00:00 Introduction and Thanksgiving Preparations

00:35 Clarifying Sermon on Wifely Submission

01:22 Navigating Conscience and Submission

04:09 Husbands' Sinful Agendas and Wives' Responses

07:25 Financial Decisions in Marriage

11:08 Resources for Marriage Guidance

13:16 Paul's Missionary Journey: Thessalonica and Berea

14:54 Paul in Athens: Preaching to the Greeks

18:25 Encouragement for Evangelism

18:46 Closing Prayer and Farewell

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Learn more about our Bible Reading Plan.

Questions or Comments? Email us podcast@compassntx.org

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Introduction and Thanksgiving Preparations

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Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Hello. It is Wednesday. It is the day before Thanksgiving. So hopefully you got those turkeys brine in. They're all ready to go on the smoker. At least ours is going on the smoker. Some people are deep frying their turkeys. Make sure that they are dry before you drop them in the grease, because I've seen plenty of videos of the fire explosions that take place when the water hits the grease.

But yeah, it's it's Turkey day tomorrow, so happy Thanksgiving Eve, Eve. Yeah. If you celebrate. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, tomorrow morning we'll be out at Frontier Park at 9:00 AM playing some football in the cold. So come join us. Should be fun. Be sure to warm up beforehand. Yeah.

Clarifying Sermon on Wifely Submission

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Hey Sunday I preached to Anna wife's submission to her husband, so that you did overall, I think rather.

And not be in a situation where she was automatically ignoring the inner beauty. So it was in the point where I was talking about seeking true inner beauty rather than the external beauty. When Peter says, do not let your adornment be external. And so that created some questions about whether or not a wife should go through cosmetic surgery.

If a husband said, I want you to get cosmetic surgery.

Navigating Conscience and Submission

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And some of the questions had to do with, what about Romans 14 that talks about if you can't do something from faith, then it's sin for you, which we would talk about an issue of conscience. And lemme start by saying. If there's an issue of conscience and a real life example of this would've been COVID-19, we, in California, we were going through a lot of workplaces that were requiring the vaccine.

And so some people came forward and said, I've got an issue of conscience about the stewardship of my body. I don't feel good about. Putting something in my body that I feel like I don't know enough about, and I don't know what this is gonna do to my body. And so thereby by conscience, this would be a sin for me to take the vaccine.

So thereby I'm gonna object on the grounds that I feel like what you're asking me to do would be sin for me to obey you in that. Grounded on that. I am in agreement with that and would say, no, you shouldn't sin in that regard. I what I think though that this is revealed for me at least, is that generally speaking, I think we have an anemic view of a wife's submission to her husband, by and large, based on the fact that, praise God, we have a lot of really good marriages in our church.

Where husbands are leading their wives really well, but I do think the call to submission is broader and more sweeping than we give it credit for initially. In other words, it's not always going to be easy to submit to your husbands. There are gonna be things that your husband may ask you to do that you may flat out disagree with.

And I think you can submit to him knowing that you are going to be commended by God. Well done. Good and faithful servant for your obedience to him, because again, as I talked about on Sunday, your submission is more an active obedience to the Lord than it is to your husband. So, I know cosmetic surgery is a Pandora's box.

And I think one important, caveat to throw out there is cosmetic surgery in a vacuum is not a sinful act. And so. There's a lot of extenuating circumstances on there, and that's where I would say my mistake on Sunday was that I brought up something that I didn't have time to fully develop.

And so that is something going back 20/20 hindsight, I probably shouldn't have brought that up in the context of the sermon when I did because I just didn't have the time to fully develop the argument. And that led to some questions and I appreciate those of you guys that texted or sent in emails and we've had some good conversations about this.

Husbands' Sinful Agendas and Wives' Responses

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So all things being equal, you would say, obviously scripture says not just you, but scripture is saying that the wife is called to joyfully submit to her husband who is leading sacrificially.

Yes, he sacrificially leads. He's doing it for her good, for God's glory. She joyfully submits, assuming that he's doing that for the glory of God, and that's in a perfect situation. First Peter seems to be talking about a situation where. He's not a believer, it seems so at least he's offering a qualification.

So talk about then when a husband who's leading with a sinful disposition, sinful desire, he's got some sinful agenda and the wife is aware of that. Does that change anything? Does that create any kind of different obligation for her? How does she navigate something like that? So let's go back to the situation with the cosmetic surgery, just to use it.

And if this is not a conscience issue for her, so let's say this is something that the wife would've considered on her own. She would've been wanted to do this if it was her own idea, but because it's coming from her husband she's resistant because she's got, whatever it may be. But it's not a conscience issue.

She doesn't feel like she'd be sinning against her body to do this. I would say her role, her duty is to submit to her husband regardless of her husband's sinful inclinations or not because of twofold, number one. The wife's submission to her husband in scripture is not contingent upon her husband's disposition or her husband's state.

really can't expect an unbeliever to act like a believer. So I could see a scenario within a marriage where there's a believing spouse. Both are believing spouses and the husband is in a sinful state, sinful disposition. And his wife can tell that at that point, maybe there's a Galatians six responsibility that the wife has, that there's a care for his holiness, that this should be brought to his attention.

