“Long socks, short shorts, it’s just wrong!”

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This post comes to us from Tim Challies who has graciously allowed me to bring you this new series here. Tim’s blog at www.challies.com is one of the most challenging and insightful you will find. I subscribe to Tim’s RSS feed and encourage you to check it out.

The husband is ultimately responsible for ensuring that the family’s needs are met. While financial needs are the most obvious component of this, they extend far beyond. Here are several ways in which God has called you, as a husband, to provide for your family.

Provide Financially. The husband is to lead in the area of finances. In most cases this means that you, the husband, will be the family’s breadwinner, freeing up your wife to pursue her vocation in the home as wife and mother. It will also mean that you will be ultimately responsible for financial decisions and management. It may be prudent to allow your wife to actually pay the bills and keep financial records, but you must still be involved in the family finances. Time and ability would undoubtedly fail me to provide from Scripture a cut-and-dry case for these rather contentious declarations, but I would point you toward Ephesians 5 (where a husband is told to nourish and cherish his bride—is not provision an important component of nourishment?) or to 1 Timothy 5:8 where we’re told that a man who does not provide for his own family is worse than an unbeliever. I would also point you toward common sense. Common sense should tell us that women are specially created and equipped to do the work involved in raising children and that men are specially equipped to do the work involved in provision. This does not mean that a husband does nothing around the house and a woman never earns a penny. It is simply a matter of priorities.

In an attempt to head off questions, let me say that in this series we are dealing with broad principles and there are times that the principles seem to fall short in specific circumstances. The world being what it is, there are always exceptions and sometimes tragic exceptions. When it comes to theology it is important that we begin broad and go narrow rather than begin narrow and go broad. The broad principle here is that the husband is called to be the provider. But, of course, there are times when this cannot happen. Perhaps a husband is injured or disabled or just plain unable to find work. In such cases the wife may be called upon to be the primary breadwinner. In some circumstances a man may need to defer this task to the church or the government. There may also be times when a wife has to take on provision while the husband is studying or preparing himself for another vocation. Even here, though, he does not need to hand over leadership to his wife or to anyone else. He can still lead in this area even if circumstances prevent him from actually providing through the labor of his hands.

I know people will also wonder whether I am saying that your wife absolutely cannot have a job. I would again point to the broad principle that God’s primary call for women is to be involved in managing the home and raising children. As long as her job does not keep her from fulfilling her other responsibilities (such as a woman who decides she cannot have children because she wishes to prioritize her career), then I don’t see anything in Scripture that forbids it. Ideally I think the husband would wish to be in a position where if his wife works it is because of choice and not some kind of financial necessity.

Provide Sexually. The godly husband desires to serve his wife and to honor God through sex (see 1 Corinthians 7:1-5). You need to know the importance of sex in your relationship with your wife and know the importance of sexual purity to your own heart. You need to see sex not as something that is merely physical, but as a means of grace within your marriage—an act of love that binds a husband to his wife and a wife to her husband in a unique way. Pursue your wife not only in the act but in all of life so that she is willing and eager to join with you in the consummation of the act. Eagerly and willingly provide for her needs in this way, thinking more of her than of yourself.

Provide Spiritually. It is the husband who must take initiative in leading his wife into deeper and deeper truths of the faith. You need to take the initiative in providing a church home where you can join together with other believers in fellowship and in worship. Take the lead in willingly and eagerly studying the Bible on your own and with your wife. Be willing to encourage her to come before God on her own. Whether your wife is a believer or not, you should live before her in such a way that you put no stumbling block in her path—nothing that would keep her from pursuing God.

Provide Yourself. The godly husband provides himself, which is to say that he provides focused, undistracted time and attention. I think this is an area of particular failing for men today. We are a distracted and busy people who have a difficult time prioritizing what ought to be prioritized. We believe that we are owed endless hours of entertainment—that it is our right to be entertained for hours every day—and we give ourselves to this pursuit. We also recklessly pursue stuff, power, position, prestige and any other number of idols. And often these will come at the expense of your wife or children. As husband you need to provide time for your wife. Some of this time may be spent watching television, but there must be times where you can just talk without distraction, without the need for entertainment. You must provide time for your children, to talk to them, to encourage them, to ask them questions and to answer their questions. Seek to take the lead in arranging regular date nights with your wife; go on “daddy-dates” with your kids as well, finding special things to do with each one of them (alone) on a regular basis (even if that event is no more special than an early-morning breakfast at Denny’s—something I’ve been doing with my kids recently. Kids are remarkably unpicky when it comes to time spent with dad). Help your wife arrange similar dates with the kids so she can spend that focused time with them as well.

