Let's pick up here and we got to polish off the last part of this, the process dynamics in this hour. And I'm not going to spend a long time on this but the last thing has to do with P. In our series, remember a few weeks ago, the last letter in the acrostic is P to promote or permanentize.

What are the necessary changes through the counseling elements of instruction, inducement, implementation, integration that we referred to several weeks ago as the eight I's. So instruction that is given through the homework that counselees do between the sessions. Sometimes you can give good instruction by giving really good homework. What are the benefits of that particular homework?

Well, what it does is that it promotes the concept that people should be concerned about God's perspectives and solutions. It promotes the concept of that people should be concerned about God's perspectives and solutions, not just man. So your homework needs to always be biblically oriented. That doesn't mean you can't assign books that are extra biblical books.

Hopefully they're based upon the Bible to read but primarily at the core of your homework, you're getting people into the Word of God, finding answers within the Word of God, that's our desire. It is also a way of teaching people how to use scriptures, teaching people how to use scriptures, how to handle them well.

You'll find out a lot about your congregation and how they handle scripture by the homework that they do. It also sets a pattern for change and for action and change as well because as they complete their homework, they realize that the change is not just going to occur during one hour a week when you counsel because there are a lot of people who view that hour as magic hour of the week, all right.

Well, I'm going to come together for the magic hour of the week. We've got counseling that hour. That's where I really change and grow. Well, they may change and grow during your counseling but when you give them homework, you're helping them understand that that change continues past outside of the counseling hour into the actual week itself.

They can continue that change and growth. It also diminishes professional counselees. There are some people that would spend the rest of their life just meeting with you, you know that. They would, they would eat up all your time. No, no, no, you don't want that. Again, they may cling to your hope at first but you need to peel their fingers off of you and have them cling to the scriptures.

And so you want to get them into the scriptures, solving problems in the scripture their way. Husbands, wives, parents, kids, that's what needs to be happening. So it diminishes the professional counselee. Homework also is a helpful means of gathering data. If they do their homework poorly or if they do it only partially, that tells you a lot about them, how lazy they are.

There's so many other things going on in life. They're not really working on this particular problem. They want to come and talk about their problem and they want you to give them some kind of magical solution. And they may think that because you've had seminary training that you're automatically equipped with a bag of spiritual whiffle dust where you can dig into it and sprinkle it on their problem and all their problems will go away.

No, that's not what happens here. They've got to be willing to work on their problems. And giving them homework and gathering data on how well they're doing the homework, homework helps to, it serves as a way to gather data on how well they're growing. Good homework then also tends to sustain motivation or momentum in the right direction as they do their homework and keep record of it and move on to bigger issues and resolve it in a God-honoring way.

It also, good homework encourages concreteness. The more specific you can get your counselees to be, the more concrete you can get them to be, the quicker you're gonna see change. Jeff? >> It's a question back to number five. >> Yeah, number five. >> Gathering data, like if they don't do their homework, what's your philosophy?

How many times do they have to come to you? >> Oh yeah. >> Not doing their homework. >> If they don't do their homework. When a person doesn't do their homework, the first time that happens, I'll reassign everything again. I'll say, hey, we're not gonna go anywhere until you get this done.

So I'll reassign it. They come back and they still don't have it done, then I'll reassign it one more time, but I'll let 'em know this is the last time because they're basically saying, they can communicate to me verbally that they're really serious about counseling, but they're showing to me they're really not.

Or they disagree with the homework in some way, and either they're gonna trust you as a counselor or they're not gonna trust you. If you're showing them from God's word what they ought to be doing, then they should trust you. If they don't want to trust you, well then that's their choice.

So then you terminate it. And sometimes, one of the last appointments, after the second or third time they haven't done their homework, then I'll say to them, listen, I'm gonna send you home with this homework one more time. I don't want to see you. I'm not gonna set up a future appointment with you until you've done the homework.

When you've done the homework, you call back, set up an appointment again, and we'll meet with you. But until that homework's done, I don't want to see you. That's a good question. All right, it also functions as a measuring stick on how quickly they're growing, how well they're growing.

You're able to measure how well they understand what the Bible says about their particular problem, how well they handle the Bible in dealing with their problems. So it functions as a measuring stick. It also decreases the counselee's dependence upon you. The more they do their homework, the more active they become in the word of God, the less dependent they are on you and your counsel.

Homework also provides a good starting point for every counseling appointment. In fact, the first thing that happens every time I do counseling is a couple or a family comes in and sits down. I say to them, let's have prayer, and then we'll get started. So we have prayer together, and then first thing I say, I open up my little notes that I'm keeping, and then it's a copy of the homework that I gave them during the last session, and I start going through the homework and talking about it.

All right, I assigned you this particular passage of scripture to read and study and identify four or five major things in that passage that kind of hit you right between the eyes, and what does God say about your problem as a result of this passage? And I ask you to write those four or five things down.

So they've done that, I check that off. We have a chance to discuss that, and then I move to the next thing, and then the next thing. So that's a good place to get started. That gets everything rolling. That gets the conversation going, you know, and then I just naturally transition into other instruction that I want to give them during that session.

It also, you'll find out, when you get your counselees used to doing good homework, and they achieve some success in it, it actually builds their confidence in how to solve problems biblically, and that's what you want. You want to build their confidence, not self-confidence. We're not talking about that.

We're not Adlerian. We're not talking about self-esteem and self-confidence. We're not talking about what Jim Dobson would talk about there. We're talking about confidence, not in self, but in the word of God to solve their problems. They see how the Bible speaks to their problem. Before, they didn't see it.

Now, they do, and it builds the counselees' confidence in the scriptures. Number 12, there's a failure, then, in the homework provides an opportunity for more data gathering. Why have they failed? Is there a legitimate reason? Did you give them too much homework? Maybe you did, and sometimes you have to realize you have to back off.

If you have a counselee that's not a real good reader, never really done a whole lot of work before in studying the Bible, you don't want to give them a whole lot, just a little bit. You can easily overwhelm them and drown them in homework, and that's not good.

This becomes a opportunity for good data gathering. It also forces your counselee to implement and practice the truths that you're talking about in counseling. In other words, they have to take this home with them. They have to work on it. That's why it's called homework. So, they have to take it home and practice it now.

So, it forces them to do that. 14, problem-solving book now for the future. In other words, I always have the counselee keep a record of all their homework in a notebook so that if this problem that we're working on comes back later on in the future, they have a resource manual to go back to and say, all right, this is what we worked on.

This is what we studied. This is what we learned. So, they don't always have to come back to you and start up the counseling again. So, it becomes a good resource manual for them. A personalized, by the way, that's what makes it so neat. It's a personalized resource manual for their particular problem.

