Re-Post "Chick Flick Christianity in a Feminized Church"

Sometime ago I came across this article written by Scott Hill at the "Fide-O" blog site and thought it appropriate to problems in the family (church and filial).

I never really understood the draw of romance novels or movies, until I was old enough to understand just how different women think than men. I am not saying I understand how women think; I just now understand they don't think like me.

However, I believe there are three kinds of Chick Flicks. In one you have to two lifelong friends who go through a series of trials that draws them closer until one day through accident or sickness one of them dies. This type of movie usually involves flashbacks and narration. The second type of chick flick involves a good looking witty guy who is constantly outsmarted and put down by the heroine and her friends until she discovers he is not that bad "for a man" and they shack up happily ever after. The third and most common of the chick flicks are the one where the high school sweetheart husband through some character flaw major or minor drives the heroine into the arms of the charming, rich, young man who really, really, really understands her. He has ESP, and went to 'how to understand women' school, and she of course could not ask for anything better. In the end she leaves her husband for Mr. Rich Charming.

Now the draw of this is not that it reminds us of memories about our own romances, but just the opposite. These movies and books, appeal to a fantasy. The perfect marriage, the perfect kids, the perfect house, job, neighborhood, etc all of which require no work, no heartache, no communication, no discipline and least of all no temptation. These movies provide the fantasy. Who wants to pay $10 dollars to see real life? Right?

I am sure you are wondering by now if I have a point, and yes I do. I believe you can see this type of Christianity in the church. It is a fantasy fueled by a poor understanding of love, the same poor understanding that causes people to watch one of these movies and actually get mad at their spouse because they don't meet the fantasy standard. Nevertheless, don't misunderstand me. I am not just picking on women. In our feminized society, men are just as easily influenced by this misrepresentation as women. Men now try to live up to the fantasy. The biggest problem is this fantasy is in direct opposition to the teaching of scripture on what love actually is.

In 1st Corinthians 13 Paul wrote, "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing."

Paul establishes the importance of love here and in numerous other scriptures, and then gives us the characteristics of love. We know that love is not selfish, but that is exactly what the romance novel or chick flick promotes. The love in these dramas consists of a one sided emotion that compares more with narcissism than love. Yet, this is what people expect to see in their relationships even in church, a love that is selfish and self absorbed. A love that carries with it expectations and records wrongs. A love that believes it is arrogant and prideful to hold someone accountable. A love that confuses encouragement for rebuke. A love that actually gets jealous of a friends good fortune. A love that believes discipline is unloving. Yet the greatest thing a parent can do to show love for a child is to discipline them.

We see the importance of love but, what does this love look like? How is this love carried out? Does it have the characteristics of the romance novel? Does someone know they are loved by mere words? The same man who will beat his wife, will then immediately turn around and say he loves her. The same mom who leaves their 4 year old to fend for themselves while they go club hopping told them they loved them the moment before they walked out the door. The same husband who left his mistresses apartment before he took his wife on the romantic night on the town looked longingly in the eyes of both and told them they loved them. I believe this chick flick love has deluded us into believing that love is a sappy, emotional laden, romanticism that is so far removed from actual love that they are polar opposites.

This has only gotten worse as we read bible studies on falling in love with Jesus, and worship songs that purport this same Hollywood driven unbiblical love. Real love is not an emotion. Real love is a choice. However, no one believes this anymore. That is why people now believe you can "make love", fall in love, fall out of love, etc. It is this same belief driven by our consumer mindset that makes us Americans, shop around for the car, biscuit, spouse, restaurant, church, pastor, kids, that they really FEEL they love. I am not sure at which point love became a feeling, but it was after 1 John chapter 3 was written.

1 John 3:16 "By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 17 But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth."

