http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/16025744/should-we-get-married
If I could go back and make myself read one article when I was 17, 18, or even 21, I think it might be this one. I would want to try to expand and reframe my naive ideas about dating, romance, and marriage. I would want to lay out a map for making wiser, more loving decisions about relationships. That’s how I think about this article: as a three-dimensional map for dating well.
But why would I choose this article for myself at that age? Well, for at least two big reasons. First, because nothing in my life and faith has been more confusing and spiritually hazardous than my pursuit of marriage was. My teenage years were a long string of relationships that were too serious for our age, went on too long, and therefore often ended badly and painfully. I hope that’s not your experience, but it was mine. And I’d love to save even of a few of you from the stupidity and heartache that plagued me (or lead those like me out of it).
The second reason is that I’ve been married for seven years, and I see it all — dating, romance, marriage — so much differently now. Eight years ago, I knew marriage a little like my 6-year-old knows Narnia. I knew a lot about marriage — from the Bible, from other books, from watching couples in my life — and I was enchanted by the idea of marriage. But I hadn’t stepped through the wardrobe yet. I hadn’t experienced the real thing. And the real thing is wilder, richer, and deeper than I imagined. If we could taste what covenant love is really like before we started dating, I believe we’d make far better decisions about when we date, whom we date, how we date, and when we marry.
I can’t give you that experience, but maybe something I say from the other side can help you see more than you have so far. If you desire to marry one day, I want you to experience the fullness of what God wants for and in a marriage. And to get there, we need wisdom from God. So consider this my letter from the forests of Narnia.
Dimensions of Healthy Clarity
As I look back on what I would have done differently in my journey to marriage, one of the main lessons I wish I had learned sooner would be to pursue clarity and postpone intimacy.
Now, I could say a lot more on the second half of that lesson (“postpone intimacy”) — and I have elsewhere — but here I want to press on the first half. What does it mean to pursue clarity in dating — and particularly as a Christian? What would clarity feel like if we found it? How do you know he (or she) is the one to marry? To answer those questions, I want to give you something of a three-dimensional map.
Most people today, even Christians, pursue clarity about dating by following their feelings. How do I feel about this person? Am I ready for this relationship to move forward? Do I want to marry this person? Those are good questions to ask. They’re just not the only questions. Wise people don’t dismiss their feelings, but they don’t wholly trust them either. They know we need more than feelings to make wise decisions and choices, and all the more so in dating relationships. They know there are at least two other dimensions to a healthy sense of clarity (think height, width, and depth): first, confirmation from our community. And then, often overlooked or at least taken for granted, the opportunity to actually pursue or marry a particular person. So we have three dimensions of healthy Christian clarity: desire, community, and opportunity.
Height: Clarity of Desire
First, consider clarity of desire. It’s good to want to be married. In fact, according to Scripture, the very desire itself is wisdom:
- “He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord” (Proverbs 18:22).
- “An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels” (Proverbs 31:10).
It’s good to look for a worthy spouse, and even better to find one. It’s good to want to be married. That doesn’t mean there aren’t lots of bad ways to pursue marriage (there are), or that the desire for marriage can’t be distorted and imbalanced (it can be). But God made most of us to want marriage.
Now, you don’t need to want marriage to follow Jesus. Some of the happiest, most godly people in the church never marry. The apostle Paul, for one, celebrated the goodness of lifelong singleness (1 Corinthians 7:7–8). But if you do want to be married, that desire isn’t something to hide or be ashamed of. God loves our longing to be married — to promise ourselves to one man or woman, to become one flesh, to bear and raise children if he wills.
Beyond that, we could say a lot about desire and feelings and attraction, but at its simplest, biblically speaking, we’re mainly looking for someone we can marry. We’re looking for someone with whom we can enjoy and live for Christ. Paul says to the widows in the church (and to all believers by extension), “You are free to be married to whom you wish, only in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 7:39). Marriage, for Christians, is never simply about sex, or companionship, or children, or life efficiencies. We want to marry in the Lord.
