Work out your own salvation

I well remember the early days of when I saw the Truth's in Scripture. I remember when the veil was lifted, the colored glasses removed, when the very mysteries of the Lord's Word were revealed to me, not that I can begin to understand or see all those mysteries, some things are of God and not for us, but...I remember those early days.

Scripture came alive like nothing I had ever experienced before. I literally devoured it. I could not get enough. I was seeing and understanding things I had never seen before. It was an amazing experience.

But I have come to realize something. In seeing and understanding so much of Scripture, so many things that had been hidden from me before, so many things that I knew from experience were hidden from others, I began to feel differently in my own stance, in my salvation. I don't think I ever thought I was more special than others but I do remember thinking and feeling, 'why me?' Why me out of all these people? Why me and not her? Why me and not him? What in me did the Lord see when He looked throughout all of time, before He even made the earth, so that He chose me?

And in feeling that way I shared some of what I saw in Scripture, some of what I was feeling with someone I love deeply. I would give my own salvation for this person. I would give it in a heartbeat and without a second thought knowing full well what it would mean for me.

Because I shared the things I was seeing and understanding with this person, because I longed to take them with me into this new and exciting, to me, place that I had found myself in, I shared more than they could comprehend. Just the other day this person told me something I had told them back then. I don't remember saying this so I don't know if their recollection is word for word what I said or if it is their understanding of many things I might have shared with them, but this person told me that in those early days I sat with them, speaking with deep seriousness, and told them that I believed I was chosen by God and was a saint.

Like I said, I don't remember saying any of that but I am sure I probably said something along those lines because they remember it. Every word is true but what I am coming to realize as I dig deeper and deeper into the teachings of men is that I had in my head that I was of the elect, something I am no longer so certain of because I now understand enough Scripture to know that their will be those that believe themselves to be of the elect that will be told:

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not by thy [k]Name prophesied, and by thy name cast out devils? and by thy name done many [l]great works?

23 And then will I profess to them, [m]I never knew you, depart from me [n]ye that work iniquity.

 Matthew 7:22-23 Geneva

Depart from me you that work iniquity. Such strong words. Such horrific words. Such words that should strike fear into the heart of every person that believes in Christ. We are told:

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, Philippians 2:12 ESV

We are to work out our own salvation...never once are we told to work out another's salvation...and we are to do it with fear and trembling. The very thought that we might be told 'depart from Me' should be enough to strike fear and trembling into our very souls. 

And yet, I remember the days when I looked at professing believers and felt and believed that I had been given something they had not. I remember thinking of the people I had known in 'churches' and how their faith seemed to be surface level and how I had been given a deeper faith. In seeing that I learned what saving faith was. 

The further I get from those early days, the more I learn, the more I see that we can never be 100% certain of anyone's eternal condition and that we should never make the assumption that we are guaranteed salvation and that others do not have it. 

'Depart from me you who work iniquity'.

The Lord alone knows who are His.

I know there are those on both sides of the Arminian/reformed line that would argue this. Some of them vehemently. Some of them angrily. Some of them...out of total fear that the salvation they take such comfort in might be a farce and they may not make it to heaven after all.

I have had a conversation with someone that basically did just that, argued with me that we can know our eternal condition because all we have to do is read the Scriptures. Well...I have read the Scriptures. Over and over...and over again. And you know what I keep coming back to? Depart from me...

Oh, how those words lead us to see that their will be believers that do not make it into heaven. Why would any of us ever go so far as to presume that we are one of the chosen ones? How are we to know just who is and who is not of the elect?

There is great comfort in 'knowing' we have been given or have gained (depending on how one sees it) salvation. There is so much comfort that we can even be lulled into such peace and contentment that we get complacent, even lazy in our spiritual life.

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating for any kind of works based religion here. I'm not promoting the belief that man can work his way to heaven. I'm simply saying that we are told:

...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. Phillipians 2:12-13 NKJV

And it is in the deep thoughts of working out ones salvation, and the realization that we should focus on our own salvation, with fear and trembling (and in humility and gratefulness) that I think back on those early days and how I felt. Amazed. Grateful. But also so sure I was something that others weren't. 

I no longer feel that way. No longer see things that way. These days I lean more toward worrying about myself and more inclined to just accept that the Lord has everyone right where He wants them, in life, in religion, even in time and space, and to leave it all in His hands. 

My hands are full just working out my own salvation.

When did we stop calling them souls?

