Glasgow in 1980 as seen by a French photographer

Someone online posted the link to a 2016 article from Scotland’s Daily Record, ‘Photographer reveals the gritty pictures of poverty stricken Glasgow too shocking to publish in 1980’.

The article has a selection of photographs from a Frenchman, Raymond Depardon, who was accustomed to visiting war zones. In 1977, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his photographs of Chad.

The thing that struck me was how feminine the girls, the lady with a baby carriage and the older woman looked. By 1980 in the United States, most girls and women were firmly ensconced in trousers. Seeing skirts and dresses shows that, for an American, time did not march on back then as much as it did in the US. Now that much of Western Europe has caught every American trend going, time moves much more quickly on this side of the Atlantic, unfortunately.

Even Glaswegian graffiti in 1980 was pretty basic. Here, again, American taggers had already moved on to elaborate, gang-identified designs, some of which were illegible to the uninitiated.

That year, The Sunday Times commissioned Depardon to chronicle Glasgow in pictures. The paper’s editors refused to publish the photographs. They were too realistic. I’m not sure what they expected to see. After all, it was Glasgow. When I went to Scotland in the Spring of 1978, even then people warned my classmate and me to go to Edinburgh instead, which we did. Every Briton who is 60+ now knew that Glasgow was rough back then.

In 2016, the Barbican Gallery in London put on a retrospective of Raymond Depardon’s photographs, which were also included in his book published that year, Glasgow.

Raymond, who was 73 in 2016, spoke to the Daily Record. Excerpts from the article follow, emphases mine:

The images include three drunks boozing beside a fire, children playing in the street and a poignant shot of a boy crying outside a shop.

… he will never forget the time he spent in a city that shocked and delighted him in equal measure.

He said: “I came to Glasgow twice, once in the autumn of 1980 and once in the spring. I was shocked by the poverty. I wasn’t expecting to find a population in the north of Europe that was so deprived.

“There was also a civil war going on but, unlike in Beirut, there were no other photographers. I was alone on the streets and had no one to talk to about what I had seen. I felt very much like a fish out of water.

“I had spent the last decade covering civil wars and oriental rebellions. On my arrival, I was surprised by the people, the architecture and above all the light. Everything seemed very exotic.

“I worked in Glasgow like I did on the streets of Beirut, without prejudice and despite being shocked by the destitution, I loved every minute. No matter where I went, the people were welcoming and never seemed sad with their lot.”

The photojournalist, who took the official portrait of French president Francois Hollande in 2012, said he would not have got such superb shots without the help of some friendly Glasgow kids.

Although the language barrier was there, Depardon said that the children took him to their play areas — the streets of the city:

“They didn’t understand me but would take me by the hand and trail me around their landmarks. It’s thanks to them that I was able to capture the incredible images.

“Maybe at 38, I was like them, still a child. They didn’t pay me any attention. I was just part of their game.

“My favourite photo is of a little boy who is crying in front of a shutter. It made me think of a Dickens novel.”

He said: “I was sad that my Glasgow photos were never published back in the 80s. I am really proud to be exhibited at the Barbican and I had great pleasure in telling my friends there to choose whichever photos they liked.

“I hope the photos which I happily took 36 years ago will still bring pleasure to those who see them today.”

The acclaimed British author William Boyd, who studied in Glasgow in the 1970s, wrote the foreward to Depardon’s book on the city:

He writes: “When you left the centre of town or the area where the university was, it was very easy to find yourself in a neighbourhood of abject urban poverty and squalor.

“It wasn’t just the manifest decrepitude of the housing or the ­diminished quality of the goods in the shops – you saw deprivation and ­desperation etched in the faces of the young and the old.

“As it happens I had been looking at Depardon’s photographs before I returned to Glasgow two weeks ago. The city is largely transformed today from the one that Depardon photographed in the early 1980s.

“The abandoned wharves, shipyards and warehouses of the riverside – Glasgow’s imperial industrial heartland and the source of its wealth – are now landscaped parks and yet, you can turn a corner and this new 21st century city disappears and in its place are the wide rainwashed streets of an older Glasgow.”

I wonder what Boyd would make of Glasgow in 2024, with so many of the big stores in Sauciehall Street and surrounds boarded up. The same, sadly, is true of Edinburgh — and, even sadder, London’s Oxford Street.

I realise that a number of department store chains have gone out of business over the past several years but wonder what that says about us as a society that our high streets are so deserted. Depardon’s photographs from 44 years ago look innocent by comparison.

We lose handwriting at our peril

In recent years, handwriting in schools has been downplayed in favour of keyboard skills.

While knowing how to type is an excellent skill, a 2021 study shows that there is something to be said for handwriting: it helps with memory retention.

Since I was a student, I have long relied on notes taken in cursive and that practice has served me well in exams and in retaining information in later life.

On July 9, 2021, Psychology Today featured an article, ‘Why Does Writing by Hand Promote Better and Faster Learning?’ Excerpts follow, emphases mine.

Here is the background:

New research from Johns Hopkins University (JHU) suggests that handwriting practice refines fine-tuned motor skills and creates a perceptual-motor experience that appears to help adults learn generalized literacy-related skills “surprisingly faster and significantly better” than if they tried to learn the same material by typing on a keyboard or watching videos. These findings (Wiley & Rapp, 2021) were published on June 29 in the peer-reviewed journal Psychological Science.

For this study, Robert Wiley and Brenda Rapp conducted a two-phase experiment involving 42 non-Arabic-speaking adults randomly divided into three groups of learners: hand-writers, typers, and video watchers.

In the experiment’s first phase, each participant was taught the Arabic alphabet (i.e., abjad), which has 28 letters, using motor and non-motor learning styles depending on their group.

After six learning sessions, everyone in the video watching and type-writing group had learned the Arabic alphabet and could identify each of its 28 letters. However, people in the handwriting group—who used pen and paper to write each letter during their learning sessions—gained the same level of proficiency after just two learning sessions.

Amazing.

Furthermore, the people taking handwritten notes were able to apply the Arabic alphabet better than the other two groups:

During the second phase of this experiment, the researchers tested to what extent (if at all) participants in each group could “generalize” their new knowledge by using Arabic letters to spell new words or to read unfamiliar words with abjad lettering. The researchers found that the handwriting group was “decisively” better at this type of literacy-related generalization.

In their news release, the authors of the study concluded:

The simple act of writing by hand provides a perceptual-motor experience that unifies what is being learned about the letters (their shapes, their sounds, and their motor plans), which in turn creates richer knowledge and fuller, true learning.

I spend most of my time typing on a keyboard, but if I’m in a lecture or meeting with someone about an important matter, I do put pen to paper, even though my handwriting is not what it used to be.

As handwriting is so beneficial, the JHU researchers says that it should be taught and used more in schools:

Wiley and Rapp speculate that the same results would be seen in children. When learning an alphabet for the first time, this research suggests that writing the letters by hand optimizes literacy learning. This research also has implications for K-12 classrooms, where literacy learning is increasingly dependent on computer tablets and laptops. These digital devices fail to create a perceptual-motor experience, which may impede learning.

“The question out there for parents and educators is why should our kids spend any time doing handwriting,” Rapp, a professor of cognitive science at Johns Hopkins University, said in the news release. “Obviously, you’re going to be a better hand-writer if you practice it. But since people are handwriting less, then maybe who cares? The real question is: Are there other benefits to handwriting that have to do with reading and spelling and understanding? We find there most definitely are.”

“With writing, you’re getting a stronger representation in your mind that lets you scaffold toward these other types of tasks that don’t in any way involve handwriting,” Wiley, a former JHU doctoral student who is currently a professor at the University of North Carolina, added.

A Norwegian study from 2020 showed the same thing:

… 12-year-old children and young adults learn more efficiently and remember new knowledge better when writing by hand instead of using a keyboard. This high-density EEG study tracked and recorded brain wave activity during classroom learning. The researchers identified neuroscience-based ways that cursive handwriting was superior to typewriting when learning in the classroom and why learning cursive is good for our brains.

“The use of pen and paper gives the brain more ‘hooks’ to hang your memories on. Writing by hand creates much more activity in the sensorimotor parts of the brain,” senior author Audrey van der Meer said in an October 2020 news release. “A lot of senses are activated by pressing the pen on paper, seeing the letters you write, and hearing the sound you make while writing. These sensory experiences create contact between different parts of the brain and open the brain up for learning. We both learn better and remember better.”

In their paper’s abstract, the NTNU authors sum up their findings on the importance of cursive handwriting over typewriting for learning in the classroom: “We conclude that because of the benefits of sensory-motor integration due to the larger involvement of the senses as well as fine and precisely controlled hand movements when writing by hand and when drawing, it is vital to maintain both activities in a learning environment to facilitate and optimize learning.”

We lose handwriting at our peril, which is all the more reason to emphasise it in school.

Time to get out that notebook and pen!

What Eve’s curse has wrought: recent news

Yesterday’s post on Genesis 3:16 was about God’s curse on Eve and all women following her transgression in the Garden of Eden: eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge (of Good and Evil).

God’s dual curse involved womankind’s difficulty with childbearing and with husbands (men in general), their two primary relationship groups.

Throughout history, women have suffered with both. There is no real relief in sight, although the effects may be partially mitigated through faith and godly living.

Below are examples of how the curse of Eve has played out in recent times.

Childbirth

On October 19, 2023, the House of Commons held a debate on Baby Awareness Week concerning the alarming levels of infant mortality in NHS trusts.

MPs discussed the findings of Donna Ockenden’s eponymous report on this topic and personal experiences. I hadn’t intended to watch it, but I happened to be preparing dinner at the time. It was shocking.

Most moving was the testimony from Patricia Gibson, the SNP MP for North Ayrshire and Arran, excerpted below (emphases mine):

… I always want to participate in this debate every year because I think it is an important moment—a very difficult moment, but an important one—in the parliamentary calendar. It is significant that the theme this year is the implementation of the findings of the Ockenden report in Britain, because that report was very important. We all remember concerns raised in the past about neonatal services in East Kent and Morecambe Bay, and the focus today on the work undertaken by Donna Ockenden in her maternity review into the care provided by Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust really matters.

Donna Ockenden is currently conducting an investigation into maternity services at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. That comes in the wake of the fact that in the past, concerns have been raised about a further 21 NHS trusts in England with a mortality rate that is over 10% more than the average for that type of organisation, with higher than expected rates of stillbirth and neonatal death.

To be clear, I do not for one minute suggest that this is not a UK-wide problem, as I know to my personal cost. As the Minister will know, concerns remain that, despite a reduction in stillbirths across the UK, their number is still too high compared with many similar European countries, and there remain significant variations across the UK. Those variations are a concern. We know that they could be, and probably are, exacerbated by the socioeconomic wellbeing of communities. We know that inequality is linked to higher stillbirth rates and poorer outcomes for babies. Of course, the quality of local services is also a huge factor, and this must continue to command our attention.

When the Ockenden report was published earlier this year, it catalogued mistakes and failings compounded by cover-ups. At that time, I remember listening to parents on the news and hearing about what they had been through—the stillbirths they had borne, the destruction it had caused to their lives, the debilitating grief, the lack of answers and the dismissive attitude of those they had trusted to deliver their baby safely after the event. I do not want to again rehearse the nightmare experience I had of stillbirth, but when that report hit the media, every single word that those parents said brought it back to me. I had exactly the same experience when my son, baby Kenneth, was stillborn on 15 October 2009—ironically, Baby Loss Awareness Day.

That stillbirth happened for the same reasons that the parents described in the wake of the Ockenden report. Why are we still repeating the same mistakes again and again? I have a theory about that, which I will move on to in a moment. It was entirely down to poor care and failings and the dismissive attitude I experienced when I presented in clear distress and pain at my due date, suffering from a very extreme form of pre-eclampsia called HELLP syndrome. I remember all of it—particularly when I hear other parents speaking of very similar stories—as though it were yesterday, even though it is now 14 years later. I heard parents describing the same things that happened to me, and I am in despair that this continues to be the case. I hope it is not the case, but I fear that I will hear this again from other parents, because it is not improving. I alluded to that in my intervention on the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham [Tim Loughton, Conservative], and I will come back to it.

While I am on the issue of maternal health, expectant mothers are not being told that when they develop pre-eclampsia, which is often linked to stillbirths, that means they are automatically at greater risk of heart attacks and strokes. Nobody is telling them that they are exposed to this risk. I did not find out until about five years after I came out of hospital. Where is the support? Where is the long-term monitoring of these women? This is another issue I have started raising every year in the baby loss awareness debate. We are talking about maternal care. We should be talking about long-term maternal care and monitoring the health of women who develop pre-eclampsia …

… We are seeing too many maternity failings, and now deep concerns are being raised about Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. I understand that the trust faces a criminal investigation into its maternity failings, so I will not say any more about it. The problem is that when failures happen—and this, for me, is the nub of the matter—as they did in my case at the Southern General in Glasgow, now renamed the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, lessons continue to be not just unlearned but actively shunned. I feel confident that I am speaking on behalf of so many parents who have gone through similar things when I say that there is active hostility towards questions raised about why the baby died. In my case, I was dismissed, then upon discharge attempts were made to ignore me. Then I was blamed; it was my fault, apparently, because I had missed the viewing of a video about a baby being born—so, obviously, it was my fault that my baby died.

It was then suggested that I had gone mad and what I said could not be relied upon because my memory was not clear. To be absolutely clear, I had not gone mad. I could not afford that luxury, because I was forced to recover and find out what happened to my son. I have witnessed so many other parents being put in that position. It is true that the mother is not always conscious after a stillbirth. Certainly in my case, there was a whole range of medical staff at all levels gathered around me, scratching their heads while my liver ruptured and I almost died alongside my baby. Indeed, my husband was told to say his goodbyes to me, because I was not expected to live. This level of denial, this evasion, this complete inability to admit and recognise that serious mistakes had been made that directly led to the death of my son and almost cost my own life—I know that is the case, because I had to commission two independent reports when nobody in the NHS would help me—is not unusual. That is the problem. That kind of evasion and tactics are straight out of the NHS playbook wherever it happens in the UK, and it is truly awful.

I understand that health boards and health trusts want to cover their backs when things go wrong, but if that is the primary focus—sadly, it appears to be—where is the learning? Perhaps that is why the stillbirth of so many babies could be prevented. If mistakes cannot be admitted when they are made, how can anyone learn from them? I have heard people say in this Chamber today that we do not want to play a blame game. Nobody wants to play a blame game, but everybody is entitled to accountability, and that is what is lacking. We should not need independent reviews. Health boards should be able to look at their practices and procedures, and themselves admit what went wrong. It should not require a third party. Mothers deserve better, fathers deserve better, and our babies certainly deserve better.

Every time I hear of a maternity provision scandal that has led to stillbirths—sadly, I hear it too often—my heart breaks all over again. I know exactly what those parents are facing, continue to face, and must live with for the rest of their lives—a baby stillborn, a much-longed-for child lost, whose stillbirth was entirely preventable.

… Some people talk about workforce pressure, and it has been mentioned today. However, to go back to the point made by the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory [Conservative]), for me and, I think, many of the parents who have gone through this, the fundamental problem is the wilful refusal to admit when mistakes have happened and to identify what lessons can be learned in order to prevent something similar happening again. To seek to evade responsibility, to make parents feel that the stillbirth of their child is somehow their own fault or, even worse, that everyone should just move on and get on with their lives after the event because these things happen—that is how I was treated, and I know from the testimony I have heard from other parents that that is how parents are often treated—compounds grief that already threatens to overwhelm those affected by such a tragedy. I do not want to hear of another health board or NHS trust that has been found following an independent investigation to have failed parents and babies promising to learn lessons. Those are just words.

When expectant mums present at hospitals, they should be listened to, not made to feel that they are in the way or do not matter. How hospitals engage with parents during pregnancy and after tragedy really matters. I have been banging on about this since I secured my first debate about stillbirth in 2016, and I will not stop banging on about it. I am fearful that things will never truly change in the way that they need to, and that simply piles agony on top of tragedy. I thank Donna Ockenden for her important work, and I know she will continue to be assiduous in these matters in relation to other work that she is currently undertaking, but the health boards and health trusts need to be much more transparent and open with parents when mistakes happen. For all the recommendations of the Ockenden report—there are many, and they are all important—we will continue to see preventable stillbirths unless the culture of cover-ups is ended. When the tragedy of stillbirth strikes, parents need to know why it happened and how it can be prevented from happening again. That is all; a baby cannot be brought back to life, but parents can be given those kinds of reassurances and answers. That is really important to moving on and looking to some kind of future.

It upsets me to say this, but I have absolutely no confidence that lessons were learned in my case, and I know that many parents feel exactly the same. However, I am very pleased to participate again in this annual debate, because these things need to be said, and they need to keep being said until health boards and NHS trusts stop covering up mistakes and have honest conversations when tragedies happen, as sometimes they will. Parents who are bereaved do not want to litigate; they want answers. It is time that NHS trusts and health boards were big enough, smart enough and sensitive enough to understand that. Until mistakes stop being covered up, babies will continue to die, because failures that lead to tragedies will not be remedied or addressed. That is the true scandal of stillbirth, and it is one of the many reasons why Baby Loss Awareness Week is so very important, to shine a light on these awful, preventable deaths for which no one seems to want to be held accountable.

I will just add a postscript here about a cousin of mine who gave birth five times in the 1990s in the United States with the best of private health care.

John MacArthur and Matthew Henry both suggest that godly living will prevent bad experiences in pregnancy and childbirth, but one of my cousins is a devout Catholic and was at the time when she was pregnant. She is middle class and her husband is financially self-sufficient, better off than most men in his social cohort.

Nevertheless, my cousin had horrific third trimesters with each pregnancy resulting in pre-eclampsia. Therefore, I object to men, especially ordained men, intimating that a woman’s godly living will alleviate suffering when she is carrying a child. All I can say about my cousin and other godly women living through those life-threatening situations is that their plight might be a form of sanctification: imposed suffering from on high for greater spiritual refinement. I don’t have an answer.

Fortunately, my cousin recovered and has five healthy adult sons who bring her much happiness.

Men

What more needs to be said about the role of men in women’s lives that hasn’t already been said?

Below are a few recent news items exploring the ongoing war between the sexes.

Divorce

In the Philippines, which is still predominantly Roman Catholic, women want the law changed to allow for divorce. On December 28, 2023, The Telegraph carried the story, ‘Divorce in the Philippines: “My husband beat me over and over — I still can’t legally divorce him”‘:

Ana takes out her phone and scrolls through the grim set of photos. In them, her face is purple and swollen, her lip cut – it wasn’t the first time her husband struck her, but the 48-year-old hopes it will be the last.

“He followed me with a wooden stick and hit me over and over,” says Ana, whose name has been changed. “I remember thinking, this time he’s going to kill me … I shouted for help but I don’t think anyone heard. So I ran.”

As she sat in hospital later that night in August, Ana came to a stark realisation: after 19 years, two daughters, and plenty of violence, she wanted a divorce.

There’s only one problem: in the Philippines, it’s illegal.

“I don’t want him in my life anymore,” Ana says. “Separation isn’t enough, I cannot say that is freedom. It would be like a bird in a cage – you cannot fly wherever you go, because you are married so you are linked … But in the Philippines, the law doesn’t stand with me.”

The southeast Asian country is the only place outside the Vatican which prohibits divorce, trapping thousands of people in marriages that are loveless at best, abusive and exploitative at worst.

But now, as new legislation creeps through Congress, there are mounting hopes that change may finally be on the horizon in this conservative, Catholic country …

“I’m a Catholic, I go to church, but I also believe it’s my human right to become divorced. I want to try to convince others of that too,” says Ana, between bites of a homemade custard tart.

“In the meantime, I’m not giving up on love. Where there’s life, there’s love.”

There was a time when divorce was allowed for everyone in the Philippines, but that all changed with independence:

Though banned during the Spanish colonial era, divorce on the grounds of adultery or concubinage was legalised in 1917 under American occupation, and further expanded by the Japanese when they took control during World War Two.

But in 1950, when the newly independent country’s Civil Code came into effect, these changes were repealed.

Today, only Muslims can obtain a divorce in the Philippines:

Today, most couples – bar Muslims, who are covered by Sharia laws which allow for divorce – have two options: legal separation, which doesn’t end a marriage but allows people to split their assets; or annulment, which voids the nuptials and enables individuals to remarry, as the union never existed in the eyes of the law.

Every other couple has to jump through highly challenging legal and financial hoops to obtain some sort of separation:

… the grounds are narrow, the process bureaucratic, the courts stretched and the costs extortionate.

Gaining an annulment, for instance, involves proving someone was forced into a marriage or mentally unsound on their wedding day. Brookman, a solicitors firm specialising in divorce, warns a “large amount of evidence” is required – and the costs often spiral to “roughly the average salary” in the Philippines.

“Some say it’s an anti-poor, pro-rich process because it takes quite a bit of effort, resources and money to gain an annulment,” says Carlos Conde, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. “People who have access to lawyers can go through the process, but for the majority of poor Filipinos that’s just not an option. And so they stay in toxic relationships.”

Even where people do have the funds, the outcome is far from guaranteed. Take Stella Sibonga. The 46-year-old filed for an annulment in 2013, keen to give marriage a second chance with her long-term boyfriend. Five years prior, she left a decade-long union she described as “traumatic and miserable”.

Yet, 300,000 pesos (roughly £4,300) and 10 years later, Ms Sibonga remains married to the “wrong man”.

“I have no idea when I’ll get a final verdict,” she says. “In the meantime, people say I’m living in sin with my boyfriend, they judge me for it… Really, it’s a nightmare.”

Catholic clergy are firmly opposed to a divorce law in the Philippines, and legislators tread carefully:

“We remain steadfast in our position that divorce will never be pro-family, pro-children, and pro-marriage,” Father Jerome Secillano, the executive secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, said in September. He has previously criticised “legislators who rather focus on breaking marriages and the family rather than fixing them”.

The church has huge influence in the Philippines, where nearly 80 per cent of the population is Catholic.

“The main difficulty is the opposition to the divorce bill by this powerful block led by the Catholic church and religious fundamental groups,” says Mr Conde. “Many legislators are not keen to butt heads with or offend the church … it is tough to do battle against them.”

I understand the clergy’s point, but some things just cannot be fixed.

The country’s 2012 reproductive health bill still hadn’t been implemented in 2022. The Church had blocked it with religious threats against legislators:

The fight to ensure access to contraception was a case in point. After more than a decade of gruelling debate, negotiations and lobbying, the Reproductive Health (RH) law finally passed in 2012 – only for full implementation to be blocked for years amid legal challenges from the church.

In 2022, government figures suggested 42 per cent of women still had an unmet need for family planning, meaning they wanted to use contraception but were not able to access it. Over half of pregnancies in the Philippines are “unintended”.

“The Catholic hierarchy in the country was vociferously against the RH bill, so much so that it threatened the authors of the measure with excommunication and defeat at the polls,” says Mr Lagman [Edcel Lagman, congressman and author of the divorce bill in the House of Representatives]. But he thinks the fight for divorce could be easier.

“Although representatives of the church have stated that as an institution, it is strongly against the measure, I think that this time around it is not as vehement in its opposition,” he adds. “All Catholic countries worldwide, except for the Philippines, have already legalised absolute divorce. This is a recognition that divorce does not violate Catholic dogma.”

This is the state of play with the proposed divorce bill:

“Now, for the first time, both the House and the Senate have approved their respective measures at the committee level,” Edcel Lagman, congressman and author of the divorce bill in the House of Representatives, told the Telegraph.

“I am still very optimistic that the present Congress will pass the divorce bill and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, who has said before that he is pro-divorce, will sign the measure into law… The Philippines needs a divorce law, and we need it now – it is not some dangerous spectre that we must fight against.”

More and more people here agree. In 2005, a survey by the polling company Social Weather Stations found 43 per cent of Filipinos supported legalising divorce “for irreconcilably separated couples,” while 45 per cent disagreed. This had shifted to 53 per cent in favour and 32 per cent against in the same survey in 2017.

We shall see what happens in 2024.

Virtual reality

However, a woman does not need to have to come into actual physical contact with a man in order to feel abused. Over the Christmas period, allegations of rape came to light from a girl experiencing virtual reality in the gaming world.

