Ideas Have Consequences
Everything that we see around us is the product of ideas, of ideologies, of worldviews. That's where everything starts. Worldviews are not all the same, and the differences matter a lot. How do you judge a tree? By its fruits. How do you judge a worldview? By its physical, tangible, observable fruit. The things it produces. Ideas that are noble and true produce beauty, abundance, and human flourishing. Poisonous ideas produce ugliness. They destroy and dehumanize. It really is that simple. Welcome to Ideas Have Consequences, the podcast of Disciple Nations Alliance, where we prepare followers of Christ to better understand the true ideas that lead to human flourishing while fighting against poisonous ideas that destroy nations. Join us, and prepare your minds for action!
Ideas Have Consequences
MARRIAGE (10 Words to Heal Our Broken World Series)
Historically, the definition of marriage has been rich, calling humanity toward a knowledge of the truth of our very nature. Based on biblical principles, marriage was understood to be: “A God-ordained, comprehensive, exclusive, and permanent union that brings a man and a woman together as husband and wife, to be father and mother to any children their union brings into being. It is based on the anthropological truth that men and women are different and complementary, the biological fact that reproduction depends on a man and a woman, and the social reality that children need both a mother and a father.”
Today, marriage has been radically redefined and simply means "a legally recognized, romantic caregiving relationship between consenting adults who intend to live together as sexual and domestic partners."
Can the redefinition of a word so transform our thinking that the actual truth and meaning of the word becomes extinct? In today's episode, Scott Allen, author of the upcoming book, 10 Words to Heal Our Broken World, responds by analyzing how we got here, considering the consequences of holding this definition, and helping us discern how we can bring God's truth back to this critical word. As Christians, we absolutely must not let the meaning of marriage continue to slide further and further from God's original definition. It's far past time, but not too late, for us as believers to stand up for marriage for the sake of our communities, nations, children, and for generations to come.
- View the transcript, leave comments, and check out recommended resources on the Episode Landing Page!
- Find out more about the book by Scott David Allen, 10 Words to Heal Our Broken World: Restoring the True Meaning of Our Most Important Words at 10wordsbook.org.
Marriage is your project to transform the world. And why is that? Because marriage, again, god created as a uniquely life-giving, multi-generational, culture-forming, civilization-building institution. There's nothing like it. Hi friends, this is Scott Allen, president of the Disciple Nations Alliance, and I want to welcome you to another episode of Ideas have Consequences, the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. As we prepare to launch my newest book, 10 Words to Heal Our Broken World Restoring the True Meaning of Our Most Important Words, we wanted to go through each one of these 10 foundational words that are highlighted in the book, discussing their true meaning as well as how they've been fundamentally redefined in our contemporary culture. Now you might be asking why do words matter? Well, it's because words and definitions shape the way we think and feel, and that, in turn, determines our choices and our actions, and that shapes the kind of culture that we live in, for better or for worse. And so if you want to work for a positive change in culture in society, it has to begin by restoring the true meaning of our most important words.
Speaker 2:Hi friends, thank you again for joining us today here on Ideas have Consequences. My name's Luke and I will be joined by our co-host today, Darrell Miller. Thank you for joining, Mr Miller.
Speaker 3:Good to be with you.
Speaker 2:Great to have you and my dad, scott Allen, who is in the hot seat again today, because he is the author of the new book that we are going to be talking about today. Dad, thanks for coming.
Speaker 1:I love being here and I love talking about these words. Thank you, dad. Chapter by chapter Again for any of you guys who are new to this series.
Speaker 2:The book is called Ten Words to Heal Our Broken World, restoring the True Meanings of Our Most Important Words, the words that this book covers. The ten words are as follows truth, human sex, marriage, freedom, authority, justice, faith, beauty and love. In the last few weeks, we have already had a specific podcast where we talked about the book as a whole and the importance of words and why biblical definitions matter for us as Christians. That's the intro episode. I would highly recommend going back and listening to that for anyone who is new to the series. After that we talked about truth, and then we talked about human sex, and then that means today, the word is marriage.
Speaker 2:I'm really excited for this discussion, guys. Mr Miller, you have been married for 58 years, dad, you're at 32, and I'm at four, so we kind of span the spectrum there and I'm excited to tap into your guys' wisdom as being way further along in the awesome journey of marriage than I am, so looking forward to it. Dad, to start out, as we always do, if you wouldn't mind just sharing the two definitions that your book does such a great job of sharing at the beginning of each chapter definition and then the other one being the more commonly understood definition that our society tends to hold, which usually is a false, hijacked definition that is unbiblical For this word of marriage. That is definitely true. So if you could just read those two definitions to start us out today, that'd be great.
Speaker 1:Before I do that, luke, let me just make a mention that it's this word, marriage, that really opened my eyes to just how dramatically words and language are changing in my lifetime.
Speaker 1:You know, they're not only changing in our culture, they're literally being redefined in our dictionaries, and I think that's what's really shook me up here about five or six years ago I guess it's more than that, darrell you and I were talking about this maybe 10 years ago, but I remember looking up the word marriage in Noah Webster's 1868 Dictionary of the American Language, which I've referenced on this podcast more than once, because it's a book that one of our great founding fathers wrote with definitions that were biblically based, and you know— I think it was 1828.
Speaker 1:Excuse me, Thank you, Look, 1828. And I'll mention that definition, or a version of it, here in a second. I looked that up, it was powerful, it was deep, intricate, rich, this long kind of rich definition. And then I went to my Microsoft Word on my laptop because, as you know, if you use Word you can right-click or whatever it is and look it up in a dictionary that's embedded in the software. And I did that and I was shocked, I was stunned to see how dramatically the word, the actual definition in the dictionary had changed, and I think that was such an eye-opening thing for me because it got me thinking about how, for so many, especially young people that are referencing the dictionary about a word like marriage, they're not learning anything about the truth of it anymore and just how significant that is for our culture.
Speaker 1:So let me then just go to these two definitions, and these are the definitions that I included in the chapter. The first is the true definition, the scriptural definition of marriage, and this is an adaptation of what Noah Webster had in his dictionary Marriage is a God-ordained, comprehensive, exclusive and permanent union that brings a man and a woman together as a husband and wife to be father and mother to any children that their union brings into being. Marriage is based on the reality that men and women are different and complementary, the biological fact that reproduction depends on a man and a woman, and the social reality that children need both a mother and a father. So there's a whole lot there and we'll talk about that. We'll unpack that in a little bit, but let me just read how the word has been redefined.
