Biblical roles in marriage don’t have to be hard, and living it out well in your relationship is essential for a strong multi-generational legacy. It’s more important than ever to make good decisions as parents while being unified in marriage for effective teamwork. Often the best decisions will be in contrast to what most are doing and are harder to make, but important for thriving in unprecedented times. Isaac and Angie talk candidly about embracing biblical roles in marriage and how this impacts decision-making as a married couple. They take a deep look at what scripture says and give practical examples and insights into how to make sure both spouses feel respected and valued.

Main Points in This Episode:

• If normal Christian parenting isn’t working, then think about decisions that look identical to everyone around you
• Decisions made because of others pressuring you are most likely bad decisions
• All decisions have positive and negative ripple effects, so it’s vital to think through them in advance.
• Being a submissive spouse doesn’t mean you’re silent and a husband should want to hear insights, wishes, and insights from his wife.
• It’s vital to respect and let each other use their spiritual gifts
• Ask yourself three questions before making a decision (Listen to the episode)
• Examples of hard decisions the Tolpins have had to make that were beneficial
• If your marriage isn’t working as a team, it could be because biblical roles aren’t embraced.

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Scriptures From This Episode:

– Colossians 3:18 “Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.“

– Ephesians 5:21-33 – “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church,³⁰ because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”

– 1 Peter 3:7 – “Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.“

– Romans 14:1-8 – “As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.“

– Romans 14:13 – “Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.“

– Romans 14:20-23 – “Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble. The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.“

– Romans 15:1-2 – “We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.“

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Welcome to Courageous Parenting Podcast, a weekly show to equip parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous.

Mom and Isaac from Resolute Man Together pursuing the mission to impact 10 million families and their legacies for the Kingdom of God.

We’ve been married for 23 years and are seeing the fruit from raising our nine children biblically. Based on the raw truth found in the Bible.

We can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children, as too many from Christian families are walking away from their faith by the age of 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way.

We’re praising the Lord. That ministry continues to expand and impact more legacies. We couldn’t do this without you. Whether you pray for us, give us five star reviews, or share on social.

Or even if you purchase courses and merch or join the Be Courageous app community, enjoy the coffee or support financially. We’re so thankful you are a big part of the 10 Million Legacies movement.

If you want access to all the episodes, show notes, and other biblically based resources, go to Be Courageous Ministry.

Org. Join us as we start another important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world. Hey, welcome back to the podcast. Hey everybody. We’re talking about decision making today. Why? Because it really makes a huge difference.

Well decision making that is the hardest thing to have alignment in your marriage on a consistent basis when it comes to big, hard parenting decisions. And today there’s a lot of big, hard parenting decisions.

And if you’re not in alignment, you’re never going to stay consistent. You’re not going to. It just won’t happen and you’re not consistent if one of you are and the other isn’t anyways, because you’re supposed to be a team when you get married, what is it to become one?

One? That’s right. Hey, on that topic, it just made me realize when we were sharing about that, that this is one of the reasons why we created the Courageous Parenting Mentor Program, because the Parenting Mentor program is really designed for couples to be able to talk about all of the hard issues that we go over in the program and help to navigate those things so that they come into alignment together and with God’s Word.

Absolutely. You know, just real quick, I just want to share off topic, something really cool that happened tonight is we got our first cows. That’s right.

We did. We got our first cow. If you’re watching our YouTube channel right now, you’re going to see my lovely hair in a ponytail. And I look like I was out wrangling cows because I was.

It was pretty fun. And they’re really cool cows. Um. They’re twins. I never thought cows would be cool, but they are.

I like our cows.

Anyways, that’s news in the tool pin house and the kids are so fired up about it. It is just great. So we’re all happy unless they get out, right? Because the thing, the thing I’m concerned about is I’m going to have to go chase, uh, a £750 animal that’s soon to be over £1,000.

Yeah, you’ll you’ll definitely want to be watching our reels, because that could be comical.

It could be. Anyways, let’s get back into it. Hey, we’re so glad you’re here. All. As you know, probably all resources are be courageous ministry. Org the courses, Angie’s book uh, tons of free content, the free workshop getting on our list. Uh, pretty soon there’s going to be a new newsletter for this month, but every month there’s a really practical. It’s chock full, all kinds of practical things. The, uh, courageous newsletter. So make sure you get that. And, uh, yeah, part of the 10 Million Legacies movement. And just a reminder, wherever you’re listening, hit the five stars. Uh, write a review. It helps the algorithm when you share. Obviously, it gets the podcast out there. When you link, uh, to even to a blog post, you might write about your favorite podcasts, um, you know, and link on your site. It helps our site actually rank higher too. So all of that stuff is helping more people find the podcast. And we’re really on track for Double Vision this year. We’re super excited about it.

Yeah. Hey. Okay, so let’s dive in. Let’s start talking about this conversation around how do couples, married couples navigate making decisions, parenting decisions specifically? So the first thing that comes to my mind is we would love to encourage you not to follow the crowd, not to follow the beaten path, if you will. Um, the road less traveled, as it’s called, is oftentimes the the countercultural path. It’s what less people are doing, and it is oftentimes a harder path.

The harder path usually is the better decision, the harder one to make usually has more fruit involved with it. Usually it’s more painful in the short term. Usually it’s harder for a marriage to align around. But you know what? The stronger the marriage, the better the team, the more likely you’re going to make those harder decisions that have fruit way down the road. And if you’re looking around you for making your decisions, you’re not going to make the best ones, no matter how great your group is, because your family is unique and you really need to be making decisions without the pressure of others. And that’s the other point. The other thing here is that if you’re feeling pressure on you to make a decision, maybe it’s how you educate your children, or maybe it’s health choices. Or maybe it’s about boundaries you’re not setting or setting with extended family or other friends or neighbors, things like that. Um, then if you’re feeling pressure, you’re not going to and you succumb to that, you’re not going to make the best decision. And a lot of times the pressure is relational pressure that sacrifices what’s absolutely best for your children. Um, you gotta be aware of that.

