Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him.

The Cornell 7 & Christian Nationalism … a Case Study

“Hypocrisy is the coin that vice pays to virtue.”

Legion are the number of Christians who abominate the whole idea of Christian Nationalism in any form. Their argument often is that while Christian laws might mitigate evil behavior the result would be wide spread hypocrisy as non-Christians conform to laws that they inwardly despise. Then there is always the argument that reasons, “you can’t legislate morality,” even though it is the case that all legislators ever do is legislate morality.

Now the Cornell 7 case refutes the argument that having an accepted standard imposed on people by way of force that creates a communal mindset is a bad thing. In the Cornell 7 case the University hive mindset had considered what Jane Doe had done as a bad thing and so she was shamed by the University hive mindset and as a result of that shame she sought to escape the shame by accusations of rape. Now, the University students that shamed Jane Doe were certainly not consistent with their own standard. They were themselves hypocrites, as seen in their own tendencies towards milder kinds of “hook-ups” yet they were following a standard that had been somewhere along the way imposed upon them, and by their shaming Jane Doe they were corralling someone else to walk in terms of their standard.

Now, we grant that the hook-up culture that has set a standard that says, “Hook-up culture is fine, but consistent hook-up culture that allows for all the hook-ups happening during the same evening is not fine” is nonsense. Still, this bad standard was a standard that Jane Doe found it necessary to try to conform to by insisting, “It’s not my fault. I was raped.”

This is exactly what Christian Nationalism argues for as it argues for Christian laws. Sure, people may not embrace the standard inwardly, but eventually as they are forced to conform to the Christian law it will provide a standard by which they will hold other people accountable who breach the law in exaggerated manners just as Jane Doe was held accountable as she was being shamed.

Christian Nationalism certainly will not turn all citizens into Christians as Christian law is enacted. Christian Nationalism may indeed turn people into hypocrites. However, is a hypocrite Jane Doe not doing gang bangs, because she’s restricted by Christian law, a better thing than a Jane Doe who is consistent in her morality and so proudly does gang bangs? Is a hypocrite Jane Doe not doing serial hook-ups, because she’s restricted by Christian law, a better thing than a Jane Doe who is consistent in her morality and so proudly does serial hook ups?

The Christian law that is part and parcel of Christian Nationalism is a good thing precisely because it produces a hypocrisy that would not exist without Christian Law born of Christian Nationalism since the only other option is non-Christian law that finds people taking pride in doing what hypocrisy previously sought to hide away from others ever knowing took place.

The Embrace of Lilithism

Titus 2:1 But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine: 2 that the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience; 3 the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things— 4 that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.

We start up with this passage by insisting again that we have been duped in the language wars. We are speaking about what is been dubbed “feminism,” but as we noted last week that is definitely an example of Orwellian Newspeak. We have in feminism a definitional inversion of reality.

Consider that once upon a time the word feminine was defined as

FEM’ININE, adjective [Latin femininus, from femina, woman. The first syllable may be and probably is from wemb or womb, by the use of f for w; the b not being radical. The last part of the word is probably from man, quasi, femman, womb-man.]

1. Pertaining to a woman, or to women, or to females; as the female sex.

2. soft; tender; delicate. Her heavenly form angelic, but more soft and feminine

Now, when considering feminism there is nothing at all feminine about feminism. Indeed feminism pours limitless contempt on all femininity, and commends women to adopt all the brashest and basest behaviors of men. Which in turn, reveals Feminism to be the purest form of Misogyny. For this reason we have adopted the more accurate term of Lilithism.

Though we have restricted ourselves to looking at Lilithism in the home, per the passage, we should note in passing that Lilith is on the rise in all of our institution. Just this week Rev. Larry Ball sent me an article he wrote for a Presbyterian denomination website. In that article Rev. Ball complained,

Secondly, the rise of functional female elders and deacons in the PCA is symptomatic of the sinful equality inherent in Marxism. God created man and woman different and there is a godly and biblical hierarchy in this creation.  Yet, the PCA continues to try to put out fires in various churches where this unbiblical equality of men and women raises its ugly head.  Again, Marxist equality is creeping into the PCA.

So, the Lilithism that we are exposing again this morning finds itself dominating elsewhere besides our family orders.

As we come to this passage again this week we have need to point out something we left unsaid last week. We did not mention how untoward this passage is in terms of modern Lilith thinking. Here we find Paul, a man, writing to another man “Titus,” on how to speak and instruct older women. Didn’t St. Paul and the Holy Spirit know that a man can never speak to a woman on woman issues? After all what does a man know about being a woman? Yet, despite this modern well known fact that only women can speak to women about women issues, Paul has the temerity as a man to tell another man to tell even older women how to behave as women.

This is yet another reason why this passage and others like it so irritate modern day Lilith women. Where does a man get off in telling women how to behave as women? Had not Paul or Titus ever seen the T-Shirts that say, “It’s a woman thing. You wouldn’t understand.”

