So I'm Grant Thorpe and our study is study 17 on page 152 of the notes. When relationships between people are strained or broken, each of us has our thoughts as to what may be wrong and as to what may be done to remedy the situation. It's easy enough, particularly when it is others who have the problem, to think that we may know how things can be resolved. Be reasonable, do it my way. The truth is rather that there is a hiatus in humanity which we all share and that hiatus, if we could put one word on it, though I'm sure we could use many, would be pride. And we manifest our pride by thinking that we understand the situation and more so in that we think we may know how to fix it. So we're talking about the healing of relationships and we're bringing, if you like, the whole theme this week has been the ministry of healing through the wisdom of God, and so now we're thinking of it particularly in the matter of personal relationships. It is true that any situation we encounter proves to be more complex than we thought it would be. It takes God to understand all the dynamics of a human being in their situation, and it takes God to bring salvation or healing to our broken relationships. Hence my comment about Philippians, which I mentioned earlier. When Paul comes to the matter of human relationships and asks people, believe it or not, to consider others better than themselves, or rather not to think of themselves or to have their minds on themselves really at all, but to have their minds on others, he brings to bear upon that the steam hammer, as we've called it, cracking the walnut. He calls his readers to have the mind of Christ, that is, to count others more significant than themselves. He then proceeds to describe the mind of Christ, and I mean, what an understatement this next little few phrases are, but if you'll forgive it, and I'm trusting your memory about the riches of Philippians 2, he proceeds to describe the mind of Christ, unprotective of his equality of God, didn't think it a thing to be grasped, to be equal with God. Holy self-giving, that is, he emptied himself, seems to mean that he was totally self-giving, pouring out everything that he was, and taking the form of a slave. The word servant is sometimes used, but it's actually the word doulos for slave. We have an example of him taking the form of a slave when he did the job of a slave and washed the disciples' feet. And then he says, if I'm your lord, which is the opposite of slave, if I, your lord and teacher, have done that, you also ought to do that to one another. That's in John 13. he was wholly self-giving and took the form of a slave, and being found in fashion as a man, he was obedient to the extent of a degrading death." Now it is that, and it is that Christ that is enthroned at the right hand of the Father. You cannot read that passage and say, Christ was good, boy, so the Lord gave him a big reward and said, sit here, sonny. Pardon my insouciance there, or whatever it is. But he He's enthroned that self-giving at the right hand of the Father. There's no one more humble than Jesus Christ, Moses included. The state was made about him, but you have Christ who's at the right hand of the Father. The one who reigns over us is that Christ. The commentator suggested that to use this outpouring of Christ's life to teach us humbly, to serve others, was like using a steam hammer to crack a walnut, or perhaps a pile driver thumping away at a pylon with a walnut in between. Some of us will know that it takes a steam hammer to crack some nuts, particularly when it comes to ourselves. But is this not precisely the way we must come to all matters of personal relationships? We are made in the image of God and as such there are factors at work in our relationships that will only yield to divine reasoning and to God's own engagement with us. The pride in our fallenness, and we think it's great but it's only a walnut, the pride in our fallenness needs to be encountered by the dignity of Christ's humanity, which is to say his humility. It is this engagement and this healing that we need to consider and there's I'll just go reading on, I think. Given that relating to one another in love is so basic to what our life is about, it becomes the source of our deepest pain when relationships are not in order. It is often the way in which the Lord alerts us to our need of him and his word. Appropriately, in other words, because of our penchant to want to be fixers, we sometimes move in where God himself is waiting and we would like just to just do domestic things and have happiness and pleasantness, whereas God is calling for people to know the riches of his own grace so that their personhood would flow out of that. And so we can be in danger of healing the wounds of the Lord's people too quickly. I won't read the quote, but it's a warning to us not to be fix-its, Mr. Fix-its or Miss Fix-its or Mrs. Fix-its or whatever we want to say, when sometimes the most eloquent thing to do is to say it's nothing, or one word, and to wait for that situation where the person understands that God is the only one that can fix that. There's