Islam's Two Qur'ans ~ Warren Nozaki

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Hank Hanegraaff, the "Bible Answer Man" discusses Islam:

Q: You are familiar with what happened here in Orlando, Florida at Pulse, the gay bar. What happened is the Islam community took a page add in the Orlando Sentinel apologizing and said they had nothing to do with that shooting. Part of the add went, “We affirm that the mass murder that took the lives of so many innocent people was a vicious aggressor whose actions do not represent Islamic values. The Qur’an says, ‘Do not be brutal or commit aggression, for surely God does not love aggressors’ (Surah 2:190)” Are they missing the part where the Qur’an says that all people must be converted to Islam and the teachings of Muhammad, and that all those who do not believe in him will be either eliminated or killed? Isn’t that too part of what Islam teaches?

Hank Hanegraaff: Well, absolutely. I think what’s important to realize is that you really have two Qur’ans as opposed to one. You have a “Meccan” Qur’an and you have a “Medinian” Qur’an. When Muhammad was in Mecca, he was a struggling itinerate preacher. He had a very long road to hoe. As a result of being a struggling preacher, he said things—part of the Qur’an—that were peaceful at the time because he was in a great minority. He had very few followers. When you get to Medina, Muhammad was a bloodthirsty warlord. Therefore, the tenor of what he communicated was far different from when he was a struggling preacher in Mecca.

So, you have two Qur’ans. You can pick and choose between the two, but if you want to know what Islam is all about, conceding that there are peaceful Muslims, you can never concede that Islam is a religion of peace. It has always advanced by the sword.

If you look at the history of Christianity it has advanced by the Word not the sword. You don’t find suicide bombers in the Christian faith. If you do, they are an aberration.

Inevitably, when you hear of a suicide bombing, you can immediately deduce that it must be Islamic. The fact remains that all of history has been a history of violent jihad within Islam. Look, for example, at Muhammad’s life and then the four Caliphs that followed him, a twenty-nine-year reign collectively. These were very violent years whereby Islam advanced by the sword. Look at the Umayyad Caliphate, again a bloody one, if there ever was one. The Abbasid Caliphate, often times considered the greatest of all of the Muslim caliphates, advanced by the sword. Look at the Ottoman or Turkish Empire throughout the world, and you find violence, destruction, and death. In some cases, there was complete genocide. Now you have the Islamic State following in the footsteps of previous Caliphates, calling themselves a Caliphate, wanting to unite all of Islam under their ghastly reign, and they are inspiring a whole host of people based not on some weird radical theology, but on the essence of what was taught to them and modeled for them by their leader Muhammad, modeled for them in the Qur’an, the Al-Hadith, the Surah, the Sunna, Sharia law, and interpreted even by those today who are the experts.

You find nothing in the history of Islam but a legacy that either says that you submit, and if you happen to live in a Muslim country then you become a dhimmi, which is a proposition whereby you are inferior and you have to pay a protection racket to stay alive, or you say the Shahada, which is the means of saying, “I have just converted to Islam,” or you face the sword. Those are the three options you have. What Muhammad taught and what Islam has always taught is that there are only two houses—the house of Islam and the house of war. If you’re not part of the house of Islam, you’re part of the house of war.

Now do I concede that there are many Muslims that do not understand their own legacy, their own history? Of course. But, this is very akin to what you ultimately put your trust in. The founder of Christianity or the founder of Islam, as two primary sources. You have the two fastest growing religions in the world, although Islam now is the fastest growing religion in the world. If you look at the legacy of Christ, He told to put up your sword, if you advanced by the sword, you will die by the sword (Matt. 26:52). Muhammad did exactly the opposite, beheading Jews—very much like the Islamic State does today. Calling People of the Book the vilest of all creatures (Surah 98:6).

There are Muslims that know what they’re doing, CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) is a great example. They are simply playing off the ignorance of people within the American community who think that Islam is a religion of peace. It isn’t even a religion in the Western sanitized sense of the word. It is a socio-political economic system that rides on the rails of Sharia, and in the process subjugates people. Look at how women are subjugated under Islam and wonder how Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton can speak of Islam in breathless terms with soaring rhetoric. You have Obama denouncing Scripture, but revering the Qur’an, and you find in that there is either duplicity or ignorance. I don’t know which but one or the other. This kind of duplicity is being communicated over and over again, particularly in the wake of the kinds of tragedies experienced in Orlando.

