Marriage

For Your Edification (5.11.12)

/ davidsschrock

BIBLE

Reading the Bible Through the Jesus Lens.  Here is how Michael Williams explains  the main emphasis of his new book, How to Read the Bible through the Jesus Lens.   This is one of the books that I am commending for our church to read this summer in our “Summer Biblical Triathlon.”  It looks to be a great resource and help for seeing how all the pieces in the puzzle reveal the face of Jesus Christ.  Take a listen.

THEOLOGY

Ian and Larissa.  Will your view of God sustain you in the face of cancer, heart attack, or brain damage?  The story of Ian and Larissa testifies to the power of a vision of God that sees him as good and glorious in all circumstances.  The book that they reference is called This Momentary Marriage, and it is grounded on the singular premise that “God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in him” (John Piper), a truth that is wonderfully put on display in John Piper’s book Desiring God.  Ian and Larissa’s story is unique because of what God has given to them–yes, given to them (Phil 1:29)–but it is not unique in the sense that every child of God will be given opportunities to suffer and bring glory to God in the process (cf 2 Cor 1).  The video is worth watching a couple times and will need a box of tissues.

FAMILY, LIFE, & MINISTRY

May 9, 2012: A Dark Day for Marriage. Albert Mohler provides a very helpful podcast analysis of President Obama’s renewed commitment to supporting “gay marriage” in law and in our land.  Mohler is one of many voices who have reacted to our president’s recent announcement.  Below I have included Mohler’s written response, as well as, a number of other faithful responses.

Evolution’s End? President Obama Calls for Same-Sex Marriage by Albert Mohler

Five Reasons Christians Should Continue to Oppose Gay Marriage by Kevin DeYoung

How to Win the Public on Homosexuality by Collin Hanson

Marriage and the Presidency  by Ryan T. Anderson, Robert P. George, and Sherif Girgis

The Blasphemy of Barack Obama by Joe Carter

President Obama, Same-Sex Marriage, and the Future of Evangelical Response by Ed Stetzer


May these resources serve to edify you this weekend and spur you on towards love and good deeds in Jesus Christ.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Two Weddings and a Funeral :: Two Funerals and a Wedding

/ davidsschrock / 2 Comments

A Wedding Sermon

If you look at the big picture of the Bible, you will see that it is about two weddings and a funeral!  In the first book of the Bible and the last, weddings take center-stage.  And between them, leading from one to the other, is a funeral, but one without a grave.

In Genesis 1, God says in verses 26-28,

“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness… So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

What Genesis 1 tells us in brief Genesis 2 gives with more detail.  Genesis 2 records that when God made Adam, he was alone and it was not good.  So God paraded all the animals of the earth before Adam, and yet a suitable helper was not found.

Then we learn that Adam was put into a deep sleep by God, and that from his rib God made a helper suitable for him.  Genesis 2:23 tells of Adam’s exuberant reaction, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh or my flesh; she shall be called Woman because she was taken out of Man.”

Genesis 2 continues,

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.  And the man his wife were naked and were not ashamed.”

 So it was in the beginning, God created marriage.  He called it good.  It was his idea.  His invention.  One man.  One woman.  In covenant together, forever.  A union of love, intimacy, pleasure, and security.

And so human history, in every culture and in every land, has celebrated marriage, as we do today.  Even with the effects of sin that plague marriage, it is a glorious gift that God has given to humanity.  The joy that we feel today, as with the regular joys of home life, is a taste of God’s goodness and love.  In a world torn-apart by sin, it is the place that God has designed for as a refuge from the storms of life.

But marriage is not an end in itself.

God gave marriage to Adam and Eve, and God gave marriage to everyone else to point to a greater marriage.  This is where the second marriage comes in.

In Revelation 19, the Bible records the marriage of Jesus Christ to his bride, the church.

“Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.” (19:6-9)

It is not an accident that one of the last acts in the Bible is a marriage.  For this was God’s plan from the beginning—to establish an eternal covenant of love between himself and all those who trust in Christ.

So the Bible begins with a marriage and ends with a marriage. But to get from one to the other, it has to pass through a funeral.

The central feature of the Bible, is the cross of Jesus Christ.  The death that he died on Calvary, to pay for the sins of the world.  And interestingly, one of the ways that the Bible describes Jesus’ death, is that of a husband for his wife.

Ephesians 5:25 reads:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church, and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor…

What we see described in Revelation 19 was accomplished by Jesus death on the cross.   The second and eternal marriage of Christ is the wonderful result of Christ’s death and resurrection.  The death and resurrection which overcame all the corruptions that have marred humanity and the marriages that have come after Adam and Eve.

So today, as we consecrate this marriage, I want to remind you that for your marriage to last and experience God’s blessing, it requires an ongoing and growing relationship with Jesus Christ and hope in marriage to Him.

In fact, what we see today in your wedding depicts in minuet, what that final wedding will be like.  A faithful husband taking a radiant bride and loving her and caring for her for eternity.  In this way, your marriage is not just your own, it is Christ’s!

