day no. 17,480: inventing division

“The most entertaining thing in the world is watching a man make up a theological reason for leaving a church that his wife had long ago determined to leave because of hurt feelings.” — Tilly Dillehay, My Dear Hemlock

The devils love artificial divisiveness. They despise the kind of divisions that are caused by genuine theological disputes, discipline, and matters of conscience (the kind that Scripture confirms as good and necessary, cf. 1 Cor 11:19), but they delight in those which stem from the love of sin or the cowardice that cannot confront it. 

When a man's wife does not like a particular church and that husband doesn't want to deal with the attitude of that particular wife, he will find a theological reason to leave so that he can look like a man of principle while being a cowardly cuck. His wife is upset by the men in leadership at this church, but she likes the men who servant lead at a different church, so the husband is circumvented and ends up at a church of men he doesn't respect, including the one now looking back at him in the restroom mirror before service starts.

day no. 17,479: image bearers bearing arms

"A man can make a gun and a gun cannot make a man." — G.K. Chesterton, Lord Kitchener

Image bearers may bear arms, but bearing arms does not always bear the image best.

A man is not more manly for having a weapon in his hand. He may be more bold, but he is not more brave, if his trust is in the weapon. A brave man may make and procure for himself instruments of war, but any man may steal a weapon of a dead soldier. Brave men may die and cowards may conceal weapons and God knows which are which.

A man may be a gunsmith, but only God is a mansmith.

day no. 17,478: miscellaneous housekeeping (sermon outline)

Christ Church Leavenworth

1 Corinthians 14:33-35

August 30, 2026

…

OT READING: Proverbs 30:18-19

NT READING: Ephesians 5:31-32

"Miscellaneous Housekeeping"

READING OF THE TEXT

Our text this morning is 1 Corinthians 14:33-35, these are the words of God

“God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.”

The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the Word of our God stands forever. 

PRAYER

Our Father and our God, we come before You this morning through Jesus Christ, our Lord, and in the Holy Spirit. All Scripture is breathed out by You and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. Equip us now by it for the good works You have prepared for us. In Jesus’ Name, we pray, Amen.

INTRODUCTION

Our NT reading made it clear: marriage is a profound mystery, but it refers to Christ and His church. So, it is not a mystery because it remains unsolved, rather it is a mystery because the solution is beyond comprehension. A man leaving his father and mother and cleaving to his wife and the two becoming one is a miracle both as plain as day and as mysterious as magic. We saw this in our OT reading, weddings are wonderful. Not wonderful as in great, although they are that too, but wonderful as in full of wonder. They are like a bird in the air or a boat on the water. You see it all the time, but you do not always see it for what it is. The bird floats on an ocean of invisible air and the boat soars on a current of liquid wind. The world is full of wonder and weddings are no exception.

THE MISCELLANEOUS DRAWER

But the mystery does not end after the I do’s. It follows the couple back to their home and lives in every nook and cranny. Every home has special places and common areas. There are rooms reserved for particular people, like the master bedroom, and rooms reserved for particular items, like the coat closet, but there are also common areas, like the living room. The same is true of drawers. There are drawers for specific things, like the silverware drawer, but there are also drawers for random things, like the miscellaneous drawer. Perhaps you are familiar. It is that drawer, usually in the kitchen, where all sundry stuff ends up. It is often referred to affectionately as “the junk drawer.” Looking for a rubber band, a paper clip, an old take out menu, a manual for an old appliance, or some gently used batteries? Look no further. What about some disposable chop sticks, a pen without a cap, a pair of scissors, a used lighter, or an assortment of random charging cords? You know where to look. The junk drawer is where we put things when we do not know where else to put them. Our text today is like that. It is in all of our Bibles, but most of us don’t know what to do with it or where else to put it. As such, it doesn’t often see the light of day… until today, that is. Let’s dive in.

THE SILENT BELLES

1 Corinthians 14:33-35, let’s read it again just to make sure everyone is as uncomfortable as possible, and as I do, let me remind you again that these are the Words of God: “God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.”

There is a reason people keep this one in the back of the junk drawer. They know they can’t throw it out, but they also know they can’t frame it and hang it over the couch in the living room. Maybe in a garage? “Women should be silent!” Maybe? This passage may be especially hard for women to hear, but it should be hard for men to hear as well and not just because they suspect they’re going to hear about it on the way home today. No, it’s worse than that, gents, you’re not just going to hear about it, you’re going to have to talk about it. More on that later. 

Let’s begin by walking through the text. :33 God is orderly, not erratic and principled, not capricious. He is Who He is and He does not change. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. (Mal 3:6, Heb 13:8) So, the choice, as always, is Christ or chaos. His Word produces peace, but the world produces confusion – like “what is a woman?” levels of confusion. Since God is orderly and peaceful, our worship services follow suit. Covenant renewal is not a random act of spontaneous charismania, it is a regulated act of order and firmness. (Col 2:5) And this was not unique to Corinth, it was true of all churches at all times as :33 goes on to state. We cannot write this off as antiquated or outdated advice. The rule for Corinth was the same as the rule for all the churches. 

And what was that rule? :34 “women should keep silent in the churches.” Have you ladies violated this charge by singing this morning? No. Does this mean that you never have anything valuable to contribute? No. So, what does it mean? It means you are not permitted to speak on behalf of God or His people in a corporate worship gathering. Our text goes on to say that if a woman has any questions or contributions, she should pursue them with her husband in her home. God is the Author and He has deputized some with the authority to speak on His behalf or to approach Him on behalf of His people. Women have not been authorized in this capacity. :34 goes on to clarify this by contrasting speech with submission. Note, the contrast is not between sound and silence, but permission and submission. “They (women) are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission.” So the principle is vocation, not vocal. Women may not speak authoritatively, but they must speak submissively. E.g. when we sing, the women are expected to sing with us. But even then, they are called upon to sing their particular parts. The sopranos and altos are summoned, but the harmony is ruined if they try to sing the bass and tenor parts. And when we recite the creeds, the women recite them with us. They are called upon to prophesy with us as we declare the good doctrine of God.

This harmonizes the presupposition of women praying and prophesying from 1 Corinthians 11 with the presupposition of women being silent in 1 Corinthians 14. The two passages are coming at the same subject from different angles. When women speak, it should be submissively as ones whose heads are covered, not authoritatively as ones speaking on behalf of their heads. You must respond when called upon to speak, but you must never presume to call others to respond. You must say, “Amen,” from your seat, but you must not say, “You may be seated,” from behind the pulpit.

