Lex Lutor Iyornumbe

What Scripture teaches us about adultery, repentance, forgiveness, and the consequences of betrayal.

A woman recently shared a story online about how one act of infidelity brought her ten-year marriage to an end. According to the account, her husband discovered the betrayal, walked away and has refused to reconcile. Two years later, she is still apologising, pleading and asking for another chance.

The story has generated the usual internet debate. Some people insist that she deserves no forgiveness. Others argue that ten years of marriage should count for something and that one mistake should not be enough to throw away an entire decade.

I find both reactions interesting, but I think Scripture gives us a more balanced perspective than either side is offering.

There are several things we need to distinguish: the seriousness of adultery, the duty to forgive, the possibility of reconciliation and the consequences of betrayal. These things are related, but they are not interchangeable.

And confusing them is where much of the trouble begins.

A man buys his wife a deep freezer after she gives birth. He presents it as a push gift, a gesture of appreciation for everything she has gone through during pregnancy and childbirth. The wife sells the freezer and uses the money to buy herself a wig.

The husband is unhappy about this and calls a family meeting to address the matter. When the wife arrives at the meeting, she is wearing the very wig she bought with the money from selling the freezer.

It is quite a story. And, as expected, people have taken sides.

The most important lesson I ever teach younger engineers is this:

Solve the customer's problem, not the one you wish they had.

I call it The Parable of the Bridge Builder.

A wealthy man walks into a bridge builder's office.

"I'd like a suspension bridge," he says. "Six lanes. Railway line on top. Finest steel and concrete money can buy. Money is no object."

The bridge builder is intrigued.

"Where would you like this bridge?"

"In front of my house."

The builder blinks.

"...Why?"

"Well," the man replies, "there's a small dip in my driveway. When it rains, water collects there. Sometimes I step into the puddle and my shoes get wet."

He sighs.

"This cannot continue."

At this point, every engineer in the room has already designed twelve better solutions.

Fill the dip.

Level the driveway.

Build a small footbridge.

Buy the man rain boots.

Teach him to look down occasionally.

Problem solved.

Except...

The customer did not ask for any of those.

Having another child has reminded me that fatherhood is not only about teaching a child.

Sometimes the child arrives and begins teaching you.

Not with sermons.

Not with arguments.

Not with carefully prepared PowerPoint slides, because newborns have not yet discovered corporate suffering.

Just by existing.

Quietly. Loudly. Repeatedly. Usually at night.

Somewhere beneath the blazing sun of ancient Canaan, an old man is listening to what may be the most unbelievable promise ever made.

His name is Abraham.

He has no children. His wife Sarah is barren. Both of them have lived long enough to know that biology has already packed its bags and gone home. If Abraham were alive today, people would politely tell him:

Sir... it is time to start looking at retirement villages, not baby strollers.

Then God speaks.

"I will make you into a great nation."

"I will bless you."

"I will make your name great."

Now pause for a moment.

If you have spent enough time around overly religious people, that probably is not the speech you expected.

You almost expect God to say something like:

Abraham, I have called you into a life of glorious suffering. From today onward, your primary assignment is to be permanently broke, perpetually miserable, and mildly dehydrated... for My glory.

But that is not what happened.

Instead, God begins talking about Abraham's future. His family. His inheritance. His influence. His success.

Almost as though God genuinely wanted something good to happen to the man.

Imagine that.

A short satirical play about startups, recruitment, artificial intelligence, and the continuing scientific investigation into what exactly an "intern" is.

There is a sentence in the Bible that sounds suspiciously like something you would hear during a Monday morning status meeting: “While your servant was busy here and there ...”

It appears in 1 Kings 20:35–43. A prophet, disguised as a wounded soldier, approaches King Ahab with a story. During battle, he says, someone entrusted a prisoner to him with very clear instructions: guard this man. If the prisoner escapes, your life will answer for his life. Unfortunately, while the soldier was “busy here and there,” the prisoner disappeared. King Ahab hears the case and gives his judgment without hesitation: “So shall your judgment be; you yourself have decided it.”

Then comes the awkward part.

The prophet removes his disguise and reveals that the story was about Ahab himself. God had entrusted King Ben-Hadad to Ahab's judgment, and Ahab had released him. Ahab had just pronounced judgment on his own behavior without realizing it.

It is one of those wonderfully uncomfortable moments in Scripture where a man discovers that the sermon is, unfortunately, about him.

But hidden inside the story is a principle that reaches far beyond ancient kings and prisoners: when you accept responsibility for something, you also accept responsibility for navigating the difficulties attached to it. Circumstances may explain why you failed. They do not automatically remove your responsibility for whatever was genuinely within your charge.

That applies whether you are a CEO responsible for a company, a pastor responsible for a congregation, a father or mother responsible for children, a husband or wife responsible for a covenant, a manager responsible for a team, or an intern responsible for updating the spreadsheet without somehow deleting Q3.

Welcome to adulthood. We have responsibilities.

I recently came upon a job posting and had to pause.

Not because the responsibilities were strange.

Not because the role was fake.

But because the gap between the expectations and the compensation was loud enough to start speaking in King James English.

The company wanted a Technical Project Manager for a fintech and crypto product. Remote. Full-time. Reporting directly to the Founder and CEO.

Somewhere in a startup office, a meeting is happening that should have been an email. Deadlines are discussed with confidence, priorities are “aligned” in real time, and words like velocity, ownership, and urgency move freely across the room. Everyone nods. Everyone agrees. And yet, if you pause long enough, a strange realization settles in. No one is entirely sure what is actually happening. The team is busy, but not effective. The company is moving, but not progressing.

Beginners ask, "What endpoint should I create?"

Production engineers ask, "What workflow am I protecting?"

That difference is everything. I've seen plenty of APIs start clean — a neat server.ts, a handful of routes, maybe some validation. Then features pile on. Users multiply. Errors get awkward. The database starts choking. Before long, that tidy API is a ball of mud held together by desperation and TODO comments.

This article is about building it right from the start. Not with over-engineering, but with deliberate structure. We'll build an Order Management API as we go — because every production engineer has dealt with orders, payments, and status transitions.