Imperishable Inheritance

Calvin­sim is more than a sote­ri­o­log­i­cal stance, as J.I. Pack­ers said in his intro­duc­tion to “The Death of Death” by John Owen, “Calvinism is a world­view, stem­ming from a clear vision of God as the whole world’s Maker and King….Calvinism is a theo­cen­tric way of think­ing about all life under the direc­tion and con­trol of God’s will.”
If we saw mar­riage as the Puri­tans saw it, as com­pan­ion­ship and ser­vice with another person for a life­time ded­i­cated to the Lord, we would think a lot more about this and other issues before we chose to marry some­one other than the main reason being that we love them.

Good post, this is a good topic.

The Bib­li­cal man­date is to not marry a non-​believer (2 Cor 6:14), and to say that an Armin­ian is not worthy of mar­ry­ing seems to imply the belief that regen­er­a­tion is con­tin­gent on a belief on Reformed The­ol­ogy, and my friends who would deny this belief also hold that a Calvin­ist shouldn’t marry an Arminian.

This assumes every­one regen­er­ated is “worthy” of mar­ry­ing, which is obvi­ously not the case. It’s not wise or help­ful to marry some Christ-​loving Chris­tians. Exam­ple: If I was heav­ily strug­gling with pornog­ra­phy, and still coming back to Christ for grace (and thus was a Chris­t­ian), I wouldn’t think it wise for Stacia to marry me. I’d want her to have me demon­strate more reli­a­bil­ity and truth­wor­thi­ness and fidelity (and that can apply to behav­ior or doc­trine).

Regard­ing the impor­tance of shar­ing doc­tri­nal con­vic­tions, I can tell you that, as some­one who aspires to be a pastor/elder/evangelist/etc., doc­trine has a lot to do with my path in life and where my wife and I feel our family should go. It would be a lot harder to deal with if Stacia, say, didn’t want me to go to a con­ser­v­a­tive sem­i­nary, but some­where like Fuller. Oh, there’d be a lot of con­flict! It’d be harder for Stacia to sup­port me in the day-to-day stuff, and that would surely add some misery to our mar­riage.

Regard­ing the sub­mis­sion of wives, which you men­tioned. Yeah, the more I think about it, doc­tri­nal incom­pat­i­bil­ity seems like more of a risky issue for women than for men who have sub­mis­sive wives. Good issue to point out.

A few prac­ti­cal out­work­ings:

– There are cer­tain things that, if Stacia were an Armin­ian, I wouldn’t want her teach­ing to the ladies in her Bible-​study. “In my house I do not want that kind of doc­trine pro­moted in our house.”

– Coherency or con­flict over where you as a couple go to church can either cause a lot of har­mony or erupt into a lot of heartache. Where you go to church is a huge issue in mar­riage!

– You men­tioned this but I’d like to say it myself: I’m going to make sure my chil­dren are well-​versed in Romans (as a whole), and when I teach them about the very first sec­tion (where all those loved are those who have faith, thus imply­ing a par­tic­u­lar love that isn’t for non-​believers), I want to put a love in them for sov­er­eign grace. My wife will likely home­school our ten­ta­tive chil­dren at least in their younger years. Bible-​training will be a hu-​uge part of that. Having an Armin­ian frame­work does quite a lot to the Bible, even when it is clear and explicit as day. There would be a lot of con­flict regard­ing what my chil­dren are taught! But like you pointed out, having a sub­mis­sive wife helps a lot.

What is inter­est­ing is that, as a result, they did find doc­tri­nal unity in the end.

Ohhh what a beau­ti­ful out­work­ing of grace! :-D :-D My wife is a gem in so many respects.

I can’t imag­ine what it would be like to marry a “flaming” five-​point Arminian–it would be great! How edi­fy­ing that would be! I can’t imag­ine having a wife who cared that deeply about a sep­a­rate the­o­log­i­cal system to engage in debate with me; that is excit­ing! To sum up, I would rather marry a pas­sion­ate and con­victed Armin­ian than a pas­sive Calvinist.

I can’t help but agree! And smile…. and laugh: We know what to pray for now!!!!!

