A Message to Itchy Ears

Power spoken word piece on churches going after things other than sound doctrine:

Kathy Keller on Christian Marriage

Don't Take It from Me: Reasons You Should Not Marry an Unbeliever

Over the course of our ministry, the most common pastoral issue that Tim and I have confronted is probably marriages---either actual or proposed---between Christians and non-Christians. I have often thought how much simpler it would be if I could remove myself from the conversation and invite those already married to unbelievers do the talking to singles who are desperately trying to find a loophole that would allow them to marry someone who does not share their faith.

That way, I could skip all the Bible passages that urge singles only to "marry in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 7:39) and not "be unequally yoked" (2 Corinthians 6:14) and the Old Testament proscriptions against marrying the foreigner, a worshiper of a god other than the God of Israel (see Numbers 12 where Moses marries a woman of another race but the same faith). You can find those passages in abundance, but when someone has already allowed his or her heart to become engaged with a person outside the faith, I find that the Bible has already been devalued as the non-negotiable rule of faith and practice.

Instead, variants of the serpent's question to Eve---"Did God really say?" are floated, as if somehow this case might be eligible for an exemption, considering how much they love each other, how the unbeliever supports and understands the Christian's faith, how they are soul-mates despite the absence of a shared soul-faith.

Having grown weary and impatient, I want to snap and say, "It won't work, not in the long run. Marriage is hard enough when you have two believers who are completely in harmony spiritually. Just spare yourself the heartache and get over it." Yet such harshness is neither in line with the gentleness of Christ, nor convincing.

Sadder and Wiser

If only I could pair those sadder and wiser women---and men---who have found themselves in unequal marriages (either by their own foolishness or due to one person finding Christ after the marriage had already occurred) with the blithely optimistic singles who are convinced that their passion and commitment will overcome all obstacles. Even the obstacle of bald disobedience need not apply to them. Only ten minutes of conversation---one minute if the person is really succinct--would be necessary. In the words of one woman who was married to a perfectly nice man who did not share her faith: "If you think you are lonely before you get married, it's nothing compared to how lonely you can be AFTER you are married!"

Really, this might be the only effective pastoral approach: to find a man or woman who is willing to talk honestly about the difficulties of the situation and invite them into a counseling ministry with the about-to-make-a-big-mistake unequal couple. As an alternative, perhaps some creative filmmaker would be willing to run around the country, filming individuals who are living with the pain of being married to an unbeliever, and create a montage of 40 or 50 short (< 5 minutes) first-hand accounts. The collective weight of their stories would be powerful in a way that no second-hand lecture ever would be.

Three True Outcomes

For the moment, though, here goes: There are only three ways an unequal marriage can turn out, (and by unequal I am willing to stretch a point and include genuine, warm Christians who want to marry an in-name-only Christian, or someone very, very far behind them in Christian experience and growth):

1. In order to be more in sync with your spouse, the Christian will have to push Christ to the margins of his or her life. This may not involve actually repudiating the faith, but in matters such as devotional life, hospitality to believers (small group meetings, emergency hosting of people in need), missionary support, tithing, raising children in the faith, fellowship with other believers---those things will have to be minimized or avoided in order to preserve peace in the home.
2. Alternatively, if the believer in the marriage holds on to a robust Christian life and practice, the non-believing PARTNER will have to be marginalized. If he or she can't understand the point of Bible study and prayer, or missions trips, or hospitality, then he or she can't or won't participate alongside the believing spouse in those activities. The deep unity and oneness of a marriage cannot flourish when one partner cannot fully participate in the other person's most important commitments.
3. So either the marriage experiences stress and breaks up; or it experiences stress and stays together, achieving some kind of truce that involves one spouse or the other capitulating in some areas, but which leaves both parties feeling lonely and unhappy.

Does this sound like the kind of marriage you want? One that strangles your growth in Christ or strangles your growth as a couple, or does both? Think back to that off-cited passage in 2 Corinthians 6:14 about being "unequally yoked." Most of us no longer live in an agrarian culture, but try to visualize what would happen if a farmer yoked together, say, an ox and a donkey. The heavy wooden yoke, designed to harness the strength of the team, would be askew, as the animals are of different heights, weights, walk at different speeds and with different gaits. The yoke, instead of harnessing the power of the team to complete the task, would rub and chafe BOTH animals, since the load would be distributed unequally. An unequal marriage is not just unwise for the Christian, it is also unfair to the non-Christian, and will end up being a trial for them both.

Our Experience

Full disclosure: One of our sons began spending time a few years back with a secular woman from a Jewish background. He heard us talk about the sorrows (and disobedience) of being married to a non-Christian for years, so he knew it wasn't an option (something we reminded him of quite forcefully). Nevertheless, their friendship grew and developed into something more. To his credit, our son told her: "I can't marry you unless you are a Christian, and you can't become a Christian just to marry me. I'll sit with you in church, but if you are serious about exploring Christianity you will have to do it on your own---find your own small group, read books, talk to people other than me."

Fortunately, she is a woman of great integrity and grit, and she set herself to looking into the truth claims of the Bible. As she grew closer to saving faith, to our surprise our son began growing in his faith in order to keep up with her! She said to me one day, "You know, your son should never have been seeing me!"

She did come to faith, and he held the water when she was baptized. The next week he proposed, and they have been married for two and a half years, both growing, both struggling, both repenting. We love them both and are so grateful that she is both in our family and also in the body of Christ.

I only mention the above personal history because so many of our friends in the ministry have seen different outcomes---children who marry outside the faith. The takeaway lesson for me is that even in pastoral homes, where the things of God are taught and discussed, and where children have a pretty good window on seeing their parents counsel broken marriages, believing children toy with relationships that grow deeper than they expect, ending in marriages that don't always have happy endings. If this is true in the families of Christian leaders, what of the flock?

We need to hear the voices of men and women who are in unequal marriages and know to their sorrow why it is not merely a disobedient choice, but an unwise one.

Kathy Keller serves as assistant director of communications for Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. She is co-author with her husband, Tim, of The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God.

Counterfeit Sanctification

by John MacArthur

Sanctification isn’t easy—it takes faithfulness, hard work, and self-discipline. And even then, it’s not purely a function of your will, but the work of the Holy Spirit in you. It’s not manufactured overnight.

As with anything that takes time, effort, and patience, people are prone to look for shortcuts. Some people substitute a mystical, subjective feeling of closeness to God for actual spiritual growth. Others cling to outward expressions of godliness while sin still makes a home in their hearts.

