1985 May/June issue Part 1

What Kind Of Power do Women Want?

Today's women are the .victims of the second biggest con game in history. (The first was when the serpent persuaded Eve she needed to upgrade her lifestyle and become'like God')." So writes Mary Pride, in her new book The Way Home (Beyond Feminism-Back to Sanity). Mrs.Pride's credentials are awesome-she has a B.A. in electrical engineering, an M.A. in computer systems engineering, has studied theology, and is the mother of three children, whom she is teaching at home. Her conversion to Christianity from the religion [her word] of radical feminism brought a complete change in her perspective.

Not long ago I was asked to speak to a group of 150 pastors' wives. I found that 80 percent of them are working full-time. The consensus among Christians nowadays seems to be that careers for women are not only permissible but to be encouraged. Few are prepared to stand up to the pressures of society and reject the lifestyle of their neighbors.

But why should we? We shouldn't, unless there is a radically different pattern laid down for us in scripture. As disciples of Jesus we are bound by whatever his word tells us, and, although not many women pay much attention to them anymore, the New Testament pattern for women compromises at least eleven responsibilities:

1985 March/April issue Part 5

A Christian Woman's Service

A reader in Barbados asks that I include suggestions in the Newsletter for opportunities for women to serve outside the confines of the church. I like the list she herself gave:

- mixing with the poor or elderly within their environment;

- assisting with community projects-even if it's no more than toting a Red Cross or Poppy Day collection tin;

- sharing oneself and one's resources with neighbors, e.g., stop at the bus pole and give a lift to as many as the car will hold "I'm not talking about casual hitchhikers and strangers," she adds),

- giving aid to non-Christian neighbors after the birth of a baby.

Thank you, Ann Gale. These seem to be in harmony with the list of women's work found in Titus 2:3-5, a passage largely forgotten now that even Christian churches are joining the world's pressure to get women into careers, as though women have no special, God-given responsibilities and are quite free to pursue money, status, prestige, fulfillment in any way they like. I'm afraid we're sowing the wind, and will one day reap the whirlwind.

1985 March/April issue Part 4

Questions and Answers

Please share some ideas of how to encourage intellectual pursuits with our children.

A friend who has four boys, the oldest of whom is eight, prints a different hymn and several scripture verses each week and posts them on a large, stiff cardboard in the breakfast nook. The whole family learns the hymn and verses. She has a chart showing each child's chores. This may not sound very intellectual, but the orderly doing of household chores forms habits of an orderly life, and orderly lives and orderly minds go together. This same mother bought a microphone and small public address system. She has each child stand up at one end of the living room, while the others sit in a row like an audience and listen to him recite a verse, a hymn, a poem, or make a short speech. This teaches poise, articulation, the art of speaking up, standing still, keeping

1985 March/April issue Part 3

Why Bother To Pray

If God is sovereign and things are going to be as they are anyway, why bother to pray? There are several reasons. The first is really all we need to know:

God has told us to pray. It is a commandment, and if we love Him, we obey His commands. Second, Jesus prayed. People sometimes say that the only reason for prayer is that we need to be changed. Certainly we do, but that is not the only reason to pray. Jesus did not need to be changed or made more holy by praying. He was communing with His Father. He asked for things. He thanked God. In His Gethsemane prayer, He besought His Father to prevent what was about to take place. He also laid down His own will. Third, prayer is a law of the universe. God ordained that certain physical laws should govern the operation of this world. Books simply will not stay put on a table without the operation of the law of gravity. There are spiritual laws as well. Certain things will not happen without the operation of prayer. God could cause books to stay on tables by what theologians call "divine fiat." Everything we pray for could occur in the same way, but that is not how things were arranged. Pascal, the great French thinker, said that in prayer God gives us "the dignity of causality." Bible reading should shape our prayers. Here is a passage from Colossians (3:12-14, J.B. Phillips) which hits me between the eyes and shows me very clearly some changes I need God's help to make: 

"As God's picked representatives of the new humanity, purified and beloved of God himself, be merciful in action, kindly in heart, humble in mind. Accept life, and be most patient and tolerant with one another, always ready to forgive if you have a difference with anyone. Forgive as freely as the Lord has forgiven you. And, above everything else, be truly loving, for love is the golden chain of all the virtues."

1985 March/April issue Part 2

Indecision

It is painfully obvious that young people today have an awful time making up their minds about anything. They're not "really sure" what college to go to, what to major in, whom to room with, what career to prepare for, whether or whom to marry, whether to bother with children if they do marry, when to bother with them, what to do with them if they get them, whether to attempt to instill any "values" in their children (not to make up your mind on this issue is, of course, already to have instilled a value in the mind of the child).

