We had a second stint of puppysitting recently and this time Chloe adapted more quickly.  By the end of the first day, she and now six month old Bella were romping together in the field.  Chloe was still the boss and called the shots—including the play schedule—but play they did, especially in the evenings when Chloe would crawl out from under the porch, stretch, look over her shoulder at Bella and scamper off with a toss of the head—an open invitation to “catch me if you can.”       

Bella also came with us when I gave Chloe her morning walk around the
property.  Chloe usually accompanies me in a steady trot, stopping here and there to sniff at an armadillo hole or a depression at the bottom of the fence where a possum makes its nightly excursions.  Bella preferred to run everywhere, usually in the meandering lines of Billy, the little boy in the Family Circus comic.  Then when she suddenly looked up and found herself behind, she would come running, bulling her way past us in a brown blur.

It was one of those times that particular morning and I heard her overtaking us like a buffalo stampede.  The path at that point was narrow, just room for me, my two walking sticks, and Chloe.  As Bella drew near, I just happened to be looking down when she very neatly leapfrogged over Chloe without disturbing a fur on her head.  In a few seconds she was around the bend and out of sight.

I wonder how many we leapfrog over every day and leave in the dust behind
us because we’re too impatient to wait, too unconcerned to care, too impulsive
to even notice?  Sometimes the young with their new ideas, scriptural though they may be, have too little respect for the old warriors who need time to consider and be sure. Sometimes the more knowledgeable become too arrogant to slow their pace for the babes or those whose capacity may not be as deep.  Sometimes the strong forget that God expects them to help the weak, the ill, the faltering. All these people are just obstacles in our way, things to get past in our rush.

When you leapfrog over a brother and leave him behind, how do you know he
will make it?  God didn’t expect us to walk the path alone.  He meant
for us to walk it together.  When you lack to the love to walk it with your brother, you may as well not walk it at all.

Now we that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.  Let each one of us please his neighbor for that which is good, unto edifying. For Christ also pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell upon me. Romans 15:1-3.

Dene Ward

We were standing on the carport one evening when I saw movement out of
the corner of my eye.  I turned just in time to push Keith out of the path of a garter snake determinedly chugging his way up the slope to the concrete slab. 
We called the dogs off and allowed him to meander under the mower and off
the edge of the pad to the cool darkness under the porch.  A few days later he made another appearance and we discovered his home when he wriggled away—the hollow pipes supporting the metal roofing of the carport.

I have come a long way in 35 years--from a city girl who screamed and ran from a foot long, pencil-thin, bright green garden snake to a country woman who understands the value of a snake on the property—God’s original mousetrap.  I will never be a snake lover.  I went out one afternoon and found him stretched out at the foot of my lounge chair. I got the broom and shooed him back into his pipe.  My dogs can sit at my feet and have their heads scratched, but with Mr. Snake it is only a matter of “live and let live.”

Too many times we take that attitude with Satan. Yes, he is out there every day. Sometimes we even bump elbows in passing, but we don’t have to stop and politely say, “Excuse me.”  Don’t give him a cool spot on the carport and an idle belly rub with your bare toes.

If this garter snake were one of the four poisonous varieties we have in
this area—all of which we have seen on our land—he would not be tolerated.  Although my guys may tell funny stories about me and snakes, they cannot deny that I know how to make like Annie Oakley when a bad one comes along.  I have killed them with a shotgun, a .22 rifle, and a .22 pistol.  I have killed them with rat shot and buckshot.  When necessary I have used a shovel.  I have lost count of how many poisonous snakes I have killed.  They get fewer every year.

How are we doing with Satan?  Does he think his presence is tolerated, even welcome?  Or does he know that it’s dangerous to be around us?  He is fighting a losing battle and he knows it, but that won’t keep his poison from killing us if we allow him to get too close.

Do not give opportunity to the Devil, Eph 4:27.

Dene Ward


 

            We are puppysitting for some friends, a four month old chocolate lab named Bella.  She is already taller than our full-grown Australian cattle dog, though not as heavy, a long-legged gangly dog still with a puppy mindset—which means faster is better than slower, all things are meant to be chewed upon, and play time is the only time. 

