Weekend Wonderings

Since I’m not too good at keeping up with the ol’ Photo Friday stuff, I’ve decided to try a new feature at which I will attempt to be faithful: Weekend Wonderings.

I will link to, and provide a short excerpt for, a post (or posts) that struck my fancy during the week. I encourage my readers to read these posts and think about them prayerfully. I hope this will turn out to be something useful to you and to me.

Since for some reason I’ve been thinking a lot about marriage (probably because our first anniversary is a little over a month away) it’s appropriate that the first links in this new feature are marriage-related. First up:

Dan Phillips at Team Pyro has put up a wonderful, thought-provoking post about husband/wife roles in marriage. If you are not convicted about your behavior as a husband or wife after reading this, you’re just a cold-hearted wretch. An excerpt:

Let us envision a Christian wife whose husband actually is not devoting himself to Christlike love of her (contrast Ephesians 5:25-33). She has something to complain about! When he married her, he promised God that he would love her thus. He told her she could bet her earthly life on his promise. Yet he is breaking that promise, and sinning against God. He is not walking according to the Word. He is denying her something she deeply wants. This isn’t a happy situation for her.

Now, none of this negates her responsibility to treat him with heartfelt respect and submission (1 Peter 3:1-6). But it does make it harder for her to be happy about being married to him, or to think of marriage as she otherwise might. Asked how her life is, she has reason to say that one large, significant area is awry. Also, the respectful submission God calls her to is more difficult to give joyfully.

But suppose her husband is pierced to the hard, humbles himself, repents, and devotes himself to showing her that love he promised.

Then it is all on her.

Oooh. It’s on, now.

In our next offering today, we have Mr. Frank “Centuri0n” Turk attempting to create the largest internet controversy of all time. An excerpt:

However, over the handful of years we have been open, I have taken a small amount of grief for promoting books by Kay Arthur and Beth Moore — because they are women who are plainly teachers. The admonition goes along the standard lines regarding why women ought not to be pastors or elders in the church.

Fair enough: I’m in. I agree with the “pastors and elders” argument, so I accept the admonition that women writing books on spiritual formation veers into the theological red-light district.

Them’s fightin’ words, Mr. Turk!

And lastly, we have a post from “The World’s Most Famous Christian Blogger,” Tim Challies about Education and Division, pertaining to homeschooling. As Tricia and I have been discussing this subject off an on over the past few months, I paid very close attention to it. An excerpt:

I think it is disingenuous to suggest that Christians who elect to send their children to school, whether public or Christian, are somehow disobeying what the Bible teaches about raising our children to fear the Lord and that we are deliberately uninvolved in the education of our children. It also raises many difficult questions. Is a single father, who needs to work to provide for his family, sinning if he places his children in a public school? In nations where homeschooling is not allowed should parents disobey the government and educate their children themselves? Am I sinning by putting my children in public schools? The consequences of this line of reasoning can be dangerous and divisive.

When researching what the Bible teaches about education and raising our children, I have not been convinced that either public schooling or homeschooling is objectively correct in all situations. And so I move forward with that assumption. If we allow that there are times that it may be right for a family to send their children to public school, we must also allow that there are times when it may be wrong for a family to homeschool. At the very least we allow that education is a decision of conscience and that parents must make what can be a long and difficult decision. If you disagree with this, please turn to Scripture and defend this viewpoint. And do realize that such an understanding will necessarily be divisive within the church. If you can prove it from Scripture it will be necessary division. If you cannot, it is unnecessary and must be avoided.

I think Tim’s article should be required reading for any parent considering how best to educate their children. I feel that Tim forced me to reassess many of the arguments for homeschooling given to me by friends who homeschool their kids or are supporters of homeschooling.

Well, there you have it, our very first Weekend Wonderings Enjoy your reading, and make sure you spend the Lord’s Day in worship at the congregation of which you are a member!