01 God’s Design for Marriage

Speaker 2: Moving on to our speakers. David and Krisan Marotta met as undergraduates at Stanford University when they led a small group of Bible studies together for their church. They got married immediately after graduation and then completed a three-year master's in biblical exegesis. Where did y'all do that? Speaker: McKenzie Study Center in Oregon. Speaker 2: Yeah, McKinsey Study Center in Oregon. They moved to Charlottesville in 1990 to be closer to their extended family. They're active members of Trinity Presbyterian Church, where Dave is an elder, and Krisan is a volunteer director of women's ministries. They're both past board members of the Center for Christian Studies, and it's their joy to teach the Bible whenever possible, which is what they're going to be doing today. So basing your seatbelt for it's going to be awesome. They've been married for almost 29 years. They have two grown children, and they started separate but compatible businesses, which they run from a single home office, so they get to spend the better part of every day working side by side. So please join me in welcoming Dave and Kassan Morat. Speaker 1: Let me just start by telling you the outline of where we're headed today. It's on the front of your handout. We're going to start by looking at God's design for marriage, and then we're going to look at the relationship landscape because our goal is to take the biblical wisdom God's design for the world and apply it into today's culture and today's relationship landscape. And so to do that, we're going to start at both ends, one on the Bible and then one on what the relationship landscape looks like. Then there's going to be a break, and then in the afternoon, we're going to talk about God's design for sexuality and then coming to the decision of marriage. So our goal in all of this is to give you a vision for what God's design is, because if you understand that, then everything else sort of falls in place. Let me just open us in prayer. Lord, thank you so much that you haven't left us without your wisdom, that you give us not only a general revelation, but you give us specific revelation. We pray that you might open our hearts and minds to be hearing what your message is. In Jesus' name. Amen. Speaker: Well, I'm going to get us started. Probably when most of you were little, you either read the story of Winnie the Pooh or your or your parents read it to you as a bedtime story. And you may not remember, but it chapter one begins like this. Here's Edward Baer coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs. But sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think about it. And then he feels that perhaps there isn't. So for a lot of us, I think love, sex, and marriage is like that. We've got a little bit of the worldly view, a little bit of the Hollywood view, a little bit of the biblical view, maybe things your parents taught you or friends told you, and you have this mix-and-match approach, and it's like bumping your head down the stairs. You're not sure if it's quite working. There really ought to be a better way, but you can't quite figure it out. Donna Fritis teaches at Boston University, and a couple years ago she surveyed about 3,000 college students and asked all kinds of questions about love, sex, and marriage. But the most striking thing to me in her findings was that the vast majority of respondents said they were upset by their own behavior. So whatever behavior they thought was right and chose to do, they were upset by it. In fact, uh it didn't matter whether they were at a Catholic or a secular university, public or private, the vast majority reported being profoundly upset. So in effect, they're saying we're bumping our heads on the stairs, and there really must be a better way, and that's our goal today, to show you there is a better way and what it is. So we're gonna start at the beginning, Genesis, where it all begins, and you have in your handout, if you don't have a Bible with you, it's on page two of your handout, we're gonna start with the biblical view of Mary. Hopefully, this is a familiar passage to you. So Genesis 2, I'm reading verses 18 through 25. Then the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him. Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the livestock and to all the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on the man, and while he slept he took one of his ribs and closed up its flesh its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from man he made into woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother, and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. So the question we're going to ask from this is what can we learn about marriage from the way God created it? The first thing I want you to notice is that it before the fall, before Eve is even created, God says it's not good that the man should be alone. So notice God, notice the need before Adam, and he wants Adam to come to that conclusion. And I think that's what all the naming of the animals is about. He's bringing uh all the animals to Adam, and Adam and naming them can't help but notice that everyone else comes in these two by two pairs except him, and he realizes he's incomplete. Now notice this is pre-fall. There's no sin, there's no corruption, there's nothing to mar his relationship with God. In fact, he has a relationship with God that most of us would, you know, dream about because God walks with him in the garden, they speak face to face, there's no sin, there's no need for grace at this point. So even in that state, it's not good for him to be alone. So God says it's not good. He created us with a need for intimacy, and he creates marriage as the solution to that need. So before the fall, from the beginning, as a result of this need that we have for intimacy, he creates Eve's sexual difference and sexuality. Speaker 1: And notice in this that sexuality was created for marriage, not marriage for sexuality. So God notices that