How much should a woman submit to you before marriage?

A reader writes in:

How much should a girl follow you in dating? How much should she submit to before marriage?

These are actually good questions.

Being that I don’t have daughters (at least yet), I do not believe I have the whole picture down. However, I will answer to the best of Scriptural ability, and I’m sure some of the commenters can chip in as well.

There are multiple things you need to take into consideration here.

• First, a daughter is still under the authority of her father according to the Scriptures. If her parents, especially her father, have any particular dating/courtship rules that they have given her, she should be loyal to them over you. This is important because it shows that she understands Biblical authority. Huge bonus points if she can point out she’s loyal to them over you because of what the Bible says.
• Second, insofar as her parents dating/courtship rules do not conflict with anything that you’re doing/saying and you are in line with the Bible, she should be following your lead. Obviously, dating/courtship is a time where you learn about the faith, character, morals, and values of the woman that you are going to potentially spend the rest of your life with, so it is important to find a woman that is willing to follow you in everything that she is able without violating her father and the Bible.
• Third, it is important for you to start teaching her about this. Most women nowadays, even the few(er) women who are actually legitimate Christians and want to be good wives, have places where they futz around instead of following your lead. You need to be able to gently correct her if she’s off course. Her response to gentle correction will tell you much about her loyalties in marriage: to herself or to you and God.

Overall, these are the main things that need to be taken into consideration. It is important to bring up difficult and/or uncomfortable topics to talk about like sex and make your expectations clear if you prefer things done a certain way.

As a relationship develops toward engagement and/or marriage, her ability and attitude to follow your lead should definitely improve over time as long as she is not in any violation of the Bible and her parents. If that is not the case, I would be very wary about marry such a woman as you may be digging yourself a deep pit.

With all of the feminist crap coming out of the culture and Church and even families, you may not have much support once you’re married if you ignore warning signs. Best to head it off in the first place by doing your best to vet a woman to the best of your ability.

Of course, when all is said and done, you have to live by faith.

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Salt and Light

Donal has a good post up on The high ground right now with some good comments too. Check it out.

Mostly, it all goes back to the roles and responsibilities of Christians to themselves and Christian to non-Christians.

Matthew 5:13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how [e]can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.

14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a [f]hill cannot be hidden; 15 nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a [g]basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

1 Cor 5:12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?

Christians have a long history of not policing themselves as much as they should and try to police the world too much. If you’ve read the Nashville statements and the follow ups, it’s basically attempting to negate any semblance of LGBT infecting “marriage.” However, we know that even if people claim LGBT marriages exist, they do not exist to God. Our primary duty is to set an example of how good marriage is to be salt and light to those who support pagan marriages.

The Church should be focusing on the roles and responsibilities of men and women in marriage — headship-submission, love-respect, no sexual denial by either spouse, etc. — and fixing the disastrous divorce rates among ‘Christians.’ As long as “Christian marriages” look the same as the world in their marriages, they are not salt or light at all.

The Scripture and the temptations of husbands and wives

We naturally are inclined be tempted to sin. The Scriptures speak to us to work against that temptation to sin. With that in mind, we can look at the roles and responsibilities in Scripture to accurately root out the temptation of both husbands and wives to sin.

This should be a very eye opening post for many.

edit: renamed the post as ‘temptations’ rather than ‘sin natures’ to more accurately reflect how husbands and wives are tempted to sin.

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Husbands:

Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing[b] her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”[c] 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

• Love their wives for the purpose of sanctification
• Love their wives as his own body/as himself
• Feed and care (nourish and cherish)

Col 3:19 Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.

• Don’t be harsh

1 Pet 3:7 You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with [c]someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.

• Live with understanding as with someone weaker
• Honor her as a co-heir in the grace of life

1 Corinthians 7:3 The husband must [a]fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. 5 Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and [b]come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

• Husbands withholding sex

Temptations for husbands:

• Love their wives for the purpose of sanctification — Husbands are tempted to love their wives more than God… like Adam chose Eve and the fruit over God. In other words, compromise and/or being led astray by his wife often through avoiding conflict for temporary peace. Husbands have the responsibility to point out if his wife is in sin but are temptation to NOT point it out.
  
