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Seminarians, Love Your Spouse More than School

Steven Koster — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 08:47:40 -0600

Some Anonymous but excellent advice published in the February 11, 2011 edition of Towers, The Baptist Theological Seminary Newsletter.

Husbands, love your wives more than seminary:
confessing the sins of a seminarian

Much study – the weariness of the flesh

Nothing will throw off your graduation date like a divorce.

Does a husband’s subjective call to ministry relativize his objective, biblical command to love his wife? Regardless of how I might have answered this question in a theological paper, the true answer of my heart was exposed by my actions.

Some said my marriage issues were normal for a seminarian, even appropriate for my “season of life.” My sinful heart exploited this poor counsel to justify my negligence as a husband. If you’re better at spotting immature husbands than I am, then you would quickly see that though I would have argued that no ministry opportunity — including the opportunity to attend seminary — undermines Ephesians 5:25, my true answer could be seen in how I talked to my wife. You could see it in how I touched her, when I did. If you were to come to my home, you might have sensed that my study, neatly adorned with shelves of books, was my pride and joy. But I happily left the upkeep of the rest of the house to my wife.

You may have noticed my drive to write creative sermons and talk theology with classmates, but a deflated effort creatively to engage my wife in conversation. My eyes lit up over my syllabi, but I had little response over my wife’s new haircut or her plans for the day or a new recipe she was eager to try. To my shame, I could spot the subtle ways heretical worldviews creep into the church, but I paid little attention to the subtle ways resentment crept into my wife’s heart. I jumped to unpack the mysteries behind Christ’s tears as He hung alone on the cross, but I left alone the mystery of my wife’s tears as she, once again, went to bed alone because her husband “needed” to study. After all, I was in seminary, and shouldn’t she support God’s calling on my life? She should be stronger, trust God’s plan more, and be more understanding of the demands of my calling, right? Wrong.

At the end of the day, I gave heart service to my time at seminary, but only lip service to Ephesians 5, and it cost me my marriage.

Studious or self-deceived

Husbands, I have found that discerning whether or not we adequately love our wives is rarely something we can do on our own. If I were to ask you, “On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you think your wife feels loved by you?” many of us would likely rate ourselves higher than our wives would. Sure, no Christian man would have the audacity to rate himself a 10. We all know we are sinners. But, our hearts are incredibly self-biased, and finding where we truly land on the scale almost always requires a second set of eyes.

Somewhere along the way, we seminary students become really awesome at calling out sin apart from true heart change. After all of our trivial confessions, we may remain oblivious to how we are deeply wounding our wives because we end up loving her on our own terms. We can even wind up blaming her for a difficult marriage when the difficulty is really because we husbands don’t know how to dig deep enough to see our sin.

Gospel-focused affection

I humbly want to serve as that second set of eyes. As I think about my own marriage breakdown, I want to offer a few things I wish I would have more seriously considered during my time as a seminarian:

Tell your wife you love her regularly.

Deeply dwell on the Gospel. Your affection for your wife can only go as deep as your affection for the person and work of Christ. Because marriage is a picture of how Christ has loved His church, if your heart has grown cold toward the cross, you can be sure it has grown cold toward your marriage. Thus, do everything possible to keep your heart soft toward Jesus. Read books about the cross. Listen to music about the cross. Try to constantly maintain a posture of wonder about being reconciled to God through Christ; this is the foundation for true love for any marriage. Remember that marriage is Gospel ministry. If you do not hold your marriage in high esteem (Heb 13:4), you do not truly hold Gospel ministry in high esteem. The size of your library is a poor indicator of how seriously you take the Gospel.

Your marriage is where the audit needs to happen. I think this is what Paul is getting at when he asks, “For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church” (1 Tim 3:5)?

Tell your wife you love her regularly.

I have also found that your class notes may not be the best devotional material for your wife. Fight to ensure that you and your wife’s affections for Christ flow from sources other than seminary.