So, with that said we pick up from last week and remind ourselves that this passage is not about men being superior to women. We freely admitted last week that in a non-crazed social order women are superior to men at being women just as men are superior to women at being men. So, none of this is about one sex being superior to another. Clearly men and women are therefore not equal. What we have been considering is merely about the roles that God has assigned respectively to men and women.

And this passage is one passage that points us in that direction. Older women are to be role models for younger women because older women, presumably, have walked where the younger women are now walking. The Holy Spirit inspired Paul writes that the older women have a role in the Christian social order and that role is to admonish the younger women. The Greek word here for “admonish” is translated different ways. Some have it as “admonish,” others have it as “train,” others, “urge,” others, “encourage,” others still, “instruct,” “make sober-minded,” and finally some have “school.”

they can train
σωφρονίζωσιν (sōphronizōsin) sophronizosin
Verb – Present Subjunctive Active – 3rd Person Plural
Strong’s 4994: To make sober-minded, admonish, control. From sophron; to make of sound mind, i.e. to discipline or correct.

So you can see there is a range of nuance here. The idea though seems pretty clear that the older women are to come alongside the younger women to the end of helping them in living the domestic life.

Now, before we dig into that notice that Paul does not have any category here for single professional women. You have older women who have experience in domestic skills and you have younger married women. Now Scripture elsewhere will teach that some will have the gift of singleness and that must be understood, however except for those comparative few with that gift it is God’s will that young men and women should marry. It is why God said, “It is not good that man should be alone. I will make a help-meet suitable for him.” Marriage, and the domestic life are the natural calling for women and we see that here in this passage.

Now keep in mind here that the ultimate purpose of all this is to beautify the Christian faith. To make it attractive. The Cretans had a reputation for wildness and Paul is calling Titus to bring in order to family life so that the family order would serve as Gospel salt and light.

This admonishment, training, urging, that the older women are to engage upon w/ the younger women is first to love their husbands and children. Now, we here might read that and say, “Isn’t that kind of Captain obvious advice?” But if we paused a moment and considered where we now are in the 21st century is that really such obvious advice? Remember, the 1st century would have the same need to instruct young women to love their husbands and children as we have today.

Of course this matter of loving their husbands and children finds itself expressed in any number of ways. Christian women loving their husbands and children tend to make them a priority over herself. She knows how to fulfill their need before they even realize they will have a need.

Now, before we get too carried away with this gents we must remember that Paul says the same thing to men in Ephesians where he tells husbands to love their wives as Christ love the church.

So, there it is, there is this mutual dying to self in service of the other that one should find in a Christian home. This is the idea of women loving their husbands and husbands loving their wives. Together the husband and wife love their children.

Now here I go to meddling ….

It’s not love to your children to place them in Government schools. It’s not husband love to a young wife to expect her to carry an impossible load of keeping the home as well so bringing home the bacon. It is not young wife love to a husband to not be, as the text teaches, the maker of the home.

Now, of course all of this is pure patriarchy. It is what the Lilith turn hates. We have more of this kind of talk ahead of us. Clearly, God teaches that men and women are not interchangeable cogs. Just as you cannot use a chainsaw to be a socket wrench, just as one does not use fresh roses for starting a bonfire, so one does not use a woman to be a man or a man to be a woman.

The text here calls younger women to be discreet. We have seen this same Greek word already. Paul, using this same word, calls for self-control not only for older men (2:2) but also for overseers (1:8), younger women (v. 5), younger men (v. 6). However as that word is flush by the word “chaste,” here there is good reason to think that the Apostle has something particular in mind. If we would put it in our language today as negatives we might phrase it that the young married women are not to be flirts or harlots… they are to be discrete and chaste.

Calvin has this to say here about the call to be discrete and chaste,

“In short, he wishes women to be restrained, by conjugal love and affection for their children, from giving themselves up to licentious attachments…”

Young women should only be using their “come hither” look with their husbands.

Now, we need to realize in a culture that does not have a transcendent reference point as among the Cretans then or Americans today neither men nor women really have anything to restrict them from embracing the sexual mores of animals. However, Paul does have God and His Word as a transcendent reference point, thus he can, based upon God’s authority call for women to fulfill their roles by being discrete and chaste.

Of course the lack of being discrete and chaste is rampant in our social order. This was seen again this week with the whole Cornell University episode.

The next few phrases really lights the fires of those who have embraced Lilith. Paul instructs that the younger women be instructed to be, “homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands,”

This idea of “homemakers,” is
οἰκουργούς (oikourgous)
Strong’s 3626: A keeper-at-home, a housekeeper. From oikos and ouros; a stayer at home, i.e. Domestically inclined.

Of course in the West, and particularly in America, long ago the moneyed corporate foundations in this country pursued a course to force women out of the home into the work force. Our whole economy now is organized so that young women cannot be homemakers. Further, when young women are homemakers they are somehow often looked down upon. How many times has the expression been used, “Oh, she doesn’t work, she just stays at home.” As if being a homemaker isn’t work. As if a homemaker ever quits working. A man works from sun to sun but a woman’s work is never done was not a proverb that came into existence without reason.

