Christian Betrothal

'Solving' Physcial Purity

2011-10-21T20:15:00.001-07:00

In short, much of what I read in your arguments seems to be based on a need for physical purity. While that is important, and marriage is definitely a safeguard against it, marriage doesn't solve it.

You have the issue backwards. The question isn't 'how so I solve the problem of physical purity' but 'what does God command?' What does God command in the area of, as you put it, physical purity?

I Cor 7 1-2Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.

I Cor 7:3-5 Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.

I Cor 7:8-9I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.

Prov 5:1-20 My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding:That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge.For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil:

But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them.

Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth. Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:

Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel:

Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger; And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof; And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me! I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.

Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee.

Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.

And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?

Those are God's words, by the way, not mine.

Marriage for reasons other than purity

2011-10-21T20:10:00.000-07:00

Please address, as well, my thoughts about you possibly assuming marriage is a safeguard against sexual rebellion and not much else. What is the point of marriage, then, in your mind, Biblically, other than sexual purity, if my summary assumptions are correct?

Wow. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is hard when I write in so many different areas and so many different ways, to keep track of how 'balanced' my message is in any one thread.

There are dozens of reasons for marriage. All of these are better when the spouses involved are young. Let's examine the various reasons:

1) And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone;. And this was said, in paradise, in Eden, before there was any question of fornication.

2)Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. Obviously the later we marry our children the less they can do this.

3) Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD. Why would we want our sons to wait for this favor? Or our daughters from providing it?

4) A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife...One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; ...(For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?) Marriage and family are the training ground for eldership (and deacons). At what point do we want to start that training?

5) And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. God desires marriage in the youth in order to seek a Godly seed.

6)But the younger widows refuse: for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry; 12Having damnation, because they have cast off their first faith. 13And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not. 14I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. 15For some are already turned aside after Satan. God commands younger women to marry, bear children, and guide the house... that they may give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. Paul says unmarried women had already turned aside after Satan.

7) they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, 5To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. The older women are to teach the younger women to love their husbands. Which implies they have husbands

8) Blessed is every one that feareth the LORD; that walketh in his ways. For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee. Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table. Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the LORD. The LORD shall bless thee out of Zion: and thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life. Yea, thou shalt see thy children's children, and peace upon Israel. The one who fears the LORD and walks in his ways will have a fruitful wife, and see his children's children.

9) Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. Children are an heritage of the lord, the fruit of the womb is his reward.

10) Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love. Sexual satisfaction, in and of itself, is seen, in Scripture, as a good thing.

You say that you waited seven years to get married 'to be sure it wasn't a crush'. Which of the reasons above, or what other Biblical reason, was served by that seven year wait? Do you have more children as a result? Is your husband better prepared to be an elder because of his seven year wait for you? Was he more satisfied, sexually, because of his wait?

Scripture says that our lack of marriages, lack of Godly families, lack of submissive wives and Godly, leading husbands, cause the Word of God to be blasphemed, women to turn aside to Satan. I believe that you, your husband, and the world would have been massively blessed if you had married (at least) seven year earlier, had seven more years of sexually pleasing your husband, having and loving your children, guiding the house, producing a Godly seed...

So no, it is not just an issue of sexual purity. Sexual purity is the area that is massively under attack right now, so I spend a lot of time in those trenches.

On Being Desperate

2011-10-17T14:49:00.000-07:00

I heard a message on Sunday in which an imaginary father, on meeting a young man who stated his readiness to marry his daughter, castigated the young man, in a speech which was of equal part funny and tragic, for being 'desperate'.

We laughed, as, I assume, we were meant to. But, all kidding aside, desperation is a good thing.

The word 'desperate' has a bad name, I'll grant you. It has a kind of physical background. One thinks of the drowning victim as being 'desperate' to get air, or the parent as searching 'desperately' for their lost child.

This makes it seem odd, for us, growing up as we did, to think of a young man searching 'desperately' for a wife. We see him as running around, gasping for air, 'desperately' talking to father after father, hoping against hope that one of them will give him a wife. Funny, eh?

But, wait a minute. Why are we laughing? Air is a good thing, a necessary thing. Sure, one could make a comedy sketch about it, but a real drowning should not be, must not be, funny.

Is marriage an equally good thing? Is the young man without a wife actually missing a vital part of his life? Surely, as Christians, we know the actual answer to that. Did not God, Himself, say, "It is not good for man to be alone."?

Surely it is the young man who is not desperately searching for a wife that we should be... not laughing at, but accusing of failing to seek for his own good with appropriate emotion. "He who finds a wife has found a good thing", no? "And obtains favor from the Lord". The man who is blessed by the Lord will have a wife, like a fruitful vine, and children, like olive plants, surrounding their table. So let's stop laughing at that 'desperate' young man and, instead, start chiding his church, and his father, and the father's of the young women, who are not 'letting him marry'.

Casting Down the Idols of Courtship: Falling in Love

2011-09-09T11:35:00.000-07:00

Casting Down the Idols of Courtship

We need to be always living ‘semper reformada’. One of themost important ways in which we must do that is to be always searching ourlives for idols, gods of our current age or of our own invention, which havecrept into our lives and which we must cast down. In our current desire to seeto the proper marriages of our sons and daughters we have invented a system,which we call courtship, in which we have incorporated several of these idols…idols that must be cast down. Here I present some of them.

Falling in love

The concept of romantic love as something which begins before commitment, andwhich is required for any legitimate sexual commitment is part of a Greco-Romanmyth, not something we find in Scripture. Ironically whenever pre-marital‘love’ relationships are mentioned in Scripture, they are mentioned exclusivelyin a negative sense… as implying, and often demonstrated as leading to, asnare, a trap, or a distraction for the young man.

Jacob and his rejection of Leah

In obedience to hisfather Jacob proceeded to Ur where he was instructed to marry one of thedaughters of Laban. Once there he waited a month before proceeding toward hiserrand and, even then, fails to mention his father’s instructions but instead makesa play for one of those daughters, Rachel, because he ‘loved’ her (perhapsbecause she was beautiful and well favored whereas her sister was ‘tendereyed’). His love is so great that he volunteers to serve seven years in orderto marry her.

When the seven years were up his erstwhile father in lawplays him a trick, slipping his oldest daughter, Leah, into the tent instead ofthe younger and more beautiful Rachel. The next morning Jacob, waking andrealizing who lay next to him, faced a choice. Would he love the wife he wasgiven, the wife he had already spent the night with? Was that not what Godrequired? Is it not written, ‘rejoice in the wife of your youth. Let her be asthe loving hind and pleasant roe, let her … satisfy thee at all times; and be thouravished always with her love’?
Is that what Jacob did? Did he spend the next week enjoying his new bride,showing his love for her? No, he stormed out of the tent, upset at the trickthat had been played on him. But, except for his premarital mental commitment,what trick had been played? He had been commanded by his father to take a wifeof the daughters of Laban, and he had a wife of the daughters of Laban. And weknow, from later in the story, that she was a fertile wife. He came out with nocomplaints about her behavior on the wedding night.

No, he was disappointed because he had set his heart on oneparticular woman, and was given another. He had, in modern parlance, ‘fallen inlove’ and, as a result, behaved abominably toward the wife of his youth, goingso far in his misbehavior that God Himself accuses him of hating his wife.

Compare this with the example of his father Isaac[i].Isaac saw nothing of his wife, knew nothing of his wife, before he took herinto his tent and ‘knew’ her physically. And, without a heart set on another,he loved his wife.

Shekem and the rape of Dinah

The next example I can find of a man ‘loving’ a woman nothis wife comes at the time of the rape (or seduction) of Dinah. I languagethat, except for it’s old world charm could come out of any modern romancenovel, it is written that, “And [Shechem’s] soul clave unto Dinah thedaughter of Jacob, and he loved the damsel, and spake kindly unto the damsel.”Unfortunately this comes after the previous verse which states he, “saw her, hetook her, and lay with her, and defiled her.” Only once he had done these twothings (raped her and ‘loved’ her) did he “[speak] unto his father Hamor,saying, Get me this damsel to wife.”
And then her brothers, mightily offended, slew Sheckem and all the men of his town.

David and the snare of Micah

One of David’s wives was said to have ‘loved’ him beforethey were married, or even betrothed. Her father, Saul, hearing this, waspleased because, he said, “I will give him her, that she may be a snare tohim, and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him.” We see noevidence of his plan succeeding, but those are the words that God reveals to usabout that kind of relationship.

David and his lust for Bathsheeba

David himself loved a woman later, or at least her physical form; andthat story results in this man of God committing adultery and murder.

Amnon and the rape of Tamar

Another girl that was loved, neither wisely nor well, beforeshe was married, was Tamar. It is written: “Absalom the son of David had a fair sister, whosename was Tamar; and Amnon the son of David loved her.” The end of this relationship? He tricks herinto coming to his house, rapes her, and decides he hates her.

Sampson and the destruction of the Philistines

God, in an effort to destroy the Philistines, caused Samsonto lust after one of their daughters. This relationship ends very badly withhis best man sleeping with his wife, both of them being killed, and Samsonslaying dozens of Philistines.

[i]Gen 24

Adult Children Obeying their Father? Horrors!

2011-09-06T10:15:00.000-07:00

Calvin on Jer 35:18

Here the Prophet, that he might affect the Jews more deeply, promises a reward to the sons of Jonadab, because they obeyed their father; and he promises them a blessing from God. Nor is it to be wondered at, for this commandment, as Paul says, is the first to which a promise is annexed. (Eph_6:2) God promises generally a reward to all who keep the Law, for every command has in general connected with it the hope of reward; but this is in a special manner added to the Fifth Commandment: “Honor thy father and thy mother, that thou mayest prolong thy life,” etc. It is, then, nothing strange that God promised a reward to the Rechabites, because they followed the command of their father, for he had promised that in the Law.

Warring with God.

2011-09-04T10:10:00.000-07:00

God’s Word teaches that our young people are to get married in order to ‘combatlust’. It isn’t the only thing they need to do; our society, including ourchurches, needs to change in very significant ways.
But if we ignore or deny the method that God insists upon the most strongly,indeed the only method that he specifically relates for this issue, then howcan we ask for his help? That was Calvin’s point: that if we seek to conquerour sins, but ignore what God has said about how to do so, we ‘war with God’and ‘resist his ordinances’. He calls it ‘vain’ and ‘presumptuous’.