It's been several years now since something struck me out of the blue one day while I was not exactly watching a movie that some relatives had on television. As I recall it was a 'christian' movie. I know it was clean and I seem to recall it was right around Christmas. I remember the movie was a Christmas movie but I don't recall much else about it.

What I do remember was that at some point in that movie a woman referred to someone, not by name, not as this person or that person, but as a soul. It went something like 'we can't leave that pour soul...' And I remember being struck by the realization that there was a time when people often referred to others as souls.

I remember my intent to delve deeper into that thought. I remember my desire to write on it. I also know that none of that ever came to fuition. I did not research it. I did not write on it. And here I am several years later, writing on that very thing.

There is no deep revelation in this post. No in depth Scripture studies. No discussion with my husband. This is nothing more than my own thoughts and what the implications and consequences were/are, or may have been from losing the perspective that we no longer call people souls.

I think of my own encounters with strangers in town. Whether I speak to them or not, whether I get close enough to exchange smiles or not, whether I have a pleasant conversation with them or a frustrating encounter, I see them as...people. Rarely in the rush of accomplishing tasks that must be done do I stop to think of the lives these people live and even more rarely do I actually think of each person, or even one person, as I stand face to face with them, as having an eternity.

Yes, I am fully aware that every single person faces an eternity either with Christ or deprived of Him. I am aware that heaven or hell awaits everyone that has ever lived or will ever live.

I know these things.

I know the verses. I've studied the passages. But when I stand there, face to face, I rarely think of these things. Life and it's troubles and trials, needs and responsibilities push those thoughts from my mind in the thoughts of what I must get done today. And so I run my errands, do my shopping, tend to what needs tending and in doing all that I encounter people.

What would happen if instead of encountering people...I encountered souls?

How different would we...would anyone that professes a belief in Christ...interact with and respond to people if they thought of them not as people but as souls?


.. we regard no one according to the flesh. 2 Corinthians 5:16 ESV

We regard no one...according to the flesh.

According to the flesh.

And yet...we live in the flesh and we see in the flesh and where people once were in the habit of thinking of others as souls, somewhere, somehow, for some reason, our society as a whole stopped thinking of them as souls.

I can't even remember the last time I was in a 'church', a building that supposedly deals in souls, that anyone in that building referred to people as souls. But then again I can barely recall the last time I was in a 'church' at all.

And still I wonder...when did we stop calling them souls?

And what would be the difference, if anything, if we stopped regarding others according to the flesh and saw them as souls?

When do two become one...repost

Scripture tells us that when a man and woman marry they are no longer two people but one.

 ...‘God made them male and female.’ 7 ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife,[a] 8 and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. 9 What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” Mark 10:6-8

Marriage between a man and a woman clearly creates a unity that even the unregenerate can, for the most part, see a difference between it and any other unity on earth. Few people deny there is a relationship between a husband and a wife that goes beyond that of any other relationship on earth. 

It takes a regenerate person to understand the true depths of that unity but most people can see and acknowledge there is something more to marriage than what is in any other relationship. Or so I like to think. As I write this I am questioning myself on just how true that statement is. Today people, as a whole, seem to be embracing all manner of almost-marriages and giving them the same respect that should be reserved for Biblical marriage, or marriage between one man and one woman. 

I would be the first person to say that a marriage certificate does not create a marriage. My husband and I married each other before the Lord several months before we married before the law. We both had family that did not consider us to be married until we said those vows before someone to make them legal. There was a distinction in the eyes of our family members that said we weren't married until we had a piece of paper issued by the state giving us the legal status of marriage. 

The family members that were quick to let us know that our commitment to each other, one made before the Lord, did not count as marriage are the same people that have no issues whatsoever with an unmarried couple living together. One of those relatives had even told me not to bother getting married, to just live together, and that was quite a while before I met my husband. Then when I married my husband without legal status that same relative was one of the first ones to say we weren't truly married. 

I can't help wondering what it mattered to this person. If they did not hold the status of marriage as super important (and they don't, I could give several examples to prove that) then why even bother weighing in on my and my husband's decision on how we married? 

But to get back on topic, there are some that say my husband and I weren't married until that legal paper was in our hands, a paper we did not have for several months after we were married before the Lord. In those months we lived together as man and wife, made choices together, bought things together, conceived a child together...all things married couples do and yet there are some that would say we were not married during those months. 

Those same people don't normally bat an eye at people living together without any intent of marrying. It's normal and accepted in our society. At least it is in America. I know someone that used to work in an Arabic country and that person saw the difference in that country and ours. Apparently the majority of people in prison in that country are unmarried mothers and they are in prison because they are unmarried mothers. 