• Love their wives as his own body/as himself — Husbands are tempted to think of himself first without giving consideration to the wife’s needs and/or opinion (as helpmeet).
  
• Feed and care (nourish and cherish) — Husbands have the temptation to not address her needs and/or be affectionate with her (note: needs are not wants)
  
• Don’t be harsh — Husbands have the tendency to be blunt, especially in communication or action, rather than speaking with kindness.
  
• Live with understanding as with someone weaker — Husbands may not understand or be tempted to avoid providing wives more support physically, emotionally, mentally, especially in difficult times.
• Honor her as a co-heir in the grace of life — Husbands are tempted to not honor and value his wife as a helpmeet but rather a servant.
• Husbands should not withhold sex — Husbands are tempted to withhold sex… rarer for husbands to wives but it does happen in some minority of relationships. Don’t weaponize sex.

As you can see, many of these are common temptations that husbands struggle with.

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Wives:

Eph 5:22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. […] 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Col 3:18 Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.

• Submit to husbands as to the Lord
• Submit in everything
• Wife must respect/reverence her husband

1 Pet 3:1 In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, 2 as they observe your chaste and [a]respectful behavior. 3 Your adornment must not be merely external—braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses; 4 but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God. 5 For in this way in former times the holy women also, who hoped in God, used to adorn themselves, being submissive to their own husbands; 6 just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, and you have become her children if you do what is right [b]without being frightened by any fear.

• Submit even if husbands are disobedient to the word that they may be won without a word by chaste and respectful behavior
• Adornment not merely external but with the quality of a gentle and quiet spirit
• Obey and call him ‘lord’ so that you may not be frightened

Tit 2:3 Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, 4 so that they may [b]encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.

• Love (philandros) their husbands and children
• Sensible, pure, workers at home, kind
• subject to their own husbands

 

1 Corinthians 7:3 The husband must [a]fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. 5 Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and [b]come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

• Wives should not withhold sex

Proverbs 21:19 Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and nagging wife

Proverbs 27:15-16 A continual dripping on a rainy day and a contentious wife are alike. Trying to keep her in check is like stopping a wind storm or grabbing oil with your right hand.

Proverbs 25:24 It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife.

Proverbs 12:4 A wife with strength of character is the crown of her husband, but the wife who disgraces him is like bone cancer.

Proverbs 11:22 A beautiful woman who lacks discretion is like a gold ring in a pig’s snout.

Proverbs 14:1 A wise woman builds her home, but a foolish woman tears it down with her own hands.

• Don’t nag
• Don’t be contentious
• Have strength of character rather than disgrace her husband
• Have discretion
• Don’t tear down your own home

Temptations for wives:

There’s more qualities listed in the Scripture as wives have to guard against many temptations.

• Submit to husbands as to the Lord — Wives like to rebel and disobey their husbands, but still consider themselves submitting to the Lord.
• Submit in everything — Wives are tempted to want to pick and choose what to submit to.
  
• Wife must respect/reverence her husband — Wives have the temptation to disrespect her husband.
• Submit even if husbands are disobedient to the word that they may be won without a word by chaste and respectful behavior — Wives like to rebel and treat her husband poorly with impure and disrespectful behavior if she thinks her husband is not acting rightly.
• Adornment not merely external but with the quality of a gentle and quiet spirit — Wives are tempted to vanity over gentle and quiet behavior if there is conflict. (Proverbs 15:1 A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger — note that this corresponds to Col 3 where husbands are warned over treating their wives harshly)
• Obey and call him ‘lord’ so that you may not be frightened — Wives are tempted to disrespect their husbands and disobey. ‘lord’ signifies respect/reverence and obedience leads to peace. Disobedience leads to fear of righteous anger.
• Love (philandros — affection) their husbands and children — wives have the tendency to treat their husbands and children with contempt.
• Sensible, pure, workers at home, kind– Wives are tempted to lack of self control, impure words and deeds, laziness and prioritization of things outside the home, and unkindness. (Note this corresponds to 1 Timothy 5:9-16)
• subject to their own husbands — Wives are tempted to be covetous of other marriages and apply it to their own marriage instead of asking their husband how he likes things done (see: marriage books and advice telling you about how “spiritual” other people’s marriages are)
  
