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Link Hudson | PentecostalTheology.com
Marriage, Pentecostal, and Charismatics
I saw a video of a guy on YouTube who thought that your marriage wasn’t legit unless Jesus told you to marry before you did it, and encouraged people to pray and make sure their marriage is a real marriage.
I talked with a woman in Indonesia once who heard a lot of testimonies about God putting people together in marriage. We were both single. She said I needed to be careful to marry who God had picked out for me, or I might have to get a divorce and marry the right now. (Indonesian Christians generally have strong marriage values, btw.) I disagreed with her about her perspective.
Last night, Peter A Vandever and I disagree over an issue related to marriage. As I understand what he said, he thought that old white guys who marry Filippinas and financially supported their parents were engaging in prostitution. He said one guy punched him in the face for preaching that. I told him maybe he deserved it for calling the man’s wife a prostitute. I also said it was dangerous to call people’s marriages ‘prostitution’, which might lead them to divorce and marry someone else if they believed it.
I’d like to start a topic here on marriage, and some of the ‘overspiritualizing’ people do on the topic.
Here are some points I’d like to make.
– Paying a bride price for a wife and marrying her doesn’t make a marriage invalid. They did that in Biblical times. – Arranged marriages aren’t illegitimate. They did similar things in Biblical times (e.g. Isaac and Rebecca.) -Age gaps don’t make marriages illegitimate (Isaac and Rebecca. Boaz and Ruth.) – Western culture says to marry who you fall in love with (and if you fall out of love, get divorced and find someone else.) The Bible says ‘Husbands love your wife.” Marriages that don’t fit the western paradigm of ‘falling in love and getting married’ aren’t illegitimate because of it.
We have to be careful not to treat our culture like scripture.
I also see a strong Biblical pattern of fathers giving their daughters away in marriage. Even the Shechemites, Canaanite as they were, realized they needed Israel to give Dinah away in marriage.
Peter A Vandever [09/25/2015 10:01 PM]
you just wont let this die, will you?
Link Hudson [09/25/2015 10:03 PM]
Peter A Vandever, it’s a good topic for conversation as this sort of stuff comes up with Pentecostal and Charismatic types from time to time. Why does it have to die? Btw, you could just say, “Hey, I was wrong about that.”
Peter A Vandever [09/25/2015 10:08 PM]
]you are making a big deal out of minor issues and still reject the cultural element of the new testament
Link Hudson [09/25/2015 10:11 PM]
Peter A Vandever Hmm. You seem to be rejecting parts of the New Testament and Old Testament as ‘cultural elements.’ At the least, the cultural elements that God regulates would have to be neutral, not evil. Why would bride prices, for example, be evil if God give commandments to Israel about paying them. It demonstrates thet the bride is valuable. Christ even bought us, his bride.
I dont’ think i get your ‘reject the cultural element’ like of reasoning.
Link Hudson [09/25/2015 10:19 PM]
Peter A Vandever if a marriage ends in divorce over it, because one of them believes their marriage is ‘prostitution’, then it is definitely not a minor issue for them.
Francisco Arriola [09/25/2015 10:55 PM]
Link you are coming across as someone who is knit picking the bible to attack common christian practices (knit picking is not in the bible, nor is practices) to prove how deeply immersed you are in the scriptures
Francisco Arriola [09/25/2015 11:03 PM]
Link share with us your powerful Acts 4:32 event when you divested yourself along with your brethren of your 401K and other monetary assets and willingly shared them among those who did not or could not save enough for their retirement etc.
Francisco Arriola [09/25/2015 11:05 PM]
you want to get biblical lets get biblical
Francisco Arriola [09/25/2015 11:06 PM]
put the money where the big mouth is
Francisco Arriola [09/25/2015 11:07 PM]
lets get radical with link and give everything we own to those who do not have anything-its in the bible Acts 4:32
Francisco Arriola [09/25/2015 11:10 PM]
pastoral ministry has changed over time, get over it and accept it-make it better, but don’t act like you are above it all by citing all the nt texts of how they did ministry before the telegraph, the newspaper, the telephone, television, and the internet
Link Hudson [09/25/2015 11:18 PM]
Francisco Arriola, understanding Biblical ministry roles and functiong Biblically as a church in these areas may not resonate much with you, but it does resonate with some other people.
Francisco Arriola [09/25/2015 11:19 PM]
what people are talking about and when are you going to answer my questions
Francisco Arriola [09/25/2015 11:20 PM]
get off the throne and answer the questions
Link Hudson [09/25/2015 11:20 PM]
You haven’t even asked any questions. If you want to talk about another topic, how about starting another thread for that.
