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  MARRIAGE, WORK, AND PUBLIC SCHOOL
  by Tim Conway
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Summary: This sermon discusses the importance of aligning our decisions
with biblical principles, even in situations where there may not be a
clear-cut answer in Scripture. It emphasizes the need for faith, prayer,
and seeking God's guidance in making decisions, especially in matters
like marriage, work, and raising children. The sermon highlights the
role of husbands as leaders in the family and the importance of wives
being submissive, while also considering practical aspects like
education choices for children.

Topics: "Decision Making", "Family Leadership"
Scripture References: Ephesians 5:22, Proverbs 31:10, Proverbs 3:5, James 1:5, 1 Timothy 5:8

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon discusses the importance of aligning our decisions with
biblical principles, even in situations where there may not be a clear-
cut answer in Scripture. It emphasizes the need for faith, prayer, and
seeking God's guidance in making decisions, especially in matters like
marriage, work, and raising children. The sermon highlights the role of
husbands as leaders in the family and the importance of wives being
submissive, while also considering practical aspects like education
choices for children.

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CONTENT
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When you think about Scripture, sometimes we might have this idea, okay,
I'm going to read these questions, and we can almost think, well, okay,
there's one exact answer. Well, the fact is that God usually doesn't
give us all the exact answers. In fact, if you're trying to pastor
through different situations, let's say marriage, or marriage-divorce-
re-marriage situations, or disciplinary situations in the church,
oftentimes it's very difficult to find a text that exactly describes the
situation that you're dealing with.

And there's a reason for that. God is very purposely not giving us...
What the Bible is not is a how-to, step-by-step book that describes for
us how we do every single thing in life. It gives us a lot of truth, and
we need to be people of that truth and live by that truth.

I remember several years back, I took all the Conrad Murrow-Gatepost
articles out to Colorado with me, and I read through probably 90% of
them. And I remember one of the things he really emphasized on there is
that God did not give a step-by-step manual of instruction to Joshua on
how to conquer cities. He said the way to conquer a city is not to go to
that city and walk around that city one time for six days and then on
the seventh day, walk around it seven times.

That is not the formula for defeating a city. God gave Joshua that
instruction that time. But the reality is that when he conquered other
cities, he didn't conquer them that way.

The whole point that I'm getting at is this. We're to be a people who
walk by faith. Yes, we're guided by the Scripture.

Yes, the Scripture is truth. Yes, we need to know the Scripture. In the
Scripture, we get an idea about what it is that is pleasing to God.

You remember the early verses in Romans 12. We need to be figuring out
what is pleasing to God. That's one of the ways we renew our minds
trying to figure out what is pleasing, what is not pleasing.

But what we do is we want to apply principles, but even there, that can
come up short. You get this checklist. But we're called to be a people
that walk by faith.

And in so many of these situations, we have to be on our knees. We have
to be calling upon the Lord. We need guidance.

We need Him to show us the way forward. A lot of times, even when we
have a couple handfuls of truths, we still are faced by situations. I
know for a fact that the longer I go on in the Christian life, the more
I get faced by situations where I can think of every applicable truth I
can think of, and yet, I don't know.

I don't know. I'm calling upon the Lord and seeking light and seeking
counsel, but even then it can be extremely difficult. The Lord wants us
to live by faith in Him.

Looking to Him. Not just looking at a checklist. Even a checklist of
biblical truths where you basically walk down and God's left out of the
picture.

He wants us looking to Him. You know what's really essential to taking a
city? Not walking around it for seven days. What's really essential for
taking a city is that you have God on your side.

And then the city falls whether you walk around it seven times or
whether you actually suffer defeat at first like an AI, and then you
finally end up taking it. I just say that because as we look at these
situations, you'll recognize that you know that there are situations
where in the end, somebody can determine to go to the left and they do
it unto the Lord and God is pleased. And some people conclude they need
to go to the right and they do it and the Lord's pleased.

