What is the Goal of God’s Love?

We hear so much these days from so many different sources about how wonderful we are in God’s eyes, about how much God wants to do for us to make us happy and successful in this life, one might think that we mere mortals are the center of God’s universe! I even heard recently that everything God does, he does just for us! That’s awesome! But is it true?

Your thoughts please.

To My Catholic Friend,

I am writing you here because I want the readers of this blog, and yours, to know that I speak from the depths of my being as I write these words, and that I bear you no ill will. I have come to this point primarily because you have concluded, in your latest blog, that the difference between Catholics and Protestants is that Catholics have access to the all of the Sacraments of the Church and Protestants do not. In fact, you give great importance to that difference, even above differences in the doctrine of scripture, an observation that I find deeply troubling, but I will debate no more.

I shan’t even trouble you again with exercises in logic for logic’s sake. Your latest  missive has betrayed you and my suspicion has been, at least for the purposes of continuing our conversation, confirmed. I appeal  to Jesus’ words in His High Priestly prayer found in John 17. . .

“And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” – John 17:3

Eternal life is not bound up in any earthly organization, Catholic or Protestant. It is bound up in the knowledge of God and His Son, as found in the very pages of scripture. I am not debating on behalf of Protestant Church, or the Reformation. If I have given you that impression, forgive me. Your latest post, along with what I have read of those preceding it, have been about extolling the glories of your Church, it’s teachings and it’s history.  You have even thanked me for causing you to dig deeper into its history. That has certainly not been my intent, and if all I have said to you did not point you to Scripture for it’s own sake, and to Christ Himself, I apologize for having spoken at all. 

The very title of your blog “The Real Difference between Catholics and Protestants” signals your true agenda – to state your case that there is only one true church, as if the Bride of Christ is an organization rather than the body of believers who have placed their trust in Christ from “every tribe, tongue and nation”. The true difference(s) between us, sir, is not the issue at hand.

All of us, whether we are called Catholic or Protestant (or any derivation thereof), must ask ourselves, in whom have we trusted for our justification and salvation. The Apostle Paul, with all of his religious education and learning, and who could have debated things religious all day and all night, said it best:

“. . .but we preach Christ crucified. . .” – 1 Cor 1:23, and ” For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” – 2 Cor 2:2

Your definition of what separates us, that we do not have certain Sacraments that are only available through the single organization on earth with the authority to administer said sacraments, lays to rest any thoughts I may have had that you might be interested in knowing more about God and His Son, rather than learning more about your church. I fear that you might even be fearful of gazing at your professed Savior other than through “Catholic” lenses. However, such is the bondage into which you are willingly submitting yourself.

Call that sarcasm, rudeness on my part, or even personally insulting, but I intend nothing personal. Your very words demand I consider the possibility.

So, my Catholic friend, I leave you with this question, the one question we all must ask ourselves. In whom are you REALLY trust for salvationl? If it is Christ, we are safe. If it is anything, or anyone OTHER than Christ, we are in grave danger.

So long, my friend. You are welcome here anytime you wish to discuss our Christ and His Gospel.

Dan

Contending for the Truth

My Orders Are To Fight

My orders are to fight;
Then if I bleed, or fail,
Or strongly win, what matters it?
God only doth prevail.

The servant craveth naught
Except to serve with might.
I was not told to win or lose,–
My orders are to fight.

–Welsh poet Ethylwyn Wetherald

________________

I found that posted on a blog with the same title as this blog post. You can visit it here.

Top 10 Christian News Stories of 2008

Compiled & Edited by Crosswalk Editorial Staff

The year 2008 shaped the future of evangelical America – and the world – in major ways. From the Olympics abroad to the presidential election at home, here are the faces, places, and movements the Crosswalk.com editors believe most impacted Christians around the world.

