PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 262: It’s Time to Elevate Home and Family, Part 5
LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 262: It’s Time to Elevate Home and Family, Part 5
Colin and I continue to talk about elevating marriage. It has been devalued in our society, and it’s time to get it back to where God has placed it. It is a sacred institution. We must honor marriage and the marriage bed. We talk about how God wants wives to honor their husbands, but He also commands husbands to honor their wives.
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello, everyone! It’s always so wonderful to be with you! Today we’re going to continue talking about marriage. I have my wonderful husband with me again. We talked about marriage last week, but I think we need to talk about it a little more today. Marriage was the very first institution that God ordained. It really has fallen into disrepute in this age in which we are living. I believe it’s time to elevate it back to where God placed it.
I want to give you this quote. It’s my favorite quote about marriage, written or spoken, by John Piper, who is well known. He said,
“There has never been a generation whose view of marriage
is high enough.”
I believe that is so true. I don’t think any generation, particularly this one, has elevated marriage to the place where God has put it.
It is the revelation and the picture of Christ and His Bride, the church. God has given to marriage the responsibility, the privilege, to share this picture with the world. If only we could get ahold of that, I think it would help us to elevate marriage to where it’s meant to be.
I have been thinking recently of something that I often share with women regarding motherhood. I have always encouraged mothers that it’s not enough to love your children. You’ve got to love motherhood. That is so true.
Every mother loves her children. She would give her life for her children, but I would say that the majority of mothers don’t actually love the career of motherhood! It’s only when we get a revelation that this is the career God has given to us as women—we embrace it, we begin to confess that we love it, we take hold of it, and make it our life. When we do that, we come into the joy of it. We come into walking in the fullness of it.
Recently, I have been thinking, “Wow! That same principle applies to marriage.” We can love our husbands, but do we love marriage? Do we love marriage as God intends it to be, as He has revealed it in His Word? I’m not sure we all do. We can fall in love with this man, and we get married because we fell in love.
But we go into marriage not really planning to do it God’s way. We’re going to do it our way! We know this, especially in this age of so many egalitarian marriages, trying to have equality in marriage. Well, of course, we all know without a doubt that male and female are totally equal. But God gave us very defining and unique roles, specifically in the role of marriage. When we embrace our unique role, wow! We’re going to have a greater marriage.
The proof of doing it our way is in what is happening in our society today. There is such a breakdown of marriage, as much in the church as in the secular world. We’ve got to come back to God’s way, I do believe.
I think we have to start right at the very beginning, and then at the beginning, there was that beautiful marriage ceremony. We read the last words, I’m sure they were the benediction, as often they are spoken in marriages today, where it says in Genesis 2:24: “Therefore, shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they shall be one flesh.”
I think that is the very first principle of marriage right there, that we are to be one. It is a oneness. You don’t come into that immediately, I don’t think. We come into marriage, and there’s still the two of us. It takes time to blend into one. What would you say about that, Darling?
Colin: Takes two to bring to one?
Nancy: No. You’re not listening to me. [laughter]
Colin: I was writing something.
Nancy: I think it takes time for us, when we come into marriage, we don’t necessarily, suddenly, we are one. Yes, we become one flesh, because that is the consummation of marriage, but it takes time to blend together as one. What would you say about that?
Colin: It does. It certainly does. I think a lot of people think that they have it all worked out as how it should be, and how one we should be. But often, that is very one-sided. It’s a one-sided opinion.
If the husband feels he’s got it all figured out, and the wife thinks she’s got it all figured out, it’s going to go her way, it’s going to go his way. It’s going to take time to mold together, to work together to unity—to let the other partner in the marriage, the other husband or wife, and I don’t like the word “partner.” It’s used in the wrong way today.
Nancy: No, I hate the word “partner.”
Colin: It’s going to take your spouse and yourself to be molded together into one, over time, to learn how to relate to one another.
