#56 Biblical Insights On Marriage

Speaker 1: 0:00

And it's really one of my passions, because I believe you have strong marriages, you have strong families. Strong families, you have strong churches. Strong churches, you have strong society, which I think is why the devil works so hard to undermine marriages. I mean, you start destroying marriages and then you're going to destroy families, destroy churches, destroy society itself.

Speaker 2: 0:18

Welcome to the Words for Change podcast with your host, lionel Bailey. I'm super excited that you have taken time to watch and listen to this interview. Man, we got a special, special guest and a special topic we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about marriage, but before we do, I need you to grab your favorite cup of coffee and I need you to prepare yourself for what's about to happen and what is about to go down. Boy, do we have a meeting today? For those of you who are new to our podcast, who am I? My name is Lionel. I am a friend to many, a confident to a very few, and I have people through spiritual personal growth leading to social change. Nothing changed until you change, and that's what I'm all about. How can you become a part of my community and how can I become a part of your life in a way that is mutually beneficial, one you can subscribe, like and share? Visit us on Facebook Our Facebook page is called Words for Change podcast as well as on all your major podcast platforms. We are there. For those of you who are watching on YouTube, man, I'm excited that you took the time to stop by and listen and watch this podcast. Boy, do we have a show for you? So, before we get started, I need you to do me a favor. I need you to go right ahead and grab your favorite cup of coffee and get ready for an interview. On the other side, we're going to come back with our special guest, scott and Boy. We're going to talk about marriage. Get yourself ready, y'all. Well, here we are on the other side of the podcast. We're ready for an interview with our man, scott. Scott, how do you say your last name properly, brother?

Speaker 1: 1:59

La Pierre.

Speaker 2: 1:59

Oh man, I know, are you French brother.

Speaker 1: 2:05

Well, if you go back a couple generations, you'll be in France with my ancestors, I suppose.

Speaker 2: 2:11

Copy y'all, Copy y'all. Yeah, my last name is Bailey, but I'm not Scottish. But no man, I'm telling you. Hey, man, I'm super excited that you have decided to come by the podcast here. Man, We've been blowing and going. We had many, many different interviews and many important topics that we're talking about on our podcast and with our audience, and I'm glad that we were able to connect and make this happen. Well, we had some challenges in the beginning, though, didn't we?

Speaker 1: 2:44

A little bit of timing, I guess time zone.

Speaker 2: 2:46

Yeah, glad we got this working out. Where are you located?

Speaker 1: 2:50

I'm in Washington state.

Speaker 2: 2:51

Oh yeah, you did tell me that earlier. Okay, Now never mind, but yeah. So I am excited to have you though, man, and I'm looking forward to this topic, man. So who is Scott? Well, scott is a pastor and a minister, and he's been doing that for many, many years. He's also an Army veteran, and I'm excited about that, so we have that in common. I'm not an Army veteran, but I am in the military, so we have that in common. But Scott is also an author, writer, speaker and conference personnel who helps people with marriage and spiritual life and spiritual growth. And not only does he do that, he changes the world by helping people change through their religious experience, particularly Christ, right, because we, scott and both of us, are Christians, right. And so, hey, man, scott's going to bring a particular message today and we're going to have a conversation there. I think it's going to be beneficial. So, for our listeners, here's what I want you to do. I always want to encourage you to listen with open ears, be open to whatever the conversation leads. If you are stuck in a box on a particular subject or topic that we talk about, listen, be open, learn, grow. You can even send questions to myself and if you have anything for Scott, I'll forward it to him. His information of being a show notes. I'll show you guys that later, but you can always reach out. You can even go to chapstalkorg and you can leave a voice message there as well and I will respond to that voice message. Okay, so, scott, let's talk about marriage, man.

Speaker 1: 4:33

Let's do that.

Speaker 2: 4:35

So, before we do that, though, I want you to give people, give them a little detail about who you are right. Who is this guy, Scott, and why? What is it about him that adds value to the world today?

Speaker 1: 4:51

Good, yeah, that's a good question. I mean a lot of voices out there, you know why, listen to me talk about marriage versus someone else, and so so, yeah, I think you said pastor, author, speaker, and I've been doing this for about since 2007, which means I've been studying God's word for a living for about 20 to 40 hours a week, maybe some weeks more than that. And so God's the author of marriage and he created it. He knows what it should look like and what it takes for us to have healthy, joyful relationships. And so I would say, if you want to know, if you want a healthy, joyful marriage, read God's word, listen to what he says about it. And so I committed committed my life to studying the Bible. But the genesis for my book, your Marriage to God's Way was I started pastoring. I wasn't aware of how many hurting marriages there were out there, and you know people come to church and they're. They want to look pretty good, they want their family to look good, they want everyone to think that everything's right in their lives. And then, when you're kind of pastoring and you get to see behind the curtain, you see there's a lot of hurting issues out there, pretty much every family, every marriage, and so I generally preach verse by verse, expositionally through the scripture. But I asked the elders about taking a detour to preach on marriage and so it was going to be the marriage month and I ended up being the long running joke was the marriage year, because the sermons I just kept preaching on marriage. But I was kind of reading the audience, my congregation, and they seem to be enjoying it, and I was enjoying the studying and so I've put you know 20 to 30 hours of studying and every one of those marriage sermons and then put those sermons into my book. And then I did a lot of reading and marriage counseling. I do handful of marriage conferences throughout the year and so I've committed my life to marriage and studying it, learning it, preaching about it, counseling on it.