Never sacrifice intimacy for study. For some couples this means going to sleep at the same time, for others it means eating breakfast together every morning. Either way, budget time for intimacy. Manage your time better throughout the day, or take a lighter load of classes. Furthermore, show interest in her schedule.

Tell her you love her regularly.

Fight peripheral laziness. One thing that will surely make it an uphill battle for your wife to respect you is if she sees you work hard at seminary but act like a slob everywhere else. Be tender during theological discussion with your wife. If she’s not as robust a student as you, she’ll likely not find the same things interesting. In conversation, she’ll likely not go as deep as you, and she may even contradict what you have just learned in class. Yet, gently affirm her knowledge of Christ. You are the pastor of your home; shepherd your wife, making the most of your theological education. Do everything you can to ensure that she feels safe expressing her heart regarding your study habits, ministry or projected graduation date.

Always be grateful for a wife who knows Christ.

Fervently pray for her heart, even when times are good. Pray that God would keep Satan from using your sins as a seminarian to turn her away from Christ and His church. Tell her you love her regularly. Always remember that God doesn’t need you, your gifts or your ministry. If He did, why did He create you so late in history? Cultivate your marriage behind closed doors because “your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matt 6:4).

Oh, and tell her you love her regularly.

God, wife, seminary

It is ironic that I have seen seminary be the place where many have been disqualified from ministry. It is clear in Scripture that the Holy Spirit specifically appoints certain men as leaders by gifting them and putting it in their hearts to serve joyfully in the context of a local church (Acts 20:28; cf. 1 Tim 3:1ff ). It’s a noble desire. It can be an all-consuming desire. But, with this desire comes the responsibility to humbly prioritize one’s life in such a way that prevents a subtle disregard for God’s written word. God has not commanded husbands to love seminary. He has commanded that we love our wives and strive to protect our marriages, even from something as noble as our ministry call. Take it from me. My projected graduation date was December 2010. I was one semester away from earning my M.Div. when I decided I needed to take my marriage seriously. It was too late at that point.

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church.

Love your wives more than seminary.

From February 11, 2011 edition of Towers, The Baptist Theological Seminary Newsletter
http://www.sbts.edu/resources/files/2011/02/towers-2-21-11_web.pdf

New Logos Scholarship

Steven Koster — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 09:15:29 -0500

Did you win the last Logos Corporation scholarship? If not, APPLY AGAIN! It's a quarterly scholarship, so there's a new one every 3 months!

Logos Seminary Scholarship

Steven Koster — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 08:24:41 -0500

Did you know that Logos Software offers a $1000 scholarship each quarter to students of seminaries that have an electronic library (like Calvin Theological Seminary for example)?

http://www.seminaryscholarship.com/

Now there is a scholarship that is open to everyone and doesn’t take a week’s worth of late nights to apply for. At SeminaryScholarship.com all you have to do is watch a demonstration of Logos Bible Software and fill out a brief application. Once your application is submitted you will be entered to win a $1,000.00 scholarship AND a digital theological library that, in print, would cost over $6,100.00!

Publishing the Today on your website

Steven Koster — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 10:55:13 -0500

So here's a secret: We're developing a widget that allows you to publish the Today devotional on your own website.

It looks like this:

Check out the Today widget page and try it yourself!

Six-Word Story

Steven Koster — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:52:31 -0600

My friends at CHANGEffect have been running a Six-Word Story contest. What story can you tell in six words?

My six-word story was nominated in the top ten, so GO VOTE FOR "Seeing God's Story in My Life".

It is actually an adaptation of our new tagline at ReFrame Media, Seeing Gods Story in Your Life. What we do in the English Language ministry of Back to God Ministries Int'l is invite people to experience more of God's action in their lives, and when God's story gets poured into your life, it changes your perspective on everything.

God ReFrames your Life, so to speak.

So go vote for my story!

How do you think, Christian?

Steven Koster — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:17:00 -0600

Friends-

I'm quite excited to announce that Back to God has recently acquired www.ThinkChristian.net, a blog exploring the intersection of faith and daily life.

