10 Relationships in the Bible that Can Inspire Our Marriage (PART 1)

Marriage is a journey of two individual people navigating and committing to uniting their hearts, minds, and bodies through shared experience. It requires intentionality, pursuit, initiation, endurance, patience, and most of all, it requires unconditional love and amazing grace. Believing in Jesus Christ and following his example in love and grace helps us understand how to embrace each other in marriage. May we continuously choose to abide in him and remain faithful to each other. In marriage, the benefit and blessing is extraordinary. And looking in hindsight, after years of marriage, paints an incredible portrait of true love. Oh, what a masterpiece we’ll come to appreciate after decades of color has been applied.

Hey, we’re Aaron Jennifer Smith, your host of the Marriage After God podcast. Today’s episode is brought to you by our faithful patron team who have chosen help financially support this show monthly. Here’s a shout out to some of our most recent patrons, Danta, AE v, Craig b and C. We thank you so much for choosing to partner with us in blessing tens of thousands of couples with free daily prayer emails, and this weekly podcast. If you’ve been blessed by the free marriage after God content, we’d love to invite you to join our patron team. Please visit marriage after god.com/patron.

Welcome back to another episode of Marriage After God. We’re excited to be here. Welcome back. Welcome back. So we started homeschool this week.

I did not start homeschool.

You did

Though. I graduated long time

Ago. But you did because Erin and I share the experience. So we do. One day a week, Erin jumps in with the kids and I leave him a little to-do

List, a little task list of schoolwork.

So yeah,

Thanks for that. Well, one of the cool things I got to do as part of our school was play a board game with the kids. I

Love it. That is school. It was awesome math, right? Yeah.

All sorts of different things.

Logic. Yep. How to win strategy. I was talking with some girlfriends and we were talking about how leading up to the start of another school year, there can be this feeling of overwhelm of just, especially when you’re homeschool, did I choose the right curriculum? And you feel the weight of responsibility with each child and their strengths and weaknesses and struggle and just the rhythm and routine and schedule of everything trying to figure out. It’s a lot. Yeah. And you’re trying to check all these boxes, and we were just talking about how the moment you actually start, there’s this sigh of relief, like this exhale that happens where you are like, okay, now we’re in it. And then you just go.

Me personally, being someone who loves change, I’m excited that we had a new transition, a new season. New

Season coming and fall is right on the corner.

I’m not excited about that. Do you love

Change?

I do like change, really?

Okay.

I think I’ve slowed down on

How much I like change. I was going to say, I think I used to change a lot more, but now with the more older people in our family, change is harder

Now. I just want my grass to be green

Just the whole time.

Well, my actual grass, not my metaphorical grass. I

Was thinking

About, actually, no, I want that to be green too. I’ll say I want all my grasses to be green.

Alright, well, hey, we’re getting ready to head out of here next week. My brother’s getting married. My little brother, my youngest brother,

Yeah. He’s not very young anymore. No, he’s

Getting older, but I’m so excited for him and I love weddings, so this’ll be awesome. Oh, I also wanted to share that our ladies group is going through a new study this season by Jen Wilkin. It’s called Abide, and it’s all about first, second, third. John and I dived into it this week and it’s really good.

Are you guys all taking turns, kind of sharing on different portions?

One person we’re doing, it’s 10 week study, so we’re going week by week and we’re just going to, there’s questions that you answer as you go. And so as we get together, we’re going to share the discussion. Oh, that’s cool. Questions. And just share what we’re learning about. It’s going to be awesome.

I’m really looking forward to that. That my men’s group is going through right now is dirt bikes,

Better Ride Motorcycles.

I went for a 50 mile Enduro rock climbing dirt by trip.

We have a handful of guys that are enthusiasts and you guys, they’re skilled and they have been in this arena for a while. Yeah, their whole life. I’ve

Done it twice.

Okay. Aaron got home the other day after being gone for, I calculated what, 12 hours, 10 ish hours. And for 30 solid minutes was sharing the highs, the lows. It was the best day of his life. He almost died several times. And he’s

Like, no. I constantly felt on the edge of death, the edge of death the whole time.

But you seem to really like

It. It was fun. So

You’re going to keep doing it.

Yes. But I need some time between going out to calm down on my brain and heart recover. But that was actually pretty awesome and it was cool. I went with a lot of guys from church and a little bonding experience. Yeah. I told ’em, I was like, guys, the only reason I’m not dead right now is because we prayed before we left. God’s keeping me alive right now,

Our prayer. I love it.

It was actually pretty awesome. That’s

Cool. I’m glad you got to do that. When I was working on the podcast making notes for this week’s episode, I thought it would be really cool to look at certain relationships in the Bible and draw from them, how can we apply this to marriage, the marriage relationship,

See if there’s any insights we can just

Pluck out there. There’s so many that I actually started with 15 and had to pull it down to 10. Otherwise this would be a 2, 3, 4 part series.

