Benjamin

[Benjamin @Benjamin_01X]

@danitreweek Hang in there!

[Benjamin @Benjamin_01X]

@Vincent_Writes I really love the NET - primarily because it has an absolute TON of notes from the translators (often far more notes than there is Scripture, actually).

It's by far the best resource/Bible I have.

...for pure readability? I do like the NLT.

[Benjamin @Benjamin_01X]

@Chris_Harris111 Nothing, if it's what the Bible says.
Problem is, there's a wide gulf between what the Bible says and what the assertion "God determines everything that comes to pass" is taken to mean.

[Benjamin @Benjamin_01X]

I quite literally invited a single person to sit with my family a couple of months ago.

She's sat with us several times since.

My wife meets for coffee with another young single, to encourage and disciple her.

I'm not discounting your experience, but a good church should be doing these things. Mine does (not just me!).

[Benjamin @Benjamin_01X]

@photonstorm ...maybe after one more round.

[Benjamin @Benjamin_01X]

@photonstorm I think I might vomit.

[Benjamin @Benjamin_01X]

@BiblicalBeauty Look, I'll admit I don't have an answer to that question, but by all that is holy, I can only hope you at least have separate beds.

...and when you eat dinner at a table, it has to be one of those profoundly elongated rectangular tables, and you have to sit at opposite ends.

[Benjamin @Benjamin_01X]

@danitreweek @JesusMetal1689 Good grief.
Look, I don't agree with that article's take, but I don't see how you could possibly have read anything Dani has produced and say that she's "not a serious thinker".

A little humility and respect wouldn't go astray.

[Benjamin @Benjamin_01X]

@rootcausesleuth Someone has to do it!
Now I'm sitting at my PC preparing a sermon for Sunday ('the first prophecy') and sipping coffee.

Not a bad way to start a Thursday.

[Benjamin @Benjamin_01X]

@rootcausesleuth I've been busy! My wife had surgery so I'm off work for 10 days and learning what it must have been like when Jesus was washing feet.

[Benjamin @Benjamin_01X]

The article suggests that the married couple are to move from a place of togetherness into 'a deployment', separated from one another for the sake of a third party.

We can set the problem of someone sitting alone aside for a moment (I don't doubt that we agree that the church should be meeting their needs) - the problem here is the philosophical assertion that this thing (sitting with a husband/wife) should be cast aside for that thing (sitting with someone else) and the implicit claim that the latter has more value than the former.

That's what I'm rejecting.
I have three children. I believe it's important that they see my wife and I worship together with them, in the church service (though not exclusively in the church service).

Would there be an occasion where my wife or I might choose to sit with someone else? It's possible, though I think unlikely. We have absolutely invited others to sit with us, but it's not impossible that we might choose to manage it a different way, but to suggest that we *shouldn't* sit together, that we should view church as a *deployment*? That's an entirely different argument, and several steps too far in my estimation.

[Benjamin @Benjamin_01X]

I think 'attack on the marriage covenant' would be an overstatement, but I do feel they've cast that covenant aside quite casually for the sake of someone who might be sitting alone.

That's not to say that the church shouldn't engage with those who sit alone - of course we should - and it's also not to say that there's no circumstance, ever, in which it might be appropriate (or wonderful) for someone to reach out and sit with another, but does it not strike you as odd that the first port of call here is to divide that which God has united for the sake of 'the mission field'?

This obviously has nuance to it - I'm not going to desperately cling to my wife's arm after the service, for example - but the subtle undercurrent here that warrants attention is the idea that outreach matters more than all other things.

I think too that there's real beauty in a family being together in the church service - and I think that should be appreciated and encouraged, not so easily cast aside.

[Benjamin @Benjamin_01X]

@danitreweek So... nobody should be 'doing church alone', except married couples, because this is your battle ground?

Still not seeing the logic here.

[Benjamin @Benjamin_01X]

I'm not sure that we did.

Perhaps my response is a little hyperbolic - I understand the *intent* of the article - but I find it deeply problematic that instead of seeing the marriage covenant as something that can be used powerfully and effectively to reach those within the church who may indeed need support, compassion or kindness, it's been held out as an obstacle to that same process - something to be remedied by treating the church as a 'deployment' - a battlefield.

And while yes, I'll grant that ministry doesn't stop at the doors of the church (I think of those who minister faithfully in my own church every week - we have a fellowship lunch every single Sunday and I'm constantly amazed by those who serve in that capacity ), the risk being run by an article like this is the diminishing of the marriage relationship by implying that the church might somehow be better served if a husband and wife "did church alone".

In a day and age wherein marriage is often treated like a cheap and meaningless final step after years of cohabitation in which couples finally concede that they might as well sign a piece of paper and buy a bigger ring, it might benefit some to see a married couple not just sitting together, but enjoying their God-given covenant together in the presence of the same God who declared that it was not good for Adam to be alone.

There is nothing whatsoever that prevents that healthy covenant from being a vehicle for supporting those who need kindness, compassion or grace from those around them. And my own experience in my own church has shown the value of exactly that - over and over and over.

[Benjamin @Benjamin_01X]

...because I think that the Gospel Coalition article is so wildly off-base and nonsensical that it deserved a nonsensical response. It completely misses the point and function of the church service, and converts a relationship that is intended to be reflective of the relationship between Christ and His church to a military motif in which husband and wife are separated and deployed to physically distinct battlefields, as if the marriage covenant had so little value that we'd all be better served alone.

Thanks, but no thanks.

[Benjamin @Benjamin_01X]

@techAU Hopefully this goes as spectacularly well as the social media 'ban' did.

Can't wait.

[Benjamin @Benjamin_01X]

...I can't even get it to manage simple arithmetic correctly (17 * 19).

It initially got logic tests and arithmetic wrong. Switching on thinking corrected for the logic issues, but couldn't resolve the arithmetic, which it consistently gets wrong.

This could be a problem at my end, of course, but if so I'm not sure what it would be...