Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: A Christian leader in Texas, a pastor, no less, is telling other Christian men, don't marry her until she signs the prenup. He says the culture is hostile, the courts are tilted, and you're a fool if you walk in unprotected. Today I sit down with him and I am going to push back. Is a prenuptial agreement prudence or are we asking her to vow forever? With one hand already on the exit? That's today on Abraham's wallet.
Hey, guys, I'm Mark Parrott. Stephen is out this week, so it's just me and a guest who, if I'm honest, he's not going to let this stay a polite discussion.
We're joined today by our old friend from Texas who goes by Old Grog whenever he's on the interwebs.
He's a business owner by day and a pastor of a home based church, a network of churches now, I think, father of four children, most of whom are out of the home now. He loves the household, he loves the church, and he has come to this conclusion that I think we'll get into presently that Christian men are whispering and almost no one wants to say on a mic. The world has become a hard place for a believing man to find a godly wife, stay married, and not get completely hosed if it fails.
So he is now recommending prenuptial agreements. On my end, just before this conversation, we'll see where we end up. But I don't. I think that building an escape hatch is fundamentally violent to the idea of a covenant. And my impressions going into this conversation is that it's bad shepherding. He thinks I'm being naive in a legal system that doesn't share mind theology. So rather than have this conversation on text or Twitter or wherever we might be, I invited Old Grog to have this fight in the open as brothers.
And so if you are engaged, if you're a dad walking son towards a wedding, or if you've already been through a court that you never wanted to see, stay with us. All right, Old Grog, have I framed this up right? What am I missing here?
[00:02:14] Speaker B: Mark, thanks for having me on. You know, you're the only friend I have who will get into a squabble with me on X or text message and then think, I think other people probably want to hear this.
So I'm happy to jump on and do this today. So for context, I have four kids, two sons and two daughters, and they're all in the marrying possibility bracket.
So these are conversations that we're having all the time with great frequency.
One of my sons actually has zeroed in on a wonderful young lady and he is trying to scramble to get money for a ring together. So this is all very present stuff that is very top of mind.
And I think that my position would have been exactly like yours maybe as recently as three or four years ago.
And I'm increasingly coming to the position I hold now because of just what I'm seeing in the culture.
I think I may have been overly optimistic and maybe even idealistic in the past about the training and the state and the nature of. Of young people today for belief that they have an actual framework of understanding about what a marriage covenant really is and what it isn't. And I think I would have also balked at the idea of bringing in an unholy contract into holy matrimony and a true covenant of marriage. I would have definitely made those arguments a few years ago.
So perhaps it would be good to back up and tell you how holy I think that covenant is and talk about the difference between covenant and contract, because I think that's key to the conversation. Would you be all right if I did that?
[00:04:18] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's probably the first point that I think we have to highlight for people. We've been talking. If you scroll back a few episodes, listeners, we. We had a whole episode on covenant and what that means. Old Grog does not disagree with us on that. So maybe we just quickly refresh that and you might assume, well, this guy's just trying to protect the money pot or something. Well, I think that it's important that we clarify before we get into where we totally maybe disagree, where we totally agree with the word of God.
[00:04:52] Speaker B: Yeah. So the way that I. I characterize this, I actually heard this years ago by a guy and he said, you know, the difference between a covenant and a contract is that your covenant agreement actually involves God. So whereas a contract could happen between you and me, Mark, and say, I have five tractors that I want to sell and you need five tractors. And so we strike a contract and to deliver on a certain day for a certain price.
And then as it turns out, your uncle dies and hands you five tractors on the same night that a big storm comes and knocks down my barns and ruins five tractors. Well, what are we going to do the next day? We're going to get on a phone call and I'm going to be like, whoa, do I have bad news for you? I don't have those tractors. And you go, yeah, well, cool. I don't actually need them. I was going to call you.
So we basically shake hands and say, that contract that we made, that's null and void.
That's fine. That's a contract.
The covenant actually is what God is putting together, right? So we have scriptures like what God has joined together, let no man separate. So even if you both are miserable in this marriage and you both want to be able to go and handshake a functional annulment, like, how do I get out of this? I'm miserable, you're miserable. Let's just break it. We can't, because there's a third party. God is actually the one who assembled this marriage together. And just because I'm miserable, it doesn't mean I get out.
Well, that is poorly, very poorly understood today.
And I'm not going to just like get up here and start pounding on the table about churches or pastors not doing a good job of inculcating this.
