The Runaway Bride and Redemption

Yesterday the students and I had a very animated discussion of God’s design for marriage as we walked through parts of Hosea. I will apply the part of the prophet’s story (read the Old Testament prophet Hosea if you haven’t, and blush modestly) when God sends Hosea to love and retrieve his prostitute/wife and he purchases her for pennies:

God commanded Hosea to love her, but please understand that God was not commanding a feeling. He was commanding Hosea to do the loving thing. You can imagine how difficult this must have been for Hosea.

Therefore, behold, I will allure her, bring her into the wilderness and speak kindly to her. Hosea 2:14

So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a half of barley. Hosea 3:2

He paid fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a half of barley for her. To give that context, the owner of a male or female slave in Israel had to be paid thirty pieces of silver by a man whose ox gored the slave to death (Exodus 21:32). Gomer must have been seen as damaged merchandise.

Away with the man-centered theology that tells us Jesus’ death shows us how much we are worth. Our stomachs should rightly churn when we hear Christians tell us that if we had been the only people on earth Jesus would have died just for us. Please. Jesus didn’t die because we are special but because we are sinful. In truth He died for the Father, to satisfy wrath.

Look at this woman as she is. She is a low, selfish, sneaky prostitute who is reaping the consequences of her own actions. She stands there naked on the auction block and her bid is lower than the damages required for a dead slave. Her worth is not inherent. Her identity is nothing apart from the man who bought her back. This is not the story of human worth but the story of God’s love and faithfulness.

This is all about redemption. You have seen the creation as God intended it. You have seen the horrid, destructive effects of the fall. Now you see the bloody price of redemption. God loves His people. That means he is committed to His people.

After all she (Israel) did to Him, He chased her down, bought her back and took her home. Praise Him. Guess what happens when you love someone like that? You start to love them. Notice the emotion-filled declaration of love the Lord gives to His own rescued bride. Ponder what kind of love is this:

How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I surrender you, O Israel? Hosea 11:8

You and I are the unfaithful bride. We are more evil than we could ever imagine. Yet we are more loved than we could ever hope. We have been loved. We have been rescued. Ours is to respond. Ours is to sing the songs of the redeemed.

You respond both vertically and horizontally. Your relationships will look different when you order them in light of the price that was paid for you. Your delight in the Lord cannot help but bring you to delight in the people in your life He has given you to serve.

Adventure report: I forgot my flashlight at home but I do have my cell phone. Last night I needed it because our generator ran out of gas and our battery bank eventually discharged. It was quite warm and dark. No rain.

The night was largely sleepless because of a combination of factors. In my waking hours I could hear a large group of people in the distance talking, singing and eventually screaming. I will withhold judgment until a Haitian explains it to me, but it didn’t sound good.

Give your wife a stroke

Yesterday we arrived at several sessions in my counseling track on what a family is and what a family should look like. We spent an hour on what God’s kind of woman/wife/mother looks like and a much more in-your-face hour on what God’s kind of man/husband/father looks like.

We contrasted the evil woman from Proverbs with the virtuous woman from Proverbs and elsewhere. Defining biblical manhood, we talked about how God designed Adam to enjoy and glorify Him and His gifts (which included his wife and his work and all the beauty around him). We observed the home as the place God ordained to be a microcosm of dominion, economy, creativity and industry.

Today we are tackling “Hosea, Redemption and Marriage.”

Adventure report: We have a refreshing rain almost every night, which slightly cools the temperatures but makes the air smell and feel like the tropical building at the zoo.

I was reminded yesterday why I brush my teeth with bottled water and keep my mouth closed in the shower. The “city water” is in an underground cistern, which is periodically pumped to a roof cistern. The lid to the lower cistern is on the garage floor. It reminds me of the sewer pit in my dad’s garage where he washes all the dirt.

The “Mourning to Morning” guesthouse we are renting is owned by an American who owns a car dealership here in Petionville. After the quake he decided to return to Boston. The house is beautifully designed and located near the end of a cul de sac. Razor wire tops the surrounding concrete walls like most upper class homes. The poorer people stick broken glass into the mortar on top of their walls. 

"Faith is not unreasonable, but it will take you beyond your ability to reason." -Paul Tripp

We are getting ready to head north today. There is only so much one can absorb in five days and most of our group testify to having full "knowers."

