News and Updates

Okay, so I was only off by 3,234.86 miles (5,206 km)!

I said Sunday (10/7/12) that the Apostle Paul was a Roman citizen  from “Tarsish” in Spain when in fact everyone knows he was from “Tarsus,” in was then called Asia and is now known as Turkey.

Tarsish (תַּרְשִׁישׁ) is famous in biblical lore because that is where Jonah promptly headed (Read the story from Jonah 1:2) when God told him to go to Nineveh, northeast of Israel, in what is now north central Iraq. In fact, Jonah was so scared to tell the wicked pagans in Nineveh to repent that he ran as far in the opposite direction as he could possibly go in those days — to Tarsish, a seaport at the other end of the Medditeranian Sea in southern Spain.*

But, “Saul of Tarsus”  (Acts 9:11; 21:39; 22:3), who we come to know later as Paul the Apostle, was born in the Province of Cilicia on the south central coast of Asia, not Spain.  In fact, soon after his dramatic conversion Saul returned for a time to his home city of Tarsus (Acts 9:30). And that is where Barnabus later found him (Acts 11:25) and formed the dynamic church-planting team that would later change the world.

Knew that. Brain cramp. Silly me. Thank you Wes and all the others who pointed out my blatant public fail.

Only by grace,
Steve

 

* We tend to think that the OT book of Jonah is all about the story of a reluctant prophet named Jonah. But, what if it is not about Jonah at all but rather about the extent that God will go to to save a wicked city. What if the familiar story is actually all about the city of Nineveh, not about the man. Read it over again from the new perspective of God’s great, persistent, insistent  love for the city — and the extraordinary lengths God went through to bring the good news of his mercy and forgiveness to the lost and hopeless sinners there.
     And then think about God’s great love for your city. Is it possible that you are Jonah? Do you have a hope-filled message from God for your city of “Repent and be saved!”?  Are you running away from that assignment because you are afraid? Or do you love your city like God does?  “God so loved the world…” also means “God so loved the city…” (John 3:16, 17).

Okay, so there was an unusual amount of response to the sermon on sex this morning (Sept 9, 2012) from 1 Corinthians 7:2-5. I guess I should not be surprised. One dear sister said with a chuckle, “I’m in my 80s! What do you expect me to do with this message?”  Other responses were equally interesting.

But I am curious what you might be thinking about what God’s Word has to say about sex. What are your questions or comments?

Resting in Him,
Steve

Here are 14 ways* that you can start becoming a “maker of disciples” like Jesus commanded in Matthew 28:19, 20…

1. Join a good bible-preaching, Jesus-worshipping church.
2. Arrive early at church gatherings and stay late.
3. Practice hospitality with members of your church.
4. Pray and ask God for strategic friendships.
5. If possible, include a line-item in your family or pastoral budget for weekly time with fellow Christians. Discuss this matter with your spouse. If possible, provide such a budget line for your spouse as well.
6. Schedule regular breakfasts, lunches, or some other culturally-acceptable social engagement with teachable individuals (of the same sex). Depending on the person, you may decide to meet once, indefinitely, or for a set number of times (say, five). If you and the individual share a pastime, look for ways to share that pastime together.
7. Ask them about themselves. Ask them about their parents, spouse, children, testimony, their job, their walk with Christ, and so on. In asking questions, however, do so in a manner that’s appropriate for your cultural context (don’t scare them!).
8. Share about yourself.
9. Look for ways to have spiritual conversations. Maybe decide to read the Bible or some other Christian literature together.
10. Consider their physical or material needs. Would they benefit from your help?  
11. Pray with them.
12. Depending on your home situation, invite the person to drop by your house or spend time with your family. Let them watch you live life.
13. Look for ways to pray for the person throughout the week by yourself and/or with your spouse.
14. Use my book — “Obeying Jesus: the seven commands for every disciple” (available at amazon.com) — as a resource/tool. A Study Guide is included to stimulate one-on-one conversations or group discussions. 