Speaker 2: 6:37

And so I just kind of ease into the conversation. So what would you say to people who say well, you know, Scott, society has changed the way people view marriage? I guess I'm in common. I'm a pre-marriage counselor, as you can imagine. I work with people in local churches as well as in the military. So I work a lot of active duty, military personnel and marriage and divorce. Marriage is number one. It happens a lot in military, as you can imagine, but also divorce is a big deal in the military. So I'm going to do a wild guesstimation, but about one in, I would say at least one in five or one in six military marriages ain't up in divorce. So to me, well, that says something. What does that say to you, Scott?

Speaker 1: 7:33

Yeah, it tells us that being away from your spouse, which I think there's two things that contribute to that high divorce rate within the military, which people can learn from whether they're in the military or not. First, I've been away from my wife at the most for like a week and I thought that was difficult. I mean, when you're taking husbands and wives away from each other for six to 12 months at a time, multiple times throughout their relationship, that's going to put incredible stress. And when I was a school teacher, I was teaching on a naval base and I would see spouses that were apart from each other for that length of time. And someone said something to me that was really interesting. She was a Christian and she talked about her husband being the spiritual leader of their home and she believed that and she believed God's word taught that and she was committed to him being the head of the relationship. But she asked me to consider how difficult it is when he goes overseas she has to be the head of the home while he's gone. And then he comes back and that new dynamic where, let's say, she's been in charge of the home and now he's in charge of the home and then by the time they get that down. Now he's got to go back again, and so that's one of the major factors. And one of the other major factors is there's a high level of stress or anxiety for people in the military, and there aren't many occupations that are more challenging, and so when you come into marriage and you're already kind of on the edge, you know it's like you don't feel like you have a whole lot left, and then your spouse is kind of maxed too. Well then that's going to add even more stress to the relationship, and so for us I don't know if you mentioned this, but we're expecting our 10th child at the end of in a few weeks, basically, and so having a bunch of kids makes and pastoring.

Speaker 2: 9:18

That's a lot of stress.

Speaker 1: 9:20

Yeah, yeah, we've been blessed. You know, we people are seem shocked when they're like, man, I can't believe you have, you know, 10 kids. I'm like, look, I can't believe I have 10 kids. So, yeah, we just got married and had the conviction to let God give us what he wanted to give us. You know, people say, did you want to have a lot of kids? And I say, well, I wanted to have what God wanted me to have. And he's got a man. Four could have been. You know, seems like it's going to be 10, maybe it'll be 11 or 12.

Speaker 2: 11:47

Now, did you grow up in a large family? No, I didn't you know, lionel.

Speaker 1: 11:51

Yeah, thanks for asking. No, I didn't grow up in a Christian home. It was just my brother and I, just two kids growing up. I came to Christ early, my 20s. The convictions I developed I developed from reading God's word or from being around like for home. We homeschool that. I was not homeschooled. My wife wasn't homeschooled. She came to Christ in her early 20s too. We grew up together, so we had that background, but neither of us were Christians at that time and so we just got married and there were these convictions I had, like I think I'm going to be a pastor, I want to let God give us whatever number of kids he wants to give us and when he wants to give them to us, and I want to homeschool, you know, and that weeds out about 90, 98% of the women you're going to talk to right there. And so Katie, katie had these same convictions, and so it's been good, because if you have, if you're on the same page with your convictions, then when things are super difficult you can at least be together. If you got one person who feels committed to homeschooling and one doesn't, well, as soon as things get hard with homeschooling or, you know, with parenting or whatever the situation, then you're not on the same page and it's going to be a lot easier for you to back away from that conviction.

Speaker 2: 12:57

Well, and you know, look, the truth is that there is a lot not okay. So in the world we live in today, scott, there, not everybody believes the way you believe about marriage. Not everybody believes the way I believe about marriage, in relationship and parenting for that matter, even though this conversation is not about parenting. But there are a lot of people out there who would say that, listen, I don't come from a very strong family background. Not only that, my understanding of marriage is it may be a little bit more fluent in that right. Maybe I'm married in a relationship, but we're not necessarily religious. What would you say to people who are not religious in marriage Because I think they're listening to this as well and they're trying to make a connection here, okay, so what would you say to people who don't have a religious perspective about marriage but still are open to more guidance about it?

