The following are a few notes and comments I made from a sermon that is available to you online on the topic of “Put down your trumpet”. It includes some interesting points that I believe are worth noting. I hope you find it interesting.
42:45 – 43:16 – Does it matter why we do something? The speaker suggests yes because it “causes problems later”. Here is the Transcript from this timestamp:
“Does it matter why we do what we do or does it just matter that we do the right thing? Well I guess you could ask this in a number of different settings couldn’t you?
If you asked within a marriage to a husband or a wife does it matter what you do in a marriage or does it matter why you do it?
I think every husband and every wife would say of course it matters why my husband or why my wife is doing something. I don’t just want them to do the right thing I want them to do it for the right reason”.
“I think” – Note that this is not a fact. This is what the speaker thinks. Based not on reason but emotion. He begins to make a point about what a wife or husband would want. I suppose this is an attempt to translate it into something God would want. For example, “If a wife or husband acts this way then God would act this way too”. This is not a position supported by scripture [Is. 55:8].
“Right Reason” – The speaker refuses to define what the right reason is. Who has the boldness to define such a thing? What is the reason? We seldom take time to define the “right reason” because it would require some combination of biblical evidence and rationality – something we try to avoid in religion if we can. A biblical bit of evidence for this entire cited section is lacking. Not that the evidence is not there, but this is something to note.
What about some comments on rules and motivation?
43:21-43:53 – In a family does it matter why a mother and a father give rules? Does it matter why they discipline? Does it matter why they give their children structure? It certainly does. Because the wrong motivation can lead to to some wrong things occurring in that family. Within that same family, does it matter why children obey or does it just matter that they do what they’re told? Well, it certainly matters why – because if they’re not obeying for the right reasons then that obedience is certainly not what God’s looking for”.
Let’s analyze a few of the statements made here.
“The wrong motivation can lead to some wrong things occurring in that family”. I always enjoy when a speaker takes the following stance “Well if you don’t do it my way, then bad things will happen later. I won’t specify them, but they are things, and they are very, very bad”. It is very common for a speaker to take this stance when discussing sexual discipline. “Don’t have sex before marriage or baaad, very bad things will happen“. This may be true, but the fact that the “problems” are not specified and then the cause of those problems is not identified nor the progression from faulty motivation to negative outcome analyzed, this statement is relegated to opinion.
“That obedience is certainly not what God is looking for”. Well, then what type of obedience is God looking for? Again, what are the so-called “right reasons”? If these are not specified, the entire speech runs into problems because underlying motivation is a core tenant of the speech. But we cannot make assumptions about that topic. But because the speaker does not address the topic, we can only assume.
I also enjoy when people speak for God without BCV [book chapter verse]. If you are going to say God is or is not looking at something, you better immediately back it up with scripture or you are speaking in the place of God without authorization.
Again, this is a doctrinal matter when we start to talk about acceptable and unacceptable forms of obedience – and it demands a “God Said”.
“Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They make you worthless; They speak a vision of their own heart, Not from the mouth of the Lord.”
When it comes to our actions, it is possible to do:
Good things for the bad/wrong reasons.
Good things for good/right reasons.
Bad things for the good/right reasons.
Bad things for bad/wrong reasons.
These are the 4 possible permutations of this viewpoint. Perhaps there can also be combinations of motivations, which is an intellectually rigorous topic that will not be discussed here.
To analyze the motivations/intents etc. behind actions is of secondary importance as opposed to looking at the outcomes or actions themselves. This is not binary thinking – I am not suggesting that motivations do not matter at all. What I am suggesting is a hierarchy, where the actions themselves are primary and the intentions/motivations are secondary.
I understand that there is a delineation between the old and new laws of the Bible. While the old law focused primarily on the action of the individual, the new law focuses on a person’s attitude and inner person, their thinking center, in conjunction with their actions [because a person’s action will show his heart – Matt 15].
I’m not suggesting an OT style of what might be labeled legalism by the uninformed. At the risk of seeming to be a reductionist, I am suggesting that when a person’s intentions, motivations, attitude, or heart may seem to be opposing what he wants to do, as in temptation, it is his actions that are most important.
Does it matter if your intentions were good if you fail to resist temptation?
Does it matter what you were motivated by or the reason behind why you did something if you failed in the end? No, because at the end of the day you failed, you sinned.
On the other hand: what if I do what’s right despite my intention and motivations?
What if I hold on to righteousness by the skin of my teeth through vicious spiritual warfare [Eph 6]?
What if I’m very motivated to do what’s wrong yet I do what’s right anyways out of love for God?
Or what if I’m very tempted and have a strong desire to sin, but even though I’m not feeling the so-called “loving” emotion at the time, out of an obedient, action-based love for God I keep his commandments [John 14:15, 21]?
As you can see there are times when intentions or motivations are opposed to the righteousness of God and to the lives He requires us to live.
Nevertheless, it is primarily our actions that determine rightness. Actions again are primary while intentions are merely “a shadow of the thing, but not the very image of the thing”.
It perturbs Me when speakers come to moral conclusions without biblical evidence or logical sequencing of events. If someone dares to place a moral requirement on members of the church, he better do so with the explicit authorization of God as evidenced by scripture – the BCV.
It is critical to understand this point about the Bible, and about placing religious requirements on individuals, that each of those requirements has the authorization of the word of God.
Doctrinal matters demand a “God said”. Without “God Said” in conjunction with a logical argument, the religious requirements placed on individuals are relegated to the category of “Opinion”. Worse yet, they should be relegated to the category “doctrines of men”, which by biblical definition constitute vain worship [Matt 15:9]
48:50 – 49:04: “Beware of practicing your righteousness [that’s an entire category of good works that you and I might do publicly or maybe even privately]. Beware of practicing your righteousness – this is not the righteousness that that the Holy Spirit helps us develop in our lives that’s kind of inward righteousness, or the righteousness that God attributes to us when we obey the gospel.”
The speaker also makes a comment about inward righteousness that one develops inwardly with the assistance of the Holy Spirit. Unless the speaker means that the Holy Spirit assists the individual through the word of God, then He has no evidence for his statement. Because the only way the Spirit works today is through the word of God. That is the only way the Spirit works that we have biblical evidence for [Heb 4:12, Eph 6:17] which means that all other alleged ways He is claimed to be operating are relegated again to the category of opinion.
If I do not have a book chapter and verse for what I believe, it is an opinion.
While there is nothing wrong with opinions, and we have to use discretion and logic regarding non-black-and-white issues in the scripture, we still have to be careful to not pass off our opinions as biblical facts.
50:14 – 52:25 – “When you give to the needy – did you see that? When you give to the needy. Not if. There’s an assumption being made here by Jesus. The idea of being generous to the poor and the needy, especially among God’s Own people is something that is all through scripture from beginning to end. You certainly find it commanded in the law of Moses and we don’t have time to list all of those passages, but Exodus chapter 23:10-11; Leviticus chapter 10:10; Deuteronomy 15:7-11; etc etc. The law commands generosity to the poor and needy in a variety of ways. The prophets reminded God’s people about the necessity of this in places like Amos chapter 2:6-7; Isaiah 3:14-15; Ezekiel chapter 16:49. We’re reminded of it in Proverbs in the wisdom literature Proverbs 14:31; Proverbs 21;13.
Jesus taught about it His teaching about it. Here he teaches about it in Luke chapter 6:37-38; Matthew 19:21; Mark 14:7. And you certainly see it in the life of the first-century Christian in the first-century Church, don’t you? We see it in Acts chapter 2; Acts chapter 4; James chapter 2:14-16; First John 3:17-18. So it’s an assumption that God’s people are going to give to the needy. And so when Jesus talks about this he’s not saying ‘you really need to be giving to the needy’ – they’re already doing that. In fact, even people who did not even believe in Jesus were practicing this. They were giving alms. They were giving to the poor and needy. That’s an assumption. We’re going to come back to that in just a moment but Jesus assumes that everyone’s doing this. The problem is their motivation they’re doing this before people in order to be seen by them”
Regarding point B on the PowerPoint: The assumption.
The speaker begins to talk about this passage, Matthew 6:1-4 and describes the fact that there is an underlying assumption that Christians will be giving to the poor and needy. Especially those of the household of faith. And I would agree with that statement.
What I don’t agree with is an Inception-style assumption within the assumption. So often you hear speakers today talk about the poor and needy and they’re often indirectly or even directly describing the people you might come across in the street or on highways. I have known of some speakers to even make it a point to suggest that you are neglecting a Christain duty if you drive past the panhandler on the highway. They then place some moral judgment on you based on how you view those people and what you do for those people.
Here’s the problem: these speakers have no idea if those people are actually poor or needy.
The assumption within the assumption is that panhandlers are actually poor.
But as I state frequently, those so-called poor and needy are often better off financially than most of the members of the congregation that are being shamed for not supporting those allegedly poor, needy people.
Panhandlers have a good business going, and they’re providing value to people who give them money. This is a point in and of itself and a side note that deserves further elaboration.
I’ve often wondered why panhandlers and loiterers receive so much money. I wonder this because my underlying belief has always been that if a person receives money he/she must be providing something of value in return. And what value are panhandlers providing?
This question disturbed me for some time until a potential answer became quite clear. People aren’t just giving these loiterers money. No, people giving money are purchasing the right to feel good about themselves. It’s Self-Interest.
They are purchasing a feeling of altruism. They are purchasing the freedom from the guilt they feel when they ignore those panhandlers.
