http://grandeprairiechristian.com/

The idea here is to help local believers expand their social circles and get to know fellow Christians from the neighbourhood. Introduce yourself online with a profile, get to know one another by participating in forums and chatrooms – but don’t leave it there; once you’ve made new friends, since the whole constituency will be local, you can make arrangements to get together in real life.

So if you’re (1) a Grande Prairie area resident; (2) at least 20 years old; and (3) a Christian – please join up and join in!

The essay includes treatment of Paul’s comments about “days and months and seasons and years” in Gal 4.10, as well as discussion of “the Lord of the Sabbath” passage (Mk 2.23-28) and a variety of related material.

This has really been a paper that I probably should have worked on long ago, given how often the subject comes up and I get involved in protracted discussions, but anyway… judging from the sorts of issues that have come up in conversations/debates I’ve been involved in, I think I’ve covered the major bases necessary. See what you think….

http://www.changeinthewind.ca

For various reasons, I have recently had occasion to start thinking about matters related to sociopolitical issues.

On a couple earlier occasions in my life, first as a late teen (when I actually contemplated going to university to major in Political Science) and then later when I was in my Reconstructionist period, politics were very high on my interest list. But when, for exegetical/biblical-theological reasons, I moved away from Reconstructionism/theonomy about a decade or so ago, I largely stepped away from those concerns.  I suppose part of that was due to the fact that, upon moving away from a directly theonomic approach, I wasn’t entirely sure how to think about politics.

I certainly do not claim now to have all the answers, but this new site is aimed at becoming an educational/discussion resource to help Canadian (in particular) Christians work through what we should be aiming for on a sociopolitical level,  as well as to help stimulate ideas for how we can serve our country on a less directly political level.

The site features four main sections: (1) Articles section dealing with various matters of principle, policy, values, etc; (2) Special features section for focusing on current events; (3) Categorized links library to help Christians find valuable articles etc around the web, as well as other web sites; and (4) a blog for keeping up conversation and commenting on current events or whatever. I am hoping to draft a few more contributors, as well.

At this point, the articles section has four articles available, dealing with foundational matters as well as economics and a summary piece on marriage/family/sexuality. There are a couple of substantive posts on the blog, and the links library has a modest beginning. As of yet, there are no special features on current events.

Anyway, do check it out, and pass on the news.

It’s beyond amazing what sort of gall both Miller and her editor displayed in this.

Vote with your pocketbook, is all I say. The media is becoming rapidly more contemptible and corrupt (and it wasn’t starting from a very high point to begin with).

The first thing that needs to be said is that I’m not going “Word of Faith.” That was a group that claimed that whenever you claimed something in real faith, it happened. I was raised indie Pentecostal, and even I was never that extreme.

But there is nonetheless a real sense in which God never says “No” to the prayer of faith.

The basis of this claim lies in Luke 11.13, part of a passage I have been reflecting on again as I was due to preach on it today.

We’re reading along in this little story about the man asking his friend for bread at midnight and getting further details about the one asking receiving (now there’s a clue that I’m not out to lunch in my title, by the way), and so on….

And all of a sudden we get blindsided.

You evil people know how to give good gifts to your children – how much more will My heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?

Now wait one cotton-pickin’ minute.

We were talking about the Holy Spirit? Weren’t we talking about bread?

And it’s a mistake to backtrack now and take all the preceding discussion to be metaphorical. Yes, I know that this little passage opens up with a sort of parable. But it’s part of a larger passage in which we are indeed told to pray for “our daily bread.”

There are a couple of layers to what Jesus is doing here.

First of all, in the first part of the chapter, He teaches His disciples the content of prayer, but in vv 5-13, the focus has moved on more to the how - the manner. And we can certainly see from Romans 8 that it is the Spirit that teaches us how to pray, and indeed, intercedes on our behalf, because our praying is in fact inadequate. And so even in our prayer for bread, the Father sends the Spirit so we can pray rightly.

But there is even more here than that, and as noted, we saw a hint already: those who ask receive, those who seek find, those who knock have the door opened to them.

And we say, “Really?” Because it often seems it isn’t so.

For my Facebook status, I put up the title of this post as a thought, and my friend Brian said: But God said “No” to Jesus Himself in Gethsemane.

And that is a good starting point for our reflection.

We could say that Jesus is unique. For, as the traditional Reformed communion liturgy says, Jesus was abandoned so that we may never be. In that sense, Jesus’ prayer could not be answered in order that ours always will be.

But there is even more in Jesus’ case. For God did answer Jesus in Gethsemane in the terms Jesus frames things Himself here in Luke 11.13.

The point is that when we pray, whatever we pray for – yes, when we pray for our daily bread – we are in fact at bottom praying for the Holy Spirit. The plea for bread is part of the plea of the coming kingdom (cf vv 2-4), and the Spirit is the earnest (down payment) of that inheritance. Even when He declines to fulfill many of the specifics of our prayers, God never simply answers with “No.” That would be a contradiction to Jesus’ promise that those who ask will (not may) receive.

Even as God answered Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane via equipping by the Spirit through an angel, God always answers our prayers of faith. Even when we do not see the specific thing we requested, we do receive – again – the Spirit.

And that, I think, is a very great encouragement. If we focus on the specific request we have made, we will start to feel that often God really doesn’t answer our prayers, after all – or at least, not reliably. But when we see the way Jesus has developed the nature of prayer in Luke 11, we are encouraged to pray, because we know that it is never wasted, never unanswered, that the one basic good will always be given to us.

And thus, God never says “No” to the prayer of faith.

