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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Many, O LORD my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered. (Psalm 40:5)
Berean Baptist Church of Ogden started on the first Sunday of April in 1958 – 65 years ago this past Sunday. For the past twenty-two and a half years, I have had the privilege of serving Berean as her pastor. God has done some extraordinary things for our church, and I still haven’t gotten over it. So, I decided to share a couple of things with the reading public, hoping that you will be encouraged by God’s amazing kindness to a small and relatively insignificant body of Christ.
A Short History
Humanly speaking, we shouldn’t be here. The believers God used to form the church reached out to Dr. Ed Nelson, who directed them in establishing the church Biblically and recommended a man to pastor them. While the church waited for a pastor during their first year, one of the men took care of the preaching. And when the new pastor arrived, he lasted only about three years. After this, Berean experienced a revolving door of four different pastors over the next six years, followed by two years without a pastor. So, in the first twelve years of our existence, we had five pastors, one interim, and two years without a pastor. How does a church survive this?
But God sustained the church, and in 1970, God brought Pastor Hal Mason. Pastor Mason led the church for eight years, followed by Pastor Wayne Musson, Sr., who pastored the church for twelve years. Pastor Musson established our Christian Academy in 1979 and led the church to build our academy wing in the mid-1980s. But near the end of his twelve years, tensions erupted into a full-fledged church split. About half the membership walked out the door, and Pastor Musson served without a salary for the next two years. Finally, in 1990, Pastor Musson decided it was time for him to step down as pastor.
Under Pastor Musson’s direction, the church extended a call to Pastor Mark Short, the youth pastor for fourteen years at Anchor Baptist Church in Salt Lake City. When Pastor Short moved to Ogden, he wasn’t sure if God was moving him there to close the church or to lead it forward. But God healed the hurt from the church split, and the church soon thrived again.
Before I go any further, let me say that the point of rehearsing our history should not be to praise ourselves as if we have done something special. The history of our church is the history of God’s providence towards an undeserving people. We haven’t survived because we were especially great or especially godly. We have survived because God decided to display His goodness by preserving Berean Baptist Church. I cannot explain to you why Berean continues to this day. I can tell you that God has worked through some tragic events to keep and use us as a church. Many, O LORD my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done.
My Story
I first heard of Pastor Short and Berean Baptist Church on a rainy night at the end of a long workday in the summer of 1997. My shift ended at 9:00, and when I returned home, my wife had a message from a pastor in Utah. He said it was urgent and asked me to call him when I arrived home. Before I called, my wife and I got an atlas to see how far we were from Utah (this was in the pre-smartphone world). We had been receiving phone calls fairly regularly from pastors at the time. We had just left our second ministry in about one year – our first ministry ended with the pastor asking us to go after six months (he didn’t think I was loving enough). Our second ministry ended when the pastor resigned, and the deacons didn’t want us to stay. In June and July of that year, we worked, attended a wonderful church on the south side of Harrisburg, and visited Gettysburg every other Saturday (not kidding). I fielded plenty of phone calls from churches during that time, but I had pretty much determined that God didn’t want me in the ministry, so I declined every invitation.
So, when Pastor Short called, I figured this was just another “no.” However, I was curious about Utah. When I hung up the phone after my conversation with Pastor Short, I was even more persuaded that the answer was “no.” But, I had promised to spend some time praying before making a final decision and to mail him my resume the next day – which meant I needed to type it (on a typewriter) that night. Fortunately, WalMart was open, so we could get ribbon for the typewriter (ask an older person to explain). My wife ran down to the store – as she describes it, kicking and screaming and stomping angrily through the puddles – while I pulled out the old resume and prepared to update it. My wife didn’t think there was a remote chance that we would be going to Utah, so she didn’t see the logic in revising a resume – at 10:30 at night – so we could mail it out the next morning. But she bought the ribbon, and we sent the resume.
And over the next week and a half, I spent hours in prayer, seeking God’s will. With the previous offers, I had prayed for maybe an hour or two before God settled it in my mind that this wasn’t His will. But with this offer, God wouldn’t let me walk away. After a week of praying, the only thing I knew for sure was that I needed to keep seeking God’s direction. I talked to Pastor Short a second time, and God clarified His will for us after that phone call.
In August of 1997, my wife and I loaded a moving truck and moved to Utah, sight unseen. My wife had traveled through Utah several years earlier when she vacationed with a friend before we were married. Otherwise, we had never seen the state, let alone Berean Baptist Church.