Nancy: Yes, and I think also, that is learning to let go of selfishness, and “me, me, me.” It’s the same in motherhood. You come into motherhood still pretty much selfish. With every new baby, you’re learning to give more and more of yourself. That’s why I think you learn to mother better with each new baby. You look back, and you think, “Help! My poor first child! How did they survive?”
It’s the same with marriage. We come in, and we’re still have these selfish attitudes. It’s “How it’s going to affect me,” and “Poor me,” and “What is my husband doing for me?” But we have to learn to let those things go because they really do not bless our lives. We learn as we go along that the greatest fullness of life is denying your own life and living for others.
I love that Scripture where it says that he that he that “will save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his lie for My sake and the gospel’s will save it” (Mark 8:35). It is so true.
We don’t find our lives by trying to find who we are. No, that’s not the secret. We find our lives by laying down our lives for others. I think that even in our marriage it took time for us to mold and blend together. Now that we have been . . .
Colin: Probably me more than you! [laughter]
Nancy: Now that we have been married for 60 years, well, I think we’re getting there! [laughter]
Colin: Yes. I think we’re just beginning, actually! Sixty years in, and we’re still learning. We’ve still got more to learn.
Nancy: Yes, but I think we are very blended.
Colin: Can I say something here on the subject of . . .. it’s not my opinion that really counts . . . We’ve been talking this morning, even before this podcast about the Lordship of Jesus Christ in our lives. It affects every area of our lives, including our marriage. All the decisions that have to be made, and our attitudes, our moods, our demands, our feelings of need, and all that. But it all comes back to whether we have fully, as Christians (if we call ourselves Christians) have we fully surrendered our lives? We were singing this morning in our family devotions, “I Surrender All.” Have we really? Somebody said,
“If He’s not Lord of all, He’s not really Lord at all.”
There’s probably some truth in that.
But we need to be learning day by day in our lives to hand every aspect, especially the importance of marriage, because marriage is not just to be treated as something which is so natural that God really has very little to say in it. No, He should have a lot of room to . . . We need to be listening to Him, as to how to make our marriage much more what God intends it to be.
Nancy: Yes. I love these two quotes also, by John Garr. He says, “It is,” talking about the oneness of marriage. He said, “It is a divinely sanctioned state of oneness that can be paralleled only in the unity that exists in God Himself.” Wow, that’s a pretty profound statement.
Colin: It’s a big statement.
Nancy: But it’s something that we are to aspire to and that we have the same oneness that there is in the oneness in the body of the triune God, how they have such oneness together.
I also love this little quote. He says that when you get married, “Your two-ness ceases to exist.”
God created male and female. There were two. Then when He created the female, he brought her to the man. Then He put them together again and said, “You shall be one flesh.” We are meant to be one. I think it’s a good thing.
I have to often get my thinking straight in situations that arise. I have to think, yes, I am one with my husband, so what I do, or how I think, or what I’m planning to do in this situation is not only according to me. It also is according to my husband. How does this affect both of us, because it’s not just me. We are one. Our twoness has ceased to exist. We are one.
Colin: Of course, there is still in that oneness, there are different giftings.
Nancy: Oh, yes, of course!
Colin: And because you’re not negating that, I know. It’s the importance of being . . . You can have a oneness with the opinion of blessing each one to be what God intends them to be. You understand that your husband has callings in his life and giftings in his life. As a wife, you need to be one and encouraging them to be developed in his life.
Likewise, with the husband, he needs to be serving his wife in her vision of motherhood, or whatever God has given her to do, to be one in that. He’s not negating it, he’s not putting it down, unless, unless she’s out or order, or he’s out of order. We are to have that oneness, and we should seek that oneness. We should be working together to make that oneness happen.
I think it’s not just going to happen of itself. It’s going to happen as we look to each other and we look to the Lord, to make that oneness, to have that peace and that unity with each other in what we are doing, and how we are coming to understanding wherever we are in life.