You know why He's pleased in both cases? Because they do it by faith.
Whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Somebody may actually study a certain
situation or a question like this and it may apply to their own lives
and they may say, you know what, in the end, I believe I need to observe
that day.

And the other guy says, no, I examined all the proof and I believe you
don't observe the day. And the other guy says, I think you should eat
the meat. And the other lady says, I don't think you should eat the
meat.

And in the end, you recognize that it's possible to come to different
conclusions, but actually still be in the will of God. So when we talk
about answering questions like this, we're going to seek to apply
wisdom. We're going to seek to apply Scripture.

But in the end, you know, there may actually be more than one right
answer. I think we all know that, but it's good just to remind
ourselves. So, here we go.

Dear Pastor Conway, this is from Marco. Now, you remember, last week we
did three that had to do with marriage, and I actually had four, so this
is the last of the four that has to do with marriage. First, I'd like to
say thank you for all your resources on family, marriage, manhood.

They've been profoundly helpful to me. I'm 25 years old. So okay, we're
building the picture here.

25 year old young man. He's finishing university, seriously considering
going into the ministry apprenticeship, and then Bible college, a five
year journey beginning in 2020. I've been in a relationship with a girl
for three months.

So you got that. 25 years old, been in a relationship for three months.
It's our first relationship and hopefully our last as we both are in an
appropriate stage of life and hopefully mature enough to be thinking
seriously about marriage in the near future.

Okay, my girlfriend is incredibly godly. She is very wise and cautious
with our relationship, respectful and obedient to her parents,
responsible, mature, and loving to all. She spends much time in the
Bible, prays and serves faithfully in the local church and multiple
ministries.

She's quiet and gentle, but honest and bold at the same time and is just
a picture of female integrity in many ways. She treats me with
incredible respect and kindness all the time. So you might ask, why
didn't he marry her already? Well, maybe because they're only three
months in.

In terms of her role in marriage... Okay, now he's shifting. In terms of
her role in the marriage, she is fully committed to submitting to me as
her leader and head when we get married. That is, she embraces the idea
and doctrine of biblical headship and submission in marriage
wholeheartedly.

Just thinking about all this makes me incredibly thankful to God for
blessing me with such an amazing woman that I don't deserve in the
slightest. Okay, now here comes the dilemma in this picture. She also
works full-time as a dentist and is a brilliant young dentist too.

She worked extremely hard at university for many years. And although
quite stressful and not as fulfilling as she anticipated, she enjoys her
job as a dentist. The job also pays very well and she's saving
diligently to buy a house.

When I told her that I believe a woman's role in marriage is that of a
homemaker, dun-da-dun-dun. You know what's interesting? When I told her
that I believe a woman's role in marriage is that of a homemaker and
it's the husband's job to provide for the family, she didn't recoil, but
I could feel the tension in the conversation. And when I mentioned that
I believe homeschooling was the best option for children's education,
she said she couldn't see herself doing that.

Now, when you back up, I'm not saying that this statement isn't true,
but one of the things I watch for when people ask these questions is
oftentimes early in the question, they're asserting things very strongly
that later in the question, you look at and say, I'm not even certain
that's true. And they already know that that's the area that's being
tested, but they kind of set forth the thing in a certain color. I'll
just go back and remind you of his words.

She is fully committed to submitting to me as her leader and head when
we get married. That's what he said back a couple paragraphs. Now she's
saying, she said she couldn't see herself doing that.

She believes that education at a good public school is fine if we
prepare the children adequately for the spiritual opposition and that
the money saved could be used elsewhere to support the kingdom. Now you
see what's happening. Now, here's the thing.

Let me just ask you guys this question. Do you believe that if we are
being biblical and God honoring that it's okay to put your, what is it?
Kindergarten is five. Five? Is it okay to put your five-year-old in
kindergarten in a public or private school? There's no specific text in
Scripture that would indicate that it's wrong to do so.