God blessed us with four helpful, healing years under Pastor and Mrs. Short, and we began to thrive in ministry. Then, at the end of our third year of ministry, God used a friend’s death to stir me about the next stage in ministry. At the time, I was delivering newspapers (ask an older person about that), and I used those early morning walks to pray and seek God’s face.
Truthfully, when the thought of becoming a pastor first entered my mind, I believed I was in sin. I accused myself of pride and haughtiness in thinking I could ever pastor a church. Day after day, for several months, I pleaded with the Lord to deliver me from this pride, to forgive me for thinking that I could pastor a church, and to give me a humble spirit that would be content in the place God had given me.
Perhaps this sounds contrived, but God is my witness that this was how I saw it. Morning after morning, the thought would enter my mind that maybe I would become a pastor, and no sooner did the idea enter my mind but I began to plead with God to take it away and my pride with it. And then, one day, it dawned on me that maybe my pride wasn’t speaking. Maybe the Lord was leading. So I presented that to the Lord and asked Him if this was His will. In my heart, I imagined God asking me, “What if I want you to become a pastor?” When I thought about it that way, I decided it would be sinful pride on my part if God called and I refused. That brought a moment of wonderful surrender, and for the next couple of weeks, I began to ask the Lord to direct me to what He wanted me to do.
At the end of that period of prayer, I became convinced that the first step was to tell Pastor Short what the Lord had been doing. I figured that if this were of the Lord, my pastor would agree; if it weren’t, my pastor would object. So, one day in early August of 2001, I told Pastor Short what I thought the Lord was leading me to do. Pastor Short shocked me with his response. He said, “Amen! I’ve been praying for this! I pray that God will move me to the mission field and make you Berean’s pastor.”
Of all the horrifying things a person has ever said to another person, that had to be the worst thing I had ever heard. I had been wondering if maybe God would move us to Idaho to start a church or if God would have a church for us to take over. But the thought of pastoring Berean was too much for me, and I told Pastor Short that this was the last thing I would want to do. Pastor Short asked me to return to talk to him again in a week while we both prayed about what the Lord wanted.
A week later, Pastor Short expressed his concerns about me, especially if I was to become a pastor. I thought he was telling me that he had changed his mind – something I would have welcomed at that moment. But instead, he concluded by telling me that he was more convinced than ever that this was of the Lord and then reiterating his hope that God would move him and his family to Fiji and make me the next pastor of Berean.
A Tragedy
This meeting happened about a week before Pastor and Mrs. Short traveled with their family to Fiji, where the Short’s oldest daughter was a missionary with her husband, Kory Mears. The tragic events of that trip still sting. This past Sunday, we showed the documentary we made for our 60th anniversary. Central to that history is the tragic death of Pastor Short, who was swept out to sea in a riptide and drowned just days after 9-11. As a church, we still can’t rehearse that devastating day without a very emotional response. God took our pastor, and we will never get over that.
When I received the phone call with the terrible news, I knew immediately that God had prepared me for this moment. But I had a church to comfort and care for, and that took up all of my thoughts and energy. The deacons and I gathered at the church that night for prayer. We wept together, claimed God’s promises, found comfort in His Word, and reminded ourselves of our good God. At the conclusion of that meeting, I read the section of our church constitution that describes what the church is to do in the event of the sudden loss of a pastor. I wanted to ensure that the church knew the steps so we could avoid uncertainty and insecurity. Our church constitution (thankfully) sets forth very clear actions to be taken in such an event. The constitution requires that the assistant pastor become the interim pastor and that a pulpit committee be formed. We all agreed that the pulpit committee should wait until after the funeral.
After that meeting, I visited with some of our grieving members before returning home to see my wife late that night. The next morning early, a flood of emotion overwhelmed me. Throughout the day, the phone at church rang off the hook as pastors, friends, and well-wishers called to express their condolences and offer the best comfort they could. The most challenging moment came that first Sunday after his death. I dreaded standing in the pulpit that Sunday. I’ll never forget walking into the basement entryway and seeing one of our men. We both broke down, and I had to return to my office to regain my composure. That Sunday morning, I preached on the love of God from Romans 8.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35-39)
God carried our grieving hearts through those dark days. Pastor Short’s body was recovered that Sunday afternoon, and we set the funeral for two weeks after his death – providentially because it took that long to return his body to the States. After the funeral, I met with our deacons to form the pulpit committee. As Interim Pastor, I was responsible for leading the church, but I would not be part of the actual committee – only serving in an advisory role.
