Heaven's Point of View

Understanding Marriage

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Yvonne Lewis (Host), Tom Shepherd

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Series Code: HPOV

Program Code: HPOV000026A


00:15 Hello, and welcome to Heaven's Point of View.
00:18 This time our series
00:20 is on Love, Marriage, Sex and Divorce
00:23 from the New Testament prospective.
00:25 And our featured host is Dr. Tom Sheperd.
00:29 Dr. Sheperd, is a man of many accomplishments.
00:33 He is the director for the Ph.D and Th.D programs
00:38 at Andrews University.
00:40 He's a professor of New Testament interpretation
00:43 at Andrews University
00:45 and he has an M.P.H and a Doctorate
00:49 in Public Health, am I right?
00:50 Dr. Sheperd. It's true.
00:52 I did theology in under graduate
00:54 at Pacific Union College.
00:56 And, then I went and did Masters
00:58 in Public Health Nutrition and then the---
01:01 where they kind of call at that time
01:03 the Doctor of Health Science
01:04 and later it was grandfathered into Doctor of Public Health
01:07 so, that's my Public Health side.
01:10 I sometimes, you know, I mean, most of my work
01:12 is now in religion and teaching New Testament,
01:15 but every once in a while
01:16 I kind of put on my public health that
01:19 and share few health statistics
01:21 with my students and things like that.
01:22 Well, that's awesome 'cause I know you're gonna share
01:24 some information with us today
01:26 that comes from that health side as well.
01:29 So we're, really, really happy and excited
01:31 to have you here and to talk about
01:34 these topics of Love, Marriage, Sex and Divorce.
01:39 Because, this is such an important,
01:41 important array of topics
01:44 with what's going on in society today.
01:46 Yes.
01:47 Is marriage really that important?
01:50 Well, that's a, that's a great question
01:52 because there's just been an amazing shift
01:54 in American society over about the last 50 years
01:58 in relationship to sexually expression,
02:01 sexual behavior and issues about marriage.
02:05 And it's quite interesting that the,
02:07 well, the US government
02:09 is quite interested in these topics.
02:11 They put our text others to work
02:13 and they actually did a study back in the late 90s
02:16 that was published in 2002,
02:18 which is available on the Center For diseases,
02:22 the CDC the Center For Disease Control website,
02:26 you can look it up and see the full report there,
02:28 but they have a kind of an interesting summary about
02:32 marriage in this study.
02:34 This was the study done by the US government
02:36 so, it wasn't from any religious point of view.
02:39 It was from a government stand point that they did this.
02:42 And I'd like to read part of the summary
02:45 of the meaning of marriage or it's a,
02:48 what it does to our lives from this study
02:51 and here's what it says.
02:52 It says "Marriage is associated
02:55 with a variety of positive outcomes,
02:58 and dissolution of marriage," that's divorce, break-up,
03:01 "is associated with negative outcomes -
03:04 for men, women, and their children.
03:07 Compared with unmarried people,
03:10 married men and women tend to have lower mortality."
03:13 They don't die so much.
03:15 "Less risky behavior."
03:18 They're not doing drugs and other kinds of things
03:20 that are messing them up.
03:22 "More monitoring of health."
03:24 Maybe they go to the doctor more often.
03:26 "More compliance with medical regimens."
03:28 So they take their medicine, your wife says,
03:31 your husband says to you, "Now, take your pill."
03:33 All Right, right.
03:34 "Higher sexual frequency." They have sex more often.
03:37 "More satisfaction with their sexual lives."
03:39 They enjoy it more.
03:40 "More savings, and higher wages."
03:43 Well, this sounds pretty good, but we're not done.
03:45 "Compared to married individuals,
03:48 divorced persons exhibit
03:49 lower levels of psychological well-being,
03:52 more health problems, greater risk of mortality,
03:56 more social isolation, less satisfying sex lives,
04:00 more negative life events,
04:02 greater levels of depression and alcohol use,
04:05 and lower levels of happiness and self-acceptance."
04:07 Pretty, pretty...
04:08 That sounds a little depressing.
04:10 Yes, it does. I'm afraid it does.