But that’s not true spiritual growth—it’s counterfeit. If you truly love the Lord, you can’t be willing to move the goalposts on biblical sanctification.

There are many varieties of counterfeit sanctification. Some are easier to spot than others, but all lead to the same kind of spiritual shipwreck. Here are a few to be on the lookout for in your own life.

Moral virtue can often pass for true spiritual growth. Some people, for varying reasons, are fair minded, loyal, kind, conscientious, hardworking, and generous. They can make it through life without scandals and outrageous immorality.

But morality alone isn’t an accurate measure of a person’s spiritual condition. Moral virtue can exist apart from sanctification—even apart from salvation. You’ve probably known nonbelievers who hold to a high moral standard, perhaps even higher than some believers. But their virtue isn’t a substitute for saving faith. Outward morality doesn’t always equate to inward transformation. True spiritual growth isn’t just about good exteriors.

Another counterfeit of spiritual growth is religious superstition. Some believers methodically go through the motions of their daily Scripture reading, prayer times, and other practical spiritual disciplines as if the actions themselves merited God’s favor and blessing. You even see this attitude in little things, like praying before a meal. It becomes a mindless, empty ritual instead of an opportunity to express real thanks and praise to God.

The Catholic faith is built on exactly those kinds of superstitious rituals. But just as lighting candles, sprinkling holy water, praying the rosary, and confessing your sins to a priest don’t earn salvation, going through the motions of your Christian life—even fastidiously—cannot substitute for true spiritual growth.

Restraint is another possible kind of counterfeit sanctification. People don’t always avoid sin in favor of righteousness—sometimes they’re simply afraid to face the consequences of sin. They don’t necessarily have a heart to obey God or His Word. They’re just afraid of pursuing temptation because of the results.

That fear could be the sign of a well-trained conscience. Maybe the person was raised in a Christian home and has built-in convictions about right and wrong. Maybe he grew up under the moral standard of God’s Word and can’t shake the nagging of his conscience. Rather than face a troubled conscience or the consequences of his sin, he’ll simply not do it.

Restraint from sin might eventually lead someone to true, saving faith. But on its own, it’s not an indication of God’s sanctifying work.

There’s one other category of counterfeit sanctification that we’ll call false profession. You’ve probably known people who parade their holiness and exhibit a kind of over-the-top, superficial religiosity. There are all kinds of ways to draw attention to yourself and your good behavior. But if you’re just putting on a show for others—if your outward holiness isn’t prompted by inward growth—then your holiness is phony.

Another example of false profession is the kind of subjective, mystical experience that’s emphasized by some in the spiritual formation movement. Feeling closer to God and more in tune with His Word is not an accurate measure of your sanctification. In fact, relying on those superficial emotions is a sure way to short-circuit the work of the Holy Spirit in your life, dulling your discernment and watering down your wisdom.

True sanctification isn’t about outward morality, religious observance, restraint from sin, superficial holiness, or your feelings (1 Samuel 16:7). It’s about growing in Christlikeness in all aspects of your life. Anything less is a counterfeit.

Center Church by Tim Keller

HAPPY MONDAY!!

If you have an hour to spare... this is a great video!

Interview with TK

Eric Metaxas and Tim Keller "Fireside Chat" from Brian McGee on Vimeo.

Why Catechesis Now?

The church in Western culture today is experiencing a crisis of holiness. To be holy is to be "set apart," different, living life according to God's Word and story, not according to the stories that the world tells us are the meaning of life. The more the culture around us becomes post- and anti-Christian the more we discover church members in our midst, sitting under sound preaching, yet nonetheless holding half-pagan views of God, truth, and human nature, and in their daily lives using sex, money, and power in very worldly ways. It's hard to deny what J. I. Packer and Gary Parrett write:

Superficial smatterings of truth, blurry notions about God and godliness, and thoughtlessness about the issues of living---careerwise, communitywise, familywise, and churchwise---are all too often the marks of evangelical congregations today (Grounded in the Gospel: Building Believers the Old-Fashioned Way, 16).

This is not the first time the church in the West has lived in such a deeply non-Christian cultural environment. In the first several centuries the church had to form and build new believers from the ground up, teaching them comprehensive new ways to think, feel, and live in every aspect of life. They did this not simply through preaching and lectures, but also through catechesis. Catechesis was not only for children, but also for adult converts and even for leaders---all of whom were grounded in gospel truth by mastering, in dialogical community, material composed for their particular capacities and needs.

In the heyday of the Reformation, church leaders in Europe again faced a massive pedagogical challenge. How could they re-shape the lives of people who had grown up in the medieval church? The answer was, again, many catechisms produced for all ages and stages of life. Martin Luther and John Calvin both produced two, as did John Owen. The Puritan Richard Baxter produced three.

Almost Complete Loss

But in the evangelical Christian world today the practice of catechesis, particularly among adults, has been almost completely lost. Modern discipleship programs are usually superficial when it comes to doctrine. Even systematic Bible studies can be weak in drawing doctrinal conclusions. In contrast, catechisms take students step by step through the Apostles' Creed, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord's Prayer---a perfect balance of biblical theology and doctrine, practical ethics, and spiritual experience.

Catechesis is an intense way of doing instruction. The catechetical discipline of memorization drives concepts in deep, encouraging meditation on truth. It also holds students more accountable to master the material than do other forms of education. Some ask: why fill children's heads---or for that matter, new converts'---with concepts like "the glory of God" that they cannot grasp well? The answer is that it creates biblical categories in our minds and hearts where they act as a foundation, to be gradually built upon over the years with new insights from more teaching, reading, and experiences. Catechesis done with young children helps them think in biblical categories almost as soon as they can reason. Such instruction, one old writer said, is like firewood in a fireplace. Without the fire---the Spirit of God---firewood will not in itself produce a warming flame. But without fuel there can be no fire either, and that is what catechetical instruction provides.

Catechesis is also different from listening to a sermon or lecture---or reading a book---in that it is deeply communal and participatory. The practice of question-answer recitation brings instructors and students into a naturally interactive, dialogical process of learning. It creates true community as teachers help students---and students help each other---understand and remember material. Parents catechize their children. Church leaders catechize new members with shorter catechisms and new leaders with more extensive ones. All of this systematically builds relationships. In fact, because of the richness of the material, catechetical questions and answers may be incorporated into corporate worship itself, where the church as a body can confess their faith and respond to God with praise.