But it is just kind of a reality of our culture and the nature of where we are that I have to then be looking and saying, look, strange stuff happens all the time.
I've seen marriages that are 25 year marriages, 30 year marriages, strong marriages, faithful marriages.
And for some reason, on one random Thursday, somebody bumps their head and they decide, I'm out. I don't want in this, I'm out. I know what God says, I know what covenants are, but I'm out. And when that happens, not only do you have a rending of the fabric of that family and the family culture, but also there's a lot of economic fallout on the backside.
And I live in Texas, and in Texas there's. I honestly think that the woman is actually incentivized to push into the unhappiness and make a move to break that marriage.
Because structurally there already is a prenuptial agreement. De facto living in the state of Texas because of the way that the courts rule with no fault divorce. You see this a lot of times where a woman gets a job and now she's earning 75k a year and she's what she would consider in an unhappy marriage. And she knows I get to keep my $75,000 a year salary and if we go to court, I get half of whatever we have as a family. Today, I get half that.
So add that to my 75, right? And I know the courts are going to award me custody.
This starts to look like a pretty good deal.
And we're just seeing that kind of thing, that kind of thinking sweeping through a poorly formed Poorly trained group of young people.
So I've kind of been on a tirade there, but that's kind of the rationale that's got me looking at this thing closer than I've ever looked at it before.
[00:09:07] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe you're getting here. I think that when you first presented this to me, maybe my first reaction was what in the world are you talking about?
We die for our wives. Like the money is such a small piece of the destruction that would be caused by divorce. That the idea that I'm going to architect that at the front end of this, it was curious to me. But then you started talking about kind of some of these things and I think your point is, hey, the government has a prenup for you whether or not you want it. And theirs does not align with God's laws or his understanding of marriage.
That got me thinking. I sort of said, okay, that's a good point, Grog. And so I get that.
On the other hand, I think my first response to you was this idea that women who have been nurtured and cared for inside of godly marriages for long periods of time are simply waking up and pushing the eject button. I know that's the story that you hear on X and the, you know, I know a lot of guys who, whose wives have pulled this move. Actually none of them, not one would go back and go, yeah, I wasn't, I wasn't complicit in how we got there and what led to it. I do know a couple of guys who legitimately had a wife go through some bout of mental illness and kind of make this announcement, but it was fleeting and eventually it was, hey, I'm back in my right mind. That's not what we're going to do. The ones that permanently fluttered off and never came back for the most part.
Husband was highly involved in, in the lead up to that. Such that I don't think it's just this unpreventable thing that happens to a faithful godly husband. And maybe we disagree there. We can start there. And then I want to get into where we might really interpret differently what the word says on this.
[00:11:26] Speaker B: Okay.
So there's several things that come to mind. One is that we have a holy covenant that that's happening here. We have a contract here that pertains to capital and custody. Right. And I think it's tempting to say, well, because we so highly regard the covenant portion that we don't want to contaminate the covenant with any contract or anything that just feels lesser than And I would say that I think your listeners and what you're trying to build are households that actually do have tremendous amount of capital and resources that actually are earmarked for future generations, and you want to keep that capital together so that those people flourish.
I'm also looking at this from another standpoint, which is I've got two sons and two daughters, and I would think that the same kind of prenup I would want for both. Okay. I'm not doing it just to privilege and favor just my sons because of downline capital. But I'm also thinking if it's good for the goose, it's good for the gander. Right? It's like I want to be as fair and equitable on the front side with this one driving thought, which is if somebody bumps their head and gets into real sin and they have an idol of the heart that prevents them from being able to be reconciled and they just decide, I'm going to knuckle down on sin and I'm going to divorce my spouse of three years or 30 years.
I still want to operate with a kindness of heart, but I don't want any one of those two parties to be utterly destitute. Right. Because it's going to be a strange thing for me to have to go talk to the father of a daughter who is trying to come into our family. That's going to be awkward conversation.
It's going to be awkward for me to talk to the family of somebody who's going to be marrying my daughters.
And I'm going to have to do both those conversations. Well. And I'm going to have to say, look, the idea here is not a prenup because I'm interested in totally hosing your young person who's coming into our family.
I'm interested in if this thing goes bonkers at the 18 year mark, that nobody is left totally destitute and out in the cold and that we have a preservation of capital enough for the flourishing of the down lines. Like we're going to have to hash that together. But if the heart is, I don't foresee a problem. And if there's a problem, we're just working on this to try and create a better scenario than what the state of Texas would give me.