We want to take in God’s word together, pray together, go to church together, serve together. We want our marriages to consistently and beautifully tell people what Jesus has done for us. We want our marriages to make us more like Christ, slowly but surely changing us into someone new, someone holy. That means that when we look for someone we can marry, we’re not looking first for something physical or financial or convenient or fun (though we will weigh some of these factors). We’re looking for God in one another and in our future together.
So, the first dimension of clarity is our own desire. Do I want to date or marry this person? And if so, am I convinced that my desire pleases God — that he wants a relationship like this for me? If we’re unsure what God might think about that, he often reveals his will in the other two dimensions of clarity.
The second dimension of clarity we need in dating comes through community. Of the three, this is my greatest burden for young believers today.
Dating often isolates us from other Christians in our lives. The closer we get to a boyfriend or girlfriend, the more removed we can get from other important relationships. Satan loves this, and encourages it at every turn. To resist him, we need to fight the impulse to date off in a corner by ourselves, and instead draw our dating relationships into those other important relationships.
Again, Proverbs is filled with wisdom along these lines:
- “Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety” (Proverbs 11:14).
- “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice” (Proverbs 12:15).
- “Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment” (Proverbs 18:1).
In other words, Lean hard on those who know you best, love you most, and are willing to tell you when you’re wrong. Through personal experience and counseling others, I have found that to be a golden rule in Christian dating, the rule that most often makes the difference between healthy and unhealthy relationships.
“Lean hard on those who know you best, love you most, and are willing to tell you when you’re wrong.”
Only people who love Christ more than they love you will have the courage to lovingly tell you that you’re wrong in dating — wrong about a person, wrong about timing, wrong about whatever. Only they’ll be willing to say something hard, even when you’re so happily infatuated. Most peers will float along with you because they’re excited for you, but you’ll need a lot more than their excitement — you’ll have plenty of that yourself. You’ll need truth, and wisdom, and correction, and perspective. Lean hard on the people who know you best, love you most, and will tell you when you’re wrong.
Consider, then, three kinds of people who could be this kind of community for you in your pursuit of marriage (I’d even go as far as to say should be this kind of community for you). Which counselors would it be wise to involve in a meaningful way?
Church Family
First, avoid leaving your church family behind. We don’t usually think of our church family as part of our pursuit of marriage (maybe we even cringe at the idea), but as uncomfortable or inconvenient as it may sound, God gives the primary and final responsibility of our accountability to the local church (Matthew 18:15–20; Hebrews 13:17).
God means for the church to be the rough tread on the edge of the highway, making sure we stay awake and alert while driving in life, including in dating. If we don’t build our church families into our routines and our relationships, we’re likely to ride right off into a spiritual or relational ditch. The church, however, can surround a couple with structure, direction, and safety.
Now, this doesn’t mean you need to stand up during the announcements and give the whole church an update on your relationship or print a weekly update in the bulletin. But lean on fellow Christians, and especially some who are older and more mature than you. Let a few people you wouldn’t hang out with on the weekends into your thinking and decision-making in dating. Be accountable to a local church: plug in, get to know and be known by others, seek out people different from you, and draw them into what you’re thinking, wanting, and experiencing in dating. Don’t leave the church behind.
Mom and Dad
Second, lean into the love that made and raised you. “Honor your father and your mother” (Exodus 20:12). It’s so simple, and yet it can often be challenging, and all the more so in dating. In our day, it’s increasingly unexpected to involve your parents at all. It seems old-fashioned and unnecessary. Parents are typically a formality once we’ve already made our own decisions — unless, of course, we want to listen to God and pursue marriage more wisely. Wisdom says, “Listen to your father who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old. . . . Let your father and mother be glad; let her who bore you rejoice” (Proverbs 23:22, 25).
Maybe we don’t see eye to eye with our parents. Maybe our parents aren’t even believers. Maybe our parents are divorced and disagree with each other about what we should do. Maybe one or both aren’t even interested in being involved in our relationship. We can’t force our parents to care or cooperate, but we can honor them, and we can think of creative ways to encourage them to be involved and to solicit their input and advice along the way. Our parents may be flat-out wrong, but most parents don’t intentionally want to harm us or keep us from being happy. They have known and loved us longer than anyone else, and genuinely want what they think is best for us.