In the face of a feminist culture, the Church struggles to respond in a biblical fashion. Of course, many virtually cave in to the surrounding ethos.

Others, however, resort to various levels of patriarchalism. Given the mess of our society, this can look quite attractive.

And I suppose that my own viewpoint would be considered patriarchalism of a sort, as well. It’s a tag I’ve been given by unbelieving folk, at any rate. I’m appalled by women who neglect their families for the sake of getting “fulfillment” through their careers, and by a great deal else that characterizes our culture. And on a more general level, I’m disturbed by women who talk like men, adopt manly mannerisms, and are offended if a man wishes to defer to them by opening a door.

Assumptions of Hyper-Patriarchalism

Still, there are some (to put it prejudicially) oddities out there on the “patriarchal” side of things – oddities frequently arising out of questionable assumptions or insufficient attention to biblical detail.

Along these lines are certain notions that women are always supposed to be under the familial headship of a man. (An article written a few years back by a single gal ran under the headline, “My Daddy Owns Me.”) Either a female belongs to her father, or she passes into the hands of her husband. Appeal is made to biblical examples where women are given in marriage by family arrangement, along with more general appeals to obedience of children to parents.

Biblical Culture vs Common Assumptions

Now, while I am very sympathetic to some form of the courtship model, and am a strong advocate of a return to biblical respect for authority, there are certain problems with the assumptions noted above.

First, the general call for obedience to parents is equally encumbent upon both male and female, and the overarching command is honour of one’s parents, which in the case of adults is not going to look like adolescent obedience. If an adult male is not under parental headship, it is not at all clear why an adult female must be.

Second, it is simply not the case that a woman was always under familial male headship – or was supposed to be. The obvious counterexample is that of widows. In certain circumstances (poverty was obviously a big reality for widows), a widow could return to her father’s household – but she didn’t have to. And as far as remarriage, Paul explicitly says she may marry whomever she will, only in the Lord (1 Cor 7.39). (As an aside, note that he doesn’t tell her to ask her pastor to be her surrogate father, whether for the sake of finding and evaluating a potential suitor or anything else.)

Third, the apparent parental control of marriage in Scripture is in fact more limited than is sometimes supposed. We aren’t told, for example, that Isaac had to marry Rebekah; and as for her part, she was asked whether she would go with the man sent to find Isaac a bride. In truth, she left when her family was dragging their heels. In any case, there are a variety of courtship models displayed in Scripture, and it is not quite convincing to appeal to the handful of so-called “arranged” marriages as the norm. (Funny how nobody in the patriarchal camp champions Ruth’s womanly pursuit of Boaz as normative. Any woman who makes the first move is obviously “unfeminine.”)

Moreover, girls in ancient Israel apparently married at an average age of 12-16 years old. Which means that they were never single adults at all. Hence it is no real surprise that they were under male headship until they become widows. The real question is whether the norms applied to adolescent females ought to be applied to grown women who happen to remain single. (Another question is whether old covenant norms on this matter ought to be applied across the board into the new covenant situation, given the new accent upon singleness in the Lord’s service; more on this below.)

Looking beyond such issues to matters of whether women should be active in the business of society (yes, that is sometimes questioned), it is to be observed that the godly wife of Proverbs 31 is not only industrious within her own four walls, but carries out a real estate transaction on her own, and deriving from that field she makes sufficient living to plant a vineyard (Prov 31.16). She markets her goods (31.24) and bestows help upon the poor (31.20). She is, in short, a very public figure, and makes many big decisions of her own accord.

Patriarchalism vs Single Service

Tying these two threads together, it is to be noted that the New Testament, in particular, places a high premium upon single servants of Christ (e.g. 1 Cor 7.32-35), both male and female. There is a sort of hyper-Protestantism that is almost embarrassed by this, and it is a reality that doesn’t fit all that well with the notions considered above. Phoebe, for instance, travels widely – all the way to Rome – as a “deacon” of the church at Cenchrea, near Corinth (Rom 16.1-2). Contrary to the apparent assumptions of some, an unmarried woman is not consigned to (caricature alert!) sitting inside Daddy’s house reading and doing needlepoint; it may well be that God has very special, and quite public, service marked out for her.

In an age of feminism, the Christian counter should not consist in running to the opposite extreme, but rather in seeking to understand the whole Scripture, and to be faithful to it in all its facets. The role of women in our times has become virtually interchangeable with men – or at least, that is what is attempted – but our response must not be reactionary. Over against most of the cultures which has surrounded the Church throughout history, our faith has been liberating for women, providing them avenues of service that would not have been thinkable outside the body of Christ. It is untrue that kneejerk patriarchalism returns us to more pristine Christian practice; rather, it is more a departure into the non-Christian realm altogether.

Of course, this is not the problem of most of the Western Church. On the whole, our biggest problem is individualism; and just as the antidote to feminism is not hyper-patriarchalism, neither is the antidote to hyper-patriarchalism anything like the disrespect of all authority – whether parental or otherwise – that so epitomizes our times, even in the Church. I want to make it clear that the frequent carelessness of Christian children regarding what their parents may think of their boyfriends, girlfriends, or fiances, is a blight upon them (and in many cases, a blight upon their parents, for failing to nurture respect, for failing to parent with any sort of gravitas), just as the wife “wearing the pants in the family” is a blight upon both husband and wife. But we should not cripple the God-given power of women simply because of the common usurpation of power He has not given.

Our standard, after all, is not 21st century individualistic culture, not feminism, not patriarchalism, but the Word of God Himself.