2011-09-03T12:14:00.000-07:00

"Lest I mar my inheritance." Can you think of more ironic words?

Rth 4:5 Then said Boaz, What day thou buyest the field of the hand of Naomi, thou must buy it also of Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of the dead, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance. Rth 4:6 And the kinsman said, I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I mar mine own inheritance: redeem thou my right to thyself; for I cannot redeem it.

Be Warmed and Filled

2011-09-02T10:06:00.000-07:00

God lists a wife as a need of a young man, a need just as important as food orclothing; a blessing and a gift worth far more than rubies. And yet ourcourtship advocates are sending young men away rejected, and with no realprospect for meeting their need. In the end the young man doesn’t get married,or get’s married far later than we would wish… as does the daughter.

Jas 2:15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, Jas 2:16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?

1Co 7:1 Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. 1Co 7:2 Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.

Seven reasons why an elder must not be unmarried

2011-09-01T15:39:00.000-07:00

I thought I would conclude my recent series on why an elder must not be unmarried with a summary of some of the various points.

1) The first reason that I believe that an elder must be married is the language of the Passage concerning their qualifications found in the apostle Paul’s letter to Timothy: 1Ti 3:1 This is a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. 1Ti 3:2 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; 1Ti 3:3 Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous; 1Ti 3:4 One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; 1Ti 3:5 (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?) 1Ti 3:6 Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil. 1Ti 3:7 Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. [Emphasis added]

2) The second reason is the meaning of the word ‘one’ used in this passage and the parallel passages, including the qualifications for deacons. Our study on the issue showed that the word is used, in the rest of the Scripture, to mean either ‘one and one only’ or ‘at least one’. It is never used as people would have it mean here, to mean ‘no more than one’. In other words, the word ‘one’ is always and everywhere contradicted by ‘none’. Thus a husband of one wife is never, by the NT use of the word, the husband of no wives.

3) The third reason is the meaning of ‘knowing’. As we pointed out Paul asks ‘if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?”. While this lack of knowledge could, of course, include someone who has tried the feat and failed, it can apply no less to someone who hasn’t ever been tempted in that area. Even more importantly is that marriage and family life itself is where you learn those skills: while leading a wife and disciplining children.

4) The fourth reason we haven’t touched on yet in our posts, at least not directly. Marriage is said, in Eph 5 and elsewhere, to be a reflection of the relationship that Christ has with His church; now in our betrothal period and one day in its fullness with the marriage supper of the Lamb. The elder, with his one wife, is to be a reflection of that marriage.

In this he stands against so much of the modern anti-marriage teaching. Whether it is the Catholics, with their teaching that marriage is ‘vomit’, or the modern church, with their denigration of married life, easy divorce, rampant fornication. How much chaos and blasphemy has been caused by the Catholic Churches insistence on unqualified elders, resulting in accusations of and convictions for pedophile Sodomy.

Paul insists, “to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.” Solomon says, “Pro 5:15 Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. Pro 5:16 Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. Pro 5:17 Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee. Pro 5:18 Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Pro 5:19 Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.”

Even from a practical standpoint an unmarried elder is extremely problematical: being required to hear, discuss, and even help counsel men and women with marriage problems: including sexual problems.

5) The fifth reason parallels the fourth. Even as the Scriptures insist that the elder be a husband, they speak of his being a father. Scripture is full of metaphors of God that include the ‘father/son’ relationship. Consider Sa 7:14 I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men:. These metaphors put in context Paul’s almost sarcastic question of, “For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?”

It speaks of the elder being ‘apt to teach’, and we know that God has given that role to fathers, teaching their children, day in and day out. Thus in this daily activity his aptness will be proven; just as it is proven in the lives of his children.

And an elder must rule, another activity that takes place in his household. Consider God’s blessing in Jeremiah: Jer 35:18 And Jeremiah said unto the house of the Rechabites, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Because ye have obeyed the commandment of Jonadab your father, and kept all his precepts, and done according unto all that he hath commanded you: Jer 35:19 Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before me for ever.

and consider Joshua’s speech to Israel:

Jos 24:15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

Today’s society is radically anti-children, with children murdered in their thousands every day. God’s qualifications for elders are the opposite.

6) When the Scriptures speak clearly on an issue, it is foolish and sinful of us to try to judge Scripture against our own wisdom. It is written:
2Ti 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: 2Ti 3:17 That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
Scripture clearly says that an elder must be the husband of one wife. Not no wives. Thus an elder must be married.

7) For my final reason I would list the other Scripture that speaks to the qualifications of elders. It is written: Tit 1:5 For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee: Tit 1:6 If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly. Tit 1:7 For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre; Tit 1:8 But a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate; Tit 1:9 Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.[emphasis added]

Let them Marry!

2011-08-31T15:36:00.001-07:00

When the father of a believing young man of integrity, onewho affirms and demonstrates their understanding of and commitment to theactual nature of a Godly marriage, comes to the father of a Godly young virginfor her hand in marriage to his son, that is enough. The placing of furtherobstacles is an unScriptural testing of the Lord: Scripture neither lists norimplies any other conditions.[1]The young man is a son of your God, a brother of your Lord,[2]he has met the Scriptural guidelines. Adding any other testing to him adds tothe Word of the Lord, and contradicts His Word which says, “let every man havehis own wife” and “let them marry”[3]and exhorts him to have a wife in his ‘youth’.[4]

[1]I Cor 7:2,9,36,39; I Cor 14:8; Acts 8:36,37; Gen 29:19; Gen 24:4; Mat 19:12; Prov 5:15-20; Joh 14:15, 21,23; Joh15:10

[2]James 2:14-16

[3]I Cor 7:2,9.36

[4]Prov 5:15-20; Isa 54:6; Mal 2:14-5;

What are you Doing? Chapter 21

2011-08-26T07:28:00.000-07:00

I: After-warning

Readingthis book, and reading the Scriptures, the book it is based on, could changeyour life.

Fathers: it couldforce you to take up a responsibility that you have, hitherto ignored: that ofchoosing, or causing to be chosen, a wife for your son, or accepting, yourself,a husband for your daughter. To place your wisdom, your experience, on the block:accepting, forever, the responsibility of giving this good gift to your child.

Sons: Acceptingthe ideas that Scripture presents for your marriage could cast down the idolthat you have constructed for yourself of the girl you will marry. And it willdefinitely challenge you to take much, much more seriously your ownresponsibilities toward becoming a Godly husband and father if you becomeliable to having your father, without warning, suddenly present you with abetrothed wife. Those video games, that ‘free time’, that you are so addictedto; these will have to go by the wayside; replaced by the responsibilities andjoys of spiritual leadership and diapers.

Daughters: You toomay have to give up an idol: the idol of choice. Girls never had as much choiceas boys, but, perhaps, you have always held on to that last kernel of ‘veto’…of being able to send a young boy, not up to your standards, packing. Youridealized marriage (which never was a reality anyway) will have to give way tothe reality of a real, live, fallible young man, suddenly bound in covenant toyou. And you will find that this fallible young man is exactly who God hasprepared for you.

Or perhaps you will need to give up the idea of ‘romance’…that a young man will come and ‘sweep you off your feet’; the idea of amarriage based on emotion. Instead you need to replace that false and worldlyidea with the permanence of covenant: the old idea, the Biblical idea of ‘forbetter or for worse’.

Elders, Pastors: Areyou ready to die for the testimony and teachings of the Word of God? Are youready to face the humiliation that will arise if you stand before your flockand admit that you have gotten it wrong? That the courtship or ‘Christian’dating message you have been preaching was, actually, a false front; acompromise of worldly wisdom hiding behind a façade of Christianity?

Titus 2, Proverbs 31, Titus 1… these are wonderful passages.But they, along with Ephesians 5, describe the results of marriage, not it’s preconditions.Titus 2 is specifically written for what the older women are to teach theyounger (married) women to become.The young, naïve, foolish and disobedient younger woman is taught; taught byGod, her husband, and the older women, to: ‘love her husband, and to love her children’. It is the married man whois to become the man listed in Titus1; for how can he already be: the husband of one wife, having faithful childrennot accused of riot or unruly.’

We need to stop putting these obstacles in the way of clearobedience, and be ready to ‘let them marry’; to tear down the walls of anunBiblical culture that has prevented hundreds and even thousands of marriagesthat will result, and result quickly, from an honest application of theseprinciples; that has prevented the hundreds and thousands of children thatwould have been added to our ranks. Weneed to be ready to face the mockery of the surrounding communities over whatthey will no doubt call ‘arranged marriages’.

We need to obey God; to demonstrate our love for Him and forour children in our obedience:

1Jn 5:2-5 By this we know that we love the children of God,when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, thatwe keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous. For whatsoeveris born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcomeththe world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he thatbelieveth that Jesus is the Son of God.

What are you Doing? Chapter 20

2011-08-25T07:26:00.000-07:00

I:
A Welcome Phone Call.

Sakal: She calledyou, from her honeymoon?!

Isha: [Laughing.] Itwasn’t a long call, just a quick ‘thanks’. She said Andrew had stepped out to getthem some food and told her to ‘rest’… which she said she couldn’t do, so shecalled me.

Sakal: So, did itsound like she was well on her way to 'doing good and not harm’?

Isha: She admittedthat he seemed to be enjoying their honeymoon, and that they were spending anamazingly little amount of time outside.

Sakal: [Laughs] Good!Perhaps her father will get his grandchild soon!

Isha: I hope so.Speaking of children…

What are you Doing? Chapter 19

2011-08-25T02:30:00.000-07:00

I:
Interlude

As I trotted my horse down the road I saw before mea marvelous sight; a garden[i]enclosed by high, strong walls[ii].A beautiful silver palace sat in the midst of the garden[iii].The garden had a spring[iv],sending out streams of clear water[v],watering plants, myriads of plants[vi].

I saw lilies[vii]and pomegranates[viii]in the garden; palm trees[ix]and nut trees[x].Even from where I rode, coming down the hill toward the garden, I could smellthe most marvelous smells coming over the walls: spikenard and saffron; calamusand cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all thechief spices[xi].

