30 September 2012
Dear Phyllis,
Gomen nasai (I'm Sorry). I'll apologize
for this letter up front. It is probably a waste of time and you
might be wiser to delete it now rather than spending your time
reading it. This past week has not been a good one. It wouldn't be
edifying to go into too much detail about what happened; but the most
happy word is that we survived. Much to the devil's dismay – in
spite of some heavy shelling – the roof is still on the house and
the walls and windows are still intact. Praise God.
One very small incident was a brief
squall I had with Pammy. We were talking about a controversial event
and I got mad that she was accusing me of lying. I said I didn't do
something, and she kept maintaining that I did. When I charged her
that she was calling me a lier, she strongly denied that. Finally it
came down to a choice of verbs. When I saw she might be making a
grammatical error, I questioned her verb. As we discussed that, we
finally came to am amicable agreement that she was using the wrong
verb. When we settled on the best verb, the dispute was settled. If
all disputes could be settled so easily it would be wonderful.
Before we were married I told her
repeatedly that it was impossible for us to have a scriptural
marriage. I said that for that to work, she would have to renounce
her life and everything she hopes to do in life, and join me. That
is asking too much. And apart from the unusual enabling of the Lord,
there is no way she could do it. She consistently maintained she
could and would. Things have worked out better than I thought they
would, but we are a long ways from perfection.
Realistically speaking Pammy has had a
real difficult road. She is 46. All her life she has been a very
strong willed, independent, single girl. To suddenly quit all that to
be a submissive follower is asking a great deal. More than that, I am
a 76 year old man who has extremely strong convictions that, as Jesus
is the head of the church, the man should be the head of the wife;
and she should obey him. Lots of luck.
The first four months were terrible. I
told our pastor, Kichikun, that she had no idea what it was to be a
scriptural wife. He replied, “You are right, but she does now. I
just told her.” I asked him,”What is her response? Is she going
to do it or not?” He honestly replied, “She said, 'I don't know.
I will consider it'.” Obviously it never dawned on her what her
wedding vows were. When confronted by the challenge to fulfill them,
she was surprised and almost offended.
Since then things have been
considerable better. I must give her good points for trying. In many
respects I admire her hang tough attitude to make the marriage work.
“I'm out of here” was a frequent remark for the first several
months, but I haven't heard that remark in a long time. I believe, in
her heart, she has every intent to obey the Lord.
But the will of God is not that clear
an issue. I believe she honestly feels that to defy her husband and
do her own thing is to do the will of God. There are millions of
strong willed Christian women who say to their husbands, “You can't
stop me. I am going to follow the Lord and do my own thing.” That,
of course, is a contradictions of terms but millions are of that mind
set. In having a heated discussion with the counselors at Link Care
one time, Ken Royar exasperatedly said, “Who do you think you are?
Jesus Christ?” I replied, “No, I do not think I am Jesus Christ,
but I do believe that the index of a woman's obedience to Christ is
measured by her obedience to her husband.” He intensely disagreed
and was shocked that I would say such a radical thing.
I feel very strongly that the scripture
has laid down very clear instruction as to who is qualified to be a
leader in a church and who isn't. When you mention this subject the
common response is that “no one is perfect”. I agree that no one
is perfect, but there is such a thing as those who are qualified and
those who aren't. And for those who aren't, I feel strongly that they
have no business standing up front in a church. In the passages in 1
Tim. 3:1-13 and Tit. 1:5-9, we see that it is not only the man's
personal character but his family must also be a credit to the Lord.
Paul put it very clearly in 1 Tim. 3:5 when he declares, “If a man
knows not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the
church of God?” For years I said, “The day my son turns from the
Lord is the day I am finished.” I was surprised that it was my wife
that turned first. But when Rosemary gave her body to another man and
blatantly renounced her wedding vows, I said, “That it it for
me.” For the next four years I sat in silence in the back of the
church. I never expected to stand in a pulpit again. But in 1994,
when I was in Russia with the Japanese team doing dendo (evangelism),
the team leader asked me to take the responsibility for preaching. A
double translation – Japanese to English, and English to Russian –
was just too cumbersome. I thought at the time, “I am not qualified
to be a deacon, pastor, or missionary, but at a minimum, I am a
witness. And if I didn't share with those who had been 70 years under
Communism what I knew about Jesus, the Lord would hold me
responsible”. On the basis of that I preached 21 times in the next
three weeks. And I have not turned down an invitation to speak
publicly since then.
For the past year I have been devoted
to working with Pastor Kichikun and shared the pulpit one Sunday each
month. As much as I detest it, I have not been successful in
stopping the folks from calling me “Adjon (sensei, teacher) Bill”.
It is as much in the DNA of Thais to call teachers (etc) adjon as it
is in the Japanese to call leaders sensei. On the basis of our
problems last week I have resigned from my position with Kichikun. I
have told him that I can no longer stand in this pulpit or profess to
be an adjon.