For further study, please see the following:

Will the Real Islam Please Stand Up? (David Wood)

Jihad, Jizya, and Just War (David Wood)

Muhammad and Messiah: Comparing the Central Figures of Islam and Christianity (David Wood)

The Rise of the American Jihadist (David Wood)

Ambiguous Islam (John Ferrer)

Submit or Die: The Geostrategic Jihad of Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda (Part One) (Charles Strohmer)

Submit or Die: The Geostrategic Jihad of Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda (Part Two) (Charles Strohmer)

Did Muhammad Believe in Women’s Rights? (Mary Jo Sharp)

Blog adapted from the July 8, 2016 Bible Answer Man broadcast.

About Warren Nozaki

Research Staff Christian Research Institute. M.Div. From Talbot School Of Theology.

Poem by the Unknown Confederate Soldier

I asked God for strength that I might achieve.
I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked for health that I might do greater things.
I was given infirmity that I might do better things.
I asked for riches that I might be happy.
I was given poverty that I might be wise.
I asked for power that I might have the praise of men.
I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all things that I might enjoy life.
I was given life that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am, among all men, most richly blessed.

Summer 2016 ~ A Season of Rest ~ Our 25th Wedding Anniversary

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This month, July 2016, marks our 25^th wedding anniversary.  In many ways this month is just another “month in the life” so to speak, while in other ways it is definitely a cause to celebrate our many significant years together sharing so many things.  Personally, it’s a time to briefly reflect on some critical life choices I made years ago, whereby the results of those decisions are being played out on a daily basis.  

Christ has ordained two “institutions” for us.  The first is the Church, and Marriage is the Second.  In fact, Marriage is intended to be an example of “Christ and the Church” (see Eph. 5).  Since you will likely spend significant years of your life “Institutionalized”, I’d like to spend some time discussing my marriage on this anniversary, if only briefly.  I think I can offer at least a measure of help and insight to those who may have marriage on the horizon or those who need a tune-up.  Not that we are perfect by any means, but for many reasons Andrea and I do have a great marriage!

Marriage is a covenant with God, and not to be taken lightly.  It is a holy matter!

I approached marriage with a long list of desirable characteristics and traits of who I would choose for a lifetime partner.  I remember my pastor, Allon Hornby suggesting that this was the most successful way to approach a christian marriage.  After carefully planning who we would have as a life partner in somewhat broad-descriptive terms, and then spending lots of prayer time over the list, we met at Stone Church in Toronto.  The setting was our regular College and Career group where we met with 80 others for worship and Christian fellowship.  I still recall shaking Andrea’s hand for the first time as she was the “door-greeter” that evening.  I remember how she looked at me and what she was wearing.  Immediately, I wanted to know more about her.  Somehow I instantly, I knew I’d be spending more time with her.  Hmm… let me state this with more clarity.  I was attracted to this woman; and I still am!

We soon each stepped out in faith in July 1991, putting God on notice that we would be asking Him for his help each step of the way.  He has not disappointed either of us.  Step-by-step, together we began to build a stable relationship that has withstood some significant storms, brought adventure, developed friendship, intimacy and commitment in a way that only “we” could experience.  A man and a woman, separate and distinct individuals fused into a single unit which the Bible calls “one-flesh”. In our resultant vow to God, we promised to be faithful to each other and to invite God into our marriage each and every step of the way.  

While the complete story of our family has not been written, from our perspective thus far, God has been more than faithful to us as a couple and a family, and has blessed our home with four beautiful children, each one as individual and unique as you can imagine.

This is a time for me to realize that just a lifetime with Andrea will be far too short a period of time.  Getting to know her has been a rich experience.  I am thankful for the opportunity Andrea has had to pursue her career dream of being an awesome language teacher.  At the same time I’m glad that she has wholeheartedly supported the ups and downs of my aviation pursuits.  This is not a small thank-you or honorable mention, because she has literally put aspects of her life on hold and followed me around the world to Ethiopia, Sudan and Cameroon in Africa as well as our several moves across Canada including the high-arctic in the Territories, and over four years in the Maritimes.  Early on she promised to follow me anywhere, which made it possible for me to obtain the experience I required for the next step in my career.  As I wind down perhaps the last five years of my flying career on the B767, much of the credit goes to her for making it possible.

