Like many people, I can still remember the mix of rage and horror I felt as I fought back tears, seeing the television report that an extremist cult compound in Texas had been raided because girls were being held there essentially as slaves to be abused by pedophiles who claimed to be religious leaders.

Thankfully, that case is now coming to trial as the Houston Chronicle reports,

More than 150 potential jurors, including 10 women in prairie dresses and braids, crammed into a makeshift courtroom Monday as jury selection began in the first criminal trial stemming from the raid of a polygamist sect’s ranch last year.

Raymond Jessop, 38, is charged with sexual assault of a child, stemming from his alleged marriage to an underage girl. The girl, according to church documents seized by authorities, gave birth at age 16 at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado. If convicted, Jessop faces 20 years in prison.

Following that, Jessop will face Jesus Christ, who said tying a rock around his neck and throwing him into the sea would be a better fate than the just and hellish eternity that awaits him.

While we pray for justice to the evil men and loving counseling for the abused girls, the case has brought to light one curious theological question: Is polygamy biblical?

Various cults, aberrant sects, and perverts make the case that the Bible does mention polygamy and so it is biblically acceptable. However, they fail to acknowledge that the Bible speaks of human sin from beginning to end to show the evil horrors of sin. Therefore, just because something is in the Bible does not mean that God approves of it, as is the case with the rapes, murders, and adulteries reported throughout Scripture.

There are many biblical and practical reasons why polygamy is sinful and harmful.

1. The first man to take more than one wife was the godless man Lamech (Genesis 4:19–24).
2. Some of the Old Testament patriarchs did practice polygamy, and it never honored God. For example, Abram married Hagar in addition to Sarai. The results of this polygamy are truly tragic, as is the case with other instances of adultery and polygamy in Scripture. Abram slept with Hagar and she bore him a son. God promised that Hagar’s son would become the father of a great nation because he was a son of Abram, though not the son of the promise (which would eventually be Isaac). God promised that Ishmael would be a “wild donkey of a man” and that he would be a warrior in hostility with his brothers who would descend from Abram. Ishmael was born to a Hebrew father and Egyptian mother and became the father of the Arab nations that to this day are in hostility with Jews and Christians alike, as promised.
3. The disaster of polygamy is illustrated by Lamech and Adah and Zillah in Genesis 4:19–24, Esau and Mahalath and other wives in Genesis 28:6–9, and Jacob and Leah and Rachel in Genesis 29:15–30. None of these occurrences was godly or good.
4. The Bible repeatedly shows that polygamy is wrought with favoritism, fighting, jealousy, and mistreatment (e.g., Genesis 35:22; 38:18–28; 2 Samuel 3:2–5; 13:1–29; 15–18; 1 Kings 11:1–4).
5. The New Testament church elders who serve as the pattern for Christian families are to be one-woman men and not polygamists (1 Timothy 3:2, 12).
6. God’s intention is that each man would have one wife (Genesis 2:18; Matthew 19:4–6).
7. Marriage is ultimately a picture of Jesus’ loving relationship with the church (Ephesians 5:22–33; Revelation 19:6–9). Jesus is faithful to one bride, the church, as the pattern for all marriages.




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Discipleship Starts at Home Series [Part 1 of 2]: Click | View Series

“A house is actually a school and a church, and the head of the household is a pastor in his house.”
–Martin Luther

The Great Need

I am the lead pastor of Church of the Outer Banks, located in Nags Head, NC. I am the husband of an amazing wife and the father of two incredible little girls. More than ever before, I see the importance of integrating faith in the home every day. Statistics for divorce are rising at an alarming rate. Statistics also show that between 70 and 88 percent of Christian teens will leave the church by their second year in college. More than ever, it is time for us to step back and rethink the importance of discipleship in our own homes.

Don’t Neglect Your Family

What good is it if you make disciples of your neighbors, co-workers, and friends, yet neglect to disciple your own family? This is what Paul meant when he said, “If a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God?” (1 Tim. 3:5). This Scripture is not just for pastors, but is also applicable for all Christian parents. The reality is that we are not putting enough focus on discipling our own families, and instead we tend to leave the responsibility to the church.