As I rode closer, I saw another sight, asimpressive in its own way. On the ramparts of the castle, splendidly arrangedin armor, were several young men, marching to and fro, and keeping a vigilanteye in every direction. I saw that they had already seen me and were keeping awary eye on me.[xii]

My road led me to the front gate, where I sawanother man, an older man, in well-used armor[xiii].He was standing in front of a gate, a well locked gate, all made of thick,strong planks of cedar.

The man smiled at me as I rode up and said,“Welcome, brother. Come and restyourself.” He waved his hand and I saw, standing beside the gate, a table. Evenas I stopped a young boy came forward to hold the reins of my horse and anolder woman and several younger women came to the table, setting it for a meal,all unspeaking.

“I thank you all for your courtesy,” I said, “butI have business that cannot brook delay.”[xiv]

“What, then, is your business?” the man asked.

“I come on behalf of another,” I said, “a youngman under my command. He begins to thirst, and hunger[xv], and I seek a garden for him.”

“Is he a loyal son?” the man asked, “to you and toour common Lord?”

“He is…” I said, but just as I spoke one of theyoung warriors called, out.

“My lord, another man comes.”

We both looked up to see a young man come ridingup. “Welcome,” the lord said, and the young man leapt from his horse. “Refreshyourself.”

The young man, pleased, went to the table andhelped himself to the food and wine. Thelord and I exchanged glances, and then he said, “Tell me, what is your businesshere?”[xvi]

The young man flushed and said, “I would have yourleave to talk to the lady of this garden.”

The lord’s eyes chilled slightly, “I am the lordof this garden, what words would you have with her?”[xvii]

“You are its lord?” he asked, “I had understoodthat it was without a lord, that no one drank of its waters.”

“I am the lord of the garden, but I do not drinkof its waters. I and mine are charged with guarding it until the day comes whenI give the charge of it to another.”[xviii]

“You give it? Must not the lady herself give it?”

“The lady? She is under my authority. How can sheappoint her own lord? How can the lesser appoint the greater?”[xix]

“With your blessing!”

“My blessing?” the lord said, very coldly. Butthen he softened, perhaps remembering the foolish young man he had once been.“Tell me, my son, are you thirsty?”[xx]

The young man, having a cup of wine in his handpaused and glanced at it, then, realizing that the question had nothing to dowith wine, he flushed, “I… no!”

“Then you have no need of a garden, my son,”[xxi]the lord turned back to me. “The youngman you represent, he hungers and thirsts?”

“Yes.”

“And you understand the value of this, my garden?”[xxii]

I said I did, and together we discussed what pricewould be paid. Then, agreed, we sat together. “Tell your charge that his ladywill await the day when he comes into his garden with great anticipation.”[xxiii]

“But I don’t understand!” the young man said.“What of her permission?”

“Her permission?”

“You called her his lady, and yet she has notgiven her permission!”

“She is mine… it is my permission that is needed,not hers. But, just to reassure you, sheand I have talked, and she is prepared, and indeed, eager, to accept my choicefor her new lord.”

He turned back to me. “Go in peace, my brother,and we will all await with eagerness the return of your charge.”

“Thank you. I will go and tell my charge toprepare a place to put this wonderful garden.”

“We will miss it,” the lord said, wistfully.

I smiled, and looked at the young lords prowlingthe ramparts, “I imagine that you will have many other gardens soon, and then,if they are fruitful, yet more gardens.”

“True, my brother,” he said, grinning. “Farewell.”

And so I went on my way, musing on the day, which I,too, hoped would not be long, when my charge would come and take possession ofthis marvelous garden, so tenderly prepared by our common Lord.

[i]Song 4:12

[ii]Song 4:12

[iii]Song 8:9

[iv]Song 4:15; Prov 5:15-18

[v]Prov 5:15-18

[vi]Song 4:13;

[vii]Song 6:2,3; Song 2:16; Song 5:13; Song 7:2;

[viii]Song 4:3; Song 4;13;

[ix]Song 7:7-8;

[x]Song 6:11

[xi]Song 4;10-16; Song 6:2; Song 8:14

[xii]Song 8:8-9; Gen 34

[xiii]Deu 22:21; Song 8:9

[xiv]Gen 24:33

[xv]I Cor 7:2,9

[xvi] Gen 29:15

[xvii] Num 30:3-5

[xviii] Deu 22:21; Song 8:8-9

[xix] Num 30:3-5

[xx]I Cor 7:2

[xxi]I Cor 7:1-9

[xxii]Exod 22:17; Prov 31: 10

[xxiii]Rom 8:23-25

What are you Doing? Chapter 18

2011-08-24T07:21:00.000-07:00

I:
You Can’t do that!

Sakal is sitting at thepark table, his lunch finished, his legs up, reading a book when an older man,conservatively dressed, comes up to him.

George: Sakal?Sakal Davidson?

Sakal: Yes? [Sakalgets up, the two shake hands, then they sit down across from each other.]

George: I’m George,George Wakefield; Senior Pastor at First Baptist here in town. I have heardthat you have been having a series of discussions on the issue of courtship.

Sakal: That’sright. Are you interested in the subject?

George: Well, yes.But I am even more interested in the hermeneutic you are using to arrive atyour, shall we say, unorthodox conclusions.

Sakal: Well, Iwouldn’t call them unorthodox… but I am also interested in discussinghermeneutics; and would love to talk about it.

George: Well, good.Now, I have heard a lot of the issues you have raised, and the problem I seewith your hermeneutic, is that you seem to see things which are merely stories,or merely statements about the culture of Bible times, as commands.

Sakal: I see. So,what would you have me do?

George: Well, weneed to separate those things which are clearly commands, from those whicharen’t.

Sakal: Then what dowe do?

George: I’m sorry?

Sakal: Once we haveselected those things which are clearly commands, and eliminated the rest ofScripture, what are we to do? Specifically in this area, there are no commandswhich say ‘thou shalt betroth’, or ‘thou shalt court, or date’. How then shallour children be married?

George: I don’t…well, that means we are free to do it however we feel is best.

Sakal: Hopefullyyou don’t really mean as we ‘feel’ isbest. But how, then, do we determine what is right, if we eliminate Scripture?

George: I’m notsaying we should eliminate Scripture!

Sakal: So, then,tell me, how do you apply Scripture to this problem? How do we determine whatthe best thing to do is? My theology, my hermeneutic,if you will, teaches me that the only place to look for the ‘best’ thing to do,is in Scripture.

George: Well, ofcourse.

Sakal: And itteaches me that “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and isprofitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction inrighteousness: That the man of God maybe perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”[i]

George: Yes.

Sakal: Then, it isnot merely the commands that are profitable for doctrine. God gave the examplesof the patriarchs, the Psalms, the Proverbs, even the actual language of theScriptures as profitable for us.

George: Yes… but…

Sakal: Yes?

George: It isn’tlike Scripture tells us everything about everything!

Sakal: No, but itis ‘sufficient’ for the man of God, to be perfect, to be complete: to serveGod. And if it is sufficient for that, then it is sufficient for this part ofour lives.
Let me ask you, when you read a book on courtship, what do you look for? Thingsthat sound wise? Or things that come from Scripture?

George: Things thatcome from Scripture.

Sakal: So, in orderto determine what is best, we have to compare… compare courtship againstScripture. And find what Scripture really says about the various principles.

George: That’s whatwe do.

Sakal: And we needto be prepared when we find that the courtship principles are not supported inScripture, but something else is.

George: Well, Ican’t believe that you think the principles you are espousing are found inScripture. I have heard that you think fornicators should be allowed to marry!

Sakal: Well, it wasPaul’s idea, not mine.

George: Well, theycan’t marry my daughter.

Sakal: That seemsto be the attitude of most of the courtship advocates. The ‘Not My Daughter' Syndrome’.I see at least two major problems with that…

George: Oh?

Sakal: The first isthat it seems to directly contradict I Corinthians 7. In that passage Paul keepssaying ‘let them marry’. Now, the way that translates into English isinteresting; and meaningful. The underlying form is, of course, a kind of acommand, like ‘let us pray’… which means ‘pray now!’
But the English form comes out very interestingly, basically as a command forthose who might stop something, to stopstopping it. It means ‘Let them’ marry. Allow them to marry.
So this verse should, in my opinion, be treated as a dual command. For the youngman and woman, it is a command to marry. To the people surrounding them, thechurch, their parents, their culture, it is a command to ‘let them marry’. Itsays, "Get out of the way, stop creating obstacles, live up to yourresponsibilities and ‘let them marry’".

George: Well, letthem, but not my daughter.

Sakal: Or anyoneelse’s, if the courtship advocates would have their way; which is my point. Rememberwhat James said about sending the naked and hungry person away saying ‘bewarmed and filled’?[ii]A ‘not my daughter’ attitude, consistently applied, is exactly the same.
God lists a wife as a need of a young man, a need just as important as food orclothing; a blessing and a gift worth far more than rubies. And yet ourcourtship advocates are sending young men away rejected, and with no realprospect for meeting their need. In the end the young man doesn’t get married,or get’s married far later than we would wish… as does the daughter.

George: What?

Sakal: That seemsto be the result. So many obstacles have been created that, in the end, ourdaughters aren't marrying…and the most ‘perfect’ daughters seem to marry thelatest, if at all. What good is raising a perfect daughter if she is never allowedto be a wife?
And it is illogical. If your daughter, your particular daughter, is really theabsolute cream of the crop, and stands head and shoulders above the rest inpurity, chastity, love, and obedience… then maybe it is precisely the least qualified young man that sheshould marry, in order to be the most help for him. We set the best doctors tothe hardest cases, do we not?
Voddie Baucham wrote a book, “What he must be to marry my daughter.” Perhaps you should write a book, “What hewill be because he marries mydaughter.”
Who in Scripture would you have considered worthy to marry your daughter? Paul,the murderer? David, the adulterer? Peter, the betrayer? Paulsays, “Let every man have his own wife.” Every man. Every single man.
He wrote his letter to the church at Corinth, and said they needed to see to itthat every single man, and woman, in their church should be married: those thatwere struggling with fornication, those that were not yet struggling withfornication but might be soon, and those who merely wished for a wife… thatthey each should ‘marry and not burn’. Elsewhere, he denounced ‘forbidding tomarry’.[iii]

George: But Ihaven’t trained my daughter to marry a fornicator!

