By Elizabeth Prata
This week I wrote several times about marriage, submission, and wives in a Marriage Series. Here are all the essays in one place for your perusal and/or edification. Below that, some good resources for reference.
Continue reading “Marriage Series: Roundup- Links & Resources”
By Elizabeth Prata
The Bible calls married women to submit to their husbands, as they submit to the Lord. (Ephesians 5:22-25). But when your husband isn’t a believer in Christ, or is a minimal believer showing little interest in spiritual things, how does one navigate the minefields that pop up? Yesterday we saw young Abigail in that situation, and she used tact and diplomacy.
The question is, how to submit to husband without sinning against Jesus. Let’s start with a negative example of what NOT to do. I’d said on the first essay in this series that submission means you do not have to follow your husband into sin. In the days of the early church shown in Acts, everyone was selling their land and laying the proceeds at the apostles’ feet, so that there was not a needy person among them. (Acts 4:32-35). So Ananias and Sapphira decided they would do the same.
Continue reading “Unequally yoked (or yoked to a minimal believer) but still need to submit?”By Elizabeth Prata
This week I’ve been looking at marriage. I wrote about what submission is and isn’t, I posted a sweet testimony about persevering in marriage, and I recommended a site called Confidently Called Homemakers that has a lot of encouragements and resources for the women who work at home.
Today we’ll look at marriage to a difficult man. I know what you’re thinking, lol, ‘They’re ALL difficult!’ And they are! And so are we women. As part of the curse, God said that the desire for women would be for their husbands, and the husbands in turn would have a tendency to rule over us. This is ripe ground for conflict. Before the fall, Adam and Eve’s was the only perfect marriage. All of them since have had difficulty. In Genesis 3 Adam and Eve started blame-shifting and bickering. (Where do I get the bickering from? I am supposing…the leaf-sewing went something like this: “You’re not doing it right! That leaf isn’t big enough! Just give it here!”)
Continue reading “What if my marriage is to a difficult man?”By Elizabeth Prata
Beth Moore, biblically, is a teacher #fail
Did you know that for men who desire to teach, pastor, or lead, there are many more Biblical standards addressing their behavior than there are skill-level credentials? There’s just one mentioned skill: Men must be “able to teach”. But there are many more verses outlining how they are to behave. If they fail to adhere to any of the standards, including behavioral, they are disqualified from the position.
It’s the same for women. There are many more behavior and lifestyle standards than skills. If God were grading on a curve, behavior would weigh more than skills or talents. Here some of them are in Titus 2:3-5. The passage opens with admonishment for women to be reverent and ends with warnings that failure to be reverent will dishonor God’s word.
Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.
I think we all understand what it means to be reverent, not a malicious gossip, and not a drunk. What does sensible mean in this context? It is to be self-controlled and of sound mind. Mark that, I’ll come back to it. What does it mean to “dishonor” God’s word? The Greek here is blasphēmētai 987: “to slander, hence to speak lightly or profanely of sacred things.” It is to be irreverent.
Now that we know what God expects, let’s take a look at who fails the test, and why.
Continue reading “What are the biblical qualities God desires in a woman teacher? Not the ones Beth Moore exhibits”By Elizabeth Prata
Hey, Ladies, SAHMs: I recommend Jennifer Ross’ site “Confidently Called Homemakers”. She has tons of resources and encouragements for you. Incidentally, she interviewed me on the topic of ‘Does God Speak with us Audibly’? and the podcast is up!
Her site: http://confidentlycalled.com/
Her interview with me: is #30, http://confidentlycalled.com/2021/04/20/doesgodspeakwithusaudibly/
Other great discussions on the following topics:
29. Life after Deleting Social Media with Grace Wagler
28: Learn to Manage Your Time Well with Sue Nelson
27: How Stay at Home Moms Can get Involved in Standing up for God-Given Freedoms with Sheri Graham
26: Practical Home Management with Marci Ferrell
25: How Pursuing a Career Cost Me 3 of my 4 Children with Guest Sherry
24: Living for Jesus as a Stay At Home Mom with Karen DeBeus
23: Eternal Impact in the Everyday Mundane with Kelly Crawford
22: Coming Out of the Chaos with Meg Dickey
21: Starting from Scratch in Homemaking with Jami Balmet
And much more on the podcast and the blog! http://confidentlycalled.com/
By Elizabeth Prata
There are two worlds. The seen and the unseen. The world and the heavens. The devil’s kingdom and the Messiah’s. That’s it.
