PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 261: It’s Time to Elevate Home and Family, Part 4
LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 261: It’s Time to Elevate Home and Family, Part 4
Colin is with me again today, this time elevating the roles of husband and wife. We also share 16 character qualities a young woman should look for in the man she would like to marry. Young people, please listen in!
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hi there to everyone! Here we are again, my husband, Colin, and myself, continuing to talk to you about elevating the home and the family. Today we’d like to talk about elevating marriage, elevating the roles of the husband and the wife.
I believe it’s time for us to also elevate these roles. They’ve become inferior. Many of us just take them for granted. When we take something for granted, we’re not really elevating it, are we? I believe it’s time for us to also put honor on the husband’s role and also to put honor upon the wife’s role, because both are so important. God planned for male and female. He planned for father and mother. He planned for husband and wife. It’s a togetherness.
We can’t do it on our own. Well, we do. There are so many single moms today. There are even single dads. But they are struggling. They’re not meant to be doing it on their own. No, we need one another. This is God’s intention. Every child, every child needs a father. Every child needs a mother. I think we should talk about these roles today.
Colin: Yes, yes, we do, because as we all know, there have been many Christian marriages that have been divorced. It’s very, very, very hurtful to the next generation, hurtful to one another. It’s also very damaging to the next generation. I believe there is an answer in Christ for every marriage.
I think that those who are going to get married need to really make sure they’re marrying somebody who is really surrendered. Both the wife and the husband-to-be are to be fully committed to Jesus Christ. No half-heartedness. This needs to be something in both cases, both the wife and the husband, especially in today’s world, where there is so much separation, so much divorce.
We have to deal with it all the time, as pastors, and people who speak to people that are married. It’s something that’s so very, very hard for children. Children suffer enormously, much more than most people realize. Enormously. They’ve been jilted by it. They’re diseased by it, almost, having had parents that have separated or divorced one another.
Nancy: Oh, yes, Darling. You were just saying how it is so important to marry the right man. Just the other day, I was having my time with the Lord. I don’t know what I was thinking about, but I began to write down some things that I think are important for young people to look for in a husband.
I’ve just turned over to them now. I’ll read them to you.
I hope young people are listening! Otherwise, mothers, you can share this with your daughters. As yet, I haven’t written something about what guys should look for in a wife. I’ll have to get on to that.
Colin: You can mention it to their sons as well.
Nancy: Well, yes, that’s right. Anyway, what to find in a husband.
No. 1: A MAN WHO IS A VIRGIN
Hopefully he will be a virgin. In the Bible, it always speaks about virgins getting married; the young virgins and the young men virgins. Well, today, sadly, in this terribly fornicating world, sometimes there can be a man who was in the world and has come to Christ, and is now truly repentant and walking in holiness. You cannot completely wipe out the fact that unless he’s a virgin, I cannot marry him. But, you had better, better know that he is. You can see, and not just you can see, but your parents.
Colin: Especially knowing that he’s totally liberated and away from pornography.
Nancy: Absolutely. And is totally a man who is now walking in true holiness.
No. 2: A MAN WHO LOVES GOD’S WORD
And will bathe you in it. In the Bible, in Ephesians 5, that’s the chapter about marriage. Ephesians 5:25-26: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word.”
That is a very beautiful thing for a husband to do when he is married, to wash his wife with the Word. That means he’s going to read the Word to her, or with her, each day. If you’re looking at a guy, and he doesn’t even read the Word, how is he ever going to do that? Find a man who loves God’s Word! That’s not so easy to do today. But look for that. Pray that God will give you a man who loves His Word.
Colin: I do believe there are men out there . . .
Nancy: Oh yes, there are!
Colin: That they’re there. They’re there. God’s got somebody for you all.
