Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, she judged Israel at that time, Judg 4:1.
            Do you know anything about Lappidoth?  I know he was Deborah’s husband and that is all.  He is mentioned nowhere else in the entire Bible.  Yet because of his amazing wife his name was written down for everyone to read for thousands of years.
            No, it was not because God ordained that a wife have no identity without her husband, as some feminists might try to argue. Have you ever googled your own name or simply looked it up in your city’s telephone directory?  Somewhere in the world there is someone else with the same name as you, first and last.  Imagine how many there are with just your first name.  I can find six Marys in the New Testament alone. 
            It was necessary to identify people in the scriptures by their parents or spouses or children in order to make it plain who was being talked about.  There was at least one other Deborah in the Bible, the nurse of Rebekah, in Gen 35:8.  I imagine there were many other little girls named Deborah throughout Israel, especially after the time of Judges 4.  Miriam, after all, is the Hebrew for the Aramaic Mary, of whom we have so many in the first century AD.  Surely the great woman judge was a worthy namesake too.
            So what is the big deal about Lappidoth?  Just this—he was mentioned because of his wife, and he is respected because of his wife.  Whom you marry can make or break you in your career, in your reputation in the community, and most important, as a servant of God.
            How many times have you heard it said, or even said yourself, “He would make a good (elder, preacher, Bible class teacher, deacon) if not for his wife?”  God made woman so man would not be alone and so he would have a suitable helper in life.  David says, “[Jehovah] is our help” in Psalm 33:20, using exactly the same Hebrew word describing God as the one God used of woman in Gen 2:15.  Part of the help God gives men is the women who stand beside them.  There is nothing demeaning about being a tool in the hand of the Lord.
            Maybe the problem is men who do not recognize their duty to spiritually lead the family, “nourishing and cherishing” their brides, as Christ did the church.  Keith is the one who taught me how to study.  “And created a monster,” he always adds.
            Inevitably though, the onus falls on women who will not be led, who will not grow, who use their freewill instead to rebel against God.
            Jesus told a parable in Luke 14 about people who would not follow Him.  The point of the parable was the lame excuses people will make, but I can read at least one of those excuses in a different way.  When the Lord presents him an opportunity, I would hate for my husband to have to say, “I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come.”
 
A worthy woman who can find? For her price is far above rubies.  The heart of her husband trusts in her and he shall have no lack of gain.  She does him good and not evil all the days of his life.  Her husband is known in the gates where he sits with the elders of the land.  Grace is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears Jehovah, she shall be praised, Prov 31:10-12, 23,30.
 
Dene Ward

On our last camping trip to Blackwater River State Park we had reserved an especially good site, along with its neighbor for Lucas, three months in advance.  We arrived and after three hours were nearly set up when the ranger arrived to tell us that the next day a controlled burn was scheduled right on our edge of the campground and we would have to move.  It was not a happy event.  Not only would we have to tear down and start again less than an hour before sunset, but none of the other sites were as private. 
            Privacy is not that important when you sleep in a trailer or RV, but in tents with paper-thin walls it makes a difference.  Our new sites were smack dab in the middle of the campground and so small and close together that I could hear Lucas snoring in his tent next site over.  In fact one night, he and Keith were snoring in rhythm, and the night after Lucas started a snore on the inhale and Keith finished it on the exhale, perfectly synchronized.  Yet when the controlled burn passed the campground we were glad we had moved.  Even with the wind blowing in the opposite direction, the ash would have fallen on our equipment and melted holes in it.
            This is one of the things you must be ready to deal with in a State Park.  The point of a state park is conservation.  There will be more rules than a commercial campground, rules that when broken actually make you a lawbreaker.  But state parks have the nicest facilities for the money that you will find, along with well-maintained hiking trails, nature walks, and all sorts of other free amenities.  We do our best to follow those rules because those parks are part of God's Creation, and we want them to last. 
            Florida has one of the best, and most awarded, state park systems in the country.  The idea was proposed during the Twenty-Sixth Regular Session of the State of Florida House of Representatives on May 2, 1935, and we are thrilled that it was later passed.  In our thirty years of camping, we have certainly made good use of the resulting parks.
            And on that particular trip we learned a lot about controlled burns.  There are two reasons for controlled burns.  When the underbrush is allowed to spread unchecked, all that extra fuel makes wildfires more destructive.  Also, in a pine forest, the controlled burns keep the hardwoods from taking over.  The day after the burn every small hardwood was smoking and burned to a crisp while the pines stood tall and strong, if a little charred on the bottom.
            As Christians we must experience times exactly like these controlled burns.  Perhaps the most difficult “burns” to understand are the problems among God’s people.  If the church is the body of Christ, why do people behave badly?  Why do divisions happen and heresies lead people astray?  The Proverb writer tells us that God will use the wicked, whether they want to be used or not, Prov 16:4.  Paul says in 1 Cor 11:19, For there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. 
            The question is not will there be problems in the church?  The question is, when there are problems will we be able to “recognize” those who are not genuine believers?  I fear that too many of us look to the wrong things. 
            Do I believe one side because they are my friends, never even questioning their words, while automatically dismissing the other if among them is a brother I don’t like too much?  Does “family” make the decision for me?  Am I relying on how I “feel” about it, instead of what the Word actually says?  Does it matter more to me who can quote the Big-Name Preachers instead of the scriptures?  Is one side more popular than the other?  Will it give me more power if that side wins the fight?  When I rely on those types of things, I am the one who is showing myself to be a less than genuine believer.
            While these things are necessary, it doesn’t mean God likes them, any more than he liked the Assyrians who fulfilled their purpose in punishing his wayward people. 
            Ho Assyrian, the rod of my anger, the staff in whose hand is my indignation! I will send him against a profane nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. Howbeit he means not so, neither does his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few... Wherefore it shall come to pass, that, when the Lord has performed his whole work upon mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks, Isa 10:5-6,12. 
            Jesus presents a similar viewpoint when he says in Matt 18:7, Woe unto the world because of occasions of stumbling! For it must needs be that the occasions come; but woe to that man through whom the occasion comes!  These things have their place and their purpose, but God will punish the ones responsible. 
            Now the hard part:  The apostles did not tell the early church that it was understandable to become discouraged and leave because their idea of the blissful, perfect institution was often marred by sin.  They said to use that experience to double check where we stand, to make sure we are among the true believers, the tall pines that withstand the blaze instead of the scrub brush and interloping hardwoods who try to destroy Christ’s body.
            Those controlled burns in the pine forests happen every three years.  Who knows how often the church needs cleansing but God himself? For me to give up on the Lord and his body because someone causes trouble, because peace among God’s people sometimes seems hard to come by, means I am giving up on God, failing to trust that he knows best. You may get a little singed, but it is a cleansing burn, far better than the eternal burn that awaits the factious.
 
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves. By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree brings forth good fruit; but the corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit…Therefore by their fruits you shall know them, Matt 7:15-17, 20.
 
Dene Ward