Panhandlers allow donors to lift their spirits and feel morally superior to those who don’t mindlessly donate money. Not that everyone behaves or thinks this way after giving money, but it is a common theme among religious people.
Giving money to the allegedly homeless person provides you with the feeling that you are righteous. And that’s what you’re doing. You’re attempting to purchase righteousness.
It’s not about helping another person primarily, it’s about the emotional and spiritual elevation of the self with the secondary benefit of doing a good deed. Whether or not this is done on a conscious level is irrelevant – because this is based on an analysis of human nature. We are pleasure-seeking and pain-avoiding organisms. We seek to avoid the pain of guilt we feel when we drive by those people and seek the pleasure we feel from giving them money. It is an emotional proposition all the way around.
When it comes to the discussion on generosity, and being generous to people, giving of our means, it is important to note that this first extends to people inside the faith.
Being taken care of by religious people is first and foremost one of the benefits of being religious yourself. The religious community is a tight-knit community and they take care of one another. This is one of the benefits of belonging to a religious group – Other people will take care of you when you need it and you have a responsibility to take care of them when they need it. However, this benefit should not be blindly applied to everyone outside the religious community.
Obviously, as resources allow, people outside the community of the religious can and should be taken care of with the application of discretion, but not before the religious themselves have been taken care of – and certainly not without encouraging those people to join the religious community.
You can’t blindly provide people with food and expect them to join the religion. You are just training them to look for a handout.
If they’re getting all the benefits of religion without being a part of religion what is the incentive for them? People will respond to incentives.
55:29 – 55:54 – “What’s the compensation for that what are you going to get out of that? Well, that’s where Jesus says you will have no reward from your father who is in heaven. Later on the same passage, ‘they have received their reward’. In other words, the reward that you get [and there is one] but the reward that you get when you seek the praise of other people for doing good works terminates on itself. That’s it.”
Regarding point E: “Compensation”.
Indeed, everything we do has a reward. everything we do provides us with something or we wouldn’t do it.
Or it provides us the opportunity to even further maximize the benefit in the future of the process of delayed gratification. We as human beings respond to incentives – and this is a good point.
59:55 – 1:00:25“But let’s move on to what probably is a bigger issue for most of us, and that’s the issue of motivation and sounding a trumpet. The Pharisees are a bold and extreme example of this, but I believe Jesus is encompassing every kind of hypocrisy that this would involve – right down to [listen to this] the secret desire to have all of our Good Deeds discovered and praised by other people.”
“I believe” – Again, what we have is a personal opinion stated without an accompanying “God said”. The speaker does not provide the BCV for this opinion. And he is again committing what I believe to be the intellectual crime of binding moral, and religious requirements on people without the requisite authority. That is not to say the authority for his statement is not in the scripture, but rather that he simply does not cite his authority here while binding a moral requirement on others.
“The secret desire” – The speaker makes the following Point by asking the crowd if we sound a trumpet before our good deeds. He then talks about the secret desire to be seen. I see this frequently in speakers, who condemn the very desire of a thing rather than the thing itself. And maybe that has merit. certainly, there are times we need to analyze behavior to eliminate it down to the very root which would be the desire. But overly demonizing the desire misses the entire point of what it means to resist temptation.
Temptation comes primarily from desire, we learned that in James chapter 1.
We are constantly fighting the desire, the want, the temptation [all synonyms] to do what’s wrong. How many times do we choose God out of loving obedience, yet our emotions and desires pull us toward sin? What would demonstrate greater love to God, that our desire is for Him and that we don’t desire evil at all, or that we have a strong pull towards sin yet out of love we still choose God? It seems to me the latter would be the most noble. Accidental goodness is not better than hard-fought righteousness.
There’s no honor, no nobility, in resisting temptation if we aren’t desiring to do what’s wrong.
That’s what makes it a Temptation in the first place. And if Temptation comes from desire, desire itself cannot be sin. Because we know from Matthew chapter 4 that Christ was tempted. Therefore, Christ was tempted – that means that Christ experienced desire. Do you think after not eating for 40 days that He desired to turn stones into bread and eat? Certainly. Was the desire itself a sin? If it was, we have no hope for salvation.
The discussion on desire and temptation is a linear path of logic that no one can deny. Therefore it is logically and morally incorrect to suggest that desire itself is a sin.
It’s not wrong to desire/want to do wrong. At times we have strange desires that pull us toward evil – but it is in our choices and our actions that we demonstrate that love to God.
There’s no nobility in doing what is right if there is no desire to do what’s wrong. It’s that war against nature that God demands – for he himself is a man of war [Exodus 15:3]. Therefore like Him, we should be people of war: at war with their own desires and temptations.
So when it comes to the alleged “secret desire to be seen” – it’s always going to be there because it will act as a temptation that must be resisted. Even the speaker himself will later acknowledge that it is human nature to want to be seen [1:04:17].
But what do we do with that desire? In other words, even the speaker himself acknowledges that it is the action following the desire that is the critical component of righteousness. We have the desire to be seen, and that’s true, but what do we do with it? What action do we take based on that desire? Do we give into it or do we fight? It’s in the fighting that we find righteousness – and as the speaker would suggest, and rightfully so, humility.
Again, I believe that this lesson was good overall. I just wanted to point out a few of the things that come out in these lessons.
I recently had an incredible question asked by a man who is reading about the Red Pill and manosphere in conjunction with Christianity. He has kindly allowed me to reprint his question – and we will be omitting his name for privacy’s sake.
“I recently discovered your website (Spartan Christianity) about a month ago. I have also been reading a lot of Redpill content online, specifically from Rollo Tomassi.
My question to you is this: how do I integrate my knowledge of Redpill into my dating life whilst also keeping within the bounds of Christian principles? A lot of the Redpill concepts do work. But they involve getting involved in as much extra marital sex as possible. How do I navigate that minefield successfully? To walk the middle line so to speak: to acknowledge what science says but apply it in such a way that I don’t compromise my faith? Is it even possible?”
And after I ask him if there is anything specific he is concerned about with the Red Pill, he provides some more details that are very interesting. Note, he has kindly allowed me to note that his country of Origin is Zimbabwe, a conservative country.
“I don’t mind if you reprint the question on the website. I am sure a lot of people my age have that question. You can omit my name and keep my country of origin.
I have no other specific elements of the Redpill I am thinking about except for the ones I mentioned. That’s the major stumbling block for me personally. My country is still staunchly conservative so concepts like MGTOW and Divorce grape are not really things I concern myself with.
Premarital sex is very much encouraged, especially in my generation. We are the first generation to be exposed fully to Western liberal culture. And we have fallen for it. I find myself in a position where, even if I expressly tell her that we won’t be screwing each other, if I don’t sleep with the girl I am dating, some other dude will sleep with her. And this is all happening in the church, not out in the world.”
If you answer that question, you can connect a massive amount of dots in your life and faith.
In short, I think there is good news even for those of us who have faith, are single, or even if we were married before we discovered the Red Pill. And yes, it is possible to reconcile much of the red pill with Christianity. We as Christians simply have a few more boundaries than the men of the world. Red Pill observations are no less true just because we have faith – it is that the application of those principles is limited based on the moral precepts of the Bible.
We also need to remember that the Red Pill is a set of objective observations. It is not an ideology. It is just a way of thinking. A powerful perspective.
It is a way of seeing the world and intersexual dynamics the way they are, instead of how the feminized world [and feminized church] wants you to believe they are. As such it is not necessarily about reconciling these two, as Christianity is an ideology/practice while Red Pill is just a way of looking at intersexual dynamics.
So if we take that as a postulate, there should be no problem reconciling the two because one [RP] is perspective/observation and the other [Christianity] is practice/action. The perspective of the Red Pill simply informs our Christianity and helps us understand Biblical truths in a more rational manner than we would if we wore the feminized lens of the modern day.
A lot of the practice-based red pill [Generally referred to as ‘Game’, though not exclusively] does involve the goal of optimizing our [male] side of the mating strategy, which is Unlimited Access to Unlimited Sexuality – if we were secular and godless, this is how we would act in the world according to our very nature.
And even Christians have a hard time denying the powerful nature of man’s sexual drives, even though they try. The Christian Male should still seek to optimize his mating strategy, but he must do it within the confines of biblical marriage, which obviously whittles down a man’s behavioral options significantly.
And lastly, be aware that not all of my thinking regarding the Red Pill is fully worked out. Having only been unplugged 6 years or so myself, and being raised in the modern church where Blue Pill dogma is the moral and fundamentally acceptable doctrine, I am still in the process of removing what I call “Blue Pill Fragments” [BPFs] from my psychology – instances where old Blue Pill thinking leaks unto my thought processes. So if you see any BFRs sneaking into my writing [Past or Present], note them in the comments below and I’ll edit. But please note that unfortunately there are many times when the beta path is the moral one for Christian men, and we have to sacrifice the pleasures of the world for the sake of faith. But there are many instances where the Red Pill can be appreciated even through the lens of faith, and will explore that in an introductory manner here.
I think there are some fundamental caveats to the red pill lifestyle for Christians.
Key Principle – For a Christian man in the modern world, getting married is a complete leap of faith. We do not have the moral option to sexually “test out” women. This means we get one shot, and we are permanently fused by the authority of God with whoever we choose. Even if we say we place more value on character, morals, values, etc, that still does not eliminate the male sexual nature, the risk of having significant periods of sexual unsatisfaction[which happens more than you might think for many men- Christianity is not an aphrodisiac], as well as posing the same risk to your finances, career, psychological/emotional wellbeing, independence, etc. that worldly men face when they get married. Those aspects alone are dangerous for men. But these are some of the Red Pill principles I think we can use even as Christians, and these are morally acceptable positions.