So a disclaimer, we’re not necessarily taking each one of these relationships and saying, look, how this person applies is a marriage. It’s not a marriage teaching. What we’re doing is we’re just going to take a peek at these relationships and just kind of things that happen in and see if we can extract. I

Think it’ll be interesting to listen to. Yeah,

For sure. How does that fit into

Marriage? Exactly. So please join us on this wild experience of going through scripture. There’s a lot of scripture we introed with. Marriage is a journey of two individual people navigating and committing to uniting their hearts, minds, and bodies through shared experience. I had this picture of somebody standing still and somebody just bolting, just running, running the race, going hard and in a straight line continuously. Well, eventually the person who’s standing still will not be able to see, hear, talk to or touch that person running because the proximity, the distance, the space between them grows too much. They’re out of sight. And actually it wouldn’t take that much time at all for that to happen.

Well, yeah, in your analogy, wasn’t you’re

Right to make those things impossible. In order for a shared experience in life, these two people would need to choose to run together. And at any 0.1 chooses not to. They lose that contact.

Can I add one little piece to your word picture? Is that

What it’s I’m scared. Yeah. I don’t know. No.

Imagine those exercise bands, those big rubber bands. Oh yeah. So marriage is more like you have the two and there’s the band around them. One starts running and the other person’s standing still, and the person that’s trying to run

Kids snap back,

No being hindered and the other person’s kind of dragging, but eventually it’s going to get so far and then it’s going to snap. But the picture is if they’re running together, they’re going to run in tandem. They

Can go

Anywhere, but if they’re trying to run the opposite direction, that’s going to happen even quicker. And there’s going to be this strong tension that’s awesome until it eventually breaks and then they were just running for freely.

So back to, if these two people are running together, the pace may vary from time to time, a little stretch of distance, a little stretch of that. You can’t touch him anymore, but you can still see him, you can still chat. All of that, all of that running represents togetherness or like you said, being found together in that rubber band.

The direction,

The path you’re on, the momentum, regular, regularly running next to each other in thoughts, in growth, in spirituality and intimacy in everything. And togetherness, standing still represents an unwillingness, an apathy or lack of desire to be together.

Laziness. Yeah.

I’m

Just going to not try. Okay. I’ve heard it put this way. There is no standing still. There’s only going backwards. The moment you stop, you’re sliding. It’s like downhill. You’re running uphill. The moment you stop, you’re not standing there, you’re kind of sliding down or backsliding is what the turn is.

We’ll also put the note here, dragging. You wouldn’t be able to drag the, if you are the person that really wants to run and make efforts and strides to go forward, you can’t drag that other person maybe for a short distance, but you’re going to burn out. It’s not going to work.

So really the only option is that you have to run together. You have to move together in the same

Direction. You have to run together. Relationships need intentionality, pursue initiation, endurance, patience, unconditional love and amazing grace. It needs all of that and more. Am I right? Yeah.

So do you think as we go through some of these stories, 10 of them specifically, we’ll be able to see some of these traits?

Yes. The characteristics exemplified in these people I think will give us, like you said, insight and wisdom and things that we can look forward to growing in as a husband and wife.

And again, I want to go back to that disclaimer. We’re not saying that each one of these stories is like, Hey, look at this perfect example of marriage. No, we’re just, we’re sharing stories that are just in the Bible and we’re going to try and draw out of them things that we could use for our marriage or insights.

And not all of them are married couples, so that’s fun too. But the first one is, so the first one is about Isaac and Rebecca. We’re going back to the Old Testament. So we’re going to be in Genesis 24,

And this is where Abraham is sending out his servant to find a wife from his own lineage. From his own town for his son Isaac. Yep. Yeah. So you want to

Read? Yeah. So the servant finds Rebecca and her family agrees to give her hand and marriage and then the servant is going to return. So this is where we’re picking up in verse 55. Her brother and her mother said, let the young woman remain with us a while. At least 10 days after that she may go. But he said to them, do not delay me since the Lord has prospered my way. Send me away that I may go to my master. They said, let us call the young woman and ask her. And they called Rebecca and said to her, will you go with this man? And she said, I will go. So they sent away Rebecca, their sister and their nurse and Abraham’s servant and his men.

This is a really awesome scripture where it shows that it’s not just this transaction happening totally separate of Rebecca, that there’s this level of willingness that needs to take place, which is really amazing in scripture.

She’s brave, she’s courageous to say, I will go.

Yeah, she has no knowledge, but she understands that this is a very good thing for her and her family. So they looked at her and they’re like, do you want to go? And she’s like, yeah.