The story was all over media outlets. On January 2, 2024, The Times reported, ‘Police investigate “virtual rape” of girl in metaverse game’:

The police are investigating an alleged rape in the metaverse for the first time after a child was “attacked” while playing a virtual reality video game, it emerged last night.

The girl, who is under the age of 16, was not injured as there was no physical assault but is said to have suffered significant psychological and emotional trauma. She had been wearing an immersive headset while in a virtual “room” when she was attacked by several adult men, according to the Daily Mail …

Details of the virtual reality case are said to have been kept secret to protect the child involved, amid fears that a prosecution would not be possible. A senior officer familiar with the case said: “This child experienced psychological trauma similar to that of someone who has been physically raped. There is an emotional and psychological impact on the victim that is longer term than any physical injuries. It poses a number of challenges for law enforcement, given [that] current legislation is not set up for this.”

Donna Jones, the chairwoman of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, told the newspaper that women and children deserved greater protection. She said: “We need to update our laws because they have not kept pace with the risks of harm that are developing from artificial intelligence and offending on platforms like the metaverse. The government needs to look at changing the law to protect women and children from harm in these virtual environments.”

The police believe that developments in gaming have opened up new avenues for cybercrime, including virtual robbery, ransomware, fraud and identity theft, but existing legislation is unlikely to cover rape in the metaverse. This is because sexual assault is defined in the Sexual Offences Act as the physical touching of another person sexually without their consent.

The nature of the metaverse also blurs geographical boundaries, making it difficult to determine which law enforcement agency has jurisdiction over an incident when users and perpetrators are in different countries.

This, in my opinion, was entirely preventable. A parent or two should have been guiding this girl from the get-go.

I am no gamer, but even I can see that the metaverse presents potential dangers, as The Times‘s Helen Rumbelow reported on January 3, ‘Young, female and vulnerable: a “rape” in the virtual world’:

I was exploring Horizon Worlds, using the Oculus headset, both brands owned by Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta. This is where a British schoolgirl under the age of 16 was allegedly “gang-raped” by a group of online strangers.

The police are investigating whether, under the legislation, there is any crime here to prosecute. I used inverted commas around “gang-rape”, since the crime of rape is narrowly defined as someone being penetrated against their consent. That didn’t happen here: the child was alone with her VR headset, possibly thousands of miles from her antagonists, and was physically unharmed.

Instead, in a virtual space inside Horizon Worlds, her avatar was surrounded by male avatars. In 2022 Horizon Worlds introduced a “personal boundary” default setting that prevents other avatars coming within four feet of you, but if that was disabled then touch from other users can activate a buzz through your own Oculus controllers that you hold in each hand.

You can also see fairly crude — in every way — gestures of other avatars interacting with yours, and hear the voices of the people online who are conducting the attack, and maybe describing it. I heard legal experts talking about this case drift away from the vocabulary of sexual assault. Instead, they preferred “a distressing incident” that caused the girl psychological harm …

Many women have reported that they feel unsafe from attacks in these spaces. In 2018 an American mother provided screen evidence of how her seven-year-old daughter was being “gang-raped” by two boys in a playground in Roblox, the child-focused online game.

Sorry, but the mother never should have allowed that to happen. A seven-year-old should only be gaming even on children’s games with adult supervision.

Rumbelow went on to describe her 1990s time at Stanford University in Silicon Valley when virtual reality was being developed. Even then, online assaults were taking place, every bit as shocking. The perpetrator from the game then being tested was a student thousands of miles away at New York University.

Thirty years later, this was Rumbelow’s experience on Horizon Worlds:

When I go on Horizon Worlds the first danger I encounter is my family. Being blinded by a massive headset as you flail around the living room not only looks absurd but makes your rump vulnerable to smacking — once our human bodies are all suspended in their own vats, à la The Matrix, while our minds go virtual, this problem will be designed out.

I first give myself a female avatar called Nicky, with blonde hair and a red dress, and play a few different games in groups of virtual strangers. The vibe is quite “cruisey”: I can follow and message anyone I am hanging out with and I keep having to interrupt play to dismiss requests to privately connect. It’s like trying to play tennis with a bunch of men rushing on court to get my number …

I have the same height and power as males, and at one point in a haunted house game called Bonnie’s Revenge I am briefly surrounded by a bunch of unknown guys in a dark corridor. In real life this would be a heart-rate moment; instead I blast straight past them. I am repeatedly reminded that I have the mute button to turn off any characters that offend me …

When I re-enter Horizon Worlds with the avatar of a man called Nick, I play a game called Super Rumble (attracted by the name) that I had played before as a woman. As Nicky, I was ignored; as Nick I am called to “pack” with a team of boys against the only female avatar called “Rad Rachel”. “Let’s team on her,” says one British male teenager to our group (I have to remain silent or betray myself) …

At the end of the game we all troop down to the results area to see our scores. Rad Rachel did well but is still getting barracked, with guys up close sticking their guns to her head …

The Times‘s Sean Russell, an experienced gamer, also shared his virtual experiences, ‘I enjoyed playing in the metaverse, then I went in as a woman’:

I was in Meta’s Horizon Worlds metaverse and was standing outside a virtual comedy club for 30 seconds before a man said: “Want to see my balls?” That’s funny, I thought, no one had said that when my avatar was a man. In fact, when I was a man no one said a thing to me at all.

… In the 19 years I’ve been playing games online little has changed — women are treated the same as they always have been. The news that police are investigating the “virtual rape” of a young woman in a metaverse game is totally unsurprising.

Russell asks the question many of us might have posed to the 16-year-old about her virtual rape: Why not turn off the game?

Russell says there could be a deeper question to answer:

I would say it is a matter of requiring a new vocabulary to talk about these things. If a young woman cannot sit down in what is probably the safest place she has, her home, to play a game she enjoys, perhaps it’s not as easy as turning the game off. Perhaps the invasive psychological damage is done before any “act” has taken place.

Many minors are playing in the virtual universe:

The NSPCC estimates that 15 per cent of children aged five to ten have used a virtual reality headset and 6 per cent use one daily. Meanwhile, a game such as Fortnite (age rating 13+) has 23 million players a day, many of whom are children.

This is not the route a child, especially a girl, should be following. Play in the real world: sports, board games, bridge.

Bad girls

Returning to the real world, two stories caught my eye recently.

One is about the trend for kept women. They are not mistresses as no wife or marriage is involved, ergo they are concubines. However, they bill themselves as ‘stay-at-home girlfriends’, ‘trad wives’ or ‘hot housewives’, as a November 2023 article in UnHerd reveals. This is immorality posing as morality:

On a summer’s day, TikTok influencer Gwen The Milkmaid can be found frying up all-American comfort food dressed in a floral prairie dress. “I don’t want to be a boss babe. I want to be a frolicking mama. I want to spend my days baking bread, cuddling chickens, and drinking raw milk straight from the udder,” she writes in her TikTok caption. In another video, she smiles beatifically at her nearly 50,000 followers, giving the camera a view of her ample breasts as she bakes a fresh sourdough loaf.

Gwen is a self-proclaimed “trad-wife”, one of a number of women across TikTok, Instagram, and Reddit forums extolling a return to ultra-traditional gender roles and financial dependence on a male partner. Like the swinging dicks of WallStreetBets and crypto bros, the online trad-wife is an expression of 21st-century financial nihilism. Disillusioned by the girl-boss feminist fantasy, these young women are turning to men to pay off their loans and fund their lifestyles. And, why not? The good life isn’t coming any other way …

… the girlfriend’s main project is to keep herself: thin, young, and desirable. She is her main project and her job is, as Jia Tolentino has written, to “always be optimising” …

When having it all means doing it all, there’s an allure to doing almost nothing. “People used to ask me what’s your dream job,” Kay writes in one video caption. “I don’t dream of labour. I dream of living a soft, feminine life as a hot housewife. It’s as simple as that” …

As much as these women preach an easier, calmer life away from the grind, the #Tradwife or #SAHG is just the latest niche in the long trail of “girl online” content. This work is its own hustle and produces its own income. Gwen the Milkmaid, for example, has recently cast off an online presence as an adult content creator on Only Fans. And surely few people could be fooled by Kendel Kay’s half-hearted TikTok screed against girl-bossing as she shills for a green juice brand? It’s as if the response to financial nihilism is yet more nihilism.

The comments section to the article is one of UnHerd‘s most populated: 204 comments, most of them thought-provoking in opposing this trend.

And, finally, there is the case of the young middle-class woman who ran over her boyfriend in England.

On January 3, The Telegraph gave us the background and photos in ‘Alice Wood: From promising postgraduate to life in prison’:

With her own home, a loving fiancé and the chance to study for a postgraduate degree at Cambridge University, Alice Wood had a glittering future in store.

But following a moment of madness borne out of drunken jealousy last May, the 23-year-old now faces the prospect of spending the rest of her life in prison.

After accusing her boyfriend, Ryan Watson of flirting with another woman at a party, Wood lost her temper and used her Ford Fiesta as a weapon to mow him down and kill him.

Following a three week trial at Chester Crown Court, Wood showed no emotion when she was found guilty of murder.

She will be sentenced on Jan 29, but the judge told her that she may never be released from prison.

Wood grew up in Cheadle, Staffordshire with her two brothers. Her parents were divorced and she would live alternatively with her mother, a doctor’s receptionist and father, a furniture maker.

Bright and academically able, she excelled at school and dreamed of becoming a vet.

Following her A-levels she took a different path, winning a place at Manchester University to study for a degree in philosophy, ethics and theology …

She was preparing for her finals on the fateful night when she killed her boyfriend.

Despite being unable to take her exams, Wood has since been awarded her degree based on the work she had already completed.

She had also been offered a scholarship to study part time for a master’s degree at Cambridge University – an offer she will now be unable to take up.

Wood and Mr Watson met at the beginning of lockdown in March 2020 and despite the restrictions on social mixing were soon in a serious relationship.

Within six months they were engaged and the following year, with the help of Mr Watson’s parents, had bought their first home together in the village of Rode Heath in Cheshire.

Mr Watson, had started a job as a support worker at the brain injury charity Headway, where he was proving to be a popular member of the team.

Last May, he and some of his colleagues were invited to a birthday party for a member of staff in the Victoria Lounge Bar in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent.

During the party, guests noticed how Mr Watson was circulating with ease, chatting with other attendees.

They also noted that Wood was less comfortable and appeared unhappy with the fact her fiance was paying other women any attention.

The trial heard how Mr Watson had “clicked” with fellow guest Tiffany Ferriday, leaving Wood feeling as if she was being snubbed by her boyfriend …

The couple then rowed on the nine-mile drive home, with prosecutors claiming Wood lost her temper.

Despite being three times over the drink drive limit, she got out of her boyfriend’s car and got into her own Ford Fiesta.

CCTV footage shown in court captured the moment Wood swerved onto the pavement and careered into Mr Watson, sending him flying over the bonnet.

He was able to get to his feet, but Wood then smashed into him again this time trapping underneath the vehicle.

Wood then drove for more than 500 feet with him trapped under the car causing fatal injuries.

Following the collision, she knocked on the door of a neighbour, telling them: “Please telephone an ambulance, I think I have run over my boyfriend.”

The Times has more detail of Mr Watson’s final moments of life, beginning with an overview of the party:

During the trial at Chester crown court, Andrew Ford KC for the prosecution said: “Ryan Watson was caught on camera having a good time, being a gregarious and outgoing party guest, having fun and dancing” …

Ford said Wood got into the Fiesta and reversed towards Watson, almost hitting him, before driving it backwards and forwards in what one witness compared to a “game of chicken”.

Watson walked away and stood in front of parked cars but Wood drove into him, turning off the road to hit him, the court was told. He was knocked on to the bonnet of her car but was able to stand afterwards.

Ford said: “She drove straight into Ryan Watson for the second time, head on. This time he did not go over the bonnet — she knocked him clean over, under the vehicle’s front end.”

She told her trial that she did not realise he was trapped beneath her car when she drove 158 metres before stopping. The court was told that Wood had 61 micrograms of alcohol per 100ml of breath. The legal limit is 35.

Wood showed no emotion as the jury returned its unanimous verdict after less than eight hours of deliberation. The judge, Michael Leeming, further remanded her in custody and told her she “may never be released”.

Dear, oh dear.

Conclusion

I hadn’t expected that Eve’s curse would have got me started on reading about sin more closely, but it has and here we have it.

I better understand why God detests sin so much and why Original Sin caused Him to pass the ultimate penalty on all of us: certain death with much unhappiness thrown into the mix for those who do not obey His commandments.

There is something to be said for living a godly life where those miseries are mitigated.

Forbidden Bible Verses — Genesis 3:16

The three-year Lectionary that many Catholics and Protestants hear in public worship gives us a great variety of Holy Scripture.

Yet, it doesn’t tell the whole story.

My series Forbidden Bible Verses — ones the Lectionary editors and their clergy omit — examines the passages we do not hear in church. These missing verses are also Essential Bible Verses, ones we should study with care and attention. Often, we find that they carry difficult messages and warnings.

Today’s reading is from the English Standard Version Anglicised (ESVUK) with commentary by Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.

Genesis 3:16

¹⁶ To the woman he said,

‘I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
    with painful labour you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
    and he will rule over you.’

———————————————————————————————————————————-

Last week’s post discussed Adam and Eve’s innocence as a naked couple in the Garden of Eden.

Genesis 3 has the story of the Fall, Original Sin, which is in the Lectionary, excerpted below (emphases mine):

⁶ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realised that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

⁸ Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ But the Lord God called to the man, ‘Where are you?’

¹⁰ He answered, ‘I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.’

¹¹ And he said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?’

¹² The man said, ‘The woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.’

¹³ Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’

The woman said, ‘The snake deceived me, and I ate.’

¹⁴ So the Lord God said to the snake, ‘Because you have done this,

‘Cursed are you above all livestock
    and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
    and you will eat dust
    all the days of your life.
¹⁵ And I will put enmity
    between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring^[a] and hers;
he will crush^[b] your head,
    and you will strike his heel.’

 Of verse 15, Matthew Henry says that it is the beginning of the Gospel story:

A gracious promise is here made of Christ, as the deliverer of fallen man from the power of Satan. Though what was said was addressed to the serpent, yet it was said in the hearing of our first parents, who, doubtless, took the hints of grace here given them, and saw a door of hope opened to them, else the following sentence upon themselves would have overwhelmed them. Here was the dawning of the gospel day. No sooner was the wound given than the remedy was provided and revealed. Here, in the head of the book, as the word is (Heb 10 7), in the beginning of the Bible, it is written of Christ, that he should do the will of God. By faith in this promise, we have reason to think, our first parents, and the patriarchs before the flood, were justified and saved and to this promise, and the benefit of it, instantly serving God day and night, they hoped to come. Notice is here given them of three things concerning Christ:—(1.) His incarnation, that he should be the seed of the woman, the seed of that woman; therefore his genealogy (Luke 3.) goes so high as to show him to be the son of Adam, but God does the woman the honour to call him rather her seed, because she it was whom the devil had beguiled, and on whom Adam had laid the blame; herein God magnifies his grace, in that, though the woman was first in the transgression, yet she shall be saved by child-bearing (as some read it), that is, by the promised seed who shall descend from her, 1 Tim 2 15. He was likewise to be the seed of a woman only, of a virgin, that he might not be tainted with the corruption of our nature; he was sent forth, made of a woman (Gal 4 4), that this promise might be fulfilled. It is a great encouragement to sinners that their Saviour is the seed of the woman, bone of our bone, Heb 2 11, 14. Man is therefore sinful and unclean, because he is born of a woman (Job 25 4), and therefore his days are full of trouble, Job 14 1. But the seed of the woman was made sin and a curse for us, so saving us from both. (2.) His sufferings and death, pointed at in Satan’s bruising his heel, that is, his human nature. Satan tempted Christ in the wilderness, to draw him into sin; and some think it was Satan that terrified Christ in his agony, to drive him to despair. It was the devil that put it into the heart of Judas to betray Christ, of Peter to deny him, of the chief priests to prosecute him, of the false witnesses to accuse him, and of Pilate to condemn him, aiming in all this, by destroying the Saviour, to ruin the salvation; but, on the contrary, it was by death that Christ destroyed him that had the power of death, Heb 2 14. Christ’s heel was bruised when his feet were pierced and nailed to the cross, and Christ’s sufferings are continued in the sufferings of the saints for his name. The devil tempts them, casts them into prison, persecutes and slays them, and so bruises the heel of Christ, who is afflicted in their afflictions. But, while the heel is bruised on earth, it is well that the head is safe in heaven. (3.) His victory over Satan thereby. Satan had now trampled upon the woman, and insulted over her; but the seed of the woman should be raised up in the fulness of time to avenge her quarrel, and to trample upon him, to spoil him, to lead him captive, and to triumph over him, Col 2 15. He shall bruise his head, that is, he shall destroy all his politics and all his powers, and give a total overthrow to his kingdom and interest. Christ baffled Satan’s temptations, rescued souls out of his hands, cast him out of the bodies of people, dispossessed the strong man armed, and divided his spoil: by his death, he gave a fatal and incurable blow to the devil’s kingdom, a wound to the head of this beast, that can never be healed. As his gospel gets ground, Satan falls (Luke 10 18) and is bound, Rev 20 2. By his grace, he treads Satan under his people’s feet (Rom 16 20) and will shortly cast him into the lake of fire, Rev 20 10. And the devil’s perpetual overthrow will be the complete and everlasting joy and glory of the chosen remnant.

God told the woman that her pains in childbearing would be very severe, with painful labour; furthermore, her desire would be for her husband, who would rule over her (verse 16).

Matthew Henry put this verse alone in his commentary on Genesis 3:

I. She is here put into a state of sorrow, one particular of which only is specified, that in bringing forth children; but it includes all those impressions of grief and fear which the mind of that tender sex is most apt to receive, and all the common calamities which they are liable to. Note, sin brought sorrow into the world; it was this that made the world a vale of tears, brought showers of trouble upon our heads, and opened springs of sorrows in our hearts, and so deluged the world: had we known no guilt, we should have known no grief. The pains of child-bearing, which are great to a proverb, a scripture proverb, are the effect of sin; every pang and every groan of the travailing woman speak aloud the fatal consequences of sin: this comes of eating forbidden fruit. Observe, 1. The sorrows are here said to be multiplied, greatly multiplied. All the sorrows of this present time are so; many are the calamities which human life is liable to, of various kinds, and often repeated, the clouds returning after the rain, and no marvel that our sorrows are multiplied when our sins are: both are innumerable evils. The sorrows of child-bearing are multiplied; for they include, not only the travailing throes, but the indispositions before (it is sorrow from the conception), and the nursing toils and vexations after; and after all, if the children prove wicked and foolish, they are, more than ever, the heaviness of her that bore them. Thus are the sorrows multiplied; as one grief is over, another succeeds in this world. 2. It is God that multiplies our sorrows: I will do it. God, as a righteous Judge, does it, which ought to silence us under all our sorrows; as many as they are, we have deserved them all, and more: nay, God, as a tender Father, does it for our necessary correction, that we may be humbled for sin, and weaned from the world by all our sorrows; and the good we get by them, with the comfort we have under them, will abundantly balance our sorrows, how greatly soever they are multiplied.

II. She is here put into a state of subjection. The whole sex, which by creation was equal with man, is, for sin, made inferior, and forbidden to usurp authority, 1 Tim 2 11, 12. The wife particularly is hereby put under the dominion of her husband, and is not sui juris—at her own disposal, of which see an instance in that law, Num 30 6-8, where the husband is empowered, if he please, to disannul the vows made by the wife. This sentence amounts only to that command, Wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; but the entrance of sin has made that duty a punishment, which otherwise it would not have been. If man had not sinned, he would always have ruled with wisdom and love; and, if the woman had not sinned, she would always have obeyed with humility and meekness; and then the dominion would have been no grievance: but our own sin and folly make our yoke heavy. If Eve had not eaten forbidden fruit herself, and tempted her husband to eat it, she would never have complained of her subjection; therefore it ought never to be complained of, though harsh; but sin must be complained of, that made it so. Those wives who not only despise and disobey their husbands, but domineer over them, do not consider that they not only violate a divine law, but thwart a divine sentence.

III. Observe here how mercy is mixed with wrath in this sentence. The woman shall have sorrow, but it shall be in bringing forth children, and the sorrow shall be forgotten for joy that a child is born, John 16 21. She shall be subject, but it shall be to her own husband that loves her, not to a stranger, or an enemy: the sentence was not a curse, to bring her to ruin, but a chastisement, to bring her to repentance. It was well that enmity was not put between the man and the woman, as there was between the serpent and the woman.

John MacArthur has a universal application of this verse:

Why there is evil in the world, why there is trouble in the world is all explained right here … I have seen the struggles that women go through in all corners of the world. It’s very hard being a woman, and throughout human history it has been very hard, and in many places in the world today it’s very little different than it has been since ancient times.

In general, women are the slaves of men. Men who, in general, have little interest in their personal needs, very little interest in their feelings, their emotions, their sufferings. In general, men have throughout human history used women for sexual fulfillment, for domestic duties, to tend to the children. All over the world women have been subjugated and humiliated. And until modern times, men actually held the power of life and death over women and still do in some tribal regions. This harsh treatment of women, which is pretty much the general pattern of human history, was not the original design of God. Sin brought it in and it therefore corrupted the original relationship between man and woman, between woman and her children, and made life very difficult.

… in a very specific way, women have a general category of suffering and primarily their suffering is related to two things. It’s related to their children and their husbands. Apart from the general sufferings that all of us go through, which I just mentioned, there’s a particular area of suffering that belongs only to women, and that is the perennial bearing and caring of children and the perennial dealing with husbands. It is a hard and has been a hard and relentless and often sorrowful duty through most of history and even today.

… In most societies throughout human history they have been treated, women have, as second class, if that, maybe fifth class would be better. They have in most cultures belonged to men for their own usage. For whatever the men commanded and whatever the men desired, the men have dominated them. And they can do that because by sheer force of human strength, they have power to exercise over women. They have obviously, of course, impregnated women and therefore they have exposed women constantly to death. Throughout most of human history, childbearing took a woman to the brink of death. Even so today in Third World countries, women go into pregnancy realizing they could die, to say nothing of losing the child they’ve carried in their womb for nine months. Mortality rates are still high in many places, and through human history more babies have perished in birth than have lived.

Women also worry about their children:

The child now finding its independence and because the child by nature is a sinner, wicked, that child is going to find everything destructive to entertain itself and therefore a mother has a heart that never rests. She worries about not only about what may harm the child physically but what may destroy the child’s soul. There are not only accidents and plagues and injuries that can worry the mother. There is that rebellion that will break her heart. There is that child that moves away into a kind of life that grieves a mother. And the more children she has the worse it is.

MacArthur then describes countries in the developing world where he has visited and the heartbreaking circumstances of women and children there.

He discusses the dual curse of women in verse 16:

Originally having children was a paradise. It was a paradise. This is a curse. This is a part of the curse. And on top of that, “Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you.” So here the curse is in two categories, her relationship to her children and her relationship to her husband. Let me tell you, folks, that defines a woman’s fear. Doesn’t it? It’s right there where she lives, where she feels the sentence of God.

… And to you women I say this, if you are somewhat surprised that you have trouble with your children and that you suffer pain in that area, both physical pain and emotional and sometimes deep, deep spiritual pain. And if you struggle with your husband, just know this, God didn’t intend it that way in the beginning, that’s a result of sin, and you’re bearing something of the effect of the curse that God put on Eve. And you say, well you know, if I had been in the garden I wouldn’t have done what Eve did so why should I have to pay? The answer is, because God wants to remind you all the time how terrible sin is and what it’s done.

So this judgment falls into two areas that essentially are a woman’s life, her children and her husband …

So here is a mother continuing giving birth to little sinners and married to a big one.

It is a dreadful state of affairs. We will look at man’s curse next week, by the way.

It is unfortunate that neither curse is in the Lectionary. Most Christians today, I would wager, do not believe in Original Sin. Then they wonder why the world is the way it is. If they heeded these curses that God put upon Eve and Adam, they would understand the heavy burden of sin and its consequences.

