Fair Question

A father was reading Bible stories to his young son. He read, “The man named Lot was warned to take his wife and flee out of the city, but his wife looked back and was turned to salt.”

His son asked, “What happened to the flea?”

Complementary

Some biblical concepts are puzzling for a long time; often I sort of know the answer but am not quite sure why.   The light dawned on one such issue in a recent URC New Members class – the foundation of a complementarian view of roles for men and women in the family and the church comes from the beginning.

Several key facts from the first three chapters of the book of Genesis:

–          God made everything “good,” including man – male and female (1.27).  Making two different forms of humans means there will be differences, and we know of obvious physical and emotional distinctives. 

–          God made the man Adam from the dust of the ground (2.7), put him in the Garden of Eden (2.15), and told him not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (2.16-17).  Adam was given the command.

–          God made the woman Eve from the rib of Adam to be a helper fit for him (2.20-23).  Before the Fall and the Curse, there was a hierarchy – Adam was the head of the family and given the command to protect the tree; Eve was the excellent helper.  They had complementary roles.

–          After the serpent tempted both Adam and Eve to sin, God talked to Adam about what they had done (3.9-11) and then Eve confessed that she had been deceived (3.13).  Eve ate first, but God held Adam accountable.  Again, Adam was the one responsible – the head of the family.

–          The curses wrecked everything – the snake is cursed, the woman is cursed, the man is cursed, the ground is cursed.  The crucial complementarian curse is the sentence directed to the woman, “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” (3.16).  Sin has introduced an ongoing struggle for leadership in the marriage relationship.  As the ESV Study Bible comments, “This especially takes the form of inordinate desire (on the part of the wife) and domineering rule (on the part of the husband).”

The concept that sinful men and women each have a bent away from the God-ordained complementary roles is very clear in the change-of-heart commands of Ephesians 5.22-23: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord… Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church.”   These are both hard tasks and require the ongoing work of Holy Spirit sanctification.

There are puzzling parts in other key New Testament passages on this topic: 1 Corinthians 11.2-16; 14.33-35, and 1 Timothy 2.11-15.  But there are clear directives in each verse that follow from Jesus’ shed blood setting us free from the tyranny of the devil. Men are to be loving leaders and women are to be excellent helpers.

More Attendant Announcements

See October 12 and look forward to November 9 for more airline attendant announcements.

“Should the cabin lose pressure, oxygen masks will drop from the overhead area. Please place the bag over your own mouth and nose before assisting children or other adults acting like children.”

“Weather at our destination is 50 degrees with some broken clouds, but we’ll try to have them fixed before we arrive. Thank you, and remember, nobody loves you, or your money, more than Southwest Airlines.”

“Your seat cushions can be used for flotation; and, in the event of an emergency water landing, please paddle to shore and take them with our compliments.”

“As you exit the plane, make sure to gather all of your belongings. Anything left behind will be distributed evenly among the flight attendants. Please do not leave children or spouses.”

Heard on Pan American Airlines just after a very hard landing in San Francisco Airport: The flight attendant came on the intercom and said, “That was quite a bump, and I know what y’all are thinking. I’m here to tell you it wasn’t the airline’s fault, it wasn’t the pilot’s fault, it wasn’t the flight attendant’s fault…it was the asphalt!”

Work of the Word

In Isaiah 55.10, God describes the regular, natural process of rain watering the earth and causing growth that brings “seed to the sower and bread to the eater.”  The work of the Word of God is likened to that process in verse 11.  God’s word will

–          Go out from His mouth

–          Shall not return to God empty

–          Shall accomplish that which God purposes

–          Shall succeed in the things for which God sent it.

Just as with prayer, there is a mystery here.  We can’t know the details of all God’s purposes and the things for which he sends His Word.  But, we can trust Him that He is working all things together for our good (Romans 8.28) and that His Word never returns empty. That’s powerful work.

Unexpected Results

A man in Wisconsin came out of a bar and stumbled down the street.  He paused behind a car, then straightened and stepped to the driver’s side door.  He fumbled with his keys and dropped them to the ground.  After picking up the keys he finally got the car open and got in.  He sat there a few minutes, started the car, and drove slowly down the street.

Whirr-Whirr-Whirr; a cop car’s lights and siren went on and pulled the man over.  The man was asked to get out of the car, walk a straight line, take a Breathalyzer test, and count backward from 25.  The cop was amazed when he passed all the tests! “How are you not drunk?”

The man says, “Tonight is my turn to be the designated decoy.”

Failure To Fathom

Proverbs 28.5: “Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the LORD understand it completely.”

Jeremiah 9.23-24: Thus says the LORD: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice and righteousness in the earth.  For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.”

Hear how there is an echo of Jeremiah in the Proverb.  There is almost an extra warning – “let not the evil man boast in his wicked schemes.”

The holy and just nature of the One True God, combined with the sinful nature of mankind, requires a price for iniquities.  Those who seek and know the LORD understand that they need to be redeemed; they freely admit their guilt and seek the One True God’s only begotten son as their savior. 

For whatever reason – ignorance, pride, blindness, hardness of heart – the evil man considers himself immune from the promised punishment.  As the Proverb says, he does not understand the two-part call of Jesus, “Repent and Believe.”

Nehemiah Type 2 Prayer

See the post from 10/9/13.  The key prayer in Nehemiah 1.11 was “Please grant me favor in the sight of the king.”  Besides asking God to hear him, this was the one request in a long prayer.  It came at the end of an extended period of analysis and planning; Nehemiah knew that for his work to succeed, it was crucial to get the blessing of his boss.  This one task had to go well in order for the rest of the work to proceed – it was a “logjam-breaking” activity.

For a group in the midst of a planning process, a good question to ask the group is “what is a key question or concern you have about this project?”  Take notes on the responses, and have the group pray for God’s help in answering the questions and guiding through the concerns.

Cool Number Dates – 10/20/13 – 10/26/13

One date this week has two designations.  10/23/13 is a Minus subtract day because 10 – 23 = Minus 13.

10/23/13 is also Mole day.  From the site www.moleday.org :

Celebrated annually on October 23 from 6:02 a.m. to 6:02 p.m., Mole Day commemorates Avogadro’s Number (6.02 x 1023), which is a basic measuring unit in chemistry. Mole Day was created as a way to foster interest in chemistry. Schools throughout the United States and around the world celebrate Mole Day with various activities related to chemistry and/or moles.

For a given molecule, one mole is a mass (in grams) whose number is equal to the atomic mass of the molecule. For example, the water molecule has an atomic mass of 18, therefore one mole of water weighs 18 grams. An atom of neon has an atomic mass of 20, therefore one mole of neon weighs 20 grams. In general, one mole of any substance contains Avogadro’s Number of molecules or atoms of that substance. This relationship was first discovered by Amadeo Avogadro (1776-1858) and he received credit for this after his death.