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It's the fairy tale we all believe in - connection, completion, love without parting. The merest glimpse of it captures our hearts. But is the fairy tale real? Is there such a thing as endless bliss, unconquered love and a happily ever after?

Countless failed relationships and a beckoning grave cry out No. Love does not seem to have the last word in our lives - decay, disease, divorce, depression and death does. Can we really believe in love?

The answer is Yes, but only because there is a love despite our deserving, a love stronger than death, a love beyond this world. Jesus makes the fairy tale true - not just for bright-eyed young couples on their wedding day. Because of his blood-earnest, death-defying love, Jesus can bring us all into the ultimate romance. Whatever your relationship history or status, this bliss is for you!

WORDS

You

beside me.

Me: beside myself with you.

Beyond myself in you,

Become myself anew,

Belongs, this self, to you.

 

You

behold me.

Me: behold the world in you.

Besotted with the view,

Bewitched by all you do,

Beguiled by guileless you.

 

We

believe this:

This bedtime tale

Though countless fail

Though pride derail

Though death curtail

We believe this.

This bliss

Beseiged by hatred’s hiss

Beset by graves' abyss

Betrayed despite our kiss

We believe this.

 

But is this bliss true?

Or only for the few

And then sinks from view

Is it true?

Beneath the tale,

Before we fail,

Beside what’s frail,

Beyond death’s vale?

Is it true?

Not only for the few

And then sinks from view

Is it true?

 

He

Beheld me.

Me: deep held in my disgrace.

He bends now face to face,

Becomes me in His grace,

Befriends me, takes my place.

 

He

Betrothed me.

Me: bestowed the world for free.

Bequeathed by royal decree,

Beloved eternally,

Become as one: He with me.

 

This, beneath all other glories

This, beyond the bedtime stories

This, beside your marital station

This, love’s sweetest consummation.

This is true.

Never to sink from view.

Not only for the few.

This bliss is for you.

 

A repost from 2 years ago...

Nagging
Click for source

Emma's posted up 22 reasons she nags.  Stunningly, none of them is "Glen shirks responsibility like it's cryptonite." That  was gracious of her.

In the interests of restoring some kind of balance, I thought I'd post 7 thoughts on how I relate to nagging. I'll be stark in the interests of spotlighting the darkness and hopefully chasing it away a bit...

So... here's how I relate to nagging...

1. I create it

We really do need to think about scheduling our holidays, and booking the car in for a service and fixing the back gate, etc, etc.  But I naturally flee responsibility.  The needs build up.  Something needs saying.

2.  I invite it

On a very foolish level (one that I'll later despise in myself), I'd like to be mothered.  "You're so much better with that detail stuff" is code for "I'd like to be kept as a little boy."

3. I provoke it

Given my fear of responsibility, I will affect an exaggerated air of ease.  I project an image of stoner-cool (occasionally backed by Scriptural "fear nots") so that I can label every sense of urgency (legitimate or otherwise) as uncool and ungodly.  It will be seriously tempting for Emma to burst this bubble with a good sharp nag.

4. I fear it

It's not just that I'm being asked to engage with the thorns and thistles.  It's not just that I'd rather withdraw and serve myself.  It's that, deep down, I fear I don't have what it takes to forge ahead in this world.  When she says "Can you fix it?" I hear "Can you be a man?" She doesn't realise it but, in the male imagination, her simple requests are loaded with the weight of a thousand gender insecurities.

5. I withdraw from it

I tune it out the way a teenager tunes out his mother (see 2).  Of course this only provokes more (see 3).

6.  I hate it.

It confirms my deep suspicion that I am a little boy.  Yes, I know I wanted to be a little boy earlier.  But that's why it grates so much!

7. I silence it

Anger works best.  Sometimes it just takes an exasperated sigh or a withering look.  Anything that shifts the focus onto her and how she's being unreasonable, uncool, ungodly.  Other women aren't like this.  Have you read Proverbs recently?