The Call
I knew what God was leading me to do, but I also knew that it would be very damaging to the church if I breathed so much as a hint of my conversations with Pastor Short. I believe in transparency, but this had to be an exception. As you can imagine, our church was emotionally exhausted, and if we had given any hint to the church of Pastor Short’s wishes, the people would have voted unanimously. I felt very strongly that the church needed to confirm God’s leadership in my life. For this reason, I didn’t give the pulpit committee any indication of what direction they should take. Instead, I encouraged them to choose a chairman, and then I turned the committee over to his direction.
The first meeting of the pulpit committee was interesting, to say the least. Once the chairman was chosen, he began to discuss the process of finding candidates. He asked the men if they had any suggestions. One by one, the men said they had no idea where to look. Finally, the chairman asked, “Would we want to consider Pastor Mallinak.” One of the men immediately said, “He doesn’t want it.” The men agreed. “If he wanted it, he would have said something. We wouldn’t need this pulpit committee if he wanted to be the pastor.” As the men discussed this among themselves, one man pointed out that we would still need a pulpit committee even if I did want it because the church constitution required it. There is no automatic succession from Assistant Pastor to Pastor. This led to further debate about my desire to become the pastor. Finally, one of the men said, “Well, Pastor Mallinak is sitting right here. Why don’t we ask him if he wants to be the pastor?”
So, the men asked, and I told them that I was willing to be considered. One of the men pressed me on it. If they offered, would I accept? He insisted that they didn’t want to offer it if I wasn’t going to take it. I told them I wouldn’t say: it doesn’t work that way. They needed to seek God’s will as to whether or not they should extend an invitation to me, after which I would seek God’s will as to whether or not I should accept that invitation. The men asked again, “Are you willing to be considered?” And I said that I was.
Immediately, one of the men said, “I nominate Pastor Mallinak,” and another man seconded. The chairman of the pulpit committee looked around in surprise, then said, “Well, I guess we should vote.” I’m pretty sure it doesn’t fit with Robert’s Rules of Order, but I thought I should interject something before they voted. So, I reminded them that not ten minutes before, they didn’t think I wanted to be considered. I pointed out that in the ten minutes from then to now, I was pretty sure nobody had taken time to pray and seek God’s direction in this. The men agreed, and we tabled that motion. We decided to meet again in a week. Meanwhile, the men would take time to pray over this decision.
The following week, the men had many questions for me. Some had serious concerns about me as well. Some even considered me arrogant (shocking, I know!). Nevertheless, I was thrilled with their questions and concerns, and I am grateful that they sought the Lord diligently. At the end of that meeting, the men voted to a call to me.
The following week, the chairman of the pulpit committee announced to the church that the deacons had voted unanimously to ask me to consider becoming Berean’s next pastor. We gave the church a few weeks to pray and invited them to discuss with me and among themselves whether or not I should be the pastor.
At this time, the opposition began to rise within the church. Once the announcement was made, our adult Sunday School teacher decided that he would teach what a pastor should be – and it just happened that his ideal for a pastor was the opposite of me. The chairman of our pulpit committee suggested that maybe I should attend the Sunday School class, and I did. But my presence (I sat in front of the man) did not deter him from what he had to say. On the Sunday of the vote, he opened Sunday School by announcing that he was not going to vote and intended to return his ballot empty. His father-in-law, a missionary supported by our church, had recommended this as an alternative to a “no” vote.
On the Sunday of the vote, it felt like the wheels would come off. One of the most bizarre things that happened that day came immediately after my “friend’s” Sunday School lesson (about me). I was mildly irritated at the lesson, and as I walked through the parking lot to my office, two cars came whipping into parking stalls, and about three couples came spilling out. Enthusiastically, they pumped my hand and informed me that they had heard we needed a pastor, and they had a man with them who had moved to our area to take a church. They then asked me if we had found a candidate yet. I told them that we had, that, in fact, we were voting on a man that very evening. Surprised, they asked me for the candidate’s name, which I gave them. They had never heard of him.
They didn’t ask me for my name, and I didn’t volunteer it, as they didn’t seem too interested in anything except their own agenda. Instead, they hustled into the church while I continued to my office. I took a moment to ask the Lord’s help and wisdom, fully expecting to stand up and preach to this clan, but by the time I returned to the auditorium, they were gone. Apparently, they came into the lobby asking the same questions they had asked me, and when they learned that they weren’t needed, they decided to vacate the property.
Before the vote, I had decided to accept the church’s call so long as I received the minimum vote required in our constitution (a 2/3 vote), with one exception. I did not believe I could accept the church’s call if I received a unanimous vote. I understand that many pastors desire a unanimous vote, but I had served in the church for four years, and I knew some people didn’t like me (such as the adult Sunday School teacher). I wanted an honest vote, not a sentimental vote. We were cautious not to hint at Pastor Short’s desire, knowing how that would influence the church. I assumed that a unanimous vote would not be an honest vote and thought I couldn’t accept if that were the result.
