Lots of people binge-watch TV shows.  Recently, I’ve been binge-reading personal-finance blogs.  One of their favorite topics is asset allocation, in other words, where you should put the money you’re saving for retirement. 

Of all the possible investments, the one with the highest returns historically is the stock market.  However, most financial gurus will tell you not to put all your money in stocks or stock mutual funds.  It’s too risky.  What do you do if you’re invested in 100 percent equities, and the market tanks the day after you retire?  Your portfolio may never recover.

Instead, the gurus recommend putting part of your money in stocks, another part in bonds, maybe another part in cash or T-bills.  The overall returns probably won’t be as good, but those safer investments will protect you from disaster.

This divided strategy makes a lot of sense financially, but a lot of Christians try to apply it where it’s not appropriate.  We have examples of men and women of faith who were 100 percent invested in God:  Joseph, Moses, Daniel, Paul, and many others.  They gave up substantial earthly rewards and faced severe trials for righteousness’ sake, and they were all rewarded.

However, too many brethren look at these examples and say to themselves, “Oooh—too risky!”  They try to hedge their investment in God.  God promises them inexpressible joy in Christ, but they’re worried that they won’t be happy without their alcohol habit or porn habit, so they cling to it.  God promises them eternal fellowship in heaven, but they’re worried about losing friends here if they’re too vocal about their faith, so they remain silent.  Rather than being 100 percent invested in God, they’re 75/25, or maybe 50/50.

This diversified spiritual portfolio may seem wise to earthly reasoning, but it’s an invitation to spiritual disaster.  As Peter tells us in 1 Peter 1:13, we are supposed to set our hope fully on the grace that is to be revealed.  Fully.  That’s 100 percent.  Not 90 percent on grace, 10 percent on pleasure.  Not 75 percent on grace, 25 percent on friends.  Nope.  Fully.  Otherwise, we will fail to achieve what is most important. 

Our journey to heaven isn’t like a retirement account:  passive, under the influence of forces beyond our control.  Instead, the Scripture compares it to a race, in which a partial investment can only lead to disaster.  NASCAR drivers don’t race to economize on gas.  They race to win.  Athletes don’t jog through the 100-meter dash so they can have a comfortable walk to the car afterward.  They run to win. 

We need to run to win too, and we need to recognize those “diversification opportunities” not as ways to avoid risk but as encumbrances that will keep us from winning.  Many of the problems that we worry about never actually come up, but even if they do, so what?  5000 years from now, nobody in heaven will be saying, “Man, I really wish I hadn’t given up my drinking habit!”

In that day, there will be regrets in plenty, but to find them, you’ll have to look someplace else.

This week’s Bible reading has many, many verses in it that stand out to me.  Of them all, though, the one that most fired my imagination was Colossians 2:8.  There, Paul writes, “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.” 

Contrary to what we might think, in this verse, Paul makes clear that being captured is not a bad thing per se.  Instead, we’re supposed to avoid being captured, or indeed capturing others, with the wrong thing.  Being taken captive by philosophy, empty deceit, human tradition, or the elemental spirits of the world:  bad.  Being taken captive by Christ:  good.

Our first application here must be to ourselves.  We can have other hobbies, interests, and concerns, but the One who owns us must be Jesus.  Our minds and hearts must be turned to Him above all others.

Second, in our efforts to win the lost, we must be careful of using anything but Jesus to appeal to outsiders.  There are some obvious applications here.  The congregation that attracts unbelievers with a worship service that sounds like a rock concert has made converts to the rock concert, not to Jesus.  The church that gets people on its church bus by taping a five-dollar-bill under one of the seats might be bringing those people to services, but it isn’t bringing them to the Lord.  Rick Warren to the contrary, “Train up a child in the way he should go,” is not sufficient authority for a church to establish a potty-training ministry!  The gospel, not earthly appeal, is what brings the lost to Christ.

However, we must look to ourselves here too.  It is possible for us to adhere to the form of Bible authority while defeating God’s purpose and intent.  Consider, for instance, song worship.  It is entirely possible for a congregation to raise the rafters in four-part a-cappella harmony yet not take  visitors captive to Christ.  Only the word of Christ, first dwelling within us richly, then expressed to one another in heartfelt singing, can do that.  If our song worship is not about the message, it is missing the mark.

So too with preaching.  A man can command the pulpit in one of our churches with all the skill of Apollos but not bring anybody closer to Jesus.  A sermon built on human tradition and political prejudice can be “not unscriptural” and still have nothing to say about the gospel.  The hearers of such a sermon may well amen every word without having brought their lives into submission to the Lord.

To succeed in carrying out God’s will in this evil time, we cannot abandon the word of Christ for any fleshly expedient, no matter how alluring.  Instead, we must focus everything we do:  singing, preaching, teaching, and personal work, more and more tightly on Jesus.  We must repeatedly proclaim His mercy as our Savior and His authority as our Lord.  If we want to bring others to Jesus, nothing but Jesus will do.

In the Lord’s church, there are many workers who toil in obscurity, never getting the recognition they deserve for their efforts and faithfulness.  Of them all, though, the wives of preachers may well be the most neglected and overlooked.

This begins with the higher standard to which preachers’ wives are held.  In theory, they are no different from any other sister in the congregation.  In practice, there are as many expectations for their conduct as there are for the conduct of their husbands. 

These expectations first appear during the preacher-interview process.  I’ve never had a discussion with a congregation in which my wife didn’t come up.  In the secular world, questions about a prospective employee’s spouse are irrelevant and possibly illegal.  In the church, they’re central to a congregation’s assessment of a man. 