Boy, I've had some counselees have a notebook that thick when they were done. I mean, they just page after page after page of Bible study, work, observations, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And when you have a personalized manual or workbook on a problem that they've struggled with all of their life, now they've got something concrete to take with them into the future.

So, it's a problem-solving book for the future. 15, and last of all, it provides people with tools for use with other people. Most people who keep this kind of a workbook will end up using it with other people. In fact, the real danger is they'll interpret everybody's problems through their problems.

That's dangerous. That's not a good thing, but there probably is an awful lot of things that they learned as a result of their problem that are applicable to a variety of different issues that are out there from a scriptural standpoint. So, there's all the benefits of providing really, really good homework that is beneficial to the counselee.

Now, what is the nature of good homework? Well, you gotta have, it's gotta be biblical in orientation as well as function. What do we mean by that? It needs to, well, it actually, at the core of all good homework is, like I said, getting people into the Word of God, solving their problems from scripture, where they see it, they study it, they understand it correctly.

They see it within context. They're not trying to pull it out of context. They see the theological implications to it, and they're changing their life in accordance with that. That's what we mean by that. Good homework also is specific concrete. It's not vague and fuzzy. Get them out of fuzzy land.

Get them out of Vaguesville. The more you allow your counselee to be fuzzy or vague, the slower their development will be. The more concrete and specific about it, let me give you an instance. Like, for instance, you'll ask a husband and wife is having problems, and they come back in, and you start to review their homework, and you say, listen, George, what is it that you've learned this week in order to be a more godly husband?

George says, well, pastor, I've learned to love my wife more. Well, that's really good, George, but what does that mean? Does that mean, when most American Europeans talk about loving their wife more, it usually means emoting lots of good emotions towards her. So is that what you're gonna do?

You're gonna go home every day and sit there and, mmm, and emote lots of good emotions towards your wife? Is that what you're gonna do, George? No, I got a feeling that's not what you're looking for. You're right, George, that's not what I'm looking for. Okay, what does that mean, you're gonna love your wife more?

I'm gonna think of her first. Well, how are you gonna think of her first? Well, maybe I'll help her out with some of the responsibilities around the house. Well, that's good, George, like what? Let's be specific here. What are we talking about, helping your wife out with some of the responsibilities around the house?

I guess I could take out the garbage. Does your wife take out the garbage, George? Well, I guess she does. Well, why is that happening? You ought to be doing it, right? Oh, I guess so. Anything else, George? Is taking out the garbage gonna communicate that you love your wife?

She's sitting there, smiling, like this. George hasn't taken out the garbage ever in their marriage. Well, I guess I could help her out after meals and maybe even wash the dishes. Now his wife's having a heart attack. She's hyperventilating, okay? That's good, George, that's right. That's a good way to show your wife that you really love her.

What else, George? Well, I'm not gonna throw my clothes and underwear all over the bedroom. Well, that's good, where are you gonna put 'em, George? In the laundry. Well, what's gonna happen to that laundry? Well, my wife's gonna wash 'em. Why's your wife gotta wash 'em? You want me to wash 'em, Pastor?

Yeah, what about you washing and doing the laundry? George's eyes are like this. His wife is. All right. Now we're getting down to concrete. Illustrations, George, this is exactly what we're talking about. Don't let them be in Fuzzyland or Vaguesville. 'Cause they'll try to get away with that. They'll say, well, you know, I need to love my wife more.

And they'll expect you to accept that as the answer. No, no, no, no, you pin George down. You get him to be very specific about what he's talking about. All right, then the next week, guess what? You're gonna ask George the next week, I'm making a little note in my notes, I'm gonna ask George how many times did George do the dishes for his wife?

How many times did he take out the trash? How many times did he sweep up the room or run the vacuum? How many times did he, you know, I wanna know these things. I wanna know what's really changing on a week-to-week basis in George's life. I wanna know that.

And the same thing with George's wife, Irene. She can't just get away with, well, I've gotta submit myself more to my husband, okay? Well, what does that mean? That's very fuzzy. I mean, that's the right thing, you got the right concept, but how is that going to be specifically applied to your particular situation in your home?

How are you going to submit yourself to your husband? Well, I guess I'm gonna let him have the checkbook. Well, that's a good idea. All right, let him have the checkbook. That's right. I guess I'm going to think about him before myself. Well, good, that's good, Irene. How are you gonna do that?

How are you gonna think about George before yourself? Well, rather than preparing dinner when he gets home with something that I would want to have for dinner, I'm gonna prepare something that George will really like for dinner. That's good, Irene. Something that George would really like for dinner. That's good, like what?

What would George really like? What is it, apple pie? Oh, apple pie, Ruben says. I gotta tell your wife. Not yet. That's right, yes, can you pan the camera down a little bit here to? So there's, you gotta get them to be specific, concrete, practical in addressing their marital needs.

Again, it's not enough for them to commit themselves to communicating better. That's not enough. They have gotta say, okay, this coming week, we're gonna sit down together three times and we're gonna spend 45 minutes or an hour, three times, where we have a chance to communicate and talk about some of our concerns and some of the problems that we have that are going on.

That's what we're talking about. There also needs to be, you need to be flexible in varying dynamics of marriage as well. Flexibility means that you're not so hard and fast on one particular course of action that you're not willing to give your spouse an opportunity to help to vary that course of action or change.

There's gotta be that flexibility. There has to be appropriate or applicable, the homework has to be appropriate or applicable, not theologically abstract. We want them to take theology and make it concrete again. We don't want them to just remain in abstract terms. It's easy for people to do that.

It also needs to be reportable so you can measure success and progress. So how are they gonna report this? So it needs to be reportable in that sense. So that's the nature of good homework. What are some of the kinds of homework for promoting good change? There's a lot of published material that are out there.

There's also, any more there was. I mean, when I first started in biblical counseling, there wasn't very much published, but there is an awful lot. Just beginning with the textbooks that are required for this class is a good example of that. Relevant homework for marriage and family issues is also found in the appendices of various sections of the course outline, as well as in, in some cases, in some of the books that you're reading.

There's also freelance homework that you think is appropriate and relevant. And oftentimes, it's the freelance homework that is some of the best if you know how to put it together the right way. Like, for instance, you ask them to study 1 Peter chapter three and verse two and write out 10 ways you can demonstrate chaste and respectful behavior as a wife.

And we talked about that before. That's a wife that's especially married to an unbelieving husband there in the context. And you make a list of 20 things that you can do practically to show your wife that you love her. All right, George, let's make that list out. Give me 20 ways where you're going to show practically that you love your wife.