Speaker 1:If you were to go to almost any dictionary today and look up the word marriage, you'd find a definition like this dictionary today and look up the word marriage, you'd find a definition like this Marriage is a legally recognized romantic caregiving relationship between consenting adults who intend to live together as sexual and domestic partners. It's just really important to pause just for a second and reflect on what's missing. We'll talk about that later, but so much has been stripped away. In fact, I think my basic walkaway is that marriage is being defined out of existence. In fact, when I first saw this redefinition in Microsoft's Encarta dictionary the online dictionary it had one word that I removed. It said it was a legally recognized romantic caregiving relationship between two consenting adults who intend to live together as sexual and domestic partners. I actually removed the word two because it's already changing since this first definition redefinition. It also goes further than that, Scott, when you think that people are marrying robots, so even adults, people is changing, right, it's changing.
Speaker 3:And I've read a number of stories about women marrying their dogs. One woman marrying a porpoise. And I think people are tended— it has nothing to do with humans anymore. It's one person marrying an animal, and they call it marriage.
Speaker 1:You know, I want to warn people because when they hear you say those things, dara, they'll go. That's such an extreme. You know, there's so few, that's so extreme. But it wasn't long ago that the idea of marrying you know, two men marrying or two women marrying was seen as extreme and it would never happen. And yet here we are.
Speaker 3:But that's the point. There's this slide from what the true definition is to one that you saw on the internet, and since that time there's been a further slide.
Speaker 1:I think too, you know, when I saw these, just the dramatic differences in these definitions, it brought to mind as well that when you remove God, when God isn't the definer, the true definer of words like marriage, the question then becomes who does, who gets the privilege of defining what that means? And the answer is the most you know powerful, the people that can amass the most power. And then, is there any kind of you know, rock or anchor to the definition? If people are defining it, and the answer is no, it can be redefined at will, right, which is not the case if God is the one defining these words, we don't have the right it's not our right or you know to—we accept his true definition.
Speaker 3:And that's where, when we are in a postmodern world where reality is gone, the only thing that becomes real is what I feel. Then a person can define marriage however they want. That's right. That's right, and there's no what would you call it common thread anymore, other than you use the word marriage to describe a relationship of some kind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that was smart Dad taking out the number two, because just looking at history you can almost predict for sure that's going to be. The next move is Just looking at history, you can almost predict for sure that's going to be. The next move is at least throughout history, the norm outside of Christian societies has been polygamy or polygyny One man, lots of wives, which I think ever since the sexual revolution has become much more of the norm. You know, it's not that they're actually getting married, but some men are definitely dominating the dating pool and then others just kind of are left at the fringes, because if it is devolved to power then those alpha males, as they call them, will kind of just dominate and that's been a number of articles written by the New York Times in the last three to five years on polyamory, and just you know how it's becoming a lot more.
Speaker 1:They're pushing hard to normalize it. Let's say so, it's coming and that's why I thought you know it's so random. You know the Microsoft Word definition put in the word two. But I'm like, well, everything else has changed. Why isn't that going to change? Of course that's going to change. Everything is going to change once you cut the definition of marriage loose from the one who created it God himself and designed it.
Speaker 1:And designed it, by the way, for such an important purpose. I mean it's the most fundamental in some ways human relationship. It's at the base of so much. It's at the base of family, it's at the base of community, nation. Everything kind of comes back to this one super important relationship. Naturally, this is something Satan's going to try to destroy.
Speaker 3:Well, something to add there Scott is. And then it ends with a wedding between Christ and his church. So you have marriage in Genesis 2, and then you have the other bookend is in the book of Revelation and you have this theme from Genesis to Revelation and it's about marriage.
Speaker 1:We'll talk about that, Darrell. It's such a rich, deep theme throughout the entire Scripture. Like you said, it's the two bookends of the whole story, the story of reality Of the whole story.
Speaker 3:And why is that? Why did God do that?
Speaker 1:I want to get into that, darrell, of course, and I think, luke, that's where you're going to take us next is kind of unpacking the richness and the power of the true definition. And I don't want to short-circuit this because I know that I, as a young married man, did not understand this. Even after I went to church for several years and heard lots of sermons, I didn't know the basics of marriage. I didn't know the dribbling and the passing and the shooting. I didn't. It just wasn't taught to me, you know, and so I don't want to assume that anyone, even though they've been a Christian for a long time, understands the basics of this most basic relationship.
Speaker 3:Well, that's where I think it would be good to look through at some of those key things that you just read when you read the definition, the true definition of marriage, because we're ignorant of so much of that, scott. We really are the church is ignorant of so much of that? Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Well, I think you know, when we talked about human in our last podcast, we said we started with kind of this most basic thing that you need to say about what it means to be human, and that is that we're creatures, in other words, we're creations of God. God created us, and I think the same thing needs to be said about marriage. The most important and most basic thing about marriage is that it's God-created. You'll notice that the redefinitions of marriage never mention God. So the assumption there is that it's not God-created, it's man-created, and whatever we create we can recreate. But the truth of the matter is that's a lie. This is God's doing, marriage is God's doing and it's an institution, if you will. It's a relationship that he created, like you said there right at the beginning, and we'll talk about this right in Genesis, chapter 1. He created it to bless the world, to be a blessing to the whole world. Be a blessing to the whole world.
Speaker 3:Well, I would go past that, scott. Before the creation of the world, you had community. You had the community of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. You had one God and three persons. You had relationships. You had love, where Jesus himself said Father, you have loved me before the foundation of the world. And marriage was not an afterthought, it was a reflection of how God could make human beings in a way that reflects community, reflects relationship.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's deeply built into the fabric of what it means to be human. I do have to say right now that the Bible also says that it doesn't require or demand that everybody be married, although you know, we know from experience human experience through the centuries that most people will be married the vast majority. But singleness is also a part of God's plan.
Speaker 1:Jesus himself, obviously, was not married, paul was not married and even encouraged us to consider the benefits that come from being single. And when we are in heaven and John Piper makes this case in his book called this Momentary Marriage we are not married and in that sense our marriages, our earthly marriages, are pointers to a more fundamental relationship, a more basic relationship, the relationship that we have with our Creator, with our Heavenly Father, and that's the most fundamental relationship. So, on the human plane, marriage becomes a reflection. We'll talk a little bit about that. There's something about that most basic relationship that's reflected especially this concept of covenant in our human marriages. But it's not the ultimate relationship, and that needs to be said too. I know I have a lot of people and you do too that want to be married and are single, and so that needs to be said as well.
