The Bible continually admonishes us to live in peace, to pursue peace, and to be called peacemakers. II Corinthians 13:11 states, "Be of one mind. Live in peace." This should define our lives, especially our homes. For how will the world know God if they don't see his attributes being lived out in His children?
This is why God establishes order in the church and in the family. Every organization needs leaders. If there is one leader and everyone respects and obeys that leader, there will be peace whether in a church or family.
I have been in churches where people did not respect the leader and there was no peace. Most families have no leader and there is strife and chaos. God doesn't make commands to make life miserable for us but to make it better.
Many women don't agree with submission or a husband's leadership. However, if you ever want to be of one mind and live in peace, the best way is to allow your husband to lead and you follow his lead. It is quite simple really. It works in businesses, government, and churches. It will work in the home.
I just ran into a beautiful young woman who was just about to be married. Yesterday was her wedding, in fact. I spoke to her about my ministry. She was blessed to be raised in a home where there was no strife; her mother was submissive to her father, and her father was the leader. She was modeled a Christ-centered marriage and home. She is on her way to a fabulous marriage, I told her.
It is never too late to change! God's ways always work when obeyed. He is a good God and He would love to see all of His children being of one mind and living in peace. He is no different than us. We want the very same thing for our children.
The end of that verse in II Corinthians ends in a promise, "And the God of love and peace shall be with you." God keeps His promises. Believe Him.
Logging you in...
Julie · 598 weeks ago
Lori Alexander 122p · 598 weeks ago
Courtney · 598 weeks ago
Lori Alexander 122p · 598 weeks ago
“Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the nature of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant” {Phil 2:4-7}.
I believe that many of those I have mentored have not discussed being submissive with their husbands but instead simply began to live out exactly what the passage above teaches. They allow their husbands to lead and yet willingly fill in the areas where he prefers that she leads. Mainly, no arguing or pushing to get her way, no withholding a joyful attitude, but instead trying to please him at every turn, just as Jesus desired to please His Father in everything.
The results are husbands who can’t quite figure out what is going on but they know it is very good! The house seems joyful, the wife seems happy, tension and arguing disappear, and the intimacy of the marriage increases dramatically.
Like all things in life, doing things well and according to good modern psychology with excellent communications skills and human relations training all makes for a good marriage. But to achieve all that God desires for a marriage and what can reach maximum intimacy and joy, we do things God’s ways. For when we do we reap His blessings.
Courtney · 598 weeks ago
It's interesting to hear that view… that our marriage will never be as happy or intimate as it could be if we did things according to the Bible. Do you think that's true even if the couple doesn't believe in God? I just can't see that being true for us, but maybe I'll give it a try sometime.
Lori Alexander 122p · 598 weeks ago
Mankind is made in God’s image and we have a great capacity for learning and controlling our own world, but the first sin was Adam and Eve thinking they knew better than God. The apple was very good, and they did learn right from wrong, but they also have horrible consequences from doing things their own way, and not following Him. Thank goodness there are not always horrible consequences for not following His ways, we just miss out on His best for us
Courtney · 597 weeks ago
I can understand how following the biblical model for marriage would make believers happy. You have a sense of purpose behind it and the belief that you're being obedient to God. If you believe your roles in marriage are God-given, I imagine it's easy to find happiness in them. But for nonbelievers, without the conviction behind it, it seems like applying these marriage principles might not work.
Ken · 597 weeks ago
I hope you do not mind my jumping in here. Your faith is much greater than any Christian's to actually believe there is not a good reason to believe God exists. I suggest a great book that si an easy read by Lee Stroble, A Case for Faith, http://www.leestrobel.com/
Lee is a gifted writer who set out to prove there was no God or Christ who was a Savior and in His quest to do so found Jesus, and His Father.
If there is no God, I would still find that His Word is true in my life and it works each and every time I apply it correctly. This is true of marriage, and in all areas of life. One could adopt Biblical ways and lead a happy life, perhaps happier than most others, but without Jesus and His saving grace, we would still miss out on the most important parts of life, that being eternity.
We were not made to die, but to live forever, and those who accept Jesus as Lord of their lives get to live with Him forever in anew heaven and new earth He is preparing for us. That is why this life is so important, not for what we get out of a short 80 years, but because we will take those 80 years of experiences and turn them into an eternity of relationships.
My thoughts on the subject is that evolution is a logical impossibility apart from a Creator. No matter how one tries to imagine an evolutionary chain…, such a step up in human life would again require a Creator. DNA is the basic design instrument and with all the knowledge and technology we have today, how come scientists are still unable to unravel what came together by happenstance and chance?