Are you sure? Even principles? Not that I can think of. Well, do you
guys think that's okay? Are you good with that? If I'm not supposed to
walk in the council, but thank God we are sitting with scoffers, then I
obviously don't want to put my kids in a place where that's happening.
And obviously there's some schools where that's not happening, where
there is good council, but overall it's getting scarier and scarier the
thought of sticking little kids in public schools.

She believes that education at a good public school is fine if we
prepare the children adequately for the spiritual opposition. Are there
any defects in that statement? The child? So, okay, let's say somebody's
asking you but let's say it's the young lady here. She's had this
conversation with him.

Now I know there's a submission issue. There's a leadership issue here.
We'll deal with that in a second, but obviously he's not the one that
needs to be convinced.

And he's really the one in the place to direct the family. And there's
more to his question. We'll get to it in a second.

But I want to stay here for just a second. The schooling question. So
Travis is up here.

He's saying there's nothing in the Bible that says, where do you think
that the people who are such big advocates of homeschooling get any kind
of authority for that? Or how would they seek to justify that position?
Is it kind of common sense if you know anything about the public school
system? Sometimes people can, and this is another thing you look for in
these questions. People will throw out an idea like a good public
school. Well, okay, let's deal with reality.

Is that even, does that even tend to be a reality? Bad company corrupts
good morals? Bad company corrupts good morals? See what Andre's saying,
sometimes you can basically, you can think good, but yeah, how are you
measuring that? Are you measuring it on a spiritual level? Because
there's no good public schools on a spiritual level. You say, well, how
do you know there isn't one in the middle of Nebraska? Well, I don't,
but you know what I mean. I mean, could there be a true Christian
teacher somewhere up in the mountains of New Mexico teaching in a public
school and he's a really godly influence? Yes, but as a whole, the
public school system is anti-God.

The teachers, look, you know this as well as I do. If you look at any of
the statistics, the vast majority of teachers are left-leaning
politically. That means they're not conservative.

I know I'm talking politically, not religiously, but you know there's a
connection there. They tend to support homosexuality, same-sex marriage,
transgender deal, sex changes. I mean, you know that's true and you know
that's being taught in the schools.

And you know that this movement away from any kind of absolute truth is
out there. And so if you're going to talk about the public schools, and
I've experimented, but I was not going to try those experiments with my
children until they got to the high school age, because I wanted to
protect them when they were in the younger age. And our experiences, we
never tried public school, but our experiences with private Christian
schools was bad.

And I think everybody in our church that has ever sent their children to
that school has had bad experiences. I'm not sure of anybody. I don't
think there is anybody in our church that would just give an overriding
glowing report.

But if we're going to seek to raise, see, here's the thing, what does
Scripture say about how a Christian parent is to raise their children?
Let's throw the principles out. You've got companionship. Have you ever
think about all the texts that speak about companions in the book of
Proverbs? You see, this is one of the big problems because even in the
high school age, when we put our children, our children, we put charity
there and we put grace there.

We didn't go there with Joshua or with Joy. We had too many bad
experiences with the two oldest ones so that we didn't put the younger
ones in there. But you have friendship issues.

That's going to be an issue. And all the more, what kind of influence do
you think a small child, when they're at the most impressionable ages,
what's principles? What are the principles that we would basically use?
I'm not saying that would cause us to end up concluding we need to
homeschool, but what are the biblical principles that should come into
play when we're thinking about how we're going to educate our children?
Train up a child in the way they should go. And one of the things that
you would ask yourself is this.

I don't think it's any problem for a parent to delegate responsibility.
In other words, that specific injunction is given to fathers. Well,
okay, fathers.

Does that mean that a father can delegate responsibilities to his wife?
In a lot of situations throughout the centuries, maybe there's been
nannies involved. Does that mean I can't delegate to a nanny? Does that
mean I can't delegate to a tutor? Some people like to take their
children to some of these private Christian school deals where maybe
it's a co-op. We have a co-op where they bring the children once a week.

