CIR KBs

Christians in Recovery Knowledge Base article

Dealing With Difficult In-laws

Question: My father in law and I differ. I have on numerous occasions held my tongue and not said anything when he rants about the way I say things, where I am going, why I exist, and everything else that I can even breathe. He never says anything positive and is always filling in my words and others too. I think he thinks women are small and insignificant. I also feel he does not and has never liked me. I am mainly concerned when he mouths me that my children will notice and learn that from him. I don’t think confronting him would do a thing, because he is overbearing and will hear only what he wants. I love my husband, but not being able to be around his father.

Dealing With Difficult In-laws Read More »

Love Is Forgiveness, Compassion, Submission and Respect

A healthy marriage is made up of compassion, submission, respect and forgiveness. Did you notice that I didn’t even use the word “love”? That’s because all of the above constitutes love. When you demonstrate these character traits with others you are essentially turning these words into loving action. Love is being submissive, compassionate, respectful and forgiving.

Forgiveness is Love

Love Is Forgiveness, Compassion, Submission and Respect Read More »

Why It’s Important To Respect Your Spouse

As a husband your purpose in marriage is to respect your wife, even when you don’t feel like it. When a man gets married he takes on the added responsibilities of marriage, which include being respectful and caring. A husband is to love his wife as he would love himself.

In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church. (Ephesians 5:28-29)

Why It’s Important To Respect Your Spouse Read More »

Our Motives are Important

Proverbs 22:26-27
Do not be one of those who give pledges,
who become surety for debts.
If you have nothing with which to pay,
why should your bed be taken from under you?

God is just as concerned (perhaps more so) about why we do something than about what we do. Behavior which appears righteous on the outside may be sinful if done for the wrong reasons. Paul wrote an interesting description to Timothy:

Our Motives are Important Read More »

Sound Doctrine

2 Timothy 4:2-5 NRSV
Proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths. As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.

Sound Doctrine Read More »

The Science of Sex

by Marcia Segelstein

Thanks to medical science, we now know that smoking cigarettes is unhealthy. It can lead to diseases like emphysema and lung cancer, and increase the risks of heart disease and stroke. So we have acted swiftly on that information. In one generation, our attitude about smoking has undergone a remarkable transformation. Where smoking was once commonplace, and homes everywhere had ashtrays, even if only for visiting smokers, today it’s almost shocking to see someone light up. Banned from airplanes, offices and many restaurants, smoking – and smokers – are viewed with a kind of disdain at worst, pity at best. TV shows and movies rarely show people smoking, except when they’re villains. The

The Science of Sex Read More »

End of Life Issues: Dying, Death and Euthanasia

Evangelicals are familiar with Christ’s promise “that (we) might have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10b). We associate that promise with the peace, hope, and joy that comes from our reconciliation to God and our obedience to His commandments. Perhaps we are not as familiar with the concept in the first part of that same verse. “The thief comes to steal and destroy,” the opposite to Jesus’ work. The false messiah causes discord, despair, and emptiness. Both the positive and the negative sides of this verse are usually associated with spiritual consequences for the believer or the unbeliever. This verse and others, have a clear application to the health of the physical body.

End of Life Issues: Dying, Death and Euthanasia Read More »

Proving Our Love to Others

Proverbs 22:16, 22-23 NRSV
Oppressing the poor in order to enrich oneself, and giving to the rich, will lead only to loss. Do not rob the poor because they are poor, or crush the afflicted at the gate; for the Lord pleads their cause and despoils of life those who despoil them.

Francis Schaeffer was a theologian in the mid 1900’s. In one of the books he wrote, How Then Shall We Live, he talks about the legacies of the Reformation. While the Reformers brought great freedom to the Church, they also, unfortunately, left us with the idea of accumulating wealth without considering those around us.

Proving Our Love to Others Read More »

Spare the Rod?

Proverbs 22:15
Folly is bound up in the heart of a boy,
but the rod of discipline drives it far away.

I just read a book that talked about this verse. The author—with whom I agreed about a great many things—insisted that this verse spoke of corporal punishment (spanking) and that every child (until a certain age) needs spanking to “get rid of the foolishness.”

I’m not so sure I agree.

Spare the Rod? Read More »