This portion of the discussion explores the concept of partnership of different strengths. Is the last part of our #Zoom discussion on Adam/Adamah and Chavah/Eve in Part 3 of Marriage & Relationship: Modern Concepts vs. Biblical Principles. All told, we were on the line for about four hours and touched on many topics and themes. It’s been quite the learning exercise editing long videos down to shorter conversational pieces.
Partnership of Different Strengths
The next discussion on Elizabeth/Zechariah and Mary/Joseph (MR Part 5) is tentatively planned for Saturday, December 19, 9:00am Mountain Time. I’m aiming to keep it under 1.5 hrs. 😉 Email BibleStudy@harvest-life.org for link details.
Marriage & Relationship: Modern Concepts vs. Biblical Principles, Part 3 Video Part 3.4: Partnership with Different Strengths Text: Genesis 1-5, Revelation 22
God – The Ultimate Everything
What idea are you choosing above your relationship with God?
How important is being equally yoked with your partner?
Church Hurts: Looking for a compatible congregation
Nomads in transition
If you generalize, you will generally be in trouble.
This first video for the Marriage & Relationship: Modern Concepts vs. Biblical Principles series is an introduction of me (LaShawnda), my company and the study series. I also begin to explore the importance of naming. Each meeting is focused on one or two Biblical couples. We explore the main theme, elements, issues and lessons of their marriage and dominant relationships. For the longer discussions, the videos will be cut up into parts. Video Part 2.1 is a larger discussion of Abraham/Sarah and Hosea/Gomer. The proposed discussion questions for these couples are posted in Discussion Questions: Marriage & Relationship, Part 2 .
Marriage & Relationship: Modern Concepts vs. Biblical Principles Bible Study Series Part 2:
Topic: Abram/Abraham and Sarai/Sarah + Hosea and Gomer
Text: Genesis 12-13, 15-18, 20-22: Abram/Abraham and Sarai/Sarah
Text: Book of Hosea: Hosea and Gomer
Video Part 2.0
Series Intro
Importance of Naming
We meet bi-weekly. Join the conversation! Subscribe to Harvest-Life-org. Feel free to post comments and questions below.
Join me Tuesday, November 17, 2020 for Part 3 of the Marriage & Relationships: Modern Conflicts vs. Biblical Principles virtual study. We will explore the marriage of Adam/Adamah & Chavah/Eve and the relationship between Man/Woman and Human/Spirit.
Text: Genesis 1-5, Revelation 22
Discussion questions will be posted in advance of the Zoom call. Feel free to add any questions you may want to discuss to this post or the Discussion Question post.
Zoom Meeting Details
Topic: Marriage & Relationship: Modern Conflicts vs. Biblical Principles, Part 3
Time: Nov 17, 2020 07:30-9:30 AM Mountain Time (US and Canada)
Scheduled for this time every 2 weeks on Tue, until Feb 23, 2021, 8 occurrence(s)
Which two names and meanings resonate with you and why?
What does your name mean?
What is the root or history of your name?
How does your name relate to your overall story?
What does your name tell you about yourself?
What drives you?
Relationships Tell a Story
What are the primary and secondary relationships in the four stories and how do they impact or drive the story?
What principle [a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief] stands out to you from the stories we’ve read? Do you see this principle exhibited in relationships you have a view of?
Is polygamy a violation of the principle of oneness (Genesis 2:24-25)?
Does surrogacy (as done in the Bible) violate the union between husband and wife?
If man and woman are to join together in marriage, what issues do you see with adultery and surrogate mothers (ex. Hagar, Bilhah and Zilpah)?
How do these issues seep into the larger family and community?
How do they impact what becomes culture and tradition?
Here are some resources I’ve been digging into.
The Bible Project creates excellent topic and book video summaries (all under 10 minutes).
This is a follow-up to You’re Invited: Virtual Bible Study. The first discussion has been scheduled. Yay! It will be a recorded Zoom call on Tuesday, October 20, 2020 at 9:00am Central Time. The topic is Marriage & Relationship: Modern Concepts vs. Biblical Principles.
Nik Godshall’s sermon titled, “Why Marriage?” is an excellent message about the beauty of maintaining sexual purity for marriage and continuing with faithfulness in the relationship. I love that as a young pastor, Nik confronts the entertainment, media and societal lies promoting sexual promiscuity. He shares how he himself struggled with what he was seeing in the world vs how he wanted to use his body.
NisheEver wish you had the answers to a test before you walked into the classroom? Maybe some of you did have the answers, but you better keep that to yourself. I took some really hard tests during my time in college. And if you spent time in college you remember review days. The professor would…
When Jesus came to the area of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His followers, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” They answered, “Some say you are John the Baptist. Others say you are Elijah, and still others say you are Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” Then Jesus asked them, “And who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Jesus answered, “You are blessed, Simon son of Jonah, because no person taught you that. My Father in heaven showed you who I am. So I tell you, you are Peter. On this rock I will build my church, and the power of death will not be able to defeat it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; the things you don’t allow on earth will be the things that God does not allow, and the things you allow on earth will be the things that God allows.”