been numbers of people who've noticed that I wouldn't give them an answer to a problem, and particularly because I didn't have the answer, And sometimes quite a miracle to know that you don't have the answer. And somebody said to me only a matter of weeks ago that sometimes they really didn't like it when I left them with their problem. But now they understand that they've actually encountered the Living God and not just some casual advice that wouldn't have taken them home to the Father. To heal a wound lightly would be to cover over wounds that will continue to fester Relationships thrive where there's love, righteousness, honour and so on, and so these things are the things that must be addressed. That is where people are willing to be addressed by what God says about our relating. I'll leave you to read the next little bit and mention one of the three presuppositions that I have, and the presupposition really is a restatement of what we've been reading in Philippians. The first presupposition, and really it's the substance of what this paper's about, Human relating is intended to reflect the relationship of the Father, Son and Spirit and to be the overspill of God's relating to us out of that communion. In the booklet about Christian parents and their children, which has been referred to in the little video that's been very rudely directed to as well, I define parenting as representing the father's fatherhood to the children, nothing more. and nothing less. I've stayed with that after 15 years since having read it, but I've, just in writing this paper, I've realised that our own relating to one another is nothing else than that. There isn't anything else to do for my brother and my neighbour than to represent to you the way that God is relating to me and relating to you. That's it. You don't have to worry about anything else. Festo Kibinjeri, who was in Uganda under the reign of... Ida Amin, thank you, and had to flee the country finally to evade him. He made this comment recorded in a biography written about him. Don't try loving people, he says, there's enough love in Christ for all of us. Which is a very interesting kind of way to put it. Don't try loving people, there's enough love in Christ for all of us. Now just think that through. And don't try to stop trying to love people, but you know what, I think he makes a point, doesn't he? So that's my presupposition. We are made in God's image. Our relationships don't have a life of their own. And the idea that they are in some way our property expresses the pride we first learn in Eden. Our task is to know who God is and what he's doing with and for us and to represent that relating to others in our own affections and actions. Any other kind of relating is a form of idolatry, a loving of the creature rather than the creator, which is a truth that's brought out by Jonathan Edwards in the rather long quote underneath. You'll need time to just work your way through that quote, but it says basically to love another person in isolation from loving God, by nature of the case, isn't true love for that other person and is in fact an idolatry. Coming with that straight through to healed relationships. begin as a one-sided affair, or if you like, reconciliation begins unilaterally. It seems fairly obvious to say that a healed relationship requires two parties to agree. If all we had was ourselves, I suppose it would be true. But then God has been relating to us without the luxury of her agreement throughout our history, and the story of our reconciliation with Him is wholly His doing. That's borne out in Romans 5, amongst other places. While we were enemies, without strength as well, and sinners, while we were enemies we were reconciled." Now unpack that phrase. While we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his son. We may say that he's created a reconciliation in Christ for us to receive. By nature of the case the reconciliation must be received, but the initiative and the dynamic of the reconciliation are wholly God's. No one who's been reconciled to God says, ah, we've negotiated a settlement. They know that it's come 100% from God's side. Our starting point for a human relationship is not ourselves and another personal group of people, but God's call to us as we approach that relationship. We come to others in the manner He has come to us. The Bible doesn't give us an ideal to implement. You know, the Christian church at Philippi was like this, so let's be like that. Rather, we are commanded to love, to have a proper view of ourselves, to serve, to forgive and to do many other things that arise from the new relationship with God we have in Christ. Jesus says, Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you. This is what our Father does in sending his rain on the just and the unjust. You therefore must be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect. And what he means by perfect is, sunshine on your neighbour. That's what God's doing. So that's your children of your Father, see your good works, but who will they glorify? They'll glorify your Father in heaven. Who gets the glory? One