The Screwtape Letters Part 2

A few more chapters worth...

• Marriage. 'Being in love' is the reason for marriage, which ought to render this excitement permanent, and if it does not do so is no longer binding. "Falling in love is not necessarily favorable either to us or to the other side, like most other things humans are excited about such as politics, health, war, and peace, they are spiritual raw material. Make him think that it is intrinsically meritorious, or instill him with overweening asceticism... The unhappiness produced by a bad marriage is of a very lasting and exquisite kind."
• Beard, ha. "We have succeeded in making the beard disagreeable to nearly all females."
• Appearance of youth. Especially in women, creating a horror of growing old, and less willing to have children. Exhibiting the body on the beach or stage.
• Time. "Let him have the idea that he starts out each day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours." A grievous tax is taken by his employers, a generous donation to religious duties, and the talkative person he runs into is clearly robbing him of his time.

Merry Christmas! I'm sure Screwtape would want you to think of all the gifts you should have gotten and didn't, and if you must, be grateful for those presents you did get, but not to cultivate relationships with your family or remember the real reason of Christmas.

The Screwtape Letters Part 1

A fictional account of a senior demon instructing another how to tempt. Some temptations I thought notable:

• Feelings. 'When they meant to ask Him Charity let them, instead, start trying to manufacture charitable feelings...pray for courage, let them be trying to feel brave...praying for forgiveness, let them be trying to feel forgiven.'
• Doing nothing. 'spent most of my life doing neither I ought nor what I liked.'
• Improper speech or actions in the name of humor.
• Pleasures. As reluctance to face vanity and move to real happiness, the habit of excitement and flippancy become at once less pleasant and harder to forgo.
• Pride. Catch him the movement he is really poor in spirit, and smuggle in the reflection, 'By Jove! I'm being humble!' But don't awaken his sense of humor in the absurdity of this.
• Critics. Get him to be a church connoisseur, sampling churches, being a critic and not a pupil, and not committing to love and serve together with other sinners on their way to heaven. Critical of the sermon, the people, the order of service,  and the music.
• Time. Keep thought away from the present (relationship with God, bearing the present cross and receiving grace) and eternity (being concerned with Him). Tempt say a widow or a scholar to live in the past, but is better to make them live in the future, for that is least like eternity. The past is frozen, and gratitude looks to it, the present is lit up by Christ's promises, but in the future lies fear, avarice, lust and ambition.

Planning for the future is one of the present's responsibilities, but don't but your treasure and hopes in it, heaping on the altar of the future every real gift which is offered in the present.

Till We Have Faces

Big spoiler alert if you haven't read the book and plan to, since I'll mention some of the big plot lines and surprises. Lewis retells the Greek mythology of Cupid and Pschye, from the perspective of Pschye's sister, Orual. She starts out writing the book as a complaint to the gods. She is considered ugly and often wears a veil to hide her face because of this. She ends up being a great Queen, excelling in politics, economics, and war, and the people love her. However she still feels incomplete because of her lack of beauty and love in her life.

Her sister, Pschye, was the only person she really ever loved. Pschye was beautiful, but much of this beauty came from her ability to make other people feel beautiful. Psyche is a type of Christ as she is sacrificed for the people. When she discovers Pschye is still alive, she convinces Pschye to light a lamp to see who her husband is, since death would be preferable to dishonor. Psyche does so, and discovers it is the god Cupid, who was trying to hide marriage from his mother. Pschye is thus cast out, but Orual is cursed with the anguish that Pschye would have experienced, although she doesn't understand this until close to death.

When Orual finally gets to present her complaint to the gods, they don't answer her in words, their answer is themselves. She was shown grace, and got to see Pschye accomplish the impossible tasks, and in the end became beautiful like Pschye because she was judged together with Pschye. When we get to heaven, we will be found clothed in Christ's righteousness, and judged beautiful because of it too! Most of the book was sad, but it ended up encouraging, and gave me new insight on the nature of beauty.

Summary of Spring Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

It was a long journal, so the below summary might help you skip to the sections that interest you...