Two Funerals Before Your Wedding

This wedding today marks out the fact that you are covenanting together today to be husband and wife.  A husband and wife that are first committed to Jesus Christ, and from his saving love, you are committing to love one another until death – and death alone – separates you.

To the husband

You are committing to love your bride like Christ loved the church, to give up yourself for her, to be her spiritual leader, and her sacrificial lover.  To cherish her, to nourish her, to consider her before yourself.  You are taking on the role as one who promises to love like Christ, and to lay down your life for her.

In order to be the kind of husband that she needs, you will need to die to self, daily.  The cross of Jesus Christ must become more precious to you every day.  The forgiveness that God gives to you in Christ must spur you on to love him more, and in turn to love your bride more purely, more passionately, more completely.   The death of Christ must become ever increasing in your sights, so that the resurrected life of Christ will continue to work in you.

To the bride

Today you are pledging to be your husbands helpmate.  To trust him, to respect him, and to submit to his leadership.  Just as the church lovingly follows Christ, so you are to walk by his side, as a woman of virtue and character, cultivating a godly home and co-laboring with Ryan to raise children who know the love of God because of your model before them.

But in order to be the kind of wife that he will need you to be, and to be the kind of wife that Scripture commends, you too will need to die to yourself daily.  You must look to the cross of Christ for the grace that you will need to love and live with this man.  And some days you will need it more than others!

In the Bible, there are two weddings and a funeral.  A funeral that was cut short, because Christ rose from the grave!

In your lives, as the two of you become one, there must be two funerals for your marriage to succeed. For your marriage to know and show the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the two of you must die with Christ daily, and live by the power of the Holy Spirit—directing you, empowering you, helping you to love one another, learning to forgive one another and to pursue peace with one another, in a way that only Jesus Christ can give to you.

We live in world today where marriage is a cheap and disposable thing.  Where God created it to last forever, too many people treat it like plastic silverware.  Use it a time or two, and get rid of it.

In treating it with such disdain, the world misses God’s purpose for marriage and his blessing.  Satan will tempt you with the same thoughts, but if you look to Christ together every day, God will accomplish his plans and purposes in your marriage, and your marriage will shine like a light, a light that point others to the marriage supper of the lamb, one that will last forever.

You see, Christ’s funeral did not end in a tomb, it won a bride and finished with a feast.  So too, the power of the resurrection is available for your marriage, if you will daily look to Christ and ask him to establish your marriage in grace and truth!

May God be pleased to make your marriage one that is filled with the joy and love of Jesus Christ and shows to the world the coming Marriage Supper of the Lamb!

Pre-Engagement: 5 Questions to Ask Yourselves (RCL Booklet 1)

/ davidsschrock

What could be more delightful than answering questions with and about the one that you love?  To the young couple dreaming about a life together, few things would make them happier than to answer questions about their love.

Yet too often, too many couples go into engagement and marriage unprepared because they did not know the right questions to ask.  Sadly, many marriages have suffered and others have broken because of unforeseen challenges that could have been avoided or softened by a thoughtful season of question-and-answers prior to engagement and marriage.

To help facilitate this inquisitive discussion, pastor-counselors David Powlison and John Yenchko have provided couples looking to marriage with an insightful diagnostic in their 36-page booklet, “Pre-Engagement: 5 Questions to Ask Yourselves.”  In “Pre-Engagement,” they lay out five questions, and give young lovers much to think over as they make plans to enter into a covenant legitimately broken only by death.

Here are the five questions.

  1. Are You Both Christians?
  2. Do You Have a Track Record of Solving Problems Biblically?
  3. Are You Heading in the Same Direction in Life?
  4. What Do Those Who Know You Well Think of Your Relationship?
  5. Do You Want to Marry This Person? Are You Willing to Accept Each Other Just as You Are?

Of course, these questions don’t get to everything, but with the follow-up questions that supplement these main questions, Powlison and Yenchko do a superb job getting to the heart of each couple.  Moving their readers to consider more than their personal love for one another, they challenge couples to consider marriage in its larger framework (see Ephesians 5:22-33; Luke 14:26).

So, if you are getting married, doing marriage counseling, or anticipating a phone call from a child or grand-child saying “He asked…I said yes,” let me encourage you to pick up, read, and pass along this little book with 5 Questions.  For yourself or for someone you care about, this set of diagnostic questions could save years heartache and ensure a well-informed, biblical process of answering the question, “Is he (or she) the one?”

May the Lord bless those who are getting married this summer, and may God use this book to help others discern the wisdom of popping the question or answering in the affirmative.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

The Mystery of Marriage: A Quasi-Ordinance

/ davidsschrock / 3 Comments

[This is a follow-up post from The Mystery of Marriage: A Parable of Christ and Church  which reflected on George Knight’s article on Ephesians 5 in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism, edited by John Piper and Wayne Grudem [Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1991], 175-76)].

