Love the Babies

Birth control and family planning. It should be obvious to every Christian that abortion and any forms of birth control that kill a baby, even in the earliest stages of life, are contrary to God's command against murder. But is that the end of Biblical perspective on childbearing? 

Scripture universally presents (Godly/well-trained) children as two things (Ps. 127):

1. A blessing
2. Directly given by God

Since every baby is personally knit together by God- and not simply the result of a natural, random process- why would we take "family planning"- even non-abortifacient family planning- into our own hands?

This issue can be complicated, especially when health issues come into the picture. But we have to take God at His Word and walk on faith first- not start with our reasoning and then look at Scripture.

That Pesky Titus 2

“...that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be dishonored.” - Titus 2:4+5

This exhortation to young women cannot be neglected; it is clear in the text, but it is not culturally acceptable today, and as such it is easy to let it go unmentioned. Sinful man is very concerned with self-definition, self-realization, and unbridled autonomy. But God is in the business of bridling His creation; He both creates and defines what He has created. Truly, He is the most qualified to do the defining, and it is in keeping His commandments that our joy is made full. The bridling of the horse unleashes its power. (John 15)

From my own limited experience and observation, it seems that about ten years ago this passage and its presentation of the homemaking woman was very much in vogue in conservative Christian circles; honestly, it was perhaps presented a little too unilaterally, without enough room for Christian liberty and variety in application. A home business was the only option for a single young woman who wanted to be financially productive. For a girl to consider a college education was heresy- maybe not punishable by the tribunal, but certainly deserving of concerned condescension. Christian womanhood was supposed to look the same way for everyone. But that never happens, and it isn’t supposed to. The tapestry of the Church is a varicolored tunic, not a straightjacket.

Now, however, we seem to have taken a ride on the pendulum; now, we not only embrace Christian liberty and variety, but we practically disembowel the Scriptural commands in the process. We have rejected straightjacket and varicolored tunic alike, and we are running through the streets baring our liberty for all to see. Now this passage really means nothing- yes, we accept it as Scripture, and we make a nod to some vague idea about the wife being the homemaker. But Titus 2 doesn’t really have much bearing on whether or not my wife should get a job, or whether or not our girls should learn old-fashioned homemaking tasks. Perhaps most damaging of all is the strong perception that keeping the home and raising the kids is a second-level calling, as if the passionate pursuit of this essential mission reduces a woman to being too easily satisfied. As if “stay at home mom” was equivalent to “the help.”

This passage does mean something, and we cannot shy away from it; we must let God speak. God has called women to a different role than men, and for a woman to set that calling aside is for her to take a step down, not a step up. God does call women to be home-centered (and He does call them to be subject to their husbands, since we’re already stepping on toes here). It is straightforward in the text. It isn’t for me or anyone else to define for everyone exactly what those two things mean in practice. But the point is that they mean something. The application of the principle will vary, but there must be an application.

We cannot be ashamed of the Word of God. His commands are good, and they bring life and joy.

If we do not embrace this facet of God’s design for His people, then we will give occasion for the Word of God to be dishonored.

The Highway of Heroism

This article is by turns fascinating and heartbreaking. It is amazing how humanism takes us by the hand and walks us away from God's reality- and indeed from all true meaning and joy.

It's no longer about truth or reality. It's about the experience. It doesn't matter if you are actually a man- if you *feel* like a woman, then you must be. It doesn't matter if you are *actually* the little girl's daddy, so long as you make her *feel* like she has an involved father. It doesn't matter if you are in a committed relationship for life; it just matters that, for right now, she makes you feel good.

Thus we run from the real world that God made, a world of meaning, a world of true family, a world of covenant, a world of unconditional love.

All we want is the experience.

The highway of heroism has a high toll, paid in blood, sweat, and tears. But the game console version only costs a couple of hundred bucks and your manhood.

The road of reality is hot in the summer and covered with snow in the winter. Let me watch the movie about someone who traveled that road instead.

I'll get the experience without the sacrifice. The joy without the pain.

But that's a lie.

Because the experiences of God's World are not only about what we enjoy in them but about what they do to us. And if you remove sacrifice from the equation, you have an anvil with no hammer. The sword will not be sharpened without friction.

Remove the trial, remove the reward. Remove the race, remove the finish line. Remove the battle, remove the thrill of victory.

Rent a perfect boyfriend who plays his script to perfection and you will experience happiness. You will experience wonderful dates and comfortable movie nights.

But you will never taste looking into the eyes of a soul so close to yours that it is almost indistinguishable. You will never have your soul broken by the careless words of your best friend, and re-forged in the tears of her repentance. You will never discover just how deep your selfishness runs like rot into the foundations of your soul, or just how much you need Jesus to rebuild that foundation, or just how much joy awaits when He does and you feel the layers of flesh falling away. You will never know sweet tears or broken laughter. You will never be the last, longest-married couple on the dance floor at the wedding. You will never hold the same hand that you've been holding for sixty years, or wake up an old man to the same kisses you first tasted on your wedding day. You will never bear the burdens of crushing pain beside another weeping heart. You will never see overflowing joy spilling from your heart and splashing shimmering sparkles into the most beautiful eyes in the world. And you will never, one day, wake up alone, and feel like half of your heart is buried under six feet of earth and half of your soul is waiting for you at the feet of Jesus.

So yes. We can trade this life in for a facade. Yes, there will be less pain. The dead don't feel pain.

But neither can they laugh.

The Crying Baby In The Room

I'm going to start off by saying that I unilaterally and unequivocally condemn racism of every shape, color, and size, white supremacy included. God made us all in His Image. The Sacrifice of Christ and His Gospel are offered to all people regardless of the amount of melanin in their skin. And God is the One Who put that melanin there anyway. Any belief that one race of humanity is inherently, genetically better than another is anti-Christian and immoral. There only, really, is one race- descendants of Adam. The question for everyone of every race is not about the bloodline they were born into, but whether they have been born again by the blood of Christ.

That said, I think we are contributing to the race-driven dialogue of this country by spending so much time harping on this wonderful truth. Unwittingly- indeed, against our will- we are allowing the Antifas and the Alt-Rights and the CNNs to control our dialogue as a church and as a nation. Antifa and the Alt-Right together make one tragic fiasco after another, driven by racial hatred; the media, loving a good tragedy, focuses on, meditates on, propagates that conflict and the worldviews of those involved; the left successfully sets the tone of the dialogue- "anyone on the right who does not come out and condemn the Alt-Right in the strongest of terms is a racist." And we know they have succeeded because all over the right are calls for conservatives and Christians everywhere to come out and publicly denounce white supremacy.

The right fires back by telling the left to condemn the racism and violence of Antifa and Black Lives Matter and the rest.

