I'm part of a reformed Christian group on social media. Mostly I just read what others post on the group. I have found it to be enjoyable, enlightening, and educational on more than one occasion. While I still find that to be the case there have been a few things posted to that list lately that have made me wonder how those things found their way into a reformed group.
The first was a man that posted a short thank you to the group. It went something like this...thank you for letting me join. I'm a Roman Catholic. That really had me wondering what would cause a Roman Catholic to want to join a reformed Christian group. It seemed that I wasn't the only one. There were a number of people that questioned him on why he wanted to be a part of the list and what his beliefs were. The last I saw of that post they were still discussing his beliefs and his reasons for joining a reformed list. There was even a secondary conversation going on between the others on the group because some of the members had addressed the priest as 'brother in Christ' and some kept saying that a priest cannot be a brother in Christ.
I never saw the end of that discussion, although I've tried to find it again several times, but having seen the discussion and read the comments I am left wondering about several things. What would make a Roman Catholic want to join a reformed group? Why would a supposed reformed Christian ever refer to a Roman Catholic as a brother in Christ? I have no problem with a Roman Catholic joining the group. So long as a non Reformed Christian isn't trying to cause trouble I have no problems with anyone joining the group. I think a Reformed group is more than most people can handle but if they can handle it than they might learn a bit of Truth and that would be a good thing. But...a Roman Catholic in a Reformed group is definitely something that seems a bit strange to me.
I have a friend that once professed to believe in a monergistic way. About a year after this friend said that my reformed believes nearly became the destruction of our friendship. Not because I was trying to destroy the friendship but because this friend couldn't seem to accept that I didn't believe in free will. And that was a long term friendship that had weathered storms before. How then can a Roman Catholic handle being a part of a reformed group, a group where most people think their beliefs are heresy?
Not long after the Catholic Priest joined the group I saw another post on the same group. This post was a link to a blog article about being unequally yoked in marriage. The person that shared the link wrote a short paragraph on the same topic. I don't recall exactly what they said but it held to reformed beliefs. I was intrigued with what they wrote and what kind of article had prompted them to write it so I clicked on the link. It was good enough at first.
In fact at the beginning of the article the writer made a point that reminded me of something I told someone a couple of years ago. This someone was talking to me about marriage and how they didn't want to marry anyone that believed the way my husband and I do. My response was that I hoped that they didn't marry anyone with our kinds of beliefs either. It hurt me a whole lot to say that at the time because I very much loved the person I was talking to and would like nothing more for this person than for them to share my beliefs and to marry someone with the same beliefs but at the time I had to tell them that I wouldn't want them to marry anyone with those beliefs. I meant it then and I would still mean it today. At the time that this person said that to me they were pulling away, maybe running away would be a better definition, from what little faith they had. Today this same person denounces any belief in the Lord.
Because of their beliefs, or lack of, at the time we had that conversation I had to tell them I would never want them to marry anyone that believed as I do but I said it not so much for the sake of the loved one but for the sake of the person that they might marry. I was thinking of how bad it would be for a reformed person to be married to someone that had very little (at the time) faith in the Lord. Looking back on that conversation now I can only imagine the heartache that both the non believer and the believer would experience.
And I was reminded of all of that as I read that blog post on being unequally yoked in marriage. For the believer they would be tied to a union that could never be fully functioning. It could never be what marriage is supposed to be. I've thought many times of how marriage must truly be designed strictly for the Lord's elect. I'm not saying that no one but true Christians should ever marry, obviously the Lord works His plans out through the elect and the non elect. But when I truly think of what marriage is, what it should be, and what it represents, I simply cannot wrap my mind around the fact that no unbeliever really has what it takes to do marriage justice...if that's the right description. How can a non believer truly engage in and partake of a union that borders on being Holy, if it doesn't outright cross the line into being holy? How can a non believer, or a professing believer, ever rightly experience, partake in, enjoy, much less treasure a relationship that is designed to represent Christ and His ekklesia?