Look, it is this kind of women that should be given the greatest respect in the church. Men get all the attention for their work but what of the women who were homemakers who were helpmeets to their husbands so that they could do the work that they became known for?

Second wave feminism arose from the inspiration of Simone Beauvoir and Betty Friedan denigrating both homemakers and the Christianity that called for homemakers who were obedient to their husbands. This they said… this homemaking, this being good, this being obedient to their husbands was denigrating to women.

In her book, “The Second Sex,” Beauvoir complained bitterly about what she called “patriarchal domination,” She offered that Christianity was one reason for patriarchy writing that “the beliefs of Christianity played no little role in women’s oppression.” She wrote that the Apostle Paul reiterated the most patriarchal strains of Jewish thought in his writing and therefore embeds anti-Lilithism notions into Christian theology. Beauvoir believed that “womanly” behavior does not arise from the female sex inherently but womanly behavior is instead a patriarchally determined standard of propriety for the purpose of subordinating women. So, per the second wave of Litlithism, female behavior is a matter of wicked Christian nurturing and not a matter of God ordained nature.

This second wave of Lilithism eventually led to a third wave where all arguments that men and women are different by nature are completely attacked in favor of the idea that maleness and femaleness is merely a social construct. This view brought us to a riveting point wherein a female candidate for the Supreme Court could not answer the question, “What is a Woman.” If maleness and femaleness is all a social construct then there really is no stable answer as to what is a woman.

But we return to the testimony of God’s Word that the nature and so role of men and women are distinct.

Let us not lose the implications of this refusal to accept that women should be homemakers, good, and obedient to their husbands. When we lose this primary distinction between men and women we begin to lose the whole idea of distinctions as part of our egalitarian stew. Understand the loss of the ability to make distinction between male and female is born of the loss of the ability to make a distinction between God and man.

The reason that first, second, third wave feminism arises is due to the fact that distinctions between all things including male and female are completely arbitrary when the distinction between God and man is denied. The reason that women today in the church are so insulted by the counsel that young women should be homemakers, good, and obedient to their husbands is because both men and women have been captured by the zeitgeist … by the spirit of the age.

There is all this bitter reviling of how women have been degraded by Christianity and the kind of teaching we find here in Titus 2 but look at what a woman said from another generation about the Biblical distinctions of male and female,

No system of philosophy has ever yet worked out in behalf of woman the practical results for good which Christianity has conferred on her. Christianity has raised woman from slavery and made her the thoughtful companion of man; finds her the mere toy, or the victim of his passions, and it places her by his side, his truest friend, his most faithful counselor, his helpmeet in every worthy and honorable task. It protects her far more effectually than any other system. It cultivates, strengthens, elevates, purifies all her highest endowments, and holds out to her aspirations the most sublime for that future state of existence, where precious rewards are promised to every faithful discharge of duty, even the most humble. But, while conferring on her these priceless blessings, it also enjoins the submission of the wife to the husband, and allots a subordinate position to the whole sex while here on earth. No woman calling herself a Christian, acknowledging her duties as such, can, therefore, consistently deny the obligation of a limited subordination laid upon her by her Lord and His Church.

Susan Fenimore Cooper

Now we cannot end without speaking to the teleos … the purpose of this instruction,

that the word of God may not be blasphemed.

This was always the bright star of the Apostles thinking. He appeals to a particular family order for the purpose that the word of God would not be blasphemed. This reminds us that the way we live in the public square matters. Our homes should be sanctuaries wherein the cause of Christ and His Word are be held in esteem.

So, little flock, we must ask ourselves, “Is our family life lived out so that it does not blaspheme the name of God? As husbands do we make it a joy and comfort for our wives to be obedient? As wives are you committed to continuing to learn the art of making a house a home? As men do we lead, provide, and are we sound in our faith?

Cornell University, Slut Shaming, & Integration Downward Into The Void

From the New York Times,

Since the evening began on Oct. 19, 2024, Jane Doe had recounted the night’s events to her roommates without identifying herself as a rape victim. She had exchanged friendly texts with men she would later accuse of assault. She had heard uncharitable appraisals of herself from undergraduate gossips.

The she read the words from an online forum about Greek (fraternity) life, “They do drugs and gang raped a sophomore. Report them.”

“That’s the first time I had ever heard the narrative change that I wasn’t a whore and that I was assaulted,” Jane Doe tole investigators, according to the documents from a university review of the accusations obtained by the

How A Cornell Student Went From Shame To Action
New York Times

WHORE, verb intransitive [supra.] To have unlawful sexual commerce; to practice lewdness.

Webster’s 1828 Dictionary

Several years ago I was reading a book on feminism that was published in 2007. At that time I was shocked to learn what transpired in 2007 in terms of male-female relationships on College Campuses. Normally, I might have used the phrase “dating scene” except no one dates, according to the book in the sense of asking a girl out. Instead, what you find on campus is “hook-up” culture.

The book quoted one bombshell brunette that she had never been asked out on a date or been asked if she could be bought a drink. She said if a man tried that she would think they were on drugs. Per this book  it is meet, greet and sex. Hook up culture. That sex doesn’t usually translate to another future hook-up. In another time, not that many decades ago, women who pursued this line of behavior would have been thought of a “whores.” Such behavior certainly fits the Webster’s dictionary definition above.

