“… when they speak against you as evildoers …” (1 Peter 2:12)

I was comforted by this verse today, the Bible’s acknowledgment that those who believe God’s Word and try to do right will be called “evildoers.” I have come under fire lately for a certain course that is being called evil, or sick. I began to question myself, so vehement and so unified was their denunciation that I started to wonder if I had gotten it completely wrong after all: How could these intelligent people see my white as black unless it was really black?

So it was strengthening to read in God’s Word that what is good will be called evil by those who don’t know God, and that those who hold to God’s Word will be called “evildoers.” Persecution is never pleasant, but it is much easier armed with God’s affirmation that being spoken of as an evildoer goes with the territory. Jesus was called evil too:

“Are we not right in saying that … you have a demon?” (John 8:48)

To be sure, we must examine ourselves to be certain from Scripture that our convictions are not in fact evil but are really in line with God’s teaching. But once we have made certain of it—“Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind” (Romans 14:5)—then we may carry on in peace, being careful to “keep [our] conduct … honorable” (1 Peter 2:12) as we proceed. In this way those who oppose us, Peter wrote, will see our good deeds and glorify God when He returns.

If you are a person who is in the Word, the Lord has a special comfort—and command—for you regarding the reproaches of those who are not in His Word:

“Listen to me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear not the reproach of man, nor be dismayed at their revilings” (Isaiah 51:7).

Talk truth to yourself and persevere.

The “Dewey Defeats Truman”-sized headlines on the April 17 issue of The Philadelphia Inquirer caught my eye in the 7-Eleven where I stopped to buy a Tracfone refill card for my trip to Michigan: “We’re Golden.” The large accompanying photo was of a roomful of people high-fiving and doing a victory dance. What was the good news? I wondered.

The subtitle told the story: “Inquirer school-violence series wins Pulitzer.” Another photo featured the upraised arms of the exulting editor, with this explanation: “The stories expressed the ways in which we are failing this generation.” So then, a serialized report on widespread violence in our institutions of learning (“30,000 serious incidents over the last five school years”) is the occasion for all this good cheer.

No doubt the staff of pavement-pounding, sleuthing journalists deserve the public service award bequeathed on them by the heirs of Joseph Pulitzer, but the dissonance of text and visuals was jarring and prompted this immediate recollection in my spirit:

“Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20).

The apostles are on the verge of a little victory dance in the end zone after their maiden voyage of healing and casting out demons. Jesus does not rebuke them, but tempers them: It’s fine to be glad that the unclean spirits are subject to you, but it’s much finer to meditate on the fact that you will be in heaven with me eternally. Surfeit of dwelling on your touchdown will only produce pride. Dwelling on your salvation will never produce pride, but only humility, because you cannot think about that fact without thinking about the cost to God.

When a man in Corinth was caught in a serious sin, Paul checked the Corinthians in their gloating and said it was a time for sackcloth and ashes (1 Corinthians 5:2), because this sin brought shame on the whole community. The Inquirer’s Pulitzer is nice, but the occasion for its acquisition is so shameful and depressing that the photo embarrassed me rather than cheering me. As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once said to a gathering of preening Harvard grads:

“The forces of Evil have begun their decisive offensive. You can feel their pressure, yet your screens and publications are full of prescribed smiles and raised glasses. What is all the joy about?”

Let us rejoice for five minutes that our paper won the prize for documenting evil. And then let us go back to grieving and fighting the evil.

Our prayers can be blocked. And in particular, they can be blocked in marriage if there is a spiritual problem not dealt with in the marriage. And in particular, they can be blocked when the husband is living boorishly with his wife and not in the God-ordained way:

“Husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered” (1 Peter 3:7).

This verse tells me two things, and one of them is wonderful. The wonderful part is that prayer is not normally hindered! Prayer, if a Christian who has done business with God and confessed and desisted from sinful practices offers it, will normally sail up to heaven like a sweet offering and be surely answered, in the way that God deems most appropriate to the situation.