Chris, this is quite a diver­gence from our talk about whether we’d marry four-​pointers. When I asked my friend Haddon about that, he responded: “Hmmm, maybe if she were as devoted to God’s sov­er­eignty as Bruce Ware.” (I must note, I think Haddon knows more about God’s sov­er­eignty than I do, but I don’t think I would com­pletely agree with him, though he is quite the stud).
I think Leslie, John, and Aaron make great points. Leslie is cor­rect that mar­riage is about some­one with whom you can serve the King­dom. John is cor­rect that this is an unique-​union–these two are now one. And Aaron is right in saying that, as an elder (which I aspire to be), you need a wife who will edify you and back you in what you say (and Aaron is cor­rect, Stacia is a real gem!) It’s extremely hard now, when I am single, to stand when I face great doc­tri­nal oppo­si­tion and slan­der. It’s emo­tion­ally, spir­i­tu­ally, men­tally, and even phys­i­cally drain­ing. To have a wife who dis­agrees and even seeks to pro­mote diver­gent doc­trine which I know is incor­rect would be a great hin­der­ance. I per­son­ally need some­one who is going to back up what I say on main issues (unless it is incor­rect) (she can dis­agree with me on escha­tol­ogy or some­thing, as I’m not even com­pletely con­vinced as of yet), and who is going to be able to encour­age me when I am down and dis­cour­aged. It is far more dif­fi­cult and drain­ing when it is a close friend who diverges and teaches dif­fer­ently on impor­tant issues (about the God whom I love so dearly); how much more dif­fi­cult and dis­cour­ag­ing would it be if that person is the clos­est human that I will ever know?
As a pastor I will be teach­ing things from Scrip­ture with which people do not agree–and dis­agree vehem­i­nently. I need a wife, who will be a better con­flict resolver and better medi­a­tor than I (for I assume her to have a more gentle spirit than I), to speak with people and help them see the truth in the Scrip­ture.
Per­haps the Bible does not speak of Calvin­is­tic and Armin­ian diver­gences and mar­riage because it does not speak of these diver­gences, but assumes good doc­trine.
Now Chris, you know that I know you are seri­ous about the doc­trines of grace, and that you believe very seri­ously in the prop­a­ga­tion of them–so please take my responses as coming from a loving brother. I respect you, and I do not fall into either of Perry’s cat­e­gories, but would call you a man who is seek­ing to do the will of the Lord, not com­pro­mis­ing your beliefs, but search­ing the Scrip­tures for what is cor­rect–but yet I believe you are wrong. While 2 Cor. 6:14 only speaks of being unequally yoked with unbe­liev­ers, I think we must remem­ber that being unequally yoked, even with a believer (if too unequally yoked) will be a hin­der­ance. What if I were to yoke myself in an unique-​union with a very young, imma­ture believer? While it may serve to sharpen me in my deal­ings with such people (and per­haps both of us would grow), I would not be able to talk of the mature things of the faith with her, or to engage in deep prayer and con­vic­tions with­out harm­ing our rela­tion­ship. Such a breach in our rela­tion­ship would cause our min­istries to faulter, would per­haps stunt both of our walks (she might be con­fused), and may lead to much strife (per­haps I am wrong, as I am merely think­ing out loud).
But here are my multi-​paragraphed thoughts. Grace and peace.

Some friends of mine (includ­ing Leslie!) had this very dis­cus­sion at a dinner a few weeeks ago. Our friend Jay who is reformed and is mar­ried to an amaz­ing Calvin­ist, said that we, as women, would be crazy to marry a non-​Calvinist. I see all your points, and agree that assum­ing the Calvin­ist hus­band is mar­ried to a godly and sub­mis­sive wife, it could still be a Christ-​edifying mar­riage. As a girl, I think it would be VERY hard to marry some­one who isn’t reformed. Not un-​biblical, but I for one cannot imag­ine that. I believe that seeing the Lord in His com­plete­ness and total Sov­er­eignty is life chang­ing. Second only to my sal­va­tion. A “flaming” Armin­ian? Do those exist?! ;)

I agree with Kris­ten, but you already knew that.

I would.

I real­ize this con­ver­sa­tion hap­pened a few years ago, but I can’t help myself. I think I would have dif­fi­culty sub­mit­ting to my hus­band in spir­i­tual mat­ters if he were Arminean because of the log­i­cal con­se­quences of that belief system. One’s entire the­ol­ogy is effected (which has already been men­tioned sev­eral times (but that was sev­eral years ago, so I’m refresh­ing your memory :) )). How­ever, when­ever I read Mere Chris­tian­ity or The Screw­tape Let­ters I think of what a lucky lady Joy was. But he also had an Eng­lish accent. So, ya know…  that doesn’t hurt.

Why? Do you have an Eng­lish accent? : )