A ~10-minute devotional (Summer of Scripture day 15) by Dave and Ashley Willis centered on Ezra 9:14. They use the verse to warn against 'intermarrying'—interpreted here as marrying someone who does not share the Christian faith—and give pastoral, practical counsel to singles and engaged couples to seek an 'equally yoked' spouse. The episode also points listeners to premarriage resources (premarriage.com, XO) and previews the next episode in Nehemiah.
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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. Welcome to day 15, the start of week three. We're in the book of Ezra today, and Ezra 9:14 says this, but even so, we are again breaking your commands and intermarrying with people who do these detestable things. Won't your anger be enough to destroy us so that even this little remnant no longer survives? So, kind of a strong, strong verse. Ezra was a strong character, a prophet during the time of Nehemiah, whose book we're going to be in tomorrow, who famously rebuilt the wall in Jerusalem. It was a pivotal time in Israel's history. But when Ezra was really on the scene, Israel was losing their faith, their identity, by disregarding God's plan for marriage. He wants us to marry someone who shares our faith. The Bible says, don't be unequally yoked. And so, as we teach our children in a world that's becoming more and more pluralistic and more and more godless, we need to raise our kids to choose to marry someone who knows Jesus, who has their foundation on God's Word. Because otherwise, what the Bible calls intermarrying in a negative way, it's not just intercultural marrying or things like that, because that can be beautiful, marrying someone from a different culture, ethnicity, all of that. But the main thing is, does that person know and love Jesus? Because if they don't, it doesn't matter how compatible you are. It doesn't matter if your friends think you're the perfect match. Your marriage isn't going to be all it could be. And in fact, it's probably going to have some deep struggles, because what's most important to you as a follower of Christ is not important to this person you're pledging your life with. And so the Book of Ezra, in a lot of ways, is just pointing back to the importance of choosing to marry someone who shares your faith. Now, if you've married someone, you're already married and now they don't have your faith, that's a different story. We'll talk about that at A later time. The main thing is you stay married and you do your part to work it out. But if you can prevent marrying someone in the first place, it doesn't share your faith. It's important to do that.
It is. And I know for some listening and watching this, they're probably thinking, that sounds so harsh. Like, that's so harsh. You know, what should it matter? Couldn't we be the very people who lead somebody to the Lord? And yes, we're gonna talk more about that. And that may be true. Like, maybe you're both growing in the Lord and, you know, maybe you have sons and daughters who are dating somebody who maybe isn't as far along in their faith journey. And maybe you've given them kind of some warning, like, don't get marri until you feel like you are equally yoked because you want to make sure that there's a certainty there. I think it's just wisdom. I mean, this isn't meant to be harsh or judgmental, but it's just honestly practical. I mean, think about the people you know in your life where one of the, you know, one spouse is. Wants to be at church every Sunday. And, you know, Jesus is literally the. The foundation of their life. Everything they do revolves around the Lord because they fully devoted their. Their. Their lives to. To Christ. And then you have their spouse who feels like they're. If they go to church, it's like they're dragged. They say de comments about it. There's a constant argument around how to raise the kids. They're always looking for an excuse to undermine God or undermine, you know, Christian things. And it's just. It's just not usually. It's a. Well, let me say it this way. It's usually a marriage that has a lot of turmoil that could have been prevented had they both been equally yoked. And so that's why God gives this warning, because he loves all of us. And we all are on different points kind of in our faith journeys. But when we knowingly enter into a marriage where that we know that other person person doesn't know the Lord, we're kind of asking for a lot of strife. And again, we'll talk more about this kind of later on in these scriptures where it addresses that directly. But for now, I would say if you're engaged and you are watching, watching or listening to this and you're dating someone who is not a Christian, I would put the brakes on that real hard and just tell him, like, listen, like, I just don't think we can go any further in our relationship until we're equally yoked when it comes to Christ, not to put pressure on them, because again, I mean, you don't want somebody to come to Christ just because they want to marry you or just because. Because they want to continue a relationship with you, because that's between them and God. It needs to be on their, you know, in. In their timing of growing in the Lord. But it is something that definitely should be talked about. I think that sometimes people ignore this, thinking it's going to fix itself. And, guys, I'm just. We are in this work. This is what we do every day. And I'm telling you, it doesn't just fix itself.
