April 25, 2021April 21, 2021 Peter Witkowski Parenting

Churches need Families and Families Need Churches

Christians should champion and defend the family because it serves as foundation for all civic institutions. At this juncture, Christians find great commonality with the advocates of natural law who assert that the family is the foundational building block of society. A quick scan of the Scriptures reveals that the family existed before any other human institution. Adam and Eve walked about the Garden of Eden, petting animals thousands of years before Paul started sailing around the Mediterranean planting churches. Similarly, the philosopher John Locke believed couples mated and formed families long before tribes, cities, and nations began to dot the English countryside. Both worldviews proclaim that the family is the most basic, simple, or natural societal unit. To quote the great Puritan Pastor, Richard Baxter, “The Life of religion, and the welfare and glory of both the Church and the State, depend much on family government and duty.” The family sets the trajectory for both all of society. When family units break down, the church descends into chaos and society falls into anarchy.

Following this thinking many in the church have assumed that the church was birthed out of the family. But while this line of thinking aligns with the naturalistic understanding of the universe, it proves incongruent with narratives of creation, fall, and redemption found in the Scriptures. Christians need to reexamine the purpose of the family in light of the church.

The Fall Reshaped the Family

When God created Adam and Eve, he did not stick them on a desert island. He placed them in the garden of Eden in community with God, indicating that God sustained the family through tabernacling with them. The creation mandate to be fruitful and multiple was a mandate to bring all the earth under the glorious and full rule of God. Adam and Eve were not expanding human society apart from God. They were expanding the tabernacle to encompass the whole earth. In short, they were to turn the globe into a grand church, a grand garden.

Sadly, the first couple never fulfilled their mission. They listened to the snake and plunged the world into death. The effects of Adam and Eve’s sin radical altered every aspect of the natural order from economics to gardening. As expected, the family unit fell under the corruption. In Genesis 3:16, God tells Eve, ““I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children.” Redemption could not be found through genetics, marriage, and procreation. A new family was needed.

The Spiritual Family

Jesus came as the new Adam to be the first born of many brothers and sisters. He created a spiritual family that called men and women to be “born again” by the spirit through faith (Jn. 3:7). In Mark 3:35, Jesus defines the spiritual family according to belief proclaiming that, “whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.” This exchange proves more than permissible This new family picks up the creation mandate of the first Adam. The new Adam has commissioned his new family, the church, “to go and make disciples of all nations (Matt 28:16).” In the church, the new spiritual family once again resides in community with God for the purpose of glorifying him through kingdom expansion. The keys to God’s kingdom have been given to the church.

The Family Church Relationship

The nuclear family still remains the important foundational block of human society. From the family arise culture, society, and government. Civil society cannot exist without mom, dad, Jimmy, and Sally.

The institution also works in tandem with the church to support spiritual flourishing. A faithful marriage provides both the husband and the wife countless opportunities to experience God’s sanctifying power as they learn to love one another. Children remain a blessing from the Lord providing couples with social connections and economic security.

The fruits of marriage also facilitate evangelism. To perpetuate the gospel, Christians need to reach children. Procreation, adoption, and foster care all beautifully facilitate the great commission through family framework. The goals of the Christian family align with the mission of the church, and the mission of the church should align with the goals of the family.

Lastly, the family serves as a good gauge of the a culture’s health. When families descended into relational chaos, both society and the church should take note for the gospel is not going forward and chaos stands ready to invade our culture (Micah 7:6).

The Limits of the Nuclear Family

But for all of its benefits, the biological family cannot rightfully claim to be the foundation of the church. Though the family and the church support each other, Jesus is the bedrock of the church. A wife can come to faith apart from her husband and a husband apart from his wife. The arrival of children also does not instinctively produce faith in either the parents or the children as seen in the legacies of Cain and Nimrod. Salvation comes through the preached Word administered by the local church in coordination with the sacraments. As Baxter noted, the church through the ministry of the pastor upholds “the world, to save it from the curse of God and to perfect the creation, to attain the ends of Christ death 112).” The church supports and redeems souls.

Thus, Paul can encourage singles “to remain single, as I am (1 Cor. 7:7).” Both the married couple and the single adult can glorify God through worship and love of neighbor. Moreover, in the new heavens and the new earth, family structures will pass away. But our identity in Christ will remain. The church sustains the family which in turn helps to sustain both the church and the culture.

Conclusion

The new covenant established by Christ’s death and resurrection has fundamentally altered the definition of God’s people. The family of God is no longer defined by biology. It is defined by the Spirit. The church is the bride of Christ. We should not neglect the local church for our families. Rather, we should locate our families in the church, hoping to guide them all into Jesus’s family. The garden came first and then Adam and Eve.

To fix society, we must advocate for health churches, which in-turn will produce healthy families that produce healthy churches and healthy societies. In other words, those who are Christians must recognize and teach that the Christians understanding of family differs from the natural law view of family.