[00:14:25] Speaker A: Well, I understand that. I think that there's some data, you know, the data you bring is about the fact that for better or for worse, most marriage terminations are initiated by women these days. And I think that we would agree that feminism has sort of set the table for that, as you described, it's going to be very soon that women are the primary breadwinners in more homes than not.
And so all of these problems magnify. But at the same time, even in this environment, it's true that marriages with prenups, even first marriages, where there is a prenup, just the presence of the prenup being the only variable, elevates the instances of divorce by about 15 to 20%.
And this was a study from 2026.
So even if we're just looking at married people who are 18 to 55 first marriage, there's a substantially higher divorce rate among those who start with prenup. Prenup holders report lower marital satisfaction and less perceived, whatever this means, marital stability.
So there are some costs. And I think this is where as I kind of. I tried to take your position and argue with my wife and say, I'm going to try to convince you that everyone should have a prenup. You know, my best case there was, well, what if we could make this more like God's original laws around marriage, like, if it's me or if it's you, whoever does violence to this covenant. I think about the way that God started with covenants. He was like, well, cut two bulls in half and walk through them saying to everyone, if I break this, do this to me. So I'm a little surprised to hear you say, well, this is partly to make sure everyone's okay. I kind of thought, well, I could maybe get on board with this if it was somehow legally possible to create a covenant or a prenup. That said, if I go run around on you and break this covenant, then to the electric chair with me, you know, I think I would like that a little bit more like that it
[00:16:42] Speaker B: would turn the screw.
[00:16:43] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, we're basically saying we don't care what the laws of Texas or Utah are. We want God's laws to operate inside of this family.
So I'm curious about your response a to this idea that prenups do tend to be at least correlated with lower marital success and happiness.
And also legally, a prenup can't say anything about custody of kids. So that. That's out the window. You can't do it. But it can talk a lot about money. But it seems like you're saying, actually, I want the money to. I want everybody to be at least taken care of if this thing goes south. I want to build a soft landing for those who have ejected from the covenant.
[00:17:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:28] Speaker A: Am I mischaracterizing? You there?
[00:17:30] Speaker B: No.
So I think a lot of times if you're talking about millions or hundreds of millions of dollars, then family trusts can actually do a lot of the heavy lifting here about what is protected versus community property and that sort of thing. So I acknowledge that and I would agree.
Some of the research that I did coming in here, because I didn't want to come into your sparring match with my hands in my pockets, was that the number of divorces is high in Boomer, it's slightly lower in Gen X, and it's lower in Millennials. But that's also because if you look at it, we haven't had the time we haven't had. There's a time lag there. So it's fine to forecast what we've seen to this point. But you're also talking about marriages that have had 50 years to accumulate enough divorce option moments. Right. Versus going down. So I'm optimistic that divorce is on the decline. That's what a lot of people say.
I don't know if that'll ultimately bear out to be true.
I also know that prenups have been on the increase.
So prenups prior to 2010 were like single digits. 2010, it says 3% of married or engaged adults had signed a prenup. 2022, it's 15 to 20% have of all the marriages. And they're saying that demographically, the people who are signing these tend to be wealthier from educated backgrounds and they tend to be older.
So they've actually accumulated some assets, which probably puts them in a mindset of a protectionist mindset with enough life experience to know, hey, I know if this goes bad, then all of this that I've accumulated and worked for, that's suddenly on the table or it's exposed in ways I don't want it exposed.
So does it surprise me that people who are already that in that category and already of that predisposition that they're evaluating about my unhappiness or that it's. I'm already positioning myself for the possibility of divorce? No, that feels to me like that kind of comes along with that whole grouping.
I could be wrong, but that's kind of how I think about that. Because the fact is they're already shrewd enough to be thinking about a backside bad scenario that's typically different than your average 23 year old who's just in love and they just get married two months after meeting or maybe on the Las Vegas Strip.
[00:20:18] Speaker A: Do you worry, though, that there's the stats about the general population, but we aren't that. And I think if we look at Ephesians 5, St. Paul says, this is about Christ and the church. I'm giving you something that, yes, it's a source of joy. It's the foundational unit of the church.
However, it's also there to preach.
And
[00:20:48] Speaker B: let me stop you right there.
I'm concerned that the population of churched and not churched have the same mindsets.