Sakal: Why not? Ihave. I have trained my daughter the way an army trains its new recruits… for abattle, not a vacation. I have no idea what difficulties she might face inmarriage: an unGodly husband, life on a mission field, barrenness, evenabandonment. So my job is to train her for the worst possible scenario, thehardest possible situation.
Look at the women of Scripture, the truly Godly women in Scripture. Which ofthem married the perfect man and had the perfect life? Esther, who became partof a pagan king’s harem? Mary, who was always known as a fornicator? One of themany wives of David?
It seems to me that you are seeking a life for your daughter that God hasn'tcalled her to, and rejecting God’s commands: for her and for you.

George: Those arehorrible comparisons! I want my daughter to have a happy life!

Sakal: But maybethat isn’t God’s highest priority. I Corinthians 7, and I Peter 3, both speakof daughters married to unGodly men, and both show them blessing theirhusbands. None of us want our daughters to marry such men. We all dream of themhaving the perfect, fairy tale, marriage. But none of our marriages are likethat. And in our quest for the perfect, we are missing not only the good, but God'scommands.
And it is our obedience to those commands, not the perfection of the to-be-marriedcouple, that will lead to the ‘perfect’ marriage.

George: Obviouslyyou haven’t read what the church is beginning to say about a‘multi-generational vision’.[iv]

Sakal: But I have.And much of it is very Godly.

George: Well, then,how can you justify what you are saying? If a young man is going to fit into mymulti-generational vision, he needs to be much more than a mere Christian… andmuch more than merely free of lustful thoughts. He must have qualities that fithim for my vision, qualities that raise him to the level of an elder, or adeacon at least.[v]

Sakal: There is aquality I think you are missing…that much of the courtship crowd is missing.

George: Oh? What isthat?

Sakal: He mustexist!
Many of the ‘multi-generational’ advocates wrote their plans with theassumption that their sons and daughters would be married at an early age. Butthey aren’t married. They aren’t marrying. Their fathers may have done excellent work in writing up the plan, butthey haven’t done so well at the whole ‘take wives for your sons’ thing, and theyare even worse at obeying the command to ‘give your daughters in marriage’.[vi]
It seems these men have multiplied their requirements for the wives of theirsons, or the husbands of their daughters, and forgotten the most basicrequirement: they must exist, and be available, at the right time.[vii]

Andrew: [Coming over to the table withMaydyn in hand] Pastor! Mr. Davidson! [Everyone rises and greets each other]What’s up?

George: [Lookingcuriously at Maydyn] Oh, we were having a discussion onhermeneutics; among other things.

Andrew: Howinteresting. If I know Mr. Davidson, you were being challenged!

George: I wouldn’tput it quite like that. We were having some differences. But, you will have toexcuse me, I know you, Andrew, from that year you came to our youth camp, but Idon’t think this young lady and I have met before.

Andrew: [Grinning hugely]Ah, well, this is my wife Maydyn, my betrothed wife.

George: [Shocked] Yourwife?! I had no idea! I must have missed the wedding announcement.

Andrew: Oh, wehaven’t had our wedding yet, just ourbetrothal.

George: [Looking back and forth fromSakal to Andrew] Then why do you call her your wife?

Andrew: [Squeezing her hand]Because she is. Just like Mary was Joseph’s wife,and the church is the wife of Christ.

George: That’sentirely different.

Andrew: [With a sidelong grin at Sakal] Oh,why?

George: We... wedon’t do that anymore.

Andrew: [Squeezing Maydyn’s hand again] Wedid!

George: But, youcan’t call her your wife, people will be confused.

Andrew: I thinkpeople are already confused, with all of this ‘fiancée’ stuff. Confused andnervous. I know I would be.

George: Really,why?

Andrew: Well, witha fiancée, you are always wondering, “Will she back out of our engagement?” Butwith Maydyn, she’s my wife!

George: No, notreally. You haven’t been married, you know.

Andrew: Well, Ihaven’t taken her home yet, but we are in covenant.

George: Oh, youmean… you mean you actually have your marriage license, and a pastor hasperformed a ceremony? Why then do you say you haven’t married her yet?

Andrew: No, wehaven’t done any of that, we aren’t goingto do any of that. But even without that we are in covenant. Her father gaveher to me. [He looks lovingly at Maydyn,who grins at him and squeezes his hand.]

George: But, but,you have to do those things! Youcan’t just sleep with her!

Andrew: I can now, she’s my wife. But we are going towait a week or so, we have some details to work out regarding the celebrationand honeymoon. Maydyn, well, she’s a woman, and she wants a celebration.

George: Oh, Imisunderstood you then. I thought you were not going to have a wedding. Who isgoing to perform the ceremony and make you man and wife?

Andrew: I told you,Maydyn’s father already ‘performed’ it. He took her hand, placed it in mine,and said, “Take her, and let her be your wife.” Happiest moment of my life!

Maydyn: [Leaning against him] Andmine.

George: But that’snot right! Somebody has to pronounce you man and wife at the wedding!

Andrew: Oh? That’s notwhat we find in Scripture. A wedding is a celebration of a covenant already made.

George: That’s justcrazy. Nobody is doing that nowadays!

Andrew: [Decisively] We are!

George: But… well,I suppose that is something else we will talk about. Congratulations. How long did you court?

Andrew: [Grinning] Wedidn’t. Her dad wouldn’t let me court her.

George: [Looking shocked] Then howdid you… you didn’t…?!

Andrew: Sleepwith her? No, sir! Her dad gave her to me. Her dad and my dad talked and theydecided we should marry, and then they told us.

George: You mean,"Asked you."

Andrew: Nope,‘told us’. It was so funny. My dad came to me, sat me down, and started out,“Andrew, as you know you are getting older…” and I interrupted him. “Who isshe?” I asked.
And he blushed, sort of, and said it was Maydyn. And you should have heard mescream with joy. I was prepared, in case it was someone else, but I had,foolishly, allowed my thoughts and actions to already turn toward Maydyn.

George: I’m gladhe chose someone you could appreciate. And you, Maydyn, how did your father askyou?”

Maydyn: My fatherdidn’t ‘ask’ me either, he told me…

George: What?! Heforced you to marry Andrew?

Maydyn: It wasn’tforce. He came to me a couple of days before and we had a long talk, our wholefamily did. Dad explained to us everything Scripture says about how to getmarried. I knew what was coming, of course, but the other kids hadn’t heard somuch. It was good to hear it all laid out.
He explained how, if we would let him, he would pick out spouses for us… inconjunction, that is, with the father of the other boy or girl involved. I said‘yes’ right away, and my siblings followed suit, after a few questions. Joseph,my oldest brother, was particularly interested in ‘when’… and rather excited bymy dad’s answer.

George: How canyou not call that force? He picked your husband for you! You seem veryhappy with him, and that is fine, but the principle that you two seem to beespousing is, at its root, a form of force!

Andrew: Have youever given your children gifts?

George: Ofcourse.

Andrew: Was thatforce? Or do you always have your children pick their own gifts?

George: What?

Andrew: My fathergave me a gift, the gift of a wife. Maydyn’s father gave it with him. He workedyear after year preparing a wife for me, and then, one day, he gave her to me.How is that force? Now, as for Maydyn…

Maydyn: …As forMaydyn, her father gave her a gift, the gift of a husband!

[i]II Tim 3:15-17

[ii]James 2:14-17

[iii]I Tim 4:3

[iv]Eg: generationsof.blogspot.com/2007/06/establishing-multi-generational-vision.html

[v]See: www.visionforum.com /browse/product/?productid=52842

[vi]This is a direct quote from Jer 29:6 but is also inferred from many otherpassages including I Cor 7.

[vii] See I Cor 7:36, ‘if she pass the flower of her age.’Many of our daughters are getting older and older, and have long passed ‘theflower of their age’ and almost passed their fertility, and they still aren’tmarried.

What are you Doing? Chapter 17

2011-08-23T07:18:00.000-07:00

I:
A Confrontation.

Sakal and Pat come into a restaurant together, and,after they are seated…

Pat: So, what’s upwith the meeting, at a restaurant and all?

Sakal: I havesomething very important, and rather private, to discuss with you.

Pat: More aboutcourtship and dating?

Sakal: Sort of.More about marriage.

Pat: Soundsinteresting.

Sakal: Well, Icertainly hope you will be interested. I am speaking about the marriage of Maydynand Andrew.

Pat: [After a long pause]You’re serious?

Sakal: Very.

Pat: Not dating,not courtship, just… marriage?

Sakal: Sort of. Theactual stage would be called ‘betrothal’; where they are bound in covenanttogether, but have not yet ‘come together’.[i]

Pat: This seems… Iam… I am very surprised, in one sense, but in another, not really. Ourconversation seems to have been leading inexorably in this direction. And, moreand more, I am… not unwilling. What are you actually proposing?

Sakal: Well, Abecame to me the other day and we discussed it. He is of the opinion that Andrew needsa wife.

Pat: Like ‘needs’as in…

Sakal: As in he isa healthy young man, and, besides, heis a healthy young man, and it istime for him to step up to the responsibilities of a husband and father.

Pat: Is he going tobe able to afford an apartment, and insurance, and all of that?

Sakal: He won’tneed to. His parents have agreed there is really no reason he should have tomove out of their house, even once he brings his wife home. His father said, “Idon’t have many mansions in my house, but I have an extra bedroom, anyway."[ii]
He and his father, assuming you agree, will build a bathroom onto his bedroom,which should make living a little less tight, and give the new young couple alittle more privacy. And he has a job, so insurance should be OK. Although hisfather was talking about wanting tobring him into the family business, and said that they could provide,regardless.

Pat: But what about‘leave and cleave’?

Sakal: What aboutit?

Pat: Doesn’t itmean he needs his own apartment?

Sakal: Is that whatyou see in Scripture?

Pat: Well, no, I’vealways wondered about that. Almost none of the examples in Scripture show theyoung man ‘going off’ in any meaningful sense; even Abraham who ‘left hisfather’s house’. It seems to me that that example almost shows that he wasexpected to stay in his father's house, and indeed where he and his wife hadbeen living, and that God was calling them to do something extraordinary byleaving. The rest of the patriarchs seemed to live with, and work with, theirfathers, or their fathers-in-law.