But someone will say, “That was then, this is now.” :34 anticipates this by appealing to eternity, “as the Law also says.” This is not something Paul invented in the 1st century. No, this is something God said to Moses. Paul is merely repeating it. This command was not unique to Corinth geographically, nor was it unique to them chronologically. This goes back to the beginning. Paul is not here speaking out of some kind of personal prejudice about some kind of local practice. No, he is repeating and appealing to an eternal and universal Law. This rule is for all churches everywhere at all times: not just Corinth and not just the first century.

Consider 1 Timothy 2:12-15 “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing – if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.” Here we again see the prohibition of women exercising authority over men paired with an admonition to remain quiet. Ephesus, where Timothy was pastoring, received the same command as Corinth. I take the time to point this out and perhaps even belabor the point a bit because this unequivocally addresses the most common rebuttal to these passages, which is, “This was localized, not universal.” Those who utilize this approach attempt to dismiss the clear teaching of texts like these by restricting their application to a specific time and/or place. But the fact that we have the same charge made to two distinct congregations refutes this idea. Corinth and Ephesus were separated by 250 miles by boat or by 900 miles by land if you walked around the Aegean Sea. This issue was widespread geographically. Furthermore, Corinth and Ephesus were separated from Eden by roughly 4,000 years, yet both letters appeal to the timeless Law of God and the beginning of all time in the Garden. This was not a local or temporal ruling, it was, and thus still is, a universal and eternal law.

Thus, the “that was then, this is now,” objection is answered by the text directly. But I’d like to point out that even by its own merits it fails. It presupposes that there was widespread agreement on this kind of backwards stuff back then, but now “look how far we’ve come.” It concedes that the verses say what it looks like they are saying, but it denies that they’re saying that to us. But here’s the problem: everyone did not agree on these things back then. Paul was not talking just to hear his teeth rattle. For him, these were real controversies in real time. He was not arguing with hypotheticals. The sin of egalitarianism was not invented in the 20th century. It was alive and well back then and it needed to be confronted and condemned back then, just as it still does today. Men and women are one in Christ, but they are not the same. And that is what Paul goes on to point out in :14

Men and women were made from different materials at different times for different reasons. Just like in our text, Paul here appeals to the Law, but this time he does not do so in general, rather he points to a particular part of it: the creation of Adam and Eve from the book of Genesis. He points out that Adam was formed first and that Adam was not deceived. Eve may have been formed second, but she sinned first because believed the serpent’s lies. Yet her sin did not plunge the rest of the world into sin. Why? She did not have the authority to speak on behalf of it. That authority belonged to Adam. He was the covenant head. So, when he fell, we all fell, but not a moment before. Eve assumed an authority she did not possess and so her curse corresponds: Genesis 3:16, “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”

 

Note, the curse was not that Adam was going to be in charge from now on. That was established prior to the Fall and God called it, “very good.” Patriarchy is not the result of sin. It is not evil, not even a necessary evil. No, in fact, patriarchy is a necessary good. The curse was that Eve and her daughters, from that moment forward, would struggle to joyfully embrace their God-appointed role as helpers and instead would struggle and grasp for Adam’s God-assigned role as head. The curse of Eve is the temptation to believe that the blessing of Adam is better than hers and that the curse of Adam is not as bad as hers. Feminism falsely asserts that Adam’s privileges are greater than his responsibilities and that Eve’s responsibilities are greater than her privileges. It blesses the curses of Adam and it curses the blessings of Eve. The late, great Voddie Baucham put it this way, "Eve's curse is not good enough for feminists, they want to share Adam's too."

So, when the serpent asked Eve, “Did God really say?” What should she have said? “Let’s ask my husband.” But because Eve attempted to speak for him, she is now tempted to continue to do so and sometimes even resents Adam for his ability to do so. But in so doing, she fails to see that Adam’s ability is also a responsibility. When Adam and Eve sinned, who did God come looking for? Adam. As anyone in leadership knows, crap flows uphill and so this mess ended up on his desk. God held him accountable. Feminism wants all the ability of a man and none of the accountability. It wants to retain the blessings of being protected without taking on the burden of having to look out for or protect anyone else. And that is where the text goes next. 

Look at :15, “The woman will be saved through childbearing – if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.” Wait! Did that just say that Eve was saved by having babies? YES!... and no. Let me explain. Consider Gen 3. Prior to cursing Eve with more painful childbearing, God promised her something, if she was paying attention. In :15, while cursing the serpent, He hid an Easter egg for Eve. “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” Did you catch it? A seed of Eve would someday overcome the seed of the devil. A Savior would kill all sin. This is often referred to as the “protoevangelium,” or first Gospel.

So, was Eve saved by childbearing? Yes and no. She was not saved because she had a child, she was saved because she believed the Good News and trusted the promises of God. Think about the faith that required. Death was now a part of life. Any child she bore would be destined to die. If anyone ever had a good reason to say, “Who would bring a child into a world like this?” it was Eve… but she didn’t. By faith, she bore the pain of childbirth, the discomfort of breastfeeding, and the heartache of knowing her children would all grow up to die. She believed God and so she obeyed Him. The same can be said of Mary. She believed God and submitted to the pain of pregnancy and to the heartache of knowing her child would grow up to die. So, was Mary saved by bearing a child? Yes and no. Having a child does not save you, but trusting God does, and that includes submitting to the frame He gave you and the responsibilities that come with it as well as resisting the temptation to envy the frame or responsibilities He has given to others. So, in one sense, women are uniquely saved by childbearing and in another sense, all people are saved through childbearing for the Seed of the woman saves.

Notice how Paul reinforces this point in :15. He transitions from a singular “the woman” to a plural “they.” Eve was a real, historical person, but she also serves as a sort of placeholder for all women in general.  And just as she is that for all women, Adam is that for all mankind. He is not just a man, he is not even all men, he is all mankind. So, when the Bible says that men are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone, that includes women. Thanks be to God! We are saved by federal headship. The same principle that applied to the first Adam applies to the Second Adam. Consider 1 Corinthians 15:22 “As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” In other words, the same patriarchy that enrages the feminists is the only thing that can save them.

We are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone and we work out our salvation with fear and trembling according to who God made us to be. Women were made to help husbands and have children. You do not have to have either to be saved per se, but to bristle against either is a sign that faith, love, holiness, and self-control are lacking and/or absent. On the flip side, women who like the idea of husbands and kids assume that being a wife or a mom is a piece of cake. Since they have been rehearsing these roles since they were girls by playing with dolls or pretending to keep house, they assume they’ve got it down, they just need the man or the baby. But as Paul told Titus there’s more to it than that.