Speaker 1: 13:59

Yeah, yeah, that's a great question, lionel, and I feel like you've kind of hinted at the same point a couple times. That, and perhaps is what you're saying. You know the Bible was written a long time ago. You know centuries or millennium. Can it still apply today? And I've heard this. I get messages like this frequently. How can you, how can you believe something that was written, you know, 2000, 3000 years ago, and then it? That's one question. Did God write, did God teach us or speak to us through His Word and that is going to change over time or did he write timeless truths to us? And I'm convinced you wrote timeless truths to us that don't change. And as I'm preaching through the word, I find how much the what Jesus said or what Paul wrote or what was written in the Old Testament applies to to today. But if we're talking about people who aren't religious, or I'd say, the first need for them is to recognize that God created them, he wants a relationship with them. He gave their His Son to be sacrificed so they can be reconciled to Him. So the first thing I'd say is hey, recognize, the Lord loves you. You're a sinner. He doesn't want to punish you for your sins. You need to be saved from those sins and that comes from faith in Jesus Christ. And if anyone's listening to this, they had any more questions about that, you know, shoot me a message in my website. I'll be in the in the channels there and I'd love the opportunity to share the gospel with you. But if we move past that, the reason that's so important is it relates to the horizontal versus the vertical line, and here's what I mean by that. People have these horizontal problems. They have problems in their relationships and their marriage and their parenting and their family, in their jobs, and they think they're horizontal problems, but they're really vertical problems because once the vertical our relationship with the Lord can be strengthened, then frequently these horizontal problems have them, have a way of working themselves out. So I'll give an example with marriage. A couple comes in to meet with me for counseling and, as you can, most people come in for counseling too late. They've already super upset with each other and so if they're coming in, they're sitting on opposite ends of the couch, arms crossed. You know, won't look at each other, and typically what they want is for me to be a ref who says, well, you're right and you're wrong, or you're right and you're wrong and they want me to condemn their spouse for them. So I'll have a husband, because the Bible commands husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the church, and it commands wives to submit to their husbands as the church is to submit to Christ. And so I'll have a husband who comes in and starts telling me how his wife disrespects him, and then I'll have the wife start telling me how his, her husband is unloving and she'll tell me how cruel her husband is and he'll tell me how disrespectful his wife is. And then I'll ask him this question. I'll say, hey, why don't you tell me what your devotional time looks like? Or why don't you tell me what your prayer lives look like? Or why don't you tell me what your involvement in the church or in God's word looks like? And they'll look kind of puzzled, like you know, were you not listening to us? I just did. You hear how I told you my husband talks to me? You know did. Were you listening when I told you what my wife, how she treats me and find other people? And I'll say, yes, I heard what you said. And I'm asking this because you're seeing symptoms. The problems in your marriage are not actually the problems. There are symptoms. The problem is in your relationship with Christ, because the moment you're committed to Christ. So so think about this, lionel. Let's say there's a husband and he says I don't feel like loving my wife, I don't want to love her, I'm not going to argue with her. I can't argue with him and say your wife deserves your love because she's a sinner, she's selfish, she doesn't deserve it. But if I say to him yeah, your wife doesn't deserve your love, but Christ does. He died for you, he sacrificed for you. So you're not doing this for your wife, you're doing it for Christ. Our wife says I don't want to respect my husband, I don't want to submit to him, I don't appreciate his leadership. You know he's a jerk or he's lazy, whatever. I can't argue her into respecting her husband. But I can say okay, who? Who can you respect? You don't want to submit to your husband, but who can you submit to? You don't like what your husband has done to you, but what about what Christ has done for you? So I frequently get, I frequently appeal to people to see that what they're doing, they're not primarily doing it for their spouse, they're primarily doing it for Christ because of what he's done for them. And this, this goes outside of marriage too. I mean, let's say someone's been wronged, let's say someone's been mistreated, and they're telling me how badly they've been mistreated and it's legitimate. But they were betrayed, they relied to and they don't want to forgive this person. Well, I can't say, oh, you should forgive them because they deserve it, because the person doesn't deserve to be forgiven. The person committed this sin. So I have to, you have to appeal to something else. You have to appeal to something higher than the person, and that has to be the relationship with the Lord. And that's why it's so important. If people came to me and they're not religious, I can give them the teaching, the instruction, I can point them to passages and God's word to read. But if they don't have something higher than themselves to appeal to, like their relationship with the Lord, I don't know where they're going to find that motivation to love their spouse the way that God commands.

Speaker 2: 18:48

Awesome man, good, good response man we're going to. That's definitely a good way to think about this, particularly if you are not religious at all and maybe you're Tita tottering right On really what marriage means to you and how is your personal life affecting your marriage. Like Scott said, there are problems, you are symptoms, but there's a big root issue at play. The Vatican does not allow divorced Catholics to receive the sacrament.

Speaker 1: 19:19

If the rules changed, we would see a huge increase in the number of people who are eligible to take communion and therefore we see a huge increase in the number of people going to church. Father Gilbert Martinez is pastor of a Catholic church in New York. He says divorce can end.

