As with several other posts this is an excerpt from the book I am working on. The last part of the book I describe paths a husband and wife can follow to unselfishly help the other to resist evil. Because of a husband's advantages in marraige (that I define earlier in the book) they have an easier time being indifferent to their wives. Because of their vulnerability wives often see kingdom values (especially in the area of relationships) more clearly. As a husband grows the humility to listen to a wife - it is an encouragement to her - she is using her giftedness to help her husband - and this gives her buoyancy which helps her resist the evil one (on the other hand when the husband doesn't have the humility to listen and learn from his wife she is more susceptible to the evil one's lies). So here is one part of one path a husband can follow to help his wife fight evil (in his heart and hers).
A husband listens to his wife’s disappointment, affirms it and helps her to articulate it for two reasons. First, he is offering compassion and using his advantages to treat her with understanding so she can find rest. As a husband helps his wife with marital discontent the deception evil has been hitting her with will begin to fall away. In addition to helping his wife find rest as a husband listens to her distress, he can learn important things about himself. Anyone who rebukes a mocker will get a smart retort. Anyone who rebukes the wicked will get hurt. So don’t bother rebuking mockers; they will only hate you. But the wise, when rebuked, will love you all the more. Teach the wise, and they will be wiser. Teach the righteous, and they will learn more. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Knowledge of the Holy One results in understanding (Proverbs 9:7-10).
I remember the first time my wife told me I rolled my eyes at her. I probably rolled my eyes at her as she said it. I had no idea I did it. If truth be told, I had no idea I was condescending until the 1,000th time she told me so. When I finally heard her say I was condescending in the weeks and months ahead I began to see that she was right. I learned more about myself and my lack of relational holiness from my wife than anyone else I have known. God loves interdependency. Husbands need wives to grow into who God calls them to be. Because of a wife’s longing she pays more attention to relationship and has insight that will help her husband.
Relational sin and relational holiness have more to do with faithfulness to the Gospel than staying within the lines and keeping the law. Because of a misuse of advantages Christian men, as leaders in church and as husbands in marriage, have missed glorious opportunities to discover a richer and more faith-filled obedience to the living God. The way men have shepherded in the church and marriage has often meant that women are silenced. It seems to me that men are often afraid of failure or afraid of rocking the boat. This often grows out of an ungodly frustration with the complexity they must wrestle with in this fallen world. Instead of passionately being willing to make mistakes and color outside the lines men tend to play it safe or disengage especially from relationship because it is so messy. This is where we need the voice and passion of women.
In observing how those outside the religious establishment can often embolden an obedience that goes beyond a checklist and into more, Carolyn Custiss James (The Gospel of Ruth: Loving God Enough to Break the Rules) notes that obedience is not a matter of exactness but is actually infinite. She says, “The sermon on the Mount knocked down the walls that religious living had constructed around God’s law and pointed to a way of living that goes beyond the letter of the law to the spirit. Formal religion only takes us so far – for it is both safe and doable. Love however, knows no limits, takes costly risks, and looks for ways to give more.” If they are welcomed into the conversation I believe women can uniquely advance a fervent and courageous conformity to Christ where like him our righteousness exceeds what is safe.
Carolyn Custiss James uses the example of Ruth and Boaz to illustrate this point. Ruth was a gleaner in Boaz’s field. Gleaners were allowed in the field only after both teams of hired workers finished. Ruth asked Boaz to shelve this system for her. A modern day equivalent would be like a homeless ‘dumpster diver’ asking an owner of a restaurant if he could sit in the dining room and enjoy a meal for free. James says, “Boaz’s response is as astonishing as Ruth’s request is outrageous, and this is where our strong admiration for Boaz begins. Instead of becoming defensive the lights go on and he fully embraces her suggestion. Instead of being displeased or offended, he is moved to act on her behalf. Boaz’s godliness is real, and he willingly follows’ Ruth’s lead. He actually appears driven – you might even say obsessed – to come up with ways of making her mission possible. In an astonishing outpouring of grace, Boaz exceeds the young Moabitess’ request.”
James suggests that Ruth’s asking and Boaz’s supporting grow out of their cooperation with God’s leadership. They worked together to advance God’s purposes. Ruth was moved to more because of relationship. She was zealous in her pursuit to provide because she cared about her mother-in-law. Boaz responds to this and God advanced his kingdom through them.