Women stop submitting to men:

• The verse says submit to your husband, not men in general

Masculine ministry:

• Men be willing to take the criticism that comes from ministry
• Teach with courage
• Bring the difficult parts of the Bible out even if people don't want to hear them
• Heralds truth with urgency and forcefulness
• Publicly and privately advocates for the ministries of women in the church
• Models nurturing, protection, and cherishing his wife

Dad moms:
Interchangeable roles don't lead to happiness as our culture tells us. Men are designed to be protectors and women nourishers by nature. A better way is Dad dads who serve, leading in all areas including training of the children, discipline, and sacrifice, being willing to help out with the kids and do the same chores that a Dad mom would do. So the Bible holds us men to a higher standard than the world.

Gender neutral language Bible translations:
Changes roughly 1000 verses that have a gender in the original language to be genderless in order to be more natural. However, this isn't done with Shakespeare or Dickens and no texts ever feel it beneficial to insert a note in the margin saying that when they say mankind they mean everybody.

How do we speak about homosexuality:
The Bible puts the behavior in the same category as other sins. Paul still calls himself the chief sinner, so it is important to be humble and loving. "And such were some of  you" shows that no matter what you struggle with there is hope to change.

Book reviews:

• A book by Mark Driscoll, Real Marriage, that I thought might be good turns out to not have much useful substance, and has recommendations that contradict what he says he believes.
• Dr. Dobson wrote a book Bringing up Girls that has a lot of good advice on understanding them. The one complaint that appealing to the Bible was tacked on in the last chapter, and most of the book was based on behavioral analyses. I would consider reading this book.
• Give them Jesus: Parenting with the Gospel sounds like a well written book that is a good reminder on the importance of grace. I plan on reading this book someday.
• Feminine Threads shows how women in the Bible and church through history were made equal in importance by the gospel, but still had a different role to play.

Silence of Adam by Dr. Larry Crabb

The title comes from Genesis 3:6 , 'she gave some to her husband (forbidden fruit), who was with her, and he ate it."  1 Timothy 2:14 says that Adam was not deceived. However, he didn't play the role of the man and say anything and protect her spiritually. We still have lots of unmanly men today.

Dr. Crabb is a psychologist, and his book seemed to reflect that by having less Bible verses and exposition than other books, and more psychological analyses. For being a two hundred page book there wasn't that much worth reporting, but there were was one great nugget.

He said that people are wanting experts in the "real" problems of life, causing Christian leaders to talk about recipes for living (recipe theology) rather than declared truths about God, which he calls transcendent theology. We want to know how we can feel better, or how we can be better (strikingly similar thought to the types of people Keller references in Prodigal God).

However, recipes are only useful in a well-lighted kitchen. Only knowing Christ,  abiding in him and trusting in his supernatural power can enable us to enter whatever darkness we face. And enable us to move into that darkness with words of life for others in its grasp.

Boy Meets Girl 

Just finished Boy Meets Girl by Joshua Harris. It was mostly stories and his opinion with examples demonstrating how it worked for a couple or how another couple struggled in that area. I would have preferred more exposition of scriptures for the ideas, but several of the central tenets I think were sound ones.

Involve family or church members in order to have accountability and provide wisdom. A successful courtship is one in which both people treat each other with honor and correctly decide if they should get married, regardless of the decision. The question isn't would we enjoy getting married, but are we ready to love and sacrifice for each other, and would we glorify God more as a couple than as individuals. Another interesting point was that the longer the list of things considered off limits before marriage, the more things would feel special afterwards.

Two of the best passages were centered around quotes from other people, but were still well written. The chapter on forgiveness had a three page description of the cross that was one of the most heart-wrenching I remember. I had to blink a couple times afterwards before I could continue. :) It was great for showing God's love anew, and his forgiveness he offers. Those few pages made me want to read When God Weeps by Joni Eareckson Tada and Steve Estes where the quote came from.

"The thorns that God had sent to curse the earth's rebellion now twisted around his brow...A soldier rasies a mallet to sink in the spike. But the soldier's heart must continue pumping as he readies the prisoner's wrist. Someone must sustain the soldier's life minute by minute (Colossians 1:17)...The son recalls how he and the  Father first designed the medial nerve of the human forearm...and it performs flawlessly...He must face his Father...Jesus is treated as if he is personally responsible for every sin committed..."

The ending encouraged contentment. Our greatest need has already been accomplished  in that amazing sacrifice on the cross. So why doubt that God will provide a much lesser need, such as a suitable spouse? Trust His sovereignty, wisdom and love.