Recall, also, that Original Sin brought about death:

… way back in chapter 2 verse 16 God commanded the man saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in that day you shall eat from it you shall surely die.” Death did come. Death wasn’t the sentence of God on man and woman. Death was the result of their disobedience. The sentence of God, judicial sentence of God is given us here. For the woman it was serious pain in relationships with children and her husband. For man it was serious pain in carving out his work in the world which was his defined category of life. So death was going to come.

However, before then:

they would still fulfill the original mandate. And what was the original mandate? Back to chapter 1 verse 27, “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created male and female He created them. And God blessed them and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and’ – what? – ‘multiply.’” Have babies, fill the earth. That was the original intent. God created them in the garden originally in perfection and in sinlessness and they had eternal life. They would never grow old. They would never age. They would never be ill. They would never be harmed. They would never die. This was an eternal existence at that point in the garden and God said to them, “You will be fruitful and multiply.” You’ll have babies in this environment … in the perfect world they would have babies that grew just like Jesus grew. Right? In wisdom and stature and favor of God and man, in wonderful perfection, but never declined, just grew to full maturity to become like a mature Adam or a mature Eve. They were going to populate the earth then too.

With the Fall procreation continued, but with sorrow and grief:

You’re still going to procreate. You’re still going to populate the planet. That hasn’t changed. So marriage hasn’t changed, one man, one woman, cleaving together for life. Remember that was defined in chapter 2, a man would leave his father and a woman leave her father and mother as well, they come together, create this one flesh and produce children. So that’s going to continue. You’re still going to have babies. But physical death will exist. And that’s going to make the whole thing different, because along with physical death comes disease and accident and injury and harm and sorrow, and it’s going to hit the woman naturally in the category where she has the most invested, in the most intimate of categories, which is her relation to her children and her relation to her husband. The race will survive and it will procreate. But they will all die and be replaced. So sorrow will mark it for the woman and the man.

Now the two categories that define the life of women then are those two categories. That is why Paul writing to Titus in Titus 2:4 says, “You older women, teach the younger women to love their husbands and to love their children.” That’s what God wants out of the woman …

Like Henry, MacArthur explains God’s punishment in terms of seeking repentance:

Let’s look at the text. “To the woman He said” – special word of divine judgment. Not natural consequences, but judicial sentencing. “To the woman He said” – this is specific. And divine justice is very apparent in the sentence because the punishment, listen, stands in direct relation to the sin of the woman. It’s a penalty consistent with her iniquity. In this way, divine wisdom displays itself. The punishment is calculated, listen, to keep awake in woman a direct remembrance of her sin in the garden. Every woman experiencing these areas of difficulty has a constant reminder of the sin of Eve. God spoke to the woman with His sentence on her to serve as a constant reminder of her sin, and it’s a reminder to all women of the horror of sin in the beginning. Women through all history have very personal, very measurable reminders of the iniquity of Eden. And by this sentence, a woman’s original condition is transformed …

What can a woman really do to alleviate the sorrows of the curse? Turn to 1 Timothy chapter 2 – 1 Timothy chapter 2. In 1 Timothy chapter 2, I want you to drop down to verse 13. Now Paul is writing to Timothy and he’s giving him instruction for the church, and he talks about how women are to dress in the church in verse 9, and how they are to be engaged in good works and godliness in verse 10, and how they are to be receiving instruction and not teaching the men in verses 11 and 12. Then he says in verse 13, “For it was Adam who was first created and then Eve.” So in the original creation women were the helpers of men. They are equal spiritually. They are equal before God and certainly they are equal in Christ. In Christ there is neither male nor female, Galatians 3:28. But in the order of creation in the family, Adam was first, Eve came created to be his helper. And so as a helper she is not the head. She comes to help him. And she must adorn herself in a way that brings honor to him and attention to him and not honor and attention to herself. She is to be quiet and receiving instruction and not to usurp authority over a man. That’s the divine order.

So the first part of the chapter associates itself with creation, her place under her head, her husband. Then starting in verse 14 it turns, and he says, “It was not Adam who was deceived but the woman being quite deceived fell into transgression.” Now he turns away from the original paradise, the original creation in which woman was created to find her place under man to be his helper and to support him and to be the half that he needed to fully compliment his life. Now he turns in verse 14 to the Fall, and he says it was the woman who was deceived. It was the woman who stepped out of her God-ordained role. It was the woman who, rather than coming under the protection of her husband and seeking her husband’s counsel, came out and acted independently and allowed herself to be exposed to the temptation and was deceived. And because she was deceived she fell into the transgression, and then she led her husband into the same transgression and plunged the whole race into sin and brought upon her own head the curse.

And what again was the curse, the first part of the curse? The first part of the curse was she would know her deepest and profoundest and relentless pain through relationships with her children, through the physical and the emotional and the spiritual relationships with children. That’s where she would feel the deepest pain. And it has been true throughout all of history. “But” – verse 15. “But women shall be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint.” Boy, this is a great statement. What a great hope. Women have been given a hard road, but it can be softened. It can be changed. It can be changed. It can be altered. Women are not necessarily under God’s permanent shadow of displeasure, and this passage shows that God has opened a way of light. God has given a blessed promise to children. In contrast, she fell into transgression, but immediately it says, she shall be preserved from the impact of that transgression through the bearing of children. Instead of the bearing of children being the point of her curse, it becomes the point of her deliverance.

… If a woman will live a godly life and continue in faith and love and holiness and self-control, if she will be what verse 10 says, a godly woman, then you know what? She’ll raise a godly generation and her children will continue in the same thing.

Of Eve, MacArthur says:

She sinned in the pursuit of personal enjoyment. It looked good, good to the eyes. It was good for food, and it would be something she would delight in, because what it would do would be to satisfy a longing that had arisen in her. She wanted personal enjoyment. She wanted a joy that she thought was being withheld from her, so she sinned in the pursuit of personal enjoyment. She sinned in the pursuit of personal fulfillment. She sinned in the pursuit of personal satisfaction. And now in seeking personal fulfillment, personal satisfaction, personal joy with a man, she will find the categories of her greatest misery.

… It is consistent with God to make trouble a consequence for sin. It’s consistent all through Scripture. God isn’t making someone sin. God is not the author of sin. God is not the source of sin. But it is consistent with God to allow trouble as a consequence for sin. You see that all over the Scripture.

I mean, just go back to Deuteronomy where God says originally to Israel, “Obey Me and I’ll bless you. Disobey Me and I’ll” – what? – “I’ll curse you.” You obey Me, you will be blessed. You disobey Me, and you’re going to have big trouble. It isn’t that God authors the disasters, it’s that God doesn’t prevent them. It’s classic Romans 1. When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God. So what happened? God gave them over. What did He give them over to? The lusts burning toward one another, and then He gave them over to homosexuality in Romans 1. Men with men doing that which is unnatural, women doing the same. And then He gave them over to a reprobate mind in the twenty-eighth verse of Romans 1, and out of that reprobate mind, there’s a list of wickedness that goes all the way down to verse 32. Literally, God turns them over to sin – trouble. It is not inconsistent with God to make trouble a consequence for sin. And trouble is inherently linked to sin.

… And even beyond that – you can read 1 Corinthians 5 – and God Himself, the Lord Himself said turn that sinning so-called brother over to whom? Satan and he’ll learn not to blaspheme. God uses the effects of sin to chasten believers. God used calamity, which is an effect of sin, to chasten Israel. All the categories of negatives that God promises those that are disobedient are connected to sin. Any temporal judgment which inflicts punishment is inherently linked to the effects of sin. So God is not at all out of line or inconsistent when He says to the woman, “You are going to be exposed to the impact of sin in a greater way because of what you’ve done,” and so are all women.

MacArthur has an interesting thought about childbearing. He believes that God multiplied it many more times than He had originally planned:

I want to be careful with the words here because this is so succinct and has so much in it – “I will greatly multiply” – listen carefully to what I say. And remember that I just told you the literal translation of that is causing to be great, I shall cause to be great your sorrow. When it’s translated greatly multiply, it sounds like she already had pain, she already had sorrow. But you know better than that. Right? Because before she fell, was there any pain? No. Was there any sorrow? No. It doesn’t imply that there was already pain. It doesn’t imply that there was already sorrow. Before the Fall, there wasn’t any pain and there wasn’t any sorrow. That’s why that Hebrew explanation, “causing to be great, I will cause to be great your pain.” He is simply saying I will give you a great multiplied experience of pain, the likes of which you have never had. God is going to give to the woman multiplied pain, multiplied pain connected with multiplied conceptions – multiplied pregnancies.

By the way, the word pain, your pain, issabōn, literally the same word is in verse 17, it’s translated toil there in the NAS. It is a word that means pain and sorrow. It is a word that encompasses the experience and the emotion. In fact, one lexicon translated it this way, “Issabōn means everything that is hard to bear” – everything that is hard to bear. I’m going to bring on you everything that is hard to bear – I like that – in conceptions, everything that is hard about having children. It can include the pain of the actual birth, but it’s beyond that. It’s all the suffering that goes with having children. And “I’ll greatly multiply” – or causing to be great, I’ll cause to be great – “your pain and your conception.” The Hebrew says and your conception. Listen to this. I am not only going to give you great pain, multiplied pain, but I’m going to give you multiplied conception.

That’s a very important statement. I would venture to say, you have probably never thought about that statement. But here’s what He’s saying. I’m going to give you multiplied pain connected with multiplied conception. Her fertility was increased. That’s part of the curse. Her fertility was increased. So the woman can conceive a child every month and when she conceives a child based upon her nursing pattern, she could essentially have a baby every year. She could be pregnant, pregnant, pregnant, have a baby, nurse the baby, as soon as the baby is weaned after a few months, she’s capable of getting pregnant again and pregnant again and pregnant again and pregnant again. And I believe that before the Fall it wasn’t like that. You say, what was it like before the Fall? I don’t know, it doesn’t say that. Maybe she could only have one baby every 30 years. Well, what would be the difference? She’s eternal. Right?

And think of this, if they were eternal and never died and they were supposed to fill the earth, the earth is only – the earth is the same size now it was. Isn’t it? It’s the same size. And if everybody lived forever, they’d have to go very slow at having babies or the planet would overflow because nobody died. Just take Adam and Eve. They lived over 900 years. They could have filled the earth just with their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren. It’s exponential. Live 900 years and have babies for 900 years and multiply all the other people that are born out of your family that are having babies and they’re also living that long, and you’ve got the population of the world. In fact, by the time you get to Genesis 6 the whole world is densely populated with people and God drowns them in the Flood. They wouldn’t have taken long. But if they were eternal, they couldn’t go at that rate…plus nobody died so you never replaced anybody.

So what happened when God cursed the woman was multiplied fertility so that she would conceive more children than before the Fall, which meant that God originally designed childbirth to be an experience much less frequent. There were other wonders to enjoy in His world. Since the Fall, however, women can conceive essentially every month and they can produce a child or multiple birth children every year. And in most parts of the world in human history, they just kept having babies and having babies, mostly at the whim of the husband, and just kept having them. And that was life. And whether they could feed them or not or whether they will ill or not, the woman’s life was totally consumed with the children and all of the rigors of childbirth and all of the fears and all of the illnesses. And guess who was home feeding the children all the time, and guess who is home nursing the sick ones, and guess whose heart is being torn out when they rebel and when they wander away and when they’re injured and they’re I’ll, and this is her life and this is not easy.

You see, remember in the original creation they were told to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And there would have been a different pace, part of paradise. But after the Fall, everything sped up and a woman’s life becomes totally dominated by children, and everything is much more rapid and the earth gets filled fast, and then there’s a drowning, and then it starts over. And here we are and we’re filling the earth in just a few thousand years. That’s okay, because it’s a disposable planet. It’s going to be destroyed in a few thousand years anyway after its creation. Isn’t it? And all the people who were born will die anyway, leaving vacancies for the replacements, and so women just keep filling up the earth, speed up the population. Why? Just to constantly show the effect of sin by filling the life of women with the sorrows that go along with conception and childbirth. That is not to say – listen. That is not to say there aren’t any joys. They are just all mitigated to some extent for the women of the world.

Think of what Mary went through with Jesus:

Children will consume a woman’s life. And whatever joy she gains from them will be mingled with fears and pain and suffering and sorrow. Even Simeon said to Mary, someday, because of how you loved this baby Jesus, a sword will pierce your heart. So woman is punished in the most intimate way. Nothing is more purely the distinctive of a woman than to give birth to a baby. Nothing provides for her greater fulfillment, greater joy, greater satisfaction than that. But even that is not unmixed. It is with pain. The pains which will come to her will threaten her life. She will go down to the very gate of death before her children come into the world. And throughout the remainder of her life she will be reminded by disappointments and failures and sorrows that she will find her deepest pain in the lives of her children.

Even single and/or childless women bear this curse in some way or other:

There are some women who are barren and can’t have children, and there are women who are single and would never have children. And it doesn’t mean that they escape the curse because in general we all feel the effects of sin. We all age. We all were exposed to harm and danger and disease and death and all of that. So it isn’t necessary to take all of the elements of the curse all the time and impose them on all the women just so everybody knows full maxed-out personal experience of this curse.

MacArthur then moves on to men, husbands in particular:

… throughout history, frankly, it is true that women have been degraded. That was even true in Jewish society. The Pharisees used to get up every morning and pray, “I thank God that I’m not a Gentile or a woman.”

Men have been very active in degrading women. Women have known a measure of misery throughout human history. As much as she resisted by virtue of being the weaker vessel, she is subject to the man. And sad to say, he is not a perfectly fair man. He is not a perfectly loving man. He’s not a perfectly kind man as unfallen Adam was. I’m sure if Eve had known what she was going to have to deal with from Adam, she never would have taken that fruit in the first place. All of a sudden man is changed and becomes a selfish and dominating monarch. The subordination of women was always God’s plan but in a lovely and enjoyable harmony of perfect fulfillment of mutual wills, delighting in God and in each other. This has been taken away and the gracious subordination that was there, the wonderful willing partnership that was there is gone. And the language here defines what happened.

He discusses the woman’s desire for her husband but says it is not a perfect, loving desire as it was before the Fall:

“Your desire shall be for your husband.” Some have suggested that this means a sexual desire. That’s certainly not a punishment and that is something God gave them before the Fall. How else could He say, “Be fruitful and multiply,” if they already weren’t prepared to engage in that kind of relationship? This is not God cursing them by having the woman desire a physical relationship with her husband. She has always desired that in a perfectly loving way. This means something else. This means that her desire – her desire is going to be something negative, something that reflects separation and alienation. Up to this point everything does. Enmity was put between the serpent and the woman. Enmity was put between the man and the ground. And enmity is put between the wife and her husband. She can’t do what she wishes. She isn’t going to live her own life totally independent, like the feminists demand, because her husband rules over her. Whatever she wishes, whatever she desires is subject to his will. She won’t always get what she wants. She won’t always have what she desires. She’s going to have to bear the sorrow of unfulfillment. She’s going to have desires and dreams and ambitions that aren’t going to be fulfilled, because her husband does not have a perfect love for her, does not have a perfect understanding of her, or even, some might say, an imperfect understanding of her. And he’s going to rule her in ways that lack compassion and sympathy. This is how it is in the world. This is how it is …

Now let’s look at the specific of the language here that expresses the conflict. “Your desire shall be for your husband.” Now let’s talk about the word desire. What does it mean? It’s an interesting word. It comes from an Arabic root, and I have continued to survey this passage, because it’s been a passage of some controversy. But it is of Arabic root meaning to seek control. Literally it could read, “You shall seek control over your husband.” You will desire to exert your will. That is a sign of the curse. You will desire to take charge, to be in control, to master. And that desire shows up in various women in various ways. In some of them it’s a quiet, silent desire that smolders, with others it is a shouting desire that isn’t much of a secret to anybody. And the more godless women are, very often the more hostile they are toward men. Sometimes that hostility takes the attitude of coldness, indifference, apathy. Because she can’t achieve what she wants, she eventually becomes totally indifferent and apathetic toward the man.

But there is this desire, this seeking to have one’s own way, to get control. That’s why there have been through history always feminist movements, always. Even in the time of the apostle Paul. I read some fascinating things about the time of the apostle Paul. There was a liberation of women movement going on in the world of the apostle Paul. Women were shaving their heads and going around bare chested with spears in their hands and trying to prove that they can do everything men did. There have always been that kind of – there’s always been that kind of movement in history, because it’s reflective of this curse. The man has to deal with the fact that his wife wants to control him.

… On the other hand, verse 16, the end, “And he shall rule over you.” Let’s look at the word rule for a minute, mashal. It means to dominate, to reign, literally means to install in office. The idea is as the woman seeks to overthrow the rank, as the woman seeks to twist the divine order, as the woman seeks to master her husband, seek control over him, he dominates her. As the woman tends toward rebellion, the man tends toward despotism. And you have the battle of the sexes right here. That’s why there’s conflict in marriage. And there is conflict in marriage, no question about it. Her desire is teshuqah – teshuqah. It doesn’t mean sexual desire, she already had that before the Fall. It’s the desire to get her way. And it even shows up, sad to say, in places where it shouldn’t show up. Paul is writing to Timothy in the church at Ephesus and he says, “I permit not a woman to teach nor to” – what? – “usurp authority.” Because that’s a tendency.

Now to show you an illustration of this, look over in the fourth chapter of Genesis and verse 7. Here is the only other use of the word teshuqah, desire in the Pentateuch, in the five books of Moses, the only other place it’s used. And it is in a phrase that is an exact duplication of the phrase at the end of verse 16. The phrase is in Genesis 4 verse 7. Pick it up in the middle of the verse. This is the Lord speaking to Cain. “Sin is crouching at your door, and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” Fifteen verses away from Genesis 3:16 is Genesis 4:7, and you have an exact duplication of those phrases. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. Sin’s desire is for you but you must master it. The same phrases. The construction is absolutely identical. We learn in studying the Bible that when you have identical terms and identical construction in close proximity, they mean the same thing, or they express the same concept.

What is it saying in chapter 4 verse 7? The Lord is speaking to Cain. He says, “Sin desires you.” What does that mean? Sin wants to control you. Sin wants to dominate you. Sin wants to take over your life. “But you must master it.” “You must rule over it.” It’s the very same expression. The woman desires to control man, and he rules over her. Sin desires to have you; you must control it. The woman then has the same desire for the man that sin has for Cain, a desire to control, a desire to have its way. And the husband has the same need to control his wife that Cain had to control sin …

One of the great scholars, Old Testament scholars, is E.J. Young. In a couple of little paragraphs on this particular portion of Genesis he writes, “Emancipation of women is an illusion. Woman cannot free herself. She is not the equal of the man. Only before God is she equal. The tragedy is that her husband will now rule over her. She had sought to rule him in giving to him the forbidden fruit, now he will rule over her. Although there was an original divinely planned subordination for the woman, this was to be a blessing for her. The man was to be her head in the sense that he loved her with a love in which no sin was mixed. He was to love her as he loved himself and no blot of evil would mar the relationship. All was now changed for the Fall had taken place. Instead of the mild and tender love of Eden, the husband would now domineer over his rebellious wife. Over her he would become a despot.” And E.J. Young says, “In many parts of the world the role of woman has been reduced to that of virtual slavery.”

MacArthur provides a temporal solution from Scripture:

Now the question comes, as it did in our last study, is there hope for some relief in this? Well, let’s find out. Turn to Ephesians 5. And I know you know there is, and it’s in Ephesians 5. And here again folks, there is really no relief from this apart from Christ, no real relief from this apart from Christ … Sad to say, even within the realm of Christianity, there are many who do not take advantage of what God has provided.

… In Ephesians chapter 5 there is a principle that we need to look at to start with and it’s in verse 18. “Do not get drunk with wine for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.” There was this idea in the ancient religions of the Greek world that drunkenness induced a state of hypersensitivity that catapulted you into communion with the deities. Timothy Leary tried to popularize that in the 1960’s culture, drug culture. That somehow if you wanted a transcendental religious experience, you needed to become drunk or high and that catapulted you in to some euphoria that connected you with deities.

And that was the way it was in Paul’s day. You would go to an orgy, a festival of Bacchus, and you would drink yourself into oblivion under the illusion that that drunken stupor was some kind of religious experience with the deities. The apostle Paul says if you want to have an experience with God, don’t get drunk, get filled with the Spirit. If you want to commune with the living God then be under control by the Holy Spirit. And being filled with the Spirit is not a mystical experience. It simply means to be controlled by. Filled is simply the idea of being controlled, being dominated. If you say someone is filled with anger, you mean they’re controlled by anger. If they’re filled with sadness, they’re controlled by sadness. If they’re filled with the Spirit, they’re controlled by the Spirit. It’s an exact parallel to Colossians 3:16, “Let the Word dwell in you richly.”

So where you have Christian people who are controlled by the Spirit – who are worshiping God, as indicated in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and singing and making melody in their heart to the Lord, who are marked by thanksgiving, always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God even the Father – wherever you find somebody who is totally lost in wonder, love and praise, where you find people controlled by the Spirit, where they are filled with worship and filled with gratitude, where they are contemplating the greatness of their salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ and all that He has done for them and by the will of God even our Father, where you have those kinds of people who submit themselves to one another because they have such a reverence for Christ, you have the possibility of reversing this curse.

Now here is a whole new perspective on things. Here again in Christ the curse is softened. Where you have someone under the control of the Holy Spirit, someone whose life is filled with worship, verse 19; filled with thanks, verse 20, for their salvation for all that God has done for them in the Lord Jesus Christ; where you have someone who lives with reverence to Christ and is humbly able to submit himself to others, then you’re going to have the possibility of literally softening greatly this curse, minimizing the natural conflict. And wives filled with the Spirit, filled with worship, filled with thanks, filled with reverence for Christ are going to be subject to their own husbands as to the Lord. That’s the duty of the wife.

Here is what Paul does not say:

It doesn’t say you are to obey your husband. That’s reserved for children and servants, later in the passage. The husband and wife relationship is different. It’s not a commanding and obeying motif. It’s a more intimate, inward vital kind of thing.

MacArthur continues:

And that’s why it says, “Wives, be subject to your own husbands.” There’s intimacy there. This subjection doesn’t imply spiritual inferiority. For in Christ there is neither male nor female, Galatians 3:28. The Lord Jesus, after all, is subject to God the Father but in no way inferior. Neither is the woman inferior to the man. But for the sake of unity and the sake of harmony and the sake of peace and because of God’s created design, she is commanded to be subject to her own husband as she would be subject to the Lord Himself.

… Why? Verse 23, “For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church.” That’s the way He designed it. God designed Christ to be the head of the church. God designed the husband to be the head of the wife. That’s the way He designed it. That’s the way it has to be. A home without a head is an invitation to chaos. And that’s what you have in the conflict, the woman trying to rebel and master the husband, the husband trying to crush the rebellion. It’s as chaotic as a body without a head. Submitting is by divine design. You do it in the strength of the Holy Spirit. You do it in the joy of worship. You do it with a heart of thanksgiving. You do it with reverence to Christ.

… When you think of Christ as the head of the church, you don’t think of Him as a dictator. You don’t think of Him as a despot. You think of Him as a Savior. You don’t think of Him as some dominating task-master making life brutal. You think of Him as a Savior. What is that? That is a protector. That’s a rescuer. That’s a preserver. That’s a provider. That’s somebody who has your well-being in His heart. That’s somebody who is interested in your welfare, somebody interested in the very best for you. That’s somebody who rescues you from sin and rescues you from death and rescues you from hell and rescues you from trouble, somebody who protects you, somebody who safeguards you.

So in Christ the husband becomes a savior of his wife. That’s what we were saying this morning. If he has fortitude, if he has the courage of his convictions built on truth and the strength to stand for those things, he becomes the savior of his wife. He becomes the protector, the preserver, the guardian. He makes sure that she is safe, that her environment is safe. That she is exposed only to those things that bring about her wellbeing, physically, morally, and spiritually. And then in verse 24, he sums it up, “As the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands” – I love this last part – “in everything.” No exceptions, in everything. Unless of course it violates God’s command. If your husband asks you to do something God forbids or asks you not to do something God commands, then you must obey God …

MacArthur then gives us the duties of husbands:

On the other hand, look at the husband in verse 25. Instead of him trying to crush this woman, trying to dominate this woman, trying to bring her under control, it says, “Husbands, love your wives.” It doesn’t say control your wives. No, it doesn’t say that. It says love her. Doesn’t say ruler her. Doesn’t say order her around, make sure she does everything you tell her. It doesn’t say subject her, command her, exercise authority over her, or dominate her. There’s nothing here related to authority at all. It just says love her – agapē, the highest and deepest kind of love, the love of the will, the love of self-sacrifice. The husband has that authority, but it is controlled and it is exercised through love. What a man needs to convince his wife of is that he loves her so much that he is always concerned with her wellbeing. That makes his authority soft and warm, and then his authority is her protection, not a threat to her independence.