And all of these things should be condemned. But that's not the point.

There have been white supremacists and black power groups and rioting socialists before. They are advancing an evil ideology, sure. And sometimes a particular Klaner or Black Panther does something particularly repugnant, and I am in no way downplaying the evil of both those ideologies and the actions of their adherents.

But just because I am white does not mean that every time the Alt-Right guys do something evil I need to come out and disassociate myself from them. To consider me automatically associated with white supremacy because of my skin color *is racism*. Just because Joe is black doesn't mean that I have a right to automatically assume that he supports the smashing of shop windows.

The most disturbing thing to me about this whole issue, this whole dialogue, is that nationally we are becoming more and more polarized by skin color- not less and less. It is becoming less and less acceptable to actually look at one another as humans- to actually talk about skin color with all the same emotional freight as I would talk about hair color or height or dialect- in other words, with no emotional freight at all.

Frankly, I don't care what color your skin is. And I don't want to care what color your skin is. You're a human. I want to see you as such. To know you as such. To love you as such and offer the goodness of Jesus to you as such.

And if you call me white, it doesn't offend me. I'm white. Technically, I'm more of a light brown- at least on the parts of me that are regularly exposed to the Arizona sun. And I don't really care. That's how God made me.

"Black," "White," "Indian," whatever it is- it's not an insult. It's simple, common-sense English.

The simple fact is that the Alt-Right and Antifa together probably make up less than a tenth of one percent of the population of America. You probably don't know anyone personally who knows anyone personally who knows anyone personally who is a member of either.

Have you ever noticed the remarkable phenomenon of a crying baby/toddler? When everyone stops and pays attention to them, usually the crying increases. When they are given a pat on the head and life goes on as usual, they calm down.

I think it's high time we began ignoring Antifa and the Alt-Right altogether. They're a paper tiger problem being given real weight by all the massive attention put upon them. They are an anthill, and we need to stop viewing them through a magnifying glass.

When they break the law (vandalizing statues, harming people, etc.), they should be punished according to the law.

Beyond that, they should be devoutly ignored. They are driven not by principle but by emotion- an emotion that is fed by the swirling dialogue of our national conversation. That is the Marxist crisis-creation machine working in full swing. Let's not contribute to it.

We need to allow the issue of race to fade back into the background of irrelevance where it belongs and see people the way God made them- in His Image. Let's stop playing in their sandbox. It's just making everything more messy.

On Modesty and Dead Horses

Ah, we have dug up the corpse of the modesty horse from the backyard once again. Grab your bats, everyone.

But it's not really beating a dead horse; more like a zombie horse; some battles need re-fought, and some need re-focused. In all the back-and-forth, we may hope and trust that God is honing the effectiveness of His Church.

Like most issues, the modesty issue really boils down to whether or not we are seeking God wholeheartedly. If we are, we can grow in wisdom. If we are not, then we will dig into one side or the other and stay there.

Blamers gonna blame. Legalists gonna legal. Libertines gonna liber.

For the girl who wants to feel justified in dressing in ways that are worldly and reminiscent of the Proverbs 7 woman, articles like the recent viral wonderpost provide the perfect ammunition to cast blame on the men around her. 

For the guy who wants to feel justified in ogling his sisters in Christ, any given call to modesty for girls is the perfect ammunition to cast blame on the women around him.

So the real question is- have we removed the log from our own eye? 

Am I arguing for "modesty" because I'm unwilling to repent of my own sin, or maybe because I am desperate to uphold man-made standards and too proud to lend an honest ear to a critique? 

Am I arguing against "modesty" because I want to be free to dress the way that makes me feel beautiful, rather than the way that best honors Christ and serves others?

We are all responsible for how we dress- for how it represents Christ, and for how it affects others. We should be dressing for Christ and for others, not for self. This would obviously include having some sort of standard for decency (and I believe that that goes for both guys and girls- http://allauthority.blogspot.com/…/magic-mike-and-male-mode…). (1 Cor. 13:4-8)

We are also all responsible for how we think. Guys, if we don't take our lustful thoughts captive, our poor sisters could walk around in burkhas and we would find that their eyes were enticing. "Girl, the bridge of your nose is causing me to stumble." (Matt. 5:28)

And girls, it's also unfair to tell guys to keep their eyes under control while posting drool-stained fangirl comments about the screenshot of Mr. Hotness, coming in HD December 2017. I'm just sayin', all that drool ain't good for your keyboard.

Somewhere out there on the war-torn battleground of sexuality and decency is wisdom. 

The devil would be happy to convince us that God doesn't care, and to render us as Christians just as naked and licentious as the world. "You shall not surely die."

The devil would also be happy to see us fenced up in a bunker of our own traditions and legalisms, so focused on this or any other peripheral issue that the Christ that we claim to serve fades into the background. "Hath God said?"

And the devil would probably also be happy to divide us into the two above camps and keep us busy fighting between ourselves and representing a divided Christ to the world around us.

We all know (or should know) that some attire is not fit for the public eye. If we are humble enough, we should be able to discuss one another's standards, learn from each other, discover how best to love and consider each other, embrace liberty in Christ, and seek wisdom.

It's not "girls, wear what you want." It's not "guys, think what you want." We're Christians. The whole point of this thing is that for every one of us the command is crystal clear- "do what Jesus wants."

So let's humble ourselves and seek God together.

Reposted from my music website:

The filmmaking world is unique for a variety of reasons; the convergence of disciplines, personalities, passions and skills that come together to make a single production is staggering, and the community that such like-minded laboring forges is easily compared to the relationship of a family; the cash flows in torrents, circulating enough green rectangular blood cells through the body of the filmmaking community to support many thousands of professionals and their families; the end product will often be seen by millions of eyes in dozens of countries around the world. With such a huge industry, so much skill, so many relationships, so much money, so much exposure and influence, it becomes quickly obvious why filmmaking makes such a powerful tool for the advancement of the Kingdom of God; inherent in a tool’s power, however, is a corresponding necessity for the careful use thereof.

There are no seven day waiting periods for the purchase of butter knives.

So what are the inherent dangers and temptations facing us as Christian filmmakers? While I cannot claim to list them all, I would like to suggest three powerful lures that would love to displace Christ as the king of our hearts.

