Tag Archives: marriage

Jesus married? No….

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The following is an article from the Huffington Post, which is not a credible source of much of anything, no less history, religion, philosophy. If you want inflammatory headlines, you definitely want this, and not credible journalism. At the very best I would describe the following as disingenuous, at best complete ignorance of any of the applicable scholarly subject. So read this and then I have my comments following:

“An ancient, business-card-sized papyrus fragment that appears to quote Jesus Christ discussing his wife is real, Harvard University announced Thursday. The fragment caused international uproar when it was revealed by a Harvard historian in September 2012, with prominent academics and the Vatican swiftly deeming it a forgery.

Harvard officials said scientists both within and outside the university extensively tested the papyrus and carbon ink of the badly aged fragment, dubbed the “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife.” The document, written in Coptic, a language of ancient Egyptian Christians, is made up of eight mostly legible dark lines on the front and six barely legible faded lines on the back. The handwriting and grammar were also examined over the last year and a half to confirm its authenticity. Scientists have concluded the fragment dates back to at least the sixth to ninth centuries, and possibly as far back as the fourth century.

The document was never meant to prove Jesus was married, Harvard Divinity School professor Karen L. King emphasized Thursday. Instead, she argued, it’s meant to highlight that some early Christians may have believed Jesus was married. The distinction is significant because debates over sexuality and marriage have dominated contemporary discussions about Christianity; the Catholic Church cites Jesus’ celibacy as one reason its priests must not have sex or marry.

“The main topic of the fragment is to affirm that women who are mothers and wives can be disciples of Jesus — a topic that was hotly debated in early Christianity as celibate virginity increasingly became highly valued,” King, whose specialties include Coptic literature, Gnosticism and women in the Bible, said in a statement Thursday. “This gospel fragment provides a reason to reconsider what we thought we knew by asking what the role claims of Jesus’ marital status played historically in early Christian controversies over marriage, celibacy, and family.”

The legible lines on the front of the artifact seem to form a broken conversation between Jesus and his disciples. The fourth line of the text says, “Jesus said to them, my wife.” Line 5 says “… she will be able to be my disciple,” while the line before the “wife” quote has Jesus saying “Mary is worthy of it” and line 7 says, “As for me, I dwell with her in order to …”

“The main topic of the fragment is to affirm that women who are mothers and wives can be disciples of Jesus…” First, of course women can be disciples of Jesus’. Any who are in Jesus should be His disciples. Who ever said they weren’t? You really have to reread this article with a critical eye.

Because this is an ancient document does not make it factual, the Bible is an ancient document, based on Bible copies going back to at least the 5th century (around the same time as this fragment) we know that the Bible we have today is very well documented. Why is this one fragment credible, and a document (the Bible) that can be traced back to the earliest times not credible?

The proponents of this are trying to say that the rap against this is a forgery. I haven’t read anyone that takes issue with whether it’s a forgery or not, the issue is whether it’s credible. Anyone could write something to be found hundreds of years later, the fact that it was discovered doesn’t make it fact. We are supposed to change all of history, theology because one scrap of paper was found??? Really!!! We have credible evidence of Scripture and writers dating back to the beginning, in straight succession to today. How does one unassociated scrap of paper change anything? During this period there were other writings that have shown to have no basis in fact. My fun example is always the “Gospel of Judas”. Help me out folks, the man was a traitor, he ran off and hung himself, and he still had time to write his gospel? Actually “gospel” means “good news” in Greek, so in Judas’ case it’s “not so gospel”. I don’t know? Fact is there are a lot of people out there with an agenda, with little scruples who will try to make a case out of anything they oppose. Also please note, this was written in Coptic. The language Jesus and His apostles spoke was Aramaic, essentially all their writings were in Greek, which was the common academic language of the time. Coptic is an Egyptian language, relatively speaking, israel and Egypt were a long ways a way. Why something written in a language that had nothing to do with Jesus’ contemporary life, at least four hundred years after Jesus, is being given any kind of credibility is, again, a mystery to me. A scrap of paper, in Coptic no less, doesn’t prove a thing, doesn’t change a thing. Someone back in that time wrote down their opinion, in a country very distant from Israel, and as far as I can tell would have no reason to have any first hand knowledge of Jesus’ life at all. Now Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, James, Jude, did and they don’t mention anything of the sort. Well yea, I guess we’re going back to fiction in the DaVinci Code. Hey Dan Brown said it was entirely fiction, yet we have people who worship his book/movie. Yea, don’t try to confuse me with the facts, just tell me what I want to believe.

