Welcome to another “potpourri” edition of The Mailbag, where I give short(er) answers to several questions rather than a long answer to one question.
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Is it a good idea to keep a diary in order to vent one’s frustrations and keep thoughts and feelings under lock and key? How might a Christian do it in a Christlike way that is healthy and beneficial?
I really like your second question. As Christians, that’s a question we should all be asking about everything we undertake. Atta girl!
But first we need to back up one step and ask ourselves, “Is this thing I want to do biblical?”. Because you can’t do an unbiblical thing in a Christlike way.
So, is “venting one’s frustrations” biblical? Well, again, as Christians, it’s really important that when we ask a question, we frame it in biblical terms and teachings rather than in contemporary culture’s terms and teachings, so let’s look at how Scripture describes the idea you’re talking about and reframe the issue accordingly.
Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your heart before him;
God is a refuge for us.
Psalm 62:8
A Prayer of one afflicted, when he is faint and pours out his complaint before the Lord.
Hear my prayer, O Lord; let my cry come to you!
Psalm 102:1
With my voice I cry out to the Lord;
with my voice I plead for mercy to the Lord.
I pour out my complaint before him;
I tell my trouble before him.
Psalm 142:1-2
Did you notice those passages are all from Psalms? What else did you notice those passages have in common? Is the psalmist just venting his frustrations out into the ether, or writing them down for his own sake? No, he’s pouring out his heart to Someone. Someone he believes can help him and do something about the situation. These are prayers. This is the biblical model for offloading what’s bothering you: “take it to the Lord in prayer,” “I must tell Jesus,” and “take your burden to the Lord and leave it there“. Prayer.
When you pray, “cry out to the Lord”, or “pour out your heart/complaint to the Lord,” you’re declaring that you believe:
- He exists
- He can help you
- He is listening to you
- He understands the situation, what you think about it, and how you feel about it
- He is powerful enough to remedy the situation
I would encourage you to study the Psalms (you may want to start with the three above and any they cross-reference with) and carefully observe the way the psalmist poured out his complaint to the Lord. Take notes on the posture of his heart toward both his complaints and toward God. What is usually the psalmist’s perspective as he concludes the psalm? How do you see him express faith, trust, and hope in God’s goodness, power, and faithfulness? As you study, you might even want to pray these psalms back to God.
Like the psalmist, you’ll want to pour your heart out to God in prayer obediently. That means praying biblically about whatever your complaint or problem is. Your atheist co-worker is making your job difficult? The Bible says to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Your husband isn’t saved? Pray for his salvation and ask God to help you submit to him. You’re in need of provision? Trust that the Lord already knows what you need and ask Him to provide for you today.
So by this point, you might be thinking, “Yeah, but I asked about writing all this stuff down in a diary. The psalmist obviously wrote down all of his thoughts, so that must be OK, right?”. Well, that’s something else we can learn from the Psalms. How do you know he wrote all these things down? Because you’re reading them. And so have billions of other people for several thousand years. Now, obviously, that’s not going to be the case with your diary, but perhaps you’ve heard the old adage that you should never put in writing anything you wouldn’t want on the front page of the newspaper? That’s good advice. A flimsy little diary lock isn’t going to keep anybody out who wants to get in there, and they are also notorious for malfunctioning. And what about after you die? Your husband and/or children are going to go through your things, and they’re going to read your diary. You certainly don’t want them or anyone else reading things that should remain between you and the Lord. It is for that reason that I would advise against writing down anything you wouldn’t want anyone else to read. Stick to reverently pouring out your complaints to the Lord.
Our church has struggled with having older women leaders and teachers to faithfully train up and disciple younger women. Our elders have decided that they want to train older women to be sound in Scripture so they can teach other women and not rely on DVD’S. However, part of this teaching development is to allow them to teach in our public co-ed adult Bible life classes on Sunday mornings so they can receive feedback from the male leaders and/or elders present in the room on their teaching. Once these women are trained, the plan is to continue to allow them to teach in mixed-gender classes occasionally or when a substitute teacher is needed so they may exercise their gift of teaching. I am convicted that this is violating 1 Timothy 2:12. Is this a biblical method for women to exercise their gift of teaching and to be trained for a woman teacher?
No, it absolutely is not. This is taking a good, biblical goal and sinning in order to accomplish it. It’s like a teenager saying, “I want to be faithful to my spouse when I get married, so the way I’m going to accomplish that is to go out and sleep with everybody I can right now and get it all out of my system.”. It’s almost beyond belief that your pastor and elders are considering such a ridiculous plan of action and that they think it’s biblical! They say they want to teach older women to be “sound in Scripture” while simultaneously violating Scripture.
It doesn’t even make logical sense when the stated reason they want to train these women is to teach women. Why have them teach a co-ed class for training? Why not have them teach a women’s class?
No. I’m sorry, but this is either just really, really dumb, or your pastor and elders are trying to sneak egalitarianism in the back door. I hate for either one of those to be the case, but I can’t think of an alterative. Whatever the case may be, having these women teach a co-ed class is, in and of itself, a violation of Scripture.