The first is money. There is nothing wrong with a desire to make money- to the contrary, we are required to provide for our own, and that implies making money. Furthermore, Scripture says that the laborer is worthy of his wages. It is not “more Christian” to work for free, nor is it somehow wrong to charge a price that makes our work profitable. But the problem arises when we see our professional pursuit primarily as a means to make money, rather than primarily as a means to serve God. We cannot serve both God and money, and in an industry so flush with cash- especially in the secular realm of Hollywood- the lure of riches shimmers bright and golden, and we as believers must remind ourselves of what is truly priceless.  (1 Tim. 5:8,18, Luke 16:13)

The second is fame. Your average McDonald’s burger-flipper isn’t interested in making sure that he is known nationwide as the most talented patty artist. But step into the filmmaking community and “who you know” becomes essential to professional success. You need a brand; you need name recognition; you need a social network. And these are simply necessary considerations for a wise businessperson. But it is a very short step from Christ-focused pursuit of professional excellence and self-focused pursuit of fame. A good litmus test for this consideration is whether or not we can rejoice in the success of other believers, especially those who share an identical professional pursuit. If my focus is on Jesus, and if I am considering others more important than myself, then when that other composer gets signed onto the awesome film project, I will be glad for him, praying for him, and excited to see God’s Kingdom go forward. I will also trust Him to provide for my needs in the way that is best for me- even if that means I need to get a job at McDonald’s! After all, if I am seeking first His Kingdom, then it is about His fame and not my own. If, however, my focus is on myself, I will struggle with coveting others’ successes, and I will not be content with the blessings God has given me. (Matt. 6:33, Phil. 2)

The final snare to beware (for this post, at least) is the idol of art. We creatives are generally quite passionate about our respective crafts, and there are few things more satisfying than making a ________ (scene, score, script, etc.) that turns out just right. But as satisfying as that is, it is ultimately empty if it is not subject to our pursuit of Christ. The goal of artistry is not just to create excellent art; it is to create excellent art for the glory of our excellent God. This doesn’t mean cramming a “pray-a-prayer” scene into every script, but it does mean that our definition of good art stems from our pursuit of Christ and our understanding of His leading on our life. It also means that if our artistic pursuit is not what God wants us to do right now, we will not cling stubbornly to our dreams, but will rather follow the leading of our King. If the question changes from “what does Christ want me to do” into “what do I want to do” in our pursuit of artistic excellence, then we have created a golden calf in the shape of our passion, and we have revealed the true attitude of our heart- more passionate about our craft than about our Christ. This can also be diagnosed with a simple question- if Jesus wanted me to quit filmmaking and go work in a gas station, would I be OK with that? (1 Cor. 10:31)

This all boils down to the simple commandment to seek first the Kingdom of God- to love Him with all our hearts. If we are doing that, then we will see that no amount of money, no amount of fame, no level of artistic achievement can ever rival the joy and perfection that is for us in the infinitely satisfying Jesus Christ. (Matt. 6:33, 22:37, John 15:11)

The God Who Laughs

Horror movies are scary because they present a world in which evil triumphs; a world in which there is no hope; a world in which the gates of hell prevail. They present a sick and twisted look at human depravity that fascinates the flesh. They are full of inventions of evil, and the evil they present laughs- laughs at justice, laughs at consequences, laughs at God.

Yet Scripture contains the most terrifying premises imaginable; terrifying, not in a dark and shadowed and sinfully fascinating way, but in an overwhelming and inescapable and terribly beautiful way. While the horrors of sin invite the viewer to fantasize and indulge dark curiosities, the terrors of God send shudders down the spine and invite those who meditate upon them to fall on their knees.

The terrors of sin invite the roaches to explore the kitchen floor. The terrors of God send them scattering.

These are the horror films that Christians should make. These films would not explore the twisted paths of a sinful psyche and offer less inventive minds the chance to wander down the paths of death; they would explore the straight paths of God's holy Justice, and expose in blinding light how twisted the paths of our fallen minds truly are. They would cause terror not at the perversion of the evils but at the perfection of the inescapable justice of God.

These films would explore what it means to suppress the truth for so long that someone actually begins to live a lie, a life of self-inflicted blindness stemming from rebellion against the One True God. They would proclaim the chilling judgments of a righteous God on a rebellious nation, like the prophets did of old. They would show that though the wicked laugh and mock at God's eternal flames, those flames are waiting hungrily and burning all the same. They would show that the One True God is a God Who is to be feared.

In American culture the God of Scripture is not feared; instead, we fear an idol of our own making, carved in the image of tolerance, whose sacrifices are a pinch of apathy, a pound of groveling, and any lingering traces of manhood buried deep within your bones. But this leaves the question- has the American church been presenting God as He presents Himself? Or have we been presenting a god who is sitting up in heaven trying his very best to fight against the evil that is overpowering his forces here in America; a god who is begging, pleading with his enemies to just believe in him so he can bless them?

We serve a God Who laughs. Who holds His enemies in holy and unflinching derision. We serve a God Who is a loving, merciful, forgiving Father- but who is a terrifying, unflinching, fearless adversary.

"He Who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord scoffs at them." (Ps. 2:4)

"I will even laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your dread comes." (Pr. 1:26)

Romans 1 details the descent into madness- a descent which begins with refusing to acknowledge God, and ends with the judgment of God poured out like flooding rains on those who have turned against Him; a deep and chilling blindness so overpowering that the most simple and obvious truths are lost in the confusion like a baseball in a field of corn.

Scripture tells us that everyone knows; the Image of God is so indelibly carved into their being, so inescapably shimmering out of the world around them, that they are without excuse. If Woody would just look at his boot, he would know that he belongs to Andy.

But they've shoved their boot into a sock and have lived that way for so long that they have genuinely begun to believe that there is neither boot nor Andy at all; they've told themselves their own lie for so long that they have actually started to believe it; they have looked at the world through upside-down glasses for so long that their brain is flipping their eyesight to match.

And He Who sits in the heavens laughs. He laughs as the heathen nations rage, like ants picketing on the sizzling pavement outside the air-conditioned office of the exterminator, like pots starting a Facebook campaign against the rights of the potter (who happens also to own the internet... and a sledgehammer). He laughs as America pretends with all her might that magnets don't necessarily have to go N+S... if that N wants to self-identify as an S, who are we to say otherwise? He laughs as we hide from His Truth like a child under the blanket at bedtime, as we run from Reality only to be ambushed by her child, Consequence. He laughs as the brightest minds in the scientific community conclude that the universe is a cosmic accident and claim primordial slime as their heritage. He laughs as the prophets of Babylon dance and prance in a frenzy to a mirror-idol, cutting themselves and shouting louder, louder, louder in hopes that maybe the state will send fire from heaven and consume all the intolerant things they have heaped upon her altar.

And fire will come, but it will not be from the one they worship.

This is the God that Scripture presents; the God who melts mountains with the breath of His nostrils; the God at Whose voice the oceans flee. The scariest villains, both in our little fictions and in God's great reality, are the ones who commit their crimes and laugh. They have no fear; they have no remorse; they cackle at the pain they cause others and mock the sword of justice.

