How much do you know about Priscilla and Aquila, the biblical power couple whose love for each other was only surpassed by their devotion to God? This week with Pastor David Squyres, we're taking an exciting journey through their lives, highlighting how they served God's mission and used their marriage to mentor others. Their story offers a roadmap for maintaining a strong marriage focused on Christ.
Priscilla and Aquila's faith remained steadfast, even in the face of adversity. Forced from their homeland, they established a business in Corinth and generously hosted Paul, using their home as a ministry hub. They were channels of grace, inviting even a motivated but unrefined teacher like Apollos for a meal and correcting his understanding of scripture. As we pour over their inspiring actions, we examine the potential of marriages to build others up or inadvertently cause damage.
As the episode unfolds, we'll tap into Priscilla and Aquila's remarkable commitment to their faith, their community, and each other. Their unwavering devotion, evident throughout the New Testament, offers a lesson in resilience that we all can learn from. We'll also discuss how to choose a life partner who unequivocally shares a commitment to God's mission and the importance of investing in the next generation. Join us on this transformative exploration - it's bound to inspire and challenge your understanding of love, faith, and mission in marriage.
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Notes: https://sermons.church/archives?church=PalmsBaptistBibleStudy&id=126
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How much do you know about Priscilla and Aquila, the biblical power couple whose love for each other was only surpassed by their devotion to God? This week with Pastor David Squyres, we're taking an exciting journey through their lives, highlighting how they served God's mission and used their marriage to mentor others. Their story offers a roadmap for maintaining a strong marriage focused on Christ.
Priscilla and Aquila's faith remained steadfast, even in the face of adversity. Forced from their homeland, they established a business in Corinth and generously hosted Paul, using their home as a ministry hub. They were channels of grace, inviting even a motivated but unrefined teacher like Apollos for a meal and correcting his understanding of scripture. As we pour over their inspiring actions, we examine the potential of marriages to build others up or inadvertently cause damage.
As the episode unfolds, we'll tap into Priscilla and Aquila's remarkable commitment to their faith, their community, and each other. Their unwavering devotion, evident throughout the New Testament, offers a lesson in resilience that we all can learn from. We'll also discuss how to choose a life partner who unequivocally shares a commitment to God's mission and the importance of investing in the next generation. Join us on this transformative exploration - it's bound to inspire and challenge your understanding of love, faith, and mission in marriage.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RealBibleStories
Notes: https://sermons.church/archives?church=PalmsBaptistBibleStudy&id=126
Website: https://real-bible-stories.square.site
Check us out on these Streaming Platforms: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1912582/share
Hello and welcome to Real Bible Stories. Join us as we deep dive into the historic, religious, cultural, political and emotional context surrounding the real lives of real people in the Bible and the stories we've all grown to love. Hello and welcome to Real Bible Stories. I am your host, emron Ward, and we're joined by my wife, selena, and our teacher for this new series, pastor David Squires. Hello, so, pastor, this is now the second week of actually, I have no idea how many weeks this is about to be A thousand and two, okay, well, maybe four or five. We've got time, and in that time Jesus will probably come back.
Speaker 1:He could yeah, I know it's like a thousand more of these.
Speaker 2:No, I don't think so.
Speaker 1:That's a thousand weeks left in my lifetime. Actually, I don't know how that works. It's 52 weeks a year. I'm supposed to live to 80 something. I don't know what that works out to Anyway so he is so easily sidetracked, isn't? This fun.
Speaker 2:Isn't this fun.
Speaker 1:I was like math.
Speaker 2:I just come in here like how can I throw him?
Speaker 1:off. Yeah, I'm very now. I'm like actually doing the math.
Speaker 1:Let's get back on track here, so we're going into this. Oh, I guess we'll start with the overall series. So, this overall series, we're going through the story behind the story. We are so we're deep diving some of the kind of biographical study of some of the characters within the Bible or some of the people in the Bible, because if you didn't know, the Bible is true. So these people were living lives around the events that were just written about in the text, and so by piecing together kind of different aspects of the text, you can actually get a really good understanding of what was going on in the life of that person. So, with that in mind, we're going to be diving into a new study this week.
Speaker 2:So tonight we're going to be looking at the story behind a marriage on mission and I want to show you a couple that are wonderful in the Bible. Their name is Priscilla and Aquila. Okay, and I think our idea behind story, behind the story, is we're used to preaching in passages where you just take that block of scripture. What we're doing are some things you have to chase the rabbit through.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think man last week was so great because we were piecing we were piecing together the life of John Mark throughout the New Testament. Yeah instead of just focusing on just one piece of scripture, and it's like let's just learn about the guy and that was awesome.
Speaker 2:Tonight, what we're going to do is look at a passage, or a set of passages, where we're just going to see a couple that are not only in love with each other, they're in love with the Lord, and the Lord has given them a marriage that's just full of mission. What you don't know when you're young is that God gives us marriage, and then a marriage has to give itself to a cause.
Speaker 1:So that cause Marriage has to give itself to a cause. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 2:So we think marriage is going to be okay. We're going to go on carriage rides and we're going to eat romantic dinners, which is great, right, that's wonderful, but it's got to be more than that. That we're you know, we're going to look deeply into each other's eyes and we're going to find meaning.
Speaker 1:So I just want to make sure I clarify before I might under switch to say God gives you a marriage but you have to give that marriage a cause. No, god's going to give you the.
Speaker 2:God gives you a cause. So what couples will say is they'll say well, our lives just went different directions, and what they mean, you know, she doesn't mean hey, he's a plumber, I'm a librarian. We went in different directions. It means that something about the cause that we were living for was no longer united. We were moving different directions in the cause that we just grew apart.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You did because you're giving her a lack of effort. That's how that happens.
Speaker 2:Remember when I was first dating Rebecca, our very first day, we're driving up into the mountains to go to this dance and she's just talking and talking, and talking and talking. And I was a young pastor. And she's talking and she goes. I just always thought I might be a pastor's wife. I might be a pastor's wife. That might be what God wants me to do, and at first I thought that is so forward. We're on.
Speaker 1:Were you already a pastor by this point?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but we're on date one, and she's already declared that she's going to be a pastor's wife.
Speaker 1:That's so insane, because Ryan said something like that too Ryan was like yeah, about his wife that she basically said. She went home that night to her mother and called her and said I think I found my husband, or I think I found the man I'm going to marry. I think it's what she said. I think I found the man I'm going to marry.
Speaker 2:That is insane.
Speaker 1:How do women have that level of love? I thought that is so forward.
Speaker 2:We try and they choose. What I realized is she was not being forward. She was actually expressing her life calling. And what I realized the longer we were together is that we had a life mission that could go together, and so for 25 years we walked together pastoring churches, because that's what God called. We had a common mission together, and it's one of the things that made our marriage strong was that we had this mission that just moved together.
Speaker 1:I do want to be clear for those in the podcast pastor when he says 25 years, it's not because they got divorced, it's because Rebecca passed away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did not decide to quit on it.
Speaker 1:She went to heaven, she finished her mission, she did?
Speaker 2:She finished her mission. She finished well. What we're going to see is this couple, priscilla and Aquila. Is Paul's going to meet them? In Acts, chapter 18. Now Paul's on mission. He's been to Philippi, he's been to Thessalonica, he's been to Berea, he's been to Greece, he's been to Athens, he's been all over the place. We drop in in Athens and it says in Acts 18, one after this, paul left Athens and so he's preached on Maristil, which sounds cool. I always wanted to kind of say hey, I preached on Mars. You know, it says he left Athens and he goes to Corinth. You've heard of Corinth because of 1 Corinthians. Corinth is like this bustling city it's 29 palms with a sea coast. That's probably a terrible description of it.
Speaker 1:It's a desert with a coast. I mean, that's how I imagine Egypt is just a desert with a coast.