Conclusion
I can’t deny as I type the final words of this series that it did not come together quite as I expected. There is probably too much “me” in it. Nevertheless, I do hope that it can prove beneficial to men, and especially young men. I hope they can see in it just a glimpse of the high calling they’ve been given as husbands and that they can find great joy and satisfaction in their task as leaders within their homes.

Resources
I found a few books helpful as I prepared these articles. Among them are:

The Complete Husband: A Practical Guide to Biblical Husbanding

The Exemplary Husband: A Biblical Perspective

Being a Christian Husband: A Biblical Perspective

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This post comes to us from Tim Challies who has graciously allowed me to bring you this new series here. Tim’s blog at www.challies.com is one of the most challenging and insightful you will find. I subscribe to Tim’s RSS feed and encourage you to check it out.

A husband is uniquely equipped to protect his family. There is more to protecting his family than simply being strong and taking the proverbial bullet in place of his wife or children. In this article I want to outline a few of the ways in which a husband is responsible for protection.

Protect Your Family
Protect your family physically. The godly husband is responsible for the physical security of his family. God has given men greater physical strength than women and has also given men a need or desire to be protectors. You are to use this God-given strength to protect your wife and to ensure that she feels secure. She must know that you will protect her even at the cost of your own life. You must be the first into battle, you must be the one who knows that “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

John Piper expresses this calling well: “If there is a sound downstairs during the night and it might be a burglar, you don’t say to her: ‘This is an egalitarian marriage, so it’s your turn to go check it out. I went last time.’ And I mean that even if your wife has a black belt in karate. After you’ve tried, she may finish off the burglar with one good kick to the solar plexus. But you better be unconscious on the floor, or you’re no man. That’s written on your soul, brother, by God Almighty. Big or little, strong or weak, night or day, you go up against the enemy first. Woe to the husband—and woe to the nation—that send their women to fight their battles.”

You are to love your wife as Christ loved the church. “For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior” (Ephesians 5:23). Christ loved the church to the fullest possible extent—to the laying down of his life. He considered his life nothing in comparison with the task God had appointed to him. As a godly husband, you are to imitate Christ in this.

But there is more to it than simply being the first down the stairs when there is a noise in the night. You must also be proactive, protecting your family from predators. You must be constantly aware, constantly on guard against danger your family may encounter. So, for example, you will need to take the lead in ensuring that your children are using the internet wisely, that you have criteria for protecting your children from predators online or offline, that they are not encountering things on television that their minds and hearts are not yet equipped to understand. You will guard and protect your children from sexual temptation or sexual expression while they are dating.

Protect your family emotionally. You do this by refusing to give in to the temptation to dominate your wife and children as an overlord instead of a servant. You must learn how to properly discipline your children so you guard their bodies and their hearts. You will need to learn how your wife is different from you emotionally so you can be tender and understanding toward her (see 1 Peter 3:7 and Colossians 3:21). You need to provide loving leadership that guides and protects with dignity and love.

Protect your family theologically. You do this by developing wisdom and discernment—by pursuing godliness. You need to act like the nobel Bereans of old who “received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11). You must be careful not to introduce to them any false teaching, knowing that as a teacher, the most important teacher your family will have, you will be judged with a harsher judgment for any false doctrine you may recommend to them.

Protect Your Family from Themselves
The godly husband protects his wife and children by helping them flee sin so they do not suffer its painful consequences. You need to know and understand that sin, when it runs rampant, damages more than just the sinner. Seek to guard your family from their own sin. Protect your wife from the sin of the children and the children from the sin of your wife; protect the children from one another.

As a godly husband you may have to intervene in the way your wife disciplines the children, not allowing her to be harsh or even abusive toward the children. You must not allow your love for her or your fear of her to allow you to avoid costly or unpopular leadership. Use your strength and authority even to protect your wife from the children, not allowing them to threaten or abuse her with words, attitudes or fists.