From the foundation of the world, marriage was always designed to picture a greater reality.  Generation after generation of God’s covenant people knew of his marital designs and creation, but only in the fullness of time, as Jesus Christ came in the flesh and the Spirit of Christ inspired the apostles to elucidate the gospel of Jesus Christ, did the mystery of husband and wife become known.  Consider Knight’s concluding remarks:

But if this is so, then the order Paul is speaking of here (submission and love [in Ephesians 5:22-33]) is not accidental or temporary or culturally determined: it is part of the essence of marriage, part of God’s original plan for perfect, sinless, harmonious marriage.  This is a powerful argument for the fact that Christlike, loving headship and church-like, willing submission are rooted in creation and in God’s eternal purposes, not just in the passing trends of culture (176).

In our foolish and anti-Christ(ian) world, there are countless marriages that exist in rebellion against the very purpose for which they were designed.  God made marriage for his glory and the expression his covenant love with his bride, redeemed humanity.  Consequently, the establishment of marriage in Genesis 2 was intended to tesify to this reality. 

Today, unbelievers experience the mystery of marriage, but without knowing how to understand it.  They are blind to its salvific and cosmic significance.  Too non-Christian marriages are drenched in bitterness and guile, because unmitigated sin gnaws at their covenantal bond.  But unbelievers are not alone.  Christian marriages war against God’s design for marriage whenever they cast aside God’s intended order for husbands and wives (cf. 1 Cor. 11:7; Eph. 5:22-33; 1 Pet. 3:1-7).  This can be done by deliberate egalitarianism or by immature believers in need of marital sanctification.  Either way, in failing to recognize God’s wise design for husbands to lead and wives to follow, for men to love like Christ and women to submit like the church, they are dishonoring the Word of God, disobeying the Lord who bought them, and distorting God’s picture of salvation captured in the parable of marriage. 

God’s illustrative purposes for marriage is what makes it a mystery.  Just as the heavens testify to the glory of God, so marriage captures something of his grandeur–something that is seen in the best of marriages, to be sure.  Likewise, as baptism and the Lord’s supper resemble the salvation of Christ’s disciples, so marriage images something about Christ and the church.  In this way, marriage is a kind of quasi-ordinance.  It is not restricted to the church; it is rather for all people.  Yet, in its global enjoyment it testifies to heavenly realities and God’s cosmic plan of redemption in Christ.  In this way, marriage is perhaps one of the largest and potentially broadest means of sharing the gospel, as marriage itself can be called upon to witness to Christ and the church.  The impact of marriage biblically arranged and gloriously incarnated has great evangelistic potential.  Soberly, couples that disregard God’s word concerning marriage, cannot have such effect. 

God’s designs are not new, they are from before the foundation of the world.  Neither is Satan’s attack on marriage.  He attacked Eve in the Garden and he is still advancing towards marriages today.  May we who love the gospel and the biblical vision for marriage, fight to protect our homes from the corrosive effects of an anti-marriage culture, and may we by the power of the Spirit embrace and embody God’s glorious designs for marriage.  So that perhaps, the world around us might come to know Christ by the testimony of our marriages which point to the message we proclaim–Jesus Christ is Lord!

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

Salvador Dali, Marriage, and the God Who is There

/ davidsschrock

In his book The God Who is There, Francis Schaeffer points to Salvador Dali as an example of someone whose world reshaped his worldview.  Unlike many whose lives are marked by inconsistency, promoting one system of thought but living out another, Salvador Dali, the twentieth century painter, readjusted his artwork to accord with his home life.  Describing this transformation, Schaeffer remarks that Dali’s loving tribute to his wife marks the time in which his paintings took on a more humane and sensible form.  He says, “So on this particular day [describing the day he painted his wife] Dali gave up his surrealism and began his new series of mystical paintings.” (71).

In his later artwork, Dali turned to Christian symbols and figures to express his non-Christian mysticism. For instance in The Sacrament of the Last Supper, he depicts a vaporous savior seated with his disciples overshadowed by a human figured on a cross, presumably Jesus, but whose head is unseen, cut off by the top of the painting.  Thus his paintings have Christian motifs but ignore the historic Christian message.  The painting that Schaeffer points to most and the one that he attributes to his remarkable “conversion” is that of his wife.   In the painting Dali depicts his wife with one breast exposed, her name prominently on the picture, and great artistic emphasis on the ring on her finger, unashamedly supporting their marital vows.  Schaeffer’s assessment is that, “his loved jarred him into a modern type of mysticism” (71). 

But if marital love moved him to some kind of transcedent mysticism, it, by implication, saved him from the suicidal nihilism of a worldview devoid of love and meaning–the worldview that accompanies surrealist art.  Dali named this painting of his wife, “A Basket of Bread.”  Interestingly, this is the same name he gave to two other “eucharistic” paintings.   It seems by such a title that he is applying eucharistic overtones to and deriving spiritual elements from his marriage.  And though Dali does not have the categories or the definitions to understand what he is seeing, in his marriage he sees something transcedent and spiritual.  In short, in his marriage he is given a picture of a greater reality–that is the mystery now revealed of Christ and the church (cf. Eph. 5:32).  Sadly Dali never embraced this greater reality, but it is apparent that his marriage made him thirst for more.  His marital union, it appears, allured him to long for more of Christ, though in the end he ignorantly revolted against the one who drew him near.