• Wives should not withhold sex — Wives are tempted to withhold sex… more common for wives than husbands. Don’t weaponize sex.
• Don’t nag — Wives are tempted to nag
• Don’t be contentious — Wives are tempted to be contentious in conflict or in generating conflict
• Have strength of character rather than disgrace her husband — Wives are tempted to put down their husbands. Re: gossip.
• Have discretion — Wives are tempted to air out their marriage baggage. Re: gossip.
• Don’t tear down your own home — Wives are tempted to destroy their marriages either through divorce, gossip, and so on instead of building their marriage up.
  

Pretty obvious that these are very common temptations that you see that wives fall prey to.

Conclusion

In the end, the Scriptures accurately show us the temptations of both husbands and wives to sin against each other in marriage.

Overall, even though the husbands have a ‘shorter’ list, they hold much more responsibility for their role so the weight of it is heavier.

Here are the lists again so they can be easily read side by side.

Temptations for husbands:

• Love their wives for the purpose of sanctification — Husbands are tempted to love their wives more than God… like Adam chose Eve and the fruit over God. In other words, compromise and/or being led astray by his wife often through avoiding conflict for temporary peace. Husbands have the responsibility to point out if his wife is in sin but are temptation to NOT point it out.
  
• Love their wives as his own body/as himself — Husbands are tempted to think of himself first without giving consideration to the wife’s needs and/or opinion (as helpmeet).
  
• Feed and care (nourish and cherish) — Husbands have the temptation to not address her needs and/or be affectionate with her (note: needs are not wants)
  
• Don’t be harsh — Husbands have the tendency to be blunt, especially in communication or action, rather than speaking with kindness.
  
• Live with understanding as with someone weaker — Husbands may not understand or be tempted to avoid providing wives more support physically, emotionally, mentally, especially in difficult times.
• Honor her as a co-heir in the grace of life — Husbands are tempted to not honor and value his wife as a helpmeet but rather a servant.
• Husbands should not withhold sex — Husbands are tempted to withhold sex… rarer for husbands to wives but it does happen in some minority of relationships. Don’t weaponize sex.

Temptations for wives:

• Submit to husbands as to the Lord — Wives like to rebel and disobey their husbands, but still consider themselves submitting to the Lord.
• Submit in everything — Wives are tempted to want to pick and choose what to submit to.
  
• Wife must respect/reverence her husband — Wives have the temptation to disrespect her husband.
• Submit even if husbands are disobedient to the word that they may be won without a word by chaste and respectful behavior — Wives like to rebel and treat her husband poorly with impure and disrespectful behavior if she thinks her husband is not acting rightly.
• Adornment not merely external but with the quality of a gentle and quiet spirit — Wives are tempted to vanity over gentle and quiet behavior if there is conflict. (Proverbs 15:1 A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger — note that this corresponds to Col 3 where husbands are warned over treating their wives harshly)
• Obey and call him ‘lord’ so that you may not be frightened — Wives are tempted to disrespect their husbands and disobey. ‘lord’ signifies respect/reverence and obedience leads to peace. Disobedience leads to fear of righteous anger.
• Love (philandros — affection) their husbands and children — wives have the tendency to treat their husbands and children with contempt.
• Sensible, pure, workers at home, kind– Wives are tempted to lack of self control, impure words and deeds, laziness and prioritization of things outside the home, and unkindness. (Note this corresponds to 1 Timothy 5:9-16)
• subject to their own husbands — Wives are tempted to be covetous of other marriages and apply it to their own marriage instead of asking their husband how he likes things done (see: marriage books and advice telling you about how “spiritual” other people’s marriages are)
  
• Wives should not withhold sex — Wives are tempted to withhold sex… more common for wives than husbands. Don’t weaponize sex.
• Don’t nag — Wives are tempted to nag
• Don’t be contentious — Wives are tempted to be contentious in conflict or in generating conflict
• Have strength of character rather than disgrace her husband — Wives are tempted to put down their husbands. Re: gossip.
• Have discretion — Wives are tempted to air out their marriage baggage. Re: gossip.
• Don’t tear down your own home — Wives are tempted to destroy their marriages either through divorce, gossip, and so on instead of building their marriage up.