What are they? So you have to develop that. And that's part of the homework. Then, also, study 1 Corinthians 13 and make a chart with two columns with each term's definition in one column and with two or three ideas of how you intend to practically demonstrate it to your spouse in the next column.

So you're writing out each term that's listed there in 1 Corinthians 13 and then you're gonna highlight two or three things that you think are gonna be helpful to demonstrate this practically to your spouse. Or D, have devotions and pray. Now, keep a record of what you do. Develop a prayer list for your marriage and your spouse and also for the family members so that you are praying for one another.

So, Irene, I want you to make a prayer list about George. I want you to list 20, 25 things on that prayer list that you can pray for about George. And, George, I want you to do the same thing with Irene. I want you to develop 20, 25 things that you can pray about for her.

Keep, also, a companionship record. Write down every time you spend time together and what you've really discussed when you spent that time together. That's a companionship record. And then, complete a read the Bible assignment on marriage and record your thoughts from the assigned passage. And you can develop it.

You could put together several critical passages that deal with marital relationships and you read 'em together, you discuss them, you highlight key ideas. Sometimes I'll say I want the husband to lead the conversation and call the meeting where you're going to do this and I want the wife to be the secretary and write down the key thoughts of discussion that you spend time doing or discussing.

Make a list of the good times and bad times journal for the week. Identify what were the good times this week that you had together. But, also, identify what were the bad times and what was the difference between the two. Or, a review of rate your marriage inventories and discuss the things that you do to make improvements in your home.

Now, where you find that is in Wayne Mack's material, A Homework for Biblical Counselors, Volumes One and Two. And in that is a rate your marriage inventory. It's a little key thing that you can reproduce and they tell you you can reproduce it. They give you permission to do that.

And it's a little helpful tool to get into how a wife or how a husband views their marriage, what's going on there. So, a rate your marriage inventory. Secondly, there's also instruction in the form of teaching. Explaining what is the major issues in their individual lives they need to change in order to improve their marriage and their home.

What are the major issues in order to improve their marriage and their home. For example, in 2 Timothy 3 and verse 16, and in Colossians 1:28 and Colossians 3:16, it uses the Greek term didosco. Didosco, it has to do with teaching. Marriage and family counseling done God's way involves large dosages of teaching and instruction from the scripture.

Now, usually, as seminary students, you're not afraid to do that. You're well prepared to do some serious preaching here and teaching here, so that's not usually a problem. It's not enough for them to know the right things. They've gotta, they must be admonished and trained to think, do, and desire the right things.

Think, do, and desire the right things. I'll come back to that in a minute. And also, Titus chapter two and verse 15, Paul says, "Speak." This is different than just say the right things. That's the word let go. You must speak up with clear instruction and direction. And I think it's vitally important that when you, when you teach, that you're teaching in order to help them to identify what is ruling or mastering their heart.

What is it that is the functional idols that tend to reign there? That heart says, I must. This is what sometimes the scripture will call their lust or their craving or what their heart demands. That's what they must do. Now, because it is this aspect of the heart that really fuels their attitudes towards one another, their actions towards one another, their reactions towards one another, their beliefs about one another.

If they're suspicious, if they think their mate is lying to them. And what you've got here, all of this really is what the Bible calls the fruit. And down here on a heart level is the root. And so your instruction is geared towards helping them see, this is what you see coming at you.

This is what you've collected in terms of your data, what's happening in the marriage. Their attitudes, their actions, their reactions, their beliefs, even their words and the words that they choose. And all of this is fueled here, motivated by whatever is reigning in their heart. And when you interpret that data, what you're attempting to do really is you're trying to get at what's really going on in their heart.

This is what you see in counseling. This is what you hear. This is what your homework reveals. So when you interpret it, the interpretation process of what's really happening on a heart level, what are they saying? I must be in control of my marriage. I must have a wife that respects me.

I must have a husband that loves me. I must have children that are obedient. And this is what ends up reigning in their heart. That becomes their functional God. This bespeaks to what they ultimately worship. That drives this behavior. That's why then when they don't receive, when they don't have children that are obedient, then they become sullen, depressed, or angry, hateful, and mean, and reactive.

So it's that root, I must have obedient children, that fuels their actions. So your instruction is geared in that direction. And so you're speaking to them. You have to speak the right things. You've got to speak with clear instruction and direction, and especially getting at heart issues. Instruction then in the form of reproof and admonition.

Here, Titus 2.15, Paul not only tells Titus to do, speak, also to exhort and reprove. Para kaleo is the term to exhort. It's the same word that's used in Romans 12.1, which is a corporate command to be one. I exhort you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice.

Bodies are plural. A, living sacrifice, is singular. So it's corporately applied together as a single sacrifice. A pastoral command on how to admonish older and younger men and women, in 1 Peter 5, verses one and two. Philippians 4.2, Ephesians 4.1. Paul is a good example of personal admonishment here.

Sometimes you're gonna have to say to George and Irene, listen, George, I think that you have an idol in your heart that you need to see and repent of. That idol says, I must have a wife that caters to all my needs. Or Irene, I must have a husband who loves me the way I think I should be loved and the way that I deserve.

That can become an idolatrous desire in her heart that fuels her actions, just as with George. Then it talks about reproving. Eligeo, which is to cross-examine for the purpose of convicting or refuting an opponent to convict. John 16.8, Jesus uses this word to describe the work of the Holy Spirit in the world.

And he, when he comes, will convict. There's our word. Convict the world concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment. 2 Timothy 3:16-17, all scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

So our word reproof is our same word as the word convict. And hence you get the idea of convicting, reproving, refuting. So your instruction is going to take that on in scripture. Then Colossians 1, verse 26, and also 3.16. Note Paul not only refers to teaching, but also admonishing, warning, or counseling.

Here the Greek word is nutheteo. And the key idea here is nus, which means mind. In English, we would translate it the mind. And then tithemi, which means to place or to put. So you get this idea that the concept together is to place or put sense into the mind.

That's why this word nutheteo is a really good word for counseling because that's what you're doing when you counsel someone. You're placing or putting sense into the mind. You can see example of this here in Acts 20, verse 31, in Romans 15, 14, in 1 Corinthians 4.14, in Colossians 1.28, in Colossians 3.16, 1 Thessalonians 5.12, 1 Thessalonians 5.14, 2 Thessalonians 3.15.

You see in the English translations, the King James version there at the top on the left-hand side. In the middle there is the New American Standard version, the NASV, and then on the right side there is the New International version, or the NIV. And how they choose to translate it.

Usually warn or admonish or instruct is the normal way that it can be translated. It also can be translated counsel. So to place sense into the mind is the idea. So there are two things these passages make clear about the activity of exhorting, rebuking, or admonishing. Number one, the purpose of exhortation or admonition is to place sense back into the husband and wife so that their goal and agenda is to be a marriage and a home that honors the Lord in everything.