And he goes on to say some other things but most notably in verse 25 he says this, “Husbands, you are to love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church.” Well, what do we mean by that? What does that mean? That’s the standard though, love your wife the way Christ loved the church. How did Christ love the church? First of all, sacrificially. He gave Himself up for her. He humbled Himself to death, gave up His life. The Spirit-filled husband will give his life up for his wife as Christ did for the church. There’s no tyranny here. There’s only sacrifice. He takes the role of protector, guardian, overseer, but there’s no tyranny, only sacrifice.

Secondly, it’s not only a sacrificial love, it’s a purifying love. In verse 26, “That He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives.” Now we’re to love our wives in the way of sacrifice and then in the way of purification. This is really a very beautiful concept. There was in ancient Greece a custom. A bride was bathed in sacred water prior to the wedding. It was a custom sort of symbolizing her purification for her husband. In Athens there was a place called Kallirroe and the waters of Kallirroe were believed to be sacred and brides were bathed in those waters, symbolizing a cleansing from any previous defilement and entrance into a pure life. Well, marriage was to be a purifying environment for the woman. You never want to do anything, men, you never want to do anything that exposes your wife to anything that is impure, any temptation, any impure influence. You should protect your wife from that. True love is concerned with the purity of its object.

So here is a man who loves his wife, he loves her sacrificially, and he loves her with a purifying love. Any so-called love which drags a partner down to uncleanness of any kind is a false love. And I tell young people that. You know, if some guy comes along and says “I love you, now go to bed with me,” that’s not love. That’s not love. Clearly that’s not love. First of all, love never seeks its own. Does it? It doesn’t seek its own fulfillment. And secondly, true love is both a sacrificial experience, a sacrificial attitude, a sacrificial characteristic, and one that pursues the highest good and the best for the object of its attention. Any love that makes a coarse and hard rather than a refining and purifying the character of another is a false love. Any love which weakens the moral fiber of someone is a false love. Love seeks to sacrifice itself for the other and to pursue the purity of its object, just in the way Christ sought the purity of His church. You think Christ is concerned about the purity of His church? Of course He is. Of course He is. He wants to present to Himself a church, verse 27, that doesn’t have a spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that is holy and blameless.

And then in verse 28 – it is a sacrificial love. It is a purifying love. It is a caring love. It says in verse 28, “Husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, for we are members of His body.” What he means is you love your wife the same way you love yourself. You don’t have to learn to love yourself, you do that naturally. You take care of you. That’s what you do. You feed you. You dress you, and you make sure that all your needs are met. Well that’s exactly the way you want to take care of your wife with the same kind of attentiveness, the same kind of devotion, the same kind of consistency that you give to yourself. She is not just a cook and clothes washer and baby sitter, et cetera, et cetera. You want to cherish her, he says. I love that term. We cherish our own flesh. We nourish our own flesh. Cherish in the Greek means to warm with body heat, to soften, to melt. It was used of mother birds sitting in the nest with their little birds all around them.

And furthermore, it is not only a sacrificial love and a purifying love and a caring love, but this love that husbands have is an unbreakable love. Verse 31, “For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife and they two shall become one flesh.” That’s a quote from Genesis 2:24 and that indicates the permanent character of a marriage. It is indivisible. It is unbreakable, and it is securing for a woman to know that a husband is not looking for somebody other or somebody better. You love your wife with a sacrificial, purifying, caring love and an unbreakable love. You do that because that’s how Christ loves His church.

MacArthur concludes with this:

Well, let me just close by saying the curse is there and it doesn’t get mitigated except through the gospel. And like so many realities – back to where I started – so many realities in our world – you can talk to sociologists. You can talk to psychologists. You can talk to professors. You can talk to experts, and they haven’t got a clue why things are the way they are. But you do. In our study of Genesis, we have added components to our world view … We also understand the social universe, which is played out most intimately in the family. And we understand why there’s trouble there and why there’s conflict there. And that has to do not only with the natural sequence that flows out of fallenness but also because of the divine curse.

And you know, we are not many noble and not many mighty, but we know more than the rest of the world knows about why things are the way they are. But isn’t it even more wonderful than that? We know the solution to the problems. Don’t we? … total transformation.

Well, that was a difficult post to write.

Tomorrow I will have a follow up post on women, not all of whom are angels.

An examination of Adam’s curse comes next week.

Next time — Genesis 3:17-19

The meaning of Advent explored

Over the past several years, I have written about Advent, which these days is about spiritual preparation for Christmas.

However, centuries ago, Advent was a time of fasting and prayer with a view towards our Lord’s Second Coming.

These past posts of mine have more about this special penitential time of year. The first one listed also has links to Advent activities for children:

Advent resources for Catholics and Protestants

The Advent wreath: symbolism and history

From Christ the King Sunday to Advent (Year A to Year B in the three-year Lectionary)

Advent: a time to examine one’s conscience

Advent: Mary’s Magnificat and Zechariah’s prophecy in Luke 1

Advent reflections: John the Baptist and the Apocalypse

Advent: Make straight a highway

Advent: John the Baptist’s message of Good News — and repentance

John the Baptist, charity and Advent

Advent and Christmas in colonial America

I learned a lot from doing the research for those posts and hope that they will provide further insight and answer questions you might have about this season which, incidentally, begins a new liturgical year.

Middle East protests: Met Police and protesters 1, Suella Braverman 0 — part 3

My past two posts on how the Middle East conflict is affecting the UK can be found here and here.

Today’s post continues and concludes the long, sorry saga of last week’s events.

Wednesday, November 15 (cont’d)

Last Wednesday, the House of Commons voted on an SNP amendment to the King’s Speech of November 7 proposing that legislation regarding a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza be added to the parliamentary agenda. Not surprisingly, the Conservatives either voted against or abstained.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer urged his MPs not to support it. Although Hansard does not have a record of the debate, I watched some of it. A few Labour MPs accused the SNP of ‘political opportunism’, which upset the Scottish MPs.

However, other Labour MPs did vote to approve the amendment.

The Guardian reported (purple emphases mine):

Eight Labour frontbenchers including Jess Phillips have resigned as Keir Starmer was hit by a major rebellion over a vote for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Overall, 56 Labour MPs voted for an amendment to the king’s speech brought by the Scottish National party, a major blow to the Labour leader’s attempts to keep unity over the Israel-Hamas war.

Labour officials had said in advance that any frontbencher doing so would be sacked for backing the amendment, which called explicitly for a ceasefire.

Phillips, Afzal Khan, Yasmin Qureshi and Paula Barker quit their frontbench roles on Wednesday night after voting for the amendment and defying the whip.

Rachel Hopkins, Sarah Owen, Naz Shah, and Andy Slaughter were sacked by the Labour leader after the vote. Mary Foy, Angela Rayner’s parliamentary private secretary (PPS), and Dan Carden, another PPS, have also left the frontbench.

As votes closed, Starmer said he regretted that party colleagues had not backed his position …

The Labour leader had hoped to avert a rebellion with a separate amendment criticising Israel’s military actions but stopping short of calling for a ceasefire, and instructed his members to abstain on the SNP motion. Many chose to vote for both, however, amid anger among Labour members over how Starmer has handled the issue.

MPs voted 293 to 125, a majority of 168, to reject the SNP’s amendment, with Qureshi, Khan and Barker quitting before the vote.

Phillips, the most high-profile frontbencher, said it was with a “heavy heart” that she was quitting.

“This week has been one of the toughest weeks in politics since I entered parliament,” the Birmingham Yardley MP said in her resignation letter …

Shah (Bradford West) and Khan (Manchester Gorton) told fellow MPs in the Commons of their intention to vote for an immediate ceasefire. Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) said she was going to vote for the amendment but decided to abstain.

Starmer has faced a growing backlash over his position on the conflict since he gave an interview last month in which he appeared to suggest Israel had the right to withhold water and power from civilians in Gaza.

He attempted to heal those divisions in a recent speech at the Chatham House thinktank, in which he urged Israel to adhere to international law but stopped short of calling for a ceasefire.

Starmer spent much of Wednesday locked in meetings with his shadow ministers as he attempted to minimise the expected rebellion.

The Guardian also has a list of how each MP voted.

Pro-Palestinian protests took place outside the Houses of Parliament around voting time. More on that in a moment.

From there, the protesters moved to Hyde Park Corner where a few of them had the effrontery to scale a war monument, the Royal Artillery Memorial, which is dedicated to fallen soldiers.

Veterans Minister Johnny Mercer, himself a veteran, posted the video:

There is only one memorial of fallen soldiers in London.

This is it. I will not stand idly by whilst individuals think this is the correct way to treat these memorials. https://t.co/LQJrZxWvhq

— Rt Hon Johnny Mercer (@JohnnyMercerUK) November 15, 2023

Britons looking at social media or watching GB News’s coverage of the appalling incident were incensed that the Metropolitan Police maintained their perceived two-tier policing system.

One X (Twitter) user posted the Met’s statement as to the lack of action and his or her account of the situation accompanied by a photo of policemen idly standing by:

Note that the final paragraph of the Met’s statement says there is no law forbidding climbing on a war memorial, ergo no arrests could ‘automatically’ take place.

Yet, such a law was passed — the Desecration of War Memorials Act 2010.

Hansard has the full text of the legislation, which amends the Criminal Damage Act 1971.

Barrister Steven Barrett, who appears regularly on GB News and writes for The Spectator, expressed his displeasure at the police not enforcing the law. He thinks they are ‘political’:

The Met managed to rough up one man (video here), but he was not pro-Palestinian.

The BBC issued an apology that day for their highly inaccurate reporting of the conflict in the Middle East:

The BBC should be ashamed of themselves, especially because every Briton is obliged by law to pay the annual licence fee of £159 to keep it going.

Thursday, November 16

The Mail had a report on the incident at the Royal Artillery Memorial:

MPs vented their fury today after police stood by as pro-Palestinian protesters scaled a war memorial following Parliament’s vote against a ceasefire in Gaza – as the Met apologised for ‘not being able to respond quickly enough’. 

Footage shows a mob of flag-waving demonstrators climbing on the Royal Artillery Memorial at Hyde Park Corner, which was covered with poppy wreaths from remembrance weekend. 

A group of officers appeared to simply watch on as the offensive scenes unfolded, despite a dispersal order being in place. Today, the Met expressed its ‘regret’ for the way officers handled the incident but insisted no laws had been broken. 

Home Secretary James Cleverly, who served in the Royal Artillery, called the demonstration as ‘deeply disrespectful’ and suggested laws could be changed to give police powers to prevent protesters clambering over war memorials. 

James Cleverly should check legislation first.

The article also had the history of the memorial, excerpted below:

The Royal Artillery Memorial commemorates the 49,076 soldiers of the Royal Artillery killed in the First World War. 

The static nature of trench combat meant heavy guns played a significant role in ‘softening up’ enemy positions before troops moved in. 

Designed by Charles Sargeant Jagger and Lionel Pearson, the memorial was funded largely by public donations and unveiled in 1925. 

It consists of a Portland stone base supporting a one-third over-lifesize sculpture of a howitzer – which Jagger based on one in the Imperial War Museum. 

Later that morning in the Commons, Leader of the House Penny Mordaunt took Business Questions.

The long-serving Conservative MP Sir Julian Lewis expressed his concern over security issues during the previous day’s vote on the ceasefire amendment:

About 40 years ago I had an unlikely campaigning role that involved organising counter-demonstrations to certain mass marches, but one area we never had to worry about was the vicinity of Parliament, because no demonstrations were allowed in Parliament Square. The reason given for that was that Members must not be impeded in entering or leaving the Houses of Parliament. Even if demonstrations continue to be allowed in Parliament Square, it should be a common concern to those on both sides of the House that Members find themselves getting advice from their Whips on which exits they cannot use for fear of being mobbed by an unauthorised demonstration that comes right up to the gates of Parliament. This really has gone too far. Sooner or later there will be an incident, unless security on entering and leaving the Houses of Parliament is restored.

Mordaunt replied:

I thank my right hon. Friend for raising this important matter. It is quite right that Members of Parliament and their staff should be able to go about their business in safety and security, and should not be disrupted in doing so. Mr Speaker was particularly concerned about this even prior to yesterday’s incidents, and has been working with Palace security and other organisations to ensure the safety of Members of Parliament in particular. Since the Deputy Speaker is in the Chair, I shall make sure that Mr Speaker has heard my right hon. Friend’s concerns, and I will ask that my right hon. Friend be kept informed of progress on such matters.

Whatever part of the law allowing protests to take place in Parliament Square should be repealed. I realise that protests have been taking place there for at least ten or 15 years. That should not happen.

Guido Fawkes posted a list of Labour frontbenchers who had to resign either before or after the previous day’s vote and wrote (red emphases below are his):

10 of Starmer’s frontbenchers resigned last night to vote in favour of a ceasefire in a symbolic vote organised by the SNP. The King’s Speech amendment calling for “all parties to agree to an immediate ceasefire” was defeated by a majority of 168. Performative, pointless…

On Thursday, pro-Palestinian activists encouraged parents to allow their children to skip school to protest instead. Here is one photo from London, however, this went on around England:

I’m happy that Andy Ngô was able to settle in London and pursue his fine investigative photographic and video evidence of what is happening on our streets. Granted, Adam Brooks took the above video, but Andy took one of the protest that happened outside the local Labour MP’s office. Dr Rushanara Ali did not vote for a ceasefire:

Breaking: An angry Muslim crowd has gathered outside the @UKLabour office in Tower Hamlets, London to protest against Muslim lawmaker @rushanaraali for not voting for an Israel ceasefire. Some view her as a traitor. pic.twitter.com/aERHHb9H2M

— Andy Ngô 🏳️‍🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) November 16, 2023

Elsewhere, Labour councillors were resigning in protest over Sir Keir Starmer’s stance on the Middle East conflict — but there was more to the story in the East Midlands town of Walsall.

GB News‘s Charlie Peters, one of the channel’s investigative journalists, reported:

Walsall Labour group has lost several councillors today in a mass resignation amid recent probes into alleged antisemitic social media posts by senior colleagues.

The quitting councillors include Aftab Nawaz, the group’s leader, and Cllr Sabina Ditta, Cllr Naheed Gultasib, Cllr Abdus Nazir, Cllr Saiqa Nasreen and Cllr Farhana Hassan.

They have blamed Labour’s position on the Israel-Hamas war for their quitting the party.

In a lengthy joint statement, the six councillors said: “We are saddened to inform you that we will be resigning from the Labour Party immediately due to Keir Starmer refusing to back and vote for a ceasefire in Gaza” …

But a source close to Walsall Council told GB News: “Two local Labour Councillors have resigned after being suspended by their Party in the past few weeks. Now this group, some of whom are under investigation by Labour, have decided to resign too.

“I don’t believe this has anything to do with their principles. I think it has everything to do with wanting to say what they like, how they like and without the fear of being held to account.”

Aftab Nawaz has quit amid a Labour Party investigation after GB News exposed his alleged sectarian chanting against a minority Muslim group in the West Midlands town earlier this year.

The fresh resignations come after deputy leader Khizar Hussain and shadow cabinet member Hajran Bashir both quit following GB News reports into their social media conduct.

This broadcaster revealed highly controversial social media posts made by the pair, which the Campaign Against Antisemitism described as “abhorrent.”

Hussain allegedly compared Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Hitler; Bashir allegedly drew links between Israel’s foundation and actions with those of Nazi Germany.

Both posts breached Labour’s antisemitism policy.

Bashir and Hussain both quit the party hours after they were administratively suspended for investigation.

That afternoon, Guido had his gimlet eye firmly on the BBC’s parlous reporting of the conflict — including clips from BBC Verify, their much-vaunted fact-checking unit. The nation’s broadcaster could not even report the ceasefire vote result correctly:

The BBC has been forced to update its latest “counter-disinformation” piece on how fatality figures are calculated in Gaza. Puzzled readers pointed out the story made no reference to the fact the Gaza health ministry is run by Hamas until the last paragraph, where the BBC deigned to quote the IDF who “said the health ministry was a branch of Hamas and that any information provided by it should be ‘viewed with caution‘”. This was after directly quoting figures from the Hamas-run health ministry nine times without caveat. You’d have thought they would have learned by now…

Anything connected to the Israel/Hamas War seems to be fair game for BBC misreporting. Last night’s article on Labour’s ceasefire rebellion got the outcome of the vote the wrong way round. Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity…

Guido asks:

Are unpaid interns running BBC reporting?

It would seem so.

Meanwhile, in Germany, police continued to crack down on anti-Semitism. Would that we were doing the same in the UK.

EuroNews reported:

Authorities are cracking down on supporters of Islamist groups after a rise in public antisemitism.

Several hundred German police officers carried out searches across the country on Thursday targeting an Islamist association suspected of supporting the Iran-aligned Islamist movement Hezbollah, the Interior Ministry announced.

“At a time when many Jews feel particularly threatened, we do not tolerate Islamist propaganda or anti-Semitic and anti-Israel campaigns”, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in a statement.

The police operation targeted the Islamic Centre of Hamburg (IZH) and five other organisations suspected of being linked to it. All are suspected of supporting Hezbollah, which Germany officially banned as a terrorist organisation in April 2020.

Searches were carried out at 54 properties in seven regions of Germany.

According to a statement from the Interior Ministry, the IZH’s activities are aimed at disseminating the theocratic Iranian regime’s “revolutionary concept”, which is “suspected of being contrary to the constitutional order in Germany” …

Well done, Germany!

In The Telegraph that day, the conservative pundit Douglas Murray wrote, ‘Britain is the new capital of anti-Israel hate’:

I have spent recent weeks in Israel, and goodness knows this is a country that has plenty of challenges. But one question I have been asked a lot by an alarmingly wide array of Israelis is: “What happened to Britain?” …

It amazes most Israelis – as it amazes me – that Britain has seen some of the worst scenes of all the anti-Israel marches across the world. And I say “anti-Israel” for a reason. The first protests in London happened before Israel had even begun its military response to October 7. Rallies were held within hours of the massacres. To most Israelis this is nearly unfeasible. 

What other country would see 1,400 of its citizens slaughtered, 240 kidnapped and countless more wounded for life, and not be allowed even a day to mourn? What other country, having suffered a set of atrocities hardly superseded in the whole history of violence wouldn’t get even one day of sympathy?

Only the Jewish state. And everybody in Israel knows as much. Pakistan is currently in the process of forcibly deporting two million Afghans. Nobody cares. Bashar al-Assad is in his twelfth year of killing Muslims in Syria and the world’s cameras turned away long ago. Only Israel, when involved in any military action, or even when it is simply on the receiving end of extreme violence, cannot rely even on the world’s understanding.

And it is in this light that Israel notices the British politicians calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. The ignorance of a large number of figures in British political life, from Humza Yousaf to Jess Phillips, can hardly be exaggerated. As it happens, a ceasefire of a kind existed in Gaza. Israel withdrew from Gaza unilaterally, and very painfully, in 2005 – removing every Jew from the strip. They handed over the land and got rockets in return.

Everyone around the Gaza border and across wider Israel was used to running from rockets to the shelters. But despite various exchanges over the years, nobody ever foresaw the battalion-sized terrorist attack of October 7. It was Hamas who broke what ceasefire existed that day when its legions gunned down young people at a music festival, went door to door in small communities, and burned people alive in their homes …

To call for a ceasefire now shows an astonishing lack of military understanding but also a horrific lack of decency. I have watched the Israeli Defence Force manage the evacuation of Gazans from the north of the strip to the south, so that the IDF can try to isolate Hamas and destroy them. It is a righteous mission, though one that is likely to prove incredibly hard.

I have also met many of the parents of the children and others stolen into Gaza. They want their children back. Why has there been no mass movement of MPs – from Labour, say – demanding that there be no ceasefire until Hamas hand back the hostages? Such a move seems to have never been on the cards.

Anti-Israel Labour MPs and others only ever campaign and condemn when they attack Israel. Perhaps because they know that Hamas would never listen to them anyway. These MPs are internationalist eunuchs. But my, do they talk a big game. Especially while they whip along the sectarian politics, which are the real driver of the protests on our streets …

But as I watch hooligans clamber over our war memorials and statues and hold our city centres hostage, I wonder whether it isn’t Britain that is the one in real trouble here.

The Guardian had a chilling article on the subject, ‘Why is antisemitism so rife in UK academic settings? I have never found student life more difficult’. Shockingly, it was written by an anonymous student from — wait for it — Oxford University:

When I woke in my student house on Saturday 7 October, my stomach turned at the news from Israel. As fellow Jewish students and I checked on our loved ones there, one replied on WhatsApp: “Do not go to synagogue today.” In their moment of terror they knew that here, in the UK, antisemitism would erupt; racism would jeopardise our safety.

There have been more reported incidents of antisemitism on British university campuses in a month than there were in all of 2022. At Oxford University, where I am an undergraduate, acts of hatred, misinformation and a lack of empathy when we are vulnerable have turned student spaces into places of hostility.

Our Jewish Society president had the mezuzah (a protective Jewish prayer scroll) ripped from his door. At a freshers’ event, one Jewish friend told me that she was called a “coloniser” and “race traitor” (the latter by virtue of her non-European descent). I know male students who have removed their kippot (skullcaps) and others who have hidden their Stars of David. On Instagram, I saw students posting pictures of paragliders, celebrating Hamas’s massacre. I waited five long days for my university to condemn “appalling attacks by Hamas” and stress “that there is no place for antisemitism or hate of any faith at Oxford”. An Israeli student whose relatives were murdered at the Nova festival has returned home, telling me she felt safer there than on campus.

In the days after 7 October, I walked Oxford’s streets, my home away from home, overwhelmed with grief and despair …

While I was concerned with the plight of civilians, I encountered protests and chants: “From Oxford to Gaza / Long live the intifada” – words that sustain the violence and too often lead to violence against Jews in the UK, not just in Israel.

As I struggled to work, I wrote to my tutors, explaining my distress. They replied privately, expressing sympathy. But as I appeared at tutorials and seminars, sleepless and broken, I did not feel safe to raise my most pressing thoughts in public. A climate in which we feel fearful to address what we’re going through leaves space for others to dehumanise us and contribute to environments in which antisemitism is allowed to fester.

The silence we encounter stands in stark contrast to the sensitivity and outspoken support displayed by staff and students to those touched by other events, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine …

When I see faces I know call “From the river to the sea” or students sign off emails with the same chant, the phrase feels like something that goes far beyond a demand for freedom: a call to get rid of Israel and a dog-whistle for getting rid of Jews. When someone shouts “Free Palestine” at a Jew walking around Oxford wearing his kippah, as happened to a friend of mine, they are weaponising that idea against him. In these moments, where anti-Zionism implies, even indirectly, an outcome that entails violence against Jews, it shelters antisemitism; universities must seek to understand why it is so ferocious in academic settings. They also must address why here, of all places, misinformation is disseminated so readily …

TaxiPoint featured a story on a black cab driver who kicked out a passenger voicing anti-Semitic sentiments:

A taxi driver in London took a firm stance against racism by asking a passenger to leave the cab after she went on a rant about the ‘Jewish machine’.

The incident was caught on camera and has since garnered attention for highlighting the prevalence of hate crimes.

… The driver’s response has been praised by Tom Tugendhat MP, who commended him for his stand against racism …

WARNING: Strong language heard in video

The correct response to racism.pic.twitter.com/IQlERbzYCQ

— Tom Tugendhat (@TomTugendhat) November 16, 2023

As the day came to a close, The Guardian reported that the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) discovered a dead hostage in Gaza City:

The Israeli military has recovered the body of an Israeli hostage from a building near al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, as soldiers continued to search the hospital complex after Wednesday’s early morning raid.

