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For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:23

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Examining Biblical Theology

Escaping the Two By Twos | Merissa of Little House Living


If you’ve been around the Christian homemaking space online for any length of time, you’ve probably ended up at Little House Living. Merissa has been blogging for many years, sharing her family’s life. 

Last year she shared her story of how she unwittingly married into and then escaped the Two By Twos. If you’ve never heard of the 2×2 group, then you are in good company. I had never heard of them either. There is an extensive Wikipedia entry about them: Two By Twos. They also go by Friends and Workers. 

Merissa shares her story below. Her husband, David Alink, travels around the country and records the stories of people who have broken free from the Two By Two organization. He shares them on his YouTube channel at David Alink. 

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Patriarchy, Complementarianism, and Egalitarianism Are All Wrong


Patriarchy, Complementarianism, and Egalitarianism are all wrong for different reasons. Each one has glaring blind spots, inconsistencies, and/or ignores parts of Scripture.

The terms Mutuality and Complementarity Without Hierarchy are both better. But it’s exhausting to have to constantly explain to people why you reject the main terminology when everyone wants to immediately sort you into one of them. If absolutely pushed to pick one, I would pick Complementarity Without Hierarchy. I would not choose Mutuality because it is used by CBE International and I am not comfortable being associated with them.

I went with Conservative Biblical Egalitarian about nine years ago, but I have been reluctant to republish all my posts that use that terminology because I so strongly dislike the term Egalitarian. It was already toxic in conservative Christian circles in the 2011-2017 timeframe when I started writing about these things online. But I forced myself to use it in order to try to offer where my understanding was. After everything we’ve lived through the past several years? Egalitarian seems completely toxic to me now.

I wish there was a more pronounced movement within the body of Christ to sort this out because what we have at the moment doesn’t work. So much of what is believed and promoted by the three main camps is often more of a simplistic reaction against the parts of the culture they dislike or view as wrong than it is a careful exegesis of the Bible. This then leads the camps to do one of two things. Some move to extremes (way too conservative or way too liberal). The other ends up in the vague middle where the inconsistency of application alienates many people and forces them to feel they must either pick an increasingly unhealthy extreme in order to “fit in” or walk away.

I am one of those Christians who cannot embrace the groups that have become too extreme in either direction. And I cannot live in the aggravating mushy middle of inconsistencies. I know I am not alone in this.

So that is a little summary of my thinking about this issue based on both the current situation in the body of Christ and my past experiences and study. I do feel like the man in the meme. I currently reject the three main options for various biblical reasons and refuse to kowtow to anyone who demands I pick one.

Neither Complementarian nor Egalitarian: A Kingdom Corrective to the Evangelical Gender DebateNeither Complementarian nor Egalitarian: A Kingdom Corrective to the Evangelical Gender DebateNeither Complementarian nor Egalitarian: A Kingdom Corrective to the Evangelical Gender Debate

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Elijah Already Came According to the New Testament


According to some Christians, we are awaiting the return of Elijah in the End Times. However, Jesus makes it pretty clear that the expected Elijah came in His time. New Testament writers also make it quite clear that the prophesied Elijah was already there. 

Shelly breaks it down in this video. For your convenience, I’ve inserted all of the Bible passages she refers to below the embedded video.

All Scripture from Berean Standard Bible

Malachi 4:5-6

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and awesome Day of the LORD. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers. Otherwise, I will come and strike the land with a curse.”

Matthew 11:13-14

For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John. And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come.

Matthew 17:10-13

The disciples asked Him, “Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?”

Jesus replied, “Elijah does indeed come, and he will restore all things. But I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him whatever they wished. In the same way, the Son of Man will suffer at their hands.”

Then the disciples understood that He was speaking to them about John the Baptist.

Isaiah 40:3

A voice of one calling:

“Prepare the way for the LORD in the wilderness;
make a straight highway for our God in the desert.

Matthew 3:3

This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:

“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for Him.’”

Malachi 3:1

“Behold, I will send My messenger, who will prepare the way before Me. Then the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple—the Messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight—see, He is coming,” says the LORD of Hosts.

Matthew 11:10

This is the one about whom it is written:

‘Behold, I will send My messenger ahead of You,
who will prepare Your way before You.’

Malachi 4:6

And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers. Otherwise, I will come and strike the land with a curse.”

Luke 1:17

And he will go on before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

2 Kings 1:8

“He was a hairy man,” they answered, “with a leather belt around his waist.”

Matthew 3:4 

John wore a garment of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey.

Mark 1:6 

John was clothed in camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey.

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You Can’t Have an American Christian Heritage Month Because Jews Oppose It


So we aren’t allowed to celebrate American Christian Heritage Month because it offends a certain group of people.

This is the headline from the article:

US county scraps ‘American Christian Heritage Month’ after local Jewish outcry

Jewish residents of California’s El Dorado applaud cancellation of planned annual event, which critics say wrongfully promoted idea of United States as Christian country

The United States was founded as a Christian nation. It doesn’t take much digging to see that is true. We’ve been gaslit over the past 50-75 years into believing it wasn’t. The reality is it’s Christ or chaos for America. There is no middle ground. This is either a Christian country that honors the Lord in the way it governs and the people live or it devolves into chaos. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But it won’t take long.

If we’ve learned anything over the past few decades, we know this is true. 

Please also note that the United States of America is not a Judeo-Christian country. It will never work to be a Judeo-Christian country as evidenced by the article I linked to. 

But, even more importantly, there is no such thing as Judeo-Christian. Our Founding Fathers wouldn’t even be able to process such a concept. Forget the Founding Fathers. What would Jesus say about it? It is completely contrary to everything He taught in the New Testament. 

There is no middle ground. I realize my saying this may upset some people, but there is no way to reach a compromise with people who not only flatly reject our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, but will constantly push back against anything and everything that honors Him in any way. You cannot have a Christ-honoring nation that puts the Bible first if you must constantly seek to please people who believe Jesus was not the Messiah and the New Testament is not God’s Word.

And, no, hoping that a bunch of Jewish people will come around to accept Christ after the Rapture and Tribulation (in which untold numbers of them are first allegedly butchered to God’s glory) is not a way to make the Judeo-Christian idea work somehow. You cannot govern a country on the idea that one minor view of eschatology might be true so we need to turn our country upside down in order to appease those at the center of it.  

Ben Shapiro explains why everything I just said is true in this seven second video. 

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