What if we loved our parents more intentionally and more joyfully when we disagreed with them? What would that say — to them, to our significant other, to the rest of our friends and family — about our faith in Jesus? Lean into the love that made and raised you.
Real Friends
The next line of defense in dating will be the friends who know us best — and who love us and Jesus enough to hold us accountable. We don’t just need friends. Everybody has friends. We need real friends — friends who know us well, who are regularly and actively involved in our relationship, and who love us enough to ask hard questions or tell us when we’re wrong.
Even after God rescues us from our sin, pulls us out of the pit, and puts his Spirit inside of us, we still battle remaining sin, and we’re outmatched on our own. We need friends in the fight to help us see where we’re wrong or weak. Don’t wait for a friend to come ask you how things are going. Seek those few friends out, and share openly with them. You might ask each other questions like these:
- What do the two of you talk about? What’s a typical conversation like?
- How far have you gone physically, where will you draw the line, and in what situations do you experience the most temptation?
- What are you learning about him (or her)? Are you moving toward or away from clarity about marriage?
- How has your relationship affected your spiritual health, including prayer life, Bible reading, involvement in the local church, and ministry to others?
Does anyone ask you questions like these? Who are the friends who will go there with you? If you don’t have them, do you know anyone who could potentially become that kind of friend? Do you know anyone who might need you to be that friend for them? If you want to date well, do what it takes to have some real friends.
Depth: Clarity of Opportunity
We have the clarity of desire, the clarity of community, and now, finally, the clarity of opportunity. Our hearts and our community are not enough to give us the clarity we need. Our hearts will speak (through our desires), our friends will speak (through good community), and then God will speak (through opportunity). Really, God speaks in all three ways, but sometimes he speaks clearest in this last way. In other words, he speaks through his providence. The relationship works out, or it doesn’t. Circumstances line up, or they don’t. Feelings and timelines match up, or they don’t.
“If God withholds something good from us, it’s not because he wants to harm us. Ever.”
Sometimes, God gives the clarity we need in dating simply by doing something outside of our control. You might fall in love with someone, and your friends and family may think it’s a great idea, and marriage still may not happen. Maybe she doesn’t reciprocate; she prefers just being friends. Maybe he ends up dating and marrying someone else. Maybe she moves away for school or work, and the distance proves too far. God makes his will clear by clarifying our own desires, but he makes his will clear in other ways too.
Proverbs 16:33 says, “The lot is cast into the lap” — or the text, or the call, or the bouquet of flowers — “but its every decision is from the Lord.” Does that sound cruel? Why would God give us a good desire for something (or for someone), and then not give it to us? One of the most important lessons to learn about following Jesus is that there are a thousand good answers to that question.
If God withholds something good from us, it’s not because he wants to harm us. Ever. “We know,” Paul says, “that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). “No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly” (Psalm 84:11). No, God withholds good from his people when it’s not yet good enough — when he wants and has planned something better for us. So don’t assume that a good desire confirmed by good friends is good for you. Assume God knows what’s truly good for you.
As you pray and pursue marriage, trust God, in his all-knowing and unfailing love for you, to make his will for you clear in all three ways — desire, community, and opportunity.
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Boldness in Conflict Comes from God: 1 Thessalonians 2:1–4, Part 1
http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15376435/boldness-in-conflict-comes-from-god
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Young Men with Holy Habits
What young men will be, in all probability, depends on what they are now. Young men seem to forget this.
I am a pastor, and my occupational duty requires me to read. So for the past 35 years, I have acquired literally tons of books. My office, my house, and even my bedroom are all inundated with books. Some I remember buying, and some I remember receiving as gifts. I don’t remember whether I received or bought J.C. Ryle’s Thoughts for Young Men, but I do know this: God used it to permanently change me.
I have read and reread this book over and over and over again. I have shared it over and over and over again. I love the whole book, but particularly a section titled “How Young Men Turn Out Depends Largely on What They are Now.” As a twentysomething who passionately desired to know and please God, what I read changed me.