Sakal: …which usedto be the norm for our cultures as well. The 'old country', England is fullof houses that are so big as to be practically useless, because everyone goesoff to live by themselves.

Pat: So, does thismean I will get a bride price too? (Chuckling)

Sakal: Yes. Abe isproposing ten thousand dollars.

Pat: What? I waskidding! I don’t want to sell mydaughter!

Sakal: No one wantsyou to. But the bride price plays a significant function; it shows her value.And the point isn’t that you get the money but that you keep it for yourdaughter, if Andrew should ever abandon her.

Pat: Wow. Thisseems like something out of an old movie. But, is he really ready? It sounds like hedoesn’t really have his finances and all worked out. You know, “prepare yourfields.”[iii]

Sakal: Yet anotherverse that everyone quotes though it has nothing to do with marriage.[iv]If you believe he needs more time to be ready to bring your daughter home, thenthat is fine. I won’t be happy (and Andrew definitelywon’t be happy) but that is your prerogative. But you need not hinder thebetrothal. Just make their betrothal contingent on his earning so much money,or passing a test or something.
But I won’t agree to any long conditions. The Jews had a tradition that thegroom had one year to prepare the place he was going to bring his wife back to;in our sexually crazed society I think that is more than enough time, probablytoo much; for Andrew and Maydyn, in particular, the shorter the better.

Pat: I don’t understand this ‘conditional betrothal’.

Sakal: Well, perhaps it is hard to understand for uspoor moderns. In the past, a betrothal could happen one of two ways. Either thefathers would agree, and the betrothal was immediately valid; or the bride’sfather would set some condition, like ‘take this city’, and there would be nobetrothal until the city was taken.
On the other end, sometimes there was a payment that needed to be made, anduntil it was paid they were betrothed, but couldn’t come together. Sometimes theyoung man’s father would set him a task.
But in today’s society, I think we need to be very careful. We are surroundedby rampant fornication. If we betroth someone very young, then it is just as wellthat they have to wait to come together, and that he have some task in the meantime. But if they are older, as so many of our children are, I think we need tosimply ‘let them marry’.

Pat: So, what else?

Sakal: Abe alreadytalked to Andrew, and Andrew has agreed to marry whomever his father picks. I’msure he is suspicious, and hopeful, that it is Maydyn, but he doesn’t know.

Pat: Well, Maydyn alreadytold me the same thing. We had a long talk, as a family, after you and I talkedlast. To my utter amazement my wife and all of my children said that, if Ithought it was right, I could pick their spouses… for my children…

Sakal: [Grins] Yes,your wife already is married, and to a fine husband.

Pat: A humiliatedhusband, really. I had so little confidence in them, and so little confidence inmyself.
[A pause andthen he continues]… and Abe sent you to ask me?

Sakal: Yes.
Our society is not very good at this; we are out of practice. If you needed toturn Andrew down, he figured it would be easier if you weren’t face to face, asit were. I can more forcefully argue Andrew’s qualities, without any need formodesty, since he is not my son. He also gave me the authority to go to anotherfather, if you do turn Andrew down.

Pat: Well, I’m notgoing to.
Looking back, I have let this relationship go far, far too far if I was goingto turn him down. My wife and I were talking about this and we realized what wehad allowed to happen. Andrew hasalready told Maydyn that she is 'the only girl he knew that he would considermarrying'. He asked her out on a date, and she was eager to start courting him.He has been hanging around our house ever since… I am afraid her heart is already partiallycommitted, and I know he is eager for her... and much of that is my fault. I blewa very uncertain trumpet[v],and they responded as well as they could.
But, tell me more about the betrothal period. I understand betrothal is abinding commitment, and a permanent one. We read through Ephesians five theother night and I was amazed, again, at how many times I had read that passageand not realized that it spoke of our betrothal to Christ, as a church.
But, as a practical matter, how long doyou expect this period to last, before they ‘come together’?

Sakal: That is upto two people:
First of all, you. As we said, if you wish, you can set a time limit, or somecondition, and the betrothal wouldn’t be fully effective till then.

Pat: And the otherperson?

Sakal: Andrew. Underthe direction of his father, he will decide when to come for his bride.

Pat: So, like, tenminutes after I say it’s OK?

Sakal: [Grins]

[i]The Biblical name for the uniting in sexual intercourse is, alternately, ‘knewhere’, ‘come together’, or ‘take’ the wife. See, for example, Gen 24: 67

[ii]John 14: 1-3

[iii]Prov 24: 27

[iv]several points needed to be noted about Prov 24:7:

a) The versesays nothing about marriage.

b) The versespeaks of ‘a field’, which would have been, under Jewish law, something thatone would have gotten either when purchased in addition to one’s own land, orwhen one’s father died… neither one a young man’s occupation. So the personinvolved here probably already has a wife, and children, who are probablyengaged in helping him put the field in order before they build their new houseon their new land.

c) Putting the interpretation of marriage to this verseputs the young wife as a ‘liability’, or a ‘luxury’; something which drainsrather than increases the young man's ability to produce, to prepare his field.This is not how Scripture speaks of a wife. Instead it sees the wife as someone who is productive in the young man’sendeavors. Indeed, according to Prov 31, it might have been the wife herselfwho bought the field!

d) The actual words of the verse admit of an obviousmeaning that fits perfectly into much else that Prov says; contrasting the wiseman and the fool. A man who buys a field and, before getting the land in shapeand planting a crop, instead builds the house (instead of living in a tent, aswould be natural) is a fool. The contrary man, who prepares the field to beproductive before working on the house, is a wise man.

[v]I Cor 14:8

What are you Doing? Chapter 16

2011-08-21T06:43:00.000-07:00

I:
Taking Initiative.

Sakal is sitting at a table in the park when a manwalks up to him…

Abe: Sakal? SakalDavidson? I’m Abe, Abe Adamson.

Sakal : [Rising and shaking his hand]I’m pleased to meet you. So, you’reAndrew’s father?

Abe: Yes, and youare Sakal, the man I have been hearing so much about. Our dinner conversationshave been very animated recently.

Sakal: Sorry!

Abe: No, it’s beengood. I hadn’t realized how much of our culture we had just accepted. Andrew camehome and told me some people were talking about not dating and, after freakingout, I started looking into the issue myself… following from afar, as it were.

Sakal: …and nowyou’ve come to confront me directly?

Abe: Confront? No,to thank you.

Sakal: Oh?

Abe: Yes. I haven’tbeen challenged like this in years. The more I studied the Scriptures, the moreissues I found; issues I had just taken for granted before. I would like to runsome of my thoughts by you.

Sakal: Sure.

Abe: Starting atthe beginning, it seems like the Scriptures are completely bereft of anythingour culture would call ‘dating’ or ‘courting’… any idea of the young man andthe young woman pursuing a relationship together. All of the relationships, thebest relationships at least, started with some form of covenant or agreement.

Sakal: Betrothal.

Abe: Yes, or espousal,when they translate it from the Greek, at least in the KJV. Before that they aresupposed to only be brother and sister[i].

Sakal: An unpopularconclusion; and it points out a major problem with courtship, especially forour young men. They know, in their hearts, they are supposed to treat the youngwomen as sisters. But courtship, if it is to work, forces them to go beyondthat, to treat the young women as potential wives, before they are in covenant.
As a result, some of them, some of the best of them, don’t court at all. Theynever get past the point of ‘sister’ to the point of ‘future wife’… since theyknow they aren’t supposed to think like that.

Abe: Wow, I neverthought of it that way.
The second thing I discovered had to do with the timing of marriage. All of thepassages point toward young marriages, veryyoung marriages by our standards. God constantly speaks of the young couplebeing fertile, of having children. He talks about what a blessing a wife is toa man, a young man... a blessing that lasts all of his life. Anyway, all ofthese things helped convince me that I should get serious about Andrew and hisideas and plans.

Sakal: Why you?

Abe: A goodquestion, although I have a feeling you know the answer. All of my life I’vegrown up with the idea that it was up to the kids to figure the whole thing out;but now I am seeing that I amsupposed to be taking care of this issue, or, at least, taking the initiative.

Sakal: So, what areyou going to do?

Abe: I’m going togo confront Pat with my problem.

Sakal: Good foryou.

Abe: Or, rather,I’m going to ask you to go for me.

Sakal: Oh?

Abe: If you’ll doit, I think it would be better. I’m new to all this and...well... don’t know itvery well. If well, if Maydyn’s father starts to talk about a litany of thingswrong with Andrew, I’m rather afraid I will just agree with him and walk awayashamed. I'm hoping you will be better suited to the job.

Sakal: Well, I willdo my best. Andrew is fine young man.But I can’t promise anything. The church is rather stuck in neutral on thisissue… with people actually saying that the reason that the young people aren’tgetting married is because they ‘aren’t ready’[ii]or because it isn't ‘the Lord’s will’.

Abe: You’re notsaying it is outside of the Lord’s will?

Sakal: Yes and no.Everything that happens is according to the Lord’s will, but that doesn’t meanthat everything we do is sinless. It was certainly the Lord’s will that Pharaohand his army were drowned in the Red Sea. Butthat doesn’t mean that, if you had been one of his counselors, you wouldn’thave advised him to take a slightly different tack in regards to the childrenof Israel.

Abe: [Laughs] No.No, you're right we need to be doing the right thing, the obedient thing,regardless. The Lord will work everything out for good, but we still need to do what is right, aswell as we can.

Sakal: Exactly. Somany people are just sitting, waiting, when they should be up and doing.

Abe: Speaking ofwhich…

Sakal: Oh, right.Let me see, do you have their phone number? And I have a couple more questionsfor you…

[i]I Tim 5:2

[ii]visionarydaughters.com /2010/07/why-am-i-not-married

What are you Doing? Chapter 15

2011-08-20T06:42:00.000-07:00

I: GainingOneness.

Later in the evening Pat and Sakal are sitting at thekitchen table. The women’s voices can be heard, quietly, in the background.

Pat: I had anotherquestion.

Sakal: Yes?

