I am participating in Boundless Webzine's Boundless Summer Challenge. Task #2 asked us to read and respond to Scott Croft's series of essays on Biblical dating. His essays can be found here. Contest rules can be found here.
The secular me and the Christ-following me run a simultaneous dialogue in the back of my head while reading a series of essays such as Scott Croft’s “Biblical Dating.” The secular me asks, “You want me to behave how? Are you kidding? First of all, you never buy the dairy when you can get the milk for free. Secondly, you always test the milk first because you don’t want to be stuck with anything sour!” That works for dating, right? The newly emergent Christ-following me understands that Mr. Croft’s suggestions for appropriate Christian dating behavior recognize that God did not give us one standard of behavior for married life that recognizes His will, but the freedom to do as we please, sometimes behaving in a manner diametrically opposed to His will, before then. The secular me doesn’t recognize God’s supremacy. The Christ-following me understands that “as Christians, we don't get a free pass to carnality” while we are dating. I’d like to write that the newly emergent Christ-following me completely crushed the secular me, but I’d be lying. I understand the secular approach well. Several decades of secular living are difficult to shake off. I do wish that I learned this stuff earlier in life. It would have saved a lot of heart ache and expense. Either way, I am grateful for these lessons as I have children, one of whom is just recognizing that girls rock! I am trying to gracefully teach him now what I didn’t learn so many years ago.
These essays helped me coalesce those strings of scripture that I have repeatedly read and understood but have never gelled into one cohesive thought that I can easily explain to another person. If we love our neighbor as we love ourselves, then we want our neighbor to love the Lord our God with all their heart, soul, strength and mind. We do not want to lead them astray from God’s will. How can we do this while dating (from the man’s perspective) if we do not love our girlfriend the way that Christ loved the church? Did Christ do anything that caused a man to sin? Should we? Mr. Croft was correct when he advised that we should not “start what you cannot — without sin —finish.” It is quite challenging to transition fifteen years into our journey from a secular marriage to a marriage where I love my wife the way that Christ loved the church. By the Grace of God, it is changing.
Showing posts with label Bible. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bible. Show all posts
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Monday, September 14, 2009
What Do YOU Do with a New Book?
Let’s be honest here. What’s the first thing that you do when you get a new book?
Anybody?
Anybody?
Go ahead. You can admit it here. No one will make fun of you to your face.
You smell it, don’t you?
I know you do.
Those crisp pages inside the stiff cover just beckon to your olfactory system. You lift the book to your face, bending slightly. You close your eyes as you gently and deeply inhale. Some of you are flippers, fanning the edges of the book with your thumbs like a poker dealer shuffling his deck, trying to release that new book goodness from its captivity between each and every page. You shuffle the pages three or four times. The rest of you are crackers. You open the book slightly at one place, then at another, and another, until three or four locations have released their inky delight, but you close the book in hopes of preserving the aromatic flavor for your first reading. You never crack the spine.
I was the only person willing to admit that at Bible study yesterday. It was a combined class of kindergarten, second graders, and fourth graders, all with their parents. The purpose of the class was to distribute Bibles to all of the children. Each year our church gives age appropriate Bibles to children in those grades. The leader of the class, Denise, opened the class with the question, “What is the first thing that you do with a new book?”
One child shouted, “You read it!”
Another yelled, “You write your name in it.”
Denise looked around expectantly, her eyes wide, eagerly looking for the bright student who knew the correct answer.
“You smell it,” I said.
“YES!” she exclaimed, pointing in my direction. “You smell it!”
Then, as she continued her class, she demonstrated her technique. She’s a cracker.
No one else in the entire room appeared willing to share in the experience. I know there were more new book smellers in the room, but no one had the courage to publicly admit to their secret pleasure.
The Boss told me that we were weird.
Unless the new book was a new math book.
Anybody?
Anybody?
Go ahead. You can admit it here. No one will make fun of you to your face.
You smell it, don’t you?
I know you do.
Those crisp pages inside the stiff cover just beckon to your olfactory system. You lift the book to your face, bending slightly. You close your eyes as you gently and deeply inhale. Some of you are flippers, fanning the edges of the book with your thumbs like a poker dealer shuffling his deck, trying to release that new book goodness from its captivity between each and every page. You shuffle the pages three or four times. The rest of you are crackers. You open the book slightly at one place, then at another, and another, until three or four locations have released their inky delight, but you close the book in hopes of preserving the aromatic flavor for your first reading. You never crack the spine.
I was the only person willing to admit that at Bible study yesterday. It was a combined class of kindergarten, second graders, and fourth graders, all with their parents. The purpose of the class was to distribute Bibles to all of the children. Each year our church gives age appropriate Bibles to children in those grades. The leader of the class, Denise, opened the class with the question, “What is the first thing that you do with a new book?”
One child shouted, “You read it!”
Another yelled, “You write your name in it.”
Denise looked around expectantly, her eyes wide, eagerly looking for the bright student who knew the correct answer.
“You smell it,” I said.
“YES!” she exclaimed, pointing in my direction. “You smell it!”
Then, as she continued her class, she demonstrated her technique. She’s a cracker.
No one else in the entire room appeared willing to share in the experience. I know there were more new book smellers in the room, but no one had the courage to publicly admit to their secret pleasure.
The Boss told me that we were weird.
Unless the new book was a new math book.
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