Thinking somehow if someone else does it, it’s fine
The faith which I have come to hold as most sacred to me has been a very significant factor in shaping me. Christianity has shaped the way I think about, well, pretty much everything. I am really thankful that has happened. I guess my life would look remarkably different if I had not met God, and he had not transformed my life in the way he did.
I have come to understand that the Christian faith teaches a lot of rights and wrongs. It is right to feed the homeless, to care for the unloved, to heal the sick. It is wrong to take advantage of the weak, to abuse what we are given and to forget that every life is sacred because God holds it in his hands. This talk of right and wrong is unpopular even in the Church today, some even relegating 'laws' to the Old Testament, claiming that the rules only applied to the people before Jesus came, and now we don't need rules.
I know I have always needed rules. The rules in the bible show me how to live with other people and also show me what God is like. They are a regular reminder that I am incapable of obeying them by myself, or rather with my own strength. The rules in the bible ultimately serve to show what a human being is capable of with the power of God's Spirit. That is why we say Jesus was the fulfilment of the law.
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." (Matthew 5:17)
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Valentines Blessing
It hurts me to write this. Really, I'd rather dip my face in burning acid than admit it, but one of the clearest and most blessed ways by which God reveals himself is by the union of man and woman.
Marriage shows the perfect representation of the invisible God, as together man and woman are in his likeness. Similarly, those who are married can testify to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the mystery of his love for the Church.
So these words I want to bless those who are married and those who are on the way towards it.
May the Spirit of the Divine
Bind you to one another
With the ties of love and service
Obedience and honour
Which are good and right in the sight of God
May you learn together what it means to be human
Formed in the image of the Most Holy
May you bring honour to Jesus through your conduct and conscience
Glorifying our Risen Saviour
And baring witness to the great Lover
The Bridegroom who loves his people
May God be pleased to manifest his presence with you
And may he rejoice over you
His dear children
Amen
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John Piper on Sexual Sin
The root of the issue is the 'joy of our salvation'
The misuse of sex is a symptom of a loss of our relationship with God
This has been real 'good news' for me.
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If I shall not be one with a woman, who shall I be one with?
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (Gen 2:24)
I was created with the desire to be with a woman.
Adam, in the garden of Eden - even before sin seperated him from God - desired the company of another person. God heard this desire, and made for man a companion, like him yet different. Equally in God's image, yet not in the image of the man. She was woman. Different. Unique. The only one right for the man.
And so the Biblical theology of marriage is that it is a union that existed first in the perfect presence of God.
Marriage, the union of man and woman for life, was the climax of the creation. You can see this, because it was the last act before sin entered the Garden. Humans most fully reflect the nature of God in this union.
So then it is natural for man to desire woman.
He comes pre-loaded with all these desires and feelings he wants to share with a woman.
He comes with a space ready in his spirit that the woman can fill.
I was created with the desire to be with a woman.
I have this space in my spirit for a woman to fill.
I am pre-loaded with desires and feelings I want to share with a woman.
Yet as it is, and as it may be for many years, I am single.
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Singleness, Discipleship and the story of God
At the moment I'm reading a really interesting book, 'Resident Aliens' by Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon. This book is full of fantastic wisdom and provoking thoughts for Christians living in countries like mine where the Church has ceased to have a moral majority in society.
One specific passage really challenged me:
If our society has lost good reasons for getting married and having children, we appear even more so to have lost good reasons for staying single. About the best we can muster, in regard to staying single, is that we do not want to be "tied down," or we want "to keep our options open." Yet for those who are on the adventure called discipleship, singleness becomes a sign that the church lives by hope rather than biological heirs, that brothers and sisters come not through natural generation but through baptism, that the future of the world and the significance of our future is ultimately up to God rather than us. The telos, the end, gives meaning to our choices. Ultimately there is for us only one good reason to get married or to stay single, namely, that this has something to do with our discipleship. (Page 66)
Now, if you're still here, some reflection.
I suppose I am guilty of regarding singleness for the kingdom of God in rather the same way I would regard it in relation to a career: So I can be better at what I do. In the way someone might stay single to devote time to a job, I thought I would remain single in order to devote time to Church.
Though this does not seem to be the case.
God does not need me to remain single in order to devote more time to his Church. Frankly, he doesn't need me to do anything for his Church. It is his body which I have the privilege of being a part of.
Then, if I am called to singleness in my journey of discipleship - my journey of becoming more like Christ, perhaps the way in which God is moulding me is to be a beacon of faith, faith that the Church exists by faith and not by procreation.
Now, thats not to say those who marry are not saying that, and marriage is discussed very helpfully in the book. Marriage is the faith that in God's kingdom, it is safe and reasonable to become intimate with one person for your whole life, when the world would have us become strangers.
Marriage demonstrates to me that true, intimate community can exist because of God. Then I am single to demonstrate that this community exists by faith and obedience.
This book is a great challenge to stop engaging the world on the worlds terms (Liberal, Conservative, Secular, Religious...) and to start engaging with God in his redeeming story, reflecting his character and shining his glory.
Peace.
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