1. Frame
You’ve been reading Rollo, so you may have read his line that “frame is everything“. Basically who has the degree of control over the unspoken, subconscious narrative of the relationship?
In the Rational Male, Rollo gives Iron Rule of Tomassi 1 – “Frame is everything. Always be aware of the subconscious balance of whose frame in which you are operating. Always control the frame, but resist giving the impression that you are”.
And also Rollo gives his definition of frame: “Frame is an often subconscious mutually acknowledged personal narrative under which auspices people will be influenced”.
I sometimes visualize Frame as the psychological box/boundaries [non-rigid, can be shifted with effort] that people enter into in order to communicate and act. Someone has to enter someone else’s box during any interpersonal relationship – whether a discussion, an interview, or a male-female relationship – and anyone can learn to shift the frame if they do so subtly and covertly.
In most Christian marriages, the woman holds the frame because she holds sexual access and the man is not sexually disciplined enough to be a leader, tell her no, speak about female-specific sins from the pulpit, or correct her because he knows that any of these things may cause him to lose sexual access for an unknown period of time – and worse yet, the Christian man cannot leave the relationship. If he loses frame, works under her frame, and gets sexually denied as a result, he has to deal with it. Most men just do whatever the wife wants, obeying her, and submitting to her frame because they fear this loss of sexual access. [I write about a lot of this in “6 Reasons Why Christian Men Get No Sex“.
But essentially when it comes to frame, you must be the one holding it. Establish it for yourself before you enter a relationship and refuse to let it go after you enter a relationship. A woman must enter your world, not the other way around. You should never mold or change yourself to fit her wants, unless she is pointing out a legitimate character flaw that others can vouch for as well.
Most women do not truly know what they want, so you need to take their advice with a grain of salt when they want you to “change”. Because change too much and what will she say? “I don’t even know you anymore. You’ve changed” – exactly – you changed into something different than what she was attracted to in the first place, gave into her frame, and molded yourself into the image of what she claimed she wanted instead of staying true to your character.
So resist her attempts to change you [Unless it’s a question of biblical morality], but never verbalize this. You will never get anywhere saying “Sorry woman, you can’t change me! I have the frame! I’m in control and I ain’t shifting just to have access to your vagina”. That’s what we call overt communication. Men love it, but it is not strategic or intelligent to include it in our communication with women. Learn to say the same thing without using any words by using your behavior and you will be unbreakable.
Note that many times, a woman’s attempt to get you to change is just her attempt to rattle or test the frame, and to stress-test your resolve. Do not give into her desire to shift you unless it is a question of morality, or unless she can make an extraordinarily rational argument for why you should change [which few women can – they want you to change because of an emotional feeling they have]. And even if she can make that argument, at the end of the day you need to make it clear that it was you making the decision to change yourself, not that you were doing it at the request of someone else, or to simply appease someone else.
In the relationship or in life, you need to have all the control you can, but without being a “control freak” and without ever stating it openly. Let your behavior send the message, not your words.
Frame is not about being a domineering dictator, it is about being resolute in your character and values and not shifting just because a woman wants or asks you to. And if this is done well, a Christian woman should actually naturally desire to enter your frame and be led. Women are designed by God to be excellent supporters, followers, helpers, etc. They naturally want to enter the frame of a dominant man.
Of course, they always have that pull and desire to take over – Which is why God says in Genesis 3:16 that “Your desire shall be for your husband, but he shall rule over you“. God was saying that Eve would want to run the show, wear the pants, and all that, but the husband would have to command the frame and hold the leadership of the family unit.
Based on Genesis 3, Frame is biblically authorized. So when the woman tries to take the frame [“Your desire shall be for him“], you have to hold the line as a man [“But he shall rule over you”]. Unless it is a question of morality, you should be making the calls, and helping her understand the calls you make.
Of course, this relates to male headship [and the feminized church’s misunderstanding of headship]. Most of the religious world is wrong about spiritual headship, as I’ve written before. Don’t let your local church feminist know, but biblical headship ain’t about egalitarian equalism, it’s about masculine leadership in the home. But a strong frame, covertly communicated, allows you to better maintain the God-Ordained system of male headship in the family and the church – and that is as scriptural and Red Pill as it gets.
So for our gentleman asking the question, he notes that promiscuity is running wild in Zimbabwe where he is. And that essentially if he is not having sex with a woman he is dating, and he lets her know during the dating process of his goal to delay sex until marriage, someone else will come along and have sex with her.
I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t sad, shocking, and difficult to navigate.
He also notes that this is at least partially due to pre-marital sex being encouraged in his country in conjunction with Western liberal influence. I think in his case, the situation is more dire because even in the West, in the USA, there is at least some degree of an attempt to maintain purity in dating relationships within the church. Granted many fail, and the attempt at purity seems more like a marketing scheme than a true descriptor of Christian behavior, and most men sacrifice their Alpha framework [if they ever had it to begin with] and goals for a beta ideology in order to lock a woman down quickly and secure her affections – so they think. But the encouragement of promiscuity makes the Christian walk more difficult than it has to be, no matter where you live in this world.
There is much more information I would want to know about his situation, but it would take far too long to learn everything I wanted to know. But just based on the information provided in the opening paragraphs, I would say that his situation amplifies the importance of being patient during the process, not proposing to a low-value woman, casting a large net, and spinning plates [which we will talk about below and explain why it is moral to do so].
I do not think you have the time to sit around, talking to or dating one girl at a time and just waiting for her to have sex with someone else due to her hypergamy, her free will, and cultural influence.
Though I don’t know the age of the man asking the question, it is also key to note that we as men have more time than women to get married – our sexual market value stays elevated longer. So with that in mind, don’t panic if you have seemingly no marital prospects even at age 30-35, because you still have several years to find a woman to marry. Your sexual value will remain at a respectable high for some time. We “Stay fresher, longer“, so to speak.
The Christian path we have chosen to live comes with sexual disadvantages. We choose to “Suffer with the people of God rather than enjoy the passing pleasure of sin” [Heb 11:25]. As much as married feminized men in the church try to tell you that sex within marriage is “totally worth it bro”, they don’t truly know that [since there is no way to compare the two without trying both, as I’ve written before in “Why Christian Men Have Sex Before Marriage“], and they don’t appreciate the sexual sacrifice men make for their woman.
In a long-term marriage relationship, someone’s sexual strategy will be sacrificed. In Christian marriages, it is certainly the man’s sexual imperative that is sacrificed. In the best-case scenario, men get unlimited access [tons of sex] to limited sexuality [one wife], but in most cases, men get limited access [sex withheld, sexually unavailable] to limited sexuality [one wife].
If you go 9 days without food, molded bread would taste like a gourmet meal. When a Christian man goes 9 days without being sexually fed, of course he is going to think any sex he gets is amazing. As a prisoner in a cell, waits for the door to be open and the food to be tossed in – so it is with many Christian men caged in sexless marriages due to their inability to “Forsee danger and hide themselves” [Pr 22:3] as well as make themselves more valuable in the sexual marketplace.
If you are going to commit to one woman, ensure she has a genuine burning desire for you. She has to want to sexually – but as a Christian man, you have to wait to engage in that sex. Sexual desire cannot be negotiated. It is either there or not. Any marriage book telling you to communicate about how often you want sex misses the point here. And you have to learn how to detect it in a woman without being overt. If you have to plan sex in advance or negotiate sexual frequency before marriage, just know that’s a yellow flag.
Another common theme in The Red Pill that most Christian men would have a problem with [though they have limited biblical support for their position] is the idea of a mental point of origin. When you hear the idea as I lay it out below, you may think it sounds very similar to selfishness, but it actually is different.
When you place yourself as your mental point of origin, you start any thought process or decision-making process by considering how you yourself would be impacted first before you think about others.
When you pick your college major, you pick it for you, not for a girl. When you pick your career, you pick it for you, not a woman, not your parents, not your grandparents. When you pick up a hobby, you pick it for yourself first, not to make your wife happy that you can crochet a bra.
I know, this sounds extraordinarily selfish on the surface. But it is actually natural, it happens subconsciously and is based on an analogy you have likely heard, “You have to put on your own oxygen mask in the plane before you put one on the kid beside you. Because you are no use to the kid if you are dead“.
This is the mental point of origin. No one questions it in a survival scenario – and they shouldn’t question it in normal life either. It is about making sure that you yourself benefit first before you needlessly sacrifice yourself for others. You cannot help anyone else until you help yourself – physically, spiritually, emotionally, financially, or anything.
Now the reason this is not selfish is due to the definition of selfishness. A selfish action is: “Any action that benefits me while harming others around me“. That’s selfish. Doing things for the self despite the negative impact on those around us is selfish and not a Christian way to act.
That is very different from doing things that benefit me but are neutral to those around me, such as working out. Training benefits me primarily, but has no impact on others, and is therefore not selfish because it does not negatively impact someone else – otherwise, if it did, every time we stepped out for exercise, we would be engaging in morally inappropriate selfish activity. And that is actually beside the fact that every time I physically train, I make life better for those around me in an indirect way. I can do more work, I am healthier and can live longer, I can help people physically, and my wife finds it more arousing. So one could argue that exercise is in service of others. In fact, I do argue that service of self is service of others in many instances.
