Husbands, Are Your Prayers Hindered? Do You Understand Your Wives?

I have heard this numerous times among men. With a chuckle of knowing resignation one may tell another what his wife does that doesn’t make sense to him. “There’s just no understanding women,” they might say.

Is this right?

In a larger passage about being subject to each other, Peter writes:

Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. (1 Peter 3:7 ESV)

Peter admonishes Christian husbands to understand their wives and live in accordance with that understanding. Not only is it possible for a husband to understand his wife, it is commanded. Husband, you study cars, sports statistics, politics, or whatever else you are interested in. Yet you refuse to study your wife to know her better? Study her like your life depended on it.

The effect is that the wife of a Christian husband will be honored. Perhaps you don’t want to honor your wife. Why did you marry her if you didn’t want to honor her? You show yourself to be a fool for an honored wife will glorify her husband. (1 Cor 11:17)

Ultimately, however, the result of not doing this is that the husband’s prayers will be hindered. I said study her like your life depended on it. If you’re prayers are your connection with the One who gives you life, then your life indeed depends on understanding your wife and living like it.

Christian husband, an amazing way to fulfill this is to pray for your wife. You should be doing this anyway, but I know that many do not. I have seen miracles happen in marriages where husbands pray for their wives. The next miracle could be for you.

Prayer and Party Affiliation

An interesting set of statistics from the Atlantic:



Why do you think the hard left reports as praying as much as the hard right?

And I wonder if one side more often prays missionally as Timmy Brister discusses?

Pray for the Persecuted...

...that God will be glorified.

Paulas from Nepal posted a prayer request for the persecution going on in a village in India.

Warning: there are images that may disturb some people.

The Prayer at the DNC vs. the Prayer of a Real Christian

With regarding practical theology, here's the prayer offered by Donald Miller at the DNC:

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Here's the transcript:

...will you please join me for a few moments of reflection as we close our evening in prayer?

Father God,

• This week, as the world looks on, help the leaders in this room create a civil dialogue about our future.

We need you, God, as individuals and also as a nation. We need you to protect us from our enemies, but also from ourselves, because we are easily tempted toward apathy.

• Give us a passion to advance opportunities for the least of these, for widows and orphans, for single moms and childrens whose fathers have left.
• Give us the eyes to see them, and the ears to hear them, and the hands to serve them.
• But Help us serve people, not just causes. And stand up to specific injustices rather than vague notions.
• Give those in this room who have power, along with those who will meet next week, the courage to work together to finally provide health care to those who don’t have any, and a living wage so families can thrive rather than struggle.
• Help us figure out how to pay teachers what they deserve and give children an opportunity to get a college education.
• And Help us figure out the balance between economic opportunity and corporate gluttony.

We have tried to figure out these problems ourselves but they are still there. So we need your help.

• Father, will you restore our moral standing in the world?
• A lot of people don’t like us but that’s because they don’t know the heart of the average American.
• And will you give us favor and forgiveness, along with our allies around the world?
• Help us be an example of humility and strength once again.
• Lastly, father, unify us. Even in our diversity help us see how much we have in common. And unify us not just in our ideas and in our sentiments—but in our actions, as we look around and figure out something we can do to help create an America even greater than the one we have come to cherish.

God we know that you are good. Thank you for blessing us in so many ways as Americans. I make these requests in the name of your son, Jesus, who gave his own life against the forces of injustice. Let Him be our example. Amen.

With the understanding that this was written down ahead of time, I offer a few thoughts:

"This week, as the world looks on, help the leaders in this room create a civil dialogue about our future."

But when the world isn't looking...?
"...help the leaders...create a civil dialog..." rather than "...please create a civil dialog..."
"...leaders in this room..." What about leaders elsewhere?
"...a civil dialog..." This is a good acknowledgment that they need to work on this. The DNC has been pretty good about being rhetorically uncivil.
"...dialog about our future." What good does merely talking about it do?
"...about our future." Rather than acknowledging that God holds our future in His hands.


Ok, I'm already tired of tearing this thing apart. I could do this with every phrase offered here, but I'm not. It's a very poor prayer.

Bait and switch time.

All good and decent Christians pray poor prayers to one degree or another. Our minds are still much polluted from contact with a fallen world. We are ignorant of much truth. We look through a glass dimly. We are still being sanctified. Between the Holy Spirit guarding the intent of our hearts and Christ offering intercession on our behalf, the Father knows and understand the desires of His children.

As you pray for wisdom for those in office and those compaigning, understand that you still need to pray for wisdom for yourself as well. Approach the throne of God with a humble heart, with fear and trembling. However, approach with confidence in the power of the Holy Spirit and the work of Christ.