It reminds me of when we were getting married, you proposed and you shared all this wonderful stuff about us following the Lord and serving him together. And I told you I want to follow you and I’ll go wherever you go. That was my heartbeat. That was your

Willing heart. Yeah. And that was one of the things that I loved so much about you was your willingness to follow me. And that wasn’t the only thing, but that was like, wow, you don’t care what we do now over time, it was like there was things that were hard. I

Had my opinions,

But in general, you in your mind was like, I want to just follow you. And wherever that is, wherever you are, I want to be there with you. And that’s a really beautiful thing. And what’s awesome about this story is just everything about salvation all throughout scripture, God’s heart for his people is yes, he has command, he has his commandments, he has what he desires them to do, but he wants willing hearts. And so in marriage, we want the same thing. There’s nothing more loving than a willing heart, not just a reluctant heart like, oh, I’m going to do these things out of obligation. I’m going to do

These things. I know have to.

I have to. Those may be true. Yeah. We do have, as a husband, I have an obligation to just love you and protect you and love you as Christ loves the church and lay my life down for you. But do you want me to do that out of obligation or out of a willingness?

A willingness. Well, I like what you said that she knew what would be good for her. There’s benefit to marriage, there’s benefit to all the things that you’re mentioning. And so this being motivated by knowing what’s good for you, I love that picture.

And she shows it. Want to keep

Reading. So continuing on, so Rebecca gets on this camel and she’s writing and following the servant. And so we’re picking up here in verse 63. Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening, and he lifted up his eyes and saw and behold, there were camels coming and Rebecca lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she dismounted from the camel and said to the servant, who is this man walking in the field to meet us? Okay, I just have to stop right there because if this was a Hallmark movie, this is the climatic scene with gazes of curiosity and attraction and just everything. I just can picture this thing in my

Mind. You’re a hopeless romantic. I know. You see it that way. Yeah.

Okay.

What I like about this on the husband side, this story pre husband, right? But he went out to meditate, and so he’s going out to pray and to meditate on the word of God. And that’s what a Jewish man would’ve been doing. That’s what meditating means. And so he’s out and his mind is not on, where’s my wife? Oh, who’s my wife? Who’s my wife? What’s going to be, it’s on the Lord, meditating on the Lord. And guess what he gets to participate in? Because he’s doing that. He gets to see her for the first time as she’s coming it from a distance.

That’s really good. So then it says, the servant said, it is my master. So she took her veil and covered herself, and the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. Then Isaac brought her into the tent of Sarah, his mother, and took Rebecca and she became his wife and he loved her. So Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death. So just a few highlights that we can pull out here. We already talked about Rebecca’s willingness, but I also want to highlight Isaac’s love. He loved her, which is an important aspect of marriage. We got to love people. We got to love. Well,

Another thing I love about this, just symbolically, so she fails herself so he doesn’t even see her because she’s protecting her image. She’s protecting her purity before this man, before they’ve been betrothed, before they’ve, all the things have become official.

I read too, in their culture, it was like a symbol of her betrothal that she was, she’s covered

That he would be the one to unveil her. He would be the one to see her first. And so his love for her wasn’t based on her beauty. It wasn’t based on how she looked at him, because she could have had a weird face like, oh, I’m uncomfortable. And his love was based on something totally else. Something else. It was something deeper. It was something more. And that’s what we as husbands, our love should be beyond the physical, beyond what’s right in front of us, beyond the mood you’re in, beyond how we’re feeling today. My love, it supersedes that. There’s a word I want to say. It’s goes beyond extends, I don’t know what the word is. Transcends. Yeah, transcends you. It transcends. That wasn’t immediately in front of

Us. That’s good. I love that. And then just the last thing here, looking at their relationship, which was a very long and lengthy relationship, but it says that Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death because he had just gotten married. And I just thought how beautiful that he was comforted by their relationship and this beautiful gift of marriage. And so the question for us in looking at their relationship is, are we comforted by each other? Do we seek to be comforted by one another?

Are we a place of comfort for each other when I’m having a hard day or family issues or friend issues or fears, or are you a place that I can come to and feel safe and comforted and I can mourn with you and be held by you and vice versa that you would feel the same with me?

That’s so good. So I thought we were done, but we’re not done yet. Yeah. This keeps going little bit more like this. Okay, so in Genesis 26, we’re going to jump ahead. It says, so Isaac settled in is that Gura when the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, she’s my sister for, he feared to say, my wife thinking Les, the men of the play should kill me of Rebecca because she was attractive in appearance when he had been there a long time. Aek king of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw Isaac laughing with Rebecca, his wife. So Aek called Isaac and said, behold, she’s your wife. How then could you say she’s my sister? Isaac said to him, because I thought, Les, I die because of her. I’m laughing reading this because I’m thinking, well, first of all, this isn’t the first time that we hear of a husband saying she’s my sister. Because remember Abraham did that with Sarah? Yeah.

He learned it from his dad. Yeah.

So he was scared, but he was caught laughing with Rebecca. And it’s such a small little phrase, but it means a lot because when you think about the intimacy a husband and wife share where they’re comfortable with each other, they feel safe with each other. They have those inside jokes or mannerisms that reveal mores under the surface. When you can enjoy someone’s company and you’re laughing with them, it shows the world that you’re together. It’s noticeable.

