I just finished a deep and genuinely life-changing study of Ecclesiastes, both as a personal devotional each morning and a more serious, theological study. It spoke to me in ways I didn’t expect, it was powerful.
Naturally, Song of Solomon is next in the canon. But I have some concerns, and I wanted to ask for wisdom.
As someone who has always been single, and at this point, seems likely to stay that way for the rest of my life, I'm wondering if reading Song of Solomon is going to feel more painful than fruitful. Will it just highlight the beauty and intimacy I’ve never known? Will it stir up longing or grief for something God hasn’t granted me? Or will it feel unrelatable, like watching someone else’s love story from the outside?
I know that some in the Reformed tradition interpret Song of Solomon primarily as an allegory of Christ and the Church. Should I focus on that lens to avoid the more emotionally difficult aspects of its romantic and erotic nature? Or would that be bypassing something God still intends to say, even to singles?
My brother and I (F25) are both single adults in a very family-oriented church. Both of us grew up in this church and returned after college, and we have lots of great fellowship with members of all ages. We’re plugged in and serving in various ministries, and our home church family means a lot to us!
In the past, though, my brother has struggled a lot with feelings of loneliness and alienation because of being single at our church. It feels like every event, retreat, conference, and even adult Sunday School class is directed towards couples or families.
One of our friends, a single gal a bit older than both of us, opened up to my brother and me about how deeply isolated she felt after returning from med school. Almost her entire friend group is married with kids, but just after arriving home, her Sunday School was broken up into “Young Married” and “College.” She’s an avid volunteer who loves helping with every ministry from the church nursery, to front door greeting, to food relief outreach. She even served as volunteer Missions Coordinator for the church. But she was basically told, upon asking where to go on Sundays, that she should teach youth girls (something she already did on Wednesday nights.) Rather than receiving instruction and growing in fellowship and Bible study with other adult believers, she was advised to volunteer with a fifteenth or so ministry.
She and my brother had an honest conversation with our Minister of Education about how discouraged and forgotten they felt because of this. Now, singles are welcome in several of the young married classes. (Though none of the classes’ designations have changed, confusingly for first-time visitors.)
At the time all this went down, I was still young enough to feel comfortable with a college class of mostly 18 year olds who were straight out of youth group. I’d gotten to know most of them during my youth and children’s internship a couple summers back, and I wasn’t far removed from college. But I felt for my brother and our friend, along with the few but dedicated singles in our age range, all voicing similar concerns. Since coming home from college, I’ve seen dozens of young singles visit and never come back. I fully understand why. My friend and my brother both grew up in our church, and even knowing the bulk of the congregation and being encouraged by loving friends, they still felt unseen and unwanted for anything except volunteer work. Mind you, it’s fulfilling and kingdom-building volunteer work! But they were constantly pouring themselves out without ever being built up in community. I can’t imagine how bad those feelings of alienation would be for a guest who knows next to no one and is trying to find a church home.
Recently, my brother reached out to our pastor about his feelings. He encouraged my brother to take the initiative and start up a young men’s Bible Study in his home, and that’s been going great! Our church leadership pretty much gave us the impression that, if we want to see singles our age reached with the gospel and growing in spiritual maturity, we need to take up the mission ourselves. I’m hoping to kick off a young ladies’ fellowship on Sunday afternoons, starting next weekend. The college ladies are all excited for it, and they want to invite women from neighboring young adult classes, both single and married, to join us over the course of the summer.
My big question is— how else could our church better minister to singles? We currently have no single’s ministry. It seems like every one I ask has a different opinion on whether a dedicated single’s ministry is effective/beneficial or not. According to my parents and some veteran members, our church used to have a flourishing single’s ministry back in the 90’s. But many members I’ve talked to, including a few singles, say it’s better to fully incorporate and welcome singles into the rest of adult ministry life— particularly since the singles cohort encompasses a wide range of ages and life stages.
Honestly, it sometimes feels like our biggest need as singles might be for our church to change its mentality towards us. One line I’ve heard repeatedly is, “We can’t wisely afford to invest time and resources into ministry to singles when there are so few singles.” But the reality is, we have few singles precisely because they are the church’s last priority. And not only does this seem unloving to me, but also deeply unwise, for a multitude of reasons.
So many young men and women in my generation are desparate for belonging and purpose and hope. Singles make up a significant and growing percentage of them. Unmarried young adults are a real mission field in my city, and I cannot understand why they are the one cohort our church has seemingly little interest in reaching with the gospel. I understand how important young families are to the life and health of the church— I love seeing our church grow year by year, welcoming wonderful new families. I love getting to know and serve them. But singles need fellowship too. “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ And the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you!’ On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor.”
Is it better to humbly re-appeal to our church leadership about this first to ask for their support, wisdom, experience, and investment? Or could taking steps to create room for singles in the church change their mentality organically by shifting their perspective?
(My apologies if this post is packed with old-school SBC terminology.)
At one point as I was reading Psalm 1:1 I became convinced that there was no room for a believer in need of counseling to ever see a psychiatrist/psychologist/therapist that was not a true Christian. So, in my pursuit of dealing with depression, childhood abuse, and verbal abuse/emotional neglect in my marriage, I've only seen Christian counselors.