The curious thing I find about this Cornell case is that this particular Jane Doe was being slut shamed by other students on campus for doing seven men in one night by presumably at least some other women on campus who do seven men or more over the course of a few weeks or months.

This kind of reality is an example of what Van Til long ago now called “(dis) “integration downward into the void.” Van Til’s idea conveys the truth that when man is steadfast in refusing to repent the only option he has left is to increasingly leverage the depth of his expressed sinfulness. This happens both individually and personally as well as generationally. If a pattern of sin is established and not deviated from the consequence will be an intensification of that sin in subsequent generations in an ever downward spiraling direction.

The point here is that once upon a time the word “whore” applied to any woman of loose sexual morals. She didn’t have to bang seven men in one night in order to reach “whore level” status. However, now, because of the constant integration downward into the void a woman can keep her “non-whore status card,” merely by avoiding a drunken, drug fueled male merry-go-round lallapalooza.

The University scene is now defined as “hook-up” culture. Cornell University women who are part of that hook up culture were slut shaming this particular Jane Doe in online settings. Though participants in hook up culture they felt free to look down on this Jane Doe because she transgressed the new definition of “whore.” I’m sure the attitude from some of the women who were slut shaming was, “I am certainly not like her. I have retained my dignity.”

So, University females at Cornell retain their sexual self-respect now merely by avoiding gang banging events. Serial partners though? Perfectly acceptable.

If Van Til was correct about integration downward into the void then we we would be dense to think the downward spiral won’t continue short of Reformation. Ten years from now one might be able to keep their “non-whore card” and still do seven men in one night.

Notice also the effects of peer pressure. It was not the gang bang itself that traumatized Jane Doe. It was the ridicule and mocking she was receiving from her fellow University students. In a bid to rescue herself from the mockery the charges of assault suddenly surfaced. She would go from being slut-shamed to being a victim hero fighting against male and institutional oppression.

Now, before anyone gets in my kitchen about me “only attacking the woman.” I think all the men involved should be castrated. That would send a clear signal to other men about this kind of behavior. Still, if you’re female and you get stone cold drunk while attending a frat party, you should not be surprised that frat boys act like frat boys.

There is plenty of blame to go around here. Blame for Jane Doe. Blame for the Frat Boys. Blame for the University system. Blame for the parents who sent their sons and daughters to these residential bacchanalias. Blame for a culture that approves of this degradation.

Next, if you’re a parent of a college aged student, you should have your brains examined for thinking about sending your son or daughter off to any University (including “Christian” Universities). These places are corrupters of morality, instigators of depravity, and brainwashers in thinking ability. They are no good. Yes, of course, exceptions probably exist but if you think your University of choice is an exception you better think again.

Finally, as bad as this whole sordid thing is, there remains something far worse on these campuses. That far worse something is the “education” that is going on at these institutions. It’s one thing to gang bang a woman. It is quite another to intellectually gang bang a whole generation. That woman will be able to physically heal in a relatively short time. Once people have had their mind gang banged they very seldom are whole again.

Our culture is broken. Only a owning of that brokenness by way of admission of sin, a return to the triune God of the Bible, and a sense of forgiveness that can only be found in the finished cross work of Jesus Christ can make men and women whole again in their whole being. Until such a time as men and women resolve to no longer be captives in the Kingdom of darkness men and women will continue to integrate further and further downward into the void.

May the Lord Christ have mercy on us.

 

 

 

The Turn To Lilithism

Titus 2:3 the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not enslaved to much wine, teachers of good things— 4 that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.

I wanted to take some time to return to the problem of Feminism in the culture and in the conservative church. Really, in calling this Feminism we have allowed the enemy to control the language since there is nothing at Feminine about the different expressions of what we call Feminism. We would be better serve to call it “Lilithism.”

Lilith is an ancient archetype representing the dark side of the female nature. Lilith in ancient myth was often associated with themes of rebellion, independence, and sexuality. She is depicted as a figure who defied Biblical patriarchal norms, choosing autonomy over submission, and is linked to various myths across cultures, particularly in Jewish folklore where she is seen as a demon of the night.

We have seen a continue rise in Lilith behavior recently, especially with the Lindsey Clancy trial and with the rise of Lilith like women in the conservative church. We see Lilith like behavior in the statistics that find 70% of the marriages that end in divorce, end in divorce as initially filed by women. That number rises to 90% when it is college women who are in divorce proceedings.

However, in order to get at this we are going to look at texts that those who do Lilith thinking hate given their desire to overthrow all shreds of patriarchy. This morning we look at the Titus passage.

We note here that Paul is instructing Titus on how to speak to the church. Titus is responsible for putting all things decent and in order and that includes family life. This reminds us that Christianity is not merely a set of soteriological doctrines disconnected from every day life. Nobody wrote more on the core doctrines of the faith than the Holy Spirit inspired Paul, but here we see him writing about what the Christian life is supposed to look like as it is incarnated into the family. There is to be order and structure and that order and structure is to reflect God’s appointed hierarchy.