who does the work. So they'll see your good works and glory to the one who's really the source of all those good works. The same presupposition underlies his parable of the unforgiving slave who's forgiven a major debt. and then accosts a slave beneath him for a minor one. The anomaly of a slave not acting generously, reflecting the generous way he's been treated, is shocking to the other slaves. And the dismay of them should be in our own minds too as we read this. And they are greatly distressed that somebody should act in a manner other than the way they've been treated. It's unacceptable to the master who then acts in anger against this forgiven person and argues, should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you. Sometimes a confrontation is required and that's all spelled out for us in Matthew 18. The whole point of going to a person when they have a fault is to gain a brother. If you do this you gain a brother, but if you don't, then we take others with us, and if they don't hear then, then involve the whole church. And it all sounds all very serious by the time you get to that point, but if the danger in which the offender stands is not serious enough to finally involve the whole church, perhaps the matter shouldn't have been raised in the first place. The need under consideration here is not that the offended person should get justice, but that the offending person needs an opportunity to act justly. The spirit of wanting to gain a brother is the best opportunity for this to happen. We may pick up the spirit of this kind of relating when we hear Jesus saying while on his way to the cross, don't weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. The issue in his mind was not the justice, injustice he was suffering, but the injustice for which others would have to answer. By nature of the case, a healed relationship consists in two parties being reconciled. But the will to bring this about and the actions that lead to it usually begin with one party. When we're addressed by Christ in the gospel and when we comprehend what's happened, there's a desire to seek reconciliation and we can find a soft answer that turns away wrath. Or we can show love that covers a multitude of sins. We'll not succeed necessarily in gaining the friendship of everyone. but we will have brought the love of God to bear upon a relationship and have left the door open for the other party to respond." I'll leave the rest and go on to every broken relationship is a call to know the Father or everyone needs to know the Father. Now Paul tells us that he kneels before the Father and The kneeling is, there's a note there, that below, on verse point four, bowing as distinct from the normal Jewish standing for prayer may be an indication of deep need or of feeling, and there's references indicating those. So he kneels, so something's deeply moved him, and he gives us the reasons. In fact, in Paul's letter to the Ephesians, he's got for this reason, for this reason, for this reason, by the time he finally gets to his prayer. So if you look at what precedes the three for this reasons, Presumably, we understand what's moved him to kneel. That is, what has moved this man to kneel? And I point out on the top of the next page that being in awe of somebody and trusting are not natural traits for sinners. Paul wasn't exactly, you know, a sit-down-and-let-it-all-happen person. Something has mastered him. He's on his knees. And he gives us the reasons. Forgiveness. This is again a terrible piece of understatement, but I'm just trying to summarise three chapters of Ephesians. Forgiveness has ushered us into the Father's eternal purpose. Those early verses. I take it forgiveness is central to that little passage. Reconciliation means that the animosity, this is chapter two, reconciliation means that the animosity between Jew and Gentile is gone. And we are now one household, indwelt by the Father. If you're in the first century world, you've got your mouth on the sand. Who could do that? God has. And then there's a mystery, chapter 3, to announce to the nations. They can now receive what God has promised to Israel. And these things are reason enough not just to have Paul kneeling before the Father, but all of us. and not just kneeling agog at what he can do, but deeply contented. Think of all the hostilities amongst which we live. Or do we live in the power of the hostilities? Or do we live in the greater power of the reconciling power of our God? What's talking to us? Their anger or God's peace? It's fairly important, isn't it? These are reason enough to have us kneeling before the Father, deeply contented, submissive, and full of hope. Paul identifies the Father as the one from whom, and this is going on in that phrase in Philippians, sorry, in Ephesians 3. Paul identifies the Father as the one from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, and that's been debated in the commentaries, and again I'm using something from Marcus Barth's commentary, which was referred to the other day. We know Him as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's how we know God as