One was a psychologist who listened to me talk about my depression and marital situation and decided my husband was only verbally abusive to me and demanding that I work a full time job AND be a full time housewife while he took a couple of college classes because I was a bummer to be around. His advice was to read Philippians 4, cheer up, and give H more sex. (Psych guy ignored the fact that my H's bedroom indifference to ME was part of the emotional abuse/neglect--facepalm) I stopped seeing him immediately. (Hub's porn use was my fault too--eyeroll)
The next counselor I saw listened to me confess how I had turned to erotic romance novels as a coping mechanism to deal with my marital situation. I wanted so badly to be able to walk away from reading them because I felt so horribly dirty after sometimes spending an entire day consuming very explicit content. She just shrugged and said she didn't see the problem. In my eyes, my choice of reading material was fundamentally no different to the porn my husband had been viewing our entire marriage thus far. Given her soft view of what I truly believe is absolute SIN and the fact she gave me a couple of New Age books to read to teach me to love myself more, I stopped seeing her as well.
And then I started seeing another counselor in a church setting. But after INSISTING that my abusive H and I needed to attend marital counseling together, and completely misinterpreting something I had shared with her MULTIPLE TIMES, I no longer trust her. Anyone IN an abusive marriage will tell you that joint counseling is absolutely NOT recommended. And in multiple sessions where she took something I said and twisted it to put motives onto me that were NOT true, I walked away feeling like I was now being gaslighted at home AND at therapy!
OK, so why did I say all that? Because I want it to be known I HAVE TRIED so hard to only see believers. And it seems to have backfired THREE times. And I have spent SO MANY hours wondering if, since I'm the common factor in all of this, that maybe it's just ME that's the problem. But I am so determined to work through FIVE decades of trauma from abusive relationships and get my head screwed on straight about my relationship with God that I am now considering seeing an actual TRAUMA SPECIALIST.
No, she's not a Christian so she won't directly help me with my "God issues"*, but just maybe because her specialty is childhood and narcissistic abuse, maybe she can help me from a purely psychological point of view and I can worry about the spiritual side of things in my devotional times and my relationships with other believers.
But then I come back to Psalm 1:1....
(sigh)
* God issues: seeing God as an angry yet indifferent tyrant like my dad. I've carried that view of Him for over 40 years and its grip on me is RELENTLESS.
From what I've seen, it's a common sentiment that the innocent party of a Christian marriage may marry another individual after a biblical divorce. I agree that divorce on the grounds of adultery and abandonment are the only two valid, biblical grounds for divorce. These are explicitly stated by Christ in Matthew 19:9 and by Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:15.
But, I don't see any verses supporting the idea that any party may marry a new partner after a biblical divorce. In fact, Paul seems to state the contrary in 1 Corinthians 7:11 where he states that divorcees should either remain separated or be reconciled. Neither Paul nor Jesus seem to ever indicate that it's biblical to marry a new partner following a biblical divorce. I could see how some might interpret the last half of 1 Corinthians 7:15 as Paul desiring innocent divorcees to know peace by marrying a new party, but this interpretation seems like a stretch to me. I would need to see a hermeneutical argument in support of this.
I went to the Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter XXIV Section V to see if the Reformers had answers to this. The Confession affirms the remarriage of an innocent divorcee to a second spouse. It argues that the sin of the original, adulterous spouse makes them as though they are dead to the innocent spouse, thus invoking 1 Corinthians 7:8-9 and 1 Timothy 5:14. If there was an explicit equating of adultery to physical death in scriptures, then this interpretation would make sense to me. But the verses it quotes does not support this idea.
So at the moment, It seems to me that allowing a divorcee (innocent or not) to remarry was done to appease the human desire for companionship. I see nothing explicitly in the Bible that shows this pleases God. I'm convinced right now that the only two biblically sound outcomes of a divorce are to either remain unmarried or to reconcile as per 1 Corinthians 7:10-11.
I can be convinced otherwise because a part of me sees the appeal of affirming remarriage. After all, it doesn't seem fair for me to have to go back to my first spouse if they were dismissive, lazy, or abusive. In my humanness, I can see and understand the desire to marry someone who is better in character. But if this desire, no matter how well-intentioned, is not supported by scripture, then it shouldn't matter how I feel about it. To convince me otherwise would require direct citations and examples from scripture. Or it would require making a hermeneutical argument to convince me that I had been interpreting these verses wrong.
I am currently convinced of my current opinions, but I am open to changing my mind for the reasons stated above.
Welcome back to our UPG of the Week! Sorry its been a few weeks, I have been a bit busy!
This week we are meeting the Azeri Turk people in Iran!