Men have locked up women as hysterics for centuries.  It's happened throughout history, but it also happens in marriage.  We're good at despising women for their needs.  Then they're doubly good at despising themselves for them.

So she'll slink off and maybe determine to "button it" (which some might call "submission").  Or she'll just fume.  Or she'll deaden her hopes for the marriage, deaden her hopes at being heard, deaden her hopes that her man could ever lead.  She might well do all of the above.  But it's only further fuel for the nagging urges.

The way out of the nagging cycle?

Both Ephesians 5 (v18) and Colossians 3 (v1-4) preface their marriage discussions with being filled with the Spirit!  Having a spiritual buoyancy from Christ.  My identity, status, honour, beloved-ness is NOT being threatened by my spouse.  I've got it all.  Laugh!

Now husbands, LOVE your wives and don't be harsh.

Wives, trust your husbands and receive that love - the heart and soul of submission.

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In honour of our 10th Wedding Anniversary, here are some mawwiage classics:

Marriage is glorious...
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdRmrgIimhI]

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...a dream within a dream...
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMINxA0FDSI]

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...but let's not get too mystical about it...
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeZMIgheZro]

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...and let's acknowledge differences between the genders...
(warning: one swear word)
[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUH34iqK7cI"]

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...and differences in how we approach relationships...
[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONBNYTNDz-Q"]

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So men, don't say any of these things to your wives...
[youtube=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=iK2OakMoW_c&feature=related]

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In all the give and take, you'll have to make priorities...
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEiOi-P8KDw]

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...and find glory in the ordinary.
[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GpTTf175aE"]

 

 

 

4

Emma and I have just done a seminar at Bible by the Beach. Emma told some of her story and I spoke about 'The Big Story' around pastoral care and addictions as well as 'The Carer's Story.'  Here are the notes I was working from:

A New Name Seminar 1

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Christ is our Identity

15 times “in Christ” in Ephesians. What a preposition: Can’t get closer than “IN”

You’ve died and gone to heaven. Ephesians 2:1...5-6.

“Seated in Christ” – nothing more to do – don’t need to move an inch.

What do we need? To know more of what we have: Ephesians 3:14ff

Don’t try to feel Christ in you – look to HIM.

To the degree you know yourself in Him, you will know Him in you.

Despite your feelings (or lack of them) it’s His relationship with the Father that’s central, not yours!  You can’t trust your feelings, you can’t even trust your faith.  Just know that Christ has faith for you.

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We’re All Addicts

People are not free, rational decision-makers

Ephesians 2:2-3: In pursuing the desires of our flesh we are enslaved to the devil.

You say “I’m not enslaved, I just do what I want.” Exactly – that’s your slavery. You keep feeding your foolish desires though they never actually give you what you want or need.

Human beings are not decision-making machines, calculating costs and benefits and acting rationally.  We’re foolish lovers who abandon ourselves to bad relationships that only enslave.

We’re not bound against our will. We choose what we choose. Nonetheless, we are trapped.

Addictions to substances or behaviours (like exercise or starvation) are obvious manifestations of this truth. But we’re all addicts. Ephesians 4:17-20

Both sufferers and carers need to know that the sufferer is not deciding to be unhealthy to spite everyone. Neither are they able to choose their way out of this. If you don’t understand the nature of their slavery you’ll only end up hating them. You’ll spend your whole time resenting them for their wilful rebellion and/or beating them with the will-power-stick to make them better.  If you don’t believe that we’re all addicts, you cannot love people through their self-destructive behaviours.

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Suffering is not a detour, it’s the way

We naturally think that the ultimate Christian life is one free from suffering and struggle. Of course we have to forget all about Jesus to believe that.

It’s not that God’s up there and we ascend through our strength.

Christ comes down because we have no strength of our own.

It’s not “There’s light at the end of the tunnel, here’s the 17 point plan for how you can get there in the end.”

It’s: “You’re dead in transgressions and sins. Utterly helpless.  And Christ joins you in the mess.”