I think of the many married couples that I've known and honestly can't imagine ever wanting to enter into a relationship like most of them had. Even those people whose marriages managed to stand the test of time did not, to my way of thinking manage to do so in a way that would ever make me say 'I want what they have' or 'I want to be a part of that'. I think of the married couple who the husband clocked the wife's odometer to make sure she wasn't 'running around' while he was coming and going and seeing any woman he wanted. I think of the married couple that argued over every little thing, seemed to actually enjoy arguing with each other. I think of the husbands that I have known beat their wives. Of the couple that would stand in their front yard and scream at each other. And even when I think of the couples that seemed to get along well, I still can't recall any that gave a good enough representation of marriage to ever make me think 'I want what they have'.
The thing is I always wanted marriage but for me the marriage I wanted was an ideal I had in my mind, where that ideal came from...it took me years to understand, but I wanted what no one I ever saw seemed to have. I remember people telling me in my younger, premarriage days, that there isn't a marriage out there like what I wanted. But those people were wrong. That kind of marriage does exist. The thing is it only exists when it's in Christ. It takes two people living for a totally different reason than what most people live for to be able to achieve that kind of marriage. I have been blessed to be able to experience the kind of marriage I used to dream about.
And it's through eyes that know that kind of marriage does exist and what it takes to have that kind of marriage that I viewed what I thought was going to be a reformed article on marriage. There were a few things at the beginning of the article that were a bit off but overall it started out good. Trouble was, long before I reached the end of the article, which I never got to, it sort of just fell apart. It was still a pretty good article, I suppose, for a professing believer.
What started making me wonder at the direction the article was going was when the author said their son was a 'Christian' and that he had been raised in a 'Christian' home. Umm....Is there ever truly such a thing? Even when both parents are truly Christians...that does not mean that everyone else that will ever live in their home will be. I met someone once that informed me that it's completely possible to ensure your children are believers. The implication this person made was that you can discipline your beliefs into your children. At the time I had children quite a bit older than that persons kids were. I had to point out that you can only influence your kids so far. I can instill my Christian beliefs in any child I ever raise but that does not mean they will embrace them when they get old enough to think for themselves. I can demand anyone, child or adult, that lives in my house live according to my beliefs but even if I manage to get them to comply it does not mean they will share my beliefs. In fact, chances are, all I will succeed in doing is making them resent my beliefs. But that person truly believed that enough discipline would make their children believe as they did.
History alone tells us that cannot happen. How many people have died for their beliefs? How many non-Christians have died for their beliefs? Scripture gives us the basis of understanding why that is. Only certain people truly belong to the Lord. They are the only ones that will ever have salvation. If a person isn't one of God's elect they can never attain salvation no matter how hard they try. And if a person is one of God's elect they can never escape salvation no matter how hard they try.
Who in their right mind, before being truly converted, would ever want to embrace true Christianity?
I think of the professing 'Christians' and how pretty much anything goes in their beliefs and all I can think is how hard it must be. Even when your 'God' allows you to do what you want and loves you anyway...how hard it must be to stick to the most basic of Christian values. It's no wonder they pick and chose which parts of Scripture they believe apply to them. It would be impossible for them to measure up to even a tiny speck of Scripture if they took it as it really is, in whole and in truth.
And I think of the flat out non believer...what need to they have for even a single Christian value...and their marriage to a true Christian. Scripture gives us the definition of being unequally yoked, ant they are, but when I think of what it means to be yoked together, something we rarely see in our modern world, I think of cows, horses, donkeys, oxen, etc being harnessed together in a situation where they must work together as a team to accomplish something. Then I imagine what an unequally yoked team in a situation like that would be...yoking a horse and an ox? A cow and a donkey? I can easily imagine the trouble one would have trying to handle such and unequally yoked team but that trouble doesn't come close to what I think an unequally yoked marriage would truly be. Maybe it would be more like trying to yoke an ox and a chihuahua or maybe a bird and a horse. Or maybe it goes way beyond even those images to be an owl and a snake, or a cat and a mouse. Maybe its more like predator and prey.
