Prenups

Chelsea and her hubby did a huge prenup thing going into the wedding.

“Chelsea’s world was shattered when she learned that her father had been unfaithful to her mom,” said a source. “She’s never forgotten that pain and disappointment. Her father has always been the person she most admired, and the fact that he cheated on her mom not once, but many times, made her very gun-shy about trusting the guys she dated.”

That distrust has led to her making some interesting demands before entering into holy matrimony.

“Under the terms of of the prenup, if Marc is unfaithful, he stands to lose $10 million, including his share of the couple’s $3.8 million apartment in New York City.”

- quote taken from here

There's so much to be said about this whole situation, but i will approach it from this angle:

While i understand the world's perspective on prenuptial agreements, I will never sign one. I don't care how much money i have going into a wedding. My prenuptial agreement will be to love my wife as Christ loved the church. And by God's grace, I will love my wife as I ought to.

I wont divorce my wife and try to get half from her because Christ didn't and WILL NOT divorce the church. If the Lord does not treat me according to my sin, how can I not, by the Lord's grace, forgive my wife for however she may sin against me.

This may sound idealistic, but there is a high calling on the husband - If the Lord blesses me with a wife, I will seek to honor the Lord in how I treat her. And that treatment will, by the Lord's grace, never include divorce.

I don't want to presumptuously say what I wont do, because i don't know the depths of my own depravity, but by the Lord's grace, I can obey him - and in my obedience to him, I can love my wife as I should.

This doesn't mean that i'm not looking for certain things from a prospective lady - here is my list:

She will be:

1. A woman that will be seeking to honor the Lord in all that she does.

2. Under sound biblical teaching (mos def not gonna try to go fishing in random churches)

3. Seeking and submitting to the godly wisdom of older women in the faith.

4. ...and she will have accountability in her life.

These things in and of themselves don't mean that she will not ever seek a divorce, but i believe that a mind that has been renewed by the word of God coupled with the accountability and prayer that comes from being in regular fellowship with other believers (both means of God's grace), can keep a marriage.

Gigging at churches with bad doctrine?

I filled in for a friend on bass at a seventh day adventist church here in nyc today.

We played a bunch of music - a lot of contemporary gospel. The church appeared to be very solid doctrinally. The lesson during sabbath school (sunday school) was justification by faith. The songs were edifying.

It was your typical west indian mixed with african american worship service.

The things that stood out to me were the emphasis on doctrine and the fact that the doctrine wasn't focused on their distinctive (or at least what i thought to be their distinctive) as a denomination. There was only ONE reference made to the sabbath while i was there - and there weren't any antagonistic statements made toward non-SDA people.

Here's what stood out to me:

During the sermon, the preacher, a traveling evangelist, spoke about part of the changed life of the believer as one that is free from smoking, drinking alcohol and drinking soda. There isn't a biblical proscription against any of those things, but some people extrapolate that idea from the whole romans 12 "body is a temple" text. For the purposes of majoring in the majors (as opposed to majoring in the minors), i let those statements go.

But then towards the end of the sermon (which was actually a very nice sermon) during the altar call portion of the sermon the preacher said something to the effect of "repentance, faith and confessing the Adventist church as the TRUE church"

shocked

There was an OVERWHELMING response to his sermon so i didn't even think that it would be appropriate to find him and ask him about it (because they were planning to baptize people ON THE SPOT after the service - he had something like 30 people to baptize and i was STARVING!)

There is a VERY high chance that i will get called back to this church to play again since i have good friends that are musicians that play there faithfully.

I'd like to go back there with a clear conscience.



Here's an email that i just sent to the church's contact line:

Today during the altar call that took place after the sermon, the evangelist said something to the effect of "turning from sin, faith in Jesus Christ and confessing belief that the Adventist church is the true church".

Does your church (and/or the larger SDA umbrella organization) agree with his statement that the adventist church is the TRUE church? Confessing your church to be the true church means more than "we believe that our doctrine is correct", it also states that you believe all other churches to be false churches.

Today was my first time visiting your church. I enjoyed the worship service. I was encouraged to hear teaching on justification by faith prior to the 11am service. I was just curious to understand your stance on this issue.

I am not a reporter of any sort. I do not have any ulterior motives in sending this email and soliciting a response.

I am a christian. I am a member of Sovereign Grace City Church, a new church plant, in brooklyn. I am originally from brooklyn, ny and this is the second opportunity that i've had to attend an SDA worship service. I have many friends who are SDA.

I also took it upon myself to read up on SDA churches on CARM and it appears as though there are several problems with their doctrine in general. But it also appears to be the case that SDA church 1 does not equal SDA church 2 - so i'll get to the bottom of all this before i agree to play there again.