Normal prayer life is an unobstructed access to God that comes with confidence and therefore is fun to do:

“And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him” (1 John 5:14-15).

That is the description of prayer—and its results—when we are walking in right fellowship with God. The verses that follow in 1 Peter elaborate. If we want unimpeded access to God, we must see to it that we are compassionate (verse 8), that we don’t retaliate (verse 9), and we don’t talk trash (verse 10), etc.

“For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil” (1 Peter 3:12).

In my marriage preparation, which consists of buying new white shoes and studying marriage passages in the Word, I came across this gem about husbands and wives:

“… they are heirs with you of the grace of life …” (1 Peter 3:7).

Until now, reading in haste, I had always seen the word “heirs” here as a reference to the afterlife—that men should honor their wives because, after all, their wives will go to heaven just as they will. And, of course, this must be part of the meaning of the verse, for surely we have an inheritance after the shedding of this mortal coil.

But I have been purposefully leaning hard these past few years against the knee-jerk assumption that all or most of our benefits in Christ are coming only after we die. I don’t see warrant for it in Scripture, but rather, repeated assertions that the blessings of Christ are very much available to us now.

For example, another verse I had heretofore relegated to post-death was the following:

“… blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places …” (Ephesians 1:3).

Is this a reference to inheritance in the afterlife? I thought so until I noticed:

“God … raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus …” (Ephesians 2:4-6).

Note the repeated phrase “in the heavenly places.” In the second reference, it is undisputable—and a well known teaching of orthodoxy—that we have been “seated” with Christ already. Past tense.

We are already heirs. We are already to “reign in life” (Romans 5:17), and to “walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). We are already able to “resist [the devil]” (1 Peter 5:9). We are already able, if we so choose, to “live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God” (1 Peter 4:2). We are already meant to enjoy “the Spirit of wisdom and revelation” (Ephesians 1:17), and “the eyes of our hearts enlightened” (Ephesians 1:18), and the kind of faith with which we “can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one” (Ephesians 6:16). All the darts.

So then, “the grace of life” that Peter tells the husband he shares with his wife must be grace to live in this life! It is the “grace of life.” It is power for living now, before the Day comes when there will be no more fiery darts of Satan that such grace will be needed to extinguish.

As you know, I am getting married on Saturday, so verses about marriage are standing out on the page. I note the following politically incorrect Scripture for your consideration:

“… Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord …” (1 Peter 3:6).

This will not go over big with some in my intimate circle, so I tried to see if I could do a little hermeneutical two-step and razzmatazz around it to soften it a bit. This can possibly be done in two different ways. One is to say that it was in the old days, and now is the new days. That verse pertained to an old Middle Eastern culture, where women obeyed their husbands.

The problem is that if I take that course, relativizing a personally distasteful Scripture and tossing it into the wastebasket labeled “culturally conditioned,” there is no end to it. The camel’s nose is now under the tent, and I can get rid of any teaching that grates against modern American sensibilities. I end up putting the word of man above the Word of God.

The other way out is to say that the translation is clunky, and that “obeyed” here is better rendered something like “respected” or “appreciated” or “honored” or “considered.” But I checked out the Greek behind “obeyed,” and there was no wriggling out of it. Here is the meaning of “hupakouo” from Strong’s No. 5219:

“To hear as a subordinate, listen attentively, obey as a subject, answer and respond, submit without reservation.”

There is always a third way out, of course, and that is to strike out on my own without the Word of God. But alas, I tried that for so many decades without success, so I am inclined to side with Peter who, when Jesus asked, after some particularly distasteful teaching, if he was going to bug out along with other disciples who were leaving in droves, replied:

“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).

Warning: Politically incorrect marriage ahead.

There is a way to study something when it’s theoretical (60-year-old woman researches rodeo bronco-busting), and there is a way to study something when you need to know by next Saturday.

