Marriage Tips from Mary & Joseph

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We do, and we're so excited to share with you some principles that we can all learn from Mary and Joseph. One of the sweetest couples in the Bible. Right?

They are.

Love them, but they're more than figurines. We're going to actually talk about the humility, humanity of Mary and Joseph and really how they live their lives and what we can learn and apply to our own marriages. So let's dive in.

I'm really excited about this episode for a couple reasons. Number one, Ashley is wearing her very sexy reading glasses. So if I seem distracted at any point, it's because I am mesmerized by silly trying to.

I don't know if they're sexy, they're very studious looking, but they are from Amazon and if you want them you can go to our Instagram page and they're linked there. And a little button on our Instagram.

We put our favorite stuff though.

Yes, our favorite stuff.

Amazon is not yet a sponsor of this podcast though.

No, but they're cheap and that's why I like to pass on the value.

But if you're friends with Jeff Bezos, let him know that, you know, hey, you could sponsor the Naked Marriage podcast. We would appreciate it.

That's right.

But that's not what today is about. Today is about marriage lessons from Mary and Joseph right now. I love this topic because I think sometimes at Christmas we see figures of Mary and Joseph in these nativity sets in little marble statues or figurines. And we think, well, they're not even real people. They're just these statues. And we forget these were just regular, real people, like blue collar, hard working people that God chose for a very special mission. And they're honestly one of the best examples of a healthy marriage we have recorded in the Bible. Sadly, even though we have a lot of great marriage principles in the Bible, there aren't many healthy examples of marriage in the Bible. It's recordings of a lot of people who did a lot of things wrong. But Mary and Joseph, when we look at their story, we see a couple who did a lot of things right right from the beginning. You know, they were dedicated to God and his Word and to each other. And so in this episode, we're going to take two of the most famous people from the Christmas story and help you see their humanity not just as figurines in a nativity set, but as a married couple who really were doing their best to do things God's way and love each other. And I think there's a lot we can learn from their examples. And the first little principle here is choose to honor each other even when your spouse makes a mistake. Now, Mary did not make a mistake. She did nothing wrong when she became pregnant through the Holy Spirit by God's plan. But Joseph, who was not having sex with her and they were waiting for marriage, trying to do things the right way when she said she's pregnant, of course he's going to think, well, she cheated on me. And instead of making that a spectacle, the Bible says this in Matthew 1:19, Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly. So he decided to divorce her quietly. So even though he had every right, like, man, she's a cheater, she's a two timer. He could have put it on Instagram or whatever they had back then and let people know, hey, she has no character. But he wanted to respect her and honor her and just quietly, you know, walk away until God let him know, no, this is from God and you need to still marry her. But it shows how he respected her even when he thought she had made a mistake.

Right? And I think, you know, how do we apply that to kind of the world we live in today? I would say this. We need to take, make every effort to not take our spouse's dirty laundry, weaknesses, mistakes, whatever it is, and go plaster it online.

Yeah.

Like, you know, and basically hurt their reputation. And I'm not. I mean, don't misunderstand me here. I'm not saying, like, constantly lie and make excuses for your spouse's bad behavior. That's not at all what I'm saying. But I'm saying when they have made a mistake, they owned up to it, and you guys are working through that. That's your business. You don't need to go plaster that somewhere. Go tell all their colleagues or whatever. And I think social media is where I see this the most. That's why I'm mentioning that. Because there's so many times where if the mistake. And maybe it's not a mistake, the sin, we can just flat out call it sin. Right. Mary, this wasn't sin in her case at all. But let's say your spouse actually does sin against you, and they've lied to you, they've done something that really hurt you. You have every right to be hurt. But when you take. If that's not hard enough for you and for your spouse, when you take it to social media or even just to your friends, like, it makes it so much worse. Because now here you guys are, you're gonna be working through this, hopefully, and you're gonna get on the other side of it. But all those friends you shared it with on Facebook and your people on Instagram and your friends you told at lunch, they don't forget. So then you all have tried to move forward, but you have all these other people that know your dirty laundry and that are gonna, you know, keep on reminding you of it, especially if they do something else that makes you mad. And so we have to be so careful about that. And I think that we can take a cue from Joseph here of just having enough respect for our spouse to really try to protect their reputation. And it's really. It's just out of. It's out of having a deep love and respect for them. And I love that. How, Joseph, my goodness. You know, from what. From all he knew in that moment, Mary did cheat on him. That's what he thought. Because that's all he knew in that moment. You know, we know later on, you know, an angel comes to him in a dream and says, no, no, no, Joseph, she's telling you the truth. This is. This is a gift from God. But at that moment, he didn't know. And even. Even when, you know, by looking at the evidence, he's Thinking she cheated, he chooses to still honor her and her reputation in that moment. And that's just very. That. That. That's. That's someone with a. A depth of character that we can all admire.

Absolutely.

All right, number two, let me see here. They. They chose to do life and ministry together. And you guys, you know, we love this. We. We do life and ministry together. We love that. And even if you're not technically vocationally tied together and doing, you know, working together, we can all do this. And it says in Luke 2, verses 4 and 5, it says, and because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David's ancient home. He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee, and he took with him Mary, to whom he was engaged, who was now expecting a child. And so he didn't go by himself. He ended up taking her with him.

