Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Steven: You know, you can build a multi generational vision that looks rock solid on paper. You got your money set aside. You've got character drilled into the kids. You might have a manifesto that would make Abraham proud. But if the marriage at the center of it all cracks, the whole thing will collapse within two generations. And the stats are brutal and the spiritual reality is worse. Today we're talking about the one bond God himself steps into for the sake of your family and why treating it lightly is the fastest way to shipwreck everything you're trying to build. That's today on Abraham's Wallet.
Hey, welcome back. I'm Steve Manuel here in Cincinnati with my co host Mark, who's in SLC Utah. Shout Out Jazz.
We're continuing to press into what it actually takes to build a household and a vision that outlives us. Something that will have weight 250 years from now. I talk to men all the time. I've spent time with a bunch of dudes this very week. And I keep hearing stories recently of families, couples that don't understand the central tenant the strongest. I beam in the middle of a family.
And so I want to go right straight at the middle of it all today and just talk about marriage not as a lifestyle choice, not as a tax benefit, not as a binding contract that you can renegotiate when it feels hard. I want to talk about marriage as covenant, holy, binding and non negotiable if you want anything Abrahamic to survive.
So what we're going to do today is Mark's going to set the table with kind of a long view reality.
I'm going to walk us through what scripture actually says about covenant and why that changes everything about how we treat our wives and homes. And then Mark's going to give us some ideas about, about how we can honor that covenant. So stick with us.
Mark, how are you today?
[00:02:18] Mark: I'm pretty good. As we record this, we're getting ready, ready for two big events. One is kind of a long, long event of the busy season for our financial planning firm. So I've been actually working my way, getting ready for some of those meetings with clients to update them on how things are going with their plans.
And then along with that comes a season of lots of travel for me and in some cases for both you and I. And so I'm getting ready to come to Cincinnati and then jump up to Indiana for the Abraham's Wallet retreat, which will be the boot camp I'm very excited about.
[00:02:57] Steven: Me too.
[00:02:58] Mark: And beyond that, Steve, I'm Going to be in Texas, Florida, Mexico, Montana, California, all of these things in, like, the next two and a half months. So it's a lot of plane riding for me.
[00:03:16] Steven: Tell the people what you're telling me before we started recording about how your body's doing.
[00:03:20] Mark: Oh, I just. I can't tell. I did a workout this morning that felt about as hard as anything I've done in the last six months. And on paper, I looked at it, I went, this doesn't seem that hard. And so maybe you need to tell me if this is just the reality of entering the mid-40s, but probably, man, I.
I just am a little whooped this morning, and I did it to myself.
[00:03:45] Steven: Yeah, well, good for you. We're going to be hearing about building a culture of physical fitness at the retreat. And good for you for pushing your body.
A lot of guys never push themselves beyond what they're used to doing day in and day out. So going to the point of exhaustion is a good thing.
[00:04:04] Mark: It was a fun morning because we got up early. It's the last week before school starts, and so I had my daughter on the squat rack. My wife was in the other part of the gym doing some sort of jumpy exercise y thing, and I was doing my thing. So we were all kind of present together, building physical capital, which is always fun.
[00:04:27] Steven: Very fun. I was going to tell you. I actually meant to mention this before we started, but I'll just throw it in here because it's fun.
I was with a guy today, and we started talking about the Holy Spirit. How do you intuit what God is saying? And maybe some of us prophesy without calling it prophecy, because we're from a tradition where you don't use that word, et cetera. And so I told him a little of my story, which you've heard about receiving the Holy Spirit for the first time. And I was barely finished with my story, and he was like, can you pray that prayer for me? Can you do that right now? Yeah, sure, I can pray for you.
So I pray for him, and there was zero prompting on my part. And literally what came out of him was like a bubbling of mystery syllables. And then he just started kind of praying in an unknown language. And it was not something that happens to me every day. I've seen it before, but not that common and very fun and exciting. And I couldn't wait to come home and tell the wife. Well, I.
I saw something unusual today, and I told him after it was over, well, what. What have you thought of people who Spoke in tongues. Like they're weird. And. And I said, well, yeah, and you're one of them now. And when people ask you, do you speak in tongues? Your answer is yes. He's like, I guess it is.
So anyways, very fun. It reminded me of many scenarios that you and I have been in together.
[00:05:56] Mark: You know, that I'm leading guys through the critical skills class that probably a lot of our listeners have checked out. And if they haven't, maybe it's coming to an Abraham's wallet near you before too long. We're working on continually improving that. But this week we did baptisms where we go through both the, the theology of, like, no one understands baptisms in the church. I, I certainly didn't.
What is water baptism? What is the initial baptism described as salvation, where we get baptized into the church?
It's called being born again.
And then baptism of the Holy Spirit came up and, man, I just, I am less and less interested in having the theological throwdown around, like the language and just going, we all want to be filled with the Spirit. Right?