            Chloe, on the other hand, is middle-aged, 6½, or about 45 in dog years.  To her the best things in the world are a belly scratch, a chewy treat, and a nap, and one of the worst things in the world is a puppy being foisted upon her carefully controlled domain.  She learned quickly that Bella has difficulty getting under the truck—something about all those long knobby leg bones getting in the way—so she spends the vast majority of her day there while Bella roams about being a curious puppy.  Someone I know well has learned not to leave things lying about outside if he doesn’t want them ventilated with puppy-teeth holes, something I consider an unexpected benefit to Bella’s visit.

            Chloe is not a purely sedentary lap dog, though.  She enjoys nosing around some, and will run back and forth to the gate to greet us.  She walks around the property with me and often leaves me in the dust when she spies something interesting in the corner woods.  Bella is walking with us now.  Her nose is always in the air, and her ears cocked for any sounds that might drift our way—one neighbor’s baying bloodhound and the other’s crowing rooster, for example.  But she doesn’t listen long.  As soon as she determines the direction, she is off in a shot while Chloe listens a bit more, making a studied determination about whether the sound needs investigating or not.

            Bella thinks everything is a game.  She has no ability to distinguish when it’s time to be serious.  Chloe will stop for a drink and Bella will be all over her, standing in the water, stepping on the edge of the pan, causing it to tilt and spilling the water everywhere.  When a frog jumps in the old tubs Keith uses to soak his hickory wood for smoking meat, she jumps right in after it, NOT looking before she leaps, landing belly deep with a splash.  Reminds me of the puppy we had once who thought the rattlesnake next to the woodpile was a toy and tried to play with it.  We managed to get him away before he was bitten, but when we left for a camping trip, the neighbor found him one morning with fang marks in his neck.  Lucky for him, the skin there was loose and that’s all the snake got, not the muscle in his neck.

            Yet despite their own preferences, both of these dogs are adapting.  Chloe finally learned to quit running away and stand up for herself.  After a nip or two on the nose, Bella knows who the boss is now and she will actually “bow” before Chloe, lowering her height by crouching on her belly in front of her.  Chloe will now stand nose to nose with her, sniffing, and then suddenly take off in a run, looking behind to make sure Bella is chasing her.  Bella has learned to be a little more discreet and Chloe has learned that fun is still—well, fun, and it’s worth having some once in awhile.

            Older and younger people—older and younger Christians, no matter their physical age—need to learn from one another in the same way.  We teach our children not to go running down the halls, especially among older people who have issues with balance and might be knocked over.  A fall for the elderly could easily lead to a broken bone, and how many broken bones have led to a fatal case of pneumonia?  That’s not something a child would ever think of, which is why the adults must teach them.  In the same way, babes in Christ mustn’t go running helter-skelter down our spiritual halls with no concern about the fragile souls we might encounter.  Yet, the older ones need to learn that we must go out into those halls and encounter those souls, not sit quietly and safely in our pews.

            The younger must learn the need for wisdom and discretion and the value of quiet reverence, but the older must learn that “emotion” is not a four letter word. 

            The younger must learn respect for those they label “nay-sayers.”  They must realize that those old “fuddy-duddy” cautions come from concern for their younger souls’ safety and good, not from cowardice or a lack of faith.  The older must remind themselves that God called them to take a risk, to exercise their faith not to sit in dusty rooms discussing it.

            The younger in the faith and the older in the faith—we learn from each other, but not if we’re too busy putting one another down, refusing to listen to one another, with attitudes full of disrespect and disdain. 

The glory of young men is their strength, but the beauty of old men is their gray hair, Prov 20:29.

Dene Ward

            When we first moved here, the land was a pristine wilderness.  We were the only ones back here in the woods, half a mile off the highway.  People often asked, “How in the world did you even find this spot?”  If it hadn’t been for the sign on the highway, we never would have.

            Fast forward to the last few years.  The deeds on the rest of the parcels of acreage are finally clear and others have bought and moved in.  Oh, for the money to have bought it all way back then…

            As you come down our drive now, you pass one plot in particular where you wonder if you missed the “Junkyard” sign.  Empty fertilizer sacks, empty feed sacks, broken buckets with all their pieces, torn potato chip bags and candy bar wrappers, shattered plastic milk jugs, toys in various states of disrepair, gardening tools, rusty tractor parts and old horse trailers, torn screen segments, pieces of hose draped over fences, broken down appliances, seldom- or no longer-driven vehicles including a burnt-out semi tractor, and piles of pure garbage dot the landscape.  I knew we were in trouble the first week these folks moved in, when a used disposable diaper sat in the yard for days, and then they mowed over it, scattering it to the winds. 