I even think about, um, conditioned thinking. Right. And and how we don’t realize what we’re conditioned to. That’s why it’s called conditioned thinking. Another, um, idiom or phrase that we’ve heard a lot over the years is, you know, frogs in a boiling pot of water. Right? And, and a lot of times when you don’t know anything different and you’ve just been doing something the certain way, or if you’re just parenting the way you were parented or you’re just going. About Christianity the way you you saw it modeled versus it being a heart thing, right? Where God is leading you and there’s a relationship and you are feeling the Holy Spirit’s conviction and things. If you’re just going about things the way you think they should based upon what you’ve seen or what you’re conditioned to. Then we want to challenge you, actually, because there is a lot more to decision making than just doing what we’ve always done.

You know, we’ve taken an interesting approach or pretty much our whole marriage. I think it’s because, uh, I was very independent, uh, mindset in my head in terms of how I was doing business. I really wanted to do business well when I was young, and I was voraciously learning leadership. And a lot of times I realized that I was bucking the system, if you will, by some of the decisions I was making. And sometimes I would get a lot of pressure against me in making those decisions. And then way down the road, they ended up being so fruitful and so much better and better for everybody involved. And I think that experience also, Angie’s always been so deep in the word me as well. But, you know, and just really thinking about what is biblical, what is the Bible say, not just listening to somebody pontificate but their opinion. But to go what tested what? What is that against the word? And I so appreciate that. Of course I do that too. But she’s making all these decisions here and there. People make so many more decisions than they think every single day. And so that’s true. Yeah, mom, you are making a ton of decisions every single day. Do this or that, this or that. And a lot of our decisions are almost subconscious that we’re just making because we develop rhythm. So where does your rhythm need a disruption for a better outcome? How are you spending your days, gents, to how are you spending your days? How much are you looking at the device? How much are you distracted? How much are you into something that’s a lower priority actually in the long term of something else. So those things are important.

Well, and when I think of condition thinking, I even think of Christians within the church and how sometimes we just go along with the patterns, the programs, all the things. Right. And so one of the things that we’ve definitely we ask why to everything because it’s like, well, obviously we know why we, we want to take communion every week, right? Because of what the word says about communion. And to do it every time you come together or as often as you meet. Yeah. The Bible says, right. And so for us, we know why we have this desire, this standard, this, um, this practice of wanting to do communion on a regular basis. But when it comes to other things like programs or extras, things that are additive, it’s actually good for us as believers, as humans to go. Hold on a second. Why? Why do we do this? Is this actually the most beneficial? It might be additive, it might be beneficial, there might be great intentions. But as we see in even John 15, which we weren’t going to dive into that very much tonight. But the concept of being God is the the vine and we are the branches, and he prunes any branch that doesn’t bear much fruit. And so because of that, we should be evaluating any activities, any programs within the church, outside the church and going, is this bearing biblical, godly fruit, or is this bearing worldly fruit in my child or in me or in my family culture? Well, you need to prune.

And sometimes human beings like things, but it doesn’t mean it’s the best thing. Like, your children can really love something, but it doesn’t mean that’s the best thing for them. It might seem like it’s the best thing this year, but is the best thing for five years from now. See, we have to think beyond the feelings. We have to get beyond other people’s feelings. Because in leadership you have to do what’s best versus what makes people feel good in the short term.

You know, one example of that and and again, intentions can be great. But I’ll just as a homeschool mom, I’ve been homeschooling for 20 years. There have been times where, um, there has been pressure to join in an activity, an extracurricular activity, whether it be a sport or a club or a co-op, or even doing a curriculum together with other moms. Right. Where my friends have said, oh, wouldn’t it be so great, maybe we should just start something that’s just us. Let’s just do this. And I’m thinking, that sounds wonderful for like 1 or 2 of my kids. But what about the other six? Or you know what I mean? And so I’ve had to really evaluate, even though I was feeling the pressure and I myself wanted to spend time with my friends or would love to have done that sort of thing, I have to think about.

Medical freedom is something we all desire, and I think we’d all agree that in the last four years, we’ve really realized just how important it is to have a trusted life.

Doctor, you should be able to build your medical team and choose who you get care from. Knowing that where you spend your money is a matter of stewardship and a desire to support local Christian medical businesses.

Absolutely. I don’t know about you, but I prefer to help support businesses that have a biblical worldview on life and health.

Here’s the problem more often than not, you have to choose your doctor off a preferred in-network list. And if I’m really honest, those clinics usually see such mass quantities of people that it’s incredibly impersonal and you walk away feeling like a number. In addition, in most cases, in order to be seen by specialists, you’re required to get a referral from a primary care physician, which costs more time and money.

We want to introduce you to a biblical approach to health care Samaritan Ministries. You can find out more about it at Samaritan Ministries. Org slash be courageous.

They’re a health sharing ministry built on biblical principles of bearing one another’s burdens practically, financially, through helping with health care costs and spiritually through praying and caring for one another.

Samaritan ministries gives you the freedom you desire to choose your doctors and health care professionals, including. This is cool alternative care providers like chiropractors and naturopathic providers as well.

The process is simple and provides us, as Christians, a way to obey Scripture and care for one another as the larger church.

Samaritan ministries is the only health care and sharing ministry with direct member to member sharing.