Remember, Crete, where Titus is working has a reputation, like most of the modern world, of being heathen. There are challenges to be faced. Family order has to be spoken to, and Paul does just that as he talks about what Titus is to teach and so expect from older men, older women, younger women, younger men, and bondslaves.

Now, these matters were important then and they remain important now. One reason they are so important is that our family orders demonstrate the attractiveness of our Christianity. If our family orders are all bumfuzzled and characterized by constant kerfuffle we communicate that the Christian faith is ugly and unseemly. OTOH if our family orders are godly and lovely, scads of people who have never known the peace and tranquility that Christian family life brings will say to themselves upon seeing our Christ ordered families, “whatever they have that creates that harmony of interest, I want to learn about.”

So, even though what Paul is writing here is not directly on matters of salvation, it is on salvation inasmuch as family orders like what Paul insists upon are the result of salvation visiting families.

Paul writes first to older women. Presumably these were women who had raised their children but of course “older women” today could be a woman in her 40s if she is in a context around women in their 20s. In this letter though, I’m confident we are talking about women who would have been eligible to make the widow’s list.

Paul writes here to older women on the need to be reverent. The word here literally means, behavior suitable to a sacred character. Well, what kind of behavior is suitable to a sacred character? Well, we might start with humility, deference, and respect. We might say that the character looked for is the opposite of haughty, snotty, or belligerent.

Peter in his epistle says something similar when in writing to women he writes about women having the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God.

Now, we should say that reverent behavior does not mean that a older woman has to be mousy or a wallflower. It merely means that she’s not pushy where she shouldn’t be pushy. Of course, the modern feminist impulse mitigates against older women being reverent. “You’ve come a long way baby” includes the irreverence that is weekly seen on “The View” or can be read from any number of irreverent female journalists.

The Apostle pushes on and warns against older women being slanderers. Of course slander is speaking something untrue of someone to a third party. Elsewhere in Scripture it is called gossip. I quote Calvin here in order that folks might be outraged with Calvin and not me,

Talkativeness is a disease of women, and it is increased by old age. To this is added, that women never think that they are eloquent enough, if they are not given to prattling and to slander — if they do not attack the characters of all.

John Calvin
Commentary on Titus

I’m pretty confident that if Calvin were alive today and said that in a conservative pulpit in America he would be brought up on charges for being divisive.

Anyway, this admonition by Paul against slander is consistent w/ the rest of Scripture,

You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor: I am the Lord. (Leviticus 19:16)

Proverbs 9:13, also applies uniquely to women,

“A foolish woman is clamorous: she is simple, and knoweth nothing.”

הֹֽמִיָּ֑ה (hō·mî·yāh)
Verb – Qal – Participle – feminine singular
Strong’s 1993: To make a, loud sound, commotion, tumult, to rage, war, moan, clamor

It may be the case that these older women, for whatever reason, had too much time on their hands and as a result filled that time with slandering. Remember, Cretans were known for “always being liars.” (1:12).

By way of a personal observation here, let it be said that older women do not have a corner on the market of slander. It is true, Paul writes what he writes here but elsewhere the Holy Spirit warns all believers off of slander,

James 4:11 – “Do not speak evil against one another, brothers.”

Now, let us pause here before pushing on for just a moment and notice how insulting all this is to our modern sensibilities. From here it is only going to get more insulting to our modern sensibilities, shaped as they are by four waves of feminism washed over us by over 100 years of changing ideology.

We have now multiple generations of women who heard the quote 1st uttered in 1976 by Pulitizer prize winning historian, Laurel Ulrich, “Well behaved women seldom make history,” and having heard the quote have resolved to not be “well behaved.”

Now, before pressing on with the text we want to pause a moment and ask ourselves, why does a passage like this find both men and women recoiling with such hostility? A hostility that is only going to build as we look at the rest of the passage. Well, as I’ve already said, the reason for the hostility is that we have embraced a different conception of Christianity than what we find in the Scripture. We have had several worldview changes that make passages like this uncomfortable for us to hear.

I remember when I was 17 I had a Bible as literature class in High School with Mrs. Arends. One day after class my friend, who was a Pastor’s son, and I decided to have a conversation with Mrs. Arends about the Apostle Paul. We started quoting some of Paul,

Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says. 1 Corinthians 14:34

A woman must learn in quietness and full submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; she is to remain quiet. I Tim. 2:11-12

But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God I Cor. 11:3

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord… Eph. 5:22

Finally Mrs. Arends snarled at us and said … “Well, that was the Apostle Paul.”

You see, somehow Paul was less inspired than the rest of Scripture and so should not be relied upon for truth. People really don’t like these passages and the reason for that is we no longer have the worldview of Scripture. We no longer thing Biblically. We find it offensive that men would be better at being men then women and that women would be superior to men at being women.

