Dismantling Human Tradition

Posted on by Hilarey

When I was young, I told my mom a name I wanted to give to a future child. Her quick response was that if my future husband had ever known someone by that name—and didn’t like the person—he wouldn’t want the memory of them in his home.

The same name, the same word, can have different connotations.

The term “Deconstruction” has taken on a definition all its own in Christendom. It is basic etymology. As words popularize and morph meaning, they assume new preconceptions and sometimes baggage.

Maybe you know someone who deconstructed and ran screaming from the faith, destroying others. So, you hate the concept. It is scarier to watch someone else do it, but this is where westerners get to experience “Though none go with me, I still will follow.”

When God reveals a lie that I’ve believed, it’s usually painful. But it is an exhilarating process and increases my faith. The writers in my critique group who wrote for Love Inspired Suspense always incorporated a lie that their heroes and heroines believed: to be overcome before the end of the novel.

But what happens when it isn’t just a lie about your worthiness or purpose, but a lie about your faith? And what if it’s a dozen at once, more confusion than you can handle, so you are not sure if you can trust what is truth from your entire foundation?

I feel like continuing to build upon lies because you don’t want to lose your faith is more dangerous than realizing that you have something weak in the foundation and then inspecting or tearing it down.

A few years ago, some of my foundational bricks eroded.

An existential crisis of faith can become a spring cleaning if you don’t fear what you’ll find. Be more afraid of ignoring it. Deconstruction for me was merely inspecting which bricks were made of hay and stubble, fingering them out of the foundation, and replacing them with something worthy.

I guess that’s more like dismantling. When you want to keep all the good parts of a machine but pull every piece out and line them up to find the broken cog and replace it.

When terms take on baggage, we can try renaming them. But that’s just semantics. If everyone started using the new term, replacing deconstruction with dismantling or something else, it would just morph in definition and still offend some and not others.

Dismantling Human Tradition

For me, deconstruction was not questioning the Bible. But it has involved not fixating on single word inerrancy and literalism. Because it’s a simplistic translation that says Eve was created from Adam’s rib. Man doesn’t have one missing rib and, metaphorically, the word could mean side. As in, a side of man that is no longer in him is now embodied in woman.

But more than multiple translations of a single word—I’ve had to wrestle with the way the Bible was deciphered in our country and era. It was through the lens of human tradition that made me assume what certain things in the Bible meant.

As I’ve altered my view on eternal conscious torment I realized my belief can reinforce my understanding of scripture when I’m reading.

Some form of deconstruction has to happen to every believer. At least everyone who comes to faith as a child or is raised under someone else’s faith. That’s how to make what you’ve heard your own faith.

We also need to dissect things we’ve heard that were just a tangent of someone else’s faith journey. A situation where you never heard the resolution, only the plaguing question. “Why did he have to die?”

Or maybe we only heard the answer to something, but not the process. This is frequent in the New Testament. We’re often given a specific answer to a specific question in a context that is not explained, because everyone knew it. “Women cover your heads.”

Misunderstood

Premarital sex in the church comes with a lot of shame, so I remember someone quoting to me, “The marriage bed is sacred.” It was lovely… very redeeming… and good in the moment I first heard it. But it was also quoted to imply that “everything goes” in the marriage bed. If you’re married, it’s kosher…

Without the whole-Bible framework, this example of misquoting scripture can become license for anything. Because the verse is actually a command to, “Keep the marriage bed sacred.” Imagine my surprise when I found it written very different than free-license. Keep the marriage bed sacred is a lot more congruent with the whole of scripture which says God will judge fornicators and adulterers.

The Letter of the Law But Not the Heart

Scripture does not need to be misquoted to be taken out of the whole-heart of the gospel. If you read that someone cannot deny their spouse intimacy without also applying God’s design for equality, consent, and selfless love, it allows marital rape and oppression.

Or the popularly quoted OT scripture that a girl must marry her rapist. At the time, and still in some current cultures, a rape victim was utterly destroyed. She became ineligible for marriage, and since children were the only way to provide for her future, she would be completely destitute. So, giving her “raised status” as a wife, in a home, and then not being allowed to divorce her actually redeemed her living needs.

This is why I bristle when someone wants to look up a scripture to prove a point.

Be careful when you accept thoughts and statements that sound biblical. Be careful when you quote a portion of the text without the whole-heart, or use it as a weapon against yourself or others. You might lay a brick of stubble in someone’s foundation.