Nancy: Don’t go for anyone else. I said, “who will bathe you in it.” I didn’t really realize this until I was reading another translation the other day. It said the word “bathe.” I said, “Oh, that’s interesting,” so I looked it up. Actually, in the Greek, that is what it really means. It doesn’t mean to just have a little wash. It means “to totally bathe.” It’s like a baptism. You go into the water. It’s a bathing in the Word. You’ve got to find a guy who will be wanting to bathe you in the Word. Wow! That’s the kind of husband to find.
No. 3: A MAN WHO LOVES TO PRAY
And who will pray with you throughout your marriage. It is so sad that there are many marriages where they don’t even pray together! Wow! I love that Scripture in Matthew 18:19 where it says: “If two of you shall agree on earth, as touching anything, it shall be done by My Father which is in heaven.”
If two of you . . . two . . . that’s a wonderful Scripture, tailor-made for marriage. It can be any two people who agree. When two people agree together there is power in prayer. But just think about it. You get married and there are two of you. Wow! It’s the most wonderful thing.
I thought about that when I went into marriage. I was so blessed because my husband was a man who loved to pray. Our whole courtship was in prayer meetings! We could be walking along, talking about something, and he’d say, “Well, let’s pray about it.” I knew that I was marrying a man of prayer. Still to this day, he is a man of prayer. I think his favorite place to be is in a prayer meeting!
But it’s a wonderful promise, because you have the two of you. That’s what God does when He brings you together as man and wife. There are two of you, although actually you become one. But there are two, and if you agree, you can have your answer to your prayers. What a wonderful thing!
Husbands and wives should be praying for their children. If they don’t pray for them, who else is going to? Maybe, as I’m talking now, maybe your husband doesn’t pray with you. I know that grieves you. But why don’t you ask him? Don’t just tell him he should be praying with you, because then that will just get his hackles up.
But just at the right time, you could ask him, and say, “Darling, I am concerned about certain things with the children. Would you please pray with me about them?” When you ask, he’s not going to say no. Then you could say, “Well, when do you think would be the best time? Do you think we should pray together in the morning? Or pray at night? You tell me the time. But it will be so good if we could do that.” It would be wonderful if you could start to do that in your own marriage.
Colin: May I interject there, because I think that many men, perhaps, because they’re new in marriage, they can develop this type of thing through a wife that will encourage them in that kind of thing. I think it’s important that the wife is a helpmeet to the husband, to help him to be developed in these kinds of areas, too. She will help him in these kinds of ways.
Many men just need to be nudged by their wives, and not dictated to, or forced to by their wives. Men will resist that, for sure. But nevertheless, encouragement to come into that is huge, I think, I think it’s very, very good to sweetly and lovingly encourage their husbands to join them to pray for their family, especially for their family.
Nancy:
No. 4: A MAN WHO LOVES TO BLESS
A wonderful part of our marriage is our Shabbat meal. I did a whole podcast on that, which you can listen to if you haven’t already. That is where the husband blesses his wife. Then he blesses the children. That is such a beautiful thing. Of course, he doesn’t have to wait until Shabbat. He can be doing that all the time. But you need to see these qualities in this man you are looking for before you marry him.
No. 5: A MAN OF STRONG CHARACTER
Who holds fast to his convictions. He is not just swayed by any Tom, Dick, and Harry, saying one thing or saying another.
No. 6: A MAN WHO IS FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT OF GOD
And is open to the moving of the Holy Spirit.
No. 7: A MAN WHO IS A HARD WORKER, NOT A SHIRKER
Oh, that is important! Just look for a man who knows how to work hard. He doesn’t do things half-heartedly. No, he gets “stuck in.” Also, he does it properly. He finishes the job. He doesn’t leave it half done. Look for a guy like that.
Colin: Can I interrupt on that one? Yes, I know this is primarily going across to women, so I’m not saying so much here today, because this podcast primarily goes out to womenfolk, so I give my wife all the time that she needs.
But I have to admit that even as a man, I don’t like being around men who really do not know how to work, or don’t have any impetus to work, or no impetus or willingness to without even having to be asked to do things. And when they do something, to do it with . . . I think it’s good for women to take note of this too, for they also need to have that kind of a spirit, but to do things with flair.