What marks the line between a couple living together without benefit of marriage and a couple living together in marriage? Strictly from a human standpoint? Or a Biblical one? Where is the line that defines marriage verses adultery? I have two close relatives that had babies while living with men they did not even come close to claiming as their husbands. One of those relatives has married the daddy of her children, the other has not. Where is the line between married and not married? When do the two become one? 

I'm not asking that Scripturally but from a human, earthly, standpoint. Why were my husband and I condemned before men for marrying without a legal status of marriage while those that choose to simply live together, living in sin with no intent of marriage, or with a vague 'we'll get married someday' plan, are treated the same as if they were married. 

I don't support the whole homosexual marriage thing but plenty of people that are either homosexuals or those that support the homosexual lifestyle can clearly see there is something different in the marital relationship. They saw it so well that being accepted in society as a couple, even couples with legal rights, wasn't/isn't good enough, they want the same legal and social rights and acceptances as man/woman marriages are given.

So marriage creates a line that takes two people from who and what they were before marriage and pushes them to the other side of that line where they are something different as a married couple. 

There are states that are what is called community property laws, meaning what one spouse owns, so does the other. They are treated as one when it comes to legal things in those states. But that is only one side, a legal side, to some of what happens in marriage. What of all the other, little and not so little things that move two people from being separate to being one person in marriage?

My husband are married. We are one before our Lord yet we are still two separate people. My husband likes things I do not like. I like things he does not like. I go places he does not go, he goes places I do not go. We both live our own lives within our marriage and yet the very fact that we are married creates almost an entirely whole world that the two of us live within even as we live our own lives. That might be a convoluted way of saying it but it's true. It's kind of like the earth rotates on it's own axis while circling the sun. A married couple has an entire life that is a shared, we are one, life but that oneness happens in the midst of each person living out their own life. 

I was recently talking with a friend, technically, I was writing a letter to a friend because that is how we do the majority of our communicating, and I was telling this friend of my life back when I met my husband. I knew this friend for several years before my husband and I met, so this person saw the changes in my life as they were made but I was sharing some of my own thoughts and memories. In that letter, I told my friend how in the early days and months of my marriage I had to learn how to be a wife. It was new to me and there were many other things going on in my life and in my husband's life but in the midst of all of that we were learning to me a married couple too. 

I remember those days. I remember the experiences that took my husband and I from two people and pushed us into one. Scripture says we became one when we married, that is the line that makes two people into one, but there are earthly experiences that strengthen and deepen that marital bond. We learned to depend on each other, trust each other, work together, and generally how to mesh our two lives into one. 

There are other relationships though that are not defined by Scripture as creating one person from two. I tend to base my understandings of life off Scripture but I'm only human and occasionally something comes along that makes me wonder just how something can be or it makes me question my understanding of how something is. 

Science has 'proven' that a mother and her newborn are one person. I read an article on it several years ago and there is a connection in the mother and newborn that causes their bodies to work together, often reacting to each other as if they are one person. The mothers chest can sense the infants temperature and will regulate to keep the baby at the right temperature. A baby kept next to or on top of mom will change it's breathing and heart rate to match the mothers. 

There are plenty of things that go wrong with that connection. Even something as seemingly minor as formula feeding can and does have long reaching effects on the mother-child bond. My husband remarked many times on how breastfeeding strengthens the bond between mother and baby. His observations are correct. There is something in the nursing relationship that is different than in any other relationship. They say a mother is much more patient with her 'nursling' than she is even with the same child once that child is weaned. 

From an earthly standpoint, it would seem that a mother and child are one person, at least for a time. And that's just taking the first year of life into account, what of the nine months before birth, when the baby literally is a part of the mothers body?

Scripture does not tell us that mother and child are one. There are no verses that speak of the mother being one with her baby. That distinction is given only to man and woman in marriage. Yet, the Lord has put something into the mother and baby that make them one, so much so that they share the mother's body for nine months and once that precious time ends there are physical and physiological things in the mother and baby's interactions that make them react to each other as if they are still one person. Their bodies recognize each other and interact and respond accordingly. Just as my body will work to warm up my foot if it grows cold, my body also warms my baby if it grows cold. It's a miraculous thing to experience and yet the Lord does not say mother and baby are one.