No, it really doesn't. I mean, there I was so encouraged by the wisdom of a young couple that we met with recently.
Yes, yes.
And invited to one of our EXO conferences. And they're a sweet young couple from our church that are engaged. And they sat down with us because they really felt like they weren't in the same place with their faith. And he wouldn't say that he's not a believer, but he's just in a very different place, much less far along. A lot more questions, a lot of uncertainties. And maybe at that point had not, maybe even fully committed his life to Christ in the way that she had. And, and she was just saying, like, I love this guy. I want to spend my life with him, but I understand that this is such a central issue, and God calls us to not be unequally yoked, and we want to work through what that means. And they both were willing to really have the conversations and do the work, and they've, you know, he's grown in his faith. Yes, but they didn't. They weren't going to rush into marriage and just let it figure itself out. They were like, no, we need to figure this out before we get married.
Which is very wise.
And I just thought, that is so wise. That's so wise. You know, we have a. A lot of resources here at XO specifically for people in that dating engaged state. We have a pre marriage podcast that Ashley and I host. If you go to premarriage.com, we have a course you can take. There's a lot of resources to help guide you through the conversations that I think really need to happen for every couple, not just around your faith, but around all aspects of life as you prepare to create a foundation for marriage and building your life together on a foundation of God's word. Jesus said, in life, storms are going to come. But if your life is built on a foundation of a solid rock, meaning his Word, faith in him, you'll weather the storms. But if you don't have that foundation, that shared foundation, the storms of life are gonna. They could break you. And that's not what God wants for you. He wants you to survive the storms and to thrive through them. But that shared faith in him really needs to be the foundation. He's the one that wired us up to need him, and so we can't try to do it our own way.
It's so true. And again, there's more to be said about this, so please stay tuned in where we will address those of you in the dynamic of where you're already married and one of you is a Christian and one of you is not, there's hope for you, too. We don't. I don't want you, I don't want you to feel discouraged if that's your dynamic. But I do think, you know, have these conversations, maybe, maybe you're both Christians, but one of you takes it more seriously than the other. Or one of you is maybe a prodigal son or prodigal daughter right now. Like you, you are a believer. You know, you came to Christ earlier in life, but you've been kind of running away a little bit. You need to have these hard conversations and say, like, how can we really be equally yoked and, and be growing in our faith? And not that you are forcing your spouse, but just because nobody, nobody is going to grow in their faith by just being beaten with a Bible over the head. I mean, that doesn't do any good. But just just talking to each other and even just asking, like, how, how is your relationship with God right now? We haven't talked about God in a long time. And can we talk about that more? Because it's such a big part of my life and I would love it if we shared that too. And if you have questions and you're not, you're not really on good terms with God right now, in your mind, that's okay. I want to talk through that with you. Like, have that kind of marriage where you both can talk about things that way. Because the truth is we are going to have different seasons in our life where we might even be mad at God. But God's not surprised by that?
No.
I mean, we're human beings. You see that in the Bible. How many rants are there in the Bible where it's like, God, how could you. I mean, he's not surprised by this. Like, this is a part of the.
Human condition in our mind, in our heart.
Right?
He just wants us to be real with him and to go to him, even with our struggles and even with our anger and our questions and our questions. And I promise, he's big enough, guys, and he is there to meet you where you are and to meet you with grace. And I'm so thankful for that each and every day. Guys, I hope today's verse encouraged you, so tune in tomorrow. Day 16 will be in the Book of Nehemiah, which is one of the most inspiring stories of Nehemiah is just. He's a really inspiring person. It's just a testament of what God can do, just through a regular person who's fully committed to God. And I think it will encourage you. So tune in, then we'll see you soon.