Speaker 2: 19:35

More than the marriage it can affect a couple's relationship with their church. Well, back to Scott. We're on the other side here and I want to say something that is important. So one of the issues that we see with marriage today is that people are not seeing marriage as a religious sacrament. Today, when I go to military and I talk to people, one of the things that happens in the military when it comes to marriages is that people would go online, get a certificate and marry their shipmate or marry their fellow soldier or marry their fellow airman, and what does that say? That says to me that marriage to this younger generation coming up is not as much a religious sacrament as it has been 50, 60 years ago. Back in the 50s, you know, a lot of things were changing right. You could raise a family. With what One income? You could send a kid to school, you can own a home and the mom was working at home this kind of thing right. Until, you know, right after the World War. So the American economy was booming and things were going well, and a big part of that social institution was marriage, but not only marriage. The structure of marriage was important and that structure helped maintain the social environment that was at that time. That's not the case today, scott. And so what? I'm trying to help our listeners. I can anticipate what some of the questions may be. Well, listen, man, I'm in the military, you know. I remember one Staff Sergeant telling his young Lance Corporal that, hey, when you go deploy, make sure you have two different bank accounts right and make sure you move most of your money there, because your wife may not be here when you get back. So there's a lot of dynamism within this marriage concept today, and so how would you speak to that? What is your faith? How does your faith empower you to minister to people who have these kind of viewpoints about marriage?

Speaker 1: 22:09

Yeah, and also you're earlier talking, or first talking, about people not recognizing that marriage is God's institution, and I definitely see that. It saddens me the way that marriage has been, I'd almost say, blasphemed. It's no longer a man and a woman. It could be a man and a man, woman and a woman, a man and two women, a woman. And you know, any number of things are not necessary at all. There's some people that don't even have a thought about getting married. They'll just live together, have children together. And you know, the thing is, lionel, I came to Christ in my early 20s, so I wasn't far from that persuasion. I was. I wouldn't say I was a terribly immoral person, but I was. I didn't have any heart for scripture or for the Lord, and so I wouldn't frown on people handling marriage differently than God's word says at that time. And so the question isn't and I've felt this for a long time since coming to Christ the question isn't what do we think? The question is what does God's word say? And so if you're a Christian, then that means you're committed to following Christ, which means you're committed to following scripture. So honestly, lionel, I don't struggle so much with like, let's say, an atheist If I'm talking to an atheist or an agnostic, someone who doesn't claim to be a Christian, and they define marriage a certain way, that's consistent and I don't have, I don't mind that, that's what I would expect. But if I'm talking to someone who calls himself a Christian and then they defend something contrary to scripture, that's hypocritical, because to follow Christ is to follow scripture. Now, if people if they don't, it's like all people come into my office and they'll say I have this friend that's a drunk, or I have this friend who's struggling with pornography, or I'll have this friend with this anger problem, or they'll talk about their spouse my spouse has these problems and the person's not a Christian. Well, they try to tackle us the wrong way. They try to tackle the sin when they really need to share the gospel with the person. Because let's just say that you're able to help someone with their drunkenness or their anger, but they don't come to Christ and that just means they go to hell, like as a better person, I guess. Or they go to hell, but without struggling with alcohol. And so I tell people no matter what problem someone has, if they don't know Christ, that's the main thing to address. You need to share the gospel with them.

Speaker 2: 24:25

So, so, so Todd, dean and Rod just want to make sure I'm tracking this, okay, because there's a lot of things you're mentioning right now. Okay, so you're basically saying that if you, if your relationship with Christ, if you don't have a relationship with Christ first and foremost right, which I get that, I understand exactly what you're going there If you don't have that relationship, then we can't really. We can't really. We're not dealing with the root of the problem first.

Speaker 1: 24:52

You nailed it. Well said, brother.

Speaker 2: 24:54

Okay, so, so. So now I'm going to play devil's advocate. Go ahead. Are you frowning like oh man?

Speaker 1: 25:05

No, you know your audience and you're anticipating their questions or objections. So that's good, and you know what, scott?

Speaker 2: 25:10

We got to have real conversations right Because, you know, I served as a pastor for over 20 years, so I know what, what I know with the conversations that people are having and I know what people thinking when they're listening to our conversation right now. And so what about these people? What about our brothers and sisters who are Christians in the church but have horrible marriages? How, how are we addressing that? How we addressing pastors, right Like yourself, who are having like very, very immoral relationships in the past? How we addressing that? Right? We're talking about God, marriage, faithfulness, these things. Scripture says one, two, three. Scripture says this. But then when you come to find out, I mean you can't, we can't deny the fact that if we turn on the news, how many pastors are actually getting divorced today, so so, and people are paying attention to that right, and so what do you say to that?