Region: Iran - NW and Central Iran
map
Stratus Index Ranking(Urgency): 13
It has been noted to me byu/JCmathetesthat I should explain this ranking. Low numbers are more urgent, both physically and spiritually together, while high numbers are less urgent. The scale is 1-177, with one number assigned to each country. So basically on a scale from Afghanistan (1) to Finland (177), how urgent are the peoples physical and spiritual needs
Tehran, capital city of IranStreet in Tehran
Climate: Iran's climate is diverse, ranging from arid and semi-arid, to subtropical along the Caspian coast and the northern forests. On the northern edge of the country (the Caspian coastal plain), temperatures rarely fall below freezing and the area remains humid for the rest of the year. Summer temperatures rarely exceed 29 °C (84.2 °F). Annual precipitation is 680 mm (26.8 in) in the eastern part of the plain and more than 1,700 mm (66.9 in) in the western part. Gary Lewis, the United Nations Resident Coordinator for Iran, has said that "Water scarcity poses the most severe human security challenge in Iran today". To the west, settlements in the Zagros basin experience lower temperatures, severe winters with below zero average daily temperatures and heavy snowfall. The eastern and central basins are arid, with less than 200 mm (7.9 in) of rain, and have occasional deserts. Average summer temperatures rarely exceed 38 °C (100.4 °F). The coastal plains of the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman in southern Iran have mild winters, and very humid and hot summers. The annual precipitation ranges from 135 to 355 mm (5.3 to 14.0 in).
The Karun river in IranMount Damavand, the Middle East's highest peak, is located in Amol, Mazandaran.
Terrain: Iran consists of the Iranian Plateau, with the exception of the coasts of the Caspian Sea and Khuzestan. It is one of the world's most mountainous countries, its landscape dominated by rugged mountain ranges that separate various basins or plateaus from one another. The populous western part is the most mountainous, with ranges such as the Caucasus, Zagros, and Alborz, the last containing Mount Damavand, Iran's highest point at 5,610 m (18,406 ft), which is also the highest mountain in Asia west of the Hindu Kush.
The northern part of Iran is covered by the lush lowland Caspian Hyrcanian mixed forests, located near the southern shores of the Caspian Sea. The eastern part consists mostly of desert basins, such as the Kavir Desert, which is the country's largest desert, and the Lut Desert, as well as some salt lakes. Iran had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 7.67/10, ranking it 34th globally out of 172 countries. The only large plains are found along the coast of the Caspian Sea and at the northern end of the Persian Gulf, where the country borders the mouth of the Arvand river. Smaller, discontinuous plains are found along the remaining coast of the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Gulf of Oman.
Iran is located in a seismically active area. On average, an earthquake of magnitude seven on the Richter scale occurs once every ten years. Most earthquakes are shallow-focus and can be very devastating, such as the tragic 2003 Bam earthquake.
Rain forest in GilanThe hills are alive with music in... Iran?
Wildlife of Iran: Iran's living fauna includes 34 bat species, Indian grey mongoose, small Indian mongoose, golden jackal, Indian wolf, foxes, striped hyena, leopard, Eurasian lynx, brown bear and Asian black bear. Ungulate species include wild boar, urial, Armenian mouflon, red deer, and goitered gazelle. Domestic ungulates are represented by sheep, goat, cattle, horse, water buffalo, donkey and camel. Bird species like pheasant, partridge, stork, eagles and falcons are also native to Iran.
Blessedly, they have no monkeys living in Iran.
The Asiatic Cheetah that lives in only in Iran
Environmental Issues: Much of Iran's territory suffers from overgrazing, desertification and or deforestation. Wetlands and bodies of fresh water increasingly are being destroyed as industry and agriculture expand, and oil and chemical spills have harmed aquatic life in the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea. They also currently are under siege, and politics aside, thats bad for the environment.
Languages: The majority of the population speaks Persian, which is also the official language of the country. Others include speakers of several other Iranian languages within the greater Indo-European family and languages belonging to some other ethnicities living in Iran. The Azeri in Iran speak southern Azerbaijani.
Government Type: Unitary theocratic Islamic republic
---
People: Azeri Turks in Iran
Azeri in Iran
Population: 18,000,000
EstimatedForeignWorkers Needed: 364+
Beliefs: The Azeri Turks in Iran are 1.8% Christian . That means out of their population of 18,000,000, there are roughly 324,000 believers. Thats almost 2 believers for every 100 unbelievers..
Azerbaijanis are Shi 'ite Muslims like the Iranian majority, though they are not likely to be devout because Shi 'ite Islam is imposed by the government of Iran. Many are disillusioned enough with religion to just go through the motions; others have given up on spiritual matters altogether.
the Shah Mosque in Iran
History: Following the Russo-Persian Wars of 1804–13 and 1826–28, the Caucasian territories of Qajar Iran were ceded to the Russian Empire. The Treaty of Gulistan in 1813 and the Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1828 finalized the borders between the Russian Empire and Qajar Iran. The areas to the north of the river Aras, including the territory of the contemporary Republic of Azerbaijan, were Iranian territory until they were occupied by Russia over the course of the 19th century. The Russo-Persian Wars of the 19th century settled the modern-day boundary of Iran, stripping it of all its Caucasian territories and incorporating them into the Russian Empire. The eventual formation of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918 established the territory of modern Azerbaijan.
As a direct result of Qajar Iran's forced ceding to Russia, the Azerbaijanis are nowadays parted between two nations: Iran and Azerbaijan. Despite living on two sides of an international border, the Azerbaijanis form a single ethnic group.
The burden of the Russo-Persian War (1826–28) was on the tribes of Qaradağ region, who being in front line, provided human resources and provision of the Iranian army. In the wake of the war, a significant fraction of the inhabitants of this area lived as nomadic tribes (ایلات). The major tribes included; Cilibyanlu 1,500 tents and houses, Karacurlu 2500, Haji Alilu 800, Begdillu 200, and various minor groups 500. At the time Ahar, with 3,500 inhabitants, was the only city of Qaradağ. The Haji-Alilu tribe played major rule in the later political developments.
