Note to all readers - yes all 2 of you. ...

And anyone can tell I have been writing on marriage a good bit, this is merely because I am doing my thesis on an ethic of marriage. This blog has become a way to get my thoughts out and stored away so I can have a better change of ordering the work. (we all know how bad I am at that) and if I'm lucky have a critic or two looking at my thoughts. That is all, this is not what in the words of a concerned friend, "happens to people when they get old and stay single." To that I say, yea and who can say they spent there 20's dodging Al-kieta (I know I miss spelled that) and travailed the middle east and eastern Europe. thank you very much!!(Dawson says indigently, with some brutish snobbery) I would give up the American dream for God's glory any day..Honestly we all should. .. Ok now I'm just ranking.. So while I am not against the idea (I consider it an option on day), I am doing a thesis work, for Pete sake... thank you and blessings..

The marriage relationship as a Dance Part II

[This is the second half of part one dealing with the vision of marriage using the metaphor of a dance. ]

Two, Dance is a social interaction. Now this point does not strays far from the first point, because such an expression does not stop in a formal comparison but digs deep into the heart of lived reality. The gospel is also seen in our social interactions. First the necessity of order: One leads and one follows both participate in an elegant expression of harmony and cooperation. This participation is an art of learning, serving, and loving.

Dance takes timing and timing takes knowing the other person. I remember when I was 12 first coming to the knowledge of this truth. We were at a football game and Dad was watching mom more than the game. I asked why? All he said was “I’m learning son, one day you will too?” another time I found him reading, “Jane Austin,” yep learning (Don’t tell him I told you!). My dad understands what’s at stake is the gospel. The expression of their dance together is the expression of the Gospel. So he learns and repents and forgives and learns anew. They have been married 45 years and he tells me he’s still learning.

Second is service. This is important for men to here. Christ’s way of humble service and Christ’s example of leadership by service is (and men here me clearly) THE WAY WE ARE TO LEAD! We are to give of ourselves wholly in service to her sanctification, and to use the metaphor, we are to wash her feet. This is the leading that leads her to love well. When we care for her needs, discerning her needs from her wants, and seek to be present with her in her moments, these are some less than obvious ways we serve her well. Biblical is the man that finds little moments to creatively remind her that you deeply understand, "He who finds a wife finds a good thing..." Proverbs 18:22. Men we must never forget she said, yes! We may have taken the initiative and asked and risked trauma to our pride (not always a bad thing) BUT she made the choice. God has given every woman the power to say yes or no. She holds the keys to open or shut up the hope dwelling in every word of that one question.

Third is loving. This should come easy for any man trained in Christ’s school of humility. If you’re not a student well pray for entry, ask God to enroll you in Job University. Later you can go for a Mdiv at the providential smack-down school of divinity. Christ will train you in such things. Best part, you can’t fail. You just take the tests over again until you pass. But I digress. Love is clearly not just a verb. It is a deeply heart felt passion that gives, sacrifices, and is totally voluntary, unforced, and free of manipulation or control. A love that hears before it acts, moves and operates in grace and stands firm so to dare the other to move in faith, to risk, dream, and discovery God’s grader glory in unyielding reliance. In short, a love that is supportive, kind, and understanding. Such love sees with eyes fixed on God’s glory and loving the lover in a lesser love that puts her worship ahead of his passion for her. In short, the husband’s first passion is to see his wife a greater worshiper of God. And a wife’s first passion is to see her husband captured by one thing, a passion for the glory of God. All secondary love flows clean and with passionate intensity from such a centering source.

Loving Her more by loving her less.
May be I’m weird, Ok we all know I’m weird. But I believe that God’s glory is ultimate and all other things are in its shadow. I believe in Love shadowed by the glory. I believe, a person is no more a radiant vision of beauty and attraction than when they are worshiping, repenting and obeying. Take Sasha a friend from Greece. I remember seeing the moment God worked his grace. Seeing her eyes light up just as her heart was opened to the gospel. Her repentance beautiful, in tears and pain, then tears and joy it was all just a stunning display. Even, the snot, the swollen eyes red from crying, hair once pulled back now in disarray, the repentance lased with self-defacing profanity, it all was beautiful. It is true, Messy repentance is beautiful. She stood up and looking back at me for the first time the cleanness of soul went all the way down, she was exquisite. If a man can’t see a woman as radiant beauty in those moments he is not ready to love as God would have him love.