Sometimes you have like the Texas Family Educators thing where our
children did some of that and they might go in there one or two days or
three days even out of the week. I mean, is it wrong to delegate? I
don't think it's wrong to delegate, but if you're going to delegate, you
need to know who you're delegating it to, what they're going to be
teaching, what their principles are, what they stand for, the kind of
ideas and ideals that they're sticking in your children's brains because
you're responsible. And if our primary objective is to see our children
converted, then what would we be trying to deliver our children from?
What is it that sets free? Truth.

So what is it that you would want to protect your children from? Lies.
Error. Right, that was the one that was mentioned.

Incompletely, but yes, bring them up. But the truth is that companions
shape a child. And you know one of the problems is that if you're
turning your children over to a public school system and then walking
away, one of the problems is that we live in a society that
increasingly, and this is not a good thing, increasingly wants to give
our children greater and greater liberty.

And so you know what happens? The child can make the decision whether
they're going to be male or female. Parents don't have to be notified
when a girl wants to have an abortion. You see, they're trying to
isolate this from the parents more and more.

You put them in the public school system and you increasingly have a
situation where they don't want the parents to know everything. They
don't want the parents as involved, as knowledgeable. Things are kept
back from the parents more and more.

And so if you turn your children over, you know what's not in your
control? We sent our two oldest daughters to a private Baptist school.
They encouraged boyfriend-girlfriend relationships. They don't even hide
that.

They encourage it. Not just tolerate it, they encouraged it. And it's
still a problem now.

I was talking to a family from our church who just took their two
children out of it simply because the relationships were being
encouraged. Anyway, this is the problem. When your children are not
under your immediate care, then you really don't know what's happening.

You don't know who they're around. Oftentimes you don't know who
they're... Yeah, they'll come home and they'll talk about their friends,
but... I was just at a kindergarten class today subbing and the teacher
before she left, she's like, there's this camera, Santa's watching.
Behave.

And the kids were all like, you know. So we need to define what good is.
And if you want to send your children to school and you want to say that
they make them believe that Santa's good, then go ahead.

But we have to define good. And we're talking spiritually. There's not
one school that I've been to that has been good spiritually.

Now when Joshua comes home all the time and he tells us the kind of
things that he's dealing with at the college level, well, you say, well,
college isn't... Yeah, but it's a public college. And do you think the
public college is any different than a public elementary school as far
as the stuff that they're teaching? They have an agenda. And we have to
remember the devil is very real.

And it just, you know, if you look, it's like God gives... You have to
think about this. The things that we look around and we see that the
devil isn't so much in control of, you have to recognize God allowed
that to happen. You know what God has allowed to become corrupted? The
educational system is by and large controlled by the most godless of the
masses.

So is the media. You just think about those segments of society that it
seems like God has abandoned, has turned over to corruption. I would
have to say the school systems are one of those places.

And okay, you can say, yeah, you know, but I'll teach my child to know
their ABCs and one, two, threes, and they'll do that. Well, but see, I
think that's being very naive and that's being very shallow if that's
all you're looking for in an education. Look, I'm all for a good
education just from a scholastic standpoint, but you don't want to
sacrifice your children on that altar and give them up spiritually.

And if you basically come to the conclusion, well, when my children are
in the most formative years, like, you know, from five to 15, I just
don't think it really matters what kind of teachers they're exposed to
and what kind of schools and what kind of friends you have. Then you're
just ignoring vast segments of Scripture. You're not being honest with
them.

And what you don't want to do is sacrifice your children to this and
then wake up one day and recognize, wow, we really messed up and it cost
our children their souls. But anyway, anything else to say on schooling?
I know there's different options. I'm certainly not going to tell you,
this is one of those areas where I'm not going to tell somebody this is
the right way.

And that, I mean, I think that there's some pretty obvious things where
we can say that's wrong, that's wrong, that's wrong, that's wrong. But
then there's a lot of things. I watch the parents at our church and they
do a lot of different things.

