Matchmaker, matchmaker....

Matchmakers

Recently, I have come to think about this subject a little. Defining matchmaking as decent well-intentioned individuals taking action to match up individuals who are not their own children, we can properly discuss observations I have concerning this subject.

Understanding that children were given to their parents and that part of the parents’ duties is to protect the child, it follows that protection from bad influences or danger is a duty left to the discretion of the parents. No one else decides for the parent that this or that is safe or good for the child. Marriage is another area in which, I think it is reasonable at the very least for daughters, parents should be the primary protectors.

First of all, one needs to put matchmaking in perspective. This is where a non-parent influences a child toward what he or she thinks is a good match in marriage. This person has taken it upon him or herself to investigate and decide that the person in question is right for this non-child. If the primary protector is a parent in this area, why would it be right for a non-parent to decide what is safe or good?

Seen in this perspective, matchmaking is really meddling at a monumental level. People who would not think of inviting a friend’s daughter on a mountain climb with his or her family without consent of the parents seem to feel compelled to thrust that selfsame friend’s daughter together with a “decent guy” whom they have deemed safe without so much as a semblance of permission from the parents.

I do view daughters differently than sons in that daughters are to remain under their fathers' authority until marriage while sons eventually have to deal with the world without earthly family protection. So, I am less concerned about sons being unduly influenced by outsiders as I am concerned about daughters. But the fact still remains on either sons or daughters, why meddle?

Concerning daughters, in an authority minded Biblical sense, a son would always have to go through a father to get to a woman anyway. However, influencing the woman in the interest of matchmaking is essentially identical to the man who seeks to get to a man’s daughter without going through him first. This is not a good thing to usurp or sidestep.

There are some practical aspects to matchmaking that disincline me to endorse it as well as the principled aspects. First of all, the matchmaker doesn’t really have to live with the consequences. He won’t be forced to deal with marital problems, grandchildren, divorce, etc. Second, he doesn’t have the sense of duty that would cause him to be properly protective. He’s thinking more, “wouldn’t it be nice?” instead of, “is this really right?” Thirdly, his sense of duty won’t likely cause him to do the real work of properly vetting a candidate. If he doesn’t know the parents of the other party to the “match”, he isn’t likely to go half way across the country to meet them. These more practical aspects help to illustrate why staying out of this aspect of friends' and congregants' lives is the best thing.

So, if the matchmaker is so careful about the marital bliss of a friend’s child, then he or she shouldn’t mind at all to go through the proper authority channels and bring it to the parents’ attention. All else is meddling. If it were some other area, such as drinking or movies, a parent would normally be appalled. Why should it be something different when an outsider is interfering in a parent’s role for assisting his own child in finding a mate? Just because the matchmaker has “pure” motives doesn’t mean he isn’t wrong in his interference.

Law vs. Grace? Law and Grace?

In Rushdoony's book, he makes an almost hilarious but shockingly obvious statement: "The alternative to law is not grace; it is lawlessness." This statement is telling in that law and grace are actually intertwined instead of opposing forces. Grace is not in opposition to law, but rather is a component of it.

Redemption is implicit in the very nature of law and punishment. The law lines out the very way to get right with God--death being the ultimate way. A thief has to repay two to seven fold what he stole, then he is right with the physical law. He is redeemed. But we know further redemption is needed because of our sin in Adam and because the ultimate price for sin is death.

However, is the death penalty all bad? Is there no good in it? Is it unrighteous? Consider that without the death penalty there would be no way Jesus could have paid the price. Without a price, none could be paid. Never mind that we could never pay it and live. It did exist and praise God that there is punishment for sin! If there were none, then Jesus could not then pay it. The fact that it is impossible for us to redeem ourselves makes His redemption all that much more miraculous.

Now, in this physical world, what is God's law? It is pure justice. But also it is a way that transforms a society into something that glorifies God. It becomes safer, more productive and its very punishment of sins/crimes points to the Lawgiver. He is glorified when we follow His laws as His people.

So, law is not in opposition to grace, but rather grace is implicit in the punishments of the law. Without the punishments of the law, there would be no provision for redemption. Law is grace!

Law, polytheism and the state

I have been reading just a little bit of Rushdoony's book, The Institutes of Biblical Law and I feel excited this morning to share a little of what I understand from it.

God is a law giver. In His first commandment, He requires us to worship only Him, recognizing Him as the only God. Implicit in this command is that we recognize the authority of no other "god's" laws, correct? This means Bhudda has no more authority to tell us what is right than our ancestors might under Shintoism. The same would go for Islam. They cannot define righteousness or rightness to us because they come not from God. This is simple stuff, right?