April 18, 2021April 17, 2021 Peter Witkowski Discipleship

You Don’t Have Heed Those Impulses

We don’t have to do it. When our flesh demands that we vent all our frustrations like a foghorn, we don’t have to give in. When we feel the impulse to fulfill our sexual urges, we don’t have to give in. And, when we feel like hope resides at the bottom of that ice cream tub, we don’t have to eat through it. The Christian does not have to surrender to the flesh when it makes demands upon his or her soul.

Such a resistance comes not from asceticism, wearing simple clothes, or minimalistic living. As one of the first monks, St. Antony, discovered, temptation and Satan can hound the soul who resides in a desert cave just as easily as they can torment the man living on the fourth floor of an apartment building in Paris. We cannot resist temptation in our own strength. Rather, we gain the ability to resist temptation when we repent of our sins and trust in the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus for salvation.

Why Jesus Was Tempted Part 1

In Matthew 4:1-11, the Holy Spirit leads Jesus into the desert so that Satan can tempt the Messiah to sin. This temptation has two purposes. First, it reveals that Jesus fully understands what it is to be human. Like you and me, he got tired and hungry. He faced real temptation. He gets us. Hebrews 4:15 declares, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has in every respect been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Because Jesus is one of us, he can empathize with us and save us. Thus, when we mess up and surrender to temptation, we do not have to fear that God will strip us of our salvation. Jesus who is the guarantee of our salvation has already fulfilled all righteousness. The moment we come back to our senses, we can ask for forgiveness, knowing He will grant it. Jesus gets that we are weak. That is why he came. But that is not all.

Why Jesus Was Tempted Part 2

Jesus’s temptation also reveals that Jesus has defeated the devil. Satan called Jesus to turn the stones into bread. Though his stomach had growled more than a million times during his 40 day fast, Jesus does not surrender to the lust of the flesh as Adam and the nation of Israel had done before him. Jesus resists the Devil. He declares, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God (Matt 4:4).” In other words, spiritual life does not come through listening to one’s-self, through giving expression to what we feel, or through living out the Nike motto which calls us to “Just do it.” Life comes through the Word of God. Psalm 19:7-9 reminds us:

The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether.

Because Jesus delights in the Word and not in his physical needs, his children can do the same. This is not some ideal beyond our reach reserved for those in a perfect world. Jesus felt urges that did not align with the commands of God. Despite the intensity of the temptations, Jesus still successfully resisted sin in a fallen world. His children can do the same. In Ephesians 3:17, Paul says, Christ dwells “in your hearts through faith.” The God who resisted Satan resides in us. Through faith, we can resist the Devil. We no longer must fall to temptation.

Temptation vs. Sin

Temptation itself is not evil. To encounter the thought, “I desire sex” does not make one sexually immoral. But to act on idea by cultivating private fantasies or by swinging over to your girlfriend’s house to give to that desire is sin. Like us, Jesus was tempted, but he did not turn the stones to bread. He obeyed God. Though our temptations may be intense, we too can obey God.

What If I Always Fall?

The failure to find victory over temptation reveals that we do not know Christ. Admittedly, Christians always remain vulnerable to sin for they are not Christ and do stumble at times. Noah got drunk, Abraham lied, and Peter showed favoritism, refusing to eat with Gentiles. Perfection will allude us. But if we lean into Christ through faith, making use of the Word, prayer, and the church, we will stand far more than we fall. Through Christ, we will resist the Devil and watch him flee from us.

However, if we only fall, regroup, and then fall again when hit by the impulses of the body, we reveal that we do not know God. Thankfully, God remains forever compassionate and forgiving. If we will but repent and believe, Jesus will forgive us, breaking the chains of sin and death.

Conclusion

Friend, I don’t know what temptations have surrounded you today. But this I do know; you do not have to surrender to Satan’s demands. We are children of the new Adam and the new Israel. By the power of Christ we can resists the lusts of the flesh. Expect Victory

April 11, 2021April 12, 2021 Peter Witkowski Memos

Memo: Phase 2 Treatment Plan – April 2021

We had to move. That was the message delivered to us on March 17, 2021 by April’s Mayo Clinic oncologist. April’s stage four breast cancer had leapt over the protective walls of her phase one treatment and had spread to her liver and lungs. Because the cancer only manifested itself through small amounts of fatigue, April and I had not anticipated the coming news. Still, we needed to move and move quickly. Here is why:

Why the Move?

The first phase of April’s cancer treatment attempted to starve April’s breast cancer to death. Because her cancer is hormone based (ER+ PR+ HER2-), her doctors sought to eliminate most of April’s hormone supply through the removal of her ovaries. Though this surgery significantly lowered the amounts of estrogen and progesterone pumping through April’s body, small amounts of the hormones still moved about her blood stream, providing her cancer with a meager supply of food. To keep the cancer molecules from eating, April took two pills, Letrozole and Ibrance. They were designed to plug up the cancer’s receptors or mouths.

