Recently a friend of mine has been posting about how the Alcoholics Anonymous traditions could be a model for the church. Although there are some things that will readily cross over, I find that we are not comparing apples with apples.
In the first place, the church is where God dwells by His Spirit. It is more than a volunteer organization that helps one another. Because of this, there is authority in the church placed there by the Lord as gifted people to serve and to guide the church into obedience to and worship of the Lord. Additionally they guide and are examples of how to love one another.
In AA no one rules. In the church the elders do rule. Yet their rule is not like the world. Their authority is not for their own use - so they can have a group of people in their image, but only to build up the church in the image of Jesus.
This requires authority. True, respect and trust are earned. It is not like a job where you can hire someone to fill a vacancy. It is only by God that a person should have this authority. Yet it is fashionable in our culture to disdain authority. This has come from the pendulum swinging away from those who abused authority. But authority is still there.
When I was first a christian I belonged to a church that taught that their are o positions of authority in the church. It got so that if a person called themselves a pastor then they couldn't be one because pastoring was a verb and not a noun. So if they didn't know this they were not qualified to actually pastor. We were taught of the equality of the saints, about the priesthood of believers, and of body ministry. All good stuff. But it was applied in such a way as to stop anyone from leading with any authority, or so we thought.
In actual practice, the dominating personality was in charge. No one could stand up to their "wisdom" and "insight". Because of their experience and verbal abilities we wound up doing things their way. Additionally, some people would hold the group almost hostage because of their powerful responses to things they didn't like. So in my experience a true egalitarianism was never reached.
Later I found that God put leaders by gifting in His church to lead the church with love and godliness. This stopped the mob rule and the dominating personality rule. When done by the Holy Spirit, it produced good fruit. But I have never seen anything like a perfect leader. I have never seen leadership done perfectly - including my own.
I do not want to go back to the "good old days". I believe God has set people in His church to lead who have been given authority to do so in the name of Jesus. In this way the church is not like AA. We are not a volunteer organization. There is authority in the church. Just because the authority has been misused is not justification to ban it. It is motivation to discover how Christ wants it used and to use it for His purposes and not our own.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Friday, December 11, 2009
Forgiving Divorce and Remarriage
When I think about divorce, I rarely think about the kinds of divorces that are ‘allowable’. I see all divorces as a failure. True, it is rare when only one party failed. But even if so, the marriage did end because of failure. It seems to me that divorces that come about because of ‘incompatibility’, or ‘we just drifted apart’, or a mishandling of money are sinful in itself. A refusal to love would be a better way to express it. Sin is that which undermines or refuses to love. Sin and love oppose each other, they are opposites. Hate is a subheading under sin – and not all hate is sin.
The question I want to look at in this post is what does forgiving a sinful divorce and remarriage look like? In the book Remarriage After Divorce in Today’s Church – 3 views Gordon Wenham, William Heth, and Craig Keener wrestle the issue of whether or not divorce for Christians is allowable and if consequently remarriage can also be allowed. They did a fine job of presenting their views. Yet none of them really dealt with the more common issue of how do we relate to people who get divorced and remarried and messed it all up? Those who were already adulterous and those who remarried anyway?
It is easy to say to someone, oh you’re the innocent party, you are free to remarry. What do you say to the guilty party? How are they restored?
What I say depends on when I am asked. If someone who is married comes into the church and desires to love God by loving people and I discover that they wrecked their previous marriage(s) by sinning against their former spouse(s), I don’t banish them to the back row. I do not declare their present marriage a false one, devoid of the blessing of God, and shun them. I treat them like Jesus did to the woman caught in adultery. I expect them to sin no more. I will bless their marriage. I won’t go back and try to undo the mess they made with their former marriages. I simply see them as bankrupt and encourage them to reestablish credibility. I will love them and show them how. I’ll explain, if asked, how to discover the weakness in their faith that put them in a place where God’s love for them did not satisfy. I’ll try to teach them how to grow in their faith so it won’t happen again.
If someone comes in who has just wrecked a marriage, is divorced, and asks me what to do, I’ll encourage them to seek to be reconciled to their former spouse. I’ll help in any way I can. If reconciliation doesn’t happen, I will view the divorce as final. Hardness of heart will have its way. The marriage will be over. The unbelieving will have departed and they are no longer bound to that marriage. To this person I’ll encourage to stay single. But not all will stay single. Many will have young children and want a spouse. In some circumstances it might even be best to marry again, but only to a person who loves Jesus.
Yet even here, again and again, people fail. Many marry outside the faith. Many sin and live with someone without marriage. Do we, as the church, toss them out? Shoot them? No, we start all over again.