And I mean, I know some of our folks have even tried the charter
schools, but you know, sometimes you have to try things. You experiment
and then you just don't like the fruit of it and you put the brakes on.
And I can tell you, there's a lot, a lot to be said for having a mother
who stays at home with her own children, who loves her own children and
protects her own children and pours her life into her own children.

That is just, I mean, a Christian woman who does that, that is an
extremely guarded, healthy, and it's just an extremely safe environment
and healthy environment. We just, we have to be careful. I mean, you
want to be careful with your children.

You want to be careful where you let them go when you're not supervising
them, especially when they're young. You even want to be careful of
letting them go to aunts and uncles and I mean, little girls and little
boys too. It's, when I travel to other countries, you go to some place
like Nepal, you go to some of these Asian countries, it's like, they can
tell you that like every girl, by the time they reach a certain age has
been somehow sexually abused.

And it's typically by fathers, stepfathers, cousins, grandfathers,
uncles. You want to guard your, and it's not just girls anymore either.
It's, you want to be careful.

You want to be careful. Sometimes it's spiritual leaders who are
trusted. I mean, I know one of the brothers that was his priest and you
just want to be careful.

You want to, we want to guard our children. So anything more to say
about the schooling part of this? Okay, so we both agree that a good
Christian school, however, is not a bad option. So she said, she
believes that education at a good public school is fine if we prepare
the children adequately for the spiritual opposition.

But I don't, I mean, let's just hit that. I don't think you prepare a
five-year-old for spiritual opposition. Many saved could be used
elsewhere to, oh.

Oh, and the money saved could be used elsewhere. That's if you put the
child in a public school, you're saving all this money because private
schools are expensive. And she's saying we could save all this money and
so it could be used elsewhere to support the kingdom.

We both agree that a good Christian school, however, is not a bad
option. So that could be a good middle ground. Now, I don't really like
that word because again, he already said, she is fully committed to
submitting to me as her leader and head when we get married.

And, you know, I just want him to be careful that he's not being
inconsistent. Because if you start talking about middle ground, what
that starts making me think is she isn't really submitting. You're
actually having to give ground.

That's where you end up in the middle. It's not his way. It's middle
way.

She and he are meeting in the middle. That's not her being submissive.
So she believes that during the hours the kids are at school, it'll be
wise for her to work to support me as a pastor on a low income.

She's fully committed to spending time raising and nurturing the kids.
She just sees working as important too while the kids are at school.
Well, the reality is if you don't put the kids in school, then you don't
work while the kids are in school.

If you deem that that school system is not a healthy place for them to
be, then there isn't a time when she's freed up, the kids are away. When
I think of this topic, it brings me anxiety as I want to respect her
convictions. Now that's a problematic statement right there.

Again, some of the ground is given way under what he so dogmatically set
forth in the beginning. Because he's admitting now, I feel anxiety and I
want to respect her convictions. I think he's not even using...
Conviction sounds good.

Conviction sounds like, oh, my wife has these really strong convictions.
Okay, it's like if my wife said I have a conviction that I should not
wear earrings. Well, I wouldn't force her to wear earrings.

That's the kind of conviction. This is not in the same category.
Basically, what he's calling a conviction here is actually her wanting
her own way.

That's not really a good way to present that. However, I'm strongly
committed to the woman's role as being that of homemaker and nurturer of
the children. At the same time, I agree it would be unwise for her to
totally throw away her education as her only working one to two days per
week would be incredibly helpful financially.

We're not interested in living a life of extravagance in the slightest.
We just want to steward our money and gifts well and support our
children in the kingdom as best we can. I don't think she has been
exposed to teaching that promotes the value, beauty, and glory of a wife
and mother as a homemaker.

So I want to exercise patience with her. However, at the same time, I
want to do what is biblically appropriate for me at this stage of our
relationship to help her catch a vision for this amazing role of
homemaker. I see many families like yours, Paul Washer's, et cetera,
structured this way simply looks glorious to me.

