What the bible says about Husbands
A transcript from Tech Support:
This is a very common problem that men complain about.
Many people upgrade from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0, thinking that it is just a Utilities and Entertainment program. Wife 1.0 is an OPERATING SYSTEM and is designed by its Creator to run EVERYTHING!!! It is also impossible to delete Wife 1.0 and to return to Girlfriend 7.0. It is impossible to uninstall, or purge the program files from the system once installed.
You cannot go back to Girlfriend 7.0 because Wife 1.0 is designed to not allow this. Look in your Wife 1.0 manual under Warnings-Alimony-Child Support. I recommend that you keep Wife1.0 and work on improving the situation. I suggest installing the background application "Yes Dear" to alleviate software augmentation.
The best course of action is to enter the command C:\APOLOGIZE because ultimately you will have to give the APOLOGIZE command before the system will return to normal anyway.
Wife 1.0 is a great program, but it tends to be very high maintenance. Wife 1.0 comes with several support programs, such as Clean and Sweep 3.0, Cook It 1.5 and Do Bills 4.2. However, be very careful how you use these programs. Improper use will cause the system to launch the program Nag, Nag 9.5. Once this happens, the only way to improve the performance of Wife 1.0 is to purchase additional software. I recommend Flowers 2.1 and Diamonds 5.0! WARNING!!! DO NOT, under any circumstances, install Secretary With Short Skirt 3.3. This application is not supported by Wife 1.0 and will cause irreversible damage to the operating system.
Best of luck,
Tech Support
#14135
All joking aside, Men are opting out of marriage.
Helen Smith recently released a book “Men on Strike” stating that far fewer men are getting married, going to college, or working in a traditional career than in previous generations. Why? She argues men are “acting rationally in response to the lack of incentives society offers them to be responsible fathers, husbands and providers.”
This disturbing trend is getting the attention of the secular media.
As Irina Dunn imfamously quipped, “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle”. It seems society no longer values the man in the home let alone his role of leadership in society. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoXQf2f2Yxo
Karen Straughan, an atheist social commentator, believes it is because men are no longer valued and respected for the roles of father and husband, as they were in the past. She said this:
“. . . all of the approved paths to a positive male identity are gone, even when men don’t consciously realize it they know it somewhere in the back of their brains. Men have always been willing to work and sacrifice and sweat and bleed when they were rewarded with a means through which to see themselves as worthy of respect. But when every single role society sees fit to cram you into is no longer a way to respect yourself or to gain the respect of others, it’s time to throw those roles away.” -Karen Straughan
Illus. An English professor wrote the words, "Woman without her man is nothing" on the blackboard and directed his students to punctuate it correctly.
The men wrote: "Woman, without her man, is nothing."
The women wrote: "Woman: Without her, man is nothing."
The Bible paints a very different picture of the importance of a man in the home and family. A man’s role as father and husband, in fact, are supposed to reflect the glory of God’s love for His people. Today, I’d like to take a look at six biblical definitions of what A Good Father and Husband is:
1. A man who is Faithful to God’s will. All of the great men of the Bible have only this in common-they heard and obeyed God’s voice. We discussed this last week, so if you want a copy of the message on seeking and obeying God’s will you’ll need to search on sermoncentral.com . part of being faithful to God’s will is to be faithful to his wife and children.
2. A man who is Able and willing to work hard:
a. (Moses studied all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and God had to come to him where he was working with the sheep to get his attention.
b. David-when Samuel came to anoint the new king of Israel, David was the last to come, because they had to search for him out doing his work in the fields,
c. Daniel & friends were counted as “ten-times better than all their peers” in their studies,
d. Amos was not just a farmer, but when God called him he had to butcher a bunch of bulls because he had worked out some system of using multiple animals to plough his fields-he had developed some of the first industrial farming techniques,
e. the Disciples were laboring at their fishing when Jesus called them. More than once Jesus came to them and they said “Lord, we’ve been fishing all night”. These men were all accustomed to hard work.
