March 05, 2008
Get Married - What Women Can Do to Help It Happen
Tim Challies reviews an interesting new book by Candice Watters entitled Get Married: What Women Can Do to Help It Happen
Watters and I agree that the state of singleness is not synonymous with the gift of singleness. I first discussed the gift of singleness issue in a chapter in With One Voice, and later in a brief article.
February 20, 2008
Guidance, The Will of God, and Whom to Marry
In my recent interview with Anthony Calzia, I made the following statement regarding Christian liberty in the determination of a marriage partner:
"While there is 'one person' out there for us to marry (if we’re called to marry), the only way to be completely certain we’ve found 'the one' is after we’ve made our vows and tied the knot. And this is liberating – we don’t have to wait for some magical moment when we know with mathematical certainty that Jen (or Jake) is 'the one.' There is some Christian liberty in terms of choosing whom to marry. The person should be a growing Christian, and someone whose presence in your life helps rather than hinders your walk with God. But it should also be someone whose presence you generally enjoy, and to whom (for a myriad of reasons, physical and non-physical) you find so attractive that life without them is unimaginable."
I then received the following question:
How are you so sure this is the “only way” and if it is, that’s a rather large commitment to make not being “completely certain.” Can you please clarify?
My friend was referring to my stating that the "only way to be completely certain we’ve found 'the one' is after we’ve made our vows and tied the knot." It is a very good question. Let me be clear: I do believe that Christians can have a subjective sense of God's leading on major life decisions, but I don't think it is infallible. When I was deciding whether to ask Marni to marry me, I prayed for God's subjective leading. In other words, I asked God to give me a high degree of emotional certainty that Marni was whom I should marry. I was not aware of any Scriptural basis for not marrying her. Nevertheless, since the decision was so important, I hoped that God would give me an even stronger sense that I should marry her. I think God did--through many means, including conversations with trusted friends and mentors.
But the peace I had was not mathematical certainty nor was it infallible. At the very least, James 4:13-15 warns us that we cannot know what will happen tomorrow. Marni could have died in her sleep the night before we got married. Had that happened, I hope I would have eventually married someone else. And in that case, it could not be said that Marni was "the one" for me to marry, because evidently God had something else in mind. That was what I was getting at when I said, "after we’ve made our vows and tied the knot" we can, with certainty, say that "God willed for me to marry her." Because it happened.
But there's more. There's a danger to believing that I have to "know with certainty" that God wants me to do X before I do X (marry Jennifer, take a job in Dallas, spend my savings to buy a new car). Consider these words from Pastor Mark Dever:
"I do believe that God's Spirit will sometimes lead us subjectively. So, for instance, I am choosing to spend my life here on Capitol Hill because my wife & I sensed in 1993 that that is what God wanted us to do. However, I realized then (and now) that I could be wrong about that supposition. Scripture is NEVER wrong. I was free in 1993 to stay in England, or teach at a seminary, either of which would have been delightful opportunities. I understand that I was free to make those choices. But I chose, consulting Scripture, friends, wisdom, and my own subjective sense of the Lord's will, to come to DC. And even if I were wrong about that, I had (and have) that freedom in Christ to act in a way that is not sin. And I understand my pastoring here not to be sin. So I am free. Regardless of the sense of leading I had."Like Mark does elsewhere in his post, I would also acknowledge that most decisions I make are made without a subjective sense of God's leading. Rather, several good, non-sinful options are available, and I have to choose the one I deem best. I can pray that God will lead me. However, my subjective sense of God's leading can be wrong (I'm not yet perfected--my perception of how God is leading can be mistaken). But to pursue a non-sinful option is, by definition, not sin. This is liberating. God will unfold His sovereign will for my life through the decisions I make (does not mean I should sin so that grace may abound).
(HT: JT)
February 18, 2008
Interview on Singleness, Dating, and Marriage
Anthony Calzia, a student at California Baptist University, recently interviewed me about With One Voice, a book my wife and I wrote a few years ago. Extended portions of the interview appear in CBU’s campus newspaper, The Banner. The interview appears in its entirety on my friend Jeff Mooney's blog. Dr. Mooney is an Assistant Professor of Christian Studies at California Baptist University and the senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Norco, CA. Here's an excerpt:
1. Who are you? How did you come to write your book? How and when did you come to date and marry?
I came to Christ as a high schooler, and saw the aimless dating patterns of many high school Christians in my youth group and elsewhere. Later, I was involved in college ministry, and, being single in my twenties, I naturally gave these issues significant consideration. I first worked on Five Paths to The Love of Your Life for NavPress; the idea for that book came from all those helpful “multi-views” books that IVP and Zondervan publish on theological issues. I was finishing it when, in the summer of 2004, I was interning at Grace Community Church in Gardnerville, NV and was asked to teach a six-part series on Christian dating. The audience was the entire church, not one age demographic. So I began to think about how to prepare a series for all ages (high school students, college students, junior highers, parents and grandparents). The six messages I gave became the six chapters in With One Voice.I met Marni on November 1, 2003 and married her on December 18, 2004 (yes, I’ve got all the anniversaries down!). I was in Berkeley, CA finishing graduate school, and she was living in Oakland and working for SBC (the CA phone company, now AT&T). We were both almost 30, and I guess you could say that we were both “ready for marriage” in that we each knew what we were looking for and were at an age/life-stage to marry. With the guidance, support, and community of her family and a lot of our close friends living nearby, we were able to get to know each other pretty well in a variety of contexts quite quickly. Over the period of a few months it was clear that we both met the criteria on our “lists,” and over the next few months we were delighted to discover how much we enjoyed each other and wanted to spend our lives together. God’s leading seemed clear by mid-summer 2004, when I proposed to her on a walk at sunset on the beach at Lake Tahoe.
September 19, 2007
CBMW Unveils New Website
The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood has unveiled an impressive new website, with many easy-to-locate features, including an introductory essay entitled Summaries of the Egalitarian and Complementarian Positions on the Role of Women in the Home and in Christian Ministry by Dr. Bruce Ware. The archives for every past issue of The Journal for Biblical Manhood & Womanhood (dating back to 1995) are all available. There is also a gender blog containing posts on contemporary developments such as Emerson University's troubling decision to make restrooms gender-neutral to accommodate "transgender" students.
August 16, 2007
The singleness "issue"
Since I hardly ever write about "the gift of singleness" any more, I thought I'd mention that Lydia Brownback has recently been reflecting on the matter. I posted a comment on her second post, and today she offers these remarks.
For a different perspective, see Candice Watters' critical interaction with three recent books, each of which is (primarily) aimed at adult single women: Marriage and Caste in America: Separate and Unequal Families in a Post-Marital Age
Since some of you have commented on this topic on the past, I'd be grateful to hear your thoughts (respectfully expressed, please).
July 12, 2007
Men and Women Are Different
Mark Galli, managing editor of Christianity Today, pens a humorous and illuminating article on male-female differences as they relate to parenting. Commenting on the tendency of couples to announce, "We're pregnant," Galli notes:
"This phrase is most unfortunate after conception because it is an inadvertent co-opting of women by men—men using language to suggest that they share equally in the burdens and joys of pregnancy. Instead, pregnancy is one time women should flaunt their womanhood, and one time men should acknowledge the superiority of women. Men may be able to run the mile in less than four minutes and open stuck pickle jars with a twist of the wrist, but for all our physical prowess, we cannot carry new life within us and bring it into the world. To suggest that we do is a slap in the face of women."
(HT: JT)
July 02, 2007
Bob Hayton on With One Voice
Bob Hayton graciously provides a helpful (and humbling) summary of With One Voice.
Related: More Reviews
(Bob's will be added soon.)
June 30, 2007
The (Im)possibility of Platonic Friendships
Blake Roeber pens an accessible, humorous and helpful article on the subject of platonic, mixed-gender friendships. A highlight:
Platonic friendship, then, is any friendship that isn't mediated by physical bodies. It's friendship between Souls. It's friendship that's supposedly so deep that those involved aren't even aware of (or, at least, aren't at all concerned with) the trivial features of their respective bodies. In particular, it's friendship where those involved aren't at all concerned with their respective sex organs. It's as if the friends involved are asexual.
The upshot:
All this isn't to say that non-gay, non-celibate members of the opposite sex can't be "just friends." They surely can. It's to say that being "just friends" takes a lot of caution. It takes care and a realistic appraisal of one's ability to avoid temptation. It also takes the humility to admit it when one's gotten oneself in over one's head.To say that Platonic friendship isn't possible is also to recognize that, even where a guy and a girl do exercise enough caution to be "just friends," the friendship they form will still be one between a guy and a girl, not one between two neuters.
(HT: Boundless)
June 25, 2007
CBMW Appoints David Kotter as Executive Director
CBMW announces: "The board of The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) recently appointed church leader and former businessman David Kotter as the organization’s new executive director."
I am personally encouraged by this move, as I recently heard some great things about Mr. Kotter. And may I add -- A bachelor's degree in engineering is a great background for tackling theological conundrums!
(HT: JT)
May 28, 2007
Different Types of Singles?
My wife and I recently wrote on singleness in With One Voice. Our interest in the topic was rekindled with Pastor John Piper preaching a series of messages on marriage (with his last two sermons being more related to singleness). He also pointed to a provocative, exegetical study by Barry Danyluk. All of this got us thinking about whether there might be different kinds of adult single Christians in the church today. The following graph (I am an engineer) is the fruit of our musings. We welcome any and all feedback on it, as we recognize that any one-page graph necessarily involved making a finite number of categories.
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