This should be confronted, this should be dealt with. But if you're dealing with an unbeliever then really there's no expectation that the unbeliever would act any other way than unbelievers would act, that they would have a disposition towards anything other than the self. So, thereby, again, I think it comes back to her relationship.

For the Lord saying, I'm not in sin to do this. This is not my personal culpability is not there, responsibility is not there. So I'm gonna submit myself in obedience to this decision that my husband is asking me to do, knowing that I'm obeying God first and foremost in him second.

Yes. Okay. If that's not there. Whatever it is it's not sin. She would have to be trusting God by submitting to her husband in whatever that thing happens to be.

Financial Decisions in Marriage

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She wants to buy the Prius. He wants to get the. The Escalade, she's gonna now have an Escalade instead of a Prius. Right.

And this is where, and I think there's nuance, and I think you and I might even be a little nuanced in our own views of this too, is for, let's take that example. The more financially fiscal responsible move would be to buy the Prius for the family. The decision, the husbands wants to make those to say, no, I wanna buy the Escalade, not the Prius because of X, Y, and z.

And so for her job is to say, okay, then we're gonna do this. She can she voice her opinion. Absolutely. And I talked about that on Sunday, even though Proverbs 31 context talks about the fact that she opens her mouth in wisdom. And so there is gonna be an opportunity, there should be, at least I think in a godly marriage for her to say, you know what?

I'm concerned about this decision that we're making. I'll defer to you in the end. But I'm concerned about the decision we're making because of these reasons. But then at the end of the day, if the husband says, no, we're gonna get the Escalade, she can submit to him in that knowing that he's gonna have to answer for the stewardship of their resources.

Or is it more like, Hey, well what if this is what the Lord is doing to my husband, then okay, I guess what we're doing. Yeah, I think that's why when you're in the context of a church community, and that's why we often stress the importance of doing life in community. You have opportunities to lean into your brothers and sisters in Christ, to seek counsel together, to seek wisdom, even to your pastors.

And maybe that even looks like sitting down with your husband and saying, Hey, you know, I'm concerned for this. I think it would be good for us to sit down with somebody and to talk about this decision before we pull the trigger on this. But if he persist in that and says no, should she go over his head, so to speak, and go to the pastors and say, Hey, my husband's making this decision and I think this is going to put us in a bad situation where that's, that would be a unique situation.

That would be a unique situation. I think forecasting financial instability, I don't know if that would rise to that level because that's assuming. A lot there that you're not gonna be able to afford this, you're not. And that you're getting into a lot of subjectivity there as far as, well, where are the other resources going?

So ordinarily then it's a posture of saying, Hey, whatever the Lord wants to do in my husband's life and leading our family, that's what I'm gonna let happen. And trusting him in that. Yeah. If the husband's a believer Yeah. Or in Peter's situation, the husband may not be a believer he's Right.

Doing whatever he does. Right. That's a hard situation for a woman to be in. So we recognize that yes. It's a hard place for you to be in, which is why First Peter three is so helpful because it says, we don't want you to fear anything that's frightening. And that would be a frightening prospect for sure to say, I'm following a sinful man.

And that's true. Even if you're in a Christian marriage. Yeah. You're following a sinful man who ideally is governed by the Lord, his leadership. Governed by his word. But even then, you're still in a sinful marriage in the fact that you have two sinners govern governing a life together, and that's gonna be fraught with complications and difficulty.

Resources for Marriage Guidance

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Are there any books that you might suggest that someone read about the way that this kind of thing works, this dynamic between husbands and wives? We did cover the last two, so if you haven't heard those sermons yet, they're on our website. Our podcast as well, not this one, the Weekend Sermons podcast.

But are there any resources that you would recommend to help people maybe dive deeper into how this husband and wife relationship and these roles work together? Yeah, I put four on the back of the sermon worksheet from this past Sunday that I think are good True Beauty by Carolyn Mahaney, feminine Appeal.

Also, Carolyn Mahaney let me Be a Woman by Elizabeth Elliot is super helpful. And then the Excellent Wife by Martha Peace. Those would be four solid resources to, to look into that. And then for men, I would say, the books that I recommended the week before for our men as well as the, is it the, yeah, the exemplary husband, Stuart Scott would be another one that I'm not sure I put on that resource sheet or not, but that would be another one that I would recommend to our men.

Statement as well. This is an extreme situation that we're talking about here, and praise God, this is not something that's coming up on a regular basis within the confines of our church. And I would say to the women listening to this, if you're listening to this going I don't like this, I like Pastor Rod said, it's a hard thing to wrestle with, but I would also say.

If you're not there, then praise God for the way that marriage works, when it works the way he's intended for it to work. When you've got a godly husband and a godly wife both pursuing Christ together then marriage is a joy, and submission is a joy, and leading your wife is a joy. So this doesn't need to be something where it, we spend a ton of time being exasperated over this because this is a rare situation when it comes up.

There it is. It's, don't forget the compliments. If you have compliments, feel welcome to send those as well. That ride hair on Sunday looked really good And yeah. Alright, let's get into Act 17.

