Man has long been in search of the philosopher’s stone, that instrument with which you could turn base metals into gold. With a flick of the wrist, you’re a wealthy man. That may sound like falling into chocolate pie. But, let’s face it. If we were to lay hold on such a device, we would go full Smeagol before you could say my precious.

Proverbs 13:11 says, “Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished: But he that gathereth by labour shall increase.” You may, indeed, gain something through being shallow, hollow, and vacuous. After all, people paid money for Taylor Swift’s last album. But whatever gains you receive from empty sorcery will turn to ashes. Judas got his thirty pieces of silver for his worthless plan. But he didn’t hold on to them very long.

If you would flourish like the green tree, then you must renounce all attempts at alchemy. You may think that alchemy is long gone. But this witchcraft is still with us. There’s parental alchemy, homemaking alchemy, educational alchemy, financial growth alchemy, physical fitness alchemy. This voodoo has many applications. In principle, it is any attempt to raise a crop, be it a crop of children, widgets, or straight A’s, apart from the Son of God who is life and gives life.

The Proverbs text says that the man who gathers by labor will increase, and the Hebrew word for “labor” is literally hand. The point is not that technology is out and you have to build everything manually. The point is that, whatever your particular plow, you do have to put your hand to it. You have to be in the game, in the saddle, tending to the matters at hand.

When you do so, you will be the one who increases. You will be substantial, sturdy like the oak and full of sap.

Jared Longshore – June 23, 2024

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The fifth commandment requires the preserving the honor and performing the duties belonging to everyone, so says the WSC, whether they be our superior, inferior, or equal. Our envious age is violently opposed to the idea of superiors, and we have endured decades of stories and sitcoms where fathers are ridiculed and smart alecks are the heroes. But this was always just a way of flattening the world.

But the real world contains hierarchy and obligations and duty and honor. Our individualistic age would have every man and woman an island, bound to no one. But the word of God says to honor your father and your mother, to give them reverence and to exercise the duties they are owed. God could have made us emerge full grown out of holes in the ground. He could have had us delivered by storks or raised by wolves or dropped unceremoniously from the sky onto something soft. But He didn’t. He ordained it such that every single person comes into the world enmeshed in relationships. We are not free, we are bound, from the very beginning.

Our age wants to have the right to murder unwanted children and ignore or euthanize unwanted parents, but the word of God requires us to joyfully and faithfully accept the bonds of covenantal love.

So children, obey your parents from the heart. Guard their honor. Consider how you speak to your parents, how you speak of your parents, how you are entrusted with your parent’s honor. And you are supposed to guard it, maybe even more than they guard it.

And parents, you have obligations to your children, to nurture and teach and protect and provide and snuggle and to read stories and make forts and feed them and sing with them. And to guard their honor. What does that look like? How do you guard your five year old’s honor? Consider that.

Time fails us to look at the obligations we have to uncles and nephews and younger siblings and grandmothers and third cousins and, zooming out, what we owe to our civil leaders and pastors and to the fathers and mothers in the church. But the point remains: we are bound by God’s good design in a complex tapestry of duties and obligations. Our envious and individualistic age wants to ignore that truth. So don’t.

Joshua Edgren – June 16, 2024

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The temptation for Christians is to think of marriage as a mundane, everyday, ordinary topic about which books and articles and seminars will never end. Give in to that temptation because it is true. The reason so many writers can turn a profit on marriage is twofold. One reason, the true reason, is that marriage is rooted in what Francis Schaeffer calls True Truth.  Marriage reflects a reality that was established by God. The other reason is that marriage involves two beings completely unlike the other and thus, marriage is fraught with problems. This second reason is where the money can be made because every shrink or pastor offers the “solution” to the troubled marriage. And, despite all of this being true, our Holy Scripture calls marriage good. Malachi puts it this way- “Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.”

In this exhortation we will approach marriage covenantally. Because our God is a covenantal God, and marriage was His idea after all, given as a good gift to humanity, marriage is therefore covenantal. When two kids around the age of twenty take vows before God and His people how is it that we all can keep a straight face? Think about this- they are barely out of the house that raised them, released to the world to discover what they are made of and… taking lifelong vows is their best and brightest idea? The modern man laughs this all to scorn but what he doesn’t realize is that if the parents have faithfully raised these children in a Godly, covenantal home, then this is the next natural step in their lives. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24)

The covenant of marriage is a great protection then for this young couple. And why? Because what they are doing is committing themselves to one another “til death do them part”. This means that no matter the mood swing, haircut, weight gain, change of habit, or attitude they are pledged to do one another good all the days of their life. But far from being “stuck” as some would see this arrangement, what should these godly restraints of commitment do? They should conform us into the image of Christ. Think about Paul’s words in Ephesians 5. In verses 25-31 Paul walks through marriage dynamics and how husband and wife ought to relate to one another. But then in verse 32 he says all of this is actually about Christ and his church. Christ in his life and death, burial and ascension is clearly committed to His bride. He does not abandon her, He does not treat her poorly. Rather, because He loves her he is committed to perfecting her. It is the same for us in our marriages. We have committed ourselves to our spouses. If we do not like something that we see (that is to say, something sinful in their life) we don’t get to hit the eject button. Rather, we who are spiritual ought to restore them. And you can guarantee that this correction is going to flow in your direction as well.

