Unbelieving & Understanding - Part I

What we're going to do is take a look at 1 Peter 3, 1-7. And so in the handout that you've got, you can take the first page and just turn it because we're going to be starting in the middle of the second page. The first thing to look at perspective-wise is, as you recall, we went through Ephesians 5, about 22 or 21 through the end of the chapter.

Paul wrote, and most of what he wrote was focused on the husband. A little bit focused on the wife. What does Peter do? He turns it around. Peter addresses, there's seven verses here, he addresses six verses to the wife, one to the husband. So it's a complete turnaround in terms of the What's the major focus? So Peter is a complementary author in that sense of changing what the major focus is. Secondly, Peter answers some questions that Paul doesn't. So they're very good complementary passages in terms of the emphasis, in terms of answering different kinds of questions.

And yet, between them, what they say is quite consistent. in spite of that. So it's almost like somebody inspired them both. So 1 Peter 3, 1 and 2, In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands, so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior. So Peter uses this phrase in the same way a couple of times in the passage here.

But he was describing throughout this the nature of earthly relationships. So that's what the whole larger section is about. And so he's zeroing in on, okay, now I'm taking the principle of how do we deal in earthly relationships. Now, here's the situation with the wife, and then farther down, here's the situation with the husband. So that's the way he's using the term.

One of the things to remember, to help us understand why Peter's writing the way he is, in the Roman Empire, it was expected, because people could pick all kinds of religions, and you could mix and match. In our culture, usually, it was, what's your religious background or something? In that culture, you could pick this one and this one and this one and this one, and there wasn't any problem with just picking and mixing and matching and throwing in some superstition on top of that that you bought down at the marketplace. There's kind of that stuff going on.

It's more subtle. Yeah. In other words, if you think about it, we're shifting more towards the audience that Peter and Paul wrote to. Because people don't like to think that you can know the truth. Yeah. So a lot of the mix and match thing is getting to be more popular.

But it was expected that the wife would adhere to the religion or religions, however the husband chose. That's what the wife would do. That was expected. So for her to believe something different, and especially not just whatever the husband believes and then a little bit more, but this and not that, which is what Christianity presents That was a real problem. So what Peter's laying out is you've got a potentially touchy situation. How do you handle it? So that's what he's coming to. Now, page three here.

So because Christianity was an exclusive belief, you didn't do Christian and then and then have the temple of Aphrodite and another temple to Zeus and another one to Hermes. He just didn't do that. Now, the unbelieving husband may have a bunch of beliefs, but he didn't put his trust in Christ.

This husband is to be won. That's actually a word for financial gain. He is won over and that is of value. Not by what the wife says directly, but by the gospel spoken by her life. You probably heard it said, I think it's attributed to St. Francis of Assisi. Preach the gospel all the time. If necessary, use words. Peter's advice is be real careful about the words. The unbelieving husband will see the behavior of the wife being respectful of the husband and given to him. She will, by her behavior, be God's instrument to win over him spiritually. A couple of things to note here.

Peter was not advising that the Christian women marry non-Christian husbands. He wasn't advising that. He doesn't address that issue directly, but Paul does. But what he was talking about here was a situation where the wife becomes a believer, and obviously the husband's not, and the usual cultural thing was What does the husband do?

That's what the wife is going to do. He was giving the wife some counsel here. But it's also relevant in other instances. Suppose there is a wife and a husband. They start off and he plans to be a believer and all that. What if he takes a left turn? I'm down the road now, I'm chucking this stuff. How does she deal with him? Oh, she should just walk out.

Yeah, and those can be difficult. Nancy and I have encountered that and crossed paths with it. And I don't mean that. Yeah. I thought I should say that for anything. For the recording. Yeah. For the recording. Yeah. But you don't mean that. On the record. Ultimately, it's a key thing. Peter says the focus is on expressing it with your life, not by hounding, badgering, arm-twisting, insurrection, that kind of thing.