TC has been part of the Gospel Communications (www.Gospelcom.net) lineup of Internet ministries for the past two years or so. As of the fall of 2008, GospelCom has been transplanting several of their ministries to other organizations as a cost-cutting measure. Several websites, including the Bible Gateway and Gospel.com, have been sold to Zondervan, for example.

TC comes to the English ministry of Back to God as a prime addition to our lineup of media ministries. As a Reformed worldview conversation in an online medium, it complements our other projects, like Walk the Way, Kids Corner, and the Back to God Hour

Shades of Purple

Steven Koster — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:00:00 -0600

This is fascinating:

It's well known that the American sytem of electing a president involves entire states going completely to one candidate or another.

But some scholars at UofM have mapped the election results county-by-county, with the color of the county (red, blue, and shades of purple in-between) indicating the strength of the political leaning, and the size of the county indicating relative population. It is then a more accurate visual mapping of the political leanings of the american populace for presidents.

So in the 2008 Obama-McCain election, the map looks like this:

Note how most of the country is purple. The strongest Democratic centers are on the caosts and major cities.

Compare this to 2004 Bush-Kerry:

Walk The Way

Steven Koster — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 09:23:20 -0600

We're launching a new project at the Back to God Hour, called Walk the Way. It's a conversation on how Jesus followers can live out their faith in real life. Here's a preview. Keep an eye on walkthewway.net for more.

Night of the Living Republicans

Steven Koster — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 23:31:41 -0600

I made a movie with some of my friends from Calvin Sem and Jibjab. Hope you enjoy it!

Don't send a lame Starring You! eCard. Try JibJab Sendables!

Albania

Steven Koster — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 13:30:00 -0500

Albania is an amazing place, a blending of cultures as diverse as Eastern Islam, Soviet Communism, Ancient European mystique, Mediterranean leisure, and emerging Evangelicalism. Here are some notes I sent home during my week-long stay.

Monday

Greetings friends-

Sorry for not touching base with all of you sooner. While this is a pleasant place, there is little connectivity. We have no phone, no car, and no Internet where we are staying. But we are staying at a couple of lovely guest houses in a touristy beach area. It feels rather like Mexico, with Mediterranean buildings, cottages, hotels, shops and pubs crammed into a patchwork of dirt lanes near the beach along the Adriatic sea. We have both nice hotel/restaurant and ramshackle open-air markets nearby. Parrot-like birds scream in the trees, and three-legged stray dogs wander about searching for scraps.

Our first day saw a visit from a local pastor to share with us the fascinating Albanian religious landscape. This land is called Illyricum in the New Testament, where the Timothy and Titus preached once upon a time. It has a rich Christian history, largely overshadowed by centuries of Islamic rule through the middle ages. After WWI, Albania was carved up by Europeans, giving provinces like Kosovo and Montenegro to other states. After WWII, this was a communist dictatorship under Soviet influence. They've had decades of Atheistic imposition. In 1967, the dictator declared all religious buildings should be destroyed. He said "Albania has no need of God."

What religion did survive was deeply rooted in Greek Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and especially Islam. The Protestant Reformation largely missed this place, so there is little Evangelical presence here. Radio 7, our hosts and the station on which our programming is heard, has a difficult time explaining it's theological identity to fellow Albanians, since most folks have no point of reference for Protestants. “Evangelical” sounds about the same to them as Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, or the Moonies.

Yet since 1991, there has been renewed interest in Albanian religious heritage. A whole generation began to ask, "who are we? From where have we come spiritually?" Many have reclaimed some religious heritage, but only in an ethnic sense. Many identify themselves as Christian or Muslim only because their families were once one or the other. It’s more a clan thing than a worldview.

So Radio 7 was begun in 2002 by some young Christians to bring an evangelical voice to the people and help people find their true identity in Christ. Our programming in English is played every day at 3pm.