Men and women are different, that’s how God made us

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Starting decades ago, right up to the present, there is still this odd, persistent idea that there are no differences between men and women. The more real science there is and the less pop science that is so popular in liberal circles, the more we understand how different men and women are. That is not to say better, not so good, right/wrong, it’s just that’s the way God made us.

It also underscores the fact that brought together, in holy matrimony of course, men and women complement each other so amazingly, clearly we were made that way in order to, together, be a small indication of the completeness of God. God is the totality of everything, neither man nor woman, but the completeness, and so much more of humans. God made man and woman to be together, I understand that doesn’t always work out in life, but it does say that we are complete in heterosexual marriage, and homosexual marriage does not complete anyone or anything, it undermines what God has intended for us and tries to convince us that there are alternatives to God’s plan. There certainly are alternatives, but nothing other than God’s plan ends up well.

Anyway, the prompt for this blog is an article in “Christian Counseling Today” published by the American Association of Christian Counselors, since I’m pretty sure the vast majority of people reading this don’t subscribe I will quote at length. If you are interested in Christian Counseling this organization has great programs to train clergy and laity, if interested feel free to check with me.

The following article is by Walt Larimore, Dr Larimore is an MD “…one of America’s best-known family physicians and has been named in ‘The Best Doctors in America’ and ‘Who’s who in Medicine and Healthcare’. He is the best-selling author of 30 books, which along with his health blog and free daily devotional   DrWalt.com 

“…as I counsel female patients, they seem surprised to learn that men’s brains are simply not structured for long talks – whereas a woman’s brain is designed to process and enjoy long bouts of verbal communication.

This is not learned behavior. Rather, males and females come into the world with differences in how they hear and speak, already in place. The effect of testosterone in the unborn male changes his brain so that it has fewer and less connected verbal centers than does a female brain. So, it should not surprise us that girls develop proficient language skills earlier than boys…These differences are so profound that by three years of age, the average girl has twice the vocabulary of the average boy.

What is happening in the brain to cause these differences? Women use specific areas located on both sides of the brain for speech and language functions, while men tend to use just one side of their brains (the left hemisphere) for verbal tasks. when it comes to talking, women are naturally good at it, enjoy the process, and do it often. In addition, the neural connections between a woman’s emotional processing and memory centers are larger, far more active and more strongly connected to the verbal center of the brain than in a man.

She is designed to connect memories, words and feelings, so her conversation tends to be laden with emotion and meaning. Not so with men. The biological design of men causes them to be less likely to identify and communicate their emotions. With a smaller emotional center, men remember fewer emotional experiences than women. Furthermore, the portions of his brain that process emotion are much smaller and much less connected than those in her brain. So a man’s capacity to feel and express emotions is physically separated from his ability to verbally articulate. In conversation, men are much less likely (or even able) to talk about emotions and generally express much less emotional content than the average woman. This reality explains why male conversations are usually filled with facts and are devoid of emotion.

It is no surprise to veteran counselors that the most common dissatisfaction in marriage for a woman, at least after a few years, is that her husband does not provide the conversation she needs. Yet, most are not aware that a woman’s sensitivity to this communication gap has a biological origin – the calming, feel-good, bonding hormone called oxytocin.This hormone compels a woman to find others with whom she can talk it out because, when she does, it feels good and helps relieve stress and tension. Nevertheless, conversation with her husband is important because it magnifies the feelings of bonding and intimacy that she longs for in her relationship with him. However, if a wife’s expectation is that her husband will be the sole provider of oxytocin-rich relationships and conversations, she is likely to feel unloved and quite alone. She may expect her husband to feel unloved and quite alone. She may expect her husband to be available and able to meet all of her emotional and conversational needs, but it is just not the way he is built!