Titus 2:3-5 “Older women are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.” Young women do not, by nature, know how to love husbands, children, or how to work at home. They need to be trained and the older women are called upon to be their trainers. Homemaking does not come naturally. But you know what does? Arrogance and presumption. Social media is full of young wives and moms with all kinds of marriage and parenting tips. But Paul here points out what many of you already know: they don’t know what they’re talking about. That is why the older women are called upon to teach them. Note that this is a command. So, it’s not that women cannot teach, it’s that some of them are called to teach certain things to the rest of them. This is an obligation, not an option. Older women must teach the younger. If they don’t, the young trad wives will all assume they are already experts and by doing so, many of them will unwittingly pull down their own households with their own two thumbs. Let the tweeter understand.

The same can be said for “working at home.” Young women need to be trained to stay home. Too many assume “real” work takes place out there and that “real” recognition takes place online. “Working at home,” does not mean that a wife can never attend to anything outside of her home. It does, however, mean that she cannot attend to anything outside of her home until everything inside her home is attended to. Her home must be her top priority. The only leftovers of hers it should get is last night’s dinner. She should not pour herself out all day for someone else’s kids or work hard for someone else’s husband and then come home and give her own family whatever she still has left.

In 1 Timothy 5:14, Paul makes this clear, “I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander.” The Greek word translated here as “manage their households,” is oikodespotein. It is a compound word made up of the words for “home,” and “despot.” So, ladies, there you have it: God would rather you rule your own home than serve someone else’s. You want to climb the corporate ladder? Why? So, you can be a manager someday? The entry level position for a wife and mother is manager. Why start at the bottom when you could start at the top?

Women were made to domesticate. They make home wherever they go. So, when women choose the office over their homes, they simply end up turning their offices into a home. They can’t help themselves. This is why we now have “work families” and “food days” in so much of corporate America. Chesterton, in his book What’s Wrong with the World, said it this way, "Modern women defend their office with all the fierceness of domesticity. They fight for desk and typewriter as for hearth and home, and develop a sort of wolfish wifehood on behalf of the invisible head of the firm. That is why they do office work so well; and that is why they ought not to do it." Women were made to make home, but the place they were made to do it is in their own – serving their husbands and raising their kids.

If this all seems a bit heavy-handed, consider the stakes. In both Titus 2:5 and 1 Timothy 5:14 Paul says the reputation of the Word of God is on the line. Did you catch that? Women should love their families and work at home. Why? “So that the Word of God may not be reviled.” Women should get married, have kids, and rule their homes well. Why? “To give the adversary no occasion for slander.” If we want the world to honor God’s design, we need to go first. If we slander God’s design, why shouldn’t they?

Chesterton said it this way, “There has happened a strange and startling thing. Openly and to all appearance, an ancestral conflict has silently and abruptly ended; one of the two sexes has suddenly surrendered to the other... the woman has in public surrendered to the man. She has seriously and officially owned that the man has been right all along; that the public house is really more important than the private house." Feminism is not a win for women, it is a loss. It is not a victory for the feminine ideal, it is the final surrender of femininity. It is the idea that the masculine ideal is the only ideal that matters.

Chesterton again, "Feminism is the muddled idea that women are free when they serve their employers and slaves when they help their husbands." Submission is simply putting your mission underneath someone else’s (sub-mission), and we all have to do it. The mission of God is above any of ours. Kings are called to submit to Christ. Husbands are called to submit to Christ. Elders are called to submit to Christ. No earthly authority is absolute. 1 Cor 11:3 says it this way, “I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.” Submission is simply being where you are at the behest of the One who put you there and being who you are according to the design of the One who made you. And we all have enough to do where we are without busying ourselves with other people’s business.

This brings us back to :35 of our sermon text. Women have been given enough to do without trying to do what men do. So, on the Lord’s Day, the bride of Christ submits to her Husband by sending a man to the pulpit. Did you catch that? Christ is the Head of the church. He is her Husband. And what does He command His bride to do? Choose qualified men to preach and administer the Lord’s Supper. That is the Church submitting to her Husband. So, in a plot twist of providence, having men lead is the bride of Christ’s submissive glory. C.S. Lewis said it this way, “Only one wearing the masculine uniform can represent the Lord to the Church…. We men may often make very bad priests. That is because we are insufficiently masculine. It is no cure to call in those who are not masculine at all.” It is a shameful thing for a woman to speak authoritatively in church. That is like a wife beheading her husband in public. It is not stunning or brave, it is a shame – one might even say a damned shame.

Rich Lusk said it this way, “Every time a church allows a woman to preside over the Eucharist, the Fall of Genesis 3 is being re-enacted; a woman serving the sacramental meal (especially to men) means Satan’s lies are still being believed… Feminism and egalitarianism are therefore Christian heresies.” There are few things more Satanic than a woman serving the Lord’s Supper. It is a reenactment of the first sin and the Fall of man.

I trust you at this point you see why so many keep these verses in the junk drawer. But we are not them. We are Bible-believing Christians and we are not allowed to have problem passages. We receive the teachings of the Bible as they are, not as the mere opinions of dead men which can be ignored or rejected, but as the Words of living God which must be taught, repeated, and accepted. So, set aside the sticker shock of the text for a second and take a moment to notice something that is hidden in plain sight. Everyone sees the potential offense to women, right? We all see the pressure this puts on her, but most miss the responsibility it puts on her husband: she has to be quiet, which may be a tough pill to swallow, but he has to talk; and not only that, he has to have answers. Did you catch that? 

:35 “If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home.”  At any given moment, men, your wife can give you a pop quiz and it’s your job to be prepared to pass the test. The men here at CCL talk a lot about preparedness. We discuss how much water and ammo you need stored up, and the answer for both is usually “more than you think.” But do we take the same initiative and interest in storing up God’s Word? You never know what life may throw at you or what questions your wife or child might ask you. Are you prepared to answer them… or are your verses a little rusty? How many verses should a guy have in his heart? “More than you think.” This is heavy lifting, gents. You cannot skip leg day and expect to carry your family on your back, and you cannot skip your Bible reading and expect to know what God says. And you cannot just say, “I don’t know, babe, ask the elders.” Now, you can and should ask the elders for counsel if you are having a hard time making heads or tails of some sticky theological question, but you cannot simply send your wife to them. They are not your wife’s husband, you are. And the Bible does not put the weight of leading your wife on them, it puts it on you.