Go ahead. Make a disciple! Have fun with it! Reap huge rewards!

Only by grace,
Steve

 

* The first 13 suggestions are taken directly from 9-Marks.org. I added Number 14.

We listed “Five threats to oneness” Sunday (September 2, 2012):

1. Unrealistic expectations
2.  50-50 (not 100-100) relationships
3. Failure to anticipate selfishness
4. Failure to get help when things get messy
5. “Affairs” – Busyness, job/career,  the kids, pronography, adultery

Here are a few more “Threats to oneness” to watch out for…

1. Going to bed alone while your spouse stays up to watch TV or play video games
2. Failure to discover things you like to do together
3. Allowing family members to undermine your realtionship
4. Not getting help to resolve the old baggage from former relationships

What other threats do you want to add to this list?

Testing in Him,
Steve

 

 

 

The sermon Sunday (Sep 2, 2012) about “Oneness” from Genesis 2:20-25 never got to talk about sex. But sex is surely at the very least implied in the Genesis 2 language — “a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.”

And the apostle Paul goes further to make the implication of Gen 2:24 clear in 1 Corinthians 6 when he writes “Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, ‘The two will become one flesh.'”

So what does sex have to do with oneness? Everything. If oneness is intimacy, what is more intimate than the sex act? If isolation is the enemy of oneness, what is celibacy but isolation?

Again, the apostle Paul speaks to the close tie of oneness and sex when he writes …

…each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. – 1 Corinthians 7:2-5

Notice a few quick observations in that paragraph. First he states the obvious: a man should have sex with his own wife, i.e. not someone else’s wife, and likewise each woman with her own husband. In a culture of “friends with privileges,” premarital sex and living together, this seems old fashioned, even difficult or impossible.

But it’s not impossible. Ask Tim Teabow, the famous NFL quarterback, follower of Jesus, and virgin who is waiting for marriage to have sex. Ask Lolo Jones, the 29 y.o. Olympic track star, follower of Jesus, and virgin who is waiting for marriage to have sex.

The problem with sex outside of marriage is that sex was designed by God for the ultimate in intimacy, “They were naked and not ashamed.”  And you can’t have sex without sharing some part of you, often more personal and deeper than you notice at the moment. God knows that. He designed sex to be that way. Close. Personal. Intimate.

I mean, God could have designed humans to procreate like worms; cut off a finger and grow another person. Or like fish; sprinkle your eggs and any passing male can fertilize them. Or like most mammals who mate from behind, not face-to-face. No, God designed sex to be pleasurable, intimate, very personal.

Second, meeting her sexual needs is a duty that the husband has to his wife.  That might take more time and thought than is obvious since “sex begins in the kitchen” — the intimacy of your relationship begins with the conversations and interactions of the day, not just when the lights go out in the bedroom. That’s pretty simple to understand: guys shouldn’t expect their wife to be interested in sex if he has not been interested in her throughout the day.

Third, Paul talks about “no authority over her/his body” meaning that we have no right to withhold sex as a tool to manipulate or control or punish our spouse. This is tricky. There is no place for abuse in a Christian marriage. No abuse of control and manipulation by withholding sex. And no abuse by subjecting your spouse to unwelcome, offensive  or unpleasant sex. Unfortunately, in our sex-saturated, porn-filled culture, some detestable acts and attitudes have crept into the Christian bedroom that degrade and demean all involved and betray the trust that should be at the center of sex between a wife and husband.

Finally, Paul says that there is really only one good reason to avoid or withhold sex from your spouse. And that’s to have a time set apart to pray! Wow! That’s a foreign thought in our culture. Give up the time you would have set aside for sex and use that time to pray! But — and this is a BIG but — be sure to resume normal sex in your relationship when you are through praying. Cool.

Do you want more intimacy in your marriage? Sex is a huge part of that. Do you want great sex? Fight the isolation that pulls you apart.

Resting in Him,
Steve