1985 March/April issue Part 1

The Suffering Of Divorce

Many Christians now seem to regard divorce as an option, even when adultery is not involved. If they are not "comfortable" with their spouse, if they are "under too much pressure," if the grass looks greener elsewhere (which, given our usual distorted view of happiness, it generally does), they simply opt out. Untold suffering is always the result. As I travel around, I meet many of the victims. What can I say to them? I've never been divorced. I can only watch the effects, listen to the tragic tales, try to give help and comfort as it is asked for.

1985 January/February issue Part 5

Why Not?

Some parents say, "We will not influence our children in making choices and decisions in matters of religion." Why not?
The ads will, the press will, the radio will, the movies will, the neighbors will, the politicians will, television will, the devil will.
(From the Manchester Union-Leader)

Fetal Pain

Joseph Sobran, a well-known author and columnist, wrote in the HumarfLi f e Review, Spring 1984, "A woman can say,'My stomach hurts.' She can't say,'My fetus hurts.' The fetus feels its own pain. It has its own identity, its own nervous system, and therefore its own separate claim on our attention. Some abortion advocates say we must balance the rights of the mother against those of the fetus; and even though they are up to no good when they say that, they have at least come to acknowledge that the fetus does have rights of its own. The very admission that two parties are involved is a significant victory for the opponents of abortion."

1985 January/February issue Part 4

Letters

"I must admit I feel a lot of pressure with two children under two years of age. I am committed to do it until they are in school, however, and feel it is God's will. At times like this-when I wonder if I will even be able to finish this letter with both of them screaming for something-or when I miss going to lunch or getting dressed up, everyday life seems a drudgery. I worked hard to get through college-to be a scrubwoman, ha!" I understand this mother's cry. So does the Lord. He has given us this word: "No temptation has come your way that is too hard for flesh and blood to bear. But God can be trusted not to allow you to suffer any

1985 January/February issue Part 3

A Word for Fathers

While at Columbia Bible College in South Carolina last summer I found a little book called Father and Son in the library, written by my grandfather, Philip E. Howard. He writes: "Do you remember that encouraging word of Thomas Fuller's, a chaplain of Oliver Cromwell's time? It's a good passage for a father in all humility and gratitude to tuck away in his memory treasures: "'Lord, I find the genealogy of my Savior strangely checkered with four remarkable changes in four immediate generations. (1) Rehoboam begat Abijah; that is, a bad father begat a bad son. (2) Abijah begat Asa; that is, a bad father begat a good son. (3) Asa begat

Jehoshaphat; that is, a good father a good son. (4) Jehoshaphat begat foram; that is, a good father a bad son. I see, Lord, from hence that my father's piety cannot be entailed; that is bad news for me. But I see also that actual impiety is not always hereditary; that is good news for my son. "In another chapter Grandpa Howard

1985 January/February issue Part 2

Hints for Quiet Time

Having a quiet time with the Lord every day is absolutely essential if you expect to grow

spiritually. But you have to plan it. It won't "just

happen." We're all much too busy. Early morning
is best, and there are plenty of scriptural prece-
dents for that (Jesus rose "a great while before
day"; the psalmist said, "In the morning shalt
Thou hear my voice"). If you meet the Lord before
you meet anybody else, you'll be "pointed in the
right direction" for whatever comes. God knows

1985 January/February issue Part 1

Our Share of Suffering

Most of us know next to nothing about real persecution or what it's like to be in chains. When Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians, they were being severely persecuted, and he himself was actually chained between two guards in a Roman prison, somewhere between 61 and 63 A.D. Even though we may not know the first thing about that kind of suffering, what the apostle has to say about the subject applies to oar- kind, too, whatever it may be. For, you see, we have been given two gifts: the privilege of believing in Christ, and (here's that mystery again the privilege of suffering. Amy Carmichael, missionary to India, told of how God had

1984 November/December issue Part 4

Questions and Answers

I have a question about submission. I agree that a wife should submit to her husband, but is there a point of carrying it so far that the wife loses her identity?


I don't think so. The submission the Bible talks about is voluntary, wholehearted, and for the Lord's sake. Did Jesus lose His identity by submitting Himself to the Father? You'll say, "Oh, but it's a different thing when you have to submit to a sinner!" Yes, it is, in one sense, yet when we do so in obedience to the Lord (see Eph 5:22; 1 Pt 3:1, 5:5; Ti 2:5) we will not only not lose our identity, but we will in fact find it. "Whoever cares for his own safety is lost, but if a man will let himself be lost for my sake, he will find his true self" (Mt 16:25).

TO GO FORWARD IS TO DIE TO GO BACK IS TO DIE LET US GO FORWARD
-Zulu warrior's motto

1984 November/December issue Part 3

Aucas

Last January I reported that the Auca Indians of 

Ecuador had been granted title to a certain portion of what had been thought of as their territory. I am told that what the government "gave" them is actually one thirty-second of their original land. I also hear that the New Testament has been translated, only rough-draft so far, into the Auca language.

