Peculiar Temptations to Domestic Incompetency

The point: Call your shortness, quickness, illness, and ill-temperedness sin, and never blame it upon the sacred task of shepherding the flock of God.

Compares an ordinary Christian choosing between family and a pub (clear conscience) with a minister choosing between family and a distressed saint (blurred issues), illustrating the temptation to rationalize neglect of family duties.

So we must never think to cancel sin by ministerial success or to overcome sin by ministerial success. When an ordinary Christian chooses between an evening with his family or an evening at the local pub, the issues are quite clear, and his conscience should scream at him if he chooses to spend an evening at the pub bending his elbow with the boys rather than spending it at home with his wife and his kids. But when a servant of Christ makes the choice between an evening of fun and games with his kids or visiting a distressed saint, the issues are blurred. And he can very easily justify neglect...

2:38 - 4:01 Read in full sermon

The point: Call your shortness, quickness, illness, and ill-temperedness sin, and never blame it upon the sacred task of shepherding the flock of God.

Contrasts an office worker bringing sharpness home (clear sin) with a minister bringing sharpness home after dealing with difficult ministry (rationalized as 'burden of ministry'), highlighting the unique temptation to excuse sin.

Now the rationalizing comes to light not only in the apportionment of our time, but in the toleration and justification of unchristian attitudes and actions. The man who comes from the heated office amidst the ungodly and carries the spirit of quick speech and sharpness, speech into his Christian home, his conscience screams at him, and he says, Dear children, forgive me. Daddy has been around all day, people who cuss at one another and speak harshly to one another, and something of that has rubbed off on my own spirit, and I'm sorry that I spoke sharply. Whereas you come perhaps from a day de...

4:51 - 6:09 Read in full sermon

The point: Dwell with your wife according to knowledge, seek to make up the lack of intimate friendship by being her trusted confidant and blotter, and seek to give her outlets and diversions for emotional healing.

Describes the wife as a 'blotter absorbing some of the emotional heat' or 'emotional mud and muck' from the husband's ministry, illustrating the shared emotional burden she bears.

of the emotional pressures that are brought to bear upon your wife because she was stupid enough to marry you, naive enough to marry you, or whatever else led her to say I do to the likes of you and my wife to say I do to the likes of me. If we are one, regardless, and we'll discuss this at some other time in greater depth, regardless of what you decide is the level of the emotional pressure that you ought to make her aware of the particulars of the work that you're doing as an elder, and that will vary in every situation. Whether because she enters in at a very deep level to the particulars o...

8:20 - 9:43 Read in full sermon

The point: Dwell with your wife according to knowledge, seek to make up the lack of intimate friendship by being her trusted confidant and blotter, and seek to give her outlets and diversions for emotional healing.

Uses the metaphor of a 'two-fold emotional vice' pressing on the wife (additional pressures from husband's identity + lack of normal intimate friendships) to convey her unique emotional strain.

Circumstances may be such that it is not expedient for her to develop intimate friendships, that make it possible for her to just spill her guts. So what happens? She's got additional pressures coming from the direction of her identity with you. She doesn't have the normal outlets and consolations that come because of her position at your side. She's got a two-fold emotional vice, two jaws pressing in upon her. And what happens? Many a preacher is so utterly taken up with his personal life, that he is not able to do anything about it. He is not able to do his great ministry. He is insensitive ...

10:18 - 11:07 Read in full sermon

The point: Dwell with your wife according to knowledge, seek to make up the lack of intimate friendship by being her trusted confidant and blotter, and seek to give her outlets and diversions for emotional healing.

Recounts a woman's testimony that a man's emotional sensitivity, not physical appearance, makes her vulnerable to adultery, illustrating the deep need for emotional connection in marriage and the danger of insensitivity.

What happens? Well, she may become resentful. She may become vulnerable to a man who seems to be sensitive to her need. And the average woman, Christian or non-Christian, unless she's just someone who's a nymphomaniac or a harlot, the average woman is not attracted into a man's bed by his body. It's the man's soul that leads her into his bed.

11:29 - 12:03 Read in full sermon

The point: Dwell with your wife according to knowledge, don't be intemperate in your expectations of what she can do, and be sensitive to her physical and emotional state in your intimate sexual life.

Explains the difference between a 'messy' room (can be tidied quickly) and a 'dirty' room (accumulated filth), applying it to the pressure on a minister's wife to maintain a presentable home due to unexpected visitors.

No Christian house ought ever to be dirty, but a house with children will times of necessity be messy. And I thank God for a mother who brought me up teaching me the difference between dirt and mess. Mess can be tidied up relatively quickly. Accumulated dirt of six months can't be gotten rid of quickly. So, what does your wife have to do? If you have your study at home, as we've had for years, and the only access is right through the hallway, living room, see the dining room, the kitchen, up the stairs. If the bedroom doors are open, it's meant a particular pressure upon my wife that what may ...

13:14 - 14:16 Read in full sermon

The point: Dwell with your wife according to knowledge, don't be intemperate in your expectations of what she can do, and be sensitive to her physical and emotional state in your intimate sexual life.

Martin recounts excusing himself from theological discussion to help a minister's wife in the kitchen, illustrating how to model sensitivity and provoke other ministers to love and good works in their homes.

to bear upon my wife. The physical pressures brought to bear upon being given to hospitality, the preparation of meals, etc. Well, you see, a man can be very insensitive to that. My ministry demands I be given to hospitality. And I tell you, more than once, I've had to sit on my hands, reminding to grab guys and shake them, when they're sitting in a living room, wanting to discuss theology, and I see his wife out in the kitchen, needing another set of hands or two more sets of hands, trying to prepare the meal. There are times when he didn't get the message. I've just excused myself. I've gone...