Just this morning I read an article about a set of conjoined twins that have one body but two heads. This set of twins appears just from looking at them to be one person with two heads. They are supposedly a medical anomaly. They have two names and, according to the article, do things like buying two movie tickets, getting two separate college degrees, but also travel on a single airline ticket. 

I do not know the logistics of living as these two women do and I do not know what it would be like to raise children with this particular condition. I do know that my thoughts as I read the article, and in times past when I have seen things about this same set of twins, is that if they were mine I would raise them as one child. From what I can gather they have been treated as separate people. 

Today I found myself thinking that I'm not so sure I would have wanted them even having two names and two separate birth certificates. These were my thoughts as I read the article and I do not know what I actually want or do if I were faced with a child or children with that condition. I just know that today, and in times past, when I read of these two girls I could not help thinking that because they cannot be separated, they are literally one person with two heads. Logically, I understand that there are many things that must be consider, only one of which is what the law requires in such cases. 

If the law says a set of conjoined twins must be issued two birth certificates than obviously there is no getting around that even if the parents prefer only one birth certificate. There are also things like the fact that each head on this set of twins has her own thoughts and feelings. Therefore, there would be times when one side would be misbehaving while the other side was not. Logistics in such a case could get mighty confusing very quickly. 

And still, my thoughts are that this set of twins, no matter their ability to think and reason, must live life as one person. They can be seen one of two ways...two people that share one body, or one person that has two heads. This set seems to be seen as two people, one body, and maybe that is best but my thoughts lead me to think of the one person aspect. There is no separating one of these girls from the other. They are forced to live one life whether they want to or not. They cannot even do basic personal care without the other.

 It seems to me that they are one person but Scripture does not cover situations like this. There is no discussion of conjoined twins at all. Does the Lord see them as two people or as one? We cannot know. The article I read said they have two souls but we really cannot know that either. We do not know the line where the Lord takes one soul and makes it two. People have one soul. One person, one soul. Conjoined twins, though, are not one person even though they may not be fully two people either. That is one of those cases where I am happy to leave it up to the Lord. But even though I am happy to do so, I still can't help wondering where that line is...are they one person or two? Does the fact that the two must live life conjoined make them one person?

Scripture only defines the turning of two people into one where marriage between one man and one woman are concerned. All the other scenarios are things we can only wonder at but never really know or understand just where the line is drawn. 

Teaching younger women to love their husbands...repost

I recently wrote a post titled ‘The role of a wife.’ In it I went into Titus 2 but I only touched on certain parts of it. As I wrote it there was a part I wanted to go into more detail on but the time for that didn’t seem right. I’m going to do that now.

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, ⁴ and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, ⁵ to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. Titus 2:3-5

That is the ESV version of the verses but for me…with these verses…I find it helpful to look also to the KJV because it is worded just a bit different.

The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;

⁴ That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,

⁵ To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.

We are to teach the young women…to love their husbands.

How?

Exactly how can we teach anyone how to love another? I have a daughter that says she doesn’t want to be the kind of wife that I am. She thinks that my marriage is too…something. She…at this point in her unmarried life…has in mind to be more of the kind of wife that has her life while her husband has his. And who knows she may be that kind of wife.

But…how am I supposed to teach her to love the husband she doesn’t yet have? I’ve always taught my girls that whether they’re married or not they are somebody’s wife. That they should remember that in all they do. That there will come a day when the Lord will bring them and their husband-to-be together and until then…with or without him being a part of their lives…they belong to him.

I’ve shown my girls by example what being a wife is. I’ve talked of what it isn’t.

And still…my daughter says she doesn’t want the kind of marriage I have. I pray the Lord gives her one anyway. She can’t understand what she’s saying she doesn’t want.

But…so much teaching goes on through the example we set. I used to have neighbors that with only a few minutes in their company everyone around knew that the wife ruled the home…and her husband. He literally ran to do her bidding. Another set of neighbors in that same block was a married couple that fought near constantly. The wife spread all sorts of stories about her husband everywhere she went. I never heard her say anything nice about her husband. Another set of neighbors…same block…screamed and yelled at each other in the front yard.

Those were three couples. Three marriages. Within one block. What were those wives teaching the younger women? All three of those wives had daughters, two of them had preteen and teenaged daughters. What were those wives teaching their young daughters? The third of those wives was no longer raising children…her children were grown…but she was still an example to the daughters she had raised. And she was an example to every younger woman that crossed her path.

These were three women…three married women…that all taught younger women about marriage if in no other way than through the example they lived in their own marriages. How could they teach anyone to love their husbands when they didn’t show any of that love to their own husbands…at least not in a way others could see?