Yehudit Weiss, a 65-year-old woman, was abducted from the Be’eri kibbutz by Hamas militants during their attack on southern Israel on 7 October, in which at least 1,200 people were killed and more than 240 taken hostage. She had been undergoing cancer treatment.

“The body of Yehudit Weiss, who was abducted by the Hamas terrorist organisation, was extracted by IDF troops from a structure adjacent to the Shifa hospital in the Gaza Strip and was transferred to Israeli territory,” a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces said late on Thursday.

“In the structure in which Yehudit was located, military equipment including Kalashnikov rifles and RPGs were also found,” the spokesperson added.

Weiss’s husband, Shmulik, was killed during the Hamas attack.

The IDF also said it had uncovered a Hamas tunnel shaft and a vehicle with weapons at the Dar al-Shifa hospital complex.

“In the Shifa hospital, IDF troops found an operational tunnel shaft and a vehicle containing a large number of weapons,” the military said. It made public videos and photographs of the tunnel shaft and weapons, though no independent verification was possible.

Israel dropped leaflets into southern Gaza, telling Palestinian civilians to leave four towns on the eastern edge of Khan Younis, fuelling fears that its offensive would spread south …

Earlier, the IDF managed to find and fatally wound the man responsible for parading the young dead woman on the back of a pickup truck on October 7.

Friday, November 17

GB News’s Patrick Christys had a hard-hitting editorial on the protesters. He went to two protests, asking participants why they continued to demonstrate but was met with verbal aggression both times. In his editorial, he expressed his disdain for the anti-Semitism we have all been seeing, reading or hearing through media outlets and social media. Finally, he took strong exception to encouraging children to take time off school to march.

Go to the 7:00 mark (21:05 on the GB News clock):

Saturday, November 18

More pro-Palestinian protests took place on Saturday, some outside Labour constituency offices, including one near Keir Starmer’s.

The Telegraph reported:

Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of “supporting genocide” by hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters who barracked his constituency offices on Saturday.

Around 500 activists holding banners shouted: “Keir Starmer you can’t hide, you’re supporting genocide”, after marching from outside Chalk Farm station in north London …

Passers-by beeped car horns in support of the marchers, who were kept back from the constituency offices by police barriers.

It came as hundreds of people staged protests in towns and cities across Britain on Saturday calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

Around 100 pro-Palestinian rallies were held at locations around the UK, including Newcastle, Nottingham, Oxford, Plymouth and Stevenage.

In London, there were 10 rallies held in boroughs across the capital, including Islington, Redbridge, Lewisham and Tower Hamlets.

Many of the protests targeted Labour MPs who had voted against or abstained in the vote last week on the SNP amendment to the King’s Speech calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

In Birmingham, pro-Palestinian activists barracked the offices of Labour MP Shabana Mahmood, who abstained. Here they chanted accusations of supporting genocide against Sir Keir. There were also protests outside the office of Harrow East’s Conservative MP, Bob Blackman, who voted against a ceasefire call.

The localised demonstrations were held instead of a large march in central London, where national protests involving hundreds of thousands of people had been staged every Saturday since the outbreak of the conflict …

Another newspaper reported that Starmer fears for his family’s safety:

This is not the way to win hearts and minds.

Sunday, November 19

Shadow (Labour) chancellor Rachel Reeves appeared on Laura Kuenssberg’s BBC news show to discuss the protesters’ intimidation of MPs:

In other BBC news, war correspondent Jeremy Bowen said that the arms cache at al-Shaifa Hospital was for hospital security! Amazingly awful reporting:

The IDF made public their video of the 55-meter-long terrorist tunnel, 10 meters underneath al-Shifa Hospital. This is a must-watch:

OPERATIONAL UPDATE: IDF and ISA forces revealed a significant 55-meter-long terrorist tunnel, 10 meters underneath the Shifa Hospital complex during an intelligence-based operation.

The tunnel entrance contains various defense mechanisms, such as a blast-proof door and a firing… pic.twitter.com/tU4J6BD4ZG

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) November 19, 2023

Monday, November 20

Labour MP Zara Sultana gave an interview to left-leaning Novara Media claiming that her party is Islamophobic:

The Mail carried the story:

Sultana was elected to the House of Commons in December 2019.

One month before the election that year, the Jewish Chronicle reported on her social media posts that LBC (radio) had come across:

Labour’s election candidate for Coventry South, who previously apologised for saying she would “celebrate” the deaths of Tony Blair and Benjamin Nentanayu, has been forced to apologise again after it was revealed she had told someone who was pro-Israel “jump off a cliff”.

Zarah Sultana, a 26-year-old paid Labour staffer and West Midlands regional campaigner, was selected last week as the candidate for the seat from a shortlist of just two candidates.

The article has several of her quotes, all equally distasteful.

It also includes this tweet, which sums up the content:

LBC has obtained a file of anti-Semitic tweets from Labour's Zarah Sultana's account.
– one "pro-Israel" tweeter told to "jump off a cliff".
– Holocaust compared to "Muslim Holocaust" in Afghanistan and Iraq.
– Complains "Zionists will not willingly assimilate to Palestinians".

— Theo Usherwood (@theousherwood) November 14, 2019

Of course, she apologised:

In a statement published to Twitter, she said: “I am sorry that I posted these offensive comments on social media as a teenager. I was young and immature and the language I used was wrong.

“Through my political activism I have been on a journey which has included working closely with Jewish comrades who have taught me about the language and history of antisemitism.”

She said she had visited Auschwitz in 2013 and the trip had left her determined to “never to minimise the suffering of Jewish people.”

But — and it’s a big BUT:

… further tweets uncovered this week show that she went on to make offensive remarks in 2015.

Again, you can read the article to see the content.

Let’s not forget another fact about her:

She has no business being an MP.

Meanwhile, Mr Fafo — an actor whose real name is Saleh al-Jafarawi — is still around:

That afternoon, Speaker of the House Sir Lindsay Hoyle told MPs that, as a security measure, they could use taxis on expenses getting to and from Parliament. Furthermore, the independent expenses body, IPSA, said that it would keep all information confidential.

Guido has the story and Hoyle’s letter.

Let us hope that MPs do not abuse the privilege.

In a shocking development that Guido uncovered — and one that surely must be illegal — two councillors from Kingston in south west London have emailed every councillor in the UK to tell them to support a ceasefire, or else:

James Giles and Jamal Ch[o]han have organised the effort, giving their 19,102 fellow UK councillors until Friday this week to sign on. Otherwise, they will publish “the names of those who have been invited to sign but choose not to, in the interest of accountability”. Councillors across the country are reacting pretty angrily to the threatening letter…

Giles is left-wing and a supporter of former MP George Galloway:

running various campaigns for him including Batley & Spen’s by-election in 2021. Giles previously hosted Galloway’s programme for Russia-owned SputnikTV and Galloway’s The Mother of All Talk Shows when it was aired by the now-banned RT. He also ran his grandmother’s campaign in a by-election for the same council, which the LibDems and Conservatives denounced as “dirty” for attacking their LibDem rival for being an Ahmadiyya Muslim. A pleasant character no doubt…

Jamal’s father is a Conservative Party donor.

Politics makes for strange bedfellows.

Guido tells us:

Conservative councillor Jamal Ch[o]han is the son of Tory donor and PPE provider Ashraf Chohan. Guido hears he’s on his way through the candidate process to become a Tory PCC. Guido wonders what local Conservative associations will make of that…

Fortunately, the threat appears to be a damp squib:

UPDATE: A CCHQ source tells Guido:

The councillor in question has now been kicked out of the Tory group. He’s also not a party member, so any applications from him won’t be going very far….

Swift action from the new chairman. Not seeing the same from Sir Keir with his own elected MPs…

UPDATE II: The Local Government Association has expelled the pair and sacked them from all positions.

Guido posted a screenshot of the letter from The Royal Borough of Kingston which states that the Metropolitan Police have been informed.

Conclusion

We are at a crossroads here in the United Kingdom over this conflict.

I probably won’t report much more on this because of its base and appalling nature. However, these posts are testament to what has been happening here on our streets and in our Parliament.

However, I will have one more post on the conflict in general so that we can see how people either forget or misinterpret recent history.

Family: ‘the only hope of the world’

Having written about Titus 2:4-5 and Titus 2:6-8, which concern the responsibilities of younger Christian women and men, it seemed apposite to write about the importance of family.

Family, marriage and the home

In 2019, I bookmarked a post from LAMP, Lutheran Autonomous Missions Philippines: ‘Christian Family Life Is The Only Hope Of The World’, which is an excerpt from a 1915 sermon on the Fourth Commandment. The sermon expands on Martin Luther’s Small Catechism.

The excerpt reads as follows:

2. Christian Family Life Is The Only Hope Of The World.

Because of these undeniable facts, I affirm that Christian Family Life is the only Hope of the World.

In our second text, which is a part of the account of God’s covenant made with his people on the occasion of the giving of His Law, God Himself tells us what the consequences are when men, whether as individuals, or families, or nations, depart from the Lord. He tells us that it means the introduction of “a root that beareth gall and wormwood.” Such people bring on themselves, justly and inevitably, the wrath and punishment of Almighty God. And, sooner or later, it means the downfall of that man, or family, or nation. And this fall comes because men themselves despise and neglect the elements which make for safety and perpetuity, and allow the introduction of the elements which can ultimately end only in decay and dissolution.

The family circle is the primary training-school for the cultivation of all the virtues.

The post cited this link to the Lutheran Library which features sermons on the Small Catechism, in this case ‘The Christian Family’ by Robert Emory Golladay (1867-1947), the author of many sermons on the Bible and the Church.

Although he wrote his sermon in 1915, it could have been written yesterday, the content is that fresh and relevant.

This is the introduction to the first of the Ten Commandments relating to man’s relationship with man, honouring one’s mother and one’s father:

We are now ready to take up the study of the Second Table of God’s holy Law. This Second Table, beginning, according to our division, with the Fourth Commandment, deals with man’s relation to his fellowman. But let us not forget that, though these commandments treat of human relations, they are still God’s laws. And equally well let us remember that the violation of these commands, while a sin against man, is, primarily, a sin against God Himself.

In taking a general survey of this Second Table of the Law, even the most cursory student could scarcely fail to notice that there is one institution which lies at the very foundation of more than half these commandments, and is not excluded from the others. The Fourth, the Sixth, the Ninth and Tenth Commandments presuppose directly the family relation. And we shall never get the bearing, or the real significance, of many things spoken of, or referred to, in the Second Table of the Law until we have a fair idea of this fundamental human relation, — the family …

1. The Family Is A Divine Institution

This part on the family is particularly relevant today:

God Himself established it. The family existed in Paradise before ever sin made its appearance on earth. These facts give us sufficient evidence of the holy nature of the estate, and of the sacred and important ends God intended to have accomplished through it.

The family is not only the first institution of earth as to time, but it is the first also in importance. It is the fundamental institution for the perpetuation and development of the race. It is the radiating point of all the influences which affect the children of men. As the family is, so, largely, the State is going to be, and the Church. The ideals which prevail in the family circle, and are imbibed there, become the actuating motives of those who grow into manhood and womanhood there, and will dominate them when they go out into the wider circles of business and social life.

Reformatory efforts, whether they look to improvements in the Church, the State, or the general social conditions of mankind, shall fail, and fail miserably, if they do not look, first of all, at the correction of the family life. The family is the first unit in all human relations. It is the fountainhead of human existence. And no stream can rise higher than its source.

No man can build a house which will stand, especially when the storms rage and the floods surge, on a foundation of sand. And a flourishing Church, a sane and prosperous State, a wholesome, brotherly social and business life, cannot be built upon a family life which is not sane, and wholesome, and spiritually minded …

This is a truth which is being more and more recognized, and emphasized, by those who are not teachers of religion. Let us who are not only members of families, but members of the Church of God, not fail to learn, or having learned, not fail to profit by this lesson.

Marriage An Ordinance of God’s Own Establishment

Golladay offers sobering words for parents of older children as well as to young men and women:

As the basis of the family relation we have marriage, an ordinance of God’s own establishment. It was He who said in the words of our text: “It is not good that the man should be alone, I will make him an help meet for him.”

It was God who brought the first lonely man a companion.

It was God who united them, one man and one woman, in the indissoluble bonds of love, of unity of purpose, and of hearty cooperation, for life. And God is still the maker of marriages when people, in the fear and love of God, seek His good guidance. But when parents have no other thought than to be matchmakers, in order to get their children off their hands, and well settled in life; when young people, who have never had a serious thought in all their lives, rush into marriage with never a thought of its real responsibilities, with never a thought about the decisive bearing this step cannot fail to have on their own lives for time and eternity; with never a thought about the bearing this union will have on the Church, the State, the race; under such conditions marriages are not made in heaven, but in the other place. And only a miracle of grace can prevent them from being failures in every sense of the word.

Marriage! Marriage an institution of God’s ordaining, sacred in all its relations! Marriage an institution through which God is to be continually glorified, and humanity to be blessed! What thoughts these terms provoke! What a noble relationship! But would right thinking people want to apply these terms, or any one of them, to a union which is the result of a thoughtless, foolish escapade? Would we want to call that a Divine union where a man only wanted a housekeeper, and the woman only wanted to escape what is sometimes foolishly spoken of as the stigma of spinsterhood? I glory in the woman who, rather than sell herself for a name, or a home, or surrender herself to a man whom she can neither respect nor love, will courageously shoulder the responsibility of carving out her own career, and live and die unmated.

And my advice to the young man is that, if he cannot find something better than an animated clothes-rack, or one of those empty-minded giggling nonentities who has never had a higher thought than eating chocolate bonbons, having a neverending good time, escaping every form of work and responsibility, and keeping a man eternally in debt, then he had better follow suit, and live and die unmated; or hunt up one of the sensible, unspoiled bachelor maids and see whether he cannot get her to change her mind.

… I would a hundred times rather see no marriages than bad ones, which wreck and ruin human lives and human institutions.

The Home

He explains what a home should be:

… The word home is one of those which strikes deepest into the heart of the average man or woman. Aside from Divine overruling grace there is no influence on earth which does so much to make or mar humanity as the home.

A house is not necessarily a home. A palace, with costly tapestries, statuary, and every product of art, may still be no real home. To have a home there must be the contact of loving hearts, there must be fellowship of those of kindred spirit, there must be that which draws out and strengthens the best of which human nature is capable.

If we could only get people to think more of being home-makers! It is a great thing to be a landowner, and produce live stock, and grain, with which to feed hungry people. It is a great thing to be a big business man, producing for men, or conveying to them, the necessities of life. It is a great thing to be an honest toiler of any kind, and to know that thereby one is contributing to the good of humanity. But the greatest work of all is that which has as its conscious object true home-making. Here, as nowhere else, minds are trained, characters developed, and destinies of men and nations fixed.

2. Christian Family Life Is The Only Hope Of The World

Golladay asserts:

Because of these undeniable facts, I affirm that Christian Family Life is the only Hope of the World.

The next part of his sermon is the one excerpted at the top of this post. It ends with:

The family circle is the primary training-school for the cultivation of all the virtues.

He then cites Philippians 4:8 before exploring what constitutes a godly home:

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things.

I ask you where is the first place, and the most effective place, for teaching these things? There is but one answer, in the home. And they will not be taught, they cannot be effectually taught there, unless the fear and love of God rules in the home, unless the spirit of Christ reigns there. It is the Church’s exalted duty to teach these things, but one reason why the Church’s teaching does not produce any greater results is that they are not practiced in the home as they ought to be. None of us are perfect, we all have enough faults; but it is certain that if these things are not taught and practiced in the home, they will not be practiced out in the world.

It is in the home that human beings are brought into the closest, the dearest, the most responsible relationships in life. The Divine ideal is that humanity is to be a great brotherhood, mutually considerate and helpful. “None of us liveth to himself,” saith the Lord. Now the very center of this great complex of human relationship is the family circle. Here is where the real heart-beats of humanity are felt. If here there is a true spirit of mutual love and helpfulness, if here there is willingness to make sacrifices one for another, if here the spirit of self-control is exercised, if here the spirit of selfishness is banished more and more, then it may be reasonably expected that, with proper encouragement, this spirit will be carried out into the larger relationships, into the community and the Church.

He then presents a dysfunctional home environment:

But if parents are themselves supremely selfish, if they are not willing to make any sacrifices for the common good, if they constantly seek to escape responsibilities, if they are full of impatience with one another, if their children are always in the way, and everything done for them is done under protest, what is to be expected when such people get out into the world? Is it any wonder that they regard the world only as an orange to be squeezed for their own pleasure? And if children learn none of these primary virtues in the home circle, if each one lives only for himself or herself, if each one is an Ishmael with his hand against everyone else, if each one lives only to get and be served, but never to give or to serve, then there is but little hope that they will ever effectually learn these lessons. By the grace of God there will be exceptions. Just as the water lily grows up in beauty and fragrance out of the mud and miasm of a stagnant lake, so an occasional child, reared in the godless and chilly atmosphere of an unchristian home, will develop into beautiful manhood or womanhood, because the warm rays of Divine grace beam upon it from other sources than the home. But the odds are greatly against this.

He says that only God-fearing people can make a good home:

Only in one way, by turning to the Lord our God, by having the fear of God before our eyes, by making the Law of God the rule of our lives, by opening our hearts to be filled and ruled by the Spirit of Jesus Christ; and by making the home the first and greatest school for the teaching and practice of these heavenly virtues.

Blessed are the men and women who came out from homes where unassumed and unassuming Christian piety reigned; from homes where the only law was the law of righteousness and love; from homes where the grief of one was the grief of all, and the joy of one the joy of all; from homes where the richest heritage was a godly father’s counsel, and a sainted mother’s prayers. Such a home is earth’s vestibule to heaven. In such a home love is a law of life, and kindly deeds are love’s legitimate fruitage. If, because of human frailty, there is offense given, there is also ready reparation and forgiveness. To such a home as this the inmates will flee, as to a haven of rest, from the wearying, vexing battles which are waged in the world by warring human passions. And when to the members of such a home inevitable sorrow comes, bowed and burdened hearts are comforted and cheered by love both human and Divine. From such homes come nearly all the men and women who bless the earth with their presence and their work. The names of such homes are kept sacred in the records of heaven. And their influence shall never perish from the earth.

He then poses the challenges to the family and a question that could have arisen in a newspaper column today:

The family and the home are threatened in our day by an ever-growing and powerful list of enemies. The growing congestion of city life, the crowding of families into apartments where real family life is next to impossible, the rearing of children in the midst of the most unfavorable environment, the increasing stress of competition which breadwinners have to face, and the multiplication of temptations for children and adults, have led students of economic and social conditions to ask the question: Can the family, the home, survive?

He concludes:

It behooves those who love humanity, and are interested in the coming of the Kingdom of God, to bestir themselves to the end that it shall survive; not alone in the sense of substantial dwellings, but in the sense of men and women of God mated in love, Divine and human, who will live their religion in their homes, and beget and rear children who will follow in their footsteps. Then shall the root which beareth gall and bitterness find no soil for growth in our homes. Our land will be safe and prosper. And the Kingdom of God take on new vigor. As of old the called and professing children of God, with the nation at large, are standing at a critical point in our history. What shall our answer be to God’s proposals? Let the answer of each be that of the man of God of old:

“As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

What a powerful message to read 108 years on!

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On a slightly lighter note, did you know that there are cowboys in the Philippines?

The website for LAMP, Lutheran Autonomous Missions Philippines, is called Lutheran Cowboys Philippines. A post called ‘Carabao’ explains why and includes an illustration, an ancient map and a recent photograph:

Pastor Palangyos titled the blog Lutheran Cowboys Philippines because of our admiration for traditional country music and our farming backgrounds. American traditional country music is popular in the Philippines’ highlands where much of our current mission efforts are.

Our logo, designed by Rovi Estrada, consists of a cowboy riding a carabao.

Carabao (water ox), the symbol of hard work, patience, strength and considered by many to be the national animal of the Philippines has been used by man in numerous accounts of recorded history in the Philippines.

The Murillo Velarde Map published in 1734 depicts the carabao as an integral part of the Filipino life used as a domesticated animal in the fields and as a means of transportation similar to horses and camels.

“Blessed [are] ye that sow beside all waters, that send forth [thither] the feet of the ox and the ass. ” Isaiah 32:20

Carabao are used in a method of farming called payatak described by Professor Abe V. Rotor, “This is a local version of zero tillage. No plowing, no harrowing. A herd of carabaos trample of the soil until it turns puddle, then the one-month old seedlings are transplanted. No spray, no fertilizer. This is natural farming in the marginal sense, a carryover of traditional farming.”

“Where no oxen are, the manger is clean, But much revenue comes by the strength of the ox.” Proverbs 14:14

“Our carabaos do not reproduce as fast as we slaughter them,” says Dr. Libertado C. Cruz, one of the country’s foremost animal scientists. “If we allow this trend to continue, our carabao population will soon be practically eliminated.”

After World War II the majority of the Philippines’ carabao population had been decimated from Japanese policy slaughtering the carabao as a food source. The USDA reports the “carabeef has 41% less cholesterol, 92% less fat and 56% fewer calories than beef.”

In response to the dwindling numbers of carabao the Philippine Government issued EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 626 October 21, 1980 that the slaughtering of carabaos and buffaloes is hereby prohibited except under certain conditions.

During my time in the Philippines I saw several carabao in the fields on my travel to Baguio from Manila. A rural farm family had a carabao pictured below with Judah – they treated us to fresh fruit and water during our hiking trip through the mountains.

Glen Kotten

I wish the Lutheran Cowboys in the Philippines continued success and grace in their work for the Lord.

Forbidden Bible Verses — Titus 2:6-8

The three-year Lectionary that many Catholics and Protestants hear in public worship gives us a great variety of Holy Scripture.

Yet, it doesn’t tell the whole story.

My series Forbidden Bible Verses — ones the Lectionary editors and their clergy omit — examines the passages we do not hear in church. These missing verses are also Essential Bible Verses, ones we should study with care and attention. Often, we find that they carry difficult messages and warnings.

Today’s reading is from the English Standard Version Anglicised (ESVUK) with commentary by Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.

Titus 2:6-8

⁶ Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. ⁷ Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, ⁸ and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.

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Last week’s post concerned the duties of younger Christian women to be faithful, loving wives and mothers, staying at home.

In an era of feminism spanning at least six decades now, Paul’s instructions to Titus and to the older women in Crete to encourage godly behaviour in women of childbearing age appear archaic.

However, interestingly enough, on Sunday, November 5, 2023, The Guardian featured an article about British mothers increasingly leaving the workforce to care for their children. The paper presents this as an attack on the Conservative government, but there are certain eternal truths here in balancing childcare and work outside the home. Women cannot always ‘have it all’, as is so often said, even today. Excerpts follow, emphases mine:

About a quarter of a million mothers with young children have left their jobs because of difficulties with balancing work and childcare, according to a report by an equal rights charity that calls for the end of the “motherhood penalty”.

This juggling act, as well as the punitive cost, has led more than 249,124 working mothers of children aged four or under to leave their employer, according to the Fawcett Society.

A lack of flexible working arrangements and affordable childcare combined with “outdated and toxic attitudes around motherhood” were holding women back, said its chief executive, Jemima Olchawski.

Its survey of 3,000 working parents of preschoolers, conducted jointly with the recruitment firm Totaljobs, revealed that one in five working mothers had considered leaving their job because of the difficulties of balancing work and childcare. One in 10 had handed in their notice because of this, rising to 13% of single mothers …

Alongside the mothers exiting the workforce, the poll also revealed that three out of four working parents have had to take unpaid leave becuase of childcare responsibilities, with higher rates for women from non-white backgrounds and single mothers.

Today’s reading concerns young men, who also have responsibilities as Christians.

John MacArthur rightly posits in his 1993 sermon that it is difficult for Christians to reach the world in a non-worldly way and cites examples, including one which is relevant today:

And so, the Lord has put on hold the fullness of our fellowship and the fullness of our praise and worship, the fullness of our bliss and blessing, and left us here for the express purpose of being human agents of salvation for the lost.  And I really think that, for the most part, the evangelical church understands that.  For the most part, they agree on that purpose.  However, they do not necessarily agree on the means for carrying it out.  I suppose that isn’t anything new.  The church has always struggled with what technique or what methodology or what style it should use – what approach to reach the lost.  The church has in the past, and I think is today as much as at any time in my life, been confused about how we are to evangelize, how we are to reach the unsaved.