1. Rick Warren’s Civil Forum exemplifies evangelicals’ growing influence in politics
Bush handily won the faith vote in his day, but Democrats and Republicans alike played to this group in 2008. Nowhere was this heightened awareness of the nebulous “evangelical vote” more apparent than at the Saddleback Civil Forum, hosted by megachurch pastor Rick Warren. Obama’s faith emphasis on the campaign trail didn’t win over weekly churchgoers, but the Democrats’ efforts did undermine a sure bet for the Republicans.
Read more:
Megachurch Reflects on Presidential Event
Backtrack to Saddleback: Secularists Not Pleased

2. Olympics shine the spotlight on religious persecution in China
Blustering to improve their PR before the Olympic Games in August, China tried to sweep its pesky house churches out of the way. But reports of religious persecution persisted in spite of China’s decision to print tens of thousands bilingual Bibles and New Testaments for the Games. President Bush’s visit to an official church in Beijing and his talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao highlighted the persecution of Christians who reject government registration and regulation.
Read more:
China, the Olympics and the Bible
Bush, China, and the Olympics

3. Anglican Communion continues to disintegrate in spite of Lambeth Conference
What Bishop Gene Robinson couldn’t do in 2004, conservative dioceses and parishes did in 2008 — they officially split the Episcopal Church. The once-a-decade Lambeth Conference fizzled as almost half the world’s bishops boycotted the conference in favor of a more conservative conference in Jerusalem. Finally, conservatives gave up on reforming from the inside out, and formed an untraditional province based not on geography, but on theology. Their next step: gaining official recognition from Canterbury.
Read more:
Gay Issues Left Undecided at Lambeth Conference
It’s about Theology, Not Territory

4. Sarah Palin wins over Christian conservatives — and James Dobson
This seventh-inning surprise nomination gave jittery conservatives and Christians an enthusiastic reason to vote for the moderate McCain and temporarily reinvigorated the Bush base. Palin’s nomination even managed to exact an official flip-flop from Focus on the Family’s James Dobson, who had previously said he would not vote for McCain under any circumstances. Although the economic implosion overshadowed her impact, her nomination showed that openly Christian conservatives still have a place in the Republican Party.
Read more:
Palin Energizes Evangelical Support, Crosswalk Survey Shows
Dobson Changes Course: I Would Pull the Lever for McCain-Palin

5. Pope Benedict XVI visits the States
In his first visit to the U.S., Pope Benedict embraced U.S. evangelicals with open arms — and they embraced him too. The pope received a warm reception at the White House in April, where he was hailed as a common ally in the fight for traditional marriage and pro-life causes. The bridge-building trip focused on what evangelicals and Catholics share, but Benedict did not skirt the more delicate issue. He issued a public apology to those hurt by abuse scandals in the Church.
Read more:
Pope’s Visit Highlights Evangelical-Catholic Differences, Similarities
Pedophilia and the Pope

6. Thousands of Christians in Iraq and India displaced by persecution
The mass exodus of Christians from Mosul, Iraq, skyrocketed after two weeks of murders in October. Almost half of Christians in the area fled for Turkey, Syria or the West, abandoning one of the world’s oldest Christians communities. Meanwhile, in India, Christians became scapegoats for Hindu extremists after their leader was murdered by Maoists in August. Continuing violence has killed as many as 500, destroyed at least 117 churches, and displaced tens of thousands now living in refugee camps or the jungle.
Read more:
India’s Campaign to Eliminate Christians
India: A Timeline of Persecution
No Respect for Iraq’s Oldest Community

7. Double disasters in Burma and China present huge challenges to relief workers
Cyclone Nargis claimed an estimated 150,000 lives when it hit Burma in early May. Ten days later, a massive earthquake in Sichuan province of China killed 87,000, many of them only children under China’s one-child policy. Burma’s junta turned away literally tons of aid from the U.S. government and hampered outside relief efforts even in hard-hit Irrawaddy Delta region. China, trying to avoid any more bad publicity before the Olympics, welcomed in relief workers and gave journalists a comparatively free rein.
Read more:
Myanmar Cyclone: Relief Assessment Begins
Aid Reaches China Earthquake Victims

8. Fallout continues after the passage of California’s Proposition 8
Proposition 8 may have toppled the might and money of Hollywood, but retribution from Prop 8 opponents rages on. Protestant and Mormon churches largely responsible for the motion’s success have found themselves targeted by angry mobs and riots. Lawsuits against the voter-approved amendment have swiftly followed. The motion has passed, but the literal fight on the gay marriage issue isn’t over yet.
Read more:
So Much for Tolerance: The Aftermath of Prop 8
Jack Black, Jesus and Proposition 8

