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Category: Marriage (Page 2 of 6)

Rugged Commitment

May 20, 2021 / / 0 Comments

My great friend Jim Martin posted this in his weekly email encouragement to a bunch of us ministers who rely on him for regular shots of wisdom and strength. I’m re-posting it here word for word.

I was getting ready to officiate at a wedding in Central Texas. Preparing for this event caused me to think about marriage in general and my own marriage in particular. Beyond this, I had already been thinking about some of the fragile relationships within congregations and the relational challenges we have faced over the last year.

Some of these challenges have resulted in the fragmentation of relationships within congregations. Church members argued about the pandemic, wearing masks, getting vaccinated, the presidential election, racial issues, etc. For many, this has been quite painful.

Yet, as we look to the future of our congregations, it is important that we recommit to one another by loving with a rugged commitment. By “rugged commitment,” I mean a love that is willing to do what is hard and messy. This is a love for another that is much like the steadfast love of the Lord toward his children. This is a love that is willing to go the distance for another.

Can we love each other with a rugged commitment so that we forebear one another in love, even when we strongly disagree?

Can we love each other with a rugged commitment so that we seek to lighten the load of church leaders instead of making life so difficult for them?

Can we love each other with a rugged commitment so that we put our identity in Jesus above any other identity?

This rugged commitment is necessary for a lasting friendship, for a growing marriage, and for any congregation that wishes to stay together, in spite of the pressures that threaten to rip it apart.

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Our outdoor movie night set for tomorrow at Bivins Elementary has been moved because of all the rain – more than five inches in the past seven days and more on the way. Our Children’s Minister described the field at the school today as “swampy.” It looks like a playa lake. The event has been moved now to our west parking lot here at Central. We’re inviting the entire Bivins Elementary community and our whole church family to park on the south side, bring your lawn chairs and blankets, and enjoy Disney’s Moana at 630pm. We’ll be passing out the candy and popcorn and hoping that whatever is forecast for Friday night misses us.

Lesson learned: If we ever want rain in Amarillo, we need only to schedule an outdoor church event.

Peace,

Allan

She Keeps Saying “Yes”

November 25, 2020 / / 3 Comments

Thirty-one years ago today, I got on a plane for the very first time and flew to Las Vegas with Carrie-Anne. I had asked her to marry me on that morning of November 25, 1989 and by 11:30 that night, we were husband and wife, hitched by a deputy sheriff in the basement of the Clark County courthouse. She said “yes” to me that day and she’s been saying “yes” to me ever since.

Carrie-Anne said “yes” to a radio career marked by slow upward mobility — emphasis on mobility. She said “yes” to Pampa, Marble Falls, Memphis, Wichita Falls, and, finally, Dallas. She said “yes” to the trials and tribulations that come with being a preacher’s wife. She said “yes” to Austin, North Richland Hills, and Amarillo. She’s said “yes” to Van Halen concerts and more Rangers games than we could count. She’s said “yes” to scary movies, political documentaries, and The Simpsons. She said “yes” to the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the Dr Pepper Museum. She’s said “yes” to trips to Ukraine, Peru, Brazil, Columbia, and Bolivia. (She continues to say “no” to Israel, but I’m still asking.)

I don’t know how it keeps happening. That first “yes,” maybe, came in a moment of weakness. However it happened, I feel very lucky and grateful. I thank God every single day that Carrie-Anne said “yes” that Friday after Thanksgiving in 1989. Today, we have a houseful together — three adult daughters, a new son-in-law, and Carley’s large dog. And more unknowns and adventures still to come. Together.

Carrie-Anne knows me better than anyone. We’ve been through a lot together in 31-years. She has seen and experienced the worst of me and the best of me. And, by the grace of God, she keeps saying “yes.” I feel so fortunate to be her husband, so blessed by the Lord that she is my wife.

Peace,

Allan

Divorce & Remarriage: Last Part

July 6, 2019 / / 0 Comments

This part is just to people who have been divorced. If you’ve ever been through a divorce — if it happened forty years ago or if the ink is still wet on the paperwork — this part is for you.

I know when you hear people say God hates divorce, you think, “Can he possibly hate it more than I do?” I know. You read somewhere that divorced people have failed Christ. Somebody in your Bible class says if divorced Christians remarry, they’re going to be living in adultery the rest of their lives. You overhear someone say divorced Christians have to stay single forever. And you wonder if you’ve really been forgiven by God.

Can you be forgiven?

Maybe you wonder if you’re OK with God. Maybe you went into your marriage and divorce was not even an option. Just like all of us.

Sometimes hearts harden. Sometimes people turn their backs on God’s plan. Sometimes one party makes a decision that forever changes a covenant relationship. Maybe there’s adultery. Maybe there’s abandonment. Maybe there’s abuse. Always there’s sin.