Yeah, it would have been easier for him to go way easier by himself, but he wanted to make sure, now we're going to do this together. I want to be there for you, to support you through this pregnancy. And really. And from then on, every time Mary or Joseph is mentioned, they're always together in every other instance in Scripture until Joseph is no longer in the story. And we believe contextually and historically, that it's because he died. He died fairly young, you know, leaving Mary as a fairly young widow. But during.

He was older than Mary, you know, there was more of an age gap culturally.

He would have been older just based on when men and women tended to marry in those days. But they were always together. Like, they made sure that whatever they were doing, they did it together. They went to Bethlehem together. Then they went to Egypt together. They lived as refugees together. They came back to Nazareth together. They raised their family together. They went to. It's recorded, they went to Jerusalem later together for, you know, the Passover feast. They left Jesus. They forgot Jesus. They both forgot Jesus when he was 12. You feel guilty for leaving your kid at Walmart for three minutes. You know, when you're. You're looking for him in the aisle and they. You lose them here. Their whole job was to take care of the Messiah, and they lost him. And it was three days, it was a full day before they even knew he was gone. But then they went together to find him. It wasn't like, it's your fault. It's your fault that you never see them blaming each other, which, I mean, they could have. They might have been. But they did go together.

And I just want to say you know, here, that is a key to a strong marriage, is doing as much as you can together. You know, of course, you have certain things that you do separately, you know, like going to work and different things, different parts of your life. But whatever you do, try to do as much as you can together.

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Hey, welcome into Walgreens. Hi there.

Hey.

All right, hon, I'll grab the gift wrap cards and, oh, those stuffed animals the girls want.

Great. And I'll grab the string lights and some. How about I grab some cough drops? This is not just a quick trip to Walgreens.

I'm fine, honey.

Well, just in case. You know what they say, Tis the season. This is help staying healthy through the holidays. Walgreens. Yeah. And it could be volunteering. I mean, in different seasons of our marriage, we started out volunteering in youth ministry together. And it was one of the sweetest seasons of our marriage because we were serving together, making relationships together. And even though during the day we had different jobs, different places, this gave us a common point of working and serving together. And it was so meaningful. So find those things, those activities, hobbies, serving opportunities that you can share in partnership. It really will make a difference.

Yes.

The next one is to treasure the blessings along the way. Several times in the Gospels, it records something. The lines of this statement in Luke, chapter 2, verse 19. Mary treasured all these things in her heart and thought about them often. And just that concept of even in the difficult moments. And they had a lot of difficult moments. I mean, you know, we look at this perfect little nativity set and we think, oh, what a sweet way to have a baby. But it was a tough way to have a baby. She wasn't with her. In fact, she'd probably been ostracized by her family for an out of wedlock pregnancy. They were far from home. She had no epidural. She wasn't in a hospital room. She had a baby in a barn with animal feces all around. There was no one there to celebrate with them. So God sent some homeless Shepherds to go hang out with them. And here she's just had a baby, and now these random bearded, smelly men are wandering in to see the baby. The wise men who were in the nativity scene just because I guess stores want to sell them as figurines. They didn't show up till, like, two years later, so they weren't even there that night. But then they had to run for their lives from evil King Herod. They had to go live as refugees in Egypt, where they didn't know the language or the people. And, like, they had a lot of hardship, you know, even though they were in the center of God's will, they had a lot of hardship. So don't think that just because life's hard, it means you're not in God's will. They were in the middle of God's will, and life was hard. But still they chose to celebrate and to be thankful and to treasure the moments, even in the difficulty. And so I think there's so much we can learn from that.

We can. You know, I think we talk a lot on this podcast about this, but when you are going through a stressful time, it's okay to own it and say, like, this is not fun. Like, this is hard. Be honest. You don't have to have your head in the clouds acting like you're not seeing the hardship around you. I think it's okay to level with each other, but I love how they use the word treasure in this, you know? And again, she says it twice and the other. So she says it first after the birth with the smelly shepherds around, but the next time she's recorded as saying it is after they find Jesus, after they had lost him during the Passover festival. And I'm sure it was out of relief, but here she is after all this. I'm sure she had mom guilt. And, you know, I mean, back then, they still had mom guilt and dad guilt and all that.

You gotta be, like, just joking about it. Like, I picture Joseph saying, like, well, we're totally going to hell. I mean, we lost Jesus. Like, I didn't even know it was theologically possible to lose Jesus. But here we've lost. It was our whole job. And they probably had, you know, afterwards fun with it.

