Hal Young's Blog, page 35

Learning the Carols: Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Verse 2

Usually, teaching the first stanza of familiar hymns means correcting misunderstandings about the language (like angels singing, “Hark!”). The second stanza is where you usually find the first totally new lyrics. It’s where you often find new insights, too, since the words are are fresh and we haven’t grown complacent from hearing them a hundred times a week on the radio!

This is the second installment of our “Learning the Carols” series on “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”; to see how we do this with our family and to get the words to the whole carol and a link to the music, read our introduction from yesterday.

* * * * *

Christ, by highest Heav’n adored;

Christ the everlasting Lord;

Late in time, behold Him come,

Offspring of a virgin’s womb.

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;

Hail th’incarnate Deity,

Pleased as man with men to dwell,

Jesus our Emmanuel.

Verse two talks about the incarnation. Our Lord Jesus Christ is not merely a wonderful teacher, as some say, He is part of the Trinity, present at Creation, adored by the angels in heaven and having everlasting life.

Late in time, behold Him come recalls that Jesus’ birth was the completion of thousands years of prophecy and expectation. Galatians 4:4 says “when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman …” Jesus was born to a virgin – a pure young woman who was not married. But babies need fathers, don’t they? Yes! God is Jesus’s father.

“Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see,” reminds us that Jesus looked like any other man – his glory was veiled or hidden, but because He was God made flesh (John 1:1), we are able to see what something of who God is and what holiness is like.

In “Hail the incarnate deity,” “hail” means to praise or acclaim, “incarnate” means made of flesh, and the “deity” is God, so we praise the God in flesh, the God-man Jesus Christ.

What’s really amazing is that God is pleased to do this for us! Even the name Emmanuel means “God with us.” (Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 1:18-25) What riches of truth to share with our children!

* * * * *

And it gets better still — Come back tomorrow and learn more with us!

Learning the Carols: Hark, the Herald Angels Sing

Schnorr von Carolsfeld, From the Bibel in Bildern, 1860

This is one of those hymns that we think we all know, but usually only sing the first verse. This is like nibbling on the salad and walking out on the feast. Charles Wesley packed so much Biblical truth into this carol, you not only don’t want to miss it, but you ought to make sure your children understand it all, too.

We sing all the verses every day, but explain one of the verses each time. That gives us time to really focus on what each verse means. There are some don’t-miss concepts you want to be sure to discuss with your children. This week we’re going to discuss the incarnation, the protoevangelium (hard word, but as soon as we explain, it’ll be really obvious to you!), Christ to the nations, the resurrection, and the Lord as the second Adam. And it’s all there in a carol we all love. This week, we’ll be posting each day’s devotional explanation of one of the verses, so you can use it with your own children!

(The entire carol is included at the bottom of the post.)

Hark! The herald angels sing,

“Glory to the newborn King;

Peace on earth, and mercy mild,

God and sinners reconciled!”

Joyful, all ye nations rise,

Join the triumph of the skies;

With th’angelic host proclaim,

“Christ is born in Bethlehem!”

In verse one, explain that “hark” is a way of getting attention, like saying, “Hey!” or “Listen up!”, a herald is one that announces news. The angels aren’t flying about singing, “Hark! Hark!” but instead, the singer is calling to his friends “Hey, listen! The angels are singing!”

And what are they singing about? These were the angels that brought news to the shepherds and very important news it was:  the Messiah who would bring reconciliation between God and man had been born. You can explain reconciliation by talking about a child who disobeys a parent and gets punished, then repents and gets forgiveness.  Christ came to take our punishment so we could be forgiven!

Revelation 19:16 shows Jesus as “KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS” so in this hymn, the angels are shown giving glory to the newborn king. He is also seen as the One who will bring the nations to repentance, not only the chosen people, but all people. Isaiah 56:7 says “For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.”

Ever since we studied the history of Rome for the first time, we have grabbed onto the idea of a Triumph – a victory parade and celebration the Romans would give a conquering hero on his return to Rome – and we do this around the house whenever someone conquers something – a difficult situation, a textbook, some accomplishment. Isn’t it encouraging to think about the triumph of the skies, the rejoicing of the angels in the birth of the Savior that would conquer death and sin?

