Symbolism and rhetoric matter. It matters that the civil rituals are honoured. These vary from place to place: in the USA you stand for the anthem, in NZ we don’t. Because we are not Yanks. But honour when honour is due.

And this morning Robyn, being a wonderful person, is fussing, because it is my natal day. She does not need the correction Scott made at Dalrock’s place. Since I know about half the people who comment at his place, and I can confirm that there is a female remnant, who follow the command of Terry. They ask their husband what to do.

A husband needs very few things from his wife, the rest he can provide for himself if necessary. In the modern age, with the enormous risks men take just for being married, it will take some degree of effort to add value to his life.

In no particular order, he wants: Respect, honor, loyalty, physical attention/affection, deference (especially in public), sweetness/kindness, and to be the leader–with no equivocations–of his wife, and one day his kids.

Although it sounds like Dalrock has already blocked you from commenting, so we will not hear from hear from you again. But you should ask yourself, “am I providing all those things with joy and enthusiasm?” If not, why? The uninsightful depth which most American wives will go to justify witholding those things from husbands is breathtaking in most cases.

Finally, I am not asking you to come over to my site to comment. I only allow a very small handful of Christian women to comment there–but they have proven themselves to be making an effort at the things listed above. Far from perfect, as none of us are, they are lovely Christian wives, regardless.

At my site, we honor fathers, and by extension men and masculine thought in general. Please feel free to read, but like I said, wait about a year before attempting a comment. Go to your husband while its not too late and lay down your arms. It is what God wants.

The question one has to ask is why is rebellion so tolerated? For the rebellion began within the family, and then moved into a greater society. Here it is worth considering the first Churchians, who happened to live in the most corrupt city of the Roman Empire, Corinth. You cannot live in a city without being tempted by the besetting sin of the time, and both Corinth and the modern West want to define all by wealth, pride, and what they call self esteem.

What happens to google on your birthday

1 Corinthians 4:8-21

⁸Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Quite apart from us you have become kings! Indeed, I wish that you had become kings, so that we might be kings with you! ⁹For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, as though sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to mortals. ¹⁰We are fools for the sake of Christ, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. ¹¹To the present hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed and beaten and homeless, ¹²and we grow weary from the work of our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; ¹³when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day.

¹⁴I am not writing this to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. ¹⁵For though you might have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers. Indeed, in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. ¹⁶I appeal to you, then, be imitators of me. ¹⁷For this reason I sent you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ Jesus, as I teach them everywhere in every church. ¹⁸But some of you, thinking that I am not coming to you, have become arrogant. ¹⁹But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power. ²⁰For the kingdom of God depends not on talk but on power. ²¹What would you prefer? Am I to come to you with a stick, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?

But your self esteem does not matter. The symbolism does: and that is of people being pelted with rotten fruit on the way to a stake, to be burned, or to the cloaca maximia, where the strangler awaits. The concept of the triumph was known to the readers of Paul, and the last people in the parade were the defeated enemies, who, after being mocked, were to be killed.

And that is where the apostles put themselves. They did not consider that their lives matter. They did not care for their self esteem, not their comfort. Instead they compared themselves with Christ, who gave up greater riches than we can imagine to die for them. They cared about their redemption above all.

The sin we need to watch for is that of pride. That we can somehow become perfect spiritually, and in that state we will be praised. This will not happen. We are, instead, imperfect. The scars of the fall are on us.

But Christ loved us.

And therefore we cannot boast, but in his completed work.