To do things with style and to jump to it. Don’t drag your feet, saying “I’m doing it,” but it’s so casual. It’s so low-key. A certain amount of oomph and exuberance is really to be looked to. I think it’s to be on it.
Nancy: Yes!
No. 8: A MAN WHO BELIEVES IN PROVIDING FOR HIS FAMILY
That he will be prepared to provide so you can stay home and care for your children. It’s so sad. There are many young men today who don’t have that conviction, and they expect their wife to go out to work.
No, that is not the wife’s responsibility. No, it is the responsibility of the man to provide for his wife and the home so the mother can stay in her nest to care for her children. Look for a man who has that conviction. If he doesn’t, well, you won’t want to marry that man.
No. 9: A MAN WHO LOVES CHILDREN
And who will embrace every child that God will give in your marriage, a man who will not reject children. That is so important to find that out before you get married. That this is a man who has a heart for children. He’s open to embracing all the children that God has for you in your marriage.
There are so many mothers who are heartbroken because their husband does not want any more children. That is a very sad thing, because God has created the womb to cry out for children. In Proverbs 30:15, 16 it says there are four things that never say it is enough, that are never satisfied. One is the barren womb. God has put that cry within the womb to long for children. A husband who does not understand that is actually being very cruel to his wife, because he’s denying her that very instinct that God has put within her. So, that’s an important thing to check out.
No. 10: A MAN WHO WILL NOT COMPROMISE ON ANY LEVEL OF EVIL
(I can’t even read what I’ve written here, because I was just writing it down quickly as I was thinking.) Oh yes, he will not watch movies that are slightly tainted or have immorality in them. He will have high standards.
So many Christian young people today watch anything. They watch stuff with immorality in it. This is the thing. It’s not enough . . . there was a time when you . . . I remember when growing up . . . “OK, never marry a non-Christian. Make sure you marry a Christian.”
But today, that is not enough, because there are so many Christians who may be Christian by name, but they are not walking in holiness. They really are just living like the secular world. It’s not enough to marry a man who says he is a Christian. You have got to look for these qualities that I am giving you today. Watch for that. This guy you’re interested in, he’s just having to watch any movie. Immorality, fornication comes up. He doesn’t even turn a hair. Well, you’re not going to marry that guy.
No. 11: A MAN WHO IS GENEROUS
In Psalm 112, there’s a wonderful passage about men. Let me read it to you. “Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord.” You’re going to marry a man who fears the Lord. “And delights greatly in his commandments. His seed shall be mighty upon the earth. The generation of the upright shall be blessed.” Then it goes on to say: “He is full of compassion. A good man showeth favor and lendeth. He will guide his affairs with discretion.” He is a generous man, full of compassion. So, you look out for those qualities, too.
No. 12: A MAN WHO DOES NOT WATCH PORNOGRPAHY
no pornography. Sometimes a person can have delved into it a little, but you would have to know that he was totally and absolutely delivered from this evil thing, and totally free, and walking in holiness. Pornography is one of the biggest things that is destroying marriages today. It is absolutely an abomination. Don’t get involved with any young man who is into that.
No. 13: A MAN WHO IS ALWAYS WILLING TO HELP OTHERS
He is not always thinking of himself. It’s so wonderful, isn’t it, to see a young man who doesn’t just think of himself. He sees someone who has a need and just goes to help them. Oh, that’s a beautiful quality to look for.
No. 14: A MAN WHO IS COMMITTED TO THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE SAINTS
That means he is a regular attender at church. He doesn’t go sometimes, or when he feels like it, or something happens. “Oh no, can’t go today.” No! You find a young man who is committed to fellowshipping with the people of God, because that’s what the Word says. Hebrews 10:25: “Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is. But so much the more, as you see the day approaching.”
You need to see that in your young man now, because when children come along, you’ll want to take your children to church. This is a normal habit for a God-fearing person. The Bible talks about Jesus who went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, “as was His habit.” It had been his habit from a child. The family went to the synagogue. It was their habit, so it was still His habit. It should be something that is a habit in a young man’s life so it will continue to be a habit as children come along and you continue that as a family.