* * * * *

This Christmas carol is so full of the Word of God, that we could talk about it for pages and pages. I hope you’ll take a few minutes this week to teach this song to your children and more importantly, teach them the Truth that these verses refer to. I like to think about our children hearing this song as they drive down the street or walk in the mall many years from now and these truths come flooding back to their minds and hearts. What a heritage!

Click here to hear the tune.   We’d love to hear what you think about this post! We’re working on a curriculum to help you teach the hymns of the faith to your children, not just the tune and words, but the meaning, without having to search out all these references and definitions yourself. Do you think that would be useful?  Leave us a comment!

Hark the Herald Angels Sing

Hark! The herald angels sing,

“Glory to the newborn King;

Peace on earth, and mercy mild,

God and sinners reconciled!”

Joyful, all ye nations rise,

Join the triumph of the skies;

With th’angelic host proclaim,

“Christ is born in Bethlehem!”

Refrain:

Hark! the herald angels sing,

“Glory to the newborn King!”

Christ, by highest Heav’n adored;

Christ the everlasting Lord;

Late in time, behold Him come,

Offspring of a virgin’s womb.

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;

Hail th’incarnate Deity,

Pleased as man with men to dwell,

Jesus our Emmanuel.

Refrain

Hail the heav’nly Prince of Peace!

Hail the Sun of Righteousness!

Light and life to all He brings,

Ris’n with healing in His wings.

Mild He lays His glory by,

Born that man no more may die.

Born to raise the sons of earth,

Born to give them second birth.

Refrain

Come, Desire of nations, come,

Fix in us Thy humble home;

Rise, the woman’s conqu’ring Seed,

Bruise in us the serpent’s head.

Adam’s likeness, Lord, efface,

Stamp Thine image in its place:

Second Adam from above,

Reinstate us in Thy love.

The last verse above is the version we’ve always sung, although it is a combination of Wesley’s last two verses that makes them a bit more singable with better rhymes and a clearer meaning. In case you are interested in what he originally wrote, these are those verses:

Come, Desire of nations, come,

Fix in us Thy humble home;

Rise, the woman’s conqu’ring Seed,

Bruise in us the serpent’s head.

Now display Thy saving power,

Ruined nature now restore;

Now in mystic union join

Thine to ours, and ours to Thine.

Refrain

Adam’s likeness, Lord, efface,

Stamp Thine image in its place:

Second Adam from above,

Reinstate us in Thy love.

Let us Thee, though lost, regain,

Thee, the Life, the inner man:

O, to all Thyself impart,

Formed in each believing heart.

Refrain

Join us tomorrow to discuss the second verse!

Christ-Centered Holidays

Hear our weekly podcast on the Ultimate Radio Network. In last night’s show we talked about how to make the Lord the center of your holidays, how to reduce stress, and how to deal with family conflict at your celebrations. Click here to go download the archived show!

What in the World is Courtship?

Nearly thirty years ago, we had what was in many ways a courting relationship rather than a dating relationship, though we hadn’t come to a conviction that this was the best or the only way to pursue a marriage. For us, it grew rather naturally from a friendship between two people who were rather analytical about things—even affairs of the heart. But we’re getting ahead of our story.

When it comes to marriage or anything else, the question for Christians should always start with “What has God told us? What does the Bible say?”

As we’ve studied this matter through, we’ve come to a surprising conclusion: the Bible doesn’t give many specific directions. This is the first thing we have to grasp –

The process of finding a mate is largely a matter of Christian liberty.

Things would be so much easier if there were clear directions and boundaries. There are, of course, when you consider commandments to consider others more highly than yourself, to avoid immorality, to keep from defrauding one another with promises and expectations that cannot or will not be met. Yet the process of courtship—of intentionally seeking a mate—mostly remains in the space of regulated liberty.

There is no pattern in Scripture set for how we find our mates—which means we give each other grace.