Scripture says that light and darkness cannot mix. If you mix a non believer and a true Christian, you have mixed light and darkness. You have mixed enemies. They may love each other, they may skate along the surface and appear to have no problems for a while, but how long before the enmity of their souls must clash? How long before the evil in the soul of the non believer will feel threatened and will begin to fight the spirit of the Christian? Scripture tells us that we fight a spiritual battle, one that cannot be seen but that rages all around around us, even through us, and will rage through all time until Christ returns. That spiritual battle cannot be changed, altered, or stopped simply because a Christian loves a non Christian, or even a professing Christian. Love, in the human form, cannot override the spiritual hate that a non believer, or an unregenerate person, will feel in their own souls.
It's actually amazing to think about. To consider the unregenerate people we love, the unregenerate people that love us, and to know that those same people truly hate us deep inside their souls. That the evil that controls their souls would truly destroy the souls of the people that they love in this human life simply because the Christians soul belongs to Christ and theirs belongs to Satan.
That situation does not change simply because a Christian loves an unregenerate person in this human life. It does not change if the unregenerate person loves them in this human life. And it will not change just because that love may take the form of a husband and a wife. Sooner or later their souls will battle no matter their human affections. And then what?
What wins?
Who wins?
And where can they possibly go in their marriage? The Christian will most likely settle in and be prepared to weather the storm, come what may. The non believer...that's anyone's guess. But battle they will even if no harsh words are ever spoken.
But that isn't what that article I read spoke of. In the article the author went into how the 'Christian' will want to go on mission trips and the non believer won't, of how the 'Christian' will want to go to 'church' and the non believer won't... Those things may create strife in a marriage but I cannot see them as the problems of being unequally yoked. Those sorts of issues are, to me, on par with will we go eat pizza tonight or hamburgers. I can see no difference in one person wanting to go on a mission trip and the other not wanting to than I see one person wanting to vacation at the beach while the other wants to vacation in the mountains. They may be issues but they don't come close to being the problem of being unequally yoked.
A mission trip may, or may not, be a good thing for a person to participate in but having one spouse that wants to do so and one that does not cannot come close to the everyday, unseen battle that will rage between a Christian and an unregenerate person. A mission trip is an earthly, mostly feel good, type situation. Professing believers feel the need to go on mission trips because they believe that their presence in an unregenerate people can and will make all the difference in the salvation of those lost people. They believe they are bringing salvation to those people and more often than not they count the trip a success if they can count the 'souls' that were 'saved' while they were there. Those saved souls are, for the most part, nothing more than a fairy tale that they believe in because they offered the unregenerate, or lost people, something that drew them in through their emotions and the 'Christian' then gets an emotional high because they get to say they 'saved' another soul. I know there are exceptions to this scenario but those exceptions are few and far between in what we call mission trips. I've met the missionaries, seen the videos, heard their testimonies and in almost all cases it comes down to what the Christian accomplished. It's an emotional high. It's not truth and in most cases it's not Scriptural.
And yet that is what the author of that article used, time and again, to show the problem in an unequally yoked marriage. That's not unequally yoked. Unequally yoked is that unseen battle that rages in the spiritual world. It's the unseen battle that will destroy not only a marriage but the very people in a marriage that happens between a believer and an unbeliever. And I can only imagine that that battle would influence anyone that comes into contact with the married couple.
Years ago we had a neighbor that I can't exactly say I was friends with but we did have something of a friendship. This neighbor was married and had several kids. In fact they not only had several of their own kids they took in several other kids during the time we lived near them. This couple was...unusual, I guess. They fought like cats and dogs. The wife never had a good word to say about her husband and in fact seemed to actually hate him.
I was simply a neighbor that crossed paths with them from time to time. I would stand in the yard and visit with the wife. And never once did she say anything not derogatory about her husband. I was never in their home more than a few minutes at a time so never really saw what went on behind closed doors but even a few minutes in their presence was enough to feel the battle that constantly seemed to rage between them. How much more so did their children and the kids they took in feel that battle? How much more so did their family members feel it?
And that was with a couple whose battles were very much visible to anyone around them. They were unregenerate people living in a fallen world and trying to make a go of a marriage that at least one of them seemed to not want to be a part of. In fact I spoke with that neighbor a few months ago. I hadn't seen her in years and happened upon her. She very quickly and very happily informed my that she is now 'happily divorced'.