No. 15: A MAN THAT BELIEVES IN HOMESCHOOLING
And is prepared for his wife to homeschool the children, because we are living in a day now . . . this wasn’t always the case. Many, many years ago, children could go to school, and they would be pretty fine. Today they cannot. It is a place of total brainwashing in humanism, progressivism, and alternative lifestyles, and homosexuality, and transgenderism. It is no place for a child of God.
So, those are just a few things I wrote down. I didn’t mean to share them today.
Colin: They’re very good. They’re very, very good.
Nancy: I think they are important.
Colin: I want to add one more. One more.
Nancy: Yes! Yes!
Colin: Hopefully this man that you’re interested in is not a womanizer.
Nancy: Oh, I meant to write that one down on my list.
No. 16: A MAN THAT IS A “ONE-WOMAN MAN”
Colin: Because a womanizer is . . . You want a man that is a ONE-WOMAN MAN.
Nancy: Yes! A one-woman man!
Colin: Who’s got his affections for his wife and not somebody else. He’s always wanting to talk to his wife. It’s a sad thing when men want to talk to other women and not talk to their wives. This is very, very sad. I think it would be tortuous for a woman to have to put up with that kind of thing.
Nancy: Yes.
Colin: But the wife also, she must not be a flirting woman. I think that’s very, very important, that you have your eyes for one another. You’re forsaking all others, as the Scriptures say, as the vows say. You only be for yourselves, to be together as a married couple. All that has to change. But I think it has to change before you get married, if I do say so.
Nancy: So, that was No. 16. That’s good. Thank you, Darling. Overall that, over those points that I have given you, of course, you will fall in love! That’s what you’ve got to watch, that you don’t see these qualities, well, you’ve got to steel yourself, and don’t let yourself fall in love.
But there is something about falling in love. Just that flame that ignites. Think of all the men in the world. You’re not going to fall in love with them all. But there’s one that you’re just drawn to. That’s such a beautiful thing.
Colin: In Ephesians, it speaks about the man who should love his wife as Christ loves the church and lays down his life for the church. Marriage is a laying down of one’s life. This whole thing that so many are going through these days, and we’re dealing with it with some people right now. That is, they’re married, but they want to have their own time out, and they want to do their own thing, and they’re not being sacrificial towards each other, in laying down. You see, the man is to lay down his life for his wife as Christ laid down His life for the church. It’s of ultimate importance.
THE EXCLUSIVITY OF MARRIAGE
Nancy: I was just going to pop in there. Talking of that, I do believe myself, I am a great believer in the exclusivity of marriage. I believe that when we become married, we have an exclusive relationship.
I think it is sad that there are some wives, and maybe husbands, who think that they can go out and maybe have a cup of coffee in friendship with another friend of the opposite sex when they’re married. I don’t believe that at all. I don’t believe that at all. I believe that when we become married, we become one. Our relationship is exclusive.
Now that doesn’t mean to say we don’t have friends. Colin and I have so many friends that we enjoy together as couples. We meet with them. We have them in our home as couples, and as families. We enjoy so many wonderful friendships.
But I would never, in my wildest dreams, go out and have a meal, or a cup of coffee with the husband of one of those wives! Colin would never even think . . . I couldn’t even imagine him going out with one of the wives on their own! That’s the thing. We don’t do that, because our relationship is exclusive. It’s a togetherness. It’s a oneness. I think that is very important.
That’s important for young people to realize too, that when you get married, you are no longer single! And you’re no longer going to have that friendship with . . . Maybe you’re in a circle of guys and girls, but you’re never going to have a relationship with any of those other guys again on your own. Oh yes, maybe together, when you’re all together, but never on your own. Marriage is exclusive.