We have already seen that marriage is to be a reflection of Christ and His bride, but what else is marriage for? Scripture says that it is for the procreation of children, sexual delight, and protection against sin. We will handle these in turn. 

We have already seen in our Malachi text that our God is after Godly seed. It is not enough to just be fruitful and multiply though that is certainly part of it. Rather, what our God wants is for Christian parents to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). This means for you married couples that part of the in-home instruction for your children is for them to see you hugging, kissing, laughing, holding hands and drinking wine together. Why? The answer is so that they have a picture of what Godly marriage looks like. When they are full grown then, they too will know how to walk with their God and their spouse and then, have their own children that they raise up in the Lord. 

Back to the hugging, kissing, and laughing for a moment. Christians have been embarrassed for a long time about what happens behind closed doors all the while pretending that the Bible does not include an entire book about what happens there. The Song of Songs is an erotic love poem and in it we see the sexual relationship unfold between Lover and Beloved. In God’s kindness to us He has given us sexual delight in which married couples return to their garden state of naked and unashamed. And what the couple is doing there in the marriage bed is confirming their covenant before God. The lovemaking taking place is akin to saying “once again, I commit myself, body and soul, to you.” 

Finally, covenantal marriage is a protection for us as we seek to live holy lives. 1 Cor. 7:5 says that satan is seeking to tempt us because of our lack of self control. Paul says because of this reality, do not deprive one another sexually. We can take this principle and expand it though. We ought not to grow distant from our spouse. This means there needs to be regular time spent with and around your spouse. God has given you your spouse to enjoy not only sexually but as your closest companion. Go on walks, hold hands, go on dates and eat and drink together, confide in one another, plan vacations together for the family. Know how she likes her coffee, and know which is his favorite bourbon. The list goes on and the devil hates this kind of fun loving creativity. 

The covenant of marriage contains all sorts of life. It contains delight and sanctification and lots of good stories. Satan would love to rip all of this apart so remember: your spouse is not your enemy. There is a real enemy seeking to destroy the marriage covenant but it is not your spouse. Therefore treat one another with honor, love, and respect and give thanks to the God who gave this wonderful institution to you. 

Joshua Dockter – June 16, 2024

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“Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything” (Eph. 5:24). 

The Bible teaches that husbands have true authority over their wives, just as Christ is the Lord of the Church. Some Christians want to downplay this, saying things like: headship means that if there’s a disagreement, the husband has the tie-breaking vote. But if the model is Christ and the Church, this immediately becomes absurd. The authority of Christ is not merely a tie-breaking vote; it is true authority in everything. In 1 Peter 3, Sarah is identified as an ideal wife, calling her husband “lord.” This pushes back against what we might call squishy-complementarianism. 

At the same time, what Christ does with His authority is simply astonishing. He uses His authority to love His Bride, the Church, laying His life down for her, making her pure and holy and without any blemish. Christ does this and so lifts up the Church to sit with Him in heavenly places, to reign with Him. Christ invites the Church to speak, and through our prayers in particular, Christ has determined to listen and answer and so grant us true authority in the world. This pushes back against what we might call bluster-patriarchy. 

Husbands have been given true authority, and reflecting the authority of Christ, it extends to everything in the home and in his wife’s life. There is no area of marriage where a wife may say to her husband, that’s none of your business. He is responsible before God for all of it. And yet, a wise man uses that authority not to micromanage or belittle, but to love, to lead, to honor, and to lift up. We call this biblical patriarchy. 

God made the world to reflect His glory, and so it is that glory, in creation, is always reflected glory. As we glorify God, He glorifies His people. The Bible says that man is the glory of God, and woman is the glory of man. This means that one of the best ways to make sure that women are cherished and honored the most in a society is by honoring the fathers, husbands, and brothers in their lives.

Toby Sumpter – June 16, 2024

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The old adage that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks is a sentiment that can seep into our mentality about growing in godliness. What sin most easily entices you? You certainly know that God graciously forgives that sin. But do you believe that God is able to give you the victory over that sin? 

Scripture doesn’t present the Christian life as one under bondage to sin. Instead, in regeneration your Heavenly Father gives you a new nature. This new nature is not yet made perfect, there remains a great deal of corruption which must be driven out. So the question naturally arises, “How do I change?”

First, all the virtues needed for overcoming sin––like patience, contentment, self-control––are glorious gifts from God. But as one theologian put it, “God Himself & not His gifts, dwelt in the temple.” This then must be the central understanding of your battle against besetting sin: God dwells in you. As Paul said, “Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you?”

Second, you must cultivate the habit of saying, “Amen” to what God says about you in your baptism. He says, “Likewise reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus.”

Third, you must make the twofold action of confession & repentance habitual. Confession is saying the same the thing about your sin as God says about it, while repentance is turning from your sin and also pursuing Christ. 

Your progress may feel slow. But like mountain switchbacks, you’ll gradually ascend higher. You can’t hike Kilimanjaro in one step. Rather, steady steps will. Know that God dwells in you. Mortify your sins. Mock your temptation. Confess & repent if you do succumb. These things are the mountain switchbacks of sanctification.

Ben Zornes – June 16, 2024

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