Pat: One of themost important things I have been reading about in the whole courtship issue isthe idea of oneness.[i]Most everything that I’ve read talks about how the couple needs to start becomingone during the courtship period. Some people talk about mental oneness, someabout spiritual oneness.

Sakal: And thephysical?

Pat: Oh, no. Thathas to wait for marriage itself.

Sakal: I see. Sothe idea is that you move through these stages, becoming more and more one,until finally you start sleeping together?

Pat: Well, no onewould put it quite that way.

Sakal: I supposenot. But what about you; what do you think?

Pat: Well, the ideaof a growing oneness resonates with me. It’s rather similar to what my wife andI did.

Sakal: Yes, it is very similar to the dating model.

Pat: Ouch. [A long pause]You mean that in courtship they end up forming a relationship that, if eventuallybroken off, was inappropriate? We talk about them being ‘one flesh’ and we usethat as a euphemism for marital intimacy, but we also want it to mean more thanthat. We want her to be a helpmeet.[ii]We want them to have common goals, and to have learned to work well together.

Sakal: Yet we don’twant that…

Pat: Outside ofmarriage. Wow. It’s true. I want my daughter to be fulfilling my goals, as her father, but only inpreparation for her fulfilling her husband’sgoals once she is married.[iii]

Sakal: And youdon’t want her working on some other man’sgoals in the meantime.

Pat: No, I don’t. Ididn’t think of that before. Is there any way to avoid that conflict?

Sakal: Other thanby not having them date or court?How?
Both dating and courting require forming a relationship… and the kind ofrelationship they form must, of necessity, be ‘marriage lite’. They aren’tmeeting to collect stamps or solve world hunger through political action: they are coming together as a boy anda girl on the road to marriage. It seems to me that all of the things thatdating and courtship advocates say they wantto happen during the dating and courting time are the very things that, if thedating or courting doesn’t work out, are things that, in hindsight, they didn’t want to have happened… thingsthat need to be undone by the next relationship, and that damage it. Two startbecoming one, even if not physically, and then, if the courtship fails, you askthem to become two again; an impossible task.

Pat: Wow.

Sakal: Ironically,Scripture talks about such relationships, and every single one of them isnegative.

Pat: Yes, I heardthat list; Charles buttonholed me to talk about it. He was rather depressed.

Sakal: [Chuckles, then sobers up.]But there is another pertinent issue we need to recognize. Most courtshipmodels say that the relationship is supposed to go through several phases.

Pat: Yes:Pre-friendship, friendship, courting, engagement, marriage.

Sakal: Yes. Now the‘oneness’ of these stages is important, but I think there is something muchmore serious that we must look at. In each of these stages the individualsconcerned make a sort of commitment, no?

Pat: What do youmean?

Sakal: Well, let ussay that a young man, George, is thinking it is time for him to marry. So helooks around the church, among his friends, or whatever, and says, “I wonderwho I should court?” He looks at a series of girls and says, “Should I courther?”
Well, even if he thinks about her for a minute or two, he has thought abouther, as a possible wife.

Pat: And you’reworried about his thought life?

Sakal: Well, thatis an issue, but that isn’t what I’m talking about now. Right now I’m talkingabout his ‘commitment life’. For those few seconds, he has made a very small,very light, commitment to that girl.

Pat: Oh, I see.Even if just to say, “Thinking about her as my wife for a second here…”

Sakal: Exactly. Andthen, when he, for whatever reason, decides she isn’t right; he breaks off thatcommitment.

Pat: But, if hedoes decide to pursue it further, he ‘commits’ to thinking about her moreseriously, and cultivates a friendship with her.

Sakal: Exactly, allthe while thinking of her as a ‘wife lite’. Then, a week, or a month, later, hedecides she isn’t exactly what he is looking for and, ‘breaks it off’.

Pat: But,hopefully, he hasn’t said anything to her.

Sakal: Very true.But then the day comes, when he has gone through all these steps, and finallyasks the father for permission to court the daughter. Now his heart is evenmore committed.

Pat: Oh, my. I seewhere you are going. This is awful. From the time of pre-friendship, through courting,he has gotten used to making commitments and then, when the girl on the otherend doesn't turn out to be what he was thinking, he drops her, he breaks thatcommitment.
Then, when he comes to marry a girl, he has gotten into the horrible habit of making,then breaking commitments. But surelyhe will understand that the marriage commitment is one that can’t be brokenjust because he finds a fault in the girl!

Sakal: Hopefully; buteven if he does, what of his heart? Will he not, in his heart, carry aboutseeds of dissatisfaction; a hidden thought that it ‘isn’t fair’ and 'I shouldbe able to drop her'? Isn’t that what all his previous experience has taughthim?

Pat: Wow!... and ourdaughters as well, although in a different fashion. She would get used tohaving, and then losing… or even dropping… various boys. So even when shecommits to marriage, she retains her old habits.

Sakal: In the endwe can never prevent our children from forming harmful attachments. But surelywe can do better than to put them in a system that guarantees them! That even encouragesthem!

Pat: Wow. Well,you’ve given me a whole lot to think about, as much as I can handle. Shall werejoin our wives?

[The two get up from the table and walk out the kitchen door.]

[i]www.worldspirituality.org/christian-courtship.html

[ii]Gen 2: 18

[iii]Prov 31: 10-31

What are you Doing? Chapter 14

2011-08-19T06:40:00.000-07:00

I: The JointProblem.

Sakal, Pat, Maydyn, and Andrew are all sitting at the kitchen table, with thenoise of children in the background.

Pat: So, let meresume our discussion. Mr. Davidson and I were talking about some of theproblems with having… healthy youngmen and women hang out together during courtship. He challenged me, and he was right,that I was a healthy young man when Idated… and that is one reason why I was so impressed with courtship. But if,umm, healthy young men and women are to get married, then, somehow, they needto get together. And, right now, I am rather frustrated with the currentsystem… as, it seems, you two are.
Mr. Davidson and I had gotten to that part of our conversation, when we made itback here, and decided to invite the two of you to join us. It seems, from whatI have seen, that there are a lot of problems with courtship, problems Ithought we had left behind in dating. It seems that courtship works towardsolving some issues, but not fully, and not Biblically. And we aren’t gettingour children married.

Sakal: We do seemto keep coming back to the same issues. That, no matter how much you try todifferentiate them, there is something at the core of both dating and courtshipthat is the same, and that is wrong, very wrong. I think a good part of what’swrong with both dating and courtship are the ‘dates’; the ‘going out together’.

Andrew: What?!

Maydyn: What?

Pat: What?

Sakal: I’m notsaying it is the only thing wrong,but it certainly seems to be one of them. My wife and I have done quite astudy, along with all of you. We have examined Christian Dating, and all sortsof varieties of courtship... from the informal to the formal, the loose to thetightly chaperoned. And all of them seem to founder on this same rock, the rockof 'going out' or 'courting'. The young man and the young woman are encouragedinto a series of encounters, which lead them to bind their hearts together, tovarious degrees... all of which are inappropriate, all of which encourage theyoung man to treat his sister in the Lord as something else, something morelike a wife.

Andrew: But youcan’t get married without dating!

Maydyn: I wouldn’twant to marry a boy who hadn’t courtedme.

Pat: How are theysupposed to know if they are supposed to get married?

Sakal: That is agood question. How do you read it? What do the Scriptures say?

Pat: They don’t!That’s the whole problem! The Scriptures don’t tell us how the boy and the girlare supposed to figure out who to marry!

Sakal: Oh? Let ussee. Let’s look at the Scriptures. They are full of examples of marriage, anyway. Let’s start at the beginning. How didAdam know who he was supposed to marry?

Andrew: That waseasy! God brought Eve to him.[i]

Sakal: And how didEve know who she was supposed to marry?

Maydyn: That waseasy too, God brought her to Adam.

Sakal: How aboutIsaac?

Andrew: He had it easy,too. His father sent a servant to get him a wife. All he had to do was to takeher into his tent.[ii]

Maydyn: But I don’tknow how Rebecca decided if she should marry Isaac.

Pat: She didn’t,her father did. You remember, darling, how the servant came to her father and he,along with her brother, said, The thing proceedeth from the LORD: we cannot speak untothee bad or good. Behold, Rebekah is before thee, take her, and go, and let herbe thy master's son's wife, as the LORD hath spoken. [iii]

Maydyn: But, lateron, they asked her if she wanted to marry Isaac, didn’t they?

Pat: No, notreally, you remember the mother and the servant were having an argument aboutwhether Rebecca and Abraham’s servant should leave right away or after a fewdays and that was when they called her in and asked her if she ‘would go’.

Maydyn: So she wentbecause her father told her sheshould go?

Pat: Yes, that’sthe way I read it.

Maydyn: Oh.

Sakal: And how didJacob know who he should marry?[iv]

Andrew: That washarder. His father sent him off to the ‘old country’ to his mother’s family toget a wife.

Sakal: But how didhe know which wife to pick?

Andrew: Well, if Iremember right, no, let me look it up: Genesis28: 1-5 And Isaac called Jacob, andblessed him, and charged him, and said unto him, Thou shalt not take a wife ofthe daughters of Canaan. Arise, go to Padanaram, to the house ofBethuel thy mother's father; and take thee a wife from thence of the daughtersof Laban thy mother's brother. And GodAlmighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thoumayest be a multitude of people; Andgive thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee; thatthou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave untoAbraham. And Isaac sent away Jacob: andhe went to Padanaram unto Laban, son of Bethuel the Syrian, the brother ofRebekah, Jacob's and Esau's mother.
Genesis 29: 9-19 … And it came topass, when Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Laban his mother's brother, and thesheep of Laban his mother's brother, that Jacob went near, and rolled the stonefrom the well's mouth, and watered the flock of Laban his mother's brother. And Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up hisvoice, and wept.
And Jacob told Rachel that he was her father's brother, and that he wasRebekah's son: and she ran and told her father. And it came to pass, when Laban heard the tidings of Jacob his sister'sson, that he ran to meet him, and embraced him, and kissed him, and brought himto his house. And he told Laban all these things. And Laban said to him, Surely thou art mybone and my flesh. And he abode with him the space of a month.
And Laban said unto Jacob, Because thouart my brother, shouldest thou therefore serve me for nought? tell me, whatshall thy wages be? And Laban had twodaughters the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger wasRachel. Leah was tender eyed; but Rachelwas beautiful and well favoured. And Jacob loved Rachel; and said, I will servethee seven years for Rachel thy younger daughter.
And Laban said, It is better that I giveher to thee, than that I should give her to another man: abide with me.”
So, anyway, his father sent him to that family and told him tomarry one of the girls, and he picked the pretty one.