I’ve heard many times that a lot of parents teach their kids to ‘do as I say not as I do’ but the reality is that everything we do sets an example for others. My mother likes to quote something her grandpa used to say…your walk talks and your talk talks but your walk talks louder than your talk talks. In other words…you can say anything but if you don’t live it out what you say has no purpose. You set the examples by what you do. What you say only factors in if it supports what you do.

We can’t teach our children not to lie if they hear us tell lies every day. In the same way we can’t teach younger women to love their husbands if we don’t love our own husband. And show it.

Whether he’s there or not.

I read an article last night that was speaking about the more intimate side of marriage but there was one part where it warned wives not to speak of their husbands shortcomings in front of others.

I try never to speak badly of my husband even to myself but this was a reminder as I read it. I learned many years ago that we can notice and focus on the good things in a person or the bad things in a person. What we focus on will have an effect on our relationship…whatever it may be…with that person. If all we see is the bad…it will ruin the relationship. If we focus on the good…it will strengthen the relationship.

And so…we are to teach younger women to love their husbands. I will admit that I have no idea how to teach that. The only thing I can figure is that we are to teach by example. If we love our husbands, if we respect him, if we appreciate him…and we show it to him and everyone else…maybe that will be the example that will teach younger women to love their husbands.

Ephesians 5:33 says….

…let the wife see that she respects her husband.

If we respect our husbands maybe…maybe…we will teach younger women by example how to love their husbands.

I’ve heard and read many times that kids will model their marriages after their parents’ marriage. How mom treated dad is often how daughter treats her husband. Or so I’ve heard. In the day to day of family living we set many examples for our children that we don’t even realize.

We show our husband and children how we feel about them through the tone of our voice and our actions toward them. I’ve noticed that when I talk to my husband on the phone my voice changes. It takes on a tone that I don’t use with anyone else. I don’t do it on purpose it just…happens. Every time.

That tone…tells me…my love shows through in the way I speak to my husband.

Those around me…including our children…may or may not notice the difference. Whether they do or not has no bearing on me doing it. I don’t change the way I speak when I talk to him on the phone on purpose. It’s one of those things that just happens and because it just happens…it’s just there. It just…is.

But it’s also one of those little things that sets an example for our children whether or not I’m aware of it…and even if the children aren’t aware of it. The example is set simply because it’s lived out.

In the same way I almost always greet my husband on the front porch or in our driveway when he comes home. I do this because I miss him when he isn’t home and because I’m genuinely glad that he’s home. I want to see him, to tell him hello, to just be with him. So when he comes home I go meet him but in doing so our children see that. They see that I set aside what I was doing when he pulls into the yard…and they come running to let me know he’s home just in case I might have missed his arrival.

 The fact that they run to let me know he’s home tells me that they’ve picked up on the way I set everything aside to greet him when he comes home. I’ve never told them it was important to greet your husband when he comes home…I haven’t had to. They see me do it every time my husband comes home.

I recently read an article on marriage in a ‘Christian’ magazine. The article was very good. It was full of information on marriage in our modern world and then went to Scripture to tell what marriage should be like. Everytime I read the verse that says that older women are to teach younger women to love their husbands I wonder just how we are supposed to do that. There is no curriculum that can be written to teach a young woman…or any woman…how to love her husband. There is no check list of things that we can instill in our daughters to ensure that they will love their husbands.

How…exactly…are we supposed to teach younger women to love their husbands?

I just don’t know. And yet…

I think of the article I read and how it said marriage has become a laughingstock. It is the brunt of many jokes. Where marriage was once seen and portrayed as a good thing…today so many people…so many wives…speak ill of it without thinking. Or they represent marriage in a poor light by their actions and attitude.

Everytime a woman says she doesn’t want to be married…she is possibly influencing a younger woman.

Everytime a wife speaks ill of her husband…she is possibly influencing a younger woman.

I think of the many rolled eyes I have seen in young women when the subject of marriage has come up. I think of the conversations I’ve heard where women speak of marriage in a ‘someday’ kind of way.

When I was in my teens and early twenties I remember how men were tagged with the label of ‘Peter Pan syndrome’ if they didn’t want to settle down and be a…man. They were stuck in what was seen as Neverland because they wanted to stay little boys forever. At least they wanted the freedom of living life free of any responsibility.

