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| The Fallen, and Perversion- Part 2: The Masculine and the Feminine.First, let me recommend to anyone and everyone that you head on over to Cowboy_Christian's most recent post "Arrogant Men!," when you finish reading this one; that way you'll at least read something decent before the day is out.
If you haven't figured it out already, this is a follow-up post to "The Fallen, and How We Pervert Things," and falls in the same vein as "Ministry: A Heart of Service."
As mentioned, perversion is the essence of fallenness. When one thing takes on the role of another, when things are set out of balance and alignment, when things are not doing what they are designed to do- perversion. We all have our roles, and we should stick to them. Not only are we best suited for them, but God blesses that obedience.
As my friend Cowboy_Christian told me: "A man was in a church once, and he was convinced he was supposed to be an eye, but God and his pastor told him he was a foot. After arguing with them for many long tiresome months, God finally told the man he could be an eye, but all he would see was the end of a sock, because he was still a foot."
We won't be content, we won't be in God's will, until we are in our divinely arranged roles.
If you notice, one of my primary examples in the previous post, and the primary example used in the ensuing discussion, and I'd be willing to wager, the primary instance of perversion almost every one who read it thought of, was the perversion of masculine and feminine roles. There are many reasons why this is the foremost example we see and think of when this sort of perversion of the intended order is proposed.
One reason is because, for those of us blessed enough to come from families where this is lived out, or at least have the Biblical knowledge of how it should be lived out, we see the beauty and wholeness of God's plan for men and women. And we also see how sad and how broken lives are without that order. We are just as saddened by the state of our culture as we are enheartened by the potential beauty available to us through God's grace and plan.
A second reason is because it is the subject of many coffee-shop conversations, many newspaper articles, and more Barnes & Nobel door stops than I care to count. Without God's Word for a blue-print, our culture has gotten confused. No one knows where to turn for guidance, what to use as a model, or what works. And because our roles as men and women have such an impact on our lives, our families, and our cultures, we can't help but ask, search, and attempt anything in the vain hope of success.
As a quick side-note: I believe that because of this confusion, and because of the search that flows from it, one of the most valuable and effective evangelism tools in our culture are our marriages, our families, and the way we interact with those around us. If we rightly display God's design for men and women, and things go as they usually do when you follow the blueprints, people can't help but notice- and when their children aren't obeying or their wives aren't letting them in anymore, they'll ask those who are being blessed for their obedience.
Back to why we all default to Masculine/Feminine when it comes to the nature of how fallenness = perversion: I believe the real reason for this is not because we see the benefit of God's design, or because we need to guidance of God's design- I believe that we all default to this because it is the most original of sins.
The first sin committed by mankind was failing to fulfill his masculine role in marriage. Adam ceased to husband Eve, letting her be decieved by a serpent and lead to the spiritual slaughter. Immediately following, the woman bagan to lead by manipulating man to eat of the fruit. The first sin committed by man was pasivity, and the first sin committed by woman was leading.
Last Fall I was sitting in Mrs. Cowboy's office, heartbroken because of how a female friend had manipulated me, and I started talking this sort of concept over with her- and I've since become rather fond of a saying we came up with that day: "The primary way in which men sin against women is by being passive. The primary way in which women sin against men is by manipulating."
Not only is it the first way we sinned against eachother, it is the primary way we continue to sin against each other every day.
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| Happy Birthday!Happy birthday Rachel! It's my sister's birthday today. She's 18... He has finally passed from girlhood to adultery!
Kinda makes me feel old.
Other than that this post is kind of random...
My big brother is coming in town! Shawn and I have been thick as thieves, closer than brothers for over six years now. I haven't hung out with him in a year and a half, and he's never been down here to Bryan! I'm stoked... He'll get here either tonight or tomorrow, depending on flights (he's a pilot, so he's jumpseating).
I encourage you guys, as you read my posts, to pay attention to the songs that I'm listening to when I post them- either the titles or the lyrics usually have something to do with what I'm posting about (today being an exception). I don't chose them haphazardly. And pretty much without exception I'm actually listening to that, and I own it. I have over 12,600 songs on my computer, and I'm missing about 5,000-6,000 that won't fit. I have a lot of music. That's only the stuff that is in English. I have a few thousand songs from other countries, like Italy and Brasil, that I'm not counting in that over 18,000 songs. It's always growing- bought three records yesterday.
Keep an eye open tomorrow, my post is going to be a fun one, and Cowboy_Christian's will be as well... I think everyone will enjoy them.
I'm probably going to be off tomorrow, so have a great weekend!
-Til
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| StayPeople leaving, part of life.
Especially our lives.
I guess we get used to it.
We all leave, eventually.
It's sad, it hard,
And we all hate it.
I guess we're all just looking for
That someone-
Someone to stay for,
Or someone who will stay for us.
Will you stay for me?
Do you love me that much?
Would I stay for you?
Do I love you that much?
Where are we all going that we're leaving each other?
What could possibly be worth this?
We can't afford to stay and
We can't afford to go.
One more long drive,
Listen to some more Copeland.
Another one leaves,
Here we go again.
One day I wake up,
All the bags are packed,
My back is weighed down, life awaits.
It's my turn to go.
I've counted the days,
And wished them away.
Now it's my turn to go,
And all I want to do is-
Stay.
© Tiller 2008
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| Morning News: Good and Bad.I had a couple of long conversation with a friend of mine a few months back. One or two of them pertained to optimism and pessimism. This friend has been through a lot in his years, and he's seen some thing most of us only see in the more gruesome rated "R" gang crime movies. The man has seen things I don't like hearing about.