Maybe you tried everything. You begged God night and day to save your marriage. You tried marriage counseling. You gave your all for years and years and all you got from your spouse in return was more adultery. You sought wise counsel from your elders and others in the church who know you best. But, eventually, you had to walk away.

Maybe you weren’t even a Christian when you went through your divorce. But now that you’ve given your life to the Lord, some people are telling you your current marriage isn’t pleasing to God or his Church. Or you have to stay single. And it’s not making sense with the good news of the Gospel.

Or maybe you were the guilty party. Maybe you cheated once. Or twice. Maybe a lot. Maybe your selfishness drove your spouse away. Maybe you were so caught up in your work that you neglected your spouse and children. Maybe it was your addiction. Maybe you live with the shame and guilt that you’re the one who destroyed your family.

Here’s what you need to know: There is mercy and forgiveness from God for divorce. There is a place at the table and a place to serve, a place to belong and a place to be valued and loved in God’s Kingdom for all who’ve been divorced. This is precisely why Jesus walked to the cross and willingly died for us. Love. Grace. Forgiveness. For all our sins, not just some of them. Your life right now and your eternal destiny are wrapped up in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus. And in Christ there is always light and life and hope.

Peace,

Allan

Divorce & Remarriage: Part Four

July 5, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Before I post the next section of our “Divorce: It’s Going to be OK” sermon from last Sunday at Central, let me direct you to this story in USA Today detailing the successful efforts of Blue Bell Ice Cream to identify the woman who licked the top of a container of Tin Roof last week and placed it back inside a store freezer. It happened in Lufkin, Texas. Behind the Pine Curtain. What’s wrong with those people? It’s sickening to me that somebody would do this in the first place but, more than that, it’s ludicrous that she and her friend would record it and post the video to the internet. More proof, as if we needed any, that the internet in general and our iPhones in particular are making us worse people, not better.

Also, please be aware that you can buy Little Debbie Christmas Tree cakes now in the middle of the summer. It’s a special promotion they’re calling “Christmas in July.” And please do not be surprised that I am participating.

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God forgives all sin through the cross of Christ –

“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly… God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” ~Romans 5:6-10

Divorces cause many burdens: physical, emotional, sexual, and social burdens. And, of course, spiritual burdens. Well, yeah. Divorce is sin. There are consequences for disobeying God. With divorce, there’s a guilt because we’ve failed at this most important relationship. But God forgives us and restores us by offering his perfect Son to cover our imperfections. At the cross, we’re made perfect in God’s eyes despite our many failures, including our failures in marriage. We look to the love of God and the cross of Christ.

We’ve tried legislating divorce and remarriage by laws and rules. So if a person destroys a God-ordained marriage and can’t fix it, we impose some type of punishment or restitution. If you’re going to be forgiven by God and live in a righteous relationship with God — if you’re going to be OK — then you have to do this and you cannot do that. We try to deal with divorce through laws. Praise God, he deals with divorce at the cross!

The cross of Christ is an eternal symbol of God’s limitless love and amazing grace. When we are forgiven at the cross, we become perfect by God’s love and grace and we are completely released from the burdens of guilt and shame and fear and we’re also released from any requirement to make some kind of restitution. The Church has forced divorced people to stay celibate, we’ve forbidden them to remarry, we’ve demanded they dissolve their second marriages, and we’ve disfellowshipped people who wouldn’t or couldn’t pay those prices.

Know this: Jesus Christ is the only one who pays the price. Jesus Christ makes restitution for all the sins of humanity at the cross and that includes restitution for divorce. Jesus paid it all!

“I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more!” ~Hebrews 8:12

We do not offer judgment or condemnation to the world or to each other. We gladly offer the cross of Christ. We don’t fix past sins by adding new ones. Sometimes you truly cannot go back and change what’s done. But you can commit to, in our Lord’s words, go and sin no more. All of us can claim complete forgiveness and perfect pardon through the atoning death and resurrection of Christ and work hard to remain from now on faithful to whatever vows we’ve made.

A church that is anchored in the love of God and the cross of Christ is a church that can say to a couple in crisis, “Don’t divorce; stay married.” We can say to the divorcing couple, “Repent of this sin against your family and against God.” And we can say to the divorced, “God loves you; he’s not angry with you; you are forgiven by God in Christ.”

There will be some who accuse us of preaching cheap grace. My response to that is God’s grace is better than cheap; it’s free!

“The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” ~Romans 6:23

“It is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God!” ~Ephesians 2:8

There are some who say you can’t be forgiven for divorce and remarriage if you’re already a baptized Christian when it happens. There’s forgiveness if your divorce was before you became a Christian, but if you were already a Christian you knew better. You can’t be forgiven of that. You’re living in sin.