However, making yourself your mental point of origin and making a decision that betters you while simultaneously improving the world of those around you is absolutely not selfish.
If I am an alcoholic [which I am not nor ever have been], and I go to Alcoholics Anonymous or rehab for six weeks, I am absolutely, 100% focusing on myself. I am purely concentrating on taking care of my personal problem with alcoholism. But am I the only one who benefits from that “selfish time in rehab”? Is anyone going to say, “People who go to rehab are super selfish!”? Of course not! Through that rehabilitation process, I become better for my employer and improve his/her world by doing better work without a mind clouded by hangovers. I become better for my wife and kids and make their world better. I become better for the church and am now a model of inspiration for others dealing with the struggle of alcohol. Most importantly, I become better for God, and better for myself.
All those positive results came from taking a period of time to focus on myself, “put on my own oxygen mask“, and improve. The world of everyone around me improves when I better myself. Who would say that is selfish? When I get a raise at work, my whole family benefits from that. And if I have to take an extra few hours a week to get training, to make myself better at my job, then that is not selfish – even though I did the training, and I did the work, I gained the skill, it was those around me who benefitted from it. Who would say that is selfish?
The problem is that men in the church think that service is a zero-sum game. They think that “They must increase while I decrease” when it comes to God, family, marriage, etc. They think that “It ain’t service if it doesn’t cost you anything”. That is not how it works. We can all increase because it is a non-zero-sum game.
The common feminized man in the church believes that if I do something for someone else, it must cost me something, and I must be reduced. When in reality, in many instances, I can serve others by serving myself. It sounds selfish to the feminized, beta, feminine-primary conditioned men, but if you will read through the logic again you will see it is not selfish at all.
You cannot help others spiritually if you don’t know the Bible. It takes time alone, to improve your personal knowledge of scripture to be able to do that. You have to take a lot of time to make yourself better so you can in turn make others better. Working on yourself helps others. Make yourself your mental point of origin.
3. You are the prize
Even in the church, we get this backward. If I as the man am going to spend the majority of my life trading my time, energy, and resources to provide for a woman and maintain her lifestyle, then she is not in the position to be sexually selective. Especially if all the women are right when they whine about the theory that “There are just no marriageable men anymore”. Well if that is so, then you, a high-value Christian man, get to pick from a line of women vying for your attention.
You have the power of selectivity and never get that backward in your thinking. Dump the Disney training you received growing up and take an objective look at what you provide to the world around you as a man – you are the prize. This is not to devalue women at all – women are valuable, moral, excellent beings – it is simply to stop you from worshipping women as you have likely been trained to do in the feminized church.
Just like making yourself your mental point of origin, you can think of yourself as the prize without becoming arrogant. This is not about masculine pride,it is not about thinking that you are better than women, or that they are worth less as human beings than you, it is about simple logistics.
If I as the man am bringing the provisions that allow for life and comfortable living; if I am the one sacrificing life and time to make that happen; if I am the one taking the risk of marriage and putting at least half my net worth on the line; if I am the one whose sexual strategy is getting sacrificed for someone else’s; then I get to pick who I invite into that frame.
A wife is not the prize, and no biblical passage supports that idea. Your God-given mission is your purpose and eternal life is the prize.
Of course, a wife is a “good thing” [Pr 18:22] and she is valuable and can make life better and complement your life, but she is not the focus of your life. No one is trying to degrade women – just take them off the altar of worship that the feminized church has placed them on.
You as the man are the one taking the majority of the risk in marriage, both in terms of financials and in sacrificing your primary sexual strategy. Therefore you need to strategize with that in mind. If you are the one making the sacrifice, you have all the right in the world to be extraordinarily selective about your potential mates.
Now I’m not saying have a rigid list of wants and needs for your wife, you’ll never find everything you want because most women simply aren’t high value, even in religion. They’ve been told they are the prize, have an inflated sense of self-worth, and artificially inflate their sexual market value through social conventions, cosmetics, and Instagram filters and therefore they do not work to improve themselves until they can no longer rely on their beauty. This was the case even in Ben Franklin’s day when he would write a letter to a friend about the benefits of courting older women for several reasons, but partly because they cannot rely on their sex appeal, they have to actually develop character. What a thought!
Just remember that you are the selector. Therefore, be selective, don’t propose marriage to just any woman. Don’t let your penis make a lifelong decision that your rational mind regrets. You have time to find a woman who will not fall into the negatives of your culture, and you should cast a large enough net to find her more efficiently if getting married is your goal.
Don’t let anyone guilt you into getting married early [or at all]. Remember Paul who was unmarried [1 Corinthians 7:8-9]. Is anyone sitting around saying he wasn’t a good Christian or that he should have done more for the church if only he had been married? Didn’t think so.
There’s no such thing as a “Lonely Old Man” there are just old unmarried men with significantly more money than they would have had if they got married. Not a value statement, just an objective reality. There are no “Soul Mates”, just women who are better or worse than each other as potential marriage partners.
There’s no such thing as a “Biological Clock”. That’s just a tool for women to shame you into marriage or having kids, especially as the window for them to conceive healthily closes and their chance to leverage the fragments of their sexual market value shrinks.
Any tactic from religion or women that relies exclusively on shame as its rationale or motivation should be questioned. I’m not against shame or guilt. I’m against shame/guilt as a standalone reason for making the life-altering decision of marriage [or any decision for that matter – always have multiple reasons or motivators for every action you take]. Shame alone convinces me of nothing. Provide logical reasoning along with a small side dish of shame once the logic is laid out, and then we can talk.
4. Avoid Pedestalizing women
God gave us work to do as men. In fact, if you read Genesis 2, you will find that after God made man, the very next thing He made was work for man to do!
Before a man ever had a woman, he had a job to do. This is called “The Order of Creation”. Men are mission built – designed to accomplish goals. And of course, the main mission is the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19-20. Therefore, the Commission is the focus of our life, not women. A good wife can help support that mission and goal, but she can never replace it.
Too many men, even in the church, worship women instead of God. They make their woman everything, cater to her every need, change themselves, and lose everything that makes them unique and that made them attractive to their wives before they got married – and worse than all of that, they fall short in their mission for God. They become obsessed with their mythologized “one” [and of course, there is no such thing – watch out for that ONEitis]. You cannot engage in this type of thinking. We are purpose-built for one task while on this earth.
Remember that it is not wrong to be single, it is wrong to avoid the Great Commission and to avoid work. That’s a good lesson to have sink into your mind.
At the risk of sounding repetitive, women are not to be worshipped. They are not the focus of your life. They are wonderful creatures who complement your life, but they are not your Great Commission. And you should never shift what you are and who you are just to fit her alleged wants in hopes of improving your sexual access to her, unless it is a question of morality.
5. Game in Marriage & Before Marriage
All the tricks and tools that the Pick-Up Artists and Game aficionados use are good stuff – in fact, Game is doubly important in marriage and can be used tactfully before marriage. And these can certainly be used with the Christian perspective.
The big problem in religion today is that if you read most marriage advice books, they only have one-half of the story with regards to sex and intimacy in marriage. Rollo talks about “Alpha seed, Beta need“, and women’s dualistic sexual strategy [Their need to find the best genetics as well as the best long-term provisioning, and to ideally do so in the same man, though this is rarely possible].
Almost every Christian-based marriage book focuses on the “beta need” – essentially, how to be a good provider and take care of your wife emotionally, but none of them talk about how to be arousing to your wife, which is completely different than being attractive to her, and it the key to sexual frequency and satisfaction in marriage – and I think it’s because the authors legitimately do not know how to do this. They have the Blue Pill conditioning that they have been installed with for their entire lives. They do not know any better – it isn’t their fault to an extent.
They will talk for years about how women want closeness, empathy, peacemaking, and need to feel comfortable and “trusting” before having sex, along with a legal contract of other requirements for intimacy, but still not be able to understand why women would be totally down to have sex with Jason Mamoa exactly 7 minutes after meeting him. “She must be a worldly prostitute…yeah…that clears up the cognitive dissonance for me“. You will be surprised at how little “comfiness” the average woman need before they leave all their clothes on a hotel floor for Henry Cavill.
This is confusing for feminized men in the church until they learn the lesson of the dualistic sexual nature of women, and why attractive traits in a man still do not make women want to have hot, passionate sex with their husbands motivated by genuine burning desire. Most Christian men are missing the “Mamoa Factor” – Heaven help us for giving that a name.
Sadly, most religious men resort to the idea that women just aren’t sexual at all, That there is no way for them to experience genuine burning desire, or they vainly try to tie in a wife’s sexual nature to the husband’s level of righteousness, with is laughably absurd. But no, women are sexual. They might not be sexual with you, they might not have sex with your neighbor Bob, but they will get sexual with someone – it is just a question of arousal. And Arousal is something you need to know before marriage.
But Game, and any of the tricks and tips you read on the SoSuave forum, in “The Game” or otherwise are A-okay for your wife. In fact, I would go beyond that and say that they are absolutely vital – as long as they do not clearly violate biblical principles [which I think most do not].
Sticking exclusively to the long-term provisioning stuff you read in “Love and Respect”, “Magnificent Marriage”, “5 Love Languages” etc. is great for being a good father, provider, or husband, but is not enough to generate genuine burning sexual desire in your wife. She is capable of it, hopefully, she is capable of having a passion for you, [and hopefully, you found out whether she does or doesn’t have that desire for you before you got married] but you must be arousing in order for it to happen.