Protect Your Family from Your Own Sin
One of the unmistakable lessons we learn from reading the Old Testament is that a nation can suffer because of the sin of its leader and that a family can suffer because of the sin of its father. When Achan sinned (Joshua 7) by keeping for himself some of the items plundered from Jericho that God had devoted for his own use, it was not only Achan who suffered the consequences. All of Israel was punished for a time through the disastrous battle of Ai which saw thirty-six soldiers fall as the Israelite army was routed. God revealed that one man had sin and eventually Achan’s whole family was put to death for the sin of the father. “They burned them with fire and stoned them with stones. ” Think as well of the rebellion of Korah as described in Numbers 16. Korah rebelled against Moses’ leadership, saying that he was exalting himself beyond the rest of the people. God’s judgment was swift: “And as soon as he had finished speaking all these words, the ground under them split apart. And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the people who belonged to Korah and all their goods.” In both cases, the husband and father sinned but the whole family suffered consequences.

A man cannot commit himself to sin without his whole family bearing consequences. In the response to a series I wrote on the effects of pornography I received email after tragic email, describing how a husband had sinned against his wife by turning to pornography. In every case the wife was defiled by her husband’s sin, hurt by it, devastated by it. Often even the children were affected as their parents became estranged from one another, pulled apart by the father’s commitment to his sin. Wife and children suffered because a husband was more committed to his sin than he was to his family.

A godly husband protects his family by turning from sin and pursuing holiness. Know that your sin goes far beyond your own life and impacts your children and your wife. Out of love for your wife and children, out of compassion for them, out of a desire to serve them, live a holy life. Flee sin, put it to death, and pursue holiness. In this way you will be protecting your family from your sin and from the effects of your sin. Sometimes the greatest gift you can give your family is a silent, hidden decision to refrain from pursuing sin. Your family would be better off if you’d skip the trip to Disney and commit yourself to holiness.

Protect Your Wife
The godly husband focuses special attention on protecting his wife. And what man doesn’t feel the need to protect his wife? There is something in the very make up of a man that compels him to protect her, to shelter her from the pain life can bring.

Protect your wife physically. As we have seen, a godly husband uses his strength to protect his wife from any physical harm. He puts himself in harm’s way rather than risking her harm. He does not allow himself to feel that he needs to turn his cheek to any kind of abuse of his wife, but reacts with strength even at the risk of his own harm. He will face his own harm, he will face his own death, to keep his wife from suffering at the hand of others.

Allow me a brief aside here. I think most husbands have come to terms with the idea that we need to be willing to die for our wives. There is something noble and chivalrous that compels us to admit this and to romanticize it. “Of course I’d die for my wife!” But I wonder, do you find it equally easy to live for your wife? If you do not live day-to-day honoring and blessing and serving your wife, what assurance would she have, what assurance would you have, that would also be willing to die for her? It seems to me that dying for her is the easy part. You can go down in a blaze of glory and have a great story written about you in the newspaper. But it is that long, daily commitment through fifty or sixty years of marriage that is the true proving ground. Don’t just die for your wife—live for her!

Protect your wife emotionally. The godly husband will protect his wife’s heart. One of the ways he does this is by becoming a student of her. He learns what she loves and learns what she hates; he learns what draws her heart to him and what turns her heart from him. He avoids anything that will damage or scar her heart. “Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel” (1 Peter 3:7).

Protect your wife sexually. This is a particular area of responsibility from a husband to a wife. The godly husband will not demand of his wife what she is unwilling or unable to give. He will not force her or badger her into sexual deeds that violate her body or violate her conscience. He seeks to protect her from any kind of sexual harm, including the false messages that can come from raunchy movies or from pornography. When writing about sexual purity I received emails from wives whose husbands introduced them to pornography, seeking to add it as a means of spicing up their love life. What a lack of love, to compound sin upon sin by drawing a wife’s heart after a husband’s own evil desires! As a godly husband you need to understand God’s purposes in sexuality and protect your wife from any violation of them. You need to understand from 1 Corinthians 7 that your desire in sex should be pursuing your wife’s desires rather than your own.

Protect your wife spiritually. Protect your wife spiritually, primarily by your commitment to pray for her, to hold her up before the throne of God. Commit yourself to praying for her every day and even many times a day. Pray for her constantly, repeatedly, unceasingly. Know that your prayers, as her leader, as her husband, must have special value before God. Tell her that you pray for her and ask her what you can pray for on her behalf. Commit yourself to this practice and look for the evidence of God’s response to your earnest supplications.

This series will conclude tomorrow with an article titled “A Godly Man Provides.”

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This post comes to us from Tim Challies who has graciously allowed me to bring you this new series here. Tim’s blog at www.challies.com is one of the most challenging and insightful you will find. I subscribe to Tim’s RSS feed and encourage you to check it out.

