Saved by Submission

You'll remember about a year ago I blogged about the couple in our church family who wanted me to marry them in the bride to be's home church. I was forbidden to officiate the wedding in the church if we used our vows which have the woman pledge to honor her husband 'in loving submission'. God worked all things together for good in the situation. But, of course, nothing so good as glorifying Himself in the salvation of the bride's father. I had Kelly's Dad send me his account of God's goodness to him through Paul's words in Ephesians 5:22. He sent me this testimony that he shared at a recent men's gathering in his new church. Read it and praise the goodness of God who works in ways we could NEVER imagine. And, thank God for His Word. Even, especially, the hard bits like Ephesians 5.

I will probably ramble, but I will give this a try. I am going to put into words what I got up and spoke about at our men's trip in front of 90 people I did not know.

Each night they had a couple of people get up and give their testimony, and then open it up to anyone who wanted to talk about anything or ask for prayers for themselves or others. I really felt the urge to talk the first night, but I was afraid. That night I prayed for strength to tell my story. The next night when they asked if anyone felt like they wanted to talk my hand shot up. The Holy Spirit was at work.I wanted to tell them how I ended up at Willow Creek and the lessons I have learned because of it. Here is what I said.

When we joined Willow Creek I was asked when I accepted Jesus Christ as my savior.I really did not have a date or a place, I grew up as a child going to Sunday school and church, and have always believed that Jesus died on the cross to save us from sin and give us everlasting life. As I grew up, church became less important and I went on Christmas and Easter and a few other times in between. During this time my daughters began attending youth group at Tuskawilla Methodist Church, attended Bible study and grew in their faith. Kelly, my oldest went to FSU and started with Campus Crusade for Christ , while Carrie wanted to spend 6 months in Kyrgyzstan with her church .I saw the passion in each of them and also my son, who had become involved in the Church band. I became more involved in the Church, went every Sunday and Ushered the Contemporary service each week. We had been members for about 15 years, my wife was on every committee they had, and signed all the pay checks. I was very comfortable now and my faith had grown, mostly because of my children and their faith. But God had a very different plan to wake me up.

When my daughter was to be married, She wanted to get married in the Church that she grew up in, went to youth group and bible study at. She also wanted Erik, who was their Pastor in Tallahassee to perform the service. All the plans were made, reception planned, announcements mailed out and the minister at the Methodist church wanted to look over Kelly and Josh's wedding vows.
They wanted to have Ephesians 5. vs. 22 - 25 in their vows. The Methodist minister said they would have to change up their vows. Many of Kelly and Josh's friends, including Erik tried to talk with Charlie about his decision, we soon found out that he cared more about proving he was right than he cared about the people involved. I believe to this day that most people would have just changed the words and gone on, not my daughter. What she told me was that God wanted the man of the house to be the spiritual leader, and that she wanted him to lead her and she would follow. The man’s part talks about loving your wife and that he would die for her. Charlie told us that even though Paul wrote this letter to the Ephesians, things had changed and you can not take everything in the bible at face value. He said that men and women are equal. No one ever said they were not. This really caused a problem with my wife, she could not listen to him preach any more and lost confidence in the Methodist Church.

Thru Erik, a call was placed to Pete, the pastor at Willow Creek, and the wedding was going to be moved. Erik even paid for the mailing that told everyone invited about the move to a different church.The wedding went of without a hitch. Half of Tuskawilla Methodist Church sat in Willow Creek and watched my daughter get married.

Soon after my wife and I left Tuskawilla Church and looked for another church. We tried a couple but came back to Willow Creek.My next door neighbor is the assistant pastor, and we have known each other for 10 years. Our talks have always been about sports, golf, cigars, cars and a little religion. I really started thinking about Gods plan for me. I told the 90 guys about Kelly going to Barbados, and telling me about this guy that was at a bus stop, and kept looking at them when they were on Campus. Over a period of time, Kelly and Josh talked to the man and he accepted Jesus Christ as his savior. My daughter Carrie has had the same experience in Kyrgyzstan. In my business if you don't close 25% you are not getting it done, yet here were both my daughters spending a month or more talking to 1 person and telling me that that person accepted Christ and it was the greatest thing that had ever happened. They had true joy. I wanted that same joy.