Speaker 1: 26:18

Because I think that is a question that we got to deal with, brother, yeah, you know, lionel, I'm not going to make any excuses for that, because to become a pastor James 3, it says let not many of you become teachers, knowing that you'll face a harsher judgment. And it doesn't mean it just means you need to recognize that you're held to a higher standard, there's greater accountability for you. And so there are things I don't want to. I don't like this language but, for lack of a better way to say it, I can't get away with that other people can get away with and I recognize that when I accepted this calling to be a pastor. And if I don't want to hold to that standard anymore, I don't want to be accountable, I want to be able to. You know I don't watch what I want or talk the way I want or mistreat my wife or my kids. Fine, leave the pastor, but don't discredit that office because you want to give into your flesh. So I'm not making any excuses for pastors. I'll be the first one to say that the individuals you describe to are in ungodly relationships or they're mistreating their spouse. They've either disqualified themselves or because none of us none of us are perfect and there could be a guy that sincerely wants to love the Lord and he's got some marriage problems, maybe he steps back. He's not disqualified. I mean, if a guy commits adultery, he doesn't. He's disqualified himself. He doesn't get to return to the pulpit. But if a guy's having marriage problems, maybe he comes to his church and says hey look, I need to invest in my wife. My marriage is hurting. Please pray for us. I'm going to take a step back. Hopefully the other elders say we're going to get. We're going to get him the help that he needs. He steps back for a season, returns to the pulpit a stronger, better husband, which means he's going to be a stronger, better pastor, and I know that's a burden on the church to kind of fill in for his position in his absence. That's one approach, but I know that it does make us look like hypocrites or look bad, us being Christians or us just being pastors, when there are pastors who commit adultery or get divorced. Now, for people in the church who have hurting marriages something I've noticed, lionel, and this is kind of sad I'm not going to take all the responsibility off the church, because pastors, churches, elders, have a responsibility to teach on marriage. My responsibility, according to Ephesians, is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. So I have a responsibility to equip my church, and what ministry is more important than marriage? I mean, that's why I spent almost a year. We do marriage conferences at our church. My elders value marriage so much they allow me to travel around the country a few times a year to do marriage conferences. But, with that said, all of the responsibility is not on the elders or the pastors. There is a responsibility on every person who calls himself or herself a Christian to be investing in their marriage. And what I've seen, lionel, in which is very sad, is people will invest an incredible amount of time, energy, money in many other areas of life and only a fraction given to their marriage, and so marriage is an investment too. That means you need to like here's an example, and I'm sure this is the same for you, lionel, and probably for a lot of people listening to your show. I think you must be trying to find time, just like the rest of us, running your podcast, doing ministry, doing military, so I could work from the moment I get up to the moment I go to bed, and I still would have more I could do, because there's always more books to write, there's always more sermons to study for Well, because I love my wife. I say no to things Because I want to prioritize her. I say no to things that means I'll even say no to good things. In fact, one of the one thing that someone said to me that I thought was great advice was much of our relationships with the Lord doesn't involve saying no to bad things. It involves saying no to good things especially to ministry.

Speaker 2: 30:06

Okay, we're gonna see that again, brother, that's a quote, quote, quote. You gotta say that one more time. I want y'all to listen to this. Real good, say that again for us guys.

Speaker 1: 30:15

All right, lionel. Much of the Christian life isn't just about saying no to bad things. It is saying no to good things to be involved with or doing God's best. So what that means is now, if someone's dying or they're in the hospital and I told my family I'm gonna have a game night with them, they were gonna understand if I go to the hospital for a game night. But if it's five or six, we're about to have dinner together as a family and someone calls me and they want something. I need to say no to them Because there can be a call like that every single night. I won't have a single evening with my family. So I'm saying no to good things. I'm saying no to writing books. I'm saying no to meetings with people. I'm saying no to some counseling and discipling because I want to say yes to my wife and my kids. I'll say no to certain things to say yes to the church, and this doesn't always go well. We're not like anti. You know, my daughter Chloe has a soccer game today, so we do some sports, but we say no to a ton of stuff, including most sports, as our kids get older. To say yes to church. Are our kids like that? Not really. But we're not running a popularity contest with our kids. We're trying to raise kids that are responsible, mature, that love the Lord, and they'll look back and understand, even if they didn't like it at the time, that we told them to say no to something good. We have our kids say no to many good things, to say yes to what's best, and so much of the Christian life, or much of marriage, involves prioritizing, making our spouse supreme. So, katie, I want her to feel like a queen, I want her to know she's the most important relationship in my life. And I'll tell you this, lionel, most of the women who feel like second place, actually, let me back up. I'll give you this verse. It's familiar. It's in Genesis 224, repeated in the New Testament. A manly is father and mother and is joined to his wife. Well, there, and you could say let's say I'm talking to a guy who's obsessed with video game sports, one guy was obsessed with horses, another guy was obsessed with water skiing. Let's say I'm talking to a guy who's obsessed with one of these things and his wife says, hey, I feel like second place to these things and I talked to him about it. And he says, well, why don't you show him with a chapter in verse that says that I have to stop doing these things? Well, here's what's going on, lionel. When it says leave father and mother for your wife, he's arguing the greater from the lesser. The idea is if you must be willing to leave your father and mother for your wife, there's nothing you wouldn't be willing to leave for your. So God doesn't have to list every single potential thing that could compete with our wives. God just has to say be willing to leave your father or mother for your wife. And it doesn't mean literally leave like have no relationship with them, but it has the idea of prioritizing or making your wife supreme, even to your, your parents, and I have a good relation with my parents. My dad passed away my mom. She lives with us. We bought a new house so she could live with us. But, with that said, my wife still needs to feel supreme to even my parents. And so the idea is if God says leave father and mother for your wife, there's nothing you should not be willing to leave father and mother for.