The battles that couple experienced were out in the open, they didn't even hide them from the neighbors. Battles in a marriage between a Christian and a non Christian might not be visible for anyone to see, maybe not even the married couple, but they're still there, they exist and they have a force to them that no unregenerate couple would ever encounter.
That is what being unequally yoked means to me. Predator and prey. Light and darkness. Evilness and holyness.
Sunday, July 28, 2019
Sunday, July 21, 2019
The role of a wife...repost
I grew up in a family where marriage…as I remember…wasn’t something that was highly valued. I can remember several divorces that happened among family members during my growing up years. I can remember fights…sometimes physical…between husbands and wives. The message I walked away from my childhood with was that marriage was something people did but that it didn’t necessarily require any real commitment. Despite that I held a different view.
In my teen years I remember wanting to be married forever. I had virtually no experience with boys at that time and yet I knew when I married I wanted it to be forever. Even as I observed the less than ideal marriages among family members I knew marriage was something special…sacred…and that I wanted mine…when it came…to be forever.
What I didn’t understand was that marriage was more than the worldly relationship that we view it to be. Even as I was surrounded by examples of what marriage shouldn’t be….I had a deep longing for what marriage should be. Back then I had no idea that Scripture lays out for us exactly what marriage should be.
Right now, as I write this, I have a long time friendship that may not be a friendship anymore. I don’t know…can’t know…what will become of that friendship. I don’t know what happened to turn such a good friendship into a quickly deteriorating friendship. It just sort of…fell apart…mostly without warning. This friendship got to a place where things weren’t what they had always been and it was kind of like the aftermath of a disaster…although it was a disaster that wasn’t seen. All of a sudden, with little to no warning, things blew up, got damaged, and fell apart.
This may be the Lord’s way of removing me from that friendship or it may be a test of the friendship. I don’t know. Only time will tell what is to become of it. From where I’m standing though…I’m left looking back on all the years of friendship, looking at the last weeks and days of friendship, and left wondering…what happened? Where did it go? How did it get to this so fast?
This friendship has no bearing on marriage whatsoever. But it is a good example of how things can go so wrong. So fast.
I doubt any of my family members dreamed of getting divorced on the day they married. I doubt that they thought that this new union would come to an end. I doubt they even thought that there would come a day when things would fall so completely apart with this person they were pledging their life to.
But it happened anyway. Like a tornado hitting an area where tornado’s aren’t supposed to hit, divorce hit these marriages. Trouble came, the marriage fell apart, and the couple were left standing in the midst of the wreckage, scratching their heads and wondering what happened.
I’m going to go ahead and say that the couples in these marriages weren’t regenerate. They didn’t belong to Christ though they may have thought they did.
When I was 12 years old I spent the summer living with my grandparents. One day, while my grandparents were gone, my aunt and uncle who lived on the same property began to fight. I knew nothing about it until my six year old cousin came to me crying that ‘Daddy’s hitting Mama.’ I had no idea what to do. I had never been in a situation like that before. I was scared. All I could think of was to get the kids away from it…they were 6, 2, and under 1. A child myself, I did my best to protect the children.
Looking back on that day I can clearly remember so much of it. It left a lasting impression on me. I remember how scared I was. How much I wanted to protect the kids. How much I wanted to make things better for my aunt after it was all over. I set with her while she cried, spent the rest of the day by her side. I gave her the dog I loved because I knew he would protect her. It was all I could do.
The day that happened, before my cousin came to me, I was sitting in the house safe, happy…secure. Then out of nowhere disaster struck and it left a lasting impression. What, exactly, the impression was, I don’t know. All I know is that memory is one that has stayed with me all these years. And that it did leave an impression.
That was probably the worst example of marriage I grew up with. The rest were more cases of arguing and indifference. During my growing up years all of my uncles got divorced and so did my mother. While I was in my 20’s my grandparents got divorced.
There were no examples in my family for the sanctity of marriage. It was much like the cheap items bought at one of those everything’s-a-dollar stores…bought, used until it’s not desired anymore, then thrown away.
But I walked away from that with a different belief in marriage.