Link Hudson [09/25/2015 11:21 PM]
Btw, wrong thread. Marriage is an important topic. I was thinking this was the pastoral thread. Sorry about that.
Francisco Arriola [09/25/2015 11:22 PM]
ok so answer the questions king of pastoral ministry
Link Hudson [09/25/2015 11:22 PM]
Francisco Arriola, telegraph is irrelevant. Some cultures still have bride prices or other kinds of dowries. These are contemporary issues.
Link Hudson [09/25/2015 11:22 PM]
Francisco, since I own next to nothing but household items and a couple of cars and little more than that, I don’t have a 401 K. Do you have a 401 K? Di dyou give it all away?
Link Hudson [09/25/2015 11:23 PM]
Btw, Francisco, I dont’ understand your huffy attitude on a thread like this.
Francisco Arriola [09/25/2015 11:24 PM]
no, I have to save my money for my wife and and my daughter
Francisco Arriola [09/25/2015 11:24 PM]
I give away a lot of money, but i will not leave my wife destitute
Francisco Arriola [09/25/2015 11:25 PM]
that includes my daughter and her future husband
Francisco Arriola [09/25/2015 11:25 PM]
but you are so nt driven that you are willing to do that
Link Hudson [09/25/2015 11:25 PM]
Francisco Arriola, i can relate. i’ve got 4 kids, too. Do my comments on marriage hit a sore spot with you? I’ve spent a lot of years overseas, and I’ve lived in countries that have had some arranged marriage, though it didn’t seem to be the dominant way.
Varnel Watson
Mary Ellen Nissley David Lewayne Porter David M. Hinsen Ed Stetzer argues against many news outlets breathlessly reported that being a conservative Protestant increases your chances of divorce– even being near those conservative Protestants does so. Catholic couples were 31% less likely to divorce; Protestant couples 35% less likely; and Jewish couples 97% less likely, which in itself is quite impressive http://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2014/february/marriage-divorce-and-body-of-christ-what-do-stats-say-and-c.html
Varnel Watson
one of your posts I was telling you about Link
Link Hudson
Context? Telling me about when? What did you tell me about it?
Do you like to resurrect the dead? Threads that is.
I was actually thinking about a thread on Montanist ideas of prophecy versus Pentecostal, the idea that the Montanists, apparently, thought prophecy could re-write the rules for marriage. They apparently forbade widowers and widows from remarrying based on a prophecy.
I was going to mention a certain poster’s idea that old marrying young was forbidden as an example without naming his name, saying this was the Father’s heard on the matter.
I also knew a church planter widower who remarried a woman 25 or so years younger than he was, a young Russian woman pastor who saw him at a conference, the pastor who’d planted their church, and believed God spoke to her that they were to be married. She told her mom, and she got the ball rolling. He was really eager. (My wife and I had tried to match him up with an ethnic Indian intercessor from the same country prior to this.)
For me, her claim to believing God spoke to her that they were to be married (which I read second hand from him, since she couldn’t speak English at the time) is on par with reports of Montanus revelation or someone in the Philippines who claims it is wrong for the old to marry the young. At least her claim doesn’t go in a different direction from the Bible or add more restrictions on the whole church than scripture does.
He did leave her a widow with four kids, some of them small, in addition to the kids he had with the Chinese wife who had passed away prior. I do not see that as evidence that what they did was wrong. But an older spouse dying early is a risk.
Can post-Biblical prophecy put some kind of extra-Biblical on all believers on a topic like marriage?
Varnel Watson
I told you about it about 2 weeks ago or so
Link Hudson
Troy Day Something to refresh my memory would help. You post a lot of messages.
Varnel Watson
the video/post should refresh it enough I think
Link Hudson
Troy Day I recall posting on marriage a week or two ago. I am not sure how you are tying this in to that, if indeed that is the case.
What video? I see my own post on your site. I see a picture of two other guys who aren’t me on Facebook.
Varnel Watson
Link Hudson No one can really remind you of something you dont remember your self In your own words
I saw a video of a guy on YouTube who thought that your marriage … .Last night, Peter Vandever and I disagree over an issue related to marriage.
Can you be more specific and explain what was the video about and by whom exactly and what was the disagreement The way you said it the author is the person you named and as such your whole post is very very vogue and hard to understand How can anyone remind you of something like that?
Link Hudson
Your comment trying remind me was quite vague, also. I post lots of stuff.
There is a guy named Doug out in Missourri who has or had a YouTube channel called Fellowship of the Martyrs. He’s really intense, and some of his videos say some good things. He keeps mentioning a ‘red dragon’, and eventually I saw the video where he told about a vision of a ‘red dragon’– supposedly some principality or spirit or something, over churches I think. I did not post information about his spiritual marriage and rib videos at the time because I did not want to promote him, and we had someone participating at that time, probably, who seemed to be into ‘prophetic’ stuff.