When we discuss this further, the impression I received is that she
would humbly submit to me if I insisted on her working much less. And
that's different than saying if I insisted that she didn't work at all.
However, I don't want her just submitting to me blindly.

I want her to see the biblical basis and value of this role and embrace
it wholeheartedly. I just really want to honor and obey God with our
marriage and family, and so does she. I want our family and marriage to
be fully submitted to God's Word in every area for His glory.

So here is questions. One, am I thinking way too far ahead? Should I
relax this conversation until marriage? I would say, no way. You want to
bring this way out on the table.

You want to definitely talk through this. You want to lay... I think
what he needs to do is he needs to, yes, he can be patient with her. He
can explain, he can give his biblical basis, his biblical reasonings,
but he needs to tell her what his expectation is going to be and the
sooner the better.

Now, I was going to say, this was August 2018, so what has happened has
probably already happened. But we don't always do these. I mean, we do
these for the sake of a lot of people, not just the people that wrote
it.

But if you're still out there, Marco, hopefully all has worked out well.
But definitely, and he asked too, is it biblically okay for her to
continue working full time after we're married, yet before kids, while
I'm still at Bible college and have no income? So let's stop right here.
I believe that if we're just looking at what we see in Scripture, the
woman being a homemaker, I think the idea there is that the home is the
center.

It's around that which her life revolves. But the truth is that the
Proverbs 31 woman was pretty aggressive and she did some things outside
the home. But see, the things she did outside the home came back to the
home.

She labored outside the home, but it was with regards to the family. It
helped profit the family. And I think that the issue is that what's
really stressed in Scripture is that the woman, if you think about
Ephesians 5, it says that the woman should submit to the husband in how
much? In everything.

In all things. So I think that's the issue. See, he, as the head of the
family, this is an aggravation to me when I see or hear of men,
especially men in our church, who have, I think, well-meaning brethren
trying to tell brothers exactly how they should run their household.

And if I get a chance to pull that brother aside, I'm going to tell him,
look, you are the man of your house and you need to determine. You need
to determine who's going to wash the dishes. I mean, see, sometimes it
gets into this crazy thing like, oh, well, you know, men and women, they
should share 50-50 changing the diapers of the children.

Or, you know, you get all these things. I mean, come on, men should be
hunting and mowing the lawn and trimming the trees and fixing the roof.
And, you know, I guess when I hear these hangups, if a man says, you
know what? I love changing diapers.

Honey, you don't need to do that at all. You know what? That's his
family, his home, more power to him. And his wife will love him for it.

But if a guy says, I think that God has made roles here and I want my
wife to give herself to the children and I am going to give myself to my
trade or my task or my work. And yes, when I'm at home, I'm going to
pour my life into the kids as well. I'm going to seek to be sensitive to
my wife.

I'm going to seek to give her some time off. But we do have different
roles. We do have different tasks in life.

If a guy says, I love to cook and I'm going to do the cooking, fine. But
that guy has no right to go tell another man, well, if you're not
cooking, you're not really dealing with your life. Like she's a weaker
vessel.

What? I mean, one man cannot tell another man unless it's specifically
sin. But we've got this idea and there's so much teaching on it.
Sometimes it'll get bantered around in our church about, well, this is
the right way.

And you're not really, man, you're not really living with your wife in
an understanding way unless you fill in the blank. Do this, this, this,
and this. It's like garbage, garbage.

Where'd you get that? You didn't get that anywhere from the Bible. The
reality is this, that a man needs to love his wife. A man needs to seek
to live before the Lord and be profitable.

He needs to figure out. Look, I'll tell you this. We're all made
different.

We're all wired different. If one man gets a wife and she has, like I
will encourage Ruby to teach the women. Not everybody has a wife like
that.

But I do. And so, buying her books, wanting her to be able to prepare
for that, that's great. We all have different gifts.

We all have different chemistry in our families. And I think every man
needs to figure out, yes, he can do that with input from his wife, but
he needs to do it in the sight of God. Running this all through the lens
of Scripture.