Nancy: Yes. I’d like to read one or two Scriptures, revealing once again, the oneness of marriage, and also the oneness that God wanted to have with His people Israel, and also that He wants to have with His now blood-bought people who have come into His kingdom. God is a very jealous God.
Song of Solomon 8:6: “Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.” It is not wrong for a husband to be jealous of a wife that is looking, maybe, outside her home, or at someone else apart from her husband.
I think we talked about it last time, didn’t we? About the exclusivity of marriage, and how that, when we’re married, OK, we no longer have another relationship with another person of the opposite sex on our own. Yes, we have friends together, which are the great blessing of life. But our marriage is exclusive.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 11:2-3: “For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband.” Now, that was talking about how he has brought them to the Lord and He is to be their only One that they worship, and to have no other gods before them. But he is using the analogy of marriage, because marriage portrays this beautiful picture.
“For I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”
Did you know, folks, that they are now seeking to bring in a law to have a marriage of three? We can hardly believe that, but then, of course, we can believe it, with the ridiculous things that are happening in our nation today. How can we allow this? How can this even be? I believe it is because we have not elevated marriage to where God placed it. Marriage is with one husband. Therefore, a husband or a wife can be jealous.
Colin: Jealous. I think that word is true. There can be incredible jealousy and hurt when one partner or the other is feeling that they have been jilted. There’s a competition there, between them and somebody else. That the wife may be looking to this man and looking to this man. I think that’s something that needs to be avoided as much as possible.
Nancy: I think that it should not only be avoided as much as possible; it has to be totally wiped out!
Colin: In the normality of life, you’re going to be dealing with the opposite sex one way or another. As far as your marriage is concerned, and even, I think in spending too much time, you said, “with the same sex.” I think you were meaning, “with the opposite sex.”
Nancy: Yes, that’s what I was meaning. Yes, that’s what I meant. Sorry.
Colin: That’s not having another man in your life that you regard, that you feel you want to have that liberty to have that friendship, and a special friendship with another person in your life, another man in your life, not of your sex, but a different sex. That can create great jealousy and competition and hurt, too.
Nancy: Yes, absolutely!
Colin: And all sorts of problems can arise from that.
Nancy: Yes! As God says in Exodus 20:3-5: “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me . . . Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God.” This is the picture that we are portraying in our marriage, that we will have no other person before our husband. That’s not just in life, but in our thoughts, and in any other way.
There is one passage in the Bible that says: “Flee fornication.” You do not put yourself in a situation where you can ever even be tempted. I was reading one other translation recently, and it said, “Fly from fornication.” I thought, “Wow, that’s pretty good.” You can flee. That means you can run, but maybe you’ve got to do more than that. You’ve got to fly from it! You never even put yourself in that temptation. That’s how we have to live, so astutely, I believe.
Colin: I don’t think we can overestimate what we’re talking about here or underestimate it. It is so important what we’re saying right now. It is a major problem, I think, in many, in the desire for liberty in marriage, and freedom to go beyond the borders that God has created in marriage. Therefore, there needs to be walls, there needs to be fences, there needs to be boundaries, to these personal relationships with each other. Otherwise, anything and everything can come in, and unfortunately, mar what God is really calling for.
Nancy: Yes, and I think Malachi 2:14-16 has very, very serious words about marriage. It’s right there at the end of the Old Testament, just about getting to the last words. It says, “You cry out.” I’m reading from the New Living Translation. “You cry out, ‘Why doesn’t the Lord accept my worship?’ I’ll tell you why. Because the Lord witnessed the vows you and your wife made when you were young. But you have been unfaithful to her, though she remained your faithful partner.”
I don’t really like that word, as we said before, because today, it’s used for a same-sex partner, or any kind of partner. “The wife of your marriage vows. Didn’t the Lord make you one with your wife? In body and spirit you are his. And what does he want? ‘Godly children from your union. So, guard your heart; remain loyal to the wife of your youth. For I hate divorce!’ says the LORD, the God of Israel. ‘To divorce your wife is to overwhelm her with cruelty,’ says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies. ‘So, guard your heart, to not be unfaithful to your wife.’”