But God is the One Who wields that sword. And He laughs at them. He laughs at their pride, their bravado, their cute little insults which make them feel so big and strong. He is not trying to defeat them. He is defeating them- and that through their own perceived victories. He is defeating them with the ease of a giant wrestling an impertinent child, with the completely unconcerned dominance of a cat toying with a cricket.

He laughs, and knows that the ones who mock at the cup of His wrath will mock no more once they have tasted thereof.

And that is sweet solace for the righteous.

And that is utter terror for the wicked.

This is the God of the Bible. This is a Christianity with teeth. This is the God that the world must see.

What is the beginning of the descent to madness in Romans 1? A refusal to acknowledge God. What, therefore, is the beginning of revival? The submissive acknowledgement of God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but how can we expect for wisdom to begin if we never present the truth about the God Who is to be feared? God is in the business of bringing glory to His worthy Name. How can we expect to see true reformation based only on moralistic platitudes, "traditional values," and pleas to acknowledge an ooey-gooey ambiguigod.

The God of the Bible does not share His glory.

And this is the God that we must present to the world.

How can we expect God's blessing if we will not give Him the glory for it? If we want to proclaim the pantheistic and tolerant elephant-shaped god of our own making, then we should only expect help from that god. And since that is no god at all, the rescue we are waiting for will be rather lackluster.

The Kingdom of God does not depend on America. America may fall, and God will not be searching desperately for a plan B. America doesn't need morality. She doesn't need traditional values. She doesn't need conservative fiscal policy.

She needs to fear God.

She needs to kiss the Son. (Ps. 2)

America needs Jesus. Just like every other nation on the earth.

And as Christians, our first duty is to proclaim Him as He says He is.

We serve a God Who laughs. It is time for His people to laugh too- not in pride in ourselves, not in self-exalting superiority, but in humble and childlike submission to the irrefutable Truth of God. In dealing with individuals, we should show Christ-like mercy, compassion, humility- for we, too, are sinners whose only claim is the Grace of God. But as followers of Jesus, we know the Truth; we have nothing to fear from the prophets of error. So in looking at the insanity around us, we should stand on the Word of God, proclaim it with boldness, and laugh fearlessly.

Because when you're looking through the eyes of reality, this stuff is pretty funny.

#KissTheSon
#FillTheEarth

Mr. and Mx.

Watched a little segment on Fox tonight about how Amazon has removed the "Boys" and "Girls" filters from their toy searches and the Oxford English Dictionary is introducing Mx. as a gender-neutral alternative to Mr. or Ms.

He Who sits in the heavens laughs.  It really is quite funny to watch the gods of the politically-correct marketplace scramble to sandblast every remnant of reality off of the reality that surrounds them.  Predictably, like sweeping a dirt floor, it's not working very well.

Then one of the ladies on the segment talks about how the most we can say about whether there are real biological differences between boys and girls is that we don't really know.

So... let's run a few quick polls.

What does a doctor say when a baby is born?  "It's a _____"

Is the doctor right or wrong?  And if the terms "male" and "female" no longer refer to objective biological differences, then... what's the doctor supposed to say?  Do we need new terms that somehow can acknowledge an anatomical reality without acknowledging a spiritual one?  Or are we also questioning the anatomical reality?

Next poll:

Put a group of girls in an empty room.  Put a group of boys in an empty room.  Give each group maybe some sticks and rocks.  What are they going to do?

Next poll:

Ask your average girl what her ideal body would look like, and note the adjectives she uses.  Ask your average guy the same question.

Next poll (this one is fun):

What would be your initial reaction to a scene from, say, an Avenger movie, in which Black Widow is cradling Thor in her arms, carrying him away from a place of danger?

Now, reverse the roles.  Does your reaction change at all?

If so, are you a sexist?  Or are you just a normal person who has been wired by God to think in terms of reality?

Something to think about.  Oh, and I loved the other lady's comment at the end... "This just makes it harder to shop."

And thus is the world of political correctness.

Homosexuals Have Rights Too

OK... I'll admit it... under Biblical law, homosexuals should have the same rights as everyone else.

It's Biblical.

I have the right to marry a woman.  The homosexual guy does too.

I don't have the right to marry a man.  Neither does a homosexual guy.

See?  Same rights.

The homosexual community is clamoring for equal rights in name, but special rights in reality.

If homosexuality is a sin and legally-outlawable crime (which it is, Biblically speaking- Leviticus 18:22) then no one has the right to practice it.  This goes for every sin and crime- murderers, thieves, adulterers, they all have the same rights as anyone else.  To seek a special right to steal, kill, or commit adultery- if we're going to do that, let's at least call it what it is: special permission for the violation of God's Word- not equal rights.

This is not an issue of denying the right of marriage to some and granting it to others; it's a matter of defining marriage Biblically- one man, one woman- acknowledging that right, and acknowledging the wrongness of anything else.

#lgbt

On Objectifying Women

On the objectification of women...

I recently read a blog post about how, in short and brutal summation, girls should feel free from the legalisms of the modesty movement and guys need to get their thoughts under control and stop blaming and objectifying women.

And I agree.  Sort of.

Guys, we do need to take responsibility for our eyes and our thoughts.  We don't have the freedom to blame Eve here.  Jesus didn't say "if any man looks at a woman to lust after her then she really should have put more clothes on."  The truth of the matter is, brothers, that a lustful heart and mind *will lust*.  Regardless of the attire (or lack thereof) of the object of lust, "the eyes of man are never satisfied." (Pr. 27:20)

Furthermore, we have no right to take our opinion and preach it as Gospel.  "Thou shalt not wear pants."  "Thou shalt not wear sleeveless shirts."  "She is wearing a skirt that reveals a fragment of her KNEECAP.  AAAAAAAAUUUUGHHH.  MY PURITY IS MELTING OUT OF MY EARS.  VILE SINNER!!!!11!!!1!"

Or something like that.

We may preach Biblical principle as doctrine... and that is all.  Principles of Scripture like gender distinctions (Deut. 22:5), modest apparel (1 Tim. 2:9- and this specifically has to do with ostentatiousness, not just the display of flesh), and the need to cover nakedness (Genesis 3, Leviticus 18) can- and should- all be applied.  And we can look, too, at practical examples given in Scripture- for example, the baring of the thigh is shameful  (Isaiah 47:2).

But girls should not feel burdened by the rules of man- only blessed by the rules of God.

That said... ladies... sisters... please hear me on this.  Just because a guy is prone to look at revealed female form and flesh doesn't mean that he is a woman-objectifying pervert.  It actually means he's normal.  God wired us that way.  (If he keeps looking, or starts thinking things he shouldn't, *then* he has stepped into sin.)