Disciple Your Children

The call to “make disciples” begins in our homes first. It is our spiritual responsibility as parents to teach our children about the faith. The Bible tells parents, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it” (Prov. 22:6). As Christian parents, we should desire for our children to have a firm foundation and grow up to love Jesus and know what the Bible says about their lives.

Faith as Routine

Faith is not just something that we do once a week, but should be incorporated into the daily routines of the home. David Wegener said, “Reading and memorizing Scripture and the catechisms of the church results in incredible development of children, both spiritually and intellectually… What families regard as important is evidenced by the manner in which they spend their time.” How do we spend our time? Watching TV, playing video games, or shopping? Sadly, many families devote more time to these things than they do teaching their children about God, or just simply spending quality time together.

It’s Our Responsibility

It is not the churches’ or schools’ responsibility to raise our kids. Too often, we think that the church is more like a baby-sitting service to watch our kids for a few hours a week while we enjoy the worship service. While church is important, the Bible tells us that the home is the primary place of learning the Bible and moral instruction. In Deuteronomy 6:4-9, we read:

You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

To be continued.

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As part of the Trial series in which I recently preached through 1 Peter, one sermon in particular got a lot of traction both online and on the radio. The response to Marriage and Men from 1 Peter 3:7 has been very encouraging, and I want to sincerely thank those who took the time to listen to that sermon and pass it on to their friends. Since posting it we have had churches ask if they could replay it at their churches for men’s groups, Father’s Day, and so on. The request has been very humbling, as even an amazing church of 10,000 people is planning to show it for their Father’s Day services. So the guys in my Preaching and Theology Branch of Mars Hill Church have been kind enough to post the sermon online in a 720p video format for free download, in a higher resolution than our normal video files, for use by anyone who wants it.

Download “Marriage and Men” in the downloads section of this media page.

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Grace and I have personally benefited from the following books; they are easy to read and are among the best in their areas of instruction. We have recommended these books many times over the years and have purchased many copies for our friends.

Marriage & Family

Family

• God, Marriage, and Family: Rebuilding the Biblical Foundation (Crossway, 2004) by Andreas J. Köstenberger and David W. Jones

Marriage

• Love That Lasts: When Marriage Meets Grace (Crossway, 2006) by Gary and Betsy Ricucci
• Sacred Marriage (Zondervan, 2000) by Gary Thomas

Sex

• A Celebration of Sex: A Guide to Enjoying God’s Gift of Sexual Intimacy (Thomas Nelson, 2002) by Douglas E. Rosenau
• Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God: What Every Christian Husband Needs to Know (Crossway, 2004) by C. J. Mahaney (for men)
• Intimate Issues: 21 Questions Christian Women Ask About Sex (WaterBrook Press, 1999) by Linda Dillow and Lorraine Pintus (for women)

Home

• Practicing Hospitality: The Joy of Serving Others (Crossway, 2007) by Patricia A. Ennis and Lisa Tatlock

Parenting

• Shepherding a Child’s Heart (Shepherd Press, 1995) by Tedd Tripp
• Grace-Based Parenting (Thomas Nelson, 2005) by Tim Kimmel

Parenting Teens

• Age of Opportunity: A Biblical Guide to Parenting Teens (P & R, 2001) by Paul David Tripp
• Girl Talk: Mother-Daughter Conversations on Biblical Womanhood (Crossway, 2005) by Carolyn Mahaney and Nicole Mahaney Whitacre
• How and When to Tell Your Kids About Sex: A Lifelong Approach to Shaping Your Child’s Sexual Character (NavPress, 2007) by Stan and Brenna Jones

Women

• Feminine Appeal: Seven Virtues of a Godly Wife and Mother (Crossway, 2004) by Carolyn Mahaney

Men

• Disciplines of a Godly Man (Crossway, 2006) by R. Kent Hughes

For those of you wanting to dig deeper and find books in particular areas of study, especially biblical study, you would benefit from bookmarking http://www.bestcommentaries.com/. For those looking to purchase a Bible, the ESV Study Bible is the new standard for study Bibles. Also great for personal reading and note-taking is the ESV Journaling Bible, patterned after the Moleskine.

Death By Love:

Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears tackle some of the most serious redemptive aspects of Jesus' work in these twelve letters of counsel to individuals. Find out more.

This last point will, for some, seem peculiar as the closing section of our “Long Live the Dead Guys Week” tribute to Old New Calvinists. However, I believe it is incredibly important.