If a church wanted to implement a training program like this, there are plenty of ways it could be done without violating Scripture. The elders could evaluate the trainee as she teaches a women’s class. They could have her prepare a lesson and present it only to the elders so they could critique and instruct her. They could even send the women they want trained to a G3 Expository Teaching Workshop for Women.
I would suggest praying fervently for your pastor and elders to come to their senses, express your concern to them, and hope that they correct their course, but if they continue down this road over the long haul, it’s likely you’ll need to start looking for a new church. Because unrepentant sin snowballs. Today it’s “just” a teaching practicum in a co-ed class. Next, women will become permanent teachers of co-ed classes. And from there, can women preaching, and serving as pastors and elders be far behind?
Related Resources
McBible Study and the Famine of God’s Word
Rock Your Role: Jill in the Pulpit (1 Timothy 2:11-12)
Fencing off the Forbidden Fruit Tree
It seems like in conservative churches these days that the most important people are the pregnant moms and women of child bearing age. They are routinely prayed for: to conceive, for the pregnancy, for the delivery, and then afterwards. They get showers and meals brought. Meanwhile there are a whole host of people with needs who are overlooked, milestones that go unrecognized, etc. In addition. The Scriptures say that those worthy of double honor are our leaders! Now I’m certainly not against women having babies, they are a blessing from the Lord. I’m not against rejoicing with those who rejoice, but it just seems overdone to me. At any given time there may be 2 or 3 pregnant and just as many with newborns. I seems to me that back in the day women just had babies with not alot of fanfare. In the meantime are we as dedicated in seeking to bring others to spiritual life? Just wondering what your take is. Are we out of balance?
I understand where you’re coming from, and I think there are several different ways this scenario could be “out of balance”.
First, I want to caution all of us (myself included- this is something I have to be careful about as well) not to assume that just because things are a certain way – either good or bad – in our own church that means they’re the same way in the majority of other churches. I think if you presented this scenario to a room full of women of all ages from different “conservative churches” all over the country, some would agree with you, but the majority would say, “It isn’t that way at my church,” whether they mean their church has a good balance of celebrations or their church foundationally lacks fellowship and doesn’t celebrate anything. I’m assuming you’re seeing this as an issue in your own church (or you wouldn’t have emailed me), so let’s keep our focus there and not on what may or may not be happening at other churches.
One thing we need to be sure to do is keep our categories straight and distinct. A plethora of weddings, showers, and meal trains for new moms has nothing to do with 1 Timothy 5:17‘s admonition to double honor elders who rule well unless something extreme is going on, like the church is spending so much money on these celebrations that they can’t afford to pay his salary, or church members are somehow failing to submit to his leadership with these celebrations, or something like that. So, I’m guessing we can go ahead and put that concern for your church to rest.
Do I think young people’s celebration of things is a bit over the top these days? Yeah, I do. But that’s just the way things are in our culture right now. I know young moms who make St. Patrick’s Day and Arbor Day practically as big a to-do for their kids as I made Christmas for mine. I see elementary schools having big parties with costumes and whatnot to celebrate the “100th day of school”. I never heard of such until about 5-10 years ago. I see these elaborate “gender reveal” parties and announcements taking place, when in my day, we used to just tell people the sex of the baby whenever we found out. (And not too long before that, “gender reveal” and birth were simultaneous!) None of those things are wrong, they’re just different from the way we used to do things. That happens in every generation. It’s normal.
If you think there are people and milestones being overlooked in your church, here’s what I’d suggest:
- Get to know, and develop close Titus 2:3-5 relationships with those younger women. Celebrate their milestones with them. In many churches (and having been a member of and worked with lots of different churches over the years, I feel comfortable saying “many”) the younger women desperately need and desire older women to be involved in their lives, and the older women make plenty of excuses, but little to no effort to extend themselves in this way. This is a shameful dereliction of our duty as older women and outright disobedience to Scripture. Those young women need us, and the Bible commands us to be there for them.
- If you think older women or others are having their needs or milestones overlooked, set up an appointment with your pastor, not to complain, but to lovingly express your concern and ask his advice about how to approach the situation.
- If your pastor is OK with it, why don’t you gather up a few of those younger women you’ve gotten to know, as well as a few of the older women, and start jumping in and celebrating those milestones and providing for needs in areas that are lacking: meals and visits for shut-ins or those who have recently had surgery, retirement parties, or how about a baby shower for new grandmas? That could be fun!
When God shows us something in the church that’s lacking, it might be that He wants us to roll up our sleeves and get to work on it. You might have just found an incredible way to serve the church you love! What a blessing!
If you have a question about: a Bible passage, an aspect of theology, a current issue in Christianity, or how to biblically handle a family, life, or church situation, comment below (I’ll hold all questions in queue {unpublished} for a future edition of The Mailbag) or send me an e-mail or private message. If your question is chosen for publication, your anonymity will be protected.