Dali’s artistry and life are illuminating.  They remind of us of the impact marriage can have and is designed to have.  It was made to awaken our senses for God.  More specifically, marriage was made by God as a witness to Jesus and his bride, the church.  It is a mystery, but every marriage–Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Wickan, or otherwise that unites one man to one woman–portrays Christ and the church.  Even those like Dali, who reject the Bible, taste and see something eternal, holy, and true in their own marriages, but without Spiritual illumination they will never comprehend that which they experience.  

Salvador Dali’s life and art is a helpful reminder that marriage beckons us to the God who is there.  Even in the lives of agnostics and atheists, marriage serves as divinely-crafted institution to assist the Great Commission and to bring unbelievers to Christ.  Consequently, Christians should see marriages as evangelistic weapons in the spiritual warfare we wage.  As we point married men and women to Christ, we can call on their own marriages to testify to their need and desire for the heavenly marriagee.  Marriage is a personally authenticating reality that testifies to the world and to those who are married (or those who long for marriage) that there is a God who is there, and that he is not silent, and that his message is a wedding invitation for all those who are willing to wear his ring (cf. Matthew 22:1-14).

May we like John the Baptist (John 3:27-30), be faithful groomsmen, calling people to come to the wedding to which all weddings foreshadow.

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

The Mystery of Marriage: A Parable of Christ and the Church

/ davidsschrock / 5 Comments

Marriage is a mystery!  Empirically speaking, this is proven every time blissful lovers get married and discover the unforeseen realities of married life.  A young wife may think, “Why didn’t I see that his charming idiosyncracy in courtship is actually a really annoying habit in marriage?”  In every generation and with every marriage, the mystery proliferates, because woven into the fabric of humanity is God-given peculiarity associated with sexual differentiation.  This was implicit in creation, and has been exaggerated by the Fall.  All the same, it is part of God’s plan.  Solomon captures this creational profundity, when he writes, “Three things are too wonderful for me; four I do not understand: the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a serpent on a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas, and the way of a man with a virgin” (Prov. 30:18-19).  From elementary school playgrounds, to high school dances, to twenty-five year anniversaries, the relationship between boys and girls that matures into the coupling of husband and wife is a profound mystery. 

Biblically speaking, marriage is also mystery; but in the Bible, the term “mystery” does not connote obscurity or uncertainty.  Instead, it is used to depict a reality hidden now revealed.  In Ephesians, Paul calls the ingathering of the Gentiles a mystery, describing the way in which nations outside the covenantal people Israel, were made “fellow citizens with the saints and the household of God” (2:19).  He also describes marriage as a mystery (Eph. 5:32).  In both instances, what was once only seen in types and shadows, has now been explained and made clear (cf. John 16:29-30).  The Old Testament promised salvation to gentiles but until Christ’s incarnation, the full plan of salvation for the nations had gone unnoticed.  Just the same, the pattern of men and women leaving and cleaving, coupling one with another in marriages has been patterned since Adam and Eve (cf. Gen. 2:24); yet, only in the fullness of time did the significance of this holy institution become known.  Pertaiing to marriage, it is important for us to understand that God’s telic purposes did not come after the first marriage, but rather they preceded the first marriage. 

J.V. Fesko has called this kind of understanding proleptic understanding of history, “protology,” meaning that in the beginning, God imbued significance to people, events, and institutions that in the fullness of time would find ultimate meaning in Christ and the effects of his redemptive work.  Looking backwards from the fully disclosed canon of Scripture, this could be called typology, but since it is prophetic and future-oriented, it seems better to call it protology (see Fesko’s Last Thing First).  In the case of marriage, when God brought Eve to Adam, he was taking strides to accomplish his eschatological goal of Christ and the church.  As Isaiah writes about our covenant Lord, “God declares the end from the beginning” (Is. 46:9), and in the case of marriage this is absolutely true.

Consider the words of New Testament scholar, George Knight III, as he described the eternal purposes of God in marriage:

Unbeknownst to the people of Moses’ day (it was a ‘mystery’), marriage was designed by God from the beginning to be a picture or parable of the relationship between Christ and the church.  Back when God was planning what marriage would be like, He planned it for this great purpose: it would give a beautiful earthly picture of the relationship that would someday come about between Christ and His church.  This was not known to people for many generations, and that is why Paul can call it a ‘mystery.’  But now in the New Testament age Paul reveals this mystery, and it is amazing.