I stress this point because marriage is the foundation for men and women working together in the church. It is where we practice, demonstrate and learn about relationship between the sexes. As husbands grow the humility to listen to their wives we will all learn and grow a deeper holiness. If husbands begin to honor the voices of their wives I believe the church will come alive with a godliness that is much more faithful, life-giving and passionate than we experience today. Again, listen to the words of Carolyn Custiss James, “Walking with God takes us into a sea of possibilities that stretch our capacity for sacrifice and our imagination for obedience, reminding us there’s always more to following God than we think.” I can’t imagine a better way to go after that than encouraging husbands to learn from their wives so the church exemplifies better the way men and women can work together to advance the Gospel.
Showing posts with label marraige. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marraige. Show all posts
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Arrogant Accusations
Below you will find a short excerpt from the book I am trying to write on marraige. If it gets published it will be called Common Ground: Disarming Evil on the way to a Marraige of Kindness and Rest. In the book I try to articulate how God calls couples to 'common ground', how evil tries to sabotage common ground and how husband and wives can fight evil to grow common ground. The short (its actually long for a blog) excerpt is from the section where I describe one of the weapons evil throws at husbands and wives to attack common ground.
Arrogant Accusations
The world, the flesh and the devil work together to spawn and nurture deceptive strongholds that spread the work of evil. The two types of strongholds will we examine are arrogant accusations and fleshly grooves. An arrogant accusation is a deceptive notion that grows a wicked energy force full of shame and condemnation that bully people away from God and his truth. This type of stronghold is haughty and accusatory because it is specifically designed to lift evil’s falsehood above God’s wisdom while mocking God’s ways at the same time.
In regards to the way evil attacks marriage he uses arrogant accusations to push the believer away from a biblical view of marriage or the callings of the husband and wife I discussed earlier. For instance, one arrogant accusation might be, “Two people who love each other will not struggle that much.” Thus, if you have any type of regular or ongoing struggle in your marriage you feel a sense of shame and condemnation that you are doing something wrong. At times this can be true (there is a little bit of truth in every accusation the evil one makes) but often time’s ongoing struggle is part of a good marriage. Another arrogant accusation would be, “husbands are only kind to their wives when they want sex.” I have seen this accusation cause many wives to feel ashamed at responding to good kindness from their husband when he wasn’t doing it for sex. I have also worked with men who were genuinely striving to be kinder to their wives and were ashamed if they began to hope that the kindness might lead into sex. Evil was accusing them of being like other men, “Who are only nice to their wives to get sex,” when that wasn’t the case.
Evil plants lies in the world that cleverly twist God’s truth into deception and he entices humans to agree with his deception. As people agree with the misleading notion and act on it they participate in adding strength to the evil force. The force becomes like a hurricane that breeds destruction wherever it lands. These accusations will browbeat husbands and wives and mock their call to follow God and grow redemptive love.
Paul refers to these types of evil assertions when he says, “We are human, but we don’t wage war with human plans and methods. We use God’s mighty weapons, to knock down the Devil’s strongholds. With these weapons we break down every proud argument that keeps people from knowing God.” (1 Corinthians 10: 3-5). In referring to Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians Clinton Arnold says, “Some of the Corinthians had been duped into believing dangerous and erroneous ideas about Jesus and his gospel. It is against these arguments and ideas that have settled into the minds of some of the Corinthians as “strongholds” that Paul utilizes divine weapons to demolish. His objective is to purify their understanding of Christ. Satan not only struck at the identity of Jesus, but also at understandings of the efficacy of his work and the nature of his relationship with his people. In other words, the devil attempts to convince people that what Jesus did was not enough, nor is he present or powerful enough to help us.”
I want you to recognize with a little more depth how these arrogant accusations impact married couples. Consider the assertion that wives are ‘high maintenance and need to be catered to.’ Evil casts this lie so that men resist the call to use their advantages to sacrifice for their wife. If a wife is ‘high maintenance’ a husband can feel justified in being uninvolved until his wife becomes ‘low maintenance.’ Many wives acquiesce to the accusation of being high maintenance by going overboard in trying to please their husband even if he is being selfish.
This indictment is often easy to dissect in a group of husbands that talk about their wives. Such husbands will mention with subtle contempt how their wives impossibly require so much from them. They’ll talk about how their wives don’t stick to the budget, how they complain too much or how they don’t enjoy sex enough. In the same conversation these men won’t mention that they often buy large dollar items that totally blow the budget or they won’t spend time helping each other consider ways to make their marriages more sexually inviting and refreshing for their wives.