And this is only to come from biblical instruction. There's no amount of psychological instruction that's going to build a biblical home. It's only gonna come from biblical instruction. Number two, the manner of exhortation or admonition, Romans 12.1, 1 Timothy 5.1, 2 Timothy 2.24 and 25, and 2 Timothy 4.2, Galatians 6.1.

And each of those passages' strong verbs now are used to express exhorting, rebuking, admonishment so that their home and marriage is brought to rest upon the word of God. That's what we're after. They want their marriage to be, to rest upon the word of God and the word of God alone.

Then there is instruction in the form of specific suggestions or ideas about how to put biblical directives about family living into practice. Working with counselees to make plans for realizing and implementing and integrating God's principles into their marriage and family life. There's also instruction number five in the form of coaching.

There is a real sense in which every counselor is like a coach, not just to tell them what to do, but to prod them to practice what they do, what they should be doing. You're coaching them on how to do it better. Almost the same way that a piano teacher would sit and observe how the student is putting their fingers on the piano keys and forming groupings of notes.

And so they give them suggestions about those kind of things. Typically a biblical coach helps counselees to find their own solutions by asking questions that give them insight into their situations with scripture as a guide. A godly coach holds a counselee accountable so that if a counselee agrees to plan, to a plan to achieve a goal, a coach will help motivate them to complete their plan with a proper biblical motives for home and for marriage.

So a coach comes alongside to make these practical suggestions on how to implement this in a better way. That's the way you can promote and permanentize. We're working on that acrostic, C-A-P-T, that we talked about before. Promote and permanentize. Well the last one in that little acrostic is the termination of counseling.

The termination of counseling. How do you know when to terminate? You have to keep the purpose of counseling in mind and that is in our eight eyes ultimately integrating this change that has been brought about by the word of God in their life and their marriage and their home into their everyday life.

That's what we're looking for. We want them to integrate this truth or change into their life. So how can a biblical counselor know that integration has ultimately occurred is the question. Well the counselee understands the problem from a biblical perspective. That's pretty obvious to the counselor. If George and Irene understand the problem really well then that helps you understand they're ready to terminate.

They know what God wants them to do. I mean that's clear to them too. They know exactly what God wants them to do now. Or C here, they regularly handle problems in a biblical way. In fact you may in counseling hypothetically throw out problems to them and saying okay, now how would you have handled this in the past when you didn't know how to do it biblically?

And they'd share it with you. How has things changed now? How do you handle it differently now? And they're able to share the biblical way. Furthermore they accurately diagnose their own problems and mistakes too. When you get counselees coming in saying, you know I caught myself doing that again and I know what the problem is.

When you get them saying that kind of thing you know they're ready to graduate from counseling or they're getting pretty close to it. Or they accept personal responsibility for their failures where earlier in counseling it was really easy for George to blame Irene and Irene to blame George and both of them to blame the kids.

You know they're always blaming somebody else. Now they're not doing that. They're accepting responsibilities for failures. And they accept that. And they're searching for and find biblical solutions. In fact they're really excited about this. They're going to the Bible more and more in order to find solutions to their daily problems.

Or they've faced their trials and they've handled them very well. Or maybe they failed but they've identified biblically why and they've recovered from it. Or they share what they've learned with other people and they're really excited about sharing what they've learned with other people. Or others notice and comment about the change.

People at church, other members of the family say, "Wow, mom and dad have really changed," the kids say. They're not the way that they were before. Or others begin to seek the counselee's help and they want to know what their secret is. Or the counselee's can list and document their changes.

Or the counselee themselves thinks he's ready. They think he's ready. That needs to be there. If they don't think that they're ready then there's a reason why and you need to find out why. Or inventories show significant improvement in their lives. Then you know they're ready to graduate from counseling.

You're ready to terminate them. That doesn't mean knock 'em off. That means you're ready to graduate them out of counseling. Now how do you do that? So especially so that reversals are really minimized. Well, you do it gradually. Move from every week to every month, to every four months, to every six months and then use these times for regular checkups.

So one of the ways you can minimize any kind of reversal is to gradually terminate them. You do it with instructions. You always be sure that their counseling notes are available and they can recite the biblical process of confession, repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation to deal with problems when they occur in the future and they will have problems.

Or with plans for a checkup and homework that must be completed for the next checkup. This will help them to continue the process of biblical growth and change in their marriage. So you tell 'em, okay, listen, I wanna meet with you in the next six months and during that particular session, we're gonna do a checkup on all the things that we've been talking about.

I'm gonna create a little checkup list and we're gonna go through that to see how you're doing. You're communicating better? George, are you helping out Irene? Irene, are you thinking about George before yourself? How's that going? And I don't want you to give me the fuzzies. I want you to give me the concrete things.

What has really changed here? I'm counseling a guy this past week. He's had struggles and problems in his marriage and one of the ways that I have gotten a clue that he's ready to graduate is he's initiated some certain things with his wife without me even encouraging him to do so.

And one of the things he did in the last session he told me about really surprised me. He's initiated one night a week where he has a date night. His wife comes home. She's taking classes at a local university and his wife comes home at night and that particular night, he has a really wonderful meal prepared for her and a candlelight dinner and it's getting so that, I mean, here's a marriage that really was really rocky that she really looks forward to this.

She really enjoys that and they sit around for hours after that dinner just talking. They've never ever had that in years and years of marriage. They've never had that. Well, let's review if we can real quickly with that CAPT. What are we talking about? The first thing we talked about was context, getting a hold of the context of what's going on in the problem, grabbing all the significant details.

Then you have to assess and analyze, all right, what are the real hard issues that are fueling all the behaviors and actions? You have to assess that. And then you promote and permanentize. We just talked about that. And then last of all, you're ready to terminate when you're sure that they're handling things in a biblical way.

That's what we wanna talk about. We wanna enter into section number two here in our class on really actually getting into the scripture and what the scripture says about marriage and family counseling. We've kind of laid some of the background with part one. And now in part two, we wanna take a look at some foundational issues that will hopefully help you.

And one of the first things here in terms of foundational issue has to do with God's design for marriage, God's design for marriage. And we could easily go into all the aberrations of marriage. We could easily go into that. And we would spend lots and lots of times with all the aberrations.

But rather than that, we've chosen specifically to teach you the real thing. What does God intend? And once you understand the real thing, then you can pick up on the aberrations here. So let's talk about this a little bit. And let me introduce it with some perspectives that people have about marriage.