Speaker 2:Maybe it's more like the San Francisco of its time. You know, it's got markets, it's got temples, it's got a military fortress. Everything is going on in Corinth, but then it says this see this in Selena, in verse two. This is wonderful.
Speaker 3:There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla. Because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome, Paul went to see them.
Speaker 1:Where specifically was that?
Speaker 3:Um. This is acts 18, verse two acts 18.
Speaker 2:So he meets this Jew named Aquila, and they're together, aquila and Priscilla. They're from Italy, though Notice it says that in verse two it says who had recently come from Italy. So that's Rome. Um, and there's a reason why they've come from Italy. They're. Marriage has taken some unplanned turns, so they imagine they fell in love in Italy. They're good Roman people, but at some point something happened, and actually the clue to why they have been kicked out of Rome, why? Why, if that, uh, it says in 18 to, claudius had commanded the Jews to leave Rome. There is a famous Roman historian named Suetonius who tells us what happened.
Speaker 1:That a great name. Yeah, at the. I can't believe that fell out of style. It's just an awesome name. Yeah, it's just so fantastic.
Speaker 2:Just offering names out there If anybody wants to name one yeah the, the writer Suetonius. All right, what did Suetonius say?
Speaker 3:Claudius banished from Rome all the Jews who were continually making disturbances at the instigation of one Christus. So what is? What is that?
Speaker 2:There's a. It says that Claudius threw the Jews out because of a guy named Christus. A lot of New Testament scholars think that's the first mission mentioned of Jesus and an extra biblical source.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And so it's the the first place that a letter is written, and it's not in the Bible, but it refers to Jesus outside the Bible.
Speaker 1:Is that what the? Do you know if that's what the Romans called Jesus or they just like they? They were like. We don't know what his name is. They keep calling him Christ or Christus. Yeah, we think they just misspelled it.
Speaker 2:And so at first scholars go who's Christus? Then they go wait. So Jews are getting thrown out of Rome because of this guy, christus. It appears that Christus is Christ. They've been talking about Christ, yeah.
Speaker 2:But, the Romans don't understand Jewish religion, and so they don't understand who Christ is. Over there in Rome there's some guy named Christus. They're worshiping him. Somehow the Christians in Rome Aquila and Priscilla became Christians in. You know, jews and and followers of, of of of Jesus probably not in Rome. Probably they're gonna. They're gonna meet Paul, but all the Jews get thrown out of Rome because the Christians are creating trouble.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, oh yeah, Cause that ties back to what some of the other I mean either. We talked about it here, we talked about it with Ryan, where the Romans actually looked to the Jews to say like no, we're real Jewish, those are those Christians. You cast those out, and it was actually. The Jews wrote sorry, the Romans were relying on the Jews to help them differentiate who they were actually going to persecute.
Speaker 2:It appears early on that they couldn't quite figure out who the trouble makes it work.
Speaker 2:So they're just through the mall out, so they throw out a Jew named Aquila and Priscilla, along with everybody else. Yeah, they lose their, and so they've got this home. They lose their home. They lose everything because of Jesus. You know, can you imagine? This is this married couple. They've got a nice home in Rome. Now they've got to move. They've been thrown out by the emperor because of Jesus. The emperor just gets fed up with Christians. He's tired of look, don't knock on our doors asking do we know what would happen if you died today? Like, stop it, stop. We don't want to go to your harvest festival. We don't like your Christmas programs. We don't like church. We. We've already got a religion in Rome. It's going pretty good, just get out. And so he throws all the. He throws and he doesn't. He can't figure out who's a Christian, who's not a Christian. He just throws everybody out.
Speaker 1:I think sometimes I hear things like like this happened in the Bible. I'm like, wow, that's, that's crazy. How could that, how could that have happened? And then I think back. It's like it wasn't too long ago that America our country put the Japanese in internment camps during the war, just because we thought they may cause a problem at some point in the future.
Speaker 2:Imagine for your marriage if suddenly you lost your home, you lost your you grew up there, you lost your homeland, and so where do they go? Well, this, this couple, they've got a business.
Speaker 1:And it was for their faith.
Speaker 2:You know it was for their faith. Yeah, they're, they're Jews. They're like what do we do? Well, they end up in Corinth and they're going to meet Paul, and so Paul is headed that way. What I know is this that we don't plan to suffer, but your marriage is probably gonna take some turns where there's gonna be some suffering. So nobody plans to suffer. And Paul was never married, right? No, not that we know of.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:But we get married for love, security, to build a home, build a nest. This is what I want all of you to know, including the two of you sitting here. Who just has your past?
Speaker 1:our life's gonna throw you some curveballs. If you didn't know it, I am married to the other lovely lady on this podcast, Selena.
Speaker 2:Who is smiling big right now at him.
Speaker 1:She nodded, like you could see her acknowledgement or something.
Speaker 3:Well, you introduced me already. Yeah, you're right, we can say anything.
Speaker 2:She's blowing him kisses at this very moment.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's so sweet, selena. Oh, my goodness, she's blinking, her loving affection.
Speaker 3:You can't see.
Speaker 2:I think that was Morris. Code for SOS. Get me out of here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. I don't know if you can see. But she's drawing a heart to me right now and a note and slipping it to me. Nobody gets married, thinking hey, I hope we get to suffer.
Speaker 2:We get married because we get married for love. But, I know, for every marriage, life's gonna throw you some curveballs. Whether it's some marriages, they lose a child, this family, they lost, a home they lost, but somewhere somebody's gonna get sick. My wife died.
Speaker 1:Life throws you curveballs, I remember that we talked in one of your sermons about. If there's no struggles in your life, then is your life truly got centered? Because if your life is truly got centered, then the devil's gonna be coming after you.
Speaker 2:Well, that includes your marriage too, right, Exactly?
Speaker 1:exactly so if your marriage is not being tested, it's probably because the devil doesn't see anything worth testing.
Speaker 2:Aquila and Priscilla. They're in Corinth, they're fleeing from Rome, and who are they gonna bump into? This is so God-ordained. Here comes the apostle Paul and he just hits it off with. In fact, it says this in wanna read verse three Selena.
Speaker 3:So it continues. Paul went to see them and, because he was a tent maker as they were, he stayed and worked with them.
Speaker 2:Okay, so he joins their business. They're all tent makers. That's how Priscilla and Aquila make money as they're tent makers and they just hit it off with Paul and Paul kind of makes his center of operations Aquila and Priscilla's home, and so everybody is working out of that home. And Acts, chapter 18, verse 11, it says he stayed for a year and a half teaching the word of God among them.
Speaker 1:And so this house he's talking about the couple stayed with Paul for about a year and a half. Paul stayed with the couple.
Speaker 2:Oh, Paul stayed with the couple, so they've got the home in Corinth.
Speaker 1:Oh right, right.
Speaker 2:And so they are.
Speaker 1:They're, this base of operations, so they end up hosting Paul. Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they host him and let him just use their house.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what I love-. Yeah, it's such an amazing thing about all the stuff I see on the old, a lot of stuff in the Old Testament, like Jesus would just stay with people and like the disciples would just stay with people and Paul's to stay with people, and it's like so many people are just making their homes available.
Speaker 3:It's like that just does not happen now. This couple that was a culture though to write hospitality, opening your home to strangers.
Speaker 1:And now it's like- the strangers' teachers is like man. That's a whole different.
Speaker 2:A year and a half Like Pastor, if you told me you needed a place to stay for a year and a half and you stayed in my house. Hey, can I stay at your house for a year and a half? Yeah, a year and a half.
Speaker 1:You could be teaching every Sunday, but I'd be like, what do you do?
Speaker 2:at home. Well, no, you one day it at a time. Hey, could I stay on your sofa one more day?
Speaker 1:Oh, my gosh.