I started going to Sunday School and talking with Mike Bass, a strong Christian, and with Chris and Pete. I think now I am staring to finally get it. What all this has taught me is that God wants me to be the spiritual leader of my house. Even at 51 with 3 grown kids, it is not too late. My wife, my family, and God have been very patient with me. My job is to be more like Kelly and Carrie and be there for people, pray for them, listen to them, and let them know who Jesus is and what he has done in my life.

My wife still laughs when I pray before dinner. She is not making fun of me, she is just so happy that I have started taking my responsibility to heart and trying to be the spiritual head of the house. You see, for all my adult life I never said the prayer before dinner. I am much happier today than before. Work and stress don't bother me as much when I realize that there is so much more in my life. I go to a bible study now and am getting involved in this church than ever before. None of this would have happened, had God not said you need to do more, I am going to show you the way thru others that you love and then you will start to get it. Now Chris and I talk about sports, golf, cigars, cars and God and when I talk to other people now I talk about sports, golf, cigars, cars and God. I had one of my employees who was having problems with their children, that they ought to think about going to church. She moved away but a short time ago she e-mailed me and said they had gone to church for the first time. It is a start. I felt like I had truly done something.

I know that a year ago I would not have stood up in front of 90 guys and profess my faith in God, nor would I have written this. As I have found out, it is never too late, and that God is very patient.

FMO (For Men Only)- The Disciplines of Love and Marriage, Part I

[Wives, I know that you'll read this. After all, it was Eve who was deceived and fell into transgression. Oh, come on...I'm kidding! But do me a couple of favors if you do read this. First, suggest that your husband take a look if he doesn't already lurk on this blog. Second, pinky swear that you will not throw the points and issues addressed here in your husband's face the next time you think he is falling short in some way or another.]

Men, I'm convinced that marriage and its proper maintenance, like all good and glorious things given by God as a means of grace, is a discipline. This doesn't sound right to you, I'm sure. I think that if you're a man this seems right intuitively, but you wouldn't say this sort of thing out loud. You see, we live in an age of sap and sentimentality at every turn, especially when it comes to any discussion of love and marriage. This is why we don't like to read the books on marriage that our wives leave on our desks or bedside tables. It isn't that we don't want better marriages, or that we don't care, or can't read. It's just that we think these books are for the most part 'chickified' and full of saccharine soaked bullhonkey. (Right now you are perhaps offended...so stop reading, this is for men only.)

And you're right to feel this way. These books are written for chicks. That is the demographic. A manager at a local "christian' (oops...I mean 'positive and encouraging') radio station told me, without any chagrin, that the target demographic for 'positive and encouraging' radio was a 35-40 year old soccer mom ('If you get her, you get everyone else' he said. I accidently spewed some ice tea on him.) And, the same goes mostly for the all too prevalent 'christian' self help hogwash that graces the shelves of our local 'positive and encouraging' bookstore. Be honest- when was the last time you visited the Christian bookstore? You were either with your wife, buying something for your wife, or buying something your wife told you to buy, or looking for some clue as to how to actually get a wife (if you're single- and still reading at this point).

So, we rarely hear of the disciplines of love and marriage.

There is a great line in the recent movie 'The Break-Up' with Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston. The two (who aren't actually married in the movie but living in sin together- just work with me here) are embroiled in a bitter spat over her feeling unappreciated and angry at his laziness. She wants him to help with the dishes. He finally concedes.


Gary: "Fine, I'll help you do the damn dishes."
Brooke: "That's not what I want. I want you to want to do the dishes."
Gary: "Why would I want to do the dishes!"


This is a great picture of the sentimentalized view of love and the duties that attend to it. This is also a very feminized way of looking at love. In such a context discipline seems contrary to love. Discipline seems contrary to romance. Discipline seems contrary to intimacy. There is a reason that men are charged with the duties of discipline in parenting. We understand it. We operate well within the confines of discipline and structure. Men work well on the playing field. Men operate best in discipline and structure. It's the way God wired us. We want to know what we are supposed to do, what that guy over there is supposed to do, and how much money we'll make or how many points we'll score or how many people we'll kill if do it and do it right. We understand, "Do the dishes because you are supposed to and I won't sleep with you tonight if you don't." We might fight it in our rebellious flesh, but we understand it and know it's right. And we will do the dishes. We won't 'want' to. We won't 'like' to. And we won't whistle while we work. But we will 'discipline ourselves for the sake of godliness' and a good marriage. By doing the dishes.

