting stones is not loving. We are to loving address, admonish and exhort one another. Encouraging one another to become more like Christ. This is to happen within the context of a committed relationship. Let me pause and repeat that. This is to happen within the context of a committed RELATIONSHIP. Here is where I think the greatest error exists. If we have no plan to love, serve, cry with, bear burdens with, stay up late with, pray with, open our lives, homes and wallet for individuals who we want to see live a life of obedience and conformity, I suggest, no, I highly recommend, not scratch that I command you to to not attempt to tell someone how to live. Often times we want Homogeneity not relationship. However Christ calls us to relationship and once we want to see someone conformed we should automatically accept the fact this means that this may be a long road to travel on.

We have to realize that people are broken, hurting, programmed, that they have history, struggles, addictions, the human soul has been fragile since the fall and some people have closets packed full enough skeletons to be a national cemetery. We can tell where our hearts are on this matter within a few minutes. If we decide to engage a professing believer, but have no time to hear their story and to yoke up with them on this journey then we really don’t want to see them transformed for Christ’s glory but our own. I would recommend that you just let them go, because you will not help them become more like Christ you may encourage them to resent Christians even the more. Just let them waddle in sin, because you don’t have the time, nor the patience nor the Spiritual Maturity to help them.

We talk about homosexuals, people who live together but not married, we talk about young girls and boys who are neck deep in fornication, provocative dressing young women, young men who wear their clothes hanging off of their bottoms, the guy who is on his third wife, the single mom on welfare, the pregnant girl around the corner. We do a lot of talking but very little doing! We won’t move that young girl in, heck, we don’t even want to know her story, we just don’t want her to be pregnant nor do we want her to have an abortion. We don’t know if the young man who is a homosexual was molested by his dad, or the young girl was treated like a rag doll by her mom. We don’t care that the young men on the street corner (heck we won’t even go to the street corner, just drive by it) has a crack addict mother, or better yet a mother who has a mental disability but can still reproduce and have left this young man on his own. The reason why is that we don’t really care, we just don’t want them to sin. It is even worse when these people profess to know Christ.

Grace, love, relationships addressing sin and a ministry of reconciliation are synonymous works. We can’t address sin without having grace and love and a reconciliatory disposition. We also can’t be loving by letting people we can invite into our lives live in sin. That is also not the ministry of reconciliation. These terms are and concepts are interdependent, if one fails they all fail, we have to do a better job and harmonizing them.