If you find yourself in this kind of mess: Know that RIGHT HERE is where Christ is at work.  This isn’t a detour, it’s the way.

The Lord knows how to redeem the years the locust has eaten (Joel 2:25).  Maybe you’ll be able to comfort others with the comfort you’ve received in your affliction (2 Corinthians 1:4).  But whatever happens, Christ is IN the situation.

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Redemption is Forward-Looking

When a loved one is suffering, it’s very natural to want to say “We just need to get the old Emma back.”  It’s very natural to look backwards.

I’m not so sure this is wise.  It seems to me that redemption works differently.  In Ephesians we get saved out of the pit and raised to a new height.  Salvation moves us onwards. In Exodus, the Israelites were brought out of Egypt and taken to the promised land.  In the wilderness they yearned for Egypt with its decent food and shelter.  But the Lord doesn’t take them back to the old place.  He takes them through the desert to a new place.  Their true home is ahead – a spacious land they haven’t yet seen.  This is the whole pattern of God’s dealings with us – from a garden but onto a city.

I think it’s a mistake to try to return to the way things were. It’s very possible that the way things were got you into this mess in the first place.  As you go through a wilderness time, the goal is a transformed you ahead (not the old you which you left behind.

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A New Name Seminar 2.

Church Comes First

Ephesians 4 comes before Ephesians 5!

We belong to each other in baptism before we belong to our spouses in marriage - or even to our children in families. Modern understandings of “coupledom” are very destructive.  We’re taught to cosy up to each other with a meal for two and a boxed set and we sing that old song from the 60’s “We’ll build a world of our own, which no-one else can share...”  But church has a claim on us before even our spouse does.

So quickly crazy can become normal when you try to manage by yourselves.  Far too often I coddled Emma in the darkness when I should have been moving her into the light of community.  That’s a hard judgement call when she becomes afraid of others and when she needs to know you’re safe.  But you need to be committed to life in community and to moving in that direction.

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One Flesh Gets Twisted

FLESH: Ephesians 2:3 5:31.  Those who deal with addictions will tell you that most addicts have an enabler somewhere in their life.

There are all sorts of dynamics that come into play when destructive behaviours flare up and if you’re close to the sufferer then it’s quite possible that you are some part of the problem.

Giving an addict what they want is not love. FEEDING HALF TON HUBBY is a chilling example of how an enabler can give the addict everything they want in the name of love.  It was the story of Patrick Deuel who weighed half a ton and his wife who could bring herself to stop feeding him. He was in hospital on nil by mouth and his wife would smuggle pizzas into the hospital. Why?  She said “Because I love him and it’s what he wants. I can’t say no to him if that’s what he wants.”  This kind of “love” can kill.

When Emma and I got married I basically thought that love meant saying “Yes” to my wife, no matter what.  If she wanted poison… well, what’s a loving husband to do but give her poison?  That’s a stupid analogy but only because it highlights the stupidity of what I was doing.  I took no lead in casting a vision for what healthy desires and directions might look like in our marriage.  In the absence of this Emma demanded more and more of her own way and I conceded more and more to drives which were ultimately self-destructive.

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You Need to Change

Ephesians 4:14-15 - we're all being told lies every day.  We need "truthing in love" in church family to fight the lies. And that means that the carer needs to repent too.

This is hard to hear, but it’s vital. BOTH of you need to repent.  Can I suggest talking to a trusted Christian friend about the details of how you’re handling all this?  Don’t just get your friends to tell you There, there it must be so difficult - of course its difficult and of course you need sympathy and care.  But give friends permission to speak the truth in love: to challenge you on how you’re handling things.

When I did this in Christian community, I started to see a pattern emerging...

IMAGE: Dancefloor - Emma edging towards the dark edges, I would follow to coddle her from behind.  I should have spun her around and danced her into the light.  (It would mean kicking and screaming and tears and accusations – and that would mean I’d have to repent of my need to be “Mr Nice Guy”.  But that’s ok - I need to repent, and we both need community).

