Biblical Marriage

-: 00:12

Shalom, Grace and peace.

-: 00:16

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

-: 00:21

My name is Daniel Miller, and this is the Notes I Leave podcast.

-: 00:33

Well, welcome again.

-: 00:37

My name is Daniel Miller and I'm excited to be here with you today,

-: 00:39

particularly for this topic.

-: 00:43

And as I record this, with the equipment that I've been blessed

-: 00:48

to purchase over the years and the books that I've acquired behind

-: 00:52

me, sort of this mini library set up the gifts that I have for

-: 01:00

my children, all this stuff, it reminds me how much I missed doing

-: 01:02

this podcast on a weekly basis.

-: 01:07

If you're watching the video version of this, there's even a few

-: 01:11

props in the background that you may recognize.

-: 01:15

I have some gifts from some dear friends that I've placed to kind

-: 01:20

of give them their time in the spotlight on this podcast.

-: 01:23

I've got some stuff from my grandfather.

-: 01:30

I've got some stuff from my fandom as a Philadelphia Eagles fan

-: 01:32

just changed very much over the years.

-: 01:33

It's kind of funny.

-: 01:38

When I started to get out of football is when they started to

-: 01:41

get really good and finally win some football games.

-: 01:44

I shouldn't say that they've.

-: 01:46

They've been good for a while, but they finally win the Super Bowl.

-: 01:50

But nevertheless, not the point of the episode today.

-: 01:54

What is the point of the episode today is a biblical marriage,

-: 01:58

and hopefully you're intrigued by that title.

-: 02:03

My wife and I have a biblical marriage.

-: 02:08

We have marriages on all fronts, however you could define it,

-: 02:10

state all that stuff.

-: 02:15

But when I say biblical marriage, I always announce our marriage

-: 02:20

as a biblical marriage because people don't generally don't understand

-: 02:23

what that means or they seek additional clarification.

-: 02:27

But what I'm going to talk about today is what the difference

-: 02:31

between a state marriage is and a biblical marriage is why biblical

-: 02:35

marriage is the correct form of the marriage, why state marriage

-: 02:37

is not the correct form of marriage.

-: 02:41

These are, of course, my opinions, but I hope to support with

-: 02:45

some good evidence for you to consider this yourself.

-: 02:53

And the main focus here is, is my experience and what the Bible

-: 02:57

tells us and how the Lord has led my wife and I in our lives.

-: 02:59

And so I'm going to start off with that.

-: 03:03

And, and thank you for joining me today.

-: 03:08

So my wife and I met during COVID time.

-: 03:13

You know, that that event, Covid some of us may remember.

-: 03:18

It's, it's funny, we're far enough away from it now that as a,

-: 03:23

as an educator, we're seeing some terms thrown around like Covid kids.

-: 03:28

And you see, okay, Covid was how Long five years ago, approximately

-: 03:31

minus five years from this kid's grade level. Okay.

-: 03:34

That was the year that they were online completely.

-: 03:38

And you can kind of have some inference there and perhaps see

-: 03:40

what's going on in someone's lives.

-: 03:43

Adults as well. Thankfully for.

-: 03:46

For the school that I work at, we really didn't shut down for

-: 03:49

Covid, and so that was a huge blessing for us.

-: 03:52

But this morning I tend to be on a.

-: 03:55

I'm getting off on these rabbit trails.

-: 03:56

Let me stay back with the.

-: 03:57

The main point here.

-: 03:58

My wife and I met in Covid.

-: 04:06

We met in September, technically, September.

-: 04:08

Yeah, September of 2020.

-: 04:10

We met online.

-: 04:13

We met through eharmony, which I highly recommend.

-: 04:20

I tried some other sites as well, and nothing compared to the

-: 04:22

depth of eharmony.

-: 04:27

This isn't meant to be a sponsorship free harmony at all, but

-: 04:28

I do highly recommend it.

-: 04:31

And she lived a state away.

-: 04:33

She lived in Utah.

-: 04:35

I live in Idaho.

-: 04:36

We all live in Idaho now.