This means that when Paul wanted to tell the Ephesians about marriage, he did not just hunt around for a helpful analogy and suddenly think that “Christ and the church” might be a good teaching illustration.  No, it was much more fundamental than that: Paul saw that when God designed the original marriage He already had Christ and the church in mind.  This is one of God’s great purposes in marriage: to picture the relationship between Christ and His redeemed people forever!  (George Knight III, “Husbands and Wives as Analogues of Christ and the Church” in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism, edited by John Piper and Wayne Grudem [Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1991], 175-76)

Marriages that embrace and embody this truth, of seeing themselves as miniature portrait studios of Christ and the church are blessed with knowing the reality for which they were united in covenant love.  Those who do not know this mystery are tragically living in the dark.  Still the saddest group of all may be those who know Christ and his salvation, but do not know how his relationship with the church should shape and inform their marriage.  By choice or ignorance, they embody an egalitarian marriage, and chaff against the gospel.  Scripture’s wise design for marriage as a parabolic representation of Christ and the church, that includes male headship and female submission is not a product of the curse, but a divinely-revealed mystery that God promises to bless.

May we who love God’s wise design in marriage and the gospel that it “mysteriously” reveals, pray for a vision to see God’s design for marriage incarnated in our own marriages and in those around us, so that the world may see a mosaic of marriages within the chruch that illustrate the mystery of Christ and the church.

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

Intimate Allies (pt. 5): A Message I Don’t Approve

/ davidsschrock

In the season of platform messages and political adds, I feel that it is important to assert that I approved of the first four messages that Tremper Longman and Dan Allender present in their book Intimate Allies.  Their emphasis on spiritual warfare and the kingdom of God, evangelism and discipleship, as well as biblical theology to undergird our understanding of marriage is very helpful.  However, there is a message in their book with which I do not agree, and which is, I believe, fundamentally opposed to biblical marriages, biblical discipleship, and spiritual warfare.  It is the culturally accepted notion of feminism and the ecclesial/anthropological matter of egalitarianism as it pertains to the roles of men and women.  (For an outline of the issues see The Danvers Statement).

Without so much as a definition, an argument, or an admission of an egalitarian agenda, Longman and Allender presuppose and assume that an egalitarian reading of the Bible is normative for the evangelical Christian.  (For an opposing view, to which I wholeheartedly subscribe, see The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood).  Concerning the Genesis command to fill the earth and subdue it, they write:

In marriage, we are both kings and queens who rule by ordering creation to enhance the glory and pleasure of each other.  We are to rule through sacrificing on behalf of one another (86).

At this point, I am in total agreement.  However, in there next supporting paragraph they deny any kind of intended order in the creation of man and woman.  They continue:

Further, we must recognize that the job description is given equally to men and women.  At this point, God makes no distinction about who is to do what.  Women are not the slaves or servants of men; men are not the slaves of servants of women.  Men and women together fill, subdue, and rule over all of creation (86).

By failing to cite a biblical reference, include a footnote, or make an argument for the assertion, “At this point, God makes no distinction about who is to do what,” they disregard biblical testimony to the contrary (cf. 1 Tim. 2; 1 Cor. 11, see Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood for biblical corpus of articles that examine and exegete the relevant passage in Scripture ) and contemporary scholarship that argues for gender complementarity.  Instead, they casually assert their culturally sympathetic appeal and assume it will not cause any problems  This is not an isolated incident either.  In a later chapter, once again discussing the account in Genesis 2, they argue:

Once again, this passage [Gen. 2] is misread if either Adam’s statement of Eve’s derivative creation is understood to mean that the woman is subordinate to the man.  The man is not in any way better, superior, or closer to God than the woman is.  Indeed, the passage could not be clearer: the man needs the woman as much as the woman needs the man (216).

Though I disagree with their conclusion, in this instance Longman and Allender make an argument for egalitarianism, instead of propounding an assumption.  Their argument is feminist reasoning that supposes that worth in the eyes of God is dependent on hierarchy or perceived status.  For instance, a CEO is more valuable than his secretary.  In other words, if men and women cannot assume all the same functions within the home and the church, then they clearly cannot be equal.  They fail to take into consideration that God himself is equal in the Godhead and yet with distinctive roles (see Bruce Ware’s book Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Relationship, Roles, and Relevance). 

Moreover, their argument makes a semantic range fallacy.  They speak of authority (i.e. “subordination) and then proceed to define it in terms of worth or significance (i.e. “better, superior, or closer to God”), when in fact the ordered world illustrates all the time that hierarchy and worth are distinctive spheres of meaning.  A sergeant in the army and a luitenant in the army have different degrees of authority, but the same ontological value; parents and children, in the eyes of God, have distinctive roles of authority and accountability, but both are equally loved by their Father in Heaven; and employers and employees have unique roles, but the same intrinsic value.  To disregard or expunge these roles is to move towards anarchy. 

Longman and Allender disregard these cosmic structures, just as they reinterpret biblical passages that clearly teach that men and women are equal, yet different (see Alexander Strauch’s helpful book by that same title, Men and Women: Equal Yet Different).  After explaining their understandings of Ephesians 5 and 1 Peter 3, Longman and Allender summarize on page 191:

We have already pointed out that this commmand [“wives submit to your husband as unto the Lord,” Eph. 5:22] must be understood in the light of the mutual submission commanded by Paul in Ephesians 5:21.  We have also seen that Peter urged men to a submissive attitude toward their wives when he told them to “be considerate” toward them (1 Pet. 3:7). 