I try not to be a pessimist.
I really do. I really do try not to be a pessimist. But I've seen a lot. The more we pastor, the more I'm shocked at how little foundation there is in the people.
And I think our data probably mirrors pretty closely what we see in the wider culture.
[00:21:25] Speaker A: But let's assume an Abrahamic dude or one of your sons or a Viceroy guy, these are the people who aren't attending the megachurch on Sunday and then going out and basically conducting themselves like the world.
Okay? Those are the ones whose marriages, I believe it's a public icon of this unbreakable covenant. And the prenup, I would say, even contributes to kind of catechizing the congregation inside of the.
You know, go back to the big megachurch and saying, even this picture, that is maybe the strongest sacrament picture we've got of what happens between Christ and his bride, you know, even that has an escape clause. And I don't think that's just an aesthetic problem. That's small, that we go, well, yeah, it's not great. But I mean, I think that though it takes. Yeah, go ahead.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: I would say I don't think of a prenup as an escape clause.
To me, that doesn't feel like an escape clause. It. To me, it is a recognition that we don't think there's going to be a problem.
If there is a problem, this is how we're going to sort it.
And it is that awkward conversation between two patriarchs, two heads of homes, about their kids entering into this agreement and saying, we're in agreement. Our churches are in agreement. Everybody who was there at the wedding, we all believe this. This marriage is going to last forever.
If it doesn't, then this is how it plays out versus how the state says it plays out. Like it's. It feels like it's that simple in my mind. And it might be overly simplistic, but I don't think of it as an escape route because that's going to hurt everybody. It's going to hurt relationally it's going to hurt.
There will be pinch. Nobody comes out of a divorce, like, high fiving and like, well, I'm sure that Jeff Bezos's wife came out high fiving, but typically you don't come out of divorces feeling great. And like, I had a financial windfall and this has been awesome and the best decision of my life. I mean, the women, they go on TikTok and Instagram and they say that and. And that's true for the first six months to a year. And then they always come back and go miserable. I don't know what I was thinking.
Right. But maybe this is where we're not seeing the same thing is I don't think of the prenup as an escape clause.
I just think of it as definitely
[00:24:19] Speaker A: think you're spending a lot of time decorating the exit door to the covenant. Whether you call that not an escape clause, you have as a husband.
So I'm a husband. So I kind of take that view on it.
I totally understand what you're saying. And like you, I've watched wives wake up one day and choose violence.
[00:24:44] Speaker B: Yeah, right.
[00:24:45] Speaker A: And it's kind of like you said, there's different phases that we've seen families split apart by divorce go through.
Phase one is often whoever initiated it, usually right now, sadly, I've seen that be the wife, although we've all seen the husband that just goes, I'm out. I would rather go do things that I can't do in this confined setting.
Usually it seems like there's, like you said, a honeymoon period.
And the other spouse often comes to the church house and gets consoled. Well, I can't believe this happened to you. It's as if you were just sitting in a field and a bullet came through the air and got you right in the chest.
But then upon some reflection, we start to go, well, this was the result of deep dysfunction over a long period of time in the covenant.
And that's where I say, I believe that starting with the here's how we'll split things up if somebody breaks this.
It's sort of from the very beginning, the first days of a marriage puts in people's minds, huh, this might go wrong versus more of a biblical picture which says, oh, I'll probably be brought before the town elders and stoned if this goes real sideways, so I better put shoulder to plow. And I'm not saying that every marriage in biblical times was, you know, servant leadership husbands and gentle, submissive wives. But I am saying that the stakes were just so dramatic that divorce usually resulted in someone's death in terms of if there was actual wake up one day and decide to destroy the covenant type violence done to the marriage.
[00:26:47] Speaker B: Right.
I see your point, and I agree.
And no fault divorce has created a lot of problems for all of those people who are trying to live out faithfully.
To be clear, I know that some men initiate divorces.
It just seems to me that what I see more of and more of and more of is that 75% figure that gets thrown around. That 75% are initiated by the women.
And so it's not enough that this guy feels devastated because this woman that he loves and has lived sacrificially for and his children, all this is getting blown apart. But then also now he's financially ruined as a result.
You know, it's like, am I all for, like, serious ramifications and serious blowback and real penalty for breaking a covenant? Yeah, that's great. I just don't. I just don't know where that exists. I just don't know where I see it anymore.
