Her Next Husband

Friday as I prepared our house for painting, Jennifer, Barbara and Rick came over for a visit. Also an e-mail appeared in my inbox from a gentleman in another country.

He’s concerned about his wife’s next husband.

Here are some excerpts from his letter along with my reply:

John, During the early hours of this day I undertook to enhance my young Christian wife’s understanding. My question for this present occasion was: “M., I am concerned that after I have left you to be with the Lord that you will know and practice Colossians 2:8. Tell me now how can you tell the difference between a man who professes to be a Christian but in reality is a philosopher?

The passage he refers to (Colossians 2:8-10) says, “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. Fir in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the God head bodily. And ye are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power”.

She read and carefully studied Colossians 2:8 in both her native tongue and her Authorized Version English Bible. I worked at my desk and awaited her response. In a short while she said “I would not know how to tell the difference between a philosopher and a true preacher of the Word.”

He told her to read the website of a noted evangelical preacher’s “Notes On Hell”.

After some thirty or forty minutes my wife turned and said that he has written about “God’s grace”, “punishment” and “the lost in hell” and added “I hear television and radio preachers talking about his use of ‘rebellion’ also. Aren’t those terms biblical?”

I answered her with a conditional affirmative, “Yes, those words you have quoted from his writings are Christian concepts yet it is his overall philosophical deviation from the force and meaning of the original autographa – the Hebrew and the Koine Greek Scriptures – which raises my eyebrows.”

My wife is highly literate in both of her daily languages grammar but the syntax of (the preacher’s) use of her noticed terms did not seem to relate to the admonition of the Apostle Paul.

She inquired, “Would you please write this up and send it to John Cowart and others and ask him to make comment also for me?”

I told her that this is a good suggestion and that I would ask the Christian brothers to consider and return comment on what she had excerpted… in the light of the Apostle Paul’s warning in Colossians 2:8.

“Great!”, she said and added “For you yourself have often said that wisdom wouldn’t die with you!”

My reply:

Dear M & K,

I’m busy painting our house so my answer needs to be short and quick.

Your concern for M.’s well-being after your death is commendable.

I too am married to a woman much younger than I am. And since I have prostate cancer, in the natural run of things, she will out live me. As loving husbands it behooves us to provide for our wives as well as possible.

And you and I are doing such acts of love right now.

In your case, preparing her intellectually; in my case painting the house so Ginny will not have such worries after my own death.

However, her choice of a next husband is none of my business.

In Matthew 22, some men asked Jesus about a woman who married in turn seven brothers who died one after the other. The questioners wanted to know whose property she would be in the resurrection.

Jesus rebuked them affirming that she was not anyone’s property. “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage”. They are as free as the angels.

Saint Paul said, “The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord” (II Corinthians 7:39).

Ginny and I are to remain faithful to eachother so long as we live but once I’m dead, even though I’m a control freak, she’s free to marry philosopher or football player.

That’s her choice.

Now the important thing for my peace of mind about such matters is found in the very passage you refer to, Col. 2:10: “Ye are complete in Him”.

No, wisdom does not die with you or me.

Our wives also have the spirit of Christ and are complete in Him.

They must have been divinely guided to marry us in the first place, so they can rely on that same guidance to lead them in choosing an even better husband next time.

You can relax. M. has already proven herself to be a woman of exquisite taste and superior good judgment — she married you didn’t she!

As to the famous preacher you mention: Sorry, but I’ve never heard of the man before.

As to the difference between a worldly philosopher and a true Christian?

“Hereby know ye the spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is the spirit of antichrist” (I John 4:2-3).

As to your concerns about Heaven and Hell:

Our family dog Sheba lived with us for 17 years.

If you were to take me into a huge hotel and hide me behind any closed door there, Sheba could find me.

She would not know anything else about what lay behind the closed door, she would not know if it were a bathroom or a ball room.

All she would know or care about is that her beloved master stood behind that door.

And when that door opened she would jump on me and lick my face.

What lies behind the closed door of death?

What is Heaven like? What is Hell like?

Who cares?

The Beloved Master stands behind that door.

What else matters?

If you’re interested in my further thoughts on this matter, you may enjoy reading a newspaper column I wrote, The Party At The End Of The World.

Now, I have a house to paint.

Surely there are easier ways to love Ginny than this.

Maybe we ought to buy these women candy and flowers.