Here again, Longman and Allender are twisting meaning and common sense.  When you go to the doctor, you want him to be “considerate” but you don’t want your visitation to be a collaborative effort!  If in consideration for your feelings, he asked you to take the lead on your colonoscopy, you wouldn’t stay with his practice long.  You expect, and for good reason, that he or she be an authority in medicine.  Your responsibility is to submit, even if it is a woman!  (This hierarchy structure is different than that of the home or church). 

Or, to give another example, this time from Scripture, Jesus is the kind and compassionate head of the body, but this does not undermine his absolute authority.  The analogy of head and body only works because the healthy human body is controlled by the head.  When limbs, under their own initiative begin to lead, something is wrong.  Therefore, consideration and submission are not synonymous, as Longman and Allender suppose.

Throughout their otherwise faithful book these explicit egalitarian appeals arise.  They are exegetically reinforced in Chapter 11, “Submitting to One Another in Love,” and they are seen at work in at least two personal testimonies that portray their wives as spiritual co-leaders in the home (38, 52).  In short, while helpfully setting marriage in its discipling and warfare locus in the kingdom of God, they weaken their kingdom-worldview by denying God’s gender roles.

So overall, I commend the four aspects of the book I previously considered (Warfare, Evangelism, Discipleship, and Biblical Theology), but I do not commend their egalitarian agenda.  Intimate Allies is a book I would recommend to well-read Christians who want to see how their marriage fits into God’s eternal strategy of the Great Commission and spiritual warfare, but it is not a book I would ever use for (pre)marital counseling or that I would commend carte blanche.  There are too many other good books out there that are more faithful to God’s Word.  Finally, I am tremendously appreciative of Tremper Longman’s work, I look to him as an expert in OT and Biblical Theology, but in this instance, I cannot universally commend Intimate Allies.

My name is David Schrock, and I approved this message.

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

Intimate Allies (pt. 4): A Biblical Theology of Marriage

/ davidsschrock

Intimate Allies: A Biblical Theology of Marriage

The Bible speaks of marriage from Genesis 1 to the end of the book of Revelation… We will conclude our meditation on the Bible’s vision of marriage by exploring God’s design for marriage and sexuality as it unfolds in the narrative of Scriptures.  As we do this, we will have a glimpse at an incredible mystery.  Our marriage reflects another marriage.  God speaks of our relationship with him as a marriage.  It is amazing, but our relationship with God is so intimate that it can be understood only in light of the passion that is to be shared within a marriage union (Dan Allender and Tremper Longman, Intimate Allies [Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1995],348-49).

Concluding their book on marriage, Tremper Longman and Dan Allender, sweep across the Scriptures considering the height, depth, breadth, and length of God’s love for his covenantal people.  They begin with the original creation of marriage in Genesis 1-2 and its subsequent Fall (Gen. 3).  Cast out of the Garden, they consider marriage in the OT, particularly in the Song of Solomon and the book of Hosea.  Moving into the NT, they conclude their biblical survey in Revelation 19:6-10, where God’s eternal and eschatological purposes for marriage are seen, and they conclude with culmination of all things in the summation of every marriage in Christ (cf. Luke 20:27ff).  Though brief and constrained to edit many important BT aspects of marriage, they give a helpful overview of the important turning points of marriage in the Bible.  They write:

Marriage as an institution, if not a particular relationship, can now give us a taste of heavenly realities.  It is a lens that enables us to peer into our depraved demands and into our anticipated full redemption when we are drawn into the wonder of the marraige ceremony of the Lamb.  Each moment of marriage is an anticipation of that moment when we will walk down the aisle to the Lamb’s waiting embrace.  It is also the anticipation of the day when we will ejoy the most profound, the most intimate, the most sensual (remember we will have heavenly bodies), the ultimately satisfying of relationships.  Our union with God will ignite and solidify our relationships with one another.  Truly, male and female will be one flesh again (361-62).

The Scriptures do paint a powerful portrait of God’s love for his redeemed, and they should give us pause to consider that love and the way in which our own marriages embrace and embody that heavenly reality.  Christ and his death on the cross has everything to do the day-to-day rigors of marriage.  Marital spats should be reoriented by the grace demonstrated on the cross, just as marital bonds should be strengthened by the unrequited love of God’s covenantal commitment.  It is a wonderful thing that the heavenly marriage of Christ and his church beckons us to press on toward that eternal union.  Our routine relationships are dignified by this glorious truth.  As Longman and Allender remind us, “our marriage[s] reflect another marriage,” and thus our lives have the potential to receive and reflect the glory and grace of the love of Christ.  This is good news that should strengthen our marriages.

May we continue to grow in grace and in truth in the love that is captured in the biblical theological vision of marriage culminated in Christ and the church.