9. Jeremiah Wright controversy garners national attention for black liberation theology
Obama’s long relationship with mentor Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who infamously proclaimed “God d*** America,” highlighted the prevalence of a social/political gospel in the African American mega-church. Although Obama eventually divorced himself from Wright and Trinity Church because of the surrounding controversy, America got an insider’s view of a theology which celebrates black empowerment — and revolution — over a still-oppressive government.
Read more:
Obama, Rev. Wright, and a Dubious Political Theology
Is Jeremiah Wright Mainstream?

10. Christian film “Fireproof” makes a highly successful run in theaters
The third film from the media arm of a Sherwood Baptist George in Georgia, “Fireproof” proved that Christian-themed films can hold their own with American families. The film won the number 4 spot at the box office its opening weekend, and beat out the opening of “Religulous” the following weekend. Critics dismissed the film, but “Fireproof” stayed in the top 10 for three weeks.
Read more:
Fireproof Befuddles Many Critics

Blind Minds

“And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” –  2 Corinthians 4:3-4

Those who are perishing refers to those who do not believe in Christ (John 3:18). The god of this world is Satan. They cannot see the light of the Gospel of Christ and by extension cannot understand what they cannot see. How selbstverstandlich (self-understood) is that? DUH!!!!! Of course we can’t understand what we cannot see!

When it comes to things spiritual, the implications of that principle are huge, especially when believers in Christ attempt to engage in intellectual discussions over matters of faith with unbelievers. It’s like driving up to the home of a friend who is physically totally blind in a new car and exclaiming “Look at what I just bought!” It ain’t happenin’! We do have a possible solution when we know that our friend is not yet a believer and ‘spiritually’ blind. When we are called to share the Gospel with him/her (I said when not if) we can pray and ask God to open that person’s heart to receive the Gospel that we will share. I call that the Lydia Prayer (see Acts 16). We can then share the Gospel confident that God will accomplish the rest in His time, thus avoiding the trap of thinking we can actually ‘persuade’ someone to follow Christ.

We run into more serious issues when we discuss things spiritual with someone who professes Christ,but might have been the ‘victim’ of a false conversion. That is often the case when someone is led to the Lord with promises of ‘their best life now’, finding their ‘special purpose, or any other evangelistic method that leaves out sin, judgment and the need for repentance. We assume because someone professes Christ that he/she actually possesses Christ. So what you have is a discussion ensuing between a “sighted” person and a “blind” person. The problem is that you both think you are equally “sighted”.

It’s not difficult to imagine the outcome of such a discussion. I won’t go into all the details – you have probably been there. I will say that such a discussion often includes multiple exclamations of “Can’t you SEE it?”, or “It’s right there in the text on the page!” While it is expected, and not necessarily wrong, that there not to be total agreement on every little point of the text, important (to God anyway) central truths of the text are completely missed by the ‘blind’ person in the discussion.

The one who can

 

 

as Savior. That person might even sincerely believe they know Christ

‘Tethered’ Preaching

Some wisdom, not just for preachers, but for all of us who think we have something important to say. . .B4B

‘Tethered’ Preaching: John Calvin & the Entertaining Pastor
by John Piper

The Bible tethers us to reality. We are not free to think and speak whatever might enter our minds or what might be pleasing to any given audience–except God.

By personal calling and Scripture, I am bound to the word of God and to the preaching of what the Bible says. There are few things that burden me more or refresh me more than saying what I see in the Bible. I love to see what God says in the Bible. I love to savor it. And I love to say it.

I believe with all my heart that this is the way God has appointed for me not to waste my life. His word is true. The Bible is the only completely true book in the world. It is inspired by God. Rightly understood and followed, it will lead us to everlasting joy with him. There is no greater book or greater truth.

The implications of this for preaching are immense. John Calvin, with the other Reformers, rescued the Scriptures from their subordination to tradition in the medieval church. The Reformation, let us thank God, was the recovery of the unique and supreme authority of Scripture over church authority.