it's not good for a man to be alone, and so he creates Eve's sexual difference and everything. This is different, for example, than what y'all learn in a lot of anthropology classes who will say that sexuality was this primeval force of evolution, and mankind created marriage in order to sort of tame this passion and force in life. So the real question is is marriage a divine institution instituted by God and sexuality was created for it, or is sexuality this thing in nature and mankind has created a human institution called marriage in order to serve it? One is the biblical view and one is the secular view. It really shouldn't surprise us that if you start with the assumption that marriage is just one of possible solutions among a great sea of relativity, that many marriages will shipwreck under that model. But if you start with the model that God has provided a safe harbor for our sexuality, then his word or his lighthouse will guide us into that safe harbor. So it's important whether you understand sexuality was created for marriage or marriage was created for sexuality. Speaker: So we have this God-given need for intimacy. It's not good that we shall be alone. The solution is marriage, so now we have to ask what is marriage? And this comes from Genesis 2.24. For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, or shall cleave or hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. So the for this cause, or in this translation, it's therefore, it's because of all of this, because of the creation of of Eve, the need for it to solve this problem of intimacy and not being alone, God creates marriage. Marriage then is three commitments. What we're going to call leaving, cleaving, and becoming one flesh, or leaving, hold fast, and becoming one flesh. And we're just going to go through them in order. So the first commitment of marriage is what we call the commitment of specialness or leaving. It's the commitment is I promise to make my spouse the most special thing in all creation. So the idea here is that you move out of your parents' house and you start this new family. And what you have to understand is for an ancient Jewish population, your highest priority was your parents. If you ask them what was your the one commitment you had that you couldn't forsake, at the time it was considered your parents. And now the Bible's saying you have something higher than that. You leave your father and mother. Now that commitment is no longer your highest commitment, it is your spouse. And the Hebrew word is very strong. It has the idea of abandon or forsake. So I'm promising to make my spouse the most special thing in all creation. Notice I said in all creation, God is still your highest commitment. After God, it's your marriage. So it's more important than career, it's more important than any kids the result. It should be higher than go your goals, your prestige, whatever is your highest priority as a single person, now you have a new one. So it's hard work making someone special, and but it's a it is the ideal that we strive for. And if we really had that attitude, we could solve a lot of problems. Chores, for instance, would never be an issue. Because we would be quick to serve, quick to to uh honor our spouse in that way. So the first commitment is to make your spouse the most special thing in all creation. The second one is permanence or cleaving, and that is I promise to make these commitments till death to us part. And if you think about it, that's the only way these commitments could work. Because you can't say, you know, well, I promise to make you the most special thing today, but tomorrow's not looking so good. You know, this is your day, enjoy it, because the rest of the week you're out. You know, it's it just it doesn't work that way. The only way that you can possibly make those kind of commitments is if you know there's a security that you're gonna make them forever. Speaker 1: And then the third commitment is the one flesh uh relationship, if you will. And because of this verse in Genesis, one flesh is quite often thought of as just having sex. It's like they'll leave his father and mother, cleave to his wife, and they'll have sex, meaning they'll become one flesh. But if you look at, for example, the way that one flesh or or the word flesh is used in the Old Testament, it doesn't mean sex. So, for example, in Genesis 6, 17, behold, I'm bringing the flood of water upon the earth to destroy all flesh. God's not trying to destroy all sex, he's trying to destroy all life. So the one flesh is one life relationship. So it's this idea that instead of I, me, and mine, it's we, us, and ours. And so you no longer think of yourself as an individual. You're giving up some of your individual, individual reality, and you're trying to merge yourself with the other person's life and share one life experience, one purpose, one goals, and merging those two together. So if you think about it, not all marriages have this as their commitment. Some marriages, it's just the intersection of your interests, and you share those, that little intersection in common. Other marriages, you actually try to take each other's interests and bring that into a whole. So the question is, are you the union of the two people, or are you just the intersection of the two people? And the biblical view is the commitment is you're intended to be the union of your lives. So you put your lives together and you become almost extensions of each other. Now, it doesn't mean you have to do everything together any more than when you're on one team, you're doing everything together. Sometimes there are different roles that you might play on the team, a goalie or a forward, but you're still you're considering yourself one team, and there's that one shared experience. And so you're expanding your life into the other person's life. Speaker: Let me just add a little disclaimer. We've given you marriage and the ideal. And if you think about making my spouse the most special thing in all