[00:06:51] Steven: Right.
[00:06:51] Mark: Including the most cessationist reformed dude in the room. Do you want to be filled with the Spirit? Yes. Okay, let's just ask for that. And we move on. And I, I got, I used to get real worked up because I came from this Southern Baptist background where you had to be really careful with exactly how you thought about some of those things. And so it's.
We've talked about the negative of entering my mid-40s, the fact that my heart rate gets real high when I try to run too fast.
The positive is I also am less prone to spurious debates about theological things that we're probably both wrong about anyways.
[00:07:29] Steven: Nice.
Well, Mark, I have seen a preview of the talk that you're going to be giving at the retreat.
And one of the things that you're going to mention that piqued my interest as I'm noodling over the guys and the situations in my life, is the disaster that can happen, as I said in the introduction to one's vision, if one doesn't prioritize marriage. Would you talk to us a little bit about that?
[00:08:01] Mark: We're talking about at the retreat. We're talking about, what is the 250 year shout out America portfolio look like?
If you were building a wealth management portfolio and you wanted it to last for longer than America, what would you do? And one of the little notes in my slides says, protect the marriage at all costs, because divorce financially, it not only halves the estate and one of the things I'm going to show the guys at the boot camp is what absolutely possible growth can occur financially when you just have a little bit of diligence. And I'm going to actually talk through the objections that people have. Well, what if you have a bunch of kids? Well, what if you have an idiot who spends all the money at one point in time? We're going to map that out mathematically. But none of the math matters if divorce comes along and cuts the money in half.
And even bigger than that, one of my biggest points is that culture is the number one way wealth gets propagated against generations. You can take like 100 years off of wealth building. And if you just have good culture so that you kind of maintain for a little while, you're still going to be on the path. And divorce destroys culture. So if your marriage doesn't work out, your children will. And I will say they will do this rightly. If they're out to establish a God honoring home, they'll do everything they can to pursue a different culture than the one they came from because they saw that it ended in failure.
And so a man can do almost everything right on the surface. Like you said, he can stock away money. He can write a family vision document that moves the whole crew to tears when he presides over the Shabbat table.
He can raise high character kids who know the word and they understand stewardship and they know how to invest.
And he can even pass on an inheritance when he dies. And that's all good. It matters. But if that same man gets divorced, or if his sons and grandsons think of marriage as optional or disposable, the data and the spiritual reality both say the same thing. The vision is going to die with him. The money's going to get split and split again. The authority of the original vision is going to be questioned. Like I just said, your kids will correctly say, if he couldn't keep his stuff together, then why should we follow him?
And so the next generation inherits brokenness instead of strength. And Steve, like you said, within two generations, typically the 250 year dream is gone.
We see that pattern over and over. And I have to say right here, because we're talking about marriage and we're talking about the threat to marriage.
Some of you guys listening, maybe there's. I know that we're not supposed to acknowledge it, but there might even be women listening who have gone through divorce. And we're not here to dump shame on you. Or to say, well, I Guess. Volunteer at your local soup kitchen because the future is hopeless. No.
None of us is beyond the reach of God's mercy. And if we walk in humility and repentance, God can rebuild. He's done it before. He will continue doing it. It's not. This episode is not supposed to be a weapon against those who have been wounded by one of the hardest things that can happen to a family.
But what it is is a stern warning, especially to the young couples and the men who are just starting their building of a family.
I think you and I, Steve, would both say, hard times are coming for your marriage. It's promised. Yep. Suffering is promised. Your marriage will be, Lord willing, a source of joy for you. It will also include some hard times.
And if you choose the path of divorce, when those hard times hit, you are guaranteeing that your Abrahamic vision that you've been trying to hand down is going to be shipwrecked.
Yep. I mean, Paul himself would tell us that shipwreck is not always the end of the story.
[00:12:15] Steven: Yeah, right.
[00:12:15] Mark: It's going to cause some issues and the cost is just higher than most people are willing to admit.
So that's, that's the intro and why we're here today.
Steve, take us into why the, the, the bond here is so weighty, and then I'll come back around at the end and give you a few tips of, well, how the heck do we protect this thing if we agree with what you're about to teach us?
[00:12:41] Steven: Yeah. Great.
One of the many conversation I had was with a worship leader at a big happening church a couple of weeks ago talking about marriage. And I said something about covenant. And I could see the question marks shoot out of his head.
And I said something about, I just said a probing question about covenant.
And he just admitted, I don't think I understand the idea of covenant. And if I may bag on the institution, just the lightest criticism here.
Primarily, in many cases, their goal isn't that your home and family succeeds. Their goal is that their institution succeeds. I think that's a little upside down, scripturally. I think that if we look at Ephesians 4, their goal should be that you succeed. And something like something that is so foundational to our faith and to our homes, like covenant should be taught early and often, but it's kind of like baptisms, like, well, why don't we teach this concept? It's not taught. So I wanted to take the time to walk through for our people today. What is it?