You'd have to, right? You'd have to sometimes just have to laugh. But I do. When I think about that moment when they finally found Jesus, he was actually with the scribes. He was with people, learning and teaching, actually. And I just imagine Mary looking around, seeing these grown Men looking at her son, Jesus, who I think was around 12 at the time, but him kind of already showing his family glimpses and people glimpses of this manna, you know, this, this gift from God, the son of God, who they didn't, you know, no one else knew that yet except Mary and Joseph. But just seeing what God was doing in his life and her just smiling like, wow, you know, there he is. That's my son. But also God's son. You know, I knew it had to be something just surreal for her. And the fact that even in the chaos and all the emotions to choose to treasure that up, we can just take so much from that. Because I think that being able to be thankful for something in the midst of chaos, that just keeps our perspective on the right things. And so I love that about Mary and Joseph. They did a good job of that for sure. All right, the next one we can learn from Mary and Joseph. This. In stressful moments, instead of blaming each other, they work together to find solutions. In Luke 2. 48, it says this. His parents didn't know what to think. This is the same scene that we're talking about here. This is how they record it in the Bible. His parents didn't know what to think. Son, his mother said to him, why have you done this to us? I mean, right? This is so real.

You're talking to Jesus. I mean, she's having this mom moment of like, I know, like how much can you reprimand the son of God who's perfect, but you know, at the same time, he's an adolescent at this point and you're frustrated with him. And it's just such a real moment.

Like so much could have happened, so.

Much humanity in this. And I just love how honest and true and real the Bible is that these are not just figurines, guys.

These are real people, real parents of the savior of the world. So she says, son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been frantic searching for you everywhere. And that's in Luke 2. 48. And I know I'm laughing at that, but I truly would have been that way. Like, we one time years ago were on a long family trip and we all had a bathroom break at a gas station. And for some reason you want to tell the rest of the story, you're better at telling it. We had all finished up.

Well, we hadn't finished. We thought we did gas station. And it was a one seater and the line was like 12 people deep.

Like in the men's restaurant.

And we were like, no, we're not doing this. You know, we got a bunch of boys. We'll just find a tree to go pee on or whatever. And so I said, all right, guys, we're not staying here. We hop back in the van, we get back on the road, and out of the backseat where our two older boys sit. Cooper, our oldest, who was probably, like, 14 at the time, he's like, hey, dad, where's Connor? And I'm like, what? And he's like, connor, I don't think he's here. And I look back, and sure enough, Connor's not there. And I, like, whip the van around and burn rubber to get back to that gas station. I get all the way there, like, 15 minutes later, and I'm like, connor, Connor, Connor. And I go, and he's made his way in that line all the way up to the front, and he's the one in the toilet right now. And I'm beating on the door, connor, are you in there? And he's like, yeah, dad, I'm fine. I'm like, oh, hey, buddy. We're just wondering what taking you so long, you know? I mean, you're all right. Hey, you want to get a snack? Any snack you want when you get out? And then I told our other kids, don't tell Connor. He's already a middle child. He's going to have complex issues. Don't tell him we left him. And they were like, okay. And then as soon as he got in the car, our third one, who was like seven at the time, said, they forgot you and drove off.

I mean, but that was five minutes. Can you imagine Mary and Joseph for three days?

Oh, gosh. I know. And that was like, the same age. He was like, 12, probably.

He was 12. He was.

So we can relate.

Mary and Joseph, did your heart sink?

Oh, man, I felt terrible.

You're just like, feel sick. I just remember feeling sick.

Oh, I felt terrible. And we joke later, like, well, this is why we get invited to speak at marriage events, but never parenting events. You know, the people that left their kids at a gas station.

Oh, my goodness.

There's only one more.

That's right now.

I'm just reminiscing about. Connor, we love you. If you're listening to this, you're awesome.

We love you.

All right, last one. Never forget the privilege God has given you and your spouse by bringing you together and calling you to share Christ with the world. So the mission that God gave Mary and Joseph, as sacred as that mission, was to carry Christ to bring Jesus into their home and to share Jesus with the world in many ways is the exact same mission that you and your spouse are given. You're called to carry Christ within you, not in your womb, but in your heart. You're called to bring Jesus into your home. You're called to share Jesus with the world. And so are we. And it's a privilege to do that. And so let's do that and let's celebrate. And one last verse. It's not about Mary and Joseph, but just one we love. From Song of Solomon, chapter one, verse two. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine. You should have read that verse because let him kiss me sounds better when you're reading it. Let her kiss me. Let her kiss me with the kisses of her mouth.

I like it.

Your love is better than wine. Merry Christmas to you, sexy thing. All right. Hey, guys, listen, I'm so glad you tuned into this. And so every time you see a nativity set from now on and you look at all those characters, remember, these are real people and real people that God used in a unique way. And God wants to do the same with you. And so as you celebrate Christmas this year, just be reminded of that and comforted by that and encouraged by the example of this very real couple who God used to change the world. But remember that God wants to change the world through you, too.

That's right. We thank you guys so much for tuning in. Don't forget that this Wednesday we're gonna have another Hump day Q and A episode, which is so fun. They're short, but they answer your specific questions. And you can go to nakedmarriagepodcast.com to submit your questions to be answered there. It's always anonymous. Or you can go and DM us on Instagram. We will not say your name on air, but you can definitely leave a question there. So our Instagram is avanashleywillis. Again, thank you guys so much for tuning in, and we will see you next time.