One of the underlying themes throughout this book is how much rests on trusting the Word of God. Biblical authority does not get a chapter of its own, but I want to make it clear that little in this book on marriage, and little in our faith, is possible without our trust in God’s Word. If we trust in The Almighty, we trust in the words He speaks to us. We could not speak of marriage as a covenant for life, without the foundation of the Bible. We could still know its benefits, and we could still recognize its overall intention is for life, but we could not speak of a lifelong covenant with any authority without our trust in the Bible. The same is true for other doctrines. The relationship between husband and wife, and all it entails, although we can see creation provide a rough guide for it, cannot be preached with certain truth without the Bible. The Bible is God breathed, and God speaks only truth. There is no falsehood in what is breathed by the Eternal One.
This is why we can see what people have to do when they want to avoid what the Bible teaches. When they see doctrines that grate against their pride or against their lifestyle. The liberal, or the one who goes liberal for this or that doctrine, has to grasp at alleged exceptions, or has to point and shoot and call divine teaching mere culture. He has to pretend that some rare usage of a word can be stuck into that passage and make it mean something else, totally outside of the natural flow of the text. Basically, to go liberal one has to go soft on reasoning. One has to find fault with the plain teaching of God’s Word and uplift rather soft forms of reasoning that we don’t usually rely on elsewhere. It is always the exception erases the rule, or what God says in just ancient culture. Debates with liberals get predictable after a while. This is what you will always see. I spend a good deal of time in Get Married and Save the World answering the opponents of simple biblical doctrine. I answer many, but not all of common objections to marriage doctrine. Those who want to deny male headship. Those who want women to abandon home and children for a career. Those who think we can end marriages and join with new husbands or wives. Someone said I sound like I’m arguing with internet “trolls,” but sadly the fact is far from it. Most of the writing comes from experience not with “trolls” but with pastors and other “ministers” who have made it their calling to damage Christian marriage and the home. I’ve heard those objections from apparent men of God. I know countless other Christians hear them too. So I want to provide clear answers and refute them. I believe the answers I provide are strong, although it is not the point of the book to answer to each one, as there is limited time devoted to apologetics. It is more a marriage guide than a doctrinal defense. However, I want to warn you against a couple of major attacks on the truth and authority of God’s Word right here. Not against particular doctrines, but against His Word. Several strategies the demons use to sow doubt. The first is that my relationship with God provides me with new revelation, and that this has the same authority as Scripture. This kind of thinking most obviously supplants the Bible in its centrality in guiding us. Moreover, even when people try and put this supposed new revelation a little beneath God’s word, simply by uplifting it as revelation it commonly supplants God’s Word anyway. If I had a nickel for every time I heard a Charismatic claim that God was behind having women preach in their church, or God was behind their divorce and remarriage, I would be a very rich man. That is to say nothing of those who claim God is behind some atrocious decision they made in life. Uplifting our personal feelings as new revelation results in an attack on God’s Word and it encourages disobedience. Even if we claim that God’s Word is still the bar of truth, that claim is often mere lip service. The bar gets ignored. Another common attack, which I have mentioned, and which you hear not only from obvious liberals, is that various commands -- including ethical ones, and including New Testament ones -- are simply ancient culture. God’s Word is just culture. Brethren, if that is the case, if actual moral commands and New Testament teaching is written off as mere culture, then nearly anything else can be too. The Bible would be ours to write and rewrite as we decided this or that could be disregarded because we said so. You shall not murder? That was written when there were fewer people on the planet and our carbon footprint was much smaller. With a change in population and technology, you shall not murder then could become you shall murder. There are too many people anyway. Anyone can make that kind of a culture argument easily. Moreover, those who make these culture accusations never meet up with much of a burden of proof. They cannot prove it is mere culture, but simply rely heavily on their own ponderous story telling. Ask them to prove it is nothing but culture based on the text, or even on logic, and you will find they cannot. You can no more write off male headship as culture, than you can write off the male-female nature of marriage as culture, than you can write off foot washing in the Church as culture. If someone tells you plain moral commands or New Testament teaching is mere culture, be very suspicious. You will find they cannot meet a serious burden of proof. Take the Word of God over their ponderings any day. I write this here, and emphasized it many times in my book, because we would have so little without it. God’s Word is our authority. Many today seem to actually mock God’s Word as some little book full of words, but that is their own small-mindedness and unwavering pride. Holy Scripture is the Almighty speaking to us, it is supernatural, and it is truth. We could ask for nothing more. Much of the destruction which has happened with our marriages and families is directly tied in to denying what God has actually said. Likewise, much of what will heal our land, and bless our descendants, is little more than obeying God’s commands in the Bible. God’s teaching on marriage is neither very ambiguous nor impossible for us. It is simple, and we are powered by the Spirit to do it. When God says submit, He means submit. When God says love, He means love. When God says it is only death which ends a marriage, it is only death which ends a marriage. Most of all, when God says forgive, we must forgive. Restoration is not far from our sight brothers, and no matter how bad the situation looks, the Lord can pour out His mercy like water upon us. We only need to hear God’s Word and obey Him.
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AuthorI am Ordinary Brother, Author of Get Married and Save the World. I hope you are enriched by this blog about my book and a little of my life. Archives
January 2020
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