Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her… This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Ephesians 5:26, 32-33

What’s so great about marriage?

In reading Ephesians 5:22-33 – perhaps the seminal New Testament passage on the subject of marriage – one could easily conclude that the Apostle Paul had trouble staying on topic. He sets out to teach Christian spouses how to fulfill their roles as husband and wife, but he seems to keep wandering from that point. However, if we’re paying attention we soon realize that this is no mere attempt to provide how-to tips for a successful marriage.

Rather than writing an advice column with practical suggestions for married people, Paul instead explains the significance of marriage from God’s point of view. He moves effortlessly back and forth between discussing the husband/wife relationship on the one hand, and the Christ/Church relationship on the other, blending the two easily as though they were one subject.

Because from God’s perspective, they are.

Come now, let us reason.

From morning till evening he expounded to them, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them… Acts 28:23

A new tack

Christian pro-life activists have begun to take a new tack toward achieving their social and moral objectives. Rather than preach or jeer at pro-choice advocates, they have decided to try to engage them in discussion and debate.

Reversing The Curse (8)

[Jesus] is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. Hebrews 1:3

Unsupervised and impersonal

Sometimes the most innocent looking statements spark huge controversies – something the National Association of Biology Teachers discovered first hand in 1995.

In an apparent attempt to settle the controversy surrounding how biology should be taught in American high schools (can only evolution be taught as the explanation for life’s origins, or is there some role for Intelligent Design in classroom instruction?), the NABT rendered what was intended to be a simple, clear, layman-friendly definition of evolution. The statement described evolution as:  an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is affected by natural selection, historical contingencies and changing environments.

By Matt Guerino|Published Date: May 10, 2010

Reversing The Curse, part 7 of 8: Creation / Environment

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Genesis 1:28

Doomsday

We’ve all encountered plenty of people these past few years who trumpet dire environmental warnings. With public interest heightened by Michael Moore’s film An Inconvenient Truth, former Vice President Al Gore has built a career as a professional environmental Prophet of Doom. He leads a chorus of voices that tell us certain and catastrophic destruction is in store for us at the hands of the environment if we do not radically alter our modern lifestyle. And soon.

Then there was University of Texas biologist Erik Pianka, who said in 2006 that we’re on target for ecological disaster, and the only hope for the human race was to reduce the world’s population by a whopping 90%. (How would we accomplish this “depopulation” – such a sterile term! – I wonder, and who would decide who gets to be included in the lucky 10% who remain?)

And he [Jesus] told them many things in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear.” –- Matthew 13:3-9

On Fairy Stories

In his essay, “Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s to be Said,” C.S. Lewis – Medieval and Renaissance scholar, professor at Oxford and Cambridge, and one of the 20^th century’s most lucid apologists for the Christian faith – explains why he stooped, if you will, to writing fantasy stories:

I wrote fairy tales because the Fairy Tale seemed the ideal Form for the stuff I had to say. Then, of course, the Man in me began to have his turn. I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralysed [sic] much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. An obligation to feel can freeze things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could. [1]

One result of this desire to “steal past those watchful dragons,” of course, is Lewis’ marvelous seven-book series, The Chronicles of Narnia, which continues to delight and teach children of all ages about heroism and cowardice, friendship and betrayal, love and sacrifice, forgiveness and redemption, and such weighty topics as creation, the fall, substitutionary death, salvation, eternal life, and the ultimate triumph of good over evil.[2]

The Jerusalem Council and the Defining Moment

Resisting the poisonous atmosphere

Conflicts rooted in beliefs and values often lead to uncivil engagement. Shifting federal policies and legislation, based on ideological principles, stir emotions. From tirades at Tea Party rallies and on the Glen Beck Show to spontaneous outbursts such as the memorable “You lie!” shout during President Obama’s State of the Union speech, conservatives are venting their displeasure.

On the other hand, liberals seem to prefer ranting ambushes, such as at recent Karl Rove and Ann Coulter events, telling them to shut up. Beginning well before the congressional debates of Bill Clinton’s impeachment, this poisonous atmosphere for expressing views has led to calls for a return to respectful conversation about contentious issues voiced from both the ideological left and right.

Moreover, there is a parallel moment within the Church. Men and women of deep faith also have moments – today is no exception – that test civility in what they hear other (self-identified) Christians say. The issues affecting the Church today are too important for thinking Christians merely to sit on the side-lines.

While questioning the motives and orthodoxy of one another runs the risk of bearing false witness, occasions arise when careful discernment is necessary. This was the case leading up to the Jerusalem Council recorded in Acts 15. This assembly of apostles and people, called to discern the implications of the Gospel as to what was necessary for salvation, provides a pattern for not only the manner in which the deliberations should be conducted but also for the courage to document a clear-cut resolution concerning a pivotal theological issue. But disputants must practice civility as they endeavor to speak the truth in love to one another.