04:12 Then there's more, it says,
04:13 "Adverse outcomes accrue to children of divorce
04:17 and children raised in single-parent families...
04:20 Children raised in single-parent families
04:22 are more likely to drop out of high school."
04:23 That's right.
04:24 "Have lower grades and attendance while in school,
04:27 and are less likely to attend and graduate from college
04:30 than children raised in two-parent families.
04:33 Studies have found that,
04:34 compared to children in two-parent families,
04:37 children of divorce score lower on measures of self-concept,
04:41 social competence, conduct,
04:44 psychological adjustment and long-term health."
04:47 It's amazing. That is amazing.
04:49 And, and I've heard this time and time again
04:53 that so many children suffer as a result of divorce.
04:58 Yes.
04:59 You know, and the, and the financial outcome
05:02 is so much more dismal.
05:03 Yeah.
05:05 For a single parent families, I mean that's one of the things
05:07 that we deal with on Dare to Dream,
05:09 and our focus is on single parent families
05:12 and just trying to help the erosion of the family.
05:16 Yes, they need support when that,
05:18 when that kind of experience happens.
05:21 The, the idea sometimes people get the idea
05:25 that they will get divorced for the children's sake.
05:29 That's right.
05:31 Because, they're fighting,
05:32 but actually I mean, unless there is physical abuse
05:35 and physical abuse is always wrong.
05:38 But, unless there's that,
05:39 if they're just fighting verbally,
05:41 you known, I mean, that can be a pretty unpleasant
05:45 kind of a situation.
05:46 But actually it still better for the children
05:51 than an experience where the parents get divorced,
05:53 'cause the children start to blame themselves,
05:56 like you said, they have economic problems.
05:58 They don't have that other person in their family,
06:01 that other male or female role model before them
06:06 and the children, they don't see everything
06:09 that's going on always with the adults especially,
06:12 if the adults are only arguing behind doors.
06:15 I mean, it's always sad.
06:16 And I, I hope that people can,
06:19 as we go through these kinds presentations,
06:21 and we learn what the Bible says about
06:23 marriage and love, sex and divorce,
06:26 that they can see
06:28 that the Bible holds out a better message.
06:29 Yeah.
06:31 Happy home, a message about a happy home,
06:33 of about sharing love with one another.
06:35 And, I think that's an important point
06:37 that these programs are not condemnation
06:41 for those that are divorced
06:42 or going through these kinds of things
06:44 but, this is just showing
06:46 that the Bible has a happier outcome,
06:49 a more fulfilling outcome, a better plan for us.
06:53 God has a better plan for us, than divorce.
06:56 And, our, our, message is,
06:59 should be primarily for young people,
07:02 who haven't got married yet, that they'll make good choices.
07:05 Yes.
07:07 Before, they get married, they'll make good choices
07:08 in getting married
07:09 and they'll make good choices after marriage,
07:12 after they get married.
07:14 Good choices lead to good outcomes.
07:16 That's right.
07:17 Bad choices lead to bad outcomes.
07:19 And the children, young people are blessed
07:22 if they have adults in their life
07:24 that they can trust, that they can turn to
07:26 and follow good advice.
07:28 Absolutely.
07:30 But you know, there's no advice as good as what's in the Bible.
07:32 That's right. The scriptures.
07:33 That's right, and it's so relevant.
07:35 Yeah. What about divorce?
07:37 Are some people more likely to get divorced than others?
07:40 They are, again, this big study
07:42 that was done by the government.
07:43 They said the characteristics of individuals
07:45 related to a higher probability of divorce
07:48 so, who is more likely to get divorced?
07:52 And they just looked at all the stats in terms of
07:54 you know, what happens in people.
07:56 They found that, if you get younger age of marriage,
08:01 if you get married younger,
08:04 you're more likely to get divorced.
08:06 That's an interesting point,
08:07 because what you, you are kind of,
08:11 your taste at 18 might not be what you like it at 25.
08:16 Or 40.
08:18 Or 40,
08:21 so the younger, I've heard,
08:23 I've heard actually some people advocate
08:25 for people getting married at a younger age
08:28 because that teaches you responsibility
08:29 and so on and so forth.