Does it mean that a wife should never say things about his spiritual walk? to her husband. I know of one gal who, you know, if her husband's not walking with the Lord, she prays for him and, you know, she just tries to wait it out. And then if it just goes on for too long, she'll go to him and say, I need you to be my spiritual head.

And most of the time he says, I know, I know. And then he gets things right with the Lord. Well, we've seen instances like that. It doesn't mean, if the guy really is a Christian, and he has a basis to understand what that means, then it doesn't mean that the wife should just be quiet. But neither should she harangue him. Yeah. Ultimately, harangue, harassment, twisting, threatening, all those things, that's not the intent here either.

1 Peter 3, 3 and 4, your adornment must not be merely external, braiding the hair, wearing gold jewelry, putting on dresses, but let it be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God.

Interestingly, a curious point, that Greek word translated adornment is kosmos, where we get the word cosmetics. So the thing that makes you look good, must not be merely external. And notice the way it's written here. It doesn't mean that Peter is making laws about you can't wear anything that looks good. What he's talking about is a reliance upon that to be the total attraction. Basically, the Christian life is to be gorgeous from the inside out. That's the point.

In this era, culturally, a lot of wives, both by their time commitments and cultural expectations and also what was expected of them, a lot of wives would try to be trophy wives. Their husbands oftentimes didn't pay them sufficient attention. But when they were around them, the husbands wanted them to look good. So it would, in some cases, just be kind of an inordinate emphasis.

They had trellises for their hair, and they'd wind it up all fancy, and we have all kinds of archaeological evidence. Jewelry and special cosmetics boxes and everything else. Makeup kits. Makeup kits from the New Testament era. It's amazing the stuff that they had.

In some cases, we have some records of spending with some of the upper classes unfathomable amounts of money on dresses. One instance, I have a recollection of one dress that was something on the order of what would be equivalent in our culture of a half million dollar dress. Now that doesn't mean that everybody did it because a lot of people were poor. But again, there was a tendency to look to that external appearance as the whole thing. His point is, what does God consider valuable? What does God look at? And ultimately, the Christian life ought to be asking, what does God consider valuable? What does God look at? And look at that. And what does he say?

The imperishable quality. This is something that doesn't fade. Years don't take it away. It's an imperishable quality that's from deeper inside than just whatever you can put on the outside. And it focuses on what God values. What does God value? What's important to the Lord?

And this spiritually insightful husband is going to see that. And that's going to be important. So this message is not just to the wives, is it? It's also to the husband, because the husband is seeing, what does God value in my life? What does God look at and say, yes? What does he get excited about? So that's, I think, the key to what Peter's looking at.

It's a notice which is precious in the sight of God. This is what God considers valuable and precious and something that he, pardon a little bit of figure of speech, that he gets excited about, that the Lord looks at and says, yes, that's what I wanted. And what is that gentle and quiet spirit? It's the character of the Lord in her.

1 Peter 3, 5, and 6, In this way, in former times, the holy women also who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, being submissive to their own husbands. Just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, and you have become her children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear. So, what happened? Peter talked about submission and respect in the first couple of verses. By referring to the lives of Abraham and Sarah, these were the same points that Paul made regarding the wife.

Christ be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, he himself being the Savior of the body. That is, the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be their husbands in everything. Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife, even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.

Peter pictured the godly wife as adorning herself with character. He also restated the principle from verse 1 of each wife submitting to her own husband, not all women submitting to all men. the wife to the husband. And not an all gender submit to all others of a gender.

So that's a key point. Both of them make that point. That it's specific to the husband-wife relationship. And this calling him Lord could just as well be translated calling him Sir. The idea is respect, not that you're calling somebody a slave master. The idea is respect. And with respect, isn't that what Paul finished off saying? The wife see to it that she respects her husband.

So Paul and Peter are in full agreement. Peter just said it differently. And it comes back to an issue we brought up before, and that is the issue of love and respect. So both Peter and Paul have touched on this this year, because we're going to talk about the husband pretty quick. But both Peter and Paul touched upon this love and respect principle.

The husband is to love the wife. The wife is to respect the husband in the heart of hearts. The guy is asking, does she respect me? Does he want her to love him? Yeah, he does. That's usually not an issue. The respect issue is. The respect question is in his mind. She, on the other hand, is asking, does he love me?

