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God’s design is for marriage to be a lifelong covenant of companionship between one man and one woman but many marriages fall short of this ideal. This session seeks to offer wisdom to counselors working tough questions about separation, divorce and remarriage.
What is the best approach to finding a marriage partner? What is the nature and purpose of courtship? What if I am single and lonely? This session answers many questions for those who are considering marriage or want to know how to prepare for marriage in the future.
God’s revelation in Scripture is complete. While every believer is called to seek God’s revealed moral will, some go beyond this and claim that God speaks to them. How does God guide us today? How are we to understand his will for our lives?
The goal of parenting is to make your children ready to live wisely on their own. Parents must recognize that their relationship with their adult child is very different from what it was when the child was small. One of the biggest mistakes made by Christian parents is to treat young adults as if they were still small children. How can parents foster healthy relationships with their adult children and pursue peace?
What should parents do when their children rebel? Christian parents must be aware of two extremes: giving up too soon because of personal hurt feelings, anger and bitterness … and tolerating and enabling sin. How can we beware of not being manipulated and becoming enablers of their sinful lifestyle?
Those advocating formulas often assume a form of “parental determinism” – the (unbiblical) belief that how well you follow their formula determines how your kids turn out. Parents who depend on these can tend toward pharisaical pride, as if we can save our kids by our good works. Parenting is not about following an extra-biblical man-made formula; it is about the gospel.
Parents often look for a formula which will guarantee that their kids will turn out right. Many “Christian” approaches to parenting are legalistic. It is very important to distinguish between what Scripture commands versus one of many possible ways to fulfill our responsibilities to God. Some make their particular methodology “law”, while failing to acknowledge that other approaches are equally valid ways to fulfill biblical commands.
God designed marriage to be a lifelong covenant of companionship. Marriage is worth fighting for. Some are called by God to remain in hard marriages. Divorce (and remarriage) without biblical grounds is sinful and adulterous. This session unpacks the surrounding issues and questions about this difficult subject.
How can we make our sexual relationships in marriage all that they should be? We need to think about our marriage and sex lives through a gospel lens. Gracious sex gives to your spouse freely, just as God has given to you – treating him/her better than he/she deserves.
God created sex to be a blessing. It is part of God’s perfect and holy creation but is often twisted sinfully. Idolatry, more than adultery, is the key to understanding sexual sin. Even something which is good can become sinfully idolatrous when we desire it more than we desire God, are willing to sin in order to get it, or react sinfully when we don’t get what we want.