Back to my story, two weeks later I saw Sasha again this time she was clothed in greater glory. As I laid a daisy on her casket, I saw her face at peace, home, free from a life of soulless domination. She was completely a worshiper of her Warrior king. “The One that won her” was how she described to me, how a missional atheist could drop the drugs and fallow lovers for Jesus. “The One that won me,” it was this truth that gave her the courage to tell her Muslim family. No one even thought that such life remade would not remain. I stood there at her casket crying little man tears sober and streaming, remembering telling her of Jesus, her telling me to go to hell. The long lunch’s about the benefits of communism and the joy of Good coffee. The moment, when out of the blue, she told me, “this week I will go to church with you, Barney Rubble.” Further still Her words, “He is real! AND He LOVES ME, to death he loved me!” I will never forget that look as long as I live! When I told her just talk to him and hearing the sound of honest, real, raw, worship! Worship bursting forth, bright and full as a sunrise over the Macedonian mountains. How were we to know what such a luminescent life was too bright for earth? Yet it was the knowledge that she was and still is worshiping that still trains my heart to love all the more. I smile and rejoice for she is doing what she was created to do. She is a worshiper. One that adores the one that won her. She is beautiful because she is a worshiper now and forever more. I still tear up sometimes but not in lose, in her gain. she lost the world but gained the One desire worth knowing. The knowledge of worship before her warrior King. When we talk of earthly love it rest best in the shadow of the eternal. Love is only as real as our hearts are captured with a vision of God’s passion to make worshipers. We must understand how to love well for the gospel is at stake. Be must move in effortless love for a life for the glory of God is a life loving someone more by first loving them less. This is at the root of marital love.

The marriage relationship as a Dance. Part I

Did you know, Dance is universal? Almost all cultures have some form of dance within its tradition, well except for Southern Baptist. On that note, in this blog, I promise not to promote dance in any way that would make/lead anyone to have sex with anyone. Unless, they are married, then, well, they can dance. Ok, a definition of dance will help me explain what I mean by this metaphor.

Dance is a movement used as a form of expression or social interaction often to music but not exclusively.

There are two key points here I wish to bring out. One, Dance is a form of expression. In Eph 5, Paul writes that marriage is an expression of the gospel. That is to say, as a man and a woman are one in love and existence so is this a picture of Christ’s unifying love for His Bride.

Dance is gospel in movement, its love on display. Have you ever seen two, dance as one, with power and tenderness they express life and love? The vision is such that you’re awed and capture by every moment. Grace, openness, harmony, strength Love all put on display. Why do you think we say, “They graced the dance floor?” we saw beyond the movements, through it the unseen was unveiled and the eternal captured our hearts vision. This beauty seen in the dance of lovers corresponds to the beauty of an invisible love. The extent of His love is great. We must not forget the infinite measure of such love extended to us, Love dancing out to make rebels into lovers, the broken wholly human, the sinners newly cleaned, a thing into a person, a orphan into a child, and a whore into a bride. This dancing union of his work and our faith is where all our hurts find hope, dreams find fulfillment, and is a beautifully brilliant expression of the gospel of exchange. And in the love of a man and a woman something of this exchange is seen. I have seen such love in the eyes of lovers, its message spoke clearly of the hope that in a higher love all the isolated find home, unaccepted find rest, the abandoned are welcomed, and the lost are found and guided back home.

The center of marriage: a panoramic vision of life together

As Paul the apostle says in Ephesians 3:21, "unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen"

In Ephesians 3:21 Paul concludes his prayer with six important universal facts that bring context to human life. From these six facts we will make application to that particular mode of human existence called marriage.

1) In all its doings, marriage is to be God-centered ("unto Him"). God is to be at the center of the marital union in the same way that creation is God-centered. Creation exists by God, through God and to God the same is true of the mode of existence we call marriage. God is self-existing therefore what exist finds its sources from him. He is self-sufficient therefore the power for life emanates from him. He is the life giving power than brings harmony, shalom, and well being to a marriage. He exists in an independents and infinite abundance needing nothing. Therefore creation is dependant on God. Life in Him is dependant living. Man and woman are to be dependant on God being, living in the reality of Him, and be actively sustained by the helps of faith Hope and Love flowing from him. All other centers are idolatry and hindrances to the sacramental reality of life in God. Marriage abides in the garden once again when God is at the center.

2,) It is purpose-centered ("be glory"). In other words, a marriage exists for God's glory. The glory of God is central to Himself and it is central to the marital existence. Everything God does is ultimately for His own glory, and everything that happens in a marriage should be for God's glory. Worship becomes the fuel and goal of marriage. Partners see the growth of the other as growth of the whole of which they are apart. Marriages thrive when two personalities purpose to help the other become a better worshiper. Lovers of God make great lovers. Any marriage where God is more and we are less is a marriage on the road to the city of God. So it can be said, marital life is a pilgrimage to glory. Worshipers on the way growing down, loving up, and learning from one another becoming more like the one there lives are moving towards.

