Monthly Archives: September 2007

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This is cross-posted at Laced With Grace.

I had a good day at work; my dad has told me many times that it is a privilege for a person to have a job that they like. I am blessed - I don't like my job; I love it.

I'm working with yet another different level of population this year. This is my first permanent assignment in a POHI classroom. POHI = Physically and Otherwise Health Impaired. Among the impairments, CP, birth injuries, pre-birth injuries, traumatic brain injury, down syndrome, autism, vision impairments, sickle cell anemia and a general description of "cognitively impaired".

I cannot describe the range of emotions that I feel when I work with these wonderful, gentle people. I know that there are many "at-risk" populations, but the people that I'm working with this year are fragile in many ways. They are not only physically fragile (with the lowered life expectancy that comes along with that fragility), they are emotionally and mentally at risk as well.

Sometimes I want to cry - could this have been prevented somehow? (in the case of birth injuries, this is a very real question) . How can I help? Should I help? Or will my helping come with the penalty of the loss of muscle tone?

But most importantly, how do I relate to all of these people, as I see them as God's children?

Kindness (being nice) tells me that I should "do" for them. Love dictates that I make them work to keep what they have. Love touches my heart and tells me to be gentle, and it strengthens my heart and tells me to be firm.

Love allows me to see them as people - yet forever children.
Sometimes, in my spiritual walk, I feel as though I'm "stuck" in that childhood. Always in need of something. Needing help, yet needing to work it out for myself.

My struggles, although different, allow me to feel love for that person in the wheelchair, doing her "laps" around the edge of the work floor (we are a sheltered workshop).

Matthew 25:45 Then he will answer them, saying, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' (ESV)

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Those who reject the Biblical teaching of leadership of the husband in a marriage, preferring instead to teach that there is no Biblical indication of leadership within a marriage (some teach a sort of "that was then, this is now" Biblical reading, meaning that yes, the husbands did have leadership now, but that was a "cultural thing" and not for today).One of the passages that instruct wives to submit to their husbands is

Eph 5: 22-24 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. (ESV)

First, this is obviously a metaphor. A wife is not walking around with her husband sitting on top of her neck. We need to discern what it is a metaphor for. There are a couple of schools of thought - head means "source", like the head of a river, or head means "leader", like the head of a corporation.

Second, even if "head" means "source", you still have to deal with "submit".

Third - we can try to make sense of the grammar

Can we use "source"?

  • Christ is the source of the church
  • the husband is the source of the wife.

You can either reject this usage of the word, or you can submit to the idea that there IS a creation order, man was created first and woman second; man is the glory of God and woman is the glory of man. In this case, it would be clear why there would be an instruction to submit - because of the creation order.

Yes - we can actually use source and have it work, but that gives egalitarians a problem with submission within the creation order.

Can we use "leader"?

  • Christ is the leader of the church
  • the husband is the leader of the wife

Egalitarians don't like this one. But yes, the grammar works.

In either case, you still have to deal with the word "hupotasso" - submit.

Wives - submit. Why? Because the Bible said so.Whether the metaphor is used to indicate "source" or "leader" - the instruction is still to "submit" - hupotasso.

A husband's leadership over his household has been the teaching of the church for centuries. The legal term is "he who asserts must prove". Egalitarians must prove from Scripture that centuries

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The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood has relaunched, including a blog.

At CBMW our passion is to help believers and local churches benefit from glorious biblical truths about God’s design of men and women. Our website has been updated to help you find answers to your questions and to encourage you to stand against the drifting currents of culture. Rest assured that this new site retains the same solid biblical teaching on the complementarian nature of manhood and womanhood.

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1 - From Dr. Helen: :The Starter Husband

The article, as one can gather from the title, is about women who marry in their 20's for practice and see nothing wrong with taking a guy out for a test-drive and dumping him off at the curb once the sheen wears off--here are some highlights from the article:

Andi takes a throaty slug of her second raspberry martini, picks at her fish taco, then sits back in her chair. "I think marriage is the new dating and having kids is the new marriage," she proclaims loudly, as yet another woman dining with her partner turns to stare. "It's true. I wouldn't have married him if I didn't think I could get out of it...."

Yeah...and men are the bad guys.

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John Piper on the "Three 9/11's We Need to Know"

Our Future 9/11 (20??)

There is no escape. Every one of us will be snuffed out. “It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). “As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more” (Psalm 103:15-16).

And on the way to death and paradise Paul assures us that we will pass through many afflictions: “through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). In fact, the whole world will pass through times that will be filled with 9/11’s. Here is the way Jesus put it:

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The Nikzor Project. "Dedicated to 12 million Holocaust victims who suffered and died at the hands of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime."

I found the site while looking for a list of "logical fallacies"

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Predictable? Probably.

Red herring? Certainly.

In my post from yesterday, I quoted Scripture that references three human institutions: governments, slavery, and marriage.

Suzanne, at the "Better Bible Blog" asked, "Would you ask a slave to go back to slavery if it could be proven that it was God's will." and further noted, "I assume you would." and challenged, "Then let those who accept real live slavery to another human being ask me if I would accept it. Only as an evil."

Later, (asking me) "You oppose slavery, and I suppose totalitarian government. Christians are clearly taught to submit to both. On what basis do you resist the clear teaching of the scripture? "

(I'm answering here instead of there because my full answer it likely to be more lengthy than most people want in their combox.)

First point: The reason this is a "red herring" (comparing slavery and totalitarian governments to marriage) is that (for most people) there are obvious differences.

The first thing we have to deal with is that "marriage" means "all marriages". "Slavery" means "all slavery", so we must consider "all governments", instead of only part of them.

Next, we can construct questions that are applicable to all of these human institutions.

Was the institution of _____ instituted by God?

  • Was the institution of slavery instituted by God?
  • Was the institution of government instituted by God?
  • Was the institution of marriage instituted by God?

God said of marriage: "as it was from the beginning..." God instituted the union of man and woman in marriage.

Government is a little stickier - There did not appear to be an "official" government among the Israelites until after Egypt. After Egypt there was a theocracy that God set up, with His people ruled by priests, who were ruled by Him. So yes, in at least one case, God instituted the human institution of government.

Slavery: I can see no place in Scripture where God began the institution of slavery; it seems that slavery is a human invention.

CONCLUSION: slavery is a human-formed institution and sits apart from the God-given institutions of marriage and government. So we don't need to compare marriage with slavery.

Next question: Are all examples of __________ harmful to humans?

  • Are all examples of marriage harmful to humans?
  • are all examples of government harmful to humans?
  • are all examples of slavery harmful to humans?

Obviously (at least I hope it is obvious) the answer to the first to is "no, not all examples of marriage or government are harmful to humans".

On slavery it may appear that I'm waffling, but I'm not. LET ME BE CLEAR: ALL SLAVERY THAT WE SEE IN THE WORLD TODAY IS EVIL THROUGH AND THROUGH. I will include in that a more recent institution than African slavery - the Magdelene laundries. Another example is the enslavement occurring today in parts of our own world.

ALTHOUGH...if the definition of "slavery" is coerced labor, is a military draft a form of "slavery"? Interesting question, as is the question of being able to "sell" oneself temporarily to pay off a debt or crime.

But in short, yes - all examples of slavery that we see in the world today are harmful to humans.

CONCLUSION: We cannot accurately compare the institution of slavery to marriage (and thus the submission of slaves in an ungodly institution to the submission of wives and citizens under godly institutions) with submission of people within Godly and God ordained institutions.

The next question is: where Paul's words meant to encourage those in submission to authority, both godly and ungodly? (yes) Do Paul's words prohibit us from working toward justice? (Certainly not).