Speaker 2:Dad, I think I'm looking at the definition you wrote here in the book and you put an emphasis on the anthropological truth that men and women are different and complementary. Why did you add that and what's the significance there of mentioning that in the definition itself, Because it seems kind of obvious?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think well, you have to understand that marriage is in the Bible. The true definition of marriage is this powerful, really beautiful mosaic. It's a relationship like no other because it links things, it connects things, it connects, it connects sex, procreation and child rearing all together in this really powerful and beautiful, life-giving, culture-creating mosaic. There's no other relationship that does that. So you know, as when we talk about the redefinition of marriage, we'll have to look right away at how that mosaic has been fractured right. So it's decoupled. All of these things—marriage, sex, procreation, child-rearing, child education—all of these things have been decoupled. But that's not the way God intended it from the beginning. Beginning, he intended it to be this relationship, this coming together of a man and a woman that are different and complementary, you know, to fulfill the cultural mandate to be fruitful and multiply and to raise up families and cultures and nations to fill the earth. It's really, really unique in that way.
Speaker 3:Let me add on to that, scott. God is creator. He's created the universe, he's created human beings, he's established the institution of marriage. But when a man and a woman come together, a new human being is born that never existed before, a unique human being that has never existed before, and it's new life. And God is the creator of life in the first place and now he has made human beings to reproduce life, and that's incredible when you think about it.
Speaker 1:It's a miracle, it's one of the most profound miracles that anybody can ever live through this thing. And you realize when you have children, when you're married and you have children, you realize how deeply God is involved in this relationship from the very beginning, all the way through. You and your wife, you know, play a role, but you surely didn't make that child. That's God and you know God. Also, it says it's interesting Jesus, when he talks about marriage in the Gospels in the context of you know, I think his disciples are questioning him about divorce and he brings them right back to Genesis, chapter 1, about what is marriage, the way God intended it to be, and he says something so powerful there.
Speaker 1:He says what God brought together, let no man separate, right. And so even the act of coming together as a husband and wife in the marriage ceremony is really there's. God is right there, you know. Yeah, a pastor, a minister may officiate that marriage ceremony, but it's God that actually knits these people together in this like deep, fundamental way. So marriage is this three-kind-of-part relationship, right. Which, darrell, I think goes back to your point that marriage is a reflection of God himself, the triune God, so that you know, in the beginning, god created. Well, we have to know what this God is like. God is Father, son and Holy Spirit complementary, different, in a deep loving relationship. And then he created man in his image, and there we see something that reflects that in some way with marriage.
Speaker 2:This is such a helpful point for people to learn, especially young people thinking about getting married, because you never hear this in the broader culture. A lot of churches don't even talk about this. You can easily just miss it and, um, most of the the information you hear about marriage these days is, uh, when you really listen to it, it's pretty selfish. You know it's for your benefit, it's to help you out, it's to make you, you know, happier and richer and whatever, to give you a partner so you're not lonely.
Speaker 2:All those things are kind of self-focused, um and with that it's. It's if you, you know marriage can, can be very contractual. You know you can fall into love and you can fall out of love. You know you can. You can make a contract and break a contract and, um, I think Christians just throw you know, through living in the same culture. As you know, these wrong definitions can often just absorb those definitions wrongly and they maybe have seen them from. You know these wrong definitions can often just absorb those definitions wrongly and they maybe have seen them from. You know, family members who marriages have ended, and through friends and whatnot, and just this idea that God is the one holding the marriage together. He is the one who made the union and he is the let no man separate, no man not the people in the marriage, not people outside of the marriage.
Speaker 2:No man should separate what god has brought together. He's in control, he's holding it. Oh, what a relief when you're married to know, that well if you don't know that it feels like it's in your control and I need to grit through this marriage and hold on, you know, through the rough seasons and the highs and the lows, no, no, no, no God. God's holding this together. You're cradled in his hands and that's such a beautiful picture and so comforting.
Speaker 2:You know which this, this false definition, does not have in any way, um, and I think I think a lot of Christians can very easily fall into that wrong understanding that it's more of this contract and it's more of us gritting it together and figuring it out and we need to make this last no, no, no, god's in control.
Speaker 1:Well, I want to talk more about that, luke, this concept of covenant, because it's central to marriage and it's central to the relationship that God has with his people, with us. But before I do that, I do want to just come back to some real basics of marriage. And I think what you see in the Garden of Eden, in this very first marriage between Adam and Eve, is because this is God's doing before the fall. It's the kind of the paradigm of what marriage should be for all time, all cultures. And what do you see there in that very first marriage, this template of what marriage is to be? Well, first of all, you see that it's a uniting, exclusive uniting of a man and a woman, not two women, not two men, not a man or an animal or a man and multiple women or any other combination. It's the uniting of a man or an animal or a man and multiple women or any other combination. It's the uniting of a man and a woman. Now, of course, that's come under direct attack in our time and has been rewritten into our laws now, but that's not the way God designed it. It was a man and a woman. You know, because God created just one woman for Adam, polygamy is excluded and the pattern of monogamy is established.
Speaker 1:And I remember I think it was Dennis Prager, the cultural commentator, jewish guy. He said that monogamy, the Jewish idea right, which is God's idea, did probably more to change the world, to transform the world, than any other single idea. And I think I just liked that, I appreciated that because we take it for granted. But before these understandings came into the world through the Scriptures, through the Jewish nation and the Church, you had polygamy. You had powerful men exploiting women for their sexual pleasure without any kind of commitment. And you still see that around the world. This is kind of the norm in pagan cultures. And of course we're re-paganizing our own culture when it comes to marriage and sex, and so we're seeing this more and more. But this exclusive uniting of a man and a woman, this idea of monogamy lifelong too, as we're going to talk about in a second it did almost more because it protects women and it protects children, right, I think we can all see that.
Speaker 3:This is another point that Dennis Prager makes here. It is that before the Jews, before the Bible, before the revelation of, we're made in the image of God and we're made to form a family, to marry and form a family. Prager points out that pagan religion produces pagan sexuality and it was the Bible and the concept of sex within a committed covenantal relationship that elevated women and it led.
Speaker 1:They weren't just sex objects, right? Okay?
Speaker 3:No, they weren't just sex objects. Sex objects, right, okay. No, they weren't just sex objects. And it elevated women and it literally made possible the development of Western civilization. Yes, that marriage is at the core of the stability that produced Western civilization, the core that produced the stability of the family.
Speaker 2:You know that's right, because it's the core that produced the stability of the family.
Speaker 1:You know, as these most basic relationships go, so goes the entire civilization. Yeah.
Speaker 2:As goes the family, so goes the nation. Pope John Paul II Exactly.