Well, this started in the garden of course, but in modern times this hostility to Titus 2 and other passages begins with the Enlightenment and first wave Feminism. Prior to the Enlightenment, which at the time was also interestingly enough called “the Illumination,” it was presupposed that men and women were distinct. But the Endarkenment, which began what some historians refer to as “the Age of Revolution,” begins and a woman named Mary Wollstonecraft (the mother of Mary Shelley) writes a little book titled, “A Vindication of the Rights of Women.” It was a book that had imbibed the principles of Rosseau and the French Revolution. This book argued for the equalization of human rights for all people. This was consistent with the egalitarianism of the Endarkenment and the French Revolution. This insistence was here that people, whether men or women, are cogs or integers that can be changed in and out without concern about the Christian teaching regarding God ordained differences between men and women. All people are individuals and all individuals have the same rights and so men and women should not be treated differently. Men and Women, for example, should have the same political rights insisted Ms. Wollstonecraft. Compare that mindset with the Christian world that found Calvin saying,

“It is the dictate of common sense, that female government is improper and unseemly.”

— John Calvin

Commenting on 1 Corinthians 14:34

In Mary Wollstonecraft’s day that mean the end of schooling that was distinct for boys vis-a-vis schooling for women. Up until the Endarkenment it was believed that boys and girls were different and so they received different educations. Male education focused on logic, ideas, and preparation for the work force. Women’s education prepared them for marriage, motherhood, and domestic necessity.

The world was changing and part of that change was the end of thinking that could pen what God had penned here it Titus. But let it be said that women are not equal to men and men are not equal to women. Woman was made to be a helper suitable to the husband. Scripture never envisioned women to compete with men in the workforce and it wasn’t that way until industrialization as combined with the welfare/warfare state which gave rise to Rosie the Riveter and her daughters. Scripture never envisioned that 28% of congress right now would be women. Indeed, Scripture teaches that it is a curse of God to be ruled by women and children.

As for My people, children are their oppressors, And women rule over them. Isa. 3:12

What prompted all this change was a worldview revolution – 1st wave feminism – came sweeping in, and made passages like the one in Titus grating to our modern ears. What happened then is that the Church reinterpreted Christianity in order to cohere with the new anthropology bequeathed to us by the Endarkenment. No longer would it be the case that younger women would be “admonished to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands.” That was not going to be the norm.

Indeed, out of this 1st wave of feminism arises one Elizabeth Cady Stanton who will write in her 1895 the Woman’s Bible, that traditional forms of Christianity were largely at fault for the vast inequalities that women faced in society. This work further challenged traditional translations and interpretations of Scripture that argued for differences between men and women, or ignored women, or placed men in a superior position to women.

Another woman from this first wave of feminism

“Matilda Joslyn Gage, criticized Christianity explicitly in her book, ‘Woman, Church, and State.’ In this work Gage contends that much of ancient society was matriarchal and that Christianity was detrimental to this previous age, imposing an oppressive patriarchal regime upon the Western world. Christianity therefore is the greatest contributor to female subjugation. Another example of the post-Christian influence on early feminism is found in the one who is likely its most famous proponent – Susan B. Anthony. Though a Quaker, in her younger years, she moved gradually toward non-dogmatic religiosity and supported the formation of churches where ‘no doctrines should be preached and all should be welcome.;”

Jordon B. Cooper

The Makers of the Modern Mind – p. 381

Well, that is just 1st wave feminism. Before we are done looking at this text in the next couple weeks we will see the anthropology that the 2nd-4th waves have given us that has made us as Western Christians so unbiblical when it comes to male female roles.

For now, let us continue to consider the Biblical mindset when it comes to God’s teaching on women,

“The text says that the older women must not be enslaved to much wine.”

In the ancient world water often carried disease and so wine, being fermented as it was, was often the libation of choice. Of course all believers are instructed to not be drunk with wine but to be filled with the Spirit.

The idea in the text seems to be one of addiction. We know that wine was not inherently evil because Paul can advise Timothy elsewhere to “take a little wine for your stomach.” So the problem here is not wine but rather an addiction to wine.

In the ancient world wine was used to take the edge of nagging aches and pains, and inasmuch this counsel is being given to older women wine was no doubt taken for things like arthritis or stomach ailments. Enslaved here means (doulovw / doulo ) means “to be held and controlled against one’s will. This communicates the idea of addiction. If Paul were alive today in Michigan he might write instead, “older women must not be enslaved to any pharmaceuticals,

The modern world is not so different than the ancient world. While they may have taken too much wine, we today become slaves of other addictions. The Rolling Stones made bank by singing about “Mother’s Little Helper,” in 1966 … quoting,

What a drag it is getting old

“Kids are different today,” I hear every mother say
Mother needs something today to calm her down
And though she’s not really ill, there’s a little yellow pill
She goes running for the shelter of her mother’s little helper
And it helps her on her way, gets her through her busy day

We must all remember that we are temples of the Holy Spirit and as such we must not be slaves to intoxicants or vaccines but rather we must remain slaves of Christ.

Finally, for our purposes this morning the Apostle writes to Timothy that the older women must be teachers of good things. Now, it’s clear from the context that when Paul writes this that he is talking about older women having a particular audience and context for this teaching of good things.