08:31 But, I think your choices, your taste
08:33 is not really as developed.
08:35 Yeah. As maturely as it should be.
08:38 So divorce happens more often when younger age of marriage,
08:42 lower education and later birth cohort.
08:47 Now, I have to explain this idea of cohort.
08:49 A cohort is a group of people
08:51 that are identified by some characteristic
08:55 and then you follow them through time.
08:56 So a later birth cohort means, a group of people
09:02 who are born later.
09:04 So if you were born
09:05 say back in the, in the 1950s,
09:10 you are less likely to get divorced
09:13 than somebody was born in the 1980s.
09:16 Yeah, so later birth cohort
09:19 gives you a higher probability of divorce.
09:22 That's just one of the indicators
09:24 that there's been a shift about marriage,
09:27 about sexual ethics, about all these things
09:29 in our society over the last 50 years.
09:33 Then there's also, later marriage cohort
09:35 so, people who got married later.
09:37 People who got married in the 50s
09:39 are less likely to have divorce,
09:42 than people who got married in the 80s.
09:44 Because our society has shifted its sexual mores,
09:47 its concepts of marriage,
09:49 its concepts of what it means to be married
09:52 or to be sexually active.
09:54 Presence of a pre-marital birth.
09:57 So if you have sex before marriage
09:58 and you get pregnant,
10:00 you're more likely to have a divorce.
10:02 A pre-marital cohabitation.
10:04 If you got...
10:05 were living with somebody before you got married,
10:08 you're more likely to have a divorce.
10:09 Isn't that interesting?
10:10 Because a lot of people say, "Well, let's try it first."
10:13 We'll try it out.
10:14 Yeah, we'll test drive and see if it works for us.
10:17 They're actually setting themselves up
10:19 more likely to end up with divorce.
10:20 Pre-marital sexual activity, they have sex before marriage,
10:23 they're more likely to have divorce as well.
10:24 Yeah.
10:26 That is very interesting. Yes, striking.
10:27 So, does religious faith, what role does that play
10:32 in marriage and divorce?
10:33 Well, it makes a difference actually.
10:35 Again, from the study, they asked people
10:39 how important religion was to them.
10:41 And then they compared this with the data
10:45 for first marriage break-up, if they're marriage broke-up.
10:48 So, at 15 years, at 15 years of marriage,
10:51 the statistics shows like this,
10:53 people who said that religion was not important to them.
10:56 54 percent of their marriages broke-up.
11:00 So about half, if religion was not important,
11:03 about half of the marriages at 15 years were broken.
11:06 Religion was somewhat important to them.
11:10 The percentage was 45 percent, about 10 percent less.
11:14 So, they've still not quite half
11:17 but, still it was higher than,
11:19 than we come to the...
11:20 where religion is very important to them, 37 percent.
11:25 So, there is about a 20 percent difference
11:28 between those who said religion was not important to them,
11:31 and where religion was very important.
11:33 So religion,
11:35 the importance of religion in a person's life
11:38 has a protective effect on their marriage.
11:42 And I mean, that make sense
11:44 because if somebody takes the Bible's message seriously
11:46 and the Bible says, God say, "I hate divorce."
11:49 They...
11:51 if they take that seriously in their life
11:53 it's a value that they've have internalized
11:55 and they say, "Well, no I can't do that,
11:57 'cause Bible tells me not to do that."
11:59 So, they're, they're not likely to do.
12:01 If just somebody says, religion is not important
12:03 they're like,
12:04 "Well, no. I don't care for them anymore
12:06 so, I'm just going to get divorced."
12:07 Yeah.
12:08 So, it gives you a standard
12:10 against which you can base your life.
12:12 Yeah. Base your choices.
12:14 Yeah, yeah that they also found
12:16 that people who had no religious affiliation,
12:19 that's people we would say,
12:21 that aren't members of a church,
12:23 okay, that they were significantly
12:25 more likely to divorce
12:27 then those with religious affiliation.
12:30 Religion, you see, makes a difference
12:32 in marriage stability.
12:35 It's the US government that's telling you this.