Anyway, he and his wife split up and divorced. According to one of his videos, it was partly over MacArthur’s book Charismatic Chaos. I saw him on a video back during the Todd Bentley meetings saying don’t go to Lakeland unless Jesus tells you to. I thought okay, he’s so against it, he’s warning people not to go unless the Lord tells them to himself. But, no, his philosophy is that you can’t do a lot of stuff unless Jesus tells you to do it.
In one of his teachings, he teaches along the lines that if you got married, that doesn’t mean you are legitimately married. If Jesus told you do, then you are. The implication was that if Jesus did not tell you to, your marriage may not be legit and your real spouse may be someone else. There was testimony online that he had applied this same principle in his own life.
I consider this to be garbage and damaging. God set marriage in place in Genesis and we don’t need direct revelation for it to be legin. Some spirit claiming to be Jesus could easily break up marriages in response to this false teaching.
Peter’s idea was different. He tried to encourage the Philippines to outlaw marriage between people with a 20 year age gap. I’m not sure if that was just for expat men and local girls or not. He called cases of old white men marrying young Filippina women and supporting their parents prostitution. (I’d imagine young Filippino grooms would do the same thing. Indonesian culture can be similar in this regard.) He insulted some old white man while preaching a sermon. The old man punched him, and he seemed to be happy to report defeating the old man with his fist. And he had videos on YouTube cussing, in some cases directed to middle ages or older men who went to the Filippines to find a young Filippina to sleep with or marry. I talked to him about it and he said he prayed and had the Father’s heart on it.
I did point out to him cases of older men marrying younger women in the Bible. Isaac and Rebecca and Boaz and Ruth. I also pointed out that in Matthew 15, Jesus indicated the Jews using vows to try to get out of materially supporting their parents was against Honor thy father and thy mother.
I believe the Lord can direct specific couples to marry, but I do not believe we should accept such a claim if it directly contradicts the teachings of the word of God. I would not rule out the idea God could be grieved at the overall situation of old sexpats in the Filippines trying to marry with innocent village girls who could have had much better husbands, or that God could share this with someone. But that doesn’t overturn what the Bible teaches about marriage. It doesn’t make all these marriages necessarily false.
I think we should be focusing on issues like keeping legitimate marriages together, following what the Bible teaches on marriage and divorce, honoring father and mother even when it comes to marriage, and teaching wisdom to those who want to marry, their parents, and the church community in helping them out.
Tom Torbeyns
People should stop being overly spiritual by refusing to hold to such false ear-tickling views that God has one specific lady for you,… God has given us a free will so we can choose who we will marry. Then, the married need to be faithful to eachother. THAT is true Christianity.
“1 Timothy 4: 1. Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; 2. Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; 3. Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. 4. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: 5. For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. 6. If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained.”
Link Hudson
God could direct a specific individual man to marry a specific individual woman. Adam and Eve and Isaac and Rebecca would be examples of couples the Lord may have chosen to put together.
I heard the idea that every man out there has a woman God has made for him to be his wife in a Sunday school class. That doesn’t make sense because widows and widowers are allowed to remarry. And if there is an imbalance of men and women, what about that?
I don’t know if I’ve ever heard anyone teach that God gifts some people to be celibate in a Pentecostal or Charismatic church besides myself. It’s imbalanced, IMO, to leave that out.
Tom Torbeyns
“Ephesians 5: 20. Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; 21. Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. 22. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. 23. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. 24. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. 25. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 26. That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 27. That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. 28. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. 29. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: 30. For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. 31. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. 32. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. 33. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.”
Varnel Watson
I like what Tom Torbeyns said here
People should stop being overly spiritual by refusing to hold to such false ear-tickling views that God has one specific lady for you,… God has given us a free will so we can choose who we will marry. Then, the married need to be faithful to eachother. THAT is true Christianity.
It may need a bit more work on the triple negative
stop being
refusing to hold
ear-tickling views
just to clarify should we hold the view or is the view wrong but otherwise sounds good for most who are not too indepth in or out of this issue 🙂
Tom Torbeyns
I have seen the wicked devilish fruit. Study the fruit and the root. Then reject it cause it’s clearly from the devil.
Varnel Watson
what is the fruit and the root? Are you saying we have a choice to chose or God has only 1 for each?
Tom Torbeyns
We have a choice. The fruit of 1 for each is for example: “I didn’t marry the right one so I should get divorced and marry another one.” (which is a heaven-excluding sin) or ‘”the one” broke up with me so my life is ruined.’
Varnel Watson
We always have a choice except Adam 🙂