Bits and pieces, 3/10/06

(This installment is brought to you courtesy of WorldMagBlog)

what wives want

The most thorough study ever undertaken to inquire into what makes wives happy reveals that working outside the home isn’t #1. The study found that

Having an affectionate and understanding husband was by far the most important predictor of a woman’s satisfaction with her marriage.

Equal division of labor didn’t necessarily cut it either.

The happiest wives in their study were the ones who said that housework was divided fairly between them and their husbands. But those same happy wives also did more of the work at home while their husbands did more work outside home.

...A woman wants equity...That’s not necessarily the same as equality.

(Gee, they nailed me, and I didn’t even take the survey!)

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what relationships need

See Life Differently is singing the same tune I’ve been singing in my blogging, in Getting Naked Relationally. (OK, maybe I haven't sung it quite that way, but the lyrics are basically the same).

There is something about getting naked with someone - once the clothes come off, you see everything, in all its glorious splendor and its embarrassing imperfection. There is something deeply satisfying in being fully seen by someone, warts and all, and to still be loved. I suspect many of us go through our entire lives without ever experiencing that kind of intimacy.

Christian quotes Paul Tripp in Instruments:

I realized that the most personal and important parts of our lives fly under the radar of our typical relationships in the body of Christ. We live frenetically busy lives with activity-based friendships, punctuated only by brief conversations with each other. Now I was sitting across from a friend I did not know. ...

We tend to have permanently casual relationships that never grow into real intimacy. There are things we know about each other, but they fool us into thinking that we know the human beings who live within the borders of those details.

He asks, what are the barriers to such intimacy? What would it take to create a community where we can be transparent about our struggles, where we can really get to know one another? A great post, and great comments to it as well.

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what theology needs:

Removal of The stumbling block of the average systematic theology. At Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength:

Logic is a good thing, but the logical process does not necessarily lead to truth. If you do not start with the right premises, you do not get the right conclusion, logically enough. "Garbage in, garbage out" as they say in my line of work. If you want your logical results to be true, your starting point must be true.

Or, as I would say, all of the factors/addends/what-have-yous in your equation must belong there and be themselves correct, or your equation will not, um, equate.

Jesus challenges us to understand God through him, to begin our systematic theologies with him, to start with him as our premise and end with him as our aim. Our natural thinking hardly knows where to begin with a venture like that. So we take an easier road -- but that road is not the way we were meant to travel.

I am not against systematic theology. But if we assume that Christ is the truth, then the best theology would begin and end with Christ; the best theology would center around Christ. The best "systematic theology" might very well be a biography. In the Bible, God has given us the right kind of book. Our systematic theologies are like a child's notebook, where we copy down pieces we do not yet fully understand. The more fully we understand, the more closely our systematic theologies resemble the Bible.

We are meant to be relational, and not just to each other, I believe. Our theology must be informed by the relationship with God, Son, and Holy Spirit that we enter into when we repent and believe the gospel. What is prayer if not communication/communion – relationship – with God? Why do we cry, “Abba, Father”?

Are we relational to one another merely because it’s a creature-thing? Or is it part of the imago dei? God speaks to us; this is relational. We are to love Him with all our hearts, minds, and souls, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Sounds pretty relational to me.

Not that our relationship to God is completely analogous to our relationship with persons; God is not human. Many crave to find in other persons things that can be found only in God, but this the error of sin in general -- putting "god", or looking for “God,” in all the wrong places. It’s not creature-relationships vs. some sort of position or ranking in a spiritual hierarchy (although that aspect is present in a relationship with God as well); it’s relationship with “other” (Satan, the “flesh”) vs. relationship with God.

HT: Mark Olson at WorldMag Blog Blogwatch