Can I go one step deeper on this? So I think you’re right. You’re focusing on just this beautiful, intimate moment of a husband and wife laughing with each other. But the reason AB would know that she was his wife by observing this is because this would’ve been highly inappropriate for a man to do with any woman that’s not his wife or his sister, any woman. So

You’re saying in their culture, in their context,

But again, this level of intimacy where you’re having this close, flirtatious laughy,

The countenance says it

All. Husbands listening, do you have relationships like this with girls that are not your wife? Are you this friendly laughter, close playfulness, playful, intimate friendship style? That’s something that should be reserved for your wife that’s

Special,

But recognized that Sarah was, that was Rebecca, was Isaac’s wife because this engagement, this interaction, it wouldn’t have made sense in any other context. But yet are you having this context where you’re like, oh yeah, I have that relationship with my wife and I have it also with this girl at my gym and I also have it with this girl at my work. And

That’s a good point. Yeah.

Shouldn’t be that way. It should be so recognizable that oh wow, he has a really unique relationship with his wife that he doesn’t have with any other woman.

It’s special. So then the other question is, are you a marriage where you guys are enjoying each other? Does your accountant say at all? Do you have interactions with each other that is full of joy,

Intimate,

Intimate, laughing, shows unity? These are things to think about. Okay, and then in Genesis 27, 14, there’s another little tiny phrase that highlights their relationship that we caught and I thought it was worthy to talk about. I mean,

That involves food. Yeah. Genesis 27, verse 14. So he went and took them and brought them to his mother and his mother prepared delicious food such as his father loved.

So the mother is Rebecca, this is as they’re older. And yeah, it says that she prepared delicious food such as his father loved, which means that it wasn’t a one-off, wasn’t like the one time she ever cooked for him. And he thought it was delicious, such as his father loved mean that it happened often. And she used it as a way of blessing. Her husband, he enjoyed

Himself and this could be either something that he’s always loved and she now makes it for him because he loves it or something she makes he loves. But either way, either way, this is a situation where it’s like they have this symbiotic, she has something that she makes for him and he enjoys. Yeah,

It’s a

Blessing. And she does it because he loves it and he loves it. I don’t know. That’s a really cool,

Has there ever been anything that I’ve made specifically food that you’ve enjoyed?

Oh, almost all your cooking. Are you sweet? Especially as we’ve gotten older. Early on in our marriage, neither of us knew how to cook anything and we had lots of funny mistakes. But

No, I think, and over time I’ve tried a handful of times to pick things that I think you would enjoy that I necessarily wouldn’t, that

We’ve been pretty creative in our culinary

Journey endeavors. We’ve even, we’ve made some really bad things and we end up scratching and then we’ll jump and get pizza.

But I also enjoy those text

Because I love pizza, like experiment. Anyways, the note here is just that we should be couples who cook for each other.

Yeah. Well, and you also said real light note, she blesses him because she knows that he loves it. She’s doing something that he knows he loves. And husbands can do the same too. Are you creating something? Doing something because she loves it. The other night I was like, do you want to watch a old love story? And you’re like, what?

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And then you fell asleep. But I finished the whole thing. I watched it. Next thing I did it because you love it. Did you really? Yeah. Oh, that’s funny. There was a song playing this morning. It was by Google Dolls. Oh yeah. But I was like, we just watched this movie. Anyways, it brought me back all day to the nineties. That’s funny. Okay, number two, this is, that was the good one, but a long one. But we’re on number two. This is a little bit shorter. So this is about Jonathan and David. So King David and Jonathan, who was the son of King Saul, which

One when they met, he wasn’t King David yet he was this young man.

He was anointed king, but he was not king. Yes. So King Saul was still king. Jonathan was his son, first Samuel 18. As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, sorry, I said Saul and then Saul speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David. And Jonathan loved him as his own soul, and Saul took him that day and would not let him return to his father’s house. Then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David and his armor and even his sword and his bow and his belt. And David went out and was successful wherever Saul sent him so that Saul set him over the men of war. And this was good in the sight of all the people and also in the sight of Saul’s servants.

Okay, so the obvious big monster character treat here is that these guys loved each other and they

Had a deep,

A deep friendship relationship. It says that they were knit together, their souls were knit together,

Which is, I don’t think there’s any other relationship in scripture that talks this way.

It reminds me of in Romans 8 38 and 39, it says, for I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rollers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers nor height, nor death, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

That’s a good verse to put to this.

Well, it reminds me, it says that they’re knit together. And when you think about their friendship, they were loyal till the end.

And what I love about this also is there’s, especially in marriage about roles in order. I mean, the Bible is very clear about order and roles and what God’s designed things to look like. And you see something really incredible happening here. This is Jonathan who is heir to be king by blood, Saul’s king. And so Jonathan would be king next, but Jonathan is recognizing something that is so beyond what he should be. He’s recognizing that no God has chosen David to be king. So over his loyalty and his blood relation to his dad, to the kings Saul, he’s choosing out of love for the true king David to take off his garments and his sword and all things that would signify him as royalty and gives it to David. And so what he’s doing is he’s putting himself in the proper place, out of love, out of submission, out of recognizing what God has done, but he’s doing it out of love. Again, going back to that willingness thing. He’s not doing it like, oh, I’m fearful I’m going to, no, he loves David. And he’s like, here you go.