I am getting married next Saturday so I perused Scripture today for instructions on it. I already had a general idea but I wanted solid, not Swiss cheese.

Although I am of the belief that every portion of Scripture has something to say on every topic under the sun, I went to the more pointedly relevant passages I knew: 1 Corinthians 7, 1 Corinthians 11, 1 Peter 3. Here are a few things God brought to my attention:

1 Corinthians 7:3: My husband has “conjugal rights” (that’s the ESV. The Greek is ophelomenein eunoyan: “benevolence [that is] due”), and I must not deprive him of them. My NKJV translates: “Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband.”

This tells me that it is never right to withhold “affection.” There will never be a situation in my upcoming marriage in which I will have the right to give David the silent treatment in order to make him “come around.” Whatever other vicissitudes the future may serve up, the one constant will have to be my unwavering affection.

1 Corinthians 7:5: I learn here that God rather expects there will be times in my marriage set aside for “fasting and prayer.” Interesting: Fasting and prayer are not commanded here; they are assumed. Evidently, troubles will arise—or petitions will be made—that will call for the extra earnestness of prayer joined with fasting.

1 Corinthians 11:9 says “the woman [was made] for the man,” and not the other way around. There’s a major paradigm shift, and accords with the Genesis 2 account. I am to be a helper, not the head. It’s always good to know the real deal, to know one’s place. Even Jesus knew His place (John 14:28; 6:38). God has a chain of command.

Lastly, 1 Peter 3 tells me how I will be beautiful even as my body wastes away. I circled “respectful” and “pure conduct” (verse 2) and “a gentle and quiet spirit” (verse 4). It’s a good place to start next Saturday. There is enough to work on just in those few words to last me a lifetime.

I have been living in this house for 26 years, and at the end of my street is a service station that has always been the domain of Robin Hood. That’s his name, I’m not kidding. In the early years our relationship was, shall we say, utilitarian: I came to his office only when my car had need.

Somewhere along the line I bought a foreign car, and Robin only serviced American-made vehicles, so our relationship faded: a few words of greeting when I walked past on the way to the town center, and eventually just a cursory wave of the hand. Later still, he seems to have snagged a contract with U.S. Postal Service because I saw only mail trucks on his lot.

But in the last year or so I have been noticing unfamiliar faces coming in and out of the garage. It took a while for it to sink in that Robin had finally sold the business and retired (or …). There is a new sign up and a new look, and in a few years no one will remember that there was ever a man who held court at the corner of Paxson and Keswick by the name of Robin Hood.

“Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph” (Exodus 1:8).

A few things went through my mind this morning as I was walking by on my way back from the grocery store. One was from Psalms:

“As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more” (Psalm 103:15-16).

Another was words Jesus said to his disciples when they were all enamored of the beautiful buildings that made up the temple precinct:

“Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down” (Mark 13:2).

It was slightly bitter but overall a good thing to view this sight today. It reminded me that there are not so many miles to walk before I sleep, and that I had better get serious about what and Who I say I’m living for.

This morning I learned once again the wonderful balance of Scripture that is ours when we read it on a daily basis—the way that daily immersion in the Word keeps us from falling off Martin Luther’s proverbial mule, either to the one side or to the other.

I had started leaning hard on the “side” that God is so sovereign that my prayers are nice but not so essential. That turns out to be wrong thinking. And just a little leaven of the wrong kind does much harm in the end. Before you know it, I would have sloughed off into a fairly prayerless life if I had kept on in that direction without undergoing a correction.

But this morning I happened to read Romans 15, which in part reads:

“I appeal to you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers on my behalf, that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my service to Jerusalem my be acceptable to the saints …” (verses 30-31).

Here is Paul—full of the Spirit, and if any man in town was ever walking in God’s blessing it was he—pleading for prayer, seemingly reluctant to make a move without it. This is no polite or pro forma request. This is a man who understands that though God is sovereign, and though He always acts for His own glory, yet somehow He acts according to our praying.