3. A father must be Teaching, correcting and leading his family-there are plenty of negative examples,
a. Adam was hanging out with Eve and didn’t say a word through the entire temptation, “she gave to her husband with her” . . . his only role in the whole temptation seen was to eat the apple. Big mistake.
b. Isaac failed to make peace between his sons-their rivalry almost destroyed the family and resulted in Rachel not seeing her son Jacob the last years of her life.
c. Jacob/Israel, rather than leading, followed his wives’ lead for bearing children, then failed to actively train most of his 12 sons-the results were disastrous.
d. Aaron’s sons-the sons of the High Priest, offered “strange fire”. They were destroyed as a result. God actually told Aaron not to mourn for them.
e. The people of Israel, after seeing God’s miraculous works in the deliverance from Egypt and the occupation of Canaan, failed to pass their faith on to the next generation. The result was the chaos of Judges-“everyone did what was right in their own eyes”.
f. Eli failed to train and correct his sons. The whole nation suffered as a result of their ill behavior.
g. David was a distant, disconnected dad. The results were rape, murder and active revolution among his children. His best son, Solomon, lead the nation into a form of corruption from which it never really recovered. He set the stage for the eventual destruction of Israel.
There are positive exhortations and examples as well
a. In Numbers 30 the husband & father of the house is given the responsibility to correct any vows his wife or daughter makes. If he remains silent the vow stands. If he belays the vow, the women are not held responsible to keep them. He is to have the final word on any promises made in the home.
b. Joshua stands before the nation and proclaims for all to hear “as for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord”. He said this with confidence, knowing his family would follow his lead.
c. Philip raises four daughters who are, each of them, prophets.
d. Paul writes to the church at Ephesus
Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing[b] her by the washing with water through the word. also Ephesians 6:4- Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
4. A good father leaves a Heritage for his children and grandchildren – I believe this is more than just a financial blessing to the next generation-it is a spiritual in heritage-more on this later. Joseph in the OT brought his sons to his father to seek their blessing.
Rick Warren, the author of The Purpose Driven Life, writes about his father, who in 50 years of ministry built over 150 churches around the world. In the last week of his life, dying of cancer, he kept on repeating one phrase - "Got to save one more for Jesus." And, one night near the end, he put his hands on Rick's head and said, "save one more for Jesus." Rick saw in his father's last words a commission for his own life.
A Spanish teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.
"House" for instance, is feminine: "la casa."
"Pencil," however, is masculine: "el lapiz."
A student asked, "What gender is 'computer'?"
Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether "computer" should be a masculine or a feminine noun.
Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.
The men's group decided that "computer" should definitely be of the feminine gender ("la computadora") because:
1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic.
2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.
3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval; and
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.
The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be masculine ("el computador") because:
1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on.
2. They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves.
3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time, they ARE the problem; and
4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model. http://www.ajokeaday.com
5. A good Father must be Ever-Present to mold his children in Christ’s image
Deuteronomy 6 is the famous “shema”-“hear o Israel . . .”
The portion that is too often neglected in our exposition is the exhortation to fathers:
“6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up”
I think we get the teaching part. But what we often miss is that God seems to assume the father will be with the children, actively training them “when they sit at home, walk along the road, lie down and rise up. The father must be WITH the children in order to obey this command.
How Dads Influence Teens' Happiness
According to an article in Scientific American, New research is finding surprising ways in which dads make a difference
May 1, 2014 |By Paul Raeburn; C.J. Burton
"In 2011 administrators at Frayser High School in Memphis, Tenn., came to a disturbing realization. About one in five of its female students was either pregnant or had recently given birth . . . . Sarah E. Hill and Danielle J. Del Priore, both at Texas Christian University, took note [that] Nearly one in four households was [also] headed by a single mother. . . “Researchers have revealed a robust association between father absence—both physical and psychological—and accelerated reproductive development and sexual risk-taking in daughters,” they wrote in a 2013 paper . . . .
. . . . Fathers are disappearing: fewer dads are participating in the lives of their children now than at any time since the U.S. began keeping records. This shift matters because the effects of a missing father can be profound and counterintuitive—as in the age at which a daughter enters puberty.