One is, has to do with the origin of problems. How do problems get rolling in a marriage? Well, part of the answer is, some of those problems get rolling from the very beginning of the relationship. Many people marry for the wrong reason. Already, that sets marriage in the wrong direction.

For example, some people marry because they've been promiscuous. And they sort of have a Roman Catholic view of marriage. Once a guy and a girl have had sex together, then they ought to get married. Actually, from a biblical perspective, they're demonstrating that they're not ready for marriage once they've had sex.

Because they're showing that they cannot control themselves, self-control. Just because they have a little piece of paper that says they're married, doesn't mean that automatically they're gonna have self-control. If someone else comes along that seems to be tempting, then they'll probably do the same thing. But some people get married out of guilt.

Well, we've been promiscuous, so let's get married. That's a poor reason to be married. Furthermore, some people compensate for faults. That's why they get married. They're running from perceived faults. They see the other person as sometimes having more money. Or they see the other person as being more outgoing.

Or the other person as being more stable. Or coming from a better home in terms of there isn't as much turmoil in the home. And so they run from the faults that they perceive in their lives and get married to this other person who appears to have life together.

Or at least has an appeal of life that they want. So they're running from those faults. Then there are other people who marry to realize an image. They just have always seen themselves as being married. And sometimes the gals here outdo the guys in this area because they always dream about having a little house with a white picket fence and kids joyfully playing in the yard and all of this.

And they wanna get married in order to realize that image. And they'll take care of the disagreeable aspects of their husband later. But in order to have this image, we're gonna get married. So I can have a home and have kids. Most women by the age of five have their entire weddings planned out.

You know that, don't you? They won't tell you that. But they know what kind of dress they're gonna wear and they know what color the dress of the bridesmaids are gonna be. And I'll never forget the day that I proposed to my wife, I said, "Have you thought about our wedding?" And she goes, "Well, no, not really." And 10 minutes later, she was talking to her sister and she was talking about who was gonna be standing in the wedding and what the color of the dresses were gonna be and exactly what kind of dress she was going to have.

I'm going, "What? "You haven't given any thought to this. "You've given loads of thought to this, "down to the minute details." So there are some people who marry in order to realize an image. And then there are other people who marry as a way to legitimize sex. They grew up in a Christian home and they themselves are Christian and they know it's not right to have sex prior to marriage.

And so this is a way to, this is where the, often the guys go way out beyond the gals here at this point. Now we can have sex together and we don't have to feel guilty about it any longer. Even though, is it possible for a marital couple to be having sex together only with each other and still be in sin?

The answer is yes. Why? Because it's greed-oriented sex and it violates 1 Corinthians 7.3. So is it possible for you not be having sex with anybody else except for your husband and your wife and still be doing it the wrong way? Yeah, we'll talk about that a little bit later.

So why are there problems in marriage? Well, part of the answer to that is because people marry for the wrong reasons. In addition to that, when you add that in a culture, all over the world, in cultures all over the world, the family is under attack. In our American culture alone, I mean, you have the playboy philosophy, which is really an attack upon God's concept of what the family ought to be.

You got gay and lesbian agendas, which is a direct frontal attack upon what God says marriage should be. You have entertainment mediums, television sitcoms, internet, movies, radio, making fun of marriage. And even if you have an intact relationship there in the TV sitcom, usually there's something radically wrong about it.

I remember watching several years ago the Bill Cosby show, and Bill Cosby is married. It was kind of unusual to have a married husband and wife, but even in that show, dad was the imbecile, and the wife and the kids always knew better. He was the idiot of the family.

So there's this distorted view of what should be happening, even in the entertainment mediums, even when they try to depict an intact marriage, which is rare. And then there's materialism. Materialism just elevates things above people. And there are a lot of marriages that are married really for the convenience of materialism.

She works, he works, and they both contribute into a large pool of funds in order to get their toys, whatever toys they want. And then we live in a culture where man is constantly inventing some kind of substitutes for marriage. I talked about this at the very beginning of the course, where there's trial marriages, contract marriages, live-in lovers, semi-married, prenuptial agreements, or lat marriages, L-A-T marriages is living apart together.

There are a lot of marriages in San Francisco that are that way, where a husband and wife are married, and she lives in her own home on one side of town, and he lives in his house on the other side of town, and they occasionally get together and sleep in the same bed together, but they basically live separately.

That's called lat marriages, living apart together. So it's, in a sense, they would say, all the blessings of the single life, where you don't have to put up with all the idiosyncrasies of a spouse or living with a spouse, but then you also get all the quote-unquote blessings of marriage, where occasionally you can sleep in the same bed together.

That's not a marriage. That's legal prostitution, where people sleep together occasionally, but they're not really married, not in God's eyes. What's the two-fold effect of all this? When you add this up, a couple things will happen, and you can see this in churches all over the place. A lot of young people who are getting married are really unsure about marriage.

A lot of doubts, you can see it in their eyes. You do premarital counseling, you can see the doubts. And secondly, there are a lot of people who are already married who have lost hope. Well, this is the way it's always gonna be. I'm supervising a woman for her national certification in counseling right now who's counseling another woman who is married, and this other woman has pretty much lost all hope for her marriage.

They just began counseling, so we're hoping that this gal begins to catch on on how the word of God can transform her life and re-instill hope there. But she's at the end of her ropes. Well, this is one of the things that gets me all excited about biblical and pastoral counseling, is the fact that I believe that Jesus Christ and His church has the answers, lasting answers.

And we've gotta get busy proclaiming them. We have lasting answers to these problems. When you've got young people that are very unsure about marriage, they doubt whether or not their marriage is going to be successful. They know and they've heard these statistics that one out of two marriages, even though some of those statistics are not really fully valid, they're based upon wrong assumptions, but one out of very two marriages, everybody's heard about it, ends in divorce.

And they wonder whether or not they're gonna be one of those statistics. Well, let's take a look at this in our outline. Roman numeral number one here about contemporary presuppositions in God's design. Now, there are secular theories out there that predominate, and I try to stay up with these things.

If you read anything in the area of human psychology, if you read in the area of sociology, you realize there is a preponderance of different views on where marriage came from. Where did marriage come from? As soon as you roll the Bible and God's version of where marriage came from out of the picture, then you've gotta come up with some kind of theory, where did it come from?

Well, for them, marriage really is a result of man's planning and design. And that's why I've included in your notes there the United Nations' view on the family. You read through that and it sounds, on the surface, really nice. Well, the United Nations has a view on the family, but the way that they define a family is any three or four people living together in one proximity is a family.

So a whole bunch of hobos in a boxcar constitutes a family for them. Whether they're related or not doesn't matter. Whether they're married or not really doesn't matter. A family is such, so, if a family can mean anything, then it means nothing. If it can mean anything, it means nothing.