One of the tasks of New Calvinists is to winsomely, correctly, passionately, and effectively discover fresh ways to say old truths. Another task of New Calvinists is to follow in the example of faithful Bible preachers and teachers who have preceded us by handling the big issues of our day as they did in theirs.

This leads us to complementarianism. In our age of great gender confusion—from feminism to chauvinism—and homosexuality, the issue of God-designed, complementary gender roles is incredibly timely and vital for the well-being of God’s people.

Three Views on Gender Roles

There are three basic views prevailing today in the home and church:

• Egalitarian (Feministic): There is no innate distinction between the roles of men and women in the home or church. Women can be pastors and men can be stay-at-home dads so that their wives can pursue their careers.
• Complementarian (Moderate): Men and women are partners in every area of life and ministry together. Though equal, men and women have complementary and distinct gender roles so that men are to lovingly lead and head their homes like Jesus, and only men can be pastors in the church.
• Hierarchical (Chauvinistic): Women are not only commanded to follow male leadership, but are not given a voice with male leaders, as women are often chauvinistically kept under thumb as the polar opposite of egalitarian feminism.

An Undergirding Truth

The New Calvinists are committed to complementarianism in the home and church. In some ways, this is a very important undergirding fact that binds us together. Over a meal in Vancouver, B.C., some years ago, a friend and wonderful brother, Bruce Ware, who has worked tirelessly on this issue, commented that he believed that someone’s view of gender roles in fact reveals much of their theology, including their view of God, the Bible as God’s Word, and how the Bible is to be interpreted. His words were both insightful and helpful.

Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

I can still remember having been saved a few years when John Piper and Wayne Grudem published the epic book Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood with my friends at Crossway. My pastor told me to read the entire book, and so I did. It changed my life, family, and ministry—including Mars Hill Church, where I pastor, and Acts 29, which is a complementarian church planting movement. That book and my accompanying biblical study solidified for me a complementarian position that has never wavered an inch; the more I am hammered for the issue, like a straight nail, the deeper the conviction goes.

Without the courage shown in the early 1990s on this issue, I do not believe we would have the kind of courageously lovingly and selfless masculine men who are rising up to lead the New Calvinism that Time magazine says is the third most important idea changing the world right now. So, I want to close “Long Live the Dead Guys Week” by thanking the living guys who echoed the dead guys and planted a flag of truth to which a generation is running. Finally, if you want to read that book for yourself, you can find it free of charge here.

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Read the first part of this series here.

Amazing Mom

Grace is an amazing mom to our five children. She works incredibly hard, never complains, and has sacrificed a great deal over the years for me, our children, and our ministry. She feels the pain of my critics and gets furious when people assume they know me but have no idea since they see me for an hour a week on the stage and have no clue who I am or what I am like the rest of my life with her and the kids. She’s had people pretend to be her friend just to try and get into our life because they want power, influence, and/or employment. She’s been cussed out by complete strangers for decisions the elders made that she had nothing to do with. She’s had to deal with people showing up at our home demanding our time and even threatening our family. She’s had to share me with the world and weep many times when I catch a flight. She’s had to serve ungrateful people who took so much of her time and energy that I became frustrated only to then receive even more demands and threats of anger or manipulative guilt if she did not continue to do what they wanted when they wanted how they wanted.
Through it all she’s learned to be my friend. Grace is the one person I know will be with me in forty years. And I will still close my eyes every day and think about holding her hand then too.

Grace is not like me.

I can be brash, intense, overbearing, ill-worded, and the like. She is patient, loves to counsel people, has hope for everyone, and serves anyone. I learn a lot from her example, and praise God I have gotten to grow up with her through high school, conversion, and college, all the way from our teens to our thirties.

This Sunday I will share her with Mars Hill Church and those who tune in online. When I preach the story of the Peasant Princess from the Song of Songs, I will be teaching from a series of love letters between a husband and wife. As we do often at Mars Hill, we will open up some time for live text-message questions from our campuses and, following the sermon, Grace and I will try our best to answer them so as to be of service. To be honest, I’m a bit anxious. I’ve preached live to crowds of ten thousand people without even getting a bit nervous and could literally take a nap before getting up to preach. But the thought of having the person I love, cherish, and care for the most with me makes me anxious. I am Grace’s defender and protector and friend. I know that her role will be misunderstood by some, and her answers picked through by critics who have made it their life mission to act like Judas in the name of Jesus. So, before I share my Grace with you, I wanted you to pray for a few things, if you would.