The female form is like a magnet to our eyes.  Even in the form of a pencil drawing or a poster.  And that is a beautiful, wonderful thing, within the context of marriage!

(And actually it's not entirely a guy thing- it's also a rules-of-art thing; my Mom did an experiment once where she showed a group of women two pictures- a professionally dressed woman in a skirt, and a professionally dressed woman in pants- and she asked the women what caught their eyes.  Even from a photographic composition standpoint, regardless of actual physical attraction, leading lines guide the eyes.)

So.  Guys are responsible for loving girls as people, looking at them as friends and embodied souls and not just bodies.  But girls... if you want a Godly guy to notice your face and personality and to talk to you as another person instead of spending the conversation trying... not... to look...

We appreciate the help.

Christian guys need to be told to take responsibility for their own thoughts.  But they do not need saddled with guilt for being wired like men, just like Christian girls don't need saddled with guilt for not following man-made legalisms.

Love Has No... Logic, Apparently.

The Ad Council has spoken.  Let the peoples bow at the sound of the zither and the trumpet unto the golden statue of LUVVVV.

But before we make haste to prostrate ourselves worshipfully in the dust, it might behoove us to ask ourselves- what exactly do we mean by love?

In the viral video "Love Has No Labels," we see people behind an x-ray wall showing affection to one another (kissing skeletons... yeah).  Presumably to illustrate that we are all the same on the inside... which is somewhat true, although if we're going to make that argument regarding the issue of homosexuality we must acknowledge that men and women actually aren't all the same on the inside.  There are significant anatomical and physiological differences.  (Amen somebody?!?)

Moving on; as the video progresses, the affectionate skeletons part and then appear on the outside of the wall- as real people.  Now we see who it was that was hugging, or kissing, or dancing behind the X-ray.  And here is where the logic behind this emotional plea begins to crumble.

The battle cry of the advertisement remains the same- love has no ____.

No gender- a homosexual couple.

No race- a bi-racial couple.

No age- an elderly couple, or two children hugging each other.

No disability- an autistic child playing with a friend.

No religion- "Christians," Jews, Muslims, Hindus shaking hands in ecumenical bliss.

But if we look carefully we will notice that "love" is being used in a few different ways here.

Frankly, everyone would agree with the statement at a foundational level.  Guys love guys and girls love girls all the time in a fully Biblical and healthy way- it's called friendship.  And under that definition of love- platonic friendship, or, in the words of Paul, "in all purity"- all the above statements are true (although each category and especially the category of religion must define love in such a way as not to exclude truth).

However, that is not what the advertisement is truly meaning to say; it is a plea for the acceptance of homosexuality and the elimination of distinctions, standards, and Truth.  And here is where the logic leaps the tracks, because the definition of "love" has been changed from platonic friendship to romantic and sexual passion- a love which has been designed by God and given to us as a precious, wonderful gift to be enjoyed only within the confines of covenant marriage- one-man, one-woman marriage.

Is this passionate and romantic love the love that this ad is talking about?

Well... sometimes.

To be blunt, everyone would be shocked and appalled if the six-year-old children were making out on stage.  But why?  I thought love had no age!

And this is the issue.  Love, and especially romantic love, does indeed have labels- it has categories- it has God-given definitions.  There are some "loves" that are inappropriate.  There are a thousand perversions I'd rather not name that do not deserve to be "tolerated" and are not worthy of the title "love."

So the bottom-line question is "who defines what kinds of love are OK?"  Who defines which behaviors and passions are appropriate and which are aberrant and abominable?

The Ad Council has decided that homosexual romantic love is OK, but I doubt they would feel the same about bestial romantic love, or romantic love between children, or a child and an adult, or siblings, or... the list goes on.

They are not OK with it for now, that is.  Give it time.

Scripture is clear (Lev. 18:22, Heb. 13:4).  Romantic love belongs only within the context of covenant.  Marriage.  One man, one woman, 'til death do them part.  God has spoken.

So the bottom-line question is this- will we submit to the standards of the Ad Council, or to those of The Creator of the universe?

In Response to Rob Bell

In response to Rob Bell: the mainstream American church may indeed soon embrace same-sex marriage. But the mainstream American church is not synonymous with Biblical Christianity. Scripture is clear, and the failure of those who claim the Name of Jesus to live by His Words does not change the Truth of His Words. Homosexuality is a sin. A forgivable sin. A sin like many other sins. But a sin. And it is not loving to hide people from the Truth. (Lev. 18:22, Rom. 1)

Merry Christmas

Why do I love Christmas?  Well... I love the family time.  I love the lights.  The traditions.  The decorations and the music and the eggnog and frosty breath swirling around the rosy cheeks and shining eyes of carolers and the memories written in the smells of candy and cold and Jimmy Stewart saying "I wanna live again."

But my favorite thing about Christmas is that Christmas is a celebration and proclamation that the Father gave His Son and His Spirit to and for His subjects who had fought against His reign; that the High King of Heaven came down to earth and slept in a feeding trough; that the eternal Son of God bound Himself in time and the immortal, invincible Christ died, and that that life and that death and the 33 years in which Jesus walked this earth served as the midpoint in a two-part story, changing the watchword of History from "one day" to "this day," crashing down from sky to earth among the song of heaven and nature and shattering to pieces every man and every kingdom which stood between the King and His Kingdom, and leavening the earth 'til His blessings flow as far as the curse is found.

That's what Christmas is about.  The triumph of the skies.

Let earth receive her King.

#JoyToTheWorld
#MerryChristmas

Sparrows and Surprises

Psalm 127 and Matthew 6 encourage believers to have faith- a faith that removes worry and stress; the faith of a child who never wonders how his daddy is going to put food on the table come next mealtime, but rather lives under the happy assumption that his daddy has everything under control. 

The Lord gave me a few opportunities this week to practice such faith in a very practical way. Many of you have probably heard about my latest album project (if you haven't, here you go: http://resoundingmusic.com/the-womb-of-the-dawn/ ). It was scheduled to come out Friday; I'd been pumping that release date for a long time in the marketing of the project; had a bunch of people "going" to the event. Thursday night, I hit the sack planning to make a few polishing tweaks on a few tracks and get everything uploaded in short order.