Sakal: And he marriedher?

Andrew: Well, sortof. He married the ugly one first…

Maydyn: Andrew! TheBible doesn’t say she was ugly!

Andrew: Well, itsays she was ‘tender eyed’ and I always thought that meant she was, you know,that she had something wrong with her face.

Maydyn: Andrew!

Andrew: [Blushing] Anyway,he married Leah first, and then Rachel, and then the two slave girls.

Sakal: But how didhe know he was supposed to marry them?

Andrew: It doesn’treally say. Rachel he married because his father said so, and she was pretty,and because her father said he could. Leah he married because her fatherslipped her into his honeymoon tent, and then he talked him into keeping her…and because his father said so too, Iguess, she was one of the daughtersof Laban. And then the two slave girls, his wives talked him into taking them.

Pat: Surely youaren’t suggesting that we imitate the method of Jacob?

Andrew: Isn’t itwritten that,‘All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine,for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man ofGod may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.'?[v]Surely God must have put the story of Jacob in the Bible for a reason.

Pat: Perhaps it isto show us what not to do.

Sakal: Perhaps. Butyou will recall that we began this conversation to determine whether or not itwas true that the Scriptures say nothing atall about the path to marriage. Even a ‘don’t do that’ would still besaying something. Shall we keep looking?

Pat: Sure, yeah.

Sakal: So Maydyn,those girls, how did they know whether to marry Jacob?

Maydyn: Leah andRachel married him because their father said so, and the two slave girls, well,they had to marry whoever their master told them to.

Sakal: Very well,who do we have left?

Maydyn: There’sRuth. She and Boaz courted!

Andrew: No, theydidn’t either. Here, let me read it to you… ThenNaomi her mother-in-law said unto her, My daughter, shall I not seek rest forthee, that it may be well with thee? Andnow is not Boaz of our kindred, with whose maidens thou wast? Behold, hewinnoweth barley to night in the threshing floor. Wash thyself therefore, and anoint thee, andput thy raiment upon thee, and get thee down to the floor: but make not thyselfknown unto the man, until he shall have done eating and drinking. And it shall be, when he lieth down, thatthou shalt mark the place where he shall lie, and thou shalt go in, and uncoverhis feet, and lay thee down; and he will tell thee what thou shalt do.
And she said unto her, All that thousayest unto me I will do.[vi]

Maydyn: So, she marriedthe man that her mother-in-law told her to?

Pat: Sort of,sweetheart, you see there was a law that determined who she had to marry[vii].

Maydyn: And she had to marry him?

Pat: Well, yes. Yousee Ruth although she was a Moabitess not a Jewess, had deliberately decided toobey God’s law[viii]…including that one.

Maydyn: Wow! Inever knew that.

Pat: We could gothrough the rest of the marriages, but it seems to me we are seeing a lot ofsimilarity between these stories, and a lot of differences with ours. Theproblem that I see is that children of today wouldn’t be willing to follow theBiblical pattern.

Andrew: Hey!

Maydyn: Daddy!

Pat: What, wouldyou? Andrew, would you be willing to get married like Othniel[ix]or David[x]?If I set you some big challenge, something you had to go out and do, some enemyyou had to conquer, would you do it?

Andrew: [Puffing out his chest]To marry Maydyn? Sure I would, if I could. There aren’t a hundred Philistinesaround to kill nowadays but, what would it take?!

Pat: Ahem. Well,perhaps you would [He glances atSakal], but what of you, Maydyn? Would you marry Andrew justbecause he accomplished some task I set before him?

Maydyn: If he askedme.

Andrew: But thatwasn’t what happened in Scripture! The father set the task, and the boy did it,and the girl went along.

Maydyn: [Looks at her father]Yeah, I guess I would do that, too. If Daddy thought that was the right thingto do. I’m not sure this is a fair test, though, because I already know Andrew,we practically grew up together.

Pat: Yes, perhaps Iasked the wrong thing. Andrew, what if your father called you into his officeand talked about how he had picked this nice girl for you, and she would bearriving tomorrow with a friend of his…?

Andrew: [After a pause] Ican’t quite imagine my father doing that, but, you know, I think I would be OKwith it, especially if it happened tomorrow. I would be, I suppose, a bit takenaback if it wasn’t Maydyn…

Maydyn: And me,Daddy? Would you just pick someone for me?

Pat: No, becauseyou have said that you wouldn’t accept someone if I did that. Not that I had consideredit before, but you have made that clear in the past.

Maydyn: I hadn’tthought of it either! That doesn’t mean I would disobey you!

Pat: But, you alwayssaid…

Maydyn: Because Ithought that was right! That’s whatwe always talked about; that’s what I always thought I would do. I never read the story of Rebecca as if it could be me!

Andrew: I neverthought I could be Isaac. I don’t even know how to ride a camel! [Everyone glares at him. Hegrins and lifts his hands. Sheepishly.]Sorry!

Pat: But, if I picka husband for my daughter, or a wife for my son, how am I supposed to know ifthey will be compatible; without their dating or courting or anything?

Andrew: [Chuckles]

Pat: What?

Andrew: I alreadyasked that, and have been thinking a lot about the answer.

Pat: Well, what wasthe answer?

Andrew: First ofall, and most importantly, it seems that God has made women to be compatiblewith men… or incompatible, depending on how you look at it; to be alike, butdifferent; to be helpmeets. So anytruly Godly woman will be a good helpmeet to any truly Godly man. Nowhere in Scripture is it written that thereexists some ‘index of compatibility’ that the couple has to have; except theirwillingness to obey God and His commands about marriage.

Pat: OK, I can seethat. What was your other reason?

Andrew: Well, themore I think about it, the more I am afraid we have it all backwards. If youhad to choose between me and my father as far as picking the right wife for me,any person with intelligence would choose my father to do the deciding. He isolder, has more wisdom, and is less... personally involved. [Everyone stares at Andrew for aminute, who blushes.]

Pat: I think I seewhat you mean. The young man or [Helooks at his daughter.] young woman are apt to be driven bytheir hormones, and their standard of beauty or masculinity; whereas the fathercan be more objective, and dwell on more important issues.

Andrew: But, wait aminute. In our earlier conversation [Helooks at Sakal.] we agreed that Scripture didn’t list all sorts of requirementsfor a wife or husband?!

Pat: That doesn’tmean that the father just goes out and grabs someone off the street.
It is a far different thing to go out and seek a wife for your son, and do thebest you can for him, than having a checklist that the girl or boy must meet orthere is no marriage. Let us say, God forbid, that the two of you were to getin trouble and need to marry [Maydyn and Andrew both blushcrimson]. A checklist would imply that I should refuse… sinceAndrew has obviously demonstrated that he is not ‘up to snuff’ as far as thechecklist is concerned[xi].But Scripture, both in the law[xii]and the New Testament,[xiii]insists the opposite.
The emphasis on the checklists of the courtship advocates don’t seem to be on‘how can I get the best husband for my daughter, but ‘how can I avoid getting anunworthy husband for my daughter.’ The end result is not a series of perfectmarriages, but a series of non-marriages… of older, unmarried daughters andsons.
Abraham sent his servant out with a checklist, but the emphasis was on findingthe wife, and he found one. His checklist was simple, and objective: a daughterof my people, not a Canaanite, and Isaac wasn’t to go down there to get her.And the servant found a wife, and right away.
But the modern checklists are miles long: Finances, education, doctrine… I haveheard of dozens of courtships that foundered on one or another of these rocks…or simply the undefined disapproval of one of the parties. And the people onthe other end, the sons or the father’s of sons, have no idea what was involvedin the checklist. In the end, we are left with marriages which are eitherdelayed or denied altogether.

Pat: [Looks at Sakal] Iwould like to talk to you more about this, later.

[i]Gen 2: 22

[ii]Gen 24

[iii]Gen 24: 50b-51

[iv]Gen 29

[v]II Tim 3: 16-17

[vi]Ruth 3: 1-5

[vii]Deu 25: 5-6

[viii]Ruth 1: 16

[ix]Josh 15: 17

[x]I Sam 18: 27

[xi]See the story about Mark and Rachel in myweb.tiscali.co.uk/ largerhope/ Courtship%20&%20Betrothal% 20Essays/B.H.S.htm

[xii]Deut 22: 28-9; Exod22: 16-17

[xiii]I Cor 7: 9

What are you Doing? Chapter 13

2011-08-18T06:39:00.000-07:00

I:
An (overly) Eager Young Man.

Kitchen scene with large table, lots of kids,including Andrew, Maydyn, her family, Sakal, and his family.

Pat: That was agreat dinner, thanks!

Sakal: No problem.We were glad to have you over.

Pat: It was reallynice to invite all of us over.

Sakal: Well, whenyou have eight children, adding four or five more people to a meal is no bigdeal.

Pat: You must havea very patient wife to be willing to have that many children.[i]

Sakal: I do have avery patient wife… after all, she married me.

Pat: [Laughs] Say,would you mind going on a walk with me, just the two of us?

Sakal: No, thatwould be fine. [The two walkoutside and end up at the park] Well, I assume you wanted tohave some ‘man to man’ talk?

Pat: Yes. As you know, Andrew is a good friend of the family, so,even though we told him he couldn’t court Maydyn he is still over at our house allthe time, and between him and Maydyn I have been hearing quite a bit about allof the discussions you have been having.
I was confident, a while ago, that what I was teaching was Scriptural. I had reada lot of courtship advocates: Bill Gothard, Douglas Wilson… and much of itseemed to make sense, and follow what Scripture taught. But now, well, I havebeen re-thinking.

Sakal: Always agood thing.

Pat: Well, yes,but, it’s not exactly making my life easy. All this time I have been thinkingof all of these wonderful qualifications that a potential ‘suitor’ must meet,and now I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be looking for!

