Marriage

Preposterous!

I never thought I’d actually get to say these two words out loud or even type them — “Christian pornography”.

Wow!

Mind you, that “wow” I’m exhaling is not done in joyful excitement, but in total despair that the Church is sliding further and further into complete apostasy.

I think this is the lowest point ever and we should all have seen it coming, really — what with all the initial pushes at the boundaries of good sense with churches distributing flyers in neighborhoods shouting (without shame, I might add) programs at church to realize (to paraphrase the title of a popular book) “Your Best Sex Now!” and even “sex challenges” where married couples are encouraged to have sex everyday for 30 days while singles try to abstain for the same period of time.

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Joseph -- perhaps the most under-rated man in the Bible

Have you ever wondered who the most under-rated man in the Bible is? It certainly isn’t John, or Joshua, or James, but his name also begins with a “J” when anglicized.

Here’s who: Joseph.

No, no, not the Joseph who served the Egyptian pharaoh and therefore saved his father Jacob and his own family from famine, but the Joseph who married Mary and fathered other children with her, among whom is James the half-brother of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I mean, this man Joseph is seldom mentioned in sermons on obedience though I think he must have been one of the most obedient servants. When he was asked to marry Mary, his betrothed who was then with child, he didn’t say “no”. Neither did he refuse to flee to Egypt when told to do so.

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Florida Pastor Issues 30-Day Sex Challenge for Congregation

Marriage, Sex, and Intimacy

A Florida church has issued a challenge to all singles and married couples in the congregation — that singles go without sex for 30 days while married couples go at it everyday for the same period.

I don’t know about you but I think somehow there’s an implication that the church doesn’t bat an eyelid about singles having sex after those 30 days.

“Our married people are far more fearful than our single people,” said Paul Wirth, the pastor.

As well they should be! Run, Forrest, run!

In other news, this is interesting to me because of my own take on Biblical prophecy:

Rome’s Mayor: UN and Pope For ‘United Religion’

Walter Veltroni today resigned as mayor of Rome to focus exclusively on his campaign to become Italy’s prime minister in the April national election. In his goodbye to the press, Veltroni talked about “a place where religions can meet and talk”.

No prizes for guessing correctly where that might be: Rome.

“I have discussed the idea to make Rome a place where a building could be constructed that would be called ‘United Religion’ with the secretary-general of the UN and the Pope; it would be a place for all religions in the world. I would like to see this idea carried out and to see this place of exchange between several religions”.

HT: Watcher’s Lamp.

Photo “This Kiss” by Rachel Sian.

Who would have thought that the joke that my wife always loves to use on me when I’d inevitably get lost while driving would have made it as a comic?

Yes, she’d always tell me that the reason why Moses was in the 40 years in the desert with the Israelites was because he, being a man, would not stop to ask for directions.

I don’t think I’m alone in this, am I? Not asking for directions is a manly trait that runs across all cultures, I say!

And I’m not about to become one of those sissy men culled into stopping the car and asking for directions just because my wife says so. Who cares if we are lost and petrol isn’t cheap anymore? We’ll get you there in time even though it does look like we’re horribly lost now.

Have a good laugh for the weekend, and Shabbat Shalom!

Footnote to the husbands out there: Heeding my tongue-in-cheek advice can land you in rather hot soup. Self-preservation behavior, including stopping the car to ask for directions, is highly recommended.

HT: Way of the Master Radio.

More often than not, people find talking about sex with Christians inappropriate, or are just plain uncomfortable doing so because they have this image in their heads that the Christian will turn judgmental and think them ‘dirty-minded’.

Little wonder, then, that even within Christian circles, sex is a subject that is seldom broached, much less between married couples and their pastors or church elders.

The fact of the matter is that sex is not dirty, and especially not within the context of marriage! As a certain singer once sang, and I’ll apply it loosely here to marital sex, “sex is natural, sex is fun, sex is best one on one”.

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Marriage -- ordained by God

In Part One, we learned that marriage is an institution ordained by God from the very beginning, when Eve was made a help for Adam as God knew that it was no good for man to be alone.

In this second part, we’ll look at the gender roles for men and women in a marriage as instructed in the Bible.

Husbands

Perhaps the most important passage in the Bible on the role of the husband in a marriage is found in Ephesians 5:23 –

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.

Ephesians 5:23

That sets the tone for any marriage. The husband is the head of the family, just as Christ Jesus is the head of the church.

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In today’s world where we read and hear of failed marriages leading to divorces, adultery and of couples that no longer communicate, it’s time to take a step back and see what God intended for men and women in the institution of marriage.

What most married couples don’t realize is that God has ordained separate and distinct roles for men and women in a marriage, and that it is exactly this failure to recognize and fulfill their roles that most couples end their marriages citing irreconcilable differences.

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