My observation is that we have Been discipled by contracts, not by covenants.
And so our thought is that marriage must be a contract. So let me just back up a little bit and define a covenant for you. Biblically speaking, a covenant. Listen up. I want you to get ready to click save in your brain. A covenant is a bond between two parties in which each. Each one says, everything I have is yours.
It's a bond. A covenant is the name of a bond between two parties where each one says, everything I have is yours. It's the opposite of a contract. A contract says, I'll do what I say I'll do as long as you do what you say that you'll do. And if you fail, the deal's off. And. And there are penalties to be paid. I mean, that's. In contracts that you write and sign, you put the penalties for failure. A covenant says, I'm gonna do what I say I'll do, regardless of whether you do what you say you'll do.
It's an absolute requirement of oneself.
A covenant is you making a requirement of yourself, even at the cost of your life is how precious this bond is.
That's why blood is so often involved in the making of covenants. In scripture, you're literally saying, I stake my life on this commitment. It's very serious business.
I would go further. I'm going to get into some scriptural examples, but I'll just go further and just say I think that God himself is part of and is present in every covenant.
Even when the covenant is between two human beings, I think God enters that space because the covenant bond is so sacred. I think he actually enters it. So just to draw a picture, you know, here's a man and a wife and their bond together.
They can commit to one another. We see that happen all the time. Oh, I'm going to love you forever, they say. And then we see it fall apart. A covenant is when a person comes together and in the name of God, a third thing comes in between them, and they attach to one another via that third entity, that third thing, which is the covenant.
I think it's helpful to draw it like that and to imagine that picture because of the consequence.
I think, again, God is present. I believe. I think I can justify this scripturally in every covenant that anybody makes.
And certainly marriage is an example. So let me give some more explanation of covenant. And that example, I think is super helpful.
It's impossible to have a relationship with God outside of covenant.
So God is too holy, he's too intense, and he is too non. Casual, for anything less than a covenant, you just don't. You just don't hang out with God and then go your separate way. And that was fine. We had a, you know, two year relationship. You don't have that with God. You have covenant with God. Covenant is the way in. And I'll just give you a tip that if God invites you into covenant, you can rest assured, because he understands covenant better than we do, that he will hold up his side.
Second Timothy one says, even when we are faithless, he remains faithful because he cannot disown himself.
What a radical verse. It's awesome.
So he's always going to hold up his side. And it's a good thing because if we had a contract with God and we had to be sinlessly devoted to him for the rest of our lives, we're goners.
But a covenant says I'm with you no matter what.
So I would also just say be forewarned that God is not a man.
And he will assume that you mean total commitment when you enter a covenant with him.
Total commitment. The same way that he is totally committed. And he may cash in any part of your life at any moment without warning. He may require your job, your comfort, your money, even your children or your spouse. Song of Songs says, love is as strong as death. And God takes it very seriously. This, this covenant.
So those are kind of the stakes when you, when you get into the presence of God. The Hebrews 10 says it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. That's what it means, is that you do, when you do business with him. This is from Ecclesiastes 5. When you do business with him, you better not make vows haphazardly.
You better be thoughtful because he's serious. He's serious. So covenant. In the ancient near east, treaties were commonly understood to be witnessed and enforced by the gods.
Our God Jehovah operates in that same framework.
And for us, the King of the universe, the God of Gods, is the one standing between the two parties.
William Morford says that scripture records roughly 22 covenants.
There's the Noahic Covenant that you might be familiar with where that applies to all of humanity. There was no such thing as the Jewish family when that covenant happened. The Abrahamic covenant is made with Abraham and his family forever. There's the Davidic covenant with the royal line. There's the new covenant cut in the blood of Jesus.
God likes his covenants to be remembered, reenacted and renewed.
Think about how he wants us to renew our covenant with him. Can you remember how he wants us to do that? Mark? To remember and renew our covenant with him.
[00:20:04] Mark: Are you speaking of the meal that we.
[00:20:06] Steven: I am.
[00:20:07] Mark: Take. Okay. I am through communion or the Eucharist, depending on your tradition, maybe even the love feast. But yes, yes.
[00:20:18] Steven: We do this thing where we're remembering blood and body, and we're remembering. This was my entrance to you. And he says, let's renew that. Let's remember that.
So now let's look at a human covenant. That kind of shows us the pattern. I think it's super helpful. In 1st Samuel 18, David and Jonathan covenanted with one another. Oh, that's a very precious word. What does that mean? That they covenanted with one another. It's the highest form of friendship possible, that it would be covenant.
The quote from 1st Samuel 18 is that Jonathan loved David as his own soul.
That language lines up exactly with what covenant requires all of ourselves. It says he loved David as his own soul.
Later, I think this is very interesting. David refers to it as a covenant of the Lord.