Let’s suggest a group of Christian men are entertaining this accusation and one man in the group is battling with alternating thoughts inside of him. The spirit keeps reminding him of the dignity in every wife and some of the ways his wife has cared and sacrificed for him. He wants to suggest to the group that wives are a mixture of selfishness and unselfishness and that it’s not helpful to spend all their energy focused on how much their wives require of them. Evil enjoys mocking these thoughts in this man’s mind and he uses the ‘life’ in the group to mock him. The group banters back and forth with many examples of how their wives can be self-absorbed. Many of the examples are true but it is the way they are talked about by the husbands that attaches them to evil. In the presence of a group that is celebrating an arrogant accusation the husband with alternating thoughts begins to feel foolish for wanting to fight for what is good in wives. Evil is shaming him back into submission.
In addition to pressure from the outside he feels shame inside. He remembers how often he has jokingly said to his wife, “If momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” Sometimes, he has felt like his wife is high maintenance and has even indicated that to her. He has participated with the accusation in his own marriage and he feels shame in the moment for having done that. This too pulls him away from confronting the accusation. The evil one says to him, “How dare you expose these men to what they are doing when you have done the very same thing. You are no better than these men. Shut up and go back to enjoying the little crumbs you feed on. You are not man enough to fight for more.” He actually was going to confront his own sin by bringing it up but the shaming denunciation from evil shuts him down.
The small inkling he feels inside to confront the arrogant accusation that all wives are high maintenance to be a problem to their husbands and to suggest that the mood of the conversation doesn’t seem honoring to wives pales in comparison to the history and life of the accusation he is confronting. He ignores the slight prick in his heart and adds to the ‘life’ in the conversation by throwing in an example about his wife.
Can you recognize how this accusation strikes at the work and ministry of Jesus or “at the efficacy of his work and the nature of his relationship with his people?” Jesus died to restore wives and women to the dignity they were created with. Much of the trouble wives live with can grow out of the injustice they experience in their marriage. Wives must wrestle with selfishness just like husbands and they need help doing it especially from men. Instead of walking hand in hand with evil these men could be talking honestly about the way their wives can be selfish and how Jesus can help them embody the Gospel in grace and truth to help free their wives from bondage. They could also talk about the ways in which they have sinned in words and deeds to diminish the dignity of their wives. If they moved away from celebrating the arrogant accusation and talked candidly about some hard truths, Jesus’ forgiveness and ministry of reconciliation would become more meaningful to them in that moment.
Because Satan is prince of this world and arrogant accusations have such life in them when husbands and wives get together and talk about marriage the topics of conversation will often flow along lines that affirm arrogant accusations and undermine the calling of God as husband and wife. In typically male dominated cultures (for example: sports, construction, the military) you will find women marginalized or degraded by the way they are talked about. Often, in these settings women will be talked about like sexual objects that have nothing meaningful to give to men other than their bodies (they are celebrating the accusation that men just want women for sex). In another way it is common for a group of men to talk about their pressures at work in such a way that they feel justified or compelled to over extend themselves in their job. Because Satan is prince of this world there are many arrogant accusations that mock the call for husbands to grow tenderness, compassion, strength or endurance to care for their wives as a way of life. In the majority of groups a husband is a part of the cultural atmosphere will push him away from what God calls him to as a husband.
In addition, you often won’t find a group of wives talking in such a way that they are honoring the call of God in their lives. Where do you find groups of women that talk honestly about how controlling or condescending they can be towards their husbands? On the other hand, how many groups of women are talking about the anquish they feel for not being able to recognize and support the good going inside their husbands? A good topic for a prayer group of wives would be, “Asking God to help us learn to endure ongoing relational pain while celebrating little changes in our husbands that are reflective of God’s work in their life.” I can’t image an explosion of these types of groups in our churches. Such a group of humble wives could help each other recognize good in their husbands and pray together that God would protect and nurture that growth.
On the other hand, how often do you hear women sharing tidbits on fashion, work out routines, or diets? I already mentioned the way they way evil uses this area and he casts arrogant accusations at wives that they must look a certain way for their husbands to really pursue them. A ‘beautiful woman’ in our culture is physically emaciated and personally empty. I can’t imagine how stressed and unhealthy the eating habits are of any wife who is trying to live up to the popular image of physical beauty held up in our culture. The physical beauty portrayed in popular culture is supported by huge amounts of energy and money. True beauty is inner and any woman who wants to grow it must direct her energy and resources to walk with God and wrestle with evil as she grows inside beauty and rest. When women try to make outward beauty the way to life they are side-stepping the faith and endurance needed to walk with God. As we celebrate and support the images of beauty paraded around in popular culture we are helping energize a system that wears women down and opposes the purposes of God. A wife who can name, celebrate and fight for the work of Jesus in her husband will be far more attractive than one who is owned by the way she looks. There are so many arrogant accusations that are celebrated and affirmed that undermine God’s purposes that every husband and wife is encountering a major conflict just to hear and respond to their callings from God.