-: 04:41

And I drove down just a few weeks later to meet her.

-: 04:46

And we both knew from the moment we first even spoke, not even

-: 04:50

saw each other in person, but we knew that we were who the Lord

-: 04:52

had designed for the other.

-: 04:55

And that's something I believe my entire life.

-: 05:00

Even in my non Christian days, I would have told you at the time

-: 05:02

I was a Christian, but in hindsight I wasn't.

-: 05:07

I remember having discussions with my dad and saying that I believe

-: 05:09

that there's someone made for everyone.

-: 05:12

And it's just.

-: 05:18

There's just always a rock solid belief that I have and still have.

-: 05:23

And I'm thankful that I'm able to be living that out with the

-: 05:25

person who was designed for me.

-: 05:33

And that brings a whole nother level of just awe at our creator

-: 05:37

God that he knitted another person together in their mother's

-: 05:39

womb for you.

-: 05:42

You don't know when you're going to meet him, but he did.

-: 05:48

And nothing in this podcast is meant to discredit someone who

-: 05:50

decides to be single their entire life.

-: 05:54

There's many instances of that in the Bible and there's nothing

-: 05:55

wrong with that.

-: 05:59

And a lot of people feel completely fulfilled with that.

-: 06:06

But the majority of us do feel led to pair up to be with someone.

-: 06:12

And as long as we're following the biblical mandate, I see no

-: 06:13

problem in that.

-: 06:20

The biblical mandate, starting in Genesis and looking at creation

-: 06:24

of man and woman and that it was not good for man to be alone

-: 06:28

and that woman was created to help man.

-: 06:33

And if you live in modern times, which if you're listening to

-: 06:34

this podcast you do.

-: 06:40

Society tries to teach us a lie that whatever I can do can do better.

-: 06:43

I remember that started in sort of the 90s.

-: 06:48

There were these advertisements, these Michael Jordan advertisements,

-: 06:51

and these Nike advertisements that said, be like Mike and anything

-: 06:52

you can do, I can do better.

-: 06:57

And it probably started more subtly than that before that, but

-: 07:00

it's really kind of rolled on from that.

-: 07:05

And I think we've hit sort of a crest and we're coming back down to sanity.

-: 07:07

At least I pray that we are.

-: 07:11

But around those Covid years, we were really getting to a point

-: 07:15

with men, women's sports, and all those sorts of things, that

-: 07:20

it really was a competition between genders.

-: 07:25

And that's not how God designed it to be, a competition between genders.

-: 07:31

And when we compete in marriages, we compete in genders we don't get anywhere.

-: 07:35

But when we recognize each other's talents and our gifts from

-: 07:39

the Lord and we use them as a team, we can accomplish some incredible things.

-: 07:44

And so that's how I interpret that it wasn't good for man to be

-: 07:48

alone from a loneliness standpoint and from a helper standpoint,

-: 07:51

that it can only further a man's journey.

-: 07:53

So marriage is a beautiful thing.

-: 07:56

And if we look at marriage from a biblical standpoint, we go to

-: 08:02

the first instance we see of marriage was with Isaac and Rebecca,

-: 08:05

and Rebecca was brought to Isaac.

-: 08:10

And there's not a ton of information in the Bible on what took

-: 08:14

place other than their marriage was consummated in a tent.

-: 08:15

So what does that tell us?

-: 08:22

Tells us that there was likely no documentation at all at those

-: 08:27

times that it required sexual intercourse for consummation of

-: 08:30

the marriage to be finalized.

-: 08:33

There's also a ton of implications there that I might dive into,

-: 08:41

into a separate episode in the why sexual sin is so painful for both genders.

-: 08:47

Because that consummation of a marriage is a consummation of one flesh.

-: 08:52

And if we are in a society that promotes free love, in a society

-: 08:57

that promotes being with whoever you want to be, we are forming

-: 09:00

those one fleshness. One fleshness.

-: 09:03

Not sure if that's a word or how I should use that, but we are

-: 09:08

forming that throughout society with a multitude of people.

-: 09:11

And that is just absolutely tragic.