Our people desperately need richer, more comprehensive instruction. Returning to catechesis---now---is one important way to give it.

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/10/11/why-catechesis-now/

GGCEM 2012

The Burpo-Malarkey Doctrine

Thursday, October 18, 2012

by Phil Johnson

It's odd and troubling that the best-selling evangelical book of the past decade is a fanciful account of heaven spun from the imagination of a four-year-old boy. (Believe it or not, The Purpose-Driven Life and The Prayer of Jabez are both now more than a decade old.) Peddling fiction about the afterlife as non-fiction is the current Next Big Thing in the world of evangelical publishing.

Heaven is for Real, by Todd Burpo, tells the story of Burpo's son, Colton, who says he visited heaven while anesthetized for an appendectomy at age 4. Colton, now 13, says in heaven he got a halo and real wings (though they were too small for his liking). He also claims he sat on Jesus' lap while the angels sang to him; he saw Mary standing beside Jesus' throne; and he met the Holy Spirit (who, according to Colton, is "kind of blue").

More than seven million copies of this book are now in circulation, and the publisher has been assembling a sizable catalogue of spin-off products, including a planned movie version (to be produced by televangelist/prosperity preacher T. D. Jakes).

That book is not to be confused with The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven, by Kevin Malarkey—another runaway best-seller. Malarkey's book is about his son Alex, who at age 6 was nearly killed (and left permanently paralyzed) in a devastating automobile accident. In the immediate aftermath, and then during his rehabilitation, Alex says he made multiple trips to heaven and back.

The Malarkeys' version of heaven is considerably darker and not as full of details as the Burpos'. "There is a hole in outer Heaven," Alex says. "That hole goes to hell." The devil evidently uses this portal freely, because he is a major figure in Alex Malarkey's description of paradise. Alex says he has personally seen Satan many times, first at the accident scene and then later in heaven.

Indeed, this is perhaps the most vivid part of Alex Malarkey's whole account: "The devil's mouth is funny looking, with only a few moldy teeth. And I've never noticed any ears. His body has a human form, with two bony arms and two bony legs. He has no flesh on his body, only some moldy stuff. His robes are torn and dirty. I don't know about the color of the skin or robes—it's all just too scary to concentrate on these things!"

Those books are part of a burgeoning genre, currently one of the hottest trends in publishing: imaginative tales purporting to be eyewitness accounts of heaven and the afterlife. (Blogger Tim Challies has labeled the genre "Heaven Tourism," candidly dismissing one bestseller in the category as "pure junk, fiction in the guise of biography, paganism in the guise of Christianity.")

Examples of these works include My Journey to Heaven: What I Saw and How It Changed My Life, by Marvin J. Besteman; Flight to Heaven: A Plane Crash . . .A Lone Survivor . . .A Journey to Heaven—and Back, by Dale Black; To Heaven and Back: A Doctor's Extraordinary Account of Her Death, Heaven, Angels, and Life Again: A True Story, by Mary Neal; 90 Minutes in Heaven: A True Story of Death and Life, by Don Piper; Nine Days In Heaven, by Dennis Prince; 23 Minutes In Hell: One Man's Story About What He Saw, Heard, and Felt in that Place of Torment, by Bill Wiese; and many others. Several of these titles have appeared on various bestseller lists, and most of them are still riding high.

This is not a totally new phenomenon. Various survivors of near-death experiences have been publishing gnostic insights about the afterlife for at least two decades. Betty Eadie's Embraced by the Light was number one on the New York Times Bestseller List exactly 20 years ago. The success of that book unleashed an onslaught of similar tales, nearly all of them with strong New Age and occult overtones. So psychics and new-agers have been making hay with stories like these for at least two decades.

What's different about the current crop of afterlife testimonies is that they are being eagerly sought and relentlessly cranked out by evangelical publishers. They are bought and devoured by millions who would describe themselves as born-again Bible-believing Christians. Every book I have named in the above list comes from an ostensibly evangelical source. Many of them are old-guard mainstream ECPA publishers, not vanity presses or dilettantes from the charismatic fringe.

These books are coming out with such frequency that it is virtually impossible to read and review them all. But that shouldn't even be necessary. No true evangelical ought to be tempted to give such tales any credence whatsoever, no matter how popular they become. One major, obvious problem is that these books don't even agree with one another. They give contradictory descriptions of heaven and thus cannot possibly have any cumulative long-term effect other than the sowing of confusion and doubt.

But the larger issue is one no authentic believer should miss: the whole premise behind every one of these books is contrary to everything Scripture teaches about heaven.

In an upcoming book dealing with this subject, John MacArthur says,

For anyone who truly believes the biblical record, it is impossible to resist the conclusion that these modern testimonies—with their relentless self-focus and the relatively scant attention they pay to the glory of God—are simply untrue. They are either figments of the human imagination (dreams, hallucinations, false memories, fantasies, and in the worst cases, deliberate lies), or else they are products of demonic deception.

We know this with absolute certainty, because Scripture definitively says that people do not go to heaven and come back: "Who has ascended to heaven and come down?" (Proverbs 30:4). Answer: "No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man" (John 3:13, emphasis added). All the accounts of heaven in Scripture are visions, not journeys taken by dead people. And even visions of heaven are very, very rare in Scripture. You can count them all on one hand.

Only four authors in all the Bible were blessed with visions of heaven and wrote about what they saw: the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel, and the apostles Paul and John. Two other biblical figures—Micaiah and Stephen—got glimpses of heaven, but what they saw is merely mentioned, not described (2 Chronicles 18:18; Acts 7:55). As Pastor MacArthur points out, all of these were prophetic visions, not near-death experiences. Not one person raised from the dead in the Old or New Testaments ever recorded for us what he or she experienced in heaven. That includes Lazarus, who spent four days in the grave.

Paul was caught up into heaven in an experience so vivid he said he didn't know whether he went there bodily or not, but he saw things that are unlawful to utter, so he gave no details. He covered the whole incident in just three verses (2 Corinthians 12:2-4).