I know now it was the Lord’s doing. I understand that there was just something in me that made marriage something sacred. It is the one relationship that we have in life that is truly sacred. It shouldn’t be messed with. Not by outsiders. Not by ourselves.
What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” Mark 10:9 esv
I was told recently that my marriage was a choice I made but Scripture clearly tells us that marriage is a union created by God. It also says that man is not to separate that union. Man. As in any of mankind. Man or woman.
Including the man and woman in that very marriage.
This wasn’t a lesson I was taught in my childhood…but somehow the belief was deeply instilled anyway.
Marriage with my husband came easy. The relationship was easy. Rather it…he…came out of the blue one day when I didn’t expect him or the relationship. From the moment we met Someone bigger than me had hold of it and everything just happened until…I was married.
From the moment my husband and I shared that first smile things were easy between us. It was just…right. My husband and I are both Christians, we both seek to serve the Lord, and in doing so…we serve each other.
But even in an easy marriage, even when everything just flows, we still have our place…our role. Things we should do. Things we shouldn’t do.
Maybe…we have that role more so in an easy marriage, a good marriage. Because…maybe…we have more power to hurt each other. There is no one in the world that has the power to hurt me like my husband does. Because things are so good between us I know I can trust him with anything…with everything. And trust him I do. Completely. But that means he holds a power over me…one he never abuses…that no one else has.
But that role…that place…even when it comes easy…is still there. Scripture defines the roles of husbands and wives.
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…Titus 2:3-5
The King James Version puts that verse a little differently…
The aged women likewise, that they be in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;
That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,
To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.
How can we teach younger women to love their husbands if we don’t first love our own husbands? So much of the influence we have on others is through example. We must love our husband in order to teach someone else how to love theirs.
And our husbands will know if we love them. He will feel it in everything we do.
Recently my husband was away from home. I was going to meet him and was preparing for that meeting. I got a message from him that said I might want to bring a pair of jeans with me. I asked him after I met up with him what, exactly, he thought I would be wearing. He said, ‘I knew you would be wearing this. My favorite outfit.’
I had no idea that what I had on that day was my husband’s favorite outfit but I knew he liked seeing me in skirts so I wore one to please him. I wanted to please him in my choice of clothing for the very simple reason that I love him.
But there is another reason…as a wife…that I should try to please my husband…
let the wife see that she respects her husband…Ephesians 5:33
It wasn’t my intention that day to show respect to my husband…I simply wanted to please him. But in trying to please him I was showing respect to him. And he knew me well enough to know what I would be wearing even when I hadn’t said anything to him about the clothes I intended to wear.
Because that wasn’t the first time I had worn that skirt…or a different one…for the sole purpose of pleasing him. I do it often. I know he likes it and it’s an easy enough thing to do to give him joy.
We are to be discreet…self-controlled. Scripture doesn’t define when or where we are to be discreet or self-controlled, it just says that we are to be.
When I was 9 I met a girl that would become my best friend. She and I were good friends into high school. I remember well how, in our teens, she became very loud and would often yell out, scream, or whistle at others. It was embarrassing to be around her. She could be walking along talking quietly and would…without warning…make loud noises. Sometimes it seemed as if she did this for no other reason than to draw attention to herself.
I don’t want to be that kind of wife. Not in actions, not in manners, not in dress. If there’s anything in me that brings embarrassment to my husband or makes things harder for him…I don’t want to do that.
We are to be keepers at home…working at home.
Before my husband and I married we talked about wives working outside the home. We both agreed that was something that a wife shouldn’t do unless the family was truly not able to make it without her working. A few months after we married I told my husband that I could bring in money by selling things through an online auction site. He quickly told me I didn’t need to do that and we didn’t discuss it again. I knew from his answer that he didn’t want me doing it.
I am to be the keeper at home.
It’s what my husband wants me to be and it’s what I want to be. I have no desire to work outside the home. I read somewhere that when a woman works outside the home she must please a man other than her husband…as she will generally have a boss or manager that is a man. She is then under the authority of a man that isn’t her husband. Sometimes that man…that boss…will have more authority over her than her husband does as she will try to please her boss in order to keep her job…even at the expense of her husband and family.
