Category: Personal

Why the Shepherds?

On By Dave MallinakIn Merry Christmas, Personal

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. (Luke 2:8-11)

Think of the joy of a new-born baby.  The parents can’t wait to show their new baby to the world.  Typically, we announce the good news to our closest friends and immediate family first.  Then, we pass the word around the church. Next, phone calls and text messages spread the message.  These days, a Facebook announcement is sure to follow, with plenty of pictures.  Parents want their family and friends to know they have a new child. 

So, we may find it curious that when God announced the birth of His Son, He didn’t tell it first to the chief priests or Pharisees.  We suspect that the religious authorities in Israel may have expected to be first in line for the newsflash.  After all, wouldn’t God want them to know?  Were they not the foremost authorities in all things related to the Messiah?  Herod acknowledged their expertise.  The magi put Jerusalem in an uproar with their question, “Where is he that is born King of the Jews?”  Herod knew who to ask.  He sent for the doctors of the law. 

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The Weight of Glory

On By Dave MallinakIn Marriage, Personal, Wildcard Wednesdays

A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband: but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones. (Proverbs 12:4)

I heard a pastor make a silly claim some years ago. He said the husband might be the head, but the wife is the neck that turns the head.

Not only is this a craven admission on his part, but it also shows a terrible misunderstanding of the role of husband and wife. The husband needs to have a strong neck and shoulders. He bears the weight of a heavy crown, and the crown he bears is no light thing.

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Fig Leaves in Our Relationships

On By Dave MallinakIn Marriage, Personal, Wildcard Wednesdays

And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. (Genesis 3:7)

Genesis tells us the beginnings of everything in our world, including our problems. And relationship problems are a prominent feature of our history, culture, and life. Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. Maybe they thought they would die if they ate it, or maybe Adam thought Eve would die. Maybe Adam thought it was safe when she didn’t die, so he ate it. Then, the wheels started coming off.

The Bible describes three immediate results when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, all connected. First, their eyes were opened. Notice that the verse says, “the eyes of them both” were opened. They were told this would happen, by the way, and they seemed to want that. Remember what the serpent told them?

For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. (Genesis 3:5)

They wanted to know what God had not yet revealed, and they wanted to know it independently of God. Though it doesn’t fit our discussion, we can profit from charting the relationship between the Fall and an autonomous pursuit of knowledge. But the point is that Satan didn’t lie about the result of eating the fruit. Their eyes were opened, and apparently, they knew something more about good and evil than they knew in their state of innocence.

But notice the second immediate result when they ate the forbidden fruit: they knew that they were naked. We assume (based on the third result) that they were ashamed of this nakedness because the Bible says that they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. The Bible doesn’t say anything about shame in Genesis 3, but the Bible often associates shame with nakedness, and their response is consistent with shame. Adam later confessed that he was afraid because he was naked (Genesis 3:10). We can assume that when their eyes were opened, Adam and Eve learned embarrassing things about themselves that made them want to hide from each other. Later, they hid from God, too. But the fig leaf aprons were to protect themselves from each other.

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No More Mr. Nice Guy

On By Dave MallinakIn Marriage, Personal, Wildcard Wednesdays1 Comment

But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife. (I Corinthians 7:33)

Paul points out a reality for married men. Some see this as an indictment against marriage. I think Paul means to say that this is the way it is. But it can be one of your marriage’s sneakier and more persistent problems.

You might wonder, “What could be wrong with trying to please my wife?” And I would answer that it isn’t wrong – you aren’t in sin for wanting to please her. In fact, it is natural. If you love her, treasure her, and value her, you will also want to please her. Some guys figure out what their wife wants and do the opposite. They crush, trample, despise, and disrespect her in every possible way. And obviously, that is wrong. Don’t be an alpha-jerk.

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What Are We Fighting For?

On By Dave MallinakIn Personal, Wildcard Wednesdays

This is the second preview chapter of my upcoming book of advice and counsel for young men who are about to marry.