I love that we send our monthly share directly to another brother or sister in Christ to support someone going through a medical crisis or recovering from a medical need, rather than to some large corporation.

So if you’d like to find out more about Samaritan Ministries, go to Samaritan Ministries. Org forward slash be courageous. That’s Samaritan ministries org forward slash be courageous to learn more.

When you sign up don’t forget to tell them that be courageous ministry or Angie and Isaac Tolpin referred you.

The links will also be in our weekly podcast show notes at Be Courageous Ministry.

Org what is actually best for my family and put that first over even what my own desire was. And I bring that up because sometimes us as moms, because we do, um, put our families first. Right? And so there’s definitely an element of it can feel like sacrifice when you’re choosing to put your family first. Right. And so and I’ll be honest, I think that the homeschool mom who is choosing to educate her kids, that is a higher priority than getting together on a regular basis with friends and hanging out, you know what I mean? Or doing a play date. Now, if you were to do something that was productive, maybe you can kill two birds with one stone and that can work for a season. But like you said, it’s not necessarily going to work for every single season. And so you have to set aside that pressure or that even that desire sometimes and be objective as best as possible. But sometimes for women, I think that it’s hard for us to be objective, which is why it’s so good to have a husband that you can take this decision making, too, and go, what do you think?

Yeah, it’s so important, really. I mean, if normal Christian parenting rhythms largely aren’t working. And what do I mean by that? Well, upwards of 80% of children raised in Christian homes are walking away from the faith by age 18. So what does that mean then? It means the norm. The normal Christian rhythms largely are failing. What are those? You think about it. Think about what you think those are. And we have to think about, okay, if that’s true, then think about the decisions that look identical to everyone around you. And maybe some of those need to look different. It’s okay if some look the same, but as long as you thought through it, you and your husband have really thought through it, prayed through it, and you’re not just doing what’s comfortable because your environment around you, your friendships are doing something. And so you have to think about what is actually fruitful, what is actually the best and what is not fruitful, and not just sweep it under the carpet. Oh, you know, yeah that happens. That happens to everybody. No no no wait, wait. What happens to everybody? Does it have to happen to everybody? Do all teens. Is that normal respectful.

To their kids? Is that. No.

Is that a is that a normal. Well, maybe it is largely normal, but it doesn’t have to be normal for you. When did we start believing that mediocrity needs to be normal for us and for our children?

It may be common in society, but it doesn’t need to be normal in your culture. And even if it is something that you’re currently experiencing in your family culture, guess what? You’re the parents and God gave you this amazing opportunity to lead your family and change that culture. Yeah, actually. So if you’re experiencing that, I mean, we’ve had there have been times where like there were things where we were like, oh, people always said that this would happen. Why is this happening? I’m frustrated that this is happening right now. And then we realized, wait a second, we can lead this. It doesn’t have to stay this way. And I hope that you guys have hope in that, because you you can lead your children out of a culture that maybe was being led by media or being led by other people giving their kids technology early, and then you’re feeling pressured to do the same thing. And I just want to share with you you’re not alone. There are so many courageous parents that have been downloading this podcast, sharing this podcast, joining the 10 Million Legacies movement. And I’m telling you, there are so many courageous parents that are rising up and trying their best out of their love for the Lord and for their love for their kids to parent biblically. And yeah, they’re making countercultural decisions just like you are.

And you know, where so many of them are in the Be Courageous app. It’s kind of cool that we’re all, oh yeah, congregating there and stirring each other on hey, but every decision has positive and negative ripple effects. Okay. So you think about you throw a pebble in the water, what do you have. You have ripples coming out. And so when you make a decision when that pebble hits the water that’s your decision. Are those ripples positive or are they negative. And what does a ripple effect. It affects the peace of the water. Right. Is it affecting the peace in a positive way or a disruptive negative way. And so you have to think about what your decisions are. You have to think way down the road. You have to think about the ripple effects. What is this decision touching? Most people can’t think about those things. And so they deal with the circumstances of it. That’s like a little examples you give in when you already made a decision about something and and the kids whining and you give in to it, what’s the negative ripple effect with it? This is a really obvious one, but there’s ones that aren’t so obvious. The negative ripple effect, right, is you just trained your children to whine forever into the future.

They’ll think that if they whine, they’ll get what they want. What’s another.

Thing? Well then the other the younger siblings are now going to follow that. So not only did you train them and they’re going to train everybody else.

Because they’re setting an example. And then here’s the another ripple effect is that guess how they’re likely to parent their children, your grandchildren in the same fashion.

Do you want to love hanging out with your grandchildren? Do you want to love and be so proud of your kids and how great their parenting? Well, then you know you need to be as wise today as you hope you are 20 years from now.

And you can give yourself grace in the process because God’s bigger than your mistakes. But yes, but this is such a powerful conversation because we make decisions all the time. Yes. And sometimes we make decisions. We’ll make a decision and then we’ll realize, you know what? No, I think this isn’t going to we’ll start heading down a path, whether it’s like a curriculum that we chose, or saying yes to a sport or no to something and going, hmm, maybe it would have been good for that kid to have. Anyways, my point is, is there are times where we’ve made decisions and then we go, you know what? I think we’re in a pivot here. And guess what? You have that same freedom to and and what is awesome about this is that that wasn’t necessarily like you. Pivoting doesn’t mean that you were failing. It means that you’re human and you are doing your best and you’ve got your eyes open. You’re asking why you’re constantly evaluating and you’re pivoting. And I think that this is an important flexibility. This is the ability to be flexible is to pivot. Right. Like I remember in basketball, pivoting was one of those things that was kind of hard you had to like.