I worked outside the home for a few years in my teens and early twenty’s…before my husband and I married. I did it out of necessity but I never did it because I wanted to or because I got joy or fulfillment from working. Even as I worked I knew that I didn’t want to have to work when I married.
My sister and I were talking recently…this sister works and is unmarried…the conversation turned to working and I told her I didn’t want to work because it would take my time and tie me down. What I didn’t say was that it would take my time from my husband and children and would keep me from being able to be who and what they needed me to be at any given moment. I can’t be wife or mom if I’m at work somewhere.
When I told my husband of that conversation he shook his head before I finished it. Then he said I don’t need to. I know my husband doesn’t want me working. Not only because we discussed it before we married but also from those little instances that have come up in conversations.
I am to be the keeper at home.
It is my job. It is my role.
When I’m home I’m available to my husband when he needs me. I’m available to our children.
Yesterday our ten year old daughter asked me if I could walk in the yard with her. I was waiting for my husband to call and had to tell her I couldn’t walk just then. She said…’you could take the phone with you.’ Just that simply she knew that I could be available to her and to dad.
I couldn’t have been available to either one of them exactly when they needed me to be if I had been working outside the home or preparing for a job outside the home. Because my husband and my children are my focus I can be there when they need or want me to be.
A wife is to be obedient…submissive…to her own husband. We see that in Titus 2 and we see it in Ephesians 5:22esv
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
A couple of months after my husband and I married he told me something that has stuck with me to this day. He said that he needed me to submit to him…even if he’s wrong.
My husband doesn’t make demands on me. He doesn’t even tell me to clean the house or cook a meal. If I fail to do something he either leaves it as is or does it himself. I clean in ways I might not do if it were just me…or me and the kids…because I don’t like to see him clean up something after he finishes working. I like to make his day easier by fixing him something to eat or getting his coffee. Submitting to my husband is that much easier because he doesn’t make demands on me.
Marriage for me comes easy. Part of that is my husband…because he makes being his wife easy…part of it is me….because I like being a wife. And so much of it is the relationship my husband and I have with the Lord. Because we seek to please Him, we can please each other.
But in that…there is still a role. I have one. My husband has one. My husband is a great provider. He is a great protector. He takes care of us and provides for us in all that he does. He loves me and I know it. He shows me daily how much he loves me and how important I am to him.
He’s said I’m spoiled.
My sister said I’m spoiled.
I am spoiled.
But…I still have a role in marriage. I have a responsibility. How long would my husband show me the love he does if I didn’t show him love? How long would he feel wanted and needed if I pushed him away…physically or emotionally…every time he came around?
How long would marriage come easy if I acted that way? How long would it stay good if I failed to be a keeper at home? If I failed to submit to him? If I failed to respect him?
There are roles to be ‘played’ in marriage. My role as wife is to keep my husbands home, submit to him…to respect him. That is the role of a wife. Because I love my husband I want to please him, but pleasing him falls into those three categories. Because I love my husband I want to keep house for him, do his laundry, fix him meals…but doing those things is being a keeper at home. Because I love my husband…it’s easy to respect him.
What makes a marriage...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.
Sunday, July 14, 2019
Instruction manual for marriage...repost
As a mother I’ve had people tell me many times ‘don’t you wish they came with instructions.’ I never wished that.
But I’ve heard people say the same thing about marriage. How they wished there was an instruction manual for marriage. There is. The Bible tells us exactly how marriage is supposed to be. Those instructions can be found in Ephesians 5, Titus 2, 1 Corinthians, Hebrews…in fact directions for marriage can pretty much be found all through the Bible, starting in Genesis. Genesis 2:24(esv) sets the very basis for what marriage is…
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
Christ gave the same description for marriage…
And large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?” He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 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’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” ... Matthew 19:2-9 esv
That is the very definition for what marriage is and it’s the explanation of how it came to be. What God has joined together. Pretty powerful words. The Lord created the entire world…in a sense we might say he ‘joined it together’…he made it…he created it. And he did the same thing with marriage. He created it. From the very first marriage to the very last one…they are all of the Lord’s joining.