Now, in the King James Version, it says these words: “In the beginning,” it says: “you dealt treacherously.” boy, that’s a powerful word, isn’t it? “Treacherously with the wife of your youth.” Then, toward the end, it says: “Let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.”
TREACHEROUS
Actually, three times in that passage, in the King James Version, it uses the word, “treacherously.” That’s how God sees it, when either a wife or a husband, looks beyond her marriage, to someone else, maybe in meeting, even in thoughts. God looks upon this as treachery because He has made us one.
Colin: On that line, too, you never know. Some people might think, “Well, I’m strong in my mind. This is just a platonic thing.” But you do not understand sometimes what’s going on in the other person’s mind that you are having a lot of association with. You could be encouraging something there. Also, we have to consider not just our own feelings, but also the feelings of somebody else. We should not become a temptation to them.
Nancy: Yes. And therefore, you learn to act and live wisely.
Colin: Wisely. You’ve got to be wise about all this.
Nancy: Also, too, the marriage bed is something that we must honor. In Hebrews 13:4, the New English Translation says: “Marriage must be honored.” We’re talking about honoring marriage, lifting it up to the highest state that God has given us. “Marriage must be honored among all, and the marriage bed kept undefiled, for God will judge sexually immoral people, and adultery.”
The Amplified Classic says: “Let marriage be held in honor, esteemed worthy, precious, of great price, and especially dear in all things. And thus let the marriage bed be kept undefiled, kept un-dishonored, for God will judge and punish the unchaste, all guilty of sexual vice and adultery.”
So, I believe that, yes, that is talking about when someone violates the marriage bed and is immoral with someone else. But it also is speaking about even keeping that marriage bed holy and honorable. As the Amplified brings out the full meaning of the Greek, “to esteem it worthy and precious, and of great price.”
I believe this is how we should look upon sexual intimacy in our marriage, that it is of great price. It is very dear. It is sacred. It’s something that is very sacred. We need to keep it sacred, keep it honorable, and keep it holy, even in the marriage bed. I think that is important.
Colin: I think because in today’s world, it’s an information world. It’s much more information now on these subjects, from a worldly perspective, on how to satisfy one another in the marriage bed, using worldly mindsets and thoughts. This can really bring corruption into the marriage bed. I do think that this is extremely important on this particular point, that we refrain from looking at any form of books or movies.
I may sound like I’m being very narrow and very square, but I do think it’s extremely important, because your marriage is a holy institution. Intimacy is a holy thing. God wants us to keep it holy and not to pervert it.
I think, as men or women . . . I once had to counsel a woman because she said her husband was wanting her to watch perversion, pornography with him so they could practice this in their own marriage relationship. She was appalled at it. I had to call the man up about it. This is the kind of thing that is happening in today’s world. That is something that we must avoid at all costs, and really pray about that type of thing from coming in and destroying the marriage relationship, and the experience.
Nancy: Yes. It only brings destruction. It will even bring down the glorious act of intimacy in the marriage to a low degree and become less and less what it is meant to be. Using all these extra things and stuff that people want to do today, is only, they’re counterfeiting. They totally dishonor the marriage bed. God has made it to be so glorious without all that junk. In fact, the more junk people use, the less it will become. We have to honor and see it as something of great price and holy and honorable.
HONORING ONE ANOTHER
In talking about honor, which we are seeking to do in this podcast, I’ve noticed in the Word of God that both the husband is to honor his wife, and the wife is to honor her husband. But they are different words in the Greek. So, I’d like to share those with you.
In talking of the wife first, we go to Ephesians 5:33. The whole of Ephesians 5, we’re not going into it today, but oh, these are passages worth reading over and over because they give the whole picture of walking in our marriage, to show to the world that picture of how His body, how His people, how they relate to Him, how they honor Him.