Speaker 1:Exactly. I want to come back, luke, if you don't mind, to the concept of covenant, because it's such a powerful idea at the heart of marriage as well, and I think it needs to be kind of stressed a little bit. It's the idea that marriage I mean we typically will hear it in traditional marriage ceremonies.
Speaker 1:you know this idea that you know you are committing to, you know until death do us part right that idea that this is a lifelong a commitment, it's a covenant, and the Bible, it's quite powerful. The Apostle Paul speaks to this really directly in Ephesians, where he says that marriage is. There's a mystery to it because it's a reflection of the relationship that God has with his people. And God is this covenant-making God, rooted in his love for God, so loved the world that he gave his one and only son right. So God loves us so much that he covenants with us.
Speaker 1:Paul, again in the book of Romans, says you know that for those who are in Christ, you know, nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. Nothing, not even death. That's the idea of covenant, that it doesn't matter what happens, I will never leave you, I will never forsake you. This is who God is, this is his character. And then marriage becomes a picture of that kind of covenant and that's why it's a lifelong commitment that, no matter what happens, I will never leave you, I will never forsake you till death. Do us part? It's this rock-solid foundation, this assurance, just like I have an assurance with God. You know, and I'm so grateful I do. You know that if I mess up or if I stray or whatever it is. He's committed to me. He's committed to this relationship not because I'm good or deserve it, but because, who he is, he's a God of love and covenant. And then he brings that into marriage and I just think that's such a— divorce for God is—it's so deep and profoundly destructive, you know, because it violates this whole concept of covenant.
Speaker 3:Well, this is something to follow through on, scott. Follow through on Scott. We know that Christ is the bridegroom for his bride, the church, but the creator, god, the Father, is the, as it were, the bridegroom of Israel. And this is again. Marriage begins in Genesis 2 and ends at the other side of the Bible, in the book of Revelation, in Exodus. God takes Israel as a bride and establishes a covenant with her.
Speaker 1:No, darrell, let me just underscore that when you see that you know God has raised up his people, his bride, and he brings them out of Egypt and brings them to Sinai, and really that kind of picture of God at Sinai is like a marriage ceremony between God and his people. And I don't think I saw that until recently Like this is, you know it really is. There's this kind of mutual covenanting. There's God covenanting with his people and his people reciprocating and responding to that. That's right people reciprocating and responding to that.
Speaker 3:That's right. But if we see what happens, the people of God, after that covenantal relationship is established, rebel against God and create an idol. And you see the language after this where the people prostituted themselves before an idol, committed adultery. They committed adultery with an idol, so they broke the covenant from their end. But did God break the covenant from his end? No, the covenant from his end. No, he maintained the covenant and restored the relationship and he said now be careful when you go into the promised land that you don't break the covenant again. And they did. And God could have, should have, if he were me, as it were broken the relationship.
Speaker 3:I'm done with you guys. You keep prostituting yourself, you keep committing adultery.
Speaker 1:You're not faithful you walk away.
Speaker 3:And then we come to the book of Hosea. And the book of Hosea is so powerful because God asks Hosea to marry a prostitute. Why would he do that? And we find out in Hosea, chapter 3, he asked Hosea to marry a prostitute because he wanted Hosea to demonstrate, be a living metaphor to the people of Israel, that God is faithful to the covenant that he made, even if his wife is unfaithful. It is absolutely powerful. So when one side breaks the covenant, no, there's a covenant here and God is faithful to the covenant, and we are to be faithful to the covenant as well.
Speaker 1:I put this in the book Darrell. I put that because God created marriage to reflect his character, this loving, covenantal character that he has. Divorce is an abomination because it tells a lie about the faithfulness of Christ, who will never leave or forsake his bride, the church. That's right.
Speaker 3:And I just think.
Speaker 1:You know divorce is because we've redefined marriage. Part of the consequence of that is divorce rates, of course, in my lifetime have skyrocketed all over the world. It's an abomination because it tells a lie about Christ. He will never leave his bride, he will never forsake. So if you're—I want people to feel the heaviness of that before you, just kind of—.
Speaker 1:Or the wonder of it, yeah before you consider breaking that covenant. Yeah, so One last thing, luke, I'd like to get into before we look at the redefinition, and that's just briefly touch on the roles. You know when you are married, luke, as you've been married just recently here you take on a new role, you get a new title. That's again a God-designed title, a God-designed role. You become a husband now or a wife, and actually God defines those roles as well, and I think this is again something I did not learn. It took me a long time to—and it just wasn't taught and I don't think it's still taught. Well, I was just talking to a dear Christian brother went to Wheaton, you know he's been a Christian for many years and he was just telling me honestly, he says I never learned this. I didn't know what my—the basics of my role as a husband. And when the church isn't teaching these things, by the way, it doesn't mean people aren't learning. They just happen to be learning from the culture or typically from their own experience with their own family, their own fathers and mothers. I mean, they're learning how to do this, but they're probably learning wrong, and that was my story as well. So I just want to touch on that too briefly. Again, in marriage you see male and female as a complement to each other and the husband and wife too, different roles, but they complement each other. You see the unity and diversity. We talk a lot about unity and diversity because that's who God is right. God is one, god is three. There's unity and diversity and, if I could just very briefly and I'd love your thoughts on this Luke and Daryl.
Speaker 1:But the husband, one of the basic roles that he plays, is this role of head. He's the head of his wife. In other words, he has a position of God-given authority. And I remember because feminism and just question of authority, real negative thoughts about authority and just, you know, question authority, real negative thoughts about authority and submission. As a newly married man myself, I rejected that, or I didn't want to accept that, this idea. And I remember reading Doug Wilson's book and he said something that was so powerful many years ago, a really wonderful book called Reforming Marriage I recommend to anyone. But he said you know, this isn't actually a choice you make to be a head as a husband you are. You know, god made you a head. Now you can be a bad one by neglecting your role and not taking you know, kind of—and by the way, authority in the Bible, headship authority is always meant for the good of those under authority. It's a role of service, sacrificial service.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll be talking about authority here in a couple weeks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll get into authority Until you can understand that word, that biblical definition.
Speaker 2:Man, it's hard to understand marriage. It totally is. You know those go together. So well, man, it's hard to understand marriage. It totally is. You know those go together so well and when, when I started understanding authority better through this book, dad, um, it really helped me a lot in this concept because, yeah, as guys, we don't want to say where the head you know, especially in you know, our Western modern culture it's like Ooh, you know you're going to get in a lot of trouble for saying that this is so controversial.