12:38 Isn't that interesting?
12:39 Yeah, the title of this study is, Cohabitation, Marriage,
12:42 Divorce, and Re-marriage in the United States.
12:44 And it's available on the Centers
12:45 For Diseases control website, which is a fantastic website.
12:49 I put on my public health add here, and say,
12:51 "If you want good health information,
12:53 go to the CDC website."
12:54 They have, they have very useful,
12:56 and you'd be surprised the things
12:58 that they have on there you know.
12:59 And, one of them is this whole big study on marriage.
13:03 That's tremendous.
13:05 I love the fact that we can really go to the word
13:10 and find out, just, it's so relevant.
13:12 It applies to us today. Yes.
13:15 And, to me worship together
13:17 is a really intimate kind of thing.
13:19 When you worship with your family,
13:21 it's such an intimate act
13:24 that I think we underestimate the power of worship.
13:29 You know, they, the studies that people talk about
13:32 are children do better in school
13:34 when the family has a meal together, you know.
13:37 Isn't that interesting?
13:38 They eat, they eat meals together you know,
13:40 when the children will do well-- why, why is that?
13:41 Well, you're talking together.
13:43 It's not just eating food, your conversing
13:46 and the children are learning
13:48 the vocabulary of their parents, you know.
13:50 And, maybe they are talking about the day.
13:52 Well, I'll tell you, for years, what my family has done,
13:55 my wife and I will have morning worship,
13:57 we read the Sabbath school lesson.
13:59 We eat breakfast, we read the Sabbath school lesson,
14:01 and we have a prayer calendar from our Sabbath school class,
14:04 and from another Sabbath school class.
14:05 And, we pray for people
14:07 and I just put in little plug here for a 3ABN, that...
14:11 3ABN says, that you should pray for everybody at 7o'clock.
14:14 7 and 7, you pray for the Holy Spirit,
14:16 and my wife has set a little,
14:18 we're usually eating breakfast around 7,
14:20 and my wife has set a little alarm clock on her phone.
14:23 And, it goes off.
14:24 It sounds like a little alarm clock going off
14:26 and little birds singing or something.
14:29 And, then we know it's time to pray.
14:30 And, then we stop and we'll pray
14:32 and we have some grandchildren now,
14:35 and well, the grandchildren they would say,
14:36 "Oh, it's time to pray."
14:38 You know, and if we already prayed for them,
14:40 "Oh, we're gonna pray again." You know.
14:42 So these kinds of experiences are
14:45 which bring stability to families.
14:47 Yes. Yeah.
14:48 Yes, and it's so important
14:50 to see fathers pray, mothers pray.
14:53 Yes.
14:54 You know, because it shows that God is at the center.
14:57 And we can relay upon him and depend upon him.
14:59 Exactly.
15:00 Let's see what words say in Ephesians 5.
15:02 Ephesians 5 has a section
15:05 that we're gonna study when we're--
15:06 you know this, this whole series of studies
15:09 that we're doing talks about love,
15:11 we've already talked about those,
15:12 the Old Testament and New Testament
15:14 and I Corinthians 13,
15:16 and now, we're gonna start on a serious
15:18 of a presentation to on marriage.
15:20 Then we'll look at, the presentations on sex,
15:23 and then we'll finish with the presentation on divorce,
15:25 which is almost kind of sad
15:26 you know, like finishing it up with divorce,
15:28 'cause that's not what we hope people will end.
15:29 What we need to know what the Bible says
15:31 about this subject.
15:32 But now as we turn to the subject of marriage,
15:34 the Apostle Paul has in Ephesians 5,
15:37 some very important instruction about the household.
15:42 He was writing to people 2000 years ago,
15:44 what we call the Greco-Roman world
15:46 and the Greco-Roman house hold.
15:48 He was instructing people
15:50 how to be a Christian household.
15:53 So, he introduces this in Chapter 5.
15:55 Now the book Ephesians written by Paul
15:58 has at least four major theological themes.
16:02 These four themes are Eschatology,
16:06 Christology, Soteriology, and Ecclesiology.
16:09 Bunch of ologies.
