Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. So, you're married. What are you supposed to do for each other? There are nine things. Hope you enjoy the discussion.

Jason, your mission, if you decide to accept it, is to discuss a great chapter on marriage and theology of the family. What are the duties of husbands and wives? It's a fantastic chapter. You know, marriage is really important. Everything flows from a marriage.

And so, you know, that's why I wrote this book called getting the picture right in your marriage, and biblical counsel for making Jesus Christ the center of your marriage. Also too, this book, When Talking Gets Tough, How to Have Important Conversations, This is a really helpful book for husbands and wives who are trying to figure out how to talk about difficult matters. But we're going to talk about this Richard Steele article, What are the duties of husbands and wives? He wrote this in the 1600s. So here's a great opening to the article.

He says, explaining marital duties to you is much easier than persuading you to do them. Conform your will to Scripture, not vice versa. Take Ephesians 5.33 to heart. So the kind of the foundational verse that he's working off of in this chapter is Ephesians 5.33. Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself and the wife see that she reverence her husband." Then he says this of this phrase from the verse, let every one of you, no matter how good you are or how bad your spouse, All husbands are entitled to their wives' respect, whether they are wise or foolish, intelligent or slow, skillful or clumsy.

All wives are entitled to their husbands' love, whether beautiful or ugly, rich or poor, submissive or rebellious." Yeah, let every one of you. What a magical, wonderful principle. Nobody's off the hook here. Nobody's off the hook. And then he goes on and he lists nine things that you should do.

Nine things that every husband, every wife ought to do. So it's really, it's super practical. And he doesn't give us an acronym, shame on him. He doesn't give us any acronyms. So, but you know, marriage is a work, right?

We do work for one another. God gets us married, for a purpose. And that is to provide something to one another We didn't just get married for ourselves. We got married so that somebody else would have something done to them. What a blessing.

Okay, so let's go down the list. So the first one is living with each other. Living with each other. He must leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife. And she must forget also her own people and her father's house.

Psalm 45 verse 10. He must dwell with his wife. First Peter 3 7. She must not depart from her husband. And then he talks about living together as with regular sexual relationships in 1st Corinthians 7, 3 through 5.

So living with each other. So it includes physical intimacy but that's only just a small part of the small slice of that pie and it is a forming of an independent separate household. So a father leaves, a son leaves his father and mother's house to cleave to his wife and a wife leaves her own people to be part of her husband and they form a new household. And part of that is a permanent living arrangement where they are in tight quarters forever after. What does God want his creatures to do?

He wants them to live together. Isn't that interesting? He doesn't want you just wandering all over the place. He wants you to live with a woman or live with a man. It's not good for a man to be alone and so God has solved that problem and given us companions to be in close quarters with.

Yeah, it's the wisdom of God to live with someone day to day. That's beautiful. Number two, loving each other. Loving each other. So in in Ephesians 5, the classic text, the husband loves the wife, the wife respects the husband.

But that doesn't mean that the wife doesn't love the husband. Richard Steele then quotes Titus 2, where she's commanded to love her husband. You can find other places that would direct a husband to respect his wife. So these really are mutual obligations and love in a marriage to be two-way. He says this in this paragraph, This love is not merely romance, but genuine and constant affection and care for each other with a pure heart, fervently quoting 1 Peter 1 22.

Marital love cannot be based on beauty or wealth, for these are passing. It must be based upon God's command which never changes. I love this line in that paragraph. Love is the great reason and comfort of marriage. To have that as your motive.

To recognize that again that God wants you to love someone. God wants someone to be loved. God's ways are so wonderful. And then he says, you know, it can't be based on beauty or wealth. It must be based on God's command, which never changes.

The marriage vow obliges for better or for worse. And, you know, loving one another through the hard times, loving one another through the easy times, loving one another. Love is the reason that God created marriage. At one of the Church of Fame and Life conferences, I had the opportunity just to expound on 1st Corinthians 13, the love chapter. Love is, and it defines love for us, and that is so far separated from a cotton candy kind of romantic only love.

Of course, romantic love is included in love, but it goes so far beyond that. And, just expounding, first Corinthians 13 and applying it to the marriage relationship was so helpful. He says this true-hearted love brings true contentment and comfort in its train. Isn't that something? To be the recipient of that kind of love from your closest relationship in life is so stabilizing and so sweetening to life.