We must conclude that there are some things that simply will not happen if we do not bother to pray. If these people in Rome do not pray for Paul—if they take the attitude that God is sovereign and that this means we don’t need to knock ourselves out to petition Him—it is possible that Paul will not “be delivered from unbelievers in Judea,” and it is possible that his “service to Jerusalem” will not be acceptable. You and I are movers of history, by the fearful permission of God.

There are two lessons here for me this morning: one is the importance of prayer, the other is the importance of the continual fine-tuning and correction of Scripture, gained only by daily feeding—to keep us sitting up straight on that old mule of Martin’s.

I hung around after church talking to the woman I had sat next to. She is going through great suffering, so we prayed on the spot, and I want to tell you something of how she prayed. She was seeking the Lord’s peace, and said words to this effect: “Lord, I am asking for peace, not as one who begs and pleads but as believing that you are giving it to me, and thanking you already.”

It was a perfect prayer. It bundled expectation with request. Sometimes we pray in such a way that we are begging and pleading as if speaking to an unreasonable or reluctant God whom we have to cajole, like the pagan gods, and who may or may not be in the mood. But Jesus himself told us that expectation of an answer must be part of the prayer itself:

“Whatever you ask in prayer you will receive if you have faith” (Matthew 21:22).

“Jesus said to him, ‘“If you can”! All things are possible for him who believes’” (Mark 9:23).

James says the same thing about the manner in which we should pray:

“But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways” (James 1:6-8).

Believing in an answer is part and parcel of right asking, according to Jesus and James. Praying that is full of doubt is not only boring and exhausting praying, but God says it should not expect an answer. Praying that is already thanking God for the anticipated answer is an experience light years different and full of joy.

I will be taking an oath on April 21 to love and respect a man. It will only be for a short time. (I am 60.) As they say when they swear on the witness stand, “So help me God.”

I have started seeing oath-taking all over the Bible, most recently in a Psalm that appears to be something like King David’s oath of office:

“I will sing of steadfast love and justice. … I will ponder the way that is blameless. … I will walk with integrity of heart within my house. … I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless. … A perverse heart shall be far from me; I will know nothing of evil …” (Psalm 101).

The taking of oaths has fallen into disrepute in recent times. Theologically, we often cite Matthew 5:34 and James 5:12, and these verses must certainly be taken into consideration.

Job took an oath not to look at women lustfully (Job 31:1), and there is no indication that God was not pleased with that. Jesus himself says that if our eye causes us to sin, we should pluck it out; if that’s not endorsing firmness of resolution with one’s eyes, I don’t know what it is.

God seems not merely kindly disposed toward the making and keeping of vows, but positively adamant about it:

“Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High” (Psalm 50:14).

Oaths have also fallen into disrepute because many people don’t keep them.

Certain folks of a younger generation than mine strongly lectured me that I must live with a fellow for a while before marrying, because I cannot possibly know him now.

That was weird. I had to remind myself that advice like that passes for sound logic in a world without God. What is the sense of marrying a man you haven’t lived with, only to find out after a month of marriage that he has a bad habit? You wouldn’t want to marry someone with a bad habit. Would you?

In the old days, before the hippies and “free love” (I would invite you to check out Grace Slick’s later interviews and see where free love got her.), people actually married people they didn’t know very well. Oh, they dated and courted and did the best they could to assess each other’s character, and then they said, “I do.” They sealed it with an oath. An oath, almost by definition, means that things are likely to get tough sometimes, but we are not bailing out.

So I am going to do something insane and marry someone who, according to the wisdom of young people I know, has not yet been exhaustively vetted. I am going to take an oath regarding something full of risk. I am going to give my life to a cause I cannot see.

But come to think of it, there are precedents in my life. I have already had decades of practice in being oath-bound to the invisible.