Well, and as you’re describing it, it makes me think that Jonathan saw David as God saw him. And I think so often in marriage we see each other through the flesh and we see weaknesses. We see failure. We see faults. We see you’re getting in my way. We see you’re not doing it how I do it, we see all the negative and we have to fight our flesh in order to see the person we married as God sees them.

Another aspect to that, by the way that’s really good is choosing to when there’s situations where we could in all rights, everything we can see situationally and logistically, here’s what I deserve in this situation, Jonathan deserved the throne next, but he’s not even considering that. Which reminds me of the scripture where it says Jesus though equal with God, did not count equality with God as something to grasp. He laid down, not his godhood, but his pursuit of that. He instead became a servant. And you see Jonathan doing the very same thing to David. And so sometimes in our marriage, one of us could have like, no, I have this right to something, and yet we can say, I’m going to lay this down out of my love for you.

That’s

Beautiful. What I think I have a right to

Sacrificial love. Yeah, I love that. The last note I just want to pull out is as we were reading that Jonathan stripped himself of the robe and also his armor and sword and bow and belt like Jonathan was generous. That’s a character trait that I think that every couple should strive to have is, are you a generous person to your spouse? Not only do you give them the one thing, but you give them the four other things too with purpose. Those were important things that he gave David in order to be equipped to go out. And it ended up helping him fulfill the role of being set over the men of war. And so how are we being generous to our spouse in a way that helps them fulfill their role and purpose that God’s given them?

One more thing I think about in this idea of Jonathan giving David his, when you would see Jonathan and you would see what he’s wearing in his sword and all these things, those would be Jonathan’s things. And so are we going out with things on us that are shining in us that represent our spouse? When David would go out to war, Jonathan was represented on

David. There was something familiar about Jonathan on him somewhere.

Well, what David was fighting with was Jonathan’s sword. What David was wearing was his armor, what David was. So there’s this connection, connection of I’m sending you out for us with bits of me. Yeah, I love it. You’re sending me out with bits of you. We have each other’s essence, each other,

Which it says they’re knit together soul for soul. So it makes sense too, even down to their insides. That’s really good.

Everyone listening is probably like, how are they pulling all of this out? Jonathan David, for marriage? That’s crazy. Yeah.

Well, I do want to make one little note. We don’t have to read it, but in second Samuel nine it talks about, because Jonathan passes away, but David’s love for him never fades. And in fact, he ends up taking care of Jonathan’s son. I think it’s such a beautiful picture of how we can leave a legacy through our influence and impact in someone’s life, especially our spouse’s life, when there’s that love and that loyalty and that generosity in that I love you till death mentality, incredible things can happen even after that relationship has ended.

That’s a good one. Why don’t you talk about this one?

So number three would be Ruth and her mother-in-law. This is a really beautiful picture of faithfulness. So I just to save on time, we don’t have to read the whole thing, but Naomi had two sons. They were both married. Both men died as well as Naomi’s husband. And so she was going to head back to Judah as a widow, and she basically tells her two daughter-in-laws go return to your mother’s house. May the Lord deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me. And so she’s like giving them permission, like please go. So picking up in Ruth one verse 14, it says, then the two daughter-in-laws lifted up their voices and wept again, and orba kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. So this is after a conversation of her trying to plead with them like, you go back to work free, free go to my home.

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You go to your home and they’re saying, no, we want to stay with you. And she’s like, I can’t provide anything for you. I don’t have any more sons for you. Okay. So Ruth clung to her just we’re highlighting that word clung to her. We’ll come back to it in a minute. And she said, see, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her Gods return after your sister-in-law. But Ruth said, do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you for where you go. I will go and where you lodge, I will lodge your people shall be my people and your God, my God, where you die, I will die and there I’ll be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything, but death parts me from you. And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more. So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. Okay, so first of all, we do want to talk about marriage, but first of all, this is a relationship between a daughter-in-law and a mother-in-law and in marriage we have those extra relationships, which is

Pretty unique. Would this be like the only time in history there is, this has happened,

But I just kidding. I think that sometimes in-laws can present challenge or not. Every relationship is smooth and there’s a learning curve involved, which is why I’m bringing it up. I think it’s a really beautiful picture of how we can rely on our in-laws and love them and have a relationship with them that matters.