Prayers

1. Pray that people understand that she’s not preaching but rather practicing Titus 2 by coming in to answer women’s questions about marriage and sexuality that frankly I have no wisdom on as a man.
2. Pray that she and I do a good job threading the needle when answering the questions.
3. Pray that we can help the people in our church because we love them and have given our entire life to them.
4. Pray that people will understand that she is not an employee of the church, does not lead anything at the church, and as a mom with five young children is focused on her family in this season of life and cannot meet with all the women and deal with all the issues that some will want her to.
5. Pray that she and I will see more of our future through this process. Grace wants to work alongside of me in ministry for the rest of our lives and we’re wondering if, one day when our kids are grown and we’re in a different season of life, she should be teaching women and encouraging pastors’ wives, as that is her heart.
6. Pray that I honor her well publicly as I should.
7. Pray that I can get her to laugh loudly a few times from the stage because it’s awesome.

Any recovery of an authentically biblical understanding of men and women must begin in the Garden of Eden. It is there that we learn about the special creation of Adam and Eve. It is there that we read God's mandate to the first male and female. And, perhaps more importantly for this article's purpose, it is there in the garden that we are able to see the effects of sin and grace on the relationship between Adam and Eve. Of these lessons on the relationship between the sexes, it might be the case that the effect of grace on Adam and Eve's sin-broken relationship receives less attention than some other equally valuable biblical truths recorded in the first chapters of Genesis. This article will explore this perhaps neglected lesson on grace in the garden. It will do so by posing two questions: (1) Why does Adam call his wife Eve; and (2) What lessons does this surprise ending to the narrative of the fall teach us? Although this article will focus on Adam's role in acting in accord with the grace that he has received, other equally important considerations regarding Eve's transformation by grace could be developed as well.

The Apostle Paul prohibits the exercise of authority over men by women when he says, "I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, for Adam was created first, then Eve" (1 Tim. 2:12-13, NAS95).

With this simple statement Paul explicitly affirms what is implicit throughout God's Word, that the order of creation establishes patriarchy as God's pattern for leadership in human relationships. Addressing the matter of propriety in prayer, the Apostle Paul again emphasizes this order:

For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man; for indeed man was not created for the woman's sake, but woman for the man's sake.
1 Cor. 11:8-9, NAS95.

Imagine a new believer, thoroughly confused by the sexual anarchy of today's culture, discovering the truth inherent in passages such as 1 Corinthians 11:3-16, 14:34-35, Ephesians 5:22-33, 1 Timothy 2:9-15, and 1 Peter 3:1-7. What a deep sense of relief to discover that the order of creation establishes timeless principles for the relationships between men and women.

One of the year's high holidays in towns across America is opening day of deer season. Like all holidays, preparations begin long before the actual day arrives. In September hunting paraphernalia appears on the shelves of the local True Value: rifles, shells, scent, jumpsuits and caps in brilliant hunter's orange. The big day is usually a Saturday in November.

A young farmer warned me my first year in ministry: "Might not be too many men here next week, but don't take it personal. We'll all be out looking for our buck." Sure enough, there weren't many men in church that next week.

Covenant Promises
The basic context in which we bring children into the world and do all our work in caring for children is the covenant God has made with all who love him and who seek to walk in his ways. He has promised to love not only us, but also our children (Gen 22:15-18; Ex. 20:5-6; Acts 2:37-39). But do these wonderful promises mean that our children will not go through difficulties and even times of turning away, rebellion, and dissolute living? Consider the reality that we are not perfect ourselves — our own lives are damaged deeply by sin in every area. We do not pray as we should for our children. We do not live before them in full obedience to the Lord in everything we do. We do not teach them perfectly the glorious truth that we know touches every area of life. In addition we do not bring perfect children into this world. They bear the stain of Adam and Eve's sin etched right through them —though they also bear God's glorious image. C. S. Lewis captured this double reality with the words of the centaur in Prince Caspian. Our children also bear the inheritance of our particular brokenness.