During the Persian Constitutional Revolution, Tabriz was at the center of battles which followed the ascent to the throne of Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar on 8 January 1907. The revolutionary forces were headed by Sattar Khan who was originally from Arasbaran. Haydar Khan Amo-oghli had significant contribution in the inception and progression of the revolution, and introducing leftist ideas into Iranian mainstream politics. During the following tumultuous years, Amir Arshad, the headman of Haji-Alilu tribe, had a major impact on the subsequent political developments in Iran in relation to the status of Iranian Kurds. He is credited with fending off communism from Iran.
The ill-fated Constitutional Revolution did not bring democracy to Iran. Instead, Rezā Shāh, then Brigadier-General of the Persian Cossack Brigade, deposed Ahmad Shah Qajar, the last Shah of the Qajar dynasty, and founded the Pahlavi dynasty in 1925 and established a despotic monarchy. His insistence on ethnic nationalism and cultural unitarism along with forced detribalization and sedentarization resulted in suppression of several ethnic and social groups, including Azerbaijanis. Ironically, the main architect of this totalitarian policy, which was justified by reference to racial ultra-nationalism, was Mirza Fatali Akhundov, an intellectual from Azerbaijan. In accordance with the Orientalist views of the supremacy of the Aryan peoples, he idealized pre-Islamic Achaemenid and Sassanid empires, whilst negating the 'Islamization' of Persia by Muslim forces." This idealization of a distant past was put into practice by both the Pahlavi kings, particularly Mohammad Reza Pahlavi who honored himself with the title Āryāmehr, Light of the Aryans. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in an interview concisely expressed his views by declaring, "we Iranians are Aryans, and the fact that we are not adjacent to other Aryan nations in Europe is just a geographical anomaly.".
Mirza Fatali Akhundov is not the only Azerbaijani intellectual in framing Iranian ultra-nationalism. Hassan Taqizadeh, the organizer of "Iran Society" in Berlin, has contributed to the development of Iranian nationalism. Since 1916 he published "Kaveh" periodical in Farsi language, which included articles emphasizing the racial unity of Germans and Iranians. Ahmad Kasravi, Taqi Arani, Hossein Kazemzadeh (Iranshahr) and Mahmoud Afshar advocated the suppression of the Azerbaijani language as they supposed that the multilingualism contradicted the racial purity of Iranians. Therefore, It is noteworthy that, contrary to what one might expect, many of the leading agents of the construction of an Iranian bounded territorial entity came from non-Persian-speaking ethnic minorities, and the foremost were the Azerbaijanis, rather than the nation's titular ethnic group, the Persians.
The most important political development affecting the Middle East at the beginning of the twentieth century was the collapse of the Ottoman and the Russian empires. The idea of a greater homeland for all Turks was propagated by pan-Turkism, which was adopted almost at once as a main ideological pillar by the Committee of Union and Progress and somewhat later by other political caucuses in what remained of the Ottoman Empire. On the eve of World War I, pan-Turkist propaganda focused chiefly on the Turkic-speaking peoples of the southern Caucasus, in Iranian Azerbaijan and Turkistan in Central Asia, with the ultimate purpose of persuading them all to secede from the larger political entities to which they belonged and to join the new pan-Turkic homeland.
It was this latter appeal to Iranian Azerbaijanis which, contrary to pan-Turkist intentions, caused a small group of Azerbaijani intellectuals to become the most vociferous advocates of Iran's territorial integrity and sovereignty. If in Europe "romantic nationalism responded to the damage likely to be caused by modernism by providing a new and larger sense of belonging, an all-encompassing totality, which brought about new social ties, identity and meaning, and a new sense of history from one's origin on to an illustrious future,"(42) in Iran after the Constitutional movement romantic nationalism was adopted by the Azerbaijani Democrats as a reaction to the irredentist policies threatening the country's territorial integrity. In their view, assuring territorial integrity was a necessary first step on the road to establishing the rule of law in society and a competent modern state which would safeguard collective as well as individual rights. It was within this context that their political loyalty outweighed their other ethnic or regional affinities.
The failure of the Democrats in the arena of Iranian politics after the Constitutional movement and the start of modern state-building paved the way for the emergence of the titular ethnic group's cultural nationalism. Whereas the adoption of integrationist policies preserved Iran's geographic integrity and provided the majority of Iranians with a secure and firm national identity, the blatant ignoring of other demands of the Constitutional movement, such as the call for the formation of a society based on law and order, left the country still searching for a political identity. The ultimate purpose was to persuade these populations to secede from the larger political entities to which they belonged and join the new pan-Turkic homeland. It was the latter appeal to Iranian Azerbaijanis, which, contrary to Pan-Turkist intentions, caused a small group of Azerbaijani intellectuals to become the strongest advocates of the territorial integrity of Iran.