~ Matthew 16:13-19 (Mark 8:27-30)
Dear Man:
Please note: What others say about you will never trump what I see in you and believe about you.
Though my day to day feelings about you derive in part from your treatment of me, my vision and knowledge of you is God-given. You may think the accolades of others will win me over. You may also think that what you do for others will make you shine brighter in my eyes. You would be wrong on both counts. You can bend over backwards for everyone in the world, but if you aren’t willing to even stand up and face me, why should the opinions of other people matter to me? Your relationships with everyone else in the world do not create space for a relationship with me. Those relationships do not even accommodate an {us}. Your relationship with others is about you and them. They have nothing to do with me. Nothing to do with us. For that reason, I am not impressed by what other people think of you because their experience of you is not representative of my experience of you.
Right now, in this moment, my struggle is seeing everything you are willing to do for others while remembering everything you have been unwilling to do for me. This knowledge continually leads to resentment, bitterness and separation.
Your struggle is admitting you are in error; that you have squandered time and taken love for granted. Pride is the downfall of every man, however, all is not loss. You, my dear Man, are a conqueror. Should you choose to accept your assignment, you can make everything right with just a word.
You love the Word of God, but you won’t speak a word to me.
You enjoy life, but you won’t share yours with me.
You yearn for the light but you keep me in a shadowy pit.
You admire modesty but the way you waste time is the most painful extravagance to witness.
You think you’re humble, but your spirit strives against me in a rage of hurt masculine pride.
You think love and war are synonymous. They aren’t. Love may be confrontational but it is not destructive. War is targeted violence and willful destruction. Creating and maintaining conflict is not an expression of caring.
You go on and on about love and grace, but what love and grace have you shown to me? Where is your mercy? Where is the love of Christ for the woman you would have as wife? I do not hold a grudge against you, but I will not fight endlessly with you either. I know what you want; I know what you need, but I can’t force you to receive anything from me.
I have been equipped to nurture, love and honor your life with my being. I have been created to share your breath and expand your life.
I have prepared for you, but I am not willing to be everything I can be to a man who is content to be nothing more than a disconnected observer of my life.
You will not drain me dry and leave me nothing for myself. I won’t allow you to do that. God has shown me too much of Himself in me for me to throw myself away according to your whim.
I will not support a man who doesn’t support me. That would be energy you take from me without replenishing it. Your confidence should not cost me mine.
I will not attempt to stand beside a man who has no interest in standing beside me. To do so invites heartbreak every hour of every day.
I will not chase anyone who is not pursuing me. I am the good thing you are responsible for shepherding, but I am also responsible for where I choose to go. You lead, I follow. When you stop leading, I stop following. Remember that.
Relationships are built on mutuality and thrive on reciprocity. I cannot build with someone who is constantly attacking me. Passive aggressive behavior is violent in nature. You may “only” be emotionally dismissive, neglectful, and stoic, but each instance is an attack on everything I see in and believe about you. Such behavior attacks everything I understood about us from the vision I was first given.
If you want a woman who will sit at your feet and praise you continuously while you spend your time and energy praising everyone else, then you have my blessing and encouragement to keep looking for her. I am not the woman for you.
If you want a woman who will encourage you, despite your refusal to acknowledge her words, then again I say, I am not the woman for you. Go in peace and live a joyful and bountiful life elsewhere.
But,
If you want a woman who will strive to communicate with understanding and who will use her tongue only to bless and lift you up, then I say I am your woman.
If you want a woman who will walk, run, dance and ride through life with you in all its triumphant glory and devastating tragedy as a partner – hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder with arms linked – I am your woman.
If you want a woman to build with – from scratch or from leveraged land and materials – I am your blessed goodness. I am your wow-factor.
If you want me, you must recognize you are joining with a woman who knows her place in God’s Kingdom. My place is not subordinate to you. My place is one of honor, not disgrace or shame. My place is by your side as co-ruler of all we are blessed to supervise and manage as stewards. My joy in you derives from your recognition of your place in my life.
Be the man you were created to be, Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, breath of my breath, joy of my joy. Be true to God. Be true to yourself. Be true to me.
At night on my bed, I looked for the one I love; I looked for him, but I could not find him. I got up and went around the city, in the streets and squares, looking for the one I love. I looked for him, but I could not find him. The watchmen found me as they patrolled the city, so I asked, “Have you seen the one I love?” As soon as I had left them, I found the one I love. I held him and would not let him go until I brought him to my mother’s house, to the room where I was born. ~ Song of Solomon 3:1-4
This is a follow-up to Rewriting 99 Problems. A day after watching the now infamous elevator video, I sat down to write about the relationship dynamics that were standing out for me in that small space within the camera frame. I spent most of the day thinking, wondering and asking aloud, “Why would a woman stand by, apparently unphased, while her husband was being attacked by her sister?” I couldn’t think of one good reason that would not have me, as the wife, checking my sister for disrespecting my husband and therefore me. Or if I knew there was just cause for my sisters’ anger, checking my husband myself. Under no circumstance would I have stood by and done nothing.