You see a lot of these in Christian marriages nowadays.

Another book blames men for the lack of marriage

Short article so I quoted the whole thing.

The share of Americans ages 25-34 who are married dropped 13 percentage points from 2000 to 2014. A new book by sociologist Mark Regnerus blames this declining rate on how easy it is for men to get off.

Regnerus calls it “cheap sex,” an economic term meant to describe sex that has very little cost in terms of time or emotional investment, giving it little value.

Regnerus bases his ideas, in part, on the work of British social theorist Anthony Giddens, who argued that the pill isolated sex from marriage and children. Add online pornography and dating sites to the mix and you don’t even need relationships.

The result is “two overlapping (but distinctive) markets, one for sex and one for marriage, with a rather large territory in between comprised of significant relationships of varying commitment and duration,” Regnerus writes in “Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy” (Oxford University Press).

In generations past, women generally made men wait until marriage to have sex. To get a wife (and, therefore, sex), men had to be clean and presentable and have a good job. This, Regnerus reasons, gave men all the motivation they needed to become respectable members of society.

Now with porn on demand and greater reproductive freedom, sex is a commodity available at any time. This has left men with little motivation for marriage, writes Regnerus, who cites demographer Steven Ruggles’ prediction that one of every three people in their 20s will never marry.

‘Sex has become free and easy. This is today’s version of the opiate of the (male) masses.’
– psychologists Roy Baumeister and Kathleen Vohs
Regnerus blames cheap sex for the decreasing education and employment rates among men as greater numbers of women get college degrees and enter the labor force. Six percent more women than men in the 25-34 age group have a bachelor’s degree.

Regnerus backs this theory up with a quote from social psychologists Roy Baumeister and Kathleen Vohs, who study this phenomenon. “Nowadays young men can skip the wearying detour of getting education and career prospects to qualify for sex,” they write. “Sex has become free and easy. This is today’s version of the opiate of the (male) masses.”

Regnerus argues that while women have maintained their role as sexual gatekeepers, men control the marriage market. And given the ease with which sex can be accessed, Regnerus believes that men’s motivations for marriage have all but disappeared. He surveyed 15,000 people and found that among unmarried respondents under 40, “for every 82 men who wished to be married, 100 women said the same.”

This ratio, he says, keeps ultimate relationship power in the hands of men. “To plenty of women, it appears that men have a fear of commitment. But men, on average, are not afraid of commitment,” Regnerus writes.

“The story is that men are in the driver’s seat in the marriage market and are optimally positioned to navigate it in a way that privileges their (sexual) interests and preferences. It need not even be conscious behavior on their part.”

In turn, he writes, this leads women to settle, entering into doomed or otherwise unsatisfying marriages.

Regnerus even points to “Fifty Shades of Grey” to prove his point. In the book, Christian Grey gets Anastasia Steele to agree to a series of submissive conditions, including “any sexual activity deemed fit and pleasurable” by him, with no such power returned on her end. “I recognize that ‘Fifty Shades’ is fiction,” Regnerus writes. “It’s made up. But when you sell 100 million copies in two years, your narrative is resonating. There’s something to it.”

Meanwhile, many will go it alone. Self-love for men and women is at an all-time high. A 1992 study found that 29 percent of men (and 9 percent of women) masturbated at least once a week. In 2014, 49 percent of men (and 32 percent of women) confessed to doing it at least once in the previous six days. Unsurprisingly, “as frequency of [watching] porn increased, so did masturbation.”

All of this, Regnerus concludes, means that as long as sex is so low-cost for men, heterosexual women will have increasing difficulties finding a partner worth committing to.

“In the domain of sex and relationships, men will act as nobly as women collectively demand,” he writes. “This is an aggravating statement for women to read, no doubt. They do not want to be responsible for ‘raising’ men. But it is realistic.”