And by the way, like, the boomers. The boomers and that generation and the silent generation, they're. There were a lot of men who ran out on the family. That was far more common back in 1940s and 50s.
It was kind of like a trope. Like, I don't know, Bill got to drinking and then he left Sandra and the kids.
I just hardly ever hear that these days.
[00:28:22] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I definitely have talked to silent generation grandparents who confessed, you know, after one spouse died. Well, the only reason we stayed together is because we had to or I would have starved.
And we've debated even around our dinner table as a family whether that was good or bad. And the conclusion is it seems like it was good for our family that that small family unit, regardless of what was going on, did not opt for divorce. It was a good thing for us.
I guess what I am kind of stuck on here is that I think that by setting up the terms by which we will dissolve or not, we can't dissolve the covenant. Meaning God doesn't really change his mind about the covenant because we have prearranged how the assets will be divided if we break it.
But we really are, like, focusing on, I've got a concerning mole on my hand while my left arm has been blown off by a grenade and I am going to bleed out in the next four minutes. I think that we're so. Yeah, we're almost counting.
[00:29:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
Your point being, if the catastrophe of a divorce happens, then who gets the vacation house is like irrelevant. I mean, not irrelevant, but certainly nowhere near the thing that is so tragic about the moment.
[00:29:58] Speaker A: Yes, I think that, that and I have a thing where you and I maybe have talked about it. I really like fancy watches.
[00:30:07] Speaker B: They cost a pretty. I know that. I know that about you.
[00:30:10] Speaker A: They cost a pretty penny. And all of them have been earmarked in my mind for husbands of daughters. I have only daughters.
And I said to my wife, I don't know, a couple years ago, man, should I like wait to give these to those guys for five years until we're sure that this is gonna pan out? And she looked at me like I had two heads and said, you would hand your daughter to a man and hold back the Rolex like, what's going on?
And that's just how I kind of am thinking about this conversation, which is the money feels like so much less than the dramatic. And honestly, yes, there's the multi generational family with $300 million that's typically covered through other means of making sure that it doesn't get exploded by one chuckle headed generation. We talked about that a couple episodes ago.
So there, there is wisdom.
Having a lot of kids is also a good way to prevent your family's wealth from being destroyed by one dumb generation. Because you're always going to get a few of those, whether it's through conspicuous spending or divorce or who knows what they get sprinkled in to a family tree if it branches wide enough.
That doesn't feel like the main penalty the that happens to a family where divorce enters the equation.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: Yeah, like I said, I'm on the front side of this and am only just now beginning to meet other heads of homes who their children may be co mingling with my children and I actually am like, I think it's kind of cool and hope to have conversations with Bill, whoever he is, and go, hey, our heart is so for both of these young people and I know your heart is for them too.
Are there.
I think I will probably just initiate exploration conversations around this just to say, what do you think? What do you feel about this?
And the truth is that it could be my kid who bumps their head on the Thursday and screws the whole thing up. It's totally possible and I would acknowledge that right off the bat and go, in that event, I don't want your, your son or daughter to be harmed either.
So I don't know, just having, having those conversations is going to be very interesting. But I think that's important.
You know, it's not just two random 20 something year old kids getting connected. It's we're welding in families, units and structures together.
And I have not seen this done well or much at all. It's like, I don't know, they went off to college, they found some girl, they got married, met the people for the first time at the wedding rehearsal dinner.
And it's like, I think we can do better than that.
[00:33:25] Speaker A: Right. And you said at least one of the kids has started narrowing in on the girl.
Have you had that conversation yet with the family of the girl? Because that was the other immediate reaction I got as I shopped this idea and even tried to again take your side of the argument and just try it on. See what that's like is people looked at me and said, well, if my spouse had come to me with a prenup, that probably would have been the end of the marriage conversation.
[00:33:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:57] Speaker A: Um, so there's some strong upfront reactions, I think, to even the suggestion of this.
[00:34:03] Speaker B: Totally.
I have not yet had that conversation.
I have now met a couple of people who are the family of somebody that my kids are interested in and started to warm up those friendships. And I would imagine that it would.
