Random Thoughts

Welcome to the schizophrenic state, Iowa. One month ago I told you about losing power in the blizzard and freezing rain combination. Today 75 and sunny with a strong south wind at 20 to 25 mph.

My son the youngest child in the family had a birthday yesterday, 7 candles. Both sets of grandparents and my wife's family were here to help celebrate. The kid made out like a bandit, even got a pair of pearl handled cap guns that dad likes to scare the kids with. All in all a good day.

I'm looking forward to the start of the baseball season. I don't expect the Royal's to be much better than last year, but a new season brings new hope, so maybe they will improve.

Don't know what to think about the decision of Steve Alford to leave for New Mexico. Personally I thought that he did a good job with what he had this year. I don't claim the guy is perfect, but I do think he was a committed Christian and I do not like seeing a good guy run out of town by the liberal media in Des Moines and Iowa City. Iowa City is the most liberal wacko place in the state and I know that they(the media) hated him.

Don't know much about Bruce Pearl, but I know he has ties to Iowa in the past, wins where he is at now, and the talk is that he will be the next coach.Time will tell.

Had a good, somewhat long, message at church today from II Peter 2. Peter did not have a lot of nice, kind, considerate things to say about false teachers. I left the service this morning wondering how many of the so called leaders of the "christian church" today are false teachers. Selling the "gospel" as a business plan, looking to get votes, errr, make money off of those who claim the name of Christ. Of course the only way to know those that teach falsehood from the truth is to know the BOOK, II Peter 1:19-21. Only by continually studing the WORD and testing the teachings we hear against that standard can we defend against "damnable heresies".

Part Two Getting Serious about Getting Married

One of the great failings of the "church" is the continual habit of taking a principle out of a passage of Scripture without the entire context of that passage. Ms. Maken uses I Corinthians 7 in defense of her position "that marriage is a good thing" while failing to include the whole context of the principle that is taught in the passage.
So before we can properly understand I Corinthians 7 a short Bible lesson. The chapter and verse numbers were added years after these books were written. I am not condemning the use of chapter and verses for finding a particular place in the book, rather we should be careful to make sure that just because verse one starts a new chapter, we know what the subject was in the last verse of the previous chapter.
In I Corinthians 6 Paul is rather harsh with the Corinthian believers. vs. 5 "I speak to your shame", vs. 8 "Nay, ye do wrong and defraud, and that your brethren." Then he reminds them who they were, in V's 9,10,11. He is trying to impress on the believers the importance of being different than they were before they accepted Christ. "Ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified," vs. 11 vs. 19 and 20 say "What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's."
And what were they supposed to avoid, what sin were they to resist, because it would make the members of Christ a harlot, vs 15? "The body is not for fornication," vs. 13 "Flee fornication" vs. 18. Without doing a long thesis on porneia, let's use the following definition. Sexual immorality of all kinds.
The faithful follower of Jesus Christ is to avoid sexual immorality. To flee it. Look at chapter 6 vs. 9, the sexually immoral will "not inherit the kingdom of God". He was emphatically telling them that sexual immorality was not compatible with the lifestyle of a believer. He is making it as plain as possible that the gratification of the sexual urges normal to mankind are not to be acted upon by a believer.
Then we can proceed to chapter 7, this is where Ms. Maken starts, she failed to give context to what Paul is saying in chapter 7. I'm going to sum it up in a few words, I quote from Paul, "To avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband,...if they cannot contain, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn."(with passion)that comment is from me.
So lets be clear, in God's plan, the solution for the sex drive built into humans, by God, is marriage. "Marriage is honorable in all and the bed undefiled." Heb. 13:4 If you have a normal sex drive, you are to satisfy that drive only in the marriage relationship. If you're using a hooker, pictures on the net and self-gratification, steamy romance novels, soap operas, heavy petting, what ever you are allowing to feed and/or quench that sex drive other than a marriage relationship is wrong.
BTW, I dare anyone to find a Biblical passage that says that God will stop your sex drive with prayer and fasting. I'm getting outside of a review of this book but this is one of my pet peeves. God's solution for sexual desire is marriage. You're having trouble with controlling your urges, find a marriage partner.
This is why Ms. Maken asked a guy on the first date what kind of eunuch he was? A somewhat rude and impertinent question I know, but the point was a valid one. What kind of normal man with a normal sex drive has remained chaste until he is 37? God's solution for a man with normal sexual urges is to find a wife. One can only assume that someone who had not had those kind of urges by the time he had reached the age of 37 must be a eunuch, right?
Now the problem is, that in our culture today, most of the men and women have long since succumbed to the urges and have been engaged in fornication, something that Paul and all other scripture expressly declares to be sinful.
If you have fallen into that sin, then the solution for a believer is to confess your sin, and find a marriage partner, now. Not when the bank balance is bigger, not when you are less stressed, not when a "10" comes along, now.
I think Ms. Maken makes a fine case in the following chapters that men who delay marriage are stealing from women, by delaying the commitment to marriage past the years when women are able to bear children. It is theft, because men want the female companionship, they date regularly, to often pushing for sexual activity, but refuse to commit to marriage out of selfish reasons tied to materialism and love of self. This is why several passages in Scripture talk about "the wife of your youth". Marriage is to be entered into by young people, woman of child bearing age, men who have the energy and stamina to deal with work, family, and serving the wife, while at the same time maintaining a Godly home. Too many men in our culture are only interested in themselves.