I think not necessarily a template based

Off she responds. Yeah, this isn’t like a formula, but it’s pointing out that this is an important relationship to have. And I just love that Ruth was that way with her. And so we can all look to Ruth’s example and say, Hey, our in-laws are important and how can we love them? Yeah,

Love ’em. Well,

Yeah. Okay. And so I said we were going to talk about clinging. So Ruth clung to her. So in the relationship of marriage, a husband and wife clinging to each other, they cleave their parents and one, no, they leave their parents and cleave, oh, sorry. They leave their parents and cleave to each other. And then I love the part where she says, may the Lord do to me and more also if anything, but death parts me from you. And I think that till death to us part, the majority of people when they are at the altars say till death, do we part? But how often does that promise come to be fulfilled? I mean,

Yeah, well nowadays a lot less.

A lot less. So the question is do we cling to each other in this way of reliance and security and love and being determined to do so?

Yeah. Do we have the same mentality that Ruth is having with Naomi where she sees Naomi as her home? Do you see your spouse as your home and yourself? There is no separation from that. There is no, well, just not happy anymore. Let’s move on. Ruth was looking at this as, if I leave, where am I going to go to? What else is there? I have nothing. And if we have this mentality of like, oh, there’s always this other option, there’s always this escape plan. There’s always this. That’s not what Ruth had. Ruth was married, she was betrothed to Naomi’s son, her son died. There are no more sons. So Ruth literally starting from scratch in her life and now she’s a widow, which puts her in a whole nother category. So this mentality of this marriage is my marriage, this is my home. And this till death to us part mentality is reality for us. We’re going to make it work

So good. So we’re going to move on, but we’re still talking about Ruth. We’re just going to move on to Ruth and Boaz and this picture of redemption. So this is Ruth too, guys. I wish I could read the whole thing because Ruth is so good and I love the picture of Christ in their relationship, which we’re not getting into right now, but it’s just so, so good. So Ruth goes to glean in a field, so it’s Boaz’s field, and I love that Boaz spots her, and this is what he says. Starting in verse five, Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the Reapers, who’s young woman is this, and the servant who was in charge of the Reapers answered. She is the young Moabite woman who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. She said, please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers.

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So she came and she has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest. Then Boas said to Ruth, now listen, my daughter do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women. Let your eyes be on the field that they’re reaping and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn. Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground and said to him, why have I found favor in your eyes that you should take notice of me since I am a foreigner? But Boaz answered her all that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. The Lord repay you for what you have done and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge. Then she said, I have found favor in your eyes, my Lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant, though I am not one of your servants.

Well, yeah. One thing that really stood out to me is she was recognized by her loyalty and her dedication and her purity, and he recognizes, I’ve heard everything that you’ve been through and how you’ve followed Naomi and how you are here, and those are amazing things for a woman to have that loyalty, that respect, that honor, that hard work, that all those things, and he recognized those things, her reputation preceded her. And you read about in Proverbs 31, and you read about it in a bunch of other

Proverbs, you can tell he thought highly of her just from that interaction

Without ever meeting her. His opinion of her was high because of her behavior, her choices, her choices, how she walked her way of thinking. Yeah,

I love that. And I also love what stood out to me was just how Boaz looked out for her and told her that he was, that she should go in no other field, that if she’s thirsty, go and drink that the men will draw for you. He looked out for her and I love that. And more than that, it says that you have comforted me and spoken kindly to me. What a place and position for a woman who just went through this tragedy and is now working to stay alive. And

She is a foreigner

And she is a foreigner. So she doesn’t feel deserving of anything. And here he’s spoiling her and he’s speaking kindly to her. What a beautiful picture of, we can pull from this for our own marriage of what it means to, like you said, thank highly of one another, to admire one another, to speak kindly to one another, to go the lengths to care for one another. Are all your needs being met? Is there anything that I’m not thinking of? Is there any way

Emotionally, spiritually? Physically, yeah. What I also love is he’s protecting her, caring for her, going out of his way to arrange things for her. But one thing that’s really special is it talks about how she’s there amongst the other servants. She’s there gleaning with there’s other people, gleaning also. It’s not just her. And he goes and singles her out to speak to her. Now imagine all of the other women that are gleaning. It was the women that would glean, they would go and they would pick up all the extras that would drop because there was a law that said if you were cutting it and certain things fell to not pick ’em up and you had to. So there was a process that God put in place to bless the poor when you had a field of grain. And so all the women are gleaning, but he goes to her, this goes back to what I was talking about earlier about that uniqueness of relationship.

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He’s singling her out. He’s treating her in a special, unique way that would probably make all of the other women jealous. He’s not doing this to all the ladies, just her. And that’s how we should be as husbands, that there’s a certain way that I treat you that’s special to you. I don’t treat everyone that way. I don’t go out of my way to treat some woman over there in a special way. I treat you special. I single you out in a way that should make every other woman jealous. Not that I’m trying to make women jealous, but they would see like, wow, he treats her so good. Wow. He speaks so kindly to her. Wow, he spoils her. That’s what, don’t you want that? Yeah,

Of course. Me and my romantic,

I’ll start working on that.