Last night's plenary session was an excellent message from Paul Tripp about faith. He argued persuasively from Scripture that, while the Christian faith is reasonable, it sometimes takes us beyond our ability to reason. In other words, faith trusts in God's revealed character even when His works take us beyond our ability to understand.

Some in our day have re-defined faith as some mystical energy we work up within ourselves by which we create reality with our powerful words. Others argue that faith is an unreasoned leap into the darkness. No.

The Bible uncovers the character, the commands and the promises of God. This is the basis of faith. But circumstances are often hard to reconcile with what we know about God. Faith is trusting what we know for sure even when circumstances scream that God cannot be trusted. Faith clings tightly to God's character in the face of the worst pressures anyone can face. Because God asked them to do it...

• Abraham could build an altar to sacrifice the son whom God said would be his heir. 
• Daniel and his friends could obey God and stand against majority opinion and the possibility of execution. 
• The promised Messiah could go to the cross.

As a shepherd/counselor my task is not only to set up encounters with the living God so people will trust Him even when life makes no sense, my task is to embrace those redemptive purposes myself.

Today before a closing session track four is studying Crisis Management for the Believer (Kevin Carson) and Building Godly Friendships (Amy Baker). The first session should provide fodder for my preparation to return to my friends in Haiti.

I anticipate pushing the limits of the traffic enforcement to get home to my bride and little people.

“God, I marvel that You want anything to do with us, we are so stupid and sucky.”

I picked the title for this post from the session-opening prayer by Jocelyn Wallace, director of Vision of Hope Residential Treatment Center here in Lafayette, because it reflects a refreshing attitude in contrast to our self-esteem culture.

Mrs. Wallace works with young women from age 14-28 who struggle with a wide range of problems. She taught a workshop called "Counseling Those Struggling with Their Sexual Identity." I chose this topic for today's post because those of us who belong to the generation doing the parenting and counseling of young people are largely ignorant that those very young people are immersed in a sexually explicit and sexually confused culture.

The challenge is to both teach a biblical view of sexuality as well as model it. If we do not respond we are pushing the problem off on the next generation of Christian parents and teachers. We tend to fear a number of things:

1. Falling into the immorality we are fighting in the culture
2. Becoming exposed because we have become absorbed in our own forms of immorality
3. Having to provide an example in our own homes of how a marriage ought to run
4. Having to overcome our laziness and inattentiveness in failing to teach our children how to biblically define family, sexuality and marriage

Jocelyn pointed out that we should resist calling people "gay" or "lesbian" because that is a subtle indication that we accept those terms as the identity of those people. In truth, these are people who have been caught up in sexual sin, but their identity is not wrapped up in their behavior. For example, you do not become "country" or "goth" just by dressing that way. The confusion over gender roles may be reflected in the unisex dress of our world, but the real issue is the attitude of the heart. Many (most) young people have grown up thinking we get to decide what we are and do not know what it means to be masculine or feminine.

Rather than cave in to the culture, the Church needs to communicate that the greatest pleasure in this world is to to find our identity in the way God made us and to delight in the boundaries He has established for our good and His glory.

Blogging from BCTC

Several people from our church will be attending the Biblical Counseling Training Conference in Lafayette, Indiana February 7-12. You can attend the conference vicariously by following the synopses of daily sessions here.

Fix Your Ball Mark and One Other

We Christian fundamentalists (in the 1909 sense of the word) and conservative evangelicals are right. We are right about the inerrancy of Scripture. We are right about the virgin birth. We are right about the deity of Christ. We are right about the substitutionary atonement. We are right about the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are right about the validity of biblical miracles.

It is so hard to be humble when you are so right.

That is why it is hard for us to manage the situation when one of us does something wrong. This brings us to our text for this study:

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. For each will have to bear his own load. Galatians 6:1-5 (ESV)

Set aside for a moment the scandalous things Christian leaders have done to make headlines. What about the Christians you personally know who have behaved sinfully? You know their names. You can see their faces. You may still see the fallout that resulted from their sin. How have you responded when you have seen these things? If you could go back in time, what do you wish you had done differently?

Consider this scenario: You have a Christian friend, Dan, who is very bright and who has done well for himself financially. He has been somewhat aloof from you and from the church for a few months, but he comes often enough that you chalk it up to the natural ebb and flow of relationships. You would rather not offend him by asking if there is a problem.