My greatest disagreement with anything in Ms. Maken's book is in the chapter titled, The Lack of Male Leadership. Now I hope I am able to articulate the problem I see in a clear fashion. I believe she reaches some correct conclusions, ie, The Lack of Leadership in the Home, and The Lack of Leadership in the Church. I believe that both of those things are probably true. Her mistake is a total lack of understanding of the destruction the feminist movement and no fault divorce have had on men. She also completely skips the facts concerning women and education. I simply do not have time or space here to argue all of these things. Suffice to say that in writing what she did, she shows a total lack of understanding about the current state of the male mind when it comes to marriage. In a culture where any normal man can be figuratively and literally raped by the courts in a no fault divorce. When women are unrepentant whores,.....

I'm going to insert a joke right here to illustrate the problem. A man walks up to the bar and sits down next to a beautiful woman, after a few minutes of small talk, he suddenly asks her if she would sleep with him for a million dollars. The women acts offended, but after a few seconds pass she whispers, yes. He then asks is she will sleep with him if he buys her supper. She slaps his face and says, "What kind of woman do you think I am?" He replies, "We have already established what you are, now we're just negotiating price!!"

When women are unrepentant whores, who use their bodies to catch a man, then deprive him of the marriage bed after she catches him. When it is possible that 50 percent of all marriages will end in a theft of a man's hard earned labor, depriving him of his home, financial stability and in most cases his children. It's no wonder that men are running in fear from women. And I might add even faster from educated women, since the evidence clearly shows that the higher the level of education a women has, the greater probability she will be divorced. In summary Ms. Maken does not understand the multitude of problems which are causing men to chose to remain unmarried.

Let me say again that I believe that she made an effective and clearly Biblical case that marriage is God's plan for the vast majority of men and women, she just misses the boat on why those marriages are not happening.
I find the remainder of the book useful. I personally rejected the dating scene during my single years, when I realized that it was not useful to the goal of finding a wife. I like her use of the Biblical account of Issac and Rebekah as a pattern for the concept of agency. Someone whose goal and desire is to help the single person find a Godly mate. If we as Christians believe that the family was ordained by God as His first and most important societal structure, and I do. Then the search for a proper life mate without the input of the family, and especially the God ordained leader of the family, the father, is destined to fail. And the evidence is that we are getting exactly that.

Overall I believe that Ms. Maken has written a useful book. While her complete lack of understanding of the problems leading to the current low levels of marriage in the church is rather obvious, a return to Biblical patterns and principles is always a good thing. I believe the solutions she suggests are clearly Biblical and worthy of our consideration.

