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Ok, here's the second question. This comes from Mariah.
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Now, look, some of these you say,
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"really? I mean, isn't the answer obvious?"
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But you'd be amazed pastorally
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how often we have to deal with questions
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that might seem obvious.
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Mariah: "Is it ok for married brothers..."
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(so we've got married Christans, men)
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"In leadership positions - pastors, elders, deacons, etc. -
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to casually text or email single sisters?
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Why or why not? Are there any exceptions?"
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I'm not sure why Mariah would ask this, but...
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I can imagine if a young lady, newly saved, in a church,
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she hears that some of her friends are
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receiving casual texts from church officers who are married.
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Is that reason for alarm? For concern? You raise your eyebrows?
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If it was happening in this church would it just be normal, normative, ok?
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I mean, you know what came to my mind,
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is she ought to go ask those men's wives.
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Right? I mean, ladies, come on.
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I think most of the ladies in here are single.
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But ladies if you were married to a church officer and your husband...
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now did you notice the adjective? "Casually texting."
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I text with certain sisters in the church - not casually -
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because it's easier than a phone call.
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But casually, ladies, would you be ok with that?
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Or would you say there's exceptions.
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There would be times it would be ok.
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But just to find out, if you found your husband's phone...
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maybe getting ready to do laundry,
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empty his pockets, hey, there's his phone,
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and you see, well, he's texting single sisters
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in the church casually. Are you ok with that?
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Grace, you ok with that?
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Or does it depend?
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Is everybody ok with it?
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(in the background, "No!")
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Emotional attachment? Is there a text in the Bible that says,
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"Thou shalt not text single women."
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Of course not.
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(in background) How would she feel if she was married
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and someone was doing that?
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Tim: Right. That would be very appropriate to put that back in her lap.
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But she doesn't say if she's single or not. So I don't know -
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she may actually be the wife of one of the guys, I'm not sure.
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There's not enough detail there for me to know.
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But we know this, just a couple texts:
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Matthew 15:19, "Out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery,
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sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.
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These are what defile a person."
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Or if you think of 1 Cor 6:18, "Flee from sexual immorality."
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Here's a thing, let's just think about this,
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Men in ministry fall all the time. All the time.
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It happens a lot.
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Single, young ladies are vulnerable.
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And the thing is are we really ignorant as to how infidelity happens?
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We're not. It's like James is talking about.
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There are the guys that they prey on women.
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They get in places of power and they prey on them.
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Their idea right up front is - there's no restraint.
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But I have a feeling that a lot of the men that fall,
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they never thought they would.
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They did not start out intending to.
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How does infidelity happen when at first there is no intention to it?
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It doesn't happen like that.
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It happens by staging, by degrees, by steps.
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And what happens? Well, sexual immorality is a matter of the heart.
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What happens is the heart gets involved, the affections, the emotions.
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And how does it happen? Well, through communication.
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Certainly through communication.
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And what happens is that there's
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communication that goes back and forth.
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And we're not ignorant about this.
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And the thing is if you're in ministry,
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you're especially going to be a target of the devil,
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and it's just... casual - that's the thing.
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It's dangerous. It's dangerous.
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And it's private. You end up having private communication
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with a woman who's not your wife
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when you do have a wife,
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and that's exactly the kind of communication where
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suddenly the hook goes in the heart.
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It's just that kind of communication.
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I'm not saying that it always leads to that.
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But certainly the men that fall,
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they were certainly doing things just like this.
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And if we're supposed to flee from this,
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we need to run from it like you'd run from
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Catholicism like the plague, you need to run from these kind of things.
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We need to be very careful.
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Because the moment we get presumptuous and say,
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"Well, I can play with that fire and it's not going to burn me,"
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that's the second God -
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you may even be a true child of God, and God may
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allow you, like David, to fall flat on your face,
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and it can just destroy your life, your marriage,
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your family, your ministry for sure.