While discussing this in glowing terms as I am, I need to be clear (and honest?) for a number of reasons.

   First of all, fusing two separate and distinct people together does not necessarily happen magically all by itself, unless the two people are willing to each consistently work things out.  There are steps along the way that need to intentionally happen.  We've learned to “forge” our relationship every step of the way while still maintaining trust and respect.

That is to say, we have together “hammered-out” our issues to “build” the framework of our relationship day by day. Frankly, this took (and still takes) communication, being-intentional, commitment and ... hard work!  If she thought this and I thought that, it is obvious that we needed to arrive at some middle ground needed to progress to the next step in our life together.  I learned that I needed to adjust my thinking on a variety of subjects.  There is no shame in doing things Andrea’s way if she has better ideas on the issue at hand.

In fact, learning that “it’s not about me” is one of the best things that I’ve learned.

I feel that one of the primary roles in my marriage is to bring about what is best for Andrea, and enable her to be the woman God meant her to be.

I still vividly remember the “single years” that preceded my “married years.  It seemed that in the years before meeting Andrea, I met many possible marriage partners, but each seemed to come with a set of red or yellow caution lights that kept me from progressing these relationships.  When I met Andrea, within weeks I discovered that there weren’t any caution lights holding me back from deciding on marriage.  May I also add, that while finding the right person to marry is important, being the right person once you're married is even more significant.

 Looking back on our celebrations of our wedding anniversary I recall several memorable ones.  On our First Anniversary we returned from working in Africa and boarded the Fintry Queen paddle-wheeler in Kelowna, BC;  On our 20^th Anniversary we journeyed on our Honda Goldwing motorcycle down to Ithaca, NY for a weekend getaway around the Finger Lakes area.  This year we are planing to visit Andrea's Europe family in Germany and Switzerland. Other anniversary celebrations are a blur of quick dinner-dates that we kept after briefly escaping child-rearing responsibilities.  We always try and mark the occasion with a dinner-date if only locally; and it’s getting easier as our family ages and we have less teenage-care responsibilities.

We both are glad to have arrived at this significant time in our marriage!  God has been faithful to us each step of our journey together.

If you have stories to share of God's faithfulness in your marriage, we'd love to hear about them!

Regards, Mark

Joy ~ Larson

SEVEN 7 QUESTIONS FOR: CARLENE HORNBY ALLEN ~ Lisa Hall-Wilson

Related: Rev. Allon Hornby  and  TESTIMONY Magazine

SEVEN 7 QUESTIONS FOR: CARLENE HORNBY ALLEN: Thoughts on career, faith and ministry

LISA HALL-WILSON

Carlene Hornby Allen is a Fellow Chartered Accountant (FCA) and partner with KPMG in Vancouver. She is the daughter of a pastor and remembers clearly the moment she decided to follow Christ at seven years of age. She has served on the General Executive of The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada since 2006 and is a trustee of the PAOC Pension Plan. Carlene is known for her professional expertise and for her dedication to ministry and non-profit work.

Q 1: What led you to a career in finance?

God directed me here indirectly. I did my undergrad degree in Business (double major in Finance and Psychology) with the intention of going to lLaw sSchool. I wrote my LSAT and was trying to decide which lLaw sSchool to go to. An accountant from our church called me up and said they noticed that I was graduating at the top of my class and hadn’t interviewed with anyone yet. I met with him and their female partner, and they ended up making me an offer. I changed my track and started in the CA program. I knew I would be doing very similar work, and at the time lawyers were working a great deal of overtime. Ministry has always been very important to me, so I wanted to pick a road where I would have ongoing ministry flexibility. The rest is history.

Q 2: Accounting is one skill you don’t hear a lot about in ministry. What kind of ministry opportunities has your professional life presented?

I’ve had the chance to speak about integrity, passion and compassion in the workplace. I’ve been able to serve on boards and in finance positions for various Christian organizations, which I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do without my finance experience. I’ve also spoken at women’s conferences and workshops for those who are fiscally challenged and things of that nature.

Q 3: Non-profits and charities are sometimes criticized for the percentage of raised funds that goes to administration or marketing. Is that a fair way for people to assess a non-profit’s financial management, or are there other considerations?