Listen to the harmony of LOVE and DISCIPLINE that is presented in God's Word:

Proverbs 3:12 "For whom the Lord loves, he disciplines"

Proverbs 15:12 "He who neglects discipline despises his own soul"

Proverbs 13:24 "he who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him"

Hebrews 12:11 "All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful; but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness"

2 Timothy 1:7 "For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline"

1 Timothy 4:7-8 "Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; for physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come."

The deal is, discipline is NOT contrary to love, romance, or intimacy. And if we discover this as men, indeed embrace this reality, then we will bring great joy to our wives and great glory to God in our marriages.

So, I must ask you- how healthy, happy, joyful, intimate, and passionate is your marriage?
Next I'll ask you- how are you disciplining yourself for the sake of godliness in your marriage? How are you disciplining yourself in marriage for joy, happiness, intimacy, and passion?
Are you training yourself for the gold in your bedroom? What effort, what labors, what duties, what energy have you expended for the sake of your wife, your relationship, your sex life, your companionship? Look brothers, deal with it: NO PAIN, NO GAIN.

When Tori and I were dating I worked HARD at pleasing her, romancing her, talking to her, building trust, spending time, and all that good stuff that made our relationship so sweet. Oh, it didn't seem hard because it was new and fresh and exciting. But this is the way of all things under the sun. Throwing the football has lost luster for many NFL quarterbacks- but any QB will tell you that the discipline of training will redeem that 'first love' fever when you chuck a 35 yard beauty into the endzone for six glorious points.

Writing a poem for many of you guys, or a love letter, will be HARD work. Harder than anything you do all week in the office or on the field. But it will yield the peaceful fruit of righteousness in your marriage! It should take planning, energy, time, and money to take your wife out for a nice evening. It will take 'discipline'- and it will show your wife that she is worth your time, energy, and money.

For many of us, communication will be a discipline. It will not come naturally. It will not be our innate response to our wives at the end of a long day. We are not naturally emoters, talkers, communicators. And this is the way God wired us. It actually helps us in many ways.And we would survive just fine for the most part if we weren't married. But, most of us ARE married, and there is a call in Scripture to love our wives as our own bodies.

This means in marriage we become 'one flesh' and we are to recognize the needs of our wives as just as important and valid and necessary as the needs of our own flesh. And they need to talk. They need to communicate. And they need you to talk, to open up, to (dare I say it) share. And this will take discipline. Training. Time. Energy. You'll need to LEARN it- not really by reading books on it, but by doing it again, and again, and again. It just doesn't do to say, 'This is how I am, deal with it". This is an affront to God who has put you as head of your wife and commanded you to love and care for her. It is an affront to your wife who was created by God in His image, and though different, is just as important as you are in His eyes. It is an affront to the gift of God in bringing together two complementary parts in marriage to bring glory to himself and good to the world in the one-flesh relationship.

It will take discipline to turn off the stinking idiot box (or shut the lap top, or put down the charts and graphs, what have you), go brew some coffee or pour some wine, make some little treat (cheese toast? that might count if your wife is particularly long suffering) and sit her down and say, "How did your day go?" Or, "Can I tell you about my day?" Or, "How's your time in God's Word?" Or, "Tell me about your conversation with so and so". Or, "Can I tell you about something that went on at work today?" I know, I know, you are thinking, "Dude, that seems gay just thinking about it!" Let me tell you my friend, 'wax on/wax off' seemed useless until Ralph Macchio got to smack some poor kid in the face. It is a discipline. And it will bear fruit.