Also, be wary of taking your interpretation or personal directive as prescriptive law. Just because God revealed to you that you should not masturbate, it doesn’t mean you should tell the whole high school youth group that masturbation is sin. Rather, share how God can speak individually through the heart of scripture for a specific need in the moment.

Acts 18:24-26 says Apollos was mighty in scripture and knew many things but a husband and wife team, Priscilla and Aquila, took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.

More Accurately

Some many people have used the verse “God hates divorce” as a weapon. God hates me, or God hates that a person got divorced. It’s quoted with disregard that God is speaking about hating the violence of divorce against the vulnerable, inside of a covenant which should protect them. Doesn’t it make more sense that he hated the blood on the garments of men who abused women by treating them like objects and divorcing them?

Yet, my grandma couldn’t teach Sunday school because she’d been divorced. That’s human tradition.

The Bible Project App has a great series right now about the Sermon on the Mount. You listen to a pleasant reading of scripture, a snippet of a discussion, and a short video commentary each week while working through the passage.

Week 20 speaks to divorce, and it helped me wrestle with some of the misquoted verses and lies I’ve always had. (Week 18 also validated why looking at someone with lust dehumanizes them.)

The Bible Project unpacks the specific question surrounding that cultural debate of divorce. It speaks to a situation which doesn’t align perfectly today, since men can’t cast aside their wives without income and protection because she ruins dinner. But when we take this reply from Jesus and repeat the Bible literally word for word, we think the only legit reason for divorce is infidelity.

Human tradition uses the Bible to justify social power. Dismantling and deconstruction can remove the barbs of weaponized, incomplete thoughts from scripture to see the larger context of God’s provision for humanity. Dismantling human tradition has been beautiful. I am meeting a good God.

Deconstruction isn’t just pulling the entire structure down because of tragedy or tough things you don’t understand. It’s testing all the bricks with fire. And even if most of them burn up—can’t God build from the ground anew? All we need is the cornerstone. Hold on to Christ and wrestle with everything else.

You don’t need a brick that says “7 day creation with dinosaurs.” You don’t need a brick that says “musical instruments and dim lighting followed by a 35 minute, three-point sermon.”

I mean… wasn’t the Jesus freak movement just removing the bricks that said, “men can’t have long hair” and, “you must wear shoes to church?”

Don’t fear the wilderness if your worthless structure is burning down. Let human traditions turn to ash, keep only the cornerstone.

Just before you came in…

Posted on by Hilarey

Years ago, I was at a home group where everyone discussed works versus faith.

We’re saved by grace through faith, but the idea of this necessary component of works comes from James, who says, “I will show you my faith by my works.” It shows up in other places of scripture as well, indicating that you might not have faith if it doesn’t manifest as fruit in your life. For example, 1 John 3:17, “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?”

But back to the home group, the conversation turned to how you can’t have faith without works…but you can display works without faith. Still, we are told to discern this way.

Someone suggested that the more dramatic a life of sacrifice looked, the less we should assume they’re saved. I don’t believe this, just be an observer with me. People were joking around and someone commented that Mother Teresa might not even know God. No disrespect was intended, I believe her journals prove she was working out her faith with fear and trembling, as we’re told to. The point: when you judge a life by its appearance of fruit—it can look like it’s flourishing when it isn’t.

Someone arrived late to the home group. The facilitator gave a one-sentence summary of our discussion. The latecomer blurted something to the effect of, “As far as doing good works, I’m just going to stand next to Mother Teresa!”

Awkward chuckles. Followed by silence.

The thing about jokes is that they rarely have the same impact of humor in the retelling. You need to be there in the moment. And since the joke wasn’t worthwhile—why take time to embarrass the latecomer, just so he could be on the inside of it? Maybe it would have worked if the people were close, but it was the first time meeting together.

Validation through conflict

Have you ever had an experience where you said something, feeling authoritative, only to have the listener reply, “Hmm, interesting,” or just move along? There have been times I’ve listened to a rant and realized it wasn’t worth the energy to comment.

Silence, in the wake of opinion, sounds similar to deference. But I don’t think that’s a reason to clarify or contradict. I think it’s health to come to a place where you don’t need others to know where you stand.

Here are two instances where it isn’t worth bringing someone up to speed:

First, when they’re missing too much information, and your level of intimacy, or desired intimacy, doesn’t require them to be “in the know.”

