It has been said that two institutions came out of the Garden, and have been the focus of the devil's attacks ever since. One of them is Family.
It occurs to me that what we are dealing with here is not just defensive warfare, or simply trying to improve our families. What we are doing here at BiblicalFamilies.org in seeking to restore the Biblical Foundation and Practice of Marriage is nothing short of active, aggressive, offensive Spiritual Warfare.
As such, we can EXPECT active spiritual opposition. To our teaching and theology on this subject? Well, yeah, of course. But even more elsewhere!
Face it! We can TESTIFY with our mouths that PM is valid, a blessing to society and the church, provides for the needs of the husbandless and fatherless, and works well when done on Biblical Principles. We can say this to our hearts' content. But does doing so win converts to God's way of doing family?
You know, it used to be that "evangelistic meetings", where preachers opened their Bible and taught Biblical Truth as they understood it, were fairly effective means of evangelism. Nowadays? Not so much. Research has shown that when you go and tell your neighbor about Biblical truth, his or her response is less likely to be, "Show me the proof texts. If it is true, I'll adjust my life accordingly." and more likely to be, "So how's that working for YOU? Is it a blessing or a burden? Got enough burdens now, thank you very much!" Few believe in or are impressed with an ARGUMENT for absolute truth.
With that in mind, what we NEED in this movement is more families being created, and learning to live together well. One of those is worth far more than hours of theological argument.
I know this is true. Seen it in my own extended family. "You were monogamously married to your first wife. Now you're monogamously married to your second wife 11 years later. Still not LIVING PM. So what have you accomplished by stubbornly holding to your new offbeat beliefs? Nothing but destroying your own family, and exchanging it for another." That evaluation ignores many other truths in the situation, but I do hear it from family.
Now, if this is what we truly NEED; if this is where the rubber meets the road, is it not logical that this is where the adversary will focus most of his attention and effort? That this is where the BIGGEST battle is and will be?
CS Lewis said something in his Screwtape Letters along the lines that the devil didn't care how much praying and church going a person did, just so long as they could be prevented from praising. Complaining prayer is alright with him, I guess. Anyway, perhaps it is the same thing here. Doesn't care how much we refine and expand our arguments on a website, so long as we don't look another husbandless woman in the eyes and say, "I accept the privilege and responsibility of entering into Biblical covenant marriage with you, and spending the rest of my life endeavoring to function in your life as Christ functions in ours."
I guess that where I'm going with this is to suggest that we keep our eyes wide open to the spiritual struggle and spiritual opposition. If we have determined to the best of our ability that a woman is an appropriate match for our family (or initial mate if we are single), and yet obstacles are being thrown up -- finances, sudden loss of job and/or home, health, family or church opposition, etc. -- I propose that our first question needs to be, "Is this God preserving us from a mistake or the devil opposing Family?"
This MUST be our first prayer. The second is closely related, "God, if this is Your Providence at work, then I choose to Give Thanks and Praise through my tears. I BELIEVE You have the best in store for me and mine. But if this is the devil at work to break up a good thing and thwart Your intentions, then I come against it with every fiber of my being. I stand ready to go to *heartfelt expletive* WAR to defeat him, and beg You to apply and activate the Blood of Jesus to this situation. So please tell me which it is, so that I can align my prayers and actions with You and Your intentions."
Brothers and Sisters, I believe from the bottom of my heart that far more often than we imagine, we will find the situation to be the latter. In fact, let me go so far as to suggest that it should be our "default" assumption. Yes, there are tares and wolves-in-sheep's-clothing around. But they MUST, by definition, be the exception which proves the rule. We can't let their presence force us to descend into paranoia. MOST of the people here are of good heart, honest and earnest seekers after God. I apply that conclusion to both single women and the men and women with whom they may possibly join for family.
Let's persevere, go to war, overcome the devil's obstacles, build actual living, breathing, functioning, loving families, and thereby testify to the world that God's way works best!
(Stepping down from my soap-box)