Speaker 2:Hey, imagine this from Priscilla and Quilla's point of view. They've already lost a home. What I love is they don't get bitter, they're not hard, they're not cranky. They're like ah, we've already suffered enough for that, Jesus, Like we don't wanna do that anymore. And that's people that some of them have been hurt in church, Some people have been wounded and they're like we're done.
Speaker 1:People have probably been killed by this point.
Speaker 2:They're like, hey, we're still in. They didn't say Jesus. Jesus has already given us enough trouble. We just we don't wanna get involved. What I love is not only do Priscilla and Quilla help Paul, but they then start giving themselves to the next generation. So in Acts 18, corinth Paul's having success. The synagogue ruler gets saved. Everything's going pretty good.
Speaker 1:In Acts 18, so this is verse 18?.
Speaker 2:Or sorry, chapter 18?.
Speaker 2:Chapter 18, in fact, verse nine, Jesus has to say to Paul hey, don't be afraid, Go on speaking, I'm gonna be with you, no one's gonna attack you, no one's gonna harm you. I think God says this. I've got many people in this city. You don't need to be afraid, Paul, because it's getting. It's being successful and people start getting upset. Let me show you something so cool in your Bible, Paul is having so much success that the Jews get fed up with him winning everybody to Jesus. So they take him to court and this is Roman court so they march him into the room.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, it's called Roman citizen. Can you imagine?
Speaker 2:Well, that's their governing body, and so that's like marching another church into court and saying we don't like them. They're taking all our people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cause Rome is also a what's it called when you not a theocracy, where you have a religion. That is a part of the government. Oh Rome, well, Rome's not quite a theocracy.
Speaker 2:They're run by an emperor, but they give.
Speaker 1:In fact, the emperor decided he was a God. That's true. Yeah, the emperor wanted to be worshiped as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what you gotta know is when they take Paul to court. The leader of the Jews is a guy named Sassanese, and this is wonderful, isn't?
Speaker 3:that a great name Sassanese.
Speaker 2:My.
Speaker 1:God, sounds like a sauce, right Sashwan.
Speaker 2:Well, they take him to court and they, you know the judge is like, okay, what's the charge against him? And they're like he breaks our law, Like Roman law. No, just our law, Just Jewish law. Your church rules. Yeah, he breaks our church rules. Okay, get out of my courtroom. And the judge just throws them right out of the courtroom. At that point, the Jews turn on their leader Sassanese and they just start beating him up in the middle of the street. This is in the Bible what they just start beating him up.
Speaker 1:Where is this? What happens?
Speaker 2:And then there are chapter 18, verse 16 of Acts.
Speaker 1:You want to read that Selena chapter chapter 18, verses 16 and 17.
Speaker 2:Watch what happens at court in in Corinth.
Speaker 3:So he drove them off.
Speaker 1:Sorry, that was, oh my gosh, and he drove them from the trial, you know so he drove them off.
Speaker 3:Then the crowd. They're turned on Sassanese, the synagogue leader, and beat him in front of the proc-console.
Speaker 1:The proc-console.
Speaker 2:The proc-console.
Speaker 3:That, that incredible.
Speaker 2:So, they turn on him and they just start beating him up. What?
Speaker 1:That's hilarious.
Speaker 2:Give another story behind the story. It's kind of curious because there's something unfulfilled. What happened to Sassanese?
Speaker 1:He goes home, he's beat up, imagine if we did that to you, that'd be awful yeah.
Speaker 2:There's something really cool that happens when Paul writes a letter to the Corinthians. Just just get this. First Corinthians, chapter one, verse one. You see it. This is so wonderful, it's going to sweep you away. If you've got a Bible out there, you want to actually see the words.
Speaker 1:All right, so first Corinthians, first.
Speaker 2:Corinthians chapter one and just go to verse one. This is how. Paul opens the letter to the Corinthians.
Speaker 1:So this is the English standard version.
Speaker 2:And I'll try to hold my excitement in as you make this.
Speaker 1:Paul called by the will of God to be an apostle of Jesus Christ, and our brother Sassanese, oh, my goodness, that's it.
Speaker 2:So wait, wait, wait, wait. A moment ago, sassanese was taking Paul to court. Then they lost their case, they got thrown out of court and he got beat up by his church. The next time we see Sassanese he's traveling around with Paul. This guy converted to Christianity after the Jews beat him up and he joined forces with the guy he took to court.
Speaker 1:Nice. Is that the most exciting thing you've heard all day? That's literally what happened to Paul as well. Because Paul was persecuting Christians and Jesus knocked him down.
Speaker 2:Sassanese becomes a Christian. And he's not just a Christian, he's traveling around with Paul. So when Paul writes back to Corinth he goes oh, by the way, I'm with the old synagogue ruler who got saved with.
Speaker 1:Sassanese.
Speaker 2:That's just so incredibly exciting to me. Well, eventually you get enough lawsuits, you get enough people mad at you. Paul leaves Corinth and he's gonna take with him Aquila and Priscilla.
Speaker 1:So they're still with him this whole time.
Speaker 2:Oh, this all happens while he's in Corinth for that year and a half For that year and a half.
Speaker 1:this all takes place.
Speaker 2:It says in chapter 18, verse 18, paul set sail for Syria.
Speaker 1:So let me make sure we got the timelines all straight. So the couple, priscilla and Aquila, are in what is Rome and Italy and then they get kicked out of there. They go down to Corinth. They have another home in Corinth where they're staying at. Paul ends up coming into town staying with them. He stays for about a year and a half. During that time Paul is persecuted and gets taken to court. He's taken to court and the leader of the synagogue at the time takes him to court. That all fails. Synagogue leader gets beat up. Later on we see that the synagogue leader ends up joining Paul, but Paul is still with Priscilla and Aquila. During this period they're starting a church.
Speaker 2:So they're starting a church, they're building a church, yeah, so this is the church plant, this is the church plant. They're staying. He's staying with them while they are starting this church. It's kind of like the church got sued, paul got sued by the Jews and now, apparently, can you imagine, sassanese is one of their. Well, now, paul, it's like it's time for Paul to leave. A year is a long time for Paul to stay anywhere.
Speaker 2:And so he's gotten the church started. It's time for him to go on Now. When he leaves, he's gonna take with him Aquila and Priscilla and they're gonna head up to Ephesus. Just watch what happens when they go to Ephesus in Acts 18, 18. It says Paul set sail for Syria and with him now this couple from Rome. He met them in Corinth. It says Priscilla and Aquila were with him. So Paul goes off to Syria. They're gonna start a church there, gets encouragement from the Ephesians. He addresses their house. But then the story is gonna follow on Paul. Paul's gonna go off on other journeys.
Speaker 2:But, verse 24, there's a guy named Apollos that enters the story and you see the Selenium chapter 18, verses 24 to 26. Check this out.
Speaker 3:Meanwhile, a Jew named Apollos, a name of Alexandra, came to Ephesus. He was a learned man with a thorough knowledge of the scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord and he spoke with great fever.
Speaker 2:Fervor, he's like fiery, can you believe?
Speaker 1:fiery preachers and the Amplify Bible says being spiritually impassioned.
Speaker 2:I like that. He's been like man. When he preached this guy could bring down the house. That's kind of a difference, I think, from the way Paul preached, because, like when Paul you know, he's very analytical.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Paul's analytical?
Speaker 1:I think not not explaining it wasn't preaching what his thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was Peter's thing and a Paulus thing.
Speaker 1:It's kind of the Paul Paul versus Peter yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, watch what happens. So it says he spoke fervently and taught about Jesus accurately.
Speaker 3:Though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately.
Speaker 2:So this new leader comes into the, into the, the church, into the, the family of God. Their last pastor was Paul. Now they're in Ephesus. This guy named this, this guy named a Paulus, comes in. He's a great preacher, but you know it's tough after Paul was your last pastor. Yeah, and you're like man. He's a good preacher. He mostly gets it right.