Second, when you know them well enough to know that their opinions are deep-seated, but you don’t need to convince them differently in order to love them.

If you want to bring someone up to speed, keep in mind that for most people, the first reaction will be to defend their statement regardless. I’ve read that we can feel a fight/flight response when we think someone is disagreeing with us. What a spectacle to imagine the home group trying to clarify everyone’s intention and Mother Teresa’s faith when it wasn’t the point, and no one knew her.

Ask yourself when you consider challenging someone or bringing them into your knowledge, “What is my end goal?” Is the goal increased intimacy? Or just a fleeting feeling of rightness? A semblance of validation through conflict?

The result might not be worth the cost.

Intimacy with disagreement

I’m in a nonfiction book club right now and every time I hear, “I disagree,” I actually feel happy, because disagreement can be an invitation to intimacy, to wrestle.

These women know each other well and don’t require agreement to love each other. They’re working out the topic together and individually. They don’t need the journey to match each other’s. But not everyone has this trust with you.

Don’t assume in the wake of people’s silence that the volume of your words, the intensity of your conviction, and the persuasiveness of your argument has brought them over to your belief.

What’d I miss?

When you blurt out some opinion with gusto and everyone awkwardly chuckles—or is silent—it might just be that you missed something.

Because it isn’t always deference when people let you say your opinions. Sometimes they’re just ignoring you.

Blessed is Everyone Who Eats Bread in the Kingdom of God

Posted on by Hilarey

The first time I heard the scripture in Matthew 7:21-23, I quickly applied it to others. In subsequent readings, it unsettled me. I’ve come to a place where it keeps me company with a content sort of fear and trembling. I don’t get it, but I accept it. It goes:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'”

I mean, if someone is performing dead works and doesn’t know God—they realize they’re a fake, right? Apparently not, if they say “Lord” and are surprised when they don’t get to enter heaven.

One method I used during the “it must apply to a different flavor of Christianity than mine” season, was to lump whole denominations into the story. There were surely more chosen in my denomination…otherwise I’d switch (non)denominations. So, it must be the ecumenical Baptists because they let everyone in. Or maybe it’s the Southern Baptists because they don’t let anyone in—even light.

It doesn’t apply to me

Have you ever sat in a sermon thinking about someone who needed it more than you? When I consider this, it’s funny to assume that something which separates my bone and marrow will cut someone else the same. If there were catchphrases which always reaped the lost, we wouldn’t need the word to be living.

Blessed Assurance

Don’t get me wrong, we shouldn’t be insecure about our salvation. We can have an anchor for the soul if we continue in the faith and submit to sanctification. So maybe that passage in Matthew applies to the “one and done prayer” people who think repeating Roman’s Road after someone else negates all other inner spiritual transformation…

Maybe it applies to me

I’m only kidding to point out that it’s difficult to sit and let every bit of the message be personal. It’s easier to separate ourselves and think in terms of “us” and “them” when we read things like that section in Matthew or the parable of 10 virgins. No one expecting to go to the feast wants to be locked out. It feels a little like self preservation to define who is/will be on the outside. But dismissing this story too quickly offers temporal feelings of safety at best. And at worst, it might put you on the wrong side of a locked door.

I’m writing this post especially to believers who feel outside—unwelcome in church. The people who have separated you as “them” might just be afraid to internalize warnings in scripture. It is to a Bible reader’s detriment to accept the many promises in the New Testament without acknowledging how much of it is believer-correction and believer-warning.

I’m intrigued how often I hear the sentiment from a scholar, “There are many interpretations of this passage,” and then from a layperson, “Two things can’t be true and I know what this incomplete sentence in the King James Bible means, so you’re wrong.”

It is also to our detriment to merely collect information. “What does the Bible say about that?!” Then fortify the walls around our understanding of doctrine so we never feel the painful disruption of Christ changing us.

Everyone is invited

When a man exclaimed in Luke 14, “Blessed it is everyone who eats bread in the kingdom,” Jesus replied with another parable. The scene is a landowner who has prepared a feast and wants his tables filled. The invitees give excuses why they cannot come:

Buying a field
Managing the necessities to work it
Getting married

Buy dirt and find your soul mate (or at least someone who turns you on) is American, not biblical. Even though we were told to be fruitful and multiply, and land and kids are a good way to secure your earthly future, they are not what we were made for. The house and kids package is not inherently righteous or unrighteousness.