-: 09:17

Paul talks about how sin is sort of a separate or sexual sin is

-: 09:22

sort of a separate sin in the sense that it is attack against

-: 09:25

ourselves, and it is very destructive in that way.

-: 09:28

So we see that with Isaac and Rebecca.

-: 09:33

We do see in the law with.

-: 09:36

With what Moses states in the first five books.

-: 09:41

Of the Bible, the Torah, he states that if you are to provide

-: 09:44

her a certificate of divorce under certain instances.

-: 09:49

Well, if there's a certificate of divorce, there probably is a

-: 09:54

certificate of marriage, but it doesn't explicitly say that for us.

-: 10:00

We don't have information on Adam and Eve and their marriage ceremony

-: 10:04

or what that looked like, but we would all accept them as man

-: 10:08

and wife as married, and we don't see any need for a document.

-: 10:13

Again, Isaac and Rebecca is sort of our first instance of detail

-: 10:16

of marriage and a ceremony, if you will.

-: 10:22

We do have later instances in the Gospels where Jesus is attending

-: 10:26

a wedding party and that's where he has his first miracle showing

-: 10:27

turning water into wine.

-: 10:34

So we do see that there is a ceremony involved, at least as time went on.

-: 10:40

But what I'm getting to is the differences between biblical marriage

-: 10:41

and state marriage.

-: 10:44

And so where does state come into this?

-: 10:48

And that's a really good question and a question that dawned on

-: 10:55

me around these Covid times on why do people go and get a state marriage license?

-: 10:59

What does the state have anything to do with a biblical biblical

-: 11:01

covenant between man and wife?

-: 11:03

And I think that's a very good question to ask.

-: 11:09

State licenses have changed over the years, but they haven't existed

-: 11:14

all that long, especially in comparison with what I would define

-: 11:15

as a biblical marriage.

-: 11:22

So at some point states decided that they had a role as a governing

-: 11:25

body in a biblical mandate of marriage.

-: 11:29

So that's the first error in my opinion.

-: 11:31

And we can essentially stop there.

-: 11:37

And for me, that's enough information to say estate marriage is

-: 11:38

not necessarily the way to go.

-: 11:42

A biblical marriage is the way to go.

-: 11:47

And I'm going to talk in more detail on this along with previous

-: 11:52

experience I have both as a child and as an adult in the realm

-: 11:55

of divorce and all those implications.

-: 11:59

When we get into a later segment here, between the lines, the

-: 12:03

commentary cut a members exclusive segment that is sort of the

-: 12:05

second half of the podcast.

-: 12:13

But until we get there, we look at where the state kind of go

-: 12:17

ahead and use the term weaseled its way in to this biblical covenant.

-: 12:24

You fast forward that many years and you start to see the perversion

-: 12:29

of that where a biblical marriage is between three parties.

-: 12:33

It's between God first and foremost, man and wife.

-: 12:42

We see that in the state's insertion of the biblical marriage

-: 12:45

and defining it as a marriage license.

-: 12:50

You see the state, whatever state that may be man and wife.

-: 12:56

And that is even perverted further to the state of and they and

-: 13:02

they, or spouse and spouse, not even bride and groom anymore.

-: 13:05

And so we kind of just.

-: 13:07

It's kind of like the frog in the boiling water.

-: 13:12

Whether that's an accurate analogy or not or that legitimately happens.

-: 13:16

I've never personally thrown a frog in water and slowly brought

-: 13:17

up the temperature.

-: 13:21

But I think that we all understand that analogy.

-: 13:25

That is, along with so many things in our society, that is what's

-: 13:28

been done with marriage over years.

-: 13:32

And now people will go down and they'll get stayed marriage license

-: 13:34

and they won't think anything of it.

-: 13:40

And if you're only doing it for tax benefits or so that your spouse

-: 13:42

can come see you in the hospital and there's no questions in that

-: 13:46

regard, if that's your motive, then who am I to judge?

-: 13:54

But if your motive is to be God honoring and to have God oversee

-: 13:58

your marriage, all you have to do is open scripture and look at

-: 14:02

the examples that we have in scripture and what they looked like.

