Genesis 2:25 // Summer of Scripture

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. Well, friends, we are so excited to start this journey with you. Summer of Scripture. Every day this summer. And you could be listening to this, by the way, years from now in the winter. It doesn't really matter what time of year you're listening. These 66 consecutive episodes, we think, are going to make a real difference in your marriage. And we're going to go through the Bible together, one scripture from each of these books. Today's scripture is really the theme verse for the whole Naked Marriage podcast. It's what started it all. Genesis 2. 25. Now, the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame. And that's, of course, a picture of the very first married couple, Adam and Eve. And it's still, we believe, a picture of what God wants marriage to be today.

We do. And we love the word naked. Right. As a people, it gets our attention. We love that. We call this podcast the Naked Marriage Podcast. And yes, Adam and Eve were clearly physically naked, and it says they felt no shame. And I love that. But I believe it's about more than that. It's deeper. It's, you know, the physical nakedness, yes. But also the spiritual nakedness, because it was just Adam and Eve and God in this perfect union within the garden. And then they were, you know, mentally naked. They weren't holding in secrets from each other. They didn't have any secrets. You know, Dave likes to say they didn't have anything up their sleeve because they were not wearing any sleeves. And I think there was an emotional nakedness where they were just being so vulnerable and raw and open and honest with each other that they had this beautiful connection that we believe God designed us to have in marriage. And we know that it doesn't stay that way. You know, if you continue reading in Genesis, which we hope you do, you can see that they did have this beautiful union with God. But then all of a sudden, there's this character that enters the story. We see the serpent entering the story, talking to Adam and Eve, telling them that they cannot fully trust God. They're like, God's holding out on you. You know, what did he tell you you could do in this garden? They're like, oh, we have total access except for this one tree. And. And, you know, Satan, who is the serpent, basically convinces Adam and Eve that. That God is holding out something on them, that there's something he's not telling them and that, you know, oh, can you really trust him? Should you really? You know, why don't you just, you know, you won't really die. Why don't you just go, try that? And we know what happens is they go and they eat from that tree. And all of a sudden it says, their eyes were open and they realized that they were naked. That's the first time you see them realize, oh, my gosh, like, we're naked. And again, I don't just think it's the physical nakedness. I mean, yes, they realize that, but they're all of a sudden like, I need to hide myself from you. Not just my physical self, but my emotional self, my spiritual self, my mental self. And what do they do? They first run and hide from God. And then you see them hide their bodies from each other. And I feel like we still live in that reality today, right? We see married people who. They go to the altar fully wanting to have this beautiful marriage. But we live in a culture that says, you still need to hide. You can't fully trust this person. Can you even fully trust God? I mean, what if this thing happens down the road? Will they really love you? Can you really love them? And so we go into marriage with, like, one foot in the door, one foot out the door, maybe showing part of ourself, but not our whole self.

Man, that is so good. And, guys, the whole book of Genesis, by the way, I think, has so much insight for marriage. It's not just Adam and Eve. I think you start with the creation narrative, how God created the world. And we get this beautiful picture of God as a creator and what he wants for us and for our world. And how as a married couple, he put a married couple in charge of it. He gave them dominion and how we're called to have dominion as a couple, to go out into the world and occupy the space he's given and to bring order where there's chaos and to be fruitful and multiply and all of those blessings that he spoke over Adam and Eve. And then even after the fall, the sin that entered the picture, there's still this redemptive story happening in Genesis of God bringing grace and new opportunity and working alongside those first families to help pave the way for his ultimate plan, which was to bring Jesus into the world. God's only son, who would live a perfect life, die a death on a cross, pay the price for our sins. And it all points back, really. All of scripture points to Jesus. He's the first and the last, the beginning and the end. And it's such a hope filled story to know that God loves us that much. And when we as a husband and wife are pursuing him and pursuing each other, we can live naked and unashamed like that first couple. And so I think some of the, the practical application for you and your spouse here in the book of Genesis is to think back to the beginning, the genesis of your own story, kind of celebrate what God did there and what he's been doing since. But also to be honest about what are the places we're covering up? What are those places in our life that we're not naked? You know, we have a whole book called the Naked Marriage, which was kind of launched at the start of this podcast as well. We tell some of our own story and how some of our own past struggles, mine with pornography, Ashley's with anxiety and depression, and just some of the other issues that we wrestled through, especially in those early years, caused us to be tempted to cover up. But how, when we've really discovered this beautiful truth that we could be naked and unashamed the way that God intended. It's a beautiful thing to just bring things out into the light. Let God's grace bring healing and forgiveness where there's been sin or wrongdoing. Let his confidence give us strength where we have insecurity and to really just embrace one another, to know each other and be fully known. And if you don't feel like you have that kind of intimacy in your marriage, you can have it. You just need to do the work to get it. Hopefully, over the course of these daily devotional episodes, you and your spouse can grow closer together on every level as you discuss these.

That's right. And again, you know this question. I know it's a scary one, like, what are we covering up? Or what am I covering up? I think that's where you start really is with yourself, like, what am I trying to keep hidden from my spouse or even from God? And we can't even hide from God. That's why I think it's laughable. You know, when you read about Adam and Eve running and hiding, we may laugh at that. But that's what we do as human beings. We try to hide from God. We can never hide from him. Like he's over it all. He's omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient. Like he is over everything all the time. He knows the deepest, darkest things that we're trying to hold onto and hide from Him. And he doesn't look away. He's there for us. He's our father, our loving Father, and wants us to bring it to Him. But when it comes to married people, I think that, you know, maybe we have talked to God about it, but we're really dealing with something we haven't talked to our spouse about. Let this be a conversation where you finally open up to your spouse, because what you're doing, first of all, is you're cutting your spouse off from part of your life that they need to really kind of know what's going on. But also, you're cutting yourself off from maybe the biggest helper that God has provided for you in your life. Because we are help mates. You know, we can help each other. We can serve one another and be there for each other in our time of need. We have each other's backs. We're in each other's corners. And so don't believe the lie from the serpent Satan today. Okay, we may not have an actual serpent coming to us, but Satan's still spreading lies. And one of the biggest lies is your spouse will never look at you the same, and they can never handle this kind of news or they can't really know what's going on. That's a lie that's holding you back from having that naked marriage we talk about. And so have those hard conversations today.

So good. Guys, thanks for tuning in to day one. Tune in tomorrow as we dive into the book of Exodus. We will see you then.