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Prayer is Warfare

Ephesians 6:10ff

Headship means being a prayer warrior.  This one’s for husbands but it has implications for others…  There are few other things I’d articulate as implications of headship, but it seems to me that prayer is top of the list. The LORD thunders at the head of His people (Joel 2:11) and husbands make war at the head of their wives.  When I’m prayerless Emma suffers.

And remember community. Some of the most powerful help we ever received as Emma was at her worst was going to another Christian couple’s house and praying on a Monday evening. They didn’t know much about eating disorders. Emma was able to talk about her struggles, talk about what the NHS were doing, talk about what was hard and we took those requests to God. It’s incredibly powerful to open up your needs before God and before church family.  It’s a total reversal of the condition actually.  The condition is about solitary, self-sufficiency. Praying with others is about a corporate expression of dependence and community.  Very powerful!

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wedding cake topper
Click for source

On Thursday I wrote a piece on Emma's blog about how I coped through her illness.  I hope it might help others too.  Here are the headings...

The Priesthood of Christ is vital for you both...

You are their vicarious hope-r...

You must believe in the bondage of the will...  

A theology of the cross is vital...

A theology of the cross is not the same thing as “Misery loves Company”...

The goal is not getting back to how things were...

That feeling of impotence is inevitable, it’s good and it’s bad...

You will need to change...

Giving an addict what they want is not love...

Firm, buoyant love is the tone to strike...

Don’t do it alone...

Headship means being a prayer warrior...

This is not a distraction from real life, this is it...

Read the whole thing...

1

Recently I wrote about every husband's temptation towards resentment.  Wives also have every inclination (as well as motivation!) towards sinful attitudes regarding their husbands.  (Mistrust and disrespect are perhaps chief among them).

But in my post I counselled husbands to die to their private ambitions and seek a fruitful union with their wives that acknowledges the completely new unit they've become.  Now, as I read back over that language of "sacrifice" and "death", I have a fear.  My fear is that this talk of "death" will feed directly into the resentment I was highlighting.

I know this because for many years I considered myself to be a sacrificial head.  I took Ephesians 5:25 as perhaps my most basic calling as a husband - to lay down my life.  Trouble was - there's always a counterfeit way to view marital roles.  The death I embraced was not the joyful abandonment of my rights to find a deeper joy in my wife's flourishing.  Instead it was the proud martyrdom of the burden-bearing ox.  I'd trudge along singing "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen...", just loud enough for people to notice.  But while-ever I was a burden-bearing ox, there was a deep sense in which I needed my wife to be a burden.

This is counterfeit headship and it comes in a couple of different flavours.  Some, like me, emphasize the "dying" part and spin it to mean 'desire-crushing trudgery.'  Others emphasize the "saviour" role (Ephesians 5:23) and spin it to mean "knight in shining armour."  But if you're married to such a head, watch out.  The burden-bearer will (unintentionally) make you the burden.  And the knight in shining armour will (unintentionally) make you a "damsel in distress."  In either case we have a sick perversion of roles masquerading as biblical faithfulness.  If you want to consider it in trinitarian terms (which I do here), you end up with Arian distinctions not Athanasian ones.

The terrible tragedy is that these marriages can appear to fulfil an Ephesians 5 complementarity.  And those who trumpet complementarianism as though it's the key to gender relations can apparently justify their counterfeit roles as "Scriptural."  I know I did.

But the husband is not simply called to a death, but to a happy death.  As with Christ, this death is because of love and for the sake of the joy set before him.  It's the very opposite of resentment.  It's acknowledging the indicatives already present for the husband:

* Christ has put me to death in His cross and I no longer live (Galatians 2:20)

* The Father has made me one with my wife quite apart from my efforts (Matthew 19:6)

* My wife is a gift straight from the LORD and she's good for me (Genesis 2:18 ; Proverbs 18:22)

* There simply is no life without a good death (Matthew 10:39)

* God will make our sacrificial union fruitful (Genesis 1:28)

* Her beauty will be presented back to me, shining all the brighter for the love which nurtured it (Eph 5:27)

The husband's death is not the sacrifice of a noble sufferer or the heroics of a brave rescuer.  It's the grateful response of a guy who - in spite of how she may have hurt him - still counts himself "lucky" to have her.  And if he doesn't, his need is not to stuff his feelings and die anyway.  He needs to go back to the 6 indicatives above and prayerfully ask for help.