All three biblical writers who saw heaven and described their visions give comparatively sparse details, but they agree perfectly (Isaiah 6:1-4; Ezekiel 1 and 10; Revelation 4-6). They don't agree with the Burpo-Malarkey version of heaven. Both their intonation and the details they highlight are markedly different. The biblical authors are all fixated on God's glory, which defines heaven and illuminates everything there. They are overwhelmed, chagrined, petrified, and put to silence by the sheer majesty of God's holiness. Notably missing from all the biblical accounts are the frivolous features and juvenile attractions that seem to dominate every account of heaven currently on the bestseller lists.

Every week, I answer e-mails and inquiries from evangelicals who are confused by the barrage of afterlife travelogues. Why Christians who profess to believe the Bible would find these stories the least bit compelling is an utter mystery, but it is a sure sign that many in the evangelical movement have abandoned their evangelical convictions. Specifically, they have relinquished the principle of sola Scriptura and lost their confidence in the sufficiency of Scripture. Why else would they turn from clear biblical teaching on heaven and seek an alternative view in mystical experiences that bear no resemblance to what Scripture tells us?

This trend away from biblical authority was even noted earlier this week by a secular reporter in The New York Post. Consider the implications of this quotation:

Lynn Vincent, who ghost-wrote "Heaven is for Real" on behalf of the young boy Colton Burpo and his father, said that she was initially reluctant to include Colton's description of people in heaven having wings. "If I put that people in Heaven have wings, orthodox Christians are going to think that the book is a hoax." She did and they didn't.

Evangelical readers' discernment skills are at an all-time low, and that is why books like these proliferate. Despite the high profile, high sales figures, and high dollar amounts Christian publishers can milk from a trend such as this, it doesn't bode well for the future of Christian publishing—or for the future of the evangelical movement.

Watch for an all-new edition of John MacArthur's classic book The Glory of Heaven coming from Crossway next spring. The book will include thorough critiques of Heaven Is for Real and The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven, plus extended evaluations of a few other bestsellers in the same vein. More importantly, it gives a thorough exposition of what Scripture teaches about heaven.

Spoiler alert: Heaven's a lot more glorious than any of these current bestsellers suggest.


http://www.gty.org/Blog/B121018 

John MacArthur and John Piper

Johnny Mac on Twilight

God Is Most Glorified In Us When We Are Most Satisfied In Him

Keller on Christian Marriage

Do you know who John Stott is??

Tim Keller at Veritas Forum

Are you a universalist?

How to Use the Hammer: Understanding the Proper Role of Government

WOW! Great read!!

Government will be most successful, Milton Friedman contended, when it acts as an umpire or referee enforcing the formal procedural rules of the game. When it begins to attempt to affect substantive outcomes through active interference, it sets citizens against each other and threatens the social cohesion necessary for the broader society. [1]

The formal rules government should make and enforce can be found in the fundamental purposes of law. None of us is free if we do not have basic justice and order. Martin Luther wrote in On Secular Authority that men and women need a lawful order in the same way they need food, air, and water. [2]  When we read news accounts about people living in zones of extreme oppression and lawlessness such as have existed in Sudan due to ethnic hatreds or in Mexico because of drug cartels, we realize that the innocent men and women living in those places cannot do much more than survive. They cannot build any kind of a life, because whatever they do can be destroyed or stolen at any time. Surely, the most common denominator of justice is preventing and punishing freedom-destroying evil perpetrated by those who do not recognize even the most basic duties of human beings toward each other. If a government cannot accomplish this goal, then we call it a failed state.
Recognizing this reality, Luther construed the Sermon on the Mount to mean that the Christian must suffer any assault or insult to his person but should always act to protect his neighbor. Government has been ordained in order to restrain predatory, evil men and to prevent them from victimizing everyone else. On that logic, a Christian could certainly serve under the government, and even take men's lives when acting with authority to protect the innocent. [3]
This reasoning leads to the conclusion that those who do wrong make themselves justly vulnerable to restraint, coercion, and correction by the state. If some men by their unrighteous acts have made themselves fit subjects for coercion and restraint, then what does that say about those who do not commit wrongs against others? The logical corollary is that those who do not commit wrongs should be largely free and uncoerced. They have earned that right because they govern themselves. In other words, if one does justice to others by not harming them through force or fraud, then one should be able to live largely free of government coercion and expect protection from wrongful coercion by others.

 

The Primacy of Justice

Why do I start with the punishment of evil and reason back to the freedom deserved by those who do not do wrong? The reason is that we more readily identify justice through its violation and remedy than we do through positive visions. We know when we have suffered an injustice that requires a remedy. We are far less certain about whether positive conditions of justice have been met. The common basis of justice is understood in its breach.
Order, justice, and freedom are clearly related. Justice results from enforcing a moral order, which protects the freedom of human beings from malignant interference. We are able to live together in peace and freedom with the government standing by to exercise coercion and restraint upon those who would do wrong.
What about equality, which is also associated with justice? The most realistic kind of equality we can achieve is equality before the law. Every citizen should be able to expect the same treatment by the government. Liberty and protection for him who lives rightly. Coercion and punishment for him who does wrong.
Is there justice enough in providing equality before the law, freedom, and protection from those who would do evil? Many who struggle in ungodly disorder ruled by the strong would jump at the chance to make a life under such conditions. They yearn for their officials to enforce the peace. As these oppressed people hope for justice, they are looking for the government to perform its God-given function in restraining these evil men who willfully commit murder and foment mayhem in local communities. Justice will be done when the government puts down this satanic rebellion against both earthly and heavenly kingdoms.
But others would earnestly reject such a conception of justice (and the corresponding role for government) as too limited. Equality before the law is not enough, they might say, because it results in substantial inequalities in the experience of life. They are right to be concerned but wrong to pin their hopes primarily on government. The special nature of government is found in its legal monopoly on the use of coercive force. Such a unique weapon should be used only when it is clearly justified.