You receive a phone call one night from Tammi, his wife, who informs you that Dan, the Bible study leader who would never have darkened the door of a casino, has been staying up all hours of the night at Internet gaming sites. Dan has developed an online gambling habit. He has landed the family in so much debt that they may lose their home. Now an uncharacteristic emotional explosion by Dan at work has cost him his job. Tammi says that Dan now claims to be repentant but she thinks it is too late for their marriage. She says she is leaving him and moving out of state with the children as soon as arrangements can be made. She reports that Dan is an emotional wreck and is so depressed that he won’t even eat. No one else at church knows and she requests that you not embarrass the family by telling anyone.

What do you do in that situation? Does the Bible say anything about this? You do not have any “lifelines.” Surveying the audience, phoning a friend and 50-50 are not options. You know you want to do what pleases God, but you are likely afraid of what might happen.

If you would call this story fictitious, you would be correct, but I can tell you true stories even more heart-breaking about professing Christians—including pastors—who have messed up their lives with drugs, alcohol, pornography, immorality, shoplifting, uncontrolled anger, poor financial stewardship and untamed tongues. Everyone has a response when faced with situations like this, but the most common responses include the extremes of either ignoring the problem or over-reacting to it.

You need to do something and you need to do it the right way. Going about the messy business of restoring a fallen saint is usually time-consuming and often heart-breaking, but it is never useless. Will there be some people you try to help who are not truly repentant or who will not want your help? Yes. But your obedience to the commands of God’s word should never be hindered by your fears that some people will not like what you are doing.

Observe some key words from this text and see what actions please God in the face of brothers or sisters who, like Dan, are trapped by their own sin.

CAUGHT

Paul speaks in verse one about being “caught” in a transgression. This has been translated “trapped,” and carries the idea of being surprised. That is not to say that Christians who sin are passive victims. It is to say that people like Dan never intend for things to go as far as they usually do. Dan did not sit down at his computer one day and think, I plan to gamble so much online that I lose my job, my house and my family.

People who are caught in sin are certainly responsible for their own actions and are reaping the consequences of their sin. Does that disqualify them from your mercy?

RESTORE

Next comes your part. Paul says you are going to have to help. He uses the word “restore” as a command. This word was used in Matthew 4:21 and Mark 1:19 of Jesus’ disciples mending their fishing nets. It was used in New Testament times of setting a bone.

Restoring a fallen Christian is a procedure that requires as much gentleness as you would want your doctor to have if you broke your leg (see Galatians 5:22-23 to see that “spiritual” people are “gentle”). It calls for as much patience as you would need to untangle a fishing net and bring it back to working order.

The business of restoring requires you to touch the one who is broken. This may mean you spend a lot of time on the phone, at a restaurant or doing detective work to track down your running friend. This may mean you get much more information about the situation than you ever wanted to hear. This may mean emotional pain as you see the dreadful consequences of sin. Restore them anyway. It is your responsibility. Stay spiritually minded. Do it gently.

KEEP WATCH

There is a warning associated with this business. To “keep watch” means you are to pay close attention to yourself. This word was used of “noting” or “marking” the example of people, good or bad (Romans 16:17; Philippians 3:17). In this case you are the one who needs watching.

Taking on the role of “spiritual person” does not mean you have become immune to the malady from which your friend suffers. It is possible to get sucked into the same pit from which you are trying lift your fallen comrade. “That’s why I stay away from those situations,” some say. “It’s not worth the risk.” But do you remember all the “one another” commands of the New Testament? Your responsibility is not to avoid sinners, but to avoid sin. Serve others aggressively. Just watch yourself while you do it.

You are best equipped to take on the role of a helper in this situation if you are unsure of yourself—that is, aware of your own weakness. With that humble attitude, you will approach your friend with the gravity you both need.

Maybe you don’t even have a computer and would say that you could not do what your friend Dan did. This is where your pride brings you down. You may not have a computer or even know how to get on the Internet, but that was not Dan’s sin. Dan wanted something that promised to satisfy his desire for wealth. This was not about online gambling but about coveting. You are weak in that area. Watch yourself.

BEAR

The word “bear” simply means to “carry.” It is used in many ways in the New Testament, including bearing children, carrying sandals and holding anything from a pitcher of water to a funeral bier.

One use of the word fits well with the application we are making here. This word was used of Jesus carrying his cross (John 19:17) and of his call to his disciples to bear their cross (Luke 14:27). The burdens of others are ours and the ultimate example of burden bearing is Jesus, who bore our sins in his body on the cross.

