Dealing with Family Dysfunction part 2

Why are all families, even "good Christian families" jacked up? All of us instinctively define love as being loved rather than loving. If you say "love" the knee jerk is getting what we "want" or "need" but love, as God seems to define it is a commitment of the will to the good of the other person.

No where is the twisted view of love more clear then when a dude quotes scripture to brow beat his wife. Every husband wants to run to Ephesians 5:22-33 (ESV):

"22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 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. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so 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. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body.

31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband

."

Every husband runs to this verse to try to get his wife to shut her gob and do what he wants her to do without witching about it; this has caused many a wife to grow to hate the Bible!

Now, dudes, notice a few things: (1) Paul expends most of his ammo not on the ladies but on the fellas; (2) he commands husbands to love their wives like Jesus loved the church and what did Jesus do for the church? HE DIED!

Now ask yourself this question, does your wife truly believe that you love her so much that you would die for her? Does she really? I doubt it. She'd probably say you don't even love her enough to miss a race or a game to help with the kids.

Proverbs 18:22 says "He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord." God's inspired word states that your wife is grace incarnate. Quit rattling off snaps like "She's a feminazi", "She could burn water", "She's allergic to work, thinks she'll break out in a rash", blah, blah, blah. Does she know you would die for her? If not, then you have a lot of work to do. Get to it.

Dealing with Family Dysfunction Part 1

People suck. I'm such a Calvinist that I believe total depravity is for optimists and I define an optimist as someone who truly doesn't understand the situation.

Because we are all jacked up sinners, all of our families suffer from dysfunction. Yet, despite believing this, many of fellow Calvinists still look to everyone from Dr. Dobson to Dr. Phil to the friggin' Super Nanny for the technique to "fix" their spouse or help raise their child. Why look to spazed out sinners for help dealing with other spazed out sinners?

I believe that each family system is so different that no one technique will work in every family and that we really need to look for outlooks and processes rather than some quick fix and that the only appropriate place to find anything of true value is to the only one not infected with sin--God.

How does God deal with us? With love, grace, commitment, empowerment and intimacy--that's how we should deal with our family: Love and commitment are fairly self-explanatory (although I'll expand on both tomorrow), grace is defined as unmerited favor, empowerment means helping each family member grow in their spiritual strengths and fight their weaknesses and, finally, intimacy means an atmosphere where we can talk about anything frankly and without irrational fears of reprisal, not unlike how we can speak to God in prayer.

Now, don't start looking at me like I'm some kind of liberal sissy. I didn't leave out discipline, which is a part of love as I'll define it tomorrow. I'll preaching on more of this tonight at 5pm and tomorrow at 10:30 at Christ's Community Church.

Until then, God bless.

Random Larry King-type Ramblings

*I'm preaching this weekend at Christ's Community Church in picturesque Portsmouth, Ohio. If you show up be warned that I yell a lot. The sermon will be on David and family dysfunction. I'll use clips from SNL and the film "Martian Child" as well as music videos from Between the Trees, Casting Crowns and Blink-182. Also, songs from Good Charlotte, Pink and others. I'll post study notes throughout the weekend.

*Today is National Doughnut Day...do your part!

*My two favorite English Bible translations are the New Living Translation (reader friendly) and the English Standard Version (more literal). This fall study Bibles will be available in each version with notes by fine Reformed scholars. Sweeeet!

*Started the 2008 Puritan Reading Challenge...awesome!

*Finally, note that the Wheelersburg Pirates play in the state tourney today in Columbus at Clipper Stadium. My bro in Christ, Justin Clark, is one of the coaches. Go Burg!

NERD ALERT!

My fellow nerds, hear my cry! Check out LibriVox (http://librivox.org/) for free recordings of books in the public domain. So far, I've spied works by Augustine, Martin Luther and C.S. Lewis. I've already downloaded a pretty good recording of G.K. Chesterton's "Orthodoxy."

That's not all! Don't squirt your milk out of your nose, but over at Christianaudio.com you can download a professional recording of John Bunyan's classic "Pilgrim's Progress" for free as well. Just use the code JUN2008 when checking out.