How do my kids no I love them. I pray for them, I provide a place for them to live, clothes to wear, food to eat, an education to succeed, accountability and discipline for training in life and use the wisdom God has given me be strong when need be and gentle when need be. Yet, doing so with a God given authority as a parent. Do I hug my kids and tell them I love them. Sure I do. Did my parents hug me? Sure they did, but as I grew older and more mature I realized that I didn't need the hugs as much. If I fell and scraped a knee or got my feelings hurt as a small child they were there to hug me and tell me it was better. After I got older I still scraped my knee, but I had been taught how to take care of that myself, and also how to comfort others who needed comfort. When I look back on my childhood I don't reminisce about the hugs or the times I was told I love you. I remember the times when I was rebellious or disobedient and my parents punished me. I did not like it at the time but now I know it was out of love. I remember when my parents would give up something they wanted so that I could have something I wanted. I know that was love. I remember always being provided for and protected and corrected. I know that was love. I remember when my parents made decisions for me and "put their foot down" because they loved me and were doing what they thought was best for me.

Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

http://fide-o.blogspot.com/2008/06/chick-flick-christianity-in-feminized.html

Interpretation of the Scriptures

Man is notoriously a creature of extremes, and nowhere is that fact more evident than in the attitude taken by different ones to this subject. Whereas some have affirmed the Bible is written in such simple language that it calls for no explaining, a far greater number have suffered the papists to persuade them that its contents are so far above the grasp of the natural intellect, its subjects so profound and exalted, its language so abstruse and ambiguous that the common man is quite incapable of understanding it by his own efforts, and therefore that it is the part of wisdom for him to submit his judgment to "holy mother church," who brazenly claims to be the only Divinely authorized and qualified interpreter of God's oracles. Thus does the Papacy withhold God's Word from the laity, and impose her own dogmas and superstitions upon them. For the most part the laity are quite content to have it so, for thereby they are relieved of searching the Scriptures for themselves. Nor is it much better with many Protestants, for in most cases they are too indolent (lazy) to study the Bible for themselves, and believe only what they hear from the pulpits.

......there is a real need for interpretation. First, in order to explain seeming contradictions. Thus, "God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him . . . Take now thy son . . . and offer him there for a burnt offering" (Gen. 22:1, 2). Now place by the side of that statement the testimony of James 1:13, "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man." Those verses appear to conflict openly with each other, yet the believer knows that such is not the case, though he may be at a loss to demonstrate that there is no inconsistency in them. It is therefore the meaning of those verses which has to be ascertained. Nor is that very difficult. Manifestly the word "tempt" is not used in the same sense in those sentences. The word "tempt" has both a primary and a secondary meaning. Primarily, it signifies to make trial of, to prove, to test. Secondarily, it signifies to allure, seduce, or solicit to evil. Without a shadow of doubt the term is used in Genesis 22:1, in its primary sense, for even though there had been no Divine intervention at the eleventh hour, Abraham had committed no sin in slaying Isaac, since God had bidden him do so.

Second, interpretation is necessary to prevent our being misled by the mere sound of words. How many have formed wrong conceptions from the language used in different verses through their failure to understand its sense. To many it appears impious to place a different meaning upon a term than what appears to be its obvious signification; yet a sufficient warning against this should be found in the case of those who have so fanatically and stubbornly adhered to Christ's words, "this [unleavened bread] is My body," refusing to allow that it must mean "this represents My body" — as "the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are [i.e. symbolize] the seven churches" (Rev. 1:20). The error of Universalism, based upon indefinite terms being given an unlimited meaning, points further warning. Arminianism errs in the same direction. "That He by the grace of God should taste death for every man" (Heb. 2:9) no more included Cain, Pharaoh and Judas than "every man" is to be understood absolutely in Luke 16:16; Romans 12:3; 1 Corinthians 4:5; and "all men" in 1 Timothy 2:4, 6, is no more to be taken as meaning all without exception than it is in Luke 3:15; John 3:26; Acts 22:15.

Third, interpretation is needed for the inserting of an explanatory word in some passages. Thus in "Thou art of purer eyes than to [approvingly] behold evil, and canst not [condoningly] look on iniquity" (Hab. 1:13). Some such qualifying terms as these are required, otherwise we should make them contradict such a verse as "The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good" (Prov. 15:3). God never beholds evil with complacency, but He does to requite (avenge) it. Once more. "For who hath resisted His [secret or decretive] will?" (Rom. 9:19); "neither did according to His [revealed or preceptive] will" (Luke 12:47)—unless those distinctions be made Scripture would contradict itself. Again, "Blessed are they that [evangelically, i.e., with genuine desire and effort] keep His testimonies" (Ps. 119:2)—for none do so according to the strict rigor of His Law.