No, it’s good. Okay. The last little note I have on here is just the word compassion. Just that when he acknowledges that she’s been through tragedy and he’s heard everything that she’s been through and here she is, he has compassion for her situation and for what she’s going through. And you can kind of hear that through their interactions. So yeah, pretty cool. I love that story. We should do a whole episode on that story. Did we already? We might have have. I might have to look for that

Long time ago probably.

Okay, so here’s the thing. You guys, we started out with telling you that we had 10 in the Bible and we’ve only gotten through four. And we, Aaron, I think we have to break this up into two

Episodes.

Episodes.

So we’ll do this fifth one and then next episode you’ll get the other

Five. Okay, so let’s do that. Okay, so number five is Daniel and his three friends, Shadrach MHA and Ab Bendigo, a bed nego.

Do you know that’s not their real names?

Yeah. It says in the beginning of Daniel that I don’t know their names were

Changed. These are their Babylonian names,

Right? Yep. So in Daniel one, starting in verse 14, it says, so he listened to them in this matter and tested them for, okay, so sorry, I should probably explain what’s happening. So Daniel and these three friends are taken from Babylon’s, young boys

Taken from Israel,

Or sorry, taken to Babylon, two Babylon and names are changed, and then they’re given their food and their way of culture and things like that. And Daniel basically says, Hey, we just want to eat vegetables. We’re not going

To eat your

Stuff. We’re not going to eat your stuff. And they’re like, what? This is crazy. And he even challenges them and said, just test us for 10 days and then see what happens

If we look better than the rest of these servants, you’ll

Know we’re right. Okay, so this is where we’re picking up in verse first 14. It says, so he listened to them in this matter and tested them for 10 days. At the end of the 10 days, it was seen that they were better in appearance and fatter and flesh than all the youths who ate the king’s food.

Now, this is not an endorsement of vegetarian fruit nut diet.

Well, there is something called the Daniel Fast where it explains, it’s a fast though do temporary.

But in this situation it was God showing that they were set apart. Set

Apart, which is

Really cool. And by the way, I was just making a joke about

The diaper. I know. So what we’re going to pull out from this one is that these friends, these relationships, these people who went through something hard of being taken from their homeland and now they’re in this new place and new culture, they were tested together. And how often in marriage are we tested together? We go through circumstances, we go through challenges, we go through hardships, we go through difficult things

And we get to experience it together,

Together. And maybe some lasts for 10 days, maybe. Sometimes it lasts a lot longer. Maybe for some it’s just a day or half a day. I don’t know. Can

I want to say this test though is on a different level, not just in our marriage. We do go through things, we go through trials and we’re tested, but they’re being tested on something they believe. They said, Hey, this is what we believe. Test us on it and see if we’re wrong. See if our way they’re confident, see if our way of thinking, our way of believing is true.

So the question is, are we confident as a couple that we can be tested in an area of what we believe to be true?

And this actually happened. So just going back to we say we love each other. Well, do we love each other? That should be something that should be test proven and we can come out on the other side like, oh yeah, we do love each other. And so when those hard things that come between us, are we going to come on the other side of it fatter and flesh and looking better than all the others? Or are we going to look emaciated and dying? No. The things that we believe and say in our marriage, we should be able to be tested on those things. That’s good. And come out on the other side looking better.

That’s good. So I just want to point out that what they were being tested in was a lot different than the culture that they were immersed in when it was taking place. I would imagine that they have to support each other through that 10 days and what they were choosing. But the point is, is that they were on the same page. They collectively said, test us, and they did it.

We’re doing that. There was no waver, there was no, are you sure? Daniel,

Are you sure you want to do this? So in what Aaron’s talking about, are we confident as a couple to be tested in what we believe to be true? I guess there’s another question that says, are we on the same page in that? Okay, so moving on in verse 17, it says, as for these four youths, God gave them learning and skill in all literature and wisdom. And Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams. So the reason that I wanted to highlight this one is because I can imagine them learning together and gaining skill side by side in whatever their day-to-day looked like, growing in knowledge. They were growing together in knowledge and in these things, in their interactions and what they were doing.

Well know in our book Marriage After God, we talk about the tool belt and the Bible says that the spirit distributes gifts to his people as he sees fit according to our faith. And it says it in various different ways in the New Testament, but God does this in our marriages individually. We have gifts and talents, right?

Like Daniel got visions and dreams, but the others had all of learning, but

Said all four of them were given learning and skill and literature and wisdom. And so though we might have unique attributes, unique giftings, unique dispositions, but we together have a unique calling that God is pouring into us and that God wants to see us use in this culture, in this situation in Babylon, which is a type of the world. We talked about this on Sunday typology, that this image of Babylon was they were taken from their home and put in this land that’s not their own. That’s like the world. We live in this world and as a couple, God’s given us gifts individually and together to be used in Babylon, to be used in this world to shine Daniels. You go on in the rest of this book and Daniel’s interpreting visions and dreams, and then you also see stuff that Shadrach, Meshach, and Bendigo are doing to glorify God, to stand out while everyone’s bowing, they’re standing when they’re thrown in the furnace, not even smoke touches them. So that’s what our marriages are in this world. They’re light, they’re a ministry for God, just like these four youths were in ministry in this place and a hard time away from their true home.