That's why with Paul's emphasis on husbands love your wives, husbands love your wives. Husbands love your wives, and by the way, husbands love your wives. That's why we made the point earlier, the wife must know that the husband loves her unconditionally all the time. The wife needs to keep in mind. that her husband is asking the question all the time, does he respect me? Does she respect me? The question in the mind of the husband and wife is what each of them are addressing here, and what they say is in full agreement.

Now, at the end of verse 6, it makes it clear that the submission of the wife is not based in any way upon the wife's fear. Not fear of the husband, not because she's afraid of him. Not fear of the family, friends, neighbors, any fear. Name your source. Basically, you look at it. There was potentially a great deal of pressure on the Christian wife of an unbelieving husband in the culture of the Roman Empire. Peter wrote without being frightened by any fear. So what Peter was writing about was not a fearful, cowering wife submitting out of dread and angst, but a fearlessly godly wife who boldly does what is right in God's sight.

Isn't that something? She submits fearlessly. Isn't that something? She submits fearlessly. So her submission is not a cowering dread, you know, quivering, anxious, but she submits fearlessly. Because when the wife knows that she's loved, she knows that submitting herself to her husband is putting herself in a very safe place, a place of protection, a place of honor and respect. And ultimately it comes out of of the Lord's strength. It comes out of the Lord's assurance for her. That's kind of a bold concept because we get all sorts of strange ideas in our culture about what submission means. Of course, you get a lot of reaction because of some distorted ideas. But it's interesting.

Peter is pretty emphatic without being afraid by any fear at all. So fearlessly submissive. Placing herself under the husband, under his authority, but also in support of him without fear. Fear is not to be the motivator. Isn't that something? Fear is not the motivator. She is submitting fearlessly.

Okay, 1 Peter 3.7.

Husbands, in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way as with someone weaker, since she is a woman, and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered. And I think about this, here's six verses, now he does one for the husband. I don't know, I mean, other than the fact that it complements Paul's letter wonderfully, I don't know why he did that, but it's obviously inspired. What I will grant him is what he said here is quite potent, even though it's one verse compared to the woman's six. It's very potent. So here he has the husbands are to be living, this is a present active participle, right now actively continuing to live. They're living in a continuous way, it's active, they're doing it intentionally of their own volition, they're doing this.

Peter's way of stating how Christ lives in and through believers and their wives, one in an understanding way. And the word that Peter chose for understanding is gnosis, intimate familiarity. So this is wild because our culture, I mean, guys for decades have had jokes about who can understand a woman, right? But Peter says you must understand her.

Not only that, you have to live in a way that's based on that understanding. This is like impossible. Right? So intimate familiarity is the norm. And not just lots of intellectual knowledge or some analysis, but living it out. So what's the husband to understand? How does that get lived out?

The husband, as the wife in the earlier verses, is to understand God's insights into the marriage relationship. What have we been studying? God's insights into the marriage relationship. We're not done, of course, but that's the one part of it. What does God reveal about marriage and about a man and about a woman? What does God reveal that I need to understand? There's no getting around the fact that he needs to approach the marriage relationship with an understanding of God's purpose, plan, and intent for the marriage.

As the wife is to know what God values for his four, so is the husband. What does the Lord value in the husband? What does this verse tell us the Lord values in the husband? It says right off, it says the husband is to live with his wife in an understanding way. That's what the Lord values.

He doesn't want an oblivious husband. He doesn't want a husband where she's got to sit there and mold and move around me and I'm not going to make any effort to understand her or any of this work. He is not to be oblivious. He's not to come in with his own will, intents, and plans and just figure he's going to shove it around. It's also an intent living, not just a, I'll just hang around and see what happens. Because it is a present active. He's actively doing it. He doesn't just get lived on. So this is an active role. It's one to be maintained, but it's also one of deep understanding.

