All posts by Darrell

Doctrine

Looking Back (An Atypically Serious Post)

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As I chanced to read through Philippians 3 in a moment of devotion, it suddenly seemed to me that those oft-read words had strangely moved and changed as if some Subtle Hand had writ them large upon my own life’s story. And what I read was this:

Though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh
also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have as good as anyone:

Dedicated as a baby in a fundamentalist church, son of an Independent Baptist preacher, grandson of an Independent Baptist preacher, a fundamentalist of fundamentalists; as to the rules of conduct, I kept them to the letter (as far as anybody knew); as to zeal, a graduate of a fundamentalist college, a fundamentalist deacon, song leader and Sunday School teacher and uncompromising judge of those I deemed too liberal; as to standards in my music, dress, and language I was blameless.

But whatever gain and prestige I had as a fundamentalist, I now count as loss for the sake of Christ.

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing grace in Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of my worthless fundamentalist accolades and count them as garbage, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

And as I read, I wished with all my heart the words were truly true — a lesson long since learned and mastered instead of one so often and so easily forgot.

Christ, save us.

Ok, enough maudlin introspection. Back to the regularly scheduled insanity…

Family

Keepers At Home Redux

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Undesirable consequences of wives going out to work

a. Since she is bringing home part of the income she will want a voice in how it is spent.

b. Children to a babysitter — no discipline.

c. Contact with other men at work — temptation, flirting, unfaithfulness and divorce. It is no accident that the divorce rate has been climbing since World War II when women went to work for the war effort.

d. The husband will soon be expected to help with the housework – after all, it is unfair for him to expect her to work all day and then do all the housework.

e. Meals will be thrown together — leftovers and TV dinners.

f. Physical well-being will suffer — she cannot work all day and clean house all night; she is the “weaker vessel.”

g. Her spiritual life and that of her children will suffer.

h. The added income will lead to worldliness — the things of this world will become more preeminent in the life.

i. In attempting to make it up to the children you will spoil them — you feel guilty about leaving them so you let them do anything they want and you give them anything their little heart desires. This will not compensate for parental neglect nor will it cause them to love you.

j. Her respect for her husband will lessen — she will resent the fact that he couldn’t provide for them. Should she be moved ahead by her employer, she will wonder why he never gets a promotion. Perhaps she will make more money than he does; she begins to chide him, trouble ahead.

k. Children rebel in reaction to the neglect and lack of love. Again it is no accident that teenage and college age rebellion runs parallel with the increase in working wives over the last thirty years.

Taken from the The Christian Home Manual by Paul L. Freeman