His brain is built to see conversation as a means to an end, whereas her brain is designed to see talking as an end in itself. Researchers have found that not only is her brain built to listen more acutely than his brain, but a woman can use up to six ‘listening expressions’ on her face in any 10-second period of conversation. Whether women are speaking or listening, they reflect in their faces what they are feeling. A woman’s facial expression communicate feelings to such an extent that when two women are talking to each other, it can be very difficult to tell who is sharing and who is responding…

…A man’s high levels of testosterone and vasopressin lead him toward problem-solving responses to stressors. Therefore, a man’s brain and hormones compel him to respond to emotions and stress by either doing something or fixing something They also lead him toward aggression and action, dominance and decision making. Functional brain scans show the male brain is extremely systemized, with a high ability to compartmentalize, a low ability to multitask, a high ability to control emotions, a low relational orientation, a high project orientation, a high ability to ‘zone out’ a tendency to act first and think later when faced with stress, an aggressive response to risk and a tendency to compete with other males. The female brain, on the other hand, has been shown to be highly empathetic with a low ability to compartmentalize, a high ability to multitask, a low ability to control emotions, a relational orientation, a low project orientation, a low ability to ‘zone out’ a tendency to think and feel before acting in response to stress, a cautious response to risk, and a tendency to cooperate with other females.

In addition, the cortical processing areas that men use for solving puzzles or problems tend to be the same regions that women use for emotive processing. In other words, when he is dealing with a project, a problem, a stress, or an emotion, a man will typically become very quiet. While using his right brain to solve problems or deal with emotions, it is hard for a man to use his left brain to listen or speak. His compartmentalized brain is designed to do one thing at a time; it is difficult for him to solve a problem and converse at the same time. Scans show that when a man is sitting silently, his brain is either at rest or he is having a conversation with himself.

Most women find it incomprehensible – and even frightening – when they realize this is how a male’s brain is designed to work. This is because it is almost the opposite of her brain. A woman’s brain is never at rest – when she is dealing with a problem, she not only wants to talk, but also needs to talk. Her conversation with another person allows her to reduce stress and talk through the problem. It is important for men to realize that when she does this, she is not necessarily looking for a solution in the same way he would.

The fact is that his brain and her brain perceive the world quite differently and communicate in very different ways. We speak and hear language differently. We mean different things by what we say. As a result, a significant communication gap can build up and divide us if we are not aware of our design differences and why they are there. To bridge this communication gap, we need to understand not only how we say what we say, but also what the other sex’s brain hears. Coming to recognize and understand our communication and language differences has allowed my wife and me to smile and laugh more as we work to build a stronger marriage.” ( Christian Counseling Today Vol 20 No 3 pp 54 -57)

In summary, there are clear differences and reasons why we are how we are. Guys be there for your wives, spend time listen and share, it does have to be both ways, don’t just be a sounding board. Ladies, realize that there is a limit, husband needs to make more of an effort, but don’t overdo. Speaking as a man, please one favor, unless there is a very important reason, please come to the point first, then fill in the details. As a pastor, I really do value my wife’s input, she really does give me an important perspective, but there are times when she’s talking about something that’s kind of a hot-button and I really do need to know where the discussion is going. Let’s get out of this nonsense that men and women are the same, they aren’t, vivre la difference, God made us different to be paired together by Him to glorify Him, let’s live up to His expectations.

Faith is the basis that we function in all aspects of our life.

