Then the Lord said to Moses: "Why are you crying out to me?"
Captain Sensible writes: I am appreciative of some Bible devotional notes by Selwyn Hughes for the following observation:
"Did you know that once God rebuked Moses for praying? 'Then the Lord said to Moses, "Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on."' (Exodus 14:15-16) Moses had already prayed -- now came the time for action."
But turning to this passage, we see more than that. In the previous verse, Moses was basically telling the Israelites to wait and trust in the Lord. "The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still."
Does this sound familiar to anyone? Like in a "Wait on the Lord" and "Trust God to bring you your spouse" kind of way?
Of course, it is important to be persistent in prayer, we know that. But at the same time, once we know what to do, we need to play our part. How lazy is it to simply cry out to God and do nothing except pray? This is not Biblical. This is not showing great faith. Along with prayer must come action.
So, let's see if we can devise a plan of action, shall we?
a) We need to address the situation with regard to the lack of men in the church as a matter of urgency. Church leaders must NOT be allowed to continually take the course of least resistance with their "Family Fun Days" and "Children's Ministry", when the Body of Christ is in crisis due to the lack of testosterone within it! And whilst these things, and popular overseas mission trips too, are good, we need to consider that we are now in the position of having missionaries come to us here in the UK! We have a crisis on our hands here, people! Maybe it is God's plan for us to get our own house in order before gallivanting off to exotic lands? And it doesn't do to get too complacent about our children's ministries either. If we carry on at the rate we are going, with fewer and fewer men in the church, then soon there will very few children in our churches in order to minister to! And this is backed up by statistical evidence of growing numbers of singles.
b) We need to encourage the men we do have to be proactive about finding a wife and also help them in outreaching to their peers. The two go hand-in-hand, in my experience. Let's have less of the cosy, non-committal brotherly/sisterly fellowshipping and hours spent alone at the computer, and more of the reaching out to the lost on our doorstep. But that will only happen when the men are happily settled at home with a wife! After all, what must the men in the world make of their fully-grown, celibate, work colleagues? Isn't there a danger that rather than seeing them as salt and light and having a lifestyle to emulate, with their loving wife and well-behaved children, they rather look on them as a bit weird to say the least, or even possibly "most likely gay, but being a hypocrital Christian, obviously in denial about it"?
c) Single Christian women need to be proactive too. Not in terms of pursuing men, but more in making themselves available to be pursued and not over-spiritualising the whole process.
d) We may need to re-examine what exactly is meant by the instruction to not be yoked with unbelievers. We tend to assume this to mean not marrying non church-goers, and therefore Christian women shouldn't even date them, but are the two things both necessarily synonymous? Is dating the same as "yoking", and is a non-believer the same thing as a non church-goer? Maybe there are believing men in the world, that need encouragement in their faith, are alienated by "church" and are desperately ripe for the harvest? That seems to be the indication from the few ministries that do reach out to men. Is it such a dangerous thing to date a believer from outside of church circles? Maybe that's a way of bringing believing men inside church circles? This will not only shake-up the men in the church that are overly passive about finding a wife, but it just might bring in the required testosterone that the entire Body, not just the single women, is crying out for? In fact, would the "gift of singleness" nonsense ever have even took off, if there were enough men to go around?
Food for thought?
"Did you know that once God rebuked Moses for praying? 'Then the Lord said to Moses, "Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on."' (Exodus 14:15-16) Moses had already prayed -- now came the time for action."
But turning to this passage, we see more than that. In the previous verse, Moses was basically telling the Israelites to wait and trust in the Lord. "The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still."
Does this sound familiar to anyone? Like in a "Wait on the Lord" and "Trust God to bring you your spouse" kind of way?
Of course, it is important to be persistent in prayer, we know that. But at the same time, once we know what to do, we need to play our part. How lazy is it to simply cry out to God and do nothing except pray? This is not Biblical. This is not showing great faith. Along with prayer must come action.