So, put away your Red Bull, jump off the Battlestar Galactica chat room and download something truly worth listening to. This is your fellow Geek, signing off!

Brand New's "Jesus Christ"

Thanks to an unannounced church building flood, I'm too busy to blog at the moment. In the meantime, check out the song "Jesus Christ" by Brand New. Thanks to Kyle Cayton for turning me on to them. Lyrics and link to a youtube video of the band playing Letterman below.

Peace.

Jesus Christ

Jesus Christ, that's a pretty face

The kind you'd find on someone that could save

If they don't put me away

It’ll be a miracle

Do you believe you're missing out?

That everything good is happening somewhere else

But with nobody in your bed

The night is hard to get through

And I will die all alone

And when I arrive I won’t know anyone

Well, Jesus Christ, I’m alone again

So what did you do those three days you were dead?

Because this problem's gonna last

More than the weekend

Well, Jesus Christ I’m not scared to die

I’m a little bit scared of what comes after

Do I get the gold chariot?

Do I float through the ceiling?

Do I divide and fall apart?

Cause my bright is too slight to hold back all my dark

This ship went down in sight of land

And at the gates does Thomas ask to see my hands?

I know you'll come in the night like a thief

But I’ve had some time alone to hone my lying technique

I know you think that I’m someone you can trust

But I’m scared I’ll get scared and I swear I’ll try to nail you back up(everyone now)

So do you think that we could work out a sign

So I’ll know it's you and that it's over so I won't even try

I know you'll come for the people like me

But we all got wood and nails,

Turned into a hate factory

But, we all got wood and nails

Turned into a hate factory

Yeah, we all got wood and nails

Turned into a hate factory

Yeah, we all got wood and nails

And we sleep inside of this machine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWl7Jxv5uhg

Project:Mayhem

Project: Mayhem rolls on. This past weekend roughly 30 people came together to get to know each other, toast a couple who just came to Christ and hear, albeit briefly, about the end goal of Project: Mayhem, which is Revolution.

The idea, as I have stated before, is to build relationships that would constitute a core group of missionally minded young Christians who would commit themselves to growing as disciples through deep engagement with the classic spiritual disciplines and then reach out to others 18-40 who are quickly becoming, from a Christian perspective, "the lost generations."

Revolution will be a "ministry" (I hate that name and just about anything "churchy") that will be unorthodox in approach but thoroughly steeped in orthodox theology--think of punk/metal puritanism! or, as I crassly like to put it, historic Christianity without the bug up its a#*! And it's coming soon to Portsmouth, Ohio. Check back for more.

The Puritan Reading Challenge 2008

I recently ran across a blog challenge to read a different Puritan paperback every month during 2008. That rocks!

Yes, I know it's June. Okay, so I'm a little friggin' late but I'm going to work hard to catch up.

You can check out the challenge over at timmybrister.com and buy the books at a discount through Reformation Heritage Books (link to the left under "shop").

The books and schedule are as follows:

January: The Bruised Reed by Richard Sibbes (128 pp)

February: The Mystery of Providence by John Flavel (221 pp)

March: The Godly Man’s Picture by Thomas Watson (252 pp)

April: Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices by Thomas Brooks (253 pp)

May: Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ by John Bunyan (225 pp)

June: The Mortification of Sin by John Owen (130 pp)

July: A Lifting Up for the Downcast by William Bridge (287 pp)

August: The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs (228 pp)

September: The True Bounds of Christian Freedom by Samuel Bolton (224 pp)

October: The Christian’s Great Interest by William Guthrie (207 pp)

November: The Reformed Pastor by Richard Baxter (256 pp)

December: A Sure Guide to Heaven by Joseph Alleine (148 pp)

Reformation Heritage is offering a good deal on all 12 books ($65 plus shipping). As I indicated yesterday, your spiritual growth may take a serious step forward thanks to the works of these brilliant men!

So, throw down some change, block off some time and prepare to party like it's 1659!