Yesterday I began a series dealing with leadership in the home. Today I want to continue the series by providing a brief (and undoubtedly inadequate) defense of male headship.

Few Christian beliefs are less popular than that of male headship. As Christians we believe that God has called husbands to lead and wives to submit. This is an audacious claim in a society like ours that so values autonomy and independence. There may have been a time when such an idea came more naturally to people—a time when hierarchy and inequality in role were assumed. In that kind of social situation submission may have seemed more natural. But today, when we acknowledge that all men (and women) are created equal and when there are few things we value higher than a kind of absolute equality, submission seems like a relic of the ancient past. Leadership we like, submission we hate. Even Christians shy away from it.

And yet perhaps submission is not quite so foreign. The Bible is clear that submission is a duty we all share. If we look closely we find that society believes this as well and that it is necessary for any well-ordered society. After all, students are to obey their teachers; employees are to submit to the commands of their employers; soldiers receive orders from their superiors; all of us obey the police officer who stands in the middle of the busy intersection and holds up his hand in the “stop” position. We are accustomed to submitting to authority outside the home, but react with shock that such authority could exist within the home, between a husband and wife. We accept inequality in role in some contexts but not others.

IT IS NOT A PUNISHMENT
Before we proceed with this series about the godly leader, we would do well to pause and to consider what the Bible says about male headship. There is much we could say, as evidenced by the vast quantity of very thick books dealing with the topic (most of which are written by Wayne Grudem or John Piper or Wayne Grudemand John Piper). I could, literally, write an entire series on this one point. But I am going to pursue it from only one angle. I will seek to show that the kind of headship prescribed by the Bible is inherent in God’s created order. In other words, the fact that husbands are to lead and wives are to submit to their husbands (not to all men—only to their husbands) is not merely the product of the fall of the human race into sin, but is a product of God’s creation. Even if sin had never entered the world, a husband would be expected to lead his wife and a wife would still be expected to submit to her husband. The headship of the husband is not rooted in a punishment, and perhaps even an unfair punishment in which woman was given the harsher penalty of having to submit. Instead, it is rooted in the very purpose and creation of mankind.

Strange though it may seem, submission is a good and beautiful and godly thing. The most perfect relationship in the world, the relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit, displays a perfect example of submission. The Son submits Himself to the Father. They are, to echo the Shorter Catechism, “the same in substance, equal in power and glory.” Yet the Father demonstrates headship. We speak of Jesus’ mission to the earth in two ways. We speak of Jesus being sent by the Father. And this is true. From eternity it was decided by the Father that man would have to be ransomed by a perfect substitute. The Father tasked the Son with this responsibility. But we also speak of the Son willingly giving up his life. This is equally true. The Son’s perfect submission to the Father’s will meant that a command of the Father was indistinguishable from a decision of the Son. Christ was perfectly willing to submit to His Father’s will. This relationship within the Trinity provides us many clues as to the nature of the relationship between husband and wife.

All of this to say that submission and headship are not bad things. They have existed eternally and have existed in the most perfect relationship. How can we then dare to say that they are somehow rooted in sin? If we understand this, we have a solid foundation for understanding how and why a husband must lead.

IT IS GOOD
Here are ten proofs that headship and submission precede man’s fall into sin. Thus they are ten proofs that headship and submission are aspects of God’s natural order and not a consequence or necessary reaction to sin. (These follow the structure aptly outlined by Wayne Grudem in his thorough study on the subject, Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth).

The order of creation: Adam was created before Eve. This may seem to be weak grounds for an argument yet it was significant enough for Paul to mention in 1 Timothy 2:12-13 where he does not “permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man…For Adam was formed first, then Eve.” Inherent in the order of creation, where Adam was formed before Eve, is the foundation for the order of human relationships.

The representation of the human race: It was Adam who had a special role in representing the human race. Though Eve was the first to be tempted to sin, it was Adam who was considered most responsible for their combined disobedience. In Corinthians we read that, “as in Adam all men die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). Christ is the second Adam, not the second Eve as we might expect if the Bible held Adam and Eve as being equal in representation and headship.

The naming of woman: Adam was given the honor and responsibility of naming his wife. “She shall be called woman,” he said, “because she was taken out of man” (Genesis 2:23). Within the Scriptures we see that the person who names something is always the one who has authority over it. This parallels the account of creation where God named the night and the day, the expanse, the earth and the waters. By naming them he showed his authority. And in naming Eve, Adam proved his headship.