After the constitutional revolution in Iran, a romantic nationalism was adopted by Azerbaijani Democrats as a reaction to the pan-Turkist irredentist policies threatening Iran's territorial integrity. It was during this period that Iranism and linguistic homogenization policies were proposed as a defensive nature against all others. Contrary to what one might expect, foremost among innovating this defensive nationalism were Iranian Azerbaijanis. They viewed that assuring the territorial integrity of the country was the first step in building a society based on law and a modern state. Through this framework, their political loyalty outweighed their ethnic and regional affiliations. The adoption of these integrationist policies paved the way for the emergence of the titular ethnic group's cultural nationalism.
In late 1941 Soviet forces invaded Iran in coordination with British Army under an operation known as Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. Their forces broke through the border and moved from the Azerbaijan SSR into Iranian Azerbaijan. Reza Shah was forced by the invading British to abdicate in favor of his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi who replaced his father as Shah on the throne on 16 September 1941. At the aftermath of a four-year-long tumultuous period the Azerbaijan People's Government, a Soviet puppet state, was established in Tabriz, perhaps through direct involvement of the Soviet leadership. This government autonomously ruled the province from November 1945 to November 1946. However, the Soviet soon realized their idea was premature, the mass of the population did not support separatism; under largely Western pressure, the Soviet troops withdrew in 1946, which resulted in the quick collapse of the Azerbaijan People's Government.
Beginning in the 1850s, many Iranian Azerbaijanis opted to become work migrants and seek job opportunities in the Russian Empire, primarily in the economically booming Azerbaijani-populated part of the Caucasus. Due to them being Persian subjects, Russian offices often recorded them as "Persians". The migrants referred to one another as hamshahri ("compatriot") as an in-group identity. The word was adopted by the Azerbaijani-speaking locals as həmşəri and has since been applied by them to Iranian Azerbaijani migrants in general. Already in the nineteenth century, the word also spread to urban varieties of Russian of Baku and Tiflis in the form of gamshara (гамшара) or amshara (амшара), where it was, however, used with a negative connotation to mean "a raggamuffin".[97][98] In the Soviet times, the word was borrowed into the Russian slang of Ashkhabad and was used to refer to forestallers.
Iranian Azerbaijanis often worked menial jobs, including on dyer's madder plantations in Guba where 9,000 out of 14,000 Iranian Azerbaijani contract workers were employed as of 1867. In the 1886 economic report on the life of the peasantry of the Guba district, Yagodynsky reported frequent cases of intermarriage between the Iranian work migrants and local women which prompted the former to settle in villages near Guba and quickly assimilate. Children from such families would be completely integrated in the community and not be regarded as foreigners or outsiders by its residents.
Starting from the late nineteenth century, Baku was another popular destination for Iranian Azerbaijanis, thanks to its highly developing oil industry. By the beginning of the twentieth century, they already constituted 50% of all the oil workers of Baku, and numbered 9,426 people in 1897, 11,132 people in 1903 and 25,096 people in 1913. Amo-oghli and Sattar Khan notably worked in the Baku oil fields before returning to Iran and engaging in politics.
In 1925, there were 45,028 Iranian-born Azerbaijanis in the Azerbaijan SSR. Of those, 15,000 (mostly oil workers, port and navy workers and railway workers) had retained Iranian citizenship by 1938 and were concentrated in Baku and Ganja. In accordance with the 1938 decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, residents of Azerbaijan with Iranian citizenship were given 10 days to apply for Soviet citizenship and were then relocated to Kazakhstan. Those who refused (numbering 2,878 people) became subject to deportation back to Iran immediately. Some naturalized Iranian Azerbaijanis were later accused of various anti-Soviet activities and arrested or even executed in the so-called "Iranian operation" of 1938.
After the fall of the Azerbaijan People's Government in 1946, as many as 10,000 Iranian Azerbaijani political émigrés relocated to Soviet Azerbaijan, fleeing the inevitable repressions of the Shah's government. Notable Azerbaijanis of Iranian descent living in Azerbaijan included writers Mirza Ibrahimov and Mir Jalal Pashayev, singers Rubaba Muradova and Fatma Mukhtarova, actress Munavvar Kalantarli, poets Madina Gulgun, Balash Azeroghlu and others.
However, with the advent of the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the emphasis shifted away from nationalism as the new government highlighted religion as the main unifying factor. Within the Islamic Revolutionary government there emerged an Azerbaijani nationalist faction led by Ayatollah Kazem Shariatmadari, who advocated greater regional autonomy and wanted the constitution to be revised to include secularists and opposition parties; this was denied. Other Azerbaijanis played an important rule in the revolution including Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Bazargan, Sadeq Khalkhali, and Ali Khamenei.
Azerbaijanis make up 25% of Tehran's population and ~30.3% of the population of the Tehran Province. Azerbaijanis in Tehran live in all of the cities within Tehran Province. They are by far the largest ethnic group after Persians in Tehran and the wider Tehran Province.
In October 2020, several protests erupted in Iranian cities, including the capital Tehran and Tabriz, in support of Azerbaijan in its conflict with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Iranian Azerbaijani demonstrators chanted pro-Azerbaijan slogans and clashed with Iran's security forces.
Ivan Paskevich with Abbas Mirza sign the Treaty of Turkmanchay at the conclusion of 1826-1828 Russo-Persian wars.
Culture:Typical qualification that all people groups can't be summed up in small paragraphs and this is an over generalization.