Yeah, yeah. So number three, staying faithful to each other. A duty of husband and wife is to stay faithful to each other. And of course he's, he is talking about sexuality and, you know, to provide what God has commanded in first Corinthians, in first Corinthians seven, verse two, but then he says this, the slightest infidelity, even in the heart may lead to full blown adultery. I think he's talking about what, what Jesus did in Matthew chapter five about looking upon someone else.

Yeah. With eyes for adultery. Jesus says you've committed adultery already in your heart. And Steele goes on to say it will lead to the actual physical act of adultery. If you give space to that, He says, be careful to avoid temptations to this sin.

The man who is not satisfied with one woman will never be satisfied with many, because this sin has no boundaries. Oh boy. Don't you find that to be true? Yeah, yeah. He also says this, faithfulness also involves keeping each other's secrets.

So faithfulness is not just about adultery, but also Spouses know things about each other and about the circumstances of each other's lives that nobody else knows, and it ought to stay that way. Faithfulness requires you to keep the secrets of your spouse. They protect one another. That's part of the staying faithful to one another. And then, number four, helping each other.

He says the wife should be a helper comparable to her husband, implying they should both help each other. I thought that was really helpful. Just because there's a command given to one person doesn't mean that the other is exempted. Right, so and then he gives us three different categories for ways that husbands and wives can help each other. Their work.

She has her work at home, but he can enter into those labors and help her at home. He has his work outside the home, but there are ways that she can support and help him in those things. The second category, their crosses. He says this, though newlyweds expect only pleasure in marriage, trouble is bound to come. Okay.

And so husbands and wives are both going to experience crosses and they should help each other with kind of the hardships and discouragements of life. And then then finally you have this third category, their commitment to Christ. Husbands and wives should help each other in their commitment to Christ. Yeah, to be a sanctifying influence in one another, to help one another be holy, to help one another in that direction, to have that as a mission. Yeah, to be helping one another on all the different fronts of life from work, you know, all the way down to your spiritual life.

You know, how are you affecting your spouse spiritually? Are you helping your spouse spiritually? Does your demeanor help when you walk in the door when you talk to her? Are you helping her love God more? Or are you just challenging her to have to love God in the midst of your bad attitude?

So number five, being patient with each other. Another duty, to be patient. The duty we owe to all, but especially our spouse, Ephesians 4.31 and 32. So just let me read from this section. I hate to just read the chapter.

Let's do it. Go for it. It's great. This one was so rich, I think it's worthwhile. He says, there are many temptations in marriage to become impatient, exclamation point.

Hot tempers ignite civil wars indoors, and no good ever comes from them. Both need a meek and quiet spirit. Learn to hold your peace to keep the peace. Withdraw until the storm is over. You are not two angels married but two sinful children of Adam.

Wink at lesser faults and be careful in confronting greater ones. Acknowledge your faults to one another and confess them all to God. Yield to one another rather than to the devil." Yeah, really helpful counsel. Boy, that was power-packed. Wink at lesser faults.

And be careful in confronting the greater ones. Yeah, you don't have to be confronting your spouse all the time. Number six, promoting the salvation of each other. The 1st Corinthians 7 says that we're not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers who you're not supposed to knowingly marry a non-Christian, but some people marry before they learn that, and some people marry before they're Christians themselves. And so they find themselves married to an unbeliever.

And when you find yourself in that condition, you should labor for the salvation of your marriage partner. Man, he nails it too. He says, what good is it to enjoy marriage now and then go to hell together? He quotes Christ Ostom. Here's what the early church father Christ Ostom said, let them both go to church and then discuss the sermon together.

And then Steele says if both are Christians already then they should do what they can to help each other become thorough saints, speak often of God and spiritual things, be fellow pilgrims to the celestial city. It made me think of Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, who unwittingly married an unbeliever. He didn't know she was an unbeliever, and she didn't know that she was an unbeliever, but as she sat under his faithful gospel preaching ministry, she began to realize the new birth that he's describing has not happened to me. And she was converted under his preaching.

So he was unwittingly laboring for the salvation of his wife just through a faithful preaching ministry. Yeah, you know, it happens when that people will unwittingly marry an unbeliever and it's really a critical thing and he says be fellow pilgrims to the celestial city. So discovering that your spouse is not a believer And then ministering to that spouse is really a really important thing. I know lots of people who thought they married believers, but they didn't. And then it came out a year, five years, ten years, twenty years later.