God’s passion is for His glory and this is even true in marriage. The ultimate purpose of marriage is God. God’s purpose for marriage is that it would be an instrument by which the glory of God would be shown. Marriage is for God thus the shining forth of who he is, is for marriage. God’s glory informs just as it also motivates. The glory of God for Marriage then is beholding the character and attributes of God resulting in reflecting back to him right action and rejoicing in Who he is. Said another way, Who God is informed and motivates our ethic of marriage. Marital ethics finds its purpose and meaning in God. Marriage is made to flourish in this way. The mode of existence called Christian marriage is marked by the indelible print of God and its ability to exist in harmony, shalom, and well being is directly related to its conformity to the vision of God. Marital life is an envisioning and outshining of who God is to such an existent that all actions, attitudes and goals come under the gravity of God’s manifest glory. Thus marriage moves from glory to glory in a cyclical rise of Loving adoration and contentment of being, beholding and becoming worshipers for the glory of God. For me I see it, I can almost envision it: Two holding each other close in a chosen togetherness, looking God-ward, Burning alive as flames of love pulled upward, shining forth, light and heat in unison sound forth the Nature of God. Two as one being-in-the-world engaged in daily life, normal movements, yet embody otherness, pulsing, radiating in infinite waves declaring “I AM and there is No other!” THIS IS MARRIAGE!!!

3) Marriage is ecclesiologicly-centered ("in the church"). In other words, the church is the visible location for doing marriage well. Marriage exists as a singular unit of personalities in community with other. In the church by the Spirit and the Word, marriages are strengthened, encouraged, guided, corrected and blessed. God centered servant leadership and wise following properly orients a marriage and the family.

4) Marriage is to be Christ-centered ("by Christ Jesus"). Christ is the word that made all things. The word formed life into it created order and in each thing molded a function. form should follow function but we have to recognize there is a Fall. Sin is in the world. So the word was made flesh. Marriage’s form when lived out in real time often falls short. This is the evidence of sin, the disordering principle. Yet, like Jesus on the cross, when marriage is at its best it is in its darkest moments. When sinners say I do, it takes grace and gospel to make it work. Man is good a messing things up yet God is perfect at redeeming. The power of the gospel is the power that redeems every sinful movement in marriage. With life together come tension, strife and all the sewage of living with a sinner. Such things are compounded in when sinners say I do. But 2 sinners and one God is still a good plan. We need not forget. Christ is the gospel. He is faith hope and love. A marriage can get saved, sanctified and set free! Marriage can even be filled with the Holy Ghost! But when two walk together they must be in agreement. That is to say, they must have a REAL LIVING “want too!” Then they must begin to walk the way of Jesus. When sinners in marriage live through the garden of “thy will be done”, find a freeing exchange at a cross, look up from the empty tomb and drink in the everlasting hope, they finds the rhythm to heal, forgive, and move beyond just living. They come to Pentecost. This is when a marriage comes alive. The Spirit of Christ reveals to us deeply human truths in marriage. Marriage is a sanctifying reality. The gospel in all its dimensions has the potential to be personally experienced. The heroic lengths and breath of sacrifice, the height of divine love and the depth of human sin can be experienced from the context of marriage. The gospel is the means by which we regulate the marital relationship in service and gratitude. In short Life has a rhythm and Christ is it. Live in his steps and by his work together.

Marriage is formed to functions as a picture of the gospel. As sinners we twist this form and pervert the function but sometime when grace and obedience blend there are moments that redemption shines through. In those moments marriage is a road side preacher witnessing to the reality of God and the evidences of grace rightly expressed as an envisioned, sustained expression of Holy love.

5) Marriage is to be generation-centered. Marriage should in proper season bring forth a continuation of life through children. Not just in having children or adopting, but in making the home a proper context for development. A marriage is to be the relational context for childhood development. Thus the parental responsibility of guiding development is primary. They will be who we are and they will grow in the frame of Home life we give for them. Five models of home life seem to develop this mandate more vividly.

The Home as a center for spiritual development.
The Home as a leadership training institute.
The Home as a sacrd space for worship.
The Home as a missions sending organization.
The Home as a boot camp in the virtues.

6) It is eternity-centered ("world without end" literally "from the age to the ages"). God has put eternity into the hearts of His people and marriage lives out its life with eternity's values in view, both in its understanding of the temporal nature of marriage and in the ultimate value of the beatific vision. Eternal vision sustains hope and ignites infinite desire to the soul.