It’s easy to make money by selling books by blaming all problems on men. I’m surprised that more churchian pastors aren’t doing this.

I also suppose it’s easy to ignore the fact that:

1. The vast majority of men don’t get ‘cheap sex’ as exemplified by the Tinder statistics yesterday.
2. What man would actually choose pornography if he was being satisfied by lots of sex a real woman?
3. Women generally delay marriage for education and life experiences
4. Abortion and contraception were promoted so that women could have free sex via the feminist/sexual revolution is being blamed on men. The irony is enormous.
5. Divorce courts give wives cash and prizes for leaving if they feel like it.
6. Family courts gives wives cash and prizes for taking the kids and running.
7. Men see the disrespect that their old family members, wives, and popular culture continues to throw on husbands and fathers and don’t want any part of it.
8. Using 50 shades to prove the point that all men have the power to make women do their bidding in bed. That’s hilarious.

Nah, it can’t be that many men just see marriage as a bad deal nowadays. Helen Smith has already responded but doesn’t really drive the point home enough.

Sadly, the Church has been impacted by culture enough that it’s very similar in terms most of the things above.

• 90%+ of Christian have pre-marital sex
• Pornography is a problem for many Christian men as they continually flounder with Christian women in dating and marriage.
• Many Christian women delay marriage for education and life experiences.
• Abortion is uncommon but contraception is common in the Church
• Divorce rape destroying Christian men happens all the time.
• Christian men are disrespected by their families, churches, and wives all the time.

It’s sad.

I do my part to help in change in real life, and I know some men who do too. But it’s an uphill battle.

Tinder reaffirms the 80/20 rule

Someone ran an analysis on Tinder statistics likes much like OKCupid statistics we’ve gone over before.

Abstract (TL;DR)

This study was conducted to quantify the Tinder socio-economic prospects for males based on the percentage of females that will “like” them. Female Tinder usage data was collected and statistically analyzed to determine the inequality in the Tinder economy. It was determined that the bottom 80% of men (in terms of attractiveness) are competing for the bottom 22% of women and the top 78% of women are competing for the top 20% of men. The Gini coefficient for the Tinder economy based on “like” percentages was calculated to be 0.58. This means that the Tinder economy has more inequality than 95.1% of all the world’s national economies. In addition, it was determined that a man of average attractiveness would be “liked” by approximately 0.87% (1 in 115) of women on Tinder. Also, a formula was derived to estimate a man’s attractiveness level based on the percentage of “likes” he receives on Tinder:

attractiveness%=16.8*ln(like%)+52.3

This should surprise no one who has been observing both the Church and culture for any amount of time. The ‘most attractive’ men have a disproportionate amount of female attention and can pretty much pick and choose who to bang (if secular) or to marry (if Christian).

It’s also one of the reasons that it’s important to focus on developing traits that signal attractiveness if you desire to be married as a Christian man. Leadership, masculinity, protector, and provider which encompass most of the attractive traits.

Do your job

One of the posts I’ve been thinking about recently is understanding godly value.

So too all extrinsic value is measured solely through stewardship of what we have been given. A wife’s stewardship is measured through her role and responsibility as a wife. A husband’s stewardship is measured through his role and responsibilities as a husband. Each of these are different in the Scriptures.

A wife gains nothing through usurping her husband’s roles and responsibility. Indeed, it can be said that by usurping her husband’s roles and responsibilities she neglects her own. Thus, she is being irresponsible with what she has been given in addition to being rebellious.

This is why it is extremely important for husbands and wives to know their own roles and responsibilities within a marriage.

1. A wife gains nothing for loving her husband. However, she will gain much from respecting her husband.
2. A husband gains nothing by respecting his wife. Rather, he gains much by loving his wife.
3. A wife gains nothing by allowing her husband to lead. However, she gains much from following his lead and submitting to him.
4. A husband gains nothing by letting his wife by the head or being passive. Yet, he gains much by being the head of his wife and his family.

P.S. Titus 2 commands women to ‘philandros’ their husbands not ‘agape’ them.