The naming of the human race: The human race is named after Adam, not Eve. Neither is it named after both Adam and Eve. God named the human race “man.” “When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created” (Genesis 5:1-2). While in and of itself this does not provide a cut-and-dry case, it points again to the headship and leadership of the man in the created order.

The primary accountability: God held Adam primarily accountable for the Fall. While Adam and Eve hid from God, God called “to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’” (Genesis 3:9). God did not call to both Adam and Eve, but called to Adam alone. Dr. Grudem draws an analogy of a parent who, upon entering a room where several children have been misbehaving, will summon the oldest and demand answers. It is the oldest who bears greatest responsibility. In the same way God summoned Adam and demanded an account of both his sin and that of his wife. Notice that Satan reversed this order, approaching Eve before Adam in an obvious (and successful) attempt to disrupt the God-given pattern.

The purpose of women: Eve was created as a helper for Adam, not Adam as a helper for Eve. While feminists have made much of the term “helper,” the fact remains that in any given situation, the person doing the helping necessarily places himself in a subordinate role to the person who needs help (like a secretary to her boss or a Vice President to a President). Yet helping does not remove accountability. While I may help my son with a paper route, the ultimate responsibility is still his. Eve’s role, from the beginning of creation, was to be a helper for Adam. This does not by any means indicate an inferiority, but a helper who was Adam’s equal in worth and dignity. She differed in ways that would complement Adam.

The conflict: A dire consequence of the Fall is the conflict it has introduced into the relationships of husbands and wives. In Genesis 3:16 God tells Eve, “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” This desire is to interfere with or distort the role of her husband. The roles God gave to the husband and wife have been distorted through the Fall. Eve would now rebel against the God-given authority of her husband and he would abuse the authority to rule poorly, forcefully, and even harshly.

The restoration: When creation is restored through the work of Christ we do not find an undoing of the marriage order. Were submission a consequence of the Fall we would expect Christ to “make all things new” in this area. Instead we find that Christ provides power to overcome the sinful impulses of a wife against her husband and the husband’s response of ruling harshly over her. But Christ does not remove the order of a husband being in authority over his wife.

The mystery: When the Apostle Paul wrote of a “mystery” he was describing something that was understood only faintly in the Old Testament but became clear in the New. In Ephesians 5:31-32 Paul shows that the ultimate purpose in marriage is to mirror the relationship between Christ and the church. “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” Dr. Grudem says, “Although Adam and Eve did not know it, their relationship represented the relationship between Christ and the church. They were created to represent that relationship, and that is what all marriages are supposed to do. In that relationship, Adam represents Christ and Eve represents the church…”

The parallel with the Trinity: The triune nature of God provides the perfect example of submission. “The equality, differences, and unity between men and women reflects the equality, differences and unity of the Trinity.” We are blessed and honored to be able to represent that relationship in our marriages.

The ultimate reason a husband is to exercise headship over his wife may not have been clear to Adam and Eve. It was not clear to God’s people until after the writing of the New Testament. The ultimate reason the husband is to be head is that the marriage relationship is to mirror that of Christ and his church. Just as Christ is head of the church and we submit to him, in the same way man is the head of the family and the wife should submit to him. A husband is to lead in the same was as Christ: lovingly, tenderly and always seeking the greatest good for his wife. A wife is to mirror her relationship with Christ in her relationship with her husband. She is to trust him, be loyal to him and help him. This can only be done in a relationship of humble, loving, godly submission.

When men lovingly lead their wives and when women respond in joyful submission, we see a beautiful echo of the relationship of the Father to the Son and we model the love of the Son for his bride. Headship and submission may be unpopular and counter-cultural, but we can have confidence that they have been ordained before the foundations of the world and that they have been ordained for our good and so we can bring glory to our Creator. They have existed for all of eternity and will endure through all ages. Headship, leadership in the home, is both a privilege and a responsibility.

*****

Tomorrow this series will continue with a discussion of how a man is to lead in the home. In the meantime, if you have questions, comments or concerns that don’t make sense to post here in the comments section, feel free to email me.

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Post tags: Family, Father, Home, Husband, Leadership

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This post comes to us from Tim Challies who has graciously allowed me to bring you this new series here. Tim’s blog at www.challies.com is one of the most challenging and insightful you will find. I subscribe to Tim’s RSS feed and encourage you to check it out.