I haven’t heard that term used in years but I can think of women that should wear that same label today. They speak derogatorily about marriage preferring to be ‘free’ or ‘live their own life’. It used to be mostly irresponsible men…the kind that wouldn’t have made good husbands anyway…that expressed those kinds of thoughts. But like a disease that way of thinking has spread into females and is being exposed to younger and younger ‘victims’.

And as that ‘disease’ spreads to an ever wider and more varied population I wonder if the teaching of younger women…teaching them to love their husbands…couldn’t be spread in much the same way.

Only…there’s a problem with that…you see there is a ‘disease’ that has run rampant in America today. This ever growing, highly contagious ‘disease’ has been spread so far and wide that it’s nearly impossible to combat. There seems to be no treatment for the ‘disease’ and there appears to be no end to the epidemic that is spreading faster than a forest fire.

Our society has so filled the minds and hearts of young women with the idea that there is so much better in life than to be a wife that no matter how hard we try to combat that ‘disease’, its much like trying to stop a flood with a washrag.

There was a time when television portrayed marriage as a very good thing. Shows that had the parents not only working together for the good of the family but that showed marriages in which the couple truly seemed to enjoy each other.

In time those shows gave way to married couples that not only seemed to care little for their families but that both the husband and the wife hardly appeared to even like each other. Marriage was depicted as more of a battle ground then a wondrous, safe place.

The problem with hoping society could ever teach marriage as a good thing is the very fact that marriage, whether it’s seen as good or not, isn’t seen as something that is forever. It’s something people do because…well, because they do…and it lasts until it gets hard and then divorce is an option. That is the best idea our society gives to young people today.

Christian women are told to teach something different to young women. In a world where the ‘disease’ of bad marriages is spread like an epidemic Christians women are told to teach younger women to love their husbands. I can’t begin to figure out how to teach anyone to love another person. But that is what I’m told to do.

How do we even tell someone how love is much less teach them how to love another? I don’t know the answer to that but I do know there is a place we can go to find out the very principles of marriage.

In a society where the very definition of marriage is being rewritten we can go to the Source of marriage and see a different purpose for marriage. We can see that we are given not only the basis for what it is but we can see and understand the very laws that govern it.

Yes, there are laws involved in marriage.

Those laws were written by the One that created the first marriage and each and every marriage after that. I may not know how to teach my daughter to love her husband but I can tell her where to find the source of marriage and the laws that govern it.

I can point her to Genesis and the first marriage. I can remind her that the Lord created her for her husband. I can tell her that marriage isn’t a legal contract…no matter that our society requires that we enter into such a contract with our husbands…but a covenant agreement with her husband and the Lord.

I can show her through Scripture, through my words, and through my marriage that marriage is a holy and sacred union. That in that union she as a wife has a certain role that she needs to fill and it isn’t just in the wearing of the title of wife. The role isn’t in the title but in her place within the marriage.

I can show her with Scripture and with my own life how to live out that role. Much the way I show her how to be a mother in my interactions with her…I can show her how to be a wife as I live out my role of wife before her.

In our modern world where society as a whole tends to lean toward the thinking that people control all…marriage is but one of the things that is often seen as controlled by people. But people did not create marriage, they do not make marriage, they do not define marriage. The Lord created marriage when He created Eve. He made the first marriage then and He has made each marriage since then. It is the Lord that defines marriage.

Scripture tells us that…male and female he created them. It tells us that…a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. It goes further to tell us that…man should love his wife as Christ loved the church…and that woman…should submit to her husband as to the Lord.

There is the definition for marriage. It is the who of marriage and the how of marriage.

Because marriage is created by the Lord, it is only the Lord that can show us how to succeed in marriage. He has a plan for marriage and He laid out the roles for each person within their marriage. When a couple lives within those roles they reap the benefits of the Lord’s creation. If both people are in Christ and live for Christ…and in so doing they live out their role within their marriage as Scripture lays out…they receive the blessing of a Christ honoring marriage.

This is the way to love our husbands. Scripture says wives are to respect their husbands, it says they are to submit to their husbands as unto the Lord.

I was sitting in a ‘church’ building with a family member about a year ago and the preacher used some verses from Ephesians 5. I don’t remember the verses but I do remember that in showing them to my younger relative, she read the verse about wives submitting to their husbands. This relative…a self-proclaimed Christian…wrinkled up her nose and shook her head no. Just moments before that she had been studiously writing down other Bible verses but when she came to the part about submitting to her husband she vehemently refused to do so. In just a few seconds time she eagerly accepted some of Scripture and adamantly refused another part.