And if you read some of the theories that are out there, where did marriage come from? That's the big question. How did we get this? Well, they would say, in essence, it is really an evolutionary caveman type of an arrangement. That's where marriage came from. It's an evolutionary caveman invention.

That back during prehistoric times, there were two guys, one by the name of Bog, and the other one by the name of Gog, all right? And Bog and Gog got together in a big cave. And Bog said to Gog, ooh, can't tell your wife and kids from my wife and kids.

Gog said, ooh, you right, what's a wife? Bog says, ooh, don't know, a woman whom you're with. Ooh, Gog says, okay, what do we do? Bog says, ooh, I got idea. You grab a woman by hair, drag her to nearby cave, and all of her children will follow her, and I'll stay here with my woman, and her children will stay here, and we will have marriage, family.

And Gog says, ooh, sounds like good idea. So Gog grabs nearby woman by hair, drags her to nearby cave, and now they have family. And it works well because that environment is a hunting, agricultural environment, and you need family and kids to be able to run these little teeny prehistoric farms and to do hunting, and that works very, very well.

But now in our high-tech society with the sophistication of modern technology, we don't need that anymore. That is a thing that was good for prehistoric times or ancient times, but that's not good for now, see? And I want you to understand that they believe that man somewhere in prehistoric times invented the concept of marriage.

Now, what you believe about the origin of marriage has a huge effect on how marriages to function. It has huge implications on how people are supposed to get along in marriage. So we would say this, that if man developed marriage, then man can destroy marriage, or let's say it like this.

If man developed or invented marriage, then man can redefine marriage any day or any time he wants. So if two males want to live together and we call that marriage, that's okay. If two females want to live together and call that marriage, that's okay, too. There's even a movement in a lot of Western cultures where if you want to marry your cat or your dog, I mean, on an evolutionary scale in terms of mammals, it's not really that far away.

But if you want to marry your horse or your donkey, that's okay. You're a narrow-minded, fundamentalist, bigoted person if you think that that's bad. You're just not as sophisticated as us. You have too rigid of definitions. You're not really able to think with the depth that we can think and understand the subtle nuances of life and marriage the way we understand the subtle nuances of life and marriage.

Marriage was okay. The traditional marriage was okay during an agricultural caveman time. That was all right. But in our sophisticated technological society today, it's no longer the preferred arrangement anymore. So we can redefine it any way we want. If man invented marriage, then he can define it any way he wants.

So bog and gog are all old-fashioned. Out of date, unimportant anymore is the idea. But obviously, we know that that's not where marriage came from. The Bible talks about marriage being given by God. Genesis 1:26-27. It was not man who invented marriage. It was God who invented marriage. I want you to grab your Bible and go back there for a moment.

Let's take a look at this. Then God said, "Let us make man in our image "according to our likeness, "and let them rule over the fish of the sea "and over the birds of the sky "and over the cattle and over all the earth "and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

"And God created man in his own image. "In the image of God, he created him. "Male and female, he created them. "And God blessed them," verse 28, "and said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply "'and fill the earth and subdue it "'and rule over the fish of the sea "'and over the birds of the sky "'and over every living thing that moves on the earth.'" Wow.

Now, notice in verse 26, there's a play on singular and plural going on here in the Hebrew. You can see it even in the English. Let us, plural, make man singular in our plural image, singular, according to our plural likeness, singular. Let them, plural, rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

So what's going on here? The let us, as most theologians believe, this is the earliest reference we have to the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. It's not a reference primarily the angels. It's a reference to God because the angels are not our creators.

God's our creator. Let us make man. So we could say this, that God here, in verse 26, in relationship, creates man in relationship with gender distinctiveness. God in relationship creates man in relationship with gender distinctiveness and gives them a cultural mandate. He blessed them and he said to them, be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.

So now children become part of the blessing of God. Children are not the requirement of marriage. They are part of the blessing of marriage. We'll come back to that later when it comes to the definition. So God in triunity now creates man in bi-unity, male and female with gender distinctiveness complementary of each other in order to fulfill the mandate of being unified as one.

God is still one person manifested, or three persons in one essence, onological essence. And hence you have the tri-unity of God. Yes, Ruben. >> Some people who hear, they say that it is true that that relationship is between a male and a female. However, the passage is not talking about marriage itself as we understand marriage today.

So they use it, in fact, to defend the view, the view of, well, I can't get together with my girlfriend and they're still living together because marriage as we see it today is just a cultural thing. >> I'll defend it from the standpoint, and another, let me see if I can repeat the question, so for the videotape, and that is, people who object to that particular view and say, well, that's not the way we understand marriage today, what's being reflected here in Genesis 1, 26, 27.

So therefore I can get together with my girlfriend who I'm not married to and that's okay because that seems to be reflective. I mean, there's no talk about a husband and wife directly or just male and female, God created them in a heterosexual relationship. Is that basically what you're saying?

Well, Genesis chapter one is a quick snapshot at everything that happened in general creation. But Genesis chapter two is now a flashback to day six where he gives us much more detail. And I would say the Bible reflects the fact that there is a marital relationship that has taken place between Adam and Eve because we go back to the actual details of how they came about.

And I'll talk about that a little bit later, all right? Just hang in there and we'll get there to Genesis chapter two, okay? In fact, I wanna suggest to you, and we'll talk about this eventually, that verse 23 of Genesis two is actually the first marital vows, all right?

First marital vows are right there. Taken before God and before all the hosts of heaven. And Adam's the one who says it. Now, I'll break down why that's the case. So marriage is given by God. And the critical point here is if God created marriage, then he has answers for marriage when it gets into trouble, which means there's hope.

Wow, I like that. If God created marriage, it means there's answers for marriage when it gets into trouble, which means that there is hope. If man created marriage, there's not a whole lot of hope for marriage. But if God created marriage, there's all kinds of hope. So that's why I say what you believe about the origin of marriage directly affects how you think about marriage and how you resolve problems in marriage.

What do you believe about the origin of marriage? Where did it come from? Did it come from Bog and Gog? Or did it come as a result of God's purposeful revelation, especially of himself, the man? God in relationship create, and yet essentially one, creates man in relationship as essentially one.

Male and female, he creates them. They're distinct in that they're one. They're man, and yet they're mankind manifested in a gender complementary fashion. So that then tells us here number two that celibacy then is not the norm, never was intended from the beginning. It's not more holy to be celibate.

Celibacy was never intended to be the norm. You're not somehow more godly because you're celibate. You're actually reflecting better the triunity of God by a plurality of relationship brought together into one marriage. As he later on says in Genesis 2:24, "For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother "and be united to his wife, "and they shall become one flesh." That becomes the covenant of marriage, one flesh.