Ah, so that kind of squares with what I was saying before. I think that God enters in between and every human bond that enters into this covenant space. David calls it a covenant of the lord. In Samuel 20:23, Jonathan says, the Lord be between you and me forever.
He's referring to this covenant. Do you see it? That there is now something between them? It's not just David and Jonathan anymore. There's a holy bond, and the Lord himself is in that bond of friendship.
It's important to note that the holiness of the covenant has nothing to do with how important the two men were or whether they're good guys or not. It has everything to do with the fact that they summoned the King of the universe to participate in their relationship.
The bond, the covenant.
The Lord is holier than either man participating in it.
You know where we're going with this? Let me read Malachi 2:14 to you. It says, Yahweh or YHVH was witness between you and the wife of your youth. She is your companion and your wife by covenant.
There it is.
So this is what's so important for us to understand. Marriage is a covenant.
That means exactly like David and Jonathan. There is now something else in the picture besides the two human beings, the husband and the wife.
God is present in the bond between them.
I like to put it this way, that the bond, the covenant itself, is now more important than either person.
Don't you make the vow? Till death do us part. Why do you Say that because the covenant demands your life for its faithful observation. Till death do us part.
Even if it costs me my life, I'm going to honor this covenant.
I'll just say it again so it sinks in. Your marriage covenant, listener. Your marriage covenant is more important than either you or your wife.
If husband, you have to die to maintain it, so be it.
If the cost falls heavily on her, so be it.
The covenant requires it. The covenant must stand. So pop quiz for you, Mark. You're going to represent every dude listening.
If a wife is unhappy in her marriage, would that be justification to violate the covenant?
[00:23:56] Mark: No.
[00:23:57] Steven: What if the husband no longer finds his wife attractive? Would that. Could you also.
[00:24:03] Mark: No. No.
[00:24:05] Steven: What if she calls him a tyrant? What if she calls him a tyrant and she just thinks he's a big meanie? Could she get out?
[00:24:12] Mark: No.
[00:24:13] Steven: What if he calls her a control freak? There is something wrong with her. She's just a control freak. Can he. Can he walk?
[00:24:23] Mark: No. Still no.
[00:24:24] Steven: One of this. What if one of them routinesly put their family of origin above their spouse, Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. All of our little pet reasons. Well, you don't know my situation.
Mine is bad. This person is bad.
None of these are legitimate reasons because you already dedicated your entire being and future to this covenant.
The soft culture around us, sometimes even the soft culture in our churches, can empathy people all the way through divorce proceedings. Oh, I know it's hard for you. Oh, I know. It's so bad.
God will not play that game. He hates a wishy washy attitude toward him and toward covenant.
It is so encompassing of yourself when you enter a covenant. It requires so much of yourself that many times your name changes when you enter the covenant.
It's because it's become part of the point of your existence.
So Paul would say, I'm not Saul anymore. I'm now united to Christ. My name is Paul. You cannot know me anymore without understanding this bond and that I now live to honor. It's also true of a wife.
I'm not Chloe Smith anymore. I'm Chloe Jones. I'm now united to Matt Jones.
You cannot know me anymore without understanding this bond that I now live to honor. It is so serious to God.
I'm going to read. I'm going to go Back to Malachi 2. I'm going to read that whole passage in context and get your thoughts on it in this context when we understand the importance of covenant. Here it is.
The Lord has been a witness. Jehovah has been a witness. Between you and the wife of your youth against whom you have dealt treacherously. He's talking to an audience he's not happy with.
Yet she is your marriage companion and the wife of your covenant.
Now listen to this language that the one new man Bible uses. Guard your joint spirit.
That's really interesting to me. Guard your joint spirit. What does that mean? Well, there's a spirit that kind of has my name on it and my wife's name on it, and it's this kind of other thing that's not me and it's not her. What is it? I think it's the covenant. But that's the language used in, in Scripture. Guard your joint spirit and do not betray the wife of your youth. I hate divorce, says the Lord, the God of Israel.
And I hate him who covers his garment with violence.
So all of this, all of this going against the covenant, betraying your wife toward divorce, God calls it violence, and he says he hates it. And then he repeats at the end of this section, therefore, guard your joint spirit so that you do not betray.
God hates violence done against covenant.
That's true whether it's the covenant that you have with the Lord or the covenant that you have with your spouse.
And we have really good reason to think that God likes people entering covenants. He wants us more and more bound in to one another and to his people. He does not want us to be a free floating ion out in the ether. He does not want us to be lone rangers is what we used to call them. He wants us bound in, so he likes us being in this covenant. He hates violence against the covenant.
On that note, I just have to say that threatening divorce or joking about divorce in a Kingdom household is completely out of bounds.
It is playing fast and loose with something that is sacred in heavenly courts. It's not okay.
That language, I would put that squarely into the category of coarse jesting that Ephesians talks about. It should not be the culture of our homes I have to throw in. Most of us said really good vows on our wedding day, and if we simply lived them out, we would be in great shape.