All the Amused Mastery, Cocky-Funny stuff is more exciting to your wife than most Christian women will ever let on. Athleticism with muscular development as well as style matters more than Christian women let on. A fit guy is always more arousing than a fat guy. The sexual market value PSALMs matters. Women will rarely say these things directly because it is not “politically correct” to do so, especially in the church. Most of these women have been trained and conditioned to rattle off a bunch of stuff they don’t even believe about what they find attractive.
The medium is the message – ignore most of what women say and look almost exclusively at what they do. Their actions will tell you everything you ever wanted to know. The same applies to most people, really.
Obviously before marriage, as a Christian, you would want to be careful with too much game because it can lead to getting aroused/making a woman too aroused too early and finding yourself square in a bed with a woman, especially considering what is going on in the culture of Zimbabwe. So use it sparingly, more to test for the potential for a woman to be aroused, not to actually try to have sex with her. I understand this can be dangerous, and that it may lead to lust, which is why you have to be extraordinarily careful with it as a Christian man. If you think it’s generating lust in you or the girl(s) you are dating, then leave it out. Find some other way to assess if she has a sexual desire for you in a moral way.
6. Understanding Hypergamy
Women are always wanting to trade up. She is always on the hunt for a better man. This is hypergamy. She will always wonder if she “did good enough” with the man she married or if she could have done better and found a higher-value man. A question in her mind will always be, “Could I have leveraged my sexual market value or a higher-value man”. She of course asks this subconsciously most of the time, and not in those exact words. It is key for us that max out the PSALMs stats as much as we can to ensure that the answer to this question in her mind is an undoubted “yes”.
Rollo is fond of saying that “Hypergamy is not a straight-jacket”. It is molded and affected by circumstances, beliefs, and convictions. A Christian woman is certainly going to have beliefs and convictions that influence her hypergamy. She will always struggle with hypergamy, and she will never be immune from its effects, but she may try to act in ways that would seem to mitigate hypergamy to an extent. Just as men will always war against their sexual nature and fight to keep it in check according to the laws of God that we as Christians voluntarily choose to place ourselves under.
For instance, some Christian women are taught based on upbringing to place greater value on the male beta traits more try to secure the best “faith-based” provisioning. She may place greater value on spirituality, conviction, mutually aligned religious perspectives or values, child-rearing perspectives, and more. Many girls are taught to “look for” those things in a guy. Understand, just because a Christian woman is “looking for” those traits doesn’t make those characteristics sexually arousing, nor does it make those traits generate genuine burning sexual desire, but it still works to slightly mitigate that hypergamy.
Understand, though, that at the end of the day, her hypergamy is still going to be there. No amount of conviction and Christian values will override her base hypergamous need. Just like no amount of Christianity or conviction will do away with the male sexual energy and attraction for women. And no amount of conviction will make Christian traits arousing, because those traits are mostly about long-term provisioning – the beta plan. That is not the stuff that generates arousal, or genuine burning desire in a woman.
It’s “Quote Rollo Day” apparently – since he also frequently notes: “Biology Trumps Conviction”. And he is right. So do not put yourself in a position where biology and conviction have to go to war with each other.
7 – Spinning Plates
Time is precious for us as men when it comes to sexual selectivity. Not as precious as it is for women, since their sexual market value peaks in their early 20s and subsequently nosedives quickly. But we as men still have to first decide if we are even interested in getting married in the first place, and then after that seek, date, vet and finally marry a woman.
In the application area of the Red Pill community, there is a focus on spinning plates. This is the idea that you view women with an “Abundance Mindset” instead of a “Scarcity Mindset”, talk to many of them at once, and date many of them at once. And you communicate with them early in the interaction that you are non-exclusively dating multiple women. They can then decide to take it or leave it at this point.
Some women do not like that a man they are dating is also talking to/dating/having sex with other women [“Are you talking to other girls?” is their frequent question], but if a man is high-value enough, they will actually be fine with it, because many women are happy to share a high-value man. And the secular plate spinner is of course aiming to have sex with each of the women he is “spinning” – this keeps his sexual access high, and allows him to satisfy his sexual imperative [Unlimited Access to Unlimited Sexuality].
It goes without saying that the sexual component of spinning plates is not the way Christian men engage with women – we all know that. Even the Christian man, however, has the sexual imperative of Limited Access [access to his wife only] to Unlimited Sexuality [unlimited frequency of sex]. That is his ideal world. This doesn’t happen for most men because they do not understand the arousal/desire dynamic – but it is nonetheless the biological imperative of men – even the Christian ones.
Just to state it again so we are abundantly clear: For the non-religious man, spinning plates includes having sex with the women he is “spinning”. That is something Christian men obviously cannot engage in.
However, that does not prevent us from dating non-exclusively for the sake of rapid and efficient vetting of multiple women at once. Dating one woman at a time is slow and inefficient if the goal is marriage. It comes with massive opportunity costs, as does marriage itself. Date/talk to multiple women, and vet them out. If they are not what you are looking for, replace them with new plates. Continue until you find one or more that would be worth committing to on a more exclusive basis. Continue the dating path towards marriage, if that is your goal – which is something you should decide for yourself and only for yourself [remember you are your mental point of origin].
In fact, this was common even in the early-to-mid 1900s. Everyone knew that people could “date around” until one of the partners [usually the man] asked the other to “go steady”, at which point they would commit to seeing each other more seriously and on an exclusive basis. You can see it happening on the Andy Griffith Show for goodness sake – are we still going to call it immoral then?
I mention that lest anyone jump down my throat about how “morally reprehensible” it is to date multiple people at once, even though they have no evidence for this, especially not biblical evidence, and are only angry because they do not have enough value as men to spin plates themselves. They are lucky if they find one woman willing to tolerate them for a few dates or if they accidentally say the right things, for a lifetime.
So spin plates, but do not have sex with them. That RP truth is reconciled with Christianity as nothing immoral is being done. You are “fishing for a wife” and you are simply choosing to use a large net instead of a fishing pole.
Be upfront with women about what you are doing and spinning plates will no longer be a problem of honesty either. Tell them you are on a mission to find a wife [which is not always a great mission, make sure it is the best thing for you] and are talking to multiple people simultaneously in an attempt to be efficient with your time.
It’s key to not let the sexual drive get the best of you. This is where most Christian men fail.
Most Christian men jump into marriage because it is the only thing they can do to get sexual access. Then when the newness of the sex life wears off, or in post-sex clarity they think, “Wait, I made an expensive, sacrificial, lifelong commitment, ‘forsaking all others’ based on the desire to satisfy a sexual craving?”
Do not get married if sex is your motivation. As good as sex is, it is absolutely not worth marrying the wrong woman just to have access to it. In fact, ask yourself these critical questions, “If I couldn’t have sex with this woman, would I still marry her? Would I even want to spend time with her?” That first question will reduce the field dramatically, and the second will let you know if you are being rational, or making decisions based on lust. Maybe it is a bad question because no one would get married. That is a legitimate concern. But if you wouldn’t be able to tolerate her without having sex with her, will you really be able to tolerate her if she starts trying to withhold or weaponize sex? You take that risk in marriage – consider if it is worth the cost. The sexual drive pushes us towards marriage, just don’t let it trick you into getting married just to satisfy it.
Because remember, as a Christian man, marriage is a lifetime commitment without a moral way to escape unless your wife cheats. For Christian men to get out of a marriage and try to go marry again or without the biblical approved pattern is adultery, the same applies to just going out in the world and having sex with whoever you want [Matt 19]. That’s a sin – and as Christians, we believe it could eternally separate us from God if we remain unrepentant. That makes marriage an extraordinarily daunting, terrifying, and dangerous proposition for men.
And additionally, you must remember that you have much longer to make that commitment than women do. A Christian woman needs to marry quickly if having kids is her goal. She will not be young forever, and she is generally trying to secure a mate in her early to mid-20s, sometimes earlier, sometimes later. But as a man, you have much more time. In fact, you do not hit your sexual market value peak until your mid to late 30s. Take a breath and work with patience, because you have more time than the average woman does.
8 – Competition Anxiety and Dread
Speaking of hypergamy and other cool principles that men in the feminized church hate, let’s talk about anxiety and dread, and its relationship to sexual access in marriage.
Competition Anxiety – this is the underlying sense of nervousness that women feel when they contemplate, deal with, or try to navigate the sexual marketplace. Essentially, when multiple women compete for the same high-value man, they become anxious. They start to think, “Am I good enough/hot enough to get this guy’s attention?” Or when other women start making advances [overt or covert] on a man they are already in a relationship with, this anxiety is stirred up as well.
In both instances, competition anxiety is your friend – because it is tightly related to a woman’s arousal – not her attraction, but her sexual arousal.
“There is nothing more frightening yet simultaneously arousing for a woman than a man who is aware of his value to other women”
“Women want a man that other men want to be and other women want to bang” ~ Rollo.
Seeing as how this anxiety is actually arousing, it is in your interest to stimulate it when you can. Again, this is not immoral, though it may look that way, and is notably a dangerous thing to try if you buy into the slippery slope idea.
But women need to know that you are a man worth competing for [you are the prize, as mentioned before] and that you know you are a man worth dealing with the other competition from other women in order to have. And if you are married this becomes doubly important.
Competition anxiety is stimulated best when you have social proof of your value. If you are married and other women make advances towards you or flirt with you, you have to reject them kindly, but also make sure your wife realizes what just happened – ideally, she will have witnessed it.