So, let's see if we can devise a plan of action, shall we?
a) We need to address the situation with regard to the lack of men in the church as a matter of urgency. Church leaders must NOT be allowed to continually take the course of least resistance with their "Family Fun Days" and "Children's Ministry", when the Body of Christ is in crisis due to the lack of testosterone within it! And whilst these things, and popular overseas mission trips too, are good, we need to consider that we are now in the position of having missionaries come to us here in the UK! We have a crisis on our hands here, people! Maybe it is God's plan for us to get our own house in order before gallivanting off to exotic lands? And it doesn't do to get too complacent about our children's ministries either. If we carry on at the rate we are going, with fewer and fewer men in the church, then soon there will very few children in our churches in order to minister to! And this is backed up by statistical evidence of growing numbers of singles.
b) We need to encourage the men we do have to be proactive about finding a wife and also help them in outreaching to their peers. The two go hand-in-hand, in my experience. Let's have less of the cosy, non-committal brotherly/sisterly fellowshipping and hours spent alone at the computer, and more of the reaching out to the lost on our doorstep. But that will only happen when the men are happily settled at home with a wife! After all, what must the men in the world make of their fully-grown, celibate, work colleagues? Isn't there a danger that rather than seeing them as salt and light and having a lifestyle to emulate, with their loving wife and well-behaved children, they rather look on them as a bit weird to say the least, or even possibly "most likely gay, but being a hypocrital Christian, obviously in denial about it"?
c) Single Christian women need to be proactive too. Not in terms of pursuing men, but more in making themselves available to be pursued and not over-spiritualising the whole process.
d) We may need to re-examine what exactly is meant by the instruction to not be yoked with unbelievers. We tend to assume this to mean not marrying non church-goers, and therefore Christian women shouldn't even date them, but are the two things both necessarily synonymous? Is dating the same as "yoking", and is a non-believer the same thing as a non church-goer? Maybe there are believing men in the world, that need encouragement in their faith, are alienated by "church" and are desperately ripe for the harvest? That seems to be the indication from the few ministries that do reach out to men. Is it such a dangerous thing to date a believer from outside of church circles? Maybe that's a way of bringing believing men inside church circles? This will not only shake-up the men in the church that are overly passive about finding a wife, but it just might bring in the required testosterone that the entire Body, not just the single women, is crying out for? In fact, would the "gift of singleness" nonsense ever have even took off, if there were enough men to go around?
Food for thought?
posted by Captain Sensible at 6:08 AM
4 Comments:
Dear Captain,
I am new to your blog and you may have addressed this question already, but reading over your past entries has caused me to wonder something I never did before - just where did the "gift of singleness" teaching come from in the first place? I'm in my mid-forties and feel certain that if someone had mentioned such a concept to people in my parents' and grandparents' generations, they would have been laughed at. Yet now the phrase slips so glibly off our tongues.
The manner in which the "gift of singleness" has spread -- and stuck -- seems curious to me. You would think at least people would be aware that it is a modern "interpretation".
But no. It is so enshrined as irrefutable doctrine, that it is virtually the 11th Commandment.
Which seems somewhat strange, to say the least.
Has it been fuelled by a supernatural force, that is not of God?
Have we inadvertently given the enemy a foothold?
When you consider the benefits to the enemy of keeping as many Christians as possible single (after all, why try to destroy marriages, when it is just so much easier to prevent them happening in first place? And you don't have the problem of godly children to contend with then either) is "the gift of singleness" actually, in fact,...demonic?
Captain Sensible, you mentioned that women 'need to be proactive too. Not in terms of pursuing men, but more in making themselves available to be pursued and not over-spiritualising the whole process'. Any ideas on what that looks like? How exactly does a woman go about letting a man know she's interested - short of telling him! And what if she's pursued by guys who are too old, or she's just not attracted to (this is purely theoretical, mind!)
Must say - great party on Saturday night at the Chapel Bar. Shame only a handful of men made the effort to chat. Ah well! At least I got to have a dance!
Glad to hear you enjoyed the London Christians party, Jo.
My dear sister, Frieda Fruitcake, will be most displeased to hear that. :)
The comments that you refer to are mainly intended to counteract the "super-spiritualisation" of what God has created to be a largely natural process.
In other words, make yourself available to be pursued rather than (in effect) putting God to the test by praying for a husband and then "waiting on the Lord" at home on your own every night!
I think men too have suffered at the hands of faulty theology and unhelpful teaching, and so I commend the men that are being proactive and pray that God will bless them in their pursuit of marriage, and that they will encourage their brothers to do likewise.
With men naturally being the pursuers, the women then won't need to go overboard in encouraging their interest, or feel pressured into accepting an approach from someone she is not attracted to; the natural order of things will be restored.
Other than that, I hesitate to give romantic advice, my dear.
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