Submission in Marriage

In 1 Corinthians 11:3 Paul casually makes a really big statement about submission in marriage.

1 Corinthians 11:3 But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.

Notice that here he doesn’t simply say that the husband is the head of the household; he takes a giant step back and shows the bigger picture. So the husband is the head of the wife, but then Christ is the head of the man. And not only that, but God is the head of Christ.

Paul gives us a great analogy here for how the marriage relationship works: he compares it to the relation of God the Father to God the Son. Christ is, of course, equal in power and glory to his Father– he is the “radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Heb 1:3). But he also submits to his Father: for example, he does nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing (John 5:19).

In other words, what we see in the Trinity (and it extends to the Holy Spirit as well) is total equality with regard to the persons– no person of the Trinity is more important or more divine than the others– with distinction in roles– the Son submits to the Father, and the Spirit to the Father and the Son. This fits very well with Paul’s teaching on marriage. Men and women are entirely equal in status before God, but there is a distinction in their individual roles when we come to the topic of marriage. So the same Paul who says “there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28) also has no problem saying “Wives, submit to your husbands” (Eph 5:22).

This isn’t a matter of men having wholesale authority over women; it’s a matter of every believer being properly submitted to God-given authority. Wives submit to husbands, husbands submit to Christ, and Christ submits to God.

New Audio

I uploaded a couple of sermons from a preaching class that I stumbled across this weekend, and also yesterday’s “Behold the Lamb of God” Sunday School class. See the audio page if you’re interested.

Recent Purchases

No One Believes This is True

Last week Hillary Clinton reminisced about landing in Bosnia under sniper fire. This week, we learned that this was nowhere close to the truth. Her explanation: “I misspoke.” Misspoke. About landing in an airplane with people shooting at you. Right.

Before that, we had the flap over anti-American pulpit rants from Barack Obama’s pastor and “spiritual mentor.” Obama’s response: I strongly disagreed, “just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.” (Yeah, I’m sure lots of us remember sitting over Sunday dinner last week saying, “Oh, silly Pastor Tom, talking about the government giving AIDS to black people. I really don’t agree with that. But I like a lot of what he says.”)

And of course, it’s not just on one side of the aisle. Drudge’s headline this morning was a story about McCain and Romney buddying it up on the campaign trail:

“Mitt just went through the process,” McCain said and turned to the former governor.”The process was very good to you …,” Romney responded. McCain, laughing, said the process was good to him, too.

Oh man, classic. Mitt and John. Old chums.

Is anyone else just incredibly tired of seeing politicians, spokespeople, and talking heads saying things no one believes is true? How can Hillary Clinton, caught on video in an obvious lie, explain with a straight face that she “misspoke?” How can Obama claim with a straight face that he never heard these incendiary comments from the pastor whose church he attended for 20 years? How can McCain and Romney trade punch lines like Abbot and Costello when we all watched them go at each other’s throats two months ago? And how can reporters tell us about all these things with a straight face?

It would be interesting to see a candidate who actually was about “Straight Talk”—who would explain things honestly, even at the risk of being misunderstood or marginalized. Someone who would, I don’t know, let his yes be yes and his no be no. I don’t know if he would be electable, but he would certainly be refreshing. I would welcome the opportunity to watch a candidate speak and not think, “No one believes this is true.”

Perseverance in Poetry

I talked about this in prose Monday. Here’s another way to look at it.

The love of Christ is rich and free;
Fixed on His own eternally;
Nor earth, nor hell, can it remove;
Long as He lives, His own He’ll love.

His loving heart engaged to be
Their everlasting Surety;
’Twas love that took their cause in hand,
And love maintains it to the end.

Love cannot from its post withdraw;
Nor death, nor hell, nor sin, nor law,
Can turn the Surety’s heart away;
He’ll love His own to endless day.

Love has redeemed His sheep with blood;
And love will bring them safe to God;
Love calls them all from death to life;
And love will finish all their strife.

He loves through every changing scene,
Nor aught from Him can Zion wean;
Not all the wanderings of her heart
Can make His love for her depart.

At death, beyond the grave, He’ll love;
In endless bliss, His own shall prove
The blazing glory of that love
Which never could from them remove.

“The Love of Christ is Rich and Free”
Words William Gadsby, music Sandra McCracken
from the album The Builder and the Architect (among others)

Fourth Wave?

In about 1980 C. Peter Wagner coined the phrase “Third Wave” to describe a new strand of Christianity, especially charismatic Christianity. He believed that this new strand was the third major movement of the Holy Spirit in the 20th century, the first two being the rise of the Pentecostal movement beginning around 1901 and the charismatic renewal that spread through mainline denominations in the 1960’s. Third Wave became a term used to refer to people who believe in (and are excited about) the continuation of the supernatural gifts of the Spirit, but don’t usually hold to some of the big points of classic Pentecostalism– for example, speaking in tongues as a necessary proof of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, or the baptism of the Spirit as an event separate from salvation in the first place.