Speaker 1:But you know, does he got? I like how the amplified Bible puts it says any beyond to speak boldly and fearlessly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained more accurately to him the way of God and the full story Of the life of Christ what would your first reaction be?
Speaker 2:so often it's man, this guy's no, paul. Can you imagine they're sitting in the pew, they hear him preach and like, do he just say that about baptism? What? Oh my god go to this church anymore. This guy, he's trashed. This is no good. But instead of trashing him, instead of putting notes up on Facebook, false teacher comes to Ephesus, you know, running YouTube clips of his, of his sermons, like well that was wrong and that was wrong.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and putting TikTok videos out there, instead of trashing this young man, what they do is they say, hey, Want to do lunch, can we take you out, can we? And they sit him down and they just start explaining the Bible to him. Yeah, I think that speaks. So what? This is their marriage. This is persona quillas marriage. Wow, because they're always mentioned together. Yeah, and isn't it beautiful that, instead of destroying Apollos, they built this guy up? Yeah, and this young man is now becoming stronger.
Speaker 1:And the Lord, because a couple and all of us can think of godly couples that just poured in and they provided for Paul too, like right allowed him to stay there for a year and a half Because he was just teaching and it's like you know you didn't have a preacher salary back then.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, yeah, they, they had this goal, I think, in their marriage to build people up. And I would just encourage you, know your marriage, you can tear people down, not just each other down. You see marriages where people work as a couple to tear people up. What?
Speaker 1:you want to do in your marriage. The entire new series build people up. The what I said. There's entire Netflix series is about that. Right, that's people love that drama.
Speaker 2:It is, it is. But this couple, they go, hey, we want to build them up, but get this. In order for them to build up Apollos, they themselves had to be strong in the word yeah, they couldn't just, you can't just go. Okay, we want to build people up, but but not themselves have affirmed foundation. The reason they were able to build up Apollos is because they themselves knew the word of God.
Speaker 1:You know something I've heard, we've talked in church about it and I've heard about, heard it over the years like, oh, you know you should be willing to take someone out and you know, talk to them about, about the Lord, take, you know, take him out for coffee talking about the Lord or or whatever it is like set up some time and you know, if you care about them, you should, you should do that. I don't. I've never had heard anyone say like you should do it with your spouse, yeah, like you and your spouse should invite someone out and like it's like it's better with to you have someone that kind of To help you kind of go through that process of having those types of conversations.
Speaker 2:And support you in that mentor couples as a couple. Yeah or even mentor singles. If you're a couple, everything you're doing is together.
Speaker 2:Yeah and so when, as I was discipling a church, my wife was right beside me, mm-hmm, and you guys are right beside each other as you disciple people in this church, and, in fact, one of the ways you've grown is there were people in God's church that took you guys aside and invested in you. Yeah, you know, you think of Ryan, who's poured a lot in, or, and the result then has been that you guys have taken people and you've poured into them out of your marriage, because your marriage was made stronger.
Speaker 1:Have we? Did we do that? I don't think we've done anything for anyone in the last. Oh, my goodness, you have so poured in.
Speaker 2:I Want to say this, I want to give this just people go. I don't know how to grow with my spouse spiritually. I want to offer an idea. I think you grow around the word of God and so you grow and.
Speaker 2:But people will say we really struggle to read the Bible together. We don't, we don't. So if I say to a couple in counseling, hey, are you reading the Bible together? I get that kind of hang dog look and she looks mad at him. Well, we were going to, but somebody won't read and someone can't read.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't have time yeah, we're busy and what we started doing this is just me and Rebecca's. I'll carry this out of my marriage to everybody else. Yeah, we got what was called the marriage Bible and it was just a Bible with big, wide margins. I actually think ours was kind of free.
Speaker 1:We have it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you have actually. That looks just like the one we had.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we actually bought. Was that like a year and a half ago?
Speaker 3:No, when he told us about it two years ago. I did.
Speaker 1:I told you guys to, and it wasn't that it's late about it.
Speaker 2:She was just this idea oh, somebody's have a marriage. It was our marriage Bible and then I carried it to you guys.
Speaker 1:Oh man, Once you finish your example, I have a five something for you what I want you guys to do.
Speaker 2:Just if you're married, I want you to get a marriage Bible, and what you do with your marriage Bible is you just write in the margin. So one person takes the marriage Bible in the morning and they read it and you just write notes to the other person. As you're reading and it can be spiritual things you draw a circle to that verse, go, hey, that was cool, what does that mean? Or you write another note hey, breakfast was awesome. Thank you so much for breakfast this morning. You're just writing notes to your spouse. Then the other person takes the Bible and if they've got the evening shift or the next day shift, however, you guys are breaking it up they write notes back. So you're, they read the Bible. They thought that was an interesting verse. I think this yeah, breakfast was great, but wait, you know, dinner was just.
Speaker 2:Whatever you guys are writing back and forth sometimes, I would just start little lists. I would say great dates and I write what. I'd write 10 great dates. I'd write the first great first five and then she would write five more. No, we would just create little list in our Bible and things that we like saying to each other, things we love about our kids, and we would write a list. And the cool thing was we had found that we had lost the art of Communicating by writing. We used to write letters, but then we started texting. The marriage Bible forced us, around the word of God, to start talking again by writing. What was your example?
Speaker 1:Oh, my example is gonna be from when Selena was in Spain, so, um, so Selena takes a lot of notes on on her Bible and we have a lot of Bibles around the house that we just kind of acquired or purchased over the years. And when she was gone, there were a couple things that I did. I tried my best to never be at home. I tried my best to.
Speaker 2:You were at church a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was a worship night. We was perfect so I could just live there. But I was home for one of the nights and and I was barely having like this kind of a tough time kind of with my own like in my own head and just having a lot of doubt and frustration and all this stuff. And I was sitting at the computer and I noticed that one of the Bibles in the house was sitting next to me and it was a little Bit of paper sticking out of it and I just grabbed it and opened it up, not thinking anything of it. But Selena had written a note on it and it was not a note to me, it was like her and commenting on something that was in the scripture and it's something about faith, and it basically said something on the lines of like it's all gonna be okay or something like that. And she didn't write the note to me specifically, but she wrote the note in the Bible as she was, you know, studying the Bible and that just I took comfort in the blessed you.
Speaker 1:Huh, exactly, yeah, I took a lot of comfort in that in that moment. And it was also kind of a kind of like a surreal moment too, because then I realized there were a lot of Bibles around me, because it's like I. Then I took a step back and it's like the marriage Bible was like on the on the futon in the room. We had another Bible like on the coffee stand that was behind me In the room and and I was. It was weird. I kind of I felt covered.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if that makes sense, yeah but let me, yeah, say this about the marriage Bible, because people come up to me when I explain this in a sermon hey, you and you're spastic in a marriage Bible. They're like where do I, where, where, where do we buy the marriage Bible? Amazon? And like no, no, you don't understand, there's not a marriage Bible. You're just gonna buy a Bible you like and tear it up.
Speaker 2:So you're gonna write little notes to each other all over and they're not gonna be deep, it's not yeah, so the note that I read wasn't even in the marriage Bible.
Speaker 1:Yeah the Bible.
Speaker 2:that was just happened beyond the desk that she Was using for her, her studies for Christ's woman's fellowship, yeah and so you're just gonna be talking to each other, and so it's not for your kids, it's not for your grandkids, it's for the two of you, it's your marriage Bible. And so when you say, hey, let's read the book of Habakkuk, you're talking to each other as you read Habakkuk and circling stuff and going, oh, that's cool, that's cool, you know. And so there's not, I'm not, I'm not advertising a specific Bible, the marriage Bible. Just get a wide margin Bible tear it up.
Speaker 3:Would you guys keep track of, like, where you guys are at with the little bookmark or something, or yeah?
