Baptist Press: The Christian divorce rate myth (what you’ve heard is wrong)
Encouraging report, though we know there is still much work to be done.
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Rave Reviews for The Art of Marriage
This feedback from a leader at Disney, a company with some high standards on video quality!
I couldn’t wait to email you and tell you what we thought of the Art of Marriage videos. In two words, CLEARLY OUTSTANDING! Visually stunning, the acting was amazing, the music was just enough to enhance each scene and not distract. The message was fresh in its delivery, thought provoking and extremely clear. This is the best family help video series I’ve ever seen. Job well done!
I know I said it before but the follow-through of theaming was amazing. D. and I held hands, kissed and hugged each other while we watched it. We cried, laughed and cried more. We met with our two son’s (who are eight and ten) and explained why we were watching these videos and why it was so importation to share this message. We can’t wait to present it to our small fellowship group of 20 couples at EVFree. You’ve now set the bar at a new level for other family organizations. Blessings to you and Family Life Today for loving, caring and giving to marriages.
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Loving Your (mate who is not your) Enemy
One of the most memorable phrases from the Weekend to Remember happens when one of our speakers tells the conference guests to look their spouses in the eyes and say “My mate is not my enemy.” It’s memorable because often that is what it feels like for many of us. Our spouses are the most knowledgeable opponents around when they (or we) decide to be and knowledge is power. We know how to hurt each other the worst.
I’ve been reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s classing The Cost of Discipleship over this Christmas break. In it he is describing what really following Jesus looks like and spends a significant portion of the book unpacking the Sermon on the Mount. Chapter 12 (Revenge) deals with Matt 5:38-42 and Chapter 13 (The Enemy – The “Extraordinary”) with Matt 5:43-48. Several portions of those chapters seemed particularly convicting and relevant to me. That section discussed in Chapter 12 reads as follows:
[38] “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ [39] But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. [40] And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. [41] And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. [42] Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.
(Matthew 5:38-42 ESV)
In Chapter 12, Bonhoeffer asserts
The only way to overcome evil is to let it run itself to a standstill because it does not find the resistance it is looking for. Resistance merely creates further evil and adds fuel to the flames. But when evil meets no opposition and encounters no obstacle but only patient endurance, its sting is drawn, and at last it meets an opponent which is more than its match. Of course this can only happen when the last ounce of resistance is abandoned, and teh renunciation of revenge is complete. Then evil cannot find its mark, it can breed no further evil, and is left barren.
But most of us read that and fear that it is simply an impractical ideal that will just cause us to be overrun by evil. To that, Bonhoeffer responds:
How then can the precept of Jesus be justified in the light of experience? It is obvious that weakness and defenselessness only invite aggression. Is then the demand of Jesus nothing but an impractical ideal? Does he refuse to face up to realities – or shall we say, to the sin of the world? …
Jesus, however, tells us that it is just because we live in the world, and just because the world is evil, that the precept of non-resistance must be put into practice. Surely we do not wish to accuse Jesus of ignoring the reality and power of evil! Why, the whole of his life was one long conflict with the devil. He calls evil evil, and that is the very reason why he speaks to his followers in this way. How is that possible?
If we took the precept of non-resistance as an ethical blueprint for general application, we should indeed be indulging in idealistic dreams: we should be dreaming of a utopia with laws which the world would never obey. To make non-resistance a principle for secular life is to deny God, by undermining his gracious ordinance for the preservation of the world. But Jesus is no draughtsman fo political blueprints, he is the one who vanquished evil through suffering. It looked as though evil had triumphed on the cross, but the real victory belonged to Jesus.
This took me a bit to unravel, but what I believe Bonhoeffer is saying is that non-resistance to evil is not intended by Jesus to be a statement about how we should enforce laws and whether we should punish criminals. It is about how we as individuals must respond to those who perpetrate evil against us, even if we find ourselves married to those people. And Jesus is the ultimate example of one who conquered the evil that was perpetrated against him by patient endurance and suffering, looking to win the spiritual battle rather than the earthly one. In other words, like Christ, we must be more concerned with the spiritual welfare of our “enemies” than with protecting our own physical welfare. Tough stuff!
Chapter 13 then looks at Matt 5:43-48, which reads as follows:
[43] “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ [44] But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, [45] so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. [46] For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? [47] And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? [48] You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
In commenting on this, Bonhoeffer says:
To the natural man, the very notion of loving his enemies is an intolerable offense, and quite beyond his capacity: it cuts right across his ideas of good and evil. … Jesus, however, takes the law of God in his own hands and expounds its true meaning. …
By our enemies Jesus means those who are quite intractable and utterly unresponsive to our love, who forgive us nothing when we forgive them all, who requite our love with hatred and our service with derision. …
“Love your enemies.” No sacrifice which a lover would make for his beloved is too great for us to make for our enemy. If out of love for our brother we are willing to sacrifice goods, honor and life, we must be prepared to do the same for our enemy. We are not to imagine that this is to condone his evil; such a love proceeds from strength rather than weakness, from truth rather than fear, and therefore it cannot be guilty of the hatred of another.
