Tag: authority

  • 14 Years of Mutual Submission in Marriage

    On June 21st, 1997 Kristen walked down the aisle escorted by her dad then her uncle Fred led us in an exchange of vows.

    Here we are, 14 years later, still standing next together on life’s amazing journey. This past 12 months have been especially dear to us as we experienced two of life’s great (and unexpected) joys together. First, in July 2010 we ministered side-by-side in Haiti for a week. Second, we walked together through the anticipation, birth, and first 4 months of having Jackson.

    In 14 years Kristen and I have largely not experienced the bumps and bruises so many of our friends have. We’ve had it pretty easy by comparison. We are thankful as we recognize that without an over-abundance of God’s grace it wouldn’t be possible.

    We are far from perfect people. And my flaws must grate on Kristen much more than hers grate on me.

    The secret to success for us

    Mutual love for, respect for, and submission to one another.

    That’s right my fellow conservative friends. I said it. Our marriage is built on an equal footing of love, respect, and submission to one another, as to the Lord.

    Many times in the last 14 years I have submitted to my wife out of respect and love for her. (And, by proxy, Jesus.) In 14 years of marriage I can’t think of a time when I stood in front of her and said, “I don’t care what you think, we are doing it this way. You must submit to me because I’m your husband.”

    And I hope our relationship never breaks down, at its core, to the point where I’d think it was OK to do that.

    In the lead-up to our engagement Kristen and I challenged one another to memorize chapters of the New Testament. I know its cheesy, but for us it was fun, competitive, and become meaningful. (Plus, an easy way to be together alone and keep our hands off of one another!)

    One of the chapters we memorized was Ephesians 5.

    It kind of started as a joke. After all, we were Bible College students surrounded by people who loved to use this section of Paul’s letter to Ephesian Christians as a weapon. And it was totally stereotypical that a madly in love couple would memorize a passage of Scripture about marriage. At least it wasn’t Song of Solomon, right?

    Like many ancient things misunderstood throughout time, as we got to know this passage of Scripture we realized that while at the surface level it felt antiquated and entrenched with man-power-dogma, as we embedded the words on our heart we came to realize the passage is much the opposite. It really has become the basis of our marriage.

    Read Ephesians 5 for yourself. Actually, take 10 minutes and read it 3 different times in 3 different translations.

    You don’t need a commentary to understand what Paul was saying.

    As you get familiar with Paul’s language and read it in context you will see that this isn’t a repressive thing at all. As Kristen and I memorized this passage we fell in love with it.

    Most importantly, we learned that it had nothing at all to do with blind submission for a woman to a man. Why? Because that’s not how Jesus expects us to submit to Him. Like a loving groom, He asks us to offer our hand to Him willfully. And willfully, lovingly, he gave Himself to His bride wholly and completely, even unto death. It’s a beautiful mystery.

    The kicker for the whole passage, and why we crack up that people get hung up on it, is that in verse 32 Paul says, I’m not even really talking about marriage here people– this whole passage is an illustration for the church’s relationship to Jesus! And in verse 33 he adds, “Oh yeah, but a man should love his wife and a woman should respect her husband.”

    Back to the practicality of mutual submission

    In our every day life does Kristen submit to my authority over her as her husband? Only to the extent that I submit to hers. The point of that passage wasn’t blind submission for a wife to her husband. It was mutual, willful, and willing submission to Christ for all of God’s people. We get along because we chose to get along as brother and sister in Christ.

    Blind submission is not an act of love as it is an act of obedience. I expect my kids to submit to my authority and to do what we ask them to do because we are their parents and we actually do know what is best for them. But I also know that to lean into the Shema I must win their hearts… which requires more than a relationship built on obedience, right?

    To expect that of Kristen would be disrespectful to her, our relationship, and her relationship with the Lord.

    Instead, we walk together in mutual, eyes-wide-open submission, love, and respect to one another as we submit arms-wide-open to Jesus.

    We’ve agreed with our very lives to put our relationship as #2 with Jesus at our only #1. As we submit to His will for our lives, we act in concert with one another out of love & respect for one another. And, not to sound trite, we’ve found our relationship with one another pretty simple because we’ve kept one another in the proper place all of these years.

    What do we think about people who take the perspective that the man is the head and everyone else submits to his authority?
    We think they are wrong. And we have 14 years of proof that our way works just fine.

  • The role of adolescent consent in parenting

    Kristen and I now officially see the precipise on our horizon.