I believe that charitable organizations need to be operated primarily for the benefit of the charity. Unfortunately, you do see a lot of charitable organizations that are not run well. They are collecting people’s money and not spending it well. Although I think things are much more complicated than people realize, you should always expect to see a relatively low administrative fee. If you don’t, then maybe their strategic objectives aren’t being met.

 “We don’t usually use the words ministry and tax accounting in the same sentence, but for Carlene Hornby Allen they are the vocabulary of her life. In this issues’ 7 Questions feature, we read her thoughts on building a career on the cornerstones of faith and ministry.”

Q 4: With so many organizations and ministries asking for financial support, how, in your opinion, should Christians approach the matter of charitable giving?

I think we are called to tithe, and our tithe goes to the local church. But we’re not just called to tithe. We are also called to give, and I think our giving has to be governed by the way in which God is leading us. We have to prayerfully consider where our gifts go.

We also need to do appropriate research. We’re called to be good stewards of the assets God has given us. So it’s important to check things like tax returns and financial statements before you make a big commitment to a charitable organization. Make sure, number one, that their principles are in accord with yours and, number two, that they’re being run in a fiscally responsible manner.

Q 5: You have been, and still are, involved in many ministries and organizations. Which one is closest to your heart and why?

I don’t know if I could pick just one. I’m very passionate about reaching those who don’t know the Lord, as well as reaching out to the less fortunate in our society. My ideal goal is to have the combined ability to be involved strategically—because that’s what my background and qualifications are suited for—and also be involved hands on. I don’t want to be in an ivory tower making decisions. I want to understand what people are facing from day to day.

Q 6: How does your faith influence how you do your work?

First of all, I’m always going to do my work with integrity. Secondly, the way I interact with people needs to be Christ based. That in itself can lead to changes in policies and procedures in the workplace.

For example, when I first started at the firm, we had a large drinking event every Friday. I didn’t drink, but I made sure I attended because you’re supposed to be in the world, not of the world. As a joke, people brought me a can of Coke so I had something to hold in my hand. Next thing I knew, of the four tubs of alcohol, one tub was changed to non-alcoholic because there were other people who didn’t want to drink either. They just needed someone to set an example.

I think you need people with strong Christian principles in every work environment in order to help set godly standards and principles.

Q 7: What advice would you give those just starting out in a new job or career?

The first thing is to have your spiritual priorities in place. When you start a new job or career, there are often a lot of demands on your time. You need to make your commitments to ministry and to the faith cornerstones in your life, then build your work around them. Otherwise, work will consume you. If you think in five years you’ll go back and get involved in ministry, it will never happen. You have to set those principles and practices in place to start with. When you build your career and your life on godly principles, God will open doors that you never expected.

Lisa Hall-Wilson is an award-winning journalist. She writes exclusively for the Canadian faith-based community. You can find her on Facebook or on her blog at www.lisahallwilson.com.

Behold the LAMB ~ John 1

10 Reasons Our Kids LEAVE Church ~ Marc Yoder

10 Surprising Reasons 
Our Kids LEAVE Church    By Marc Yoder

You might not agree with all of these reasons, 
but the weight of the issue should be cause for fresh thought and diligent prayer. 

We all know them, the kids who were raised in church. hey were stars of the youth group. They maybe even sang in the praise band or led worship.

And then … they graduate from high school and they leave church. What happened?

It seems to happen so often that I wanted to do some digging to talk to these kids and get some honest answers. I work in a major college town with a large number of 20-somethings. Nearly all of them were raised in very typical evangelical churches. Nearly all of them have left the church with no intention of returning.

I spend a lot of time with them and it takes very little to get them to vent, and I’m happy to listen. So, after lots of hours spent in coffee shops and after buying a few lunches, here are the most common thoughts taken from dozens of conversations.

I hope some of them make you angry—not at the message, but at the failure of our pragmatic replacement of the gospel of the cross with an Americanized gospel of glory.

This isn’t a negative “beat up on the church” article. I love the church, and I want to see American evangelicalism return to the gospel of repentance and faith in Christ for the forgiveness of sins—not just as something on our “what we believe” page on our website, but as the core of what we preach from our pulpits to our children, our youth and our adults.

The facts:

The statistics are jaw-droppingly horrific: 70 percent of youth stop attending church when they graduate from high school. Nearly a decade later, about half return to church.