16:10 Yeah, bunch of ologies, that's right.
16:12 Now, Eschatology has to do with last day events.
16:15 Okay.
16:16 And the Apostle presents that there are two ages,
16:20 there's the present age
16:21 and what he calls the age to come.
16:23 That's when Jesus comes back. Okay.
16:26 He emphasizes the,
16:28 in the book of Ephesians the present benefits.
16:31 The present benefits of the age to come.
16:34 It's in Ephesians that we read the words
16:36 "By grace you have been saved."
16:37 Yes, yes.
16:39 So, you have present benefits
16:40 but, there's a final consummation later.
16:43 Jesus is going to come back.
16:44 And, we'll experience that when He returns soon.
16:48 The second great major theme of this book is Christology;
16:52 probably you might say the biggest theme of the book,
16:55 all about Jesus Christ...
16:57 Jesus Christ, is the risen Lord,
16:59 He is seated at the right hand of God.
17:02 Yeah.
17:03 And His authority is for the blessing of the church.
17:06 He talks about giving gifts to the church
17:08 and blessing the church.
17:10 And the Apostle also says,
17:12 we're sitting in heavenly places with Christ.
17:14 And, so it's kind of beautiful.
17:15 Then there's Soteriology; that's all about salvation.
17:18 So we have last day events, the doctrine of Christ,
17:21 Jesus Christ, and then Soteriology,
17:23 it's a doctrine of salvation.
17:24 Christians experiences the blessings of salvation now.
17:29 And, they will receive the inheritance
17:31 when Jesus comes back.
17:32 Okay.
17:33 And, then the last one is Ecclesiology,
17:35 that's doctrine of the church, all about the church.
17:38 "The church is the body of Christ."
17:40 Says, Paul.
17:41 It is God's family, it is the new temple,
17:44 it is Christ's fullness, and it's Christ's bride.
17:47 There's a lot about the church...
17:49 Yes. In the book of Ephesians.
17:50 Now, the book divides into two main sections, okay.
17:56 The first three chapters are focused a lot on theology.
18:00 Give you the theological part.
18:02 And then, Chapter four to six
18:04 are instructions in Christian living.
18:06 So, you learn the theology, what's the doctrine
18:09 and what differences does the doctrine make in your life.
18:12 If the doctrine doesn't make any differences in your life,
18:15 then you know...
18:18 So, would you say it's the teaching
18:19 and the application then?
18:20 Yeah, you can put it that way certainly,
18:22 the teaching and the application.
18:24 And, so the section of Chapter 5
18:27 is in this second part of the book.
18:30 It runs from 5:21 through 6: 9,
18:32 and we'll study that in a little bit later.
18:35 We're gonna do the preamble this time.
18:36 Yeah. Sort of get ready for it.
18:39 But Paul links, interestingly,
18:41 he links his household instructions
18:45 with the themes of the letter.
18:47 So, we say there's those four themes,
18:48 Eschatology, Christology,
18:51 Soteriology, and Ecclesiology.
18:54 Now, the primary linkage
18:57 in the instructions to the Christian home
18:59 are to Christology and Ecclesiology.
19:02 When we get there, we'll find out
19:04 that he talks about Christ as the head of the church.
19:07 And he talks about the church as Christ's body.
19:10 And he all intermingle
19:11 he's talking to husbands and wife.
19:13 Sometimes, you almost get the feeling like,
19:16 "Paul, are you still talking about the home here?
19:20 Or are you talking about the church?"
19:21 You know, he doesn't forget, but he intermingles the two.
19:25 There is a...
19:27 there are secondary linkages
19:29 to Soteriology and Eschatology but,
19:32 the big stuff is Christology and, and Ecclesiology.
19:35 Now this is rather important, that he has this,
19:40 this strong linkage between the themes of the letter
19:42 and the instructions for the home.
19:44 On illustration,
19:46 that Paul in writing about the Christian home,
19:49 he's not just giving a set of rules.
19:53 You know, he doesn't just, yeah,
19:55 sometimes people want to say,
19:56 "oh, he's just parroting the people of his era.
19:59 You know, he's just talking like
20:01 everybody would talk in his time.
