covenant and headship

Today I began what was supposed to be an introduction to a series on Men as seen in Proverbs and Scripture as a whole. But I think it is actually going to become a little series in and of itself.

For those of you who were not in attendance at our gathering I have uploaded the MP3, and will paste some of the notes below. See me if you would like a copy of the complete notes. I plan to have extensive notes this Sunday as we continue this study.

One big lie many of us have bought into is this: “The foundation for all relationships (between us and God, and us and people) is LOVE.” That is a lie. The foundation is not love. The foundation is COVENANT. And love comes out of a covenant. Proverbs 2 uses the word “covenant” to talk about the family… the relationship between husband and wife.

The word “Holy Spirit” appears around 100 times in the Bible. The word “covenant” appears about 300 times. This is a very important word... one that we ought to pay close attention to and seek to understand it's implications. The context of this word as it is used in the Bible is always relationship. God defines all of His relationships by “covenant.” The heart of God’s covenant with us is this: “I will be your God. You will be my people. And I will forgive your sins.”

The opposite of a covenant is a “contractual” relationship. Contracts are not, in and of themselves, bad. In business and deals they work fine, but not in intimate love relationships. A covenant is two or more people bonded together as ONE. A covenant is unending and unbroken. To compare and contrast these two relationships:

Contract: Terms are based on the compliance of the other person. (Example) I will love you if you love me. I will be faithful to you if you are faithful to me.
Covenant: Terms are based on a promise given to comply. (Example) I will love you. I will be faithful to you.

Contract: Failure to comply releases the other party from the agreement. (Example) Since you don’t love me, I don’t love you. Since you haven’t been faithful to me, I don’t have to be faithful to you.
Covenant: Your failure to comply does not change my promise to comply. (Example) Even though you don’t love me, I still love you. Even if you’re not faithful, I will remain faithful.

Contract: It’s over when promises are completed or broken. (Example) Since you did not fulfill your end of the deal, our contract is broken. You are released from your contract.
Covenant: It’s over when the one making the promise dies. (Example) Until by death we part. The duration of our covenant is “until death”.

Contract: Maintains separate belongings. (Example) This is my car, my money, my life.
Covenant: All belongings are held in common by both covenant partners. (Example) This is our car, our money, our life.

A contract is a conditional, bilateral, revocable agreement… valid until broken by lack of performance by either party. Under a contract, Party “A” agrees to perform his/her word as long as Party “B” performs his/her word. However, if either Party A or Party B fails to perform as agreed… then they are released from the obligation under the contract.

A covenant, on the other hand, is an unconditional, unilateral, irrevocable, agreement… valid until death. Under a covenant, Party A agrees to perform his/her word whether Party B performs his/her word or not, and vice versa. A covenant is dependent entirely on the integrity of the one making the covenant to keep his/her word, not upon the performance of the second party to keep his/her word. Non-performance by either party does not in any way nullify or release from obligation the performing party… under a covenant.

In scripture there are different kinds of covenants… and each and every covenant has a “head.” All persons who are under that covenant are implicated in the decisions of the head. For example, God made a covenant with Noah, Abraham, Moses, David… and everyone is implicated in these covenants in the decisions of the people God originally established the covenant with. This is called responsibility.

Two very important covenants that we are all implicated in: (1) Adamic covenant (Hosea 6:7; Romans 5:12-21). Adam broke his covenant with God and sinned, and because of Adam’s sin we all sin. Why? How is that possible? Because he is our head. He’s the head of our original covenant with God. When the head does something it implicates all of us (Psalm 51; 1 Corinthians 15). (2) The second covenant we are implicated in is Jesus. He is our new covenant. Everything that was lost in Adam was regained in Jesus. Every one of us is in one of these two covenants… either Adam’s or Jesus’. The first one we have no choice, we were born into it. So the question becomes, who do you want to choose for you… Adam or Jesus?

Marriage is a covenant. And like every other covenant that has ever been made, marriage has a “head.” Every covenant that God ever made, someone was responsible for that covenant… the head. Marriage is no different.

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I'll stop the notes there and allow room for discussion, then post some more notes later this week.

Comments

The teaching Sunday was very good. It's a difficult teaching to do. We as a society don't like that "head" and "helper" stuff. But as you said, the problem stems from the fact that men have not taken on the role as the head of the family, as God designed it to be. If men would love their wives and families, the way Jesus loves the church, then most of the problems between the sexes would go away. The dynamics would make a dramatic shift. Women WOULD respect their husbands if their husbands treated them as Christ did the church. Men it's our job to be responsible for our families, and to love them in a sacrificial way. Chris, I appreciate the fact that you are willing to give us "meat" and not just "dessert" from God's word. It would be easy to stay away from difficult subject matter, and I am glad that you teach the hard stuff too. My flesh took a real beating Sunday... But that's o.k. It challenges me to study and "chew" on the subject matter a little more.

[Des]

Guess I forgot to sign my name on the previous comment. In case you want to respond.

Des

[Amy]

I'd like to mention that as a single person, it is incredibly helpful to see the roles in marriage from a Godly perspective. More to come... hungry right now, but I'll be back to share some more thoughts.

[Amy]

Anyhow, I want to tell you how valuable this information is for single people. We either have "the world's" example or we have a poor attempt at "singles" books to help those of us who are not married deal with that fact. I know that Chris and April have some incredible insight into a Godly marriage. I've read some of the marriage counseling book they developed together. Having someone who can articulate it as well as you can is a great asset to single people. That is why I wanted you to work on making the counseling booklet into a book - so that it wouldn't be a mystery until the day someone says, "Yes, I'll marry you", then finds out during counseling that this person is totally not who you thought they were. I want to take the guesswork out of it. And I want to be able to determine the qualities I want in a mate. I was telling April the other day that we need more women and mothers to share their lives with single ladies so that they can have a good idea about the good days and bad days of parenting. It is important that those who have more experiences in life share those experiences with others - no matter who you are. Have I rambled enough? Anyhow, good message on Sunday, even though it struck some pretty sensative nerves - but that's okay.