Strong Man Of God Blog

            I interrupt this month’s blog flow for this important announcement.  This past Friday, the Ministry I have led full-time on a modest salary the past seven of thirty-four years quietly launched a fundraising campaign to help fund my salary for 2020.  I am grateful to God and our Board of Directors that have authorized and will lead out to help reach the goal you can read about on the platform the Ministry is using.¹  The why of such a campaign aimed first at all that the Lord has used me to impact in thirty-four years of preaching, teaching and ministry through Open Door Communication Ministries, Inc. is easy and thoroughly biblical (Deuteronomy 25:4; Luke 10:1-7; 1 Corinthians 9:1-11; 1 Timothy 5:17-18).  The work in scope and fruitfulness requires my full-time labor!

            For this reason, it is God’s will that I should no longer turn my full attention away from the work of ministry to labor at part-time jobs to provide for my family as I did the first twenty-seven years of this Ministry.  So, I know all about the apostle Paul’s preference and being bi-vocational; joyfully working for the privilege to serve the Lord in accord with His calling and assigned ministry (1 Corinthians 9:12-18).  As I teach men about working, I have done and am ready to do again if the Lord were to say the same (2 Thessalonians 3:6-15).  I have not come this far to now play the hypocrite and undo the Lord’s teaching through me among many men.  Even so, what I do is work!

            Too, in line with the Pauline doctrine on giving, you can rest assured that in giving to my support it is not so I can live lavish at anyone’s expense--I fear God (2 Corinthians 8:13)!  When you see the campaign goal toward my final salary you will quickly realize I have told you the truth.  My God is able to take my salary and enable me to help meet the living expenses of my family.  I am so blessed to have a wife that is willing to live sacrificially with a husband that has the education and experience in worldly terms to provide so much more monetarily and materially.²  So, I salute her and glorify God who has met all of my need over the years for an adequate wage as His Kingdom laborer.

            Therefore, if you are a regular reader of this blog, you are one that has benefitted from my calling, gifting and ministry from the Lord and I am asking you to be among those that make a tax-deductible gift of any size to the Ministry for my 2020 full-time support.  If you prefer, you can do so anonymously on the platform we are using.  Another option is to make a one-time or recurring gift designated for “Salary Campaign” on the Give Page of this Web Site that will be handled as you have directed.  Finally, using the same designation you can send cash, a check or money order made out to Open Door Communication Ministries, Inc., P.O. BOX 56704, Portland, OR 97238-6704.  It is my joy to serve you as the Lord’s servant.  Please let Him use you to help me keep doing that full-time!

1 Go to FundRazr Salary Campaign.

2 Not only have I declined to pursue a secular full-time career that would have meant having little if any time left for ministry over the years, but I also refused to accept a

   number  of  Christian  religious  opportunities because they required compromising the truth of God’s Word and/or tolerating transgression, sin and iniquity (Philippians

   3:1-14).

            I have five children and four are daughters.  So, I wrote this edited 2011 post with many years of experience learning about and attempting to live out with many failures a still God recognized biblical worldview of fatherhood in the midst of a world and compromising Christians in rebellion against it (Malachi 3:6; Ephesians 6:1-4; Hebrews 13:8).  Being a father is one of three temporary roles God has assigned most men that only His aspiring strong men in the image of His Son, Jesus Christ, are equipped to fully please Him in living out.  Honoring her father’s headship until marriage is the will of God which in these evil latter days will truly take a great woman of God daughter to fulfill.

Originally Posted October 2, 2011

            Recently I heard a professed Christian woman speaking on one of the Christian radio talk shows about needing to have her father’s guidance and protection while she was apparently governing her own life in arrogant independence.  In God’s family design every virgin and/or unmarried daughter is given the benefits of guidance and protection by their father as their head while they live under his roof (and beyond if they will continue to honor his headship).  A father’s responsibilities to his daughter only ended upon her death or marriage in which case her husband took over the headship responsibilities (1 Corinthians 7:36-38; Ephesians 5:23).

            In today’s feminist attempt to unravel God’s design of the family, so many single young women are buying in only to crash and burn on the rocks of unanticipated pregnancies, abusive relationships and financial hardships.  The proud among these young women demand that their fathers take care of them and their problems while they continue in their rebellion; others just as proud seek no help considering themselves heroically self-sufficient.  However, the humble like the prodigal son of Luke 15:11-19 come to their senses and realize that a father in the image and likeness of God will give the long-term benefits of headship only with their submission to it.  There is no one without the other.

            In a biblical worldview, a father is under no obligation to guide, provide for or protect an adult daughter that is unwilling to submit to his leadership and instruction.  Periodic help in the form of food and a temporary stay at home out of compassion for the proud rebel is appropriate.  But the father that is emotionally manipulated into providing for and protecting his daughter long-term with no accompanying insistence that she honor his headship is setting her up for failure as a future wife.¹  As the Holy Spirit leads, I write more about a father’s responsibilities to his children in The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics.  If you have not already, I urge you to get a copy of the book today!²

1 If this teaching is out of step with the times and the way it really is in the world, then truly, the world is about out of time (2 Timothy 3:1-5; 2 Peter 3:9)!  Read my May 5,

   2019 post, Out Of Step With The Times?, under the category, Bible Prophecy.

2 The  book  is  available in print or digital download formats at major internet booksellers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, ChristianBooks.com and Apple (digital only).

   You can also get the Hard or Soft Cover print versions of the book in the Strong Man Store.  I ask the saints to pray with me for a 2020 release of The Great Woman Of

   God: Women’s Group Study drawn from chapters in my book.