It will take discipline to foster intimacy, passion, and good sex in the marriage bed. Your wife is physically wired different than you. You will need to discipline yourself in understanding what excites her, what brings enjoyment to her, and HOW her body works with yours for excitement, joy, and pleasure. It will take the discipline of self control to restrain your desires for the sake of hers. I will be honest here, I am better at pleasing my wife and fostering intimacy and enjoyment for her now after 12 years of marriage than I was on our honeymoon (though I did think I was the bomb back then). Why? Time. Learning. Patience. Practice. It all sounds counter intuitive to talk about patience and practice when talking about intimacy and sex. But only if we have bought the lie of Hollywood that good sex must be 'spontaneous'. Statistics and experience teach us that routine can be the best ally of a couple in having a rich and fulfilling sex life in marriage. Men, your commitment to discipline is a critical component to joy in the marriage bed.
So...MAN UP and BUCKLE DOWN! Discipline yourself for godliness and the joy of a godly marriage.

Next chapter...Five Disciplines that Will Bless Your L(W)ife

Anne Graham Lotz' Shallow Egalitarianism

Recently, Anne Graham Lotz (daughter of renowned evangelist Billy Graham) was given the opportunity to offer up a guest editorial for the Washington Post. What a wonderful opportunity this was for one who loves Christ to speak out on issues facing us from a biblical perspective! The editorial did indeed deal with an issue that is critical to Christians and non-Christians alike, though it sadly presented a position that was far from the true biblical perspective. Ms. Lotz addressed the issue of gender distinctions in the bible, presenting to the readers of the Post the standard egalitarian line. You can read the editorial over at the Washington Post’s website:
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2007/01/biblical_record_is_clear_god_c.htmlThough

I’m sure that this editorial did not intend to present an exhaustive or even halfway thorough examination of this issue, it does present some standard arguments for an increasingly ‘egalitarian’ evangelicalism. Parsing out Ms. Lotz’ opinion is a helpful exercise in refuting what might be called rather shallow arguments against a complementarian view of male and female roles in the home and the church.

Lotz makes some bold statements about men and women. These statements flow from her fundamental commitment which might be distilled to these three points: 1) there was no pre-fall created order or distinction in role and authority between the sexes; 2) sin created such destructive hierarchical distinctions between the sexes; 3) Jesus abolished such sinful distinctions in role and function and restored the pre-fall order which exists (or at least, should, in the minds of egalitarians) in the church today.
Let's look at this argument in greater detail:

Premise # 1. There was no pre-fall created order or distinction in role and authority between the sexes.

'God created men and women equal. Period' the article says. And here is the fundamental problem. There is a basic non sequitur in the argument. To make distinctions in role and function does not follow biblically from a refusal to admit equality. Students of Scripture have for centuries affirmed an 'ontological' equality between men and women as made in God's image while upholding an 'economic' distinction- or a distinction of order and function between men and women as a pre fall (and, therefore, good) establishment. There can be no doubt of equality from Genesis 1:27, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." But, we must ask, why the distinctions in name? Why must there be men? Why must there be women? Lotz rather brashly ignores the very important passage over in Genesis 2 in understanding the pre-fall establishment of role and function in the garden, "But for Adam there was not a helper fit for him" (2:20). Why is she the 'ezer', or helper, and not the man? Is such a distinction in role automatically a refusal to accept equality. Obviously not, if we are to be faithful to Scripture.

In the long lists of proof texts for a rather shallow egalitarian argument we find no mention of Paul's provocative (and post-Jesus) statement touching on this very question, "For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor" (1 Timothy 2:13-14). Ah, this must be the patriarchal and chauvinistic Paul (who rears his ugly head just a few verses later in the distinctions between men and women in church office- 1 Tim 3:2 and Titus 1:6; and in his weird statements about wearing doilies on your head in 1 Cor. 11; and over in his discussion of men and women in marriage in Ephesians 5:22-33 and Colossians 3:18-19; and it must be this bad Paul who influenced the chauvinistic Peter over in 1 Peter 3:1-7). Don't we prefer the more egalitarian Paul of Galatians 3:28-29? Yes, but only if you seek to pit Scripture against Scripture and arbitrarily affirm your view of Scripture based on a cultural prejudice (whether it be an egalitarian or a complementarian prejudice).