Colin: Yes, it is. I think that we need to be very, very careful about these kinds of things that have just been mentioned, especially this last one, about being exclusive for one another. Because there are so many in the Christian church now that will go out and have friends, and speak to somebody else’s husband, or somebody else’s wife over a meal, or going for coffee together, or something like that.
They think, “Well, this is the liberty we have in Christ.” But it’s not. It’s not the separation that God means, because you’ve got your testimony to think about as well. If somebody else is seeing you with somebody else’s husband, or somebody else’s wife, you’ve got them in the car together, or you’re having coffee together somewhere, they’re going to think something’s going on.
This is not going to create a good testimony. We have to preserve the testimony of Christ. We have to do that, especially in this whole thing of marriage split-up, and marriage break-down. All these things really, really count.
Another thing that I guess, if we have time, but I think that every wife needs to have a husband who will eulogize her and compliment her constantly, and bless her, and encourage her. Basically, she needs this every day, because she’s going through the bringing up the little children, and the frustrations of children, and they’re all around her. Immaturity is around her all day. She needs to have a husband who will be constantly complimenting her. I think this is very, very important.
But also, vice versa. The wife needs to compliment her husband. This, I think, is very, very important. As Christ compliments the church, and He does, so should men be very, very complimenting, eulogizing their wives. That’s one great thing about that Shabbat meal table thing. That is only once a week, but it should be something that is done, pretty much a lifestyle, of complimenting your wife. Telling her how beautiful she is and how she looks so nice in that particular dress.
My dear wife asks me constantly, “What do you think about this dress?” “What do you think about these earrings?” “What do you think about this brooch?” Or something else, a necklace that she’s wearing. I will take time to consider it and encourage her in something that will be nice, and she looks beautiful in it.
Nancy: Yes, and talking about elevating marriage, I think we have to come back to the picture, the overall picture that God gives. Because, really, the whole of the Bible is a book about marriage. It’s about God coming. He began the nation of Israel. He became the husband to Israel. We see, as we read the Word that He was like a husband to Israel. But sadly, they were like a fornicating wife! And who were not faithful to Him.
But the whole of the Bible . . . Jesus came then. And He came to get a bride. I don’t think any of us will really, I don’t think we are a real, true picture. When we think of the Scriptures, what does it say? 1 Corinthians 11:3: “But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God.”
Just as marriage is to be the picture of Christ, and His church, we as the church, we as the bride, we are not the head. Christ is the head. Therefore, that picture comes down to marriage where the husband is the head. Now, this is a principle that so many don’t want to even listen to today.
Colin: If we have time, just briefly, it’s very, very important that the man hold that in respect to being loving and kind with his attitudes, and his desire in the role of his wife, so that she is encouraged. This is so, so radically important, I think that dominance from the husband is very hard for a wife to have to deal with. I don’t think she needs that. If a man was to win a woman to be his wife, he would never do it by being dominating over her.
Nancy: Well, dominance always causes resistance, doesn’t it?
Colin: Yes, it does.
Nancy: But you see, headship does not need to be dominant. Headship is leading. Headship is providing. Headship is covering. It’s just watching over his wife and his family.
Colin: Every way that a man would try to woo a woman to marry him should be the way that he keeps his marriage together.
Nancy: That’s true. But, of course, we, as wives, we have to do our part in submitting to that leadership, because even loving leadership, you still have to learn to submit to. We are all fallen creatures. We all have this old nature. We all want our own way.
But we have to learn in marriage to yield to another way of things. Submitting and yielding are very beautiful things. They are not something that is, OK, the woman is put down at all. No, because they bring great blessings. I just want to read the Scriptures because the Scriptures say it better than we do.
Colin: Both roles are very important to God.
Nancy: Exactly!
Colin: They are very important roles. But the female and the male are equally as important to God. He places the final headship with the man. But nevertheless, that man can be that man that God wants him to be by an encouraging wife as well, who will encourage him to be that, to take leadership.
At the same time, it’s so important for men to treat their wives with great respect, because they can’t live without that. Each one is very important. Each, the male and the female, are important to each other. It’s to be taken very, very seriously. What would a home be like if your wife was not there? It would be awful. It would be so horrible to live in that house.