Father, because the Son has determined all we know about Him. But now Paul says that all families, whether they be biological, cultural, national, religious or any other sort of family, are named from this Father. This seems to mean that all familyhood has its origins in and is under the authority of the Father, including yours, mum, dad and the kids. including being mates around at work, whatever other familyhood you're talking about, no experience of family anywhere is apart from this Father. Moreover, no personal or social relationship can claim a life of its own where it is not subject to the redemption announced in Jesus' name. That's the wonderful thing. All familyhood's from this Father who's announced this redemption. So no wonder Paul kneels. We could observe that being in awe. I've made that point, so I'll go to the next paragraph. Our families have been a witness to this fatherhood, sometimes good and sometimes otherwise, and never perfect. Then again, we have all had responses to this human fatherhood. This matter is so important that God made relationships with parents an integral part of his covenant with us. Honour your father and your mother, he commands, where we won't honour our parents, necessity, our relationship with the Father is compromised. We need a revelation of the Heavenly Father to break into our remembrances of our own family situations. I've written a little article called Happily a Child, just a little photocopiable item, in which I argue that everybody needs today, if you were in your 70s, 80s or 90s, it doesn't make any difference, everybody needs to today be a happily a child that is to be content about who their parents were. If you're not content about your parents, which means forgiving them, heaps, but if you're not content about your parents, you'll have a chip on your shoulder. What happened in our childhoods, the raw materials you're growing up with, you're always having to deal with it. So if you're not happy about what happened then, somehow or another you'll be taking it out on others. Then again, we have all had responses, so that's the matter we have to deal with as well. Where we... I'm sorry, next paragraph. Behind many an unhealthy relationship lies an unresolved hostility about what happened between a child and their parents. The presenting issue may be with an employer or neighbour or spouse, but the anger is already present, waiting, as it were, for a place to happen. Whatever provoked this anger in the first place, whether it was the unreasonable or uncaring parents or just our own rebelliousness, is not the main issue. The fact is that the child has never forgiven the parents and so the rage is maintained and spills out into other relationships. They're still bound by their anger. The same may occur in other relationships. Trying to deal with a broken relationship when another hostility is feeding into the situation is problematic, if not impossible to deal with. If all our relationships have over them the authority of the Father, from whom all familyhood derives, we can be sure that nothing has occurred that is apart from Him, not even the falling of a sparrow. What about when? Well, that's the sparrow. What about I didn't get my fair share? Well, that's the hairs that have fallen out of your head. Nothing happens. It doesn't mean nothing happens without the father knowing about it. Nothing happens without the father being over it. That is, if he wanted it not to be that way, he could have stopped it, and he didn't. So your anger, finally, is never with your parents or your siblings. It's with the father. We can also be sure that nothing has happened apart from his purpose to bring us to himself, Acts 17 and so forth. and nothing that is beyond his redemptive action. Certainly no situation is out of bounds for our praying and seeking the Father's intervention. We need to forgive those who've done wrong. We need to turn from the rejection of authority if that's been part of our own problem. We tend to think that events can be traced back to the good or bad that people have done and forget the word of Jesus concerning the blind man. It wasn't that this man sinned or his parents but that the works of God might be displayed in him. Is this not a more hopeful way to come to relationships? What does the Father have ready to pour into our otherwise restless, reactive and self-serving relationships? Every new crisis in human relationships takes us back to the Father. We're not sufficient of ourselves. Only He has the whole picture and only He has the grace for us to be able to deal with things truly and redemptively and eternally. Parents can't rely on their own loving to nurture their children well. Spouses can't rely on their affections to remain faithful to each other. The same is true for every relationship." Just to draw attention, I'll leave the next paragraph and the following one after that simply says that the main phrase, the recurring phrase in the Sermon on the Mount ten times I think is, Jesus began his ministry, or early in his ministry, wanted to tell Israel about your father in heaven, your father in heaven. You