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

 

Intimate Allies (pt. 3): A Call for Christian Maturity

/ davidsschrock

Discipleship: Maturation Through Marriage

In addition to bolstering evangelism, Dan Allender and Tremper Longman posit the integral role that marriage has in discipleship.  Consider their words:

The purposes of our marriages are to create life and to shape life to maturity.  A marriage is no better than the vision we have for one another and the willingness we have to sacrifice for each other, to suffer to see growth occur.  Many marriages survive by merely providing a partner for activities–a resource to counter occasional biological and personal needs.  But God’s intention for marriage is to grow or subdue each partner in relation to the other in order to draw each–and eventually marriage itself–to reflect the character of his Son.  The high calling of God is to create life and then to shape it in his image.  Our marriages are not only the context for evangelism but also the soil for discipleship.  And to what end?  Ultimately, our marriages are the foundation for the kingdom of God to grow on earth in anticipation of its full realization in the new heavens and new earth (Intimate Allies, 83-84).

Just as marriage opens doors for evangelism, it also creates environments for sanctification and discipleship.  Incredibly challenging is the notion that marriage is not just a relationship for recreation, “providing a partner for activities.”  Instead, it is a licensed endeavor to procreate God’s love, to picture divine grace, and to proclaim the mystery of Christ and the church.  This does not mean that your marriage has to be perfect to convey such a message, it just has to be honest, intentional, and gospel-rich.  The Good News has always been that Jesus came to set captives free and to heal the sick.  Therefore, Christian marriages that fail to give verbal credit to Jesus Christ, verge on cosmic plagarism because they do not footnote their source.  Similarly, those that do not admit their frailty, while testifying of Christ’s overcoming sufficiency, miss out on the life-giving joy of telling others of the power and kindness of God.  In other words, maturation occurs in an individual and in a marriage, when the gospel is believed and shared.

This idea of maturation that Allender and Longman highlight is vitally important.  If we have been born again (cf. John 1:12; 3:3-8) and are growing into the image and likeness of our savior, marriage serves as an opportune environment for Christian maturation.  Evangelism and discipleship are requisites of the Christian faith, and marriage is designed to improve these, not impoverish them.  However, too often marriage and Christian maturity are set at odds.  A hidden assumption is that the serious Christian must take on monastic commitments if they are too be holy.  (Gary Thomas addresses this in his book Sacred Marriage).  Some may claim, “the kids keep me from my quiet times,” or “being the bread-winner disallows me from church service.”  Yet, it does not have to be so.  In fact, it must not be so.  The Christian marriage, filled with children (if the Lord permits), should be a vehicle driving us to a greater need for the gospel and propelling us to share the love of God with others.  In this way, marriage enhances our discipleship, as we press towards our spouse in gospel-empowered love, taking on the yoke of self-denying discipleship (cf. Matt. 11:29-30; Luke 14:25-33).

May we pray to that end, that God may be most glorified in our marriages as we are daily conformed into the image of Christ.  May we evangelize and be discipled through one of God’s most precious gifts–marriage.

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

Intimate Allies (pt. 1): Marriage Means War

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Why does the bridegroom stand on the right side of the bride? 

The legend goes:

Long ago, the right arm was considered the sword arm of most fighting men. If a man had to protect his bride, he would hold her with his left hand, and fight off attackers with his right arm.  The reason that men may have had to fight off others was because quite often women were kidnapped. Family members naturally wanted to rescue the stolen brides. Sometimes even during the wedding ceremony, the grooms had to fight off other men who were desirous of their brides, along with the bride’s family members. So having his right arm free was an important strategy.  This tradition is followed today by when facing the officiant, having the bride stand to the left, and the groom stand to the right.  (HT: Wikianswer).

This kind of readiness to defend makes sense in a time and place when marriages were threatened by violent thieves.  But what about today?  In light of the Scriptures, it still makes sense.  Such a posture illustrates the twin realities of love and war, and whether or not we consider marriage to be a violent affair, spiritually speaking, it is.  Marriage is warfare!

In their book, Intimate Allies: Rediscovering God’s Design for Marriage and Becoming Soul Mates for Life, Dan Allender and Tremper Longman make this very important connection.  Love is war!  And for Christian marriages to be strong they must participate in cosmic conflict against the enemies that seek to destroy their marriage.  Concerning marriage and warfare, they write:

The language of a battle may disturb many readers, but life is a war.  And marriage, at times, requires war if the battle of life is to be fought well.  But are our spouses non-combatants, people disengaged from the real battles of our life?  Or worse, are our spouses enemies whom we fight daily?

God’s intention is for our spouses to be our allies–intimate friends, lovers, warriors in the spiritual war against the forces of the evil one.  We are to draw strength, nourishment, and courage to fight well from that one person who most deeply supports and joins us in the war–our soulmate for life.  Husbands and wives are intimate allies (Intimate Allies, xvi).