A husband must wash his wife in the Word and he must live with her in an understanding way. All husbands have to read their own Bibles, do their own study, know what they think about what they believe, and talk to their wives about it. Every man must be able to say, “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord… and this is how we do it” He doesn’t just have the privilege of speaking like that, he has an obligation to speak like that. It isn’t just a flex he can do, it is a weight he must carry. Now, given all of this, you ladies might be relieved to know that all they have to do is be quiet and ask questions later. But in a similar fashion, this is not just something you are allowed to do, it is something you ought to do. And if you have questions about how to think through something you hear, ask your husband later. “Honey, what do we think about…?” You do not have to be an empty bucket waiting for him to fill your head with thoughts. You need to bring the thoughts you already have to him  and then ask him what he thinks. The husband is not the only thinker in the home, but he is the only head. 

So, men, the question is not “who will be the head?” – it is “will you be a good one?” You were made for gravitas. You are the glory of God (1 Cor 11:7), but glory is a heavy business. So, submit to the weight that is placed on your shoulders and rise to the occasion. Act like men. If you want your wife to be a Biblical woman, be a Biblical man. If you want a Proverbs 31 woman, be a Proverbs 1-30 man. If you do not take up your responsibility in this, she will either be stunted or frustrated, or both. If she must be silent, you must speak. If she is eager to grow and zealous to learn, you must keep out ahead of her. Not merely keep up with her, but keep ahead. That is what it means to lead. A godly wife will have some questions and a godly husband must have some answers. And the godlier the wife, the godlier the man he will need to be. Men, you are her ceiling and the higher you go, the more room she has to grow. If it is shameful for a woman to speak in church, and it is, how much more shameful is it for a man to be silent in his own home?

So, we end where we began. Marriage is a mystery and the way of a man with a woman is full of wonder, but its primary purpose is to point to Christ and His church. In that sense, every marriage is a message. Every home is preaching something. It is either the Gospel of God or it is the way of the world. May God make us better men and women who are better at being men and women.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

PRAYER

Heavenly Father, the mystery of marriage and the wonder of the way of a man with a woman is beyond us. Thank You for revealing Your will to us in Your Word and through the covenant of marriage. There is much to discuss and to apply. Give us wisdom as we leave here to put it into practice. Give us Your Spirit that we may better appreciate Your ways and see them manifested in our hearts, in our homes, and in our world as it is in Heaven. We ask all of this in the name of Jesus Christ, Our Lord, and we offer up the words of the prayer He taught us to pray singing…

day no. 17,457: nonconsentual assertions

"Because I believe that rule by men is actually inevitable, this means that the longhouse is actually ruled by men—wicked men, behind the scenes, but men nevertheless." — Douglas Wilson, As a Gentleman Walks By the Longhouse, Whistling

The rule of men is inescapable. Man is the head, not the tail; and even if he lowers himself to the position of tail, he is the tail that wags the dog. He cannot not lead. Even in his submission, he is leading. Even in his surrender, he is steering. 

Patriarchy is nonconsentual, it just is. 

God does not need your permission to implement His designs and He does not need to explain Himself to you.

day no. 17,456: matriarchy is emasculinity

"In an open patriarchy, those who ought to be in the dominant position are. In a matriarchy, constant energy must be devoted to keeping everything in that unnatural position because the natural order is so deeply embedded in us that the world keeps wanting to right itself." — Douglas Wilson, As a Gentleman Walks By the Longhouse, Whistling

Patriarchy is woven in to the world by God's design. When you try to keep it down, it is like trying to keep a beach ball under water. It can be done, but not without a constant force being applied to it. And all that force has to come from somewhere and takes force away from efforts that could be put toward going somewhere. A boat that is sinking must constantly be pitching water. It is survival mode. But that same boat cannot spend any energy on rowing where it wants go. Instead, it is tossed back and forth by the wind and the waves while it focuses its efforts on not sinking.

"What is called matriarchy is simply moral anarchy, in which the mother alone remains fixed because all the fathers are fugitive and irresponsible." — G. K. Chesterton

Matriarchy is the result of lazy men. Instead of doing the hard work of leading, they do the hard work of trying to prop women up. As mentioned before, this still requires a good deal of effort, but it doesn't take the kind of effort leading requires. Lazy men would rather lay on top of the beach ball than paddle a boat somewhere.

"In a patriarchy, the dominance of men is a natural part of the creation order. In a matriarchy, the dominance of women is artificial and contrived, and needs to be enforced by men behind the scenes." — Douglas Wilson, As a Gentleman Walks By the Longhouse, Whistling

Matriarchies are not controlled by women, they are maintained by weak men.

"Because our culture has bought into the feminist lie, the result has been the creation of what has come to be known as the longhouse. We are in the longhouse now—when society has become officially matriarchal and all the public social ethics are feminine-coded. There is a pronounced hostility to individual excellence, which is seen as arrogance, risk, which is seen as recklessness, masculinity, which is seen as toxic, and hierarchy, which is seen as oppressive and exploitative. In contrast, the longhouse is communal, obsessed with safety, and eager to enforce conformity." — Douglas Wilson, As a Gentleman Walks By the Longhouse, Whistling

Where women are leading, men are conceding. And this, according to Christ, is a curse.

Isaiah 3:12

As for my people,

children are their oppressors,

and women rule over them.

O my people,

they which lead thee cause thee to err,

and destroy the way of thy paths.

The widespread and increasing presence of estrogen in leadership roles is a clear sign of God's curse on a nation.

Beware the woes of womenion. Where women are the dominion, men have forfeited their mission. Matriarchy is emasculinity.

day no. 17,453: women's rights and lefts

"Because we live in demented times, Christians will sometimes react with horror when some trans MMA fighter goes up against a woman opponent and simply pummels her. We recoil and say how awful it is. But it should be every bit as awful to see two women fighting each other. That kind of thing simply shouldn’t be happening at all.

Going into any given sport, the fundamental question that males and females should be respectively asking is this one. 'Will this training and competition help me to become more masculine/feminine?' Will it equip me to develop the characteristics that Scripture says I should be cultivating in my life? If you can’t answer that question, you shouldn’t be doing it.