Well, marriage is not to be disparaged either. We can see from this that it is holy and honorable because it was created by God. Anytime we disparage marriage or talk negatively about it, we're actually talking negatively about something that God has established. We also see from this that sex and procreation is a part of marriage and that gender distinctiveness is not just called good, but after Eve is created, verse 31, God saw all that he had made and behold, it was very good.

That's really quite remarkable. The first day of creation, God created everything and he called it good. Second day, he called it good. Third day, good. Fourth day, good. Fifth day, good. Sixth day, what's he say? It's not good that man be alone, Genesis 2:18. The sixth day, God says for the first time, it's not good that man be alone.

I will make a helper suitable for him. Then Eve is created and then it says, and God saw all that he had made and then it was very good. Eve, if you will, becomes the crowning point of creation and that's good. It's the last thing he does and then he rests.

So sex and creation is a part of marriage. Gender distinctiveness now is a very good thing. So God didn't, you know, you've heard the old story. God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, okay? So God didn't create same sex because they can't complement one another. They just redundantly reflect one another.

No, it created distinctive sexuality. Furthermore, marriage is not to compete with human options or substitutes. This is the way God created it from the very beginning. And marriage ultimately is the picture of Christ's relationship to his bride, the church. It teaches an important spiritual reality about God's relationship to his people.

So now marriage becomes a valuable object lesson in understanding that rich dynamic between the husband and his wife, the church, or even in the Old Testament, God is the husbandman and Israel was his bride. So we understand better of that relationship because we understand the husband and wife relationship.

Now, in Genesis 2, in verse 18, we find the original purpose of marriage. What was the original purpose of marriage? Verse 18 says, "It was not good that man be alone." The Hebrew here, to be alone, indicated the fact that man was by himself and this was not good.

This is the first time in God's creation that God called something not good because it was not complete. So God creates Eve not primarily to produce babies, even though that's one of the blessing of marriage. God produced Eve not to be a housewife. God gave Eve to Adam not as another income producer in the home.

God gave Eve to Adam as a companion. The issue was loneliness. So at the very heart of marriage, this gender distinctiveness is good, it's very good because of companionship and now companionship becomes the focus and the purpose of marriage. It's always interesting for me that when a marriage gets into trouble and starts having serious problems, that's the first thing that goes out the window, is companionship.

Then in verses 19 through 23, we begin to see that God creates the original partners in marriage. And in fact, in verse 19, it says, "Out of the ground, God formed every beast of the field "and every bird of the sky and brought them to the man "to see what he would call them "and whatever he called a living creature, "that was its name.

"And the man gave names to all the cattle "and all the birds of the sky "and to every beast of the field, "but for Adam, there was not found "a helper suitable for him." So sandwiched between verse 18 and the latter part of verse 19, where it talks about there was no suitable helper for Adam, is all this naming the animals.

Well, why does that occur? Well, imagine if you're Adam. You spend your entire first day on this planet by yourself naming all of these animals that are passing in front of you. By the way, that shows the super intelligence of Adam because we still haven't named all the animals on this planet, even with our supercomputers, and we're still finding animals, naming them, but Adam was able to name them all in one 24-hour day and remember distinctively all of those names, shows you super intelligence.

No man could ever hope to do that now. We have devolved, not evolved. We've devolved and turned to intelligence from the first Adam. So he's able to do this in one 24-hour period, but there was not found a helper suitable for him, and the word helper suitable is the words in Hebrew, ezer kanigno.

There was not found an ezer kanigno for Adam. A fitting completer, ideally suited for him. I used to call my wife, Janie, my little ezer kanigno, and people thought I was cursing at her, I think, but it was a term of endearment, all right? An ezer kanigno, ideally suited.

So you see, the animals would not do. God didn't create a father for Adam, a mother for Adam, a child for Adam, a sister for Adam, a brother for Adam, a playmate for Adam. He didn't create a golfing buddy for Adam. He created a wife for Adam. That's what he did, who was going to be a fitting completer, a suitable helper, ideally suited for him.

Now, after you've been naming animals all day long and you see Mr. and Mrs. Hippopotamus pass in front of you and Mr. and Mrs. Elephant and Mr. and Mrs. Giraffe and Mr. and Mrs. Skunk and Mr. and Mrs. Gerbil, when you see all of that pass in front of you, at the end of the day, you say, Lord, how come there's no one that corresponds to me?

So it was a vivid object lesson for Adam that he was alone. Even Mr. and Mrs. Dog passed in front of Adam. The dog is not man's best friend. Adam was still alone. So Adam was alone and he knew it. He felt it at the end of the day.

So God causes him to go to sleep. He takes the rib out of Adam. Like John MacArthur says, Adam goes to sleep single, wakes up married. And he creates Eve from the rib that he had taken out. Why does he cause him to go to sleep? 'Cause I do believe there was pain prior to marriage, or prior to the fall.

It's just that pain is multiplied after the fall, as we're gonna see later on in Genesis 3 and verse 15, or verse 16, I should say. We'll take a look at the Hebrew of that. Pain is multiplied. So now God has created Eve for Adam as a companion, and that becomes the purpose of marriage.

So now he says, now grab your Bible and look at this real closely. After Adam wakes up, he brings Eve to her, to him, I should say. And verse 23, then Adam said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. "She shall be called woman because she was taken out a man." The question is, what is going on there?

The only other time that this Hebrew phraseology is used is in 2 Samuel chapter five and verse one. It's where the people of Israel come to David and say, "Bone of bones, flesh of flesh." What are they doing there? They're actually performing a coronation service to coronate David as king over Israel.

And they're saying, "Bone of bones, flesh of flesh. "You're a part of us, we're a part of you." They're swearing their allegiance to David. That's what they're doing. 2 Samuel 5, one. So what is Adam doing here before God and all the hosts of heaven? This is a vow of loyalty.

It's a vow of companionship. He's swearing his allegiance to Eve, which is incredibly remarkable because Eve doesn't have any competition. There are no other women on the planet. And yet, he swears his allegiance, bone of bones, flesh of flesh. "She shall be called woman." And the root of the Hebrew word here is characteristic.

He calls her because what's he been doing all day long? His first day on earth, he's been aiming animals, right? Whole first day on earth, that's all he's been doing, he's been naming. And usually, if he named an animal, the typical semantic way in which ancient Arab people would name things, they would name things based upon its most common characteristic.

And that's, I think, exactly what Adam does here with the woman because the root of the idea of the old, very ancient, archaic meaning of the word woman means soft. Now, I don't know what he did, whether he went up to Eve and poked her and goes, "Whoa, soft." I don't know what happened there, but whatever he saw, it was soft.