That conversation would come post engagement and cool, you know, over scotch on the back porch, we just start talking about, hey, here's how I know we think about covenant. I know this is how you guys think about covenant. We're aligned. We're totally aligned. And we don't foresee and do not want to exacerbate or create an environment where divorce is top of mind or whatever. But if we're talking about having real assets and them building a life together and building business together and all of that, I would be interested in having the conversation. I don't know for sure that we're all going to have, for all four of our kids, we're going to have prenups. But I sure as heck will be talking about it and kind of pushing into that and seeing if they're open to it. I don't want to do anything that would rupture the possibility of a marriage. I'm not doing that. But I kind of imagine, maybe idealistically, but I do imagine having the kind of rapport and relationship with the other father that says, let's sit down and reason together.
[00:35:34] Speaker A: Got it.
So where we agree is that we both agree in the covenantal nature of marriage, that even in the instances where it kind of legally can be broken, whether we're talking in The United States, or we're talking in ancient Israel, where Moses allowed a divorce certificate to be written.
It's still there because it's not just a contract between two people. It's a covenant involving the Lord.
We agree that there's one flesh created by a married couple. I think where we start to diverge is on what this prenuptial agreement does to the initial foundation of the marriage.
What I hear you saying, tell me if this is right, is that it's not maybe building onto that foundation of covenant, but it's not destroying it either. It's just acknowledging the land in which we live. Whereas I would tend a little more towards. It trains the opposite of kind of First Corinthians 13, which is that a fair place to say we start to diverge.
[00:36:47] Speaker B: Yeah. I would say, too, that in your analogy of I got my arm blown off and you're worried about the mole on the forearm.
I would say I kind of think of the prenup as a way to.
In the event that something tragic like an arm getting blown off happens, I'm just trying to stop the bleeding.
It would just be a way of going, like, I am so grieved that this marriage has fallen apart, but at least let's not ruin one of the parties in the process.
[00:37:21] Speaker A: I tend to think that both parties, not to say their life is over.
I'm sure there's people listening to this episode who have been through a divorce, like I said, at the front end, and found themselves maybe the beneficiary of courts that were slanted towards them. Or maybe the.
The victim, if you want to call it that, or the loser in the deal where courts ruled extremely against them.
Man, I just don't think that the money was the thing they lost there. I think it was a pretty tertiary issue in the rending of one flesh.
And so that's why I just. I kind of keep looking at every scripture that talks about marriage and going, we're going to look at it this way. And then start with, here's how we'll split the stuff up if we change our minds. Or for one of us, even if you. Woman, that I am committing to love and serve for my whole life. If you go nuts, I'm going to concern myself right now at the front end of this with how we'll divide our stuff.
I think, no, I think I'll swear to my own hurt and not change.
And I am just having a hard time getting over that hump still.
[00:38:40] Speaker B: Yeah, it's totally fair.
Yeah.
I will Be pushing into it just to explore kind of the other side of the family, just to see what they think.
The certificate of divorce was granted in the Moses day. Jesus says, because you have hard, wicked hearts. You know, like that was the only reason Moses permitted it. And I am utterly convinced that old Tricky our heart, that it can, you know, it's deceitful above all things. Who can know it but the Lord, and the Lord does test and try that heart. I think that's what's sobering about marriage, quite honestly. I remember just before I got married, I woke up kind of in a panic sweat one morning and realized I'm about to latch myself to a woman who could make my life hell. Like, who could ruin me in lots of different ways. She could just make the next 30 years a disaster.
That's possible. And I could do the same thing to her. Like, there is a humility when you enter into that covenant of I'm taking a deep breath and by faith stepping forward into this. Now, fortunately, after 25 years, I say I lucked out. I know that you feel the same way that we got serious upgrades when we got wives.
But I still know it's true that old Tricky and me and old Tricky and her can go haywire. And I think that's also where like real church leadership is a big deal. Being being in the same way that I'm in covenant with her, being in covenant relationship with other saints who can then call me on stuff and say, no, you before the Lord have said that you will submit yourself to this elder body and you will repent.
Like there's a blessing and a safety in that.
But Again, how many 26 year old people in America understand that, yeah, I
[00:40:48] Speaker A: was getting ready to take us home, but I have to pause before I do that and just say, this is getting into what I said at the beginning about.
I would say the myth that somebody wakes up and suddenly their marriage has been turned on its head.
And I think you're giving maybe a little credit to luck where I know your wife and I also know you. And just so that the listener, if they don't know you, there's been 30 years of investment and daily work and washing in the word and prayer, and there's probably been weeks that it didn't go great.