Again, this must be covert. And in the end, you let her know, “You know I can’t help that women love me, but I’m with you”. Satisfy her ego by making her think she locked you down, stroke the ego by making her feel like she locked down a high-value man that other women want, and reassure her of your commitment while simultaneously making her realize that she is going to have to compete with other women if she wants to keep you loyal – she can’t just rest on her laurels, get fat, act disrespectfully and like a child and expect to retain such a man of value. That is communicated through your behavior, not your words.
Dread is closely related to competition anxiety, and it is essentially the fear of loss of security. Women have dread stimulated in them when their man is high value and the potential for him “trading up” or leaving for greener sexual pastures is very real. And dread, along with competition anxiety, is arousing for women and is built on the foundation of a man’s value. There is no competition anxiety or dread of losing a man who has no value – so make yourself valuable.
Most Christian women never experience the arousal of dread or competition anxiety. They are lulled into security knowing that they are the only source of sexual access for their husbands, and in most cases, he legitimately has no other options even if he wanted options or actively tried to get them.
That is what makes maxing out your PSALMs, holding the frame, and being sexually disciplined even within marriage so important. She needs to know she cannot let herself go, embody the principles of third-wave feminism, kick the goad of traditional masculine headship and incur no consequences as a result.
She also needs to know that if she is going to refuse to have sex with you, outright or covertly, it doesn’t phase you. You aren’t even moved. For all of history women’s power has been their sexuality – demonstrate through sexual disciple that you are a man who is not moved by that feminine power. And if she sees other women taking notice of you, her dread and competition anxiety will not allow her to act that way in the first place.
Every man should be in a position where he still has options when it comes to women. At the exact same time, a Christian man must discipline himself and commit to one woman. The options are never to be acted on for a Christian man, but his wife should be aware of them at least in a small way. That sense that there is the potential that she could lose her security to another woman is what makes sure she takes care of herself, submits to your frame, and maintains the genuine burning desire she had during her early years.
It sounds immoral on the surface, but it isn’t. What is more honorable than a Christian man who has sexual options yet voluntarily rejects them all in order to be faithful to his wife? That is true nobility. It is the type of nobility that most Christian men will never have because they will never have options because they have bought hook, line, and sinker the feminized church’s idea of what women want.
Closing
That should be a little bit to get everyone started thinking about the Red Pill and how well it can be reconciled with Christianity.
If any of this does not make sense, needs to be expanded on, or if there are key points I should include in another section, please comment below or contact me through this page or on social media. I think there are many more things that could be discussed here. This is just a start.
There are far and away too many social activities happening in the modern religious world. This leaves little time for solitude and quiet reflection on God’s word, which is the only Bible-backed tool that leads to increased faith [Rom 10:17].
It is not far-fetched to suggest that imitation of the habits and behaviors of Christ would be likely to result in spiritual development. Why then do we refuse to acknowledge the frequent practice of Christ to withdraw Himself from the crowd, take Himself to a secluded place to be alone and pray?
Matthew 14:22-23: “Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, while He sent the multitudes away. And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. Now when evening came, He was alone there.“
Mark 1:35: “Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place, and there He prayed.”
Luke 5:16: “So He Himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed.”
Luke 6:12: “Now it came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.”
This freed His time and renewed His mind and energy to engage in the most valuable activities. Not VBS. Not social events within everyone’s specific age groups. But the direct preaching of the word of God, the confirmation of that word through the use of miracles, the salvation of souls in addition to the constant war against the urges of the flesh that allowed Christ to be perfect, able to carry our sins to the cross with Him.
In stark contrast to the practices of Christ, many churches today find themselves engrossed in an unending cycle of gatherings and social events.
We are concerned with being entertained. The modern man is interested in “engaging” worship sessions, discussions, mixers, and other events supposedly more “lively” than hearing the simple truth of God preached from a pulpit.
The focus has shifted from the direct preaching of God’s word to a preoccupation with entertainment.
While these activities allegedly create a sense of community and provide enjoyment to some [which is not the purpose of the church or worship], they constantly fall short in terms of fulfilling the primary purpose of a religious institution – which is the spreading of the gospel of Christ and subsequent salvation of souls.
We do ourselves a great disservice by excessively concentrating on these empty activities. They yield very little when it comes to our main purpose in life which is to fear God and keep His commandments [Ecc 12:13-14] and preach the gospel to every creature [Matt 28:19-20].
“Consider your ways,” says the prophet Haggai [Haggai 1:5 & 7] to the people of Israel who did not have their minds and lives centered on God.
As the temple of God sat in ruins, they took plenty of time to construct their own homes. In this section of scripture, the prophet makes it a point to mention twice the importance of considering one’s ways.
Considering one’s ways requires quiet. It requires solitude. Reflection requires a calm, deliberate spirit of focus directed inward.
It is a delicate and weighty matter to reflect on our own sins. Solitude is critical in understanding the gravity of sin – an understanding that cannot come without deliberate, effortful thought.
Understandably, engaging in this type of deliberation and effortful thought is not encouraged, nor is it possible with the incessant arbitrary events that many churches today schedule.
In their minds, it is as if skipping the summer festival means you are a bad Christian who does not care about God. Skipping the fall festival is equivalent to skipping Sunday morning worship.
Forget the fact that these same judgmental individuals have likely not read the Bible but manage to find a way to attend every social event that provides free food and acts as pseudo-childcare for their poorly behaved and undisciplined children.
Consider the simple practicality of the business of modern-day life. The average man works 45 hours per week [counting his lunch break] and then loses another 5 hours with commute and morning preparations for work. He is left with a respectable amount of time to attend to his family and most importantly develop his relationship with God including the time spent at Sunday morning worship. After this time there is much less left for other important matters of life such as professional development, rest, and recreation.
While some might consider these events “recreation”, I consider them entertainment. And as such they profit little and cost much – both in money and in time, that most precious asset.
These pseudo-spiritual social gatherings manage to eat away several more of the working man’s weekly hours and provide him with nothing in return but the sensation of being drained and the illusion of spiritual growth.
The working man certainly did not develop his thinking apparatus during these events.
Nor did his children develop spiritually because they were too busy “Dunking the Deacon” in the dunking booth and falling down the inflatable slide after eating twelve cupcakes to have any cognizance of that 5-minute devotional someone attempted to lead after an equivalent 5 minutes of preparation and study for that “devo”.
The development of the spiritual mind is a difficult task requiring focused, concentrated effort by all parties involved. The use of constant social events cleverly disguised as spiritual events does not aid, but rather hampers the spiritual development of the individual from the level of the smallest child even to the adult.
This is because the vast majority of spiritual development happens with concentrated, purposeful bible study in the home. To constantly take the family out of the home leaves less time for this most important formative activity – the study of the mind of God.
But other families who were spending little to no time studying the mind of God are all too happy to attend these social events. They are not losing out on spiritual growth because they were not growing spiritually, to begin with. They were decaying slowly while laboring under the delusion of growth.
They think they are improving but they mistake fun and excitement for genuine spirituality. These people are the ones who keep the social events up and going. They plan them, schedule them, participate in them, and think they are great. But these are “sugar” events that lead to nothing more than the rotting decay of the spirituality of the church.
All to say that social events in the church are more of a hindrance than they ever were a help. I would argue that the health of the church would be increased if the frequency of these events were reduced by a minimum of 50%.
Not only would this lead to an improvement in the spiritual growth of families [assuming they use this now free time to study the Bible instead of binge-watch television], but it would counterintuitively improve relationships among the church members. This is due to the fact that many members of religious communities become tired of seeing one another.
Proverbs 25:17 – “Let your foot rarely be in your neighbor’s house, Or he will become weary of you and hate you.”
We were not designed to constantly be around one another.
Yes, I am aware that someone will bring up the passage of first-century Christians being in one another’s homes every day [Acts 2:46], and that is a fine ideal, but it is simply that, an ideal. We will become weary of one another if we are around one another too often.
Anyone who lives with another human being for any length of time learns this lesson swiftly and accurately. Whether it is a wife or a roommate, there are many times when tensions develop because of close quarters and the constant presence of each other.
Take advantage of the fact that being home and separate will allow us to regain that sense of longing to be together. That is a sensation that many in the church lack – and they could easily get it back if they were not spending every waking moment together [only a slight exaggeration].
Reducing arbitrary social events will increase the overall morale in the church by allowing us to have some time to breathe, reflect, and have separate moments away from each other – which is to the benefit of all.
Endurance training is critical for overall health and fitness. It keeps the heart, lungs, and circulatory system healthy and improves overall fitness, which can reduce the risk of many diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and stroke[1].
Endurance sports create a stronger, healthier body by adapting muscles, the cardiovascular system, bones, joints, and lungs to the new task[2]. Endurance exercise training has many positive effects on health including improved metabolism, reduction of cardiovascular risk, and reduced all-cause mortality[3]. And endurance training is effective at improving the heart’s ability to pump oxygenated blood and reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease. It also reduces symptoms of depression and anxiety while improving cognitive function[4][5].
But what is frequently overlooked is the value that endurance training has on the mind. If you have followed this site for any length of time, you know we hammer the relationship between physical fitness and mental fitness. The two are not the same, but they overlap significantly. And improvements in one area have spillover effects that improve the other area as well.
All training is training of the mind.
Everything we engage in has the opportunity to make our minds better. But only physical training can bring all the health benefits that physical training can. And in very few other activities can you find something physical that profoundly benefits the mind.
One of the main values of endurance training is the development of mental toughness.