This is a series about leadership in the home. It is geared specifically to men and I hope it will be of some use to guys of any age though perhaps it will be most at home in the hands of young men—those who are newly married or those who are to be married in the near future. I hope it is also the kind of series that a wife can pass to her husband and say, “Honey! Read this and tell me what you think of it…” When the series is complete I will put it together into a PDF file to make it easier to share in that way.

This series of articles really grew out of a previous series I wrote, one that dealt with the effects of pornography. After I wrote that series I received email after email from women whose husbands had fallen into sexual sin. So often these women lamented not only the pain of finding out that their husbands were involved in sexual sin but also the fact that these men were showing terrible, sometimes non-existent, leadership in the home. Many of these wives longed for their husbands to fulfill their God-given role as men, as husbands, as leaders of their homes. To be frank, there are a lot of Christian men who have no conception of their God-given role as leaders.

A husband’s unique role consists of three tasks: leadership, protection and provision. In fact, these may be the only unique abilities a man brings to the marriage relationship (beyond the obvious biological role). If he abdicates on any of these things, either allowing them to disappear altogether or forcing his wife to take over, he is less of a man for it. And she has less of a husband.

Most Christian men believe that they are expected to be leaders within the home. I would argue that most men, Christian or not, believe this in their heart of hearts. But few husbands know what it really means to be this kind of a leader. Few know what it means to be a godly husband. In the second article of this series, I want to prove to you that God has called husbands to lead.

A man is to lead in his home and family. He is to be the leader, the head. Of course this is not a headship that brings with it power and prestige and might, but a headship that brings with it love and care and sacrifice. This is the leadership exemplified by Jesus Christ who, as Lord of all the universe, became a servant and suffered for the sake of those he loved. This will be the topic of our third article.

The husband is to protect his family. This goes beyond physical protection, though this is an aspect of his role, but extends also to emotional protection, spiritual protection, sexual protection. He is to protect his family from any of the ways in which Satan would seek to corrupt and harm. This will be the topic of our fourth article.

And finally, the husband is to provide. He is to be ultimately responsible for ensuring that his family’s physical and financial needs are being met, but he is to do more than this. He is to provide for them financially, physical, spiritually and more. This will be the subject of the final article.

THE CHARACTER OF THE GODLY HUSBAND
I want to dedicate the rest of this introduction to looking at a few of the necessary character traits of a godly leader in the home. These are traits you must cultivate if you want to successfully lead your wife and children.

Humility. This is probably an obvious one—a good leader is a humble leader, one who has an awareness of his own sins and weaknesses and one who knows who and what he is before God. But here is something you may not expect. I want to share a quick and humbling fact: If you are a young husband (and maybe even if you have been married for a long time), you are probably an awful leader. You’re probably really, really bad at it—so bad that I feel sorry for your wife and so bad that you would, too, if you could step outside yourself for a moment. The task of leadership does not come easily or naturally and neither does good leadership. Despite this, I want to encourage you to press on. You need to lead anyway, but you need to do it with great humility, not just knowing your own propensity to sin but also knowing that you are untested and unskilled as a leader. You will learn to lead well as you lead, if you lead humbly.

Confidence. You need to have confidence that God really has called you to lead your family. This can be hard to believe in a culture like ours that screams sexism! as soon as it hears a man claim that he leads his wife. You will need to study Scripture to give yourself a firm foundation to understand that God has called you to lead and you will need to study Scripture to help you know how to be that kind of leader. You will lead well only if you are confident that God stands behind you, affirming you in your leadership. Your leadership is not your own, but has been delegated to you by the One who created you, who created your wife, and who brought you together. Lead, then, with a humble confidence.

Godliness. You will need to be a godly man if you are to lead your family well. Like leadership, godliness does not come naturally and it does not come easily. It is, to borrow an excellent description, a long obedience in the same direction. It does not come without wars, without battles, without scars. It certainly does not come without persistence and dedication. Lead your family with a humble, confident godliness.

Love. If you are to be a godly husband, you need to have love for your wife—a love that is far greater than the love you have for yourself. Sound easy? It isn’t! We naturally love ourselves so much more than the one we claim to love the most. You will need to have a great love for your wife and children and a greater love still for God. You must be willing to count yourself last. You must be willing to die for your wife but, harder still, to live for her. You need to be willing and equipped to lead your wife with a humble, confident, godly love.