For our concluding example of the need for interpretation let us take a very familiar and simple verse: "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever" (Heb. 13:8). Does that "say what it means"? Certainly, says the reader; and the writer heartily agrees. But are you sure that you understand the meaning of what it says? Has Christ undergone no change since the days of His flesh? Is He the same absolutely today as He was yesterday? Does He still experience bodily hunger, thirst, and weariness? Is He still in "the form of a servant," in a state of humiliation, "the Man of sorrows"? Interpretation is here obviously needed, for there must be a sense in which He is still "the same." He is unchanged in His essential Person, in the exercise of His mediatorial office, in His relation unto and attitude toward His Church—loving them with an everlasting love. But He has altered in His humanity, for that has been glorified; and in the position which He now occupies (Matthew 28:18; Acts 2:36). Thus the best known and most elementary verses call for careful examination and prayerful meditation in order to arrive at the meaning of their terms.

Exerpts from Interpretation of the Scriptures by A.W.Pink. www.pbministries.org/books/pink/pinks_archive.

Mutter, Mutter, Mutter

So here's the deal. I know people who talk out loud, presumably to themselves, and it can be very distracting. I don't as a rule do so and I'm beginning to wonder if I'm doing the internet equivalent of blogging to myself. As you may know, some of the requirements of communication is a "sender" a "receiver" and "feedback" or the knowledge that the message was received. I think I have one of the three. Without the other two I become a mutterer - merely talking to myself.

The point of this - is anyone viewing this blogsite? If so, can you provide some feedback? Good, bad, or indifferent just to let me know I'm not being a distraction on the blogsphere. (There are some that think I'm enough of an irritant without putting it into writing.) If what you read here is interesting - let me know. If it's bunk - let me know that too (although please do it gently - crow can be distasteful unless properly seasoned).

I'll let you know in a week or so how this is going......now where did I put that.... mutter, mutter, mutter........

Cute Ditty

A cute ditty I found on a slip of paper in my den.

Blnd and pg, that spells "blind pig" don't you see?
Teacher said, with some surprise, "Oh, my, you left out both the i's."
And so I whispered, "Teacher dear, won't you kindly listen here?
A blind pig has no eyes, you see."
"You're right!", the Teacher said to me.

Enjoy your day!

The Prodigal Son - in the Key of F

Sometime back my wife had recalled this adaptation from the story in Luke 15 regarding the prodigal son. To my knowledge the author is unknown. Enjoy.

Feeling footloose and frisky, a featherbrained fellow forced his father to fork over his farthings. Fast he flew to foreign fields and frittered his family's fortune, feasting fabulously with floozies and faithless friends. Flooded with flattery he financed a full-fledged fling of "funny foam" and fast food.

Fleeced by his fellows in folly, facing famine, and feeling faintly fuzzy, he found himself a feed-flinger in a filthy foreign farmyard. Feeling frail and fairly famished, he fain would have filled his frame with foraged food from the fodder fragments.

"Fooey," he figured, "my father's flunkies fare far fancier," the frazzled fugitive fumed feverishly, facing the facts. Finally, frustrated from failure and filled with foreboding (but following his feelings) he fled from the filthy foreign farmyard.

Faraway, the father focused on the fretful familiar form in the field and flew to him and fondly flung his forearms around the fatigued fugitive. Falling at his father's feet, the fugitive floundered forlornly, "Father, I have flunked and fruitlessly forfeited family favor."

Finally, the faithful Father, forbidding and forestalling further flinching, frantically flagged the flunkies to fetch forth the finest fatling and fix a feast.

Faithfully, the father's first-born was in a fertile field fixing fences while father and fugitive were feeling festive. The foreman felt fantastic as he flashed the fortunate news of a familiar family face that had forsaken fatal foolishness. Forty-four feet from the farmhouse the first-born found a farmhand fixing a fatling.