If you want a Biblical pattern for finding a wife, you might send a servant to choose one from your cousins (that’s what Abraham did for Isaac). You might go to a dance and kidnap one of the young ladies for yourself, and let your family smooth it over with her parents (that’s what happened at Shiloh). If you’re a woman, you might visit your kinsman’s workplace and curl up at his feet while he naps (that’s what Ruth did with Boaz). Hmmmm, no, we don’t think those methods would work today. Or, you might be like the hundreds of people mentioned in the Bible without reference to how they met one another and came to be married.

Where the Scriptures are clear, we can be very clear, but where they are silent, or as they do on this subject, offer many examples without much commentary, then we need to give each other liberty and grace to seek the Lord and our own consciences on the matter.

For that reason, it’s probably best to define courtship pretty broadly.

To us, the courtship model means that instead of seeking just a romantic experience, we intentionally seek to build a relationship. Eventually, the goal is to identify a person you believe God would be pleased for you to marry, and hopefully, you find that person has the same feelings toward you.

With that in mind, you wait for adulthood. Guys shouldn’t start looking for a wife until they are able to support one, or will be soon. Girls shouldn’t be watching for Mr. Right until they are prepared to take on the responsibility of being Mrs. Right.

You keep marriage in view, and don’t seek a relationship with someone who isn’t Biblically qualified for marriage.

You seek to honor your parents in the process, seeking their counsel and showing respect for their guidance. It often means the young man seeks the input of both sets of parents before initiating any romantic turn in the relationship.

Because you are called to purity and indeed, recognize that every relationship will not result in marriage, you refrain from physical affection that could be a temptation to sin.

Finally, courtship should mean that you are seeking the Lord together and separately about whether you should marry.

The world’s culture is focused on self—my feelings, my status, my success winning the attention of a beautiful girl or a handsome guy. Courtship, on the other hand, focuses on the will of God, the claims of others (parents, families, potential mates), and my own responsibilities. Certainly the other things are present, but they aren’t the center of our attention.

Let’s be careful to recognize that there is a difference between God’s commandments and the applications that we are deriving from Biblical principles. We can’t be dogmatic about anything that isn’t clear in the Word of God or we fall into the trap of legalism. The process of finding a mate will look different in different families and with different couples, and that’s okay. That’s the principle of Christian liberty.

 

Yours in the battle,

Hal & Melanie

For more about marriage, preorder our new book for Christmas delivery with free shipping!

My Beloved and My Friend:

How to be Married to Your Best Friend Without Changing Spouses

 

How to Talk to Your Children When Christian Leaders Fall

This has been a pretty sobering week for many homeschool families. A very prominent leader and speaker in Christian homeschool circles confessed to an inappropriate relationship with a woman and resigned from his ministry and speaking engagements. As speakers ourselves, we and our children know most of the other families on the speaking circuit, so we realized we needed to address this with them.

How do you talk to your children when a Christian they know falls into sin? Here’s how we try to handle it.

Don’t ignore it. Children, particularly teens,  have a tremendous hypocrisy detection system. We need to be very, very careful that we don’t pretend to be without sin or pretend our leaders are without sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. 1 John 1:8-10 When we sin, we need to confess it and ask for forgiveness, especially when our children are involved. If we don’t, we may save our pride, but lose our children.

Be frank. When Christians fall and it causes a stink, it’s often a sexual sin (or the beginnings of it). These sins tempt our sons tremendously. Don’t avoid an opportunity to show them the tragic consequences that can come from indulgence. Explain the cost in terms of shame, loss of employment, effect on family members, and the effect on testimony. Pray for the leader, his family, everyone affected by this tragedy. Hard as it is, it is a good thing for your children to see this pain because the enemy is whispering to them, “No one will ever know,” when he tempts them. Instead, they need to understand that sometimes practically the whole world will know and in the end, God always does know.  This is why we love accountability software for our computers – it teaches our children that someone will know. Please protect your children. Internet filth is a primary way sexual sins get a foothold.