don't know your father in heaven, your father in heaven. And if I can appeal to you today, your father in heaven. Have you got your eyes on him or something else? As Jesus began his ministry, so we need to have that ringing in our ears. And then he talks about being peacemakers in the next paragraph. Being a peacemaker has to do with being children of the Father. The children will be acknowledged as such in the coming kingdom. In the context of the Sermon on the Mount, this must mean having the qualities that are referred to there by Jesus, being poor in spirit, meek and gentle, being hungry for righteousness, merciful, pure in heart and not to be forgotten, being ready to rejoice when persecuted. That takes out the whole victim mentality, doesn't it? God himself is the source of this peace and that is why peacemakers are called his children. They have learned from him and in the sermons Jesus himself who is showing the way is a beloved son of the father and is the one who will make peace by his blood. Now propitiation is at the heart of loving and this is where we're dealing with the matters of anger and so forth. Every culture has its way of avoiding love. and putting something else in its place. Some examples. Respect. I've learned that respect isn't love. Justice. Justice isn't love. A little comment there of Christopher Koch in his novel, The Year of Living Dangerously. He has a photographer, Billy Kwan, saying, What then must we do? We must give and give wherever we can. I have decided that Tolstoy was wrong. and that political solutions are for those with no hearts, only consciences, and consciences go rotten, hence tyrannies." Very interesting comment, isn't it? So, you know, we can fight for justice and think we're about love. Charity, libido. We fall in love these days, not set our love on people. It's a bit of a pity, isn't it? And then think that love is what you do when you go to bed. Pleasantness, ambition, sport, music, even quality time and communication. That's what we need to fix things up. I could suggest to you that we may be looking for a technique. That's nothing to say, not to say that quality time and communication aren't good things. I'm not implying that. But they could be being used as an alternative to just plain loving. The fact remains that without love there's no real reality or permanence in our relationships. Human relationships are not a matter of method and skill, but of affections, and affections that are focused on the Lord and the promise of life he's given to us. Jesus summarized the law as love for God and for neighbor. I think we'll need to omit the next bit and come straight to 1 John, which is the paragraph that begins with the word John says. John says that love is from God in 1 John 4. This observation came after a command that we love one another. The implication is that we can now love because love is from God. It's a bit like being told when you're a lame man, get up and walk. And the guy could have said, yeah, I haven't walked for 38 years. Well, maybe we haven't loved for 38 years, but if today the Lord says we'll love, well, get up and walk. That's just very wonderful to be told to do things, isn't it? The central action in God's love finding its outworking in us is the work of propitiation through Christ's death. There's no person, nor is there any day for any person, nor any relationship that does not need this truth. We must all deal with what happened in Eden and in the story that emerged from it in those chapters 3 to 11. in Genesis. The development of the tragedy is worth documenting, that is, the tragedy of Genesis 3 is worth documenting because it opens up the story of each person in Adam. I'll put it in the first person plural and the present tense, given that it is our story. Satan incited us to pride and autonomy, not wanting to be like, to wanting to be like God or as God, knowing good and evil. This turned out not to be as attractive as it seemed. We now have to deal with the guilt of rejecting the word of God. We now experience shame, the loss of our true glory, and must hide and cover our loss. The threat of retribution looms. We are now without hope and without God and the world, and we experience fear. We must find new ways of relating. We evade questioning and justify ourselves by accusing others. Some, that is Cain in the Genesis story, reject the promise of a child who'll bruise the tempter's head. You have to ask yourself why is Cain the way he is and why is Abel the way that he is. One person seems, if Abel acts with faith, faith comes by hearing the word of God. What word did he hear? A serpent bruised the serpent's, sorry, the seed will bruise the serpent's head. That's the only word that's been spoken that would give him some hope, true? One man lives by faith, one man lives by anger. When this happens, anger reigns and this is followed by violence. Revenge becomes a way of life. Lamech. And generations descend into violence. Noah's day. And into unsocial workability, social unworkability. God's grace preserves the race. but our hearts remain the same. Notice the same little mantra at the