And if you are thinking about pursuing a sport that is dominated by lesbians, then perhaps it would be wise to pause and reflect for a moment. Ask yourself why that sport is dominated by lesbians, and is that something I want to cultivate as well?" — Douglas Wilson, Athletics and Christian Community #3

The only reason some guys like to watch two women fight is because he gets to see two women with next to nothing on for the price of watching just one. No good man wants to watch women fight. He doesn't want to watch her fight another woman and he doesn't want to watch her have to fight a man. And she should not be training to be a sister soldier, at least not by doing what the men are doing. She is a sister soldier when she fights on her front lines, but that is the domestic theater of the war, not the foreign theater. She fights by submitting to her design. She fights by raising arrows and providing something worth defending. She has a battle to fight, but she does not do it by throwing punches at someone else's daughter while in a ring wearing her underwear in front of a bunch of strangers. That is not ladylike.

"Battles are ugly when women fight" — C.S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

The only thing worse than watching a woman lose a fight is watching her win one. As bad as it is to see her beat up, it is worse to see her boasting after beating someone else up. A beaten bride inspires sympathy and encourages the best in a man to rise up to defend her, but when her attacked is a woman with a loud mouth and a louder personality, especially after a "win," it brings out the worst in a man.

"When a woman puts up her fists to a man she is putting herself in the only posture in which he is not afraid of her. He can be afraid of her speech and still more of her silence; but force reminds him of a rusted but very real weapon of which he has grown ashamed." — G.K. Chesterton,  A Miscellany of Men

day no. 17,452: too good at golf

"If we keep the prohibition of Deuteronomy 22:5 in mind, this has direct application for women in such sports. 'The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God.' This text prohibits cross-dressing for men, but it also bans women from putting on 'the gear of a warrior' (keli geber). If women shouldn’t be placed in combat roles, and they shouldn’t be, then they shouldn’t be in warlike training. College football would be out, for example... While certain forms of athletic competition are both lawful and useful for girls, there is no reason to believe that it should occupy the same importance for girls as it does for boys. To assume that it should be 'equally important' to both sexes is to demonstrate that you have internalized the rancid egalitarianism of our day, and have prayed to receive Title IX into your heart." — Douglas Wilson, Athletics and Christian Community #3

The prohibition from Deuteronomy is not saying that a woman can never put on a bullet proof vest, but it is saying that she should not be in the habit of wearing one. She can protect herself if the trouble comes to her door and she can have a basic understanding of how the tools of liberty work and where they are kept and how they are handled, but she should not be an expert. She can only do so much and becoming an expert at reloading magazines comes at the cost of being better at making biscuits. On the flip side, men should not be too good at golf. Golf is hard and it requires a lot of time and dedication and money to excel at. If you are too good at gold, that is really too bad. Something, if not some things, are suffering badly from neglect. All that time swinging a club came from somewhere.

That said, competition and physical prowess and gamesmanship are transferable skills that men can and should learn in athletic areas. Men were made for pitting their strength against another. It sharpens them, like iron upon iron. Women were made to help. They need older women to help them learn how to love their husbands and children and the older women need help keeping up with the homes they've kept up with for decades. 

Everything does not need to be equally important to be as important as it should. A man does not need to care as much about baking a cake or cooking dinner than a wife does and a wife does not need to care about football as much as her man does, but both benefit from caring about that which God has given them to sharpen them in their respective roles.

day no. 17,451: feminism: a crash course in blessing the curses of others and cursing your own

Genesis 3:16

Unto the woman he said, "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."

Part of the curse of Eve is the temptation to believe that the curse of Adam is superior.

"Eve's curse isn't good enough, they (feminists) want to share Adam's too." — Voddie Baucham

Feminism, not content with its own curse, clamors for the curse of Adam. It wrongly asserts that his privileges are greater than his responsibilities and falsely assumes that the woman's responsibilities are not privileges.

Feminism blesses the curses of Adam and curses the blessings of Eve.

day no. 17,440: fake and gay (pre-ripped jeans and post-mortem genes)

“Our culture has become as gay as pre-ripped jeans." — Toby Sumpter

We like the look of productivity without the work. Pre-ripped jeans require someone else to do more work so that you can look like you did more work than you did. 

"We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful." — C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

We make fun of productive people and then wonder why the cost of production has gone up. We refuse to shoulder our share of the burden and then we wonder why everything has gotten so heavy. We want the rewards of responsibility without the sacrifices of being responsible. We are fake and gay. We have become fruitless trees and castrated geldings and then we have the audacity to mock husbandry.

"This is modernity's barbarism - hollow hearts led about by sterile matter, perversely mocking those with full lives." — Douglas Wilson, Angels in the Architecture

The childless cat ladies mock the mothers of six. They abort their own children and call themselves cat moms. But wisdom is justified by her children. You can leave your life's work to your cat, if it happens to outlive you, but your cat cannot do the same. You can throw your pearls before pigs you like, but you can't make a pig appreciate them.

day no. 17,436: do the dishes (sermon outline)

Christ Church Leavenworth

Song of Solomon 2:15

7/19/26

…

OT READING: Proverbs 27:1-18

NT READING: Matthew 5:21-32

Do the Dishes

READING OF THE TEXT

Our text this morning is Song of Solomon 2:15 these are the words of God:

“Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom.”

The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the Word of our God stands forever.

PRAYER

Our Father and our God, we come before You this morning through Jesus Christ, our Lord, and in the Holy Spirit. Thank You for Your Word. Help us to hold it in high and reverent esteem this morning, persuaded that by it we live and not by bread alone. We ask these things in Jesus’ Name, amen.

INTRODUCTION

Imagine with me two homes. They are in the same neighborhood with the same blueprint. Each house is occupied by the same number of people: a husband, a wife, and three children. Life happens in both houses; and because of their similarities, it produces roughly the same amount of mess in each: clothes are worn, meals are made, toys are played with, dishes are dirtied, grass grows, and toilets are flushed.

Now imagine that one of these homes has an overgrown yard, a sink full of dishes, a hamper full of dirty laundry, and toys all over the floor. The other household, however, has freshly mown grass, a clean sink, clean dishes in the cupboard, clean laundry in the dressers, and a clean floor. What is the difference? The difference in these two homes is not the rate at which things are getting dirty, the difference is the rate at which things are getting cleaned. In both homes dirty clothes end up in the hamper, but in one they also get laundered and folded. In both homes dishes get used, but in one they are washed and put away after meals. In both houses the kids play with toys, but in one they are cleaned up before dinner. Even though they generate the same amount of mess, they look, feel, and smell very differently. Life is messy and how you deal with that fact, or in some cases, how you don’t, can make it even messier.