No marriage needs a resentful martyr for a husband.  Every marriage needs Jesus to make husbands joyful self-givers.  And He will... if only we'll drop our counterfeit roles and receive again from Him.

 

 

3

Just to be clear - these thoughts have arisen after talking marriage to half a dozen guys in the last fortnight.  I've never been prouder or more delighted with my wife.  I'm trying to put words to every man's struggle here.  And maybe this will also help wives to see what it is they instinctively (and perhaps quite rationally) fear about their husbands...

Ever since Adam, men have wickedly resented their wives.  That's not the whole story.  Not by a long shot.  On our wedding day we sing "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh".

But remember how Adam reacted when the honeymoon wore off?  He blamed God for the burden of “this woman you put here.”

Every son of Adam has been there – we’re all chips off this old block.  At first we wax lyrical, genuinely besotted by beauty.  But give it time and self-righteous resentment creeps in: “Doesn’t God realize how she holds me back. Think of what I could accomplish if I went solo.

But what was God thinking?  Consider Genesis 2.  “It’s not good for the man to be alone.”  He makes a "helper suitable" for Adam. "Suitable" means “opposite to" Adam – i.e. a counterpart.  By design, wives are not like their husbands.  They don’t naturally pull in the same direction.  This has nothing to do with sin.  In a pre-fallen state, women are intentionally 'opposite numbers' to men.

Therefore to "cleave" together is to form a new unit in which both parties must die to self.  And so complete is this oneness that even the death cannot be considered separately. The husband initiates the dying, the wife receives (Ephesians 5:21-33, esp v25).

Remember how Genesis 2 finishes... it's the man who is explicitly said to leave father and mother and cleave to his wife.  Like Christ, husbands are the ones to decisively change their direction and circumstances, and in that change to sweep the bride up into a new way of being.

But in the flesh, the husband refuses to lose his life. Instead he keeps hold of his old ambitions and resents the wife.

I keep thinking of John Wesley in this regard.  On the morning after their wedding he saddled up to go on a preaching tour.  He wrote to her from the road saying “I cannot understand how a Methodist preacher can answer it to God to preach one sermon or travel one day less, in a married than in a single state.”  Unfortunately he lived up to that tragic opinion and had a tragic marriage.  He did not die for his bride in order for them both to find new life on the other side of sacrifice.  He clung to his single vision and demanded that his bride simply fall in line.

But if it's "successful ministry" we want, then there's another way. Because the one-ness of marriage is a fruitful and multiplying reality.  Husband and wife are meant to be so much more than the sum of their parts.  But it's not a simple addition.  It doesn't happen by adding her old gifts and desires to his.

Rather than resenting her, when the husband dies to his private ambitions, there will come a new way of being fruitful in Christian service.  It will take time and it will take self-sacrifice.  But as both seek the Lord for their fullness and as they give it away to each other, they grow in new and surprising ways.  Through this good death the Lord brings forth a life-giving home where spiritual and physical children can find rest.

Husbands, "this woman" was indeed given to you by the Lord. Not "put", "given". As a helper suitable for you. You can either keep your life, resent your wife and blame God, or you can lose your life, nurture your wife and watch Him bring a rich and unexpected fruitfulness.

3

I met Dave K through blogging and it was a great privilege to preach at his wedding yesterday. True to form he wanted a law-gospel sermon on 1 Corinthians 13.  Here's what I came up with

Sermon text

Sermon audio

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...1 Corinthians 13... taps into your highest longing and your deepest fear.