Frowning and finding fault, he found father and fumed, "Floozies and foam from frittered family funds and you fix a feast following the fugitive's folderol?" The first-born's fury flashed, but fussing was futile. The frugal first-born felt it was fitting to feel "favored" for his faithfulness and fidelity to family, father, and farm. In foolhardy fashion, he faulted the father for failing to furnish a fatling and feast for his friends. His folly was not in feeling fit for feast and fatling for friends; rather his flaw was in his feeling about the fairness of the festival for the found fugitive.

His fundamental fallacy was a fixation on favoritism, not forgiveness. Any focus on feeling "favored" will fester and friction will force the faded facade to fall. Frankly, the father felt the frigid first-born's frugality of forgiveness was formidable and frightful. But the father's former faithful fortitude and fearless forbearance to forgive both fugitive and first-born flourishes.

The farsighted father figured, "Such fidelity is fine, but what forbids fervent festivity for the fugitive that is found? Unfurl the flags and finery, let fun and frolic freely flow. Former failure is forgotten, folly is forsaken. Forgiveness forms the foundation for future fortune."

Four facets of the father's fathomless fondness for faltering fugitives are:

1) Forgiveness
2) Forever faithful friendship
3) Fadeless love, and
4) A facility for forgetting flaws

The Need of Grace

"I find it extremely difficult in this age to minister to people, especially when you get in a more social setting. The more social it gets and the farther from this local assembly I get, the more I try to hide behind the "X-Mass" tree and make sure they can't find me, when it comes time to say the blessing. Really, to tell you the truth, I just don't go anymore. I really don't hide behind the Christmas tree, I just stay home and don't go anymore. Why? Because at no other time of the year do people want somebody religious around them speak of (how) holy they are, to speak (of how) blessed are they, and say everybody's all right. Well, everybody is not all right! Grace is not to everybody, and peace is not to everybody. As bad as I hate it, friend, it isn't even to those that I have a tenderness in my heart for that may be related to me physically but have no understanding of Christ and the gospel. And there's not a thing I can do about it. I'm going to tell you something about your kids, and I'm gonna talk about mine. I'll tell you about my family. There is not a one of them that is going to heaven and every last one of them is going to go to hell if they don't bow to King Jesus and repent of their sin. I'm still going to give them a Christmas present. If they need food, I'll give it to them. If they need a place to sleep, I'll give it to them. I'll take care of them and do all I can for them, but I have no idea at all in my head that a single one of us shall see heaven except by grace, and that by faith. Dear soul, my kids and yours too may wind up as alcoholics in an insane asylum having wasted their lives, and become wretches, if God doesn't do something about it. If they don't do something about their sin, everyone I know is a candidate for hell, and a candidate for the nut house, and will not have a moment's peace in their life. They will drive you crazy with them, if they can, except they have the peace of God that passes understanding and that by grace through faith. That's the gospel. That's the gospel."

From a sermon preached by Pastor Gene Breed of the Grace Baptist Church, Jonesboro, Ga. Titled, "The Grace of Christ - A Gospel Message - Galatians 1:1-5".

The Church Prayer Meeting, Its Decline and Revival, Part 2

This is the conclusion of the notes of G. Chewter of an address at a meeting for ministers and printed in the splendid Gospel Tidings edited by P.M. Rowell, Chapel House, Forest Fold, Crowborough, UK.

2. IMPROVING THE PRAYER MEETING.

1. First and foremost we must recognise our continual need of the gracious influence and utter dependence upon the Holy Spirit. To quote again Rom. 8.5, the Spirit helpeth our infirmities. How much we need that help! The Apostle Paul says: What is it then? I will pray, with the Spirit and with the understanding also, 1 Cor.14.15. In Eph. 6.18 Paul exhorts us to praying with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit. Again and again we need to be anointed with fresh oil (Psalm 92.10).