creation forever and striving to share every aspect of his life and being willing to share every aspect of mine, that's a pretty high calling. And you're probably going, there is no way I could ever do that. And if you're thinking that, you're right. Because left to yourself, you can't. But by the grace of God, you can. And he we're gonna talk a more about this later, but without being first committed to God and accepting his grace and his help and his love, there's no way you can keep these commitments on your own. It's like every other area of life, whether it's anger or whatever you struggle with, without God's help, you're not gonna get there on your own. Speaker 1: So, just to review, the the commitment uh of marriage, I promise to make my spouse the most special thing in all of creation, or you could revise it to say, I promise to strive to make my spouse the more special thing in all of creation. That's something you can actually come back to and continue to do. So the fact that we fail in all of these doesn't really negate what the promise is, but our promise is to continually strive toward this. I promise to keep these commitments till death do us part, and I promise to share every aspect of my life with my spouse and to try to share in every aspect of their lives. Now, what's interesting is that if you remember that sexuality was created for the marital commitment, notice how monogamous sex corresponds to the commitment of marriage. So, for example, if you take a look at just sexual love, that one aspect of sexual love, and by sexual love I mean a monogamous sexual relationship, and that is I share with my lover sexual knowledge that I share with no one else. That treats them in a way that's special. I'm treating them. As a Christian brother in Christ, there may be many aspects of my life that I'm called on to share with friends in counseling situations or something like that. And so if I'm talking with one of you, there may be very intimate details that I share about my life with you. But there's one thing I only share with my wife, and that is my sexuality, my sexual responses, knowledge of my body. And so monogamous sexuality treats her in a special way that really there's nothing else in my life that I can't envision a situation that I might be called by God to share with someone else, except sexuality and romance with my wife. So monogamous sexuality treats the other person in a way that's more special than anything else. And then the second commitment um the act of sexuality perform uh forms a permanent bond between lovers. So you've probably seen relationships where they get involved sexually and they have some friendship, and after all the friendship and goodness is gone from their relationship, they're still together because of the sexuality. In other words, if sexuality was intended to glue two people together in a way that was supposed to help in the marital commitment. And so sexuality is part of the glue, and even after the rest of the relationship is dead, sexuality helps hold a relationship together. So again, I mean, I know a number of people who, you know, their there's their story of their life is I fooled around and fell in love, and then we got married, and then I found out I was married to this jerk. So I don't know how I don't know how that happened. But it's it happened because sexuality was intended to pull two people together and to glue them together as tight as possible. And then the third thing is that sexuality is an intimate knowing and being known between lovers. So if you're trying to share one life experience, there's nothing that's deeper and more passionate than the sexual relationship. You feel you feel like you're completely open, you completely are knowing them, that it's it's a it's a very, very intimate open and knowing and being known. So sexuality fits the marital commitment well. It helps it. And therefore, it God's creation of sexuality is a good thing to help the marital commitment and to help express it, to help fulfill it, to help bring it about. The same thing is true about romantic love. If you think about, if you think about the marital commitment, the marital commitment is this unilateral, one-sided commitment. I promise to make you the special thing in all of creation, even when you're acting like a jerk. Now, who would ever, what lawyer would ever recommend you sign that contract? No one. No lawyer in their right mind would recommend you sign a unilateral contract that says you're gonna promise to make the other person the most special thing in creation, no matter how jerky they are. It just doesn't make sense. Well, why? Why would you do that? Well, God gives you a vision for what that's like. And so one part of romance, one part of the incredible feelings of romance is that they give you a vision for why you'd want to do that. So, for example, with romantic love, romantic love, when you're romantically in love, I feel like making the beloved the most special thing in all of creation. You see people doing things they would never do otherwise when they're romantically in love. And we had a slideshow running before the thing that had all these lyrics for famous love songs. And I think the poets get this right. You're trying to make the person the most beloved, and you'd want to do that. You'd you'd die to do that, you'd do anything for the beloved. And similarly, you feel like the feeling will last forever. Now, romance gives you a vision for that. It doesn't always happen. That feeling doesn't always happen, but it feels like that feeling would last forever. And so, again, that's a vision for what the marital commitment is all about. And then finally, I feel like sharing every aspect of my life with the beloved. So I feel like opening up, knowing everything that they know, being involved in everything they're involved in, and so that relationship back and forth. So romance and sexuality are expressions of visions of and God-given um uh uh experiences of why what the marital commitment is and