Why our marriages matter

DAILY BIBLE READING:

Deuteronomy 11:1-12:32
Luke 8:22-39
Psalm 70:1-5
Proverbs 12:4

BIBLE VERSE(S) FOR TODAY:

Proverbs 12:4 (CSB) "A wife of noble character is her husband's crown, but a wife who causes shame is like rottenness in his bones."

REFLECTIONS ON TODAY'S BIBLE VERSE(S):

The verse for today is from a guy's perspective. If Proverbs had been written by a woman, it would have said, "A husband of noble character is his wife's crown, but a husband who causes shame is like rottenness in her bones."

I suspect that you realize that many marriages end in divorce and many that remain intact feel like their spouses are "rottenness to (their) bones."

That is so sad especially in light of the fact that Ephesians 5:22-33 tells us that our marriages illustrate the Gospel to a lost world. Our marriages should reveal how Jesus sacrificially loves us and we trust and respect Him so much that we gladly follow his leadership.

A marriage that has any "rottenness" in it is doing harm to the Gospel!

As a follower of Jesus, we don't have the luxury of coasting in our marriage. It takes work. It takes sacrifice. It takes humility. It takes communication (talking AND listening). It takes God's Word. It takes the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. 

All of this and more is required to have the kind of marriage that shows a lost world the Gospel. But, if we do the work as God blesses, we will come to realize that we benefit. We will come to see that our spouse will be "(our) crown." That means that it is a very powerful force within our lives to give us value and joy.

So, NEVER, EVER use the "D" word in your marriage. Divorce is simply not an option for Kim and me. I've told her that if she ever leaves me, I'm going with her.

Instead, do the hard work of marriage building. God will be glorified, the Gospel will be illustrated, and you will get the joy.

Does God speak our language?

I'm sure that as you read through the New Testament in your Bible, you notice that it talks about sons (and not daughters), brothers (and not sisters).

Newer translations add the feminine gender because we all know that the New Testament writers meant to include women. But the question of "why?" remains. Why didn't the NT writers, as God moved them to write the Bible, originally include women?

I listened to a sermon by Tim Keller recently in which he said a woman in his congregation shared some of her thoughts on this topic. What she shared made perfect sense:

In the secular society in which the Bible was written, women weren't treated as a man's equal. While we read in the Bible that men and women are equal at the foot of the cross (Galatians 3:28; 1 Peter 3:7; etc.), that was an outlandish claim in the first century. To say that the husband's duty was to love his wife sacrificially, putting her needs and desires above his own (Ephesians 5:25-31), was crazy talk. Why? Because, women were about as valuable as slaves in that time period.

So, we see over and over that the Bible elevated the value of women. Yet, at the same time, we see the New Testament writers (whose audience was men AND women) talking about sons and brothers (not daughters and sisters).

Why?

Could it be that as God moved the writers of Scripture to address the first century crowd, He desired to speak their language? Could it be that in a culture that valued sons (and not daughters), brothers (and not sisters) that God desired to leave no ambiguity regarding the value of women by referring to them as "sons" and "brothers"

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After posting the previous comments to my Facebook page, I felt the need to elaborate on the necessity of God to speak our language when He communicates with us.  So, I wrote:

In defense of my original post, I would say that communication requires two activities: 1) speaking and 2) hearing to understand. If someone speaks but does not do so in a way that others can hear and understand, true communication has not taken place.

In God's Word, He has not simply spoken. He has done so in ways that we can understand. In fact, if He had not condescended to our level, there is no way that we could fathom the eternal truths of Scripture. Further, if we couldn't understand, one could logical ask, "What's the point? Why did He even bother to pen Scripture if we cannot understand it?"

It was absolutely necessary for God to speak in ways that we could understand because...

God: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)

So, in order to communicate eternal truth to us about Himself, us, our world, sin, judgment, atonement, eternity, etc., God had to speak on a level in which His hearers could understand.

Thus, we see Jesus often using agricultural themes in His parables when He was speaking to a people who were very agricultural. If He had used 21st century technology themes, it would have made no sense to His first century hearers and communication would not have taken place.

Further, we see God often using what theologians calls anthropomorphisms (ascribing human body parts to God) and anothropopathisms (ascribing human emotions to God) in Scripture. We seriously doubt that God the Father has literal arms and legs and yet Isaiah 59:1-2 says that He does. Isn’t that God simply describing Himself in a way that we can understand? We also seriously doubt that God repents/does an ‘about face’ like us. Yet, passages like Exodus 32:14; 2 Samuel 24:16; Jonah 3:10 and others say that He does. The only way we can possibly understand these passages and many others is to realize that for God to communicate with us, He needed to talk in a language and in a way that we could understand. He needed to use our language and our way of thinking.

So, this is the point I was making in my original post. God desired to communicate with us. To do so, He needed to speak our language (by speaking of "brothers" and "son" to a culture who knew exactly what He was talking about). I have listed a few other obvious ways that He has done so in Scripture. There are many others. But the point is clear – our God loved us to much that He came into our world, spoke our language, communicated in a way that we could understand so that we can come to know Him, submit to Him and enjoy Him for eternity.

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As clarification, for those who may have read my comment on God not have human body parts:

The Bible is clear that Jesus is God incarnate (in the flesh). He is God with human body parts. In fact, I believe that when we see an Old Testament human figure that is ascribed deity (see Genesis 18:1-3ff; Daniel 3:24-25; etc.) that we are looking at Jesus.

Further, when we look into the future (eternity) and we realize that as Jesus ascended into Heaven He took his resurrection body (Acts 1:9-11), we are led to believe that Jesus will maintain His bodily form in Heaven.

Yet, God the Father still seems shrouded in mystery. His ways and thoughts are so high above us that we cannot possibly comprehend Him. That being the case, it was absolutely necessary for God to send His Son to us because Jesus is the One who shows us what God is like (John 14:9; Hebrews 1:3; etc.).

Again, this gets back to my original point. God the Father is so far above us that in order to communicate to us who He is and what He's like, He needed to speak in a way that we could hear and understand. So, He sent Jesus into our world. Jesus was God's communication to us (communication requires words so it is significant that Jesus is called "The Word")...

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1)

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14)

Communication in Marriage

OK. I have to plead ignorant of something. At least, I was ignorant of an issue until a few moments ago. I was reading in the John Maxwell Leadership Bible this morning and read contemplatively through Genesis 1-2. I really didn’t get much new information since I had read these chapters many, many times before. And yet, I was taken aback when Maxwell’s notes said that the problem with Eve’s sin in chapter 3 was due to a lack of communication. My immediate thought was, “Boy, THAT’S a stretch.” But then, as I went back and reread the Scripture, I was convinced. Here’s the order of events:

Genesis 2:7 – God creates Adam out of some of the materials with which He made the earth.

Genesis 2:15 – God formally places Adam in the Garden of Eden and gives him his purpose within this environment.

Genesis 2:16-17 – God makes it clear that Adam is not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.


THEN....

Genesis 2:18ff – God creates Eve and presents her to Adam.

Genesis 3:2-3 – Eve’s response to the serpent shows her misunderstanding of what God had actually said.

This order of events makes it clear that Eve was created after Adam received the instructions. It appears that he failed to properly communicate with his wife the things that God had shared with him.


It would appear that the issue that causes so much marital discord today is an issue that set up the initial downfall of humanity. However, with 20/20 hindsight, we can learn from Adam's mistake and make appropriate corrective actions, right?