I’m a huge fan of Dr. Gary Chapman’s book The Five Love Languages. Dr. Chapman is a pastor and marriage counselor, and his love languages is a theory that everyone primarily receives love in one of five ways.
The love languages are: Quality time
Physical touch
Words of affirmation
Acts of service
Gifts
All of the love languages boil down to time. Acts of services takes time to serve someone. Gifts requires time to notice the types of gifts that will be appropriately thoughtful, and they take time to acquire and to earn the money to pay for. Physical touch takes presence, which takes time. For words of affirmation to have meaning and sincerity, that requires really knowing someone which takes time. Quality time is not merely being around each other but also meaningful and significant time together.
The love languages are just different ways to utilize tie to invest and build up a relationship. I think it’s important for a person to know their own love language, and also to know the love languages of their spouse and children because there is value in showing love to a person in the way that a person best receives love.
Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.
Hopes dashed today. American missionary and pastor Andrew Brunson has been imprisoned in Turkey since 2016 for allegations of espionage and terrorism.
Brunson is an innocent man who has served as a pastor and missionary in Turkey for 23 years. He is a hostage in a political game where the Turkish government is trying to swap Brunson for a Turkish cleric who is residing in the United States.
Brunson was taken into custody in 2016 for allegedly being part of a coup against the Turkish president however the “evidence” against him comes from anonymous sources. The 50 year old pastor faces 35 years in prison.
This week, he was on trial, and there was hope that he could be released. Several American officials have visited Brunson.
Today, Brunson was sent back to jail with his next trial date not coming until October.
Brunson has said: “I desperately miss my wife and children. Yet, I believe this to be true, it is an honor to suffer for Jesus Christ, as many have before me. My deepest thanks to all those around the world who are standing with and praying for me.”
Brunson is unjustly being persecuted but it is encouraging to hear of his steadfast hope in the gospel in spite of his circumstances.
The Apostle Paul was wrongly imprisoned more than once during his ministry.
Writing the Letter to the Philippians from prison, Paul said:
I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.
-Philippians 1:12-14
Paul was in a difficult situation but took advantage of where he was for the sake of advancing the gospel.
As counterintuitive as it is, it’s often in the face of persecution that the gospel spreads. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, ““Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:10).
Prayers for you Pastor Andrew. The Lord be with you.
Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.
I was listening to the BreakPoint podcast today and they told the story of an Oregon couple who was just sentenced to six years in prison for the death of their daughter, Ginnifer.
The baby was prematurely born at 32 weeks and died several hours later of complications which were treatable. The parents are members of a Pentecostal church that relies on praying and faith healing and did not seek medical attention.
This is truly tragic. This little girl should be alive today. The parents were rightly prosecuted and that they acted immorally and inappropriately.
In the BreakPoint commentary, John Stonestreet sums up the frustration well:
Now let me be clear, the Mitchells were rightly prosecuted for allowing their baby girl to die, even though they prayed for her to live. But had they wanted to kill Ginnifer, they could have driven to the nearest abortion clinic an hour before her birth—and get this—the state of Oregon would have paid for it.
This is the issue. Ginnifer was born March 5, 2017. Her parents could have had her aborted earlier in that day. As Stonestreet points out, it would have been paid for by the state and would have been perfectly legal.
Why do babies so often have no rights until they’re born?
The hypocrisy and irrationality of these standards carries over into states that have feticide laws (laws in regards to legal recourse when a person’s actions result in the death of a fetus). 38 states recognize situations where a fetus is killed as homicide (unless it’s aborted and then it’s legally allowed).
Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.
President Trump visited the United Kingdom this week. I saw a few posts and articles this morning in regards to the president’s meeting with Queen Elizabeth II.
Many are complaining about the president breaking protocols with the monarch. For instance, there is a tradition that people walk slightly behind the queen. At one point, the president was in front of the queen during her ceremonial inspection of the guard at Windsor Castle.
Oh the humanity!
The comments online talked about how this was an embarrassment, a sign of disrespect, and a president who lacked manners.
There are all of these protocols for meeting a royal.
Men are supposed to bow, women are supposed to curtsy. You’re supposed to walk behind her. You’re not supposed to turn your back to the queen. On first meeting, the queen is supposed to be addressed as “your majesty.”
And as we saw with President Trump breaching some of these protocols, there was criticism.
And that’s just for meeting a person. Think about the respect that Americans have for the queen of a different country. There is an expectation of this reverence for the queen. There’s this expectation of following the rules.
Yet we often have a very casual view of what it would be like to be in the presence of God. God is righteous, holy, set apart. He is awesomely mighty and glorious. And being in his presence also has its own protocols. You don’t just approach the King in any way you want. You approach God on his terms, not yours.
God requires perfection to enter his presence. It takes holiness to be with a holy God. We bristle at that, thrash against that, complain about that. But that is God’s standard.
We are not worthy of that.
You wouldn’t just go to Buckingham Palace and demand an audience with the queen. We don’t approach God on our terms.
It is faith in Jesus who gives us access to God. We are unholy, but Jesus makes a person holy. We are unrighteous, but Jesus makes a person righteous.
The Prophet Isaiah reports one of the great heavenly visions of the Bible in chapter 6.
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”
4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
-Isaiah 6:1-5
The presence of God is always depicted as being an awesome and overwhelming experience. As people realize their unworthiness, it’s often a terrifying experience to be in the presence of this holiness.
The good news of the gospel is that Jesus brings us in.
Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.
I was going through Lee Strobel’s latest book The Case for Miracles last week. The final chapter in the book was a poignant discussion entitled: “When miracles don’t happen.”
In that chapter, Strobel interviews Douglas Groothuis who’s a professor at Denver Seminary. In the interview, they talk about the health of Groothuis’s wife Becky, a Mensa member and author who developed a rare form of dementia which impacts the brain’s ability to recall words.
In the interview, they talk of day to day challenges of seeing his wife taken from him. The interview talked about faith, spirituality, lament, and hope.
I was particularly struck by one of the answers Groothuis gave. Strobel asked “Do you feel like if you were God, you would definitely heal Becky?”
“God is perfect and he acts accordingly. If I were God, I’d be perfect – and therefore I’d act in the very same way he does. We might not understand why he does what he does, but it’s folly to think we’d do things better.”
I found that to be brilliant and insightful. It’s easy for us to look to things in God’s rule of creation and to think it could be done better or should be done differently. But God is righteous and eternal. At times, it can be very hard to see the good in the struggles of our lives. At times, it’s hard to see the goodness of God in the wrongs others afflict on us.
Groothuis saw a brilliant woman lose her mental faculties and pass away at just 59 years of age. But the faith to trust that God is still good in that. To trust that God is so good that his plan cannot be improved upon in spite of all of the bad, all of the evil, all of the suffering in our world. God still works that for good. God still weaves that into his plans and uses it for his own glory.
Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.