We will never get an unsaved person to believe this, because these things are spiritually discerned. 1 Corinthians 2:14 says, But a natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. (Romans 8:8)
It is nonetheless true. Other truisms come with this knowledge, such as the fact that the world systems vs the heavenly kingdom each have its own unique vocabulary. Nowhere is this more spelled out than in Isaiah 5:20, which reads,
Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
Matthew Henry says of the Isaiah verse,
Continue reading “Culture calls this a dirty word”By Elizabeth Prata
Marriage is hard. It takes a lot of work, denial of self, service to the spouse, and submission. Having Jesus at the center is necessary for success and even then, some Christian marriages still fail. Without Christ, I am not sure how any marriage survives! I am not married now, but I was before I was saved. It was difficult and I wish now that I’d had Jesus to rely upon for help. Christians are truly blessed to have the Groom to whom we can bring our marital cares, joys, and petitions.
This week I’ll look at Christian marriage in a upcoming few essays.
Here is a heartfelt, true story about marriage from someone who knows. May you be encouraged as I was by this sweet testimony of my friend Pastor James Bell. He posted this in 2016. He’ll now have been married for 54 years next month. Here’s Pastor Bell:
Continue reading “Persevering in Marriage: A True Story”Are you known?
Are you ready?
A clear, simple, and wonderful explanation of the Gospel. Eternity can come for you at any moment. Are you ready?
By Elizabeth Prata
I thought this photo of the dogwood in my yard is a good example of how spring SPRINGS up, seemingly reaching for the sun, in joy and boundless energy
It’s been a busy work week here in my world of public elementary school. We are entering the last phase of the year, the time of final reviews, state testing, longer recesses, ‘fun packets,’ and huge lines at the water fountain. It’s getting warmer day by day, and the pollen is finally blowing away until next year. At home, my cat Sully likes to sit by the open window and watch the activity in the yard. There are lots of chipmunks, squirrels, birds, and neighborhood cats to keep an eye on. My mind is turning to summer, when I have two months of summer vacation. Remember when you were a kid, summer seemed soooo long? LOL, it is still pretty nice to have the time off. I value it.
I was thinking the other day how the Lord re-created my life down here in Georgia after I moved from Maine at age 45. After a brief stint writing for the daily newspaper, I returned to education, this time as a teacher’s aide instead of as a teacher that I’d been in Maine. I enjoy the lower levels of stress as an aide, and less responsibility than a classroom teacher has. That aspect has turned out to be important as I enter my 60th decade. I like the time off when the different breaks come around on the school calendar, also important as I age, because my energy stutters and hiccups and isn’t to be counted on from one day to the next. The job has just enough of a salary to sustain me so I can concentrate on my ministry. On the practical side, I have health care coverage, yet the job also gives me personal joy and professional fulfillment. My church is wonderful. It’s really quite perfect. Looking back over this last 15 years I can clearly see the providential hand of Jesus working in my life.
We often can’t see His providence at the time, but in hindsight we look back and see how our decisions matched up with His plan and how He works things for our good and His glory.
Now on to some edifying content from the brothers and sisters that I’ve found this week for your reading and listening pleasure-
Continue reading “Prata Potpourri: Walking, Thinking, Staging, Hating, Witnessing, Dying, more”By Elizabeth Prata
But the wicked are like the tossing sea; for it cannot be quiet, and its waters toss up mire and dirt. (Isaiah 57:20)
[The ungodly are] wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever. (Jude 1:13)
The sea is an apt metaphor for the restlessness of the ungodly. They toss and turn, go to and fro, casting up muck and mire with ungodly thoughts and deeds. In Jude, he is speaking of infiltrating false teachers, but the metaphor is apt also to apply in general to the ungodly, their foaming spray prevents clear vision and in fact has no substance.
Continue reading “The sea is restless”
the-end-time.org 