Who here supports Debbie Maken?

[p27:17]

Yes ma'am...I don't make the rules...I just quote them...unfortunately, I've broken many of them too
As far as the clock thing goes...it seems to lean in the favor of women...biologically...but not culturally.

[Flsprtsgod]

The bottom line: marriage and singleness are both acceptable. It's up to you.

Bingo! We have a winner. Anyone who tells me that I HAVE to get married or that I HAVE to stay single has overstepped their authority boundaries, and even the Apostles didn't take that step.

[whynot42]

"Yes ma'am" Last time I heard that was in Lake Charles after the hurricane. It might be sweet hearing it from you p27:17 if it didn't make me feel so old. Beins' I don't live in the south and it is only used around hear if you are percieved to be so old that you have become "cute" again.

[p27:17]

wn42...it is a southern thing and a military thing
I am what they call a "damn yankee" around here...I cam to the south and stayed!

[clix]

Gentlemen:

Welcome to the nightmare that women have been living for eons: having it presented as your DUTY to marry early and have lots of babies. And if you don't have kids of your own, guess what? You can volunteer for the church nursery! I swear, it's one of the only two opportunities women get in the church we go to - that and passing out bulletins and Bibles.

There are a number of men who would like to marry and have children, but (1) Christian women pass them by in search of some cultural construct of Biblical manhood, (2) these men look at how many men are "rewarded" and back away from a prompt decision to marry (i.e., the "Marriage Strike"), (3) are actually discouraged from marriage by the System ("Oh, please marry soon ... but we are not going to let you unless you are financially accomplished and make more money than your wife, enough to support her Suburban dreams."), or (4) they keep running into women who are not Prov. 31 women, but Prov. 25:24 women.

Agreed - finding a marriage-worthy spouse isn't easy, though the concerns raised easily apply just as well to women as to men. The question is this: is it worth the work and the risk?

IMO, there are plenty of people having babies; therefore, there's no great need for baby-makers. The people Debbie is talking to are the weasels - male and female alike! - who want "a relationship" but don't want to bother with "a commitment."

[Absalom]

NO MORE WEASELS!!!

[DarkJudge]

O.K. So. As usual it all comes back to sex w/you guys. So Christian sex is within the confines of marriage. So, if this discussion is about putting off marriage or not and being a "good" Christian husband. I guess I would have to say that perhaps you guys are obligated to get married at a younger age. Have I got news for you guys- not only is a woman's biological clock ticking away so is a man's.

Again, a case of... what scriptural proof can you provide me with that this is so? This is my big time issue with this whole argument. No one has proven to me WHY this is a sin. Albert Mohler didn't do it and Debbie Makken hasn't done it either. They've made cultural arguments from five hundred years ago and even THOSE are out of their appropriate context that lifespan was shorter. It's not a good idea to argue with someone who's hobby is both history and Biblical studies. Now, I don't have degrees in either, but considering Albert Mohler should know better... and he can't provide me with sufficient proof, that relegates this back to an OPINION and nothing more.

FYI, I really don't have an axe to grind. Let's just say that... well... I am seeing someone. I hesitate to call them my girlfriend, but we are friends and she happens to be a girl. We are... considering our options.

[clix]

DarkJudge - I look at this the same way with my high school students. If people aren't ready to find a spouse... why bother dating?

[p27:17]

DJ,
I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed...please clarify what your "big time issue" is...
Is it getting married, procreation, or are you saying you don't see the sin in sex outside of marriage?
I am not accusing...just confused

[clownguy]

Ok, this is just my take. I believe that God wants some men and women to be married. Some are not to be married. End of story for me. The USA has always had this "family values" thing and push that men need to be married to be "real men".

I have a rant to do about the faliy values thing but I'll post a new thread for that.

[DarkJudge]

DJ,
I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed...please clarify what your "big time issue" is...
Is it getting married, procreation, or are you saying you don't see the sin in sex outside of marriage?
I am not accusing...just confused

Married? Where does it say in scripture that if I don't have a ministry and I don't have a specific call on my life to be single... that I have to be married by age 30 or otherwise I'm sinning?

Obviously, sex belongs in marriage.

I'm also not again procreation, but again, within the confines of marriage.

Please understand, I understand how people can offer advice and I'm not saying they can't have their own cultural/personal preferences. Where I have my big time issue is someone like Albert Mohler or Debbie Makken saying that it's a sin to be single by circumstance and put off marriage. That's a major twisting of the scriptures. Mohler should know better than that as President of Dallas Theological Seminary and would make me wary of taking classes there. I don't know enough about Makken's background to comment.

[Flsprtsgod]

Mohler should know better than that as President of Dallas Theological Seminary and would make me wary of taking classes there.

That would be because he is the president of The Southern Seminary in Louisville...

[DarkJudge]

Mohler should know better than that as President of Dallas Theological Seminary and would make me wary of taking classes there.

That would be because he is the president of The Southern Seminary in Louisville...

Bleh! My mistake. Must have confused him with someone else. Flsprtsgod is right.

That still does not make me confident enough to take courses from him. (No offense to Southern Baptists) As you have probably already figured out, I'm not SBC. I attend a Baptist church but am not a member and frankly, don't hold to any one demoninational dogma. He and I are just on opposite ends of the spectrum. Though I can't really classify myself as Liberal, but not truly conservative. Independent? Maybe. I dunno. But I do have issues with him representing ME as a Christian.

[Egghead]

I guess my take is that our lives are supposed to glorify God. If you can do that better by remaining single, then by all means, remain single. If you can do it better by getting married, then get married.

But don't marry the wrong person! Marriage to the wrong person would hinder your ability to glorify God worse than staying single would.

[kscoffelt]

I just refer to the Bible.

1 Corinthians 7:8-9
8 Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. 9 But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

Ephesians 5
21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church-- 30 for we are members of his body. 31 "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." 32 This is a profound mystery--but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.