Speaker 2:Well, the writing ended, so the underlining and stuff ended, so you go back to where you left off and or we would draw lines and stuff like that. Oh nice it was. It was amazing fun. Yeah, I'm glad it's kind of cool to look over and see you Now with your marriage Bible, because I remember I think we were on a hill.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I told you guys hey, get a marriage Bible and I see you with the marriage Bible. I see writing in it.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, so I take more notes and I got take a lot of my notes on, like my iPad and stuff, but I got to go writing it some more kind of makes you wonder how did it turn out with Apollo? So they pull him aside. They explain to him hey, there's a better way. If you look down at acts 18, verse 27, apollos goes off to Acacia, and Wanna want to read that verse 27 18, 20 27, 28.
Speaker 3:When Apollos wanted to go to Acacia, the brothers and sisters encouraged him and wrote to the disciples there to welcome him. When he arrived, he was a great help to those who, by grace, had believed, for he vigorously refuted his Jewish opponents in public debate, proving from the scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah.
Speaker 2:This guy who came in and he wasn't even that solid on baptism at the beginning Because another couple poured into them he's able to leave them. He's discipled for a while. He leaves them. He goes to Acacia and he's able to refute the Jews. He's able to take a stand for the gospel. He's able to disciple people notice. It says that he was used the. The word my Bible says is he powerfully refuted the Jews in public.
Speaker 1:Showing by the scriptures that there's some people as Jesus you just look him ago.
Speaker 2:Who taught you who? Where did you learn that stuff? This guy learned his stuff from Aquila and Priscilla. Wow, they taught and taught and taught him until it just sank in.
Speaker 1:I Love that, this couple that's a question that you should just be asking yourself right now. Let me more, speaking to the listeners right who is who is pouring into you right now? Who is mentoring you? Who is teaching about the faith so that you can have these conversations?
Speaker 2:All right. And then the question for your marriage is who are you pouring into, yeah, who? Who is it that you're giving, that you're setting that the next generation up? I love that.
Speaker 1:I pastor a church of young people and it's not just who are you pouring into Individually? So who are you pouring into as a couple?
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm, you know, is it a couple are there, is it a?
Speaker 1:is it a child? Is it a child's friend? Is who is who is? Who are you pouring into Sometimes?
Speaker 2:you meet people as they're getting older. They're kind of down on the next generation. They're kind of like oh man, the next generation there, as you know what that's not gonna be us it's not gonna.
Speaker 1:It should never be. A doesn't make any sense when you think about it.
Speaker 2:I am so excited about the next generation coming up in Christianity. I'm excited about you guys. I'm excited about your faith. To me, you guys are kind of like apollos, like I've seen you grow and grow and grow in your faith. You know, you're strong, you could go out, I think. I think you could, could give the heretics a lickin kind of like, but so often you just run into man. The next generation is no good, I'm gonna tell you it's just speaking for a guy headed toward 50.
Speaker 2:I am so excited about the next generation of Christianity, and those of us that are older should be pouring into these people.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so much, dad. We have the same fights. Yeah, you all that you all had as young ins. It's like it's the same and but now it's even more public. Now there's even more disinformation, is more inaccuracy out there. So it's like you're fighting not just with your friend at work. You're fighting with all the disinformation or information, whatever it is, that's coming to you online.
Speaker 2:Here's what's here's what's changing. For years in in American Christianity it was passed down generation to generation. It has now skipped a generation or two and so the people coming into the church. There's still kids that were raised in the church, but there are also an awful lot of people that are coming into the church and their generation one. They got saved because they found they needed Jesus and they weren't raised up in the church. They came to the church and it is a great opportunity. They don't actually don't carry some of the baggage that other people will carry. They're walking in, but unless the church Purposely disciples these people and pours into them, they're just gonna walk out and be lost and confused the surface level, they're not gonna have that deep understanding.
Speaker 2:We have this great opportunity to disciple the current generation of Christians that are phenomenally talented.
Speaker 1:Yeah and it's. I wouldn't say it's easy, but it isn't a way easy because You've got the truth in front of you, you've got the. It's like we've got two thousand years of scholars that have done a good job Organizing all the text and stuff. That's all you got to do a study it. All you gotta do is read it and and and through that, and then you got so many avenues and vehicles to learn more about your faith. And it's. It's and I've seen that in myself and over the last two years like being able to have those constructive conversations with, like my co-workers when I need to, and Be able to actually say it's like no, no, what you're doing is wrong, and I can tell you explicitly why.
Speaker 1:It's gonna hurt your marriage in the long run, and why it's going to hurt you in the long run and why you. This is. It's like your wife now baby may not be explicitly saying this is why she's like frustrated, but because of the things that you've told me already, like this is probably why she's frustrated. She is because both of you are out of the faith. You don't really understand it, but go talk to her about this. I guarantee, yeah, something, I'll guarantee it's this. Yeah, you know, and so it's. It's. It's cool to have, have the context of the faith, to be able to have those Discussions, because if I didn't have that, then I'm just using what like science, like that's not.
Speaker 2:I look back and think of just so many people that mentored me in the church, my first church. I was the pastor, but those people mentored me. Those old people loved me. They mentored me in the faith. They discipled me when I got married. They discipled my marriage, and I can think of dozens of older people that poured into me and it. That should be the attitude of the church continually. Who are we pouring into who?
Speaker 1:and that's all Jesus did, for his entire ministry was pouring to people.
Speaker 2:Amen, yeah, man. So a question we should be asking in our marriages is who are we purposely pouring into? And it may be that you Kind of find the person. That's a little I want to hear how I say this. They're not as informed in churches they should be. They're kind of dumb spiritually there. They're just not on fire.
Speaker 1:But yeah, they're fired up a direction making fun of them.
Speaker 2:At lunch you take them aside and say we, just you find a way to pour into them. Yeah you know, because the talent is there, the the God is using these young people, but they just need to be discipled.
Speaker 1:There's a. There's a guy who just recently started coming to palms I think this is actually the second or third week, because we've run into each other each time. But he drives this like cool black Mustang and he's very well dressed but but he's got a bit of a potty mouth, he's got, he's got a history, he's out of prison in the last couple years and but every time I talk to him he's just excited yeah, be a part of the church family. Like he doesn't know about much about his faith, but he knows that there's something here. He knows that, yeah, they exactly like there's something here that he's looking for and he wants to know more. And this is like his third week that he's that he's coming in every time he's just like happy. He's like happy to be here. I love to see you again, brother. Right, motorcycles awesome. This is like you know how this, how my week went x, y, z and I was like man, I love you, let's see, I'll see you inside.
Speaker 2:Is that awesome? And unless people purposely go and pull him aside to disciple him, yeah, what happens to you?
Speaker 1:exactly, and that's a. That's a big thing too. I something that jumps out to me is when we had the church Picnic. Yeah, so basically I was telling him about the picnic because obviously didn't know about it it was like his first Sunday and I was like, hey, why don't you go to the picnic after church?
Speaker 2:And he said he said really, even a guy like me like that was what he said, even a guy like me and he's so cool. Yeah, I was like, yeah, man.
Speaker 1:And he came and he had a good time and it was awesome, it was good, but I was like man, this guy, that's phenomenal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you, can you think of people that you've poured into? People have poured into you, every one of them. They didn't count out the next generation. They just said, hey, we want to, we want to give to this and at least for a policy.
Speaker 2:Think of this guy, apollos, who goes. He didn't know everything he needed to know in. An old couple said hey, come here, let us just pour into you a little bit. The story just kind of pulls together at a spot that I think is really Fascinating. And it's this, this couple, that gave and gave and gave to Jesus. The story is not done. In Acts, chapter 18. We find that they just kept giving to Jesus. They were so generous with their resources.