20:03 Well, no...
20:04 You know, he's intimately tying together
20:08 instruction for how you're supposed to act as a Christian
20:12 with instruction for what it means to be a Christian.
20:15 So, first you learn that doctrine,
20:17 like you said, "The teaching."
20:18 And the, what does it mean, how do you practice.
20:21 So, that is all on display
20:24 when he's talking about the Christian home.
20:26 So it's really beautiful, you know,
20:27 the way he just ties them together so closely.
20:29 Yes, yes it's a about relationship.
20:32 One's relationship with one's spouse.
20:36 And, that relationship as it links with God.
20:38 Husbands and wives. Yeah, yeah.
20:39 Yeah, and children and parents.
20:40 So the purpose of these instructions
20:43 is to help a is to help a Christian house
20:48 or house hold in that time period
20:50 in that Greco-Roman world,
20:52 to understand what difference it makes that you're Christian.
20:56 So it's not like we said, not just a list of rules
20:58 but he actually modifies the Greco-Roman home.
21:04 And, we'll talk about more later
21:06 the Greco-Roman home was very top down,
21:08 very male oriented,
21:10 the leader of the home was called paterfamilias
21:12 and he was pretty much large and in charge,
21:14 he was the guy, you know, was in charge of everything.
21:17 And, Paul really modifies
21:19 this a lot with a different sense
21:21 of what it means to, to be a Christian.
21:25 The section of the letter
21:27 that talks about this divides into three unequal sections.
21:31 He talks to wives and husbands, to children and parents,
21:35 to slaves and masters.
21:36 Interestingly, he talks to the ones
21:39 that are not usually considered to be the leaders,
21:40 he talks to them first.
21:42 So, he talks to wives first, he talks to children first,
21:45 he talks to the slaves first before he talks to the others.
21:48 In each case, the subordinate party is addressed first.
21:52 And there are two parties
21:53 that actually receives the most instruction.
21:56 That is the husbands and the slaves.
22:00 Probably because those two groups
22:02 had the most that needed to change
22:04 from what was typical in Greco-Romans society.
22:07 In ever pair, in every case, Christ is the pattern.
22:11 Christ is the pattern to follow.
22:13 We probably ought to read here,
22:15 that first section of Ephesians 5:1-14,
22:19 which is a kind of build up just before our section.
22:22 So we get sort of the context of what Paul is talking about.
22:25 Why don't you read that for us?
22:27 Ephesians Chapter 5: 1 to 14.
22:33 "Therefore be imitators of God, as dear children.
22:36 And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us,
22:39 and given Himself for us,
22:41 an offering and a sacrifice to God
22:44 for a sweet smelling aroma.
22:46 But fornication, and all uncleanness,
22:48 or covetousness,
22:50 let it not even be named among you,
22:52 as is fitting for saints.
22:54 Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking,
22:57 nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting:
22:59 but rather giving of thanks.
23:02 For this you know that no fornicator,
23:04 unclean person, nor covetous man,
23:07 who is an idolater,
23:08 has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ in God.
23:12 Let no one deceive you with empty words,
23:15 for because of these things
23:16 the wrath of God comes down upon the sons of disobedience.
23:20 Therefore do not be partakers with them.
23:23 For you were once darkness,
23:25 but now you are light in the Lord.
23:27 Walk as children of light:
23:29 For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness
23:32 and righteousness and truth;
23:34 finding out what is acceptable to the Lord.
23:37 And have no fellowship
23:38 with the unfruitful works of darkness,
23:41 but rather expose them.
23:43 For, it is shameful even to speak of those things
23:45 which are done by them in secret.
23:47 But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light,
23:52 for whatever makes manifest is light.
23:54 Therefore he says,
23:56 "Awake you who sleep, arise from the dead,
23:59 and Christ will give you light."
24:02 Isn't that beautiful? That's beautiful.
24:03 The way that ends. Beautiful.
24:05 Yeah, now so this is like the immediate background,
24:09 a context of the instructions
24:11 he's gonna give to the household
24:13 which he gets down to in verse 21, 22 and onward.
24:16 We have a one more little section to read
24:18 which is very fascinating.