And as a wife is to know what God values, so is the husband. The Lord has spelled out here through Peter's writing, this is what I value in a husband. Then it says, in that second point there, the husband is to know his wife deeply. In other words, what is the husband doing?

He's saying, here's what God's Word says. Here's what I know about my wife. Here's how I put those two together. Do you see that? This is real important stuff. So, do I understand what God's Word says? Do I understand my wife? I put those two together, and here's how it gets applied. So what does that tell me?

How do I get to know what God says about marriage? You have to take time on God's Word. How do I get to know my wife to be able to fit the truths of God's Word into our marriage? You have to spend time with her? Yeah. It says spend time on God's Word. Spend time with her.

Do so with an intent of having a deep understanding of both. So being a husband thing is very challenging. Very challenging. Because as simple as it is, this is a little less than three lines. But what he has laid out here has incredible depth. And by the way, it's not obvious, but she also has an important part. We'll get to that.

Peter then characterizes key aspects of the husband's practical knowledge of the wife when he says that the wife is weaker, while there is certainly a physical aspect to the statement. It should not be left there, and sheer physical strength is not a major part of the biblical wisdom regarding the wife. The most insightful aspect of Peter's guidance is that the wife is fundamentally more vulnerable by nature of her physical and related psychological characteristics.

What am I saying with that? When Nancy and I have sat down with couples to counsel, I have yet to run across a guy who says, my wife can't arm wrestle very well, or I sure wish she could bench press 250 pounds. I just have never heard that. Guys, they've never been puzzled or frustrated that their wife is not some physical specimen in terms of showing great strength. Physical strength is a minor issue here at best. What Peter is talking about is more the physical vulnerabilities, because it is a vessel. It does have to do with the one's body. But let's look at what this amounts to.

The wife goes through changes over various time frames and conditions based on her physiological and hormonal makeup that centers on childbearing, her monthly cycle since puberty, pregnancy or pregnancies, perimenopause and menopause. All these variations. She is subject to all those hormonal changes, and each woman is different. And what you see is obviously a change over the years, too. And personal observation from pregnancy to pregnancy. So lots of variation, and she is subject to that. I'm astounded. I keep seeing this in different instances. But for the guy to understand that, she's going through these variations here, and then all of a sudden, let's say, a pregnancy comes along, and then it varies from pregnancy to pregnancy. She is subject to all those hormonal changes. She's a woman, and that's part of the going to be that way. And that is a physical vulnerability that we do counsel about, because for the guy to try to keep an even keel through that does get to be an issue. Not how much can she weight lift.

Well, and one thing that happens is a woman may have one kind of a hormonal cycle before she has children. And then when she's pregnant, that cycle changes because the whole hormone balance is so impacted by pregnancy. But even after the pregnancy, and if she breastfeeds, that keeps hormones in a different kind of flux. Well then she stops that, but even at that point, she doesn't necessarily go back to the same hormonal cycle that she had before she had any children. It's modified itself. And other things get impacted, insulin, blood sugar issues, thyroid issues, so other things can be impacted as well by the pregnancy.

But all these are vulnerabilities that the woman has because she's a woman. The other aspect of it, the wife has a connection to the child she bears, and I could put that in the plural, that is different from the husband's. The child grew inside her for nine months and physically came from her. She is profoundly impacted by the process of bearing and birthing the child. There is a vulnerability there that is different from a guy's. We love our wives and we love the kids, but it's not the same.

She has a connection to it. There are also other vulnerabilities during the pregnancy. And we have rendered this where the husband said, hey, I married this gorgeous, voluptuous thing, and look at her now. And so again, what's the question the gal is asking?

Does he love me unconditionally? And what is the husband's duty? The husband must tell his wife all the time. that he loves her unconditionally. The wife must know all the time that her husband loves her unconditionally. So in the midst of that, the husband's role, the husband's place is clear.

But there's a real vulnerability on her part because what before was not even an issue all of a sudden becomes a very big issue. When my proportions change radically Do you still love me unconditionally? She also has physical vulnerabilities in the midst of that, too.

