Comments on: Love and Marriage

By: Judith Bond

Judith Bond — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 07:28:38 +0000

Correction, Go to
www.biblestories.stellaris.com.au
for my Father Harrold Steward.

Judith Bond

By: Garth

Garth — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:20:06 +0000

I like your site Michael. So many churches do not teach anything close to a biblical message about the marriage covenant, even to the point of saying that the covenant is broken once there is a *displayed lack of love* for their spouse. These grave doctrinal errors have devastated families everywhere – it tore mine apart.
Garth Penglase

By: harrold steward

harrold steward — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:36:56 +0000

Wayne Pelling. Yes I had the privilege of being founding elder of the Southern Christian Fellowship.
My web site www.biblestories.stellaris.com.au has a solemn, awful study, ‘thou shalt not commit adultery’.
This agrees with what Bill has written so searchingly.
Harrold Steward

By: Michael Whennen

Michael Whennen — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:40:27 +0000

FREE DOWNLOADS

www.WiseReaction.org

Read what covenant really is…

Blessings Michael Whennen

By: Lou d'Alpuget

Lou d'Alpuget — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 03:10:14 +0000

Dear Bill,
For those interested in supporting Marriage, I recommend the upcoming National Marriage Day launch breakfast in Federal Parliament house on 13th August. The organisers can be contacted at marriageday@family.org.au
for a registration form.
Marriage, in my opinion, is a reflection of the relationship of our wonderful Creators-Father,Jesus and The Holy Spirit. The Spirit in the marriage sense being the relationship, which is both part of each husband and wife and yet separate to both as well. Might I say, the relationship “indwells” them and is both in them and separate to them at the same time. So if marriage is a gift of Themselves to us in this form, it is no wonder that marriage will come under attack by the one who hates this relationship-satan. May we recognise that this is a spiritual attack by the same proponent of the fall. We are such a gullible bunch. Been believing the lies since the beginning. The answer to all the ills of marriage and relationship breakdown is a true understanding of who God is ie. Father,Son and Spirit, and an understanding of our included place within this relationship. Unconditional inclusion!!! Once we understand objectively that Jesus has set us free 2000 odd years ago, we are free subjectively to relate to others. Without this revelation, we will always be at the mercey of our fallen selves and manipulation by the evil one to focus on ourselves, as if the answer is somehow some sort of work we have to do. Jesus sets us free to relate firstly to THEM and then throught the healing and transformation process that takes place through THEM, relate to others, especially our wives and husbands.
Be free to be loved by THEM and pass it on!
Blessings in THEM
Lou d’Alpuget

By: John Angelico

John Angelico — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:43:52 +0000

To John S re Flatland:

My short point was that Pointland was one single point shouting “me, me, me!” incessantly, with no-one listening – a rather apt illustration of Bill’s point, and signalling the direction our society seems to be heading.

Yes, it’s reductionism, but as Francis Schaeffer pointed out, sometimes we have to confront the non-Christian with the logical reduction to absurdity of his position.

He is either incapable of doing anything rational, or he has to make a totally irrational ‘leap of faith’ contrary to his rationalistic/materialistic logic.

John Angelico

By: david skinner

david skinner — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 07:15:47 +0000

A marriage certificate is as foundational as a birth certificate. As one cannot be unborn unless through acquiring a death certificate so one cannot be unmarried, even through divorce, unless through a death certificate. Where marriage is reduced to the means to mere subjective experience, to companionship, the means to intimacy, the means to pleasure, the means to social standing or approval, or the means to any other number of socio-legal benefits (such as taxation privileges, medical aid benefits adoption rights, etc) to being a primary instrument to attain other ends, the creation ordinance of marriage, the objective reality, context (system in which these subjectivities exist) is deconstructed – destroyed. Its like thinking that a fish swims simply through the actions of its body, without taking into account that it must also be water. Take out the water and the fish might continue to experience the pleasure of wriggling but sooner or later it dies. Marriage, like life itself is a reality that exists with or without our consent or experiencing it.

“Husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church.” – Ephesians 5:25-33

The fact that they become one flesh becomes even more evident when they have children who are truly bone of their bone. When people say with resignation and regret “We only stayed together for the sake of the children” they ought to be grateful that having children did glue them inseparabley together.

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” – Matthew 19 3- 9

David Skinner, UK

By: siti khatijah

siti khatijah — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 03:57:04 +0000

Marriage also teaches us I feel the spiritual notion of gratefulness. I thank God everyday for the person I married, for his unconditional love towards me, taking care of the family, striving to make our lives and those of others good, helping others when he sometimes has no time for himself, always thinking of others. I thank God for the person I married. Thus marriage also teaches us to pray to God.
Siti Khatijah

By: siti khatijah

siti khatijah — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 03:37:14 +0000

I know that marriage is not easy. However marriage is necessary and we have God to thank for that wisdom. Marriage has taught me that I must put my husband/family first, to be selfless. In my moments of weakness I have sometimes been impatient so thats another test from God, to be patient. When i dont love enough because he does it different from me, i have to learn unconditional love. When he does something i dont understand, i need to learn to wait & see and all shall be revealed, patience again. Conclusion, marriage is a spiritual necessity.
Siti Khatijah

By: John Snowden

John Snowden — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:11:35 +0000

Your Flatlands account of Materialistic reductionism is an incoherent analogy. The Flatlanders’ problem is that they cannot conceive of dimensions other than their own. Reductive Materialists and atheists can of course conceive of “dimensions” other than their own. Why? Because they were usually raised in a religious culture where such ideas are familiar. Indeed in some cases they themselves were once religious, subscribing to and acting on such ideas. To make it more complicated, I know of atheists and agnostics who not only imagine the religious dimension and find it wanting but also find reductive Materialism problematic.

The Flatlanders are collectively closed-minded as a race. The analogy is too simple for the real human world where closed-mindedness and open-mindedness are variable personality traits not necessarily congregating in one socially-sorted spot. Some atheists are closed-minded, some are not. Same applies to religious folk.

In any case a Materialist philosopher can have his revenge by writing his own Flatland myth where the inhabitants are locked into their metaphysical myths and positive illusions as “Truth” and are inherently incapable of imagining a reality in contradiction to theirs. Since there have been thousands of religions, cults and sects, all convinced they are right, such a Materialist author will have a field day.

If you want to give reductive Materialism the good thumping it deserves, then you need more than a weak question-begging analogy from Flatland. Finally, I would point out that reductive Materialists with their physicalist philosophy of mind to not actually behave as if they believe what they claim to believe. For a start they use folk psychology to promote their own theoretical put-down of folk psychology. And they puff up a Self that they are not supposed to have.

John Snowden