But, how do you explain something like this? In this case, it’s not too hard, “He had a romantic relationship with someone other than his wife. That’s not right. We are supposed to be faithful to our wives and family.” In other cases, it may be more challenging, but your guys can really benefit from the warning.

Be humble. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. 1 Corinthians 10:12 Better Christians than we are have fallen into sin. We really can’t afford to be self-righteous and neither can our children. Make sure you express to them that we are every one of us susceptible to sin and have to be careful. Pride is a huge danger for all of us. For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Galatians 6:3

And, if you disagree with or dislike the leader who has fallen, be especially humble. Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, And do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles; Lest the Lord see it, and it displease Him, And He turn away His wrath from him. Proverbs 24:17

Address their grief and anger. As we talk about in our book, everyone craves heroes, especially boys. We want someone to look up to, someone that can be an example to us. When we realize those heroes are fallible, as we all are, it’s hard enough, but when they do something repulsive to us, it can really shake us up. There are a lot of twenty-somethings and teens who are grieving and stewing and rethinking everything. Their idealism is taking a huge hit and that’s a hard thing. We need to come alongside them and help them make sense of this.

We’ll need to talk through whether this affects what they’ve been taught and what they believe. Remember, just because someone hasn’t followed Biblical principles they teach doesn’t make those principles wrong. On the other hand, if there is error, either in what has been taught or in your expression of it, confess it. We don’t lower ourselves in our children’s eyes by saying, “I was wrong,” because sooner or later (usually sooner) they’ll realize it for themselves. When we tell our children when leaders are right in some areas and not quite right in others, we’re not teaching them to despise them, we’re teaching them to not put any man on a pedestal above the Word of God. No man should be made an idol – and most teachers don’t want to be!

When our children get angry and say, “How could he?” we need to remind them that we are all sinners. David, a man after God’s own heart committed adultery; Peter even denied Him. We need to pray and pray hard that God would keep us from sin. Don’t made excuses for sin, though, and don’t try to soften it. Sin is ugly and evil and this kind of heartbreaking situation ought to make us hate it!

Remind them that though battles seem to be lost, the war is won. It’s hard to see much upside in the sin of Christian teachers being exposed. We need to remind our children that God is holy and that He has his own purposes. It may be hard for us to understand why He allows things to happen, but we need to trust Him and to remember that He wins in the end.

Pray for those leading and teaching. Our enemy delights to bring down leaders. We need to be praying for their protection. Seriously. Really praying. It’s hard not to be proud when people are praising you. Pray, pray, pray for those in authority over you, for those teaching you, for those whose books and work are blessing you. They really need it and our children need to see it, too.

Galatians gives us the pattern for this very situation. Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. Galatians 6:1 Gentleness. So, any talk on this matter needs to be gentle, humble, honest, and Christ-centered. Keep your eyes on Christ, not on us or on anyone else teaching or writing. Just on Christ who died for you.

Share the gospel with them. Whatever direction you take in this discussion, don’t neglect to tell your children that Christ’s blood covers this, too. We have all sinned. None of us is righteous and God is holy and cannot condone sin. Thankfully, He has provided a sacrifice for us. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23 What hope lies in those words!

 

May the Lord keep us all from sin.

Yours in the battle,

Hal & Melanie

 

The Write Time for A Novel Idea

We’ve always found boys like a challenge and some competition — who’s fastest, strongest, and scores the most points. Here’s a program which plays right into that trait: See how much you can write in a month.

Several years ago I ran across a peculiar little project. The National Novel Writing Month is a tongue-in-cheek challenge to everyone who has an idea for a story: take the month of November and see if you can p0ur out 50,000 words.

The sponsors of “NaNoWriMo”, as they call, it say the first job of a writer is writing, and most people get stuck at the first blank page. The challenge is meant to break that mental log jam, knowing very well that the result will be just an eruption of uncorrected, first draft material. The goal is not to write well, but to write at all. Once you have something on paper, then you can decide to edit and revise it, or declare victory and move on.

