It’s Not You, It’s God: Nine Lessons for Breakups

Some of a single person’s darkest days fall after a breakup.

You risked your heart. You shared your life. You bought the gifts, made the memories, and dreamed your dreams together — and it fell apart. Now, you’re back at square one in the quest for marriage, and it feels lonelier than square one, and further from the altar, because of all you’ve spent and lost.

No one begins dating someone hoping to break it off someday. The wiring in most of us has us longing for the wedding day. We’re looking, sometimes it feels frantically, for love, for affection and security and companionship and commitment and intimacy and help. After all, God seems to want most of us to be married (Genesis 2:18; Proverbs 18:22; 1 Corinthians 7:2, 9). But that sure hasn’t made getting married easy.

The Pain of Intimacy Without Matrimony

The reality is that good, Christ-exalting relationships very often fail before the ceremony, never to be recovered romantically. The pain cuts deeper and lingers longer than most pain young people have felt in their lives. I feel it deeply even typing these words. It’s one of the hardest things for me to write or speak about: the pain of intimacy that fell short of matrimony.

Breakups in the church are painful and uncomfortable, and many of us have or will walk this dark and lonely road. So here are nine lessons for building hope and loving others when Christians end a not-yet marriage.   Continue at Marshall Segal

Homosexuality, Polyester, and Shellfish

Churches and ministries are coming under increasingly aggressive pressure from militant homosexuality. Some homosexuals are combing websites looking for sermons and statements that they can use in the media to ridicule Christianity and build sympathy for their cause.

When challenged, many Christians and even many pastors, struggle to defend and explain their position in a way that is Scriptural, consistent, and loving. Homosexuals and the media often point to other Old Testament verses that forbid things that Christians now eat or use. How do we explain that? 

Well, here’s a short briefing paper that I hope will answer some of these questions, and also help Christians and pastors to explain the Bible’s teaching in a loving way. Below you will find a bullet point summary of the paper (each point is explained in fuller detail in the paper). For further reading, please see the books referenced in the footnotes. And a huge thank you to my Research Assistant for the huge amount of work he put into this paper. 

Homosexuality, polyester, and shellfish.

What do these three things have in common? Well, they are all mentioned in the Bible as forbidden by God. And the latter two come up in conversations about the first.  The charge is often that Christians are being inconsistent – we allow polyester and enjoy shellfish, but we still condemn homosexuality.

The real question is not why Christians are inconsistent. The real question is why and how Christians do make a distinction between homosexuality, polyester, and shellfish. Because they do, and it matters.   Continue at David Murray

Loving Muslim Neighbors

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Rick Warren responded yesterday to the Orange County Register story with a helpful clarification.

“Who is my neighbor?”, the rich young ruler asked Jesus. The query was an attempt to deflect responsibility. Of course, I have a responsibility for my family, kinsmen, and fellow Jews, but surely not for the outcasts, the morally unclean, or the Gentile. No loophole, Jesus replied. Your neighbor is the one right under your nose, whomever God created in his image. Like the rich young ruler, we all have ways of defining “neighbor” as someone who is like us. It’s group narcissism: not really loving my neighbor, but loving myself and what I see of myself in others.

Who Is My Neighbor?

We recognize our responsibilities to our own families, church, and perhaps various voluntary associations. There are school ties: fraternity/sorority mates, secret societies, and alumni associations, where belonging gives advantages in climbing the corporate ladder or getting your kids into Harvard. In a less mobile era, churches reflected the demographics of their neighborhood, as it was often divided between the farm and the town, or along racial and socio-economic lines (different sides of the tracks). Even in many cases where blacks and whites worshipped together, the former sat in the loft—never in the main gallery—and certainly did not drink from a common cup in Communion. (Paul says something about this in 1 Corinthians.) In our mobile society today, churches are more divided than ever into ever-smaller niche demographics defined by the marketplace.

In all of these cases, we choose our neighbors. They are people who are like us. We share similar playlists on our iPod, shop at the same stores, drive similar cars, and even dress alike. When we move to a new city or suburb, we find a neighborhood, church, and school that most closely fits our own self-chosen identity. (Of course, some people have more freedom to choose than others.)  Continue at Michael Horton

“Loving Our Pastors”

Pastors are imperfect; that much should be obvious. However, the attitude of some Christians toward their pastors leaves us wondering whether those three words are as plain as one would think. While pastors, like all of us, share in Adam’s fall, they have the particular challenge of having their faults on display week-by-week as they stand in a pulpit or as they minister amongst their flock. Pastors are public people and, sadly, public scrutiny comes easily and regularly. Church members should be particularly sensitive to this when they offer opinions, solicited or otherwise, about their pastor’s ministry.

Regretfully, some pastors make easy targets and bear the brunt of some of the most frivolous criticism. While all pastors should be open to constructive critique—indeed they should welcome it for the ministry’s sake—they are not deserving of the back-biting, nit-picking and any other hyphenated wounding that they regularly undergo. Keep Reading...

Loving the Pastor’s Wife

One of the most important and most overlooked people in a church is the pastor’s wife. She is usually not on the organizational chart, does not have a formal job title or job description, and is an unpaid volunteer. But her ministry can make or break her family and church. Read all about her HERE

Loving Your Spouse Redemptively

In Love that Lasts Gary and Betsy Riccucci offer practical insight for husbands and wives. Gary encourages husbands to love their wives as Christ loves them: graciously, sacrificially, redemptively, with understanding, and with honor. For now, we want to focus on what it looks like for husbands to love their wives redemptively. To love my wife redemptively means I should desire to see my wife being continually transformed into an increasingly beautiful bride, just as Christ desires this for the Church. These questions can point us in that direction: Continue Reading>>>