For me, it was hard. I was so focused on, okay, this is how you’re supposed to dribble and you pass this way. And I remember my coach going, Angie, pivot. And I was like, okay, I gotta pivot. I gotta turn and go a different way because I’m getting blocked the way that the play is supposed to go. And so you have to think quick and you pivot. It’s the same thing in parenting. Sometimes we have to be able to pivot. Does that mean that because I was headed one direction, I was doing it wrong? No, I was following the play. I was doing what my coach said. But then somebody got in the way or something was revealed to me that was not good. That was going to be destructive and I was going to lose the ball. So you pivot and you turn and you go the other way. This is so important that we teach our kids this concept so that when we’re parenting, they don’t go, why are you changing everything on me? Well, because sometimes you start going a certain way thinking it’s going to be good, and then you realize it’s not going to be good. And there’s signs. So you pivot.

Here’s something parent, you just brought up something so important that wasn’t said, but you brought it up, which is you got to tell your children why, especially on the bigger decisions. And you have to have lots of good communication and proactively as early as possible, tell them why we’re going to be changing something, why we’re going to be doing something else, why we’re going to stop doing something, why we’re going to shift gears on something. Right. You have to give give them lots of notice ahead of time. But hey, let’s talk about marriage for a second. Um, you know, in marriage, we’ve often said that it’s best when two when a two spouses have differing opinions on something to go with the more conservative option. Right. And go with that.

The conservative view or preference or whatever. And there is a truth to that. I just want to share the scripture with you guys as to why we have said that. Um, because I think that. So this is going to go along with another biblical outlook on decision making, right in regards to husbands and wives and biblical gender roles. And and hey, this is a I just want to start I want to say something. This is a sticky topic.

It is. But hang on just real quick. Uh, we’re gonna, uh, share some testimonials with you in a moment about the parenting mentor program. We hope you join us. It’s we’re our we’re blown away by the impact of this thing. And it is so helpful to parents, intentional Christian parents, to lead a different legacy and to really have the answers they need during unprecedented times to be truly courageous parents.

You know, it is also really cool. Isaac is, as people have been going through the Parenting Mentor program, they get so excited about it that they invite their friends to join them, and then they facilitate a group and then their friends, their small groups, their home groups can go through it. And we’ve even had just in the last parenting program, we have three different church churches having groups go through the Parenting Mentor program together. Now, let me tell you, imagine, like if you feel alone as a parent, you feel like you’re running this race alone, like you’re the salmon swimming upstream. You’re countercultural, you’re doing the the road less traveled. And you’re like, man, I wish there were other people doing this with me. And you have some other friends at church who seem like they’re on that path, but you don’t fully know. Imagine doing the Parenting Mentor program together and really like challenging one another and being exhorted in these hard decision making things.

Stephen, I realized that we were getting too comfortable with the world’s vision of how to raise our children.

What Angie and Isaac have done in creating this is literally phenomenal.

This program provided awesome scripture based teachings and just some really great practical applications.

This class has just really rocked my world.

It has given me the vision for not just the different things that we might focus on as parents who are trying to raise our kids biblically, like how our kids are behaving or what we’re doing with discipline, but also the things of the heart.

We now have a game plan to how we want to raise our children. We have so many answers to the questions that have been in our mind.

It’s not just these hypothetical situations or it’s not just this. Here’s what I think you should do. It’s let me show you where in Scripture this is.

Do your legacy a favor and yourself a favor and just do it.

One of the best things that we’ve done this year, one of the best investments we’ve made this year. And I could not recommend it more.

We’re no longer fearing dark days ahead, but we’re so excited to raise lights to be leaders for the next generation.

Yeah, so cool you were talking about this is really sticky topic.

This is a sticky topic. Um, because here’s the thing. When it comes to making decisions within every marriage, there’s going to be it’s not going to look cookie cutter identical for every single marriage. Right, Isaac. And so we don’t want you to think that we are giving you a prescriptive when you’re making decisions. Go with the person who’s more conservative. That’s not what we’re saying. Right? Okay. It’s not this is not prescriptive. We’re going to look at about four different scriptures here really quick, um, that are going to help you navigate. So you can kind of see our heart in this because there is balance. There is equally valuing both the husband and the wife and the decision making process. But the Bible is also really clear about biblical gender roles within a marriage. And there’s freedom in being obedient to Scripture. And I know that as a wife of many years, there have been a lot of times where I’ve really just said, you know, I’m having a really hard time making this decision. Can you please just make the decision for me? And I think when I was younger, I was a little too prideful to actually say that. But there have been many times where I have it. It’s actually a relief to not have to be the decision making person. So there I’m going to say that as we start going into these scriptures, because it is a sensitive topic sometimes where there’s women who are leading spiritually in their homes, they don’t want to give up. The being the one who makes all the decisions.

Kind of reminds me of dancing. Now I’m not even a dancer. I love this. It kind of reminds me of dancing because my daughter’s been telling me how much fun she’s been having swing dancing, so it makes me think of this. And in dancing, you know, men are leading in that kind of dancing. They’re leading like in swing dancing and these kinds of things, and women are following. And when you watch it, it’s like beautiful, right? When people are doing it well, when the when the roles are right. And I think of in marriage, it’s, it’s dancing well together within our roles that are helping each other every step of the way. And there’s equal value in both dancer. But when you come together, it’s just more beautiful when you’re doing it. Well.

That’s right, that’s true. It’s much more fun to watch two when there’s two dancing well together versus one person dancing alone. What if both.

Of them want to lead? The whole time they’re dancing?