There is a better way. It is to affirm equality (Gen. 1:27, Gal.3:28) while affirming God created order and distinctions (Gen. 2:20; 1 Cor. 11:3; 1 Tim 2:11-14). It is called 'complementarianism'. Men and women are created equally in being (ontology) as image bearers and are created functionally different in order to bring glory to God in their complementary roles and functions as distinctly male and female.Such an affirmation is difficult in our upside down world. Such an affirmation is difficult if you refuse to accept the whole counsel of God, not just a choice few Scriptures that jive with the increasing cultural and ecclesiastical pressures bearing in on us.

Premise #2. Sin created such destructive hierarchical distinctions between the sexes.

As I pointed out above, there clearly is some sort of distinction between the sexes that is pre-fall and part of the glorious and good created order. The bible affirms a headship in the clear functional or economic distinction set forth when God creates woman from man, to be a 'helpmeet suitable for him'. It is not the other way around, however we would like to say so- it was not man made from woman to be a helpmeet suitable for him. And to say that economic or functional subordination between equals is necessarily sinful is to deny the glorious subordination of the Son to the Father in the Godhead. It is also to denigrate the glorious work of Christ who came to serve not to be served. It is to accept a cultural framework of rights and power that is unbiblical and fundamentally unhealthy, and that is itself destructive.Women are able to display glorious theological truths in their submission to husbands in the home and male leaders in the church. Women are able to display the very image of Christ in their functional complement to men in the created order. If one believes that service, submission, and deference to another's divinely appointed authority is weakness, sin, and destruction per se- then, sadly, I believe they do not know their bibles nor do they have the mind of Christ on this crucial issue.

Premise #3. Jesus abolished such sinful distinctions for the church.

Let's just consider some Scriptures that are strangely absent as this point is made in Ms. Lotz' argument:
1 Timothy 2:11 A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 15 But women will be saved through childbearing-- if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.
Ephesians 5:22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for ...33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Colossians 3:18 Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
1 Corinthians 11:3 Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.
1 Peter 3:1 Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives...6 like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear.

Now, of course there are exegetical issues to be faced in these passages as in all of Scripture. But, we must honestly say that for one to claim that Jesus abolished such ‘role’ distinctions is to ignore these straightforward Apostolic exhortations in Scripture, or pit the testimony of the broad scope of the New Testament against Jesus. And both of these things are done in the more liberal quarters of egalitarianism. But this cannot and should not be done by faithful evangelicals who affirm the inerrancy of Scripture. So, in order to preserve some modicum of trust in the Scriptures, the current evangelical arguments which deny its rather plain reading in the above passages require a lot of hermeneutical hoop jumping and double talk.

The call of God’s Word is to affirm the biblical portrait of equality while embracing biblically distinct masculinity and feminity. This is for our good and to God’s glory. What God has set forth as good and glorious should not be the cause of so much double talk and equivocation in the public square. The call for Christians is to model a manhood and womanhood that is established by the Scriptures and which is not merely the product of our fleeting, and crippling, cultural consensus.

The Three Marriages of a Man

I’ll be preaching at a men’s retreat this coming weekend in St.Augustine on The Three Marriages of a Man. No, it won’t be a series on the joys of polygamy. I am going to look at the three basic unions, commitments, or marriages of a Christian man. The idea of these commitments of biblical masculinity is drawn from three passages:

A Man is ‘Married’ to Christ: 1 Corinthians 6:17 “He who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.” – His being ‘joined’ to Christ is translated by King Jimmy in verse 16 as ‘cleave’. There Paul uses this word to describe the ‘one flesh’ union of a man and woman through sexual intercourse as the act of intimate bonding meant for marriage. The relationship of God to his people as His ‘bride’ is a theme throughout Scripture. Interestingly, the key to true biblical masculinity starts with men being ‘brides’. The real man must surrender and order his life in submission to the Lord and pursue an intimate and loving bond with Jesus above all things. Think about it.

A Man is ‘Married’ to the Church: 1 Timothy 3:14-15 “I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of truth.” – We’ll continue to look at the fundamental familial language of God describing His relationship to His people. The Church is God’s oikos, his house. This is rightly translated in most Bibles as ‘household’ and not simply ‘house’, capturing the idea of an oikos not referring to the physical structure or dwelling, but the the community of loving, committed, and rightly ordered lives within it. People are to see the church not as a structure, a professional organization, or a religious affiliation, but as their family. We are to be married to the church.