            When you say anything to them, the standard reply is, “This is our land.  We can do with it what we want.  It’s no business of yours.”

            But it is, and do you know why?  Because every time the wind blows I must go around with a trash bag and pick up the litter than blows over or through the fence onto our property.  Every time a strong rain comes, more is washed down around the gate.  And should we ever decide to sell, the mere fact that any prospective buyer must go past that mess to get to us, will lower our property value.  Keith explained this last fact to them one day, and they said, “Huh?  Why?”

            Do you know what?  Sometimes I also fail to see how my life is anyone else’s business.  It’s easy to say, “This doesn’t hurt anyone, so why can’t I do it?” or, “Why does it matter how I let my attitude show?  They can just ignore me.”  In real life, that is impossible.  I do affect everyone who comes into contact with me.  I can make their days better or worse.  I can say something that will help or hinder.  I can do something that comforts or hurts.  What I cannot do is something that has no affect at all—it is simply impossible.

            My trashy neighbors have actually done me a lot of good.  I find myself thinking about these things more and more, wondering whom I am affecting every day, and hoping it is for the good.  I hope hearing about them will help you today too.

Your boasting is not good.  Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?  Clean out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened.  For Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed.  Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, 1 Cor 5:6-8.

Dene Ward

This is Part 2 of the new Monday series, "Whoso Findeth A Wife."

Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing…Prov 18:22.

Does one become a good thing by simply saying, “I do?” In other words is every wife a good thing?  There might be a point to this we overlook.  Because we know the answer is “no,” we add a few words to the scripture.  “Whoso findeth a wife might have found a good thing.”  But that is not what it says!  A wife is something a man has to look for whereas women who want to marry are a dime a dozen.  We are also told that the worthy woman (wife) is hard to find (Prov 31:10).  Perhaps the point is that not every married woman deserves to be called a wife.

There was an era when society cast a blind eye on a man who had both a wife and a mistress.  Yet even then, most decent women would have been insulted to be asked to be a mistress instead of a wife. It was an honor to be a man’s wife, and one recognized the responsibilities it laid upon her in behavior and management of the home.  You’ve seen those old movies just like I have.  “You don’t think I’m good enough to marry!” the courtesan screams at the two-timing husband.  “Good enough to be a wife,” shows that the position was held in honor, even if not every man treated it that way. 

And nowadays?  It has become more important to assert and indulge self.  A woman may keep her own name, or add his as an appendage to it.  She may have a career, which he must realize takes precedence over the home they planned to make together, and which may even take precedence over his career.  She may farm out their children to someone else to raise, very often a stranger whose values may or may not reflect theirs.  And in many cases, she may not even marry him.  Why bother when society doesn’t even seem to care any more either?  Once again we see that attitude:  “What’s the big deal with being a wife?”

Management of the home has taken a bad rap.  When my husband tells people, “I have no idea what’s what.  She takes care of everything,” I don’t find it a bit demeaning.  Isn’t that what women say they want these days, some recognition and appreciation for the skills they use every day?  My husband comes to me when he runs out of toothpaste, when he can’t find his favorite jeans, and when he needs the receipt for the shoes whose sole separated after just a month’s wear.  I am the one who keeps supplies stocked, sorts and files the sales slips, and knows that he wore a hole in the seat of those jeans far too large to patch with anything but a quilt.  I am the one who knows which bill is due when, and whether we can afford that new chainsaw he thinks he needs.  That’s exactly what the word means in 1 Tim 5:14, the younger widow is to remarry and manage the home--oikodespoteo--to manage as a steward under a head.  It carries a lot of responsibility.  It is required in stewards that they be found faithful, 1 Cor 4:2.

But that isn’t the half of it.  What makes this wife a good thing is that he can trust her.  She does him good and not evil all the days of her life, Prov 31:12.  The modern woman is too worried about doing for herself to do for him.  I have heard far too many of them whine about needing “me time,” even Christians.  Jesus said to save your life you need to lose it in service to others.  We will never find “me time” if that’s all we ever look for.  To save your life, you must lose it.