Additionally, an eldership or men’s meeting may well want to interview the preacher’s wife before they make a decision (the elders at Jackson Heights certainly interviewed Lauren before hiring me).  At the least, the women of the congregation will want to get to know her before the church brings her husband on.

During a preacher’s tenure with a congregation, the relationship between the church and the preacher’s wife is as much employer-employee as it is familial.  Other women can get away with not teaching Bible classes and otherwise being active in the work.  Just let the preacher’s wife try that!  The other members of the congregation often feel at liberty to comment on the way the preacher’s wife spends her money, styles her hair, and trains her children.  What’s she going to do, get mad and leave? 

Outside the assembly, she is expected to be warm, hospitable, and everybody’s best friend on demand.  Woe betide the preacher whose wife gets the reputation of being stuck up!  Frankly, in a lot of ways, the work of the evangelist’s wife is more difficult than the work of the evangelist.

Some women have the right blend of gifts and determination to meet the demands of this quasi-job with cheerfulness and grace.  Both Shawn and I are blessed with wives who fit naturally into this challenging situation.  We freely acknowledge that Genesia and Lauren make us twice as effective as we would otherwise be.

Other women, though, find that they have married into a position that they neither desired nor are suited for.  Some of them become embittered by the expectations.  I can think of more than a few preachers’ wives who, as the saying goes, look like they were weaned on a sour pickle.  Though I don’t think that bitterness is appropriate for any Christian, I can certainly understand how they got there.

Perhaps more common are the preachers’ wives who gamely soldier on, who play the part of the bubbly extrovert at tremendous emotional cost.  They love their husbands and love the Lord, but each passing week adds to their burden of psychological stress.  In many instances, this stress eventually manifests itself in serious illness.  Such women deserve our sympathies and prayers. 

Indeed, all preachers’ wives deserve our consideration.  It certainly would help if we remembered to treat them as sisters rather than employees.  If we wouldn’t make a comment to another woman in the congregation, we probably shouldn’t make it to her either.  What’s more, we don’t have the right to expect more from her than we do from anyone else.  If she’s an employee, give her a job description and put her on the payroll.  If not, don’t treat her like one! 

Honestly, I don’t have a lot of optimism on this score.  I think the double standard for preachers’ wives in the church is so deeply rooted that a stick of dynamite wouldn’t blast it out.  However, it will help if we at least acknowledge the double standard and extend grace to women who don’t live up to it. 

Let’s hear it for preachers’ wives, then, who bear up nobly under the burdens of a thankless and demanding work!  Whether they excel or struggle, we ought to pray for them.  For that matter, we ought to pause to encourage and thank them.  They’re human beings too, and they universally appreciate a kind word.  I’m certain that on the day of judgment, their sacrifices will be remembered and honored.  The least we can do is to remember and honor them too.

We live in a world that seems to get busier every year.  Houses are more expensive.  Commutes are longer.  Jobs are more demanding.  Children’s activities are more time-consuming.  As a result, there are tens of millions of Americans who have every minute of every day scheduled for something. 

Lots of important things suffer as a result of this lifestyle, and children are at the top of the list.  For years “quality time” has been the parenting buzzword.  Maybe you only ever talk with your kid for 10 minutes a day on the way to soccer practice, but with enough wisdom and effort, you can make that conversation Meaningful.

However, quality time doesn’t seem to yield the results that a lot of parents want, particularly when it comes to religion.  It’s no secret that young people have been leaving the Lord’s church in droves.  They might be headed to a great college and a great career, but they don’t seem to be headed to heaven.  Sometimes, this happens despite everything that parents can do.  More of the time, it happens because of what parents didn’t do. 

In this increasingly perilous environment, parents are increasingly looking to outsource religious instruction to the church.  This is, after all, consonant with modern parental strategy.  You don’t teach your son to play soccer.  You pay to put him on a soccer team, and the coach does that.  You don’t teach your daughter to play the clarinet.  You pay for music lessons, and the music teacher does that.

Instruction is the province of experts, so parents want to leave religious instruction to religious experts.  It’s the church’s job to have really good, really thorough Sunday-morning Bible classes.  It’s the church’s job to organize activities, so that your kids can make good friends instead of the trash friends they’re likely to make at school.

There are two problems with this.  The first is time.  Even if you also take your kid to Wednesday-night Bible classes _and_ the monthly teen devotion, 2.25 hours a week is not enough to bring up a child in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. 

In fact, only a parent (two parents if we’re following God’s plan) can possibly devote the time to do the job right.  This can’t be an activity.  It has to be a way of life.  If you don’t have the time, parents, you need to make the time.  God doesn’t expect you to live in that house, drive that car, or chauffeur your kid around to 57 different activities.  He does expect you to teach them about Him. 

Second, when it comes to a child’s spirituality, parents are (or at least should be) the experts.  Nobody knows my kid like I do.  Because of shared DNA and shared lives, I know them.  I know the way they think.  As a result, nobody is better equipped than I am to give them spiritual guidance.  No Sunday-school teacher or youth minister, no matter how willing, can step into my place.

It’s very convenient to make the church responsible for the way our kids turn out.  That way, we don’t have to invest much effort ourselves, and if they turn out badly, we can blame the church.  However, no matter how much we might want to transfer the burden of parenting, it remains solidly on our shoulders.  No matter how much we squint, the word “church” will not magically appear in Ephesians 6:4.  The work of training our children is ours.  Either we do it, or we don’t.