Endurance training can help develop mental toughness by teaching us to push through physical fatigue and pain, building our capacity to tolerate discomfort and overcome adversity[1]. Allow though it is not a perfect match, there is still a large amount of carryover.
There are few more valuable skills to develop than toughness of the mind. It is a way to callous yourself from the difficulty of the world. If you cannot avoid difficulty, the next best thing is to make yourself immune to it. And any activity that can thicken those callouses of the mind will serve you for years to come.
You live in a world of people who have weak minds and weak bodies. They have not begun to even improve one of them! It’s difficult to begin that process, that is critical.
Long training runs or rides can help train the mind for the monotony of an endurance event[2]. Mental toughness is the ability to deal with difficult situations and to pivot and be flexible in the face of adversity[3][4][5]. Endurance athletes should work on their mental skills to produce consistently high levels of performance despite everyday challenges and significant adversity[5]. Therefore, endurance training can help individuals develop mental toughness by building physical resilience and teaching them to cope with difficult situations.
Another value of endurance training is the development of discipline.
Endurance training requires a consistent effort over a period of time. This consistency can help to develop discipline, which can be applied to other areas of life. Much of what you want to achieve requires effort concentrated over time. If you can develop discipline through endurance, you are much more likely to have success in other areas of your life. This is another example of the spillover effect of training.
Endurance training can help develop discipline by teaching individuals to push through physical fatigue and pain, building their capacity to tolerate discomfort and overcome adversity[1].
Endurance requires a high level of discipline to maintain a consistent training schedule and to push oneself to complete long and challenging training[2]. Through regular practice, we can learn to develop the discipline needed to maintain a consistent training regimen and to push ourselves to achieve our goals[1].
Endurance also requires mental discipline to maintain focus and motivation during long and monotonous workouts[3]. Therefore, endurance training can help individuals develop discipline by teaching them to push through physical fatigue and pain, maintain a consistent training regimen, and develop the mental discipline to maintain focus and motivation during monotonous training.
In addition to these values, endurance training can also have physical benefits.
It can help to improve cardiovascular health, reduce the risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease, and improve overall fitness levels. Endurance training can also help to improve muscular endurance, which can make everyday activities easier and reduce the risk of injury.
There have been several studies that support the benefits of endurance training. One study published in the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology found that endurance training can help to improve mental toughness and resilience in athletes (Connaughton et al., 2010).
Another study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that endurance training can help to improve muscular endurance and reduce the risk of injury in individuals (Schoenfeld et al., 2017).
With that in mind, in the future, we will talk about how to start endurance training and get your life in order starting with your fitness.
References: Connaughton, D., Wadey, R., Hanton, S., & Jones, G. (2010). The development and maintenance of mental toughness: Perceptions of elite performers. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 32(5), 682-704.
Schoenfeld, B. J., Grgic, J., Ogborn, D., & Krieger, J. W. (2017). Strength and hypertrophy adaptations between low- versus high-load resistance training: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 31(12), 3508-3523.
Marriage carries inherent risks, even for modern Christian men. There is the risk to his wealth. A woman can divorce him [and in the modern day she can do so for no reason] and rob him of his earnings for years to come. This is called alimony.
Modern divorce favors the woman. Why should we be surprised that people do things they are incentivized to do? When women are incentivized by the government to divorce their husbands and to be single mothers, we should not be surprised when they do so.
Another risk involves the permanence of marriage. There is no getting out. It is a permanent contract. The problem is not the fact that it is a permanent commitment, the problem is that this commitment puts both men and women at risk.
Men are put in a position of having only one source of potential sexual intimacy that they can have while remaining obedient to God. No porn or other women are allowed. This gives the woman extraordinary power. She has authority over all the access a man has to his only option of sexuality.
Of course, God knows this outlines a principle of mutual authority over one another’s bodies in marriage.
Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me:
It is good for a man not to touch a woman. 2 Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. 3 Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.5 Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
But just because the command exists has little bearing on the inherent risk built into the power dynamic of marriage. We disobey commandments all the time. So the simple fact that a command exists does not mean people will live in accordance with it.
Based on this passage, neither partner in marriage is allowed to sexually deprive the other. Nonetheless, what is one of the most common complaints of men in marriage? It is generally about sexual frequency, quality, or some other component of sexuality. Now it is the husband’s responsibility to max out his own sexual market value as much as he can, but the power of sexual access remains with the woman.
3 The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?”
4 And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who [a]made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
7 They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?”
8 He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for [b]sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.”
10 His disciples said to Him, “If such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not to marry.”
Jesus Teaches on Celibacy
11 But He said to them, “All cannot accept this saying, but only those to whom it has been given: 12 For there are [c]eunuchs who were born thus from their mother’s womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He who is able to accept it, let him accept it.”
Jesus and the apostles discuss marriage as a challenging and demanding commitment.
The Bible has clear and concise teachings on marriage, divorce, and remarriage. It is only mankind who has perverted and twisted these teachings to accommodate his personal desires.
The above passage gives the guidelines for a marriage.
Marriage is between one man and one woman.
It is not lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason.
The only reason that a man or woman can divorce their husband or wife is because one party had sex with someone else [fornication/adultery].
A man or woman can remarry if their spouse dies.
It does not simpler than this teaching, but people live as if biblically approved marriage is not a requirement for godly living.
At the end of Christ’s speech on marriage, the apostles came to a logical conclusion: marriage no longer sounds like a good deal for us compared to what we thought it was before.
Marriage sounded okay to them until they learned that Christ’s teaching made marriage permanent.
So the apostles then further deduced that it would be better for a man not to marry at all.
That is quite an interesting conclusion.
Is it rational? I believe it makes rational sense. It is difficult to argue with the logic of the apostles.
Once they heard Christ’s teaching they performed a quick cost-benefit analysis of marriage and determined that marriage was not worth the risk and the cost.
What is even more interesting is Christ’s response to the apostle’s deduction.
Christ doubles down on the teaching and tells the disciples that not everyone can accept the teachings of marriage and some go down the path of the eunuch. He does not argue with them or say they misunderstood Him. Rather he explains the practical ways a Christian man can live without being married.
B. Understanding the Concept of Eunuchs
A eunuch is a person who literally has his genitals removed. Some also argue that the term “eunuch” could be a figure of speech for someone who voluntarily denies himself the opportunity for marriage in favor of serving the kingdom without the removal of the genitals.
So Christ’s response to His apostles’ deduction that “A man is better off if he does not get married” is to educate them on the ways that some men go about living that way.
Christ was not teaching that we should never get married, but to rather be wise and discerning when making that decision.
II. Acknowledging Statistical Realities About Marriage
A. Applying Real-World Statistics:
There are inherent risks to marriage for men. You have to consider them practically. These risk-based stats change from year to year. Look them up to see what they are now, as they will not be included here.
1. Financial risks
Division of assets and potential loss of wealth in case of divorce. Get divorced, lose your stuff – even if that divorce is based on the emotional whim of the woman who has no legitimate reason for the divorce.
Potential alimony payments or financial support obligations.
Joint liabilities and debts accumulated during the marriage. Feminine-centric society expects a “good man” to marry a woman and take care of her student loan debt for her psychology degree while she stays at home without any kids and runs MLMs online.
Changes in financial goals and priorities due to shared expenses and responsibilities. A man has to get used to providing for two. Whatever his dreams were for life, many of them get sacrificed to the altar of “being a good man”. Make sure marriage is worth that sacrifice because it is a steep one.
2. Career risks
Potential disruptions to career progression due to family commitments. Many men, especially in religion, are expected to make career decisions while thinking about their families first. I would argue there is no better way to guarantee misery for a man than for him to manipulate and contort himself based on the wants and expectations of others, even if those others are his own family.
Balancing work and family responsibilities, which may require adjustments or compromises. Marriage can be a blessing but understand that it will come at the cost of much of your personal time.
Relocation or changes in job/school prospects due to the spouse’s career or family needs. How many men have followed the “girl of their dreams” to a college, to a college major and eventual career that does not fit them and is unsatisfying to them? But they believe if they just meet all of a woman’s qualifications for them, they will earn her intimacy. These men are confused about what a woman finds arousing. Desire cannot be negotiated. No amount of placating will make a woman burn with desire for her husband. A man risks lifelong contentment in a career that fits his skill, inclination, and enjoyment for the sake of a woman. That is a massive risk.
3. Emotional risks
Relationship challenges, conflicts, and potential emotional distress. If you hear anything from married Christian men, it’s that “marriage is work” or “marriage is hard“. You hear those statements more often than anything else regarding marriage. So as a result they should stick out in your mind. But a second effect is that we take the statement less seriously because we’ve heard it a thousand times. It’s true though. There are many hard things in life. Each person has to decide for themselves if the reward is worth the difficulty. The same applies to marriage. Decide if the difficulty is worth the reward.
Changes in personal freedom and autonomy. One of the best parts of early college for me was not having to ask anyone if I could do something or tell anyone what I was doing. I came and went as I pleased. In marriage, you cannot always do that. I don’t ask for permission since I’m the source of authority in marriage right below God, but I do inform my wife about what I’m doing so she doesn’t worry. This is not a problem, but it is another thing to think about. And inconvenience where one did not exist before.
Emotional stress associated with maintaining a healthy and fulfilling relationship. Many people suffer emotionally because they worry about their families. Maybe this is a “good worry”, but it is still a worry – an uncomfortable sensation. It is something that comes as a cost of marriage.