2. From time to time we must emphasize to our people the importance of meeting together to pray. It may be a rather hackneyed expression but there is truth in it: 'Those who pray together, stay together'. Spurgeon called the prayer meeting: 'the powerhouse of the church'. If the engine room is out of action then the whole mill will grind to a halt. We cannot expect blessing if we do not ask. It may seem a rather simple diagnosis but it may apply in some cases: Ye have not, because ye ask not, James 4.2.

3. The need for unity - After the resurrection we read of the disciples in the upper room: These all continued with one accord in prayer and in supplication, with the women, Acts 1.14. The words of John Newton's hymn are appropriate here: 'The force of their united cries, no power could long withstand, for Jesus helps them from the skies with his almighty hand'. Some of the best prayer meetings are those where there is one heart and one desire for the blessing of God to accompany the preaching of the Gospel and for the extension of the kingdom of Christ. It is an abuse of the prayer meeting for a member to deliberately contradict or try to 'correct' another's prayer when they themselves are called on to pray.

4. The need for focus - In Acts 1.14 they were not only united in prayer but their meetings had a focal point - the fulfillment of the promised gift of the Holy Spirit. That focus can also be ours. We urgently need the Lord to come again in power to His people in a way of revival and outpouring of the Holy Spirit. In Acts 4 the disciples under threat from the authorities gathered to pray, v23 states that they lifted up their voice with one accord. And when they had prayed the place was shaken where they were assembled together, v31, the focal point being a desire for strength not to buckle under the pressure, but, Grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word, v29. Acts 12 records for us that the central purpose of the prayer meeting in the home of Mary at Jerusalem was for the well-being and deliverance of Peter. I believe it is far better, if possible, to pray for people by name in their particular circumstances rather than petitions couched in vague and general terms such as: 'we pray for the afflicted', 'we pray for the aged', 'we pray for the missionaries'. Who have we actually prayed for? While we need to be sensitive to people's feelings especially relating to personal problems, yet I believe the more specific we can be the better.

On a practical note, a regular church prayer meeting consisting of members only can prove to be a useful opportunity for individuals to share in confidence their concerns, enabling those who pray to do so in an intelligent and informed way. This brings the added benefit of mutual understanding, sympathy and support. A very moving account of a prayer meeting at Tyre is given in Acts 21 where after seven days' fellowship, men with their wives and children knelt down on the shore and prayed, the central focus being concern for Paul's welfare and safety, as he was determined to preach at Jerusalem. The previous chapter records a similarly moving account of Paul praying with the elders of Ephesus at Miletus, resulting in the people being moved to tears at the thought of his departure. By the way, though emotion should not be deliberately encouraged, yet I do not think tears should be despised or discouraged. Prayer meetings are moving where there is a longing desire and yearning for answers from heaven. So, in all these cases the meetings for prayer had a focal point. To this end it may be helpful to regularly bring to the meeting items of particular concern, which need to be prayed for.

5. Careful thought as to the location - If the prayer meeting attendance is usually small it may be helpful to meet in a vestry or some other suitable room where a sense of 'togetherness' will be created, enabling those more hard of hearing to follow, rather than six or seven people dotted about in a chapel designed to seat 150 or more people.

6. Brevity (again!) - If there are few who publicly participate it may be argued that if each prayed for only 3-4 minutes then the prayer meeting would soon be over! To this I would reply by suggesting that each are encouraged to be brief and given the opportunity to pray more than once during the meeting. This concept may sound rather foreign to some, but it can work well.

7. Take it home! - Maybe we have all been at fault at times, in praying for certain matters publicly and neglecting to do so privately. How good if the members of the church take up the burden of the church, continuing to carry the church affairs to the Lord when alone on their knees. A truly praying church will be made up of members who pray much at home. C. H. Spurgeon claimed that: 'Neglect of private prayer is the locust that devours the strength of the church'.

CONCLUSION

We have a powerful adversary who would love to exploit all our weaknesses and infirmities in prayer, but we have an almighty and merciful God, who waits to be gracious and has promised for the sake of His Son to hear the cries of His people.

'The one concern of the devil is to keep the saint from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but he trembles when we pray' (Samuel Chadwick).

Whether as churches or individuals we need to hear again the exhortation of the Apostle that we might be encouraged afresh: Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need, Heb. 4.16.