Really? Go back and read Romans 5:6-10.If baptism into Christ forgives a pre-Christian divorce and remarriage, how much more! If God’s grace is freely given to his enemies, how much more for his children! The idea that Christians receive less grace and forgiveness than non-Christians cannot be our guide. The idea that Christians receive less grace because we understand God’s will better distorts grace. All God’s children have grace. Grace has no value if it doesn’t forgive sin. Romans 8 tells us there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!

Peace,

Allan

Divorce & Remarriage: Part Three

July 4, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Part One: Divorce is Sin.
Part Two: The Church has Tried to Legislate this Sin through Law.

Marriage after divorce is not a sin. Divorce is the sin. Divorce — breaking a marriage covenant — hurts people and destroys the Gospel. Getting married — making a marriage covenant — blesses people and proclaims the Gospel.

“To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, let her remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.” ~1 Corinthians 7:10-11

The correct translation of the first sentence in verse 11 is “let her remain unmarried” and not “she must remain unmarried.” The original Greek word is menato – “let her remain.” Well, why does Paul want a divorced person to stay single? In 1 Corinthians, Paul wants everybody to be single. He truly believes that’s the best way to be a Christian. It’s the best way to serve God. He says it in verses 7, 26, 32, 34, and 40. Paul consistently emphasizes the benefits of being single; we’d be surprised to see anything different.

In verses 12-16, Paul talks about Christians who are married to non-Christians. His advice is to stay together in the marriage. Holiness is contagious. Don’t underestimate the power of God’s grace.

In verses 17-24, he gives the general counsel to stay as you are. He says it three times.

In verses 25-26, Paul talks to virgins and he tells them to stay single. He truly believes you can serve Christ better without the worries and responsibilities of marriage.

And now in verses 27-28, he says it’s not a sin for a divorced person to remarry:

“Are you married? Do not seek a divorce. Are you divorced? Do not look for a wife. But if you do marry, you have not sinned.”

Again, the original Greek language is important. “Are you married? Do not seek lysin (‘to be loosed’). Have you laylysin (‘been loosed’)? Do not look for a wife. But if you do marry, you have not sinned.” Paul says it’s not a sin for the divorced to remarry. The old NIV butchered this and the new NIV makes it worse. For some reason the NIV uses two different words to translate the same Greek word used twice in the same verse like it’s two separate things. But most every other translation since Paul wrote it uses the same word twice to mimic the Greek. Check the KJV, the New KJV, ASV, NASB, NEB, Alexander Campbell’s Living Oracles Bible from 1835, Webster’s translation from 1833, the Rheims translation from 1582 (older than the KJV), and the Revised Challoner-Rheims Version put out by the 1950s Catholic Church, perhaps the most conservative when it comes to divorce and remarriage. It’s not a sin for the divorced to remarry.

We cannot object to plain Scripture because we think Jesus said something different. Jesus is answering a specific question about a detail in the Law of Moses and, as Christians, we see the Law of Moses differently. Jesus tells the lepers to show themselves to the priests; nobody’s arguing for the sick to do that today. Jesus says to lay your gift at the altar; we don’t make animal sacrifices in our worship assemblies anymore and nobody’s saying we should.

But what our Lord says is very important. Do not read me as discounting the words of Jesus. In Matthew, Jesus reminds the people about the certificate of divorce. The certificate is what gave the divorced woman the right to remarry. Everybody who was listening to Jesus assumed that divorced people can remarry — that’s the whole point of the certificate! All of Jesus’ listeners assume divorce and remarriage are less than ideal; but they never conclude it’s impossible or that remarriage is a sin. It’s not prohibited anywhere in the Law of Moses. The right to remarry has always been an assumed result of every divorce.

Divorce is sin, not remarriage. It’s not a sin to remarry after a divorce. There’s no such thing as an adulterous marriage.

And I know God hates divorce. That’s what the Bible says. Yes, God hates divorce. The Bible also says God hates our worship assemblies when we don’t treat our neighbors with love. The Bible says God hates prideful eyes, lying tongues, hearts that devise wicked schemes, and people who stir up conflict in the community.

The Bible also tells us that Christ Jesus died to forgive us of those sins and to bring us into a righteous relationship with our God.

Divorce is not the end of the world. Divorce is not a death sentence. It’s not the unforgivable sin.

Peace,

Allan

Divorce & Remarriage: Part Two

July 3, 2019 / / 0 Comments

(This is part two of our sermon “Divorce: It’s Going to be OK” from this past Sunday at Central.)

Divorce is sin. And the Church has tried to legislate this sin through law.

Generally speaking — I’m using very broad and very general language in today’s post — the Church has historically taken a phrase or two from Jesus and a sentence or two from Paul and come up with complicated rules and strict laws and serious consequences for legislating divorce and remarriage.