It can be fairly simple things, like one of the jokes is, if your wife's pregnant and you can't find her, just wait by the bathroom door. You'll see her soon. It's true. And that's one aspect. But all of a sudden she can't lean over and pick things up or whatever it is. There are lots of different limitations that come about.

Given those vulnerabilities, is the wife to be considered in some respect inferior to the husband? So it's Peter's answer. Nope. Peter appropriately reminds the husbands that their wives are joint heirs of the grace of life. Position in Christ, how is it different between husband and wife? The Lord has given each different roles, but their position in Christ is identical. And what does the Lord look at? Their position in Christ, right?

So in terms of the Lord's viewing, the husband, in spite of the woman's physical and consequently emotional vulnerabilities, in spite of those vulnerabilities, the husband is to be reminded that the word looks at them the same and values them the same.

So it's not a value assessment. It's easy for people in the world to slip into things that are out of balance. Peter doesn't do that, and he cautions the husbands not to do that. Recognize their vulnerability, but don't for a minute think that that somehow tips the scales in terms of where does the word place the value. or places value on the husband and the wife, their position in Christ is the same.

They are joint heirs of the grace of life. The believing wives have the exact same position in Christ as the believing husbands. And that position in Christ is so awesome that we dare not use the word inferior about any aspect of it. In fact, Peter uses the words giving honor regarding the husband's activity towards the wife.

Here's another one of Peter's present active participles, giving. Present means right now. Active, it doesn't just happen. You actively do it. And the participle means it keeps on going. So continuing to actively give honor to the wife. Is she going through a wild time hormonally? Give her honor. Is she going through a tough time carrying this baby? Give her honor.

So it's neat to see Peter's assessment of it. Peter, by the way, when I was married, the gospels talk about his mother-in-law. He had a house at the north end of the Sea of Galilee. He had an archaeologist and a detective found it. We took pictures of it in the First Peter class. So he was not talking. Pardon? How did they find his house in the midst of a lot of houses? You say, how did they find it? How did they find his one house?

One thing is looking at just kind of the descriptions that you see in the Gospel. You know, what kind of a longevity is there to identification? How far back can you trace it? Those kinds of things. So what they have found is not absolutely, you know, no question, this is certainly Peter's house. Probably the best you can describe is this is most likely Peter's house. It's probably the level of certainty.

How about that your prayers not be hindered? Is Peter threatening the husbands with heavenly blackmail? Will the rebelling husband's prayers bounce off the floorboards in heaven? Absolutely. It seems rather that the husband who does not care what God has said about his relationship with his wife and doesn't care to understand his wife will not have a prayer or any spiritual life of great value either. He is a spiritual dolt. His prayer life will be dead in the water. And what he does pray will be shallow indeed. Peter is urging spiritual reality here. He is defining what it means to be God's man. Now, let's explore something.

If he is to live with her in an understanding way, this verse doesn't explicitly lay out the wife's part in it. But does the wife have a part in the husband's being able? to live with her in an understanding way. There are certainly things about her that she may be puzzled of herself, especially as she goes through various changes in life she's never run across before. But here, you know, the wife has a part. Notice the two parts of this husband knowing his wife deeply. He's got to be able to take the truth of God's word and match it up to their marriage and his life with her.

If she is walled up and feeding him blank paper, And not letting him know what's going on, if she isn't open and honest with him, makes his job harder. So none of this, if you don't know what's wrong, I'm not going to tell you. Yeah. And so there is an interaction here that isn't to be ignored. She has a part in fulfilling the knowledge of the wife side. in this. Likewise, let's just ask this question.

Is it possible that a husband could live in such a way that the wife doesn't want to let him know further? Can a husband live in such a way that the wife says, I'm not going to tell him what's going on? How could that happen? Sounds like an abusive relationship.

Yeah, in other words, you could think of several different kinds of things. Let's say that the man, when he would find something that appears to be a vulnerability on her part, he trounces on it. He uses it as a leverage. Berates her. Puts her in situations where she'll fail. Yeah.