Book Review of Getting Serious about Getting Married by Debbie Maken

I haven't written a book review since high school, so this may not be exactly according to accepted form. Then again, I probably never did one right back then, which would explain my less than stellar grades in English literature/writing. Please be patient with me, I'm attempting to use the brain cells that have been laying in hibernation for a long time.

Getting Serious About Getting Married
by Debbie Maken

The introduction explains that Ms. Maken was twenty-eight years old, had a advancing law career, owned her own home, had a nice car, was a committed Christian, active in her church and it's singles program, yet she was not... content. She wanted to be married. She says,"I am NOT content. I am unhappy and sad about still being single. I am not only discontent-I am also angry about being single. So that morning she walked out of her singles class, vowing never to return.

She then tells us that she met her future husband in July of 2001 and was married in March of 2002.
So why did she write the book, she explains, In the 1970's approximately 64 percent of women had married by age 24, 90 percent by 29 and 94 percent by age 34. Thirty years later, 27 percent had =married by 24, 60 percent by 29 and 78 percent by 34. The singles population had tripled or quadrupled in one generation. She believed that there had to be some other explanation than that God just wanted more "gifted singles" in this generation. As she puts it, "there are countless untold stories of women who are dying on the vine, know it, and feel like they can't do a thing about it."
Ms. Maken then asserts that the final authority for a Christian is not culture, pop psychology, or the latest trend. She claims that no matter how radical it sounds, her ideas are based squarely on the Bible. Scripture should be the measuring stick for truth. Women in our culture have been told over and over that,"singleness is a gift. But it's the kind of gift that make us cringe and smile politely while we desperately search for a gift receipt so we can return it."
Her thesis is that Scripture and Christian tradition have never validated wholesale singleness, that we are teaching faulty theology and making something abnormal appear as though it is a sanctified gift straight from the hand of God. The contemporary church is not telling singles the truth, that singleness is actually detrimental to their whole lives. The modern church is placing singleness on an equal level with marriage despite God's clear call to marriage.
The remainder of the book is in three parts, Marriage and Singleness, Rethinking the Gift of Singleness, and Getting Serious About Getting Married. I want to spend most of this review on the first section, throw in a few comments on the second section, and leave the last one for the reader to examine for themselves.
In Genesis 1:25 the Triune God, the Creator of the universe, after having done most of his creative work saw what he had made was good. In 26 and 27 he said, let Us make man in Our image after Our likeness, "So God created man in his own image" Then we read in 2:18 that "God said, it is not good that the man should be alone, I will make him a help meet for him" back to 1:27 "in the image of God created he him: male and female created he them." Mankind created in the image of the God of the Universe was created male and female, not male or female, male and female. The marriage union reflects the image of God far better than singleness does. Man was not complete without woman and woman was taken from the man. God's design at the beginning of creation was for one man and one woman joined together the two becoming one, reflecting the image of the Creator God. The marriage union is the revealed will of God in the created order. "Therefore, shall a man leave his father and mother; and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh. God did not intend for man to be alone, he said, it is not good." John Calvin said, a man without a woman is but "half a man".Any single who is dissatisfied with singleness is merely agreeing with God, "it is not good for man to be alone." Those who say that marriage is an option, but each person has to make their own choice, are questioning the wisdom and authority of God. Are you saying that God was wrong when he said, "it is not good for man to be alone?" Either the Creator God knew what was best for his creation, or we know better. His plan was for the male/female relationship in marriage, one man, one woman, for life.
Secondly, marriage was designed for the Creation of Legitimate Children, "be fruitful and multiply"" Gen 1:28 God who made man in His image told that same man to make offspring in not only man's image, but also the image of God. God did not want man to be alone, he told him that marriage was how man would not be alone, then he told the man and woman " to be fruitful and multiply" John Calvin wrote that when men and women were not connected in marriage, they are like the mutilated members of a mangled body".
One of the things I consider to be the highlights of this book, is her repeated reminders that Scripture is our final authority, Scripture validated Scripture, the Book must be read as a whole, so that in the end we have one coherent, non contradictory understanding. So chapter 2 examines what the Bible has to say about singleness. And she writes" "Scripture does not categorically authorize singleness" Rather it does allow singleness for a limited few and establishes clear parameters by which they can be legitimately single See Matt 19:4-11 I Corinthians 7. Jesus clearly taught that God had ordained marriage. Some of you may say, but Jesus was single, yes he also walked on water, turned water to wine, and raised the dead. When you get that kind of authority and power, you can take it up with God whether or not you have the right to "single out" Jesus as your example while ignoring his teachings. So quit thinking you are spiritual cause you single and read what Christ said, in Matt. 19:10, it is better not to marry? see the answer in 11-12, only a few select people have been given the gift of singleness, three possible reasons a man made eunuch, a someone born a eunuch, or a for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven. (My thoughts, if you have a sex drive of any kind, large, small, or anywhere in between, you are to marry.)Martin Luther said, "apart from these three groups, let no man presume to be without a spouse."
I'll get to Paul and I Corinthians 7, later.
So far I agree with everything Debbie Maken has to say. In the second and third sections I do not.