===
[here's a footnote]

Illyricum (Gk. Illyrikón)
A large mountainous Roman province in the northwestern Balkan Peninsula. Illyricum incorporates the territory along the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea from Macedonia to Italy and west to the Danube River. The exact boundaries of the territory fluctuated over time. Ancient Illyrian tribes had the reputation of being wild, and they often took up piracy. The Greeks attempted unsuccessfully to colonize the coast from the 6th century b.c.e., thwarted by both geography and the native people. The name of the region comes from one of the first tribes encountered by the Greeks.

The Illyrians were defeated but not subdued by Philip II of Macedon. The Romans incorporated the full area into the empire in the 1st century c.e. under Tiberius (14-37), but it had taken them 250 years to subjugate the Illyrians, including two wars (229-28 and 219 b.c.e.). In 148-47 the southern districts were united for a time with Roman Macedonia and were thus under Macedonian jurisdiction. Augustus made Illyricum a senatorial province in 27 b.c.e. and an imperial province in 11 b.c.e. In the 1st century c.e. it was divided into the provinces of Pannonia in the north and Dalmatia in the south.

Paul claims to have “fulfilled” the gospel of Christ in the geographic circle from Jerusalem to Illyricum (Rom. 15:19), but it is unclear whether he preached in the province or whether it was the eastern boundary of his missionary activity. Illyricum is probably again referred to when Paul indicates to Timothy that Titus is working in Dalmatia (2 Tim. 4:10).

Freedman, D. N., Myers, A. C., & Beck, A. B. (2000). Eerdmans dictionary of the Bible (631). Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans.
===

Tuesday

Our second day has been about catching up with the past year's activities among our partners. We BTGH folk talked about our NRB experience and what we learned from it. Theo from FEBA presented her externship with a development agency in Nepal, where we are now on at least three stations.

Some of our key training this year is coming from Bob Fortner based on his new book on a Christian theory of communication. He suggests that too much religious broadcasting is based on what we want to say and the ways we want to say it, regardless of what a listener might need or how a listener might best hear. This approach is rooted in a bad communication model. One cannot assume that just because you transmit something it will be received well. Ultimately, it's a selfish approach. We can be self-satisfied that we said what we wanted, and that's all that counts.

A more academically useful (and biblically-based) model is self-sacrificial and personal. Just as God came walking in the garden, calling out questions to people he already knew were lost, so we seek to offer good news to the needs and questions our listeners already have. Further, we do so as people who care about and legitimize our listeners as valuable people. Ultimately, I think this is about coming along side people, whether already Christian or not, and walking alongside them in the direction of Christ.

We continued our discussion over Integral mission, a listener-sensitive communication model, and some implications for Spotlight. Then we took a chartered bus to the town center (Durres). There we toured the statue of the patriot, a mediaeval castle, and ruins of a Roman amphitheater, forum, and bathhouse. The amphitheater held a Byzantine chapel used for funerals after the theater became used as a graveyard. Inside the chapel are very rare Christian mosaics, which are surprisingly open to the public, They were behind a couple locked gates, but some bent on destruction could easily destroy them if they so wished.

Ramshackle houses now surround the theater, with a gold-domed mosque dominating the neighborhood. There's something significant in the Roman ruins, encasing Christian modifications, all lying in the shadow of the mosque. That somehow seems like a simile for Albania's religious condition.

Wednesday

The next day we drove to the ancient capital and castle stronghold of Albania, which is also home to a Albanian Muslim sect. Albania's key story of origin, the story they tell to describe how they became a country, focuses on a 14th century warrior king who united the princes and threw out the Ottoman Turks for 25 years. His name and image are the first symbol for Albania except for the double-headed Eagle. Near the castle is a 16th century market/bazaar full of trinkets and antiques. Everything here seems to be made of concrete.

All buildings--homes, hotels, restaurants, shops, car washes, police stations--they're all made of the same materials and built in a similar concrete block style. They tend to be painted in bright primary colors to balance the fact that they all look like bomb-shelters.

We then visited the University in the capital of Tirana, the highlight of which was the Albanian and American flags draped over the former KGB Headquarters in honor of George Bush's visit this weekend.

