I was recently talking to a friend who is walking through some deep waters in his marriage and family. As we were unpacking some of the issues he is facing and I was recommending some resources for him, we became mutually aware of a disturbing reality.

He has been a believer for many years and has been a part of “gospel-preaching” churches—some that even add the word “full” to their gospel. He has heard multiple sermons on tithing, on the importance of bringing your family to church, getting involved in “ministry”, supporting the vision of the pastor. But he has never been exposed to any substantive, biblical teaching on the role of the father as a shepherd and pastor to his own family.

As the lights went on, my friend became angry, as he realized that many of the things he had been taught in church had not been for the purpose of empowering him to fulfill the primary role God had given him. Instead, he was being systematically programmed to orient his life and his family’s life to support and to become dependent on a religious institution and to subcontract his God-given responsibility to professional clergy.

Two types of people will one day be held accountable for this travesty: first, the pastors who encouraged it for the sake of increasing their egos and ensuring the security of their careers; and second, the lazy and cowardly fathers and husbands who farmed out their responsibilities.

In some books of the Bible, euphemisms are used to describe sex. Take, for instance, Song of Solomon’s talk of gardens, pomegranates and deer. However, as I’ve been reading Ezekiel, I’ve discovered that this wild and wooly prophet takes the opposite tack, describing in sexual terms things that aren’t even remotely sexual. Consider the prophet’s anger at Israel’s penchant to seek political and military alliances with its pagan neighbors rather than trusting in God (see Ezekiel 23).

Here’s the challenge: Moving past the question of why the Holy Spirit would inspire such graphic word pictures as Ezekiel 23:20-21, how can passages that are so historically particular be applied to my life? My strategy is to move from the universal to the personal by asking a few questions of the text:

Why were the Jews’ political alliances so serious an offense to God that he describes them in these terms?

How does this text point toward Israel’s need for a Deliverer who will transcend their political and national interests and transform their hearts?

How does this text reflect on the tendency of the people of God to put trust in political and military machinations to achieve earthly influence?

How does this text confront my own sinful habit of seeking security in temporal strategies—whether it’s IRAs, insurance policies or business plans?

Go ahead, let the text confront you. Don’t censor Ezekiel!

Since the posts this week have been dedicated to evil and whatnot, and since it’s Friday the 13th, [I'm not superstitious, so the title is merely a crass attempt to generate traffic.] I ask you this: What are you praying for your kids? I am tempted to pray that God keeps them safe, protected from all evil. In fact, Matthew 6:13, part of the Lord’s Prayer, seems to encourage me in this.

“And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

Or does it? Actually, I think it could be better translated, “Deliver us from the Evil One.” (I’m not sure why my beloved NASB dropped the ball on this one, and the Non-Inspired Version got it right.) If my reading is correct, it reflects Jesus’ own prayer for us in John 17:15, which uses the same Greek phrase. (The NASB gets it right this time, go figure.):

“I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.”

So, I pray that Satan will keep his hands of my kids—just like Jesus prayed for us. But I also pray that, as they grow up “in the world”, God will empower them to confront evil on a personal and global scale.