It can even reach somewhat bizarre proportions.  I doubt there has ever been anyone like Sister Paula.  You may have read about her in People magazine.  She describes herself as an open, transsexual Christian, preaching the gospel – Tammy Faye with a five-o’clock shadow.  Sister Paul was born Larry Neilson and supposedly became a Christian in 1950 as a twelve-year-old, innately effeminate boy.  After Larry became Paula in a sex change operation a few years ago, some female, Pentecostal, televangelist friend urged Larry/Paula to start a television ministry.  People magazine describe Sister Paula as 53 years old, six feet one and a half inches tall and built like a linebacker.

Now obviously this is ultimately unthinkable, inconceivable, absolutely bizarre.  And yet it does illustrate the fact that people think you can go to extreme lengths to become like the world and have a better chance of reaching the world.  Can you imagine anything more incongruous or more profane than a transsexual evangelist?  Yet Sister Paula believes that she can have a more effective ministry to people in our generation, she says, than the, quote, “typical straight Christian.”  Sister Paula’s philosophy is fundamentally the same philosophy as much of the church marketing that goes on today, although certainly none of them would want to see it taken to such an extreme.  But the philosophy is if we’re going to win the world we’ve got to get alongside them, become enough like them so they’re not threatened by us.  The notion that the church is to become like the world to win the world has frankly taken evangelicalism by storm today ...

We’ve really done everything we could to sidle up along with the world and sort of become a Christian counterpart to every worldly attraction.  We have Christian motorcycle gangs, Christian body building teams, Christian dance clubs, Christian amusement parks, and I even read about a Christian nudist colony.  Now wherever Christians got the idea that we would win the world by imitating the world, they didn’t get it out of the Bible.  There’s not a shred of biblical justification for that kind of thinking.  In fact, James made it very clear when he said friendship with the world is enmity with God.  And John put it this way: “If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  All that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.”  Those things are all in the process of perishing and have nothing to do with eternal issues …

I think the principle is utterly foundational, and it is stated for us in Matthew chapter 5. Jesus put it as simply and directly as He could, and it cannot be improved upon.  He said this: “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”  Jesus basically said the ultimate evangelistic platform is created by the virtue of your lives.

Paul writes to Titus, who is working to bring order to the many new churches in Crete, that, just as younger women have certain duties to fulfil — ‘Likewise’ — young men must learn to be self-controlled (verse 8).

Young men, whom Paul considers in the Greek context as being under the age of 60, are, by and large, virile beings who are often forthright as well as physically strong.

Matthew Henry’s commentary refers to these characteristics but probably applying them more to young men in their teens, 20s and early 30s:

They are apt to be eager and hot, thoughtless and precipitant; therefore they must be earnestly called upon and exhorted to be considerate, not rash; advisable and submissive, not wilful and head-strong; humble and mild, not haughty and proud; for there are more young people ruined by pride than by any other sin. The young should be grave and solid in their deportment and manners, joining the seriousness of age with the liveliness and vigour of youth. This will make even those younger years to pass to good purpose, and yield matter of comfortable reflection when the evil days come; it will be preventive of much sin and sorrow, and lay the foundation for doing and enjoying much good. Such shall not mourn at the last, but have peace and comfort in death, and after it a glorious crown of life.

Henry refers there to verses from Ecclesiastes, which MacArthur cites in his sermon.

MacArthur reminds us of Paul’s exhortations that Christians are to display sincerely transformed lives so as not to give the enemy — Satan’s earthly agents — any room for criticism:

We are so to live, said Jesus, so to live to the glory of God that men can see the beauty of what God has done in us.  It’s what we’ve already looked at and we shall see again in Titus 2:10 – “we adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in every respect.”  What does that mean?  We demonstrate the beauty of a saving God by showing saved lives.  Sinners have to see the transforming power of Christ’s presence, not in some clever technique but in someone’s life.

That is exactly what Paul is calling for here in Titus.  He knows what the evangelistic strategy is to reach the remainder of the island of Crete and wherever else the Cretan Christians might journey.  He knows what the issues at hand are.  He knows what has to be done to make the Word of God to be honored, as he says in verse 5; to silence the opposers, as he says in verse 8; and “to adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in every respect,” as he said in verse 10.  He knows exactly what to do, and that’s what he calls for in chapter 2 – godly living.

We must proclaim the saving message, yes.  We must give a clear word about sin and judgment and repentance and faith.  But it has to be made believable by our lives.  It does no good to speak about a God who can save when you show a life that doesn’t evidence it.

MacArthur tells us that Titus was likely to have been in his early 30s at this point, therefore, Paul wants him to serve as an example to Cretan men:

Having discussed the old men, the old women, the young women, and now he comes to the young men.  This is most important to Titus because he is one of them – very likely a little bit younger than Timothy, who was probably in his upper thirties, we find Titus maybe in his early thirties.  Much younger than Paul, who now describes himself as the aged – he has gone past the sixty mark – somewhere in his middle sixties.  But Titus is specifically a young man himself, and so he has a unique contribution to make to young men that he couldn’t make to old men – nor could he make it to old women or young women since he does not understand personally the role that they uniquely play.  So this is really his group.  Therefore, though verse 6 is directed at the young men, verses 7 and 8 are directed at Titus.

You say, “Is this a change?  Is there only one verse, verse 6, very briefly addressed to young men and then he goes on to talk to Titus?”  No, I think the whole thing relates to young men, and what he says to young men in general in verse 6 he says to Titus in specific, in verses 7 and 8, because Titus is to be the example to all young men.  This is setting a pace of spiritual character and spiritual devotion that he couldn’t set for older men, not having reached that point in life, and he couldn’t set for older women or younger women because he does not know fully and personally the role of women.  This is his group, and so he is called on not only to exhort them in verse 6, but to set the example for them in verses 7 and 8. All of it then relates through him to the young men.

MacArthur explains the concept of young and old in Greek society at the time:

It refers, generally speaking, to men under sixty since sixty seems to be not only the cultural break point in that time, but even the one which Paul identifies in 1 Timothy when he talks about widows who are over the age of sixty.  Young men fill up a large category, then, somewhere from say twenty to sixty, or thereabouts.  And young men have their own set of special problems and dangers.  They are maybe more intense in some ways in the earlier part of that vast period called young.  But they seem to stretch through the whole period. There, the time when men are still basically virile and strong and aggressive, to one degree or another, and healthy and somewhat ambitious.  And those are dangerous years for all of us men.

MacArthur describes those dangers, which might well engender habits that are hard to break in old age:

First of all, there is the danger of laziness, laziness.  You might call it indulgence.  This is usually programmed.  But it’s also innate in fallenness.  Man, generally speaking, is lazy.  He needs some compunctions and some controls and some strong motivations to work.  But general laziness can be exacerbated in the home when men are young.  Lazy men are usually produced that lack discipline, where they’re never really taught to pull in the loose ends of their life and be constructive.  Lazy men are also produced in homes where there is partiality, where for whatever reason the parents have selected this particular individual for particular benefit and partiality.  And so he does not see himself as one among many but one above many, and therefore looks not at what he can do to serve others but what others can do to serve him, and that creates laziness.

Lazy men are usually produced also in homes where they were never taught hard work, homes where they were indulged and had plenty of money and plenty of goods.  Lazy men are produced in homes where parents are absent, where there is no father.  Lazy men are produced in homes where there is no particular concern about watching over them, and they are left to themselves without caring, without discipline, without work.  And left to do what they please, young men will choose to do nothing beneficial.  They become victims of their own program – lethargy.  It’s a dangerous time to be young if you don’t learn discipline, if you don’t learn work, if you don’t learn diligence.

Secondly, another danger of youth is freedom, freedom.  Turning young people loose from the family confines, the family accountability, the family scrutiny, too soon, too fast, too far – they get a car and they have total freedom.  They’re out from under strong influence; they’re out from under restraint.  They’re out from under consequences of their behavior. They’re out from under instruction.  They’re out from under discipline.  They’re out from under fatherly control.  And when they begin to do what they please in their freedom they usually please to do what is not honoring to God or productive.

The third danger is a decadent culture.  Young men being raised in a decadent culture are accustomed to vice.  Listen carefully.  Familiarity with vice does not produce disgust, it produces attachment.  Familiarity with vice does not produce disgust, it produces attachment.  Moral perceptions are blurred, sensibilities to evil are dulled, and when young people – young men – become accustom to vice they are victimized by its allurements.

Fourthly, another danger that comes to young men is godless education.  They are exposed in their education to attacks on God, attacks on Christ – both overt and covert.  They are exposed to attacks on the Bible.  Christianity is either ignored, laughed at, jeered at, or not considered at all as intellectual.  They go through a process of education that basically leaves God out or defines Him in human terms, and it’s powerful stuff because mentors and teachers and professors carry authority with them.  It’s a dangerous time as the foundations of life and the belief in God, which is so innate to the human heart and the reasonings as indicated in Romans 1, are attacked and devastated and shattered in the educational process and men lose their sense of reality about God.

And then in a general category, number five, I would say it’s dangerous just because of overall immaturity.  Immaturity has its own problems. Somebody said it’s too bad youth has to be wasted on the young, but that’s how it is.  And youth, because it is youth, is immature. Because it’s immature it has its own set of problems.  For example, temptation is strongest in youth.  Lusts are most compelling at that time.  Habits are formed that rarely can be killed, even in old age.  I have stood by the bed of dying men who have confessed to me with tears that they have never been able to overcome the habits of pornography that they began when they were youths.  Youth is a time that presents more opportunity for sin, more frequent opportunity for sin.  Youth is a time when ambition is strong, when pride is controlling.  Youth is a time of unwarranted confidence – confidence you don’t deserve because it’s never been tested and you’ve never been proven.  It’s a time of imagined invincibility.  It’s a time of lacking of experience, and experience mellows and softens and brings reality. It’s a dangerous, dangerous time.  And the future of the church is yet dependent on young men growing up in such dangerous times.

I have examples of the danger of young men left to their own devices or who come from unstable homes.

In last week’s post about women, I cited the 1965 paper, The Moynihan Report, by Daniel Patrick Moynihan who was a policy adviser to the US presidents Kennedy and Johnson. The Moynihan Report looked at the difficulties that black families were experiencing at the time. Their divorce rate had suddenly increased and many single mothers were claiming welfare.

Education Next has an excellent summary and tells us why Moynihan thought the single-parent household was unhelpful, especially for young black men. This was just under 60 years ago (bold in the original here):

The percentage of white births in the U.S. that was illegitimate, he wrote, had inched upward from 2 percent in 1940 to 3 percent in 1963. The black percentage, however, had jumped during these years from 16.8 percent to 23.6 percent, thereby remaining roughly eight times higher than among whites. Black divorce rates, too, had increased: in 1940 these had been the same for blacks and whites, but by 1964 the nonwhite (here as elsewhere he meant Negro) percentage had become 40 percent higher than that among whites. The result, he wrote, was that “Almost One-Fourth of Negro Families are Headed by Females.” 

“Incredible mistreatment” over the past three centuries, Moynihan continued, had forced Negro families in the United States into a “matriarchal structure.” This was not necessarily a bad thing, he added, but because such a structure was “so out of line with the rest of the American society,” it “seriously retards the progress of the group as a whole, and imposes a crushing burden on the Negro male and, in consequence, on a great many Negro women as well.” American society “presumes male leadership in private and public affairs…. A subculture, such as that of the Negro American, in which this is not the pattern, is placed at a distinct disadvantage.”

Moynihan, who was well-intentioned although later unfairly criticised, posited that young black males needed more men in their lives:

He also recommended military service, where there was an “utterly masculine world,” for young black men. It was clear from the report that he agonized most about the effects of job discrimination and unemployment on young black males, which (except during World War II and the Korean War years) had been at “disaster levels for 35 years.” 

Overall, Moynihan wanted both black and white families to be equally strong, and this involved traditional role models. For a time, until Moynihan received criticism from black activists, President Johnson supported his adviser’s report:

While Johnson did not specify what government ought to do, he promised to take action to improve black education, health care, employment, and housing, and especially to devise “social programs better designed to hold families together.” “The family,” he emphasized, “is the cornerstone of our society.” He announced that he would convene a White House Conference in the fall featuring “scholars, and experts, and outstanding Negro leaders—men of both races—and officials of government at every level.” The theme and title of the conference would be “To Fulfill These Rights.”

Civil rights leaders hailed Johnson’s address. Martin Luther King Jr. declared, “Never before has a president articulated the depths and dimensions [of the problems] more eloquently and profoundly.” Johnson himself later said, and rightly so, that this was his greatest civil-rights speech.

There was ample reason at that time for Johnson and Moynihan to hope for public action, because a powerful tide of American liberalism was then cresting at an unprecedentedly high level. By June 1965, a heavily Democratic Congress had either enacted or was about to enact a host of ambitious Great Society programs—an Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Medicare, Medicaid, a Voting Rights Act, reform of racist immigration law—that Johnson, a relentless advocate, had been urging upon it.

Historic developments in the pivotal summer of 1965, however, transformed the political climate in the United States, thereby deeply darkening the context in which the report was to enter the public realm. One was enormous military escalation, publicly announced in late July, of the nation’s involvement in Vietnam. This absorbed Johnson’s attention, diverted massive federal funds to the war effort, and unleashed increasingly furious political acrimony.

A little later, in early August, five days of violent and widely televised black demonstrations ravaged the Watts area of Los Angeles … The bloody “Watts Riot,” as it was called, was a disaster for the interracial, nonviolent civil rights movement—and for liberal hopes in general.

In last week’s post, I presented more American examples of family breakdown as well as British examples.

This week, I will look at the similar trajectory of family breakdown exclusively in Britain from 2009.

On November 27 that year, The Telegraph featured ‘Poor boys “turned into criminals” at school’, with white and black suffering equally because of lefty education trends:

In a damning report, it was claimed thousands of white British and black Caribbean boys from the poorest backgrounds were being consigned to a “lifetime of crime, drugs and prison” after being failed at school.

The report blamed the “ideological fads” of the left-wing educational establishment.

This included a hardcore of teachers who believed proper discipline “belonged to the Dark Age” and allowed pupils to run amok in classrooms and corridors.

It also identified the failure to teach reading effectively in primary schools, which led to large numbers of boys starting secondary school with poor literacy skills, fuelling a culture of frustration and resentment.

The conclusions – in a study published by the Centre for Policy Studies, a think-tank – come just days after Ofsted levelled a series of criticisms at English schools.

In its annual report, the watchdog said that a “stubborn core” of poor teaching was holding back progress at thousands of schools and warned of a persistent gap between rich and deprived pupils.

Some educational aspects have improved since then. In 2022 international scores, English schools have one of the best reading rates in the world. However, that does not do much for the cohort from 2009.

That said, unfortunately, things have not improved for white working class boys who are in the same boat as their minority counterparts. In some cases, whites are worse off.

Six years later, on October 30, 2015, the BBC reported (bold in the original):

If you’re white, male and poor enough to qualify for a free meal at school then you face the toughest challenge when starting out in life.

That’s what the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has said in “the most comprehensive review ever carried out on progress towards greater equality in Britain”.

The suggestion is because white male poor pupils do worse at school their chances of getting good jobs is reduced.

The EHRC, an organisation set up to get rid of discrimination, defines anyone who qualifies for a free school meal as poor …

1. Poor white boys got the worst results overall

2. White pupils in general did worse than all other race groups

3. Chinese pupils among boys and girls did the best

Each group did see improvements in their results over the five year period, but white boys saw the least improvements which suggests they are being left behind, according to the EHRC.

The Financial Times published a graph with 2015 higher education admissions showing that poor white boys were least likely to enter university:

An article that appeared in October 2015 in The Conservative Woman had more, positing the adverse effects of the lack of male teachers in schools:

Masculinity and white ethnicity are real issues in our schools. Besides the shortage of white male teachers, white working-class boys are an issue, too. When it comes to the academic performance of different ethnic groups and gender cohorts, they are at the bottom of the pile.

The Commons Select Committee on Education was informed recently by Professor Matthew Goodwin that these pupils suffer from ‘a status deficit’. He has worked out that PC labels such as ‘white privilege’ and ‘toxic masculinity’ are not helpful. Another expert, Dr Lee Elliot Major, told the committee that ‘we’ve created a narrow academic race system that is unwinnable for white working-class communities’ …

In contrast, the story of the UK’s BAME community is, largely, one of success, however hard-earned at times. The performance of our immigrant children has been particularly outstanding. The comparative success of London schools is mostly down to the disproportionate number of immigrants in the capital. It was ever the case. Immigrant families have, throughout history and across the world, been amongst the most hard-working. They are also the most inclined to place high value on education.

The growing alienation of white males from the teaching profession, however, can no longer be ignored. Too many children, girls as well as boys, are growing up without male role models playing much of a part in their lives. The feminisation of schools – teachers as social workers and PC warriors – is putting men off. Concerns about child abuse may be another factor. An unwarranted stigma can attach to a man who wishes to work with children, especially young children.

… Many white males are retreating in the face of the woke onslaught. In schools the lack of male teachers means that many children are missing out on a lack of gender diversity that may have a long-term impact. The under-performance of working-class white boys, meanwhile, is being neglected. They constitute a high proportion of school leavers who are uneducated, unemployable and unappeased.

Teenage boys are becoming more violent and prone to criminal activity.

On February 15, 2010, the Mail reported on an advertising campaign that year to discourage boys from beating up their girlfriends:

Teenage boys are being urged not to abuse their girlfriends as part of a new Government campaign which was launched today.

The campaign was launched after worrying new figures show that at least one in three women have been abused.

TV, radio, internet and poster ads will target young males aged 13 to 18 in an attempt to show the consequences of abusive relationships.

It is part of a wider effort by ministers to cut domestic violence against both women and younger girls.

Research published last year by the NSPCC found a quarter of teenage girls said they had been physically abused by their boyfriends.

One in six said they had been pressured into sex and one in three said they had gone further sexually than they had wanted to.

Three months later that year, on May 13, the Mail covered the harrowing story of two ten-year-old boys who raped an eight-year-old girl in west London:

She was eight years old and cuddling a teddy on her lap. Her long blonde hair was in a ponytail and it flicked around the back of her pink and white T-shirt as she spoke.

In different circumstances, this might have been a little girl making her first appearance on a primary school video – shy, slightly nervous, and probably hoping to say all the right things.

But the camera had been set up in a police interview room. The softly spoken blonde in front of her was a specially trained PC [police constable].

And what she said on film reduced the highest criminal court in the land to virtual silence yesterday.

With the startling candour of an innocent child, she told how two ten-year-old boys forced her to pull down her pants before taking it in turns to do something to her that made her bow her head and wipe her eyes when she described it.

She never used the word rape – but that was the charge the boys in Court 7 at the Old Bailey faced as they sat with their chins on their hands, flanked by their mothers and two lawyers, to watch her evidence on screen.

In one of the most remarkable cases ever to come before a jury, the allegation was that they lured her away from her home and into a field nearby.

Her testimony was so matter-of-fact that you had to keep reminding yourself of the ages involved.

Had the boys been under the age of criminal responsibility, none of the lawyers, police or jurors would have been here.

But ten, the law says, means they can effectively be tried as adults.

It made them the youngest defendants to appear on a rape charge, and compelled a little girl to relive the moment she said they assaulted her …

Fast forwarding to 2022, the Mail carried a story about the trial of several men who turned two boys into drug runners. ‘County lines’ refers to drug trafficking outside our major cities. Its scourge continues — made worse thanks to lockdown:

A gang of seven men face jail after two vulnerable children were exploited to became county lines schoolboy drug dealers.

Two men were found guilty of modern slavery offences, conspiracy to supply class A drugs, robbery and attempting to intimidate a witness following a four-week trial at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court.

A further five pleaded guilty before the trial began and now all seven face setencing on a date to be fixed.

It came after an investigation was launched after concerns were raised to the police regarding the exploitation of a child in May 2019.

A designated team, working with multi-agency partners, investigated numerous allegations and visited many young people throughout a six-month period. Officers identified two child victims and multiple offenders by February 2020.

A large-scale enforcement operation was carried out across Stoke-on-Trent in February and March 2020, which saw Qasim Rafi, Umar Rafi, Usman Rafi, Muazzam Naseer, Haroon Hussain, Paul Harnett and Lee Comley arrested. Mohammed Hassnain Shabir was later arrested in September 2020.

The investigation, which involved Children’s Services at Staffordshire County Council and Stoke-on-Trent City Council, found the victims were coerced and exploited by a group of men. As a result, the children were arrested multiple times for drug offences, eventually disclosing the true nature of what occurred …

Returning to education, on November 28, 2021, the then-Secretary of State for Education, Nadhim Zahawi, launched an initiative to get more working-class white boys into university. The Mail reported:

A new national target is to be introduced in a bid to increase the number of white working-class males studying at university, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Research shows that only 12.6 per cent of them go on to higher education by the age of 19 – the lowest of all demographic groups – and they are less likely to get good grades at school than their equally disadvantaged ethnic minority peers.

Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi has asked regulators at the Office for Students to renegotiate universities’ targets to address ‘regional inequalities and prior attainment in schools’.

Only a handful of institutions set goals for the number of white working-class males, while support for the group with bursaries and scholarships is non-existent. Some academics say concerns about the fate of white working-class teenagers have been ignored or dismissed as ‘Right-wing thinking’ …

Welcoming the new target, Oxford University chemistry professor Peter Edwards said: ‘White working-class males in Britain have traded places with ethnic minorities and are now the group most likely to fail educationally and to struggle in life.

‘It is quite clear to me that simply belonging to the racial group white working-class males is seen as inherent privilege – irrespective of any disadvantage that accompanies their situation.’

Earlier this year, the House of Commons Education Select Committee produced a report that found that white children on free school meals – especially boys – persistently underperform academically compared with other ethnic groups.

The committee’s chairman, Tory MP Robert Halfon, described the lack of action as ‘a scandal’ but applauded the OfS directive as a first step forward …

And, finally, on July 29, 2022, the Mail featured an editorial from author and professor Matt Goodwin, who is also a socio-political pollster, on educational neglect of poor white children — including girls:

Following a national drive to make undergraduate intakes more ‘diverse’, figures released on Thursday by the Department for Education showed that, for the first time, white young people are now proportionately the least likely of all major ethnic groups to attend our top universities.

Among Britain’s Chinese families, some 40.7 per cent of their youngsters made it to Oxford, Cambridge and others in the elite Russell Group in 2020-21. The figures for Asian young people were 16 per cent. It was 10.7 per cent for black families — and just 10.5 per cent among white ones.

Of course, in some ways, this is an inspirational success story. That children from non-white backgrounds are thriving in Britain’s educational system is something to celebrate …

In contrast, poor, white, working-class communities experience far higher rates of family breakdown, as well as other challenges that jeopardise academic success, from addiction to joblessness and mental and physical health problems. Nevertheless, much of the problem does lie firmly with the universities …

… if our universities really want to pursue racial equality, they should take a look at some other statistics released this week by the Department for Education.

These revealed the numbers of young people who go to university at all — not just the elite institutions. The results were even more striking. Fully 81 per cent of Chinese children, almost 66 per cent of Asian children and 48 per cent of mixed-race children go to any university nowadays.

The figure for white children? Just 40 per cent.

The numbers are even more damning when you look at the details. Among children who receive free school meals — that is, the white working-class — only 13.6 per cent go to university …

We need to challenge … dangerous and divisive woke ideology — one that is spinning such a misleading picture of modern Britain. Ours is not an institutionally racist country: quite the opposite.

As the latest statistics suggest, it is one of the best places in the world to be a member of an ethnic minority.

At the same time, we need to speak up loudly for white working-class children and recognise that the noble aim of increasing diversity in the classroom and the lecture hall — especially when couched in the language of ‘oppression’ and ‘white privilege’ — has costs as well.

Only by doing these things will we ensure that yet another generation of white working-class children do not find themselves so unfairly left behind — and watch aghast as our universities become even less representative of the country at large.