If you try to throw those same vows in the face of somebody who is considering divorce or threatening it, they usually want to forget that they ever made them, and they claim that they're no longer in effect. I just have to say, if you're in that place, God doesn't agree with you. And God doesn't forget the vows that you made.
Proverbs 2, 17.
We just went through this with our yam youth group.
It's a description of the adulterous woman.
Okay, just real quick. Proverbs is a letter that Solomon wrote to his son. And he tells him right up front, there's kind of two ways to go. One is follow the adulterous woman, and one is to follow the way of wisdom, which is also pictured as a woman. And you can follow one or the other.
And in describing in chapter two, right up front, the adulterous woman, it says she forsakes the companion of her youth and she forgets the covenant of her God.
So when you make those vows, God is listening.
If we fast forward eight years and you just don't feel the love anymore, the passion's gone. I've fallen out of love with him. I. I would put my arm around you or sit across the table from you, look you square in the eye and go, God does not care how you are feeling today. I'm sorry that you feel that way. You made these vows. Let's remember those vows. God certainly did.
I'm a fan of rereading marriage vows. We. Somebody told me. I know who it was. It was Alan Stickney told me and my wife.
We. Our assignment was we had to go away in our first year of marriage. We had to go away as a couple every month for a year and to go get two days together. And in that two days, we had to reread our marriage vows. And we still do that on our anniversary. We reread marriage vows. I think that's smart.
We made those vows before God and our family and our friends.
And I like vow renewals on, like, significant anniversaries. Oh, let's get together and kind of do a little pretend wedding again. And you guys renew the vows. I like that. I think God likes covenant renewal.
I'm not going to ask you what you think the answer to this question is, Mark, but it would be an interesting question to say if God likes vow renewal and covenant renewal with him.
I think he likes covenant renewal in a marriage. And you. I'll leave it to the listener to imagine what vowel renewal, covenant renewal might look like in your marriage. It might include soft jazz and a bubble bath. That's all I'm saying. So that's all I want to say about covenant, the importance of covenant, what it means that God enters into a relationship when covenant is enacted, and then it costs us our life. Everything's on the line. I have told my wife and many others around me many times I would cut my own throat before I ever violated My vows to my wife, because I didn't just make those vows to her, I made them to God.
So it stands to reason, if you're bound in this thing for the rest of your life, you would want it to be as pleasant as possible. I would want to like this person.
I was even thinking before recording this episode about assigned marriages. And there are Christians that participate in assigned marriages all over the world where. Where your father picked your Christian wife. You're like, you're going to lead this woman for the rest of your life. Well, that's just the way that it goes in that culture.
I bet you. I bet you if a Christian guy knows I'm bound to this woman that I just met for the rest of my life, boy, I'm going to be rooting for her to get a great clothing and hairstyles and whatever you got to do. Because I want to fall in love with you. I want to want you. And if you're at the point in your marriage, I don't know what it is, five years, 15 years in, where you go, like, I just don't feel like that kind of fun dating thing anymore. I'd say, then get on the horse, boy, and figure something out, because you're bound to this person for the rest of your life.
And we should do everything we can to care for that, to care for that covenant. I'm getting ahead of myself. I. Mark, what do you. What are your tips about how men could guard their covenant with their wives?
[00:33:32] Mark: Well, I just am. I'm chuckling a little because we had a conversation in our kitchen last week, and my wife said, you know, I am.
I'm not going to the haircut place because it's so expensive, and I'm just going to skip it. I can do every six months.
And I said. I put my hand on her shoulder and I said, honey, I like when you get your hair done.
[00:33:57] Steven: Yes.
[00:33:58] Mark: And until I pull the reins, which I will happily do. And I know, I said, thank you for your selflessness. I know that you are willing to sacrifice this if it's important.
I said, until I pull the reins, your budget for.
And I'm acknowledging my wife's a different bird. She is not someone who spends a ton of money on sort of personal beauty treatments.
[00:34:24] Steven: Yeah.
[00:34:24] Mark: But I said, for you, knowing you right now, I would just tell you, go for the gusto. Spend what you want to.
I love spending my money on things that, you know, spruce you up and I think you're beautiful. And so I like. It's a Delight to me to spend our money there. So, anyways, it's funny that you. You came up with that. I mean, you could say the same about our little family adventure this morning at the gym. If you're sitting there going, man, I don't know if I feel attracted to her anymore, and you look down and can't see your toes, maybe it's time for you also to hit the gym and lay off the nachos.
[00:35:06] Steven: Yes. It's the most reasonable thing in the world that we would cheerlead, like, physical fitness in one another and go, like, another hour at the gym, honey.
Wait, was I about to complain about that? Yes. Go. Wonderful. And me, too. I'm gonna go on a walk, you know. Totally.
