Deuteronomy 24:5 - Summer of Scripture

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Welcome to Summer of Scripture on the Naked marriage podcast. For 66 days in a row, we are releasing a daily devotional episode for your marriage. And over these 66 days, we're going to pull out one scripture from each of the 66 books of the Bible and talk about how it applies to your marriage. So if you listen to every single one of these episodes, you're going to have a comprehensive understanding of God's plan for your marriage. We encourage you to listen to everyone. Let's dive into today's scripture. Hey, welcome back. Day five. We're in the book of Deuteronomy today. Deuteronomy means second law because it was essentially a retelling, a new telling of some of the law code that we first see in Exodus. And there's so much richness in this book. So today's scripture is Deuteronomy 24, verse 5, which says a newly married man must not be drafted into the army or be given any other official responsibilities. He must be free to spend one year at home bringing happiness to the wife he has married. And I love that this was a law in ancient Israel at a time when, you know, the military was so important because they're fighting for their lives against these kind of neighboring warring nations. And yet even in the midst of that, they recognize the importance of marriage. Starting your marriage strong and saying that first year of marriage, focus on making your wife happy. Focus on pursuing and loving one another. Start your marriage strong. And I know that's not practical for most professions, most careers, you know, to take a full year off at marriage, that'd be quite a honeymoon. But I think it paints a great picture of just saying, make your marriage a priority right from the start.

Yes.

And I love that. I just, I love that this is right here in scripture and it encourages me to see it.

I love it, too, because I do think even in today's society, you know, really, even within Christian circles, I think that there's this pool to prioritize anything and everything outside of your marriage. I think it's like, you know, prioritize your career or prioritize your desires, your hobbies, like, whatever you want to do, get the most out of life. And I think it kind of pushes us away from the marital bond. And I think that we, you know, here we are. We've obviously gone through a dating phase and an engagement phase and now a marriage phase. But because our society as a whole kind of hasn't valued marriage as much as in years past, there's just kind of this assumption that, like, oh, your spouse should just deal with it. They know you love them, go do what you want to do. And we see that a lot, right? And it's easy to fall into that. Like, if we get caught into that kind of autopilot trap, that's naturally where we're gonna drift. We're gonna drift to focusing on ourselves. And so it's so important that on turning into each other and not away and working on that marriage, what does that look like? That means look at your calendar and see what you're prioritizing. Like, seriously, if anybody's ever like, well, I don't know what I'm prioritizing, I'll say, well, show me your Google calendar. Show me your calendar on your fridge. Cause where your time and where your money goes is where you're seeing value in things. And I'm not saying that to sound judgmental, because I have to ask myself the same question.

Well, the Bible says, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And our treasure really is our time and our money.

Right?

And so wherever you're putting those things, your heart naturally is going to follow. That's biblical. That's practical. That's just.

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It's how things work.

It's how things work. And so if you've got, you know, tons of appointments for work and things, and I know some of this can't be helped, but you have no date nights or no family times. You have nothing where you're investing in your marriage, like maybe a small group where you and your spouse could work on your marriage or you're not making time for attending Church on Sundays, or just getting involved in things where you're feeding into your marriage and trying to work on that, then that's an issue. You're out of balance. And I would just say monitor and adjust. We use that phrase all the time. Years ago, some people that we were actually the speakers at a marriage event, but these other people happened to say it, who were attending the event. Because we learn from you guys all the time. Like, we've never arrived. We're always learning.

We're trying to always learn.

And this couple who was actually a little further along in their marriage than us, used that phrase, monitor and adjust. And it just like a light bulb went off in our minds, and we were like, that's like the whole marriage journey is monitoring and adjusting what's working, what's not working. Okay, let's make adjustments. And I think that that's continual thing that we have to do in marriage. But turning it back to Deuteronomy, I actually did. I'm in seminary right now pursuing a master's degree in biblical counseling. And a third of my program is seminary. And so I've had a lot of theology classes, and one of my favorites was biblical interpretation. I had to do this huge research paper. I want to say it was like 35 pages or something, all on Deuteronomy. I believe it was chapter six. But in doing this biblical interpretation paper, you have to really study the book as a whole. And one thing that struck me in Deuteronomy is that it's like Dave said, the second law, because it's the retelling of the law of the Torah and just kind of reminding the Israelites of where they came from, why these laws are in place, why they need to keep on following God. And I would say if there was one word that sums up Deuteronomy, it is, remember, Remember what God did for us. And that was important to the Israelites then and is still important to us today as Christian followers. But what I want is for you and your spouse to think about where God has taken your marriage. Okay? I think we can never lose sight of what God has done for us. And it's never more important than when you're in trials, because I think just like, you know, they were trying to remember what God did for them in Deuteronomy and really trying to pass these on to their kids and their kids kids. And it's like for generations, they would even memorize whole parts of the law and of the stories of what God did for his people just to make sure. It wasn't lost. And I think in marriage and in families, we need to do the same thing. We need to talk to each other and remember about what God did for us in our trial and in the high points and the low points. But we also need to talk to our kids about it. Bring your kids into what God has done for you as a family, because we all need that. That's the story of God for your individual family. And, you know, right now, maybe you're watching this or listening to this and it's been a rough season. I just want to encourage you to look for God in the midst of this rough season. Because if you're looking for him, you will find Him. It says, seek me and you will find me. Okay? That's a promise that God has made. And when we are actively seeking God because He's always with us, he's always looking after us. But when we turn our hearts and our minds towards God and look for him and look for that good and where he's taking us, how he doesn't waste anything, how even the trials can be for our good and his glory, that we will. You know, it's like our hearts are lighter and our hearts are hearts of flesh and not hearts of stone because we remembered. And so if you take anything from that verse, I think we've got to make remembering what God is and has done in our relationship a daily practice. I mean, I think it needs to be something we regularly think on, but we also talk about frequently.

I love it. So have a session of remembrance with your spouse to remember all that God's done, to look back and celebrate all the prayers that he has answered, to celebrate his faithfulness in all that you have come through. And there's such power in that. Such gratitude will come from that. And I think it'll be a special time of bonding between you and your spouse as well. I love that. So remember.

That's right.

That's the word for the day. I love it. Guys, thanks so much for tuning in. Come back tomorrow for day six. We'll be in the book of Joshua and one of my very favorite scriptures. We will see you then.