Speaker 2: 33:21

So let me ask you this question Can ministry get in the way Can can ministry? Let me ask you this question Can ministry Scott, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna hit you where to go, I'm gonna put it let's put it where the ghost can get it Can ministry become a God that gets in the way of your family? Yeah that's a question I'm gonna put out before you answer. Scott, we gotta be honest with the people. Okay, because this. Okay, so in. Well, if you're listening to this, if you know the scripture great, you know what's gotten. You know what I'm about to say. If you're listening to this, you don't understand, send me a message and I can break it down for you a little bit more. Jesus talked about how the message in the gospel was in Luke and Luke 14, how the message of the gospel was more important Then family ties. Jesus actually talked about that in Luke. So someone says, well, I need to go bury my. He was like no, no, well, let the dead bury the dead. It's like no, I need God to be first, I need the message of the gospel to be first. Paul said the same thing. Paul said in 1 Corinthians. Paul talked about this issue If you want to be married, great, if you stay married. If you want to be divorced, well, you know. But I'll say this to you, I recommend that you stay as I am, because the message is important and we got to get this message out. So it's a very complicated statement. There's a lot of context around those scripture verses that time doesn't allow us to get into. But, scott, here's what I'm getting at Ministry can become a God. So when we talk about how we allow different things to get in the way, we also gotta talk about how ministry can get in the way. And ministry becomes and I know this from experience because I was working in a large congregation large, several large congregations as a church planner who started churches and done all that. There's not a. I've worked in churches in small rural communities. I worked in large churches in metropolitan and urban areas One of the passes that you probably know. I worked with his ministry closely. He's one of my mentors right now, today, and I'll tell you without a shot of a doubt that one of the issues is that we have placed ministry over family, and this is what some of the reasons why, in my humble opinion, that you see a lot of ministry leaders who are suffering in the family. Talk about that real quick, scott.

Speaker 1: 35:59

Yeah, so I'll share a story and I'll make. If you just bear with me, it'll connect in a moment. So in the Old Testament, nation of Israel traveling through the wilderness, and they start complaining, god sends snakes to bite them and then tells Moses set up this staff, golden serpent, the brown serpent, not golden, excuse me, brown serpent. So it's this good thing, it's a picture of Christ. John 3, 14, jesus says just as they looked up to the brown serpent lifted up in the wilderness, looked to me to be saved essentially. And so this bronze serpent was an instrument by which people could look at it to be saved. So it was clearly a good thing. Well, years later I think it was Hezekiah's day the people had started worshiping it. They turned into an idol and they called it Nahushdin, so Hezekiah had to destroy it. Well, I've always thought about that because it's an interesting picture, or maybe perfect picture, of the potential for all of us to take even the good things God gives us and turn them into Nahushdin, or turn them into idols, or turn them into bad things. And so you're saying we can do that with ministry, and I wholeheartedly agree with you, lionel there's, we can do that with sex, we can do it with money. Money is amoral. Sex is moral, good in marriage, immoral, bad outside of marriage. We can do it with jobs. It's good for us to work and be busy, but our job can become an idol, and so we have the potential, because of our flesh, our sinful fallen nature, to ruin almost anything that God gives us. Well, one of the easiest things to let ruin our marriage is ministry, because ministry looks so good, it's having meetings with people, it's studying God's word, it's preaching. I mean, how can you say no to that?

Speaker 2: 37:36

Because you're doing a good thing. You're doing a good thing Like think about even doctors, even good lawyers. That's the oxymoron.

Speaker 1: 37:49

There's a few of them right, right, right, let's go ahead and sign on one more.

Speaker 2: 37:52

But think about that, right, that there are people out there and don't mean to cut you off, I'll let you get back to this one. That's fine, but to flesh that out more, right, there are people who are doing good things and we allow them to get into, we allow that good thing to overtake us because it gives us endorphin shots. Who doesn't enjoy helping see people succeed in life? Who doesn't enjoy helping people put their marriage back together? Who doesn't enjoy seeing a kid come into his own and get self-confidence and begin to believe in himself, right? Who doesn't enjoy Unless something's wrong with you, unless you're from another planet or you have horrible motives, or you're being, as we would say, we're letting the devil win that fight. You're a strange person, so, yeah, who doesn't enjoy doing good things, right? So, just like in ministry, it's a good thing, right? Scott?