For the past 22 months, the phase one treatment plan proved effective. Lacking the ability to consume April’s hormones, the cancer cells began to shrink and eventually stabilize. April regained both energy and mobility.

Though April had begun to push the cancer out of her body, her cancers cells did not give up the fight. As soon as the Letrozole and Ibrance fenced the breast cancer off from April’s hormones, the cells began rummaging through April’s body in search of a new food source. Looking back through April’s blood counts and scans, her Doctors think her cancer could have found its new food source by November 2020. As the cancer cells grew in strength and size, they began to once again travel up and down April’s blood stream, forming the tumors in April’s liver and lungs that appeared on her March 2021 scans. The mutated cells have also begun to reinvigorate the old tumors, teaching them how to adapt to the new food source. In short, April’s phase one medications can no longer stop her breast cancer from growing. If April does not move onto a new treatment plan, her breast cancer will take over her body.

What’s Next?

After consulting with April’s UVA and Mayo medical teams, we decided to drive past the standard of care option usually tied to phase two treatments and explore experimental treatment options.

Though turn-key ready, most of the houses in the phase two neighborhood house patients for an average occupancy of six months. If April and I decided to relocate her into the Faslodex treatment plan for example, she would most likely have to move to a new treatment plan before the end of 2021. Though we are thankful for the advances in the standard of care options, we dislike discussing turnaround times of less than a year.

Thankfully, we were not alone in our assessment. April’s Mayo and UVA teams encouraged us to pursue other options. Over the last three weeks, April and I have been exploring clinical trials located at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, the Dana-Farber Cancer institute in Boston, and the Inova Schar Cancer Center in Fairfax. After many conversations with medical teams far and near, we decided to relocate April’s breast cancer fight to the Inova Schar Cancer Center. Here, April will participate in the EMBER study. This trial hopes to effectively starve April’s cancer for two years through the administration of two new pills that will plug both the hormone receptors and the newly developed receptors, fencing the cancer off from both its old and new food sources. This trial offers the same potential benefits as the trials at the Mayo Clinic with the advantage of being only 60 miles from our home as opposed to 1060 miles. If for some reason, the new drug proves ineffective, we can always transition back to the standard of care options. With the blessing and full support of April’s Mayo and UVA teams, we began switching April’s care to Inova this past Monday, signing paperwork, and initiating a new set of scans and tests.

What Does this Mean?

In much the same way a family must adjust when moving to a new home, April and I must learn how to navigate a new hospital system and must develop relationships with a new set of doctors and nurses while keeping in contact with April’s teams at Mayo and UVA. We also must adjust to a new treatment regimen. By the end of the month, April will begin to take two new pills, the experimental drug, LY, and another drug that will be determined in accordance with a test being run on her liver cells as I type. When April starts taking the new pills, she will go through several weeks of intense observation. She will continue to undergo bone scans, MRI’s, and CT scans to determine whether the new treatment is effective. In addition to the normal tests, she will also have to undergo brain MRIs, EKGs, and frequent blood draws. Once in the study for three months, the frequency of appointments and tests will normalize to a slower pace. If all goes well, we hope to have all the boxes unpacked and to be fully settled into a new rhythm of life by this August or September.

How Are We Doing?

We are praying. Over the last few weeks, April and I have shed tears. We have mourned how quickly the first line of treatment ended. We have mourned that we must leave that which is comfortable and transition to that which is new. And, we mourn the less than enthusiastic treatment outcomes that are often associated with phase two breast cancer treatments. The whole situation is distressing.

Thankfully, the Bible exists for times such as this. In Psalm 4, David proclaims our hope when he says, “You have given me relief when I was in distress.” In verse 3 David goes on to note that, “the Lord hears when I call to him.” Knowing that God hears us, we take our concerns to him asking him to gift us a great new medical team that will provide the best possible care for April. We also ask you to join us in praying that the treatment proves effective for years to come.

Lastly, we ask that you pray for our souls during this transition. Pray that our ponderings upon April’s cancer will lead us away from anger and despair to worship and trust in the Lord. Pray that we will be able to say along with David, “You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound.” We do not know why April’s breast cancer has progressed as it has. We do not know why she lacks health while others thrive. But this we do know; we do not have to fear tomorrow because the God Who reigns loves us and hears us. As the Psalmists says in verse 8, “In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.” At times resting in the Lord proves difficult for our hearts are weak. But our God is faithful and not put off by our frailty. He came, lived, died, and resurrected because he knew our frailty and loves us still. Pray that we will learn to live in his joy and sleep in His peace.

Thank You!

Thank you for keeping up with our story, for praying for us, and for meeting our earthly needs! When recount all that our family, our church family, and our friends have done over the last few years, our hearts overflow with gratitude. Thank you!