Dave Willis and a co-speaker explore Matthew 19:5-6 on marriage and the "leave and cleave" principle. They explain why married couples need to form their own autonomous family unit and set clear, loving boundaries with in-laws. Willis mentions his upcoming book "Married into the Family" as a practical guide.
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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.
The day 40 on the summer of Scripture. Today's a big one because it's the start of the New Testament again. The Bible. The 66 books of the Bible are broken up into Old Testament and New Testament. First 39 books are part of the Old Testament pre Jesus. And the New Testament begins with Jesus coming on the scene in person, God's son. And we're going to begin with the Gospel of Matthew. You know, really, I've heard it said that the Bible's in some ways broken up into three sections. The he is coming section, he is here section, and he is coming back section.
Yeah, yeah.
And the he is here section is the Gospels, the four books that talk specifically about the life and works of Jesus. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The first one is the Gospel of Matthew. And our verse today is going to be Jesus giving a teaching specifically on marriage for our Naked Marriage podcast listeners. Matthew 19, 5, 6. And Jesus said, this explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife. And the two are united into one, since they are no longer two, but one. Let no one split apart. What God has joined together. A verse that there's a good chance you've heard read at a wedding, maybe even your own wedding. But this is Jesus himself validating and defining marriage. One man, one woman in covenant with God. And don't do anything to split that apart, your own marriage or anybody else's marriage.
I love it. And I want to say in that in particular, and there's different, you know, different interpret, not interpretations, but different. Different kinds of ways of saying this. Different why can I find the word? The Bible? Bible translations, that's the word I'm looking for.
And this same thought has appeared in the Bible in other places with slightly different wording and then with different translations, but same concept. Same concept. Yeah.
But I was going to say in some of the translations they say leave and cleave. Like you've probably heard that term, leave and cleave. And I just want to focus in on that, where it says you know, and right here it says why a man leaves his father and mother. And you'll see in the Bible, sometimes it will say men or man. And many of those, a lot of times is just collectively meaning, like mankind, men and women, like you could probably substitute it there, but leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife and the two are united into one. I love this because, again, it just represents that when we marry, we are representing our families of origin. Right? We're representing each of our families of origin, but we are now making a new family. Okay? And we are leaving those families. Not that we are rude to them or disrespect them or like, bye, see you, never talk to you again kind of thing. Like, it's not like that. But we are becoming our own autonomous family, right? Our own little family unit, of course, from our backgrounds, bringing some of our own families into this. But we are something new that God has joined together.
And that newness, that takes priority for the rest of our lives.
Exactly. Well, it takes priority. It's God, then our spouse, then our own children, and then everybody else. Right.
Including our families of origin.
Including our families of origin. Right. And I think this is very hard for certain families to understand more than some other families. And some of this, too, I just wanna say culturally, can be understood a little differently, too. I think, from culture to culture, different cultures handle this differently. But I would say even this, like, even if you are from a culture or a family that lives in the same home, you can still leave and cleave. Okay. I know sometimes this is just how you guys roll, like for financial reasons, or maybe it's tradition in your culture. That's okay. But I still think biblically, we're called to leave and cleave, meaning that we. We are our own autonomous family unit. Right, sweetie?
Yeah, we have to be. Yeah. I mean, that's the way God created it. And if those boundaries aren't respected, and that's a word we've used a lot, is boundaries through this, especially as it relates with in law relationships, then it can create a mess. And again, we've talked about this some. We've lived through some really messy lack of boundaries early on in some in law relationships, just with family members who did not have this biblical understanding.
Well, they didn't think the leaving and leaving was just not on the radar.
I don't think they were coming from really a biblical worldview as it relates to marriage. I don't think they'd ever really been taught that.
No. Well, I think for generations that really hadn't taken place.
Right. And so when we started trying to live out this biblical marriage, we faced a lot of tension early on. A lot of pushback and a lot of pushback. And there were many other factors at play and thankfully God's carried us through a lot of that. But I know that this is a very real issue. Sometimes the biggest issue that a married couple will face is the tension that comes from the lack of boundaries, the lack of understanding as it relates to, in laws, your own family of origin. So we have a brand new book. I think it might be the most important resource we've created because so many people struggle in this area and there are so few resources about it. And the book is called Married into the Family. You can pre order it now on Amazon or go to exomarriage.com and get more information. The book will be out soon. And I'm really excited to get this book into people's hands because it's all the things that I wish we would have known before we walked into that. But I also think it could help people. Even when you're older and you have people marrying into your family, how to love them well, how to make it easy for them. Because as a mother or father in law, you have got immense power to either make life miserable or make life great for people who are entering your family, if you accept them and love them as a member of the family, or if you keep them at arm's length or alienate them or ostracize them. And you know, we. Well, I'm not gonna dive deep into the personal experience, but we understand the hardest. We understand. We'll just say we can understand and.
The complicated nature of it. But we also know, and we write about very practical tools to help you navigate this and go deeper than what we can do in like the seven minutes that we have with you. But I just want to say this too. It's not always the parents or the adult children. Sometimes it's a brother or sister or brother and sister in law. I think sometimes it could be. We know dynamics where maybe the parents are great and have done a great job of welcoming this new member into their family, but that person that their child married is not very cordial and is not very kind. And so it's like, how do you deal with that? What do you do? And then there's grandchildren involved that they won't let you see. We know that that's heartbreaking for grandparents. Talk about all. And then blended family. Yes.
Yeah. There's There's a lot.
There's a lot of dynamics at play. But, you know, the bottom line is as a married couple, again, you're an autonomous two adult people, you know, man and woman getting together, marrying. And you're your own new family unit. God is doing something new with you. And so you have the power, being an autonomous married couple, to set these boundaries, okay? And to stick to those boundaries in the most loving way possible, but very clear way. And I'm telling you, over time, you will have so much more peace in all of your relationships, not just your marriage, but really, you're gonna have a better relationship with that family member that wanted too much control. It's going to be healthier.
It won't be codependent. It won't be.
Exactly.
When you do things God's way, it's true. Every relationship gets healthier as a result. Even if there's temporary period of really difficult conversations or boundaries with that relative, in the end, it's going to be healthier.
Yeah.
So again, that upcoming book, I think, will help you. And as we continue on in this series, we're going to have more scriptures that will help with those dynamics as well. So, guys, welcome to the New Testament.
Yes.
We're going to continue on tomorrow with second book in the New Testament, the Gospel of Mark. We will see you then.