Come, Holy Spirit

My friend Mari Jones, wife of a Welsh 

shepherd, not only helps John with the 

sheep. She is also a hard-working farm wife in 

every way, and a harpist and a poet. Every letter 

she writes to me contains some lovely "figure of 

the True." This was in her most recent: "When the 

tide is out every shrimp has its pool, but when the 

tide comes in there is no trace of the different 

pools-the Coming in of the Tide is our greatest 

need in Wales." Yes, and in America, too.

Recommended Reading

James I. Packer: Keep in Step with the Spirit Fleming H. Revell, 285 pp.)

An eminently lucid and practical study of the
Holy Spirit and His work. Many things which had
confused me about the life of holiness, the fruits
of the Spirit, legalism, the Spirit's gifts, and the
application of these truths in our own time, were
wonderfully sorted out and clarified for me in this
book. Drop everything and get it. Here's a sample:

"All the Christian's human involvements and
commitments in this world must be consciously
based on his awareness of having been separated
from everything and everyone in creation to
belong to his Creator alone. Ordered, costly,
unstinting commitment for the Lord's sake to
spouse, children, parents, employers, employees,
and all one's other neighbors, on the basis of being
radically detached from them all to belong to God-
Father, Son, and Spirit-and to no one else, is the
unvarying shape of the authentically holy life.
Other lives may be exceedingly religious, but to
the extent that they fail to fit this description,
they are not holy to the Lord." app. 104-105)

1984 November/December issue Part 2

A New Medical Breakthrough and an Old Question*

Some time ago I read of a new medical triumph involving unborn twins. Amniocentesis had shown that one of them had Down's syndrome. The mother decided she did not want that child, so with the simple expedient of piercing the heart of the baby with a long needle, it was killed in the womb. She carried the twins to term and delivered one child alive-the one she wanted to keep-and one child dead-the one she didn't  want to keep. This was hailed as a remarkable breakthrough. I would ask you to pause for a moment here and consider this question: what was it, exactly, that was killed? What was it that was not killed? The answer to both questions, of course, is-a child. They were both children. They were twins. I used plain, ordinary words to  tell the story-the words the news report used. Nothing ambiguous. Nothing incendiary.

1984 November/December issue Part 1

Crowned because He suffered

Each newsletter of 1984 has had a meditation on some of the why's of a Christian's suffering. Now it is nearly Christmas time. We don't usually think of suffering during this glad season if we can help it. "It's Jesus' birthday!" we tell tiny tots, and we set about making cookies and gifts and trimming the house and the tree. The very joyfulness of Christmas makes it especially hard for those who suffer. It seems incongruous that celebrations should go on as always when one's own roof has fallen in. Whatever the cause of the roofs collapse, Christmas can be far more than just a birthday. That birthday is the Feast of the Incarnation, of the Word made flesh-the happy morning when the myths about gods coming to earth in the form of men actually came true. This was "glorious news of great joy," not only for poor shepherds but for all people. Can it be that for someone two thousand years later who is nailed to a bed by pain, or who has lost something most precious, or been humiliated to the very dust? Perhaps it can if we think of what that glorious news entailed for the baby Himself. Richard Crashaw ( 1613-1649 described it far more beautifully than I can:

1984 September/October issue Part 4

Questions and Answers

Could you mention some things you think are important about raising children?

First, and of primary importance, remember what God commanded Israel: "You shall take these words of mine to hear and keep them in mind....... Teach them to your children, and speak of them indoors and out of doors, when you lie down and when you rise. Write them up on the door posts of your houses." �Dt 11:18 20) My daughter Valerie began reading the psalms aloud to her son Walter on the day she brought him home from the hospital. We do not know when a child begins to absorb what is important to his parents, but wouldn't it be lovely if his first memory is of hearing the Bible read to him? The priorities set by his father and mother make a huge difference in a child's thinking. "Give us a child until he is seven," says the Catholic Church, and we will have him for life." My parents read Scripture aloud to us morning and evening with the

1984 September/October issue Part 3

Letters

From a friend whose son, two and a half, had to have surgery for a cyst (always a worrisome sign). "The cyst was benign! We are so grateful! We set the Lord before us so we will not be shaken for the living of life. Our goal is not to be comfortable and have everything turn out fine but to be godly and make an impact on our dying world and its values......................... May God continue to refine your life message as 'he keeps you from willful sins as His servant; may they not rule over you.'     (Ps    19:13). Barrett  [my son] memorized Genesis 4:7, and as he faces temptation he says the verse. He is learning to make wise choices and to be obedient..... We have not spared the rod on him but it has really worked. He says 'the rod drives out my foolishness"'

That letter came on the same day that I was reading Hannah Whitall Smith's Everyday