Your highest longing is in verse 12. It’s that little phrase “face to face.”  That’s your highest longing.  In the words of Mumford and Sons – You were made to meet your Maker.  And not to meet your Maker face to floor – to meet Him face to face.  This speaks of intimacy, friendship, relationship, love.  You were made for face to face with Jesus your Maker.  That’s what this whole third paragraph is about – the future is face to face.  In fact so was the past.  The Bible says that before there WAS a world, there was face-to-face.  Before there was a universe, there was Father, Son and Spirit “face to face” – united in love.  Wind back the clock into the depths of eternity and you don’t find mere chemistry – you find community.  That’s why the greatest things in life are a meeting of hearts and minds.  That’s why relationships are so precious.  That’s why we love weddings – we love face to face.

But every earthly experience of “face to face” is, in the words of verse 12 “a reflection in a mirror.”  The old King James Version rendered it “seeing through a glass, darkly.”  Every kiss you’ve ever wanted, every affirmation you’ve ever craved, every relationship you’ve ever pursued, every longing you’ve ever felt – it’s a reflection of the ultimate face to face.  This wedding – is an incredible reflection of the real face to face – Jesus and His people, united in love.  This reflects that – that’s why we love this so much.

Because our highest longing is love.  Not just earthly reflections: face to face with Jesus our Maker.  That’s the longing behind every other longing.

But this passage also tells you your deepest fear.  Your deepest fear is in verse 2.  It’s also a 3 word phrase.  Look at the last three words of verse 2. That’s what terrifies you. It terrifies me.  My deepest fear is that “I am nothing”.  Your deepest fear is that you are nothing.  You worry you don’t amount to anything, that you’re actually a nobody, you are pointless, you’re a zero, completely insignificant in the universe.  That’s the voice that whispers to you at 2 in the morning.  And it’s the fear that drives you to a relentless pursuit of performances and experiences and face-to-face relationships – some healthy, others unhealthy – but none of them dislodge the fear that you are nothing.

This passage explains your life.  You’re made for face to face, you’re terrified that you’re nothing.  And this passage can tell you how to answer your fears and fulfil your longing....

Sermon text

Sermon audio

I guest posted for Emma on headship and submission and all that.

Stuff like...

The Father is the Head, His Son is the Body (1 Corinthians 11:3)...

Christ is the Head, His Church is the Body (Ephesians 5:21-33)...

Ephesians 5 says that  Head and Body roles are taken on by husbands and wives…so it seems clear that there is a place for roles.  But what place?

If you only study Christ on earth, you might see a passive Father and an active Son.  If you only study Christ exalted to God’s right hand, you might see a busy Father and a resting Son.  If you only look at Christ in Gethsemane you might see a sweating Saviour and a sleeping church.  If you only look at the worship of heaven, you might see worshipping servants and a seated Lord.

Freeze-frame a marriage at any one point and either spouse might look like the active partner, either spouse might look like they are ‘taking a lead’.  And that’s a good and healthy thing.  It’s the nature of a proper relationship which thrives on give-and-take.

The thing is – and finally I’m getting to my point – we just can’t insist on one kind of action for one member of the relationship. In fact, to worry about specifics is a big mistake.  Roles is about an overall shape to the relationship in which the Head serves in love and the Body encourages and receives that serving love.  And when this shape is even approximated in human marriages, something wonderful happens.  Suddenly the  caricature of marriage is over-turned.  You know the picture – rightly derided in our culture: there’s a  good-for-nothing husband, half-man, half-sofa, watching Top Gear repeats on Dave while his embittered wife taps her foot and nags him into submission.

The gospel redeems this shadow of marriage as partners embody the true roles of Head and Body.  Where Adam was silent and Eve grasped, now husbands step forward and wives receive.  It’s a beautiful thing when true roles are played out.

But… resolving to take on these roles is not where the revolution lies.  The roles are an expression of the revolution, not the cause.

The gospel is the cause and Ephesians 5 (the passage on roles) couldn’t be clearer about it....

Read the whole thing here.  And perhaps if you want to comment, do so there to keep them all together.

 

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