But rather, it seems to be a distraction from the actual landowner’s kingdom-invitation: to feast in heaven with outcasts.

Citizenship and progeny

Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say, “The LORD will surely separate me from his people”; and let not the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.” Isaiah 56:3.

Some impact is lost if your Bible translation says stranger, foreigner, or sojourner. All languages change, but English, especially, is a moving target. If you use relevant terms like migrant farm worker, or “illegal” (undocumented immigrant) you’ll sit up a little straighter when you read the Old Testament. Because I don’t know any strangers, but I do know immigrants.

Eunuch is another term that doesn’t live in our modern vernacular. You don’t hear many people talking about a life of celibacy. Of course, that might be because if anyone said they planned to live a life of celibacy, most (Protestant) churchgoers would correct them, “You mean, you’re still waiting for God to bring you a mate.” Or, if someone says they are celibate-gay, the latter part typically overshadows the calling.

Jesus mentions intersex, people who have had their sexuality ruined by others and people who simply choose celibacy in Matthew 19:12, “For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”

I was told there would be bread here?

We should give even more contemplation to the promises given to the foreigner and the eunuch in Isaiah 56 because it seems to highlight two big controversies in American churches. Immigrants and celibate-gay/people who can’t or won’t have sex. I like the NIV title added for chapter 56. “Salvation for Others.”

The Other

Specifically, the one without a land or a people who joins themself to the Lord will be brought to the holy mountain (you know the place—everyone is fighting over it) and permitted into the house of prayer.

Specifically, the one who has given their sexuality to God, who holds tight His covenant, will have a monument within God’s house that surpasses sons and daughters.

Buying land
Managing your stuff
Getting married

It is the “them” or “other” who enters God’s sabbath rest that will be gathered with the chosen Isreal.

But regardless of whether you identify in the “us” or “them” group, let anyone who thinks that they stand take heed, lest they fall.

Here’s What You Need to Do

Posted on by Hilarey

Recently, we watched a television series called Ted Lasso. It’s about an American football coach who goes to England to coach a British football team (soccer). There are three guys who periodically show up, watching the matches from a pub. They are either hugging each other, or screaming at the TV, depending on how the team is doing. To me, this is an icon of sports fans: somebody who couldn’t run a mile, yelling at an athlete to jump higher and run faster. Then, without any sacrifice, enjoying a sense that they were part of the conquering. But I am not super competitive, so likely there’s something I’m missing.

A yoke you couldn’t bear

It’s fun to brainstorm a book that you don’t have to write. Likewise, to offer advice that you don’t have to follow. Advice-givers can be another version of an armchair warrior.

It’s easy to demand that a teenager reign in their passions when you’ve had constant access to sex through marriage for several decades, your libido has waned with age… and you didn’t actually wait either. I’m not saying you shouldn’t tell them what God says about sexuality—but try to remember what it was like to yearn.

A spring of both fresh and salt water

Younger people are listening to everything you say. But they’re also thinking about how and why you say it. Both the intentional words you tell them and the complaints you mutter to yourself.

Previous generations said to get married, but then called their spouse a ball and chain.

They insisted that all you need to do need to do is to find a job you love, but complain about work or insist retirement is the best thing that ever happened. Then spend all their time talking about inflation and how it is impossible to live no matter what you do, and the government will take everything you ever earn, anyway.

And many say that God is on the throne, but live in despair after the election.

Do not think you are offering advice that will fix a young person’s future when you are also defeating their hopes for the future. I think this is like the spring of fresh and salt water (blessing and cursing) James 3:10 says should not come out of our mouths.

And the following generations watch even more than they listen. So if you live in fear and despair, a motivational speaker from the world appears to offer more solutions than your church.

Try inviting those you love to the good and abundant life God promised on earth—not a life filled with negativity and despair.

Maledicion

The power of our words should create a knee-shaking awe. Matthew 18:18 says, “Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” It’s worth meditating on that section.

Telling someone “You are so far from God” is like prophesying over their life. Why not instead speak “You are never so far that the arm of the Lord cannot reach you?”

You would not speak a bad word over your child (or anyone you loved) if you believed your words bound and loosed things in both heaven and earth.