Arrogant Accusations
The world, the flesh and the devil work together to spawn and nurture deceptive strongholds that spread the work of evil. The two types of strongholds will we examine are arrogant accusations and fleshly grooves. An arrogant accusation is a deceptive notion that grows a wicked energy force full of shame and condemnation that bully people away from God and his truth. This type of stronghold is haughty and accusatory because it is specifically designed to lift evil’s falsehood above God’s wisdom while mocking God’s ways at the same time.
In regards to the way evil attacks marriage he uses arrogant accusations to push the believer away from a biblical view of marriage or the callings of the husband and wife I discussed earlier. For instance, one arrogant accusation might be, “Two people who love each other will not struggle that much.” Thus, if you have any type of regular or ongoing struggle in your marriage you feel a sense of shame and condemnation that you are doing something wrong. At times this can be true (there is a little bit of truth in every accusation the evil one makes) but often time’s ongoing struggle is part of a good marriage. Another arrogant accusation would be, “husbands are only kind to their wives when they want sex.” I have seen this accusation cause many wives to feel ashamed at responding to good kindness from their husband when he wasn’t doing it for sex. I have also worked with men who were genuinely striving to be kinder to their wives and were ashamed if they began to hope that the kindness might lead into sex. Evil was accusing them of being like other men, “Who are only nice to their wives to get sex,” when that wasn’t the case.
Evil plants lies in the world that cleverly twist God’s truth into deception and he entices humans to agree with his deception. As people agree with the misleading notion and act on it they participate in adding strength to the evil force. The force becomes like a hurricane that breeds destruction wherever it lands. These accusations will browbeat husbands and wives and mock their call to follow God and grow redemptive love.
Paul refers to these types of evil assertions when he says, “We are human, but we don’t wage war with human plans and methods. We use God’s mighty weapons, to knock down the Devil’s strongholds. With these weapons we break down every proud argument that keeps people from knowing God.” (1 Corinthians 10: 3-5). In referring to Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians Clinton Arnold says, “Some of the Corinthians had been duped into believing dangerous and erroneous ideas about Jesus and his gospel. It is against these arguments and ideas that have settled into the minds of some of the Corinthians as “strongholds” that Paul utilizes divine weapons to demolish. His objective is to purify their understanding of Christ. Satan not only struck at the identity of Jesus, but also at understandings of the efficacy of his work and the nature of his relationship with his people. In other words, the devil attempts to convince people that what Jesus did was not enough, nor is he present or powerful enough to help us.”
I want you to recognize with a little more depth how these arrogant accusations impact married couples. Consider the assertion that wives are ‘high maintenance and need to be catered to.’ Evil casts this lie so that men resist the call to use their advantages to sacrifice for their wife. If a wife is ‘high maintenance’ a husband can feel justified in being uninvolved until his wife becomes ‘low maintenance.’ Many wives acquiesce to the accusation of being high maintenance by going overboard in trying to please their husband even if he is being selfish.
This indictment is often easy to dissect in a group of husbands that talk about their wives. Such husbands will mention with subtle contempt how their wives impossibly require so much from them. They’ll talk about how their wives don’t stick to the budget, how they complain too much or how they don’t enjoy sex enough. In the same conversation these men won’t mention that they often buy large dollar items that totally blow the budget or they won’t spend time helping each other consider ways to make their marriages more sexually inviting and refreshing for their wives.
Let’s suggest a group of Christian men are entertaining this accusation and one man in the group is battling with alternating thoughts inside of him. The spirit keeps reminding him of the dignity in every wife and some of the ways his wife has cared and sacrificed for him. He wants to suggest to the group that wives are a mixture of selfishness and unselfishness and that it’s not helpful to spend all their energy focused on how much their wives require of them. Evil enjoys mocking these thoughts in this man’s mind and he uses the ‘life’ in the group to mock him. The group banters back and forth with many examples of how their wives can be self-absorbed. Many of the examples are true but it is the way they are talked about by the husbands that attaches them to evil. In the presence of a group that is celebrating an arrogant accusation the husband with alternating thoughts begins to feel foolish for wanting to fight for what is good in wives. Evil is shaming him back into submission.