There endeth the statistics and crime stories about disadvantaged families and their children, particularly boys and young men.

Returning to our reading, MacArthur has a note on ‘self-controlled’ in verse 6, as it is in Greek:

So says Paul to Titus – “urge the young men to be sensible,” “to get control of themselves,” he means.  The word “urge” parakale, “come alongside and exhort or encourage” – a familiar New Testament word.  It means “to instruct, to teach, to counsel, direct, to guide, to exhort, to admonish.”  It’s a method of influencing through the spoken word, is what it is; a method of influencing through the spoken word – “come alongside and instruct them to be sensible.”  Now that word simply means “to control themselves.”  It’s that same word, sphrone. We’ve looked at it a number of times.  We saw it in chapter 1, verse 8; chapter 2, verse 2, 4, 5.  We’ll see it again down in verse 12.  That common word that simply means “to develop self-mastery, self-control, balance”; “to get their faculties and their appetites, their longings and the desires into harness, to develop discernment and judgment.”  Such exhortation, by the way, appears similarly to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:22.   It appears in 1 Peter 5:5.  Young men must have self-control, self-mastery, balance. They must exhibit power over their appetites and their faculties.  These are essential if they are to be godly.  They’ve got to control their lives.  That means, parents, that when you are raising your children you need to teach your children conformity to holy standards, and that means you need to control them so that your control becomes their control in time.

Paul tells Titus to show himself in all respects to be a model of good works to younger men and in his teaching show integrity, dignity (verse 7) as well as sound speech that cannot be condemned — so that an opponent can be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about them (verse 8).

Henry says:

(1.) Here is direction for his conversation: In all things showing thyself a pattern of good works, v. 7. Without this, he would pull down with one hand what he built with the other. Observe, Preachers of good works must be patterns of them also; good doctrine and good life must go together. Thou that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? A defect here is a great blemish and a great hindrance. In all things; some read, above all things, or above all men. Instructing others in the particulars of their duty is necessary, and, above all things, example, especially that of the teacher himself, is needful; hereby both light and influence are more likely to go together. “Let them see a lively image of those virtues and graces in thy life which must be in theirs. Example may both teach and impress the things taught; when they see purity and gravity, sobriety and all good life, in thee, they may be more easily won and brought thereto themselves; they may become pious and holy, sober and righteous, as thou art.” Ministers must be examples to the flock, and the people followers of them, as they are of Christ. And here is direction, (2.) For his teaching and doctrine, as well as for his life: In doctrine showing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, sound speech, that cannot be condemned, v. 7, 8. They must make it appear that the design of their preaching is purely to advance the honour of God, the interest of Christ and his kingdom, and the welfare and happiness of souls; that this office was not entered into nor used with secular views, not from ambition nor covetousness, but a pure aim at the spiritual ends of its institution. In their preaching, therefore, the display of wit or parts, or of human learning or oratory, is not to be affected; but sound speech must be used, which cannot be condemned; scripture-language, as far as well may be, in expressing scripture-truths. This is sound speech, that cannot be condemned. We have more than once these duties of a minister set together … (3.) The reason both for the strictness of the minister’s life and the gravity and soundness of his preaching: That he who is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you. Adversaries would be seeking occasion to reflect, and would do so could they find any thing amiss in doctrine or life; but, if both were right and good, such ministers might set calumny itself at defiance; they would have not evil thing to say justly, and so must be ashamed of their opposition. Observe, Faithful ministers will have enemies watching for their halting, such as will endeavour to find or pick holes in their teaching or behaviour; the more need therefore for them to look to themselves, that no just occasion be found against them. Opposition and calumny perhaps may not be escaped; men of corrupt minds will resist the truth, and often reproach the preachers and professors of it; but let them see that with well-doing they put to silence the ignorance of foolish men; that, when they speak evil of them as evil-doers; those may be ashamed who falsely accuse their good conversation in Christ. This is the direction to Titus himself, and so of the duties of free persons, male and female, old and young. 

MacArthur takes issue with the way the verses are set out:

… please notice the first three words of verse 7 – they really belong at the end of verse 6. The verse numbers are not inspired. They were put in later by men, and I think that there are a number of reasons why we would include that phrase at the end of verse 6 so that it reads, “Likewise urge the young men to be sensible in all things,” “in all things.”  First of all, that means that verse 7 begins with “Show yourself” and moves to the example model – “Show yourself to be an example” – from the exhortation emphasis of verse 6.  The word “yourself” then, in verse 7, becomes properly emphatic and introduces a new thought.

So the phrase “in all things” fits better at the end of verse 6 and stretches this matter of mental balance and self-mastery and self-control and balanced behavior in the Christian life to an almost infinite level – “in all things.”  Young men – so potentially volatile, impulsive, passionate, arrogant, ambitious, inexperienced – need to become the masters of all the areas of their lives. Everything needs to come under control.

The lack of self-mastery leads to potential dangers, as we saw in some of the news stories above:

So, Paul says you exhort young men to walk in the Spirit, to seek with all their might, to harness themselves and live in spiritual balance and self-control, and not to become victimized by those dangers that are lurking all around them.

Titus has to live the example in order that young men might follow it themselves:

You’ll notice in verse 7 the word “example,” and that’s obviously the key to it.  He is now going to say to Titus, “Look, for the sake of the young men exhort them, and that is to confront them verbally, but also for the sake of the young men set an example, and that is to confront them with the pattern of your life so that they can copy what you are.”  Any exhortation lacks force and impact and power without an example.  In fact, exhortation without example is that old word “hypocrisy.”  And hypocrisy never teaches people to do right; it always teaches people to do wrong …

“Speech” – that’s your conversation, what comes out of your mouth.  “Conduct” – that’s your lifestyle, the things you do, the places you go, the possessions you accumulate – every aspect of life.  “Love” – that’s your self-sacrificing service on behalf of others. Don’t ask them to do it unless you’re demonstrating your sacrificial life as well.  “Faith” – that means faithfulness, or consistency; demonstrate that you’re not a flash in the pan, you’re not a shooting star, you’re not a comet, you’re there for the long haul.  You’re not a spiritual sprinter.  You’re consistent; you’re trustworthy; you’re faithful; you’re unwavering; you’re uncompromising; you’re from start to finish.  And then he adds “purity” – hagneia, which has to do with moral, sexual purity on the inside and the outside.  “Be an example in all those areas – what you say, what you do, how you treat other people, your consistency, and your moral purity.  Be an example” …

The word “example,” a very interesting word.  It literally means “a blow,” like you would do with a hammer.  In fact, in John 20:25 the same word is used – “example” – to describe the print of the nails in the hands of Jesus.  When the hammer went in and drove the nail through, it left the print of the nail.  That’s the idea.  It’s the word for “a die, a mold, a model, a pattern you would trace over, some imprint or impress.”  You’re to be that.  You’re to be the perfect living imprint of virtue, the model that others can follow, the life they can trace their own life on.  This is crucial in influencing young men because young men look up to other men. They look up to men; they want a hero that they can follow – crucial that you live to become that spiritual hero.

Contrast with that Matthew 23:3, when Jesus indicted the Pharisees and said, “You don’t want to be like them, because they say and they don’t do.  You don’t want to be like that.”  Titus was called to be an example in a very broad area. Look at this, “be an example of good deeds.” That’s about as broad as you can get.  “Good” is kalos. It doesn’t mean superficial, cosmetic good. It means “inherent good, righteousness, nobility, moral excellence.”  So he says, “You be an example in the whole range of deeds, works, efforts” – that could be called righteous.  You be a pattern of spiritual goodness and righteousness that shows up in every single thing you do.  This is referring, obviously, to general conduct and general behavior. Your life is to be full of good works as an example to other young men of how they’re to live.  Young men, that’s to be your life.  You begin to control your life when you begin to understand that God wants your life to be full of good, righteous, holy deeds …

Young men must know the Word of God, and young men must live according to it.  That’s integrity.  The point is not that Titus is to speak pure doctrine. That was already told him in verse 1.  He was already told to speak sound doctrine.  Now he is being told to live in perfect accord with it, without defect.  This also is not the exhortation section.  If he was exhorting him to teach a certain way, you may have found it in verse 6. Here he’s talking about his example of living, and he is saying “maintain an example that shows uncorruptness as regards revealed truth.”

Contrary to what the Amish believe, MacArthur says there is no place and no time for sowing one’s wild oats:

There’s no premium, there’s no premium on “sowing your wild oats” while you’re young.  God doesn’t put any premium on adolescent iniquity, or on the iniquity of youth, or on the iniquity of adulthood.  There is no provision in God’s plan for you to have years and years of sinning.  At some point in time you stop that profligate life and become sage and obedient in your old age. Sin at any time in life is an offense to God, even in youth.  Youth is no excuse for it.  The Holy Spirit can restrain it. And if one puts the Word of God in the heart, lives close to the Word of God, he can be uncorrupt in living according to the teaching.

Paul wants Titus to demonstrate gravitas, or seriousness, in his life:

… he adds another word at the end of verse 7, “dignified,” semnots.  It’s used in 1 Timothy 3:8 and 11 to speak of deacons.  It means “seriousness,” “seriousness.”  He’s saying, “You need to be an example to young men of seriousness.”  Youth tends to be somewhat frivolous, wouldn’t you say?  Oh, particularly in our culture where we have taken entertainment to the level of a destructive disease, particularly in our culture where we live for entertainment, frivolity, trivia – dominates our culture. People can be frivolous and lack the ability to think seriously.  Young men are to learn to think seriously.  Does that mean you don’t laugh?  No, you do laugh.  God has given us laughter as a gift from Him, and there are times of joy and there’s a season to laugh.  But what it does mean is that you understand that things are serious, and you need to be serious when you’re dealing with serious things.

I suppose the error that Paul would have in mind of young men is not that they laugh when they should laugh, but that they laugh when they should cry.  They should have a mature understanding of the issues of life, death, time and eternity.

Then there is soundness in speech:

… in verse 8 he adds a final feature of this exemplary living.  He says you are to be “sound in speech which is beyond reproach.”  That’s right back where he started when he wrote to Timothy to be an example.  He started with Timothy on the subject of speech and then moved to others.  Here he starts with others and moves to this one of speech with Titus.  “Speech” is the word logos. Some have thought this meant “sound in the Word, having sound theology.”  No, Titus already has sound theology. He’s already been instructed to teach that “sound theology” in verse 1.  He must already know sound theology very, very well because he’s going to have to be able to locate and identify men who hold fast to the faithful Word, as indicated in chapter 1.  He’s not telling him here to teach sound theology. He’s simply telling him to talk in a healthy way. The word logos doesn’t always mean “the Word of God.” It can mean “talk, language, speech.”  That’s what it means in Ephesians 4:29.  It’s just the word for “speech.” That’s what it means in Colossians 4:6, “Let your speech be always with grace.”

The issue is not teaching; it’s not theology.  And the word “sound” here, hugis, is from hugiain, which means “to be healthy” or “to be wholesome.” We get the word hygiene from it, “to induce health, life-giving, health-giving.”  “Let your speech minister grace to the hearers.  Let it be health-giving, spiritually healthy, spiritually life-giving, edifying, building up.”  How healthy?  “So that it is beyond reproach.”  It is unable to be accused; it is unable to be condemned.

MacArthur ends with Ecclesiastes 11, to which Henry also referred:

Look at Ecclesiastes for a moment, because there’s a good concluding exhortation in chapter 11.  Ecclesiastes chapter 11, verse 9, is a good summation of what we have just learned.  “Rejoice, young man, during your childhood” – or your youth – “and let your heart be pleasant during the days of your young manhood.  And follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes.”  Stop there for a moment.

He’s saying, “You ought to enjoy your youth.  There’s nothing wrong with having fun and joy.  There’s nothing wrong with your heart being pleasant during the days of your young manhood. There’s nothing wrong with the thrills of youth and the exhilaration of adventure and discovery and love – achievement.  Nothing wrong with that.  Nothing wrong with following the impulses of your heart, those desires, those longings, those adventures that you really would love to fulfill. Nothing wrong with somehow capturing the delights and desires of your eyes. But just know this, God’s going to bring you to judgment for all those things.  You’re going to have to stand before God to account for the fact that some of those were wrong desires. And some of those were wrong impulses.  And some of that rejoicing was irresponsible.”

God doesn’t want to rain on your parade.  God doesn’t want to stop your joy and your fun in youth.  He just wants you to know you’ve got to give account for it.  So, verse 10, “remove vexation.” What’s that?  “Sadness, remorse, what makes you sorry.” Take anything out of your life that’s going to leave you with guilt and sorrow.  Remove it from your heart.  “And then put away” – not pain – but “put away,” – you’ll see in the margin – “evil from your body” – anything that’s going to produce an evil consequence, that’s going to inflict you with evil, because childhood in the prime of life are fleeting. And why would you want to fill it up with stuff that makes you sad and hurts you?  Put away the stuff that’s going to make you pain. Put away the stuff that’s going to make you weep, the things that are going to bring you into judgment before God.  Enjoy your youth but get it under control.

How do you do that?  Verse 1 of chapter 12, you do it by “remembering your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you’ll say, ‘I have no delight in them’” – the day is going to come when you can’t enjoy your old age.  “The day is going to come when you’re going to be old, and I’ll promise you won’t enjoy it,” he says.  “You won’t enjoy it, but you know what you will enjoy in your old age?  You will enjoy the wonderful memories of a well-spent youth.  But if when you get old and you can’t enjoy your old age and you can’t enjoy the memories of your youth, then you’ve got no delight.  So live your life in youth so that you can enjoy it all over again in old age.”

And then finally, the effect – to the exhortation and the example we add the effect.  Why all of this?  Why are young men to live this way?  Why are young women to live this way? Older women, older men?  Here it is, verse 8 – the purpose clause, the purpose result clause – “In order that the opponent may be put to shame, having nothing bad to say about us.” So that you can silence the critics of the faith, so that you will cause people to be shamed when they criticize Christianity. Boy, we’re a long way from that in this world, aren’t we? 

I couldn’t agree more.

Tomorrow’s post will carry resources for Christian boys and girls to strengthen them in the faith.

Next time — Titus 2:9-10

Forbidden Bible Verses — Titus 2:4-5

The three-year Lectionary that many Catholics and Protestants hear in public worship gives us a great variety of Holy Scripture.

Yet, it doesn’t tell the whole story.

My series Forbidden Bible Verses — ones the Lectionary editors and their clergy omit — examines the passages we do not hear in church. These missing verses are also Essential Bible Verses, ones we should study with care and attention. Often, we find that they carry difficult messages and warnings.

Today’s reading is from the English Standard Version Anglicised (ESVUK) with commentary by Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.

Titus 2:4-5

⁴ and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, ⁵ to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

——————————————————————————————————————————————-

Last week’s post discussed Paul’s instruction to Titus about the behaviour of older men and older women.

Paul gave similar instructions to Timothy on both groups. In each case, not one of the cohorts in Titus 2:2-10 was to make Christianity look bad.

Titus knew these instructions already, as did Timothy. However, Paul’s point was to show the congregations concerned — in Crete (Titus) and in Ephesus (Timothy) — that these were his instructions as an Apostle of Christ: Christianity must not show a bad example, thereby giving Satan’s human agents reason to criticise it.

Matthew Henry’s commentary reminds us (emphases mine):

Observe, Though express scripture do not occur, or be not brought, for every word, or look, or fashion in particular, yet general rules there are according to which all must be ordered; as 1 Cor 10 31, Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. And Phil 4 8, Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. And here, whatsoever things are beseeming or unbeseeming holiness form a measure and rule of conduct to be looked to …

Verse 4, concerning training young women to love their husbands and children is a follow-on from verse 3:

³ Older women likewise are to be reverent in behaviour, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good,

In our day, these appear to be archaic directives. After all, most older women today in 2023 grew up in the Swinging Sixties, an Anglo-American phenomenon that crept into other Western countries, even those where English is not the first language. Women had the Pill, abortion ‘rights’ (1972 in the United States), feminism, divorce and so on. The mantra of university-age students in the late 1960s was, ‘If it feels good, do it’. Whatever was socially unacceptable in the early part of the decade was acceptable by the end of it. I know. I was alive at the time.

John MacArthur traces this back to the earliest days of Gnosticism, which posits that the Creator was a bungler who did not know what He was doing:

The Gnostics taught there’s no such thing as sin, because there’s no such thing as right or wrong in the human realm. Therefore there’s no need for a savior, there’s no need for a death on the cross, there’s no need for an atonement.  What they needed to do to be saved was – listen to this – throw off the God of the Old Testament, this evil God; throw off the God of the New Testament with all of His laws and all of His threats and all of His so-called punishment. Throw off the whole Old and the whole New Testament and free yourself from the encumbering of this sub-god, this bungling Creator who did what He never should have done and created a prison for us in doing it.  So, you can see that the first tenet of their system was a blasphemy against God – calling God evil, bungling, ignorant.

They also had some things in their system that attacked Christ, and I’ll mention those in a moment.  Of course they had to attack Christ, too, because that’s what Satan wants to do, and the system did that.  But before I look at that, the system also included – listen to this – lies that elevated women.  Ancient Gnosticism focused on women.  This is what it said, for example, “Eve was a spirit-endowed woman who saved Adam.”  You say, “Well the Bible doesn’t say that.”  Of course the Bible doesn’t say that, because the Bible isn’t telling you the truth.

They said, “Final salvation for the whole world from the imprisonment of matter will come through female power.”  And the key is, “Female self-actualization, self-realization, self- knowledge in which a woman becomes so fully in tune with herself and so well knows herself and actualizes and realizes and fulfills herself that she becomes fully divine, and as she becomes divine she will rescue the rest of these lame men, just like Eve, fully divine, rescued poor Adam.”

In fact, convoluting the creation account, Gnostic texts tell us that Dame Wisdom was the heavenly Eve.  There was a mystical, heavenly woman named the heavenly Eve who is the same as Dame Wisdom – she’s the source of all wisdom.  She entered the snake in the Garden, and she taught both Adam and Eve the true way of salvation.  The snake, then, is not called the tempter. The snake in Gnostic literature is the instructor.  The snake is ultimate wisdom.  The snake was wiser than anybody else. The snake, it says in Gnostic literature, is the redeemer because the snake is the incarnated woman who comes the heavenly Eve and teaches the truth about self-realization, which is self- fulfillment, which is making yourself divine, which delivers you from being encumbered by matter.  They also say this: “the serpent in the Garden is the true Christ, the true reflection of God.”

So, they take redemptive history and stand it on its head like a satanist cross in a black mass.  God is evil.  The serpent in the Garden is the true Christ.  Christ in the New Testament, the reflection of God, is equally evil.  And He’s not the true Christ because the true Christ, the true Christ’s spirit, is in the snake, is the Dame Wisdom.

Now again I say, it’s hard to pin all this stuff down.  It’s mystical stuff. But you can see, not so much by what it is, the clarity of it, but by what it attacks, right?  It attacks God, Christ, the Bible, creation.  Though caught in matter, they say – the Gnostics – humanity once again can become part of the universal whole by a process of self-realization.  They say in the book of Genesis itself, “The lack of self-realization is really the problem that man has.”  And the Bible says man’s problem is sin, sin. And that the root of his sin is his self-preoccupation.  So they flip that completely around.

MacArthur tells us more about sexual roles in Gnosticism:

But let’s take a look at some other things.  In the Gnostic system, Eve dominates Adam and sexual roles are totally altered.  And you can understand this because, you see, Satan wants to totally tear up God’s created order.  They wrote, the early Gnostics did, that the divine revealer was feminine.  The divine revealer says, let me quote, “I am androgynous.  I am both mother and father since I copulate with myself.  I copulate with myself and with those who love me, and it is through me alone that the all stands firm.  I am the womb that gives shape to the all by giving birth to the light that shines in splendor.  I am the eon to come. I am the fulfillment of the all, that is, the glory of the mother.”

Now all of that double talk is the talk of the androgyny of Gnosticism.  That means the wiping out of all sexual distinction.  There are Gnostic texts where God the Creator is castigated by a higher feminine power, and that’s that heavenly Eve called Sophia, Dame Wisdom.  And God the Creator, the Gnostic said, God that sub-god demiurge who stupidly created everything, finally learned the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  In other words, He learned to fear the feminine Sophia, so that the God of the Bible is now in fear of the feminine god Sophia.  The feminization then of this higher god, Wisdom, led directly to the ordination of women.  The ordination of women flows out of the feminization of deity.

The early Gnostic, well-known to church history students, named Marcion was excommunicated from the church in A. D. 150.  He then established his own church in which he appointed women as bishops and priests.  In the Valentinian Gnosticism, women functioned as teachers, evangelists, healers, priests, perhaps as bishops.  This movement in the church to put women into roles of spiritual leadership is simply reflective of this same kind of religious attitude.

In sum, Gnosticism then rejects the Creator God of Scripture as blind and envious and malicious, not hesitating to commit the most heinous blasphemy of all.  The Gnostics even called the God of the Bible the true devil.  For the true Gnostic, the real God, whoever this force was, was unknowable, impersonal, untouchable, some kind of unified sum of separated parts, a sort of pantheistic force.  But they said this, “The divine being, because he is all in all impersonal, untouchable, just this big force, is best expressed by androgyny, that is the erasure of male and female distinctions.”  The ideal for the Gnostic was to become sexless, a radical refusal of sexual differentiation and a complete confusion of sexual identity in God’s intended role.

As for the elevation of women that we have known over the past 60 years, MacArthur says:

I’m telling you this is what is behind today’s Feminist Movement.  This is not some whimsical deal that popped up in the twentieth century by a few women who wanted to take off the apron and buy a briefcase.  This is not that.  This is not something that was invented by women who wanted to abort their babies and get into the corporate halls and the executive washrooms.  This New Age thinking, that’s what it’s called today, is nothing but Gnosticism.  New Age is a new way of talking about age-old Gnosticism.  And the heart of it is that female power is the key to salvation.  The goddess cult is back.

Interestingly, during this time, there has been a resurgence in the Western interest in Eastern religion. MacArthur tells us:

By the way, if you look at Hinduism you see where some of this stuff comes from because the savior in Hinduism is a goddess. 

Some Protestant denominations have picked up on this. I have an Episcopalian friend who was at seminary around the time that MacArthur preached this sermon — 1993 — and there were feminist services at this seminary:

So when you hear about the Methodists or the Presbyterians or whoever – the Episcopalians – deciding to change the Bible and put in “she,” you know that this is not some human contrivance to make ladies feel better about themselves. This is a satanic religion, as satanic as a black mass.

And, as with ancient Gnosticism – the New Age Movement today – the goal of liberation is total reversal of all God-ordained values.  That’s why it’s so unthinkable that Christians would get sucked into this.

My friend thought it was great: so liberating!

Catholics were not entirely exempt, either:

“I found God in myself and I loved her fiercely,” said Roman Catholic theologian Carol Crist.  “I found God in myself and I loved her fiercely.”  There you have in one simple statement the whole deal.  Where is God?  In myself.  What is God?  Feminine, and I am one with God.  And she found God in herself with liberation from all biblical constraint.

Publishers of Christian books have jumped on the bandwagon, too:

The path to the New Age involves destroying the biblical male-female differentiation.  That’s New Age feminism.  Take, for example, New Age author Charlene Spretnak’s book The Politics of Women’s Spirituality, published by Doubleday – by the way, the same publisher that published the Anchor Bible Commentary series.  They’re publishing God’s Word and Satan’s at the same time.  This book, The Politics of Women’s Spirituality, is a book that calls for an end to Judeo-Christian religion and the call is that we will end Judeo-Christian religion by a feminist movement nourished on goddess worship, paganism, and witchcraft that succeeds in overthrowing the global rule of men. 

Returning to Titus and looking at verse 4 in which Paul exhorts Titus to instruct older women to tell the younger ones to love their husbands and children, well, what sort of example do we have in 2023?