Did you ever notice that God did not put a fence around the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden? Why didn’t He? I would have chopped it down and burned it. But God wanted us to trust His word so we would learn to love Him. This is all we have now. I will not put a fence around sin. I will continue to hope that people will get tired of sin and its wages and desire to trust Jesus’ word. Like the Nazarite who broke the vow, you can always start over. Where sin abounds, God’s grace does abound even more.
The question I want to look at in this post is what does forgiving a sinful divorce and remarriage look like? In the book Remarriage After Divorce in Today’s Church – 3 views Gordon Wenham, William Heth, and Craig Keener wrestle the issue of whether or not divorce for Christians is allowable and if consequently remarriage can also be allowed. They did a fine job of presenting their views. Yet none of them really dealt with the more common issue of how do we relate to people who get divorced and remarried and messed it all up? Those who were already adulterous and those who remarried anyway?
It is easy to say to someone, oh you’re the innocent party, you are free to remarry. What do you say to the guilty party? How are they restored?
What I say depends on when I am asked. If someone who is married comes into the church and desires to love God by loving people and I discover that they wrecked their previous marriage(s) by sinning against their former spouse(s), I don’t banish them to the back row. I do not declare their present marriage a false one, devoid of the blessing of God, and shun them. I treat them like Jesus did to the woman caught in adultery. I expect them to sin no more. I will bless their marriage. I won’t go back and try to undo the mess they made with their former marriages. I simply see them as bankrupt and encourage them to reestablish credibility. I will love them and show them how. I’ll explain, if asked, how to discover the weakness in their faith that put them in a place where God’s love for them did not satisfy. I’ll try to teach them how to grow in their faith so it won’t happen again.
If someone comes in who has just wrecked a marriage, is divorced, and asks me what to do, I’ll encourage them to seek to be reconciled to their former spouse. I’ll help in any way I can. If reconciliation doesn’t happen, I will view the divorce as final. Hardness of heart will have its way. The marriage will be over. The unbelieving will have departed and they are no longer bound to that marriage. To this person I’ll encourage to stay single. But not all will stay single. Many will have young children and want a spouse. In some circumstances it might even be best to marry again, but only to a person who loves Jesus.
Yet even here, again and again, people fail. Many marry outside the faith. Many sin and live with someone without marriage. Do we, as the church, toss them out? Shoot them? No, we start all over again.
Did you ever notice that God did not put a fence around the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden? Why didn’t He? I would have chopped it down and burned it. But God wanted us to trust His word so we would learn to love Him. This is all we have now. I will not put a fence around sin. I will continue to hope that people will get tired of sin and its wages and desire to trust Jesus’ word. Like the Nazarite who broke the vow, you can always start over. Where sin abounds, God’s grace does abound even more.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Marriage
Jesus makes it very clear that marriage, as intended, was for life between one man and one woman. This is because marriage was an union between two people whom God Himself joins together. Since God put them together, let no one break it apart. Apart from death, sin is the only way a marriage can be broken. But marriages can be broken by sin. This sin is either hardness of heart or unchastity. This sin can destroy the relationship that God put together. Yet if one person is truly loving, and the other is willing, a marriage can be preserved.
A marriage provides the context in which love can grow. Since Jesus commanded us to love even our enemies, and to turn the other cheek, we can certainly love our mate. We love not because we feel loving, but because He first loved us and gave Himself for us. A marriage is a bond made by covenant between two people, man and woman, wherein they can learn to love.
Yet even God came to an end of His patience. When Israel sinned continuously against him and His covenant, He divorced them. This is how it reads:
This is what the Lord says: "Where is your mother's certificate of divorce with which I sent her away? Or to which of my creditors did I sell you? Because of your sins you were sold; because of your transgressions your mother was sent away. Isa 50:1NIV
I gave faithless Israel her certificate of divorce and sent her away because of all her adulteries. Jer 3:8 NIV
It is clear that no one walking in the flesh can walk with God. And how can two walk together unless they are agreed? So in the end the covenant between God and Israel was destined to failure unless Israel could walk in the Spirit, which it can through Christ. Yet my point is, God Himself went through divorce. As He says in Isa 5:4 NIV “What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it?” There could be no blame on God for divorcing Israel.
[I have been asked if God is all powerful, can He create a rock so big He cannot move it? My answer is that He can if He gives it free will.]
Even though God hates divorce, He Himself divorced Israel. Additionally, when a greater need made it so, Ezra commanded Israel to divorce their foreign wives as the will of God. Ezra 10:11 NIV “Now make confession to the Lord, the God of your fathers, and do his will. Separate yourselves from the peoples around you and from your foreign wives." See Ezra 9-10. Although God hated divorce, the integrity of the people as the people of God had a higher value. This tells me that although marriage is of the Lord and binding, there are still higher values.
