The Annual Easter Dinner of Leavened Bread

5 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife. ² And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.

³ For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing.⁴ When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, ⁵ you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

⁶ Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? ⁷ Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. ⁸ Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

⁹ I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— ¹⁰ not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. ¹¹ But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. ¹² For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? ¹³ God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”

St. Paul wrote to the church of Corinth that the unrepentant sinner should be cast out and excluded for the sinner’s sake: “deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.”, and so that he must face God and His judgment.

Christians today (including us) abhor this idea. We favor of the idea that we must preserve a sinner’s flesh and pretend his soul will be saved. We’d rather they don’t suffer, perhaps never meet God, die, and go to Hell. We think its better if we keep them in our hands than deliver them to the wisdom, justice, and (yes) mercy of God’s hands.

We celebrate the festival of Christ’s resurrection with the old leaven of malice and evil by making those the weights against which we measure our words and actions instead of choosing words and actions which have been measured according to  their truth and sincerity. If someone asked us we’d deny it, but when we make decisions based on what won’t upset the other guests, or won’t cause someone hurt feelings, or won’t make us look like judgmental hypocrites, then guess what? That is the measure of the old leaven of malice and evil.

God, have mercy on me.

Homefront Tactics Roundtable II: Your Mother and Stepfather and Thanksgiving

Your mother and father divorced when you were young. She married another man sometime later, but there wasn’t much if anything you could do about it. You didn’t even know there could be a problem from a Biblical perspective.

You are grown and learned and you have decided to accept the Bible’s teaching on marriage and remarriage. Now it is Thanksgiving, and your mother and step-father have invited the whole family over for Thanksgiving.

What do you do?

Homefront Tactics Roundtable I: Your Sister Divorced Her Husband

We needs solutions and I have top-notch commentors on Christian family life. I have an idea.

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Your sister divorced her husband.

He was shiftless; quick to relax, slow to work and often slow to replace a lost job. An apathetic father, he didn’t discipline their two children much, but he didn’t abuse them either. Your sister was safe from him as well since his response to conflict was to go watch television in another room.

What do you do?

Edited to add: I should clarify that I’m not asking for a prediction. I don’t want to know what you think you would do. I want to know what you think a man should do.

Foolish and Worldly Talk, by Okrahead

After my last post Okrahead had a great comment.  I asked him to expand into a guest post. It’s very good. 

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GW commented on Dalrock, and was then addressed by Cane, on the issue of young Christian women “whoring around,” and whther are not “loving Christian fathers” are okay with it; as Cane observed GW’s “coup de grace” was that this is “foolish and worldly talk.”

This statement caused me to reflect on what “foolish and worldly talk” really is in relation to what many churches teach young women today.  First, we need to be aware of what wise and spiritual talking is so we can tell the difference.  In Titus 2 the apostle Paul commands that the older women are to “teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children.  To be discreet, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.”  (Titus 2:4, 5) In 1 Timothy 5 Paul addresses some young widows who apparently wanted to be strong, independent women who didn’t need a man, ordering them “I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.  For some have already turned aside after Satan.”  (I Tim. 5:14, 15)

What I find striking is that Paul specifically forbids the actions and attitudes that lead to the lifestyle of “finding herself”, or as Dalrock wryly noted, the “season of singleness.”  Paul describes young women who pursue the “season of singleness” as following Satan, even though they were members of the church.

What then might truly be foolish and worldly talk?  Foolish and worldly talk, as practiced in many churches today, as I have seen and heard first hand, is encouraging young women to put off marriage for college and career.  If a young woman loses her virginity at 17 on prom night the members of her church may act mildly embarrassed and titter, but few see it as a real problem.  If a young woman from that same church stays a virgin until her wedding night at age 18 the church will be scandalized; especially if she is a bright and pretty girl with “good college prospects.”  This is foolish and worldly.

Foolish and worldly talk, as I have seen and heard first hand in churches I have attended, is when Christian fathers send their 18 year old daughters off alone to a college campus in a far off city where they will be surrounded by sexual immorality and expected to join in with the general bacchanalia.  She may be drunk and passed out in a frat house, but at least she’s in college and unmarried.  This is foolish and worldly.

Foolish and worldly talk, as I have seen first hand, is churches that discourage young Christians from getting married because they “aren’t ready yet,” and who mock Christian families who have “too many” children, often with snide remarks such as “don’t they know what causes that yet?”  It would be unthinkable in these churches to criticize a “godly single mother” who has a brood of bastards in tow when she shows up looking for a handout, but a young married woman who has never asked a dime of anyone at the church is fair game for ridicule because she and her husband believe that children are a gift from the Lord.  Truly, they call good evil and evil good.  This is foolish and worldly.

Foolish and worldly talk is the practice by some Christian fathers of teaching their daughters from an early age that they must get as much education as possible, and advance their careers as far as possible, because there is no way that they can count on their future husbands to support them; because these good Christian fathers just know deep down that all those awful young men are going to leave their daughters destitute and abandon them, so it is imperative in them to inculcate distrust and disrespect for their daughters’ future Christian husbands as early as possible.  I have seen this one up close and personal; the fall out is more ugly than I can describe, but he was a good Christian father so what can I say?  This is foolish and worldly.

Foolish and worldly talk is the good Christian father, who together with his good Christian wife, calls their good Christian teenage daughter in and tells her how much they really, really trust her; but just to be on the safe side they are putting her on the pill.  They know she’ll always make good choices, but just in case she doesn’t, the pill will be there to save her.  This goes on at pretty much every evangelical church I’ve ever seen.  This is foolish and worldly.

Foolish and worldly talk is defending the practice of sending your daughter to a public high school where the school counselor will provide her with condoms and advice on the best ways to be sodomized; and where the English teacher she really admires and looks up to is also sponsor for the gay-straight alliance club, and will happily introduce her to a cute lesbian just her age.  Of course this never happens at your local public high school; just some far off place.  I see good Christian fathers sending their good Christian sons and daughters to those places right now.  This is foolish and worldly.

Foolish and worldly talk is defending the fact that you sent your daughter to prom dressed as a high dollar hooker.  Or defending the fact that you rented her a hotel room for her after party so that she would be in a “safe place.”  Because after all, you really, really trust her, but just in case she makes a mistake, at least she’s on the pill, and is headed off to a good college next fall and is definitely not getting married any time soon.  I have seen all this first hand for more than thirty years now, going back to when I was a teen and so many of my good Christian friends had these wonderful experiences provided by their parents.  This is foolish and worldly.

Foolish and worldly talk is members of the church mocking young women who somehow find the strength to resist the culture and set their hearts and souls to follow Paul’s admonitions.  Good Christian men and women, men and women with whom I prayed and sang hymns, mocking that strange young woman who has a head covering, who married young and never got to go to college, who has four or five young children, who makes a public show of being deferential and respectful to her husband.  She’s so odd.  I wonder if she’ll show up in a prairie jumper next week?  It’s so sad that she missed out on life.  This is what their own good Christian daughters here them say of such a woman.  God forgive me, in ignorance I did so as well.  No more.  Because this is foolish and worldly.