Commenting on John 17:20, Calvin wrote,

Woe to the Papists who have no other rule of faith than the tradition of the Church. As for us, let us remember that the Son of God, who alone can and ought to pronounce in this matter, approves of no other faith but that which comes from the doctrine of the Apostles, of which we find no certain testimony except in their writings.  (Commentary on John)

Calvin’s preaching inspires me to press on with this great and glorious task of heralding the word of God. I feel what he says when he writes to Cardinal Sadolet

O Lord, you have enlightened me with the brightness of your Spirit. You have put your Word as a lamp to my feet. The clouds which before now veiled your glory have been dispelled by it, and the blessings of your Anointed have shone clearly upon my eyes. What I have learnt from your mouth (that is to say, from your Word) I will distribute faithfully to your church. (“Letter to Cardinal Jacopo Sadoleto,” quoted in J. H. Merle D’Augigne, Let Christ Be Magnified, Banner of Truth, 2007, p. 13).

For Calvin, preaching was tethered to the Bible. That is why he preached through books of the Bible so relentlessly. In honor of tethered preaching, I would like to suggest the difference I hear between preaching tethered to the word of God and preaching that ranges free and leans toward entertainment.

The difference between an entertainment-oriented preacher and a Bible-oriented preacher is the manifest connection of the preacher’s words to the Bible as what authorizes what he says.

The entertainment-oriented preacher gives the impression that he is not tethered to an authoritative book in what he says. What he says doesn’t seem to be shaped and constrained by an authority outside himself. He gives the impression that what he says has significance for reasons other than that it manifestly expresses the meaning and significance of the Bible. So he seems untethered to objective authority.

The entertainment-oriented preacher seems to be at ease talking about many things that are not drawn out of the Bible. In his message, he seems to enjoy more talking about other things than what the Bible teaches. His words seem to have a self-standing worth as interesting or fun. They are entertaining. But they don’t give the impression that this man stands as the representative of God before God’s people to deliver God’s message.

The Bible-oriented preacher, on the other hand, does see himself that way–“I am God’s representative sent to God’s people to deliver a message from God.” He knows that the only way a man can dare to assume such a position is with a trembling sense of unworthy servanthood under the authority of the Bible. He knows that the only way he can deliver God’s message to God’s people is by rooting it in and saturating it with God’s own revelation in the Bible.

The Bible-oriented preacher wants the congregation to know that his words, if they have any abiding worth, are in accord with God’s words. He wants this to be obvious to them. That is part of his humility and his authority. Therefore, he constantly tries to show the people that his ideas are coming from the Bible. He is hesitant to go too far toward points that are not demonstrable from the Bible.

His stories and illustrations are constrained and reined in by his hesitancy to lead the consciousness of his hearers away from the sense that this message is based on and expressive of what the Bible says. A sense of submission to the Bible and a sense that the Bible alone has words of true and lasting significance for our people mark the Bible-oriented preacher, but not the entertainment-oriented preacher.

People leave the preaching of the Bible-oriented preacher with a sense that the Bible is supremely authoritative and important and wonderfully good news. They feel less entertained than struck at the greatness of God and the weighty power of his word.

Lord, tether us to your mighty word. Cause me and all preachers to show the people that our word is powerless and insignificant in comparison with yours. Grant us to stand before our people as messengers sent with God’s message to God’s people in God’s name by God’s Spirit. Grant us to tremble at this responsibility. Protect us from trifling with this holy moment before your people.

Pastor John 

By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: www.desiringGod.org. Email: mail@desiringGod.org. Toll Free: 1.888.346.4700.

Christmas – Here’s the rest of the story

As was presented in the previous post, God’s view of Christmas might be a bit different than ours. We tend to begin with the Nativity and focus on love, peace, and goodwill toward all men (a misinterpretation of to whom peace is offered by God). God, however knew, from before time as we know it, that He was sending His own Son to earth to suffer and die on the Cross of Calvary for the sins of His people. The real meaning of Christmas is wrapped up in the Cross. We tend to NOT go there – maybe it spoils the “mood” – what we so glibly term “the spirit of Christmas”.

This year some who call themselves Christians are making overt efforts to include every religious faith in what are, Biblically at least, distinctively Christian celebrations. I won’t go into details here – they are antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and should be unconscionable to every true believer.