Regardless, it is sin that ends marriage. In the next article I’ll try to deal with the implications.
A marriage provides the context in which love can grow. Since Jesus commanded us to love even our enemies, and to turn the other cheek, we can certainly love our mate. We love not because we feel loving, but because He first loved us and gave Himself for us. A marriage is a bond made by covenant between two people, man and woman, wherein they can learn to love.
Yet even God came to an end of His patience. When Israel sinned continuously against him and His covenant, He divorced them. This is how it reads:
This is what the Lord says: "Where is your mother's certificate of divorce with which I sent her away? Or to which of my creditors did I sell you? Because of your sins you were sold; because of your transgressions your mother was sent away. Isa 50:1NIV
I gave faithless Israel her certificate of divorce and sent her away because of all her adulteries. Jer 3:8 NIV
It is clear that no one walking in the flesh can walk with God. And how can two walk together unless they are agreed? So in the end the covenant between God and Israel was destined to failure unless Israel could walk in the Spirit, which it can through Christ. Yet my point is, God Himself went through divorce. As He says in Isa 5:4 NIV “What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it?” There could be no blame on God for divorcing Israel.
[I have been asked if God is all powerful, can He create a rock so big He cannot move it? My answer is that He can if He gives it free will.]
Even though God hates divorce, He Himself divorced Israel. Additionally, when a greater need made it so, Ezra commanded Israel to divorce their foreign wives as the will of God. Ezra 10:11 NIV “Now make confession to the Lord, the God of your fathers, and do his will. Separate yourselves from the peoples around you and from your foreign wives." See Ezra 9-10. Although God hated divorce, the integrity of the people as the people of God had a higher value. This tells me that although marriage is of the Lord and binding, there are still higher values.
Regardless, it is sin that ends marriage. In the next article I’ll try to deal with the implications.
Divorce and Repentance
Recently I was taken to task over my view of divorce and remarriage in the church. This came about because I had publicly in our church prayed over a newly wed couple where the wife had been divorced and the previous husband was still alive and unmarried. This appeared to have been an official acceptance on my part, and the church’s part, of their marriage – which it was.
I thought it would be good to get my views down in digital format (no longer paper and ink!) so we could discuss these things.
There are several issues that have to be looked at. First of all, what is marriage? Why do we have marriage since it is not essential for procreation? How does marriage fit into God’s plan for mankind? Is it more than itself i.e. a sign of something greater? If so, what? Are polygamy and polyandry always wrong? How does the church relate to those new converts who are in such marriages?
Secondly there is the issue of divorce itself. What is it? Can it be done without sinning? Is it always because of the hardness of the heart? If it is always sinful, how do you repent of it? What does repentance over this sin look like? How can such a person be restored? If it is not always sinful, how can we tell the difference? Do we need to always be able to tell the difference? Is it ever the right thing to do?
Then, after coming to an understanding divorce, we need to see how this applies to remarriage. Can a divorced person remarry? Is this always adultery? If it is adultery, how can this be repented of? What does forgiveness of the sin of remarriage look like? Can a remarriage be blessed by God? Under what conditions, if any, can a remarriage after divorce be proper? If never proper what do you do about it? How should the church relate to those who are married improperly?
These are some of the questions that need to be addressed in order to answer the question of divorce and remarriage. I will try to simply address these issues over the next few posts. Wish me luck.
I thought it would be good to get my views down in digital format (no longer paper and ink!) so we could discuss these things.
There are several issues that have to be looked at. First of all, what is marriage? Why do we have marriage since it is not essential for procreation? How does marriage fit into God’s plan for mankind? Is it more than itself i.e. a sign of something greater? If so, what? Are polygamy and polyandry always wrong? How does the church relate to those new converts who are in such marriages?
Secondly there is the issue of divorce itself. What is it? Can it be done without sinning? Is it always because of the hardness of the heart? If it is always sinful, how do you repent of it? What does repentance over this sin look like? How can such a person be restored? If it is not always sinful, how can we tell the difference? Do we need to always be able to tell the difference? Is it ever the right thing to do?
Then, after coming to an understanding divorce, we need to see how this applies to remarriage. Can a divorced person remarry? Is this always adultery? If it is adultery, how can this be repented of? What does forgiveness of the sin of remarriage look like? Can a remarriage be blessed by God? Under what conditions, if any, can a remarriage after divorce be proper? If never proper what do you do about it? How should the church relate to those who are married improperly?
These are some of the questions that need to be addressed in order to answer the question of divorce and remarriage. I will try to simply address these issues over the next few posts. Wish me luck.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)