He's Pulled The Curtain Back

The curtain has been pulled back and the insidious and ugly nature of sin has been exposed. In the last few weeks, we have seen the unraveling of many people's lives, families, and careers. Josh Duggar was exposed for being a client on Ashley Madison. This public figure and representative for Christian family values was exposed as a fraud. There have been pastors, seminary professors, and presidents of Christian colleges exposed for affairs. 

In addition to giving a black eye to the church and staining the name of Jesus, it devastates lives. Families have been ruined. Years of labor have been tainted with scandal that it can never be disassociated with.

But in the midst of all of this, I believe something else is happening. God is giving us a gift. This may sound bizarre upon first glance, given the above devastation noted, but it is true. God has given believers a gift. 

What is that gift? Clarity. 

If there were any pockets of uncertainty, any shred of doubt about the heinous evil of sin, that has been blown up in the face of these sexual scandals. In the event that you had any fantasies swirling around in your mind about the excitement, freedom, enjoyment, and allure of an extra-marital affair, it should be lying in worse ruins than Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. 

We have crystal clear clarity about the darkness and devastation of sin. We see the secret sex stripped of all illusions of grandeur when we see a son confronting his father's adultery saying, "It's over dad." There's nothing to fantasize about with that, is there? There's nothing exciting about imagining Josh Duggar having to face his wife, his children, or his family, is there? The allure of sex outside your marriage, and all that comes with it, may look so appealing and so amazing, until you see the lifetime of devastation it leaves for the two minutes of physical enjoyment it gives.

Oh friends, God has graciously pulled the curtain back on the evil of sin. He has shown us sin's true colors. We should heed the warning. We should thank God for the clarity. The capacity to do evil lurks within us all. We are all five minutes away from a moral disaster in our own lives. 

Follow the words of the Hebrews writer in Hebrews 3:12-14

"12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end."

Take care, Christians. You have evil and unbelief that lurks in your heart that threatens to pull you away from the Living God. So surrender daily to Jesus. Find believers to surround you who can get in your business and exhort you. The deceitfulness of sin is real. But it is a liar. God has given us the gift of clarity. Receive it. 

Gender Reveal Parties of the Future: A Parable

Once upon a time, in a very advanced and evolved land, they threw parties. They were unique. They were parties of great celebration and anticipation. For these parties were no mere marking of time or remembering an event, these parties were a revelation. They were called: gender reveal parties.

These parties had been happening for centuries. Previous generations in the land - strange, primitive ancestors - would throw these parties while the fetus was still in the womb. Some - a few of the wackiest - would even call the fetuses babies, as if they were really human until they were out of their mother's body. They had these parties, gathering everyone around, and then the parents would tell everyone the gender of the fetus. This would be followed by a symbolic gesture like releasing blue balloons for boys or pink balloons for girls - I warned you they were strange creatures. 

They were savage people. Parents were preposterously oppressive and barbaric for determining the gender of their children instead of waiting to let the child choose for themselves. They acted as if gender was something biological instead of something you have to feel out on your own. They eventually evolved. Thankfully.

In the new and evolved land, these parties were great celebrations where grown people gathered around with friends and family to reveal their gender. The age of discovery varied for each person. Some knew early on as children, others later in life, and some went back and forth frequently before truly settling down. It was such a liberating thing. 

This does not mean that everyone evolved. Some were stuck in the Stone Age with their insistence that gender was biological and determined by God. They made their arguments. They said things like, "If gender is not set, but is fluid, why do you act as if gender based names are set? Why does a man named "Mark" feel the need to change his name to a girl name like "Christy?" Why not just be a girl named "Mark?" Gender based names appear more set than gender itself." 

Or they said things like, "If people can be born as the wrong gender (i.e. they have XY male chromosomes but are convinced they are a woman), then how is gender a social construct? You cannot be born the wrong gender (implying that gender is set) and simultaneously say it is a social construct." They really were clever, these barbarians and their cute arguments, but the people learned how to shut them up. They called the Dissenters unloving and hateful. This usually caused them to wilt like flowers. 

In this gloriously evolved land, you could no longer disagree with other people's beliefs or you were labeled intolerant; literally, you were labelled so everyone knew you were a Dissenter. Yes, it was a small problem that the word "tolerant" inherently means to put up with people who hold different positions than you, but consistent beliefs were not nearly as important as feelings in this land. The tactic of the moral majority of shutting the mouth of the Dissenters was perfected. People were convinced it was unloving to challenge people's ideas and make them feel uncomfortable. Love and disagreement were no longer compatible. 