why it's so important. Speaker: We've talked about the definition of marriage, and we're gonna talk briefly about roles in marriage. And I have to warn you, I'm not gonna answer all your questions on this, because this could be a whole three-hour seminar in itself. There's so much confusion about what is head, what is help, or what does the Bible really teach. But we felt like it was important to at least give you the basics of the definition. So, you know, if you if you want more on that, maybe on the back of your little response card you could write, yeah, we'd like another seminar on that. But so just putting in a little plug. But so I'm gonna get you started, but we're not gonna talk about this in great detail. So the question is, where do we get the idea of head and helper? You've probably heard that this is part of a biblical marriage. Where is it, what does it come where does it come from and what is it? It comes primarily from Genesis 2.18. Then the Lord God said, It's not good for man to be alone. I will make him a helper suitable for him. That could also be translated corresponding or fit of like kind is the idea. And it's not just from Genesis. New Testament authors pick this up. So for Paul in Ephesians 5, for instance, when he talks about heading helper, he comes back to Genesis and he quotes this verse. So the idea is that God created Adam, he gave him responsibilities, he put him in the garden to cultivate it and keep it, and then he created Eve to help him meet those responsibilities. So she was not ultimately responsible, but she was there to help him meet the responsibilities. So headship is the idea that God assigned responsibility for the marriage and the resulting family to the husband. As the scriptures develop, they come back to this verse in Genesis and they say, Well, the paradigm of Adam and Eve was for all husbands and wives. And then in Ephesians 5 are mentioned in 1 Timothy, when New Testament authors talk about it, they come back to Genesis. And their argument is not, well, Adam was created first, their argument is Adam was given responsibility, and then Eve was to help him meet that. So she's his partner in the responsibility, but not accountable in the same way. And you can see this in the fall. Even though Eve was the first one to eat, nowhere is she blamed for the fall. In fact, Paul in Romans 5 makes a specific argument that Adam is the one who is responsible for the fall. Why? Because he was given the responsibility first. Now they have different accountability, but there's a because there's a different responsibility. Now, ideally, headship isn't a factor in daily life. It's not something, in fact, we've been married almost 29 years. I can't think of a time we've ever not been able to reach agreement. But the idea is as soon you talk it out, assume you work all the way through it, you have an important decision to make, you get to the end and you just can't agree. What do you do? You have the choice of splitting or someone has the deciding vote. And the God has said, because the man's going to be held accountable for it, he has the the final vote. unknown: C. Speaker: S. Lewis wrote about it in Mere Christianity. I thought he had one of the best explanations. This is um from Mere Christianity. He said the need for head follows from the idea that marriage is permanent. Of course, as long as the husband and wife are agreed, no question of head need arise, and we may hope that this will be the normal state of affairs in a Christian marriage. But when there is real disagreement, what is to happen? Talk it over, of course, but I'm assuming they've done that and still failed to reach agreement. What do they do next? They cannot decide a majority vote, for in a council of two, there's no majority. Surely one or the other of two things can happen. Either they must separate and go their own ways, or else one or the other of them must have a casting vote. If marriage is permanent, one or the other party must, in the last resort, have the power of deciding family policy. You cannot have a permanent association without a constitution. Okay, so headship speaks to responsibility, and remember it operates under this umbrella of the three commitments we just talked about. So I promise to make you this most special thing of all creation. That means being head doesn't mean you're a tyrant. I promise to make this commitment forever and to share one life with you doesn't mean I can run rubshod over your feelings. You can see how under this umbrella it is not uh headship is cannot be used to justify any kind of abuse verbal, physical, emotional, neglect, thoughtlessness, selfishness, um none of that. So headship speaks to responsibility, not to ability or character trait. It's not the equivalent of being the decision maker, as you'll see as the Bible develops it, it bec it's the equivalent of being the servant leader, with Christ being the supreme example of being willing to lay down your life for someone as a servant leader. So, um remember it's not lone decision maker. God created marriage and eve precisely so man wouldn't have to be alone. So why would you then go out and try to make all these decisions on your own? It's also not the uh the authority to impose your will, it's the responsibility to do what is best. So when all is said and done, God's you know, if Dave and I are fighting and we get to a point where we just can't agree and the marriage breaks up, God will come to me and say, Why were you being so stubborn? And I, you know, would probably say, Well, it was all his fault. And if he c but he could come to Dave and say, Why didn't you do what was necessary to make it work out? And he'd say, Well, my wife, she was just really stubborn, which was probably totally true. But God could say, But I gave you the responsibility. You had a greater responsibility to make it work. Speaker 1: That's part of what headship is. A lot of people are misunderstanding what headship is because they think of headship as all these other models