same little comment at the beginning and end of the flood story. What was the reason for the flood? Heart of man's deceitfully wicked. What's the reason for there being no other flood? Heart of man's deceitfully wicked. You look it up, it's interesting. We build kingdoms to secure ourselves apart from the presence of God. In Eden, Satan seemed to have won the day. But God had announced the provisions that would lead us toward the day when he would reverse what Satan instigated. The elder John takes us back to this story when he says, the Son of God appeared to destroy the works of the devil. So much for all our pessimism. Wonderful, isn't it? And we should not be like Cain, who killed his brother. The only way back to the love for which we have been created is to receive the love of God in the way that it's been brought. You can't dream up dreams about God and get love. You can't tell nice stories about Jesus doing kind things and then tell the children to love and get them to do it. They have to have a cross. That's the way God's brought it to us, and there's no other way to get love other than by the story of the cross. He explains how this love comes to its goal in us. Its progress in relation to our topic may be best traced by taking John's statements in reverse order. You could do it in all sorts of ways, but we'll do it this way. We love because He first loved us. And then, just notice the parts in italics, love, and then fear, and then punishment, and then perfect love casts out the fear, the fear of that punishment. And now because of the punishment which our Lord has borne in propitiation instead of us, can you see that perfect love has cast out fear? perfect love must be God's love through Christ bearing God's wrath in our place and now coming to its goal in us." And so he says now there's no fear in love. And he gives an example of that in the previous chapter when he says, if you're coming to God and your conscience is giving you hell, that's my interpretation, then he says what comfort is going to be if you don't love your neighbor? Because if the cross hasn't brought you to love, then you're never going to be able to come up to God who is love with a clear conscience. You have nothing to reassure yourself. We need to be lovers of one another if we're going to pray. You can't have a grudge in your heart and then go to God. You've got nothing to reassure yourself at all, have you? Perfect love must come to its goal. Let propitiation do its work and then love your neighbour. And then you'll have that somewhat to reassure your heart when you come before him. And then we can say, as he is, so are we in this world. What was Christ like in this world? What would it be to be Christ and to be able to pray like he does in Matthew 11? Oh Father, Lord of heaven and earth, I thank you. You rejoiced in the Spirit according to the Luke version. wonderful little thing to get hold of in the Luke version, where Jesus lifted his eyes to heaven and rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, Father, that would be a moment to see, wouldn't it? To see that divine relationship being worked out. As he is, as he is, so are we in this world. Can we know the Father? Well, Jesus says we can. The love with which you've loved me may be in them, and I in them. Yes, that's exactly what it's about. It's what Jesus died for. For their sakes I sanctify myself that they may be sanctified. Nothing will sanctify you if you haven't had a heart that's brought to peace before the Heavenly Father. So now as He is, so are we in this world, and we have confidence for the Day of Judgment. And the day we need to have confidence about is this last day. Assurance about this day casts its wonder back into the presence, and so we are free to love. Only the salvation of God can deal with the judgment of God under which we stand and this is what God has done in propitiation and so God has provided for humanity to live in love. Edward Tennyson. That clock's got problems. We've got five minutes and that's all right. I'll leave you to read the Eberton Eisen comment. It's a very wonderful book on pastoral counselling, pastoral work, so I'll leave you to do that. And I had planned to leave out the next section, widening of affections is to be the way of our present life. That's all right. But I did want to say just somewhat about we can never avoid the orders of creation or ontology. And I can summarize some of this and I think that's better to do it that way. I was quite taken with the fact that when Paul came to deal with the social relationships in Ephesians chapter 5 and into chapter 6, He does so completely under the heading of authority and submission. That's not altogether true because he actually does it under the heading of being filled with the Spirit, that's the active verb, and then he says as part of that, submitting to one another in reverence for Christ, or in the fear of Christ actually, or phobos, submitting to one another. So part of being filled with the Spirit is submitting to one another. And then there's no verb or any, after that it just says, wives to your husbands, as if