Another reason I want to encourage you is this: what young men will be, in all probability, depends on what they are now. Young men seem to forget this. . . . Why do I say all this? I say it because habits are hard to break. . . . Habits have long roots. If sin is allowed to make its home in your heart, it will not be evicted at your command. Habit becomes second nature; and its chains are like “a threefold cord (which) is not quickly broken.” . . . Habits, like trees, are strengthened by age. A child can bend an oak when it is still a young sapling; but a hundred men cannot root it up when it is a full-grown tree. . . . Habits of good or habits of evil are growing stronger in your heart each day. Every day you are either getting nearer to God, or further away. Every year that you continue to be unrepentant, the wall of division between you and heaven becomes higher and thicker; the gulf to be crossed becomes deeper and broader. Be afraid of the hardening effect of lingering in sin day after day! Now is the time to do something about it. (Thoughts for Young Men, 15, 17–18)
Through Ryle’s pen, God inflamed two desires in me that grew into holy habits in my Christian walk — one desire was for a healthy fear of my sin, and the other was a longing to please God.
Flee Sinful Habits
Life is directional, and walking the wrong way leads to deeper and deeper entanglements into sin. Like a child fearful of getting lost, I feared yanking my hand away from my Father’s and drifting away from him into sin. God motivated me through Ryle’s admonition to develop the habits of shunning folly and seeking wisdom, which come from fearing God.
“Holy habits are means of grace that fan the flame of your love for God and keep his love for you before your eyes.”
By the grace of God, I developed real transparent relationships and friendships where accountability was expected and practiced. God stirred my heart to flee from my former sinful habits rather than to compromise with them. He led me to seek, find, and listen to counsel from older and wise believers.
If you are an older man or woman reading this, I encourage you to seek out young men and women and teach them this truth. The eternal well-being of our souls depends on fighting sin by God’s grace rather than yielding to it and assuming that with God there is sin-permitting grace (Romans 6:1–2; 1 Thessalonians 4:1–8). Satan hisses his lie in every young believer’s ear that God’s laws are too harsh and sin is too delightful to reject. Tell them the truth! Sin enslaves and leads to death, but knowing God through Christ will immeasurably satisfy us more than any worldly gain can (Philippians 3:8). Therefore, no one can be too radical in putting to death habits that lead to sin (Matthew 5:29–30; Colossians 3:5).
Build Holy Habits
God also used Ryle to teach me the sanctifying power of holy habits. We experience this dynamic in all our relationships. We grow closer to someone or move further away from them depending on the habits we practice. Holy habits are means of grace that fan the flame of your love for God and keep his love for you before your eyes. Simply put, God gave me a passionate desire to experience him through his sanctifying means of grace.
I developed a habit of praying as soon as I woke up each morning. I committed to reading the Bible no matter how busy my schedule became. So when big school projects were due, midterms came around, and finals arrived, you’d still find me in the library at lunchtime, reading my Bible. As weeks turned into months, and months into years, and now years into decades, my commitments turned into lifelong habits. Those holy habits enabled me, through God’s grace, to grow in the knowledge of my God and his love for me.
“I marvel at how easily Christians neglect making fellowship a pillar habit in their lives.”
In addition to Sunday-morning worship, I also committed to attending Sunday school and a midweek Bible study. There I learned how to study my Bible. I learned theology. I learned key books of the Bible. I learned practical theologies, like how to share the gospel and how to disciple or lead a small group. I marvel at how easily Christians neglect making fellowship a pillar habit in their lives.
Consider 2 Timothy 2:22: “Flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace.” On the one hand, Paul commands Timothy as a young man to flee youthful passion and to pursue godly virtues. And then he encourages him not to do that alone, but to do so “along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.” You see the point. To fail to make fellowship with godly believers an uncompromising habit is to forfeit a powerful means of grace that will help you fight against sin and pursue godliness. Young readers, I pray that you will be wise and listen as I add my testimony to Ryle’s exhortation.
Learn from a Dead Man
What I am saying about these habits isn’t a profound insight. Why would we expect the means of grace that sanctify us to be too complicated for a babe in Christ to understand and apply? God deals with us as his children and feeds us accordingly so that we can grow. What Ryle encourages his young readers to do is what the Scripture says the earliest believers did, devoting “themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42).