Check this out: “If you were to stretch out your DNA, it would extend 50 billion kilometers, which is from the earth to beyond our solar system.” http://yecheadquarters.org/catalog7.5.html
It takes lots of faith to believe that somehow evolutionary chance could somehow do what the best and brightest of today could not do … especially creating something out of nothing. Can evolution create DNA without a Creator? Can a little blob somehow by chance create within itself the male organ and sperm necessary to impregnate another blob that simultaneously grew female organs, so that a baby was born? Then this was repeated over and over again up the evolutionary chain where the blob’s eventually needed all of their organs, kidneys, liver, heart, blood, pancreas, stomach, intestines, everything at one time and presto! It just happened to grow everything it needed? Then it did this all the way up the evolutionary chain? All by chance?
A hundred billion to one chance yet many believe it happened, yet they cannot see God becoming a man to live with His creation.
Courtney · 597 weeks ago
I don't mind at all. I've heard that before-- that your faith has to be greater not to believe in God-- but I don't think that's true. I'll check out the book though :)
I mean no disrespect, but it doesn't seem like you understand how evolution works. You talk about two different thing: evolution and abiogenesis. Biological evolution is considered a fact in the scientific community because of the overwhelming evidence for it. If you're interested in the evidence and the scientific perspective, this website is highly recommended by top science organizations: http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-mustread..... I'm not sure if your questions were meant to be rhetorical, but if you do want to understand the scientific response to those questions, they're all on that website.
I've spent a lot of time exploring these ideas and I think the natural explanations for everything make more logical sense than supernatural explanations.
May I ask though, why Christianity? I can understand a sort of Deist view about the origins of the universe, but why do you believe that the Bible is the word of God?
Courtney
Ken · 597 weeks ago
I will check out your website further and I read the Five Misconceptions People Have About Evolution. I am very logic oriented person and what I read there is nothing more than a set of logical possibilities that place a world’s worth of faith on some multitude of primordial ponds all waiting for the first species to be formed, a second world of faith believing that natural selection can leap to a new species, and a universe of faith to believe that somehow it all came from nothing and the moved its way up the chain to human life that gives birth to babies. If you have had a baby you saw it was impossible.
Even if evolution is possible to gain something out of nothing, the first atom out of no atoms, you still must deal with a world where natural selection over billons of years can do what our own scientists with modern day technologies cannot replicate. How does natural selection with random chance do what the now Created Being cannot duplicate with all our intelligence.
The day is coming that we will be able to replicate much of it, but it takes the greatest of faith to believe that intelligent beings with huge technologies cannot duplicate what natural selection somehow has accomplished by time and chance. And the idea of natural selection on which all of evolution rests is still a hypothesis, not a proven fact, that it can create a new species. Certainly there are adaptations within a given species, but zero proof that a new species comes from natural selection… one hypothesis and theory built upon another is supposed to convince me of truth? No it can only rise to the level of wishful thinking of people who cannot deal with the fact that a Designer God exists. Because if they accept that, then they must know He wants something from them, if not, why create them?
I prefer to listen to scientists who are looking into genes and DNA and looking into the astrophysics of the universe, and a majority of both get to a point in their research where they say something like, “And behind X we find the mind of God.” They believe that a Creator must exist…. They just may not know the Creator personally like I do.
Concerning why would Christianity be the way to God? Certainly I hold this position by personal faith and experience which bolsters that faith, but beyond this I see logic and symmetry to a Christian God over all other religions. All other religions man is searching for God, but in Christianity, God is searching for mankind to become their Father.
First, if there is a God, the He is our Creator…. Why create mankind. The scriptures begin and end with the answer, “And I will be their God and they will be my people.” God’s purpose is to create a family of God who He can fellowship with and to whom He can be a Father throughout eternity.
The love story exposited by the Bible is that God loved mankind so much that He came to earth to die for us so that He may become our God, Father and Brother. He intended all along to fellowship with beings who could love Him. Imagine you are God living up in heaven and you are creating all sorts of angelic and other beings, but none who can share love with you. Why can they not love God? Because love only comes out of a choice. If I do not have the choice not love God, then I also do not have the choice to love God.
So why do so many choose not to love God? Because it is part of His design. How would your husband know you love Him if on the first sign of a disagreement you moved out of the home? If each time you felt mistreated you threatened divorce? If you made him love you perfectly on your terms, how would your husband in turn know you love Him?
This is the simple story of the gospel that no other religion has or could ever dream up, that God the Father loves ALL humans even those who choose against Him, and He longs that everyone turns to Him and accepts His love and the eternal life with Him and His family forever. But He cannot force anyone to love Him, or trust Him, or believe in Him. All He chooses to do is show Himself completely in the things you and I can see, and explain Himself in His Son Jesus and in His Word the Bible.