And then they were saved. We have a deacon at our church and his wife. They married as unbelievers and they had a friend who was murdered and at the funeral the husband of this murdered woman preached the gospel and what now is our deacon's wife received the gospel, was saved, and he was infuriated at the transforming impact of Jesus in her life but ended up getting saved through that isn't that amazing? Isn't that great? Wow.

Yes. Number seven, maintaining regular but moderate sex. I thought that was funny the way he worded that, marriage is an honorable to all and the bed undefiled. And so he's really just repeating 1 Corinthians 7, 5. It's a command not to abstain from marriage, from sexual intimacy, except for a time for prayer and fasting.

He says this, I think this is really helpful counsel. Well, we tend to think preoccupation with sex, even in marriage, is a modern thing. He's writing what I'm getting ready to read in the mid to late 1600s, so this is not a new thing. He says marital sex is designed to remedy impure affections, not excite them. You cannot follow every sexual folly you can imagine with your spouse just because you are married.

Even in marital relations we must show reverence to God and respect for each other true love does not behave rudely first Corinthians 13 5 he says owning wine gives you no permission to get drunk paralleling right with sexual intimacy and then number eight looking out for each other's interests in all things. He says, they should be bosom friends, laughing and weeping together with nothing but death, separating their interests. So here he's talking about what we all aspire to, which is just the dearest friendship among spouses. Sometimes it's tragic to see, sometimes spouses really aren't friends. But God hasn't made it that way and He's encouraging us to be the best of friends.

We laugh together, we weep together. Our homes and marriages should be full of laughter. Yeah, that's beautiful. And then nine, finally, praying for each other. Peter warns against their prayers being hindered and he suggests that they should pray for and with each other.

And then he quotes Genesis 25-21, Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife because she was barren. So husbands and wives praying together can be a challenge for some reason. It can be hard, but it's something that should be overcome. And the sweetest things happen when husbands and wives pray together. Now he's saying praying for each other.

You might just think what your spouse needs prayer for today, even today. So even after these nine things, there's a few nuggets of gold that I wanted to mine out and give to people who are listening or watching. Listen to what he says here, choose your spouse carefully. Now that you know how difficult godly marriage is you should be praying that he would guide you into it do not first love and then consider, first consider and then love. Wow, was that good advice.

One more. Resolve to obey God without any reservation until you are born again and made holy in your heart and conduct, you cannot please God or be a complete blessing to your spouse. You can only live together as civil pagans." So really regenerate hearts are at the heart of healthy marital life. Yeah. So God tells us what to do.

Right here, nine things. Nine things that would be a huge blessing in any marriage. And I'll just repeat them. First of all, live with one another. Second, love one another.

Third, stay faithful to each other. Fourth, help each other. Fifth, be patient with each other. Sixth, promote the salvation of each other. Seventh, maintain regular but moderate marital sex.

Eight, look out for each other's interest in all things. And number nine, pray for each other. Isn't God good? He has such kind intentions for his people. He wants us to be like this to somebody in the world that we're married to, and he wants our spouses to return the benefit.

God is good. Can I get you to give just a tip about the book? Yeah. So this is a really big book. I'm glad my Bible isn't this big and heavy.

But the chapter that we just read, there was so much gold there, it's really in only five pages, and you don't have to have read everything that came before it. It really doesn't depend on anything that comes before or after it. So it's just a wonderful book in that respect. Every article that's in it is about three to six or seven pages each, and so they're bite-sized and they're not dependent on anything else in the book, so I don't know of anybody who's read it cover to cover, but as a reference book on different topics related to family life, it is gold. And the chapters, there are several articles, 12 chapters in each article, 12 articles in each chapter.

Chapter one, family worship, That's worth the price of the book. Chapter two, godly manhood. Chapter three, virtuous womanhood. Chapter four, marriage. We just read out of that one.

Five, bringing up children. Six, fatherhood. Seven, motherhood. Eight, childbearing. Nine, abortion.

Ten, the duties of sons and daughters, eleven, modest apparel, twelve, thoughts for young people, thirteen, The Lord's Day, and we are republishing this book because we have just sold out of them and we're adding some new material and a completely new cover. It's gonna be a beautiful book that you're gonna want to have on your bookshelf. The Theology of the Family, Five Centuries of Biblical Wisdom for Family. So you put some new content in there to draw me to buy another one. That's exactly right.

You've got to have it. Well thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast. Hope to see you next time. Resource helpful, we encourage you to check out ChurchandFamilyLife.com.