A Man is ‘Married’ to a Wife: Ephesians 5:22-33 “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church-- for we are members of his body. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This is a profound mystery-- but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” And, finally, of course a man (unless he is providentially called to a life of singleness) is to be married to a wife. I will focus here on the theological truths and realities that God has designed marriage (the fundamental and crucial relationship upon which human society is ordered and thrives) to display. Much more is at stake in our marital and familial commitments than meets the eye. What we believe, know, and teach about our Triune God is manifested in our love and care for our wives (and in their submission to us). If we believe the gospel- that ‘Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her’ – then we will hold up a reflection of this glorious gospel truth (marriage is mystery displayed, in a sense) to our wives, our children, and the lost in our commitment to marriage.

These three relationships are the fundamental, life giving, and God glorifying spheres of biblical manhood. Please pray for me, that I would expound God’s Word faithfully and prophetically.

Hopefully I’ll get the messages in a digital format so we can post them on the Four Oaks site.

Men, Husbands, and Fathers

In my Father's Day sermon one of the points I made was that we need to see the 'theological importance' of headship. We need to go beyond a more utilitarian approach to dealing with the problems that face our fatherless, emasculated culture and ask why the absence of fathers in the home, heads in the marriage, and male leadership in the church is so devastating. We need to reach into the foundational questions of WHY the image of God is male and female. WHY is there an economic, functional order in that creation? Why is there a pattern of leadership and submission? Why are these truths under attack or abandoned in our culture? In getting to the why of all this we can truly begin to embrace the how of establishing these biblical patterns of living in marriage, family, and the covenant community.

The feminist answer often points to a post-fall arrangement. God established such an economy due to the sin of men. It is a bit like the sanction of divorce due to the hardness of men's hearts. But the economic order, pointed out by Paul in 1 Timothy 2, is established at the creation of man and woman before the Fall. And this order of headship, again pointed out by Paul in 1 Cor 11:3, communicates and patterns for us the headship, fatherhood, and authority of God. There are deep theological implications for the practice of this biblical principle (as with everything else). Our homes break down, our churches break down (can any one point to a healthy, thriving denomination that has embraced feminism?), and our society breaks down because we cannot function and thrive where our lives are not flowing out of these important and life giving truths.

Men, Husbands, Fathers, and Sons are INTEGRAL. They are the sine qua non of a thriving, growing, blessed, and abundant life. And so we labor to be a church that has a redemptive strategy for being fathers to the orphan, husbands to the abandoned and widowed, and men to the glory of God.

On Manliness in a Feminized Culture...

I was done with my sermon and caught the tail end of an interview with Harvey Mansfield, professor of Government at HAH-vahd (if your from BAHstahn) on his recent book, Manliness. Prof. Mansfield was being grilled by none other than the paragon of feminist virtue, Naomi Wolf. She poked and prodded, scoffed and cajoled, but her subject seemed unflappable. He seemed, well, 'manly', I suppose.

Here is the description of Harvey Mansfield given by Gwen Ifill of the PBS Online Newshour:
Harvey Mansfield came to Harvard 50 years ago as a freshman and never left. As a professor of government he's made a name for himself as an expert on de Tocqueville and Machiavelli. But he is also deeply involved in shaping modern conservative political thought. He has had the ear of Presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush, and from his perch at Harvard he has often been at the center of campus debate, arguing against affirmative action, multiculturalism, feminism and academic grade inflation.

I'm sure that Ms. Ifill gave those credentials with a smirk and a roll of the eyes. But he sounds worth listening to in my book.

I commend an interesting article from The American Enterprise by Prof. Mansfield regarding manliness in our culture: http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.17576/article_detail.asp

Ben Stein has a great article on Men and Cars in the same issue. I drive a '97 Isuzu Oasis minivan. Fully loaded. (2 car seats, dual window shades, 4 sippee cup holders, action figures and strange little pink haired ponies strewn about the floorboards). It takes a REAL MAN to drive that thing with pride baby!