Have you ever just stopped and thought about what it takes for any one couple to get married. Not only did they both have to be in the right place at the right time to meet…no matter when or where that happened…but they each had to like the other, they each had to fall in love with the other…and they had to want to marry each other. No small feat considering we encounter millions of people in our lifetime and most of them pass through without us giving them more than a passing thought. It gets even more amazing if you consider that both his and her parents had to do the same thing…and so did their grandparents…and their grandparents….and their grandparents…
The Lord brought each of those couples together, joined them together. In every single marriage…he brought them together.
Scripture even goes so far as to tell us what a wife is and how she came to be…
The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Genesis 2:20-24
We are not only to be a helper to our husbands but we are a part of him. The very first marriage the Lord created was done by literally making the wife from the husband’s body. I may not literally have my husband’s rib…but then again who really knows if we do or not? Really…we all have a certain number of ribs…we came into the world with them. But how do we know that somehow in our genetic makeup that we don’t literally have our husband’s rib? The Lord certainly knew who our husband would be long before we married. He had our lives planned out before we ever met our husbands.
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart…Jeremiah 1:5
I took that out of context but I see nothing there that would take its value away by removing it from the context it was used in. If the Lord knew one person before they were born…he knew another. We know from other verses that the Lord foreordained those that he chose before the foundation of the world…therefore He knew them even before the world was created…before they were born.
But notice in that verse how he says …I formed you in the womb. He made us in the womb. We don’t just grow out of the genetic make-up of our parents. He makes us…he forms us. Who’s to say he doesn’t work our husband’s rib into us when he’s making us. Are we any less made then Eve?
I could have somehow knit into my very being…my husband. Every wife could have her husband knit into her very being. We aren’t told that God placed Adam’s rib into Eve and it became her rib…We’re told, And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman. So the rib taken from Adam could have gone into any part of Eve…or every part of her. But whether we literally have our husband’s rib makes no difference.
That verse is our instruction manual for what we are to our husband. We are his helper…and we are a part of his body…with or without his rib.
Ephesians 5:28 even instructs the husband to love his wife as such…
In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
We have all these instructions for marriage in Scripture and still…some would like for marriage to come with an instruction manual. How would they receive it? Would it be handed over by the state employee that issues their marriage license? Would the man that performs the ceremony give it to them when the marriage license is signed? Would it be presented to them by the parents of either the bride or the groom?
And if it was possible to get such a book…who would write it?
And would you want such a book if it was written by a fallen person? There are plenty of marriage self-help books out there. Marriage advice abounds. And so does divorce. Would anyone truly want to expose their very personal marriage to the beliefs and teachings of another person?
I remember watching a movie with my mom when I was in my teens. I don’t remember most of the movie but I remember the woman…a new wife, I think…was given a book on dog training by her mother. Turns out the mother said that training a husband and training a dog are pretty much the same…or something like that. The wife reads the book and puts it into practice…training her ‘pet’ husband.
What a lack of respect that woman had for her husband.
I can only imagine the pain the husband would experience if he had found out that his wife was trying to train him like a dog. What does that say for the wife’s feelings for her husband?
The very concept goes against the instruction manual that we are given for marriage. Scripture tells us…
…let the wife see that she respects her husband. Ephesians 5:33 esv
Did the woman show even a hint of respect for her husband when she used that book…those methods…to ‘train’ her husband? When she essentially compared her husband to a dog?
If I had to choose only one verse to follow for marriage it would be that one. All the rest…can be rolled into that one…not even whole verse. Proverbs 21:9 tells us what it’s like to live with a wife that doesn’t respect her husband…
It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife.
Proverbs tells us what a wife is to her husband…
He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. vs 18:22 esv
House and wealth are inherited from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the Lord. vs 19:14 esv
I’d much rather be a good thing…an inheritance…from the lord to my husband than something that makes it better for him to live in a corner of the housetop. But I can’t be any of those things for my husband if I don’t respect him.
My husband recently told me that if I need something from him that he isn’t giving me that he needs me to tell him what it is I need. My husband never knowingly does anything that hurts me. I know he would never knowingly do anything to hurt me. That…and so much more…instills respect in me for him.
