Weddings

[NOTE FROM TB: A dear sister in Christ e-mailed this to my wife and me a couple days ago. We've spent years benefitting from her wisdom privately, so when we were together recently, I asked her to write up some of her wisdom so others could benefit. She declined, but a couple days later she surprised us with this gem. I hope there are more, forthcoming. We're running this piece under the pseudonym "Anonymous" because, while I am resigned to slanders on Baylyblog against the men who write here, the worst bile spewed out on Baylyblog was directed toward a dear woman we love very much. Her post was one of the best, but since it was critical of the abandonment of femininity by women today, it aroused hatred unlike any we've seen before or since. We won't allow any woman to be attacked like that again.]

When my husband and I moved to a new town in 1986, we came with the hope that we would purchase our first home. We had set our budgeted price at $55,000 and began to look at houses. We saw several we liked in the $60-65,000 range, and then I found the home I loved. It was in the neighborhood of our new friends, and it was beyond cute. The asking price was $65000. I called my father and said to him that it seemed that the homes that we would like to buy were about $10K more than we felt we could spend, and that, in fact, we had found a home that we loved for that amount. This was his cue to say that he would give us $10,000, which would have been nothing to him. In fact, I believe that his impulse to do just that must have been very strong, and that it almost certainly took a tremendous amount of self restraint to answer as he did, "Then you will need to find a cheaper house."

This answer was in sharp contrast to the backdrop of my life.

In kindergarten, I was the only child in my class to have a new box of crayons half way through the year. The crayons were provided by the school, but I didn't like the way they looked by January. So my father found out who supplied the crayons and purchased a box, which he delivered to the kindergarten.

In high school, I remember a day that the choir was to sing, and I had a run in my stockings...

Under the post, "Dealing with sexual predators; objections answered...," one reader asked: "Tim, if you won't marry someone who doesn't intend to have children, how do you deal with 1Corinthians 7:9?"

But if they do not have self-control, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

Here's my response...

Last weekend Mary Lee and I had the privilege of joining in the celebration of the marriage vows of Eric and Katherine Alberson at Sovereign Grace Church in Fairfax, Virginia. At the wedding reception, Eric's younger brother, John, toasted the bride and groom and he kindly agreed to my sharing with you...

Back in 1976 when Mary Lee and I married, it was hip for brides to marry but not take their husbands' names. Some combined their husbands' names with their own maiden name: for instance, Taylor and Réze Schreuder-Bayly. Some husbands held back and kept their own name while their wife added her maiden to his: for instance, Taylor Bayly and Réze Schreuder-Bayly. Others chose for the husband and wife each to keep his or her own name: for instance, Taylor Bayly and Réze Schreuder.

Which is right?

For centuries it's been the habit within Christendom (the Western world which honored Christ and His Word in word, if not in deed and thought and heart) for wives to signify their movement from the authority of their fathers to that of their husbands by dropping their fathers' last name and taking their husbands'. It was no dishonor to the bride's father because everyone heard the minister ask, "Who gives this woman to be married to this man?," followed by the father's response "I do." At this point he took his daughter's hand and transferred it to his future son-in-law's, went, and sat down next to his wife.

No one ever asked (nor asks yet today) "Who gives this man to be married to this woman?" The closest we come is President Lyndon Johnson's (then) novel deferral to Lady Bird Johnson by...

Lord willing, this Saturday our youngest son Taylor will wed Miss Réze (pronounced reesa) Schreuder, eldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Niek (Therese) Schreuder, and last night the Schreuders invited us over to meet their family members just arrived from South Africa and Namibia.

It was a wonderful and interesting evening with good conversation outside around a fire. (Niek did coffee and Rooibos tea over the fire.) Later in the evening we listened to Afrikaans music while oldest to youngest danced. There were lots of pics, some of the original family farm in the Namakwaland area of northwestern SA where Niek grew up and his mother still lives. Known for the georgous wildflowers that spring up in the desert during winter rains, here's just one pic Niek took when he and his family were home for a visit last year. I'm color blind and I was thunderstruck by the beauty of picture after picture of these flowers:

Other pics were from the siblings' homes. There were pics of...

Under son Joseph's post, "Humble is as stupid does...," "Anne" asks the question:

Can you provide Scripture that says authority and submission, 'conquering' and 'surrendering', are to be carried out in the bedroom? Because neither Song of Songs nor 1Corinthians 7, not even Ephesians 5 in its entirety suggests such a thing.

P.S: Failure to respond will be taken as a failure to provide appropriate scripture.

To which I respond:

Dear Anne,

Concerning physical marital intimacy, function follows form...

The Bible says it is better to marry than to burn with passion. But we say that it’s better to live with each other first to determine whether you are “compatible”. We say that it is better to burn with passion than to get married before you have established your career. We say that it is better to give ourselves to lust than to give up the prospect of two high-paying jobs. We even say that it is better to give ourselves to impurity before marriage than for people to think we are weird or to call us "legalists" or "prudes." - Joseph Bayly in a recent wedding sermon

Here's a wedding sermon that, across church history, would have been a yawn. But today it elicits anger and hatred--and from men and women claiming to be Reformed.

How have we gotten to the place that pastors leave out the word 'obey' in the woman's vow and preach sermons to brides that don't mention childbearing and submission?

Speaking in Toledo this past weekend at the Friday Night Bible Study at the home of Bob and Debbie Forney, I pointed out that the weddings I attend nowadays are entirely gender-neutral...

Hannah just returned from a wedding of a friend and happily reported that it was a Christian wedding. Which might lead some to ask what is a Christian wedding?

Well, it's not what New York did this past Lord's Day. Despite what the civil magistrate says, those weren't even weddings, let alone Christian.

A Christian wedding is a public exchange of vows by one man and one woman in which the man vows love and faithfulness until death and the wife vows love and faithfulness and obedience until death.

Other things may be added, but without each element of those vows, it is no Christian wedding.

Evangelicals need to be divided and this may well be the method that will do it most surgically...

If you think Luther and Calvin sinned in their rhetoric and you suspect parody does not edify, you may want to pass this one up. For the rest of us, here's an emetic for all the feminist toxins we're force-fed each day.

And if you're wondering, my dear wife Mary Lee liked it. But then this is a woman who pierced her own nose back in 1975 so let the reader undestand her opinion doesn't count for much.

(TB)