That Sunday night, after I preached, my family and I returned home while the church voted. We did not participate in the vote. About an hour later, the chairman of the pulpit committee came to our house with his family. He informed me that the church had voted to call me as the pastor. He was very anxious about what my answer would be and told me that the number one concern the church had expressed during that time was that I would decline the call.
Then, I told him what the Lord had been doing in my life before Pastor Short’s death. I told him that in the very moment when I heard the news that Pastor Short was lost at sea, God had confirmed to me His call in my life and indicated that He intended for me to pastor Berean. I then asked the chairman to give me until Wednesday to pray and re-confirm this with the Lord and told him that I would announce my decision to the church that Wednesday.
That was over twenty-two years ago now. When I accepted the call, I asked the Lord to give me forty years to pastor this church. I thought then – as I believe now – that longevity is crucial in Utah, as Bible-preaching churches are scarce, and our church especially had suffered for so many years through a revolving door of pastors. I praise the Lord for the years He has given me here. I recognize that forty years is my desire, not necessarily God’s plan and that this could all end tomorrow. But I am grateful that God continues to carry this ministry forward.
Some Thoughts
I have often looked in awe at how God helped us through such a tragic time. We are a small church. Initially, I thought that perhaps God intended something more significant for us, but twenty years later, we are still essentially the same church we were then. Humanly speaking, I would expect God to give such remarkable providences to an important church, a substantial church, a famous church. I wonder: why Berean? We aren’t well-known. We have been engaged with our city and community for these many years, and we certainly have impacted Ogden for Christ. But we aren’t exactly turning the world upside down. I don’t have an influential public ministry. For the most part, we have labored in obscurity. So, why would God go to all this trouble to preserve our church?
I don’t have an answer to that question. Everything I thought God might do through us has turned out to be wrong. We have met with many struggles and difficulties and disappointments along the way. Our church has experienced seasons of significant growth followed by times of decline. We have seen families gloriously saved and others turn from the Lord. We have sown much and brought in little and sometimes feel as if we have little to show for our work and labor in the Lord.
I am reminded that, in the history of the New Testament church, a few churches were famous, genuinely great, and influential to a generation. And there have been countless thousands of small, obscure, faithful churches scattered around the globe, where Christ is preached and magnified, and believers are disciplined in all things God has commanded. Of course, God has a purpose for the important, influential churches, and I praise God that He has raised up churches like that in every generation. But for the most part, the kingdom of God is advanced through the work of faithful churches that labor in obscurity, unknown and yet well-known, serving the Lord in their generation.
And when they went from nation to nation, and from one kingdom to another people; He suffered no man to do them wrong: yea, he reproved kings for their sakes, Saying, Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm. (I Chronicles 16:20-22)
Growing up in the Hyles’ wing of fundamentalism, I heard the “touch not mine anointed” sermon preached more times than I care to say. Always it was used to warn anyone who dared oppose the preacher.
When God providentially removed me from that world, I stopped hearing that preached. I didn’t catch on right away – though if I remember correctly, my first post-Hyles pastor corrected that view, pointing out that the Bible had Israel in mind, not the preacher. Over the past twenty-five-plus years, I have spent little time thinking about this specific notion. But currently, I am preaching through I Samuel, where David refused to raise a hand against Saul, so it has come to mind once again.
Serious students of God’s Word know that the Bible never describes the pastor as the “anointed” of the Lord, nor does “touch not mine anointed” refer to a pastor. I don’t find a single reference where the Bible hints that the pastor is the Lord’s anointed. In 2 Corinthians 1:21, Paul reminds the Corinthians,
We had a fun little haiku contest in our Rhetoric class, aiming to poke some fun at Woke professional sports, COVID-craziness, and the comedy that is 2020 in America. All while sharpening our poetic skills (in our best PC-defying voices). Here are some samples – my favorites from the class.
Feel free to jump in with your own in the comments section, if you are so inclined. Or nominate your favorite. Gratis.
NBA players
Virtue signals on their back:
Nobody watching.
Equal rights for all!
Down with the majority!
What equality!
Black lives matter, sport.
Hong Kong folks should conform;
So says Lebron James.
Bought seats to a game,
Not a BLM rally;
Should get a refund.
Chuckle dunderpates,
Your days will soon be over
And no one will care.
Good-by basketball,
Your pure young days are over;
Now you’re CNN.
Sports once interested me,
Until all the players started taking a knee.