That audience is the younger women and the context is their home life. The audience is not all members of the Church in some kind of congregation wide teaching capacity. The context is not the church but family order.

Theoretically, at least, the old women are experts at domestic life and so they have a responsibility to teach younger women. Now, of course that teaching is not to be overbearing or bossy but encouraging and uplifting. We might add here that younger women should see it as a privilege to have older women in their lives from whom they have the opportunity to learn from. Clearly, the passage indicates that the older women are to be helping the younger women on how to be good wives and mothers. These are the good things. There is a real skill in running a home and family… the art of domesticity. And the older women are to teach these good things.

Now, we must end by noting that it is both men and women who are responsible for the rise of Lilithism and 1st wave feminism. Just as Adam in the garden abandoned his responsibility giving way to Eve’s leadership, so many men are likewise responsible for where we are today in Church and culture.

Helping A High School Senior With Her Research Paper on Christian Nationalism

Recently, I received a request from a High School Sr. who is doing a research project on Christian Nationalism. How a Senior in High School chose an obscure Pastor in Michigan to reach out to finds me perplexed but in the age of social media I suppose anything is possible.

Stephanie wrote asking,

I am using the definition of Christian nationalism given by the Merriam Webster Dictionary which states:

“An ideology calling for a government that incorporates or endorses aspects of Christian religion (as by making decisions, laws, policies, etc., in accordance with Christian beliefs, by engaging in government promotion of Christianity, or by legally enforcing Christian doctrine)”

Is there anything you would add or subtract from this definition?

Pastor Bret responds,

I would only add that all governments without exception incorporate or endorse aspects of some religion.

1.) Governments legislate, adjudicate, and enforce laws
2.) All law is an expression of morality
3.) All morality is based upon religion
4.) All religions serve some God
5.) Hence all governments without exception incorporate or endorse aspects of some religion.

Being a Christian, I merely believe that the Government should incorporate and endorse Biblical Christianity.

Currently, our Nationalism is not Christian Nationalism but polytheistic nationalism. Our current government incorporates and endorses the religion of polytheism. All gods are allowed in the public square except the God of Christianity which proclaims that no other god but Himself should be allowed in the public square. We see this polytheistic Nationalism in our government schools where the God of the Bible is not allowed into the curriculum.

Of course as polytheism is nothing but the gods being a projection of fallen man this means that polytheism and humanism are much the same.

Stephanie asked,

Do you often encounter people with a different definition from this? If so, what looks different?

Pastor Bret responds,

The definition above is not bad understanding that different people will suggest that the Government have different levels of involvement. For example, I am a Christian Nationalist but I still believe there is a distinction (not a separation) between Church and State. Others want to eliminate the distinction altogether. They are indeed Christian Nationalists but not a Christian Nationalism that I would be interested in.

Stephanie asks,

How do you distinguish between Christian politicians and those who seek to legally enforce Christian doctrine?

Pastor Bret responds,

I have no problem legally enforcing Christian doctrine just as the Government today has no problem legally enforcing humanist doctrine. Now, again, as previously mentioned, I do believe that any Christian government would have boundaries as to how far they could go. As a Christian Nationalist I also see the family and the church as having their own proper jurisdictions that the State must not be allowed to meddle in – just as the family jurisdiction and the church jurisdiction must not be allowed to meddle in the jurisdiction of a Christian government. These three jurisdictions, all being under the authority of Sovereign God, would work together in a harmony of interests to advance a Christian social order.

I do not think politicians are particularly Christian who do not seek to legally enforce Christianity. Those types are “Christian” in name only.

S asked,

Do you find it hard to discuss with unbelievers about Christian nationalism?

Pastor Bret responds,

No. Since Jesus Christ is King as well as Savior and Prophet it is a delight to discuss Christ in all of His offices with Christ haters.

S asks,

– What is the hardest part or questions you receive?

Pastor Bret responds,

The hardest part is getting people to understand that all governments incorporate and/or endorse without exception some religion. All governments are religious and as such the fight against Christian Nationalism is at the same time a fight for Humanist Nationalism, or Polytheistic Nationalism, or Islamic Nationalism, or Hindu Nationalism, or Talmudic Nationalism. It is never a question of whether or not a Government is going to be religious. It is only a question of which religion will a government be endorsing or incorporating.

S asks,

What is your strongest biblical support(s) for Christian nationalism?

Pastor Bret responds,

A New Testament Calvin Seminary Reformed theologian, from decades past, Dr. Martin Wyngaarden answers this question for us,

“Now the predicates of the covenant are applied in Isa. 19 to the Gentiles of the future, — “Egypt my people, and Assyria, the work of my hands, and Israel, mine inheritance,” Egypt, the people of “Jehovah of hosts,” (Isa. 19:25) is therefore also expected to live up to the covenant obligations, implied for Jehovah’s people. And Assyria comes under similar obligations and privileges. These nations are representative of the great Gentile world, to which the covenant privileges will, therefore, be extended.”

Martin J. Wyngaarden, The Future of the Kingdom in Prophecy and Fulfillment: A Study of the Scope of “Spiritualization” in Scripture (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2011), p. 94.