They’d be stepping on each other’s toes. That’s what happens. So let’s talk about this concept, though, about, um, the the more conservative view of things. Um, we wanted to share with you guys, Romans chapter 14. And there’s this is a long passage. We’re not going to read all of it because of time, but I’m going to kind of jump around into the few areas. But I want to encourage you, please, would you go and read all of chapter 14? Because truly, to have the context of this scripture is really important for understanding what we’re talking about. Um, but but it says here, okay, so receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to dispute over doubtful things. For one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables. Let him let not him who eats despise him who does not eat. Let not him who does not eat, judge him who eats. For God has received him. Who are you to judge another’s servant to his own master? He stands or falls indeed he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand. And then it goes into talking about, um, uh, one person esteems one day above another. It’s talking. It could be talking about the Sabbath here. Um, and you continue on verse five and it talks again about like who is who’s eating food and what, what practices people are having on certain days. And then if you skip all the way down to verse 14, it says, I know and I and am convinced by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself, but to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. Yet if your brother is grieved because of your food, you are no longer walking in love. Do not destroy with your food the one for whom Christ has died. Therefore do not let your good be spoken of as evil, for the kingdom of God is not of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. And then it just continues on. So. That this little portion of.

Scripture making me hungry is. But what do you mean by it?

Well, well, the whole point is that you’re not supposed to be disputing over these things. And to one person, they might not have a good conscience about eating pork. Let’s say, um, maybe it’s not even that it’s upsetting their stomach. Maybe they have a biblical conviction for why they don’t want to eat pork. Right. Um, and maybe somebody else who’s read the same scriptures doesn’t have that conviction, and they feel okay with eating pork. Um, and it could also be even just meat in general and, and eating only vegetables, which is what it’s talking about. But the whole point is that you’re walking in love with one another and you’re not tempting another person to sin, and that you’re not judging each other and being like, no, you need to do things my way. And so it could go both ways. God is really clear here. He’s kind of exhorting both the person that has the more conservative view, as well as the person who maybe is more liberal in their view of eating food, in the sense of I don’t have a conviction about eating food. I want to eat it all. Give me the sugar, you know, um, and that’s the whole point, is that he’s he’s making a few points here that the kingdom of God is not about eating and drinking. Let’s stay focused on what’s eternal and not argue over the little, um, earthly disputes that don’t actually have eternal value here. Number two, don’t tempt your brother to sin. You could say the same thing to don’t tempt your husband to sin. Don’t tempt your wife to sin. Um, and and recognizing that when your spouse has a deep conviction about something and maybe you don’t. To love and cherish your spouse is to understand that they have a deep conviction about that, and you’re not tempting them to sin.

I can think of so many times where Angie has brought things to me, and where it really doesn’t matter too much to me, like I don’t have a strong, strong opinion. I’m not really, uh, conviction in this certain thing that she’s talking about, but when I listen to her, I can see the conviction in her. And that means a lot to me. And it husbands, it needs to mean a lot to you. And your wife does that. And even though at face value, we can’t sometimes see the wisdom in it, and sometimes we can, but if they have a deep conviction, we need to one. We need to trust that the Holy Spirit may be communicating to your wife about a conviction that she can’t even fully articulate why it’s important sometimes. See, my wife has the gift of discernment, and sometimes she can’t even articulate all the credibility and reasons why this. We need to be careful about a certain situation. And I have learned when we’re first married. I didn’t know this as well about her, but I have learned that I need to trust the God’s working through her, and I need to listen and pay attention, even if she can’t back it up completely.

And on the same note, there are times when I’m more in my flesh because I’m human, right? Um, every person, regardless of what your gifting is, if you’re walking in your flesh or you’re not fully saturated in the word and you’re tempted to care more about, you know, the worldly flesh, or maybe worry or fear or whatever it is, then your that that discernment turns into judgment or criticalness I’ve shared this before.

Whatever your gifts are, you’re you’re you’re the worst part about you is the opposite of those gifts, right?

So if you’re not walking in the Holy Spirit like Paul tells us, okay, so if you’re living by the spirit, then walk in the spirit, right? Because there’s a difference between the two. And so when we are walking in the spirit then, and that the Holy Spirit is literally activated, it is spiritual discernment. When we are tempted and struggling in our flesh, it can look totally different. And and that’s the thing is that in marriage there should be a comfortability and an honesty and an introspection, as well as an observation where I know that Isaac can kind of tell when maybe I’m operating more on my flesh, and maybe I’m just more fearful in that moment. And that’s why I’m saying what I’m saying about that person. Maybe not being safe or something. And then.

I need to challenge.

Her, challenge me, and he’ll go, hold on a second. So are you saying you don’t want the kids to go do this because of X, Y, and Z? Or is it because of this? And and then I go, oh yeah, okay. All right. And then I realize I’m, I have to be challenged to trust and I need to like let go a little bit. Right. And so there’s there we go back and forth and challenging one another in in different ways because we are different people and we’re gifted differently. And I think that one of the most important things that you could really narrow down, that would help you guys in your decision making process, is to really be able to identify what your different giftings are and to value those in one another. And I find that because we have done that for so many years, that’s one of the biggest strengths in our marriage, is that we empower each other in those gifts.