How do you do that? Read on…

*****

(We will keep posting Tim’s series here in coming days)

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My memory is a specialised filing system, and so is my wife’s. For me, numbers, websites, passwords, and things of this nature come easily. But ask me what year we went to the ‘that’ beach for a holiday and I’m stuffed. My wife can’t remember the password to her email account but if you ask who gave us that set of glasses for our wedding or what she made for dinner at the youth group camp, she will be able to tell you the name, the dish and the recipe. She is truly amazing!

A few months back I received news that a ‘box’ of personal items had been found amongst the records at Rhema Broadcasting Group which is the New Zealand ‘sister organisation’ to who I now work for, UCB Australia. Somehow in my stint in Auckland as Admin and Personnel Manager this box of memoirs had become buried and lost.

10 years later it was in my hot little hands. Filled with photos of acting days, newspaper clipping reviews of my time treading the boards and a ton of youth group memories I began walking back down a memory lane or two.

While the memories go back through good and bad years they tell a story. Its a story of growth and living, of thought and thanks and a few chaotic tall tales along the way. Over the next while I want to move this box of thought from handwritten and type written words into the digital age and place them here on my blog.

Watch for photos, newspaper clippings and poetry coming out my ears. Some good, some really bad and some about real moments in Pitchford History. I’m creating a new category for ‘The Box’ to keep track of these pieces.

Oh and BTW, there were two All Black posters lost in that move from Auckland to Brisbane back in 1998. So if you have my large black and white collectors posters of Sean Fitzpatrick or Christian Cullen please get in touch to return them. No questions asked of course!

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Post tags: Life, Memories, Poetry, Writing

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The longer I’m married I realise the benefits are on the end of giving not taking. That’s where the difference is from a contract to a covenant. In a contract the parties keep taking until there is nothing left to take and then they walk away. Think on any commercial contract, any business deal and the objective is for a ‘win-win’ where both parties take as much as they can as fast as they can for as long as they can. Once there is nothing left to take the contract is dissolved and each party goes out looking for new fields to conquer.

In covenant the parties give so that the agreement can last forever. In giving there is sustenance. In giving there is ebb and flow of strength and weakness. In giving there is hope beyond today. I am so grateful for a giving wife who has given in times of my weakness and loved when there was no love in return. Equally I am grateful for the love and appreciation I have for her where I can hold her, nurture her, encourage her and provide for her just because of who she is. Last night I lay in bed praying for her, thinking of 18years of marriage and how beautiful she is today.

Today we did some picture hanging that included some wedding photos. One framed piece is of our hands with our wedding rings and either side are printed our wedding vows from 1991. Cheryl had the photos and the vows made up for a surprise Wedding anniversary present for me a couple of years ago. I share them with you today because of their increased significance to me. Cheryl and I wrote our own vows and they continue to show our love, our faith and our commitment.

My Vows;

Cheryl, I love you for your beauty and wisdom. I want all our friends and relations to listen to these vows I make today. Before our loving God, family and friends I pledge: To love you in body, person and spirit,
To provide for a home that we build together
as a haven of love,
To hold you tight when you cry,
To hold you soft as together we lie,
And to hold you high as you try to be all you desire.
I pray that I will lead our home as Christ led the church. Not for power but to secure you each hour. So together we can grow and learn to love each other more.

Cheryl, encouraging and forgiving one another in love, help me see this marriage last forever. I give you this ring as a token of my love. Let it symbolise the circle of family and friends who supported us today.

 

Cheryl’s Vows;

Andrew, I love you more than words can ever express. On this very special day which will always be with us, I pledge in the presence of our loving Father in heaven, family & friends:
That I will always love you no matter what highs & lows we may go through.
I promise always to care for you & meet your needs as our Father in heaven does without fail.
I will always be your companion as well as your friend who you can always depend on in your times of distress & happiness.
I pray that the trust that has been accomplished between us will continue to grow as we travel down life’s narrow road, that our love will grow as we learn to give and take so we will overcome any difficulties.
I know with Christ in our hearts & standing with us at our side our marriage will last forever.
Therefore this ring I give you is a symbol of my love as it signifies love which is unconditional & eternal just as our Father’s love is for us.

 

Please forgive the hastily taken photos off my iPhone. They were a little out of focus from the photos in our Wedding Album. I wanted to put something up here in this blog that reminded me of the significance of the 23rd March 1991. I will get some better resolution photos up in the coming days.

Update: After posting this I thought of the scripture in Ephesians chapter 5.

25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

The people at www.covenantmarriage.com have put together a few challenging and helpful descriptions of the identifiers of a covenant marriage relationship.