Speaker 2:And yet if you understand what biblical authority is, you know you understand why God designed it this way and it's so beautiful and there's a leadership role to that as well.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know, the buck does stop there with the husband, and so he can't just be on the couch and, you know, say to the wife you make this thing work. God didn't design it that way. By the way, most wives don't want that. I would say almost all wives don't want their husbands on the couch and they have to make it work. The buck stops with the husband, so go ahead. Darrell, you were going to say something there, yeah.
Speaker 3:I want to relate this back to. This is a book on 10 words and how, when you change a culture, you change the language and you have to start with the changing of the language to change a culture. And God is the loving, self-sacrificing head. And we see this in the book of Hosea, where Hosea is to manifest God's loving, self-sacrificing headship. And what happened as the Hebrew people turned their back on their loving, self-sacrificing head? Who was God? They worshipped another god, baal. In the Old Testament, for the word husband you find a very few times it's this word that is used for God as husband, and most of the time in the Old Testament the word for husband is Baal. And that absolutely shocked me when I was doing this study and I said, God, I don't understand this.
Speaker 1:Why is the word Baal the word husband and the word Baal means owner?
Speaker 3:Yes, master, master, like a slave kind of relationship right Exactly, and that's where you have a pagan religion leads to pagan relationships and pagan sexuality. So in a pagan concept of marriage, the husband is the owner and the master of the wife and she is a slave.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's this demonic kind of redefinition of authority as power and control in a selfish way, power and control. But, that's not the Bible. The Bible says you're the head, just as Christ is the head of the church. Husband, you're the head, and that entails sacrificial service. Paul makes that explicit in Ephesians. He says husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and did what Died for her Be willing to give up your life for her. That's not what Baal would do. No.
Speaker 3:And that's where you find in the book of Hosea, where God says you shall no longer call me Baal, you should call me husband, loving, self-sacrificing.
Speaker 1:I think that a lot of times I know a lot of young men who are like me. It's not that they are wanting to be domineering and dominate, they don't want the authority, they don't want the responsibility, or they've got this egalitarian idea that somehow we have equal authority and equal responsibility. There's an equality in marriage when it comes to the children, right, both are equally authorities over the children and they have roles to play, husbands and wives in the education of the children. But in the marriage itself, no, you are the head. I think again, doug Wilson put it well you know God made you that way. You don't get a choice in it. You can be bad or good, but you are. Are you going to reflect the question then? Are you going to reflect the kind of headship that Christ reflects in the church? And once you understand that, then the answer is yes. I want to do that.
Speaker 1:A couple of subordinating things there, for the husband's role in headship is protection and provision. Again, there's a responsibility. It doesn't mean the wife can't provide or protect as well, but again, the buck stops with the husband, and I love the way John Piper says it in one of his books on marriage. He says if you're sleeping, your husband and wife, you're sleeping in bed one night and there's a sound at the door. Somebody's down there.
Speaker 1:The husband doesn't say to the wife hey, would know, would you go down and check out that noise? I did it last time, it's your turn, you know? No, it's a husband's job, this protection role. Right, that's his role. Go down and check it out. And if there's a burglar there and he's robbing the house, you've got to protect your family, your wife and your family. You gotta, you gotta fight that guy off. And even if you're a wimp, you know, and your wife has a black belt in karate, you, you better be lying kind of unconscious on the floor before she comes down and, you know, finishes him off, or you're not a man, you know. And I thought I just love the clarity of that right, yeah.
Speaker 3:I would say something here, scott, that I say repeatedly when I'm lecturing on this If you look at Genesis 1, at each stage of the creation there's a higher order at each stage of the creation there's a higher order, there's inanimate, and then there is plants, and then there's animals, then there's human beings, and at each stage God says this is good and he's moving to a higher refinedness. And then, in Genesis 2, who does he create? First? He creates Adam first from the dust of the ground, and then he creates women. And what I say when I'm teaching this, I'll say to the men hey, you're near the top in terms of refinement.
Speaker 1:But if you want to know the crescendo of creation, the crowning glory of creation, right. The crowning glory of creation was it's not you it's a woman.
Speaker 3:And when you say that it helps, people say, oh wow, I had never thought of that before and we're different and we're equal, but the woman is the crescendo. And oh, I mean, that does something for the man to honor his wife and it does something for the woman. Oh, I'm not a second class citizen, I'm not a slave. That's right, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I think you know, for me it gets very practical as the head, you know, when you realize that what we're talking about here is initiative. Let's say you're having a conflict with your wife. I know, darrell, you never would have a conflict with Marilyn, but you know I've had some conflicts with Kim. You know who's to take the initiative in reconciliation. It's always hard, right. You want the other side, you know you're to blame, so you've got to kind of take the first step of reconciliation. I'm just going to wait here until you do. And no, that's not your role as the head. Your role is always to take initiative and even if you know, regardless of kind of how that conflict got started, you're to take the initiative and reconciliation.
Speaker 1:This idea of initiative is really, I think, key and just I know we need to move on, luke, to redefinition. But just a couple of words about the role of wife. We don't have this, you know. We can go. We could talk for a long, long time about these roles, but the word that's used right away is the word helper. She's to be a helper to the husband and we immediately I know in our current culture we associate help with inferiority, you know. But, daryl, you teach on this and why don't you just kind of make the point that you usually make on this? Because I think it's so powerful.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you are right. It says that the wife is the suitable, which means corresponding. She corresponds with the man, he corresponds with her. So that's the Hebrew word ezer, and twice in the Old Testament it refers to the woman, the wife, as the ezer, the helper, but 16 times in the Old Testament it refers to God. In the Old Testament it refers to God, and that's something I think we need to really realize because God is certainly not inferior.
Speaker 1:God is certainly not the slave. He is our helper. God is a helper and we're the ones that need the help. I mean so if we're going to talk about inferior or superior, it's usually the one that's superior that's providing help to the inferior who needs the help. Now again, we're not talking about superior or inferior, but we're just trying to get people to think differently than the culture about these important things.
Speaker 1:The helper is in no way some kind of inferior role, but that is the role that God gives in marriage. And yeah, go ahead, darrell, I know you were about to say something else on that.
Speaker 3:Well, and Jesus is our helper. Helping is a good thing. It's not a product of the fall. Helping is that loving, self-sacrificing, and God is our helper. And, as husbands, we are to help our wives in the sense that we are to serve them and be willing to die for them. That's self-sacrifice.
Speaker 1:So your point is that it's not that the wife only helps and the husband doesn't help.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:So these roles—.