 

Attractions and Problems of Social Justice

Where I have left things so far will be a source of great frustration to many well-intentioned people. Michael Sandel, professor and teacher of the famous "Justice" course at Harvard, would likely be one of them. He divides political thought into two primary camps. One is based on the abstract, choosing self that guards freedom of decision and action fairly zealously against the notion of group-imposed duties. The other proceeds from the situated self that fully accepts the great solidarity it should feel with other selves in a community and should easily accept non-consensual duties that attach for no greater reason than that one is part of a particular group of people at a certain time. Community is like family in this account. [4]  The situated self, in this account, should feel a Bobby Kennedy-esque drive to use government to redistribute wealth for the good of the community.
Christians who push for collectivist ideals of social justice are, I think, motivated by this account of the situated self who sees himself wedded in solidarity with other members of the community and very much ready to put the government in service of this bond. The partisans of the situated self do not view redistributive taxation and the social control of business as potentially dangerous coercion. Rather, they see virtue at work. For Christians, this view can be very attractive and it has proven so for young evangelicals, especially.
If the situation were as Sandel presents it (basically an either/or between a cold, impersonal freedom and a rich, warm-hearted nicely coercive government), then I would probably feel constrained to opt for the latter choice. But I believe that Sandel commits an error by putting the burden of social solidarity on law and government. What if government is very good at providing the more limited type of peace, order, and justice to which I referred earlier, and is much less good at creating the conditions for some kind of idyllic vision of justice between persons that requires continuous government intervention and readjustment of circumstances? What if other strategies could be placed in the service of civic affection and solidarity?

 

What Is the Role of Government?

One of the great questions of political philosophy has been whether government should concern itself primarily with small government in the form of something like a mutual defense alliance or if it should instead be far more ambitious about achieving some great dream for all people. The question, it turns out, is a false one. Government is armed with the powers of coercion and force because it must be in order to do the job God has given it, to frustrate the designs of those who would do evil. The broader society does not necessarily require those same weapons in order to achieve its goals. Nor is the use of those weapons well-justified in many instances. We should be far more keen to work in the voluntary sector than in the coercive one.
This is not merely a call to a more ingenious strategy of non-profit organization. Our non-governmental options start at a much more basic level. We occupy many special offices in this life. The offices are things such as son, daughter, brother, sister, husband, wife, father, mother, grandparent, uncle, aunt, cousin, neighbor. How many of our problems could be addressed by simple faithfulness to the tasks presented to us by the nature of these offices? And how many of them could be addressed by the church in better ways than calling for enormous government programs, thus inviting a hammer into places where warm hearts and hands would better serve?
Let the force of law serve where it works best and let the rest of us accept the heavy, but ultimately joyful, burdens that attach to life as a responsible human being. And let the church preach in such a way that we recognize and act upon our responsibilities rather than relying on the magic of some bureaucratic plan to relieve us of them.

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/10/15/how-to-use-the-hammer-understanding-the-proper-role-of-government/

10 Reasons Why God Allows Suffering

Jared Wilson, in Gospel Deeps, writes that “while we may not be satisfied with what God has revealed about his purposes in suffering, we cannot justifiably say he has not revealed anything about his purposes in suffering. We may not have the answer we are laboring for, but we do have a wealth of answers that lie in the same field.”

Here’s an outline of ten reasons he identifies in God’s Word:

1. To remind us that the world is broken and groans for redemption [Rom. 8:20-23].
2. To do justice in response to Adam’s (and our) sin.
3. To remind us of the severity of the impact of Adam’s (and our) sin.
4. To keep us dependent on God [Heb. 12:6-7].
5. So that we will long more for heaven and less for the world.
6. To make us more like Christ, the suffering servant [Rom. 8:29; 2 Cor. 1:5, 4:11].
7. To awaken the lost to their need for God [Ps. 119:67, 71].
8. To make the bliss of heaven more sweet [Rom. 8:18; 1 Pet. 4:13; Ps. 126:5; Isa. 61:3].
9. So that Christ will get the glory in being our strength [John 9:3; 2 Cor. 4:7].
10. And so that, thereby, others see that he is our treasure, and not ourselves [2 Cor. 4:8-9].

See Jared C. Wilson, Gospel Deeps: Reveling in the Excellencies of Jesus (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), pp. 114-120 for an elaboration of each point.

Gospel for the defeated

Another great article from GC website! :)

written by: Tullian Tchivdjian

Freedom In Smallness

The world tells us in a thousand different ways that the bigger we become, the freer we will be. The richer, the more beautiful, and the more powerful we grow, the more security, liberty, and happiness we will experience. And yet, the gospel tells us just the opposite, that the smaller we become, the freer we will be. This may sound at first like bad news, but it could not be better news!

In the Bible, slavery is equated with self-reliance. Self dependence, the burden of depending on yourself and controlling your circumstances to ensure meaning and security, safety and significance. But as we know, the burden of self-determination is enormous. When your meaning, your significance, your security, your protection, your safety are all riding on you, it actually feels like slavery. People seldom “choose” to embezzle money; they feel like they have to if they are to uphold whatever law they live under. That is, they equate their value with some attribute or ability—what others think of them, how much is in their bank account, their relative stature in their community—and without that attribute or ability, they cease to matter. There is no “them” without “that,” and so they do whatever they can to ensure they don’t lose it!

This is a burden we were never meant to bear, and yet after the fall, self-reliance became our default mode of operation. Mine as well as yours. You might even call it our inheritance. In our exile from Eden, we naturally tend toward self-reliance.

Fortunately, God does not leave us there. God wants to free us from ourselves, and there’s nothing like suffering to show us that we need something bigger than our abilities and our strength and our explanations. There’s nothing like suffering to remind us how not in control we actually are, how little power we ultimately have, and how much we ultimately need God. In other words, suffering reveals to us the things that ultimately matter, which also happens to be the warp and woof of Christianity: who we are and who God is.

In 1990, media mogul Ted Turner announced to an audience at the American Humanist Association that “Christianity is a religion for losers.” Instead of humbly and heartily affirming Turner’s sentiment and perhaps using it as a potential springboard for evangelism, the Christian community got angry. Even now, Turner’s judgment causes some people to bristle.

But Turner was exactly right!

The gospel is for the defeated, not the dominant. But his self-righteous tone was 100 percent wrong. That is, he was saying something true about God, but his success had clearly buffered him from understanding himself honestly and accurately. In view of God’s holiness, we are all losers (Rom. 3:23). We are all sufferers. We are all sinners. The distinction between winners and losers is irrelevant when no one can claim victory.

Instead, the gospel is for those who have realized that they can’t carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. Only when God drives us to the end of ourselves do we begin to see life in the gospel. Which is another way of saying that only those who stand in need of a savior will look for or recognize a savior. Fortunately, Christianity in its original, most authentic expression understands God chiefly as savior and human beings chiefly as those in need of being saved.

(Excerpted from my new book Glorious Ruin: How Suffering Sets You Free)

LINK: (http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tullian/2012/10/08/freedom-in-smallness/)

Interesting article on culture, importance of youth, etc...