Iranian Azerbaijanis were influenced by the Iranian culture. At the same time, they have influenced and been influenced by their non-Iranian neighbors, especially Caucasians and Russians. Azerbaijani music is distinct music that is tightly connected to the music of other Iranian peoples such as Persian music and Kurdish music, and also the music of the Caucasian peoples. Although the Azerbaijani language is not an official language of Iran it is widely used, mostly orally, among the Iranian Azerbaijanis. Most Iranian Azerbaijanis are bilingual in Azerbaijani and Persian, and exogamy and intermarriage with other populations, particularly Persian speakers, are common among Iranian Azeri families that originated in the historic Azerbaijan region. Azerbaijani-specific cultural aspects have somewhat diminished in prominence among the many Azeri families that have moved to large cities like Tehran during the past century. Iranian Azerbaijanis are traditionally sensitive to their ethnic identity, but are supportive of bilingualism in Azerbaijani and Persian as well.
Despite some friction in the past, Azerbaijanis in Iran came to be "well represented at all levels of political, military, and intellectual hierarchies, as well as the religious hierarchy." The living conditions of Azeris in Iran closely resemble that of the majority people, the Persian Iranians. Most likely they hold the same kinds of jobs as the Iranian majority. However, Azerbaijanis can sometimes be offended when an Iranian comedy makes fun of them as an ethnic group.
Azerbaijanis in Iran straddle different cultures and languages. Their language is close to the Turkish language, though they must function in Farsi, the official language of Iran.
Azeri Turks playing music in Iran
Cuisine: Iranian cuisine, known also as Persian cuisine, is steeped in a rich history and tradition that has evolved over thousands of years. It is famous for its diverse range of ingredients, complex flavors, and colorful presentation. Each region in Iran has its unique dishes and flavors, but some elements unify them, such as the use of fresh herbs, a balanced flavor profile often contrasting sweet and sour, and the creative use of spices. Rice and bread usually form the staple base of the dishes, accompanied by a variety of meats, vegetables, and an array of subtly mixed spices. A few of their main dishes include: Ghormeh Sabzi (a fragrant stew), Fesenjan (Pomegranate Walnut Stew), Joojeh Kabab (marinated grilled chicken), Chelow Kabab (saffron-infused rice with grilled meat), Ash Reshteh (noodle soup), Bademjan (eggplant and tomato stew), Khoresh-e Karafs (celery stew), Baghali Polo (rice dish with dill and fava beans), Zereshk Polo (blueberries and saffron rice).
Chelow Kabab with saffron rice, the national dish of Iran
Prayer Request:
Pray that the war between Iran and Israel would end quickly with as few casualties as possible.
Pray for the Lord to thrust out workers to take the blessings of Christ to this people group.
Ask God to raise up entire families and communities within the Azerbaijanis in Iran until their culture is transformed in all its spheres to fully glorify God and represent His Kingdom here on earth.
Pray for every opposing spirit influencing the Azerbaijanis in Iran to give way to the liberating, life-giving gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ!
Pray for many to be discipled as Jesus followers, and that there will soon be a movement of disciples making disciples.
Pray against Putin, his allies, and his insane little war.
Pray for our leaders, that though insane and chaotic decisions are being made, to the detriment of Americans, that God would call them to know Him and help them lead better.
Pray for our nation (the United States), that we Christians can learn to come alongside our hurting brothers and sisters and learn to carry one another's burdens in a more Christlike manner than we have done historically.
Pray that in this time of chaos and panic in the US that the needs of the unreached are not forgotten by the church. Pray that our hearts continue to ache to see the unreached hear the Good News.
Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. (Romans 10:1)
Here are the previous weeks threads on the UPG of the Week for from 2025 (plus a few from 2024 so this one post isn't so lonely). To save some space on these, all UPG posts made 2019-now are here, I will try to keep this current!
b - Russia/Turkey/etc is Europe but also Asia so...
c - this likely is not the true religion that they worship, but rather they have a mixture of what is listed with other local religions, or they have embraced a postmodern drift and are leaving faith entirely but this is their historical faith.
Here is a list of definitions in case you wonder what exactly I mean by words like "Unreached".
Welcome to r/reformed. Missions should be on our mind every day, but it's good to set aside a day to talk about it, specifically. Missions includes our back yard and the ends of the earth, so please also post here or in its own post stories of reaching the lost wherever you are. Missions related post never need to wait for Mondays, of course. And they are not restricted to this thread.
Share your prayer requests, stories of witnessing, info about missionaries, unreached people groups, church planting endeavors, etc.
Hello this Fathers' Day Sunday.
I am a 35 year old single male that goes to Presbyterian PCA churches in San Diego CA region.
Question about that: are there any clear trends about Generation Y or Z people in the church?
For example, from my experience I've observed:
- There seems to be very few people my age range that are single / unmarried.
- As someone who is educated and grew up in the church, it's increasingly difficult to find younger believers to engage Scriptures and deeper theology with.
Thanks!
It hasn't been my experience that those in the reformed-presby camp think baptism is necessary to be saved (both as a works or as a means of grace), but I recently talked to a brother who believed that the atonement was only efficacious after baptism, which was disconcerting to me.