I can’t think of. I can’t even think of a time where we just had this massive disagreement, and I made a decision to move forward, and you were just totally angry about it. I can’t even I’m maybe there was 1 or 2 of those, but I can’t think of any. And I think it’s because we’ve always taken this approach. Now does do I make some final decisions? Absolutely. You know, she I recently said this on the Resolute Man podcast actually, which is this last one, uh, which is I was asked the question, you know, how did you rise up to lead such a godly wife when you were a new Christian? Um, when you got married? And one of the things I said and I want to say here, too, is Angie did such a great job of giving space for me to lead. She see, she wanted me to lead. And that was important because if she didn’t actually want me to lead, she speaks way more words than I do. She can do circles around me. She thinks faster than I do. She can recite scripture even faster than I can. And she just has it. Just this unbelievable memory where she remembers everything. Well, I’m just giving you an example of if she wanted to, she could have made it very difficult for me to lead, and if she was competitive or she wanted to lead herself right and make final decisions and these kinds of things, it would have been very difficult for me being a new believer. And. And I am just so thankful. So it’s it’s that dance dancing. Well, which is both the husband and the wife need to want the husband to be the leader. But you know what makes it easier for wives to want their husbands to lead is if they’re good leaders, not perfect, but if they’re good, if they really consider, if they really ask questions, if they’re servant hearted, if they’re making sure their wives feel heard, if they’re changing their stance because of wisdom their wives bring to them, and they’re really receptive to that, I think that’s the answer.

One of the biggest things that for me, it’s not about. So you’ve never been one of those leaders that was like pushing your leadership role, but instead it was that you led with the attitude of having the best interest of those that you were leading. And I think that that really is the biggest difference maker. And so as we’re talking and we’re going to go into this scripture that for a lot of people it’s really hard to hear, but it’s what the Bible says. So if you have a hard time with this next topic in decision making, um, this part is somewhat prescriptive because it’s what the Bible says. It’s not Isaac and Angie’s opinion. This is something that I have had to grow in a lot and still grow in. I’ve not been perfect by any means. Isaac was very, very gracious in saying that I was good at letting him lead. But I will say that from the beginning I did always want my husband to lead. That is true. I did always want you to lead, but it wasn’t always easy for me. I had to be purposeful and intentional and think ahead of ways that I could include him and give him that space to try. And I think that if you’re struggling with that, then here’s one of the best recommendations I could give you. It’s ask your husband his opinion.

Oh, that’s so good.

Ask him what he thinks. And you know, what’s interesting is that it comes straight from the word of God. Because in Second Corinthians it says, if a woman has a question, let her ask her husband.

Well, what do you mean? I mean, anybody can just Google it. They can just listen to pastors on podcasts, okay? You can get any answer you want. Literally. Why would you why would you need a husband to give you an answer?

Get me on a soapbox, because it’s the exact same question as to why Titus two relationships are not happening in the church today, and it actually makes like I actually experienced somewhat of a holy anger, I believe, because I’m glad I could stir that up. I know this is a big problem. The fact that people just literally go to Google and they search for answers and things versus asking their mom versus asking the older women that God has placed in their life to teach them. When women don’t get asked, when older men don’t get asked by the younger men. Which is God’s design for the church, by the way. When they don’t get asked, then they start to believe the lie that that people don’t want to know what they have to say, and then they don’t sign up to disciple younger people in the church, which is what God has commanded them to do.

And then the younger people are like, where are all these people that I could ask to mentor me?

So here’s the thing. If we don’t ask our husbands, if we don’t ask the older, for me, I’m a woman, so I’m going to ask the older women. For younger men, they need to be asking older men. The truth is, is, guys, this is God’s idea. It’s not Isaac and Angie’s idea. This was God’s idea that the wives would ask their husbands. And I believe that that’s because God knows that women are. I mean, and men are good thinkers too. So don’t think I’m saying that they’re not. They’re just different. But women think of things differently, um, than men do. And the questions that we have are just different than the questions that maybe are going to come to a man’s mind. And so it is really beneficial when we ask our husbands the questions that we ask them, because it stirs them up to good works, meaning stirs them up to go find the answer in the Bible if they don’t already have it. And if they do, then they share with you their answer, and then you grow and respect for them. This is huge.

So are you saying that women shouldn’t ever Google things or listen to pastors on podcast? No, I know that’s not what you’re saying, but I just wanted to.

Bring it up. It’s not what I’m saying. I just think that there’s it’s the the negative side of media. There’s a positive and a negative. And I would do want to stay balanced on this, but I think that more people need to recognize the negative side, which is that they they don’t ask their husbands. They go and they ask somebody else, right. And and then they miss out on the growth that could happen in their marriage if they would have just asked their husband.

And a more unique answer that shows you where your husband’s at in the heart of your husband is maybe not just the question and the knowledge. It’s about nurturing a relationship. And I ask my wife questions too. And I know that gets her thinking, because I ask and think of things very different than she does. And sometimes she might be missing something. And my question might stir that in her too. Right?

So okay, so when you’re making decision making, we already went through Romans chapter 14 and we urged you guys not to like squabble and fight over things that are not eternal, to have a biblical perspective on the the decisions, the topics that you’re talking about, but also not to tempt one of the other into sin if they have a deep conviction about it. That’s a biblical teaching, and we need to do it first in our marriage and then in our families, and then to other people outside the church. Right. So it’s totally relevant to marriage. But then you’ve got verses like Ephesians chapter five, verses 21 through 33. I’m going to read some of this really fast. Okay. So it starts out with saying, submitting to one another in the fear of God. Another translation says Reverence to God. Verse 22, wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ is the head of the church and he’s the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything, in everything. And so, um, I’m going to continue because there’s a word for the husbands, actually, you’re going to continue because there’s a word for the husbands.

