A short daily devotional (Day 46) from the "Summer of Scripture" series, centered on 1 Corinthians 13:4-5. Dave Willis and a co-speaker read the passage and apply it to marriage, highlighting love’s features (patience, kindness, humility, not holding grudges). They emphasize patience as forbearance/long-suffering and perseverance, the importance of forgiving/not keeping score, and the value of community mentors and "pacemakers" to sustain marriage through long seasons.
Chapters
Welcome to Summer of Scripture on the Naked marriage podcast. For 66 days in a row, we're releasing a short daily devotional for your marriage. Over these 66 days, we'll be sharing one scripture from each of the 66 books of the Bible and talking about how it applies to your life and marriage. Listen to all 66 episodes of these and you'll have a better understanding of God's Word and His perfect plan for your marriage. Let's dive in to today's scripture.
Welcome to Day 46. We are in First Corinthians, and today's verse is one of the most famous wedding scripture passages. The love chapter from 1 Corinthians, chapter 13. This was originally one of the two letters that the Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, which was a church that was very pagan. New Christian church was taking root there, and Paul was writing to them in a very pagan, pluralistic culture of ancient Greece. And he wrote about what love really is and what love really looks like. And it's some of the most beautiful words in Scripture. So 1st Corinthians 13, verse 4 and 5 says, Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable. And it keeps no record of being wronged. And not only is that a great description of love, I think it's a beautiful recipe for marriage. Love is patient and kind, so be patient and kind with each other. It's not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. So don't be those things to your spouse. It doesn't demand its own way, so don't demand your own way of your spouse. Don't be irritable. And the last one, don't keep record of being wronged. And in marriage, you're going to have a lot of opportunity to keep score, but you got to fight that temptation and say, you know what? I'm going to give you a clean slate every day, which is so hard.
To do because we want to hold on to things sometimes, and especially when it's something really hurtful. And again, I don't think this is a verse where it's saying, like, just put your head in the clouds and let him have a free pass. I don't think that's what it's saying at all, but I do think it's saying, give your spouse kind of the time and space to maybe regain your trust or to show that they can do better, like if they really did hurt you Obviously there's boundaries that need to be in place. They need to do better. But don't hold it over their head. Because whenever we hold something over, you know, whether it's our spouse's head or our kid's head, like, and keep beating them up about it, it doesn't help them in their healing process. It really just kind of, I don't know, it's really cruel. It's a cruel way to just keep on, you know, telling them how terrible they are. And so that doesn't help. And I love the keeping no record of wrong. I think that it's reminding us that we need to really give each other the benefit of the doubt, assume the best of each other. But also if we are wronged, that we don't keep on using that against them.
Yeah, not using it against them is really key because again, it's so easy to have ammunition. You know, 10 years ago you wounded me deeply and I'm gonna milk that for all that it's worth every time that anything comes up. Yeah. And so you have to have the grace to move past it. Just as Jesus doesn't remind us of our sin that he's already paid for, we can't remind each other of our sin. You know, the proverbs say, he who repeats an offense separates close friends, but he covers over an offense. And again, not covering over in an unhealthy way that you're not dealing with it, but you cover it over in order to protect that person. You're saying, we're not going to keep digging that back up. It's already been dealt with. That's what promotes healing. And so be one to cover over an offense. You know, the very first part of this passage, love is patient. I think one of the most overlooked aspects of marriage and love is simply being patient with each other. Because the way God wires us up in marriage is usually we're going at a different speed than one another in different things. You know, we're in different places. And so both spouses have to really learn to be patient. To wait on the other. Yes.
And I know, you know, there's always the age old joke of like men waiting on their wives to get ready and all that kind of stuff. I don't even. You don't see that as much anymore kind of on tv, but when we were growing up, there was always the joke on sitcoms and on movies where it's like, oh, the husband's waiting for her to get ready for the date or to get ready for the event and like looking at his watch and being patient and this and that. And that's not really the kind of patience that I think it's talking about here. I mean, sure, be patient with each other when it comes to time. Like, and there's usually gonna be one of you that's like way better with managing time than the other. One of you is gonna be way more punctual than the other. Again, we have to be patient with those kind of things. But what I really think it's talking about here is the same kind of patient that is addressed when it comes to the fruits of the spirit. And that kind of patience. Another word that you can. That when you look at some interpretations of this or, I'm sorry, some translations of this, it will use the word forbearance. And that kind of seems like a really old word that we just never use anymore.
Long suffering.
Long suffering, right. We don't want that, though. You don't see that in many translations because we're like, what? Suffering? What? But really forbearance and long suffering is really like having perseverance, right? Perseverance and bearing with. There is a lot of bearing with, in marriage, like bearing with each other's idiosyncrasies, bearing with each other's hard seasons and just giving each other space to heal and to grow. And I think that in marriage that. That's the kind of patience we need is that is in the long waiting seasons of waiting on God to move on, waiting on the healing, on waiting on the breakthrough. And I think that's where we really. We have to have that kind of marital grit of persevering, of trusting God and also not really focusing on just the here and now and the hardship, but remembering what God has brought us through in the past and trusting he's gonna get us through again.
Yeah, that's so good. You know, I don't think I've ever heard it described quite like that. That's really good. The perseverance aspect of patience. And in marriage, that's extra important.
Very, very.
It's a marathon, right? Marriage is a marathon. And you gotta cheer each other on. You gotta spur each other on. And you know the guy who's got the world record for marathons right now? Tell him how he got there, sweetie.
Well, Elliot Kipchoge, who I just a beautiful name. He's a Kenyan and he is very impressive. So he has run a marathon in under two hours, right? Am I saying that right?
Yeah. Only person on Earth ever.
Only person on earth. It's amazing. But. And that's not. I mean, that's impressive in and of itself. But what really impresses me about him is the unique way that he trained for this. You know, he put what he called. What he calls in place. He calls them pacemakers. And these are basically like 40 to 42 people who are also running this marathon with him during his training time. And basically, they'd be at different points of the marathon, running alongside him, really, in different formations to where he could be cheered on. He could kind of see where he was on the course. And basically they would do exactly what their name says. They would help him keep the pace in order for him to break that record, you know, and he did it. And I just. As I heard that story on a podcast one day, I thought, man, that's awesome for, you know, training for a marathon. But really, marriage is a marathon, and we, too, need, you know, pacemakers along the way to help us get through the hard seasons and really keep on pushing forward. And, you know, what does that look like for us as married people? That looks like marriage mentors, like people who are 10 or 20 years ahead of us, who've already been there, who can help us through. It looks like Christian counselors. It looks like pastors who also counsel us and help us. Small groups that, you know, are focused on marriage, that help us grow in our marriage. And then it also looks like us being pacemakers for other people.
Absolutely.
Being mentors for other people. I think we. What's ideal is if we're in kind of that mentor sandwich where we have people who are pouring into us, who are our mentors, who are ahead of us, and then we also have friends that we're doing life alongside. And then we have people we are mentoring ourselves. That is ideal. Like, one day, all of us, you know, we can hopefully be part of that. And that's really just being the church, you know, a multi generational church that is helping, helping each other in every facet of our life. And I think that includes marriage.
Absolutely. Man. That's a good word, guys. So take that to heart. Read the whole book of 1 Corinthians. There's a lot of jewel in there. And camp out on that love chapter and really make it your mission to get to the heart of understanding what love is, starting with that patience and perseverance, and then living that out every day in your marriage, and God will give you the strength to do it. Thanks so much for tuning in. Look forward to seeing you tomorrow. We'll be on day 47 and in the book of Second Corinthians.