that we've had in history about, you know, uh male-dominated societies and and all that kind of stuff. Headship is the responsibility to do what's right. And therefore, as Krisan said, you're responsible for the relationship. So when you're married, you're responsible for doing what is best for the family, which is never, I can tell you, what you want to do. That's just not that's and then when you have kids, it's responsible for doing what's best for the rest of the family. And so when you when you line up all of the wants, assuming they're wants, your wants go at the end. That's what being a husband head means. Because your wants have to be subjugated for what's in the best interest of the family. It's only in those rare cases where there's a moral decision to be made, and the moral decision you and your wife can't agree on it, and for example, I lose my job and I have to move, and I've got two job offers, one's in Florida and one's in Maine, and I've got to take one of those two jobs, and my wife thinks Florida is better, and I think Maine is better, or vice versa, it doesn't really matter. We have to make a decision. I don't have a job, we've got to move one of the two places, someone has to make that decision. And what it allows is even if Krisan thinks the moral issue is moving to Florida, she can submit to me, and she is not held accountable by God for making the wrong decision. So it you have to when two people think there's a moral decision and they think there's two different directions, um, you would think that morality would dictate that you both have to follow your conscience and split up. But God says there's something more important than the marriage, or there's something more important than doing the right thing, and that is the marriage. So, so and if the marriage is going to be the highest thing in all of creation, then going these two places is not the highest thing, and one party is allowed to not do what they think God is calling them to do, because God is calling them to be with the other person more than they're calling them to be in a specific state. And so, if you think about that, it's the freedom for one party to follow their conscience and the freedom for the other party to not follow their conscience, but to follow the marriage and still think they're doing what God wants them to do. So God's provided this ability for two people to stay together because there will come situations, I think, when you're when you're not sure and a decision needs to be made. Now, obviously, as Krassana said, in a good marriage, you talk everything out. And I have learned as a wise head, and this is going on tape, that my wife is right 90% of the time. Speaker: Ooh, and I have witnesses now. Like a hundred witnesses. Speaker 1: It's important for a good head to listen to his his helper. God gave you a helper for a reason. He didn't want you to make all the decisions by yourself and two people making decisions together. Sometimes we come at decisions differently. I'm worried about this and she's worried about that, which means that's what we should be doing. And otherwise, I'd do anything in the top row and she'd do anything in the in the in the in the column. But now we've focused in on this is the one that will preserve both of the things we're concerned about. And so having two different sets of concerns may give you a much better decision. Speaker: You can see how helper follows from the idea of head. And the best definition I can come up with is being a helper is recognizing who's responsible and granting him the freedom to follow his conscience. The best example I can give of this is this is uh like when my son was in third grade, he needed help with his math, and at that point I could handle third grade math. And I clearly had better math skills than he did. I'd been through this before, but he was responsible. And so I could help him in every way I could, but he had to decide is this the right answer or is this the wrong answer? And if we disagreed and he said, no, I'm gonna put down this answer, even though I knew for a fact it was the wrong one, I'd have to let him do it because it was his homework, he was responsible, he had to take the grade. So, in that relationship, you could say he was the head because he was held accountable for his homework in a way that I am not. So being a helper um is not a derogatory term. It's not saying you're inferior, you have less talent, you have less wisdom in any way, shape, or form. It's a question of who's responsible. And you've probably heard the most frequently uh that the term helper is used most frequently of God in Israel. So Israel has been given a responsibility and God is their helper to help them achieve it. And you can see in that example, certainly God is the more capable, right? If he wanted to get the job done right, he could certainly do it himself, but he gave Israel the responsibility. So another common myth, being a melt a helper does not mean you cannot have an opinion. Wait, let me say that positive. I would say it means you must have an opinion, because you're no help at all without one. So if we're trying to decide, say, I don't know, should we buy a house or not? And Dave comes to me and says, What do you think? We should we buy a house? And I go, I don't know, you're responsible, you decide. I am no help at all at that point. Speaker 1: And and that's the point at which I say, as head, I command you to have an opinion. Speaker: And God could come to me and say, if if we we then made the wrong decision, say, and I complain about it to God, he could come to me and say, Where were you? I gave you the responsibility to help him. Why didn't you have biblical knowledge, wisdom, insight, why didn't you research it, figure it out, give him the information he needed? Okay. Being a helper does not mean you're the housekeeper, the laundermat, the gardener, the chauffeur, and the cook. Okay? That we're talking about responsibility here. And if you hire all those things out, or you