-: 14:07

And we don't see any example other than what I stated with give

-: 14:11

her a certificate of divorce, which likely implies the certificate of marriage.

-: 14:16

We don't see any marriage license in the Bible at all.

-: 14:23

In fact, if we insinuate from the law and say if there's a certificate

-: 14:27

of divorce, there probably is a certificate of marriage and we

-: 14:32

get past the minutiae of license versus marriage and what those

-: 14:35

words mean, or sorry, not license and marriage, but license and

-: 14:43

certificate and what those words mean who was governing the certificate of marriage.

-: 14:47

If that did in fact exist, which I think it probably did in those

-: 14:53

instances, I would say probably the church, or maybe it was Israel

-: 14:54

at that point in time.

-: 14:58

Now, is Israel a nation? Yes.

-: 14:59

Are they a governing body? Yes.

-: 15:06

But in these times, in the Mosaic law, it was very religious as well.

-: 15:12

And so to no surprise, it is fairly acceptable for any of us to

-: 15:15

get married in a church that there's that implication and that

-: 15:20

a pastor is often ordained with the state and they will facilitate

-: 15:26

that, but then they file it under that specific state and the

-: 15:30

state now has the authority over that marriage and they've taken

-: 15:36

God out of the picture and again, they've taken genders out of the picture.

-: 15:43

So I say this not to convince everyone to no longer get a state marriage license.

-: 15:47

And again, I'll explain that more in the members only segment.

-: 15:55

But it is to make people aware of what different marriages can look like.

-: 15:59

Because again, when I announced that my wife and I are married

-: 16:03

under a biblical marriage, and again, to avoid confusion, and

-: 16:07

I'll clarify a little bit further later, but we're Also under

-: 16:11

a state marriage, if I am to announce it as a biblical marriage,

-: 16:17

which came first, there's implications with that in why I'm announcing

-: 16:23

it as that because our marriage is between God, myself and my wife.

-: 16:27

And all marriages should be that way.

-: 16:36

Marriage is a construct that was developed by God, it was borrowed

-: 16:42

by the state for whatever intended purposes the state had at that

-: 16:45

time, but it inserted itself in a place that it didn't need to be.

-: 16:52

And now the reasons why someone might say, well, state marriage

-: 16:55

license is a positive thing or something we should consider, which

-: 16:59

are things that we considered ourselves and we even considered

-: 17:06

when we filed, that is sort of, here's the benefit of it.

-: 17:12

Don't look at the reasoning for it, or don't look at why we're

-: 17:16

even involved in this to begin with, in terms of we being the state.

-: 17:22

So this is a topic that is near and dear to my heart.

-: 17:27

And it is something that has really surprised me over the years

-: 17:31

how often I've said, my wife and I are married, we have a biblical marriage.

-: 17:35

That it gets at least a pause and generally questions like, what

-: 17:35

do you mean by that?

-: 17:39

And it's, it's shocking to me because that's.

-: 17:40

That should be the default.

-: 17:44

Not in need of explanation.

-: 17:51

So with that in mind and kind of getting back to what I mentioned

-: 17:56

in the very beginning, I'm so thankful, grateful for the experiences,

-: 17:58

the equipment, everything.

-: 18:00

I get to be able to be doing this again.

-: 18:07

And with that theme of gratitude, a verse comes to mind when I

-: 18:10

think about biblical marriage and I think about my wife specifically,

-: 18:17

and that's Proverbs 12:4, it reads, an excellent wife is the crown

-: 18:22

of her husband, but she who shames him is like rottenness in his bones.

-: 18:27

When we focus on part A, the first segment there, that is my wife

-: 18:31

to a definition of wife.

-: 18:33

She is the crown for me.

-: 18:40

She is the greatest gift apart from my salvation that I could ever receive.

-: 18:42

She is far too good for me.

-: 18:44

She is absolutely amazing.

-: 18:52

And I have no clue even to this day how I was ever so lucky is,

-: 18:58

is to meet her and be in her presence on one occasion, let alone

-: 19:03

realize that she is the woman that God made for me.