I couldn’t understand the emotional disconnect in the video I watched.
Until I watched three of Beyoncé’s recent videos. “Partition” really saddened me. “Drunk in love” truly disgusted me. “Pretty hurts” pretty much said it all.
Here’s what I know about love: love lifts, love protects, love honors, love respects.
What I saw in Beyoncé’s videos was a plea for love hiding behind a gyrating body decorated to showcase the promises of lustful fulfillment.
Lust does not fulfill. Lust does not satisfy a desire for love.
The sad thing about Partition was that the video began with Beyoncé sitting across the breakfast table from her husband. She was covered by a full robe and pretty much had the look of a lady of the manor. Yet her husband was ignoring her. She couldn’t get his attention. So then she goes off into a fantasy land of provocative corsets and barely there lingerie doing all sorts of erotic things by herself, on furniture and in sequence with other women. During this sequence we see the back of her husband’s head as he now focuses his full attention on her performance. It’s only in this sequence that she’s touching him – and only then does she smile – and it her that she shares how great and spontaneous their sex life is. This is where the viewer is to assume a great sex life translates into a great relationship, and in their case, a great marriage.
Refrain: Take all of me. | I just wanna be the girl you like. | The kind of girl you like is right here in me.
Source: YouTube Screenshots from Beyoncé’s Partition video. She begins with trying to get her husband’s attention, then fantasize about what she’d do if she had his attention. Just as she’s about to lean in for a kiss, she snaps back to her life, where he’s ignoring her.
Truth: I have never met a man who was content to showcase his wife’s body to another human being (i.e. another man) most especially when the husband loved and respected his wife.
Another truth: I have never met a woman who wanted anyone’s attention more than she wanted her husband’s when the wife loved and respected her husband.
Drunk in Love is more of the same, but what’s disgusting about it is that they both actually speak in detail about the mechanics of a sexual encounter between the two of them. It’s lyrical pornography. The video opens with Beyoncé walking on a beach in a bikini with a sheer dress covering holding a large trophy upside down. It’s looks like a trophy from Pretty Hurts. She calls the song Drunk in Love but everything she’s talking about sex – random, drugged (she says: Neva tired, neva tired I be sippin, it’s the only thing keeping me on fire (as she thumbs her nose)), rough, violent (Jay-Z says: I’m like, now eat the cake Anna Mae). Even though she’s gyrating throughout the whole video and the viewer is apparently to assumes she’s dancing for her husband, there is not one shot of them facing each other with any tenderness. In fact the camera never captures Jay-Z looking at her. There are shots of the back of his head with her in front of him. However, there are several shots of her looking lovingly – longingly – at him. By the end of the video I was left wondering if she still considered herself to be the trophy or if she’s attempting to represent her husband as her trophy.
Pretty Hurts is a very sad confessional describing how she became focused on image. Her self-worth from an early age was invested in how she looked and pursuit of the beauty pageant crown. At one point the pageant host asks Beauty Contestant Beyoncé, “What is your aspiration in life?” She takes nearly a minute to answer. There are shots of her falling into deep water (drowning?), siting backstage in despair, sitting nonchalantly on the floor at home in front of a massive collection of trophies and ribbons before getting up to smash the display. With tears welling and falling in a quick shot, she says, “What is my aspiration in life? Well, my aspiration in life would be to be happy.” She closes the song with the question: Are you happy with yourself?” and answers with a buoyant, “Yes!”
I think she’s shared and shown far too much for us to believe that.
All this to say:
A woman who has never learned to love herself in her simplest state and form lives on the precipice of self-destruction when she allows her primary validation to come from outside of herself. We all seek acceptance and we all want who we are to be loved by those whom we love. That’s natural. What’s harmful and destructive is when we place everything important to our existence on the temporary nature of youth, physical beauty, physique, money, fame, popularity, etc. She’s doing everything in her knowledge-base to remain the prettiest woman in demand, while at the same time, she’ probably destroying what she wants most – her marriage and family.
Pretty Hurts by Beyoncé
Mama said, you’re a pretty girl
What’s in your head it doesn’t matter
Brush your hair, fix your teeth
What you wear is all that matters
[Pre-Hook]
Just another stage
Pageant the pain away
This time I’m gonna take the crown
Without falling down, down
Pretty hurts
Shine the light on whatever’s worse
Perfection is the disease of a nation
Pretty hurts
Shine the light on whatever’s worse
Tryna fix somethingBut you can’t fix what you can’t see It’s the soul that needs the surgery
Blonder hair, flat chest
TV says bigger is better
South beach, sugar free
Thinner is better
Ain’t no doctor or therapeutic that can take the pain away
The pain’s inside
And nobody frees you from your body
It’s the soul that needs surgery
It’s my soul that needs surgery
Plastic smiles and denial can only take you so far
And you break when the paper signs you in the dark
You left a shattered mirror
And the shards of a beautiful girl
When you’re alone all by yourself
And you’re lying in your bed
Reflection stares right into you
Are you happy with yourself
It’s just a way to masquerade
The illusion has been shed
Are you happy with yourself
Are you happy with yourself
Yes