Nancy: Yes. Those are roles that God has ordained. He’s ordained a man to be the head, but the loving head. What does the Bible say in Ephesians 5? He’s to lay down his life for his wife. He’s to treat her as he would look after his own body. He’s to wash her with the water of the Word, actually to bathe her in it. This headship is not so much lording it over his wife, but leading, and caring, and providing, and protecting.
Ephesians 5:22-24: “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church.” See, this is the picture that we are to portray. “And he is the savior of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.”
Ephesians 4:15: “But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.”
Colossians 1:18: “He is the head of the body, the church, that in all things He might have the preeminence.” This is the picture of marriage. Marriage is the picture of Christ and the church.
But one little thing I must share as we’re getting to the end. So many women hate the thought of submission. They don’t even like the word. I don’t know why, because submission was so much part of Jesus Who is ultimately King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, and yet He was prepared to submit to His Father. To submit to the cross. To submit to death. To submit to blood. To submit to taking upon Him the sin of the world. He submitted to that.
But then, of course, the next verse says: “Wherefore God hath highly exalted Him and given Him a Name which is above every name.” Submission is not something that ends in nothing. No, submission brings great blessing and glory.
Colin: Can I say something there? Because once I was asked to take a wedding. Just at that point, before the wedding began, she came, and she wanted the vows altered. Nothing was to be said of submission. I almost felt like saying, “Get somebody else to marry you,” but I went ahead and put the submission thing in.
Nancy: [laughter] Yes. But this word, “submission,” is the word in the Greek, hupotasso.
Colin: Her husband should also say, “Submit yourselves one to another,” so there is submission on both sides as well.
Nancy: Yes. And just as we close, a beautiful little point. Hupotasso. That has the meaning of “submission” in Greek.
It means two words, hupo, which means “to come under.” Well, we don’t like that, do we?
And then tasso, “to set in order.” Therefore, it means “to place in an orderly fashion under something.”
But that word, hupo, let me give you a couple of other Scriptures as we close, which I think are so beautiful.
In Luke 13:34, that’s when Jesus was praying over Jerusalem. He said, “Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings.” That’s the word hupo! Under.
We think, “Oh, I don’t want to come under a man!” But here it’s talking about the chickens under the wings of the hen. That’s talking of covering. You see, we come under a covering that protects us and provides for us. It is the most blessed thing to come under that covering! That was the safest place for those little chickens, to be under the hen.
But do you know how it ends? How does that Scripture end? “But they would not.” Isn’t that what many, many wives do? Oh, God wants them to come under that covering of their husbands, because it’s that beautiful picture of coming under Christ, who is our Head. But “No! I am not going to do that!”
Again, in Mark 4:30-32, Jesus was giving this parable about the grain of mustard seed, “which when it is sown in the earth, it is less than all the seeds that be in the earth. But when it is grown, it growth up and becometh greater than all the herbs, and shooteth out great branches, so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it.” Well, is that a horrible thing? No! A glorious thing! All the birds coming and resting under the shadow and the shade of that tree. Another beautiful picture of “under.”
What about when the children of Israel were in the wilderness? The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 10:1 that they came through “under the cloud.” God put a cloud above them every day to protect them from the heat of the sun. All those words are hupo, the same word that’s mentioned in submission. It is such a beautiful word, to come under that covering. But we have gone over our time so will you pray a blessing upon all the marriages and families, Darling?
Colin: We certainly do.
“We bless all those that are hearing about their marriages. We pray that they shall be strong marriages, that they shall bring glory and honor to You. You will keep them strong and steadfast and committed to one another. These beautiful teachings that we’ve been sharing today come from You.
“Lord, all these things bring glory to Your Name, and bring happiness and contentment and joy in families. So, bless these dear ones as they try to seek You and seek Your face, that all this will happen in their lives. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
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Transcribed by Darlene Norris * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.