A while ago I was having a conversation with my Dad about web content. He was trying to get a website up, and wanted to know how to do this. I reminded him that what he is doing — supporting men with same sex attraction to live a celibate lifestyle — could be called therapy and some bastard leftist scum will sue him for being a therapist-without-training. Despite the fact that in NZ being a therapist-without-training is legal: Psychotherapist is not a restricted professional description: there is no psychotherapy registration board. I also reminded him that for those (like his son) who work within registered professions working to change the orientation of a person’s sexuality has been made unethical.
I suggested he used terms like support group. Or lay run. Being in the secular professions limits one’s options. He went and thought about it for a bit, and then revised all the material of the website (which is not up yet — it’s sitting with a web designer) so it talked about sanctification.
For most of the ongoing work of our salvation is struggling with obeying God in the situations we find ourselves in.
So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
(Romans 8:12-17 ESV)
Submission is not blind obedience, nor is it being some kind of Stepford wife. It is dealing with the issues of this day. And as a husband submits to Christ and the elders within the church, so should a wife submit to her husband.
My church teaches that virtue is the adoption of good habits, but that such adoption takes time and perseverance. Wifely submission falls under this category.I used to be really grumpy when submitting, but have gotten better over time. It’s hard to improve when you’ve constantly got someone telling you how imperfect you are. That shows a lack of charity and is seriously demotivating.
I get a bit tired of the gnosticism lurking behind “but the Bible says” comments. As if we can just jump up and separate ourselves from our body and all its faults by saying the Jesus prayer. This stuff takes time.
The last comment is apropos. We may indeed be saved, completely by the grace of God, but now we have work to do. And undoing the habits of the flesh is a constant struggle. For us all. This is why Paul suggested we are charitable and restrict what we do in areas that don’t bother us. A simple example. I don’t gamble — it bores me. The only reason I don’t eat in a casino restaurant is that generally there is better food elsewhere.
But going into that casino may encourage someone who has bankrupted themselves gambling to “just try it again”. I am not restricted, but I am being merciful.
What is happening in NZ, however, is that any attempt to discuss or request is seen as controlling, as abusive, as part of a male abuser | woman saint paradigm. There are new rules around domestic violence (and we do have a big problem with this issue) and they are of the “blame the blokes” variety. They miss a big point: married women are (generally) safe — it is women who cohabit who are at risk.
We need to resurrect Christian marriage, which is not what the state wants us to have. If for no other reason that it protects women and children. But the old rules acknowledged our frailties in the area of courting and love, and gave us a framework within which we were generally safe, and without fear.
Looking at the current descriptions of the dating scene, I think my grandmother had more fun going to balls during the depression. We have fallen, and we need to rediscover those good habits, as Alte rightly suggests, lead to virtue.
