Happy Reformation Day!

A Blog of Interest

A good friend of mine, Rosalynn Robb, alerted me to her blog just recently. It is called Drawing Near Before the Throne.

What makes this blog of of particular interest is the person writing it. I have personally witness Rosalynn go through extreme trials and afflictions. Yet I have seen God's grace manifested in her as she still holds on to the promises. I have, also, seen God sustain and carry her during these trials. Such a testimony makes her thoughts and reflections of incredible value! I would encourage you to stop by her blog.

Mark Richt and Adoption

Even though I am a Tennessee fan I cannot help but hold Mark Richt (Georgia's football coach) in high esteem. This video will tell you why.

What is the Purpose of a Permarital Relationship?

The following is a short answer that I came up with for a project in the class Marriage and the Family.




What does the Bible say about dating for marriage?

Well, to answer this question we have to turn first to the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture. In 2 Tim 3:15-17 The Apostle Paul tells is a young pastor named Timothy that the Scriptures are profitable for teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness so that the Man or messenger of God maybe complete and equipped for every good work. What Paul is telling Timothy is that everything that he needs for faith and practice of faith is found in the pages of scripture.

This is very important to realize when coming to the question of the purpose of dating. For what God, through the apostle Paul, is telling us is that all we need to know about dating and marriage is already before us. But let me throw in some important qualifications here, (1) it is all that we NEED to know and (2) it is for what promotes godliness. For point one, we may have ideas and assumptions that we see as essential for finding a spouse and having a happy marriage that God does not see as essential. The tendency is then to think of the Bible as insufficient because we do not find our own perceived needs listed in the Bible. To the contrary, the Bible tells us what we need. If our perceived needs are not in the Bible then they are not true needs. On point two, the Bible tell us us how we can reach the highest goal which is godliness. It is not concerned primarily about how we can quick satisfy our desire for romantic pleasure or a host of other desires. (As pure and godly as those desires might be.) What the Bible lays out is the path to the greatest joy, which is holiness.

So, lets look in to the main question now, should Christian just date to marry? If we look to the Bible one thing becomes starkly clear, there is not prescribed means to find a spouse. God gives no direct counsel on what levels of emotional closeness man and woman should engage in before they are fully married. Or anything like a formal system to find a mate. It is just not there. But since we know that the Bible the sufficient, we are guarded from the idea that God has fail to correctly inform us on this issue and we are left to fend for ourselves. We must turn to look at what God HAS said and see if we are properly aligning our priorities with God's priorities.

If we look for a relationship between an man and a woman that has moved beyond a friendship, marriage is the only thing that is presented as acceptable. In the very beginning God made woman to complement the man and they were in a relationship where they cleave to one another instead of their parents. Jesus makes the term of the relationship clear when He pointed to this account and defined the relationship as marriage (Matt 19:3-6). Through the Proverbs, Solomon only gives wise sayings to his son about marriage. When we read through the epistle, we only read about instructions regarding marriage and attesting to the glories of that relationship (Eph. 5:22-33, Col 3:18-19).

What can we gather from all of this? If we keep in mind the doctrine of the sufficiency of scripture we remember that the priorities in the Bible should be our priorities. And the Bible clearly presents marriage as the holy relationship for a man and a woman to be in if it has moved beyond friendship. So I concluded that marriage should be the priorities of our premarital relationships. Our relationships with the opposite sex that has moved beyond friendship should be for the purpose of marriage. Any other purpose is is going to a place that God has not made that relationship to go. It is to make a goal (whether it be emotional closeness, physical interaction, or anything else) what God has not set as the goal. That is why I concluded that any premarital relationship should be entered into for the purpose of and constantly moving to a marriage.

C. S Lewis and Using the Past

Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, it reminds us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the uneducated is merely temporary fashion. A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age.

From, Learning in War-Time.

No Where to be Seen

If everybody hasn't already noticed I have pretty much disappeared from the blogging scene. This semester is soooo busy! I am taking Greek I this semester and it is very demanding. Put that on top of the rest of my classes and my second shift job and you get a very busy Charlie. There have been several occasions where I have found myself translating Greek sentences around 3:30am when I have to get up the next morning around 8:45am.

Needless to say that blogging has taken a very far back seat on my list of priorities. (And I am not just talking about my blog, I have very little time to look at other blogs as well.) Lord willing I will get things back up and going when things slow down around the end of the year. Till then, there will not be much posting.