Some Quotes on Manhood and Womanhood

“What I have to say is not validated by my having a graduate degree or a position on the faculty or administration of an institution of higher learning. It comes not from any set of personal tastes and preferences. It is not a deduction from my own genetic leanings or temperament. Instead, it is what I see as the arrangement of the universe and the full harmony and tone of Scripture. This arrangement is a glorious hierarchical order of graduated splendor, beginning with the Trinity, descending through seraphim, cherubim, archangels, angels, men, and all lesser creatures, a mighty universal dance, choreographed for the perfection and fulfillment of each participant.”
- Elizabeth Eliot

“Tell me what the world is saying today and I’ll tell you what the church will be saying seven years from now.”
-Francis Schaeffer

We should find in Christianity and the Church “an element that unbelievers will call irrational and believers will call supra-rational. There ought to be something in it opaque to our reason though not contrary to it…if we abandon that, if we retain only what can be justified by standards of prudence and convenience at the bar of enlightened common sense, then we exchange revelation for that old wraith Natural Religion.”
-C.S. Lewis

“One day I was privileged to sit at the table next to Mother Teresa of Calcutta. I had long admired her and her work with the destitute and dying in Calcutta and throughout the world. The Capitol Hill luncheon in her honor was held in the ornately decorated Senate caucus room in the Russell Building. As she entered, she seemed dwarfed by the enormity of the room. She was even tinier than I had expected. As she walked into the room, clad in a simple blue and white habit, I saw some of the strongest leaders in the world rise to their feet and applaud her with tears in their eyes. They were honored simply to be in her presence. Here was a woman who obviously had tremendous power. She possessed more power than those who walked the marble halls of Congress. She had more power than I had seen in this city of power. “How has she done thing?” I asked myself. She owned nothing, never shook her fist in anger for her rights, and never asked for anything for herself. Instead, she had reached down into the gutter and raised up and loved those the world calls unlovable. And she had done it simply because the poor were created by the God she loves and serves.”
-Dee Jepsen

“Lucille Ball was the first lady of American comedy. Some time before her death she did a remarkable television interview with Merv Griffin, who asked her a very pointed and serious question. “Lucille, you’ve lived a long time on this earth and you are a wise person. What’s happened to our country? What’s wrong with our children? Why are our families falling apart? What’s missing?”
Lucy’s startling yet matter of fact reply came quickly. “Papa’s missing.,” she said.
“Things are falling apart because Papa’s gone. If Papa were here, he would fix it.”
-Weldon Hardenbrook

“The notion of responsibility is at the crux of true fatherhood. The conscious sense of responsibility for the physical and spiritual well being of others is the mark of a true father.”
-Clayton Barbeau

From the beginning of the Industrial revolution, “The groundwork for the 20th century fatherless home was set. By the end of the 19th century for first time it was socially and morally acceptable for men not to be involved with their families.”
-Lawrence Fuchs

“Homemaking is not employment for slothful, unimaginative, incapable women. It has as much challenge and opportunity, success and failure, growth and expansion, perks and incentives, as any corporate career.”
-Dorothy Morrison

“No one can, without renouncing the world, in the most literal sense, observe my method; and there are few, if any, that would entirely devote above twenty years of the prime of life in hopes to save the souls of their children, which they think may be saved without so much ado; for that was my principal intention, however unskillfully and unsuccessfully managed.”
- Susanna Wesley

“Every one is in favor of equal pay, but no one is in favor of doing the dishes.”
-Mary Jo Bane, Wellesley Women’s Research Center

“My career has suffered because of the children and the children have suffered because of my career. I’ve been torn and haven’t been able to function fully in either arena. I don’t know one person who does both successfully, and I know a lot of working mothers.”
- Joanne Woodward

“We have discovered that many of our problems—in children’s and young people’s behavior, in our morals, culture and in production—are partially caused by the weakening of family ties and slack attitude to family responsibilities. This is a paradoxical result of our sincere desire to make women equal with men in everything.” (He added that Russia was looking for ways for women to return “to their purely womanly mission”.)
-Mikhail Gorbechev