The rub comes when we interject the state into this equation. The state has authority, but it doesn't define righteousness. Its authority comes from what is termed imperialism--the ability to force compliance with its "law". It may be able to force compliance, but that does not make its law righteous. Might does not make right.

As Christians, if we recognize the state's law as more than an authority by force, then we are at best becoming polytheistic and at worst idolaters. This is because we are either agreeing with the state's definition as "another" valid righteousness or we are altogether supplanting God's righteousness and justice and replacing it with the state's form.

How do we do this? This is when we reject God's justice from His unchanging law and then agree that the state's form of punishment is superior or at least equal to God's way of punishment. If we say, "It's ok we don't make thieves pay back what they stole two to seven fold. The state's punishment of three years incarceration is sufficient or superior." then we are supplanting God's justice. If we accept the moral implications of justice from some state law which doesn't even have a corollary in God's law, we are accepting a substitute--idolatry.

Any justice which does not match up with God's law is a miscarriage of true justice. We cannot accept another moral code. Accepting such is polytheism at best and following after false gods at most.

Inna gardenofeden baby...courtship?

While this blog post really needs a lot of background information and explanation, I intend to make the intro as brief as possible.

First, I view the authority structures and roles which God has put into place in our lives as something that was designed from the beginning. People might say, "In a world without sin, I could obey my father that far. But he's a sinner and that changes things." But I submit to you, did not God design in spite of knowing sin was going to complicate things? Was His purpose for the role then thwarted because of sin? No. God is all knowing and His purposes are never thwarted.

That being said, people are sinned against every day, just as a sinning father or mother might sin against their children. It's just that some people never get to even live through being sinned against (when murder is involved). I guess we deal with it just like we normally deal with every other sin.

Second, this post is predicated on the view that women belong under authority at all times and were designed as such as a role and a picture. In the Bible we even see where God is the husband to the widow--replacing her physical head with a spiritual one, but she remains still under a husband. The natural designed role of a woman is under her authority structures.

Now, to the point of my post. In the garden, who did Satan attack first? Why? The very essence of Satan's attack was to circumvent authority structures in place for the Woman's protection. For whatever of Adam's reasons or excuses, he stood idly by whilst the snake had his way with the Woman. One of the reasons why the woman was deceived was because she was not approached through the proper channels. Her protection was incomplete.

How does this apply to courtship in a principle? While a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife, a woman doesn't have the same mandate as the man. She doesn't go off in search of a husband because of the authority structures and protections designed into this role. So, when she is approached outside this authority structure (through a filter so to speak), she is more susceptible to deception.

I believe this works very simply concerning emotions and the courtship/dating arena. When a young man goes through the filter of a father, his presentation to the prospective wife is one of less emotion and more reason. He is more exposed to reason than emotion. When he circumvents the authority structure, he can appeal directly to emotion first. Emotion out of place in romance is like truth out of place concerning other areas (theology for instance). With the protection structure circumvented, the protected is more susceptible to deception. This is the principle (in part) which Satan used in his successful attack on Eve.

Concerning the protected within a father's home (sons, daughters, wives), a father should filter people, teaching, entertainment, etc. or expose them in context and through his authority structure. I don't think his job is complete in merely some sort of sheltering motivation. That is laziness and teaches nothing. While children are sheltered and should be, when they become old enough to learn about what it is they were being sheltered from they should be exposed in a controlled and prudent manner for the purpose of learning. For example, the unfettered reading of the works of humanists and darwinists would not be good for a child, but the exposure to limited works for the purpose of teaching the fallacy is good. Concerning friends, bad friends can be evaluated and later avoided (a teaching moment). Entertainment...that's a huge subject.

So, in like manner to the teaching of children about the world, sin and false teaching, a daughter should be guided concerning men. The suitor should be made to approach through the filter of the daughter's authority structure so he can be exposed for who he really is (or at least the absolute best attempt is made to this effect). How the father decides to effect this goal should be up to him. I firmly do not believe in some rigid courtship ritual, but instead would give the father full latitude to follow his conscience.

An addiction?

So, today my wife makes some fresh salsa from the remnants of tomatoes and peppers from our (her) garden. She did four garden salsa peppers into the small bowl of salsa and she thought the whole concoction looked "too green to be right". I tasted it and found it to be quite hot. I told her it was good and started my lunch. It consisted of sour cream, salsa and tortilla chips. I started in dipping and crunching. The taste was fantastic. But it started to burn my mouth.

There I was, eating, hand over hand, chip after chip. The taste was so good I couldn't stop. The burn was cumulative. It felt like wrapping your lips around a Harley Davidson tailpipe. Witnesses claimed they could hear a slight sizzle. Tears were streaming from my eyes. My wife's daughter came over and dipped only a corner of a chip in the salsa and upon consuming it, she ran to the sink to drink directly from the faucet.