Speaker 3:There's nothing wrong with being a helper. God defines what it means to be a helper. He is the easer, which is the Hebrew word and help doing what.
Speaker 1:I think this is where we get back to. Why did God create man in the first place? To have dominion, to rule, to create, to create cultures and to make what God created in the Garden of Eden, you know even better and more beautiful and more fruitful.
Speaker 3:Flourish To flourish.
Speaker 1:And part of that includes having children, you know, be fruitful and multiply. And in all of these tasks, this is where the help comes in, because God didn't intend for any man or woman to do it alone. He intended for them to do it together. Man or woman to do it alone, he intended for them to do it together. And I can certainly relate to that. Just, you know, when it comes to having kids, you know I always feel it's possible to raise kids and do it well as a single parent. But it's not God's design. You know we need help. You know, with that we bring I do, I mean we bring certain unique skills and gifts to that equation. That's God's design.
Speaker 3:Well, in Genesis 1, where it says that he made us in his image, male and female. It takes male and female to reflect all that it means to be made in the image of God. A male cannot do that, a female cannot do that. We're in the image of God, male and female. And then he gives the cultural mandate, and there's two parts to it be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth. And that takes male and female to fulfill the social part of the mandate.
Speaker 3:And then what does he say? And have dominion over creation, to govern creation. Is that just the man? No, no, it's the image of God, male and female. God, male and female. So the social mandate and the developmental mandate both require both male and female.
Speaker 1:It's a partnership. It's a partnership. That's right, exactly, daryl.
Speaker 2:And this is another piece for me that's been kind of newer. You know I don't hear this in many marriage books Christian marriage books included is a lot of times when people talk about marriage they talk about just the man, the woman, and all the focus is right there and it's for your happiness, it's for so you're not lonely, it's so you can have kids, it's all right in the family, and it's no, she's your helper. To do what?
Speaker 2:To fulfill those mandates that's given right there in genesis one to work the garden and keep it to make this world a better place and that's the to govern, and god makes this human institution in which it's more, uh, efficient for us to govern well over creation, to serve better to you, the man, the woman fighting back to back against the forces of evil in this world. My wife put that on the inside of my ring back to back.
Speaker 2:It's this idea of we are here to bless the world, to serve the world. You and me, we can do this well, and that's why Satan hates marriage so much is when marriages actually do that well and when they actually understand that their main purpose isn't just for their happiness, it's to serve this world, god's world, absolutely. A couple of quotes on that, luke.
Speaker 1:You know, this is why God created marriage. It goes way beyond the husband and the wife. It starts there. There was a Nigerian couple I heard recently talk about this and I loved the way they talked about their marriage. They said you know, it starts with the husband and wife. It starts with the two, but it goes beyond that. It's a ripple. It impacts the entire world. And then they went on. They said marriage is your project to transform the world. And I thought, wow what a vision.
Speaker 1:What a great vision, you know. And why is that? Because marriage, again, god created as a uniquely life-giving, multi-generational, culture-forming, civilization-building institution. There's nothing like it. A couple of quotes from my book.
Speaker 1:I love this one from David Blankenhorn. He says marriage says to a child the man and the woman whose sexual union made you will be there to love you and to raise you and think of all the ripples that come out of that. And then marriage says to the society as a whole for every child that is born, there's a recognized mother and father accountable to the child and to each other. Mother and father accountable to the child and to each other. So marriage is so powerful because of the yeah and the raising of that child, right, the teaching of that child, the discipling of that child to be self-governing, everything kind of comes back to marriage. It's the cell of the society, the cell of the civilization.
Speaker 1:So, and this is all God's design, but I just want people to have a vision for it, right, because you're right, luke, so many of the civilization, and this is all God's design, but I just want people to have a vision for it, right, because you're right, luke, so many of the times we just think about it as you and me. It's not just you and your wife. It starts there, but it's way bigger. Do you see that right? I've come to think about my marriage with Kim. You know in a generational way and that's helped a ton that what we do in our marriage is going to affect you, luke, your kids and potentially great you know grandkids and whatnot. Just today you announced that you became a great grandfather. Congratulations, daryl. But think about the ripples that you're in Marilyn's marriage are going to have in the lives of those kids. That's the way God designed it to be.
Speaker 3:And it is replicating self-governing people who create families. And what are those families for? For the building of culture, for taking what God has made and doing something with it. Taking what God has made and doing something with it. And you think today of all the wonderful things that exist today, that did not exist in the Garden of Eden. Where did they come from? Children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and who knows? You know what my great-grandchildren are going to do to enhance the world, help the world flourish. This is the long-term generational thing.
Speaker 1:That's the vision. Yeah, you want to have a vision for what they're going to do, and what can I do to help strengthen them to do the right thing?
Speaker 3:to prepare them for that.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, maybe you could take a few minutes, scott, now and share the counterfeit, just so people can. I hope people are hearing how wonderful and beautiful the biblical concept of marriage is, but what's the counterfeit, scott?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Darrell, thanks. I mean, we live at a time where marriage, family, sexuality, all of these things are just under a head-on assault. They've been broken down in our culture.
Speaker 2:Deliberately yes.
Speaker 1:It's clearly, because this is such a basic, god-ordained and such a beautiful, powerful institution, of course Satan's going to attack it, and that's exactly what he's done. And as we've turned our back on God, it's all fallen apart. So here's the redefinition of marriage, the way that it's actually written into the dictionaries today Marriage is a legally recognized relationship established by a civil or religious ceremony between people who intend to live together as sexual or domestic partners, and so let me just pause there and just kind of unpack that a little bit. Marriage is—the beautiful mosaic that I spoke about in the true definition of marriage has been completely stripped asunder, and marriage has been reduced to little more than just a temporary legal arrangement that has to do with romance and sex. It has to do with the needs of adults. It has nothing to do, by the way, with children. They're completely stripped out. What's stripped out of this horrible redefinition? Well, first of all, god's gone. There's no mention of Him. So marriage is, whatever we want it to be fallen human beings.
Speaker 3:Well, that's why the definition has changed, because God is gone.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So God, the definer, the creator of marriage, the supporting pillar of it, isn't even mentioned. And then when he's stripped away, when God is stripped away, it all falls apart. And that's exactly what we're seeing. We're seeing it fall apart. We're seeing divorce rates skyrocketing. We're seeing just marriage just collapsing Again.