People like Dan need brothers and sisters who to follow the one who was the perfect example of being other-focused and who carried their sins.

BURDENS

A “burden” is simply a weight. We like to forget what it is like to be guilty and know it. Living in the land of “look behind” is a miserable existence. Proverbs 13:15 (ESV) says, “Good sense wins favor, but the way of the treacherous is their ruin.” The KJV says, “the way of the transgressor is hard.”

When your brother is hurting—even if he is hurting because of his own sin—you should be hurting. Help him get up. People who can remember the release of sins forgiven are the best ones to help people weighed down by sin.

So how does that attitude look when it is applied to the “Dan” scenario?

There is no contradiction in calling the spiritual person to bear the burdens of others while at the same time bearing his or her own load. It is only our selfishness that wonders if that is fair. Ours is not to find others to bear our loads. Our is to carry our own and—if need be—theirs too. It’s kind of like the sign beside the green at the golf course that says, “Fix your own ball mark and one other.” Simple math tells you that you are being asked to take responsibility when someone else did not.

Ours is to look for burdens to bear. That is the other-focus so prominent in the New Testament, particularly in the “one another” texts.

It is easy to fall into one of two extremes when you see other believers in sin. One is to secretly take pleasure when they reap the consequences of their actions. The other is to do nothing because you are afraid of being called a meddler. There is a much better option. If you desire to please God, you will desire to lift up the fallen, to bear their burdens. In summary, here is how you can become God’s kind of burden-bearer:

1. Spend yourself, helping those who are in trouble because of their own sin.
2. Watch yourself, knowing you are susceptible to the same sins.
3. Manage yourself, paying more attention to your own responsibilities than to the responsibilities of others.

God supplies what he requires. Remember that the ultimate burden-bearer was also serving people trapped in sin. Make your ministry to sinners a sinner’s response to being rescued.

When Joking Becomes Judging

News reports the end of August were full of examples of people messing up. The one that seemed to draw the most media attention—particularly Internet media attention—was the response of a contestant in the Miss Teen USA pageant to a current events question. Lauren Caitlin Upton, Miss South Carolina, was asked this question: “Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can’t locate the US on a world map. Why do you think this is?”

Her response: “I personally believe that US Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don’t have maps and that I believe our education, such as in South Africa and the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, our education over here in the US, should help the US, or should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future.”

In our pride we may laugh at Miss Upton’s cryptic response. I know I did. I even made a hair color joke out of the story. But, in her defense, few of us know what it's like to have a microphone in our face in front of a national television audience. She is not unlike a lot of women you servants of the Lord end up counseling. A young girl finds herself in a vulnerable situation and does not handle it well. Her wrong response to the vulnerable situation brings mockery and even anger from those who see it.

The Lord Jesus met yet another woman who was subjected to the same kind of public scorn. John 8:1-11 records an incident where some religious leaders brought a woman to Jesus in the temple, claiming she had been caught in the act of adultery. Rather than rendering a verdict from the law of Moses, the Lord Jesus stooped and wrote things on the ground. Whatever he wrote served to show the woman's accusers that they had no business acting as legal prosecutors in this case. We do not know the history, the guilt or the innocence of the woman brought to Jesus, but we do know that he became a servant to her. For the purpose of this blog entry, let's focus on the work of the Lord Jesus toward vulnerable, sinful people—a work he continues today through us.

How are you doing what Jesus did? You can serve people in the same two ways he served this woman (and many others): providing refuge and truth.

Refuge: Like the woman brought to Jesus, many young women you encounter are being used by others. Can we really say the men who brought the woman to Jesus were genuinely interested in glorifying God by helping her? Can we really say all our jokes about the pageant contestant were neighbor-loving?

Truth: Like the woman brought to Jesus, many young women you encounter have made sinful choices. The Savior certainly did not consider the sin of the woman taken in adultery an unimportant matter. His last words called her to leave her life of sin. The Gospel of Christ provides more for us than a home in heaven. It provides help and hope for change right now. Truth is essential even if it is not popular. Evangelism and discipleship are the order of the day in Biblical Counseling.

We might well ask how many of the "accusers" of Miss Teen South Carolina offered her compassionate help in public speaking or geography. Better to identify yourself with the Savior than the accusers.