    Megan, our oldest child, turned 10 yesterday. Within a few years we will be in the thick of adolescence. (And all of the parents I’ve worked with over the years will simple laugh. Not a polite giggle. An evil laugh because now I will know the terror they have gone through!)

    OK, not quite that dramatic. But change is definitely on the horizon for our family. And we know we’ll have to adjust our parenting skills as Megan enters into this new developmental stage.

    I recently read an article in Psychology Today that gives a high-level look at how parenting needs to adjust as you shift from having “a kid” to having “an emerging adolescent.”

    Thus, offensive though it may feel, the resistant adolescent’s words of advice to his parent have a ring of truth: “Get used to it!” Come the teenage years, compliance with parental authority is less automatic. This is why it’s easier to parent the dependent-minded child than it is the independent-minded adolescent. The harder “half” of parenting comes last.

    The formula for obedience to parental authority is simply this: command + consent = compliance. Parental authority is not automatic or absolute. It is not a matter of parents being able to control adolescent choices; it’s a matter of controlling their own choices in ways that allow them assert influence. And this takes work, working for consent.

    Consent can be secured by a variety of parental approaches – declaring your need for cooperation, making a serious and firm request, attaching consequences to compliance or noncompliance, repeated insistence to show you mean business, explaining reasons that are persuasive, negotiating a deal to get what you want.

    Read the rest

    I think it’s important for us to focus on the long-term goal. We want our kids to develop into strong, independent adults. In their relationships, we want them to have healthy, happy, and simple adult relationships.

    So, as we enter the precipice of the next 10 years, we are going to try to keep a long-lens on things. We know in the granular, day-to-day grind, that won’t be easy. And as soon as I wrote that down and looked back at it my youth pastor self said to my parent self, “Uh huh.”

    Parents of adolescents: Is the Psychology Today article on-point? Or do you just try to muscle your authority over your children through middle/high school?

  • Making the Bible Accessible

    “The Bible isn’t for people outside of the church to understand. So it isn’t your place to make the Gospel accessible.“

    That may be the dumbest quote I’ve ever heard in relation to using sound missiological principles to reach a dead and dying people group. And yet, this quote apparently came from the mouths of smart, biblically authoritative evangelicals upset with the work of a young leader.

    Just so people know: This isn’t the position of middle-of-the-road evangelicals. It’s not even the position of anyone reasonably conservative in the evangelical world. It’s a radically fundamentalist position which denies the very presuppositions of evangelicalism!

    History counters this statement: The evangelical missions movement of the 19th and 20th century saw hundreds of thousands give their lives in work and thousands more give their lives as martyrs making the Gospel accessible to unreached people groups. Such a statement slaps those people in the face.

    Such a statement devalues the activity of nearly every evangelical in their daily workplace. It denies the action of church planting. It denies the the very notion that we, as believers, can impact the Kingdom with our actions.

    In short– its not an orthodox position. We must rally behind those who are reaching the lost!

    It is our job, as believers, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, to bring the Bible to the lost and see the Gospel renew the people and their land. (Ephesians 2:10)

    The statement above is why the church needs a change in leadership. We need people with level heads who are smart, savvy, and reasonable. Those holding extreme positions are not bad people. They just shouldn’t be in authority.

    Middle-of-the-road evangelicals are tired of culture wars. We are longing for fresh voices and fresh leadership. We simply want to right wrongs, reach the lost, and love their neighbors. (All in the name of Jesus, under the power of Jesus, and for the purpose of making Jesus known) We will continue to distance ourselves from extremist.

    While extremists lament and pontificate, we will continue to reaching the lost, righting wrongs, and loving our neighbors.

    People at high levels who say/think/perpetrate these thoughts devalue the entire purpose of the Gospel in order to protect their own self-interests. At the end of the day, that’s what the statement must be about. Protecting their self-interests. The statement isn’t true and doesn’t represent the tenants of our movement— so to say such a thing reveals that they are putting their own interests above all else.

    The lesson is– if you take a stand for truth you must be willing to stand up against the religious establishment, and continue to speak the truth in love despite their sneers and allegations of heresy.

    Today is no different than the time of John Wycliffe, who died shunned by the religious establishment.

    Sadly, shunning is part of reforming.

    For those who are bringing fresh wind into the sails of the movement, my encouragement is to boldly ask those people set aside what they are comfortable with for the sake of the Gospels spread.

    The spread of the Gospel to unreached people groups, whether home or abroad, is never comfortable. It has never been comfortable. And we cannot win hearts until we are willing to walk in the tension of discomfort for the sake of others.