4. Lifestyle risks
Adjusting to shared living arrangements, household responsibilities, and potential conflicts over decision-making. Whether married or not, living with other people is no joke. There will absolutely be difficulties and inconveniences. From simple annoyances concerning people not washing their clothes or dishes, to bigger ones like people’s animals damaging household appliances. It is challenging to live with others. If you are going to do so, the reward has to be worth it. For roommates, the reward for putting up with each other is a cheaper living situation – as rent and utilities are split between tenants. This makes the trade worth it for many people. For marriage, there are also rewards, but they come at costs. Nothing is free. Consider if the reward is worth it.
Changes in personal routines, hobbies, and social life due to marriage commitments. You will not be able to live as a married man in exactly the same way you lived as a single man.
The need for compromise and negotiation in various aspects of life, including leisure activities, financial decisions, and long-term goals.
B. The Church and Human Nature:
We continue to make comments about human nature because it is critical to understand. Some have this idea that human nature does not apply in the church. You can tell by some of the statements they make.
“You Christians are supposed to be happy all the time”. “Wow, You never want to do what is wrong, do you?” “Being good is easy for you”. “Marriage is easy for you Christian people”.
People make the incorrect assumption that the moment you walk into a church building you deposit your human nature in a box in the front foyer. Everyone who is a Christian knows this is not the case. We continue to be human beings and have our human nature despite our religious faith.
A man and woman have unique desires and tendencies in marriage. Sometimes these conflict. This conflict results in people taking different actions.
Men want sex, women want security. Men want a career, women want a family. Also, Men want skill, women want social interaction.
Of course, these are not all-or-nothing descriptors. Men and women can want various things and have overlapping desires. But nonetheless many have different wants and needs in life and love. Each of these differences can cause conflict. One or more parties will have to compromise. Is that compromise worth the rewards of marriage to you?
III. Selectivity and Discernment in Marriage Partner Choice
A. Emphasizing Selectivity:
It is the role of a man to be wise and discerning when choosing someone to marry. Because if you obey the Bible, that is a permanent decision. There is no going back. There is no getting out. Therefore you must leave nothing to chance and avoid guesswork.
Mutual Faith: This is the foundation. It should go without saying.
Genuine arousal: you have to find ways to determine if your wife is genuinely aroused by you. I do not mean attracted. And I don’t mean compatible. I mean sexually arousing. Is she sexually excited by you? Obviously, as a Christian, you should be avoiding sexual intercourse until marriage. That does not mean you cannot determine if she is aroused by you or not.
Trust and sincerity: Trust and sincerity are essential qualities to look for in a life partner. It is important to choose someone who is honest and trustworthy. This is a question of character. You have to determine this by all of her interactions and even micro-interactions in social settings as well as her behaviors in her private life.
Priorities: it is important to consider your priorities when choosing a life partner. Some important questions to ask yourself include: Do I want to have children? Where do I want to live? Do I want to work or manage the home (or both?)? What do I want to accomplish before I die? What kind of lifestyle do I want to have?
Behavior and etiquette: watching etiquette and basic nature when choosing a life partner. It is important to observe how a potential partner behaves with you and others.
People’s actions are 5-10x more important than their words.
With their behaviors, people will tell you exactly what they think, feel, believe, and want. It is easy to lie with words, but much more difficult to do so with actions.
When people’s words and actions don’t line up, look at their actions. Behavior will always tell you the truth.
If women confuse you with “mixed signals” [of which I would argue there is no such thing, most of the time], then look at their behavior
Compatibility: Compatibility is an important factor to consider when choosing a life partner. It is important to use the logical parts of your brain to determine whether someone is a good fit. Use your mind but also trust your intuition.
Find out what your woman’s values are. First, ask her, then watch her behavior. If her behavior and words are in conflict, believe her actions. Once you have her values, consider if they overlap with yours or not.
True compatibility is core value overlap.
If faith is not at the center of these values, you will have a problem. This is the most important facet. Differing faiths will handicap you as badly as having a wife who is not sexually aroused by you. These are both highly dangerous scenarios.
B. Recognizing Moral and Lifelong Commitment
You have to understand that people of faith are morally bound to maintain a faithful marriage. It is a lifelong commitment. You make a promise to God to be faithful, and you subject yourself to the penalty of judgment if you break that oath.
The cost is steep, but the rewards are also promising for some women. You have to make that decision with wisdom.
IV. Practical Strategies for Risk Mitigation:
A. Pre-nuptial Agreements:
Many unmarried or even married men will chuckle at this suggestion. But you know who isn’t laughing? The divorced man who lost 50% of his net worth will have his wages garnished to pay alimony for the next several years. This man is free from cloudy emotionalism. He has a perfectly rational mind – it’s a shame he acquired that mind too late.
A Pre-nup is asset protection and it makes perfect sense.
If a woman is planning to stay with a man for life, she won’t care about a pre-nuptial agreement. She will have no reason to be annoyed that she won’t get favored in divorce because she isn’t planning to get divorced.
Perhaps some would be insulted and say that a prenup means that the man doesn’t trust the woman. And considering how men fare in divorce courts and the fact that women are more likely to initiate divorce, men have a right to be apprehensive about the modern institution.
A logical woman would understand.
Some would then suggest “Well then what is going to stop a man from going out and cheating on his wife?”. I would say that if the only thing stopping a man from having sex with other women is his fear of losing his wealth, the relationship has bigger problems.
Asset protection: One of the main benefits of a pre-nuptial agreement is that it can protect assets from divorce by allowing financial protection through a pre-arranged, legally binding agreement. A good prenup will protect a man from frivolous divorce based on the emotional whims of the wife. Sure the man could initiate the divorce, but as we mentioned, it is not as likely as a woman initiating it.
A pre-nuptial agreement allows both parties to be open and honest about the assets and debts they bring to the marriage, and it requires the couple to discuss their financial expectations regarding these assets and any future assets they acquire as a couple.
Wealth protection: A pre-nuptial agreement can help you and your future spouse protect your wealth, both the individual wealth you bring to the marriage and the money you will gain throughout your marriage.
It allows you to designate what property should remain separate and what will be shared, which can be particularly useful for couples trying to keep separate significant pieces of personal property, including future inheritances and other anticipated income.
The value of the modern prenup is the protection of the assets and the protection of the asset generational potential of the man.
Debt protection: A pre-nuptial agreement can also protect you from your partner’s debts. It can include a provision that one spouse isn’t obligated to pay the debts of the other spouse.
Inheritance protection: A pre-nuptial agreement can also help protect inheritance rights. It can handle inheritance and ownership rights in the life insurance or disability policies.
Validity: A pre-nuptial agreement can make divorce proceedings less complicated and less expensive, as it can help avoid disputes over property and assets. It can also make the divorce process faster and less stressful. Should Christian people be thinking about divorce before they even get married? No, but a man has a responsibility to protect himself and hedge his bets against the possibility that he is marrying someone who will take him for all he is worth. Marriage is risky even for the Christian man.
Or consider this. If a pre-nuptial agreement is out of the question, what about donating assets to charity in the event of a divorce?
Say that neither party wants a pre-nuptial agreement. Would they agree that in the event of divorce, assets would be split evenly and anything irreconcilable would be donated to charity? If not, consider the motivations of the individual members of the marriage party.
V. Awareness and Preparedness
A. Seeking Wisdom and Guidance:
It is important to seek guidance from men you respect. Oftentimes people like married couples, ministers, or other church leaders would be the ones you should talk to, especially in matters concerning spirituality.
But in this instance, many of these people do not understand the biblical structure of marriage. They have accepted the modern, 21st-century version of marriage that is feminine-centric, dangerous for men, and requires a man to essentially castrate himself and bow to every whim of the woman or risk losing access to his only source of sexual intimacy. This is not what you are after.
When it comes to seeking advice, it is critical that you only take advice from people whose results you want to replicate.
This seems obvious, but people will take advice from anyone these days.
Therefore, if you know men who are in feminine-centric marriages dominated by women [who also “wear the pants”], you probably shouldn’t take their advice unless you want to end up in their situation.
Who wants to end up there? Not a soul.
So if you want to learn from anyone, pick someone who you would happily trade places with. If you wouldn’t trade places with the person giving the advice within the respective field in which they are giving the advice [i.e., if you wouldn’t trade career positions with someone giving career advice or if you wouldn’t trade marriages with the person giving the marriage advice] then reject the advice.
VI. The Covenant of Marriage
A. Honoring the Sacred Covenant:
Divine purpose: Marriage is held in God’s own heart and is a spiritual reality. This means that marriage is not just a human invention, but rather a divine purpose that should be approached with reverence and respect. Even though that is not how it is treated today, that is how God designed it in the beginning. And we should work to get back to that original design for marriage.
Highest commitment: Covenant marriage is the highest commitment two people can make to one another. Just as Christ has made an unshakeable, unbreakable covenant with His bride the Church, so we in covenant marriage make the highest commitment to one another. Meaning marriage is not just a legal contract, but a sacred covenant that should be taken seriously.
God-sealed covenant: God considers marriage to be a covenant relationship. This means that marriage is not a simple human agreement, but a covenant that is sealed by God. This means that marriage is not just a social or legal institution, but a spiritual one as well.
Marriage does have innate risks for men. This is not what God intended, but this is what marriage has become, especially modern marriage.
The risks for men are undeniable, but the benefits are also incredible as well. But not every marriage gets those benefits. Not every marriage is enjoyable. This is why the decision making and groundwork you do before marriage are so important.
Be wise. Marriage is dangerous for men to enter into blindly and without any consideration. You can make it good, but not by accident.