Half.

Let that sink in.

There’s no easy way to say this: The American evangelical church has lost, is losing and will almost certainly continue to lose OUR YOUTH.

For all the talk of “our greatest resource,” “our treasure,” and the multi-million dollar Dave and Buster’s/Starbucks knockoffs we build and fill with black walls and wailing rock bands … the church has failed them.

Miserably.

The Top 10 Reasons We’re Losing Our Youth:

10. The church is “relevant.”

You didn’t misread that, I didn’t say irrelevant, I said RELEVANT.

We’ve taken a historic, 2,000-year-old faith, dressed it in plaid and skinny jeans and tried to sell it as “cool” to our kids. It’s not cool. It’s not modern. What we’re packaging is a cheap knockoff of the world we’re called to evangelize to.

As the quote says, “When the ship is in the ocean, everything’s fine. When the ocean gets into the ship, you’re in trouble.”

I’m not ranting about “worldliness” as some pietistic bogeyman; I’m talking about the fact that we yawn at a five-minute biblical text but almost trip over ourselves fawning over a minor celebrity or athlete who makes any vague reference to being a Christian.

We’re a wanna-be just hoping the world will think we’re cool, too … you know, just like you guys!

Our kids meet the real world and our “look, we’re cool like you” posing is mocked. In our effort to be “like them,” we’ve become less of who we actually are. The middle-aged pastor trying to look like his 20-something audience isn’t relevant, and the minute you aim to be “authentic,” you’re no longer authentic!

9. They never attended church to begin with.

From a Noah’s Ark themed nursery to jumbotron summer-campish kids church to pizza parties and rock concerts, many evangelical youth have been coddled in a “not-quite-church, but not-quite-world” hothouse. They’ve never sat on a pew between a set of new parents with a fussy baby and a senior citizen on an oxygen tank.

They don’t see the full timeline of the gospel for every season of life. Instead, we’ve dumbed down the message, pumped up the volume and act surprised when …

8. They get smart.

It’s not that our students “got smarter” when they left home; rather, someone actually treated them as intelligent. Rather than dumbing down the message, the agnostics and atheists treat our youth as intelligent and challenge their intellect with “deep thoughts” of question and doubt.

Many of these “doubts” have been answered, in great depth, over the centuries of our faith. However …

7. We sent them out unarmed.

Let’s just be honest, most of our churches are sending youth into the world embarrassingly ignorant of our faith. How could we not?

We’ve jettisoned catechesis, sold them on “deeds not creeds” and encouraged them to start the quest to find “God’s plan for their life.”

Yes, I know your church has a “What We Believe” page, but is that actually being taught and reinforced from the pulpit? I’ve met evangelical church leaders (“pastors”) who didn’t know the difference between justification and sanctification. I’ve met large church board members who didn’t understand the atonement.

When we choose leaders based upon their ability to draw and lead rather than to accurately teach the faith, well, they don’t teach the faith.

Surprised? And instead of the orthodox, historic faith …

6. We gave them hand-me-downs.

We’ve tried our best to pass along the internal/subjective faith that we “feel.” We really, really, really want them to “feel” it too.

But we’ve never been called to evangelize our feelings. You can’t hand down this type of subjective faith.

With nothing solid to hang their faith upon, with no historic creed to tie them to centuries of history, without the physical elements of bread, wine and water, their faith is in their subjective feelings, and when faced with other ways to “feel” uplifted at college, the church loses out to things with much greater appeal to our human nature.

And they find it in …

5. Community.

Have you noticed this word is everywhere in the church since the seeker-sensitive and church growth movements came onto the scene? (There’s a reason and a driving philosophy behind it which is outside of the scope of this article.)

When our kids leave home, they leave the manufactured community they’ve lived in for nearly their entire lives. With their faith as something they “do” in community, they soon find that they can experience this “life change” and “life improvement” in “community” in many different contexts.

So, they left the church and …

4. They found better feelings.

Rather than an external, objective, historical faith, we’ve given our youth an internal, subjective faith.

The evangelical church isn’t catechizing or teaching our kids the fundamentals of the faith; we’re simply encouraging them to “be nice” and “love Jesus.” When they leave home, they realize that they can be “spiritually fulfilled” and get the same subjective self-improvement principles (and warm fuzzies) from the latest life-coach or from spending time with friends or volunteering at a shelter.