So you could envision that it's possible that the husband could contribute to making it difficult for the wife, for him to understand her. So, Peter lays out something pretty clearly. You can envision situations where both the husband and wife could make the fulfillment of this more difficult. Right? How about Peter says earlier about the wife not respecting the husband. Let's say that the husband is getting the message, however he gets it, that the wife is not respecting him, not regarding him.

How is that going to make it difficult for him to carry this out? Yeah, if he's supposed to be actively living this out, understanding God's Word and living out a knowledge of her, if she doesn't respect it, it makes it difficult for him to lead lovingly. I'm not saying that's somehow an excuse, but you know. It makes the job harder. Yeah, it makes the job harder.

So while this is addressed to the husband, it's the one verse addressed to the husband out of the seven, you can see where there is an interactive answer to how this gets worked out. And both the husband and wife have On an understandable biblical basis, both the husband and wife have a part in contributing to this or causing a problem. The other thing is Peter ends up with this is a prayer issue. Ultimately this comes down to the husband's relationship with the Lord. If the husband does not see things from that perspective, he can't make any sense at all. What's his spiritual perspective? Does he see things from a spiritual depth? Does he value what God values?

Or not? In these slightly less than three lines, there's a lot of consideration to be packed into it. As Nancy and I would sit down with a couple, we may end up having to consider a number of these kinds of things. Because ultimately, while this is directed to the husband, there's certainly a lot here that's potent and it's short.

But it is something that both the husband and wife need to understand. Just like the earlier part that says that the wife's value is inside. What God values is inside. Does the husband get it? So that's not just addressed to her. So real interesting the way Peter's written. Six verses to the wife. One to the husband. But the truth is that both of those have aspects that apply to the other.

Okay. Thoughts? Questions? Pondering? I would say that the one verse to the husband is pretty potent. Yeah. It's amazing what's in it. What is amazing to me is how much that it lays out in just a few short words. Other thoughts? I will just say that the husband has an incredibly difficult job to live with a wife in an understanding way throughout the years. This man, if he were not already a saint, we would call him that. Because I've not been easy to live with, and I know that. It wasn't my intent. I didn't set out to be a difficult woman.

But let me tell you, those hormonal fluctuations are really hard. You can't control that. Some of it changes because of the pregnancy, not just during the pregnancy, but you are changed because of the pregnancies for the long term. It was much harder for me after my pregnancies. Hormonally. Yeah, hormonally than it was before. And I was not a nice person to be around. And we finally were able to find something that helped me.

But that's not necessarily going to be what happens for every woman. And some women are very even keeled throughout their lives. And you just don't see that. You don't see the fluctuations like I had. But they're real. You can have some minor control with diet and exercise, but it's not the whole picture. Sometimes you just have those things.

The man has a really, really hard job to try to understand what's going on when she herself has not a clue. I don't want to scare you that this is going to happen, because it may not at all. It may not at all. I think the thing is just to recognize it, and the reality is this is where the number two is, understanding my wife.

That may change over time. You might start out one way, and all of a sudden, it wasn't like this when we started out. It's not because she sat down and said, I think I'll change. Vern mentioned the fact that thyroid can be affected by pregnancy. There's gestational diabetes, and if you have gestational diabetes, that may or may not end after the baby. is born, and then some women develop thyroid conditions after the baby is born, and that causes weight gain, and lack of energy, and increased appetite, and a lot of problems with things like that.

You can't know ahead of time whether those are going to happen or not. I think this is where the love must be unconditional. Part of what you're doing in a marriage is you're stepping into something. We understand what God's Word says, or at least we should when we step into the marriage. What you don't know is what's the rest of this package going to unpack like. So that's why the love is not, I love you because of X, Y, and Z. We'll write that down because these are the things I want in a woman. Instead, it's a matter of understanding from the outset.

I'm to love her unconditionally. I'm going to live with her in an understanding way, understanding what God's Word says, understanding the nature of this vulnerability that Peter makes brief but powerful allusion to here. So that's why it's important to ponder and think through, what does that unconditional love mean? It means that this is a different woman than the one I married, but that still means you love her unconditionally just the same. It doesn't change because she changed. And the Lord is glorified through that. I've seen women who seem very level-headed and focused and all that go through a pregnancy and just turn into somebody else. That might be me. I'm generalizing.