Speaker 1:The other thing that's missing, god's missing children are missing. They're not even mentioned in the redefinition of marriage. Biblically, children are fundamental to marriage and again, it's not to say that every married couple can have natural children, but that's the direction that God created it to move as a reproductive relationship. But they're not even mentioned, much less their nurture or their education. We're seeing the fruit of this in our society. One of the greatest tragedies that we see in the West today is just this fatherless generation, these kids who don't know they don't know their parents, and there's probably nothing that causes greater brokenness in a society than that Widely available birth control, legal abortion.
Speaker 1:I was just struck too by the. You know, the Democratic Convention is happening today here in the United States and it's in Chicago, and Planned Parenthood pulls up these buses in front of the convention center and says to everyone going to the convention we'll give you free abortions and free vasectomies. Yeah, that's where we're at today. So you know it's a culture of death that we've created here. So children are an inconvenience. They need to be done away with in this redefinition of marriage. It's not about children, it's about the interest of adults. I could go on the Microsoft definition. This redefinition says it's a legally recognized relationship, but it has nothing to say about it being a permanent, exclusive, lifelong commitment. This whole idea of covenant is completely stripped out.
Speaker 3:It's not just a culture of death for individuals. It's a culture of death for civilizations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it's the basic building block. Again, once you, once you wreck that. But once that cell dies, the whole body dies.
Speaker 3:So and if you look at the world today and say, oh, what is going on here? Why are so many things breaking down? They're breaking down first because we've turned our back on God, but then they're breaking down because we have turned our back on marriage and the formation of families, the raising of children.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely children.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely, I was looking up a couple of stats, dad, about how I mean this whole book is just as words change.
Speaker 2:Words are the basic. You know. Words define the cultures that you live in. So as you change the words and their definitions, then you're going to change the culture and that's going to work out in statistics that we can track over time as these definitions change, which is fascinating to do. So, like we said, this definition of marriage ever since the 1828 definition has been slowly shifting, at least in our country, in the US, and with that people's perception of marriage has changed and you know, like you were just saying, the understanding that marriage is the place for where children are supposed to be raised within a marriage is changed. They actually did a survey on that and they asked people back in let's see 2006, and they said yes or no. Is it very important for couples to have children or sorry? Is it very important for children to be raised within a marriage? Yes or no? And in 2006, 50% of people agreed yes, it's important for children to be raised within a marriage, yes or no? And in 2006, 50% of people agreed.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's important for children to be raised, very important for children to be raised in a marriage, which I thought that was pretty low even back in 2006, only 50%. They did the exact same survey in 2020, 14 years later, and they asked is it very important for children to be raised within a marriage? And only 29% of the USS people in this population said yes, it's very important. So, just in real time, as we took the definition, as we took children, out of the definition of marriage less and less people are recognizing that children are better off when they're raised within a marriage.
Speaker 2:That's a perfect example of how these definitions change people's perceptions of reality. Another, another statistic is, um, as people have you know, this lie has come into marriage that, um, children are not a portion, a piece that's supposed to be saved for marriage. Um, now, people, a lot of people, have children outside of marriage and we know, um, like you guys were just talking about abortion uh, nine out of 10 abortions happen when there is not a husband in the picture.
Speaker 1:Nine out of 10, nine out of 10. So if you, want less.
Speaker 2:You know, to protect, protect babies against abortion. We need to, we need to reform marriage.
Speaker 1:Now we've taken children, the most weak and vulnerable and priceless group of people, and we've completely set them aside and said you don't count, you don't matter, it's all about what I want. It's completely self-absorbed, self-focused, and children are paying the greatest price as a result. They're not even being born, they're being killed in the womb.
Speaker 3:We're having fatherless children and husbandless women. Who takes over that role? The state takes over that role. The state takes over that role. The state becomes the father and the husband. And again we see the results of this.
Speaker 1:And, by the way, that was Marx's vision Marx, karl Marx, one of the founders of communism. Marx, one of the founders of communism was not only was he an atheist, he was actually kind of a demon worshiper. Yeah, he wanted marriages to break down. He didn't want that cell to exist because it competed against the state. He wanted everything to come back to the state. The state became God, essentially, in this system. So yeah, we're seeing that today, for sure, you know. So yeah, this redefinition strips marriage of all that you know, makes it what it is. It strips away God. It strips away sex, procreation, monogamy, permanence, exclusivity All of that is stripped away. And you know, in the last few years then the next pillar fell, which was just the male-female aspect as well. Right, that's stripped away as well. So that when you look at the definition today in the dictionary, it says two people and not a man and a woman.
Speaker 1:Just again, no country in the world at any time in history had ever defined marriage as a same-sex institution prior to 2001. That's how quickly this stuff is changing. No country in the world in history had ever defined marriage as anything other than a relationship between a man and a woman. And now countries all over the world at least 35, it's probably growing, including the United States say that being male or female doesn't even matter in marriage, that it's not essential. And yeah, I'm afraid that we haven't hit the bottom yet.
Speaker 1:So marriage, you know, bottom line is we're defining marriage out of existence and because it's the most basic relationship, this most basic cell, we're seeing our societies destroyed and collapsed and you're literally seeing that You're seeing sharp declines in the numbers of people getting married, fertility rates, children. You know all of that is collapsing right now. Again, it's quite demonic. So we could go on and on and talk about all the negative consequences, but one quote I have in the book from the great GK Chesterton. He says this triangle of truisms of a father, mother and child cannot be destroyed. It can only destroy those civilizations who disregard it. I thought that was just so powerfully said.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so as we're wrapping up here, let's talk about applications here for the Christians who are listening to this episode. How do we reclaim this biblical, true definition of marriage?
Speaker 1:Well, Darrell, as you have so frequently said, if the Church isn't discipling the nation, the nation's discipling the Church. And that's exactly what's been happening. The nation, the understanding of marriage and the culture has been shaping the way we think about it in the Church. That needs to change. So the church, the people of God, have got to recover the true definition of marriage. That's super basic. We've got to recover all of the beauty of this powerful mosaic and then we've got to have some vision to be obedient to that and we've got to be deeply countercultural. Right now, there's probably nothing that you can do in your life that will have a greater impact on transforming your nation or the world than in this one area. So I just want to give some people some vision. We think, oh, I've got to go out and be a missionary and plant all sorts of churches. Hey, listen, if God calls you to that, do it. But there's probably nothing that you'll do that has more importance in shaping the world than in this one area right now. So go ahead, darrell.
Speaker 3:I would add that we need to be people of the book again as Christians. The book has become simply a devotional book, a spiritual book. No, it is God's owner's manual. It's about all of life. It tells us who God is and, because of who God is, why he has made us the way we have. And we really need to go back to the biblical story, because if we're not, if we're not teaching the biblical story from the pulpit, if we're not people of the book and learning the biblical story, we will have a story in our mind and that will be a story shaped by the culture.