Amen. Yeah. Appreciate Aaron. That was so good. Yeah. You said that to stand out among the rest and in verse 19 it actually says, and the king spoke with them, and among all of them, none was found like them.

None. So you listening, husbands and wives, none is found. You don’t be trying to be like other people. Don’t be keeping up with the Joneses, be you, be where God has you. Build what God’s given you chase what God’s put in front of you. Don’t worry about in a sense of trying to be like other marriages, other couples be like who God’s made you to be for him.

So good. Something I want to point out with just the three, not necessarily Daniel and Aaron, you already brought it up, but when they were in the fiery furnace, Shadrach Mha and a Bendigo, this is Daniel three, verse 16 says, oh Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you O king that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up. I just want to point out that these three guys were willing to suffer together for the right thing.

For

Truth. Yeah, for God, they were willing to go there. I could imagine that for most people that would be a really scary situation. Maybe they were even scared, but they knew what was important. And so

If your husband is trying to do the right thing, but it’s going to cause pain for the family,

There’s a cost involved. Are you willing to suffer together? The wife should

Submit to that and say, I’m going to suffer with you because this is the right thing to do. Don’t do the wrong thing so we can avoid the pain. We’re willing to go through the pain with you because it’s

The right thing. Would you say vice versa too? If the wife is sharing about something that

She needs to do

Or she needs to do what they need to do, is the husband willing to suffer with her? I love that. I think it’s really powerful. In verse 27, it says that they saw that the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men, but then it continues. It could have just stopped right there. But then they continued on with detail. It says the hair of their heads was not singed, their cloaks were not. And no smell of fire had come upon them. They didn’t smoke, smoke, not in the smell of smoke, which we all know. Smoke sticks to everything Nebuchadnezzar answered and said, blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and ab Bendigo who has sent his angel and delivered his servants who trusted in him and set aside the king’s command and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any God except their own. Okay? So they trusted God together. They believed together, they suffered together. They came out shining and served God together. And their impact in that time and place was huge.

Yeah. It brought glory to God because no matter what was going to happen, they yielded up their bodies rather than their allegiance. And that’s what we need to do, have in our marriage that our homes, our cars, our bank accounts, nothing is more important than our allegiance to Christ than our worship of him. We’re not going to bow down to idols. We’re not going to bow down to the world. We’re not going to bow down to the systems. We’re going to serve him and stand for him. Even if it means losing life and money or jobs or food or anything, nothing’s going to change that allegiance.

Alright, you guys. So as explained, we’re going to stop right here and we’re going to pick up in part two of 10 relationships from the Bible that can inspire our marriage and the rest of them I think are in the New Testament. So that was actually really perfect. Oh, cool. Cool. Okay. So at the end of every episode, we always encourage you guys with a growth spurt. We’ve been doing this all year. This month we are going to be focusing on falling for each other all over again. Reimagine that first date or those first few dates of your relationship when you’re dating or marriage and recreate it. Interesting. Do something that has to do with a part of it. I

Would imagine that’s probably going to be hard for some people, especially if they had some incredible first date.

Oh my god. Travel destination.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Well, you can still, or

A restaurant that isn’t opening

Anymore. Okay. If you went to Italy for some reason that was just what a date, right? You can still have Italian dinner. There you go. Okay. So Little

Italy somewhere. There

You go. That’s just one idea. Do you remember anything from our first date?

So the moment you said this, I was like,

Eyes were white. No, I don’t remember eyes

Because everyone knows that listens to this podcast for a new length of time. I don’t have a good long-term memory. So we just talked about this when we talked about remembering what was our first date. I think we did. There was a lot of food courts at the mall. We liked walking around the mall. That was a thing we

Did. We grew up in California, walked the

Mall. That’s a good memory. I remember us walking around the mall and then movies. We do

The movies. We did a lot of movies. One of the first date after I saw you at that birthday party and you were delivering pizza,

Was it roller skating?

No. No. You called me and you invited me to the movies, but first we went to Krispy Kreme and we got

Donuts. Oh yeah. Krispy Kreme donuts. It was right by the movie theater.

I think the hot fresh line was on too.

Oh, that means we got to freak

Out. So we get to go get done. That’s kind of fun actually. I’m looking forward to this. Wow. That was a long time of sharing that growth spurt, but there it is. That’s okay. Fall for each other all over again. Reimagine a first date.

Why don’t pray for us.

Dear Lord, thank you for your holy word. Thank you for the accounts and scripture of these relationships and how we can apply their character and behavior to our own marriage. We pray we can glean from the wisdom and grow as a couple in you. Help us to encourage each other to draw from the Bible the way we should treat one another. We pray we would walk humbly with each other every single day. May your gospel be shared through the way we love each other. In Jesus’ name. Amen.