We have said any divorce not based on fornication is an “unscriptural” divorce. In other words, divorce is only allowed by Scripture if one of the parties has had sex with somebody else. We’ve taken the words of Jesus in Matthew, his specific answer to a particular question about a detail in Deuteronomy 24, and we’ve built entire legal structures around it. You can’t divorce your wife except for marital unfaithfulness. We’ve called it the exception clause. Now, I’ll suggest that the reason Jesus’ words about divorce in Mark and Luke don’t contain this exception is because Mark and Luke are written to Gentile Christians who don’t know and don’t care much about the Law of Moses. Matthew is written to Jewish Christians who care a great deal about how Jesus might interpret that murky phrase in Deuteronomy 24. So Matthew puts it in.

Regardless of that, now we’ve got “scriptural” and “unscriptural” divorces based on who did and who didn’t have sex with somebody else and when they did it. So if a couple gets a divorce and there’s no fornication involved, we’ve said there’s no divorce. They’re still married in the eyes of God. It doesn’t matter how many trips they’ve made to the courthouse and how many divorce documents they’ve signed, we’ve said God is still recognizing the marriage. It can’t be undone without sexual infidelity. So if either one of them gets remarried, we’ve said they’ll be living in adultery. They will always be living in sin.

OK. What about a couple who marries and then divorces after three years? No kids. No fornication. No sexual sin. It’s just a bad match — irreconcilable differences — and they divorce. Both of these people wind up marrying again and these two second marriages are doing well. The guy has two kids with his second wife, the woman has three children with her second husband, and both families have re-committed themselves to Christ. And then fifteen years later these two run into each other at the mall. They haven’t seen each other or spoken in fifteen years. So they talk and they show each other pictures of their children and they sit down for coffee together as they’re getting caught up. Next thing you know, the coffee leads to dinner, and the dinner leads to these two having sex together that night in a hotel room. And the angels in heaven rejoice! Praise God! These two are finally obeying the will of the Lord!

We’ve also determined that if there are “scriptural” and “unscriptural” divorces based on fornication, then there must be guilty parties and innocent parties. The guilty party in a divorce can never remarry, but the innocent party can. Which means — follow me on this — we’re saying in God’s eyes the guilty person is still married to the innocent person but the innocent person is no longer married to the guilty person. I think that’s impossible. I don’t know if it’s physics or just math, but that’s impossible.

In a “scriptural” divorce in which somebody had sex outside the marriage, the innocent party can remarry because he or she has been released from the first marriage. But the guilty person is still bound? Is this about marriage or is it about punishment? We’ve made it so that in church you’re better off killing your husband than divorcing him. We’ll forgive you for murder. And then you can remarry.

We’ve made it so that in an “unscriptural” divorce, where nobody’s been unfaithful sexually, both parties are guilty. The man divorces his wife, he doesn’t get remarried, he’s not having sex with anybody else, and we say the wife cannot remarry. She’s waiting on the guy to have sex with somebody else first. She’s waiting on it! And the church is hoping for it! Somehow we’ve said this couple is still married in God’s eyes. On what grounds, I have no idea.

What about the couple that’s “unscripturally” divorced and remarried prior to baptism? Does their Christian conversion allow them to remain married? Some have said, “No, they’re living in adultery. They have to be divorced in order to be saved.” Wait. Do we tell married people to divorce in order to please God? Do we tell them they can live together but they can’t have sex? Is that the biblical model for marriage?

If a husband abandons his wife and leaves no forwarding address, can the wife remarry? Well, is the guy having sex with another woman? And what kind of proof do we need?

Does fornication after an “unscriptural” divorce retroactively make the divorce “scriptural?” In other words, the husband divorces his wife, there’s no fornication, so the divorce is “unscriptural.” If the husband remarries, now he’s committing adultery and the first wife can remarry. So in an “unscriptural” divorce, the first to remarry is a sinner and going to hell while the second to remarry is good and going to heaven.

What if a husband is beating his wife? She’s in danger of injury or maybe even death. Can she divorce? Can she remarry? Well, she can’t divorce him if he’s not cheating on her. So maybe the Church recommends a restraining order or a legal separation. Wait. The Church recommends she be relieved of her marital duties, but not her marriage? She’s not going to submit to her husband, she’s not going to serve her husband, she’s not going to give her body to her husband, she’s not going to live with her husband, but they’re still married? This is not God’s model for marriage. Is she really still his wife? Should she be? We’re setting up false and fictitious marriages for the sake of preserving a doctrine!

Jesus says, I desire mercy, not sacrifice.
Paul says the Gospel is about love, not law.

At best, we’ve developed rules and laws that are unmerciful.
At worst, we’ve punished people and monitored their salvation and sought our own salvation through legalistic works. Through law.

Peace,

Allan

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