Speaker 1: 38:56

Yeah. And so one of the things Lionel is and if people just bear with me for a moment, it's selfish People's security is bound up more in these other things. And so there's the guy. There's a man, and I was at a pastor's conference this one time and I think it was. It was a big name pastor. It was at Greg Laurie's church and they were asking these pastors John MacArthur was there, chuck Smith and they were asking these different pastors their biggest regrets. And this one pastor said my wife is my biggest regret, that I neglected her all these years. So this guy has this huge ministry, written all these books, and he sacrificed his wife on the altar of ministry and God doesn't want that. That doesn't please the Lord. He's not gonna get to heaven and God's gonna say, hey, great job, you loved me or loved the church so much you neglected your wife. The guy neglected his wife not for good reasons, but for selfish reasons, because he wanted to build his ministry. It was about him. And so ministry is important, the church is important, but I don't wanna get to the end of my life and have more books, but I neglected my kids or my wife. And let's say you're not in ministry. Let's see how some people listening to this line and they're not relating as well. If you're a parent, here's how you can relate. So we have a bunch of kids. I love them. I'm happy to see them. I hope they know how much I love them, but they need to know that I love their mother even more than them. And so we got a 10th kid on the way. Kids like to ask hey, who's your favorite? Who do you love the most?

Speaker 2: 40:25

I'm like oh, that's easy. I'm like that's easy. That's your mother who's on a parent list, man, your mother's, my favorite.

Speaker 1: 40:30

Yeah, your mother's my favorite. So even in that, my kids need to know as much that I love them. I love their mother more, and so we're always having to prioritize, we're always having to figure out what God's best is so we can say yes to that. To say no to something else, it's opportunity costs. Even when God became a man and the person of Jesus Christ, during Jesus' earthly ministry, he had to say no to certain things to say yes to other things. We don't have unlimited. When God had the confines of a human body, time, space, energy he couldn't be everywhere, and so if he went to Samaria, he didn't go to Galilee, right, and so he had those limitations and he had to be in his father's will and do those things best. And so for many people it's just figuring out what God's best is for their lives. Now I mean I know I could. There's other things I could pursue. I don't like to use the word platform or be bigger. I could try to build a bigger platform, but I feel like God's called me to pastor my church raise my children.

Speaker 2: 41:27

That's your platform right.

Speaker 1: 41:29

That's my primary ministry. Yeah, it's first husband, parent, pastor, then author and then speaker. And so being in God's will means every person that's listening to this. They need to figure out what God wants them to say no to so that they can say yes to other things. This guy called me the other day. His son's gonna get married and he doesn't go to our church or else I probably would have felt a greater obligation to help him. And he's a nice guy and he said my son's getting married. You know we appreciate your marriage stuff. We know you do premarital counseling. Would you do the premarital counseling for my son and I really want him to Lionel? I didn't want to say no. It was a hard thing to have to say no to this friend, but I said brother, I got another kid coming. I can barely keep up with my church. I'm sorry. I'll meet with them. I'll have a meeting with them and my wife will be there, but I can't commit to my normal eight to 12 weeks of premarital counseling. And he was great about it, he understood. But my point is it's not easy to say no to things, and that means if you're at work. So even if you're not in ministry, you're at work and your boss says, hey, what do you think about this extra project or this overtime? Sometimes it's great to say, yes, take the project. God just blessed you with some project to make more money or some overtime. But sometimes you need to say no. You need to say you know what. I committed this night to dinner with my family. We haven't been together a lot and so I'm going to have to turn this down. You can offer it to someone else. Thanks for thinking of me. That's the good thing to do. You know I get. You're trying to get out of debt, pay off that credit card, so you're jumping at every single opportunity for overtime or something, and that's honorable too. But then other times you're going to have to figure out when God wants you to say no to something.

Speaker 2: 43:03

Yeah, well, you know, scott you bring up a great point that marriage requires sacrifice and marriage requires you to do things that may not give you that endorphin hit that you want, but maybe focus on the things that are most important. Just to give you a little bit more research. So Pew Research did a study on marriage in American culture in September 2023. And they ask people how optimistic are you about the traditional viewpoints of marriage in American society and will it have a negative impact on marriage society? 40% of individuals say that they are pessimistic when it comes to marriage. Very, very interesting 26% said they were more optimistic about marriage and 29% said they really didn't care that much. They didn't think marriage would really have an impact on the future of the American society. And so what we're seeing with this is that the way people are viewing marriage not only Scott and I are discussing now again not only are they thinking that marriage is not necessarily as religious, a religious sacrament as it used to be, which is why people some people say it's because they get married for love, not for status, not for this, not for that, opposed to many, many years ago. So a little bit different viewpoint, but the way people are viewing marriage today is quite different, and so, as you're listening to this podcast, I want you to think about where do you fall? Are you pessimistic? Are you optimistic or does it not really matter to you how marriage will affect the future of the American society? Or if you're in other parts of the world, because we have listeners in Europe and we also have listeners in India and in Africa. You know marriage is different there. How you view marriage, there's still a range marriage in a lot of these countries. So obviously there's context at play here, but there's something for you to think about as we continue to move toward the end of our podcast. So, scott man, we've talked a lot and you gave us a lot of great information, and I really would appreciate it. So I want to round off this conversation by saying, hey, what would be like your final word that you would share with people? And then we'll talk about a few of your resources and we'll wrap up how that sounds.