Perhaps we who calls ourselves have brought it on ourselves. Rarely in my own recollections of Christmas do I remember a focus on “the rest of the story”. The belief that all religious faiths worship the same God by some pretty prominent persons in America is becoming more and more rampant. Some evangelical leaders no longer will take a stand on the exclusivity of Christ as expressed in scripture. At the moment there is an all out attack on Sola Scriptura, one of the pillars of the Protestant Reformation.

Dear Christian readers, this is a call to share “the rest of the story” this Christmas season, a call to share the Gospel that Christ came to die for our sins – that He came for the Cross. This season should be one of the two easiest times of the year to share the truth of the Gospel and why He came to earth in the first place – God’s view of Christmas.

“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.” Romans 1:16 – The Apostle Paul

The Religious Case for Gay Marriage

The above title is the same as a Newsweek Article that you can read in its entirety here.  The rest of this post is the reply offered to the article by Frank Turk over at Pyromaniacs. My sole contribution is to say that it would be worthwhile to read both, and that Frank Turk’s reply is a must read for anyone on either side of the issue, and even any fence straddlers out there. . .here is the reply:

Of Course, she says – Frank Turk

Before you start here today, Dan advised me to split this essay in half because it is exceeding long — even by the standard of, well, what Dan and I usually write. I did not take his advice, so pack a lunch before you get started here — and my apologies to your boss and your family as you dig in.

The blogosphere is absolutely a-twitter over that Newsweek essay reproaching the conservative view of marriage – and rightly so. I mean, we have all read at least this much of this piece of writing:

“Let’s try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does. Shall we look to Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife Sarah was infertile? Or to Jacob, who fathered children with four different women (two sisters and their servants)? Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and the kings of Judah and Israel—all these fathers and heroes were polygamists. The New Testament model of marriage is hardly better. Jesus himself was single and preached an indifference to earthly attachments—especially family. The apostle Paul (also single) regarded marriage as an act of last resort for those unable to contain their animal lust. “It is better to marry than to burn with passion,” says the apostle, in one of the most lukewarm endorsements of a treasured institution ever uttered. Would any contemporary heterosexual married couple—who likely woke up on their wedding day harboring some optimistic and newfangled ideas about gender equality and romantic love—turn to the Bible as a how-to script?

Of course not, yet the religious opponents of gay marriage would have it be so.”

And most folks responding have sort of lost it in various ways because let’s face it: if anyone read Hamlet or Harry Potter with the critical finesse exercised in this paragraph, well, one would think they were reading something from a blog with only 5 or 6 readers – not from a magazine which people would (and did) pay money for.

But the thing which I think is interesting is the underlined part: “of course not”.

Lisa Miller’s point here is clear: if this is what conservative readers of the Bible – the ones advocating against “gay marriage” – mean when they say a “Biblical definition of marriage”, of course no one would want that. There’s a certain irony in this, but if the “religious conservatives” would “define marriage as the Bible does” – and define it therefore as loose polygamy for the sensually and spiritually weak, a vehicle only for the satisfaction of urges one cannot control for the fulfillment of promises one doesn’t think God is willing or able to keep, of course nobody would want that.

The problem for Lisa Miller, and her editor Jon Meacham, and their publication Newsweek, is that this is not the definition of marriage religious conservatives are promoting.

I am about to pour out the 100-proof polemics here, so before I tell you what exactly “conservatives” are (or at least ought to be) demanding, let me make something transparently clear: what I am personally demanding is not some sort of crime of hate against people with whom we disagree. I could repost it here, but back last summer I posted this piece about apologetic encounters with people who have loved ones who are g-l-b-t-q, or are themselves g-l-b-t-q, and I stand by it emphatically. This is not about how to injure anyone.

Here’s where I’d start: there is no question that of course the Christian church does not define marriage the way Ms. Miller has in her opening salvo here. But the reason Ms. Miller can make her point as hap-hazardly as she does in her essay is that the church has done a lousy job of defining marriage in the last 100 years. Someone might want to make the case that the church has been doing a poor job longer than that – I leave that case to that person, whomever he or she may be.