Friday morning came and brought with it the White Screen of Death. Bad news for album release day. Lots of visual display issues for my computer; couldn't even log in on some attempts. There had been signs leading up to this before, but nothing this bad. By God's grace, a phone call with Apple tech support resulted in getting everything up and running properly quickly, and the computer performed well all day long; album submitted to CDBaby, marketing finished, I shut her down. Had even worse problems every time I tried to start up after that. God held it together (it's really inexplicable that it performed so well on Friday) for just as long as I needed it. Then, next day, I was supposed to mix a track for #BoundMovie (on one of those "The film festival is coming! The film festival is coming!" deadlines). I went to bed Friday night knowing that the next morning I had some serious tech support to do before I'd be able to do so; called Apple again, and we couldn't fix it in-house; I'd have to go in for repairs. And the nearest store that could do such a thing is about an hour away from my location. Drove in, they had the part we thought might be the issue, switched it out, it appears that it really was the issue, they sent me on my way, and by about 4:00 in the afternoon I was back up and running. (Oh, and before anybody makes Mac jokes, it was a graphics card that had been serving me faithfully since 2008. So there's that.)

Add to that that Joseph Santoyo had prepared the vocal tracks so well, and the thing was done with time to spare.

On roller-coaster events like that, I think we have two reactionary options:

1. "DAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!! WHATAMIGONNADO?" *stress* *pull hair out* *more stress*

2. "Whoa. That was unexpected. I can't wait to see how God works this out. Looks like I need to..." 

God is faithful. We should be faith-full. #Hudelson2014 #GodProvides

A Feast of Eggshells

Dad's sermon yesterday was on holiday peace.  What is the foundation of peace around the family table?

Is it our ability to bubble wrap truth, sweep sin under the rug, and dull the sharp edges of reality before they make their way into our conversations?

That, of course, is no peace at all; doesn't matter how good the turkey is, because all anyone can taste is the eggshells they've been walking on.

"Better is a dry morsel and quietness with it than a house full of feasting with strife." (Pr. 17:1)

But there's the other option.  There's peace founded upon Truth; unity forged in a common, fiery passion for the Kingdom of God.  Kindness is only true kindness when paired with truth; love is only true love when it works in terms of God's Word.

And that peace?  I'd take bread and water and that peace a thousand times over a feast of eggshells.

But the kingdom of darkness is always asking the Kingdom of Light to settle for the first kind of peace.  And not just asking; demanding.  Take the teeth out of the Gospel.  Be the Wilsonian hailstorm of cotton balls.  Ignore the elephant in the room, the lumps underneath the rug, and the sounds coming from the closet and behind the couch.  Jesus would want you to be nice, after all.

Ssssshhhhhhhh.

That's not love; that's not peace; that's not joy; and that's not what Christ calls us to.

Doesn't mean we should speak truth without kindness.  But it does mean we shouldn't speak kindness without truth.

Light has no fellowship with darkness; there are no treaties in the war between the Seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent.  Our love for others should cause us to call them into the Kingdom- not to follow them out of It.

Doesn't necessarily mean that we can't still enjoy the company of family and friends who are at war with Christ (though it may mean that).  It does, however, mean that we cannot enjoy that company on the devil's terms.

If Jesus makes you uncomfortable, then I hope when you are around me you are uncomfortable.

“If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you." (John 15:18)

Our goal shouldn't be to get people to hate us.  But with brothers and sisters across the globe being tortured and beheaded for their faith in Christ, shame on us if we miss opportunities to be persecuted just a little bit for Jesus because we're too nice to be loving.

Because Jesus, and only Jesus, brings true peace, true love, true joy to the world.

#JoyToTheWorld

The House of Mourning

"A ship sails and I stand watching till she fades on the horizon and someone at my side says, "She is gone." Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all; she is just as large as when I saw her. The diminished size, and total loss of sight is in me, not in her, and just at the moment when someone at my side says, "She is gone," there are others who are watching her coming, and other voices take up a glad shout, "There she comes!" and that is dying."

- Bishop Brent



"It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, because that is the end of every man, and the living takes it to heart." - Ecclesiastes 7:2 

I am wont to tease and gripe in a coffee creamer sort of way about the fact that nobody dies in the movies anymore- coffee creamer, because I'm half-and-half; part of me is just having fun teasing friends who like the happy endings, but part of me truly does believe that we as a culture are missing something.  I think what we're missing is the opportunity to visit the house of mourning.

In today's culture, we are invited to hop on a bubble-wrapped train that promises to protect us from the thorns of reality.  Yet I fear that when we are insulated from the thorns we are also blinded to the roses.

Obey God, Work Hard, Have Fun

Over the past few days I've been reading the book of Ecclesiastes.  I think it's my favorite book of The Bible (if one can have such a thing).  It seems that the message of the Preacher is something like this:

Life is short.
God is good.
Obey God.
Work hard.
Go have fun.

Don't spend too much time philosophizing; don't confine yourself within the walls of a library and re-live others' lives when you could be out there getting sweaty and bloody and dirty and building and being built and teaching and being taught and touching and being touched and loving and being loved; go do real things and enjoy the doing, and do it all from the sweet security of faith in a Perfect Providence and obedience to His perfect Law.

Yet this whole discussion is predicated on the recurring exclamation- vanity of vanities!  The rising and setting of the sun of our lives adds no weight to the rising and setting of the sun that lit them; no extra tear falls from the writhing clouds to join the rivulets cried by those left behind.  Life marches on; the universe keeps spinning; babies are born and old men die and the auroras still paint the sky; snow falls and melts into the flowers of spring which fade into the colors of autumn and then the snow falls again; falling stars keep falling yet the void never feels their loss; the ants never cease to march, the waterfalls continue their endless cascade, and we feed the worms with our flesh and return to the dust from which we were sculpted.

Death and Taxes

A worldview that is cut off from Christ is a worldview that is cut off from hope.  (1 Cor. 15:32)

For the unbeliever, death only has sting.  The godless may still present and desire the beauty of a noble death, because the Character of God that is woven into the universe- and their hearts- tells them that it's a beautiful thing, and in their hearts, they know and feel that a selfless death is the highest form of love. (Rom. 1, John 15:13)

But that is small consolation for someone who also sees death as the last page in their story.  An epitaph celebrating their goodness matters little if they are no longer alive to read it.

For the Christian, it is another matter entirely.  Death is the key that removes the chains of flesh and sin and frees us to run into the presence of our Savior. (Philippians 1:23)

For the Christian, a good death is not just a tragically noble, vapid conclusion to a meaningless saga.

Without Christ, bittersweet goodbyes end on the bitter. In Christ, they end on the sweet.

So when a Christian deals with death in his art, it should not be in a fatalistic, existentialistic, hopeless, empty way; we can't act like death is a dreaded inevitability, like taxes; we can't treat death as something to be avoided at all costs, like doing the dishes.

On the other hand, we may not handle death flippantly; life is precious, and therefore death is also precious. (Psalm 116:15)

But why not just ignore death altogether?  Why not live as if there is no last page, no double-bar line, no end credits?