It would be highly unusual if you managed to avoid getting into a fight or two with your wife. Maybe “fight” isn’t the best word, given this kinder, gentler age in which we live. How about a hotly contested disagreement? Hopefully, no frying pans or rolling pins will be damaged. But chances are, you’ll have a “strong disagreement” with your wife. Some might call it a dispute. Others will just say, “fight.”

One of the more considerable challenges in marriage will be learning how to handle disagreements. As you mature, you should do better. But, you will mishandle some disagreements. And in some cases, you both might feel embarrassed about how it played out. A wife once confessed to me with tears that she got so mad at her husband that she…

I probably shouldn’t finish that. Someone will think I should have turned her in. If the police had been called, she would have gone to jail. Passions can rage.

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What About Those Love Languages?

On By Dave MallinakIn Personal, Wildcard Wednesdays

This is a chapter from an upcoming book of advice for young men before they marry. Details about the book should be available soon.

Visit any thrift store, used book store, or (sometimes) yard sale, and you might find a copy of Gary Chapman’s book The Five Love Languages. Chapman trademarked the term, then wrote books for nearly every possible demographic. I have speculated that his publishers gave him a bonus every time he used the term “love language,” given how frequently he says it.

But enough about the annoyances. I appreciate what Chapman did with his book. He boiled down and identified some specific ways we show love to each other. His most important point, I think, is this: learn to love your wife in a way that makes her feel loved.

As men, we know what we like. We tend to think that our wife will enjoy the same thing. So, for example, if physical touch makes you feel loved, you are likely to believe that physical touch will make your wife feel loved as well. But she is different than you.

Gary Chapman hit on an important principle: you love your wife best when you find what makes her feel loved. You don’t love your wife well by loving yourself well. And when you express love in ways that make you feel loved, you are loving yourself, not her.

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The Thanksgiving that Changed My Life

On By Dave MallinakIn Enjoying God, Joy, Personal, Thanksgiving2 Comments

In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. (I Thessalonians 5:18)

More than thirty years ago, God used a time of turmoil to bring a Thanksgiving revival into my life. It happened like this.

From my sophomore year of high school, I committed to attend Fairhaven Baptist College to prepare for the ministry. Our church did a lot with Fairhaven, but my pastor was a graduate of Hyles-Anderson College, and we also did a lot in Hammond.

I graduated from high school in 1989. That summer, Roger Voegtlin preached his now-famous sermon, “Why I am not 100% for Jack Hyles.” My parents had me listen to a recording of that sermon and then told me that they thought Dr. Voegtlin was wrong to preach it and asked me not to attend college there.

I was happy to comply. I loved my freshman year at Hyles and developed enough loyalty to Hyles that Fairhaven became public enemy number one. But at the end of that year, my pastor had me listen to the Paula Hyles tapes. Those tapes turned my world upside down. They confirmed the truth of the accusations against Jack Hyles. My pastor told me that he and about fourteen other staff members were resigning from their teaching positions. My parents insisted that I not return to Hyles for my second year of college.

That summer, I worked midnights washing dishes at Denny’s Restaurant. I didn’t handle midnights very well. I could hardly stay awake during the day – sometimes, I fell asleep eating breakfast. My work week ran from Tuesday to Saturday night. So, I would work all night Friday night until Saturday morning, shower and go out visiting until the late afternoon on Saturday, sleep a few hours, work overnight Saturday until Sunday morning, shower, and go to church all day Sunday. Needless to say, my spiritual life was a wreck. I couldn’t stay awake to read my Bible or pray, and I couldn’t stay awake in church.

Near the end of that summer, I caught my pastor in an immoral act. He, of course, denied that I was seeing what I was seeing. He played the victim as if I were trying to destroy his ministry by saying what I saw him doing.