Let’s play duck-duck-goose.
Peaceful protesters
Burning cars and murdering;
We should salute them.
Oh beautiful for
The spacious fields on which we
Can no longer play.
This week’s Trump scandal of the week is that our President allegedly referred to countries like Haiti and several African nations as, to use a little circumlocution, outhouse wells. Whether Trump actually said that or not is unclear. With Dick Durban as the only “reliable” source, who really knows. This wouldn’t be the first time Dick Durban flat out made something up about a private meeting, as has been documented here.
But since the possibility exists – and it is a plausible story – that Trump may have said this, the media is outraged. Again. That makes, I think, 52 weeks in a row that the media has been in an uproar about Trump; 52 weeks in a row that we have been told that this was Trump’s worst week yet; 52 weeks in a row that we have been reminded that Trump is a racist and we are all doomed and Trump will be impeached by… who knows. The date keeps getting pushed back. People just can’t keep their commitments these days.
Since the media narrative has been that Trump is a racist, we are happy to believe Dick Durban. Even Steve Bannon gets his moment in the spotlight, so long as he is bashing Trump. And this morning, I heard the latest Trump scandal – he woke up breathing. Which I think is the real problem.
Trump’s toilet analogy of some third-world countries has predictably unleashed a stream of hit pieces on Trump’s racism. Reporters asked Trump to respond to those who say that he is a racist. Trump (predictably) answered, “I am the least racist person you have ever interviewed, that I can tell you.” Wow. Didn’t see that coming. His answer prompted editors at The Atlantic to interview their big room of experienced reporters and ask them “Who was the least racist person you’ve ever interviewed?” You can read that here. Their answers are very revealing, in case you had any illusions about reporters at The Atlantic.
My favorite answer came from James Fallows, who said
Claims that begin, “I’m no bigot, but…” “I’m no chauvinist, but…” or “I’m the least racist person you’ve ever met, but…” always mean, and are always universally understood to mean, the exact opposite.
Ah, yes. We trapped you again, Donald. Haven’t you learned yet? Answering our questions is proof, as is not answering our questions.
Meanwhile, yet another “big name” celebrity is taken down by the #MeToo movement. I suppose I will demonstrate what a rube I am, but I had never heard of Aziz Ansari before this weekend. Truth be told, I’m not a big fan of pop entertainment. Anyway, The Atlantic also has an interesting article on the subject.
Here is my take on the larger issue. For decades now, Christians have been mocked and ridiculed for teaching abstinence, for holding high standards – especially when it comes to “dating” standards, for preaching that a man ought not to touch a woman and that a man and a woman should not be alone together without a chaperone. In response, we were called prudes. We were accused of suppressing our raging sexual desires and hiding our secret fantasies behind our high standards. Now we learn that actually, women don’t want to be treated like a conquest.
But now men aren’t so sure how they are supposed to go about this great mating free-for-all. The girl goes on a date with a guy, alone. She goes to his apartment with him, again alone. She sits up on his countertop and makes out with him. What part of “no” doesn’t he understand? Wham-O: sexual misconduct.
And now we are faced with a quandary. How are we supposed to know whether the green light really means “go,” and what are we supposed to do when it skips the yellow light and changes suddenly to red.
One thing we all know: the world is not about to say, “Maybe the Christians had it right about this dating thing for all these years.” I was reading an article a month or so ago – I can’t seem to find it now – but the author was wrestling with this thing of “consent” and how to separate the stalking creep from the flirting stud. She had some pretty convoluted ideas about these things, but, interestingly, she wasn’t in favor of bringing an end to men hitting on women. As she explained, her boss hit on her, and she married him. They were still married too, which is to their credit no doubt.
I couldn’t help but think about the grace and kindness of God, Who has given us His law of holiness as a mercy to us, in order to spare us from the pain of lived out horror stories. “Flee fornication” is not God’s way of handing you a boring life in a cardboard box. “This do, and thou shalt live.” At God’s right hand there are pleasures forevermore.
While the world ponders what “consent” really means, Christians should show them – it means a wedding dress, a father walking his daughter down the aisle, flowers and bridesmaids and groomsmen and rings and vows exchanged. It means wedding cake and maybe a limousine and most of all a promise – no, a covenant: “Till death do us part.” That is consent. And until that consent, the consent of a father giving his daughter in marriage, there can be no other.
P.S. After writing this article, I came across an article Kent Brandenburg wrote about Trump, one I wholeheartedly agree with. Let me encourage you to read it. I have linked to it here. When you finish, make sure you watch the CRTV video at the end. Very satisfying.
The Village Smithy 