My marriage just is not explanatory..
Pammy is doing her best but it is unreasonable to expect her to be a
follower. She is offended when I say to her that she is not on my
team. She feels very strongly that she is loyal. But at the same time
she has a strong commitment to fulfilling her responsibility to
believers in Lampan where she ministered two years ago. She earnestly
wishes that I would help her in her ministry in Lampan and wants me
to join her team. But my commitment is here with Kichikun. She would
feel disloyal to the Lord if she didn't go down there twice a month
to minister. But I am embarrassed when the folks here ask me, “Where
is your wife?” Several people have told me that they feel I should
not be a leader in a church if my wife is not totally in subjection
to me. I am afraid that the Word of God is on their side. I have no
intention of backing off from standing for the Lord but it is obvious
that I should be be up front.
Last Sunday Kichikun showed up at our
house at 10:15 sick with a migraine headache. Ten minutes later, when
I went to church, he looked terrible. I told him, “If this is
difficult for you I can speak any time.” He was grateful for that
offer and said, “Please, you take it today.” This was better than
what I had two months ago when I had no idea I was speaking until I
was announced. This time I had 20 minutes to think about a message.
But that wasn't difficult. I have felt
for some time that our (my) preaching is ill-directed. I am very good
in preaching about sin. All I have to do is look at my own heart and
I have all the commentary that I need for that subject. But when do
we hear someone lifting up Jesus to rave about His beauty? Oh my
goodness, is not this sickness serious?! How can it be that there
should be One so lovely, where angels are frustrated to adequately
sing His beauty and worth? And somehow this never makes an impression
on us. I have asked the Lord for a burning message where the central
theme is the inexpressible attractiveness and marvel of Jesus. To do
this I borrowed from His Bride in her description of His loveliness
in Song of Sol. 5:10-16. In verse 10 we see three things about Him.
Last month I spent over and hour talking about the first one – that
He is white (clean). Altogether there are 12 points in this
description and I intended to spend a year talking about one point
each month. When Kichikun asked me to speak at the last moment it
was easy to know what my text would be – the 2nd point
in verse 10.
The word used in the Holy Bible (KJV)
is RUDDY. This is a word
used only four times in the Bible and twice it is used to describe
David (1 Sam. 16:12 and 17:42). It
means well built, good complexion, handsome. Obviously what is meant
here in Song of Sol. is to point out the humanity of Christ. You
can't say that an angel is ruddy. That can only apply to a human.
This is somewhat in contrast with point #1 which emphasizes His
purity. He is white – clean – and yet, at the same time, He is
100% human. We can talk about the sinlessness of angels but we can't
say that they are ruddy. It
is not ill-used to say of Jesus that He is ruddy. He is perfectly a
man.
It
has been a major revelation in my appreciation of Christology to
consider the absolute humanity of Christ. I believe we have a
weakness there. Because we are so strong in emphasizing the deity of
Christ we have downplayed His humanity. Somehow we think of Jesus as
being some other-worldly being that is beyond the restriction we find
upon ourselves. We talk about His walking on water, waving a hand and
turning gallons of brackish water into wine; taking five loaves of
bread and two fishes and feeding 5,000; and coming back from the
dead. We think of Jesus that He could float from place to place, or
go for weeks with no rest or food. But when the Son took upon Himself
to become a man, He divested
Himself of all the supernatural attributes of a God and became 100%
as human as any infant that has been born of woman since Cain.
I have often
thought about Jesus in the wood shop. I wonder if He ever made a
mistake. I wonder if He ever hit His finger with a hammer. I wonder
if He got slivers in His hands. I rather suspect that he did. I am
sure He had calloused hands like mine. We know He got tired (Jn.
4:6). We know that he got hungry (Mt. 4:2) . We know that he had
physical limitations (He couldn't carry the cross). And the
bewildering cry from the Cross, “My God why hast Thou forsaken
Me?”, can only be ascribed to a man with limitations. It has been
truthfully said that He did not avail to Himself any prerogatives
that He does not extend to us. He was as much human as the weakest
one of us.
When I think of
the total humanity of Christ and His unrestricted identification with
us, it makes me worship and marvel at Him the more. Oh that I could
lift Him higher! Oh that I could describe His utter loveliness more
adequately! But my highest expressions are like a child with muddy
fingers trying to paint a Rembrandt.
It has been a
difficult week. Maybe I have made some progress in sitting down now
rather than pretending to be some Christian leader that I am not. We
certainly don't want to dishonor the Lord and am asking Jesus to
continue to work in our hearts to make us the be the kind of people
that He desires.
Thank you for your
prayers for this ( ) [I don't know the right word] servant of
Christ.
Gratefully,
bill
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