to emphasize the fact that if a wife is to submit to her husband, it's part of the general submission, mutual submission, right across the entire community of people. So you can read what I've said there just to get that grammar worked out and to see that that's what it's actually saying. But I found it quite fascinating that with all the relationships of husbands and wives, masters and slaves and children and parents and in other places governors and citizens and so forth, the entire thing is done under the heading of done of authority and submission. Now if you wanted to do a textbook today on human relationships and the social arrangements, would you put it under the heading of authority and submission? But the Bible doesn't do anything else. Can you see what a remarkable thing the gospel has done? And I'm going to pick it up, this first beginning paragraph on page 163. The abuse of authority and submission pollutes the relationships for which we are created. An abusive parent, husband, employer or ruler does untold damage to those under their care and to the free flowing of community life. On the other hand, denying the validity of authority and submission in the various relationships of life destroys those relationships. We are what we are in the given place we have in life and not apart from that. Take the case of a husband and wife, given that Paul spends most of his time on that matter. He links his argument with creation. A man shall leave his mother and father and cleave to his wife and the two shall be one flesh. He argues that this creational order has been fully revealed, I'd rather put there, it has been fully revealed in Christ being bridegroom to his church. Christ has understood what husbanding is all about and prepared a bride for himself by laying down his life for her. He did the task of a slave for his disciples by washing their feet. a sign of the greater washing he was about to perform for them and for the church, his bride. Or to use the phrase from Philippians, he took the form of a slave. His lordship wasn't compromised by this action, rather it was established. His dignity is his innocence and love, not imposition and pride. So Paul tells husbands to love their wives three times in Ephesians 5, and to do so as Christ loved the church. Paul also asks wives to submit to their husbands, as to the Lord. He doesn't make the actions of either husband or wife depend on their spouse, but on Christ. Inevitably we need to take action as we're able to protect ourselves or others from abusive behaviour. But to deny the validity of submission, as we are able under the Lord to do so, is to deny the creation God so wonderfully made for our enjoyment and maturity, A wife who is not secured under the authority of her husband doesn't understand the meaning of her personhood. I ran this by Chris before I said it. A wife who is not secured under the authority of her husband doesn't understand the meaning of her personhood and must fight to secure herself in other ways. If she doesn't honour her husband she has no basis on which to expect the obedience of their children. The same command talks about both obedience. Then again, the security of a child relates directly to the love that a husband has for his wife and the willingness of a wife to honour her husband. The integrity of love between a mother and father is the most important gift parents can give to their children. Forget all the books. Love your wife. Love your husband. That's the covenant that the children are going to, in which the children can find their security. Geoffrey Bingham writes, each hierarchy is a dynamic social entity of love which is purposive and functional in the will of God, so that all relationships are in unity and are essential to the true working of the entity and the fulfilment of the will of God." Last paragraph, conclusion. Our review of the healing of relationships has taught us that we may hope in God for our families and communities. It's taught us not to get locked into a justice or demand mentality, but to trust the work of God in Christ and by the Spirit to bring fresh life into tired and tawdry relationships. We never need be determined by what happened in the past because forgiveness enables us to begin again. We can accept that there is no simple answer to problems because we are made in God's image and are always dealing with God as we deal with one another. If we understand the practical fact that God's our Father, We may be deeply settled even while many unresolved issues remain. We have seen that God has not given up on any of his purposes for humanity and that in the coming age no one will harm another because they will all know the Lord. The part I didn't read. The Father will be all in all. It is the certainty of this that spills back into the present. We may live in this present world among many who see things differently to ourselves and not feel that we have to prove our view of things to be right but to live in the truth and let the witness of that have its own effect. And we may pray, as the church did in Acts 3, for times of refreshing to come from above.