[00:35:22] Mark: Anyways, I'm gonna give you four things that I think are important to protecting this covenant. That maybe. I'm sure we could come up with a list of 50 things. But these four things I would say are like, the culture is going to push you exactly the opposite direction of where these four areas where you would go in these areas if you were just looking at the scripture and saying, how's a household supposed to run?
And I'll tell you all four of them right now. So you can turn this off if you're going to be offended.
The four words I'm focused on are provide community, capacity, and lordship.
Okay, so what do I mean by these? So I'm talking to guys, and I'm going to tell you, I don't care what your church says or the culture. It's your job to provide for that wife you've taken and your family.
And not doing so creates a gigantic risk. Now, as soon as I drop that, I'm going to say, this doesn't necessarily mean what you think it means.
It does not mean that at the end of the year, when you file your taxes, if she brought in a dollar of income or even more income than you, that you have failed and you're headed for divorce. That's not what I'm saying.
But we have caught flack here at this podcast because people do they Google us, or maybe they Google me and they go, that guy's married to a doctor. And we know that doctors make a lot of money and they work themselves to the bone to go do their job.
And so I actually think there is a normative experience for most of our listeners here, which will be that is generally the right move to kind of position a family so that there is a breadwinner, and that breadwinner should be you, dad.
However, like I said, it doesn't have to mean that at all times, in all seasons, he's making all the money or even most of the money.
But it must mean that for your wife, deep in her bones, she knows that if she's working, it's because the Lord has called her to do that work.
And it's clear to her, to you, and to everyone who looks at your family that that work is not taking away from her absolute obvious number one calling, which is her household.
And our personal situation is very instructive here. We have told our daughters, I tell my daughters all the time, I don't know any female physicians, except I'm thinking of one other that I might think is listening to this podcast. I'm going, okay, Sweet Stephanie.
Yeah, I think I said this once before and then she called me and she's like, do you, do you think we need to repent? I was like, no, no, no.
[00:38:29] Steven: Sweet, sweet Stephanie.
[00:38:31] Mark: In my direct day to day community here in Salt Lake, we don't know any female physicians whose homes are well ordered, where mom is primarily focused on the household and is not letting work take away from that calling.
I think specifically in medicine. Although I was talking to my wife this week, she was talking to a lawyer and the lawyer was like, oh, this is just so hard. And da, da. And Amelia's like, well, you can't job and fulfill your calling at home, so you should quit like you must. Because everything you're telling me says it's impossible.
[00:39:06] Steven: Wow.
[00:39:06] Mark: We wouldn't be able to pay the mortgage. Then sell your house. You can move to Arkansas. There's really cheap houses there, like, whatever you have to do.
But yeah, I have bad news. Maybe for some guys. I don't think stay at home, dad, while mom works is an option.
I think you're in severe danger if this is you. Could there be a situation out there for a time where that's just the necessary situation? Sure, maybe.
But I think it creates a culture of feminizing men and turning women into an independent provider and breadwinner. And I think it's real dangerous. So I will make that a YouTube
[00:39:45] Steven: short that'll get us all the explosions.
[00:39:48] Mark: Stick my neck out on that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So provide again. There were times when my wife was making more than me, and every single day she went to work, I said, just so you know, I'm providing for this family.
You can go out and work and you can make more money than me for a time. We're not relying on you to do one drop And I think that's really important if you are in a situation where your wife is working outside the home, in addition to what she's doing inside the home is you look her in the eyes and you say, it's on my shoulders. The provision piece. Now, it might mean that you have to sell the bins or move houses or things like that. And I told my wife that. I was like, we didn't have the bins. But I said, you know, I'm not guaranteeing that the. The luxuries all remain. I am guaranteeing that I will provide for this family, though.
[00:40:42] Steven: That's good.
[00:40:43] Mark: So come at me in the comments if you like.
Number two, I would say your community, that was my second word, matters so much here.
So for a lot of us, the hub of our spiritual community is a local church.
What does your local church say about women? What does it say about roles of women?
What about in the home or in the church?
Is it consistent? I've been a part of churches that said, now in the home, a man is the spiritual leader. But here we have Pastor Brenda to deliver us a sermon. And you're all under the leadership of Elder Pam.
I would just say, can you square that circle in your theological brain? I won't. We're not doing an episode on women in ministry.
What happens in your church community or your spiritual community when divorce or fornication or any threat to marriage rears its head?
[00:41:42] Steven: Great question.
[00:41:45] Mark: I came from a family that was devastated by divorce. And I will tell you, one of the most painful parts of that was watching the local Baptist church people go, oh, this is awkward. We're just not going to talk about it.
And I remember there was one guy who specifically called one of my parents and said, what you're doing is wrong.
And, gosh, I wanted to, like, kiss the dude's feet because nobody would say a word. And certainly in big mega church Baptist land, whoever the dude who called himself the pastor had no idea of our names, much less our family situation. So I know of a church here in Salt Lake City who had a woman that they called a pastor, and the staff encouraged her to divorce. Her husband, kept her in place after she did, while the elders, as the husband, pleaded with them to please, like, do something, the elders told him he needed to back off.