flip-flop them, or you mix and match who does what, you have not abdicated your roles. So the roles as God assigned them does not dictate how you spend your days. And I have this up because I would say a helper does not have to be in the cottage baking bread if her real talent is taming dragons. And a wise head would realize God's given me a helper who can tame dragons, let me get her out on the field. Sorry, I haven't helped you any in tours. The Bible doesn't dictate who does the laundry, who changes the oil, all that you can work. Speaker 1: If you read through, you know, Proverbs 31, which is a a good wife, she is the most industrious business woman I've ever seen in the Bible. So it's that that that's the model for what a good wife is. There's there isn't a lot of baking bread in there. It's a whole cottage industry. Speaker: Let me just summarize. I don't actually expect you to be able to read all these words, but what I want you to see is at least visually, if we go through the responsibilities of Heaven Helper, they are almost identical. So they both are committing to treat each other as the most special thing in all creation, to share one life experience, to commit to this forever, to know each other's strengths and encourage them to use them, to remove obstacles so that you can use them, uh recognize uh their callings and ask how to fulfill it. The only difference is in the bottom three, and that's where they um they diverge a little bit. So a head has a responsibility to recognize that a helper is vulnerable to abuse, and we're gonna talk about them that more in a minute. Um did I say that wrong? A head has a responsibility, and then a helper has a responsibility to, if you come to that conflict that you just can't work it out, to grant him the freedom to follow his conscience. And then there's an additional responsibility. I think the head has to recognize that he needs a helper. And sometimes that's hard for men to realize that they actually need someone else. Now, this raises the question, is this fair? How could God say we're equal, we're uh both created in the image of God, and then give us these different roles to play. Some of you know what this this TV show, I can tell. What I want to what I the distinction that we fail to make is between role and identity. Your identity is who you are in Christ, as a child of God, as a some a person made in his image. Your role is all the other things that you do, how you might express that identity. So a role is things like being a brother or a sister or a parent or an employee or a boss or a student or a teacher. All those things are roles that you will play at various times in your life, but who you are in Christ remains the same. So we are equal in everything that truly matters. We have the same need for grace, we have the same inheritance in the kingdom, we have the same forgiveness and mercy and all the things that are important. We are equal. The only difference is in our roles. Speaker 1: This is role and identity confused at so many levels. This is an actress who plays a part in a TV show who's dressing like a character, which is her avatar in a game. So the real person is the actress, and then you've got multiple levels beneath that of roles that she's playing at a moment. And so you kind of know we we play a lot of different hats. Um sometimes we're a boss, sometimes we're we're an employee, sometimes we're in charge of a project, sometimes we're not in charge of a project. If you're in charge of the project, your responsibility is to get it done. Everyone else is a helper because you've been given the responsibility to get it done. And so I think that in a marriage, being ahead in a marriage is just one role you might play. Being a helper in a marriage is just one role you might play. But but you're gonna play a lot of different roles, and some you'll be given the responsibility, and you need to be given the freedom to do what you think God's calling you to do, and some you're helping other people meet their responsibilities. And so that's the that's the back and forth. This helps explain then verses like 1 Peter. This is uh 1 Peter 3, 7. You husbands likewise live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker vessel. So I've I've spent some time looking at this. The term vessel in the in scripture usually has something to do with your role. So some are vessels for this and some are vessels for that, is the is the phrase Paul uses in uh in Romans. So, vessel, if you translate as role and weaker, you understand as being subject to abuse because you're not the decision maker. Husbands have to live with your wives, understanding that because of headship, you could you could not necessarily, you could run roughshod over your wife uh in making decisions that are not biblical decisions just because you're the head and that she would somehow have to submit to your tyranny to try to keep the marriage together, but you're not acting biblically. So Peter's advice is husbands, understand that and understand that you need to have agreement and involvement of your wife all the way through. It has nothing to do with my wife being weaker. I think she probably does more exercises than I do, and she's very strong, and so so you know, you know, in a fist fight, maybe she'd beat me up. That has nothing to do with that has nothing to do with weaker vessel. So weaker vessel is just the fact that because of headship, um, she is subject to abuse, and I need to make sure that I don't abuse her. So again, it just goes back to that kind of love and honor. Speaker: You can see the balance. Grant her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, I think, points to what we said earlier that in relationship to God, we are completely equal. She is a fellow heir, equal in relation to God, equal and created in his image. Speaker 1: So you have a role and you have an identity. Speaker: You have an identity. Speaker 1: So and the identities are equal, the role just happens to be something different.