She picked and chose what of Scripture…I believe all on marriage…that she wanted to accept.

Just that easily she dismissed what she didn’t like and grabbed onto what she did. There was no opportunity to teach this younger woman that submitting to her husband is loving him. There was no chance to explain that submission is honoring to Christ and to her husband. There was no chance to explain anything. There was just a very real example of exactly what our world…what a good number of ‘Christians’ believe about marriage.

They pick and chose what they want and discard the rest…in Scripture and in marriage. There is so much in Scripture and it’s all so very good when taken just as it is without adding any of our ideas to it or removing parts because our fallen human hearts and minds may not like what it says…but if I was going to pick only two rules for marriage from Scripture they would be…

Husbands love your wives…Ephesians 5:25

And…

Wives submit to your husbands… Ephesians 5:22

I would never pull from only those two partial verses but if I was to pick and choose those would be the two I would chose for marriage. Because all the rest could so easily be placed within those two ‘rules’ for marriage.

I think of the young woman that sat beside me and wrinkled up her nose at the very thought of submitting to her husband. In our society that is the very idea that is ‘spread’ among women today. Women don’t want to think about submitting to their husbands, some of them never even entertain the idea.

Most women today have been raised on the idea that they are at least equal to men if not superior to them. Very few wives today become wives having any idea of the concept of being submissive to their husbands.

I remember seeing my grandmother time and time again argue with and flat out defy my grandpa. This happened for as long as I can remember. My main memories of my grandparents together as a couple are of them arguing and of them exchanging quick kisses when they parted company.

My children and grandchildren see my husband and I take walks hand in hand, they see us walk through town the same way, they see us sit together on the couch, study the Bible together, sit on the swing or the porch together. These are the memories I want our children and grandchildren to have when they think of my husband and I as a couple.

This is the way I want to teach younger women to love their husbands. Through example. I want to show them that marriage isn’t the eye rolling subject of jokes and derision. I want them to see through me that marriage is a wonderful, worthy, honorable, holy union that should be upheld and desired.

That is the teaching I want to impart to younger women.

That is the message I want to pass to them.

That is the legacy of love I wish to impart as I teach them to love their husbands. Because I can’t think of any greater way to teach someone to love their husband than by showing them what that love looks like in all I do with my own husband.

The definition of marriage...repost

I was browsing in the book section of our local thrift store the other day, not because I needed anything but because you never know what might be there. I wound up not finding anything although I did flip through a few books and a couple of Bibles. While I was scanning titles on the shelf a book on being a wife caught my eye. I picked it up knowing I had no intention of buying it. Mostly I was just curious. I didn’t get past the front cover. There was nothing necessarily wrong with the book. I didn’t even read the back cover. All I read was the brief writing on the front. I don’t remember exactly what it said but it was something like ‘with this book you’ll learn to be happy and satisfied in your marriage’ or some such thing. Below that there was another sentence or two. I barely glanced at them as I replaced the book on the shelf.

I had lost all interest in the book. Without any intention on my part the thoughts running through my head were why not just pick up a Bible and see what it has to say on marriage. Then Ephesians five came to mind.

I know the unregenerate can’t see marriage in the way the Bible speaks of it. I know there was a time I couldn’t see it that way. I wasn’t raised to see marriage as anything special. In my family marriage was something people did until they didn’t want to do it anymore. I don’t think I ever heard any of my family members talk about marriage as something that should be forever.

I’m not sure how far into my extended family I’d have to go before I found a couple that weren’t divorced. That was just the way my family was. Marriage was never spoken of as something special. It was never seen as something that you committed to for life. When things got hard, divorce was waiting. That was pretty much the unspoken belief among my immediate family and among my extended family.

My grandmother was divorced multiple times. She had five children, all of which were divorced at least once. That lack of total commitment to marriage was passed down without anyone really trying to teach it. It was simply there.

Somewhere in all that I picked up a different way of looking at marriage. To me it was special, sacred, something that was meant to be forever. I remember even in my teens I believed marriage was to be honored, that you didn’t go into it lightly and you didn’t just give up on it and walk away.

Where that belief came from I didn’t know. I seemed to be the only one in my family that saw marriage that way.

Today my daughter said without any hesitation ‘then I’d get a divorce.’ This isn’t the first time this daughter has said something to that effect. She’s said it before when talking about habits that her future husband may have. She seems to have no compunction about divorcing her future spouse.