Sakal: I understand.I think a large part of the church is just as confused, if not more so. But, inthe end, you did decide to turn Andrew down?

Pat: Well, no, notreally. It seems like forever ago that I told him he couldn’t court Maydyn.

Sakal: And, why wasthat, anyway?

Pat: Well, since itis just the two of us, I guess I can tell you. You see, I’m not completely convincedabout his thought life.

Sakal: Oh?

Pat: It seems to methat he is a bit too eager to getmarried, if you see what I mean.

Sakal: No, I can’tsay I do.

Pat: I don’t wantto malign a Godly young man but, well, I am not sure he has completelyconquered lust.

Sakal: No, I doubthe has.

Pat: [Sighs] So yousee it too? So you see why I can’t let him court Maydyn?

Sakal: No.

Pat: You would letsomeone court one of your daughters who hadn’t conquered lust?

Sakal: Leavingaside the question of courtship… I would certainly let a young man who hadn’tconquered lust marry my daughter. Infact, quite the opposite… I don’t think I would be inclined to let a young manwho had conquered lust marry one ofmy daughters. We are looking forward to grandchildren…

Pat: I don’t meanthat! I don’t mean he is a eunuch[ii]…spiritual or otherwise.

Sakal: Perhaps Imisunderstood you. I thought you were saying that you wouldn’t let a young man who was struggling with mentalfornication… one who, when he looked at a beautiful young woman, was tempted toundress her with his eyes… that I wouldn’t let someone like that marry my daughter.

Pat: That is what Imean! I wouldn’t let him in my house!

Sakal: Then you hadbetter keep Andrew out.

Pat: What?

Sakal: Let me putit this way: I want to give my daughter to a young man who will bless him,sexually. You remember Proverbs five?

Pat: Well, I thinkso...

Sakal: It readslike this: Proverbs 5:15-19 Drink waters out of thine owncistern, and running waters out of thine own well. Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, andrivers of waters in the streets. Letthem be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee. Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice withthe wife of thy youth. Let her be as theloving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and bethou ravished always with her love.
I want to give my daughter to a man who will find this easy! I want togive her to someone for whom she will be a blessing.

Pat: Wow. But whatabout, I mean... don't you want her to be happy?

Sakal: Of course,but that is not my primary goal. Happiness is like health: if you make it yourprimary goal you end up sick. It is precisely when we stop focusing on herhappiness, and focus instead on what she should be doing, what her God givengoals are, that she will arrive at the happiness God has for her.
I want my daughter's goal to be to glorify God. And in marriage, I want herprimary goal to be to be a blessing to her husband, to glorify God in that way.When a young man comes for my daughter... or when his father comes presentinghim, I want my primary thought to be, "Can my daughter serve God byserving this man? Does she have what heneeds?" We see in I Peter 3 a wife blessinga man who ‘obeys not the word’. Our daughters do not serve God merely bymarrying the best man in all the world, the most Godly man on the planet; theydo it by marrying the man that needs her, the one God has created her for.

Pat: And the youngman's father, should he be thinking the same thing?

Sakal: Well, sortof. The young man's father will, I hope, be thinking, "Will this youngwoman be able to meet my son's needs. Will she be able to bless him sexuallyand in every other way; and will their union meet our family goals ofglorifying God?"

Pat: That, that'snot what I meant! I meant, should the young man's father be thinking about howhis son can bless his wife?

Sakal: That shouldbe what he has trained him for, but it isn't what he should choose her for. Sheis being chosen as his helpmeet, not vice versa. I happen to believe that Godhas made women, in general, to be good helpmeets. I don't think that there areany such things, in the end, as bad matches[iii].A father should be looking for the best wife for his son, the one with the moststrengths etc.
But I don't think that should be the girl's father's goal. I see Scripture assaying that his goal should be to answer the question, "is my daughterequipped to be a helpmeet to this young man, to bless him all of his days?"
As fathers of sons, we are to train our sons to love their wives, to give honorto them as the weaker vessel, and to guide them spiritually. But that is simplywhat we have trained them to do, it doesn’t affect which particular girl theyare to marry.

Pat: But… thatseems so…

Sakal: Unequal?Foreign? Patriarchal?

Pat: Well, yes; which,with my knowledge of the Scriptures, should almost be a recommendation. Isn’tthat precisely the battle that the church is having in our generation: that weare finding so much of what Scripture tells us to do ‘unequal, foreign, andpatriarchal’?
Returning to our original subject, you are saying that almost all of our youngmen are, well, let’s say ‘healthy’. Some of them are more tempted, sexually,than others; and some have fallen farther than others in that area, but thatGod calls for all of them to get married.

Sakal: And I Corinthians7 was written to the church. So they are to find their wives within the church…both the ‘incontinent’ young man and the young man who, while remaining muchmore pure, still wants a wife; both of them are to find their wives within thechurch. Both of them are to be able to come to you and say, “I need a wife.”
And that need, while it must include all of the wonderful spiritual reasons forgetting a wife: getting a helpmeet, growing toward being an elder or deacon,being fruitful… it should also be the spiritual need of avoiding fornication.Even if the young man, or his father, is not bold enough to state it, he isstill allowed, indeed commanded, to need to rejoice in her physically and thusavoid the ‘strange woman’.

Pat: That is a hardstatement. Almost no one is saying that nowadays. They are all standing up inmeetings, promoting books: and talking about all the things a young man has tobe before he can marry… and the same for the young woman.
One very important scholar, very respected, has said that while a young manshould look for a young woman that meets Proverbs 31 and Titus 2, the youngwoman and her father should seek a man that fits Titus 1.[iv]

Sakal: A very respected commentator. I listenedto his tape the other day. I would ask you a question about that message. Hegave it, I presume, to a large group of men and boys. In effect he gave it to‘the church’… he made the case that these principles should apply to everyChristian marriage.
Do you think that, if you had been the speaker who had given that message, youwould have felt comfortable, afterwards, standing up, reading I Corinthians 7:2and 9, and saying that you believed in applying that? That that passage wasstill true, and valid, for all Christians?

Pat: Well, no.
Obviously if the young man has to meet Titus 1, and the young woman Titus 2 andProverbs 31, we are not going to be marrying, or ‘letting them marry’, ‘every man’and ‘every woman’; let alone the ones who are having the problem of ICorinthians 7:2 and 9! Not when they are young and struggling, anyway. Indeedthe Titus qualification of ‘blameless’ seems to specifically contradict the ICorinthians 7 issue of ‘cannot contain’. How can that pastor say of any manthat ‘cannot contain’, or who is ‘burning’ that he is, at the same time,‘blameless’?
But, what he is saying is what practically all the modern commentators aresaying, in one form or the other!

Sakal: Yet none ofthe old commentators say the same thing. I have the commentaries at home if youwould like to look them up with me…

Pat: No, I don’tmean to say I don’t believe you, I just find it incredible that any Godly manwould say such a thing; that any father could consider deliberately giving hisdaughter to a young man…

Sakal: Who was eagerfor the pleasures of the marriage bed? Were younot eager? Did you have lust conquered?

Pat: [After a long period of silence] Well,we are both married men, I suppose I can tell you that I did not have lust conquered. Indeed, Maydyn’smother and I… we… well, we came prettyclose to having Maydyn less than nine months after our wedding.

Sakal: So you thinkthat you should have waited until you had gotten lust conquered? Do you know ofany young man that has lust conquered?

Pat: Well,certainly no young man that I actuallyknow. But, how can I have some young man court my daughter if he, if they…

Sakal: Court? Ididn’t say anything about anyone courtingone of my daughters. But the young man who marriesmy daughter, do I want him to want to sleep with her? Isn’t that part of whatmarriage is about? Is it not written: Let thyfountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as theloving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and bethou ravished always with her love.[v]

Pat: But that isonce you already have a wife!

Sakal: Exactly.
I can certainly understand why you don’t want them hanging around eachother before they are in covenant together, but why not let them marry?

Pat: But how dothey get there?!
I don’t have anything against marriage, far from it. I would love for Maydyn tobe married and bringing me grandchildren. I thought about what you said, or atleast what part of it I heard, and what your wife said, and I was thinkingabout it. Maybe she is ready to bemarried. Maybe they are ready to bemarried. But how do we get there?

Sakal: Speaking of‘getting there’, our walk has brought us full circle and we have arrived backat our house. Do you think that Andrew and Maydyn might want to be with us forthe next part of this discussion? Are we done with the ‘married men’ part?

Pat: Sure.

[i]Not an issue that we address in this book, but Ps 127 and other passagesclearly list children, many children, as a blessing God bestows on a man (andhis wife).

[ii]Matt19:12

[iii]Prov 18:22: Nowhere in Scripture do we find anything like the modern theoryabout ‘bad matches’. Instead we see husbands and wives responsible for theirown actions within every marriage. The example of Christ shows how a husbandshould behave with a ‘bad’ wife.

[iv]Vodie Baucham, on the CD “The Four P’s”.

[v]Prov 5: 18-19

Christian Betrothal

'Solving' Physcial Purity

Marriage for reasons other than purity

On Being Desperate

Casting Down the Idols of Courtship: Falling in Love

Falling in love

Jacob and his rejection of Leah

Shekem and the rape of Dinah

David and the snare of Micah

David and his lust for Bathsheeba

Amnon and the rape of Tamar

Sampson and the destruction of the Philistines

Adult Children Obeying their Father? Horrors!

Warring with God.

Be Warmed and Filled

Seven reasons why an elder must not be unmarried

Let them Marry!

What are you Doing? Chapter 21

I: After-warning

What are you Doing? Chapter 20

I: A Welcome Phone Call.

What are you Doing? Chapter 19

I: Interlude

What are you Doing? Chapter 18

I: You Can’t do that!

What are you Doing? Chapter 17

I: A Confrontation.

What are you Doing? Chapter 16

I: Taking Initiative.

What are you Doing? Chapter 15

I: GainingOneness.

What are you Doing? Chapter 14

I: The JointProblem.

What are you Doing? Chapter 13

I: An (overly) Eager Young Man.

I:
A Welcome Phone Call.

I:
Interlude

I:
You Can’t do that!

I:
A Confrontation.

I:
Taking Initiative.

I:
An (overly) Eager Young Man.