Speaker 1:So we need to confess our sin as it were and return to be people of the book, and I think churches, pastors, need to disciple their people in this much better than they've been doing. What is marriage? Again, so much of what is taught is you know, it's good, but it's about conflict resolution and love languages and hey, listen, that's kind of fluff. We need the basics, okay, the basics Passing dribbling. What is marriage? What does it mean to be a husband? What does it mean to be a wife? What's the purpose of marriage in God's created order? Like, we need basic discipleship on that, and then we need some basic obedience in this area. This is our basic calling.
Speaker 2:So, luke, any thoughts from you on that I'd go for it, Mr.
Speaker 3:Miller. Perhaps pastors who are listening to this could make a commitment to dedicate four Sundays a year to speak about marriage as a regular part of their sermon cycle, because we're losing too much and the church is losing too much at this point.
Speaker 1:The church needs to be the thin line against the onslaught from the culture on this. This turnaround, this change needs to start in the church, with us, and let's repent and return to this true definition and then let's live it out. This is basic life. This is just what you do your own marriage, and I mean it's convicting for me. I mean I'm not a perfect husband. I'm convicted by it, but I want to do what God wants in this area.
Speaker 3:Thank you for writing this book, scott Allen, and may God bless you.
Speaker 1:Thanks for all that you've done to teach me Darrow in this including helping Kim and I to meet and get married in the first place. Appreciate that, Darrow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I appreciate that I did have a role in that you did.
Speaker 1:Luke, how about you as our newly married or relatively newly married person on this podcast? What are your takeaways here in terms of application?
Speaker 2:Oh man, I've really enjoyed this. This is fun to listen to you guys today. I'm just in a season of a lot of learning, and a lot of my learning these days is redefining the wrong learning that I've already absorbed, even though I feel very privileged in this area, dad, because you've trained me well in biblical understanding of marriage, a lot better than, I think, other people just off of where God's placed me.
Speaker 1:Thanks, luke. I just want to underscore what you're saying there, because I think you've been raised by a Christian couple, mom and I, who had some intentionality behind it. But even for you you've absorbed wrong thinking and it's just. I want to underscore to our listeners just the power of culture, okay, you know, it's powerful and it's shaped you, probably way more than you even realize.
Speaker 1:And so you know, just be aware of that. You know, be cautious about that. You know, because it's yeah, we don't, I don't think we fully realize how much we're, we're being shaped by the, by the culture around us, especially on topics like marriage and family.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, I totally agree with that. Yeah, in a lot of ways, um, I had that childhood that a lot of people wish they had. Um, and you know, had great teaching, biblical teaching, in a lot of these areas um being raised by you guys. You know, mr Miller, you're like my uh third grandpa, so you've always had a, you know, given me a lot of awesome wisdom throughout my life. Uh, and yet, yeah, I still absorb a lot of lies from culture and from friends and from you know people, especially in high school and college, that I think are you know, you know people I let have more of an influence over me than I probably should. Just off of you know, um, the way high schoolers and college students look up to people. Um, so it's always good to, yeah, question everything that's a biblical principle and push back, and you know, uh, try to just understand these core biblical principles, cause they do lead to a better life.
Speaker 2:Um, I think it's funny with this area of marriage. Um, they've done a lot of these happiness surveys recently on you know sociologists and social psychologists on figuring out who are the happiest people in the world, and one of the predictors, uh, every time for a happier person is if that person on the quiz or survey checks, I am happily married. So happily married equals happier people, which I mean. Just that statement alone is a little bit countercultural these days because a lot of people coming out of the sexual revolution think happiness is all about just you know your own thing and doing whatever makes you happy and that license type of freedom which is very wrong and marriage pushes against that Actually Noah Webster in his 1828,.
Speaker 1:I always forget here his definition of marriage, which is a biblical one. He actually ends with that point. He says God created marriage, amongst all these other things that he mentions, for the purpose of what he calls domestic felicity. Domestic felicity, felicity, is just a fancy word for happiness.
Speaker 2:So God created it for our happiness. Pretty cool, oh yeah yeah, and it's so true and it's really hard to wrap your head around that when you're not married. So, if you're not married, I would suggest getting married, because it's amazing, head around that when you're not married. So if you're not married, uh, I would suggest getting married, cause it's amazing and, uh, if God's calling you towards that, it's, it is, uh, it's such a such a beautiful thing. Um, yeah, I mean my takeaways.
Speaker 2:I would say probably my main takeaway today was just, um, uh, when we were talking about the purpose of marriage to serve this world and, uh, having that view of marriage and not just this current world that we live in in 2024, but have a ripple effect that could affect 21, 44, 100 years from now, and what could that look like, and it's really exciting to think about. It also feels like a lot of weight to wrap your head around, the impact that you could have, for good or ill. But that's why God's the third strand of the cord, of three strands, and, uh, he's the one holding the marriages together. Um, so, yeah, really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you for your time, dad, mr Miller, as always, for talking about this. Uh, we are going through this mini series on the 10 words. Uh, that today was marriage, next week is going to be freedom. I'm really excited for that. We'll be talking about the biblical definition of freedom, another word that's been radically redefined, and, yeah, so, if you are listening, I would encourage you if you enjoy this episode, please share it with a friend, as this book is coming out very soon. We're just trying to do our best to share the word and let people know about this upcoming project.
Speaker 2:The book again is called Ten Words to Heal Our Broken World, restoring the True Meanings of Our Most Important Words, and those words are truth, human sex, marriage, freedom, authority, justice, faith, beauty and love. The book is coming out in a matter of weeks. What I am working on currently, right now, as far as the book launch goes, and my personal portion of this project, is setting up the landing page that we'll have ready for you guys here very soon. On that page you can find all things 10 Words book, including how you can join the launch team for the book, including the book trailer, the foreword and all the endorsements. We'll probably upload the introduction to the book on that page just to share that with you guys so that you can learn a little bit more about the book and read into it. And then the book also, of course, this podcast series we'll throw on that page. And then, lastly and very importantly, we're going to have the awesome video series that goes through each one of these 10 words. That is accompanied by a study guide. So once that page is out, I will make sure to let you guys know that so you can go check it out.
Speaker 2:The book again is coming out very soon, so help us spread the word. Dad really excited for the book, can't wait for it to come out. I can't wait to read it. I feel like I've read it all in just little snippets and all over the place, but just cover to cover. Read it through, Looking forward to that. So yeah, thanks again everyone for listening to another episode of Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance.