14:16 - 15:08 Read in full sermon

The point: Seek to relieve your wife by a periodic break from the whole thing, allowing her to refresh herself without family obligations.

Describes giving his wife ten dollars and dropping her off at a mall for a few hours, instructing her not to spend it on the family, as an example of providing a 'total break' to relieve her pressures.

That's right. And listen, that doesn't stop when you pass 40. Right? I have to preach what I'm telling you to myself. A 52-year-old middle-aged man still has to tell himself he's sensitive to the emotional and physical pressures your wife bears because she's your wife and you're in the work of the ministry. And then seek to relieve her by a periodic break from the whole thing. My wife had little ones even before she drove at times when ten dollars was a lot of money in our budget, in anybody's budget. And just give her ten dollars and drop her off at Willowbrook and say, get lost. I'm coming b...

16:43 - 17:25 Read in full sermon

The point: Educate your wife about the crucial need for uninterrupted times in your study, explaining the impact of interruptions on your work.

Asks if Mrs. Elijah would tell Elijah to take out the garbage before Mount Carmel, illustrating the unreasonableness of interrupting a minister's crucial work for minor domestic tasks.

He says, can you imagine? Mrs. Elijah, just before Elijah goes out on Mount Carmel, saying, Elijah, take out the garbage!

22:08 - 22:15 Read in full sermon

The point: Instruct your wife if she is not yet fully sympathetic to the demands of ministry, to prevent her unreasonable demands from eroding your high calling.

Describes his wife's subtle method of tying a full garbage bag and placing it by the kitchen door, illustrating a respectful way for a wife to communicate needs without interrupting the minister's work.

Well, you see, a man who's conflicting with the forces of darkness and the host of Baal worship ought not at that point to be carrying out garbage because his wife wants the garbage out. My wife has a very subtle little way of making it known. She just always takes the plastic garbage bin that has a plastic bag in it, and when it's full, she just neatly ties it and she puts it just inside the kitchen door so that when it's convenient, I know it's ready to be carried out. But she would not think that knocking on the door and saying, honey, the garbage, no.

22:19 - 22:54 Read in full sermon

The point: Make it plain to your children that you don't like interruptions to family time, and establish inflexible rules regarding family times to protect them.

Compares ministers and their children to physicians and their children, whose plans are often scrapped due to unavoidable professional duties, highlighting the shared experience of interruptions.

In many ways, we're like physicians and our children are like the children of doctors.

29:14 - 29:19 Read in full sermon

The point: Make it plain to your children that you don't like interruptions to family time, and establish inflexible rules regarding family times to protect them.

Recounts the Martin household's rule of protecting 5:30-7:30 PM for family time, illustrating a practical way to neutralize grounds for children's bitterness due to interruptions.

Make some fairly inflexible rules regarding family times. It was known years and years ago that from 5.30 to 7.30 you better have good reason to call the Martin household or you're in trouble with the head of that household.

30:20 - 30:36 Read in full sermon

The point: Implement discipline because it is right, not by telling children they must obey because 'daddy is a minister,' to avoid creating resentment.

Quotes Pastor Seaton, who, when discussing children's rebellion, cited Isaiah: 'I have brought up children and they have rebelled against me,' to counter the guilt that if a child rebels, the parent has failed.

You may have to lay on their conscience if they choose to go in a course of riot or unruly while still minors in spite of your discipline in spite of your standards that they may force you out of the ministry until they're of age and they'll answer to God for it. You may have to lay that on their conscience and that's not theoretical brethren and don't let anybody load you with a sense of guilt that if that happens you failed. I was telling you one of the delights of having Pastor Seaton in my home was there's always some little jewel coming out of him and we were talking about this and he sai...

32:36 - 34:03 Read in full sermon

The point: Implement discipline because it is right, not by telling children they must obey because 'daddy is a minister,' to avoid creating resentment.

Uses the humorous and coarse example of an elder's child breaking wind to illustrate the absurdity of unrealistic expectations placed on PKs, emphasizing their normal humanity.

You're an elder's child? And you break wind? Those child's don't do that. They can they can eat beans and never break wind.

34:46 - 34:56 Read in full sermon

The point: Ensure your children see your religion as your life, not just your profession, by making your personal spiritual disciplines visible at home.

Illustrates how children might perceive their father's religion as merely professional if they only see him reading secular materials at home, contrasting it with seeing him engage in personal spiritual disciplines.

And if the study is not at home they see mommy reading her Bible going aside to pray but they only see daddy reading the newspaper and Time Magazine listening to the radio watching a ball game on the TV they may subtly think that daddy's religion and daddy's religious exercises are his profession. But the real daddy is the daddy who hollers when his favorite team scores a touchdown and who sits reading his magazine and what must you do? Well you must try to put yourself behind the eyeballs of your children and ask what image are they receiving of me? And it may be if for no other reason than t...

37:14 - 38:17 Read in full sermon

The point: Bind yourself to some inescapable pressure in the area of domestic competence, such as a solemn vow with your wife to report domestic incompetence or sin to fellow elders.

Martin shares his personal struggle with a naturally serious countenance and how his children's input helped him cultivate greater cheerfulness, illustrating the value of family evaluation.

Well if God's going to change that God's got to help me. With my kids it was my serious countenance. I was born with a wrinkled brow. I am naturally a serious person.

47:28 - 47:39 Read in full sermon