But here’s the truth: nobody can frame Barack Obama as a supporter of the war in Iraq, right? Nobody can frame Bill O’Reilly as a supporter of Barack Obama, yes? Nobody can frame Sean Penn as a political conservative – or even as a moderate. In fact, nobody can frame the advocates against Prop 8 as advocates of marriage in spite of their repetition of the word.

But why? Why can these people not be carelessly framed with not just a caricature of their views but with an outright contradiction of their views? Let me say it plainly: it is because these other people and groups are clearly on the record regarding what they believe. Publicly, openly, often: they say exactly what they mean, they do not apologize for it, and they are categorically militant to say what they are in favor of and are not merely and glibly chanting slogans about what they are against.

“But Frank,” says the politically-conservative reader who has stumbled onto this blog post, “how can you say that? Aren’t the proponents of Prop 8 and like legislation clearly for the union of one man and one woman? Don’t they say that often enough?”

My answer, unequivocally, is:

NO.

There are very few problems in the church that make me this angry, but this one is in the top 3. See: this is why Ms. Miller can say exegetically- and theologically- ludicrous things about what “Christian” religious conservatives want. Religious conservatives don’t really know what they want, or how to get it. And frankly, they have effaced their own position so badly in this case, it is no wonder we can see the head of the hideous monster about to be born cresting behind what they say they want.

What the student of the Bible ought to want in this case is not a social agenda. What the student of Biblical principles here should want is not for the government to force people to one kind of, um, gender entanglement over another.

Here’s why I say that: if the primary need for marriage is a social contract, one which gives me rights over another person, and rights regarding another person’s property so that they do not cheat me or that I am not otherwise cheated, I say plainly: let everyone have that. If that is all, or even principally, what marriage is, then please let every person have that as often as possible and with as many people as possible. Let Government (great “G” intended) protect the rights of each person so that no one is cheated.

But here’s the thing: I think – and historically the church thinks — that marriage is not the social construction of a network of rights – especially the “right” to some emotive or financial state of being appeased. In fact, the church (since it has come up) reads the Bible to mean that marriage is a surrendering of rights first to God and then to another person for manifold theological purposes – that is, a wide variety of purposes which, when acted out, give glory to God.

Marriage is about God. That is, the God who created us out of the dust for a purpose and subordinated to Himself. Marriage is about the Creator of all things and the purpose He made in mankind.

Now, all the people who liked Lisa Miller’s essay are thinking, “he’s going to break into the procreation riff here, and I’m checking out.” But because that is actually going to be my last and most derivative point, you should not check out. You think it’s a crude and dangerous club. Let’s wait a second here and put that purpose in its right place, and see if you still believe that.

The purpose of God in creating mankind is first to show the power of God over all things. The story goes like this:

YHVH-God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

and then God says:

It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.

Man’s purpose in God’s creation is to work and “subdue the Earth” as it says in another place, and God makes woman to help man. That word “helper” there in the Hebrew is later used in the OT almost exclusively to mean the kind of aid only God Himself can provide — as in Psa 115:11, or Psa 124:8.

So God put Adam over all creation, and puts Eve with him as a divinely-given help in order to subdue the Earth. And Jesus – since Jesus’ opinion came up in Ms. Miller’s essay – says this about these events:

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.”

That celibate, single Jesus said that – endorsing the story in Genesis not only by saying He believed that’s what happened but in fact by saying those words from Genesis 2 were actually spoken by God. So what we have is not just some human story but God’s very own story-telling, God’s very own words telling us that marriage was made for man and woman, that in marriage they would become one flesh, and that it should never be separated because God made it so.

Marriage is therefore a glorification of God in our obedience, to do a thing the way He said it should be done, and not to treat it – as we do today in our churches – as something which is often abandoned because the other person has become to us not our own flesh, but merely a room-mate or worse: merely a contractor who we can fire when we aren’t satisfied with their work.

And that’s not hardly all. This Paul fellow whom Ms. Miller seems to think held a very low view of marriage didn’t quite receive the husbands and wives in Ephesus as second-string, morally-weak jobbers for the faith. To the men he said this:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

Which, sadly, is the most powerful theological statement about human relationships and God in the entire Bible – and our churches treat it like it is some kind of cryptic betrayal of what we ought to stand for.