After a lunch at a McDonalds look-alike (complete with look-alike burgers that were not quite ground beef), we came to the headquarters of Radio 7 Albania, It's the third most-powerful station in the country, but evangelicals account for less than 1% of the population. Since the church in Albania is less than 30 years old, the Christians here tend to be younger, so this stations is programmed by young people for young people. As I type this, we are at the studios listening to our own Spotlight program going over the air, with Albanian bookends opening and closing the program. It's targeted to high school and college students shortly after school lets out.

Some of our team has been doing focus groups with listeners of different groups of listeners. Yesterday they spent time at a language school with 7 & 8 year-olds to see how our programming played to a younger crowd. They like the sound effects, but since they had less than a year of English training, I suspect a good deal of the content went over their heads.

I have many photos which I'll upload when I get a better Internet connection.

Friday

Friends-

It's been a busy couple of days. We left Radio 7 on Wednesday and drove up to the mountains. First, we took a cable car lift up the face of the mountain and into the clouds. From the car we could see city scape vistas, shear rock cliffs, shepherds and their sheep, houses perched in improbable places isolated by improbable heights. Soviet-era pillboxes ready to defend the mountain from invasion, all before we ultimately disappeared into the cloud cover draping the mountain top.

At the top, we took a van to a massive restaurant, complete with it's own tiered trout ponds built into the hillside. After a particularly good dinner of roasted rabbit, we stopped on our way back to the cable car to inspect the Radio 7 antenna farm. It rather looks like the BTGH logo. From this perch they achieve one of the largest radio footprints in the country.

Thursday was a long and productive day of conversation and meetings. Bob Fortner spent some more time talking about radio audience research and cross-cultural sensitivity. We discussed at some length our web site design and traffic patterns. As we looked over the numbers, we were surprised to realize that our eastern European web traffic has spiked significantly in the past six months, even though we don't have much broadcast coverage there. It seems the web is being used as it's own content delivery medium. We've been laying many plans for expanding our Spotlight websites, but have lacked the personnel to drive the development. We're hoping that recent staff changes among the partners will allow us to gain some traction over the coming year.

We also listened to a pilot of the Corner Stories program, which tells basic Bible stories in SE. We have struggled for months with the right target audience for this program, so we discussed the possibilities with the group. We discussed many open questions, ultimately concluding that we need more audience research rather than our poorly educated guesses. Bob & Christy are leading two such groups this Saturday. The Radio 7 team also provided some insight, suggesting they too saw it as a children's program primarily, so they would like to see be shorter and leave opportunity for local translation.

After our general meeting, Mike P, Christy, Bob, and I conferred on some administrative details. We were amazed how staffing losses for one partner have been repeatedly mitigated by another. WOH has just lost their web developer, for example, while we at BTGH have just added one. That's part of the key value of our partnership. It also looks like we may well host the SE conference 2008 in Chicago so all the new staff can see the BTGH HQ (and all the Americans can save a few dollars in travel costs!). It's not yet set, but that's the inclination.

After dinner, we all went to bed, but Roni and I were up at 2.30am to head for the airport. I have about 24 hours of travel today! The rest of the team has more training and reviews of past programs for some analysis and improvement on Friday, and Saturday they will be meeting listeners and conducting focus groups. And then they all will climb in a bus at 3am for a ride to the Airport early Sunday morning.

Sitting here in the Milan Airport, I'm uploading all my photos to flckr.com. We'll be setting up a group flickr page where all the SE folks will share their photos. I suspect we'll have a couple hundred. But you may start with these!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/koster/sets/72157600326609182/

Koster.com

Seminarians, Love Your Spouse More than School

Husbands, love your wives more than seminary: confessing the sins of a seminarian

Much study – the weariness of the flesh

Studious or self-deceived

Gospel-focused affection

God, wife, seminary

New Logos Scholarship

Logos Seminary Scholarship

Publishing the Today on your website

Six-Word Story

How do you think, Christian?

Shades of Purple

Walk The Way

Night of the Living Republicans

Albania

Husbands, love your wives more than seminary:
confessing the sins of a seminarian