The same thing is true of marriage. If you see two marriages and one is happy and pleasant and the other is not, the difference is not that the one has sin in it and the other one doesn’t, the difference is that the one has dealt with its sins and the other one hasn’t. The difference is not that there is no sin in the happy home, the difference is that there is no sin in it anymore. Why? Have the people in that marriage stopped sinning? No. They still sin, but they deal with it… daily. In other words, they do the spiritual dishes. Ephesians 4:32 says it this way, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you.” That is how you address the messes as they happen: you forgive others as you have been forgiven by God in Christ. A house where sin is regularly shoved into the closet or under the bed will eventually begin to stink, but a house where sin is dealt with in Christ’s name will smell like fresh bread baking in the oven.

So, why doesn’t everyone just do that? Doing one night’s worth of dishes tonight is easier than doing two night’s worth tomorrow, right? Sure, but you know what’s even easier? Not doing the dishes… at least at first. But life still happens and things add up and eventually you have a sink full of dirty dishes that is threatening to invade the countertop. As hard as it was to do dishes last night, it is that much harder now that another day’s worth of dishes have been added to them. Not to mention that they are literally harder to do now that the gunk has had some time to harden. If you don’t rinse oatmeal off day one, you might as well throw the plate away. They should build houses out of old oatmeal. The same can be said for ketchup. It rinses off with some water now, but later it will require some muscle.

The same is true of sin. It is hard to repent when you’ve done something wrong and it is hard to forgive when you’ve been hurt, but it is much harder to repent once you’ve allowed that sin to harden and it’s a lot harder to forgive when you’ve allowed a crust to form over your heart. Life is made up of little things and they all add up. What we call a long day is usually just a lot of short trials added together. And that is why long days call for short accounts. Those little things, if left unresolved, can become a big deal. And that is where our text comes in.

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Everything has its problems. If you are single, you have the kind of problems single people have and if you are married, you have the kind of problems married people have. In our text, foxes are the problem. If you have a garden, you will have foxes and the more fruitful the garden, the more critters you will have to contend with. Now, you can either watch them destroy your garden or you can deal with them. It is the same with marriage. If you have a fruitful marriage, you will have sins that try to sneak in and wreck it and the more fruitful the marriage, the more attractive it will be to poachers. Keep in mind: the foxes are the problem, not the fruit. And sometimes, it’s the little ones that end up causing some of the biggest problems.

The good news is that little foxes cannot do as much damage as the big ones and they are much easier to stamp out. The problem with little foxes is that they are much harder to catch and easier to take less seriously. It’s just a little fox. It’s actually kinda cute. Can we keep it? What should we name it? But if you cater to them simply because they are little, they will end up devouring your entire garden. Over time they will only grow bigger and stronger with every bite, and if you wait too long, they will grow too strong for you. This is the same when it comes to sin. The time to deal with little sins is when they are little. Their size makes it easy for them to sneak in, but it makes it easier for you to deal with them. Consider James 1:15-16 “Desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. Do not be deceived.” Little sins are not little evils. They are just as evil as the big ones, they just lack the ability to do as much damage as they would like to. Sins are evil from the moment of conception. They are wicked even when they don’t seem like that big of a deal. When they are that little, they cannot be seen by others and the one who has them might not even notice them. But eventually, they develop into something no one can ignore.

A woman who is 3 weeks pregnant might not even know it herself, and a woman who is 2 months pregnant might be the only one who knows, but a woman who is 9 months pregnant cannot hide it from anyone. The same is true of sin. Once conceived, it will grow in secret, but it won’t stay a secret forever. It will eventually be born and when it grows up, it will kill you. “Do not be deceived.” Your sins will slay you the first chance they get. You cannot domesticate your disobedience. There are no tame sins. So, as John Owen once put it, you must “be killing sin or it will be killing you.” That means catching the little foxes and tossing them out of your garden before they become big foxes. Repent of your little sins and walk away from them before they get strong enough to destroy your life. Weeds will grow. Foxes will come. Rabbits will get in. And if you do not deal with them, you will be one of those unfortunate souls who used to have a garden. So, put up fences, pull up weeds, and spray for bugs. What a good gardener would do for his garden, you must do for your marriage. Let’s change the metaphor for a moment.

CHANGING THE METAPHOR

Consider Ecclesiastes 10:18 “Through sloth the roof sinks in, and through indolence the house leaks.” Laziness leads to the roof caving in and indifference leads to leaks. When a roof caves in, it appears to happen all at once. It was there a second ago and now it’s all over the floor. Anyone can see that. But what they don’t see is the years of neglect that led to that final collapse. Anything that can be put off, often is, unless someone takes the initiative. You don’t have to change the oil in your car this afternoon, for example, but if you put it off long enough, you will have to replace the engine. You don’t have to get a new roof on your home this afternoon, but if you neglect it long enough you will have water in your house. Many emergencies were actually years in the making. In other words, they were avoidable, but no one took the initiative to avoid them because they weren’t demanding anyone’s immediate attention. It reminds me of something one of Hemingway’s characters said after being asked how he went bankrupt. His response was, “Two ways: Gradually, then suddenly.” That is how it often happens. 

Clutter builds up over time. Remember our two households from before. Both were making messes at the same rate, but only one was addressing them as they came up. As a result, one of them was slowly falling apart and the other was thriving. The condition of the one was deteriorating over time and someday, someone is going to look around and ask, “How did we get here” I’ll tell you how: gradually and then suddenly. It added up and then all of a sudden it was too much. That is what can happen in a home where disrespect, neglect, unforgiveness, unkindness, selfish ambition, and bitterness have been accumulating. Every unforgiven sin is like another dirty dish in the sink. If that is your home, you are in a rough spot, but even still, you are not yet without hope. Your house has not been condemned yet. So, confess your sins, forgive your spouse, grab a sponge, and get to work. Start with the dishes on top and work your way down. You don’t have to do the dishes at the bottom of the pile yet. You can only do what you can do, but you must do what only you can do. There is no such thing as cruise control Christianity and there is no such thing as a set it and forget it marriage. Some assembly is required. 

To repurpose one of Chesterton’s observations, “Can you hate your marriage enough to want to change it and yet love it enough to think it worth changing?” Some people hate the state of their marriage, but do not love it enough to change it, and so they seek a divorce. Some love their marriage, but do not hate their sins enough, so nothing changes. So, can you hate its faults and love it enough to fix them? Can you hate the sins that come against it, even if they are your own? If your marriage feels like a sink full of dishes, you need to hate the habits that led to that enough to change them and you need to love your marriage enough to start doing the dishes. All spouses have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. No marriage is perfect. But if that is the case, you’d expect all married people to be miserable, right? But look around, some aren’t. Why? The grace of God? Sure, but not if by that you mean something like “They got lucky.” No, it really is the grace of God, but the grace of God is the hard and humbling work of getting into the habit of confessing our sins and forgiving the sins of others, just as God in Christ has done for us. So, if you want that, but you don’t know where to start, what should you do? That is where our NT reading from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount comes in.