Choose your audience

Sometimes it is good to be as raw as an open wound in front of someone with a more fragile faith—when it is about your faith walk. But sometimes, when it should be about them, clean and bandage that up before you expose it.

Keep people close who can hear your work-in-progress of pain and fear. You can wrestle your curse out loud to God, or to someone who will let you take it back. But for others, finish that psalm before you speak it. David didn’t always start off holy, but he usually finishes in praise.

Finishing a psalm with unanswered prayers

Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster says, “to understand that the work of prayer involves a learning process, saves us from arrogantly dismissing it as false or unreal.” So if prayer isn’t working, he says to find out what’s broken. Maybe we have asked amiss, that we may spend it on our passions. Maybe we’re using mindless, repetitive words. Possibly we need to grow patience and faith, and God wants us to persevere so we know the answer came from him.

If you are a married man, consider how you are treating your wife if you think your prayers are hindered. But truly, it matters how any of us treat other humans. Emphasis on the “other,” since it’s godless and lazy to only love people in your tribe. Believers are warned, do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive so you will be forgiven.

And if you have caused offense, ask for forgiveness from the person before you come before the Lord. Which is hard. It’s really easier to justify your part, or pretend like it didn’t happen, and hope the other person gets over it. But how we think about and interact with others is a component to having our prayer heard…

Giving up and calling it God’s will

Defeatism about someone’s eternal election doesn’t line up with the statements of a God who desires that none should perish. “Maybe they just aren’t chosen. The Bible does say there will be a great apostasy…giant sigh.”

Foster also says in Celebration of Discipline that sometimes it is a lack of compassion on our part. “If we genuinely love people, we desire for them far more than it is within our power to give, and that will cause us to pray.” I think it’s also a great tool of the enemy to try to hide our power from us or diminish our authority by instilling a fear that we can’t know God’s will and we have to tiptoe around it in prayer. One of the points of prayer is to align yourself with God’s will. So don’t give up.

God’s coworkers

I don’t mean to indicate any kind of prosperity doctrine—but, believer, what if you could change the outcome instead of heralding the impending doom?

Jesus told his followers John 15:7, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.”

Don’t forget that Moses pleaded and changed God’s mind! God also withheld the punishment he threatened Nineveh after they repented, and Abraham interacted with God in a way that indicates he could have stopped the destruction of Sodom, but at least he was able to save his family.

Pleasant words are like honeycomb

In America, we think fanny is a cute word like bootie, bum or derrière. It was a modestly popular woman’s name until the 19th century. But, it’s quite vulgar in Ireland.

Vulgarity is like modesty and has a cultural context that morphs depending on the era.

A favorite quote of mine from The Count of Monte Cristo talks about this kind of change. “The difference between treason and patriotism is only a matter of dates.”

What if a curse isn’t a word like jackass or bitch (two benign words in animal husbandry a few hundred years ago) but words that diminish a fellow human’s hope?

Stop giving your fear a voice. Rather, pray in your rightfully entitled power. If you do open your mouth, prophesy life and build up like it says in Ephesians 4:29, instead of speaking malediction over the ones you love.

Uncovered

Posted on by Hilarey

I once asked my pastor why a woman had to have her hair covered in church. He gave me so many words that it was clear he didn’t know. During a lull, his wife chimed in something about how a married woman’s hair should be covered, because her husband is over her, and he is uncovered before God.

That pastor ended up cheating on his wife. It seems some coverings have holes.

A husband as a covering

Submission, leadership and washing with the Word… Women want their husband to create an environment where it is safe to submit, for him to lead correctly and to keep truth raining down.

Sometimes, though, a husband’s “covering” can be an excuse for a lazy pursuit of God. Early in my marriage, I thought my husband should initiate Bible study, prayer, and worship. All three, not just one. It’s easier to be thin with a personal trainer & chef, so maybe it’d be easier to follow God if your husband took care of it for both of you.

Without a covering

But then I met unmarried women and women with unsaved husbands who were devout in their walk, and diligent in their personal prayer and fasting. They had to be. They didn’t have a husband-excuse to blame it on.

“It’s not about what you want…it’s about what I want,” he said.

I think it was popular a generation ago to say that the husband is the head, so he’s in charge of everything. Finances being a favorite example in Christian marriage books—regardless of who has the skill or time, or who needs to notice how the spending affects the family. I’ve met a few women from that era who were blindsided when his promise of “I’ve got it taken care of,” left her bereft and penniless at his death.