“Bless them that persecute you.” If our enemy cannot put up with us any longer and takes to cursing us, our immediate must be to lift up our hands and bless him. Our enemies are the blessed of the Lord. Their curse can do us no harm. … We are ready to endure their curses so long as they redound to their blessing.
“Do good to them that hate you.” We must love not only in thought and word, but in deed. Nowhere is service more necessary or more blessed than when we serve our enemies.
“Pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.” This is the supreme demand. Through the medium of prayer we go to our enemy, stand by his side, and plead for him to God. Jesus does not promise that when we bless our enemies and do good to them they will not despitefully use and persecute us. They certainly will. But not even that can hurt or overcome us, so long as we pray for them. For if we pray for them, we are taking their distress and poverty,m their guilt and perdition upon ourselves, and pleading to God for them. We are doing vicariously for them what they cannot do for themselves. Every insult they utter only serves to bind us more closely to God and them. Their persecution of us only serves to bring them nearer to reconciliation with God and to further the triumphs of love.
How then does love conquer? By asking not how the enemy treats her but only how Jesus treated her. The love for our enemies takes us along the way of the cross and into fellowship with the Crucified. The more we are driven along this road, the more certain is the victory of love over the enemy’s hatred. For then it is not the disciple’s (our) own love, but the love of Jesus Christ alone, who for the sake of his enemies went to the cross and prayed for them as he hung there.
The disciple can now perceive that even his enemy is the object of God’s love, and that he stands like himself beneath the cross of Christ. God asked us nothing about our virtues or our vices, for in his sight even our virtue was ungodliness. God’s love sought out his enemies who needed it.
So, we are called to love our enemies as God loved his and the more that we do that, the more that we are driven close to the Savior and identify with him. By praying for our enemies when they hurt us, we actually take the evil and turn it to actually drive them closer to receiving God’s love and forgiveness. That’s the real message here, that the truth is they are not our enemy but we share a common enemy, the Enemy of our Souls.
So, whether your “enemies” today are found outside your home or inside it, will you take the challenge of Christ to love them and pray for them? It is a challenging path but it is the one that leads to ultimate (spiritual) victory and it is the one our Savior took for us.
So what do you think?
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Is Marriage Obsolete?
Further Indication that our culture is moving away from the Christian concept of a marriage covenant and toward the idea of marriage if it is convenient. This is a critical battle for the future of our nation. Heb 13:4 says “Let marriage be held in honor by all and the marriage bed undefiled.” This is about so much more. See my series on blogging through John Piper’s book This Momentary Marriage for more thoughts on what it’s all about.
Nearly 40% say marriage is becoming obsolete – USATODAY.com.
What are your thoughts?
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God uses a throwaway book to change a legacy
From the Call Center this afternoon. If this doesn’t light your fire, your wood is wet.
DR
I just got a call from Ellen (not her name) in Ohio. She works at a local store in town and came across a bunch of books that someone was going to throw away. She decided to glance through and see what was there as she did she came across a workbook with a yellow sticker on in saying that it had in it the biblical blueprints for marriage. She said as she looked at it it was obvious that it was a sample copy with none of the answers in it. She had never heard of Familylife, but she knew she needed the blueprints because her marriage was crumbling. She called and immediately found a weekend that was near her and signed she and her husband up. Later that week her husband moved out and she said she felt absolutely hopeless, but her husband agreed that he would go to the conference with her. She said 3 of the worst weeks of her life went by before the conference and when they showed up Friday night he wouldn’t look at her and left a seat between them when they sat down. Her thought was, “what’s the point?”
Friday night was even worse they got in a huge fight and she was certain he wouldn’t come back on Saturday, but by the time she got there he was already there and had saved her a seat in the ballroom, still a seat apart and still wouldn’t really look at her, but she said at lunch on Saturday he was a completely different person. He asked if he could stay at the house on Saturday night and before they went to bed he asked to pray with her. He then told her he had accepted Christ and asked to commit their marriage to being a Godly one.
Since last Spring they have become group coordinators and brought 25 couples in their church to the conference and she was registering another free couple for the conference in Akron this Spring. Ellen said that FamilyLife has now changed their lives and has changed the marriages in their church. She said thank you again and to think it was all because God showed her a book that was about to be thrown away.
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Guided Tour of The Art of Marriage
Bob Lepine takes you on a tour of the six sessions of FamilyLife’s newest marriage event. Contact us if you have questions.
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