And they can be truly authentic, and they jump at the chance because …

3. They got tired of pretending.

In the “best life now,” “every day a Friday” world of evangelicals, there’s little room for depression, struggle or doubt. Turn that frown upside down or move along.

Kids who are fed a steady diet of sermons aimed at removing anything (or anyone) who doesn’t serve “God’s great plan for your life” has forced them to smile and, as the old song encouraged them, be “hap-hap-happy all the time.” Our kids are smart, often much smarter than we give them credit for. So they trumpet the message I hear a lot from these kids: “The church is full of hypocrites.” Why?

Even though they have never been given the categories of law and gospel …

2. They know the truth.

They can’t do it. They know it. All that “be nice” moralism they’ve been taught? The Bible has a word for it: Law. And that’s what we’ve fed them, undiluted, since we dropped them off at the Noah’s Ark playland: Do/Don’t Do.

As they get older, it becomes “good kids do/don’t” and as adults, “Do this for a better life.” The gospel appears briefly as another “do” to “get saved.”

But their diet is Law, and scripture tells us that the law condemns us. So that smiling, upbeat “Love God and Love People” vision statement? Yeah, you’ve just condemned the youth with it. Nice, huh?

They either think that they’re “good people” since they don’t “do” any of the stuff their denomination teaches against (drink, smoke, dance, watch R-rated movies), or they realize that they don’t meet Jesus’ own words of what is required. There’s no rest in this law, only a treadmill of works they know they aren’t able to meet.

So, either way, they walk away from the church because …

1. They don’t need it.

Our kids are smart. They picked up on the message we unwittingly taught. If church is simply a place to learn life application principles to achieve a better life in community … you don’t need a crucified Jesus for that.

Why would they get up early on a Sunday and watch a cheap knockoff of the entertainment venue they went to the night before? The middle-aged pastor trying desperately to be “relevant” to them would be a comical cliché if the effect weren’t so devastating.

As we jettisoned the gospel, our students were never hit with the full impact of the law, their sin before God and their desperate need for the atoning work of Christ. Now THAT is relevant, THAT is authentic and THAT is something the world cannot offer.

We’ve traded a historic, objective, faithful gospel based on God’s graciousness toward us for a modern, subjective, pragmatic gospel based upon achieving our goal by following life strategies. Rather than being faithful to the foolish simplicity of the gospel of the cross, we’ve set our goal on being “successful” in growing crowds with this gospel of glory.

Our kids leave because we have failed to deliver to them the faith “delivered once for all” to the church.

I’m not against entertaining our youth or even jumbotrons or pizza parties (though I probably am against middle-aged guys trying to wear skinny jeans) … it’s just that the one thing, the MAIN thing we’ve been tasked with? We’re failing.

We’ve failed God and we’ve failed our kids. Don’t let another kid walk out the door without being confronted with the full weight of the law … and the full freedom in the gospel.  

Choose God in Your Marriage

A Pastor, A Priest and a Rabbi

How to serve your spouse in truth, love and grace ~ Amy Van Veen

The sentiment “and they lived happily ever after” never seems to include the how. 

How did they live happily ever after when happiness can be so fleeting and relative? Books have been written, movies have been made, songs, seminars and more have been created around this central idea of how to achieve happiness. 

Christians, however, aren’t called to be happy. We’re called to serve as Christ served. And for those who are married, the call to serve your spouse is even greater. 

After all, marriage was created by God, instituted by Him to reflect His own relationship not only between Christ and the Church, but also within the Trinity. 

Husbands are called to lay down their lives for their wives – just as Christ laid down his life for the Church. And wives are called to submit to their husbands – just as Christ submitted to the will of His Father, and just as the Church follows that Christlike example by submitting to Jesus. 

“Both women and men get to ‘play the Jesus role’ in marriage – Jesus in his sacrificial authority, Jesus in his sacrificial submission,” Kathy Keller explains in The Meaning of Marriage. 

Sacrificially submitting to and serving one another is hardly what our culture talks about when they refer to “happily ever after,” but the proven by-product of such sacrifice is, in fact, happiness. 