HAPPY FRIDDDAAYYYY!!! :)

6 Reflections on Protestant Decline in America

Protestants have lost their majority status in the United States, and the number of Americans with no religious affiliation is rising. Those are the two big conclusions of a recently released study of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life in America.

For the first time in American history, the United States does not have a Protestant majority. The adult Protestant population reached a new low of 48 percent. That's down from the 1960s when two in three Americans identified themselves as Protestants. The report records declines in both mainline and evangelical numbers, and that many of these people have joined the ranks of "the Nones," those who say they have no religion (now one in five Americans).

Reading deeper into the study, I wondered about two things. The study counted among the "Nones" those who say they believe in God, pray, and are spiritual but are not religious. I wonder if the study recognized that many evangelical Christians define themselves in this way---we often say (rather simplistically) "our church is not about religion, but about a relationship with God in Christ." I also questioned when the study said the number of Protestants has decreased in part due to the growth of non-denominational churches. I know many non-denominational groups that consider themselves Protestant. And I know many non-denominational groups that do not emphasize being Protestant but still act and believe in Protestant ways. But I also know many non-denominational Christians who really aren't Protestant at all, which makes counting this demographic difficult.

Even so, I do not doubt the broad trend that the Pew study has identified. In fact, the reality may be worse than what the Pew study suggests. In his recent book Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat writes about the slow-motion collapse of traditional Christianity in America. He argues that Christian orthodoxy is losing ground to the many ascendant heresies of our day---new Gnosticism, prosperity gospel, new sects, spiritual narcissism, nationalism, and so on.

Why this trend? The Pew report only touches on a few of the reasons---but all kinds of causes have been suggested: a move away from the gospel, failure of Christians to live out their faith, identifying Christianity too closely with politics, suffocating materialism, the pluralism of our global age, a spiritual but post-Christian worldview pumped to the young through countless new media portals.

This trend does not quite fit the old secularization thesis---that societies become less religious the more modern they become. Spirituality and religious pluralism in America are on the rise. Nor does this trend say anything about the overall decline of Christianity. Because while Christianity is declining in the West, it is growing in the Global South and East.

Cause for Reflection

Nevertheless, American Christian leaders need to reflect long and hard about the trend that Pew is reporting. Here are a few quick observations.

(1) This is another reminder denominationalism is in decline.

Identification with a Protestant label such as Presbyterian or Baptist is no longer valued by many, and in some cases it is seen as a hindrance to Christian witness. That said, I am part of a denomination and think healthy denominations are still quite useful. But I realize that the trend is going in the other direction.

(2) Protestants (even evangelicals) have done a poor job of imprinting our identity on our children.

We have either focused on spiritual vibrancy without catechizing, or catechized without emphasizing spiritual vibrancy. Either way, we have lost ground with our youth. Church leaders need to think doubly hard about how we are going to reach and train up the next generation of Christians. We have to rethink the way we do children's and youth ministry.

(3) There are three wrong responses to this Protestant decline.

One is to batten down the hatches and adopt a fortress mentality when it comes to our culture. Another is to emphasize a lowest common denominator Christianity that insists on as little as possible of Christian truth in order to connect with secular audiences. Still another is to redefine central tenets of the Christian faith and so accommodate the faith to the late modern world.

In contrast to these approaches, I believe we need to affirm a robust orthodox Christianity, even a confessional Christianity, that keeps Christ and the gospel central to everything we do and say. It should be confessional, but center focused; it should be gracious and not doctrinally belligerent on peripheral concerns.

(5) We need to re-examine how we define Christian discipleship in a culture coming apart.

The early Christians might help us here. They were known for their distinct way of life. They could tell others that following Jesus is a better way to live. Perhaps that is why they were called people of "the way." The whole era of the early church is more and more relevant to our new cultural setting. They had the challenge of living for Christ in a pluralistic, pagan, pre-Christian environment. We have the challenge of living for Christ in a pluralistic, neo-pagan, post Christian environment. We can learn a lot from the early church.

(6) Some of us are used to thinking of America in Jerusalem or New Jerusalem-like categories.

Without being postmillennial about it, we grew up with the "city on the hill" image. Yet as our culture changes, some aspects of our society are starting to look a lot more like Babylon than Jerusalem. We are looking more like a mission field than a mission-sending center. In terms of evangelism, we can no longer assume that everyone around us is a theist who can draw on long-forgotten Sunday school lessons. More and more people have no church background at all. All of this means that we really do need to live and think like missionaries as our neighborhoods are populated with Muslims, Mormons, spiritualists, and Nones.

The Pew study is another cultural indicator. Take note of it. Talk about it with other Christian leaders. And get ready for the wonderful yet incredible challenge ahead of us---to be truly Christian in this new environment.

LINK: (http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/10/11/6-reflections-on-protestant-decline-in-america/)

Joni Eareckson Tada

What Did Jesus Do?

"What would Jesus do?" Though these words may bring back memories of WWJD bracelets in the 1990s, the phrase was actually made popular by Charles Sheldon's classic book In His Steps, first published in 1897.

Sheldon's fictional story begins as the Reverend Henry Maxwell, pastor of First Church of Raymond, seeks the quiet solitude of his study at home in order to prepare Sunday's sermon on1 Peter 2:21: "For you were called to this, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps." Maxwell is interrupted when a young man in his early 30s, disheveled, dirty, and homeless comes to his door. Anxious to return to his study, the pastor offers little help and wishes him well.

Much to Maxwell's surprise, the same homeless man stands up to speak to the congregation at the end of the sermon on imitating Christ. He asks: "I was wondering, as I sat there under the gallery, if what you call following Jesus is the same thing as what he taught. What did he mean when he said, 'Follow me?' The minister said . . . that it was necessary for the disciple of Jesus to follow his steps, and he said the steps were obedience, faith, love, and imitation. But I did not hear him tell you just what he meant that to mean, especially the last step. What do Christians mean by following the steps of Jesus?"

While still speaking, the young man collapses to the floor. Maxwell and his wife take him into their home to care for him, but he dies a few days later. Moved by this experience, Maxwell steps into the pulpit on the following Sunday and challenges the congregation: "Our motto will be, 'What would Jesus do?' Our aim will be to act just as he would if he were in our places, regardless of immediate results. In other words, we propose to follow Jesus' steps as closely and as literally as we believe he taught his disciples to do. And those who volunteer to do this will pledge themselves for an entire year, beginning with today, so to act."