And so, he says, "Now, bone of bones, flesh of flesh, "she shall be called softy "because she was taken out of man." Wow. "For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother, "be joined to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh." Which now brings us to the very covenantal bond of marriage.

Later on in Proverbs 2:17, Malachi 2:14, it's called a barit or a covenant. To cut a covenant, when two people made an agreement, they would take an animal and slice it in two and walk between it, in essence saying, "If we were to ever break this agreement, "may God do unto us what has been done to this animal." That's what they would do to cut a covenant.

So, marriage now becomes a covenant. Marriage was considered a sacred, unbreakable bond, a lasting lifetime commitment. That's what God intended it to be. And then, it constitutes, then, a leaving this marriage was considered the sacred, unbreakable bond, a lasting lifetime commitment. Then, it constitutes an essential unity, which involves leaving father and mother.

There was no father and mother at this time, but God still lays it out, which tells me that from the very beginning, God designed the parent-child relationship to be temporary, and that the husband and wife relationship was to be permanent. Now, you know, that is incredibly significant, because in a lot of homes today that are Christian homes, you got Mary and Tom, they're married together, and this is their home.

And I can remember, as a pastor several years ago, meeting with a group of pastors, and we recognized a phenomenon that was going on, and that is, after Mary and Tom had raised children, and 25 years into marriage, all of a sudden, to the shock of everybody in the church, they're announcing that they're getting a divorce.

Why was this going on? And we were sitting as pastors, discussing this kind of thing, and it dawned on us at the time, in a lot of these homes where this was happening, had for years been homeschooling homes. Now, I'm not against homeschooling. We homeschooled our kids for several years, so don't get that idea.

But there was a phenomenon we began to see, and that is, when little Mary, becomes the center of the home, and she's number one, and oftentimes, a homeschooling home, and it doesn't just have to be a homeschooling home. Give me other homes, too. Then, over the years, everything in that home revolves around the kids.

Then, that's a child-centered home. And all of a sudden, Mary starts to grow up, and she no longer is a part of that home. She runs off to college, or she gets married, or something happens like that. Now, Mom and Dad, and once the kids are gone, look at each other and say, wow, we've done our job.

We really don't have much of a relationship that's left because we've made little or no investment in it. Then, they get a divorce, and that home fractures. That's what happens to child-centered homes. God never intended that to be the case. Children were to be number two, and the husband and wife relationship was intended to be number one.

Mary's relationship to Tom took first place. Tom's relationship to Mary took first place, and the kids, little Mary and little Tommy, were always to be number two. You're raising little Tommy and little Mary to leave the home, not stay in the home. From the very beginning. That's why God says, it is here, "For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother, "and be joined," or united, "to his wife." Children are intended to be reared, to leave the home, not stay in the home.

Cleave to one another, which means to weld together. In fact, the whole idea behind the Hebrew word here actually means to be glued together. I'm sure if they would've had this in the ancient times, they would've called it super-glued together. You ever get super-glue on your hands and try to tear it apart and take some of the skin with it?

That's the way marriage should be. They should be super-glued together and become one flesh. That means they become one physically, but it goes beyond that. One in their parenting, one in their view of finances. They need to be super-glued together. Our first year of marriage, I realized that. One day I was shopping and I had $50 in my pocket.

That was a lot of money back then. Let's see, that's over 32, 33 years ago now. So I had a lot of, I had a lot of money. It was 50 bucks, and I need a new coat, and I saw one that I really wanted for the winter, and it was on half-price sale, 50 bucks.

And I bought it and took it home. I showed it to Janie, and she looked at it, and she says, "Wow, that's really nice, John. "Where'd you get the money for that?" I said, "Well, I had $50 in my pocket." When I was a single guy, I used to be able to go out and spend that $50, and then I'd just skip a few meals.

All right? She had designs on that $50 in my pocket. You know, it wasn't really important stuff like paying the rent and buying groceries, and not really important stuff. When I was a single guy, I'd just make do. But now, even though I was married, I still fought as a single person.

I viewed that money as mine, not ours. Becoming one means viewing things like that as ours. We are one. That's a radical change. That's not my money anymore. I don't have anything that's my money. It's our money. We have one income coming into our household, and we have to decide, which is a reflection of our unity, how we're gonna budget ourselves so that we can spend that one bit of money.

And as we work that out in common agreement, that unifies our marriage together. So a budget, a financial budget, it's actually an expression of good marital unity. It's not a place where you have war. It's unity. It's a reflection of unity. The better you're able to work out that budget, the more unified you are.

So you get the idea here that the husband-wife relationship God intended from the very beginning to be number one. The children are number two, and children are to be reared to leave that home. And then you begin to function as one flesh, as an entity being joined together. That's the reason why Reuben and I said what I did about answering your question.

That chapter two defines what we still believe today about a real marital relationship. Cohabitating together is not what Genesis 1 is talking about. Where there's a definite public declaration of loyalty and companionship together that is permanent, where you have left father and mother, and you're cleaving to one another defines the very essence of what marriage is.

Yes, go ahead. - Now in Spain we have this situation where you don't have to get married. You can live together with your partner, but you sign sort of like a marital contract, which is that public manifestation. So you have all the rights as people of marriage that you are not.

And whenever you feel like, oh, I need to break this up, you just go sign another paper, and you're free to go necessarily back. And that's coming to the church, and a lot of so-called Christians, they understand that as marriages. - Yeah, that's what we would call here in this culture being semi-married.

In other words, you have a temporary arrangement, but you can back out of it any time, all right? You have all the technical rights of marriage from a legal standpoint, but you can back out of it, which is really no vow of loyalty at all. It's just a temporary arrangement.

- How do you find that? Because in one sense, it is true that how we get married today, a great part of that is coming-- - Yeah, how do you find that understanding? I think that you need to talk about marriage as being a permanent lifetime relationship, a sacred covenant.

You need to stress the covenantal nature of marriage. And stress Adam's vow, bone of bones, flesh of flesh. He vows his loyalty to her. To get rid of her is to get rid of my left arm. Not gonna do that. Jim? - I was just gonna ask you about the words translated wife, at least in the New American Standard in verses 24 and 25.

For this reason, the man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. Verse 25, the man and his wife will go naked. - Is that, I think it's Isha. Does anybody have a Hebrew here? - That's right, it's Isha. - Isha, it's Isha. They've, and it's legitimate to translate Isha as wife.

That's legitimate to do, but it can also mean woman. All right, but they translate it because of the adjective his, okay? In front of it, his woman, which usually means wife. Okay, so to bring it into modern English, we would say his wife. (water splashing) (silence)