Verse 25. But before we continue, I know that this topic of submission is incredibly difficult. Um, but the Bible talks about submission and it talks about roles in marriage, and we can’t omit them and we need to practice them. And this is the part that I was sharing about earlier that I know can be sticky. But as a wife and being honest about the reality of some how some of these decisions are incredibly hard. Sometimes there’s a conflict or there’s a conflict of interest, or there’s two really good options for activities, or a curriculum or a decision that needs to be made. And you as a woman, maybe go, you know what I see? They’re both beautiful and I can’t decide there is a freedom in being able to say, honey, what do you think? And let them be the one to make the decision. And you told me earlier, it’s not always the most glamorous position to be in. To be the one that’s the decision maker. It’s not like because the.

Repercussion, there’s repercussions, you know, there’s there’s it doesn’t always work out right. And you’re making a decision and you have to you have to face that. You have to own it. And so husbands love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that he might present her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. Okay, those of you gents working out and taking care of yourself and all those things, well, you know, are you making sure you’re caring for your wife in the same way he who loves his wife loves himself? Wait a minute. If you’re not treating your wife well, you’re not even loving yourself.

It’s interesting that this is, I’m going to say, repeated, because it’s actually the second commandment love your neighbor as yourself. And who’s your first neighbor? Right? Like it’s the one that you’re one with in marriage.

Yeah. It’s so good for no one ever hated his own flesh. Do you hate your own flesh? No, of course not. You need your flesh. You need to take care of it. And so you need to take care of your wife, but nourishes and cherishes it. Nourish and cherish. Nourish your wife. Cherish your wife.

Oh that’s good. Yeah, it’s.

Interesting because cherishing you’re going to think you’re going to want to know what’s on their thoughts and like what’s on their heart and what convictions.

Emotionally there for them.

Yeah.

But also like physically there for them too, in a, in a cherishing kind of way. And that allows when a woman experiences that in marriage, it allows her to trust her husband so much more. So guys, if you’re struggling with feeling like your wife trusts you and making the decisions, I would say if you start cherishing your wife, that could change a lot of that.

And then it says, just as the Lord does the church, for we are members of his body, or his flesh and of his bones. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So in-laws, parents of kids, shouldn’t be getting meddling too much, right? When when two people get married, they are their own family, right? And they can come to us for wisdom and these kinds of things, but they need to come to us. And if you parent, well, they will.

Yeah.

And I, I want to just also encourage you guys, this isn’t the only place in Scripture that it talks about submission. There’s also Colossians 318 which says, wives, submit to your own husbands as is fitting to the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter towards them. Talks to children, talks to fathers, talks to bondservants. And so this is a theme that we see throughout Scripture is there is structure within the family, and that is also image bearing of structure that’s within the church with elders and pastors.

And it also.

Says, live with your wife in an understanding way.

That’s first Peter.

Three. So it’s so important because if you’re if you become the kind of leader that just makes decisions without considering your wife or really listening to her and things like that, or thinking about how she feels, a lot of some of the decisions you’re going to make together as a marriage and you’re you’re going to move forward, uh, your wife is even more involved with and actually take more activity with and so forth. So I think that’s really important to do. So first Peter three seven says, husbands likewise dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife as the weaker vessel and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered. A lot of people misunderstand that. Don’t like that scripture because. It says weaker vessel right there. That the Bible actually doesn’t mean any difference in value of a human being at all. Uh, the Bible is very clear that men and women are equal in value. Okay. So that’s very.

Important. There is difference. There is strength.

There is differences in physical strength. There’s differences in some other areas of strength and weaknesses amongst a husband and wives, too. And I am so thankful that he made us different, so that when we’re together, we can be a better team. See, teams always are better with people with varied skill sets and giftings, and that’s what a marriage team is supposed to be. And if we don’t embrace that, if we don’t look at those differences, then we’re not going to have a great team. So you see in the world right now, right. There’s not an embracing the opposites happening of, uh, you know, gender differences and things like that. And you see chaos, you see absolute chaos happening.

You know, it’s interesting, this specific verse, when it’s talking about dwelling with the wives in an understanding way, giving honor to the wife. I think of leadership and I think of decision making in regards to this and how a husband who is going to dwell with his wife, with understanding, is going to know what her thoughts are about a specific decision that needs to be made. And when he’s making that final decision, he’s going to have understood her. How do you understand? How do you live with your wife in an understanding way? Well, if you’re making a decision that affects both of you.

You have to know. You have to know. Her mind thinks.

About that decision, right? You can’t have understanding about something if you don’t know. And so that’s why it’s important to actually ask. And this I mean, this literally goes into so much when you think about it. Right? Because it’s giving honor to the wife. Is it honoring to the wife if you don’t ask her opinion, is it honoring to the wife? If you just make a decision that she has no say in, is it honoring to a like, I could go on and on and on.

Even talks about your prayers being hindered if you.

Yes, that’s what this says. Yeah, yeah. That your prayers.

May be hindered. It may not be hindered if you live in an understanding way.

So if you’re.

If you’re not living in an understanding with your wife, gents, good luck talking to God. I mean, you can talk all you want, but they’re going to be hindered. Isn’t that isn’t that wild? Okay, so I want to talk about three questions here. We’re going to talk about it in. The first one is why.

So when you’re making a decision you want to ask yourself pros and cons right. Like you’re evaluate your different decisions. Let’s just take one, um, parenting decision that every parent has to make at some point. How are we going to educate our kids or are we going to have another baby? Those are two huge, big, hard decisions, right? And this is the thing, like for us over the years, there were times where maybe we weren’t 100% in alignment on decisions like if we were going to have another baby or not. Right? If you want to hear more about that topic, you can go find our podcast episode where we talk all about it. But I’m just bringing it up because that’s a common question decision that couples have to make together, right? And obviously, if a man is making the decision on their own, then the wife is going to feel really like, not understood, not loved, not cherished. So there needs to be a collaborative decision making together. And you have to ask yourselves some really hard questions.