Doing him good all the days of your life means whether he deserves it or not, whether he can do for you or not.  I watched my mother care for my father for twelve years before he died, day and night, sacrificing her own health and well-being, even though those final three or four years he had no idea who she was.  She remembered the vows she made, not just to him, but before God as well, sixty-four years before.  If anyone deserved to be called a wife, she did.

It is one thing to say, “I am this man’s wife.”  It is another to be his wife.  We should count it an honor to be our man’s wife.  Griping about the man or the job is not the way it’s done.

A worthy woman who can find? ...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 her life… She opens her mouth with wisdom; And the law of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household, And eats not the bread of idleness, Prov 31:  10-12, 26,27.

Dene Ward

I married a firebug and raised two more.  All the camping we have done, I am sure, was just an excuse to build and sit around campfires, and since we moved to the country we have had a fire pit from the beginning.  Once the weather began to turn, we kept the hot dog and marshmallow industries in business almost single-handedly, sometimes with all the trimmings—chili, beans, slaw—other times with just a bag of chips on the side.  After the boys went away to college, any weekend they came home, they expected a hot dog roast at least once.  From October to April my grocery list always included those all-American sausages, “Nathan’s” hot dogs, of course.

Now that the boys are gone, Keith still likes to build a fire on cool nights.  Our partially wooded property always produces enough deadfall to keep the fires going, and even here in Florida, the weather is cool enough to make a fire pleasant, rotating yourself like a rotisserie, warming each side in turn. 

Keith will often throw a carefully collected and dried pile of Spanish moss on the flame.  At first the fire appears smothered, but the heat gradually burns through, producing thick billows of gray smoke that seem almost tactile, finally burning clear and shooting sparks and cinders up toward the sky.  We lean our heads on the lawn chair backs to see which will travel highest and glow longest before burning out in the cold blackness above the treetops.

Do you realize that is all an atheist believes life is? We are cinders in a bonfire.  Some of us simply dissolve in the fire.  Others rise on the updraft, some burning higher, larger, and longer than others, but burning out nonetheless, just like everyone else.  How can they survive believing this is all there is to it?  Some use that as an excuse to do whatever they want, regardless of who it hurts and the harm it causes.  Even then, as they grow older and realize the brevity of life, the pointlessness of it all takes its toll.  When a wicked man dies, his hope perishes; all he expected from his power comes to nothing, Prov 11:7.

But children of God know better. We are not just nameless cinders in the updraft of a brief blaze.  We have not only an eternal existence to look forward to, but a purpose here as well.  Very few of us will rise high enough and burn long enough for many to notice and fewer to remember, but we can all give warmth and light in a cold, dark world.  Maybe working so hard that we dissolve in the flame without ever rising above it is the better end.  How much warmth and light did you ever get out of a single spark anyway?

What are your plans for today?  Are you so busy you get tired just thinking about it?  And at what?  Is it something that will warm someone’s heart and light their way?  Even things that don’t seem likely can be made into an opportunity to do good.  If they cannot, maybe we should think twice about doing them.  We are all sparks in the fire, or else we are just trying to put it out.

You are the light of the world.  A city set on a hill cannot be hid.  Neither do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on the stand, and it shines unto all who are in the house.  Even so let your light shine before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven, Matt 5:14-16.

Dene Ward

A few weeks ago I told you the story of a camping trip when I forgot our Sunday clothes, and the chilly reception we received in that church on Sunday morning.  Occasionally I receive a little feedback, and I was happy that no one sent the question, “What church was that?”  In fact, in all these years, whenever I have told the story no one has asked.  Good for you.

First, that church probably no longer exists.  Oh, I happen to know that a church still meets in that building.  But it is not the same group of people.  Some have died and gone on.  Some have moved out; some have moved in.  But I imagine that all the ones who are still there have grown into better people.  Twenty years can make a difference in anyone’s life.

And the problem of the group that did exist then was not that they made a mistake in their judgment about why we were there.  It did not matter why we were there.  Someone should have greeted us warmly and welcomed us into the building whether we were poor people down on our luck, so to speak, or Christians who accidentally left their Sunday clothes hanging in the garment bag on a doorknob somewhere in the house.  If someone had greeted us, but only because they recognized us from a meeting sometime in the past, that would have been wrong too. 

But as to asking, “Where was that?” the right question is the one the apostles asked when Jesus told them one of them would betray him.  As much as they failed to comprehend the kingdom, despite his teaching and their knowledge of Old Testament prophecy, as much as they still fought among themselves about who would be the greatest even that very night, they did not start glancing around the table and whispering among themselves things like, “I bet it’s Levi.  I told Jesus you could never trust a tax collector.”