He sees things from a different perspective- one most [Christians] would call pessimistic. He calls it realistic, and I tend to agree with him. He proposed that the more of reality you experience the more realistic you become, because you become acquainted better with reality. The reason he is so pessimistic is because he's seen the top and the bottom, and knows them both. I don't think he's pessimistic, just realistic.
In turn, he believes that optimism and naivety are correlated, if not mutually dependent. I tend to lean that direction myself- We don't agree completely, but I think most Christians would rather be optimistic in their naivety, than have a good understanding of reality.
This is, of course, detrimental to our work as the Body of Christ. How can we redeem culture if we see it as okay? How can people take us seriously with our "clueless-but-happy" masks on? I've known a lot of Christians who claimed they had the joy of Christ, when from where I could see, it looked more like they had their heads in the clouds.
I was talking to a friend the other day, and she and I were discussing this friend of mine's theory. Mind you the young lady I'm speaking of is innocent, and rather proud of that fact. I came to an interesting realization following that discussion: I think men need to be more knowledgeable about what's going on. I think we are supposed to be the ones who know how things are "out there." I'm not saying women should be unrealistic (I'm also not claiming that they aren't), I just think women do not have the same need to know the ways of the world that men do. How can a man protect his family from whatever evil may befall them if he is unaware of how evil the world is?
This was more fully realized this past Saturday. A group of us, who are all very close friends, spent the day together. The group consisted of myself, another man, and three young ladies. This day ended in downtown Chattanooga, rather late in the evening, The environment seemed safe enough at first, when we were in the park watching a movie. But as we were sitting there, my buddy and I notice the masses stirring. Things seemed to have gone awry, but were being kept quiet.
We decide to light a shuck for the other side of the river, where we'd parked. We get the girls moving that direction. My buddy and I are immediately attuned to the conversations going on all around us as we make our way back to the truck. We're hearing that someone got cut or stabbed, and based on external evidence it seemed like a drug deal had probably gone bad. Our ears are pricked, our senses heightened. My friend smelled the unique smell of weed as we were approaching the bridge. We're both "bowed up," hands on the pocket knives, with the women all between him and I. The girls didn't have any idea what was going on other than what they could tell by the way we were acting. I saw a guy do one of the signs I know means "I'm moving product, if you're buyin'!" Could have been toward me, but looked more like he was telling someone further down the bridge. As we get towards the precinct headquarters, which happened to be across the street from where I'd parked, my friend and I explain what's gone on, and how we knew.
None of them would have known had they been out on their own. Thankfully these three are smart enough not to be downtown, at night, on a weekend, without any men. But this showed me in greater detail the way God designed men to learn the dangers, learn the warning signs, then learn to act accordingly. Just as God designed women to know how to care for someone who is sick, He designed men to know how to protect.
It is because of that fact that I think Christian men should be a little more exposed to the ways of the world. Situations like that are inevitable, but being caught off guard, clueless, like a deer in the headlights, isn't.
I think we all need a healthy dose of reality. Every morning should start with the news: the Good News, and the bad news. Read your Bible, yes- but don't forget to read the paper. | | |
| Ministry: A Heart of ServiceThe week before last, I posted about perversion and role-reversal, and how they are part of fallenness in my post The Fallen, and How We Pervert Things. I had a discussion with Cowboy_Christian this past week on how that happens with ministry. I don't mean what we do as ministry, but on our understanding of it.
The problem with the word "minister" is that we have allowed a connotation to separate itself from the denotation. The denotation is the dictionary definition, the connotation is what we think of in relationship to a word. We think ministers are people we work under, we think ministry is working with a church. We think ministering is the act of helping with something.
Why is it that we get so confused by the phrase "minister to God," rather than "minister before God"? Why does ministering to God seem backwards to us?
Definition time:
Minister
min·is·ter [min-uh-ster]
| 1. | a
person appointed by or under the authority of a sovereign or head of a
government to some high office of state, esp. to that of head of an
administrative department: the minister of finance. |
| 2. | a diplomatic representative accredited by one government to another and ranking next below an ambassador. |
| 3. | a person acting as the agent or instrument of another. |
| 4. | to give service, care, or aid; attend, as to wants or necessities.: to minister to the needs of the hungry. |
[Origin: 1250–1300; (n.) ME ministre, minister (< OF ministre) < L minister servant, equiv. to minis- (var. of minus a lesser amount; akin to minor) + -ter n. suffix; r. ME menistre < OF < L, as above; (v.) ME ministren < OF ministrer < L ministrāre to act as a servant, attend, deriv. of minister ] —Synonyms. answer, tend, oblige.
According to this definition, and according to the origins of the word "minister," a minister is someone underneath, a servant. To minister, in turn, would mean to serve, work under, work for, and do the bidding of the master. In our case, the Master is God. We are His servants, doing His bidding, serving Him. To minister to God is to serve Him. To minister before God is to serve Him in His presence.
If you reevaluate your connotations for the word "minister" and see it as to serve, or servant, it changes the way you see your pastor, your own role in the Body, and the nature of service. I challenge you to replace the verb "minister" with the verb "serve" in your mental vocabulary, and the noun "minister" with "servant." It changes the way you refer to your pastor. It's a lot harder to get high-and-mighty about your ministry.
With that in mind, I leave you with this:
And the King will answer them, "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me." Then he will say to those on his left, "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me." Then
they also will answer, saying, "Lord, when did we see you hungry or
thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not
minister to you?" Then he will answer them, saying, "Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me." -Matthew 25:40-45 (ESV)
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