In addition to pressure from the outside he feels shame inside. He remembers how often he has jokingly said to his wife, “If momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” Sometimes, he has felt like his wife is high maintenance and has even indicated that to her. He has participated with the accusation in his own marriage and he feels shame in the moment for having done that. This too pulls him away from confronting the accusation. The evil one says to him, “How dare you expose these men to what they are doing when you have done the very same thing. You are no better than these men. Shut up and go back to enjoying the little crumbs you feed on. You are not man enough to fight for more.” He actually was going to confront his own sin by bringing it up but the shaming denunciation from evil shuts him down.
The small inkling he feels inside to confront the arrogant accusation that all wives are high maintenance to be a problem to their husbands and to suggest that the mood of the conversation doesn’t seem honoring to wives pales in comparison to the history and life of the accusation he is confronting. He ignores the slight prick in his heart and adds to the ‘life’ in the conversation by throwing in an example about his wife.
Can you recognize how this accusation strikes at the work and ministry of Jesus or “at the efficacy of his work and the nature of his relationship with his people?” Jesus died to restore wives and women to the dignity they were created with. Much of the trouble wives live with can grow out of the injustice they experience in their marriage. Wives must wrestle with selfishness just like husbands and they need help doing it especially from men. Instead of walking hand in hand with evil these men could be talking honestly about the way their wives can be selfish and how Jesus can help them embody the Gospel in grace and truth to help free their wives from bondage. They could also talk about the ways in which they have sinned in words and deeds to diminish the dignity of their wives. If they moved away from celebrating the arrogant accusation and talked candidly about some hard truths, Jesus’ forgiveness and ministry of reconciliation would become more meaningful to them in that moment.
Because Satan is prince of this world and arrogant accusations have such life in them when husbands and wives get together and talk about marriage the topics of conversation will often flow along lines that affirm arrogant accusations and undermine the calling of God as husband and wife. In typically male dominated cultures (for example: sports, construction, the military) you will find women marginalized or degraded by the way they are talked about. Often, in these settings women will be talked about like sexual objects that have nothing meaningful to give to men other than their bodies (they are celebrating the accusation that men just want women for sex). In another way it is common for a group of men to talk about their pressures at work in such a way that they feel justified or compelled to over extend themselves in their job. Because Satan is prince of this world there are many arrogant accusations that mock the call for husbands to grow tenderness, compassion, strength or endurance to care for their wives as a way of life. In the majority of groups a husband is a part of the cultural atmosphere will push him away from what God calls him to as a husband.
In addition, you often won’t find a group of wives talking in such a way that they are honoring the call of God in their lives. Where do you find groups of women that talk honestly about how controlling or condescending they can be towards their husbands? On the other hand, how many groups of women are talking about the anquish they feel for not being able to recognize and support the good going inside their husbands? A good topic for a prayer group of wives would be, “Asking God to help us learn to endure ongoing relational pain while celebrating little changes in our husbands that are reflective of God’s work in their life.” I can’t image an explosion of these types of groups in our churches. Such a group of humble wives could help each other recognize good in their husbands and pray together that God would protect and nurture that growth.
On the other hand, how often do you hear women sharing tidbits on fashion, work out routines, or diets? I already mentioned the way they way evil uses this area and he casts arrogant accusations at wives that they must look a certain way for their husbands to really pursue them. A ‘beautiful woman’ in our culture is physically emaciated and personally empty. I can’t imagine how stressed and unhealthy the eating habits are of any wife who is trying to live up to the popular image of physical beauty held up in our culture. The physical beauty portrayed in popular culture is supported by huge amounts of energy and money. True beauty is inner and any woman who wants to grow it must direct her energy and resources to walk with God and wrestle with evil as she grows inside beauty and rest. When women try to make outward beauty the way to life they are side-stepping the faith and endurance needed to walk with God. As we celebrate and support the images of beauty paraded around in popular culture we are helping energize a system that wears women down and opposes the purposes of God. A wife who can name, celebrate and fight for the work of Jesus in her husband will be far more attractive than one who is owned by the way she looks. There are so many arrogant accusations that are celebrated and affirmed that undermine God’s purposes that every husband and wife is encountering a major conflict just to hear and respond to their callings from God.
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