Paul's Missionary Journey: Thessalonica and Berea

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Act 17. We have this next stop on the second missionary journey, which is gonna be Thessalonica, which by the way carve out a little bit more time for tomorrow morning 'cause you're in first and second Thessalonians both for your daily Bible reading.

But. Paul goes here to the synagogue again and begins to reason with the Jews there. And this is interesting because he's, and later on he's gonna say I'm turning to the Gentiles. But he still loves the Jewish people, and we see that even in Romans, in Romans nine, he's gonna say I wish that I could trade my salvation for the salvation of my countrymen.

And this is where you've. Probably heard the phrase, if you've been around the church to be a noble bean, which is representative of somebody who takes what they hear and goes to the word of God to examine it, see whether or not is true, and that is something that is, is commendable of these people there because they're are examining what Paul is saying.

Which by the way, remember they're not opening up the book of one Thessalonians to find out if what Paul is saying is true. They're going to the Jewish scriptures, they're going to the word that they have to find out, does this line up, does this measure up as Paul is proclaiming Christ to be the one, the Messiah that was prophesied about.

They're going to these prophecies saying, is this true? Do we see this to be accurate according to our understanding of this? And so, Paul is preaching to them. They're hearing this, they're checking everything against what they know to be true in the scriptures, and they are making a decision to, to follow him.

At least. A lot of them are. After this, Paul is gonna find himself in Athens.

Paul in Athens: Preaching to the Greeks

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There deities, lowercase d and he has an opportunity to address. The men there in the Areopagus, in the public forum. And so he stands up and says, men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. Again, Paul was a attentive to his surroundings and he begins to talk about one in particular statue that he saw, which was A God or an A statue to the unknown God.

And he uses that as a launch point for the gospel. And he says, what you worship as unknown, I declare to you this, I proclaim to you. And then he goes on to present the gospel to the people there, and he. Notice in verse 30 calls for a verdict. He doesn't just lay it out there and say, Hey, here it is, but he calls for a verdict.

And so Paul is just the shrew of Angelist here. And I love that about the Apostle Paul here. Yeah. This is cool because on his second missionary journey, Paul almost doubles. The territory that he covers. The first one, it was more mild. It's about half the territory that Paul covers in the first time.

It's multiplied. It's a hundred percent fold larger in the second journey. So he's all the way in Greece now. Greece Alley. You could go there today. Yep. You can go there today to see where Paul preached to the Grecians, the ath, the Athenian, greeks. It was called Akea back then. But you can still see all these things.

This is what's so cool about our religion. This is not just a legend, a myth, a fairytale or someone just pass it on from one person to another, like a, like an extended game of telephone. This is historical and that's what's so cool about this letter, particularly the Book of Acts. This is the first Century church.

This is where you start get to, you start getting to see some of Paul's wisdom in dealing with these people. In fact, lots of people have written books about Paul's interaction with these guys, trying to draw out applications and implications for what it looks like to preach to an audience that isn't favorable to the message.

And you'll notice that some of the things that stand out here is he's well acquainted with their. They're Gods. He knows enough about their way of life. He knows enough about some of their poets to make an appeal that they're attracted by and notice that all of it revolves around Jesus and the resurrection.

This is one of the most important pieces of our religion. It is not based on, we think good ideas. That's what Jesus has done. It's his life, his death, his resurrection, which again, this is huge. This is the cornerstone of our salvation, one Corinthians 15. If Jesus has not been raised, we have no relationship with God to speak of, we're just guessing and hoping for the best.

He's speaking to them at their level. I think there are so many important pieces of applications here for all of us as we engage with our relatives, our neighbors, and our friends. This coming Thanksgiving. Yeah, so when you're at your neighbor's house and they've got the statue of the unknown, God, some of our neighbors do have that.

You're right. They might, you're right, they might. Yeah. Yeah, it is.

Encouragement for Evangelism

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It is and this is the spirit that we want in the church. He's always ready to for it. He is the opportunistic evangelist. And I think that's something that, that all of us should aspire towards and be praying for. Especially right now.

You've got Thanksgiving coming up. You've got Christmas coming up right around the corner. Be praying actively for opportunities to share the gospel and then look for them because God is gonna delight to answer that prayer. I'm confident in that. That's right.

Closing Prayer and Farewell

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Well, let's pray and then we'll be done with this episode of the Daily Bible Podcast.

But we do thank you for marriage. We thank you for the husbands and wives that are in our church. We thank you for how you're are working and. At work in those marriages, but even marriages where you have unbelieving spouses Lord we've seen you work in, in, through those marriages too, and we're grateful for that.

We pray that you'd continue to do that. Give us opportunistic evangelistic hearts this this season during Thanksgiving, tomorrow, and also the. The Christmas season as well. Lord, help us to look for those opportunities, pray that you'd bring them across our path, that we might share the gospel with people that need to hear it and need to bow their knee in faith and repentance to Jesus Christ through the Lord and Savior.

And so we pray this all in Jesus' name. Amen. Keep your new Bibles. Tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See it. Bye.

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PJ: Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said