. . .
Bruce J. Ellis of the University of Arizona, who helped to establish the connection between father absence and adverse outcomes for daughters. . . In a series of studies beginning in 1999, he found that when girls had a warm relationship with their fathers and spent a lot of time with them in the first five to seven years of their lives, they had a reduced risk of early puberty, early initiation of sex and teen pregnancy . . . . Younger sisters in divorced families had their first periods an average of 11 months earlier than their older sisters—but only in homes in which the men behaved badly as fathers. “We were surprised to get as big an effect as we did,” Ellis told me. The conclusion was that growing up with emotionally or physically distant fathers in early to middle childhood could be “a key life transition” that alters sexual development.
. . .
This time the researchers found that risky sexual behavior was not related to how long daughters lived with their fathers but to what the fathers did in the time they spent with their daughters. “Girls who grew up with a high-quality father—who spent more time as a high-investing father—showed the lowest level of risky sexual behavior,” Ellis said. “Their younger sisters, who had less time with him, tended to show the highest level of risky sexual behavior.”
. . .
Ronald P. Rohner of the University of Connecticut has spent some years looking at the consequences for children and teenagers of being either accepted or rejected by their parents. . . Children who are accepted by their parents are independent and emotionally stable, have strong self-esteem and hold a positive worldview. Those who feel they were rejected show the opposite—hostility, feelings of inadequacy, instability and a negative worldview . . . fathers are often more implicated than mothers in the development of problems such as these,” Rohner says.
Empathy is another characteristic that we hope teenagers will develop, and fathers seem to have a surprisingly important role here, too. . . examined all the factors in the children's lives that might have affected how empathetic they became as adults, one factor dwarfed all others—how much time their fathers spent with them. “We were amazed to find that how affectionate parents were with their children made no difference in empathy,” Koestner says. “And we were astounded at how strong the father's influence was.”
Melanie Horn Mallers, a psychologist at California State University, Fullerton, also found that sons who have fond memories of their fathers were more able to handle the day-to-day stresses of adulthood . . .
The evidence shows that fathers make unique contributions to their children.”
Scientific American May 2014
6. The Godly Father is Reverent
Bob Fitts and his wife celebrated 38 years together last week. He said this “We are both so grateful to God for the way He has richly and lovingly led us, loved us, and blessed us in life. 4 fantastic children, and a grandchild on the way, the privilege of worshiping Jesus with His awesome Church all over the world.....we are both overwhelmed with gratitude! We look forward with such great expectation, having seen His faithfulness for the last 38 years. What a God, what an abundant life paid for by the ultimate sacrifice of His Son. We honor you Jesus....you are the founder of the Feast!” Fb
Last week, it seems, was the week for anniversaries. I suppose a lot of people get married around the beginning of June. One of my professors from Bible College, a man for who I have tremendous respect, Jerry Camery-Hoggatt, celebrated his 37th anniversary last week. His wife wrote this on fb:
37 years ago this afternoon I married the love of my life, my best friend. I was so in awe of him and that he would want to spend his life with me. There has not been a moment when he has disappointed. It has been an amazing journey thus far. Jerry Camery-Hoggatt has proven to be the most incredible husband, friend, father to our children, Papa to our grandloves. Every day the friendship grows deeper and the love even sweeter. His depth of character, wisdom, personality, loving presence in my life and the world still fills me with awe. I can't believe I've been given such an indescribable gift! Here's to 37 more years—we'll be on the end of life's journey by then, but wouldn't it be grand to continue together that long?
Shaylene Camery-Hoggatt
Husbands, how would our wives honor us on our 37th anniversary? Will we all survive till that milestone?
Jerry is Reverent, and, therefore, his wife reveres him.
So a godly father
A man who
Is F aithful to God’s will, including his faithfulness to his wife and children
Is A ble and willing to work hard to excel and provide for his family.
Is T eaching, correcting and leading his family
Leaves a H eritage, both physical and spiritual, for his children & grandchildren
Is E ver-Present to mold his children in the character of Christ
Is R everent and his reverence for God results in a reverence toward him.
