The Bulletin
of the
Church of Christ at
New Georgia
Tim Johnson, editor
August 23, 2009
In
This Issue:
Is
Love to Blame?
by
Steve Klein
Rejoice
with the Wife of Your Youth
by
R. J. Stevens
Is Love to Blame?
Have you ever known parents who claimed that they loved their children too much to spank them? Ever known someone who tried to justify having sex outside of marriage because they loved the person? Ever known a Christian who would not rebuke and correct religious error because they loved others too much to hurt their feelings in this way? I submit that in each of these cases, love is being blamed for something that it has nothing to do with.
The Bible plainly teaches that love motivates us to do exactly the opposite of what was described in each of the preceding examples.
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Love will cause us to discipline our children. "He who spares his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him promptly" (Proverbs 13:24).
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Love demands that we abstain from sexual immorality. If we love someone, we are not going to participate with them in an act that will condemn their soul! If we do, we are being selfish, not loving. In Ephesians 5:2-3, God's word explains that walking in love involves avoiding fornication: "And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. But fornication . . . let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints" (Ephesians 5:2-3).
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Love will move of us to rebuke sin and correct error. Love will not allow us to stand idly by and watch those we care about lose their souls by committing sin or believing doctrinal error. Jesus said, "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten" (Revelation 3:19). The apostle Paul had strongly rebuked the Corinthians. In 2 Corinthians 2:4 he explains why: "For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you, with many tears, not that you should be grieved, but that you might know the love which I have so abundantly for you."
The right kind of love will never cause us to do the wrong kind of thing. Love "does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth" (1 Corinthians 13:6). Real love will never be used to justify sin; rather, it will be used to help us identify what is what is right and good. The Lord's will is "that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent" (Philippians 1:9-10).
Love always seeks the most lasting good for the one who is being loved. Momentary pain or pleasure is not love's greatest concern. Love is focused on the eternal welfare of the one who is loved. "My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth." (1 John 3:18)
-- Steve Klein
"Rejoice with the wife of your youth" is found in Proverbs 5:18. We also read in Ecclesiates 9:9, "Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of vanity, which He hath given thee under the sun." Deuteronomy 24:5 says, "When a man hath taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war, neither shall be charged with any business: but shall be free at home one year, and shall cheer us his wife which he hath taken."
All of the above passages imply that a husband and wife must put forth all the effort they can to make one another happy in their marriage relationship. There are many couples who get married who don't even know one another. It is sad to see couples who are married who still don't know each other. This leads to an unhappy marriage or an unlawful divorce. From day one, a husband and wife need to find out what makes the other happy mentally and physically. There is nothing easy about this task. The greatest problem in marriage is taking one another for granted.
Several years ago, I was passing by the home of two of my dearest friends. I noticed several police cars and an ambulance parked around the house. I asked what had happened. My friend had taken her life. She had worked hard in the church and lived a good life. Her husband told me later that she never expressed her love for him, and he did not express his love for her the way he should have. Even though it was over forty years ago, I remember him tell-ing me to tell all married couples to never take one another for granted. He learned the hard way.
First Corinthians 7:2-5 says, "Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye give your-selves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinence." Incontinence means lacking in self-control. Satan can successfully tempt one when he or she is lacking in self-control. Being separated from your companion puts one in a dangerous position. Many a person has committed fornication because of their lack of self-control. That same person was lacking in self-control because he was cheated or defrauded by his companion. The bodies of husband and wife are to be one flesh and belong to one another. This is not trying to justify the sin of fornication, but I can't help but wonder how many would have yielded to the temptation of fornication if they had been happy at home. I also wonder how innocent a person is who has cheated his companion of marital love. Forni-cation is a sin, but so is being selfish with one's body.
True Bible love is found in I Corinthians 13:4-7. Paul further said in Colossians 3:18, "Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them." Also in Ephesians 5:25, 28-29, 31, 33, "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it . . . so ought men to love the wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church... For this cause shall a man leave father and mother and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh . . . Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband."
In I Corinthians 13:8, Paul said that "love never fails." I believe if a husband and wife love as the Bible teaches and give their bodies one to another as the Bible teaches, that marriage will not fail. Fornication, unlawful sexual relations, will not be committed against a spouse when God's will in the marriage relationship is followed. Homes in America are being torn asunder because God's will in the marriage relationship is being ignored. God made man a help meet. He knows what's best for us. Always rejoice with the spouse of your youth from the first day until the last day when death separates the marriage.
-- R. J. Stevens
-- Via The West End Way, Richmond, Virginia