SHORT ACCOUNTS FROM THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

In :21-26 Jesus is clear: our disposition to God is connected to our disposition to men. So much so, in fact, that if you are bowing before God in prayer and realize, at that moment, that you owe someone an apology, you should stop what you are praying, get up, and go to that person in order to ask them for forgiveness. If you are not already in the habit of doing that, someone else is in the habit of giving you more grace than you realize… and much more than you deserve. Understand how important this is: obedience is better than sacrifice. God wants you to get right with those you have wronged before you give Him anything. He doesn’t need what you are trying to give nearly as much as your neighbor needs that apology or as much as you need to learn to humble yourself.

And notice that there is an urgency to this. “Come to terms with your accuser” How? “Quickly” Not when you get around to it or when you feel like it, but right now, this very instant. If anyone has an accusation against you, go to them and come to terms with them right now. Do not allow any accusation against you to linger. If you were in the wrong, you are in debt. You owe them an apology. Do not force them to extend a line of credit to you for another day. Pay what you owe and say, “I’m sorry.” In other words, keep short accounts. Do not let debts go long unpaid and do not refuse someone who is attempting to pay you what they owe. Ask for forgiveness as quickly as you are able and accept an apology as soon as it is offered. Make a habit of addressing things in real time and do not put them off until later. It will never be convenient to have an uncomfortable conversation and apologies are always inconvenient. But it doesn’t get any more comfortable later. In fact, it usually gets worse. So, pay what you owe as soon as you owe it. Consider Proverbs 3:27 “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.” Is an apology a good thing? Yes? Is it owed to someone you have wronged? Yes. Is it within your power to say, “Sorry.” Yes. So, pay what you owe. Do not withhold a good apology from one to whom it is due.

Ok, but how many times do I have to do that? As often as you need to dingdong. And if you are on the other end of the equation, the answer is the same. How often do you need to forgive someone? As often as they ask. Consider Matthew 18:21-22 “Then Peter came up and said, ‘Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you seven times.’” Phew, dodged a bullet there, right? Wrong! Let the Man finish. As He was saying, ‘I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.’” What? That’s way more! Peter thought he was being generous by offering to forgive his brother up to seven times, but Jesus turns it around and condemns him for his stinginess. Here’s the point: in Christ, there is more forgiveness than there are sins… thanks be to God! And we need to learn to imitate that reality.

Now, if being sinned against seventy-seven times by the same person in the same way seems hard to imagine, you’re probably not married and you definitely do not have kids. When we’re upset, we’re tempted to say things like, “You always…” which is more than seventy-seven. But what if instead of exaggerating, you’ve actually been counting… and this is the seventy-eighth time, are you now justified in being upset? Maybe, a little; but are you justified in withholding forgiveness if they say they’re sorry again? No. How many times have you sinned against God? And how many times has He forgiven you? Go and forgive one another like that.

What is more likely? Someone saying the same hurtful thing to you seventy-seven times or someone saying something so hurtful that you remember it seventy-seven times. They only said it once, but it left a mark… a mark you remember often and still think about it a lot. So, what should you do? Forgive them… again. Each and every time you remember it, you need to remind yourself that you have already forgiven them. You must resist the temptation to make them apologize to you again. Instead, you must force yourself to forgive them… again. Your unforgiving heart is your problem, not theirs. Your bitterness is your fault.

Where short accounts are not kept, long days will follow and that can lead to a longing for a change. And that is the next thing Jesus addresses in :27-30. When you are discontent with your spouse, you will be tempted to look lustfully for another. You might wonder if it would be easier to end your marriage than it would be to try to mend it. Rather than apologize to your spouse, you might look for someone you haven’t wronged yet and instead of paying what you owe, you might look for someone you don’t owe anything to…  yet. 

And that is why you have to take this business of short account more seriously. You need to get radical. If your right eye is always critical, you need to cut it out. If your right hand is always clenched in a fist, you need to cut it off. If your right way of thinking is leading to bitterness in your heart, you need to take those thoughts captive and force them to obey Christ. It is better for you to lose an argument and save your marriage than it is to win the fight and lose your spouse. Strictly speaking, there is no winning against your spouse. A loss for one of you is a loss for both of you. Your team doesn’t get any points when you dunk on your own basket. And if you make a habit out of embarrassing your teammate, you won’t have a team left, and that is where Jesus goes next.

:31-32 Divorce only looks attractive after things have gotten ugly. But even then, it is NOT an easy out. It is more than paperwork. As painful as gouging an eye out is, it can be survived and as hard as losing a hand off would be, you could learn to live without it, but a divorce is a death. It is not a surgery, it is an autopsy. Divorce is more like a murder than a mutilation and that is why this is urgent. You must be more willing to lose a limb than you are to lose your life. You must be more willing to cut yourself off from things today than you are to kill your marriage tomorrow. 

WISDOM FOR WEDDINGS

And that leads us to our OT reading. Let’s walk through Pr 27:1-18 and apply it to our topic du jour. :1 Do not put off until tomorrow what you know should be done today. Do not presume upon the patience of your spouse. If you owe an apology now, give it now. Do not boast about how humble and repentant you will be tomorrow, be humble and repentant right now. :2 Also, do not boast about how reasonable you’re being, that’s not a reasonable thing to do. Be reasonable and allow your spouse to praise you for it. Do not spend a lot of time giving yourself credit for all that you do. Instead, spend more time thinking about all that your spouse does. And then make sure you are recognizing and honoring them for it. Do this often and it will lighten the mood of the home. :3-4 Holding grudges, however, will make everything feel heavier. Every little thing will be a big deal. So, if you have an issue with your spouse, either bring it to them or let it go, but whatever you do, don’t sit on it. If it’s big enough to bring up, bring it up. If it’s small enough to let go, let it go. But do not add it to an ongoing list of wrongs. 

And while you’re at it, ditch that list. “Love keeps no records of wrongs” (1 Cor 13:5). If you come to me with a long list of everything your spouse has done wrong, I know at least one thing to put on the list of things you’ve done wrong. The sins of others do not justify our own. If they did, Jesus died for no reason. We wouldn’t need to look to the cross, we could just look to the list of all the times we’ve been wronged. Instead of a cross necklace, we could keep a list of complaints on a chain around our necks. If that sounds ridiculous, it is because it is. So, if you’re doing that, knock it off. We are not justified by being victims. We are justified by confessing our offenses and forgiving those who’ve offended us.