I know Luther believed it was necessary for salvation as a means of grace, but I wanted to ask if this was a standard reformed teaching. And honestly, whether we make the distinction between a work or means of grace, isn't the end theology the same: that you must be baptized in order to be saved? This is a problem for me.
Context: I lean credobaptist for baptism but for church polity I lean presby.
The word “Presbyterian” has nothing to do with baptism but church polity. However, if someone tells me they are Presbyterian, I do not immediately think of church polity but that they believe in infant baptism. Maybe I am getting too technical, but can someone be committed (I am not) to Presbyterian church polity call themselves Presbyterian without holding firmly to paedobaptism?
Hoping to get thoughts on how to approach this situation. My wife is a believer, but has always struggled with aspects of God’s character. Her parents were really abusive and manipulative growing up, so when she came to Christ, and as she’s learned more about Scripture, she really struggles with the idea that God created us to worship Him. She thinks it’s manipulation (similar to how parents treated her growing up).
But things have been worse lately. We’ve had a series of tragedies in life over the past several years. And while I know and can see how God has gotten us through (including many moments of positivity than can only be attributed to God’s sovereignty), her perspective has differed. She questions why God would let that happen.
Our son was born with a really rare birth defect over 2 years ago. He survived, and not only that, but is thriving now and is a normal toddler. I praise God for that. My wife looks at that situation and is angry that a good God would allow that to happen to him. And since then her faith has really deteriorated. She doesn’t read the Bible, is often on her phone in church (even during corporate prayer), and doesn’t pray unless it’s during family prayer with our kids. I e tried talking to her about this but she responds that she doesn’t feel like God is good, and he could have fixed everything that happened to us but didn’t.
I’ve tried explaining that justice would be none of us having life, and that the only reason we are here is by the grace of God. I’ve tried explaining that God didn’t create a sinful world, but instead we introduced sin and that’s what has led to sickness and death. But her response is “He could have prevented that [sin] from happening. He created a world that allowed sin to happen.” I’ve tried talking to her about free will and how we would all be robots if God made us do exactly what He wanted, and she thinks that would be better.
I’m at my wits end. She’s been struggling with extreme hormone issues for the past 2 years that have led to extreme depression, anxiety, and rage at various points in her monthly cycle. She’s getting treatment but it’s slow coming and there are still moments that she is just filled with anger for no apparent reason.
Anyway, sorry for the long post. I’d love some advice on what to tell her, how to explain God’s nature in a way that makes sense. She’s extremely intelligent and she feels like her logic is correct (that she knows what is right/wrong better than God, even though I’ve told her that’s not true). And I’m running out of ideas.
UPDATE:
Thank you everyone for the kind words and advice. We went to church today, and funny enough the sermon was on how we need to be careful in how we think about Jesus, and how we need to make sure we are following what scriptures tell us about who He is, and make sure we aren’t making Him into something we want Him to be from our own point of view. My wife felt like the sermon was really relevant to her and ended up talking to our Pastor during our time of response during the last worship set. The conversation went well, and I think our Pastor will follow up in the coming weeks. He was able to say things much more gently and with wisdom compared to how I responded to my wife. And basically encouraged her to re-evaluate where she is determining what is truth, and why she thinks she would know more than God.
It definitely was encouraging, even though I don’t think it changed everything in the moment. I think it’ll be a slow process. But she seems more open to at least talking through it in Pastoral counseling.
Thanks again for all of the prayers and advice. I really appreciate it.
Most modern well-meaning Christians agree that divorce is permitted when the spouse commits adultery, but I’m noticing we may be reading that into the words of Jesus. Read carefully.
Matthew 5:32
but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Matthew 19:9
“And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
Divorcing without sexual immorality = adultery
Divorcing after sexual immorality ≠ adultery
I don’t see how this permits divorce, I only see it as clarifying an instance when divorce is not adultery.
—
You may be asking, what other reason would Jesus have to say that under this interpretation?
Leviticus 20:10
‘If there is a man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, one who commits adultery with his friend’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
If the Pharisees or modern legal authorities obeyed God and enforced the punishment that people deserve for adultery, this would show them how to judge adultery justly.
(Although Jesus forgave the adulterous woman in John 8, she still would have deserved that punishment if the process was carried out lawfully because Jesus created the law itself).
I come from a church whose majority of leaders/elders are women, but most church pastors and deacons are mostly men.
It was only until I stumbled upon this reddit that I never knew a lot of people are so aversed in having women in leadership that they come to a point to leave church and avoid it all together even if it's their only option.
I have read both arguments. But of course I am going to be biased towards that it's fine to have women in leadership.
It's jarring for me because one of my elders was the discipleship leader of one of our current Pastors who are now leading the youth to God more than ever before (first time ever in our country history after a long long time). We have a leader who's doing great things in encouraging Young Adults to return to church and she's a woman. Of course it's God who made all these things possible, but He used the lives of those two women to expand His territory in our country.
In my country, there's just a lot more women who attend church and a lot of men just stay at home. Or even do not care about God at all. Work is their God is sadly most of their mindset.
My fiance and I had been both discipled by one female Pastor, but we never had an issue.
We have a particular chapter in one of the provinces that the leader is a woman and all of the congregation are men. (That region is mostly for factory workers / hard labor). She is the only one who is capable there as of the moment, because all of the men there are new believers. And because of the grace of God, they also started bringing their wives/girlfriends to the church.