Global Warming, NOT!!

The current temperture is 27 degrees. Yesterday at about 3:00 we began to have thunderstorms with temperture of about 33 degrees. With a slowly falling temp, and rain off and on since 3:00 yesterday, we now have ice on the trees, the powerlines, and even the windows, (can't see out the east side of the house).According to the National Weather Service, this may be the worst winter storm in Iowa in a decade.




At 2:35 this afternoon the power went off after blinking off and on for several hours.
So you wonder how the farmer is blogging. When we moved in here years ago, there was a standby generator in the corner of the shop building, we have used it twice before today. At about 5:15 I hooked the tractor to the generator, and we now have power and lights again. My plan is to run it till 10:00 pm and then shut it off for the night.




Everybody has to use the facilities, take their baths, etc before we shut off the power. Since we use well water, we will have no water either.
It's not all bad, we got to spend some family time this afternoon, the kids read books and played games. The lovely wife and I were both reading books. (A book review will be posted when I'm done.) We carried some wood in for the fireplace. All in all it's been a fairly pleasant day, as long as you don't have to go outside.


UPDATE: Sunday morning 9:00 AM

First, last night about 6:45 the power company restored service. The small town nearby served by a different power company remained dark. It seems strange to see all those houses in town dark and yard lights lit all across the countryside. At around 6:00 it started to snow rather than freezing rain. It snowed all night, we now have 8 to 9 inches of snow on top of the ice. And now the wind is beginning to blow. Here in flat north Iowa, this means white out conditions.

I think we will sit inside by the fire for most of today.

Doing it the Right Way

Several months ago, before I started this blog, I mentioned to several of those that I communicate with on a regular basis, a piece of property for sale in north-east Iowa. This property consisted of 1200 acres of land along the Upper Iowa River. In fact there are 3 1/4 miles of the river running through the property.
I joked with some of you about buying the property, I would farm the tillable land, and you'll could hunt on the timbered land.
This week the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation a non-profit, private, conservation group, announced that they had purchased the property. See this article.

http://www.inhf.org/ryan.htm

I want to complement INHF on doing things the right way. Nothing agravaites me more than hearing that my tax dollars are being used to buy private property. And then as as added insult that same property is then taken off of the tax roles, so that the other property owners in that area then carry a higher burden for the taxes which maintain roads, schools and other public services. By buying this property with private funds, and keeping the property on the tax roles, the preservation of a beautiful part of Iowa's unique and varied topography. This purchase will enable this and future generations to see the beauty of God's creation, while keeping the burden of buying and maintaining it out of the hands of an ever expanding government.

I did not like reading that they may have gotten some funds with state money, but I will settle for the fact that they at least are keeping the property on the tax roles. How unfair to the farmers and people living around this beautiful piece of land to have it go into the public hands and then tell the tax payers that they will be handed a larger percentage of the property taxes as a legacy. If we are going to finance schools, roads and other public services with property tax, government which lives off of these taxes should not be allowed to take property off of the tax roles.