How they put Him above all others, and how Christ Himself is laying His life down for His church. He laid His life down. He went to the cross. But even now, He is still sacrificing. He is still interceding at the Father’s right hand, continually, for us. It is love for us. It’s good to constantly remind ourselves of these beautiful truths.
Out there in the world, they like to come against what they call “the patriarchal marriage,” where the man is taking dominance over his wife. I don’t know why they like to bring that up against Christians, because if they read the Bible, they will see, in Ephesians 5, and other places, how the man, the husband, the patriarch of the home, is meant to be laying down his life for his wife, to be loving her as he loves his own body. Oh, goodness me! They have a totally wrong conception of it all.
And, of course, you hear about situations where that does happen. But that’s not Bible. That’s someone who is totally out of sync with God, and out of sync with the Bible. That word, oh, I must read it to you. Ephesians 5:33: “The wife see that she reverence her husband.” “Reverence her husband.”
Now, in the Amplified Classic, let me read it to you. “However, let each man of you, without exception, love his wife, as being an offence against his very own self. And let the wife see that she respects and reverences her husband, that she notices him, regards him, honors him, prefers him, venerates and esteems him, and that she defers to him, praises him, and loves him, and admires him exceedingly.” Wow! That’s a tall order, isn’t it?
Colin: That’s a tall order!
Nancy: That is giving a very full understanding of that word, “to reverence,” which, when you look up the Strong’s Concordance, you will see that it even means “to fear.” So, it is an awe and reverence that we are to give to our husband who God has placed to be head of our home, and to be our covering and protection, and also our provision. But then, we go to the man.
Colin: May I just interrupt?
Nancy: Oh, do you want to say something?
Colin: To get to the point, I think that it’s often, people might say, “Well, I don’t feel like I can do that. That’s a tall order that’s way beyond me.” This is where we have to come to an understanding that the Lord didn’t put this in the Word (that Amplified Version gives various . . . The Greek can’t be explained in just one single English word). It gives us the different shades of meaning to it, which really brings the full meaning out of how the wife should respect her husband, and honor and venerate, and so on. If the wife thinks, “I can’t do that. It’s just beyond where I’m at right now,” that’s where they need to click into the nature of Christ that’s in them. He is in them, so that you can move into that, into His realm, of His Spirit.
If you can’t, if you’re struggling with it, you can be praying about it, saying, “Lord, I want You to come through, I want You to make this thing real in my life. I call upon You to help me in this regard.” I think this is what God is looking for. We may not be perfect in all these things that we’re saying, but if we’re aiming to get there, we’re looking to the Lord to make His nature more predominant in our marriage and in our love for one another, it’s a growing process. But we’ve got to be pushing into that and that’s what it’s referring to there.
Nancy: Yes. And then, it also says, in the Word of God, in 1 Peter 3:7: “Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers be not hindered.” Here we see the husband is to also honor his wife. It’s in a different way.
The Greek word here is timē. It means “to value as precious, to esteem to the highest degree, to give dignity to.” That’s beautiful, isn’t it? So, as wives are to reverence and give honor to their husband as the one who God has placed as head of their home, so the husband will be giving honor to his wife. He will be seeing her as so precious. Oh, he will be esteeming her to the highest degree! He will be showing her dignity and giving her the dignity that she needs to receive from their husband.
Colin: Sometimes the “weaker vessel” may refer to the fact that she is maybe weaker physically.
Nancy: Yes, that could be.
Colin: Also, she may be somewhat weaker emotionally at times. I think that I don’t know whether this is a good illustration, but I could say it you. In most of our homes, we have what we call “china cabinets” where we put the most precious vessels in a safe place. We keep them from being used in a common sense. They can get chipped in that kind of state, in a regular cupboard, they’ll get chipped.
But that which is valuable to us, we put in a special place. In a way, a wife should be in a special place with every husband so that he will not just toy with her emotions, and goad her, and tease her in a wrong sense, and treat her in a common sense. I think that’s got to be something that has to be understood by men: treat her as, in some areas, weaker. Not necessarily in character or personality she’s weaker, but in some areas of emotion, she may be, and also physically.