While I know that it’s easy to say you’ll do something when your heart isn’t involved, I can’t help being concerned about her statements. Or more precisely I can’t help being concerned over the feelings and beliefs that those statements stem from.

Despite my best efforts to teach my daughter that marriage is sacred, that it matters, that it’s a lifetime commitment, she has somehow managed to pick up on the thoughts and feelings of my extended family…on the beliefs of our culture.

In our society marriage is more like take-out food. Go through the drive thru and pick up whatever suits you at the time and when you get tired of whatever you picked just toss it out and get another order. There’s nothing special about it. Easy come, easy go.

That may be our culture’s way of seeing marriage but it isn’t the Lord’s way.

A quick look in a modern dictionary says marriage is the union between a person of the opposite sex as husband and wife. Unfortunately that same definition goes on to state that it’s a relationship recognized by the law and then gets even worse by saying marriage is also a similar relationship between two people of the same sex.

There is nothing in that modern definition that shows marriage to be anything special. I could have been reading about a partnership between two businesses for all the importance put on that definition. Marriage is the union between two people recognized by law. A business partnership is the union between two people recognized by the law…or whatever other type of merger happens between two people.

Where is the acknowledgement that marriage is something special, that it’s a relationship that goes above and beyond that of any other relationship you will ever have?

Not happy with that definition I dug a little deeper. I looked into a dictionary published in 1828. And found a very different definition for marriage, one that puts much more emphasis on the importance of what a marriage is.

MAR'RIAGE, n. [L.mas, maris.] The act of uniting a man and woman for life; wedlock; the legal union of a man and woman for life. Marriage is a contract both civil and religious, by which the parties engage to live together in mutual affection and fidelity, till death shall separate them. Marriage was instituted by God himself for the purpose of preventing the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes, for promoting domestic felicity,and for securing the maintenance and education of children.

Marriage is honorable in all and the bed undefiled. Heb.13.

1. A feast made on the occasion of a marriage.

The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king, who made a marriage for his son. Matt.22.

2. In a scriptural sense, the union between Christ and his church by the covenant of grace. Rev.19.

 

In less than 200 years our country has gone from defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman for life, as something that was instituted by God to last till death, to seeing it as a legally recognized union between two people. Our country no longer even gives marriage the distinction of being only between a man and a woman.

In our country today marriage is now seen as a relationship between two people that is recognized by law. That’s it. That’s what it boils down to. There’s nothing special about it, it’s not sacred, it’s not holy, It’s not even endorsed by God. It’s simply recognized by the law.

What happened in those 200 years that dictionary makers would go from defining marriage based off Scriptural standards to defining it as little more than a business partnership? The problem isn’t in the dictionary or even in the minds of the people writing it. The problem is in our country, in our culture. It’s the same problem that ensured I grew up seeing marriage as nothing special. In reality the exposure I had to what marriage looked like should have taken all the faith I had in marriage and turned me away from it.

The best way I can describe my childhood experiences with married couples would be that marriage meant fighting. It was a struggle at best and outright violent at worst. It meant keeping secrets and trying to hide the choices you made from your spouse. That was the type of example that I grew up seeing.

Somewhere in my life the Lord planted a different kind of belief in marriage. One that went deep and ensured I would find happiness in being married. It took years before I understood that the deep beliefs I held in marriage and what it should be matched the Biblical teaching on marriage.

Quite honestly we’re given a very simple set of rules for what marriage should be.

“Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, ⁵ and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? ⁶ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” Matthew 19:4-6

In just a few sentences Jesus defined what marriage is.

 He created them male and female.

Man shall leave mother and father and hold fast to his wife.

The two shall become one flesh.

What God has joined together, let not man separate.

That’s a pretty simple definition. There was nothing in that about a legal union. Nothing about it being between anyone but a male and a female. And there was no ignoring the fact that man was not to end what God brought together.

But our society has forgotten that. Marriage is no longer defined in those terms. We’re rapidly approaching a time when marriage may not be defined on any terms. I read an article about a year ago about a couple that has what they call an open marriage. Both the husband and wife in that marriage were free to have relationships with anyone they wanted at any time. They were both okay with that and said that they could never be happy in a traditional marriage. That is only one example of what marriage has become in our society.

There are so many more and the majority of them look nothing like the definition Christ gave for it. Unfortunately that is a part of our modern society in this fallen world. Like so many other things in today’s world marriage holds little importance.

And it shows in everything from what we see when we go anywhere in public to the definition of marriage in today’s dictionary verses a dictionary written in the 1800’s.