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I want to thank Fr Frederick Nkwasibwe for his great insights in his book Business Courage. As I’ve probably noted he is a Roman Catholic priest who received his undergraduate degree in divinity, but his thesis for his MBA is the basis for this book. He really did a lot of work (the book is over 400 pages) and he really dug into the history of the church to uncover this insight from a church father, St Cyril of Jerusalem who lived from 315 to 386. “…in his famous Jerusalem Catechesis. From this foundational research, Foley and McCloskey quote thus:”

“It is not only among us, who are marked with the name of Christ, that the dignity of faith is great; all the business of the world, even of those outside the church, is accomplished by faith. By faith, marriage laws join in union persons who were strangers to one another. By faith agriculture is sustained; for a man does not endure the toil involved unless he believes he will reap a harvest. By faith, seafaring men, entrusting themselves to a tiny wooden craft, exchange the solid element of the land for the unstable motion of the waves. Not only among us does this hold true, but also, as I have said, among those outside the fold. For though they do not accept the Scriptures but advance certain doctrines of their own, yet even these they receive on faith.”

One can certainly make the case that the breakdown in the economy in 2008 was sparked by a lot of activity that violated the faith of a lot of people. Bernie Madoff, was only a blip, but he has become the most visible icon of that era. There were so many who were involved in the deceptions of the mortgage meltdown, including banks, mortgage originators, FANNIE MAE, government policy at the federal, state and local level, that we will be unwinding these violations of trust and faith for more years to come. 

One could certainly make the case that faithlessness in many ways has undermined the institution of marriage, expedience is the rule of our day, faith is a quaint, outdated ideal and the consideration today is I want what I want now. Darwinian philosophy is the rule of the day “Survival of the Fittest”. I want money, I want power, I want someone at home who is all about me, I want prestige, I want the right marriage. Is there little doubt that there is not a Biblical understanding of marriage anymore, that is mutual serving, but is in reality mutual using? Marrying into the right family to help improve my status, increase my opportunity to be in the right company, to marry a spouse who has a good career and will contribute substantially to an improved lifestyle, of course sexual satisfaction, the idea that I will be able to control my spouse in order to achieve my own goals and desires. I’m not saying that romantic love, as it were, is the ideal either, it has only been within the last three – four generations that marriage has really been about romantic love, economics has certainly played a role. But up until the last three – four generations, marriage was still biblically based.

Successful businesses today have begun to grasp that concept. That business partnerships have to be of mutual service and benefit to not only the partners, the customers, investors, employees and other stakeholders. The synergistic effect of these relationships has driven very successful, mutually profitable joint ventures. That was what the mortgage industry was about. I did a stint of mortgage originating for Fleet National Bank. The bank was very demanding in terms of not just production, but in assuring that it was a quality investment. We had to do a lot of selling to prospective customers, and also to our in-house underwriters. Documentation had to be of “pin point” quality. The mortgage industry fell into an attitude of expedience, shoddy or no documentation, very low quality investment, and a total breakdown in integrity and faith. It’s a breakdown that we see rippling through society, we have not learned the lessons that have been taught since at least the 1980s, Michael Milken, Worldcom, Enron – Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, all examples of a lack of integrity and faith that seems to be accelerating instead of examples that we can learn from and understand that we have to return to a time where we could trust in the integrity of those we do business and faith is the watchword of commerce, as it has been well before St Cyril. If our ancestors going back thousands of years could function and flourish while still maintaining their faith and integrity, why is it that we who are supposed to be so much more enlightened and intelligent, have to sink to the level of lying and cheating?

There is no doubt in my mind that those who are part of this group and read this blog are striving for the highest ideals and have put a great deal of faith into not just commerce, but our whole society. When we know Jesus as Lord and Savior, it is not just as “fire insurance” for our salvation, or a way to leverage church to more success, we do it because we live our lives in faith in Christ and trust that in all the parts of our lives we live according to His guidance and Lordship, we trust the results to Him. In the meantime we faithfully go out and make our best efforts, put in lots of hard work, and in true faith leave the results to Him who is ever faithful to us. It is always the understanding of what Christ does in and through us. If He is an all knowing, all loving God who only wants what is best for His adopted children, how can we go wrong? We may not end of being Warren Buffet or Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, that is “successful” according to the world, but I have no doubt that our lives will be fulfilling and as He promises in the Lord’s prayer that we will have our daily bread. In my own life, I have seen God do some things that I would have never planned and He ‘s done it in a way that has made life more challenging and accomplished. We go into eternity, which is what really matters, having lived a life that is complete in Christ, not in eventual failure in us.