Volume 2 • Issue 2 February 2013

Be My Valentine? February is the month that we think of romance. Valentine's Day, February 14, is set aside by our culture for the purpose of expressing our love for those whom we love. The marketing machine has already cranked up and is telling us how we should be planning our romantic Valentine's Day. So the question looms, who should we listen to? As a Christian, it is important to understand that romance is reserved for husbands and wives. I am attempting to use the word romance to describe the thoughts and actions that deepen and intensify the intimate relationship that is shared between husband and wife. Romance is not just what leads to the sexual union, but it is what fuels the healthy relationship between husband and wife. So, how should unmarried Christians think and plan for romance? An unmarried Christian should first guard themselves against waking romance in their lives before it is the appropriate time. Song of Solomon puts it this way, “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.” (8:4) Song of Solomon eight is the voice of Solomon’s beloved and here she urges her fellow young women to protect their hearts from untimely love. It seems that Solomon’s beloved is warning the young women about the intense feelings of attraction and desire that come along with love. Therefore, they are to guard against those feelings until they are ready for them. To head the warning of Solomon’s beloved, an unmarried Christian needs to be careful to protect their heart and body, so they can present both to their spouse at their wedding. Romance is a danger when aroused outside of the fence of marriage. Now, how about the Christian married person? Well, the married Christian is safely within the walls of marriage. They are permitted and encouraged to pursue their spouse romantically and to forge that intimate relationship that is pictured in Genesis as the man and woman becoming one. Now, that is harder said then done. Ephesians 5:22-33 gives

married people some advice on how to achieve this intimate relationship. First, the wife is to submit to her husband. Much misunderstanding accompanies this verse. Many picture this as a domineering type of relationship where the wife just has to suck it up and follow her husband’s lead. Many may be surprised but this is not the case. Instead, Ephesians 5:22 should be read in light of Genesis 3:16b, “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” Paul is just commanding Christian wives to take serious the curse and sin. Genesis tells them that their new natural inclination is to seek after the authority that their husband rightly possesses. Paul reveals that this new natural inclination goes against God’s purposes for his people and for the gospel. In fact, the woman in her submission to her husband is to become a living picture of what the church is to look like as it

is in submission to Christ. The wife’s role and submission preaches the gospel to a lost world, because the message is so countercultural. However, the majority of Paul’s message is not directed towards the wives. Instead, it is directed to the husbands. They are to love their wives, “as Christ loved the church.” (5:25) So the majority of the weight of responsibility for the marital relationship falls on the shoulders of the husband. Paul

describes the love that the husband is to have for his wife as: a sacrificial love, a nurturing love, a protecting love, and a love equal with their own self love. Basically, the husband should be focused on making his wife feel loved, safe, secure, and nurtured. If you want a great marriage then you will take Ephesians 5 seriously. If we as Christians could obediently fulfill Ephesians 5, then I believe that we will be happier and that we will be a much better light to a lost and dying world. Whether we like it or not our marriages preach the gospel to a world looking in on them. It is not enough to act the part; because, one day the set will crash down around the actors. Instead, we should be obedient to God’s Word. We must work hard at fulfilling our roles in our marriages and preparing for those roles if we are not married.

written by Chris Clemans

Romance and Revelry

Augustine - The Early Life In the last newsletter, I introduced us to Saint Augustine of Hippo. One of the great fathers of the early church. By the time of Augustine’s death and due much to his work, the trajectory of orthodoxy has been set for the church. Much of what we believe concerning the Trinity and Christology was argued and defended by Augustine, and at the end of his life the church documents had come to reflect Augustine’s orthodoxy. Augustine provides us with an example of one who is passionate about knowing the Bible and how to rightly interpret it. It would do us well to get to know Augustine a little better, so we are going to give some extra time to study the life of Augustine. I guess we should start where Augustine started. Sometime in A.D. 354, Augustine was born in Thagaste (modern Souk Ahras, Algeria [Northern Africa]). Northern Africa was much different in those days. We often think of Northern Africa as a poor Islamic controlled area, but that was not so in Augustine’s day. In the words of Peter Brown, “an ‘economic miracle‘ had transformed the hinterland of North Africa.” (7) The Roman Empire controlled the land all the way south to the Sahara Desert. By the third century, Northern Africa had been transformed into a bustling economy and culture. The high plains and valleys of the plateau had been planted with gain, criss-crossed with roads, and settled with towns. Africa was the winter haven for the cultural elite in the Roman Empire; therefore, North Africa had developed quite a culture. It would never be seen as a Rome or Constantinople, but for a man like Augustine to come from North Africa with good training in the classics says something about the culture. Backwoods probably was used to describe it by the cultural elite, but that did not characterize North Africa. However, Augustine was born at the pinnacle if not in the middle of

the economic decline in North Africa. Augustine got to experience much of the benefits of the cultural success of North Africa, but his life spanned a consistent decline in Africa. We know little about Augustine’s family. He may have had one or more brothers, two sisters, Monica his mother, and a harsh father. We get this information from his most popular book Confessions. Clearly, Monica (the only named family member) was the most important to Augustine. It was Monica who was a Christian and prayed for Augustine’s salvation. Monica would have to wait quite a while to see Augustine converted. Instead, he lived quite a rebellious life up into his twenties. In Augustine’s words, his

younger years were characterized by his desire for love. When he went away to Carthage for school in A.D. 371, he was swept up into the licentious life of a boy given his first freedoms. This need and desire for love would capture and hold Augustine until he found the right object of his love. Augustine soon found that women did not completely satisfy his desire for love, so he turned with much passion to education. He developed a love for the classics and philosophy while he was at Carthage. The education Augustine received was world class

and rivaled the education of students in Rome. The only black mark against Augustine’s education was that he did not learn Greek. It was while he was pursuing the classics and philosophy that he became a Manichaean (a christian-like cult). The teachings of the Manichees intrigued Augustine especially with their desire for the pursuit of wisdom. Augustine was happy to continue his studies, pursue wisdom, and live his licentious lifestyle. He did not know that Monica’s prayers would soon catch up to him.

written by Chris Clemans

Pastor: Chris Clemans