Speaker 1: 45:32

Yeah, that sounds good, lionel, Thanks for that opportunity. So you know, I would just say I'm guessing some of your listeners might not be Christians and I would just say, hey, god created you, he's got a purpose for you and he holds us accountable for the way that we live our lives on this side of heaven. None of us are perfect. We've all sinned. The God loves us enough that he gave his son to take the punishment for that sin, if we believe in him. So we rarely have two choices all of us, we're going to take the punishment for the sins we've committed on this side of heaven, or God is willing to have his son take that punishment for us. But if Jesus is going to take that punishment, we must repent and believe in him. And so if any of your listeners haven't done that, please do so. And then the second thing I'd say is recognize God's the one who created marriage. He knows best. He knows what allows us to have the healthiest, joyful marriages. We've talked a lot about the divorce rate. Lionel just shared some of that peer research, and so I'd say the fact that we have such a high divorce rate, or the fact that you know peer research is arguing this or showing these numbers for people's view of marriage is evidence that what God says is right. Because if what man said was right or if what man thought about marriage was best, we wouldn't see these high divorce rates. So basically, if people wanted to disregard God and disregard the word and do what they thought would be best, we'd see like 2% divorces, not 50% divorces. So to me, the fact that there's so many divorces is simply a reflection that people need God, they need the gospel, they need his word, and so if your marriage is struggling, go to God's word. There's a lot of instruction in there. Just start with Ephesians 5 and 1 Peter 3 or 2 of the primary marriage passages. I've got marriage conference messages I'd make accessible to you for free. It would just be a blessing to me to know that your marriage is being strengthened and you're being pointed toward Christ. You can reach out to me, you know, for any of that and I guess, while I'm talking about that, my website, scottloppearorg. Yeah, thank you, lionel. I've got a free gift there. You can kind of see in the bottom there. It's called 7 Biblical Insights for Christ-centered Marriages. You can get a free copy. It's not a huge read, it's a short read and I hope it'd be a blessing to you. It has some excerpts from my book, your Marriage God's Way, and that's another book I wrote, your Finance is God's Way. But I'd love to get you that little pamphlet yeah, so that's my marriage book and there's an accompanying workbook and you can go to my website to get that pamphlet 7 Biblical Insights, which just has excerpts from this marriage book. And you know what, if money's tight, I don't write books to make money. My church takes care of me. I trust the Lord to take care of me. If money's tight, I'd love to give you a free copy of my marriage book and workbook and I would just be blessed knowing that you're using it with your spouse and that God is using it to strengthen your relationship with him and with your husband or wife. And so, yeah, you can find me through my website. That's kind of my hub there. My books, my podcast, my marriage, my messages, my sermons, my blog posts are all there.

Speaker 2: 48:31

Yeah, so for those of you who are listening, this is Scott's website. Scott, it is Scott. How do you say your website? I'm trying to look. What's the actual address? Sure.

Speaker 1: 48:43

Yep, it's just my name, scalliphereorg.

Speaker 2: 48:46

Scalliphere, scalliphere.

Speaker 1: 48:49

Yeah, right there, scalliphereorg, you'll probably have the link in the show notes and there's a contact page there If you have any questions. If I can pray for you in any way, yeah, the contact page in the upper right. I'd be privileged to hear from you. So yeah, there's my marriage book.

Speaker 2: 49:02

Yeah, here's this marriage book right here your marriage God's Way, by Scott LaPierre. You can get it on Amazon. Just look at your marriage God's Way, scott LaPierre again, and you should be able to pop it up right there in front of you. And, as always, you can follow us here on YouTube. Our YouTube station is there, which is Word Change YouTube page. We got some stuff there for you as well, as well as interviews with our guests Great, great interviews, great conversation, great stuff there for you. Well, my brand. I thank you so much for coming through. This is a conversation that absolutely deserves more talking points, because it's so varied and so wide and there's so many different topics that we can discuss around the concept of marriage. And so, scott, I just want to thank you for coming through and sharing your wisdom, your experience and how, your viewpoint about marriage. As we know, not everybody has the same viewpoint, and that's okay. That's how we grow, that's how we become better. We learn, we listen and we grow from what other people are saying, and we put that against what we know to be true, our experience, and hopefully, at the end of the day, we'll become better people, because that's the goal. The goal is to become better people and to make the world a better place. I think that's what Christ was all about. That's what God is all about. I don't know if you're a Trinitarian or oneness, but that's what it's all about. That's what this podcast is all about. So, once again, I want to thank everybody for coming through. I want to thank Scott for coming through once again. Man, I appreciate you so much and I look forward to connecting with you in the future. Congratulations to you on the new book. Go ahead and grab Scott's book Y'all Marriage God's Way on Amazon. If you have a question, please put it in the comments below, sorry, or you can leave a voicemail at chopstalkorg and we will respond to that. So once again, thank you guys for listening. See you for the next interview. Peace, and that's all for today. Peace, you, you, you.