It was truly an incredible country. The apex of human evolution. A land where Love Wins (as they would say) and truth was written by the feelings of the day - but could change tomorrow if necessary. If only previous generations would have let go of all their primitive ideas quicker, they would have become great sooner.

Dating to Marry

The title of my post gives away the point I want to convey - Dating to Marry. This concept is foreign to most in our culture. In fact, marriage itself is postponed later and later by most people. Some will read this and think I sound archaic, unrealistic, or uncultured (or all the above). Others will read and think the idea is good, but go on doing what they have always done. They'll deem it unpractical. Regardless, I want to make my case.

The State of Dating Today

Unfortunately we live in a society which portrays behaviors from shows like Jersey Shore and The Bachelor/ette as normal. These shows, and many like them, encourage hookups and serial dating. We very rarely witness people approach dating with an eye on marriage. Most people date casually without the slightest bent toward evaluating if the person/people they are dating are marriage material. 

Most relationships today are built on sex. In fact, many relationships today started with a sexual encounter, a random hookup. Even when that is not how the relationship started, it often becomes why the relationship continues to exist. Is the sex good? Do we have it often enough? Are we sexually satisfied and compatible with each other? These are now the questions that get asked in the relationship. When they are not answered in the affirmative, the relationship is over.

So we date someone for a few weeks or months. We have sex with them. Things don't work out. The process starts over again. Throw in a few hookups that come on the heels of your latest breakup, and before you know it, you have experienced a few years with no relationships of any real substance and a long resume of sexual partners.

Sadly, this is the regular experience of many people. None of them feel satisfied or fulfilled in this vicious cycle, yet most keep repeating the cycle. 

A New Approach

I want to suggest a new approach - dating to marry. Dating to marry does not mean that on the first date you have to ask someone if they are ready to marry.  It is a commitment to date with an eye on evaluating whether the person is marriage material. What does this look like?

Some questions worth asking yourself: Can I have deep and meaningful friendship with this person? Are they responsible? Are they a person of character? Do they act mature? Would they be a faithful spouse? What kind of parent would they be? Are they generous and kind to others? Are we compatible with our faith and beliefs? Do we share a common vision about life and how we should approach it? 

These questions, along with many others, begin to help one evaluate someone through the eyes of a spouse. Why is this important? Because these questions are the ones that ultimately matter in real life. When you are casually dating or looking to score the hookup, you don't worry about these things. You are only in it for the fun, for the momentary pleasures. But you also get the unfulfilling results of the hookup relationship. 

Notice that I never asked a question about sex. The reason is because I do not believe that is the most important issue when considering a spouse. Life is about more than sex. Relationships are about more than sex. If you build a relationship on sex, and nothing else, that relationship with crumble. But this is how most teenagers and twenty-somethings are approaching dating. (Footnote: I think it is a waste of time for teenagers to date at all, but that is a different post for a different day) 

My Two Cents

Here is my advice to people, plain and simple. If you are not someone who is ready to marry, don't date. What is the point of dating if you are not in a place in life where you are ready to marry? You don't date so you can have a friend, there are plenty of people, of both sexes, that you can have a friendship with. Do you date for sex? According to God's Word, sex is most fulfilling and most satisfying, and most healthy, when it is experienced in the covenant relationship of marriage. Is that popular today? No. Is this looked at as outdated? Yep. But that does not change the reality of it. God's blessing is found in living God's way. 

So you don't need to date to have friends. And you don't need to have sex until you are married. In light of this, you should only date when you are willing to marry someone and you should date with an eye toward the person being marriage material. If you begin dating someone and you realize the person is not marriage material, you should gently and graciously end it.

This may seem crazy to people. But let me tell you what I think is crazy. As a pastor who sees and hears story after story of heartbreak, disappointment, and guilt from bad and ungodly relationships, I think it is crazy to keep approaching relationships in the same way, expecting to get a different result. That is crazy. So perhaps you should approach dating a different way. I suggest that it is God's way. And if you do it, I believe you will get God's results. That's my two cents.  


Knowledge hoarding is unkind. Don't be a knowledge hoarder; share with others.  :-)