Clearly strong marriages are not engaged in internecine conflicts, but they are drawing battle lines and contending with external threats.  From the foundation of the world, Satan has been seeking to kill, steal, and destroy (cf. Gen. 3; John 10:10).  He is the accuser, the robber, the murderer, and the home-wrecker.  He loves to pervert and destroy all things that God has created good, and he takes specific aim at marriage, sexuality, and the familial relations of the nuclear family.  One aspect of redemptive history is to re-establish the home.  This is evident in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, where the fruit of the Spirit-filled life results a properly functioning marriage, where husbands lovingly lead their wives and wives respectfully submit to their husbands (Eph. 5:22-33).  In a return to the properly alligned marriage in the Garden, it seems evident from God’s Word that Spirit-led marriages are in cosmic conflict with the spirit of this age.  Allender and Longman elucidate this point:

What is the basis of the war between the sexes?  It is ultimately, of course, the war between God and his adversary, Satan.  We ought never to be naive.  The deepest struggles of life will occur in the most primary relationship affected by the Fall: marriage.  No one on earth will have more potential to do harm or to do good than your spouse.  Consequently, no relationship will be imbued with more desire and danger than your marriage.  No wonder most couples soon settle down into a distant, parallel existence in which the pain and the joy are kept at a minimum (287).

Sadly, their point is too often the case.  Couples, young and old, settle into patterns of coexistence rather than mutual edification.  Instead of conforming themselves into God’s intimate ideal for marriage, couples accept the luke-warm tensions of marriage, and make it up as they go.  In so doing, they ignore the marriage-transforming power of the gospel, and allow Satan to strip away the joys of marriage.  Yet, it does not have to be that way.  Allender and Longman contend that married is an environment for sanctification, spiritual growth, and gospel-empowered grace.  The battle that closes in on the home provides incentive and opportunity for the God’s power to be made manifest within the marriage, so that the flaming arrows of the enemy become refining fires that illumine and eradicate sin as Christ’s atoning work is applied to each act of sin.  They continue with optimism:

Our marriages are the ground for change.  It is the place where exposure of our need for the gospel is most profound; therefore, it is the relationship where depravity is best exposed and where our dignity is best lived out.  Marriage is the battleground of sin and the place where the Cross is revealed as the only hope for life and joy.  In the midst of the Curse, God promises that redemption will come as the seed of the woman crushes the head of the serpent.  [Therefore], the curse is a friend that drives us to the hope of redemption.  Marriage is the sweet wine and rich meat that heralds the final day and the wedding feast of the Lamb (288).

The first marriage was ruined by the slithering voice of the serpent, yet it was restored by the promise found within the curse: “the seed of the woman will crush the head of the seed of the serpent.”  Adam believed the promise and named his wife Eve, the mother of all living, and thus marital hope was restored, if only partially.  The same kind of redemptive hope is available for every marriage today, and in even greater ways since we know the rest of the story.  Sin still tears at marriage, but through the gospel of Jesus Christ, as depicted in marriage itself (Eph. 5:32), we know that the power of God can restore and reinforce every marriage under threat from sin and Satanic attack.  “Where sin has increased, grace has increased all the more” (Romans 5:21); and “the Son of God appeared to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).  Consequently, the attacks of the enemy can in turn become the God’s means for mutual sanctification, as husband and wife humbly cry out to Jesus to come and work wonders in their marriage. 

This is not a civilian’s work (cf. 2 Tim. 2:4).  Picking up the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, and believing the promises of God takes courage and tenacity.  Putting to death the deeds of the flesh by the power of the Spirit is an act of war against the one to whom we were once held captive.  It is war, and it is the kind of war that is fueled by love (for God and for our spouse).  Perhaps it is counter-intuitive, but it is absolutely essential that every strong Christian marriage must employ a constant patrol on enemy activity encroaching against their marriage.  Every husband must stand guard, ready to go to war to protect their marriage by destroying every argument and [knocking down] every lofty opinion rasied agsint the knowledge of Christ; just as, every wife must combat Satan through prayers intercession for her home and for her husband.  Marriage is war!

Married people confront life as a battle.  As intimate allies, they push back the chaos.  With the power of God, marriage is an awesome calling and at times a delightful prelude of heaven.  But no matter what joy of what sense of meaning is found in marriage, it is always involved in a war.  At times marriage itself is part of the war… A successful marriage is one in which two broken and forgiving people stay committed to one another in a sacrificial relationship in the face of life’s chaos.  We are intimate allies in the war.  We rejoice together in our victories and cry together as we ecnounter setbacks.  But even in the setbacks, we can have joy because we know that the final victory is ours.  We look forward to the ultimate Wedding, which our own weddings only faintly reflect (346-47).

The pervading thesis of Intimate Allies is that marriage means war.  Once we realize this truth, it will re-adjust how we think of our own marital commitments.  It will re-allign the patterns of our daily interaction.  Our marriages require the daily posture of a pugilist–always ready to embrace our spouse with grace and forgiveness so that the devil does not get a foothold (Eph. 4:26-27).  Simultaneously, we are ever-ready to fight all those who would rend asunder what God has joined together.   Intimate Allies alerts us to the biblical reality of spiritual warfare attacking our marriages, and it implores us to put on our armor because the devil is coming to kill, steal, and destroy.

May the Lord grant us courage to fight sin, Satan, and the spirits of this age that would love to undo our marriages. 

Sola Deo Gloria, dss