All that’s background. Whether or not you buy the idea of the first 2 waves, Third Wave now refers to this fairly large, loosely-associated group who are charismatic with a small “c”. They’re usually pretty conservative theologically, value the teaching of the Bible and place a good bit of emphasis on the supernatural, especially in praying for miracles and expecting something significant to happen in worship. Vineyard churches are sort of characteristic of this crowd.

But in the past 10-15 years, another strand of charismatics has emerged. I’m thinking of guys like Wayne Grudem and John Piper, and of movements like Sovereign Grace and Acts 29. This is not really a movement from within the charismatic fold, but from within the evangelical fold. You’re even starting to see the word “continuationist” used rather than “charismatic” because of the desire to stand apart from some of the excesses and problems that the charismatic movement has become known for.

I wonder if guys like this could be the “Fourth Wave.” I think the major thing that sets these groups apart from other branches of the charismatic family is balance, specifically in the sense of placing emphasis where the Bible places it. So they are eager to pray for the miraculous, they believe in things like speaking in tongues (with all the right restrictions), they even think that God sometimes speaks to people in dreams and visions– but all these things are not the main attraction, the Gospel is. So each worship service isn’t primarily about what cool thing might happen, but about proclaiming and celebrating the glory of God, especially as presented in whatever Bible passage is being highlighted that day.

These guys are also closing gaps. When a charismatic and a Presbyterian share the podium at an event like Together for the Gospel, something significant is happening. It’s keeping the charismatic issue from being as much of a dividing line, and the growing number of Gospel-loving, Bible-preaching, responsible charismatics (or whatever you call them) is making their view more palatable to some who 20 years ago wouldn’t have touched it with a ten-foot pole. I guarantee you I went through seminary with more guys who are “open but cautious” on the supernatural gifts than I would have even 10 years ago.

I’m not saying Acts 29 and Sovereign Grace are the next best hope for the church. But the new move of Bible-centered charismatics is encouraging, and I hope the evangelical scene in two decades looks a lot more like them than it does now.

New! Audio Resources

In case anyone is interested (hi Mom!), I’ve uploaded various sermons, Sunday School lessons, and the like from my very brief and limited ministry. What I have is listed below, and I’ll let you know when I add to it.

To download any of these, just right-click and select “Save Target As”.

Sermons

• “Self-Made Religion and the Gospel of Jesus Christ“, Uptown Church, 02/11/07
• “Not Guilty,” Uptown Church, 07/15/07

Sunday School lessons
From the class Behind the Music: The History and Theology of Worship Music

• “For All the Saints“

From a class I’m currently teaching, Behold the Lamb of God: Christ in the Old Testament

• Week 1: Introduction
• Week 2: Genesis 3:15

Hopefully most of the Behold the Lamb series will be recorded, and soon I should have the recordings from the men’s retreat I did in January. Disclaimer: These aren’t cleaned up, remastered, etc, so there are occasional awkward moments, like pauses while I look for a text or questions you can’t hear, but you might find the content interesting.

Perseverance of the Saints

“[Jesus] will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” –1 Corinthians 1:8-9

Perseverance of the saints, one of the “five points” of Calvinism, is sometimes misunderstood to mean that once a person professes faith in Christ, that person will be saved, no matter what happens for the rest of his life. What we actually believe is that because God is the one who brings about saving faith, he will keep those whom he has called faithful to the end of their life. Notice a few things Paul promises the saints in Corinth:

• The saints will endure to the end; they will be found “guiltless” at the last day.
• This endurance will occur because the saints are “sustained” by Christ.
• The endurance of the saints is rooted in the faithfulness of God.
• God is the one who called the saints to begin with, and can therefore be trusted to sustain them until the end.

We should believe this 1) because the Bible teaches it and 2) because it’s a great comfort. What a relief to know that my ultimate security depends not on my faithfulness, but God’s! My own performance, my own commitment to God, is inconsistent at best. Thank God I depend not on my commitment to him, but his commitment to me.

Yesterday’s Charlotte Talks

Listen to the archived version here. If you listened yesterday morning, this is the full version with no fundraising breaks.

Miscellenies #2

It occurred to me last night that if you were a Christian pacifist, you should never vote for a Christian candidate for President.

If pacifism is taught in the Bible– that is, if war is always wrong in all circumstances– then a Christian should not, in good conscience, be able to take the presidential oath of office. That oath affirms that the President will “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” The Constitution stipulates, “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.” It doesn’t seem like a pacifist should be willing to take on that role. And if you think all Christians should be pacifists, then it seems like you certainly would not want to put a brother (or sister) in that position.

There’s a reason I was thinking about this, but it’s not interesting enough to explain.

*****

The radio show this morning was really fun. I’ll point you to the archived version when it’s up. We didn’t really get to much spiritual stuff, but the political topics were interesting. And of course, the whole spiritual/secular distinction isn’t legit, blah blah blah. I found out afterward that the host had really wanted to talk about evolution, but we ran out of time. Maybe they’ll have me back on.

My favorite Jake moment was a shout-out to Mike Kruger, as I blurted out while the host was trying to close up, “neutrality is a myth!” You’ll have to listen to get the context.