Unintended Result

Though the idea of asking what Jesus would do is good, Christians too often apply this "imitation of Christ" only to ethical situations. The unintended result is that Jesus gets reduced to a teacher of morals. Of course, it is true that we are called to imitate Christ. But too often, we don't think carefully about what this imitation looks like and what it will cost us.

Imitation of Christ requires meditation on Christ. If we are to know what it means to follow Christ, then we must seek to study Christ---his life and teaching and, most importantly, his death and resurrection. Therefore, if we are to imitate Christ, we need to ask a different question---not just "What would Jesus do?" but "What has Jesus done?" Once we understand what Jesus has done, we can best understand how to represent him and follow him faithfully. By focusing on what Jesus has done, we will be able to see the bigger picture of God's plan to glorify himself through both the humiliation and exaltation of Jesus Christ.

Asking what Jesus has done also moves us to ask, "Why? Why did Jesus humble himself, becoming obedient, even unto a harsh and shameful death?" By submitting to the Father's will, Jesus revealed the Father's heart of love for his fallen creation. Though we are the rebels in God's story, God has spoken to us of his love, mercy, and grace in Jesus' death. To be sure, God has also spoken to us about his justice and righteousness in Jesus' death as well.

When we realize that God has spoken to us in Jesus Christ, the natural question is, "What will be our response?" The appropriate response, of course, is repentance (turning away from our rebellion and our desire to be our own kings) and faith (turning to Christ, bowing down, and acknowledging him as our King). The good news is that those who trust in Christ are exalted with Christ. However, those who reject Christ's rule will receive the full cup of God's wrath (Col. 3:5-7). So then, the question every person must grapple with is not "What would Jesus do?" but rather "What will you do with Jesus?"

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/10/08/what-did-jesus-do/

True womanhood

HAPPY MONDAY!! :)

This is for all the sisters out there!

You can listen to the audio in this link: http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/conference-messages/the-ultimate-meaning-of-true-womanhood#/listen/full

Message by: John Piper

My aim in this message is to clarify from God’s word the ultimate meaning of true womanhood, and to motivate you, by God’s grace, to embrace it as your highest calling. What I will say is foundational to the “True Woman Manifesto” which I regard as a faithful, clear, true, and wise document.

The Opposite of a Wimpy Woman

I would like to begin by stating one huge assumption that I bring to this task tonight. I mention it partly because it may give you an emotional sense of what I hope you become because of this conference. And I mention it partly because it explains why I minister the way I do and why this message sounds the way it does.

My assumption is that wimpy theology makes wimpy women. And I don’t like wimpy women. I didn’t marry a wimpy woman. And with Noël, I am trying to raise my daughter Talitha, who turns 13 on Saturday, not to be a wimpy woman.

Marie Durant

The opposite of a wimpy woman is not a brash, pushy, loud, controlling, sassy, uppity, arrogant Amazon. The opposite of a wimpy woman is 14-year-old Marie Durant, a French Christian in the 17th century who was arrested for being a Protestant and told she could be released if she said one phrase: “I abjure.” Instead, wrote on the wall of her cell, “Resist,” and stayed there 38 years until she died, doing just that (Karl Olsson, Passion,  [New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1963], 116–117).

Gladys and Esther Staines

The opposite of a wimpy woman is Gladys Staines who in 1999, after serving with her husband Graham in India for three decades learned that he and their two sons, Phillip (10) and Timothy (6), had been set on fire and burned alive by the very people they had served for 34 years, said, “I have only one message for the people of India. I’m not bitter. Neither am I angry. Let us burn hatred and spread the flame of Christ’s love.”

The opposite of a wimpy woman is her 13-year-old daughter Esther (rightly named!) who said, when asked how she felt about her father’s murder, “I praise the Lord that He found my father worthy to die for Him.”

Krista and Vicki

The opposite of a wimpy woman is Krista and Vicki who between them have had over 65 surgeries because of so-called birth defects, Apert Syndrome and Hypertelorism, and whotestify today through huge challenges, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well”; and this: “Even though my life has been difficult, I know that God loves me and created me just the way I am. He has taught me to persevere and to trust Him more than anything.”

Joni Eareckson Tada

The opposite of a wimpy woman is Joni Eareckson Tada who has spent the last 41 years in a wheel chair, and prays, “Oh, thank you, thank you for this wheel chair! By tasting hell in this life, I’ve been driven to think seriously about what faces me in the next. This paralysis is my greatest mercy” (Christianity Today, January, 2004, 50).

Suzie

The opposite of a wimpy woman is Suzie who lost her husband four years ago at age 59, found breast cancer three months later, then lost her mom and writes, “Now I see that I have been crying for the wrong kind of help. I now see, that my worst suffering is my sin—my sin of self-centeredness and self-pity. . . . I know that with His grace, his lovingkindess, and his merciful help, my thoughts can be reformed and my life conformed to be more like His Son.”

Wimpy Theology Makes Wimpy Women

Wimpy theology makes wimpy women. That’s my assumption that I bring to this evening. Wimpy theology simply does not give a woman a God that is big enough, strong enough, wise enough, and good enough to handle the realities of life in away that magnifies the infinite worth of Jesus Christ. Wimpy theology is plagued by woman-centeredness and man-centeredness. Wimpy theology doesn’t have the granite foundation of God’s sovereignty or the solid steel structure of a great God-centered purpose for all things.

The Ultimate Purpose for the Universe

So I turn to my to my main point, the ultimate meaning of true womanhood, and start by stating this great God-centered purpose of all things: God’s ultimate purpose for the universe and for all of history and for your life is to display the glory of Christ in its highest expression, namely, in his dying to make a rebellious people his everlasting and supremely happy bride. To say it another way, God’s ultimate purpose in creating the world and choosing to let it become the sin-wracked world that it is, is so that the greatness of the glory of Christ could be put on display at Calvary where he bought his rebellious bride at the cost of his life.

I base this statement of God’s ultimate purpose on several texts. For example, Revelation 13:8 where John refers to God’s writing names “before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.” So in God’s mind Christ was already slain before the creation of the world. This was his plan from the beginning. Why?

Because in being slain “to make a wretch his treasure”—to make a rebel his bride—the glory of his grace would shine most brightly, and that was his ultimate purpose according toEphesians 1:4–6, “In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ . . .to the praise of the glory of his grace.”