Fifty thousand is the grown-up target.  If you’re not in the habit of counting, a single-spaced page is about 500 words, which means 50,000 will print out something like a hundred pages. For comparison, both our books, Raising Real Men and the upcoming My Beloved and My Friend, ended up with something over 60,000 words, which makes a 250-page paperback when it’s properly typeset and published.

But for younger writers, NaNoWriMo has a student competition which encourages the young person to set a more reachable goal–remembering that great literature like The Old Man and The Sea and The Great Gatsby were both about 25,000 words. Every novel doesn’t end up like War and Peace or The Lord of the Rings.

We have friends who take part in NaNoWriMo every year, cranking out a new story every season. A couple of my sons tried it one year, including one who had struggled with writing for years but produced a 24,000 word story in that burst of creativity.

So why not give it a try? You may surprised at the result!

Semper Reformanda

The U.S. Marine Corps has a slogan – Semper Fidelis, “Always Faithful.” More often, people shorten it to “Semper Fi.” In the church, there is a slightly different slogan: Semper Reformanda, which is short for Ecclesia semper reformanda est, “The Church Is Always To Be Reformed.”

Why the lesson in military and ecclesiastical Latin? Because today is the day many of us celebrate the courage and faithfulness of Martin Luther.

He was Roman Catholic monk in the Augustinian Order, a German by birth, and entered the monastery as a young man seeking peace for a soul wracked by doubt and guilt. When wise superiors in the Order directed him to study the Scriptures, Luther found two things. When he understood St Paul’s teaching that “The just shall live by faith,” God gave him the peace of forgiveness. We do not have the strength to achieve forgiveness by our inadequate efforts (the prophet Isaiah warns that all our own righteousness is like “filthy rags” in the sight of a holy God, Isaiah 64:6); instead, we can be saved “by grace through faith,” (Ephesians 2:8-10) when we embrace Jesus’ sacrifice as the payment for our sins. Our good works then flow outward to God as a result of forgiveness, rather than a vain attempt to earn something from Him.

But as he found his inward solution, Luther also discovered an outward problem. Over the centuries, the Church had drifted from the purity and simplicity of the apostles’ teaching, and by well-meaning steps had allowed innovations and compromises to mask or divert its message and focus from the true gospel. And the Church had become so entrenched in this pattern, it was unwilling to re-examine its teachings and practices, often persecuting or even executing the teachers and preachers who wanted to call Rome back to its roots.

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Now from his position as a professor of theology at the University of Wittenburg in southern Germany, Luther began sharing what God was showing him in the Scriptures.  On October 31, 1517, Luther posted an invitation for other scholars to debate a list of practices and teachings which he believed were contrary to the Bible. To his surprise, his Latin document intended for academics and clerics was quickly translated into German and swept over the countryside by the new technology of the printing press—a channel unavailable to earlier reformers. It ignited a firestorm of debate in churches, homes, and palaces all over Europe, and in 1521 resulted in Luther’s subpoena to testify before the Emperor Charles V and the Pope’s representatives in Germany.

There he faced a stark choice: Either publically retract the many books and pamphlets he had written challenging the unbiblical practices within the Church, or very likely face the fate of Jan Hus—a Czech reformer who was marched to the stake and burned as a heretic for teaching many of the same Biblical doctrines. After a night considering his future, Luther returned to the Emperor’s court and replied, “My conscience is captive to the Word of God. To go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Unless I am convinced by the Word of God … I cannot and will not recant. Here I stand; I can do no other. God help me.”

To everyone else’s surprise, the judgment of Rome was unable to bring Luther down, and his friends in the German nobility shielded him from the Emperor’s death warrant. While he was formally expelled from the Church and the priesthood, his influence only grew, and the congregations who followed his teaching found themselves a new identity apart from the Roman Catholic Church. Thus began the Protestant Reformation.

The concept of “always reforming” is not a Protestant issue, though—it’s a Christian issue.

Paul wrote to the church at Corinth,  “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.” (2 Cor 13:5).  Jeremiah said, “Let us search and examine our ways, and turn back to the Lord.” (Lam 3:40)  In the Revelation, Jesus said, “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works …” (Rev 2:5). And ultimately, the process of reformation which Luther began also led to several times of re-examination within the Catholic community as well; the term semper reformanda was even adopted by leaders within the Church following the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.