Nancy: Yes, well, I think of myself as a pretty strong person, physically.
Colin: Well, you are! Physically.
Nancy: And emotionally. But I’m still glad you’re stronger than me, because there are many times if I can’t lift something (I can lift pretty heavy things), but I need you around. I’m always needing you to carry these really heavy things. Or do this that I can’t do. Wow!
Colin: You’re also not a person who is a very emotional-type lady. You’re not. You keep a very, very even keel. It’s one thing that I have really been blessed with in having you as my wife. But not all women are the same. Some are very sensitive. Maybe those sensitivities need to be ministered to and get the victory over super-sensitivity. I think it’s understood that a lot of women are more emotional than men, and will cry a lot more than men, usually. Men need to respect these areas and treat them with care.
Nancy: Amen! So, we’re going to end this podcast, a little bit overtime, as usual. Remembering that we are both going to be honoring one another. It’s an honoring of the wife honoring her husband as she respects and venerates and honors him. The husband honoring his wife, treating her like that very most precious thing in the china cabinet. What do we call them today? You don’t call them china cabinets here.
Female voice: A hutch?
Nancy: Yes, a hutch, or whatever. Yes, in fact, we have, in our china cabinet, as we call it . . .
Colin: The hutch.
Nancy: The hutch, OK. We have some very, very precious china that has been passed down our family. When Colin’s mother passed away, it was passed on to him as the oldest son. We did get that. We didn’t get everything that he was meant to get as the oldest son.
Colin: That’s another story!
Nancy: There was a very, very, very expensive, incredible silver, what was it? A silver . . .
Colin: A tea set.
Nancy: A tea set sort of thing. Yes, very expensive. But anyway, Colin’s mother did not give it to us, because she didn’t trust us! She passed it on.
Colin: She thought I’d sell it!
Nancy: Yes! She passed it on to our eldest son. But we were happy about that, because when we were married, we had all these beautiful . . . and we’re going overtime, but I’ll just tell this little story. We were given all these wonderful wedding presents. But the Lord had called us out to the mission field, and we were preparing to go out.
Colin: For our lives, really. Never thought we’d come back.
Nancy: Really. We didn’t know. Anyway, we were living in this home owned by the China Inland Mission, and we had this beautiful table and chairs, and all these different things that our family had given us. When it came time to go, we thought, “Well, we don’t know when we’re coming back.” It was a dear (oh they were just this gorgeous) lovely old couple who’d just come back from the mission field. They’d lived their lives . . .
Colin: They were in China for forty years!
Nancy: Well, they’d been in China for forty years. When China had closed, they’d gone to Taiwan. They had served the Lord all their lives. They were coming into this home.
Colin: And they had nothing.
Nancy: They had nothing. So, we said, “OK, here it is.” We left all our wedding presents, everything we owned with them, and we went off!
Colin: And we never thought about the feelings of all those who had given to us.
Nancy: Well, we didn’t think about that.
Colin: Of course, we found out later. [laughter]
Nancy: His parents weren’t very happy! So, when it came time for us to be left all their stuff, “Oh no! We’re not leaving it with them! They don’t really appreciate temporal things at all!” But anyway, we’re glad our eldest son has it. It looks glorious in his big mansion. We don’t have a mansion. We wouldn’t have known where to put it! Help! Anyway, Darling, you pray.
Colin:
“Lord, we thank You for the honor of marriage, and the honor that you have placed on marriage, and for what You have put into it, and what You desire of it, Lord, to be an emblem of Christ, and a type of Christ and His relationship, the head of the church for His relationship with His bride.
“Lord, what a beautiful, intimate thing, very intimate, very holy, very pure, not common, a very, very not normal, like the average normal, what everybody thinks as normal, but something very special. Help us to honor, Lord, help us to honor it in every way. Lord, let us elevate it to where You want it to be. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.”
Nancy: Amen!”
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
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