Posted on 04/01/2006 6:40:33 PM PST by twippo
SELMER, Tenn. - Mary Winkler was the quiet, unassuming wife of a small-town, by-the-Bible preacher, seemingly devoted to church and family. But now her husband, Matthew, is dead and she is charged with shooting him in the back with a shotgun.
Authorities won't discuss a motive, and church members say they didn't see any indication she was unhappy. But experts say preachers' wives often struggle with depression and isolation, expected to be exemplars of Christian virtue while bearing unique pressures on their private and public lives.
Gayle Haggard, author of "A Life Embraced: A Hopeful Guide for the Pastor's Wife," said ministers' wives can feel isolated because of a misconception about leadership, since they and their husbands are leaders of their congregations.
They can feel trapped, she said, by unrealistic expectations "to live a certain way, to dress a certain way, for their children to behave a certain way."
And ministers' wives often find themselves handling more jobs than they expected to take on, said Becky Hunter, current president of the Global Pastors Wives Network.
"You're not really hired, and yet there is some expectation in most church settings that the pastor's wife comes along in a package deal," Hunter said.
Too often, ministers and their wives are reluctant to seek emotional help from members of their congregations because they're looked up to as leaders, said Lois Evans, a former president of the Global Pastors Wives Network. They can become isolated, lonely and depressed.
"This family needed help," said Evans. "It seems like there was no place to turn to and no place to talk and it became an explosive situation."
Matthew Winkler, 31, was found dead in a bedroom at the couple's parsonage Wednesday night in Selmer, a town of 4,400 people about 80 miles east of Memphis. Mary Winkler, 32, and her three young daughters were found Thursday night leaving a restaurant in Orange Beach, Ala., about 340 miles from Selmer. Orange Beach Police Chief Billy Wilkins said she had rented a condo on the beach after the slaying.
She was charged with first-degree murder and ordered held without bail. Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agent John Mehr said authorities know the motive for the killing, but he would not disclose it.
Mary Winkler was working part-time as a substitute teacher and taking college courses to get a teaching certificate as well as raising her three children and serving the congregation as its preacher's wife.
"You know she was weighted down," said Jimmie Smith, a member of Matthew Winkler's Fourth Street Church of Christ congregation and a retired psychiatric nurse.
Defense lawyer Steve Farese refused to talk about the Winklers' private life or if they had personal troubles.
"I can't discuss anything she's told me," Farese said. "But I think you have to look at the entire picture. You can't look at the end of a story and determine what the beginning and middle were."
Baptism only comes AFTER belief.
John 4:2 (Though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples,)
Well, Full Court, I didn't say that you or anyone was going to Hell. And I have never heard a member of the church of Christ say who will or will not go to Hell. That is up to God's judgment. But what I do know is that I believe that God, through his word, and his son has told me that I must be baptized to be saved. I have worked out my salvation. I was baptized for the remission of sins. I was buried with Christ in the waters of baptism. I died to sin in that grave. I then, like Christ, joined him in his resurrection, alive again, a new creature. Spotless and sin free. His blood, through the waters of baptism washed away my sins. And was therefore added to His church. I cannot speak for you. That is between you and God. But once again, you have never answered my question regarding I Peter 3. Remove the word that isn't there. Now or Not?
He is Church of Christ BTW
I have never seen anyone mangle a Bible like you have.
I have never stated those things, so why would you create fiction?
And why would you add a work of the flesh (baptism) to salvation?
So, instead of calling everybody liars, how about articulating your own interpretation? Did Timotheus work the work of the Lord, or not?
If you don't have a firm belief, you need to stop wasting my time. if you don't know what you believe, you also need to stop wasting my time.
This my friends is what we in Oklahoma refer to as...The pot calling the kettle black
Sweetie, you claimed that belief was a work. The Bible clearly says it is the work of God.
If you can't tell the difference between the two, I am afraid I can't help you.
You have to be born again to understand the Book.
1 Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
You didn't answer the question. Did Paul & Timothy do the work of God? It's a very simple yes-or-no question.
FC, my beliefs are as firm as a rock. I have not once contradicted myself. I have stood firm from the beginning of this discussion. It is you that has shown your lack of faith in your belief because you have refused to answer my questions, and resorted to ad hominem attacks against me and others calling us liars and other nonsense. In reality, I know that you will not be convinced because you are not willing to look with an open mind and heart at the Word of God. You simply want to attack others beliefs and call them names. I my friend am "wasting" my time, in a hope that someone else may read this thread and not be confused or swayed by your ad hominem attacks on the churches of Christ. I do what I have done in defense of God's Word.
I will keep asking until you answer me, or stop posting...answer my question regarding I Peter 3. Please. If I'm wrong, I want book, chaper and verse proof.
Where was the true New Testament church before then?
Jesus said that the gates of hell would not prevail against His church (Matthew 16:18).
What happened to the church and where was the truth it was responsible for preaching before God restored it?
If you can't state what you believe, then don't bother asking me what I believe.
Either I am going to Hell if I am not baptized, or I am going to Heaven.
If you don't know, then you don't really have a dog in this hunt and you can go ahead and log off and get some sleep.
I see that you included me in an answer to someone else, but I am asking you to respond to my very first post.
Just give me a scripture which shows anyone in the new testatment who was ever saved without being baptized. Listen to the Apostle Paul relate his conversion to the Jews. Saul was blind, after the Lord appeared to him on the road to Damascus, he was led into the city and for three days he waited. Begin at verse 12 of Acts chapter 22: "And a certain Ananias, a man who was devout by the standard of the Law, and well spoken of by all the Jews who lived there, 13 came to me, and standing near said to me,' Brother Saul, receive your sight!' And at that very time I looked up at him. 14 "And he said, 'The God of our fathers has appointed you to know His will, and to see the Righteous One, and to hear an utterance from His mouth. 15'For you will be a witness for Him to all men of what you have seen and heard. 16'And now why do you delay? Arise, and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on His name." NAS
Please show some degree of humility by refraining from using your mean spirited defense of calling me a liar. If you must call someone a liar, use the writer of Acts, I gave you his words, not ones that I made up.
The church of which I belong was established on the Day Pentecost. Acts 2. Roughly AD 30. The church as existed since that day.
The "Church of Christ" teaches that "obeying the Gospel" includes being baptized in water in order to be saved.
If this is true, then how is it that the converts of Acts 10 were saved by faith before and without water baptism?
The Bible says in Acts 5:32 that only those who obey God may receive the Holy Ghost - so what did those in Acts 10 do to obey and receive the Holy Ghost and be saved?
The Bible doesn't mandate much in the way of Church structure.
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