The Glory of Christ at the Cross

From the very beginning, God’s design in creating the universe and governing it the way he does has been to put the glory of his grace on display in the death of his Son for the sake of his bride. “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her . . . . that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:25–27). The ultimate purpose of creation and redemption is to put the glory of Christ on display in purchasing and purifying his bride, the church.

True Womanhood: At the Center of God’s Purpose

Now where does this take us in regard to the ultimate meaning of true womanhood? It does not take us to wimpy theology or wimpy women. It is not wimpy to say that God created the universe and governs all things to magnify his own grace in the death of his Son for the salvation of his bride. That’s not wimpy. And it doesn’t lead to wimpy womanhood.

But it does lead to womanhood. True womanhood. In fact, it leads to the mind-boggling truth that womanhood and manhood—masculinity and femininity—belong at the center of God’s ultimate purpose. Womanhood and manhood were not an afterthought or a peripheral thought in God’s plan. God designed them precisely so that they would serve to display the glory of his Son dying to have his happy, admiring bride.

Created to Display Jesus’ Glory

Genesis 1:27 says, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Sometimes we make the mistake of thinking God created us this way, and then later when Christ came to do his saving work, God looked around and said, “Well, that’s a good analogy, man and woman. I’ll describe my Son’s salvation with that. I’ll say it’s like a husband dying to save his bride.”

It didn’t happen like that. God did not look around and find manhood and womanhood to be a helpful comparison to his Son’s relation to the church. He created us as male and female precisely so that we could display the glory of his Son. Our sexuality is designed for the glory of the Son of God—especially the glory of his dying to have his admiring bride.

In Ephesians 5:31, Paul quotes Genesis 2:24, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” And then he adds this, “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” In other words, from the beginning, manhood and womanhood were designed to display the glory of Christ in his relationship to the church, his bride.

A Distinctive Calling to Display the Glory of Christ

In other words, the ultimate meaning of true womanhood is this: It is a distinctive calling of God to display the glory of his Son in ways that would not be displayed if there were no womanhood. If there were only generic persons and not male and female, the glory of Christ would be diminished in the world. When God described the glorious work of his Son as the sacrifice of a husband for his bride, he was telling us why he made us male and female. He made us this way so that our maleness and femaleness would display more fully the glory of his Son in relation to his blood-bought bride.

This means that if you try to reduce womanhood to physical features and biological functions, and then determine your role in the world merely on the basis of competencies, you don’t just miss the point of womanhood, you diminish the glory of Christ in your own life. True womanhood is indispensable in God’s purpose to display the fullness of the glory of his Son. Your distinctive female personhood is not incidental. It exists because of its God-designed relationship to the central event of history, the death of the Son of God.

So let me say a word about what that looks like if you are married and if you are single.

A Word to the Married

First, a word to the married. Paul says in Ephesians 5:22–24, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.”

The point here is that marriage is meant to display the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church. And the way it does this is by men being men and women being women in marriage. These are no more interchangeable than Christ is interchangeable with the church. Men take their cues from Christ as the head, and women take their cues from what the church is called to be in her allegiance to Christ. This is described by Paul in terms of headship and submission. Here are my definitions of headship and submission based on this text:

• Headship is the divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for Christ-like, servant leadership, protection, and provision in the home.
• Submission is the divine calling of a wife to honor and affirm her husband’s leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts.

The point here is not to go into detail about how this gets worked out from marriage to marriage. The point is that these two, headship and submission, are different. They correspond to true manhood and true womanhood, which are different. And these differences are absolutely essential by God’s design, so that marriage will display, as in a mirror dimly, something of the glory of the sacrificial love of Christ for his bride and the lavish reverence and admiration of the bride for her husband.

I know this leaves a hundred questions unanswered—about unbelieving husbands, and believing husbands who don’t take spiritual leadership, and wives who resist their husbands’ leadership, and those who receive it but don’t affirm it. But if you—you married women—embrace the truth that your womanhood, true womanhood, is uniquely and indispensably created by God to display the glory of his Son in the way you relate to your husband, you will have calling of infinite significance.

But what if you aren’t married?

A Word to Singles

The apostle Paul clearly loved his singleness because of the radical freedom for ministry that it gave him (1 Corinthians 7:32–38). One of the reasons he was free to celebrate his singleness and call others to join him in it, is that, even though marriage is meant to display the glory of Christ, there are truths about Christ and his kingdom that shine more clearly through singleness than through marriage. I’ll give you three examples:

1) A life of Christ-exalting singleness bears witness that the family of God grows not by propagation through sexual intercourse, but by regeneration through faith in Christ. If you never marry, and if you embrace a lifetime of chastity and biological childlessness, and if you receive this from the Lord’s hand as a gift with contentment, and if you gather to yourself the needy and the lonely, and spend yourself for the gospel without self-pity, because Christ has met your need, then he will be mightily glorified in your life, and particularly so because you are a woman.

2) A life of Christ-exalting singleness bears witness that relationships in Christ are more permanent, and more precious, than relationships in families. The single woman who turns away from regretting the absence of her own family, and gives herself to creating God’s family in the church, will find the flowering of her womanhood in ways she never dreamed, and Christ will be uniquely honored because of it.

3) A life of Christ-exalting singleness bears witness that marriage is temporary, and finally gives way to the relationship to which it was pointing all along: Christ and the church—the way a picture is no longer needed when you see face to face. Marriage is a beautiful thing. But it is not the main thing. If it were, Jesus would not have said, “In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (Matthew 22:30). Single womanhood, content to walk with Christ, is a great witness that he is a better husband than any man, and in the end, will be the only husband in the universe.

In other words, true womanhood can flourish in marriage and singleness.

True Womanhood for the Glory of Christ

I commend to you this truth: The ultimate purpose of God in history is the display of the glory of his Son in dying for his bride. God has created man as male and female because there are aspects of Christ’s glory which would not be known if they were not reflected in the complementary differences of manhood and womanhood. Therefore, true womanhood is a distinctive calling of God to display the glory of his Son in ways that would not be displayed if there were no womanhood.

Married womanhood has its unique potential for magnifying Christ that single womanhood does not have. Single womanhood has its unique potential for magnifying Christ which married womanhood does not have.

So whether you marry or remain single, do not settle for a wimpy theology. It is beneath you. God is too great. Christ is too glorious. True womanhood is too strategic. Don’t waste it. Your womanhood—your true womanhood—was made for the glory of Jesus Christ.