Because the thorn is part of the rose.  The period is part of the sentence.  And if we spend our sentence denying the period, we miss the opportunity to enjoy the beauty of the period- and to make the most of our sentence.

We can watch the grand finale in awe and giggle and chorus "ooh!" and "aah!" and point and whisper and let the falling embers reflect brightly in our eyes and the eyes of the children on our lap, who are only just learning not to be afraid of the distant rumble- or we can see in the grand finale only the finale, and spend those last thrilling moments wishing it weren't over; wishing that we could have the grand without the finale, when God has build a world in which they dance inseparably.

I think weddings and funerals are two of the most beautiful, inspiring events ever.  They paint exclamation points- one white and one black, but both clear and beautiful in their own way- on the brevity of life.  It all goes so fast.

The living takes it to heart.

"Only one life, ’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last." 
- C.T. Studd

And when we live with this perspective, so many things that would cloud our vision begin to melt away, and suddenly sunsets are brighter and little babies are more adorable and hummingbirds are more amazing and history is more exciting and current events make us want to cheer instead of tremble.  God is telling His story, and it's a beautiful one, and if we could just get lost in it for a while we would come back changed.

Of course, I'd prefer to stay lost in it.  To sit up the whole night of my life, unable to put the book down. 

When we're in God's story, things get so much simpler. 

Obey God.
Work hard.
Have fun.

There's joy there.  There's meaning there.  When we are walking in God's world, when we are a note on His score, then there is a reason for life- and for death; then we need not fear, but only obey; our duty becomes deliciously simple: do what God wants us to do, and then watch what happens.  So our life becomes the most productive it could be, for it is poured out onto the track that God sets before us and says "run," and it also becomes the most beautiful and joyous and peaceful, because now we have a reason to rejoice in the sweat and the sunshine and the tired legs and the cool breeze and the pain and the joy that follows when we do so.  And when we see the finish line ahead, we might just run a little harder.

“Cowards live for the sake of living, but for heroes, life is a weapon."
- N.D. Wilson

Nobody Dies These Days

Have you noticed that, as a general rule in American movies, nobody ever dies?  We'll bring computer-generated skyscrapers tumbling down on a city full of people, our hero will produce widespread mayhem as he leads the police on a merry chase through the city streets, and so on, but nobody important ever actually dies- or, if it's a Marvel movie, they die and come back to life.

So... what's wrong with that?

God as the Master Storyteller wrote a story that has sweet fragrance and tender velvet petals- and thorns.  Lots of thorns.

One day, God will wipe every tear from our eyes.  One day, the story will be brought to glorious fulfillment, the good guys will win, death will die, and there will be forever a sunrise.

But here, now, God has given us sunsets.

And the man who learns to see the beauty in the sunset, because he loves the One who painted it- who learns to admire the ruggedness and the sharpness of the thorns, because he trusts the One who sharpened them- who embraces all of the life he's been given, and thanks the Giver, and drinks it to its dregs- who runs until he can run no more, and cries until he has no tears left, and then laughs, until he collects more tears so he can cry again, and then cries them out so he can laugh again- how would that man live?  How would he die?  What would be the look on his face in the moments before he crosses the finish line?

It is said that every runner has two great fears- that he will not finish the race, and that he will finish the race knowing that he could have done more.

I pray that God will give me the strength, the vision, the drive to run this race of life so exuberantly, so passionately for His Kingdom, drunk on His goodness, lost in the thrill of His novel, the story of His symphony, that I will come to the end of it all and be breathless on my deathbed, not from weakness, but from excitement, not for want of air, but for fulness of days, and that my eyes will still shine like those of a little boy going on an adventure, and my children will see in me a man who, even as he says "goodbye," says also "turn the page!"

Courtship: a response to a response to a response to a critique

Seriously. 

So, first, for context (you don't have to read all of these for my post to make sense, but do know that my post did not appear ex nihilo):

Why Courtship is Fundamentally Flawed - Thomas Umstattd, Jr.

Why Courtship is Fundamentally Awed - Doug Wilson's response to Thomas Umstattd Jr.

A Feature, Not a Bug - Jeff Woodward's response to Doug Wilson's response to Thomas Umstattd, Jr.

And now, for my response to a response to a response to a critique; namely, some thoughts on Mr. Woodward's concerns with the courtship model as advocated by Mr. Wilson.

-------

I'm a young man who has been graciously "turned down" three times by fathers who I really respect.  I'm a big fan of young marriage; I would love to have a wife, and continue to pray for one, and I'm very much looking forward to finding the woman that God has for me.

So, on first impression, it might seem that everything Mr. Woodward wrote is "on my side," and I should be very happy to see it stated publicly.  But that is not the case.  If Umstattd's article was a bowl of frosted flakes sprinkled with mushrooms, this article simply splashed a straw man into the milky mixture.

Mr. Woodward comments that, in the case of Mr. Wilson rejecting 14 of 16 suitors for his daughters, "That’s a failure rate of nearly 88%!"

Mr. Umstattd, in his article, rightly pointed out that the goal of courtship is marriage- at least if that is understood, in response to the idea of "casual dating," to mean that courtship is a marriage-focused get-to-know-you process.  Courtship isn't just chaperoned hanging out so that we can update our Facebook status; we're actively seeking to know whether God wants Boy and Girl to become Man and Wife.

So courtship is marriage-focused... but I would contend that the goal of courtship isn't marriage, if I may perform a little pirouette on my use of the term "goal" (bear with me).

One of the things I love about the courtship process is that the success or failure of a courtship is not and cannot be judged by whether or not it results in marriage.  A successful courtship is one which results in all parties concerned being able to move forward in singleness or in matrimony confident that they are doing so in the Will of God, and without having succumbed to a bunch of preventable temptations.  That's the goal of courtship.

I would say that, in the case of Mr. Wilson and his two daughters, both now wed to The One that God had for each of them, the success rate of their courtship would be 100%- and not just for the girls, nor for the happy husbands, but also for the rejected young men, who were blessed by God with clear direction coming in the form of a gracious "no" from the young lady's father.

To say that it's a matter of fatherly pride or a snobbish and highfalutin' family- does this not assume a great deal about the father and family of the daughter, to the point of being slanderous of them and planting seeds of bitterness in the hearts of the rejected young men?  Does it not also make the young man out as a helpless victim?

Encouraging fathers and daughters to not be over-picky and to have Biblical standards is a good thing, but laying the blame entirely on their shoulders and never stopping to tell the young men in the equation to man up, learn from the rejection, strive to improve and grow, press on, seek first the Kingdom, and praise God for giving clear direction- no wonder so many rejections happen!  We're making a bunch of rejectable young men!