Eating chip after chip, I couldn't stop. It was like the inevitability of watching a train wreck from afar. The salsa was so good. My wife set a glass of water down next to me and seemed surprised when it disappeared so quickly.

"You don't have to swallow the glass." she explained to me.

But I was too far gone to notice her words. Realizing the glass was impeding my progress, I removed it and continued. I was eventually only saved by the fact that the salsa was mixed in a bowl separate from the main bowl. For when the personal bowl was exhausted, I was able to quit.

Can somebody be addicted to peppers? It's like I have to have fresh peppers in everything now. On pizza. In scrambled eggs. It seems good everywhere.

Well, I have to brush my teeth now. Mmmm habanero paste.

Daddy is not a popular guy

We have all had the thought that, “If I were in charge, I’d …” We’ve also heard that it is lonely at the top. It’s usually told to us by people at the top whom we suspect merely don’t want us to know how truly great it is up there. They have so many friends up there at the top and everyone always goes along with and loves their decisions. I am here today to reveal a little bit about being in charge.

Yes, the buck stops here at the top. But one must understand that because there is a picture of God in the father/leader role certain responsibilities and situations will naturally arise. The upside is the man is god of his home. The downside is the man is god of his home.

Due to his responsibilities to God Almighty, a father’s duties are to act in agape love toward those under his care. This presents some interesting situations. First of all, sometimes the best thing for someone is something they don’t want or think is bad for them, such as baths. Often, unpopular decisions are global. This means everybody is unhappy with the management. It doesn’t work out well in the area of marital unity, either. But dear old dad still has to do what is right, no matter the cost to him personally.

This is very much like our response to God the Father. We find God taking our lives in a direction that might be best for us (as we know all things are) but we don’t like it. The result is we’re not happy with God. Does that make Him change? Does He need our love? Maybe not, but I’m sure being unpopular isn’t fun for God.

A father who is doing his duty generally doesn’t have his own life. He’s called to lay down his life for his wife and family just as Christ did for the Church. So, often that means endlessly re-reading books to little Johnny or fixing some worthless piece of plastic that broke just because it is the right thing to do. All this is instead of pursuing his own interests. He has no life (by the world’s standards). He certainly doesn’t get to pursue his own desires and interests all that often. His only recourse is to change his desires to match what is best for the family.

A father who is truly loving his family provides for it. This is an interesting situation, too. What typically happens is the provision is made. Then good and special gifts are provided because dear old dad just wants good things for his family. But these special gifts become routine such that the family takes them for granted. If, for any reason, the special stuff dries up, there is ungratefulness and discord at the loss. Dear old dad has become unpopular because he didn’t provide up to a previous standard.

Now, the situation above described is very much like our sin nature as Christians. We live life not realizing the value of a special gift God doesn’t have to bestow upon us. This gift might be anything, but realizing that He doesn’t even owe us life, it could be something very basic. We might lose a measure of affluence. We might become ill. When this happens, our sinful reaction is to prate against God and demand He let us in on the reason why we don’t have X anymore. God has to answer for why He removed a gift He wasn’t obligated to provide us in the first place. We become ungrateful. Our perspective is skewed. God becomes unpopular again.

So, for those who are fathers and leaders in their home (or will be), we can all now use our position to gain insight into how our actions toward God are perceived by Him as God the Father. As we do our job right, we will be able to see life a little bit from God’s perspective. I am not looking forward to it…

Security, thy name is concrete

Lately I installed security bars for my gun shop. They were embedded at one end in concrete. We used six bags of concrete with a filler of 1" sized drain rock for the security bars.

Today, I just got through with a project to make my fencing and gates secure against escape of my wayward hussy of a dog. As I was finishing up with the ninth bag of concrete, I realized that I was using more concrete to keep my dog in than I was to keep thieves out of my shop. It made me realize, I have one really bad dog.

I should have shot her when she was a pup. That would have saved me a load of heartache and stacks of cash. I probably would be living in a large stick built home right now instead of a double wide trailer if I had just resisted the impulse to get that dog. She was a rebound dog as my brother's dog (whom I had primarily raised and trained) had just been hit by what I would later learn was the local meth dealer (shoulda shot him too at four in the morning when he woke me up to tell me he ran over the dog).

So, the drug dealer is still alive. I wonder if he's got a hankering for running over a dog these days. That would just be fitting now that I've finally solved the breakout issues.

As for my dog's frequent breakouts, either she won't be trying to break out anymore or she's going to be running around with bloody stubs from trying to dig through the concrete I laid under the gates. I'll keep my readership updated.