He needs to figure out how things are going to happen. And you know
what, if a man comes along and says, you know what? Before God, I have
researched. And there is a school situation.

Maybe there's some school up in Burney and they have six people in the
classroom. And I know the woman. She used to be the piano teacher of our
children.

And she's well saved. And she used to go to such and such church. And we
really trust her.

And that's a tremendous place to put our children. And my wife does have
a PA degree. And I want her to work at that.

And we're going to take the kids up there. If a husband decides that
that's the way he wants to do it, there isn't a Scripture that forbids
him from that. I would just say, you don't want to sacrifice your
children.

You want to love your children. You want to do everything in the sight
of God in a way that you really prayerfully, whatever is in a faith is
sin. You want to do it by faith.

You want to believe that you're doing the right thing. You don't want to
sacrifice your children or your family or your wife for the sake of
money or comfort or ease or to be able to match the neighbor's car or
whatever. I mean, we have to live in the sight of God.

And if, like a David Butterbaugh, he says, you know what? I'm going to
law school and we can't have kids. And so kids aren't even in the
equation. Some people can't have kids.

And so that's not even in the equation. I'm going to law school. My wife
can make six figures doing Mary Kay.

I'm going to have her work that. And we hope to adopt one day, but she's
going to work that right now so that I can get through law school. I
have no problem with that.

He's indicating this. She's minded to do that. As soon as he gets done
with law school, she quits.

They adopt three children. And you know, the rest of the story. But
there's not a single right way.

We all have to be seeking to be mindful. You can get lots of counsel.
There's lots of, I mean, lots.

If you look at the families just in our church, and of course there's
other churches out there too, and there's all manner of books. And so
you read them and you glean and you weigh them out and you try to get a
feel for what seems right before the Lord. And then you seek to do the
right thing.

But what I would say to this guy is, look, if he actually weighs it all
out and he says, hey, before we have kids, yeah, I'm going to be in
school. And if my wife could work as a dentist, that works really well.
Well, who can say that that's wrong? But I think if you start
sacrificing the children.

You know what's wrong? What's wrong is if he, like listen to what he
says here. Is it my responsibility as husband once we get married to
exercise my authority as head of the home to strongly encourage her to
be a full-time or almost full-time homemaker, even if it initially
upsets her a bit? Or have I fulfilled my responsibility simply by
suggesting what I think's best and then coming to a compromise with her
convictions? Again, he uses that term conviction. But this is not a
conviction.

Like, define a conviction for me. No, no, no, not an example of one.
Just like a definite.

What is a conviction? A strong feeling about morality. Well, it's a
strong feeling about what you believe God wants you to do. But see, I
don't think that's not a conviction.

She's not saying she feels like God wants her to do this. She's saying
she wants to do this. That's not a valid use of the term conviction.

So what do you think? He's the husband of the family and he's saying am
I in a position to basically say, look, I'm head of the family. This is
the way I want to do it, so this is the way we're going to do it. Or
should he back off? I think he really needs to decide what is important
to him before they get married.

And if he feels really strongly about something and she's not willing to
submit to that, then he should probably find someone else to marry who
can't submit to that before they get married. Not even figure out what's
important to him, but what's God saying in His Word. Because if she
doesn't take heed to the Scriptures, then that's not the type of woman
you want to marry.

Timothy says, what I would not want him to do is go against his
conviction. See, he's got a valid conviction. Hers is not a conviction.

Hers isn't, I really believe that this is what God wants me to do, or I
feel convicted this is what the Bible tells me to do. She's actually
really fighting against what the Bible more clearly has to say about
being a homemaker. Now, I recognize he was kind of whittling that down
to like two days.

I think what he really needs to do is say to her, when we have children,
I don't want you to work at all. And now, they may already be married or
this relationship may already be called off. But lots of men find
themselves in this kind of situation.