And we find the principle at work in our families, too. As our marriage faces changes and challenges, and our kids grow and mature from infants to children to young adults, our relationships will change, and must change. You shouldn’t treat your 18-year-old like he was eight … nor your eleven -year-old like he was 21! The decisions we made about lifestyles, budgets, friendships within and outside the family, all need to be reviewed and considered again as time and situations change. Keeping our family life focused on God and following His path will need regular course corrections, and the spirit of “always reforming” should be our guide.

So this evening, as our family enjoys bratwurst and Spaetzle and German potato salad over our favorite Luther biopic, we’ll talk again about the courage to believe in God’s Word, to trust in His protection, and look to Him for the outcomes—whether it’s aimed at a stronger faith, a stronger church, or a stronger family life. May we all embrace the call to be semper reformanda!

MORE: What’s the attraction of dressing up at Halloween? What does that teach us about our boys?

Thoughts on Halloween

 

In His service,

Hal

 

Courtship: Don’t Shut the Door Too Soon!

Lately, I’ve been noticing a phenomenon in among our acquaintances that really concerns me. Single ladies, we don’t often address you on these pages, but this one’s for you.

Most of the young adults we know are very intentional about finding a mate in the right way. They are committed to waiting until they are ready (or just about ready) for marriage to begin looking and to go about the process in a God- and parent-honoring way that doesn’t defraud anyone. That’s great! That’s what we’ve taught our own sons. So far so good.

The problem is this: Some of you may be closing the door too soon.

What should a young woman do when she suspects a guy is interested in her? Lately, it seems she’ll either speak to the guy, or get her father to, and tell him to forget it, she’s just not interested.

Is that a problem? Isn’t it just kind to let him know there’s no chance?

 Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, a young man and a young woman went to the same college and became good friends. She was a believer and he came to Christ that year. Her mother even told the young woman that she thought that was the man she’d marry. She wasn’t having any of it. She didn’t feel attracted at all. They were just friends. Not interested. Not at all.

Thankfully, she didn’t feel compelled to tell him that and push him away. They stayed friends for another couple of years. Then something incredible happened. They both changed. They decided to seek the Lord on whether He would have them to become something more. They courted with the blessing of their parents and pastors and married the next year. We’ve been married for nearly thirty incredibly happy years now. Yes, that’s our story.

You see, the things that make Hal a prince among men were not immediately obvious to a casual friend back then. I had to get to know him. I had to fall in love with his mind and with his character. The rest of the attraction came after that. Now I would rather be married to him than anyone on the planet.

I’m worried that girls are pushing off guys without giving them the chance Hal had – the chance for me to see more than the surface level of who he is. Why are they doing it?

To put the best construction on it, perhaps they are trying to spare the guys pain, trying to make sure they don’t get any more invested. Or, maybe they are afraid other guys will note his interest and back off. (More likely, it’ll make them hurry up!)

Regardless, if a guy hasn’t stated his interest outright, I think it’s better to just stay quiet and see what happens. You don’t want to miss a gem because it hasn’t been cut and polished yet. The guy you aren’t interested in today, because you aren’t immediately attracted to him or he does seem mature enough, may be just the right guy for you, a really seriously incredible guy, in a year or two. Think how much you’ve grown in the past couple of years!

Besides, how awkward! Guys have told us about girls pinning them down, “Are you interested in me?” Well, what’s he supposed to say? Maybe he is, but would like to talk to your father first. Maybe he’s just considering it, getting to know you. He certainly would rather choose his own timing! Maybe he isn’t interested at all, but is trying to be your friend. He’d rather not embarrass you if the truth isn’t what you suspect. Is clarity an improvement in any of those cases? No? Then, don’t ask for it.

Even if he does state his interest outright, you probably shouldn’t slam the door in his face. Again, you don’t know how you’ll feel in a few years. Maybe you will have learned things about him that made you love him (like me and Hal), or maybe he’ll grow and change (again, Hal was a new believer when someone first mentioned the possibility, but later he became a leader among Christians on campus). I’d hate for you to push off someone like God gave me!