Speaker 2:About a year later, the year is 80, 57, aquila and Priscilla. We know that they're back in Rome and so they've gone back home. You know they're, they're home in Rome. They can, it's safe, to go back. Claudius has done throwing his fit, kicking out all the Romans. They have lived in Rome, they've gotten kicked out. They went to Corinth, they went to Ephesus. Finally, they've trained Apollos and they're like they go back to Rome, they go back to their home. What do they do, romans? Chapter 16, verse 3, is so exciting. You see it, selena, try not to be overly swept away, as you read it because this is the best stuff on earth.
Speaker 3:It says great Priscilla and Aquila but it doesn't say Priscilla.
Speaker 2:What's it say?
Speaker 3:Oh, this one translation. It does he says Priscilla.
Speaker 2:Oh really, it literally says Prisca, which is kind of sweet. It's a sweet way of saying it.
Speaker 3:Oh. Yeah does your translation say Prisca?
Speaker 1:No, I think I'm reading the same one as you.
Speaker 3:Okay, my co-workers. In Christ Jesus. They risked their lives for me. Not only I, but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them.
Speaker 1:And that was found where.
Speaker 3:Romans, chapter 16.
Speaker 2:That's Romans 16. Notice, by the way, it says Prisca and Aquila. What did they do? They risked their necks for my life.
Speaker 2:I think there's some story there like what we, when we get to heaven, we have to review the tape and go okay, what happened with you guys when you risked your lives for Paul? Was that like when he was at court? Was is there? Because there was a year that we don't have much information on a little bit. Something happened when Paul was in trouble and they stuck their neck out for the Apostle Paul. Yeah, is it that exciting? Yeah, that's huge. Paul says this they risked their life for me, to whom not only I give thanks, but also and here's the line, I want you to get the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well. And then he says Greet also the church in their home and you're supposed to go. I think we should pause and go. Whoa, whoa, wait what? They get back to Rome. They get back to Italy, and what do they do? They start a church, or the church, at least, is meeting in their home. Now, from Rome.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So the church in Rome met in their house. If you've ever been encouraged by the book of Romans, the, the letter carrier who dropped off the book of Romans, knocked on the door of Aquila and Priscilla hey, I've got a letter for your church. They met in the house of Aquila and Priscilla. Now here's what's interesting. They had already paid such a high price they already got kicked out of out of Rome once for following Jesus.
Speaker 1:They already.
Speaker 2:That's the point, where you go. Okay, we went on the mission trip, we did all this stuff. We gave, we gave, we gave. We're not gonna risk our house again. Let's just play it safe and get old and retire. And instead they're like hey, we're back. Does the church want to meet over here? You can meet at our house. Our house is a little bit nicer than the restaurant you guys have been meeting in. We know you've been in the banquet room, but you're gonna get kicked out of there. Come to our house. You know it's got a pool, it's got a lot of had, but they just keep offering their resources to the Lord.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:I've met people like that that, just as a couple, they can't wait to the next, the next place. They're gonna give to the Lord. They're looking. Years ago our last church we wanted to build a baptistry. That this church, this little church, did not have a baptistry. And I was sharing with one of the women in the church about my desire to build a baptistry and she got so excited. Her husband Walt, her name was Phyllis, her husband Walt was off on a business trip. Phyllis could not wait for Walt to get home so she could share with him the vision of that baptistry, so they could give a gift so that that baptistry could get built. That was that kind of attitude of I just can't wait to give to the Lord. I think Priscilla and Aquila They've got that same attitude wait, like wherever we are, if we're in Ephesus, we're gonna give the Lord if we're in Rome.
Speaker 2:We're gonna give the Lord. We can't wait for the next assignment. We can't wait for the offering plate to go by. We're cutting checks.
Speaker 1:I want to also highlight that you may be listening to this and be like that's crazy. How could they be, how could they have such?
Speaker 1:Generosity not just generosity, just faith. It's not just generosity because, um and and I would argue that that is the appropriate perspective Like if you've got a heavenly perspective, if you're looking at the world from heavens, from heavens eyes, to quote a line from Prince of Egypt, the Disney movie but If you got that perspective, then it only makes sense that you would give everything that you can give, even more than you think you can, because you've given it all to God and, ultimately, you're trusting for him to take care of you.
Speaker 2:That's right. Yeah, that's right. So it's obvious that they would do something like this if you got the appropriate perspective notice the order of the names in Roman 16 3, great, and normally you say you in in that culture you put the man first. Yeah, greed, a quilla and Priscilla. What's interesting is there several times in the New Testament where Priscilla is mentioned before a quilla.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I noticed that I was gonna ask you about that and in mine it does say Prisca. By the way is in ESV and Amplified Bible does say Prisca. It's just a sweet but yeah, several times it says Prisca, it says Priscila and a quilla or Prisca. It says it does say it first. It was like that as well.
Speaker 2:It's interesting that it switches the order and that they go back and forth. And I think that it's because at various times in their marriage One was more dominant than the other, and it's not saying that a quilla didn't lead his family, but there are times that your wife is a little ahead of you or a little, and I just think that they were always pulling each other forward. And in a marriage you're gonna pull your spouse somewhere.
Speaker 3:Sometimes I think he was pulling her toward the Lord. Come on.
Speaker 2:Yeah sometimes she was pulling him a quilla, don't give up, come on, let's go. And I just think that they were so co-equal.
Speaker 1:That's me and Selena with our gym life right now.
Speaker 3:It's one of the others, dragon, we get to the gym.
Speaker 1:But it's usually it's only one of the two of us is in the mood at the time, and then it's just you're not carrying the other person.
Speaker 2:I've never seen a toxic couple that they pull each other toward bitterness.
Speaker 1:Yes, like you know, dare you be happy get down here. Well, I'm here with my tears.
Speaker 2:She can be okay, and he just is gonna make, he'll turn the situation and and make her think it totally different than it was, and he just embitters her. Or she'll do that to him like he's kind of okay, he's okay with this, and then she'll be like, oh okay, why are you gonna let them talk to you that way? And she's, she'll just stir him up inside. Yeah and you see, couples, either this this is every marriage will either pull each other forward toward the good, or you will pull each other down.
Speaker 1:That's a broken individual. It is first. But I tell you, I see a lot of marriages that they're just pulling each other down. Yeah the time. But you got to fix that. You have to fix yourself personally before you can start fixing the marriage. If you're doing things like that, I'll tell you this is.
Speaker 2:Rebecca. She always advocated for the church, meaning she never made me. I've seen pastors wives that they're tearing down the church. My wife always Advocated for the church in my own heart, so if I got discouraged. I felt beat up by the church. I was cranky with the church. She never stirred my anger, so there was a moment there that she could use it and leverage it for her good as a wife, she never.
Speaker 1:Let's just leave 29 bombs.
Speaker 2:That's kind of true right. Yeah, she didn't do it ever.
Speaker 1:She always advocated for the ministry Don't run your husband out of 29 bombs or don't.
Speaker 2:Don't run down his command. Don't make him feel bad about the people he works with.
Speaker 1:I have, um, well, I guess like two my one of one is one of my bosses and one is one of my co-workers, where, um, their, their wife, was basically like I Refuse to stay in this city and I'm going to leave this city and go somewhere else, and so, but the husband can't leave, like, so, my buddy, he can't leave, he is here, he is stationed here, he has to go to work every day. But if his wife was like I, I can't stay here Because I don't like this city, and so she is now. Now they have a dual rental Mm-hmm, where she's renting out in Temecula and he has to. Now he, where they were living on base I, had to give up their own base house and now he's in an apartment out in town and paying for two rents. And now the kids they have two kids and the kids have to bounce back and forth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all because and I'm sure it's more complex than that in between the marriage piece. But ultimately she was like I will not stay in the city, I'm gonna, and it's worth me. Just, it wasn't a deployment or anything. She just was like I don't want to be in the city. And now, now they're separated for three years people are always looking for a crazy.
Speaker 2:How do we make our marriage stronger? I think One of the greatest ways you make your marriage stronger is you do it together so you serve God yeah, that's a number one probably. You you like. What do you and Selena do? Your marriage is stronger today Because you serve God in this church whether it was figuring out how to put sound panels on a wall. It was running a tech team. It was doing a podcast.