I'm generalizing, but for the husband to understand at the outset that he's not signing up for certain conditions. He's signing up to love her unconditionally, and he doesn't know what those conditions are. But he still knows, regardless. It means those things.

Okay. I think what's difficult for me is... to the husband is to know his wife deeply. I guess you could say I've begun to learn growth truths, sanctification. Yes. I understand concepts, principles, but as far as the application or the living it out is still... I mean, there's just not enough years there. So I don't even know if I know myself enough or might have enough history in that understanding with Christ.

This is a growth process, isn't it? Ultimately, what you're looking at is, you can look at it and say, I may be young in the Lord, but I've been growing. What's going to happen is that growing is going to take on some new dimensions because it's going to challenge your capacities. I started off in our marriage with certain understandings. Later on, I found need to be corrected rather radically.

It's a growth process. As you look at this, I keep underscoring, you must love the wife unconditionally, and she needs to know it. So far, so good. That doesn't mean that you all of a sudden comprehend and know everything at the outset. Both husband and wife will grow through this. I think one of the dynamics of marriage is that you continue to get to know each other throughout the years. This year will be our 33rd anniversary and we're still learning things about each other. That's one of the great things about marriage is that it doesn't get status quo. It just isn't stagnant or shouldn't be stagnant. Yeah, and so anyway...

Well, I think, too, one thing to remember is that Peter wrote this to people who were married before they were believers, who were in situations of being unequally yoked, or who maybe were believers when they both got married. Scriptures are written to people who started out in Adam and now they're not in Adam anymore.

The fact that you're only beginning to learn identification truths and growth truths or whatever you want to call them, great. You're learning them. It gives you something to build upon and a basis to work from in your marriage. They wrote these things because we don't all know them. If we all knew them, they wouldn't need to be written down. So growing is just fine because what it is is each of you will grow individually and the marriage will grow too. And even if you had known these for ten years before you met and fell in love and got married, you would still have a lot to learn. It's okay, but I'm glad you brought that up because that's a key thing.

Look at it. This is challenging. This is like, wow, I'm never ever going to do this. It is challenging, and the best thing we can recognize is this is the Lord's to-do and not ours. This isn't ours to say, well, I'll sign up for this and we'll check in and see what the Lord thinks about how I'm doing it. No, it's His to-do.

Looking at it as a growth process, that's perfect. If you were to look at it as static, that's probably a good way to find yourself in trouble. Growing, yeah, that'll work just fine. That'll work fine. So if both of you are growing, that's excellent. And thanks for bringing that point up, because that's a real valuable one. The thing is there is room for both of you to grow and the marriage to grow for as long as the Lord has you together.

My grandparents on my mom's side were not married until they were in their early thirties, but they lived on for quite a few years. My grandmother was in her middle to late eighties when she finally went home to be with the a week after my grandpa's 90th birthday. My grandpa lived on for another seven years after that. But basically they spent decades together.

Nancy got to meet them. As a matter of fact, that was one of the ways she knew that I was serious. I took her over to meet my grandparents. That was like meeting his parents only. I had already met his parents, so it was just going to meet the grandparents. Yeah, meet the grandparents. But Nancy got to see, hey, my grandparents are still growing.

That's a neat thing. Yeah, that's a good thing. Growth is just wonderful. That's great. It's not growing that's the problem. There's nothing you're going to step into that the Lord can't handle. And there's nothing that you're going to step into that the Lord doesn't intend to use to grow wealthy. So it's a good thing. OK, let's call it there.

What I'd like to do next time, I actually want to revisit this and talk over again some of the ways that these Lord, thank you for what you've laid out in your word. It's a very special passage from a very special apostle and a man who certainly understood a great many things about the Christian life. Himself walked this sod with you and also understanding marriage deeply. And we thank you for the insights he's passed along by your inspiration. Pray that you would bring these things to our hearts and minds, that we would understand them and see what you have for us. In Jesus' name, amen.