The “Do your job” meme of Bill Belichick is an interesting one.

For those of you who don’t follow any football at all, Belichick is the coach of the Patriots and has won 5 superbowls with Tom Brady. He’s pretty much considered one of the best coaches of all time now if not the best given his consistency in getting to the playoffs, championship games, and getting to if not winning the superbowl. No other team has had as much sustained success. He’s famous for saying “Do your job” to his players because he gives them assignments to do when playing. If each individual does his assignment correctly, the team plays well together. If any one of them are slacking off, the team can look to be in disarray and dysfunctional.

This is a secular example, but I think it proves the point well.

Christians are followers of Christ. We are to follow what Jesus commanded us to do via the Scriptures. The roles and responsibilities of a husband and wife are part of this for some Christians. In effect, if you know what your roles and responsibilities are then you just need to “do your job.” Obey Jesus even if you don’t feel like it or your motivation is low. Obey Jesus even if it’s hard or you get criticized or whatever thing tries to get in your way from doing it.

Learning obedience is really like a sheep and a shepherd. It’s easy to wander off and do whatever we want to do. There’s temptations all around for us to get distracted and fall away. Our focus needs to be laser sharp on our shepherd so we don’t miss anything. Discipline. Consistency. Do your job.

This is one of the things that drives me to be a better husband, and to see my wife and hopefully future family serve the Lord. Talking is great, but walking is hard.

Let me know when the gorgeous Christian women want to marry the church janitor

In writing plans, a woman attempts to refute Donal’s PSALMs attraction model. For newer readers, PSALM is basically a pneunomic that describes what women are attracted to — power/personality, status, athleticism/talent, looks, money.

This refutation was:

I have not seem PSALM in operation. I’ve seen gorgeous Christian women married to nerdy preachers.

To which I reply:

This proves the point. Preachers are leaders of the congregation; they have high status and authority. Let me know when gorgeous Christian women are marrying the janitors in the Church.

What is the Biblical case for this?

8 Now to the unmarried[a] and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. 9 But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

2 Corinthians 6:14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

What causes us to long or to burn is an attractive man or woman. This is God’s design and He made marriage as the righteous outlet for sex.

Now, why would Paul have to urge the Corinthian believers not to be unequally yoked?

If it was the case that being Christian is enough to be married, then Christian would only naturally marry other Christians. However, we see that this is not the case, and believers still struggle with this today. Why is this?

Logically, Paul is making the inference that Christians also fine non-Christians attractive, even attractive enough to be married to them if they’re not believers. This is quite obvious. Christian men find non-Christians women attractive. There are tons of celebrities that are certainly attractive. Likewise, Christian women find many non-Christian men attractive as well. However, these attractive non-believers are ungodly and do not exhibit sound faith and the fruits of the spirit for obvious reasons.

It should be abundantly clear that both Christian and non-Christian men and women do not marry those they do not find attractive in most cases. There are some cases, and from what we’ve seen at least anecdotally these marriages have large issues to work through.

Therefore, it should be clear that attractiveness is an important factor if one wants to get married. I’ve also written about the role that attractiveness signals in marriage. Obviously, it is not the most important factor: adherence to Biblical roles and responsibilities, sound faith, character, and morals are all more important. However, it is an important factor. They are not mutually exclusive; you can be both godly and attractive.

It’s quite disingenuous to ignore attraction when this has so readily been exemplified throughout the Bible and in real life. Abraham’s wife Sarah was so attractive that Abimelech and Pharaoh wanted her for their own. Isaac married a beautiful Rebekah. Jacob favored Rachel. David and Bathsheba (for a sinful example). Song of Songs where Solomon describes his bride, the Shulamite woman, as beautiful all throughout.  Even Bathsheba wasn’t immune to David’s position and power. Uriah was one of David’s mighty men, so he had already high status. Yet she chose to be an adulteress because she desired to be David’s wife.

I’m still waiting for those who believe attraction is not important in marriage and that it should not be an important factor to work on for Christian singles who desire to be married to answer this simple statement:

Let me know when the gorgeous Christian women want to marry the church janitor.