"It's not my fault... it's those mean fathers... they just don't realize what an AMAZING HUSBAND I WOULD BEEEEE!!!!!  WAAAAAA!!!!"

"Oh yeah, he's totally the one for my daughter."

I don't mean to mock my wife-seeking brothers in Christ (remember, I'm in this boat too, y'all), but to say that it is just as much our job to be Godly, responsible men as it is the job of the fathers we talk to to shepherd the hearts of their daughters.  If we begrudge them for doing their duty, however imperfectly they do it, that's shame to our account.

For that matter, the young man has just as much right to conclude that the marriage isn't right and to move on!  The young man is no more under the magnifying glass of the father than the father, daughter, and their family are under the magnifying glass of the young man!

Thus, the boast of the courtshipper is not that courtship leads to rejecting a bunch of suitors.  The boast of the courtshipper is that courtship leads to rejecting the suitors that need to be rejected.

But the larger question is- what system of spouse-hunting is the one advocated by Scripture?  Courtship, ambiguous and imperfect though it be, represents the best model I have seen so far for playing out Scriptural principles like those found in Numbers 30.

And until the courtship approach is shown as unscriptural, all anecdotal evidence against courtship is really just anecdotal evidence for the fact that sin is a real bummer.

Childlike Faith

Luke 1:20+34 record responses from two people to surprising angelic news- Zacharias is told that his wife will bear a son, and Mary is told that she will bear a son.  The responses are less similar than the news.

Zacharias and Mary both asked for clarification. It would seem that Mary asked from a heart of faith; Zacharias obviously asked from a heart of doubt.

So it's OK to ask God about things we don't understand; it's OK to ask the Bible questions when we don't "get it." But we may never ask these questions from a doubtful heart that does not assume on faith the truth of God's Word.

The failure in our understanding is ours; we are not the judge to whom evidence must be presented, but the child to whom wonders must be explained.

Trust

"Many a man proclaims his own loyalty, but who can find a trustworthy man?" - Proverb 20:6

Friendship clearly entails trust; the closer the friendship, the deeper the trust.  Our trust, however, must be framed in the context of a Biblical worldview.  This is what makes accountability just as crucial in any Christian relationship, because a Biblical worldview informs us that, contrary to what we'd like to think, our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked.

As people grow closer to one another in friendship, the bond of trust also naturally strengthens.  Yet too often the amount of accountability in the relationship decreases with the same elegant equivalence as the heavy side of a see-saw.

It might seem that this is how it should be; doesn't trust enable relaxation?

Today I read another excellent blog post by Doug Wilson.  In one of the comments, a heartbreaking testimony is given by a woman who, years ago, was shamefully treated by her youth minister; this abuse didn't happen in the context of some unfathomable situation, but rather in the context of a situation which most of us probably never would have thought twice about.  He was just giving her a ride home.

Stories like this are all too common.

Is the answer to turn the old adage into a life motto- "Trust no one"?  Should we have an inner circle of friends that consists of Me, Myself, and I, and maybe my spouse on a good day?  Should the thought of a man at church shaking our daughter's hand send us scurrying for our shotgun?

Of course not.  It is good for Christians to grow in the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace; we should indeed be able to trust one another (to whatever extent that trust has been earned).

Truth of the matter is, if I were to leave behind a widowed wife or father-and-brotherless sisters, there's no one on this earth that I would trust to care for them more than the families that attend my church.  I would trust them with my life, my family, my possessions.  That's what Christian friendship should lead to.

But that trust cannot be defined in such a way as to ignore the truth and inherent warning of Jeremiah 17:9.  I love and trust these people as my family in Christ.  But I know that their heart is deceitful and desperately wicked... and I know mine is too.

If our friendships are truly Christ-centered, truly open, truly free and honest, then there should be no shame in holding one another to boundaries.  We must not hide from the truth of our own sin nature.

If I ask a young lady to sit in the back seat and let my sister ride next to me up front- if a man from church says to my mom "hey, could we carbon-copy your husband on these e-mails?"- if a parent asks to sit in on their child's piano lessons- if a couple won't leave their children overnight at a friend's house for a sleepover (where did the idea that that was normal come from anyway?!?)- these are things that should not be a cause for awkwardness; they should be a cause for more trust.  I trust you because I can see that we both don't trust either of us left to ourselves; we both know that it is only by the Grace of Christ that we can continue to walk in holiness; we both desire to flee temptation. 

If we are truly hungry for holiness, then we should be happy when we find comrades who won't let us check out the other side of the menu.

It's not a matter of "eew, you might be a creep, no, my daughter can't ride with you alone for 8 hours to visit her aunt."  It's a matter of "but by the grace of God, we all would be creeps, so let's do our level best to help each other walk in the light and flee temptation."

It's not a matter of "I think you're a wolf in sheep's clothing" (although if you see a fang or a long gray tail, that wouldn't be an inappropriate observation); it's a matter of "we all have the heart of a wolf clothed in the robes of the Lamb, and until that wolf is slain in Glory this sheep will wrestle with the hunger pangs of a carnivore."

There is no benefit to be found by leaving the eyesight of the Shepherd or His flock; there is nothing to be gained outside of the confines of His pastures.

If anyone is afraid of boundaries, or uncomfortable with accountability, or maybe just thinks they are unnecessary- indeed, if anyone does not desire the transparent honesty of some form of protective standards- then that should be reading danger symbols on the Trust-o-meter.

"Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall." - 1 Corinthians 10:12

Strength... or maybe Dignity

 

"Strength and dignity are her clothing."

It's a dichotomy seen in both our perception of male and of female roles: there are two kinds of men, the macho and the gentleman, and never the twain shall meet; there are two kinds of women, the manly superwoman and the gentle and quiet "priestess of the house."

Yet Scripture puts strength and dignity together. Adventure racing, antarctic journeys, and getting lost in the woods on purpose with nothing but a pocketknife and dental floss may not be everyone's cup of tea, nor is it less Spiritual for a man or a woman to be passionate about things other than mud and blood and sweat. But every Christian is called to be ready to do hard things for the Kingdom of God. 

I might step on some toes, here, but I think we in modern America have classified some things in the category of "rugged manliness" that should not at all be male-only qualities.

It seems a normal, standing joke that guys may like going camping out in the woods without running water, but that to ask a lady to do that is laughable.

Sacagawea, the women of the Mayflower, the brides who went west, and missionary wives like Elisabeth Elliot might have something to say about that.

Civilization is a wonderful thing, but sterility is not. If a broken air-conditioner or a cold shower is a heavy trial, how will we be prepared to take on greater refinements dealt by the Hand of God and consider it joy?