I felt like maybe I should take a moment, and today’s post, to sort of ‘back the truck up’ a bit, and give some explanation as to why I think the discussions we have been having here about marriage, and submission, and authority, and all that good stuff really…and the discussions that will come in the future…REALLY matter.

Maybe I should start by giving some background where I’m coming from, and why I’m endeavoring to do what I’m doing, so it doesn’t seem like I’m just being a general rabble-rouser, looking to stir up an argument.

It’s more than that.

To me, these issues that feel uncomfortable, awkward and make people nervous to question are more than just ‘issues’…they are people, with real life questions, problems and situations.  They are faces of folks I know questioning, with good cause, how I can claim to hold some of the beliefs I hold.

Sometimes, it’s my own face attached to an ‘issue’.

And I feel that they are owed…if not a concrete answer…then minimally a sincere effort to press in as closely to God as possible to know His heart.  To dig as deeply into scripture as I can, asking not only for man’s answers, but the Holy Spirit’s guidance.

This is why it matters enough that I feel compelled to keep ‘pushing buttons’, challenging accepted beliefs, and asking annoying questions.

There are a plethora of struggling marriages out there…and hearing about them is one of the things that breaks my heart.  Not just unbelievers, but Christian marriages as well…that are tied up in knots because of some of these concepts…or the misrepresentation of them.

There are hurting women that are wrongly being undervalued, mistreated, and sometimes even abused.  And there are churches that have not known how to help, at best, or condoned the situations, at worst, in the name of not wanting to violate scriptural mandates…or at least their understanding of them.

There are actually frustrated men that feel like they don’t ‘fit the mold’ of what the church has told them they are supposed to ‘do’ or ‘be’.  

There are women who are clearly gifted and equipped to do a great many things, but they are told they must simply stuff, set aside, or deny, because they were born female.  When and where society welcomes their strengths, the church has shut them out.

There is an entire generation that stands at a crossroad of often being told that in order to embrace faith, they must check their brains, their education, their culture and even things they consider to be scientific fact, at the door, and unquestioningly accept the traditions of the church…or be left out in the cold.

And I, for one, am just not willing to risk that many people’s eternities on my own understanding of scripture, accepted at face value, as I’ve been taught, because it’s how it was taught to generations before me, unquestioningly.  I think we owe it to them, (and really, to ourselves), to ask, seek, knock…and keep on knocking…to take God up on His offer that if we ask for wisdom, He will grant it.

But it’s not just man’s wisdom I want.  It’s the gift of Truth that I want to press in for…and am asking for grace to receive with an open heart both the ‘feel-good’ answers, as well as the hard ones, that I might not so-much like.  And I think it’s through prayer, study, conversation and challenging one another, with love and respect, that we can come to our best understanding of the Father’s heart, will and desire for us, His beloved creation.

That being said…let’s continue the conversation!