God is calling you and your husband this moment, this hour to not be perfect, not be sinless, not be all knowing about Christianity, but to come to Him exactly as you are, believe that He is the Creator God who died for you because He loves you dearly, and then allow Him to enter your life, heart and mind and begin a great work of transforming you into His children.
It is the greatest love story ever told that my God loved me enough to become a man Himself, and die for me. How can I not love Him in return for such a great love He has shown you and me? No other way to God makes any sense to me once I understood Christianity and knowing just a little bit about love, and family.
Courtney · 597 weeks ago
Again, I don't agree that faith is involved in accepting evolution because there is overwhelming evidence to say that is what happened. There's a good article about the evidence on the website I shared: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ I know you won't accept evolution, and I'm not trying to convince you, I'm just trying to explain why I don't think it's a faith-based view on my part. In the scientific community, evolution (including common ancestry and speciation) is considered a "fact", just as the heliocentric theory or the theory of gravity are considered "facts."
I actually am a scientist looking into genes and DNA :) Of course there are points in research where you find something you can't explain yet. Personally though, I don't think saying it must be God is intellectually honest. I think a supernatural answer isn't as logical as assuming there is a natural answer, we just haven't discovered it yet. But I don't think accepting evolution and believing in God are mutually exclusive. I know plenty of respectable scientists and other people who accept evolution who believe in God.
I personally don't believe in god because I don't value faith, which I learned as "hope for things which are not seen." I think withholding belief until I have convincing evidence is a better practice. There are parts of the Christian view of existence that sound nice and I don't doubt that it makes many people very happy. But the way you speak of Christianity as the only thing that makes any sense to you is the way many others speak of their different faiths. I would need something more objective.
Anyway, I really appreciate your responses. Oh, and I ordered the book you recommended. Maybe it will address some of the questions I have. I'm interested to read it.
Ken · 597 weeks ago
I completely understand and your position and realize that we are in two different circles that overlap at times, but generally are separated by our starting points.
You begin by thinking there is no god until it is proven to you, and I begin with "I think therefore I am" and "if I think then there must be a God."
Once I conclude that intelligence cannot exist apart from a greater intelligence, and designed creation apart from a designer, I have no choice but to responsibly seek after who that Intelligence and Designer must be.
Go one step further and I believe that logic demands that such a Creator who has designed such great purpose into the universe and mankind, must be reaching out to us to be known by Him and to know Him.
Hence, Christ Jesus, the sum of all things. God in the flesh as a man reaching out to mankind and showing Himself for all who will believe. Not a blind faith, but a logical and rational faith that can be proven over and over again in the lives and hearts of the many who choose Him.
I am happy to hear you will read the book as I think it may be interesting to you, but my guess is that winning you to believe in God is a small step compared to your seeing Jesus Christ as the God and Creator. If you can get past A Case for Faith, he has a book A Case for Christ :). The first one will be quite interesting to you.
Geneticist? Then you know that natural selection given infinite time cannot create what you can now see, let alone beyond what you can see.
Thanks for the discussion ...
Cynthia · 597 weeks ago
In business, you have different models for leadership, and one of these is partnership. Partnerships require both partners to be in agreement on big decisions, and they don't work if the partners can't get along, but successful partnerships can and do exist. You also have larger corporate styles of leadership, where a board of directors votes and it is possible for a group of directors to oust the existing leadership if the performance doesn't measure up or meet their needs. Employees need to follow the leadership of the boss, but have the option of leaving the company if the leadership style is bad.
In government, we have this idea of representative democracy. The people recognize that there is a need for a leader, but they are the source of that leader's power and can elect someone new during the next election. In the United States, there is also a focus on separation of powers - neither the President, nor the Congress, nor the Supreme Court can exercise absolute power. Again, this can be a problem when there is no decent relationship and no respect (the government shut-down couldn't occur in other political systems, like a parliamentary democracy), but limited power was part of the design.
By contrast, with marriage, we are talking about a relationship where ideally there should be lasting commitment.
Ken · 597 weeks ago
If marriage is a lifelong commitment, then who makes the final decision? Sure couples should be true equal partners, but when the two are not on the same page, who gets the final say? That is a critical question that should be answered in all partnership before disagreement causes separation.
Cynthia · 597 weeks ago
The other thing is that business leadership makes decisions within a pretty defined area. There isn't absolute control over all aspects of life for everyone else in the business.
How does final decision-making work in the sort of marriage structure that you and Lori are describing?
Lori previously asked about decisions that included things disagreement on the number of children, or using birth control, or spanking children. Practically speaking, how does it work if one person makes a decision knowing that the other person disagrees? It's not like one parent is going to be completely uninvolved with the children.