“The deep happiness that marriage can bring, then, lies on the far side of sacrificial service in the power of the Spirit,” Timothy Keller writes in The Meaning of Marriage. “That is, you only discover your own happiness after each of you has put the happiness of your spouse ahead of your own, in a sustained way, in response to what Jesus has done for you . . . It is the joy that comes from giving joy, from loving another person in a costly way.” 

However, Keller explains, the problem is that the “main barrier to the development of a servant heart in marriage is . . . self-centeredness.” In the oft-quoted 1 Corinthians 13, Paul describes love as “not self-seeking” – it does not put itself first. 

“Self-centeredness,” Keller continues, “is easily seen in the signs Paul lists: impatience, irritability, a lack of graciousness and kindness in speech, envious brooding on the better situations of others, and holding past injuries and hurt against others.” 

There’s a reason Keller notes that you have to serve your spouse “in a sustained way.” The sustenance can come only from God. 

“If I look to my marriage to fill the God-sized spiritual vacuum in my heart, I will not be in position to serve my spouse,” he explains. “Only God can fill a God-sized hole. Until God has the proper place in my life, I will always be complaining that my spouse is not loving me well enough, not respecting me enough, not supporting me enough.”

But once you realize that God is the one who will be fulfilling your needs and God is the one to whom you look for sustenance, you will be better equipped to serve your spouse. No longer will it be what Keller refers to as a “consumer relationship” of “I’ll serve her if she serves me.” It then becomes “I’ll serve her because Christ served me.” 

And that’s where the true power of the gospel lies – “that through marriage, ‘the mystery of the gospel is unveiled.’ Marriage is a major vehicle for the gospel’s remaking of your heart from the inside out and your life from the ground up.” 

But how is this practically seen in the day-to-day? According to Keller, this remaking is seen in the continual combination of three things: the power of truth, the power of love and the power of grace.

1. Power of truth

“Marriage by its very nature has the ‘power of truth’ – the power to show you the truth about who you are,” Keller explains. This can be a discouraging and even frightening concept. The sheen that we put on during our dating and newlywed years wears off and the truth of ourselves is plain to see – for both our spouse and ourselves. 

But this needn’t be a bad thing – in fact, it’s the very thing that will remake us into the person God desires us to be. That’s the gift of marriage. While some may be tempted to look for someone better after that sheen wears off, Christians know that person is their spouse. 

“The someone better is the spouse you already have,” Keller writes. “God has indeed given us a desire for the perfect spouse, but you should seek it in the one to whom you’re married.” 

2. Power of love

While the power of truth seems like a good thing in theory, in practice it can often be hurtful – if truth is shared separate from love. One of the best ways to show your love to your spouse is to learn how they see and receive love. Become a student of your spouse’s love language and learn how to “communicate love in the way [y]our spouse needs it.” 

“The point is this – truth and love need to be kept together, but it is very hard,” Keller continues. “We need to feel so loved by our partners that when they criticize us, we have the security to admit our faults. Then we can come to know and face who we are and grow.” 

3. Power of grace

Truth and love are powerful when kept together, but keeping them together is what so many of us struggle with. The solution, Keller notes, is found once again in Christ: 

“Truth without love ruins the oneness, and love without truth gives the illusion of unity but actually stops the journey and the growth. The solution is grace. The experience of Jesus’ grace makes it possible to practice the two most important skills in marriage: forgiveness and repentance. Only if we are very good at forgiving and very good at repenting can truth and love be kept together.”

When we recognize the true meaning of marriage, Kathy and Timothy Keller explain – when we see the true gift of the healing and remaking process that God created in this institution – we can then use it to become our best selves and therefore show God’s glory through this profound relationship of marriage. 

And the path to this kind of reflection of His glory is by reflecting His attitude of service.

In a Focus on the Family broadcast entitled “Becoming the Family You Want to Be,” Gary Chapman explains that about three years into his marriage, he felt God convict him of demanding service from his wife instead of acting in service toward her. “And I just said, ‘God forgive me’ . . . And then I said, ‘Please give me the attitude of Christ toward my wife,’” he recalls. “In retrospect, [it was] the greatest prayer I ever prayed regarding my marriage, because God changed my heart and gave me a desire to serve her.”

“Marriage has unique power to show us the truth of who we really are,” Keller writes. “Marriage has unique power to redeem our past and heal our self-image through love. And marriage has unique power to show us the grace of what God did for us in Jesus Christ.”