But if I didn’t have respect for him…could I be a good thing for him? Could I be an inheritance for him? Ephesians 5:27 (esv) gives us another idea of what a wife should be for her husband…
…present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
This verse is speaking of what the husband should do… Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word vs 25-26…for his wife but it still tells wives what they should be to their husbands.
As a wife I can’t even begin to imagine how I could become… as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. That’s like trying to attain perfection. It’s impossible. But Scripture tells us that a husband can create that in his wife.
Proverbs 18:22 speaks of a man finding a wife and what she is when he finds her. If we look to Proverbs 31:10 we see again just what a wife should be…but we also see that there’s a little more to finding that wife than we saw before.
An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. Proverbs 31:10 esv
Who can find? I’m going to make a guess here and say that in those three words we can see that a wife that is a good thing…an inheritance…that has a value beyond that of jewels…isn’t so easy to ‘find’.
As a wife…It’s kind of hard to write on this particular aspect of marriage. I never want it to seem like I’m placing a value on myself. That isn’t my place to do. The value I have for my husband isn’t for me to say. As I write this I’m writing it strictly from a Scriptural perspective, not from an ‘I am this’ perspective.
As a wife…I try to be this for my husband…to my husband. I respect my husband. I love him. I appreciate him for who he is. And I appreciate all he does for me and our children.
And that very respect…and the appreciation that rolls into that respect…is the very basis for all of the rest of what I see in Scripture that I should be. I can’t have a high value to my husband if I don’t respect him. He can’t value me if I always act like I don’t want him around. He can’t respect me if I tell him of everything he does wrong.
Scripture gives us the definition for what we are to be as wives…how we are to act…how we are to treat our husbands…
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Ephesians 5:22-23.
The above verses added to Ephesians 5:33… let the wife see that she respects her husband…give us very good instructions on what a wife is. Submission is its own form of respect. And if she is those things…she…I would guess…will not fall into the category or a quarrelsome wife…and she will be a good thing to her husband with a price more precious than jewels. Of course…I am a wife so I can only say that from the wife’s perspective.
Our instruction manual for marriage goes so far as to give us instruction on the intimate side of marriage.
3 The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. 5 Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 1 Corinthians 7:3-5 NIV
Scripture goes further in defining the more intimate side of marriage…
Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. Hebrews 13:4 esv
It would seem that the Lord laid out a pretty good instruction manual on marriage for us. He may have covered only a handful of things in that manual but those things take in almost all the details of married life.
We are told that marriage is to be held in honor. If we truly honor something what do we do? We give it a special place…a special significance. It’s important. Valued. Prized.
It’s respected.
We are told how long a woman is to be married to her husband…
A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. 1 Corinthians 7:39 esv
We are told when a marriage can be ended…
But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace. 1 Corinthians 7:15 NIV
And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” Matthew 19:9 esv
We’re told why divorce is allowed in those cases…
He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 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’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. Matthew 19:4-8 esv
Christ said that because of the hardness of men’s hearts divorce was allowed but he only said it when questioned as to why divorce was allowed. Notice that he went further to say… but from the beginning it was not so. From the beginning…it was not so. In other words divorce wasn’t always allowed. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. There actually is no contingency plan in that. What God joined together let man not separate. Nowhere in that does it say that divorce is permissible it says …let man not separate. Christ tells us that divorce is allowed because of the hardness of heart. Because men’s hearts are hard…divorce is allowed under certain circumstances. Those circumstances…an unbeliever leaving the marriage and adultery. That’s it. Nothing else.
We’re shown in Hosea how long marriage should last…
And I will betroth you to me forever….vs 2:19 esv
How much more of an instruction manual can we ask for?
Well…what of love one might ask. It’s there too. This time not in direct reference to marriage but it’s still there…
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 esv
In all of that I can see respect for your husband playing a big part. Respect affects every part of our emotions toward our husbands. It affects how we think of him. How we treat him. it will flow from everything we say to him and everything we do for him. The Lord went so far as to give us examples of that respect. Sarah called Abraham ‘my lord.’ Ruth slept at Boaz’s feet.
The Lord knew what He was doing when He wrote out the instruction manual for marriage.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)