:5-6 An open rebuke is better than hidden love, but a hidden rebuke is worse than either. A hard word can sting and a good word that is withheld can hurt, but a constant grumbling under the breath is unbearable. Either let it be known or let it go. And expect the same treatment in return believing that it is better to feel stupid about being bad than it is to feel good about being stupid. But rebukes require relational bank. Giving a rebuke is like writing a check. If you have bank with someone, you can make a withdrawal every once in a while; but if you don’t have money in the relational bank, your relationship will not be able to clear the check. Relational bank is built up over time through consistent, kind, and encouraging words that serve as deposits. Someone who regularly invests in you can say hard things to you without bankrupting the relationship. But keep in mind, flattery is fiat. Do not try to steer your spouse with fake praise. Make your corrections and your kisses count. Your spouse is not your opponent.

:7 When you are satisfied at home, you can say, “No” to other offers, even if they are attractive. Just as the one who is full after dinner can say, “No, thanks!” to dessert, the one who is happy with his marriage can say, “No, thanks!” to all that devil’s food cake that shows up on his phone. But the one who is desperate cannot say, “No.” Just as a hungry person might be willing to eat bitter herbs in order to avoid starving to death, a discontent person might be willing to drink poison to quench his thirst. And so, :8, it is good for a man to spend more time at home with his wife. If he is always out with the guys or in the garage, he is in danger. A marriage is more than having a cute roommate who can cook. If you don’t like being home, work on making it somewhere you want to be. And you can’t do that from somewhere else. As Martin Luther once said, “Let the wife make the husband glad to come home, and let him make her sorry to see him leave.” That is the goal.

:9 Just as a nice bouquet adorns a room, so good advice adorns a good friendship. Blessed is the man who finds a wife who is also his friend. After all, there is only so much febreeze can do. It can make a stinky situation more tolerable, but it does not flush the toilet. Better to have a friend who helps you deal with the problem than one who merely tries to make it sound better. :10 So, do not take your spouse for granted. Once upon a time, they loved you enough to say, “I do,” and you loved them enough to say it back. Don’t let your “I do” become an “I did.” Pick up your “I do” daily and say, “Yes,” to your spouse again. Do not depend on the title of “husband” or “wife” to do all the work for you. A close friend is better than a distant spouse, but best of all is a spouse who is a close friend. So, how are things going at home? Good question. If you have kids, ask them. :11 Wisdom is justified by her children. What do your kids think of your marriage? Do they like what they see? Do you want your kids to someday have a marriage like you have right now? :12 If not, what are you going to do about that? If you see danger coming, what can you do to prevent it? Are there sins you need to confess? Habits you need to break? Are there words you need to start saying? Like “Sorry” and “ Good job.” The simple sees all of this and does nothing about it and he suffers for it… and his marriage suffers for it… and his children suffer for it. You cannot be in a covenant and keep things to yourself. I don’t just mean that you shouldn’t do that, I mean you CAN’T. Your decisions affect others.

:13 Anyone who looks for security outside of a covenant is asking to lose his shirt. If you put your trust in strangers instead of your spouse, you are begging for trouble. And if anyone outside the covenant is trying to convince you to put more trust in them than in the one you vowed to trust, that person is an adulterer. They are attempting to separate what God has joined together. :14 So, work harder to understand your spouse than you do to understand yourself. You cannot bless them without getting to know them. Just because you like early mornings doesn’t mean they do. It doesn’t matter what you call it, they will call it a curse. You can say, “I was just trying to be nice” all you like, but if they do not like what you’re doing, it isn’t nice to keep doing it. So be considerate and do unto your spouse what you would have them do unto you. That means taking the time to figure out what they like and then doing that for them, whether you feel like it or not. After all, Isn’t that what you wish they would do for you?

:15 There is a big difference between a lawn sprinkler and a leaky faucet. Both involve water, but one grows grass and the other grows tiresome. Ladies, nagging your husband is not the way to help him grow. You can call it fertilizer all you like, but its only resemblance is the smell. :16 And that’s because a nag is impossible to satisfy. Once you address one of her concerns, another one is locked and loaded. A nag never runs out of ammo. Trying to satisfy her is like trying to hold the wind in your hands or like trying to pick up spilled water with your fingers. So, do not nag.

:17 Instead, be helpful. Iron sharpens iron because they are the same. When you presume to be better than your spouse, you can cut them, but you cannot sharpen them. So, do not come in on your high horse looking to help; instead, come alongside them. If you do that, you will both grow sharper together. And lastly, :18, if you take all of this to heart and invest in your marriage, you will enjoy its fruit. As Ephesians 5:28 reminds us, “He who loves his wife loves himself.” Because you and your spouse are one, a win for them is a win for you. Looking to their interests is looking to your own. So, tend to your own fig tree and you will eat its fruit. Mind thine own beeswax and you will find more honey at home.

CONCLUSION

So, let’s end where we began. If you have a sink full of dishes waiting for you at home and you’re wondering what difference cleaning one cup will make, keep this in mind: there will always be dishes. The question is not IF there will be dishes, but HOW many and WHAT will be stuck to them? You can control some of that by what you serve, but you cannot get away from it altogether. If you think you can ever do the dishes so well that they never have to be done ever again, you don’t understand how life works. Life is messy. Do the dishes. In a similar fashion, if your goal is to repent of sin so well one big and heartfelt time that you never have to do it again, you do not understand how sin works. As Luther’s first of The 95 Theses reminds us, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Mt 4:17), He willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” So, if something gets knocked over, pick it up. If something spills, clean it up. If something breaks, sweep it up. If you lose your temper, confess it. If you get impatient, admit it. If you get grouchy, own it and don’t get even grouchier if we all notice. You’re not as good at hiding your moods as you think you are. Just admit it and move on. Moods do not go by making excuses, they go by kicking. So, have some faith and get to work: the dishes are not going to do themselves.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 

Amen.

PRAYER

Heavenly Father, help us to be kind and compassionate to one another and to forgive one another just as You have forgiven us in Christ. Bless our marriages and help them to be faithful pictures of the Gospel. Let grace reign in our hearts and in our homes on earth as it does in Heaven. We ask these things in Jesus’ name and we offer up the words of the prayer He taught us to pray singing…