Instead, how about, if he openly asks to court you, “I’m not interested right now, why don’t we just stay friends and see what the Lord does?” It’s honest, but it leaves a crack in the door. A door that may lead to a wonderful life!

So, let the guy take the lead. If he speaks up, speak up (gently and not finally, unless he’s not eligible). If he doesn’t, it’s for a reason and you probably ought not to, either.

So, here’s to friendship and open doors and not speaking too soon! May the Lord bring you a mate that will bless your whole life. He sure did that for me.

Melanie Young

For more on marriage, preorder our brand new book,

My Beloved and My Friend: How to be Married to Your Best Friend Without Changing Spouses .

You can get it for Christmas!

 

Would You Leave Heroin Around the House?

The other evening, we presented our workshop session, Shining Armor: Your Son’s Battle for Purity in a small church in a rural area. Parents came up afterward to ask how to install some kind of accountability or protection on their computers, phones and devices. We told them about the service we use ourselves, Covenant Eyes, but I marveled that parents with children in their teens would be just now thinking about this. It’s like the mother who contacted us recently whose elementary age son threatened to kill himself if she took his iPod away. They had been very careful with the family’s computers, but allowed their young son to have free access to an iPod Touch with no protection at all – although it will go anywhere online their computers will. These are good parents! They just don’t understand what’s going on in the world, though, and it has left their children vulnerable to extreme danger.

This morning I read an article in The Daily Mail written by Martin Daubney, a former soft-core pornographer, whose experience talking in a school to a group of eighth graders shook him to his core. Every single one of these children in an upper-class area had not only seen porn online, but had seen extreme kinds of perversion. They knew sexual terms that the pornographer and the sex ed expert speaking with him didn’t know!

This revelation led him to recruit a famous neuroscientist and addiction expert at Cambridge University to do brain scans on people addicted to porn. The results astounded even the pornographer and skeptical scientist: it looked a lot like addiction to hard drugs or alcohol. Daubney said,

If porn does have the insidious power to be addictive, then letting our children consume it freely via the internet is like leaving heroin lying around the house, or handing out vodka at the school gates. And this toxic effect is filtering down directly into young girls’ lives.

Before it gets to the girls, it’s affecting the boys. The really sad thing is that good boys are getting drawn into this sin. They don’t have to even look for it, it comes looking for them. Moms, did you know the ads you see when you surf online aren’t the same ones your husband and sons see? Once the search engines figure out they are male, the temptations start coming. This isn’t a matter of not trusting your kids, it’s a matter of not dropping them off alone in a red light district. Only, it’s in your living room now.

Please, please, please get some accountability on your computers, tablets, smartphones, and iPods. We use Covenant Eyes. They will support our ministry if you click through to them through us, but we recommended them for years before they offered to do that. Here’s a post that explains how their service works.

To read the original article, click here, but then click to resize the window – the sidebars on The Daily Mail are egregious. To read a summary of the article on a site you don’t have to adjust, click here.

Hal & Melanie Young

For more about how to teach your sons about sexuality in a Biblical context, get our workshop, Shining Armor: Your Son’s Battle for Purity, order our book, Raising Real Men, or sign up for our newsletter to be the first to know about our upcoming book about purity.

How To Talk To Your Kids When Christian Leaders Fall

This has been a pretty sobering week for many homeschool families. A very prominent leader and speaker in Christian homeschool circles confessed to an inappropriate relationship with a woman and resigned from his ministry and speaking engagements. As speakers ourselves, we and our children know most of the other families on the speaking circuit, so we realized we needed to address this with them.

How do you talk to your children when a Christian they know falls into sin? Here’s how we try to handle it.

Don’t ignore it. Children, particularly teens,  have a tremendous hypocrisy detection system. We need to be very, very careful that we don’t pretend to be without sin or pretend our leaders are without sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. 1 John 1:8-10 When we sin, we need to confess it and ask for forgiveness, especially when our children are involved. If we don’t, we may save our pride, but lose our children.