Now, that church is kind of, if. I think if you're in the know, you'd go, yeah, they're. They're kind of out there, not very theologically sound. I know of another church here who is thought of as One of the pillars of just. Now, that's a solid church. And I know of pastors at that church who have told me, now, Mark, slow your roll.
In the case of emotional abandonment, we would say that the Bible allows for divorce. And I would go back to what you said at the. At the start. That to me is like, you don't understand covenant.
And we're starting to define terms in ways that the scriptures have no conception of.
[00:43:32] Steven: Yes.
[00:43:34] Mark: So it's not just the Rainbow Flag Church, the United Methodists on the corner that are going to be the danger zone. This might be a church that is very well regarded and in many ways probably teaches well.
So be on the where or on the lookout here.
Not just church. It's, you know, what do her friends do when she's around ladies? Are they pushing her towards culture or towards the kingdom? I'm not saying, guys, that you go home today and you go, I don't like Peggy and I don't like Brenda. And they're off the list for you now.
[00:44:10] Steven: Right.
[00:44:11] Mark: You, as a father, can control what church your family goes to.
[00:44:15] Steven: True.
[00:44:15] Mark: Within your rights, you may not be able to control exactly what friends your wife hangs around all the time.
I would say it's probably unwise for you to try to control that constantly.
But you must be leading the spiritual culture in your home so that when something foreign to that culture or toxic comes around, and I promise you it will, it will come from every person in your family, yourself included. Something will come up, and the whole family, if you're doing a good job, should sit up straight and go, that doesn't sound like our culture.
And so it's a protective mechanism. We are, you know, we're a family team. And if you're doing a good job of creating a culture that smells like the kingdom in your home, then when you do something stupid and come home with a sports car and your family goes, we haven't given any money. Why are we bathing ourselves in luxury, dad? You go, oh, man, thank God I have this team. In the same way that your wife, if she was hanging out with Brenda, and Brenda's like, you know, what I really like is fill in the blank with some goofball idea. The whole family goes, mom, no. You know, or, honey, that's not how we operate here.
We'll pray for Brenda. Yeah. So that's how I would think about kind of community is one, be really thoughtful about who you submit to. And number two, lead a culture where things that are off the wall smell weird.
[00:45:44] Steven: That's Great. I'm going to throw into that same pot that you should curate the guys that are closest to your inner circle and that you talk about these things with them.
And for instance, when Covenant came up recently, I've brought it up in many conversations just with my running buddies and gone like, we're going to see this through till we die. Right? Right. Okay. We're all in the same place. Okay, great. Good.
Because you are formed by the friends that you have, and they will be formed by you as well. So take the lead and say, hey, I'm going to be a guy who is going to stick with my wife through thick and thin. I don't care what happens till the day I die. And, yeah, that's us. And that's, like, that should be your. Your home team.
[00:46:36] Mark: That's true.
Even amongst unbelievers. Stephen. I play golf with some guys sometimes, and, you know, they're just lost dudes, and somebody will be like, you know, the wife. What a drag. And if you just go, like, man, I'm sorry, that sucks.
And don't jump into the. To the mix guys go, oh, I guess that's not what we do here. And so you can be a huge influence even to people who are coming from a totally. I mean, again, the. The culture of the kingdom is so good that it's just, like, way better than what the world has to offer. And that's true in this marriage thing, too.
Third, third word was capacity. If your wife has no capacity, that's a problem that you should be really thinking about how to fix. So we kind of talked about the provision thing. And so, yeah, this could be the lawyer that's off working 80 hours a week and just run ragged by her job.
But it could also be the homeschool mom who is so whooped by tending to five kids all day that she has nothing to offer her husband or family the moment his footsteps hit the door when he comes home from work.
When we do our Shabbat blessings every week, one of the things we say over the mothers is, may you always feel that you have capacity for more.
And there's. There's things that you as a husband need to think about here. We've talked about it in terms of financial implications.
You need to resource her and find ways to make sure she has capacity. So that could be as simple as, well, why are you getting run dry? Do we need to have some help with the little ones so that you can focus? If you're homeschooling, you can focus on the big ones and not feel destroyed or you don't mind the kids, but you friggin hate scrubbing toilets. Well, I can go work an extra two hours this week and fund, you know, the. The house cleaning crew. Yes, whatever that looks like. That might be one of the answers.
Another place that I might ruffle some feathers if she's spending her day drinking chardonnay and putting the kids in daycare. Oh, you might need to oppose her.
Oh, novel idea. You won't hear this at the local evangelical mega church.
[00:48:57] Steven: No, you won't hear oppose the wife under any circumstances. Go ahead.
[00:49:00] Mark: Can. You can love your wife and oppose your wife from time to time. Just like I'm not.