24:19 And that will be in another study that we look at.
24:21 But, we want to see here how he begins.
24:23 In Chapter 5: 1 and 2,
24:27 the Apostle begins by telling them
24:31 that they are to imitate God.
24:36 They are called to be imitators of God,
24:38 and beloved children and they are to walk in love.
24:40 That's in verses 1 and 2, all right.
24:43 So he gives you first the pattern
24:45 of how you're supposed to,
24:47 the overall sort of big large idea thesis
24:50 of what you're supposed to imitate God.
24:53 So, your Christian home,
24:55 your life as a Christian
24:56 should be following God's lead, being like Him.
24:59 All right.
25:01 But, then Paul goes on
25:03 and once he laid that foundation
25:05 how Christian are supposed to act in verses 1 and 2,
25:08 he proceeds to give a rather a long section
25:11 on how they're not supposed to be.
25:13 What they're not supposed to do.
25:15 They're supposed to be no illicit sexual behavior,
25:18 no uncleanness, no greed, no wickedness,
25:21 no foolish talking, or coarse jesting.
25:24 This is suggestive jokes
25:27 that have no place in a Christian's life.
25:30 Sometimes people have looked at some of these and say,
25:32 "Oh, Christians aren't supposed to smile or tell jokes."
25:35 That's not what he's saying. Right.
25:36 He's saying, what you're not supposed to do,
25:38 is tell dirty jokes, tell jokes that are,
25:41 you know, have these double entendres
25:42 and all that kind of thing.
25:44 Paul draws a very dark and deep line
25:48 or clear distinction between the way of the world,
25:51 and way of life of the Christian.
25:53 He gives reasons
25:55 for the Christians' behavior being different.
25:57 And it's interesting because he kind of gives
25:59 three different patterns here.
26:01 He talks first about the "wrong doers
26:04 will not inherit the kingdom of Christ and of God."
26:08 Some people don't like that idea.
26:10 But, he makes that very clear,
26:11 "Don't be deceived."
26:13 "Don't be deceived" exactly, they will not.
26:15 Then he goes on and he talks about God's wrath,
26:17 "God's wrath is coming on the sons of disobediences."
26:20 That's such an important topic,
26:22 the question of the wrath of God.
26:23 You know, later discussion in, in about sexuality,
26:28 we will talk about what Paul says about
26:30 the wrath of God in Romans Chapter 1.
26:32 People want to listening on that.
26:34 But, he says "The wrath of God
26:35 is coming on the sons of disobedience.
26:37 That's an Eschatological idea.
26:39 Then he talks about the history of the change
26:41 that took place in the Christians,
26:42 how they changed from darkness to light
26:44 and he ends up with the hidden things
26:46 of darkness are shameful.
26:47 So, he has an Eschatological argument,
26:50 a salvation history argument, and a moral argument.
26:54 He rejects the world, and tells people
26:56 that they're supposed to follow God's ways
26:59 and not the world's ways.
27:01 Yeah.
27:02 Yeah, he really captures
27:05 and encapsulates a lot with this first chapter.
27:09 As, you said it's kind of the over arching.
27:11 Yeah. Overview.
27:13 Yeah. Of what's to come.
27:15 Yeah, and so he gives them
27:16 this sense of how they're supposed to live their lives
27:20 different than the world.
27:21 We Christians must have a different prospective
27:24 and live in a way that is following Christ
27:27 and in line with His principles.
27:28 Yes, and we'll have joy. Yeah.
27:31 Well, thank you, so much, Dr. Sheperd.
27:33 Next time, we're gonna look at
27:34 what immediately precedes Paul's household instruction.
27:39 Thank you so much for joining us
27:40 and be sure to join us next time.
27:42 You don't want to miss these programs.
27:46 Dr. Sheperd has tremendous insights
27:49 that the Holy Spirit has given him.
27:51 So, you don't want to miss these programs.
27:54 Tune in next time as we delve into the word
27:58 and look at Love, Marriage, Sex and Divorce.
28:03 May God bless you, as you continue
28:05 to seek Him in spirit and in truth.


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Revised 2016-02-25