Friday, 29 February 2008

EH?

6
I'm sitting watching 'Wife Swap' on TV. Two very different types of Christian families have swapped the ladies. (Why on earth anyone would want to do this I do not know)

One of these christian families say they have Jesus in their hearts and they love to drink, smoke, club and live it up. The father in this home gave a good summation of where they are; whilst speaking of the gambling and drunkenness he enjoyed he said "None of us are perfect and we all sin every day so..."
What I ask? So we may as well sin like a good un? "Shall we sin that grace may abound? Certainly not" or so says the Apostle Paul.

The other family has a pastor as father and the wife does absolutely everything in the home! They believe that the wife is the homemaker and that she does it all. He holds all the money, she asks when she need it and the discipline is flowing. She cooks, cleans, rears the kids and volunteers at church as well as ironing etc for other people, she even set her husbands clothes out at night. I watched ashamed as this man stood scolding the lady who had swapped places with his wife as she washed dishes after a guest party without even unfolding his arms to dry a single plate! He unashamedly told that he did nothing in the house. To be wife in this home means you work from early morning to late night while the husband comes back from work and kicks back to relax.

I have to say that what I've seen on this program, the first family I've mentioned are absolute liberals and their faith is merely some past decision and consists of only words.
Jesus does not change our position before Himself and leave our character untouched. The phrases such as "this is who I am and this is how I was made" are often used by people without thought and often I believe are just an excuse for sin or coldness (does it in fact mean 'I'm born and made a sinner so that's who I am?) and an excuse for not seeking God.
Though, it was good to hear this couple decide that they needed to get back to church and into Bible studies. Perhaps they are victims of the 'stick your hand up' evangelicalism that highly neglects actual discipleship.

The second family had much to be admired, their faith, commitment to church and love for Jesus. But as I watched I was appalled that this pastor left his helpmate to do all the work. I know all the old arguments for this and frankly they are tiresome.
As head of the home we men are called to lead the home, called to sacrifice ourselves for the good of our wife, to teach and rear our children and not to lord it over them. I felt watching this that this man done his pastoral work yet neglected his first and primary position as shepherd of his family. Yet he expected his wife to do all the home work and to pour every other waking hour into the church. Now I am not critical of living around church life, but of neglecting the role of husband.

If anyone else watched this I'd love to hear your thoughts.

My main thoughts are basically;
'Why would anyone want to do this show?'
and
'I'd miss my best friend too much for the week!'
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About Boaly
Gary has been involved in printing the Scriptures for 20 years, enjoys photography and rambling online

6 comments:

simont said...

Good post bro! You may find me quoting boaly from now on, "Jesus does not change our position before Himself and leave our character untouched." Well put but very challenging as we ask if we are changing or if we are taking for granted the grace of GOD and playing games with Jesus. Thanks Gary.

Tim Millen said...

My main thoughts are;
"Why would anyone watch this show?"
It's a load of dung.

Boaly said...

It is a load of dung indeed, but when a load of dung has two families who profess Christ it caught a bit of my attention, then I watched with amusement as I typed the above post!

Gary said...

I was approached about 5 years ago by a researcher who asked if I would be interested in taking part in the programme. I'm not sure what goes on in the programme as I have never watched a whole episode (I live in Germany now). However after reading your post I am glad I said no!!!
Programmes like this never leave 'Christians' in positive light. I wonder how many other Christians they asked before these families agreed.

On another matter. There are many pastors who believe that the church should come first and the family second. To me, this is the fundamental problem. (I could be opening a can of worms here!)

Tim Millen said...

Gary you are totally right. This is the fundamental problem - that's why so many pastor's kids want nothing to do with Jesus - their dads neglected them while spending most of their time with churchy stuff.
As Paul said to Timothy "(for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?)" 1 Tim 3:5.
It seems from this verse that a pastor/elder has got get their own house in order before the church.

Boaly said...

Yeh Gary programs like this seem to thrive on making Christians look nutts!

I would totally agree with you and Timotheus that the order of importance that is often ascribed to church above family is highly wrong. And 1 Tim 3:5 is such a huge verse, how can we follow anyone if we cannot look at their family life and see Christ first there?
I also think that the church will become as the family is - so the standard of the pastors family will be multiplied as the families of the church imitate and follow his leadership etc.

I think that if you have opened a can of worms on this topic, it is a worth while can to open. We all need to assess how we're doing as husbands and fathers in light of the scriptures - teaching and admonishing our children, sacraficially working towards the purifying of our wives, loving them as Christ loved the church, not provoking children to wrath but being pastors and leaders in the home etc...

I'm convinced that the husband should be the primary teacher of his family - not pastors or sunday school teachers etc though they undoubtably have a role in teaching our families - but the head of the home bears the main responsability for this!
If one cannot be the head of the home how can one be head in the church?

I'm also swayed by Genesis 2 where God made man to tend the garden (The garden being his home) - and that the wife is his helper - thus the logical conclusion here is that the primary responsability of all jobs belongs to the man, this is not to say that the wife does not help in these duties, she takes some of the burden (specifically she takes the role of home maker upon herself).
Though I see it as, for example an electrician with a helper - the electrician holds the responsability for the work, if something is not done right it is he that the contractor will hold responsible not the helper!

One phrase I heard that helped make sense of this was that the husband is responsible, the wife accountable - they both stand before God for judgement, but the heavier responsability is upon the husbands shoulders.

[thats enough of my rambling on this - Sorry for such a long comment]