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Nothing to Lose

On By Dave MallinakIn Hot Topics, Independent Baptists, Issues Facing the Church, Pastors, Personal4 Comments

Whether the dust has settled from my recent series or not, who can say. In my experience, these things tend to bounce around for a bit, and sometimes, they don’t gain a head of steam until further downstream. Maybe the next time I gather with friends, I will feel that awkward silence that says, “Somethin’ ain’t rat.” Who knows?

But I have the urge to unpack a few thoughts in conclusion. Consider this my apology for not apologizing.

I was pretty young when Berean Baptist Church called me to become her pastor. I was woefully unprepared. Pastoral ministry always seemed to have a romantic quality in my imagination – a fiction that evaporated quickly once the church voted me into office. I quickly discovered the nature of the battle we are in for the hearts and souls of men. 

Early on, I felt the weight of responsibility that God had placed on me. God made me see the importance of rightly dividing the Word of truth so believers would be built and not destroyed. I fear that I hurt more than I helped in those early years. God pressed on me a sense that eternal souls hung in the balance and that if I did not carefully handle God’s Word, those souls would be destroyed.

This impacted me profoundly. In my earliest years as a pastor, I followed the examples of men before me. I offered heavy doses of opinion sprinkled lightly with Biblical references. It didn’t take long for me to recognize that, not only were my opinions like a bruised reed and smoking flax, but that the people didn’t travel all the way to church three times a week so they could learn more about my mind.

That launched me into a long practice of expository preaching. I wouldn’t give much for those early series (my first series was through the book of Romans), but I will say that the challenge of digging into the text so I could give the meaning and application (instead of my impressions based loosely on the text) transformed me and shaped my ministry. 

In those early years, I came to recognize a strange kind of pressure to conform to the opinions of others. I felt in my bones that if I followed certain texts to their plain meaning, I would be ostracized and rejected. My sense of foreboding was confirmed one unfortunate day when I publicly expressed an opinion outside the vein of conventional wisdom. The attacks against me were furious and personal, and to my shock and horror, I discovered that several pastors were gunning for my church, attempting to persuade the men of my church to expel me as pastor. 

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One Last Thing I Wish Would Change Among Independent Baptists

On By Dave MallinakIn Hot Topics, Independent Baptists, Issues Facing the Church, Personal6 Comments

Despite those I’ve offended, I can’t help but notice the overwhelmingly positive response to this little series. And though I might undo that goodwill with this post, it has been worth it if I have at least gotten you to consider these things. 

Change, for me, has been a very slow process. I was raised in the fluff of the IFB, and it takes a long time to get rid of that mindset. Honestly, most of the change has come from people who loved me enough to challenge my assumptions and demand that I defend my positions with Scripture. I am thankful for those who have done so (HT: Kent Brandenburg). And I hope to do the same for my readers.

That said, here is this series’s final installment. Think of it as the 39th stripe. The others can be found if you follow this set of links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and for Part 5, scroll down one post (sorry, I can’t link it right now).

Overstated Anti-Calvinism

And there go all my readers. 

You aren’t going to like this. You’ll probably say mean things about me for writing it. But rabid anti-Calvinism isn’t the answer to Calvinism. And Calvinism isn’t a doctrine of devils. 

I heard a preacher say from the pulpit, twice in fact, in two separate sermons, “The God of Calvinism isn’t the God of the Bible.” 

I didn’t say “Amen.” I understand why good men disagree on the Doctrines of Grace. I recognize why good friends of mine despise Calvinism while other friends embrace it. The disagreement won’t likely end in our lifetimes, and I doubt it will end until the Millenial Reign of Christ. But some of the slanders I hear hurled at Calvinism are absolute garbage.

To say that the God of Calvinism isn’t the God of the Bible, one must also maintain that Charles Spurgeon, Adoniram Judson, William Carey, and most other Baptists before the 1900s were all false prophets and today burning in hell. Because historically, Baptists were nearly all Calvinists until the late 1800s. 

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