Chandler on spouse shaming

Never seek to shame your spouse in public (or in private for that matter).

This sin is as huge as it is common. Have you ever been at a table when this happened? Doesn’t it create a stifling spirit of awkwardness? Never publicly embarrass your mate. It’s obviously a handy way to humiliate her, to “put her in her place,” but it’s so damaging to the soul. The humiliation and the shame don’t dissipate easily, if ever. Public shaming also wins you no allies; most people in these settings tend to immediately sympathize with the humiliated person. So if you want to kill the mood of a social engagement, shame your spouse, and lose friends, go right ahead and embarrass your spouse. But if you want to do the right thing, hold your tongue. The desire to criticize and knock your spouse down to size in the presence of others comes from hell.

From

The Mingling of Souls

Personal reflection on the Singapore Church Community

If you are easily offended, please dont read this post. As I reflected on excerpts from two books, it made me think of how the modern Singaporean Church community ticks.

Source 1 - Page 11 of
Joining Children on the Spiritual Journey

"Sarah's parents and grandparents stood before the pastor, and the whole congregation stood behind them, pledging our support to this young family. The pastor held Sarah in his arms as he prayed, "may Sarah Jane become a woman of God." My heart responded, "yes, Lord." Later I wondered how that would happen. How could we as members of Sarah's church contribute to the answering of that prayer? What did Sarah need from us? What did her parents need? How could we know?"

Source 2 -
The Mingling of Souls

"In courtship, a couple are moving more and more toward entering the covenant of marriage, even if they are not engaged yet. In any event, the idea of marriage becomes a growing reality ahead of them, and because biblically speaking, marriage is a covenant between two people in the grace of God in Christ, it necessarily has the communal context of church and family.

The reason Christians get married “before the church” is not to give a religious appearance to the ceremony but because Christians hold the marriage covenant in the context of the community of the body of Christ."

So here goes.

Do we actually dedicate babies/children and attend weddings just for sake of doing them, or do we really understand the deep significance behind these actions? Do we utter prayers to God with no intention of being the agent to bless, and just cross our fingers, hoping that miraculous the child would become a God-fearing adult, and that the couple would grow old as well-respected elders in the church? What we have become when the young generation not only does not receive discipleship from those older, but have begun to hand over ministerial responsibilities as they look forward to being "normal members?"

Furthermore, to the millennial generation, the spirit of community collectivism of the boomers if but a concept we read in textbooks. We individualists are now forced to cut their teeth largely on their own, clocking in more time earning money to pay off that HDB Flat (or Condo/car/other material goods) than time spent in interacting with a biblical community. Twenty or thirty years spent labouring to get out of debt, raising money for an inheritance that would eventually be passed onto our children or loved ones. After the housing loan had been paid off, perhaps it would be time to look forward to retirement and extensive holiday making.

So far have we deviated from the early church community of Acts 2:42-47, where the believers converted excess wealth to share the proceeds with those who were in need. (The lazy would be dealt with by the church according to Paul's instruction in 2 Thess. 3:10 and by God himself, cf. the Parable of the Talents in Matt. 25:14-30; Luke 19:12-28).

I wonder what it was like for our parents' and grandparents, to grow up in a "Kampung" community... They slogged as hard as, if not harder than any young professional today, just so that we the younger generation got to enjoy a better life than than they did.

I left just before the end of the Global Day of Prayer, and as I was outside the Sports Hub, the national anthem started to play. I stood at attention, and then a couple of older men followed suit. Tears began to well up in my eyes, because so many others simply did not bother to stop for that two or three minutes.

What will it take for us to experience a grateful and sacrificial tightly knit community? Perhaps only when there comes a day we have to stand at attention, to the tune of another country's anthem. Until then the ruling party would continually be forced to continually dig into the national reserves, so well stewarded by our forefathers, and implement more populist policies. Until then, the natural reaction to such a reflection like mine would be, "you talk so much nonsense Shaun, are you going to pay for my children's tuition fees?"

Chandler on "the one"

While I am a passionate believer that God is at work in space and time, and that he is sovereign over all things, I have never been particularly convinced by the idea that there’s a “one” for you. I just see no reason to agree with the worldly romantic notion that every person has just one “soul mate” out there waiting for him or her. In fact, I find that idea to be anticovenantal, contrary to grace. It forces prospective spouses into a routine of measuring up, of being investigated or even interrogated rather than considered. It turns the search for a godly spouse into an audition to be the one who “completes” you. Do you see the subtle pride at work there, the arrogance? Instead of appropriately considering the character of a potential spouse, the romantic relationship becomes about scrutinizing every potential spouse to see if he or she is “the one” for you, as if you are the be-all and end-all.

No spouse can complete you. Don’t look for a spouse to do what only Jesus can...

Even if it were true that there is one person out there for you, isn’t it possible that someone messed up the whole relationship order, like, fifty years ago? I mean, if just one person married the wrong spouse back in the day, do the math—the whole system’s broken like a domino effect of incompleteness.

So quit looking for “the one.” You have a better chance of finding an Oompa Loompa riding a unicorn, fighting Bigfoot.

Because God is at work in space and time, because he is sovereign over all things, we don’t get into conflict or difficult times and wonder if we missed out on “the one.” We trust in God and realize that “the one” is the one you’re in covenant with.

The idea of “the one” can undercut the grace God gives for marriage to be a reflection of the gospel because it can cause us to doubt whether this sinner we married is actually that one. We doubt this especially when he or she doesn’t seem to be “completing” us very well, when we don’t feel especially fulfilled in our marriage. When we begin to give in to our own self-interests, when we cave to lustful temptations, or when we just flat out get bored or irritated, our thoughts often turn away from giving grace to our spouse and toward wondering if the reason we’ve got all this trouble is because we didn’t marry the right person.

So that kind of thinking disgraces marriage because marriage is something God does through us. It is why many wedding ceremonies conclude with this warning, straight from the mouth of Jesus: “What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Mark 10:9). Of course, these words are often said in a perfunctory way, but they speak to the deep spiritual reality of marriage: it is something God has done. To think of it as anything less is to diminish it.

From 

The Mingling of Souls