Sometimes feminists remind me of little girls standing beneath a boys’ tree hut. Forbidden to enter because they were girls, some of them vowed in their childish hearts that one day they would force their way into that tree hut. Others vowed that when they grew up they would cut down the tree; if they couldn’t play, no one could. Still others became determined that they would never again allow anyone to call them girls. I have to admit that I have been spared this envy because when I was young, I had talked my way into the boys’ tree hut and discovered that nothing all that exciting was happening there.
-Dale O’Leary

It is no accident that the meaning of being a man or being a woman has been radically transformed in a society that celebrates freedom and equality, encourages individualism and autonomy, rejects tradition, practices contraception and abortion, sees marriage as a lifestyle, provides the same education and promotes the same careers for men and
women, homogenizes fathers and mothers in the neutered work of “parenting,” denies vulnerability and dependence, keeps morality out of sight, and raises its children without any sense of duty or obligation to future generations.
- Amy Kass

To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets,
labors, and holidays; to be Whitely within a certain area, providing toys, boots, cakes, and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone and narrow to be everything to someone? No, a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute.
- G. K. Chesterton

One of the ways I help couples get a handle on leadership is to ask, “Who says, ‘let’s’ more often? The man or the woman?” The man ought to say ‘let’s’ more often: “Let’s talk about the kids, let’s have a state-of our marriage discussion, let’s work on our finances, let’s get things in order in the home, let’s take care of our yard better, let’s consider getting a new car.” If the woman is constantly going to her husband and saying,
“Let’s, let’s, let’s. . . .” and he’s always dragging his feet, not taking the initiative, she’s going to be a very frustrated woman. She should not have to be the one who says ‘let’s.’ The man should be.

I asked Noel at the beginning of our marriage and haveasked her periodically over the last thirty years, “Do you operate happily on the principle that I am generally
the initiative taker in this family? And if we cannot agree on an issue, even after many hours of conversation, will you submit to my judgment?” And she has
said, “Yes.” Now that does not mean that I always invoke that privilege. But it’s crucial that she give it. That’s what submission is. And a good husband, a
good leader, a good lover will often say, “I don’t think we should re-do the bathroom now,” or “I’m not sure we should adopt a child now, but I see where your heart is, and I love to see you flourish. I want to honor your desires, and I believe God is sovereign and will work things out. And for your sake and for your joy, I yield to your choice.” She would have gone either way. She would have let me have it, or she would be happy
to hear me give her this choice. That’s not an abdication of leadership. That’s a servant way of handling leadership. And it’s based on the principle of submission, where she says, “You call the shot, and I’ll be happy with whatever you decide.”
- John Piper

Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

There is a battle raging in the evangelical church (and outside the church, as well) regarding the roles and function of men and women in the home and the church. I want to commend a couple of resources to you to familiarize yourself with the questions and concerns central to this issue.

First, let me say that I am solidly in the 'complementarian' camp. Within evangelicalism there are basically two ways of approaching the issue. The 'complementarian' side would say that men and women are equal as man made in God's image, yet different (or complementary) in their relationship to each other and in their roles in creation, marriage, and the church with men called to headship and authority in the home and church while women are to exercise loving and biblical submission. The clearest and most succinct exposition of the complementarian view may be found in CD format, delivered by Dr. Wayne Grudem at a recent church conference: http://www.sovereigngracestore.com/lecocd.html

The complementarian organization is called 'The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood' and has an excellent site: http://cbmw.org I strongly suggest clicking on 'gender questions' at the home page for the '50 Crucial Questions' as a primer on the complementarian position.

A tremendous resource with scholarly articles on virtually every issue concerning gender, roles, biblical questions, theological issues is the book called 'Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood' edited by Wayne Grudem and John Piper. I STRONGLY recommend this book. It should be a reference tool on every Christian's shelf.

The other side of the debate within evangelicalism (and I use that term loosely!) is called
'egalitarianism'. This view would say that man and woman are equal and any 'hierarchy' in role and function is a consequence of sin and the fall. Their website is: http://www.cbeinternational.org
I'll let them articulate the position further at that site.

I think this issue, alongside homosexuality and gay marriage, is one of the most important social and pragmatic questions for the postmodern evangelical to answer. The authority of God's Word, His intent in creation, the integrity of the home, and the health of the church are at stake.

So, sharpen your sword, show yourself as one approved, and dig in.