Dedicated to Hope and Lena. They’ll know who they are. :-)
My understanding of relationship is rooted way back in human history – the relationship of male and female. In the beginning it was couched in what seems to be sexual or gender terms, but those two words go way beyond and much deeper than simply gender connection–they are like the math symbols of a”Divine Equation,” evem the unity of the Godhead which they image. As such, they are generic, but there is a broad application where relationship is concerned.
Not too long after the removal of the female portion or side of the equation, we get the man “woman” connection, and that leads to the parent-children connection, which leads to the sibling connection, and those are the relational facts of life. Here I am speaking of the separation of the female portion of the first Adam. It was only after she was removed that the female was called “woman,” and reproduction became possible, through a much reduced, and now external intimacy.
Life does not come in the form of, or reproduce, as undifferentiated brotherhood. That may be relational on some level, but it was never intended to produce or reproduce life. For that you need the family package.
Jesus didn’t promise us “100 times” brotherhood. He promised us “100 times” family – Mark 10:29-30. But, He made it conditional on a change in relational priorities.
The Lord didn’t give Abraham a sibling. He gave Him a son – a son containing a SEED that would ultimately become the stars of Abraham’s sky – Hebrews 11:11, 12.
Without relationship with a woman, even the best of seed has no place to go unless of course you are sexually confused, and then we know it ends up in a garbage disposal.
By this I mean that the reproduction of new life in the form of begotten children requires a woman. Even the best of “Seed,” that is Christ, needs a woman to produce begotten life. In the first instance – in the flesh, Marriage is God’s provision for the reproduction of godly offspring. Malachi 2:15.
Why is it so difficult to grasp that this created, and reproducible life in the flesh is a parable of reproducible life in the Spirit?
My impression is that flesh is so wounded, and so early on due to parental or familial dysfunction of the flesh that it can’t manage to get that wounding to the cross where it is redeemed and changed into new life, “Except you come as a little child… (that for me means, unless we come prior to the knowledge of good and evil which is the result of early woundedness) we shall not enter the kingdom of God.” Relationally wounded people are incapable of healthy relationships. They can only manage wounded codependencies. As long as we continue in not allowing The Lord to have His way with us, we remain in that unspiritual place. It’s not pretty. :-/ More often than not it remains fixated on gender specific body parts, and so can’t make it to Spiritual relationship without the very strong possibility of moral failure. This was a big problem at Corinth. The oneness that Jesus prayed and died for is just not possible unless, and until we allow the lord to put us together in and by the Spirit.
In short, we need to get beyond the shadow images composed of gender specific flesh. Does the Lord put brothers and sisters together gender specific, as well as gender neutral? Of course He does, but it needs to happen in and by the Spirit, and not by the doctrinal bondage of some kind of “new testament law” or religious relational quackery, used to bolster religion’s latest “cutting edge” dog and pony shows. That is an oxymoron!
Law is simply the “leaves” that we continue to hide behind. It is the stumbling stone of the relational bondage of systematic religion.
“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family (or fatherhood[1]) in heaven and on earth derives its name,” (Ephesians 3:14, 15).
[[1] The Greek for family (patria) is derived from the Greek for father (pater)]
The Father is looking for hoods, and that’s us. The same goes for all the other hoods, but we must never lose sight of the fact that He is the Father under the hood…
What’s under your hood?
What’s under the hood includes “El Shaddai – “the Breasted One” Who is also under the hood. I’m not sure how He does that, all I can think of right at the moment is the answer of a Father to his son’s query: “Dad, how come men have nipples?” And the really anointed answer: “Just in case we need them.” Paul did, and so do we on occasion.
Well that took me to another fact of life, the one that makes sense out of “the first commandment with promise.” Parents get to do life a generation ahead of their children, that positions them with the life’s truth the children need if they are not going to make the same mistakes their parents made. (Seems to me they are still left with plenty of mistakes to make of their own.)
What makes this promise keepable are children, who recognize, and honor the wisdom of their parents – pay attention to it.
Siblings give each other a lot of really bad information. It’s perhaps just as bad as what children are getting from the media in our increasingly debauched culture. Sad to say this is also true with the undifferentiated brotherhood doctrine that is presently running away with what’s left of “the house church movement.”
Perhaps this is as good a place as any to mention that “every fatherhood in heaven and on earth,” includes grandfatherhood. It is this season of life that the lessons of fatherhood have been tried and tested, qualifying grandfatherhood for the role of “elder” or “overseer.”
“Overseers need to be willing,” 1 Peter 5:2. For some years now, my understanding of this willingness is the willingness to stop being over doers. It is very difficult to keep our eye on things if our eyes are still caught up in the overdoing season of life. That’s the fathering season – the hands on season. The age of “elders” under the shadow Covenant gives us a clue into the season of life of overseers or elders – 50 plus, (Numbers 4:3-47), those under that age are the doers. Fifty is kind of old for fathering, but it’s just about right for grandfathering – eldering – overseeing.
On a personal note, where spiritual grandfathering is concerned The Lord has shown me something that He only began to show me years ago – back when I was researching my “money” book, that the key to love was in Luke 7:36-50 – “Those who are forgiven much, love much.”
More recently, but not yet immediate, I wrote: “I don’t know if, over the course of our correspondence to date, you were able to share everything for which you needed to be forgiven, but in all that you did share, you never came even close to giving me any problems with the look of love in my eye. I was able to stay fixed on you, I never even had to turn around and look up into The Lord’s crucified face and ask the question, ‘Am I supposed to put up with this?’ Somehow that came through in all our communication, and you apparently shared enough with me to be persuaded that you have indeed been forgiven, and, by the looks of your love, forgiven much.
So far from being illegal, you are a demonstration of what a normal Christian lover ought to look like. No wonder the early church turned its world upside down! You have succeeded in turning me upside down! Go ahead ask me if I lost the look of love. :-D
So, let’s suppose for a moment, that I’m Paul, and you’re, ‘Timothy, my true daughter in the faith,’ who do you think I would want to pass the content of my heart to and through, some ‘church’ or you? Who is likely to carry it into the future with the greatest clarity, purity, and passion, some ‘church’ or you? Looks to me like it’s no contest. That’s what I mean when I shared above about ‘looking at the Word of God with both eyes open.’ (see “Front and Rear Sights”)
One more thing from this morning: flesh is flesh. You have been willing to share, even come clean with me far beyond my own flesh and blood children have ever been willing to do – are ever likely to be willing to do. The flesh connection is a great barrier to intimacy.
It looks to me like this problem is not only normal to the flesh, but normal to the parent child level of relationship. It is perhaps seen most clearly in preachers kids, ‘PKs.’
PKs have to hide what they are thinking and doing very deep. The congregation had better not find out, and, God forbid that their parents should find out what they are thinking and or doing. As a result, their parent, the pastor, and conduit of the Father’s love, is not able to demonstrate to the satisfaction of their conscience that they are indeed forgiven much. Religion forces them to do trash compacting. I hope I have never forced that on you, even if for a little while you may have been tempted to do that. The more of your garbage I succeed in taking away without loosing the look of love from my eye, the more you have the earthly witness of the reality of Jesus’ forgiveness and love, and the greater lover you are. ‘There’s no fear in love, because perfect love casts out fear.”
More recently I have come to see and understand that this is even more true in the context of spiritual grandparenting, in a word: “eldering.”
To this point, it is quite apparent “Fear is not a factor for you.” One result is that I am blessed out of my socks, that The Lord has given you to me.
I think perhaps I can sleep now.
Love!
Gramps
- By Jay Ferris, originally posted December 2012
Loving Like God 