Need a Favor

I talked to my cousin Mark Perkins this morning and he is discouraged that his cancer is worse. I wish you would lift him up with your words. You can email if you like. Thanks. perkinsmark83@yahoo.com

Marriage Enrichment

Several years ago some couples from church were going to get together to watch Gary Smalley’s marriage enrichment tapes. It was the kind of thing where you watched the tapes and then had a group discussion with the intent to enrich your marriage. Julie told me about it and asked me if I wanted to go. I thought about it for a minute and said something like it would probably be a waste of our time since our marriage was in such good shape. Then she said, well we could probably help the others with our experiences. Ohhh… that woman is smart… really smart. So, simpleton that I am, I said, sure let’s do it. So we started attending those meetings and generally they were good. I think I only fell asleep in one of them. But then we had one where Smalley said to rate your marriage from 1 – 10 (10 being the best) and discuss privately with each other what you individually could do to make your marriage a “10”. So sure enough Julie asks me on the way home how I rated our marriage. I was just about to say “10” when I thought, no a ten is perfect and she probably thinks our marriage is not quite perfect. So I was about to say “9” but stopped and thought no nine is like an “A”… I’ll say “8” like a “B”… above average but still room to get better. So I told her “8”. She said “8”!?!... I rated us a “6”. I thought to myself hmmph… a six… almost failing. So then she asked me what I thought I could do to make our marriage better. I was well familiar with her complaints about me so I went through the list blow by blow of what I could do better. Then she asked me what I thought she could do better. I thought for a minute and told her that I didn’t know anything that she could do better. That I lied when I rated our marriage an “8” that I really thought it was a “10”. I was perfectly happy with her. It wasn’t long after that, that I noticed she was really treating me nice and I didn’t really connect the dots. I just noticed how nice she was and thought well, we’ll give it a few days and see what happens. But then the days turned into weeks and I began to question her “is there something wrong with you?” Of course she replied “no”. Then I began to worry if the reason she was treating me so nice was that she was worried I was having an affair or something so I kept asking her about it. Finally she told me that when I told her I was perfectly happy with her and didn’t know of anything she could do better… that she knew I was wrong about that. So she started with the premise that Smalley and others teach that you can’t control anyone but yourself, so be the best you can and leave it to God and time to make your mate better and she worked hard to be the best wife she could be. So I asked her well did it work… am I better? And that smart wife of mine said, “I can’t really tell if you’re any better but I’m happier this way”.

1 Corinthians 1-6. “A Failure in Judgment”

These first six chapters in 1 Corinthians highlight three cases of failed judgment. First, the Corinthian Christians had used improper judgment in judging Paul to be an inferior teacher. Secondly, in their focusing on judging teachers an elephant had sat on them… they had failed to judge a case of obscene sexual misconduct within the congregation. Lastly, they had abrogated their responsibility to judge the smallest of civil disagreements, that they had with each other, to Pagan judges… judges who in their wise judgment had judged the story of Jesus to be a fairy tale (so to speak). Even the most biblically ignorant people carry one Bible verse in their pocket… judge not so that you won’t be judged. And yet Paul corrects the Corinthians for their failure to judge properly… which verses are right? The correct answer would be both of them. Congregations of Jesus Christ have the responsibility to hold each other accountable to the commandments of Christ but not hypocritically. Proper judgment is to judge ourselves first and with that humble spirit help others correct their improper behaviors so that they can be acceptable to Christ.