Praise God for the good gift of marriage! As we work to keep our marriages according to God’s word, may he be pleased to perfume them with the essence of Eden. When the world looks at our marriages, may they see something heavenly and be drawn to Christ.

Of nature’s elaborate courtship displays, none is more elegant than that of the western grebe, a swanlike bird with ruby eyes. Each spring the grebes congregate on the lakes of Oregon to find a lifelong mate. Two by two, the male leads his female to a secluded spot on the water. Their waltz begins with a set of balletic duets, one mimicking the movements of the other. Then the birds proudly display strands of lake-grass in their bills. The dance reaches its crescendo when, as if hearing a starter’s pistol, the pair tear into a sprint atop the water, making them the largest water-walking animals on earth. Side by side they run across the lake’s mirror surface in perfect synchronization: their necks arched, chests puffed exultantly, wings fanned open behind them forming a feathery train, their webbed feet spraying an arch of white water in their wake.
What a lovely picture of God’s grand design for marriage: a husband and wife running the race of faith together to the glory of God. With marriage rates plummeting to historic lows in the U.S., it’s critical for Christians to remember why the Lord gave mankind this precious gift in the first place.
For Partnership
As God sovereignly created “all things by the word of his power, in the space of six days” (WSC 9), a refrain rang over the embryonic world: “it was good.” So, it’s alarming when for the first time God declared, “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). Why? What’s “not good” about being a bachelor? It wasn’t good for Adam to be alone because he was made in the image of God who eternally existed in blessed communion within himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If Covid lockdowns have taught us anything, it’s that man is an inescapably relational being. We unravel in unbroken isolation. Could this be why God made the parade of animals pass before Adam? Not just so that he could name them; not because the hippo ever had a shot of being chosen as Adam’s helpmeet; but so that Adam would see the lion with his lioness, the buck with his doe, the rooster with his hen and feel his own aloneness; so that when God brought him the woman he’d handmade from him and for him, Adam might sing, “At last!”
The Lord gave us marriage so that we might have a covenant companion, a life partner to help us fulfill God’s purposes for us, a fellowship of the ring to share in the holy quest of Christianity.
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Last year, my son suffered severe depression and suicidal ideation, admitting himself to the ER during Christmas break. It was the bleakest Christmas my family had ever experienced, and those weeks led to months of wondering if I would find my child dead in his room. Our questions persisted: Why can’t we just hold him and make everything better? Does God care? When my son thought we hated him, he didn’t realize our love for Jesus (and for him) is greater than he could imagine.

Jesus connects family strife to bearing a cross (Luke 14:26–27), and I’m beginning to understand these verses personally. Following Jesus has led to a type of death between my oldest son and me, my wife, and our other children.
My son professed faith in Jesus at a young age. He consistently engaged in spiritual conversations with me, our family, and our church family. We taught the Scriptures in our home through words and actions.
So it came as a shock to us when, last year, he stated he had gender dysphoria and wondered if he was transgender. Within a few months, our 18-year-old firmly believed he was transgender and that an LGBT+ identity was compatible with Scripture’s teaching.
Asking Why
My wife and I had many questions swirling in our minds: What had happened to our son? Did we do something wrong? Why didn’t God protect him? As we look back on what contributors might have led our son to this lifestyle, we can only land on a few.
First, an old friendship came back into our son’s life during COVID shutdowns and grew over time. This friend was moving through the spectrum of the LGBT+ community. My wife and I encouraged our son to be faithful to the Word, which included showing love and grace to his friend.
Second, a few other people who had meaningful relationships with my son expressed to him their belief that LGBT+ lifestyles can align with Christianity.
While my son currently believes all LGBT+ identities are compatible with Christianity, he has also admitted his relationship with Jesus isn’t great. His mom and I know that if he’s a genuine believer, he must turn from the sin he’s in, because “those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal. 5:19–21; 1 Cor. 6:9–10). If he embraces this lifestyle, he doesn’t give evidence of genuine trust in and obedience to Jesus.
Since my son made his decision, I’ve read about potential triggers and causes for why individuals can be drawn into LGBT+ identities. Whether there are real internal or external pulls, I’ve come to realize that, at some point, I have to simply surrender to the Lord that I don’t know what I don’t know. I pray that’s not a lazy response on my part but instead an admission of surrender to the Lord. He knows and he sees, and the greatest answer for my son and for my family is Jesus. But saying that is much easier than living it out.
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Elitist Christianity cannot survive the rigors of hard discipleship. But my grandparents did. And they handed me a legacy to follow. There are many points of doctrinal disagreement that I would have with my grandfathers. But they had a form of battle-tested grit that would outclass their less rugged peers. These were men who endured hard lives and suffered. And they’d learned how to suffer well with contented hearts. These are the sorts of men that deserve our respect and admiration. Men who finished well and stayed true.

There once was a certain kind of evangelical Christian I felt free to scorn.
In 2010, I planted a church in the inner city of Cincinnati. It was growing rapidly. At the time, the coveted demographic for urban church planters was millennials, and we were attracting them in droves. With a combination of contemporary worship, ancient liturgy, and theologically rich preaching, I thought we had cracked the code. Having successfully planted a church in a challenging, urban cultural context, my sending organization flew me around the country to share my success stories and train younger planters in “the way it’s done.”
Things were going well, but a spirit of elitism began to infect us. There was no one to correct us because everyone was in on it. On occasion, I would make fun of conservative, uneducated, backwoods, KJV-only, fundamentalist Christians. People like this lacked the theological sophistication and cultural insight I had acquired while doing campus ministry and studying at seminary.
I knew these “fundie” Christians well because I grew up around them. I came from the hills of West Virginia. Appalachian, born and bred. But I had moved on. I was better than them. I was more learned and cultured than them. I had “seen the world” and they hadn’t.
I would not have admitted this at the time, but deep down, I felt superior to my hometown people and their “country religion.” The success of my own ministry was at least partly driven by a desire to separate myself from them and prove that “I’m not one of those fundie Christians.”
But over time, something began to dawn on me: I was standing on the shoulders of giants. My own grandfather, “Popo Curt,” was one of those country preachers. He provided for his family by working a physically demanding job in a steel mill his whole life. His family was poor, but he did what needed to be done to take care of them.
Popo Curt had only received a 6th grade education. He didn’t know how to read or write very well. On his 45-minute commutes to work, he would listen to the KJV bible on audio cassette. Up and back, every day, listening to the Bible. King James! Scripture got under his skin.
My mom told me a story once. When he was filling out paperwork or writing something and didn’t know how to spell a word, he would try to remember where that same word was used in his KJV Bible. Then he would look it up to see how it was spelled.
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