Speaker 1:No, and so I'll throw out there that it we did. We are in couples counseling and we were a very aggressive couples counseling and individual counseling at the beginning of kind of all the stuff that was going on in our marriage and but at the same time we didn't stop serving, like Selena would talk about how she didn't her, she didn't feel like her heart was in it but, she knew it was the right thing to do.
Speaker 1:She didn't feel like there were days where she didn't want to get up there. There's right, I didn't want to get up there, days where I wanted nothing to do with any of this, but but it was the right thing to do, and so we continued to serve, and that gave us something to do together.
Speaker 1:Yeah and so while we were serving God together, we were also Doing counseling and Well, at least for me I'm not gonna speak for you, selena, but it it helped me see her in a way that I didn't know that I didn't see her right, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cuz it's like we've been together so long. But we did like long distance in college and we'd known each other for all of high school as well, and I said but I was still seeing, I didn't realize that I was still seeing my wife as my friend and not as my wife. First, do you know what you saw?
Speaker 2:You saw, when you started serving together, not just your wife, you saw the daughter of God. Yeah, and that that is attractive to us as men.
Speaker 1:When you see the daughter of God, that's more desirable, I'll say I was reminded because I remember, even back in like freshman, sophomore year, I used to call Selena. I used to tell her she was wife material, and I'll tell her that and this is me being a trashy teenager. Yeah, I was like you're too, you're too good for me to date or for me to be with, or anything like that, and I'm that's pompous me, I'm assuming like she even wanted to be with me. But I was like you're, it's like your wife material, I'm not ready for wife material.
Speaker 2:I'm over here trying to be exactly.
Speaker 1:I was a mess, and so I was like I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to even try and pursue you, because you're.
Speaker 2:Your wife, you, from so much wickedness, exactly depraved.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And it's crazy that like I'm saying nonsense like that in like ninth grade, tenth grade, and then we end up getting together and yeah senior year and now, now we're married all these years later, it's like that's hilarious to look back on. But I noticed that I was like you are of a different Cut, you are a different character than the other girls, and I was like I, even as a Christ follower. I was like I'm not ready to be following Christ like that yet.
Speaker 2:Well, you sometimes meet couples. They hit a bump in the road and you guys hit a pretty hard bump in the road. Yeah you mean some couples that hit a bump in the road and they're go. Okay, we're gonna stop doing church, we're gonna stop, we're just gonna focus on the marriage. And actually that's the worst thing you can do. You just dive deeper into each other, you just annoy each other more. Yeah, you don't just need to dive into the marriage, you need to serve the marriage you gotta do something again.
Speaker 2:It's got to have that mission.
Speaker 3:You gotta yeah, yeah, that's like at that point, like what, what becomes your God? And sometimes it could be like your own marriage, or your feelings at that point, when you were saying like, yeah, sometimes, like I don't feel like serving, or like I'm in my depression or my mood or whatever I may be feeling, but I can't let that be my God.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it pushes you forward. And just going back to Aquila and Priscilla, here's a couple that could have lost everything and they just keep giving. They just keep giving. You need our house, lord, you can have our house. Lord. You need our money, you can have our money. And I think it actually made their marriage stronger. There's one last little scene I wanna show you guys. That's just, I think, really gonna bless you. This couple is always joining God anywhere, is at work. So if God's like I need your house, you got our house in Rome, you got wherever, wherever you need. About 10 years later. So we're gonna move forward 10 years.
Speaker 2:It's about AD 66, 67. Paul writes his last letter. It's second Timothy Paul's in prison in Rome and he's pretty sure he's gonna die, and sure enough he is. So it's his last letter. He knows that this is gonna end in his death. Do you know who's not in Rome? Now? It's interesting. He's gonna write to Timothy. Timothy's in Ephesus, and what you're gonna find is equivalent in Priscilla are no longer in Rome at their house. They're back out on the mission field, not in Rome. They're with Timothy in Ephesus. Second Timothy, chapter four, verse 19. I see Selena headed that way in the marriage Bible.
Speaker 3:Might take a while. Do you wanna search it?
Speaker 1:up. No, I was gonna write something that just popped into my head. So you actually have to say that one.
Speaker 2:No, we're gonna. We like watching those real pages turn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, we just shh, shh, shh, shh.
Speaker 3:Bible knowledge. Second Timothy, chapter four, verse 19. Verse 19.
Speaker 2:And so he's writing to Timothy. Timothy is back, remember they had already been to Ephesus. It's where they met Apollos, it's where they already had a ministry. Now Timothy is at Ephesus pastoring the church there. And guess who's with Timothy when Paul writes to them? It says great, priscilla does your say Prisca the first one, huh.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and Aquila and the household of Onesophores, onesophores, yeah.
Speaker 2:Hey, mind us say Prisca. By the way, notice also the name order is reversed. There again, she's first, he is second, cause they just pull each other forward. Here's what's cool, this couple. They've gotta be getting older now. They're not just retired in Rome, they're back out on the mission field with Timothy now in Ephesus.
Speaker 2:And I don't know how that I don't know quite how that went down, but somehow Paul's in prison. They're out on the mission field. Can you imagine Timothy comes through Rome and he's talking about hey, I'm gonna go to Ephesus, and that night I'm just imagining it now. But that night Aquila says to Priscilla hey, baby, we can't let that kid go out there alone. We've been to Ephesus. It's hard out there. Let's maybe. And her eyes kind of light up too. And she goes oh, let's do it. Aquila, let's go, let's go with him, let's pack the bags.
Speaker 2:And before the night is up, these two are packing their bags. And when Timothy gets up the next morning they're like hey, son, we can't send you to Ephesus alone. Like it's rough out there. Every now and then they store up a riot great, as you know, artimaeus, god of the Ephesians, they'll try to kill you. We're gonna come with you. And what you find with this couple is they're always ready for the next adventure God has for them is they're ready to go out there, they're ready to go with this kid. And the next time you see them they're not in Rome anymore, at their safe little house, they're back out on the mission field in Ephesus giving their lives for Jesus. Once again, they never got tired of the mission trip. They never got tired of pouring into young men. They gave to Apollos, they gave to Timothy. They just loved and loved and loved the work of Jesus, their entire marriage you know, and I love that.
Speaker 2:I love that about them.
Speaker 1:You know, I will tell you. Pastor, I absolutely love you. But I didn't hear anything you said because I was writing a very violent note. But I'm gonna listen to this podcast several times, so I will come back and listen to that part.
Speaker 2:I love you, tell you guys how to choose a spouse. Some of you out there, you're single. You're like how do I choose a spouse? Here's my advice. I know, how do I know she's the one, he's the one. My advice is run as hard as you can toward Jesus. Just run as hard as you and you're gonna find there's a little pack of people around you that, as you're running toward Jesus, they're also running toward Jesus. So here's my advice Pick up the pace.
Speaker 2:Start running harder and it starts to thin down the number of people that are running that hard, and what you do is you run as hard and as fast as you can toward Jesus, and those people that are running toward Jesus also, those are the people that could follow Jesus with you anywhere, and that's what you're looking for is another disciple of Jesus that can go with you. You don't wanna.
Speaker 1:yeah, we always hear that stereotype of like being a fixer. It's like oh, a fixer upper type of person. Yeah, but actually in line with the movie Frozen you don't wanna fix a rougher, you wanna someone that's already a complete and full person and you know their character and then you know that character aligns with Jesus Christ and his mission and his character. And so you can, if you're working to align your character with God as you go through life that's called sanctification and you meet someone else that thank you.