-: 19:09

On the Part B section, I'm going to dive into this because this

-: 19:13

is really where a lot of divorces stem from.

-: 19:17

But she who shames him is like the rottenness in his bones.

-: 19:21

And you see this with marriage and the toxicity of marriage.

-: 19:26

And both inside and outside the Christian church, we see divorce

-: 19:28

going through the roof.

-: 19:32

And again, I'll talk about this more in this members Only segment,

-: 19:35

which will start here quite shortly.

-: 19:41

Before we start that, I want to leave you with an application or takeaway.

-: 19:46

And for me, the Lord is placed on my heart today to share with

-: 19:48

you the contentment in all aspects of our life.

-: 19:54

I wouldn't have met my wife in the way that I met her had I not

-: 19:56

reached prior contentment with with my life.

-: 20:02

At that point in life it was, it was summertime and it was me

-: 20:06

and my daughter and I had reached a point of contentment that

-: 20:11

as a newfound Christian, being a year old in terms of a Christian,

-: 20:15

I was content with where my life was, giving my life to Christ

-: 20:19

and it being me and my little girl and that was it.

-: 20:23

And so often in life I found that when I reach a level of content,

-: 20:30

contentment, what I desire a wife comes thereafter.

-: 20:36

And I could go on and on and on about different examples where

-: 20:37

that's been true for me.

-: 20:42

But nonetheless, contentment precedes what I desire.

-: 20:47

A lot of times when I submit in contentment to what the Lord has

-: 20:52

provided me, that's when I see the fruits and the gifts in the

-: 20:56

aboundments of his gifts there to come.

-: 21:02

As we transition to this Members Only segment, the way it'll work,

-: 21:07

just like last week, is on this public feed, I'll mention a few things.

-: 21:11

I'm going to share a quote with you, ask a question, and I'll

-: 21:13

have a call to action and then we'll log off.

-: 21:17

For those of you that are in the members only section, there'll

-: 21:20

be a pause for about 5, 10 seconds and then we'll start up.

-: 21:22

We'll start up again.

-: 21:24

So the quote that I'd like to share with you, I'm going to give

-: 21:27

credit to a football coach that I worked with for a number of years.

-: 21:28

His name is Scott Kreiner.

-: 21:33

He's one of, if not the greatest leader I worked under.

-: 21:37

And specifically as it pertains to marriage, the best marriage

-: 21:39

advice I ever received was from him.

-: 21:43

And it's a simple, short quote.

-: 21:46

And it is assume good intentions.

-: 21:51

And so often, especially when we get sensitive in our own flesh,

-: 21:53

we have something happen.

-: 21:58

We are likely to take that personal and not assume good intentions.

-: 22:03

But if you recognize that you've married someone, you love them

-: 22:08

with all your heart, you picked them out for a reason, they probably

-: 22:09

have good intentions.

-: 22:14

My question for you is that do you believe that God has placed

-: 22:18

a spouse or created a spouse on this earth for you?

-: 22:20

I mentioned this earlier.

-: 22:23

I've always believed that I don't know.

-: 22:29

People have different opinions on that and the call to action is simple.

-: 22:30

It'll be detailed in the show notes.

-: 22:34

I'm not going to spend too much time here because I'd rather sign

-: 22:40

off with a blessing but you can go to biblicalanatomyacademy.com

-: 22:45

click podcast, click support the Podcast and it's pretty Easy

-: 22:49

to sign up $12 a month for a membership to get the entire length

-: 22:51

of the podcast.

-: 22:55

All those links are in the description of this episode and so

-: 22:59

for now I'd like to log off on this public feed and I'd like to

-: 23:00

say God bless.

-: 23:04

Thank you for joining and listening to me for what I intend to

-: 23:06

be about 10 minutes and has turned to in about 20.

-: 23:09

But I suppose more is good.

-: 23:12

So thank you and I love you.

-: 23:17

Until next time.

-: 23:19

May the peace of Christ dwell richly in you.

-: 23:25

And may I also express Maranantha, which is an Aramaic word translating

-: 23:28

to come Lord Jesus