Elements of a Covenant Relationship

Covenants are the fruit of a loving, faithful relationship. The vows we exchange at our wedding reflect a relationship already bound by steadfast love and faithfulness. The degree in which these words have meaning comes in direct proportion to the unconditional love that dwells within our heart for the one to whom we are repeating them.

Covenant partners take responsibility for their actions. As partners in a covenant marriage relationship, we are responsible for our actions. An example would be to remain “sexually pure” in our thoughts and actions towards our spouse.

Covenants are based on freedom of choice. Covenant marriages are not built on coercion, deceit, and manipulation. Wives, submission is freely given and grows from respect, not fear and manipulation. In like manner, husband, choose daily to love your wife “as Christ loved the church.” You must freely choose to love and honor her in spite of the fact that you may not “feel” like loving and honoring her.

Covenants are rooted in actions based on choices, not feelings. Our feelings are forever fluctuating. Therefore to build a covenant marriage on feelings is to build it on shifting sand, which cannot support the foundation of marriage.

Covenant partners nurture their relation-ship. Our marriage will grow as we build up one another in love. This takes place when we value our spouse more than ourselves. As we experience the unconditional love of Jesus Christ, we are able to love our spouse as He loves us. Covenant partners administer unconditional love, forgiveness, and reconciliation while providing comfort and hope to their partner.

Covenants are based on commitments freely offered A covenant is built on selfless love, freely given and freely received. As strange as it may sound, a covenant marriage is one in which the “tie that binds” the couple together is a commitment freely offered with no strings attached. Paul said it well: “Love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13:8).

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Post tags: Covenant, Famliy, Life, Marriage, Relationship

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Its fair to say I haven’t been using these questions for over ten years and yet when I look at them they are questions I ask myself on a regular basis. I feel they are healthy spiritual check-up. Zig ZIglar would say we need a check-up from the neck-up… ie. get your head straight. These questions deal more with the ‘heart’ of the matter.

1. Have you been with a person of the opposite sex this month in an inappropriate way?
2. Have you been completely above reproach in all your financial dealings this month?
3. Have you exposed yourself to any sexually explicit material this month?
4. Have you spent time daily in prayer and in the Scriptures this month?
5. Have you wasted large amounts of time frivolously this month?
6. Have you fulfilled the mandate of your call this month?
7. Have you taken time off to be with your family this month?
8. Have you been ashamed of the Lord this month?
9. Have you done anything this month that you would regret if the Lord returned today?
10. Have you just lied to me?

You can change the frequency from monthly to weekly if this is how often you meet. As these questions become part of your own ‘check-list’ I find they are also a great hedge built around your heart protecting you from making those wrong decisions.

For more wisdom on accountability and leadership, read this excellent article by Kenneth Boa. http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=2784

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Haley & Michael DiMarco from Hungry Planet handled some great material on dating including; "The Art of the First Date", "The Art of Small Talk", "The Art of the Chase" and "The Art of Rejection". Previously Haley had combined with youth communicator Justin Lookadoo to write "The Dirt on Breaking Up" which I also had alongside Justin’s book "The Dirt on SEX". All of these books were just over 100pgs of A5 reading and well structured to keep your attention for a quick but engaging read.

You will also enjoy reading of the personal tidbits such as how Haley and Michael met online. The honesty and experiences like this contribute to being able to speak to the current generation. Nothing is left out in these books and some of the stats included will amaze. Scared to talk about condoms, masturbation and STDs? These books talk to the issues with honest feedback from authors and real life young people sharing their journey.

Finally I had the enticement of reading Matthew Paul Turners book "What you didn’t learn from your parents about sex" which was subtitled (Matthew, as if the main title wasn’t long enough) "a guide to a touchy subject". The former editor of CCM Magazine is a funny, real and informed writer who knows his reader. Matthew cuts to the chase in this 260pg feast of thought and does a great job of pulling us in to line on where a balanced view of sex should be. Cutting back the legalistic, the timid and the christianese we find a book that should be read by teens, parents, engaged and the wandering lost souls of early marriage who just weren’t given a decent map book to their sexual journey.

Are you a parent, confused or both? Get these books for yourself your teens and to make available to friends who don’t know the first step of bringing their kids into first base with healthy relationships and ‘appreciation’ for sex. I’m sure they’re at your local bookstore or online but for more info see these sites.

www.hungryplanet.net
www.matthewpaulturner.com

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Post tags: book, parent, sex, teach

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