We are told in the New Testament to submit to him but not given details about what that looks like. And being the boss of everything wasn’t how Christ interacted with his disciples. Using the same example of finances: one of the twelve was treasurer. Christ, as the head, did not control the money bag. Even though Judas was stealing.

How was Christ the “head”? He degraded himself with serving to the point of Peter’s embarrassment.

Even if you are both individually fervent in your pursuit, linking your life to another changes your walk. When only one of you is elevated, man or woman, it’s easy to forget you’re on the same team.

Wives submit to your own husbands…but not like the women in the Bible

In Joshua 7, Achan sinned and stole from the Lord. I often wonder about his wife. Did she submit to him when he brought the plunder into their tent? It helps me sleep to tell myself that she must have helped him hide it. But did she really have a choice when men could divorce their wives and leave them, without education or provision, on a whim? It matters because—when he was caught, his entire family was killed, including her, their sons and daughters. Was it good to submit to him?

I know the most thorough way to punish a man is to kill off everything he loves, his progeny and, therefore, his name along with him. In movies, they even kill his dog. We see it in other places in the Bible as well, like the men who tried to feed Daniel to the lions but ended up being thrown in with their wives and children. So maybe Joshua was showing the severity of disobedience to God. We don’t know if the whole family sinned with Achan. I’m just observing the fact that, as a wife, your husband’s actions affect your life and future. Apparently, even for the chosen, as in this story, but also when Sarah obeyed Abraham. She was rewarded by being sent into a harem, twice.

The Bible makes a point to say that the second man “didn’t go near her,” but not the first. In fact, Pharoah said, “Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife?” We talk about how Sarah is in the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11. But she is mentioned there because she believed God, not because she let her husband prostitute her. Although, I could be wrong, and it is a credit to Sarah that she submitted in this way. Free agency is a relatively new concept for women.

Submission to a mere man outside the will of God will destroy you. This could be anything from letting him remain abusive to bringing someone else into your marriage bed. Submitting does not mean following him into sin.

There will be consequences for you if you sin.

Submit to God first

Moses was supposed to circumcise his son in Exodus 4, but didn’t. The Lord was on his way to kill him. His wife, Zipporah, could have followed him obediently, but instead, she did the circumcising. She saved Moses’ life by taking charge of the situation.

David wanted help from Nabal but the man was surly and mean. David would have destroyed him and his family. Nabal’s wife, Abigail, could have just submitted. But instead, she took action outside of the will of her husband. It saved her husband’s life and her own. Later, David married her, un-submissiveness and all.

So women risk consequences if they follow their husband into sin and, likewise, they will suffer consequences if their husband is just surly, rebellious, or broken like the rest of us.

However, I believe men will have an individual reckoning because they have been entrusted with more power. And, it isn’t like my soul-health doesn’t affect my husband’s life and future.

A good way to look at it is how Daniel lived in Babylon. He honored the king, but didn’t defile himself with the king’s food. He sought the best thing for the kingdom, but still did what was right even when it was illegal.

Don’t lead him into sin

It can go both ways. Because, if he loves you as he loves his own body, he will bend to your wind. So don’t make the excuse that he is the leader and responsible for both of your sin.

Hamam took advice from his wife Zeresh (and his friends), to build a pole to kill his enemy. In Esther 7:10, Haman himself is impaled.

Jezebel advised her husband in 1 Kings 21 and “There was never anyone like Ahab, who sold himself to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, urged on by Jezebel, his wife.” She was eaten by dogs, for her reckoning.

Taking your own initiative

I remember whispers about a woman who went a little wonky in her doctrine. The probable cause? She was attending church without her husband, so it was easier for her to be led astray. As though males are impervious to false doctrine.

I think it’s a misinterpretation/misassumption that females are more likely to be deceived simply because Eve was deceived. If this were true, then by the same measure, since Adam was not tricked, you could say men are more likely to be rebellious and stand by watching their wives sin, flaccidly wondering what’ll happen. Then blame her for it.

How long should a woman wait for a husband’s covering, initiative, leading? Should she wait with her kids as though a covering of a husband can fill in for the blood of Christ? Or should an uncovered woman cut away the extra flesh like Zipporah?

Only Christ can cover you

At the judgement seat, we will stand before God. And sister, you will not be able to say, “It was the man that you gave me, Lord.” That excuse has holes.