I'm not saying that she would never oppose you. No, she might actually have to oppose you once in a while. But I feel like it's very weird and yucky, especially for some reason inside of Christendom, for husbands to call out sin and their wives. You might have to do that. And it might cost you. It might cost you. You know what you were talking about, about bubble baths and jazz music that might be delayed by a week if you have to really put on your opposition pants.
And if you're unwilling to do that because it just makes my life easier, well, then I have a final and fourth area for you to focus on. I called it Lordship.
Stephen, I don't know when it was 10 years ago that it became very in vogue for Christian men to adopt the title of servant leader.
Servant leader. That was like.
And I saw it.
[00:50:08] Steven: That's probably 20 years ago, maybe 30.
[00:50:10] Mark: Okay, maybe. Yeah.
I saw it certainly in the marriage and marriage counseling and marriage retreats part of the world. I even saw it creep into the business world. There you go. On LinkedIn you can find a good Christian CEO who's like, I'm a servant leader.
[00:50:26] Steven: Correct.
[00:50:26] Mark: And I think most people who say that have a really good heart, that they're truly. They want to mimic King Jesus when he got down on his knees and washed feet of disciples.
I think it's in the marriage context. Often becomes sort of if you do the dishes enough, then you're a self sacrificial husband and a good servant leader. Yeah.
I was listening to Doug Wilson on a podcast about a week ago and he said the correct term should be servant Lordship, not servant leader.
Jesus served his church very clearly. He served them to the point of dying a brutal death.
[00:51:08] Steven: Yep.
[00:51:09] Mark: He got down on his knees and humbled is almost not the right word. Humiliated himself.
[00:51:15] Steven: Yeah.
[00:51:15] Mark: Like the barely above the dog servant that would have had that job typically and got muddy and touched disgusting sandal feet.
That's all true. But he did so as their leader and their Lord.
He said, you call me Lord and you are right to do so. He didn't say, you call me Lord, guys, but call me your slave instead.
No, he was humble.
As humble as a slave as he lorded and not a tyrant. He watched people walk away all the time. He didn't.
I was thinking talking with some guys yesterday about Jesus as he flipped the tables at the temple. Well, he could have done a lot of worse things, but he behaved like a man. But he also acted with authority, and he did that to his disciples. He called out sin regularly and he expected total devotion. So he was a Lord in the same way. In this covenant, you have a role, and it is as the head of the family.
God did that. I would love it if we republished that awesome little clip that you made a long time ago about what the household. Oh, yeah, looks like biblically. I still have it saved.
But if you're just inclined at any time that something starts to be uncomfortable to defer to your wife, let her lead, support her, never oppose her, then you might be victim to servant leader to the point of actually abdicating the role that God has given you. And that is a danger to this covenant, guys.
It will, I promise you do that long enough.
I am 100% sure I can go talk to your wife and diagnose anxiety. That is what will happen. She might be like, no, I'm totally. He's great. He takes care of all the chores and never tells me anything. I don't like to hear. She might actually consciously go, that's great. I love it. I promise you. It is creating an underlying vibration of anxiety and insecurity because people just like, if the provision thing's messed up or the community things messed up or the capacity is wrong, all of these things. One of the first things that pops up is anxiety, and it's because the household's not functioning like God made it and the covenant is under attack.
So these are my four areas. We could do a whole podcast on each of them. But I think that you sure could. That's where we would commend you guys to start. And it may be like, hey, things are pretty good in our marriage. I feel like my wife, I'm loving her like Christ loved the church and she also willing to submit to my leadership. She doesn't think I'm a tyrant, and I don't think she's Rebellious.
But there are some places that you mentioned where I'm like, well, we both think our church community is not on board the way we are. Well, you could fix that. You could say that's a risk. And we're either going to invest serious energy in changing that culture or at some. At some points, the right answer is to. To exit.
[00:54:37] Steven: Yeah, great stuff, Mark. So would you give us those four words one more time?
[00:54:42] Mark: Yes. It's provide or provision.
Community, capacity and lordship.
[00:54:48] Steven: That's great, guys. Your marriage is not one important thing among many. It's the central human covenant God has given you to guard.
It outranks your work, it outranks your hobbies, it outranks your ministry platform, and yes, when necessary, it even outranks the emotional claims of your children or your parents.
Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife.
That leaving and holding fast is not optional. It's the structure God designed. If your 250 year vision is going to have any chance of surviving, the covenant at the center of your household must be treated as more important than either of the two people in it.
Guard that bond. Bleed for the bond if you have to. Do not let soft cultural air into the room. Do not entertain the exit ramps that the world offers you. Up with marriage, up with covenant, and up with the kind of faithfulness that still has weight 250 years from now. The next generation is watching to see how seriously we take this. So let's not give them any reason to doubt the vision because we treated the covenant lightly. Bless you as you endeavor to honor God in your marriages and to prioritize your marriages in your homes.
Good stuff. We'll see you next time on Abraham's Wallet.
