faithful love at the heart of marriage

Here are some highlights from a new book by Christopher Ash: Married for God: Making Your Marriage the Best It Can Be (Crossway, 2016). About halfway through and it's excellent so far...

"We are male and female so that we may use our maleness and femaleness in joyful service of God in the government of his world."

"Marriage and family can easily become just a respectable form of selfishness... If we marry mainly to meet our own needs, then our marriages will be just that: good-looking masks for selfishness. It is a short step from 'loving you' to 'loving me and wanting you.' It is too easy for Christians to think of marriage as a discipleship-free zone. So that outside of marriage we talk about sacrifice, taking up our cross, and so on. But inside marriage we just talk about how to communicate better, how to be more intimate, how to have better sex, how to be happy."

"The defining moment is thought to be when they are alone in the bedroom, not when they serve together as a new social and family unit in the wider society. Sociologists have noted how destructively intense such relationships become, and therefore how brief."

"This irony, that we expect so much of marriage but find it disappointing, is an irony the Bible understands perfectly. It calls it idolatry. This means that if I pursue any goal except the honor of God, then I am worshiping an idol. And idols are empty, vacuous, disappointing things that have no power to help me. We see this brilliantly exposed in Isaiah 44:9–20 and in Psalm 135:15–18. The moment I make my 'relationship' the goal of my life, I doom myself to disappointment. Surprisingly, the key to a good marriage is not to pursue a good marriage, but to pursue the honor of God. We need to replace this selfish model of marriage with one in which we work side by side in God’s 'garden' (that is, God’s world), rather than gaze forever into each other’s eyes."

"The blessing 'be fruitful and multiply' is given so that men and women will be able to govern and care for the world God has entrusted to them."

"One of the great reasons why married couples ought to want children is that they force us to welcome into our circle strangers we have not chosen... And therefore in parenting we learn to welcome the stranger, the one chosen by God for us to love."

"When you or I find ourselves 'falling in love' with our future wife or husband, we should ask, Why has God given me these feelings? Why do I feel like a bird in springtime? The answer is, so that as a couple delighting in one another you can forge a new social unit whose heart is faithful love; and then out of that heart of faithful love can overflow generous love to others... The principle is that faithful love cannot flow out from a marriage unless it is present as the heart of a marriage."

~ Christopher Ash, Married for God: Making Your Marriage the Best It Can Be.

clement quotes hebrews

Clement of Rome wrote to the church in Corinth around AD 90. This is perhaps the same Clement, companion of Paul, mentioned in Philippians 4:3. Many hold him to be the first bishop / pope in Rome, aka St. Clement I. Clement quotes from the letter to the Hebrews. Origin suggested that Clement was in fact the writer (as transcriber or amanuensis) of Hebrews. Perhaps this letter began as a "word of exhortation" given by Paul at the synagogue (Heb 13:22; cf Acts 13:15) which then became a circular letter for the churches. Other possible authors of Hebrews include Luke, Barnabas, or Apollos. The theology is Pauline, but the transcriber is obviously second-generation (Heb. 2:3-4). At any rate, this early church leader in Rome, is already quoting Hebrews in his letter in AD 90: CHAPTER 36 ALL BLESSINGS ARE GIVEN TO US THROUGH CHRIST This is the way, beloved, in which we find our Savior, even Jesus Christ, the High Prie...

Howard Hendricks on OT books chronology

When I was in seminary, Howard Hendricks (aka "Prof") gave us a little card with the books of the OT chronologically arranged. The scanned copy I have was a bit blurry and I wanted to make something like this available for our church class in OT theology ("Story of Redemption"). A few minor edits and here it is...

a brief history of bcf

Blacksburg Christian Fellowship, or BCF as it is popularly known, was founded in November 1969. Prior to this time several families had been meeting for Bible study and prayer, with a particular concern that the Lord raise up an effective biblical ministry to the students of the Virginia Tech campus. Growing from these meetings, the Lord led them to begin a public ministry on Sunday mornings. The Wesley Foundation agreed to the rental of their facilities, and the first meeting was held in November 1969, with about 30 people in attendance. Since the first meeting BCF has been greatly blessed by the Lord and has seen a steady growth in ministry and in numbers. Two other local churches were formed in part from BCF. In 1974 the Lord led Houston Couch, who at that time was an Elder in BCF, to leave and start Dayspring Christian Fellowship. In 1980 Max Harris, who was a regular attender at BCF, was encouraged by the Elders and members to start a ministry which has now become Grace Cov...

my burg

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