And I remember before Ruby and I got married, I remember John Sytsma
wondering whether Ruby would... well, he made a comment about the fact
that she really maybe didn't have interest in the mission field, but
Ruby said, if God calls you to the mission field, I'll follow you. You
see, that's what you want. Even if somebody says, well, that's not
particularly what I feel inclined to do or have the greatest desire to
do, but I know this, that if I marry you, God wants me to follow you.

And so wherever you go, I'm following. Obviously short of sin, but
that's really what you want. And maybe that's what he has in this girl.

I mean, maybe she really is going to succumb to this. But I think you
don't want to go into the marriage without having that really
established. And I could go into other things.

I know this is just one opinion about homeschooling, but what about
other things that you would want as the fathers of the year to do? And
what is she going to respond? Well, I think this will show her character
in other areas. If she doesn't or she did. And the reality is before you
get married, she may seem more compliant because she wants to marry him
ahead of time.

And I don't know that, but it can be a lot easier before you're married
to say, you know, well, I really want to work, but if you really press
me, I may do this or do that. But I think it's just best where you as
the man say, look, this... I mean, of course, Ruby and I, her brother
was in my church and he arranged a blind date. And so when we got
together at that restaurant, it wasn't casual.

That blind date happened for one purpose. It was to figure out if we
were the right one for each other. So that's exactly how I went into it,
asking all the questions.

What do you think about this? And we just basically went through life.
What are your thoughts on this? What are your convictions on this? And
I'm like, wow, that's the woman I want to marry. Not to belabor the
question, but you know, another thing that could be hit on is is it best
for him to go this route of Bible fault for five years? Yeah, that's one
thing he has to consider.

I mean, because it's not just her decisions about where she's going to
work or his decisions about where she's going to work. It's also got to
do with what he's doing. Because I guess I do, I mean, you know, that's
not a bad thing to hit on.

I get nervous about guys going to school for ministry. And it just so
often does not work out the right way. I am going through again and
reading those Conrad Murrow gate posts that I told you guys about.

I pulled them out Sunday afternoon and I'm going to go through maybe,
I've gone through a bunch of them already just in these few days. But I
came across one and he said he knew a pastor that pastored a church, a
good church, right in a town where there was a Bible college seminary.
And he said that pastor of that church told him they have all sorts of
guys.

He met a guy in the church and the guy was in some trade. And the guy
said, yeah, I'm doing this trade now and a Mason or something. But he
said he went to school for how many ever years for ministry.

And the pastor said, oh, that's commonplace because he pastored a church
in a college town where there was a seminary, Bible school. And he said
it was very common, very common that these guys come to school thinking
they're called to the ministry and then find out they're not. You know
who else bears witness to that? Ryan Fullerton.

Ryan Fullerton, same situation. Pastors a church in a town where there's
a big seminary. And you know what he finds? Time and time again, guys
that believe that they were called to the ministry.

You know what happens? Same thing that happened to this guy that Conrad
Murrell was talking about. They go to school there. They find the best
local church that they can.

They start attending that church while they're going to school. And
while they're doing this whole thing, they come to realize they're not
even called. They recognize they're in a good church.

They end up not wanting to leave it. And so they just end up staying
there, dropping out of school, getting some other kind of job. They kind
of become an electrician or AC guy or whatever.

And they drop out. And you know, well, they went through school. They
got their Bible school degree.

They were one year in or two years into seminary. And then they
realized, and they're not even called to the ministry. This going to
school for ministry does make me nervous because a lot of guys spend a
lot of time and a lot of money, and in the end, they're not even called
to the ministry.

And I'm thinking if you're called to the ministry, you don't necessarily
need to go to school to confirm that or to be gifted of God to be able
to do that. I'm not going to denounce seminary or denounce the path that
the guy's taking, but that is a good thing to bring up. That may
actually not be necessary.

Problem is in some circles, that's just the way you do it. And it's
almost impossible to convince certain people in certain circles that
there's any other way to do it.

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/qKNQX61XSPI.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/tim-conway/marriage-work-and-public-school/
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