Be frank. When Christians fall and it causes a stink, it’s often a sexual sin (or the beginnings of it). These sins tempt our sons tremendously. Don’t avoid an opportunity to show them the tragic consequences that can come from indulgence. Explain the cost in terms of shame, loss of employment, effect on family members, and the effect on testimony. Pray for the leader, his family, everyone affected by this tragedy. Hard as it is, it is a good thing for your children to see this pain because the enemy is whispering to them, “No one will ever know,” when he tempts them. Instead, they need to understand that sometimes practically the whole world will know and in the end, God always does know.  This is why we love accountability software for our computers – it teaches our children that someone will know. Please protect your children. Internet filth is a primary way sexual sins get a foothold.

But, how do you explain something like this? In this case, it’s not too hard, “He had a romantic relationship with someone other than his wife. That’s not right. We are supposed to be faithful to our wives and family.” In other cases, it may be more challenging, but your guys can really benefit from the warning.

Be humble. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. 1 Corinthians 10:12 Better Christians than we are have fallen into sin. We really can’t afford to be self-righteous and neither can our children. Make sure you express to them that we are every one of us susceptible to sin and have to be careful. Pride is a huge danger for all of us. For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Galatians 6:3

And, if you disagree with or dislike the leader who has fallen, be especially humble. Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, And do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles; Lest the Lord see it, and it displease Him, And He turn away His wrath from him. Proverbs 24:17

Address their grief and anger. As we talk about in our book, everyone craves heroes, especially boys. We want someone to look up to, someone that can be an example to us. When we realize those heroes are fallible, as we all are, it’s hard enough, but when they do something repulsive to us, it can really shake us up. There are a lot of twenty-somethings and teens who are grieving and stewing and rethinking everything. Their idealism is taking a huge hit and that’s a hard thing. We need to come alongside them and help them make sense of this.

We’ll need to talk through whether this affects what they’ve been taught and what they believe. Remember, just because someone hasn’t followed Biblical principles they teach doesn’t make those principles wrong. On the other hand, if there is error, either in what has been taught or in your expression of it, confess it. We don’t lower ourselves in our children’s eyes by saying, “I was wrong,” because sooner or later (usually sooner) they’ll realize it for themselves. When we tell our children when leaders are right in some areas and not quite right in others, we’re not teaching them to despise them, we’re teaching them to not put any man on a pedestal above the Word of God. No man should be made an idol – and most teachers don’t want to be!

When our children get angry and say, “How could he?” we need to remind them that we are all sinners. David, a man after God’s own heart committed adultery; Peter even denied Him. We need to pray and pray hard that God would keep us from sin. Don’t made excuses for sin, though, and don’t try to soften it. Sin is ugly and evil and this kind of heartbreaking situation ought to make us hate it!

Remind them that though battles seem to be lost, the war is won. It’s hard to see much upside in the sin of Christian teachers being exposed. We need to remind our children that God is holy and that He has his own purposes. It may be hard for us to understand why He allows things to happen, but we need to trust Him and to remember that He wins in the end.

Pray for those leading and teaching. Our enemy delights to bring down leaders. We need to be praying for their protection. Seriously. Really praying. It’s hard not to be proud when people are praising you. Pray, pray, pray for those in authority over you, for those teaching you, for those whose books and work are blessing you. They really need it and our children need to see it, too.

Galatians gives us the pattern for this very situation. Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. Galatians 6:1 Gentleness. So, any talk on this matter needs to be gentle, humble, honest, and Christ-centered. Keep your eyes on Christ, not on us or on anyone else teaching or writing. Just on Christ who died for you.

Share the gospel with them. Whatever direction you take in this discussion, don’t neglect to tell your children that Christ’s blood covers this, too. We have all sinned. None of us is righteous and God is holy and cannot condone sin. Thankfully, He has provided a sacrifice for us. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23 What hope lies in those words!

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May the Lord keep us all from sin.

Yours in the battle,

Hal & Melanie