Yet to the women, Paul said this:

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 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. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

And of course, Ms. Miller and Mr. Meacham want none of that – even if they would concede that the man is called to die for the sake of lifting his wife up. How can they admit that submission to a savior is actually a work of right-minded obedience? It would be a fatal betrayal of the godless religion they have tried to advance in their essays.

And in that, let me say for all of them that of course they do not want this kind of marriage, either. A marriage which at its root is a union intended and created by God that glorifies Him by being for the good of mankind – man and woman both – which creates a permanent and unbreakable bond in which one submits to the other, and the other in turn commits even to die for the sake of the first in order to nurture her as his own body – and that this union (here it is now: watch it) is the union where God has ordained to bring more human life into this world — is simply not what the opportunists who chant “gay marriage” want for themselves.

Now, so what? Read the rest of this essay carefully, because it makes two points against both sides of this public argument which ought to give both sides a reason to pause.

“So what?” #1 is this: if the church was serious about this kind of love – which is Christ’s kind of love, first and foremost demonstrated on the Cross for a specific bride in order to make her holy and spotless before God – it wouldn’t abide a social Gospel of nondescript good will or idiotic exhortations about “your best life now”. Listen: often in marriage, you are not on the receiving end of good things but are in fact in the middle of hard doings. And if you expect that your marriage should be about satisfying you instead of sanctifying someone else through sacrifice, you will want to end your marriage in short order – kids and social appearances be damned. And let’s be honest: since divorce in the church looks like divorce in the world – that is, we do it just as often and for all the same reasons – I suspect we think of “marriage” in the same way the world does. So when the world simply wants to make the law look like what we are actually practicing, we have to look in the mirror and admit to ourselves that we are to blame for what the world thinks of marriage.

But my final “so what” here is to Ms. Miller and her tribe of social liberation kin: don’t kid yourself about what you “of course” don’t want. I find it almost incredulously-ironic, as I said above, that when Ms. Miller lists the sins of the OT patriarchs, she overlooks how the Bible describes what these acts were: “every man did what was right in his own eyes,” and “they did what was evil in the sight of YHVH, and they provoked Him to jealousy with their sins that they committed, more than all that their fathers had done.” It is expecially vexing and darkly funny to see her editor Mr. Meacham appeal to the sacrament of marriage when what he wants isn’t what God has specifically called holy. To appeal to sacrament is to appeal to God’s view of a thing, and to call for a blessing on an invented standard which seems right to a man but ignores or contorts God’s specific prescription for things is exactly the opposite of “sacrament”.

You see: if what you want is the church to bless your social-contract view of marriage, and you admit that this view is about what you want and not about what God has prescribed for you – male, female, for His glory, to your obedience, that you will sacrifice and for the sake of bearing children – you are asking for what you abhor in others, what “of course” we should abhor in the patriarchs described by Moses and the Prophets. Demanding a higher standard from others when one will not abide it himself is called “hypocrisy”, as we all know well and enjoy saying to the poor, ill-advised conservatives who want to do through Government what they cannot do themselves.

The other side, however, is in the far more pitiable position of wanting the government merely to allow them to do what they see in others as rank stupidity and evil. I’m not sure there’s a word for that (the Bible has one — you can find it in Prov 12:1) but if they come up with one that means what I mean, let’s by all means use that word instead. They should own up to what they are asking for, but please do not call it “marriage”.

Stop asking for “marriage”. You don’t want marriage but a way to make other people put their blessing on your life and choices; you want them to call your values “holy” when you can’t even say where they came from. I say you should have what you want here – because frankly you deserve what you are asking for, and that is not a compliment.

We are at fault here: we have taught you that marriage is a cheap thing which is easily made and easily unmade, and that it is about the pursuit of happiness. Shame on us for teaching you such a thing — may God have mercy on us for it; let us repent for making marriage about human urges and rights. But if we are willing to stand corrected — because of course nobody should want such a thing as you have asked for, a thing like the sinners of the Old Testament have done — you yourselves should change your minds. May God grant mercy that you, too, will stand corrected and you will repent of your offense against Him.

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