Speaker 1:And you meet someone else who is trying to align their character with God through their life, through this process of sanctification, how much more so will you be able to accomplish and do and grow and how much more rapidly we'll be able to grow as an individual if you two are joined together and are growing as a couple. But if you have someone who is outside of God's character and is not looking to pursue God's character and actually subscribes to a different worldview, I promise you you will fight at every moral argument that comes up within your household because you are not operating under the same character structure. Moral argument like whatever you wanna define it there like your foundation is not sound.
Speaker 2:God intends for marriage to be a man and a woman, both as committed disciples walking toward him. And all you're doing as you get older is you keep walking toward Jesus and one day you walk into heaven as disciples of Jesus fully, and that's, I think, our eternal relationship with our spouse in heaven. We're not married, but we're disciples of Jesus Wanted to just maybe, if I can backtrack a little bit, remind us of the journey. Paul goes and he's traveling. He goes to Corinth. He meets Aquila in Priscilla. They create a base of operations. There's a lawsuit, sassanese converts to the faith and they all leave and they go to Ephesus.
Speaker 2:Aquila and Priscilla stay in Ephesus. Paul goes on, priscilla and Aquila mentor that young man, apollos, and they go on. Next time we find them they're in Rome and they are hosting a house in Rome, but that's not where the story ends. They then get themselves back out on the mission field and they're helping young Timothy. You see that trail of anywhere Jesus led them. And it's not okay. Aquila you go, I'm gonna stay home. These two were up for the adventure everywhere they went.
Speaker 1:They were going together.
Speaker 2:They were having one mind and body. Just some encouragements. I hope that those of you out there, if you're married, have a marriage time and just let me ask you guys this, and you asked this in your marriage are we joining God where he's already at work? That's what this couple did. Is they just joined God? And if God, if you're starting a church, we wanna be part of it. If you're mentoring a young man, we wanna be part of it.
Speaker 2:I also wanna ask you sincerely how generous are you to the work of Jesus? Do you tithe and have you outgrown the tithe? Aquila and Priscilla didn't just tithe, they gave their house to the Lord.
Speaker 1:They gave their lives to the Lord as a grace abounds, all the more. That's right.
Speaker 2:That's right. So I just hope you're giving deeply to the work of Jesus and then I would hope you would just ask yourselves this question are we investing in the next generation, not just are we invested in our marriage? You hear a lot about that. Look, I want you to go on date nights. I want you to look deeply in each other's eyes. I want you to go on carriage rides, but I also want you to do the bigger, more eternal work of discipling young people in the faith. I would also ask are you guys in the word together? Get that marriage Bible, get in there, start digging on into there. If you're a young Christian, I would encourage you find some older Christians. You need those old Christians. I said this Sunday we changed the entire model we have for discipleship in our church. We don't do Sunday school where we take all the young people and put them in one room and all the other. We have a women's ministry where a whole bunch of Bible studies all over the place that are different ages together.
Speaker 2:Cause you need those old people in your life. I don't need all the wisdom in one room and all the energy in the other room, same with the immense ministry and with the public's ministry as well, so we've really worked to bring together a whole church as discipleship, instead of discipling each group individually.
Speaker 1:I would also argue we probably have a broader young adults like age range than most churches probably have cause. I think it goes up to 32. But at the same time it's like now you get people that are relatively experienced in their marriage. You might have people that are been married five, six, seven, eight years, and then now you've got but you've also got 18 year olds, 19 year olds that are just joining. Usually just joining the Marine Corps is what brings them here.
Speaker 2:There are people that got married at 17. You know, and then they walked up on Baptist, their first church, out of the youth group, exactly.
Speaker 1:And now they get to be mentored by still young adults. It's not the oldest folks in the church, but it's still very experienced couples and people that can work with them. Well, we also have a couples group and and the age range and couples group is awesome too.
Speaker 3:And the amount of time they've been married as well varies.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah, but I think that that closes out the teaching portion right, it does. Okay, so I've got, and I have my final points. This is what I was writing down, so I Furiously, yeah, furiously writing down Cause I realized that I joked.
Speaker 1:So I joked early in the earlier in the podcast about Trisha Ryan's wife and Rebecca pastors late wife, about them realizing that like immediately that they had met the man that they were going to marry and they had like kind of brought that up in conversation to them or at least or told them later that that had happened.
Speaker 1:But basically I was like, wait a minute. I think it was revealed to me as well because pretty early on to our friendship I was calling you wife material and I had made that judgment in my head, checked that box and filed it away. But I'm like, but why was that? Like cause I've never done that with any other person besides you. And so it seems like to me now that I'm thinking back on all those years, it's like I met you and I realized then that I had met the woman that I was going to marry, or at least the woman that I was going to try to marry, all right, someone that I believe could be my wife. But at the same time I was so broken at that time that I took that revelation that was given to me and I placed it on a shelf and I was like all right, Not yet.
Speaker 1:I'm going to pursue all of this other stuff first, and that's absolutely bonkers to me now that I'm thinking about it.
Speaker 2:When I need a wife, she's over there.
Speaker 1:Exactly. I'm like all right, well, I met the woman I'm going to marry, thank God for that. And now I'm going to just be stupid for and waste a bunch of time where I could have just been developing that. So I guess I thank you, god, for not taking her away from me, because here we are now. It's awesome. So that's kind of my closing point there that it was also revealed to me right when we met that you would be the woman that I would marry one day. Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 2:She's just glowing. You can't see her, but she's just glowing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that's all I've got Selena, you have anything?
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I just wanted to thank you, pastor, for discipling us, since we've been here since day one, and thank you, ryan, for your listening Hopefully you're listening for just continuing to mentor us, and that's been a huge blessing on our marriage.
Speaker 2:That touches me, to have people that want to be discipled is a blessing to me, because the Bible describes it like clay.
Speaker 2:You were clay that God could use, and so I know that there was some breaking. But I also saw you. You got committed to counseling and that was healthy. You got committed to your church, and that was healthy. And you pushed through. And it's not been perfect. It wasn't always easy. You pushed through. Those days you didn't want to get out of bed and you made serving. You made your church better, you served together. But out of that I just see God building your marriage so, so strong.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I also want to say I appreciate kind of just who you've been as a man and as a father and as a husband over the time that we've been here and over this journey of your wife getting sick and then ultimately passing away.
Speaker 1:It actually reminded me, while Selena was talking of one of the ladies in the church after the worship night, was telling me in a couple of other worship night Actually I think it was just me and maybe Ben, but she was saying that she had fallen away from her faith and she had stopped going to church but because of what happened in her marriage and she thought that she could never love God again because of what had happened in her marriage and all that stuff. And it was actually her watching you go through everything that you went through with Rebecca over the last couple of years and then your journey and your growth through that and continuing to pursue God and love God and teach and mentor couples and lead this church through that. That helped her see that, okay, god's much bigger than what I'm going through right now and it gave her the right perspective and now she's serving more in the church again.
Speaker 2:I think one of the blessings that Rebecca gave me was that we shared together this ministry, and so when life got hard, I didn't have to suddenly develop a relationship with God. She and I had already been walking toward God. So I had a relationship with God, I had a ministry, I had a, and that wasn't my ministry, that was our ministry. She had poured into it as much as I had, and so I just kept walking the direction she and I had already been going, and it gave me not just stability in that season, it gives me strength to follow the Lord.
Speaker 1:I think with that we'll close out here. This has been an awesome episode and we've got a couple more for you in our story behind the story series of Pastor David Squires. So thank you so much for tuning in to this week's episode of Real Bible Stories and we'll see you next week.
Speaker 3:Thank you for tuning in to Real Bible Stories. If you enjoyed this podcast, be sure to leave a review, share and subscribe to be notified each week when we upload new episodes. Real Bible Stories is produced in partnership with Palm's Church in 29 Palms, california. If you would like more information or want to check out archive sermons and Bible studies, please check out the church website at palmsbaptistchurchcom, or check them out on Facebook, instagram or YouTube. Real Bible Stories can be found wherever podcasts are found. Thank you again and we will see you next week.