No.  Matthew tells us, And they were exceeding sorrowful and began to say to him every one, Is it I, Lord? 26:22. Mark tells us they asked him one by one, 14:19. 

So when I hear a particularly pointed sermon, I shouldn’t look around to make sure brother Whozit is there to hear it because he really needs it.  I shouldn’t look across the aisle at sister What’s-her-name with a “So there!” expression on my face. 

What is it we say about approved apostolic example?  We use it to nail all sorts of false doctrines, but how about nailing ourselves? 

“Is it I, Lord?”

Judge not that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge you shall be judged, and with what measured you mete, it shall be measured unto you.  And why do you behold the mote that is in your brother’s eye, but consider not the beam that is in your own eye?  Or how will you say to your brother, “Let me cast the mote out of your eye,” while the beam is in your own eye?  You hypocrite!  First cast the beam out of your own eye and then you may see clearly to cast the mote our of your brother’s eye, Matthew 7:1-5.  

Dene Ward

Today’s post is by guest writer Keith Ward

            
We often speak of the joy that we share because we are in the Lord. We
have hope, our lives have purpose and meaning, we know we are loved, etc. But, as wonderful and necessary as that view is, it is essentially selfish—what do I get out of it?  Do we ever stop to wonder what Jesus gets out of it?

In the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus spoke extensively to the
eleven apostles and stated the purpose of his discourse, “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy may be in you, and [that] your joy may be made full” (John 15:11). Their joy was made full when they met the resurrected Lord, when they inaugurated the kingdom of promise and prophecy, when they openly defied the leaders who had crucified Jesus. How did Jesus have joy in them? 

We must also wonder if we as offspring of the apostles are also to be a
source of joy to Jesus, and if so, how?  “Looking unto Jesus the author and
perfecter of [our] faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:2).  The joy before him cannot have been his return to heaven since he had been with the Father since before time. He left that and suffered the cross for some other joy so great that he considered that double sacrifice worth it. We, the saved, are that joy.

When one keeps his commandments, he abides in Jesus’ love; if he abides
in Jesus, he bears much fruit. Bearing fruit glorifies the Father. Thus do we
bring joy to Jesus. This joy was the focus that led him to the cross.
Remembering Jesus’ words in John 15, John matured to the same attitude, “No greater joy have I than this, to hear of my children walking in truth”
(3 Jn 4). 

We need to measure our progress toward spiritual maturity by the things
we take joy in. Yes, it is nice that our team won, great that our kids are honor
roll students, special that we lost some weight, but are we bringing joy to
Jesus?  That happens only if we keep his commandments. Truth is not unknowable nor exists in shades; it is clear and doable. We can know whether we are in the truth if we are bearing fruit. This is measured by the lives we touch, by the changes in the life we live (Gal 5:22-24).  Finally, we reach for
an even higher level, to find our joy in the fruit-bearing obedience of others.
The greatest joy is not our achievements but the godly walk of others stimulated by our service to Jesus.
 
Keith Ward

At the end of the garden season, I dry out my hot chili peppers and make chili powder.  I have found a good formula, one part chili pepper, two parts ground cumin, one part dried oregano, and two parts garlic powder.  The first few times I made it, I used a blend of Anaheim and cayenne peppers.  Last year Keith shopped for the chili pepper plants and came home with habaneros.  If you know anything about the Scoville heat scale, you know that cayennes, while not at the mild end of the scale, are a couple hundred thousand units removed from habaneros which sit at the hottest end.

To make chili powder, you must first dry the chili peppers, then remove the stems and grind them up.  A lot of the heat is in the seeds, so I, being a wimp when it comes to hot peppers, shook out the loose seeds as well—habaneros are hot enough as is.  I had enough sense to wear latex gloves while handling these babies, but that is where good sense stopped.  When I took the lid off the grinder to see if any pieces remained intact, the cloud of chili powder, totally invisible to the naked eye, rose up into my face.  How did I know?  My nose started running, my lips started burning, and I sneezed nearly a dozen times.  I had pepper-maced myself.  I am so very glad I had reading glasses on.  I do not know what might have happened to these poor eyes!  I know people who don’t even use gloves to work with hot peppers, but next time I will reach for a gas mask!