Random Thoughts

I’ve been slammed with projects lately and haven’t had time to post much. I’ll give you a run down of some of my latest disjointed thoughts and musings.

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It occurred to me that materialism is necessarily deterministic. Then, I realized that unless God is not the creator of all things or He is not omniscient or He is not omnipotent, then all things are ultimately determined by Him. However, materialistic determinism is physical and existential. Therefore, unless God created a physical universe where the laws of physics are always constant, then metaphysical principles, which precede and define the physical, at least occasionally override physical laws thus making materialistic determinism an impossible proposition.

In this same vein, if the human will is limited to mere neurological activity then our minds are products of materialistic determinism. It is true that nothing informs our decisions that are outside of God’s created order. But this created order includes that which is spiritual. Inasmuch as the spiritual is metaphysical, then we are agents of metaphysical manipulation of physical existence. That doesn’t mean that we can go about breaking the laws of physics on our own, but rather that the animation of our bodies is a product of something greater than the mere chemical and electric impulses found in our nervous system.

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I’ve come to realize that DNA is arranged to store and convey information, much like a language. The two differ in one astonishing regard. Language requires an external common frame of reference for the purpose of communication. If I write using the Phoenician alphabet with the understanding that most people in this world don’t know Phoenician, then I can expect that most people will not be able to understand what I’ve written. However, if I write in English, there are dictionaries all over the place to fix the common frame of reference. If you don’t understand a word, then you can look it up. If you understand the word order and usage of at least most of the words, then you can understand my intended meaning. If I write the word “branch”, you have the experiences of trees, streams of water or genealogical lines associated with that word.

The language of DNA is different because it does not exist for the purpose of communication. It exists for the purpose of defining and building biological morphologies. The astonishing thing is that you can define a biological morphology in any language you want. You can invent your own language for the express purpose of defining all the morphological possibilities of an organism or its genetic family. It’s useless unless you have a frame of reference with which to translate the definition from the language into an actual functioning morphology. The astonishing part is that the language of DNA is self-referencing. Within the language and definition is the information required to perform the translation. The breadth of this capacity exceeds that of, say, the Rosetta Stone by several orders of magnitude.

DNA is more than mere information. Necessary for its function is an understanding of quantum and macroscopic physics since the DNA itself functions on the quantum level and defines organisms that function macroscopically.

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I’ve often contemplated the benefits and drawbacks of evidential and presuppositional apologetics. Although presuppositional apologetics is compelling if you understand it, evidential apologetics is better understood by the average person. There is yet a third way, and I haven’t named it yet. Its intent is evangelism where the truth is espoused. Either the Holy Spirit quickens people to understand or He doesn’t. In those who He quickens the truth will resonate.

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Perhaps when I get through some of these projects, I’ll be able to finish a thought. Until then, you’ll probably see more of these partial thoughts here. Keep my church in your prayers. Missions have been sporadic throughout this year with teams having been to China, Costa Rica and the near East recently. We have people and teams preparing for China, Nepal, London, Venezuela, Sri Lanka, Four Corners, etc. We are excited about what God is doing, but it is a lot of work and requires much prayer…

So pray!

Filming in the Bible Belt

I haven't posted on it because I haven't had much to say. I'm not big on our celebrity culture and don't pay too much attention to celebrities in general. George Clooney has been in our quiet little town of Statesville, NC, filming Leatherheads. He co-authored it, is directing it and starring in it. It's a football movie set in the 1920s. He has found a building or few in the area that fits the style of the time period and works well for the movie.

Whenever they are filming one can go downtown and see a small crowd observing. My wife and I went one evening to see what the hubbub was all about. I found it interesting that they were paying people to stand on either end of the section of street they have blocked off to shout that the cameras were rolling or had cut. We also happened to run across fellow members of the drama team from church who we learned had become regular observers.

Come to find out, these members of our church drama team had intentions other than star gazing. They have spoken to the crew and obtained prayer requests for the filming of the movie. What in the world are Christians doing praying for something so banal as the filming of a secular Hollywood movie? What is transpiring is something notable. Many of the specific prayer requests are being answered to the extent that the crew members have taken notice. The process of filming is generally time consuming and fraught with high pressures and short tempers in an effort to keep on schedule and within budget. The crew is observing that the filming here has been remarkable smooth and enjoyable to the extent that Mr. Clooney has sought to speak with these little prayer warriors of ours.

Does it matter for the Kingdom of God if this movie stays on schedule? No, but God has sent witnesses who pray. Did it matter whether Elijah's wet altar caught on fire? No, but God sent a witness to pray. The altar was consumed. The filming of this movie is going well. We pray that souls are awakened to the grace of God in Jesus Christ through the evidence of our actions. Hollywood has met the Bible Belt. We pray that lost souls meet Christ.