When I first read his life-changing book, it had already been well over a hundred years since Ryle had gone to be with the Lord. That didn’t hinder God from using his keenly crafted words to disciple this newly saved urban kid sitting in secular classrooms at UCLA. If Christ tarries another hundred years, I’m sure there will be countless more young Bobby Scotts out there who, as young believers, need to be confronted and exhorted. I pray that you and I will be faithful to join him in calling young men to these holy habits.
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What Should We Sing? How to Identify a Good Worship Song
What makes a good congregational song?
I’ve wrestled with that question for decades, not only as a songwriter but as a pastor in my local church. Of course, crowds sing together loudly in a variety of places — college football games, Taylor Swift concerts, school choirs, birthday parties — but singing with the church is unique and sacred.
Why? The church is the body of Christ, a temple being “built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:22). We sing so the word of Christ might dwell in us richly (Colossians 3:16). And when we gather, our church isn’t alone. Our little choir of earthly voices joins with the choirs of heaven and “the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven” to extol the Lamb who was slain (Hebrews 12:23; Revelation 5:11–13).
So, for the church, singing matters. But what kinds of songs should we sing?
What Makes a Song Good?
What makes a congregational song “good”? We’re going to look at two characteristics briefly and then spend most of our time on the third.
First, a good congregational song is one that people actually can sing. It’s not hard to pick up because the melody repeats or is easy to follow. Songs that contain unexpected twists or jumps can be confusing. Likewise, people tend to go quiet when a song’s range exceeds the vocal abilities of the average human.
Second, a good congregational song is one that people want to sing. People comment on how much they enjoy it. The melody grows on you rather than sounding tired by the end of the song. That’s why a theologically rich lyric can go unheard for decades, if not centuries, when it’s wed to the wrong melody. The popularity of songs like “Amazing Grace” and “Before the Throne of God Above” skyrocketed after they found a melody people appreciated.
“Our songs should reflect the whole counsel of God’s word and make God’s priorities our own.”
Third, and most importantly, a good congregational song is one that people should sing. That means the lyrics are rooted in God’s word. But that raises some questions. Does quoting Bible verses make a good congregational song? Should we only sing the Psalms (and I know some who would say, “Of course!”)? Should we set our systematic-theology textbooks to music? How much of the Bible do we need to include to make a song biblical?
Who Decides What to Sing?
These questions matter because the responsibility for choosing what songs to sing has increasingly become a local-church issue. In years past (and still among some churches today), denominational leaders sought to protect churches from heresy and lead them in biblically appropriate expressions of praise by publishing hymnals. The message was clear: “These are the songs we want our churches to sing.” They were curators of the church’s song diet.
Today, the de facto curators are YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, conferences, and radio. We can still use hymnals, but we also have access to more songs than at any other time in history. But I can confirm from personal experience, they aren’t all good. So, how do we determine if a song is biblical? And what makes a song unbiblical? That’s a question I posed on social media recently. After citing wrong theology, many voiced common complaints like “too many first-person pronouns,” “too much repetition,” and “too focused on emotion.” Others simply typed the name of a song.
Even though I don’t believe God requires us to limit our repertoire to the Psalms, they show us that he welcomes a wide diversity in our songs. They can be short, long, or somewhere in between (Psalms 117; 119; 89). They can enable us to speak to God, others, or ourselves, sometimes in the same psalm (Psalms 86; 100; 62:5–7; 42). We have psalms about God and about us (Psalms 145; 133). And when it comes to first-person pronouns, Psalm 71 contains 58 of them in 24 verses. God gave us psalms that never repeat and others that say the same thing 26 times (Psalms 2; 136). Some psalms explode with emotion, while others are more doctrinal (Psalms 150; 111). They give us words for rejoicing and reflecting (Psalms 47; 23). They tell us there’s a time to praise and a time to lament (Psalms 96; 38).
In other words, determining whether the words of a congregational song are biblical or not is a little more nuanced than we may think.
What Makes a Song Unbiblical?