And again,

“More than a dozen excellent commentaries could be mentioned that all interpret Israel as thus inclusive of Jew and Gentile, in this verse, — the Gentile adherents thus being merged with the covenant people of Israel, though each nationality remains distinct.”

“For, though Israel is frequently called Jehovah’s People, the work of his hands, his inheritance, yet these three epithets severally are applied not only to Israel, but also to Assyria and to Egypt: “Blessed be Egypt, my people, and Assyria, the work of my hands, and Israel, mine inheritance.” 19:25.

Thus the highest description of Jehovah’s covenant people is applied to Egypt, — “my people,” — showing that the Gentiles will share the covenant blessings, not less than Israel. Yet the several nationalities are here kept distinct, even when Gentiles share, in the covenant blessing, on a level of equality with Israel. Egypt, Assyria, and Israel are not nationally merged. And the same principles, that nationalities are not obliterated, by membership in the covenant, applies, of course, also in the New Testament dispensation.”

Martin Wyngaarden
The Future of the Kingdom in Prophecy and Fulfillment: A Study of the Scope of “Spiritualization” in Scripture — pp. 101-102.

So, I agree with Dr. Wyngaarden that national distinctions, because they are ordained by God, do not go away even into the new Jerusalem. The reasoning is, if they remain present in the New Jerusalem in the New Heavens and earth then who are we to suggest that they are not important today and should be ignored?

But more important than what Dr. Martin Wyngaarden or I think Scripture itself bears out the continued existence of the nations into the new heavens and earth in Revelation 21,

Rev. 21:24 And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it. 25 Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). 26 And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. 

Here we see the creational distinctions that God ordained in Gen. 10:5, as well as Dt. 32:8, and Acts 17:26 would be perpetually established into the eschaton.

5 From these the coastland peoples of the Gentiles were separated into their lands, everyone according to his language, according to their families, into their nations.

Dt.32:8When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations,
When He separated the sons of Adam,
He set the boundaries of the peoples
According to the number of the children of Israel. 

Acts 17:26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,

 S asks,

What is your strongest secular support(s) for christian nationalism? (If applicable)

Pastor Bret responds,

I don’t believe such a thing as “secular” exists. It is a myth. Everything is religious.

S asks,

Why is unity of church and state necessary?

Pastor Bret responds,

I don’t believe in the unity of church and state. I believe in the harmony of interest between church and state and I believe it is necessary because without it there is a conflict of interest baked into the social order which makes for turmoil and social unrest. A nation cannot have a state serving one god and the church serving a different god without there existing significant social unrest.

I am reluctant to talk about the “unity of Church and State” because that is so open to misinterpretation. The Christian state is tasked with one particular responsibility under the sovereign Christ and that is to bring justice while the Christian church is tasked with another particular responsibility under the sovereign Christ and that is to herald the grace of God found in Jesus Christ by opening and shutting the Kingdom of God.

So, there is a harmony of interests between Church and State but there is no unity in the sense of uniformity between the two.

S asks,

– How do you see society falling away from this unity, if at all?

Pastor Bret responds,

There is little falling away today from the uniformity of the Church and State. The Church in America has largely, exceptions notwithstanding, reinterpreted Christianity in terms of the humanism that is the religious expression that the State supports in its legislation and policy.

S asks,

– How do you see it uniting, if at all?

Pastor Bret responds,

As I said, we already have a unity between church and state. This is seen in the government schools serving as the Church for the sake of the state. But even if you’re talking about “Christian” churches, most of those Churches no longer practice historic Christianity. They have compromised with the spirit of the age in order to build large congregations.

The only way that there can once again be a harmony of interests between a Christian State and a Christian church such as we find in Scripture is by God being pleased to send Reformation in our society as combined with men willing to be magistrates and Christian Princes who will enforce Christian law and justice upon a Reformed people.

S asks,

What counterargument do you find most challenging? (If applicable)

Pastor Bret responds,

There is no counter-argument to Christian nationalism. Not even the founders sought a counter argument to Christian Nationalism. At the time of the War for Independence 9 of the 13 colonies had established churches. The War did not change that. The only thing that the founding did was to provide a path whereby the Federal Government would not be choosing which flavor of Christianity (which denomination) all of the states had to embrace. The States were allowed and most did pursue explicit Christian language in their state documents.

S asks

– How do you respond to this argument?

The counterargument I receive most often is that Christian nationalism is unconstitutional because it does not allow for freedom of religion.

– How would you respond to this?

Pastor Bret responds,

I respond by saying that freedom of religion is a myth. We do not have freedom of religion now. I know this because my religion teaches that only the God of the Bible should be allowed into the public square and yet my religion does not have the Freedom to follow that principle. So, there is only freedom of religion for those who believe in polytheism. There is no freedom of religion for people who believe that their God being the only God should have the preeminence. Instead the gods of polytheism have the preeminence.

S asks,

– How can I be better prepared to answer this?

Pastor Bret responds,

Read the book,

“The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States” by Benjamin Morris.