Sin and conscience work the same way.  Especially nowadays when sophistication is judged by how little one allows sinful behavior to shock him, we have a tendency to think we can sin indiscriminately and feel just fine about ourselves afterwards.  What was it Paul said about the idolatrous pagans?  For when Gentiles who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves even though they do not have the law.  They show that the law of God is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts either accuse or even excuse themselves, Rom 2:14,15.  You can’t get away from your conscience no matter how sophisticated you think you are.

The scriptures are littered with people who suffered pangs of conscience.  Adam and Eve hid themselves after they had sinned.  The brothers of Joseph twice confessed their sin against their brother, attributing all the bad things that happened in Egypt with the hostile “Egyptian” ruler as their just recompense.  Pharaoh, of all people, said to Moses and Aaron, This time I have sinned.  The Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong, Ex 9:27.   David sinned more than the once we often focus on.  His “heart smote him” after he numbered the people in 2 Sam 24 and his psalms of repentance after the sin against Bathsheba and Uriah abound with overwhelming guilt. 

Herod was so wrought with guilt after killing John that he thought Jesus was John coming back from the dead.  Peter’s denial caused him to “weep bitterly,” while Judas’s betrayal led to suicide.  Even Paul, a man who surely knew he was forgiven, called himself “the chiefest of sinners” to the end of his life.

And we think we can get away with sin and have it not affect us?  Guilt is like that burning chili pepper cloud.  You can’t see it, but your conscience will still feel its effects, and if you don’t deal with it, you will lead a miserable life--at least until you burn that conscience out as if you had “branded it with a hot iron,” 1 Tim 4:2.

Do you know how to get rid of the pain of burning chili peppers?  Dairy products.  If you forget your gloves and those oils get under your nails or in a nick or cut, soak your hands in milk.  That is also why there is usually a dollop of sour cream on most Mexican dishes. 

Do you know how to get rid of the pain of a burning conscience?  Soak it in the blood of Christ.  It works wonders.

For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling them that have been defiled sanctify unto the cleanness of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?  Heb 9:13,14.

Dene Ward

Despite the opinion of today’s woman, who believes that being a wife is so simple she must have something real to do with her life, it is not that easy.  Christians, too, have fallen into the notion that there is nothing to it.  Rather than studying what God has said with open and understanding minds, we have accepted the stereotype handed down by society, family, even older Christians.  Whereas the older training the younger is scriptural procedure, if their training comes only from subjective experience rather than the word of God, each generation gradually drifts from the original.  Too often culture has a way of sneaking into our thinking, and whereas the Scriptures suit all cultures, not all cultures suit the Scriptures.  I can be a modern woman and still be a Christian, but only if I accept God’s word in its entirety and alter my behavior as necessary.

Yet that isn’t the way it always works.  Countless numbers read Ephesians 5 and 1 Peter 3 in every ladies’ Bible class, and still do not recognize their own failures as wives.  We have brainwashed ourselves into believing that because we can quote these pet scriptures, are willing to say, “My husband is the head of the house,” and at least follow the norm in the church, we are good wives.  No wonder we find it so easy!  Paul warned the Corinthians about using something other than the scriptures to measure their righteousness (2 Cor, 10:12).  One can always find someone worse than she, if she looks low enough. 

James and John both teach that saying and doing are two entirely different things (James 2:18,20; 1 John 2:4; 3:18). The same women who quote scripture will ridicule their husbands to others, even in their presence, try to deceive them and think nothing of it, and make pronouncements about what those men will and will not do “in my house.”  The friends and neighbors who see us everyday, as opposed to we who blind ourselves to our behavior, may have an entirely different opinion about who runs our homes, and the state of our marriage.

We cannot be Christians without accepting the New Testament as our guide for living, and Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, and 1 Peter 3 are rich passages for us to turn to.  But if we do not know how to apply them, their benefit is lost.  Rom 15:4 gives the Christian the authority to search out the Old Testament for other clues to what God meant a wife to be.  She will find there many simple metaphors that will give her both a broader perspective and a deeper insight into the job she has before her.  It is a few of these passages we will look at in this study.

I hope you will join me every Monday for the next few weeks as we search the scriptures for these clues to being a godly wife.

Whoso findeth a wife, findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favor of Jehovah, Prov 18:22.

Dene Ward