Mhm.

Right. But in those conversations of how we’re going to educate our kids, how we’re, are we going to have more kids hearing each other’s hearts and the convictions that the Holy Spirit has laid on our hearts helps us to make the decision as we’re moving forward.

So why? And the second thing, is it biblical? Is it actually biblical? There’s lots of people saying things are biblical today that actually aren’t biblical, right? Are you testing things against the Word of God? Is it clear that it’s not going against biblical truth? It’s really important.

Um, and then the third thing is, is it best? So when we first thought about this, I was like, is it best we got to put biblical last? But actually this makes perfect sense because sometimes there’s two really good biblical paths. But you have to choose which one is best.

They’re going to be lots of things that are good and don’t go against biblical truth, but which one is actually best? And again, like we said in the beginning, a lot of times that best one is going to be the harder decision to make.

And sometimes what’s best might just change from year to year or from kid to kid.

Right? Isaac and Angie, do you always have to make the best decision? I mean, can’t we just kind of be relaxed and go with the flow and kind of live a little and just, you know, have a lot of fun and not worry about anything and just be why.

Do you have to bring up all these hard topics every.

Time? Come on.

Can’t we just, you know, be normal Christian parents? Um, no, you don’t want.

Be a normal Christian.

Here’s the thing. We if you’re listening to this podcast, then obviously there’s something about what we talk about in here that has kind of you’ve identified with some somewhat. Right. And I think that if there was one thing that I want you to to be left with, it’s this we don’t want to live with regret in our life, in our parenting. I mean, it’s inevitable because no parents. Perfect. But if we can challenge other people to be thinking ten years down the road, 20 years down the road, but also about the now and how what they do right now and the decisions that they make is actually massively impactful. And not to get stressed out about it, but to seek the Lord on it and pray about it and make decisions collaboratively as a couple together, then you’re less likely to live with regret.

And I think the better decisions you make, the more fun life is, the more opportunities there are for you and your family. The more close your family is going to be, the less distractions that are pulling the wrong distractions, pulling your family apart. I mean, the marriage is going to be stronger, so best decisions actually create, even though there’s some they’re harder sometimes, but they actually create more fruit. And more fruit is more enjoyable. I mean, when you eat fruit, do you want to eat rotten fruit or do you want to eat mushy fruit? Or do you want to eat fruit? That’s just.

Right.

I love it. Hey, I just want to. As we’re gearing up towards the end of the podcast, I just want to throw out some of the decisions because we really do make decisions all day long. And sometimes as people are listening to a podcast like this, they’re like, okay, well, what decisions do I have to make right now? And they may not even be aware of the fact that they’re literally making decisions in five minutes from now. For example, as a mom, we have decisions to make in if we are going to confront certain sins, certain issues, certain conflicts, or if we’re going to allow our kids to try to work out their offenses and see we have to make that decision. We have to choose our battles. We we have to choose to be consistent. We have to choose in the moment if we’re going to feed our kids something that is healthier and and it’s going to maybe take us more time, or if we’re going to just whip up something that’s in a package that’s processed so that we can be less stressed out. And and you know what? Sometimes, sometimes one is better than the other and it’s not always one way. And so my point is, is we’re always making decisions.

Oh yeah. As moms.

All day long.

Guys are making.

A million decisions.

To we’re choosing what am I going to.

Am I going to get home on time or am I going to, you know, not am I going to, you know, be tired and not present and just do an escapism things flipping through the phone, or am I going to be focused, you know, am I going to, you know, plan the weekend or am I just going to let it happen? And am I going to lead? Am I going to initiate? Am I going to ask my wife how she’s doing? How are you feeling? How can I help? What’s going on? Am I going to stay up late listening to her, or am I just going to fall asleep while she’s talking?

Well, and then there’s the other decisions, too, that have to do with the actual children. Like, um, what friends are we going to pursue for our kids when they’re little? Right? Or, um, or what friends are we not going to pursue or what curriculums do we choose? When do we allow them to have technology? How much technology? What media choices?

What am I going to.

Put in my mind? Am I going to get help from a brother or not? Am I going to invest in this thing that is hard to invest in? But I should, but I don’t or I do.

Are you going to confront that specific sin or confess a sin to your spouse? Are you going to? What church are you going to go to? Are how involved are you going to get?

Are we going.

To make it to.

Church?

Yeah, I mean, there’s so many decisions that come up on a daily basis on a minute by minute basis, whether it’s heartstring decisions and it’s not even just like I even think about just parenting and how one of the most common things that I do on a regular basis is I disciple. And the other thing that I do often is there’s discipline and there’s conversations, there’s correcting sin, there’s, um, conversations about the Lord. There’s but this is the thing. Like within that, I have many different choices of how I’m going to go about correcting a child, and it’s going to be different based upon the child, based upon the age of the child and the actual sin that was.

Committed, and then.

Prioritizing. Are you doing the most important things, or are you doing things that are comfortable that you like to do that are easy and fun and simple? Or are you actually getting the hard things done that need to be done right?

So I know that we just probably you went, wow, okay, I was wondering how I was going to apply this and now I have a million reasons why.

So now let’s say a prayer, enjoy the day, and please share the episode because double vision double impact this year. Yeah. We’re so excited about it. I’m glad you’re part of the mission with us and the 10 Million Legacies movement. Thanks for joining us.

See you next time. Hey, thanks for listening and being a part of the ten. Million legacies movement go to be courageous ministry. Org for more biblically based resources, ways to switch where you spend your money that support the mission and information about the incredible Be Courageous app community for believers.

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