But over long periods of time, I see you constantly out in that field plowing and picking rocks and fertilizing and doing all those things. Whereas I'm a little nervous that the prenup narrative says to a guy, hey, hey, dude, Women just go crazy sometimes. And if that happens, you gotta be protected. And I just, I believe it's a myth.
Like I said at the front end. My experience in ministry and in community is that there's guys in churches whose dumb, dumb pastors are telling them things like, and women emotional abandonment that is included in Jesus list of things they, you know, merit divorce.
And I'm just sitting here going, if that passage, Matthew 19 that says, you know, except for infidelity, but probably is better translated even for infidelity. The disciples heard Jesus teach that and they went, well, then no one should get married, right?
So what Christ is calling us to is kind of a locking ourselves to the missile and firing it. And there's not a whole lot of bailout options.
So maybe you're slightly underselling the hard work you've done and that your wife has done. I respect her about as deeply as any woman I know. And overstating the possibility of just. We woke up and suddenly somebody went crazy. Am I, am I wrong there?
[00:43:09] Speaker B: Maybe I just, I'm just so aware of how, how much we are absolutely putting 10,000 pound weights on the grace and goodness of God, you know, like, except by his grace and his mercies that are new every morning, we would have, we would have flubbed this hard like so many years ago.
And I know that we have a real oppositional that the enemy is real and he hates what we do the most.
I think his incentive to wreck a barely fruitful home of people who are addicted to all sorts of things, like how much of a score or a win is that for the enemy?
I mean, whatever. But a really powerful home household that's doing unbelievable things and doing multiple yield and seeding the future not just with resources, but with culture and deep faithful formation.
What is that kind of target worth for him?
A lot.
So I think I'm just like.
Not to say that prenup is tethered to that sentiment. It's just a matter of like, I'm just such. I operate in such holy fear of like, I'm so thankful that this depends more on God and his faithfulness, you know, and his grace that he who began the good work in us will be faithful to bring it to completion. Like it's so much more depends upon him and his goodness than it does on me and crossing all my T's and dotting all my I's. But yeah, I don't know. I don't know if that.
[00:45:03] Speaker A: I think you're right. I think if you heard the teaser for this episode. And we're expecting to hear some masculinity influencer talk about how women are ruining men and that men have to strike back. That's not what we're offering here.
And this is why old Grog is the guy I wanted to have to have this conversation. Because even in the past 45 minutes, I've. I've had moments where I thought, oh, am I being swayed over to the other side? And I hope that, you know, you can land on either side. You could side with old Grog or kind of my take on this specific question of prenups. We could argue that document.
What we shouldn't argue with is the thing the document is circling, which is that marriage is precious to God. He invented it, he witnesses it and he hates when we treat it as disposable.
It is to be honored among all his people. Not used, not hedged like a bad stock and not entered into lightly.
So I'm gonna just talk to the guys now. If your approach to marriage is fear, if you're scared, I would just encourage you. Don't let fear help you pick your wife. And do not let fear write your wedding vows. Become the kind of man that she would be ashamed to leave and find the kind of woman whose heart you can actually trust.
Get wise counsel, get your estate in order like a grown up. And then if you vow, vow and follow through on that vow.
If you're already married and this episode poked an old bruise in you. So maybe it's a prenup you signed or maybe it's a divorce you didn't want or. Or a court that screwed you over.
Hear this. Your worth in the household of faith is not your legal outcome.
So walk with your people and tell the truth. Stay near to the Lord who still calls marriage honorable.
And I think old Grog and I agree on all of those points.
Grog, thanks for sitting in this chair and not flinching and being willing to parry with me a bit.
And until next week, I'm Mark and I am just here encouraging you to run your doe and your home like a biblical boss.
[00:47:25] Speaker C: Hi everybody. Quick word from Steve before we let you go today.
Next week you are not going to see a regular episode here. You're going to see a 10 to 15 minute on ramp. What we think think of as an on ramp for all the dads who are probably multi gen at heart but have not. They've not seen Abe's wallet. They. They have not been encouraged and equipped and informed with the kind of content that you like many of you, give prayers and dollars to make this thing go forward. And so we feel an obligation to you and to God to go find more of those fathers. So we're, we're kind of doing an experiment. It's gonna be a short series that starts next week. And when you see that series, which is going to draw a line from a multi generational goober to a multi generational genius, when you see that series, would you double down on the amount of liking and sharing and reposting and recommending that you would normally do with an episode so that we can go find those new guys? We appreciate it, and thanks for hanging with us. See you next time.
