Making It Plain

Announcements are usually made when something good is about to happen. When someone says, "I have an announcement to make", we look towards that person in expectation. When the announcement is, I have good and bad news, I ask for the bad news first so that the good can over shadow the bad and not make it seem so. Announcing that there is a new baby about to enter into this world is supposed to be a good thing ( Psalm 127:3 AMP ). Who would cringe at hearing this wonderful news, this blessing from God, the bundle of joy developing even as you read this? The answer to this question is obvious to those that have been through it. But not so much to the young girl that wondered why she was feeling ill all day long and has had stomach cramps for weeks waiting for the doctor to speak in front of her parents. Its not too obvious for the young man that was having a little fun one evening after a party. Its definitely not the thing a single Christian is wishing to hear or say to ...

I have been studying Paul's writing for quite sometime. There were many passages that left me in a quandary and I either went back over them to meditate on or just left it alone until I could grow up in the Spirit for a better understanding. Marriage was one of those quandaries by which my inner response was, "how could Paul teach something that he has no experience and no knowledge of what the institution consists of?" His rules seemed too strict and bordered on contradiction of the original text (Old Testament). Tried as I could, I still liked my own ideals more than what Paul was trying to teach. The rules that began frustrating me had nothing to do with if you don't have a wife don't try to find one (1 Corinthians 7:27 KJV). Nor was it that if you do marry, you didn't sin; though when you put the two verses together your entire expression would be a question mark. The problem I was having was if I marry I would no longer try to be pleasing to God but ...