Let’s start by looking at what’s not biblical. An unbiblical congregational song can be defined as one that doesn’t line up with the whole of God’s word in truth, tone, or emphasis.
TRUTH
If a song contradicts what Scripture teaches, we shouldn’t sing it. Lyrics that deny our need for substitutionary atonement, ascribe worship to someone other than the triune God, or dismiss the reality of eternal punishment are heresy and have no place in the church’s repertoire.
But lyrics can be unbiblical in more subtle ways. They can be vague, unclear, or easily misinterpreted. Sometimes, in an effort to be creative and impacting, writers use phrases that distort or even contradict biblical truth. But Paul admonishes us to “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” as we sing (Colossians 3:16). He also instructs us to make sure everything we do in our meetings is intelligible (1 Corinthians 14:6–12). That includes our song lyrics.
A song is also unbiblical when it veers from or ignores Scripture’s categories, themes, topics, or aims. While I’m in my car, there’s no problem singing about how happy I am without giving any reason. But when the church gathers, we’re meant to focus on God’s glory in Christ, not simply how we feel (2 Corinthians 3:18; 4:6).
TONE
A second way a song can be unbiblical is in its tone. While the Psalms didn’t come with a soundtrack, they model a variety of ways to express ourselves in song. And in each case, the tone, or feel, is connected to and driven by the content. We have no examples of unrestrained passion disconnected from a clear view of God’s works, word, and worthiness (Psalm 33). We never find emotional repetition without consistent reminders of why we should be so affected (Psalm 136). Nor do we encounter language marked by sensuality or flippancy, but rather by love, honesty, humility, reverence, awe, joy, sorrow for sin, gratefulness, and an ever-present desire to know and follow God’s ways.
The tone of the Psalms is a balance of doctrine and devotion, mind and heart, edification and emotion. We aren’t meant to sacrifice one or the other. So, a biblical song is one that intentionally seeks to engage the affections through the realities of who God is, what he’s said, and what he’s done and is doing.
EMPHASIS
Emphasis offers a third way we can evaluate the biblical faithfulness of a song. Our songs should reflect the whole counsel of God’s word and make God’s priorities our own.
Of course, not every song will contain a perfect balance of Scripture’s teaching on a topic, or everything that could be said. But some songs present an aspect of biblical truth in such a way that they undermine, distort, or minimize other biblical truths.
“If the only theology we received were contained in the songs we sing, how well would we know God after five years?”
For instance, singing that God is going to bless us or “give us the victory” with no mention of suffering, God’s sovereignty, or the benefits of endurance can be easily misunderstood and wrongly applied. Other examples that might fall into this category include songs that speak of God’s relentless love with no mention of Christ or the cross (Romans 5:8; 1 John 3:16), lyrics that never say whom we’re singing to, or songs that give the impression that seeking to live holy lives doesn’t matter.
What Makes a Song Biblical?
While not exhaustive, these are some marks of an unbiblical congregational song. But the more important question is, What makes a song biblical? Biblical songs not only use actual Scripture but reflect Scripture’s priorities and categories. They give us the opportunity to cultivate or express scriptural affections. They are clear, undistracting, and contribute to building up the unity of the church (1 Corinthians 14:12, 26; Ephesians 4:3).
Above all, biblical songs enable the word of Christ to dwell in people richly. They can be described as theologically driven, rather than simply theologically aware. They take into account the Bible’s redemptive story that begins and ends in Christ. In that way, biblical congregational songs provide music and lyrics that lead us toward conformity to Christ in our minds, hearts, and lives. They teach us, move us, and compel us to live in a manner worthy of the gospel of grace in the power of God’s Spirit.
Can every song we sing achieve those goals? Probably not. That’s why, if we want to be biblical, we need to evaluate our song diet as a whole. What our songs say over time is just as important as what they say individually. So, it’s helpful to ask ourselves this question: If the only theology we received were contained in the songs we sing, how well would we know God after five years? Your answer will give you insight into how biblical your songs are.
Songs are just one part of our gatherings, but God can use them to transform lives from one degree of glory to another, until we see him face to face. Let’s make the most of the opportunity.