Already, in 1993, MacArthur said:

You wonder, don’t you, two generations from now whether anybody will know what biblical morality is?  Oh, they might be able to read the ancient Bible and see what it looked like, but they certainly are going to have a hard time looking around town to find it.  And here witless Christians jump on this feminist bandwagon as if it was some harmless thing.  “Well, we have a right to work, and we shouldn’t be confined at home – and I have a right to express fully myself, and” …

… The satanic agenda is to destroy human society, to just rip the family to shreds and destroy marriage so that God has no means to pass righteousness from one generation to the next, right?  Which was always the role of the family.  There’s no moral order maintained in society.  There are no ethical values left.  And the way you do that is sexually.  You just shred all standard norms sexually so nobody knows how anybody is supposed to be related to anybody, but everybody is free to do whatever they want to do and that’s how they become divine.

MacArthur quotes the author George Gilder, a name familiar to 60-something Americans as he was an adviser to Ronald Reagan. He was once empathetic to women’s liberation movements but later changed his mind:

“Sexuality is not simply a matter of games people play, it is one of the few matters truly of life and death to society.”  He warns that if the feminist agenda, even its most moderate version, is carried through, quote: “Our society is doomed to years of demoralization and anarchy, possibly ending in a police state,” end quote.

Well, we have certainly seen that demoralisation and anarchy in two cities where I least expected it: Seattle and Portland, but particularly Portland. Andy Ngo’s Twitter threads have had some alarming content since 2017 — six years ago. Democrats blamed the civil breakdowns on Donald Trump, but has it returned to normal during Joe Biden’s tenure?

Furthermore, what can explain the social decline in Vancouver? They have Justin Trudeau as their Premier. Friends of mine visited Vancouver in the early autumn of 2023. Their tour guide restricted them to the tourist district! What a change from when I was there for the 1986 World’s Fair and everything was pleasant and clean: so much so that one could eat off the streets if one had been so minded.

Returning to 1993, MacArthur was already sounding the alarm. Bill Clinton was president at the time, and Al Gore was vice president:

Our society is doing exactly what I told you in Romans 1 – happens to a society when God gives them over.  What does it say God gave them over? ... God lets them go, and they’re going the way of the satanic lies.  Playing right into the hands of satanic lies is our own government.  Working hard, aren’t they?  [On] what are they working hard?  Our government, the government of the United States, the state of California, the city of Los Angeles, are doing everything they can do to eliminate all gender differences.  That is not an issue of constitutional liberty. That is an issue of satanic religion.

And that is Hillary’s agenda, by the way, in case you haven’t noticed … The Roman Empire didn’t survive it.  This entire system is going right into the pit, tearing up God’s order sexually, tearing up families, tearing up marriage, blaspheming God, blaspheming Christ, exalting the serpent.  I read one book this week where a man suggested the Antichrist might be a woman if we keep going the way we’re going.  Satan is very successful with this.  Al Gore has written a book called Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit.  Peter Jones writes about that book, “Gore’s involvement in ecology is an expression of his belief in the connectedness of all things, in the great value of all religious faiths, and in his hope that ancient, pagan, goddess worship will help bring us planetary and personal salvation.”  It’s inconceivable that these people call themselves Baptists.  No, it’s not inconceivable. Undiscerning Christians falling victim to these hellish heresies; the destruction is not restrained by the church – the church has joined it.

You get the idea.

I am amazed at the social decline, which invariably affects our respective economies and our governments, too. Employees call in sick, believing it to be an entitlement. Or they’re working from home doing who knows what. Only yesterday, I heard anecdotally on a current affairs programme that a female employee thinks nothing of cancelling her Zoom calls so that she can take her children to swimming lessons instead. As for governments, has anyone tried getting hold of a public servant lately to discuss problems with tax or National Insurance payments? What about passport or driving licence renewals? And what about our legislators promoting laws that cause the downfall of families as they say the State should take care of them? I could go on and on.

Returning to Titus 2, Paul tells Titus that older women should instruct younger women to ‘be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled‘ (verse 5). There’s the reasoning: so that the word of God will not fall into disrepute through our unholy living.

MacArthur says he was warned not to get heavy in the pulpit when preaching on these verses:

You can get in a lot of trouble by suggesting that kind of stuff.  Try standing up in this culture and saying, “Women, you’re commanded to love your husband and to love your children and to work at home and to be subject to your husband.”  You’ll get screamed down.  I mean, you can be in deep trouble just reading that, let alone commenting on it.

It’s been amazing since people knew I was approaching this text, they’ve been telling me, “What are you going to say about this?  This is going to be very controversial.  Boy, we can’t wait till these tapes come out.  What’s going to happen then?”  Well, just to mitigate that a little bit, I’ve said what I’ve said this morning, so that if you get upset you know whose side you’re on. God has laid out His standards.  They’re not negotiable.  And I’ll tell you this, if the church doesn’t wake up soon and obey the Word of God, all is lost.  We don’t need to fall victim to this stuff.  You don’t need a master’s degree to figure out what it means to love your husband, love your children, and work at home.  How hard is that?  By the way, there are no qualifiers there, no caveats, no footnotes.  It’s just what it says.  Go home, submit to your husband, have children, raise them in godliness, take care of your house.  And that’s what older women are to teach younger women. They’re to teach it not only with their mouth; they’re to teach it with their life.

I’m telling you, what I said a few weeks ago now is becoming so vividly true.  We are living in Romans 1, aren’t we?  What’s wrong with America? … God’s let us go, and we’re plunging down the path, and the evidence of it is this reversal of sexual roles that Paul talked about in Romans chapter 1, verse 26.

The following week, MacArthur began his sermon with this:

If the saving grace of Christ is to reach all men, it’s going to depend on the character of the church. If we honor the Word, silence the critics, and demonstrate that God is a saving God by our transformed lives, then the gospel will be powerfully effective. How we live in the church is the issue here, and its evangelistic implications …

There are times and places in human history where this particular section of Scripture would be commonly believed, even in the culture, where there would not be a reaction to any of these things – it would be the accepted norm for society. But ours is not such a time nor is it such a place. In our culture what is being said in these verses to young women is the very opposite of what young women are being taught. Young women today are being taught to love whoever they want, farm their children out to somebody else, don’t worry about being sensible, do whatever pleases you, don’t worry about being pure, fulfill your physical and lustful desires, don’t work at home, work outside the home, don’t worry about being kind – you do whatever you want. You grab your moment in the sun. Take care of you, not somebody else. And by all means, don’t be subject to your own husband.

When this comes into the church it therefore dishonors the Word of God. I mean, even an unbeliever can read those verses. The most unschooled non-believer can read that the Word of God says young women are “to love their husbands, love their children, be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, and subject to their own husbands.” And if he can read the Bible and look at the church, he can make a very simple conclusion – “You Christians say you believe the Bible, why don’t your women live like this?” You see, it brings discredit on the Scripture to say we affirm the Scripture, but we live however we like. Or worse, we live however the culture – being basically controlled by Satan, the prince of the power of the air – dictates us to live.

Paul also has instructions for young men, much of which would also receive scorn and derision today. They will be the topic of next week’s post.

However, to finish on MacArthur’s sermon, he says:

… there’s something in the fallen flesh that wants to dominate and be free and kick over the fences.

How true.

He goes on to say:

And so here the Word of God is at stake – the honor of the Scripture and the glory of God and the silencing of the opponents of the gospel. In other words, this simple set of commands has immense implications, has far-reaching ramifications for the kingdom. If you love Christ, if you seek to honor God, if you want to lift up and exalt the Word, if you want to silence the critics, you will be eager to obey these commands. If you want to do what the society says, if you want to fulfill your own fleshly desire, you will disobey them. Jesus said it simply and concisely in the summary statement, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” And here are some of His commandments, given to us by the Holy Spirit through the pen of the apostle Paul.

So, a healthy church with healthy Christians is going to have a witness in the world because its young women pattern their lives according to what the Word of God says. So you need to understand the reason for all of this and the implications of it. If we continue as a church to fall victim to the satanic plotting of the Feminist Movement, we are allowing Satan to destroy the priority and the purity and the integrity of the church. We are allowing him to pull down the Word of God from its lofty place. We’re allowing him to give opponents plenty of reason to criticize us, and we’re allowing him to muddy the waters in terms of God as a saving, transforming God. It is imperative, then, for the sake of the kingdom and the advancement of the kingdom and evangelization, we must respond. And as I said, this is just the most dominant issue in our culture, and other cultures reading this might be sufficient because women have built in to the culture some sense about this.

It also needs to be said that we have a new generation of young women being raised who from the very beginning have been taught the opposite of this. They have not been mentored by godly parents. They are now a second generation of people influenced by the Feminist Movement, and thus this runs against the grain of everything they have been taught, everything they have been exposed to in the media and then bears great emphasis. And that’s why we did what we did last week in laying some historical foundation to the text for this morning.

Let us look at what has been happening over the past 60 years beginning in the United States, then moving to the United Kingdom.

In the early 1960s, Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927-2003) served under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson as Assistant Secretary of Labor for Policy, Planning and Research, serving from 1963 to 1965. His job was to formulate national policy for the War on Poverty programme. Incidentally, Ralph Nader was part of his small staff.

In 1965, he produced the well-known and, at the time, well-received, policy paper, The Moynihan Report.

The early 1960s were dominated by civil rights campaigns in the South. Nearly everyone living outside the South had a great deal of empathy for the civil rights movement and to finally end segregation south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Education Next has an informative page on Moynihan and his seminal report, which discussed black family structures at the time:

Most of the early press accounts accurately described the document (or what they had read of it) as a well-intentioned liberal effort to promote intra-administration discussion of a serious social issue.

It is important to note that, regardless of what people say today and of what I was taught in the 1960s and 1970s, many black men and women married and raised families together. My late father had black friends with whom he played basketball after school in the mid-1930s. They all came from two-parent homes.

By the time I was a child, that had changed in urban areas, and many black women were raising children alone. That is what I also saw living in my parents’ large industrial hometown for a couple of years just after Moynihan’s report appeared. My father couldn’t understand it.

Of The Moynihan Report and Moynihan’s view of it later on, Wikipedia says:

Moynihan and his staff believed that government must go beyond simply ensuring that members of minority groups have the same rights as the majority and must also “act affirmatively” in order to counter the problem of historic discrimination.

Moynihan’s research of Labor Department data demonstrated that even as fewer people were unemployed, more people were joining the welfare rolls. These recipients were families with children but only one parent (almost invariably the mother). The laws at that time permitted such families to receive welfare payments in certain parts of the United States.

Moynihan issued his research in 1965 under the title The Negro Family: The Case For National Action, now commonly known as The Moynihan Report. Moynihan’s report^[11] fueled a debate over the proper course for government to take with regard to the economic underclass, especially blacks. Critics on the left attacked it as “blaming the victim“,^[12] a slogan coined by psychologist William Ryan.^[13] Some suggested that Moynihan was propagating the views of racists^[14] because much of the press coverage of the report focused on the discussion of children being born out of wedlock. Despite Moynihan’s warnings, the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program included rules for payments only if no “Man [was] in the house.”^[15][16] Critics of the program’s structure, including Moynihan, said that the nation was paying poor women to throw their husbands out of the house.

After the 1994 Republican sweep of Congress, Moynihan agreed that correction was needed for a welfare system that possibly encouraged women to raise their children without fathers: “The Republicans are saying we have a hell of a problem, and we do.”^[17]

Around the time The Moynihan Report appeared, unrelated riots erupted in some mid-sized to large American cities, the most famous of which was in the Watts district in Los Angeles. As a result, Education Next tells us that some Americans deplored the report’s content:

Moynihan obviously empathized with the black poor. But it was his bad luck that parts of the report became public at such a tempestuous (post-Watts) time in the modern history of American race relations. It was also obvious that he should have thought twice before employing such high-octane phrases as “tangle of pathology.” Black writers like Kenneth Clark, who had detailed black “pathology” in his recently published book, Dark Ghetto, might be extolled for detailing black social problems. But a white man, who was highlighting the rise of black illegitimacy and of “pathologies,” would not be. Moynihan, a white messenger of unpleasant news, was vulnerable, a figure who could be disarmed and shot at.

President Johnson hoped to avoid a break with increasingly militant black leaders and quickly distanced himself from the report …

Moynihan, as it happened, left the Johnson administration in July 1965 to run (unsuccessfully) for the presidency of the New York City Council. He was thus in no position to act as an official spokesman for his report. But he was deeply hurt that LBJ had appeared to abandon it and that he was not even invited to attend the November meeting. The administration, he wrote later, had “promptly dissociated itself from the whole issue.” He added, a “vacuum” then developed, and “no black would go near the subject. And until one did no white man could do so without incurring the wrath of a community grown rather too accustomed to epithet.” He complained privately to a friend in late 1965, “If my head were sticking on a pike at the South-West Gate to the White House grounds, the impression would hardly be greater.”

He was later accused of being ‘patriarchal’:

… criticisms of his report continued to appear from time to time, some of them in the 1970s and thereafter from feminists who assailed what they regarded as his support of patriarchal families. Still hurt, he distanced himself from left-oriented figures. After 1965, when community-action programs within the War on Poverty encountered substantial problems, he toned down his once strong faith in governmental expertise, emphasizing that some Great Society liberals had “lost a sense of limits.” Though he continued to call himself a liberal and a Democrat, he associated closely with neo-conservative writers …

These have been the trends over the past 60 years:

Then and later he also deplored post-1965 trends afflicting American race relations and family life. At most times since the mid-1970s, black male unemployment has been roughly twice as high as among white men, and the black poverty rate has been roughly three times higher. Drug-related arrests have contributed to staggeringly high growth in the numbers of incarcerated black men. Most African American children, especially those in low-income or single-parent families, enter 1st grade with already large cognitive disadvantages, which then grow in the higher grades.

Thanks in considerable part to powerful cultural trends, which have featured ever more insistent popular demands for personal freedom, marriage rates since the 1960s have tumbled, and percentages of births that are out of wedlock have escalated throughout much of the economically developed Western world. Among non-Hispanic African Americans, this percentage jumped from the 23.6 percent that Moynihan had identified for 1963 to more than 70 percent, where it has stayed since the mid-1990s. The rate among whites, 3 percent in 1963, has reached 30 percent. Overall, 41 percent of births today in the United States are out-of-wedlock.

Moynihan clearly saw the need for welfare, but more as a hand up rather than a handout:

… pointing out (as he had done in his report) that welfare spending was a necessary response to need, not a source of dependency, and rejecting any notion that he had blamed the victim. Moreover, he did as much as anyone in public life after 1965 to develop policies aimed at strengthening families, white as well as black. During the Nixon years, he championed a Family Assistance Plan (FAP), which if enacted (it wasn’t) would have provided a guaranteed annual income to many poor people. As a senator, he promoted liberal social ideas, including family allowances. What poor families needed most of all from government, he often argued, was more income, not more services. He also emerged as a leading proponent of a federal tax credit for low-income families who send their children to private schools.

Today, commentators can better appreciate what Moynihan was communicating nearly 60 years ago:

… most commentators today appear to believe that Moynihan was right in 1965 and that his attackers had been unfair. Some people have hailed him as a prophet. But not even Moynihan had imagined in 1965 that growth in the percentages of out-of-wedlock births would become so enormous. Then and later he emphasized that problems affecting families were extraordinarily complex and that there were no easy answers (which is a reason why he had not enumerated cures in his report). In 1992, he wrote Hillary Clinton that serious study of the family was “the most important issue of social policy,” but added, “I picked up the early tremors, and have followed the subject for thirty years now. But haven’t the faintest notion as to what, realistically, can be done.”

Daniel Patrick Moynihan was a good man. His heart and mind were in the right place. Unfortunately, the welfare state was becoming too large and, as such, intractable.

After leaving the Johnson administration, he was a Harvard professor, a social policy advisor to Richard Nixon, US Ambassador to the United Nations and a US senator for the state of New York. He was also a columnist and wrote 19 books before his death in 2003 from a ruptured appendix. He was a one-man woman, having married in 1955. His widow Elizabeth (née Brennan) survived him. They had three children.

Moynihan’s mother was a homemaker and his father a newspaper reporter.

As stated above, the 2007 rate of out of wedlock births in the United States was 40 per cent. In 2009, a law professor, Helen Alvaré, who is Catholic, wrote:

The recent news of the nearly 40% out of wedlock birth rate in the United States should pretty much rock our world as citizens and as Catholics. According to the Centers for Disease Control report, this means 1.7 million children were born to unmarried mothers in 2007, a figure 250% greater than the number reported in 1980. The implications for our society loom large. According to empirical data published over the last several decades in leading sociological journals, these children, on average, will suffer significant educational and emotional disadvantages compared to children reared by their married parents. They will be less able to shoulder the burdens that “next generations” traditionally assume for the benefit of their families, communities and their country. They are likely to repeat their parents’ behaviors. The boys are more likely to engage in criminal behavior and the girls to have nonmarital children.

I am old enough to still consider out of wedlock births as unplanned in most cases, but Alvaré said researchers have found that this is no longer a given:

First, the researchers concluded that the majority of children born to lone mothers could not correctly be deemed “unplanned.” Rather, many were planned or actively sought. And the majority were somewhere in the middle between planned and unplanned. In other words, many of these very young couples (it was not uncommon for the mothers to be 14 or 15 years old) explicitly or implicitly wanted a baby in their lives. Their reasons by and large would be familiar to anyone who has ever hoped for a child. They wanted someone who was an extension of their beloved, a piece of him or her. They wanted to love another person deeply.

That thought process is so out of my league as to be incomprehensible, but the Centers for Disease Control researchers found the reasons why:

Relationally, the authors described these young mothers as existing in an environment without close, trusted ties. In particular, the men in their lives were considered to be highly untrustworthy and worse. Infidelity seemed almost a universal problem among the fathers. Drug and alcohol problems, criminal behavior, and domestic violence were extremely common. Motherhood provided a chance for these women to “establish the primordial bonds of love and connection.”

Now we move to the UK, where a 2007 report showed that the percentage of single-parent families had trebled since 1972. On April 10 that year, Metro reported:

Almost half the black children in Britain are being raised by single parents, new Government figures reveal.

A quarter of all youngsters live in one-parent families – treble the proportion in 1972, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The biggest percentage of lone-parent households is among black ethnic groups. Forty-eight per cent of black Caribbean families have one parent, as do 36 per cent of black African households.

Single-parent families are less common among Indians (ten per cent), Bangladeshis (12 per cent), Pakistanis (13 per cent), Chinese (15 per cent) and whites (22 per cent).

Nine out of ten single-parent families are headed by mothers.

Children who grow up without their biological father are more likely to be unemployed, commit crime and leave education early, according to research by think tank Civitas.

They are also twice as likely to be homeless.

Lone-parent families are three times more likely to live in rented accommodation than couples with children and are also more likely to live in homes that fall below minimum standards.

There is a small bit of good news in Statista’s 1996-2022 report on single-parent families, published on May 30, 2023, but as you can see from their graph, the numbers fluctuate year on year:

There are over 2.94 million single parent families in the United Kingdom as of 2022, compared with over three million five years earlier in 2015. Between 1996 and 2012 the number of single parent families in the UK increased by almost 600,000, with that number falling to the amount seen in the most recent year.

The best thing that single parents can do is to encourage their children to get an education and have aspirations. I do not think we will be moving away from single-parent households anytime soon, however, where I live, marriages are on the up, including those in church.

Returning to today’s verses, I will close with Matthew Henry’s observations:

Christ is the head of the church, to protect and save it, to supply it with all good, and secure or deliver it from evil; and so the husband over the wife, to keep her from injuries, and to provide comfortably for her, according to his ability. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be unto their own husbands, as is fit in the Lord (Col 3 18), as comports with the law of Christ, and is for his and the Father’s glory. It is not then an absolute, or unlimited, nor a slavish subjection that is required; but a loving subordination, to prevent disorder or confusion, and to further all the ends of the relation. Thus, in reference to the husbands, wives must be instructed in their duties of love and subjection to them. And to love their children, not with a natural affection only, but a spiritual, a love springing from a holy sanctified heart and regulated by the word; not a fond foolish love, indulging them in evil, neglecting due reproof and correction where necessary, but a regular Christian love, showing itself in their pious education, forming their life and manners aright, taking care of their souls as well as of their bodies, of their spiritual welfare as well as of their temporal, of the former chiefly and in the first place. The reason is added: That the word of God may not be blasphemed. Failures in such relative duties would be greatly to the reproach of Christianity. “What are these the better for this their new religion?” would the infidels be ready to say. The word of God and the gospel of Christ are pure, excellent, and glorious, in themselves; and their excellency should be expressed and shown in the lives and conduct of their professors, especially in relative duties; failures here being disgrace. Rom 2 24, The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you. “Judge what a God he is,” would they be ready to say, “by these his servants; and what his word, and doctrine, and religion, are by these his followers.” Thus would Christ be wounded in the house of his friends. Thus of the duties of the younger women.

Next week, I will look at Paul’s advice to Titus on young men. That is also designed so that no one can criticise Christianity.

Next time — Titus 2:6-8

What’s on Anglican priests’ minds: baptism and obedience

Last week, I wrote about an Anglican priest who baptised a young man in Devon on summer holiday.

On that subject, earlier this summer, I ran across an excellent sermon from St Mark’s Church in London’s Regent Park.

The Revd Glen Ruffle baptised two children on Sunday, May 14, 2023, and delivered a short yet powerful sermon on Acts 17:22-31 and John 14:15-21. It is so traditionally Anglican, that it must be showcased.

The passage from Acts 17 was the Epistle (purple emphases mine):

²² Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: ‘People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. ²³ For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship – and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.

²⁴ ‘The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. ²⁵ And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. ²⁶ From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. ²⁷ God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ²⁸ “For in him we live and move and have our being.”^[b] As some of your own poets have said, “We are his offspring.”^[c]

²⁹ ‘Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone – an image made by human design and skill. ³⁰ In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. ³¹ For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.’

The Gospel passage from John 14 is part of our Lord’s final discourse to His Apostles following the Last Supper:

Jesus promises the Holy Spirit

¹⁵ ‘If you love me, keep my commands. ¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you for ever – ¹⁷ the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be^[c] in you. ¹⁸ I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. ¹⁹ Before long, the world will not see me any more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. ²⁰ On that day you will realise that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. ²¹ Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.’

Excerpts follow from the Revd Mr Ruffle’s sermon (bold in the original):

Paul said: God is not unknown! … He makes promises with us — and keeps them. His love extends to every person on earth. He will bring judgment and fairness to the earth.

It’s judgment and love. Many people find those two ideas hard to sit together — if you love me, you won’t be angry with me. Instead, you will give me what I want and make me happy.

But in the gospel today, Jesus said, ‘If you love me, you will obey my commandments’. If you love someone, you will listen to them, and trust them. If you trust them, you will obey them …

So we listen to our parents and obey them, because we know that they want to help us, that they have our best interests in their hearts. The same with God: his desire is that we become loving and compassionate and follow his lead. Look at the world today: it is a mess. This is what happens when we follow our plans. But if we stop, and say to God ‘we will follow your plan’, then we begin a new abundant life.

So love and obedience are very much linked! If we love our parents, we obey them. If we love God, we obey him. They want ‘what is best for us’, and this means character formation, making you more like Jesus. You might think a shiny Lamborghini is best for you, but without character formation, it really is not!

Baptism is a moment when we stop our lives and say ‘we recognise that when we do our own thing, it is not so good. We want to follow God’s way, God’s path. So we want to start again’.

So the water is like washing ourselves: we wash the old dirt and the old me away. And then we are clean and fresh, ready to start again: symbolic of a new life, a new decision to trust God, to follow God, and to love and obey God.

But we also become part of a bigger family. Baptism is like the entrance into the Christian family. Everyone here, if they are Christian, becomes like extended family …

It is our responsibility to teach and train these young lives in how to lead a life pleasing to God. So let us make sure that when they see us, they see us doing the right things!

… So make sure you do that and offer your support and kindness, and hold them in prayer.

So now let us bring these children before God as we pray for them and their families at the start of this journey.

That is an excellent summary of baptism and the congregation’s responsibility to help shepherd those who have received that sacrament.

The character building involved reminds me of another instruction from our Lord (Matthew 5:48):

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

St Mark’s Church is at the edge of Regent’s Park in St Mark’s Square, Prince Albert Road, London NW1 7TN.

Designed in the traditional style of Anglican churches, it has been rebuilt twice: once after the Second World War and again in the 1990s after an arson attack.

If this sermon is indicative of others preached there, it’s certainly worth a visit.