I’ll be waiting and so will the other Christian singles who want to be married.

Thoughts on Charlottesville

In the wake of Charlottesville, this is pretty much the only article I’ve seen of 50+ that actually delves to the root of the problem. It’s by a reformed white nationalist.

Here’s some of the relevant bits:

I think ultimately people become extremists not necessarily because of the ideology. I think that the ideology is simply a vehicle to be violent. I believe that people become radicalized, or extremist, because they’re searching for three very fundamental human needs: identity, community and a sense of purpose.

If, underneath that fundamental search is something that’s broken — I call them potholes — is there abuse or trauma or mental illness or addiction? In my case, many years ago, it was abandonment. I felt abandoned, and that led me to this community. But what happens is because there are so many marginalized young people, so many disenfranchised young people today with not a lot to believe in, with not a lot of hope, they tend to search for very simple black and white answers.

Because of the Internet, we now have this propaganda machine that is flooding the Internet with conspiracy theory propaganda from the far right — disinformation — and when a young person who feels disenchanted, or disaffected, goes online where most of them live, they’re able to find that identity online.

They’re able to find that community, and they’re able to find that purpose that’s being fed to them by savvy recruiters who understand how to target vulnerable young people. And they go for this solution because, frankly, it promises paradise. And it requires very little work except for dedicating your life to that purpose.

But I can say that they’re all being fooled, because the people at the very top have an agenda. And it’s a broken ideology that can never work, that in fact, is destroying people’s lives more than the promise that they were given of helping the world or saving the white race.

He correctly identifies “what” the problem is: people are lacking identity, community, and a sense of purpose. However, he doesn’t have the correct answers to “why” this problem came about.

Of course, neither the “right” or the “left” are anywhere near correct. Both sides of the coin are committing acts of terrorism. The only real answer is Jesus.

Why are people lacking identity, community, and a sense of purpose?

All of this goes back to broken families and lack of fathers. We’ve all seen the statistics on crime, earlier sex and increase STD rates, decreased graduation rates, and so on. This is simply another manifestation of that. The groups or rather “gangs” they get involved in because they had no solid family structure and love are these “hate groups.” Gangs commit crimes. Surprise.

Europe hasn’t had the same problems as the US with similar out of wedlock birthrates and lack of fatherhood, namely because their population(s) are still fairly homogeneous. However, they still have tons of men and women who are broken and disillusioned; they just don’t express it in terms of racial politics as their country(s) are not as diverse as ours.

Of course, if you point out this “problem” to anyone on the right or the left, they will still tell you that “no fault divorce” and “child support” and “women get the children in divorce” and other laws that encourage blowing up marriages are a good thing.

Jesus fills the ultimate identity and purpose hole in our hearts because we were never supposed to be separated from God in the first place. Marriage was also meant to be forever for good reason: both the father and mother are needed to raise kids that are not broken and disillusioned which prevents them from getting sucked into perverse ideologies.

Hillary Clinton wants to get involved in the ministry

From Relevant Magazine.

The comments are by far the most interesting part. Some point out the fact that Hillary continues to promote laws that are obviously anti-Christian and are lambasted for being “judgmental” in comments. Pretty much like the random commenters I get about Lysa’s divorce. Other “Christians” applaud her for wanting to get involved in Church ministry.

Now you know why you should avoid Relevant Magazine and heretical churches like the United Methodists.

The “anti-diversity manifesto”

As you may have heard, a Google employee was fired for internally posting a critique of the “system.” Here is a copy of the so-called “anti-diversity manifesto.”

I think the funniest part of the situation is that the Google employee actually had good intentions. He pointed out that men and women and liberals and conservatives were different. He wanted to play to each groups strength and weaknesses to further promote diversity and reduce the echo chamber. However, because he didn’t toe the ideological line, he was fired. He was fired because he wanted to promote diversity by removing biases from the process.

His goal was to ultimately promote diversity like the company wants, but because he thinks about it differently he got fired. You can’t just promote diversity, you have to think about it the right way too. There’s a reason why the left is called the “thought police.”

You can’t make this stuff up.