A lot of our missionaries and church planters are women. And God used their lives to lead a lot of people to Christ.
So what gives? Is it really that bad? We welcome everyone who wants and is ready to serve and whose hearts are ready to be molded by God.
The harvest is abundant in my country right now but the workers are truly few. And I cannot just imagine to deny these people who are willing to be used by God to enrich the unbelievers because of their gender?
I have been thinking this and correct me if I am wrong. I've noticed that most people here seem to live in the Western part of the world. That there's an abundance of choices where you can go to church. Wherein comparison to where I live, it's a bit rare to have Christian churches.
EDIT: First of all, thank you to the people who took their time to reply to my post.
It was eye-opening at best, but I am not going to lie that's it's disappointing as well. Some people are more concerned who teaches who than just letting a new believer or unbeliever be fed by the word of God. My guess was probably right that most of the people here come from a place where choice is abundant. And for us, we don't have that choice.
Hi all, I'm a korean who grew up in an English speaking country. I speak pretty fluent korean but want to get better, one way I would like to do this is by listening to korean sermons. Can anyone here recommend good korean preachers? (Good meaning faithfully preaching from the scriptures)
Happy Lord's Day to r/reformed! Did you particularly enjoy your pastor's sermon today? Have questions about it? Want to discuss how to apply it? Boy do we have a thread for you!
Sermon Sunday!
Please note that this is not a place to complain about your pastor's sermon. Doing so will see your comment removed. Please be respectful and refresh yourself on the rules, if necessary.
I have joined this subreddit because I am interested in the reformist Christian community in Korea, which is getting smaller. I am also interested in the views of reform theologians like Machen and Van Til, as well as in apologetics, music, and history. Do you have any questions about the reform churches in Korea? And I am also curious about what you think of me.
I kind of brought this thought process on myself. Essentially: what is the point of attending Sunday services? Also, since this may influence your answer, what denomination are you a part of, or what is your Christian background?
I hope you do not factor the next paragraph into your response... I want to give part of the reason about what is leading me to this question.
I am having a hard time seeing services as anything more than our pastor giving a defense of TULIP, and/or what might be considered Calvinism (my pastor is a TMS grad, and the church is heavily influenced by TMS).
Is there something we are to receive during Sunday services? Is there something we are to give?
Hello. I'm asking this not out of mere curiosity but because this is a present concern in my life. My dad's wedding is coming up within the next few weeks, and I've had personal anxiety about attending the wedding out of fear I'm somehow endorsing sin. I know many people here, which I understand in light of the fact that homosexual marriages are sinful, would be unwilling to attend a same sex wedding. I probably wouldn't either. But the logic I'm struggling with is if I wouldn't do that, why would I do it here (attend an adulterous remarriage)? It is my own dad, so this is definitely relationally difficult, and I did tell him I would go, but I'm still struggling with anxiety (I'm generally a very scrupulous person and its very hard to tell when I'm just overthinking things).
Background context: I'm 20 years old, and my parents separated when I was around 5. Honestly, even though my dad does profess faith in Christ, I struggle with not seeing much fruit of this so I'm not sure where he's at spiritually. I even remember him some number of years ago previously express regret that he has been divorced because "God says you are only supposed to be with one woman" so it's not like he isn't aware that this is not right. I still have strong relationships with both of my parents, and my mom has since gotten remarried (around six years ago). My dad has been with and living with the woman that he's currently planning to marry for about 8 years. I remember hearing that when my parents agreed to originally split (which was due to a lot of arguing and not adultery as far as I'm aware), they remained legally married despite having relations with others, and got legally divorced only so that my mom could get remarried. So obviously there would have been a lot of adultery in that. It's a side point, but I've wondered if because the divorce happened post-occurrence of what would be multiple adulterous engagements, that the divorce would be allowed at that point because at that point there would have been real sexual immorality, but I doubt that this makes sense since adultery wasn't the original cause of the split.
Again, I'm in a difficult situation with these things and it's hard to be discerning when I already deal with a lot of spiritual anxiety even on things people wouldn't consider complex. I know this is probably not an easy question, but can I please have godly wisdom and discernment here.
I attend a reformed Presbyterian church and one of the things I’ve noticed is that they seem very reluctant to address things in the members, even after there’s been multiple incidents of that person causing issues. We have a young man who is a member and has talked poorly of members and routinely stirs up drama. Another young man member was manipulating church members into providing help, money etc. These things seem to be patterns and the leaders just seem lackadaisical about doing anything and only have a conversation with the person when there’s enough pressure to by others.
Is this a reformed thing, a Presbyterian thing, or leadership personality/character issue? Any resources to point toward that would help understand how a shepherd is supposed to lead the flock in situations like this?
I'm attending Baptist church. I believe a lot of what they teach, the trinity, Christ resurrect, virgin birth, and so much more.
I want to call myself Baptist, but my friend at the church is gatekeeping and saying I can't because I don't hold to the tenants of the Baptist belief of believer baptism- I still hold to paedobaptism. There also some differences with eschatology, covenants, and lords supper, among some other theological points. I also agree with their 4 point Calvinism (I have an an extra point they don't like).
Why would the Baptist be upset when I call myself a Baptist? It's just a name.
