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Hello, everybody. My name is Colin, a member of Lithium Ministries. We're going to be doing

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the third podcast today. For today's episode, I wanted to touch on the topic of marriage.

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There's a lot of what I feel are misunderstandings and misconceptions of marriage

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in the theological sense. And I just wanted to touch on a few things here.

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Like the previous podcast, and honestly, most of the podcasts going here and out,

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a lot more could be said than what I'm going to touch on today.

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But I found three verses that I wanted to touch on.

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Feathers are probably going to be ruffled today.

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Some very, again, some misconceptions about marriage. People get pretty worked up about

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some of the things the Bible has to say about marriage. So I'm going to, like always,

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we're going to be providing verses and where you can find them in Scripture.

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Feel free to find them yourselves. If you are offended by this, that is not our intention,

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obviously, but I feel like this is very important for people to understand

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that what the Bible has to say about marriage and not what the spirit of the world has to say.

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Like always, we're going to be reading from the King James Version of the Bible.

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We might change this up in the next podcast. I was looking for some verses and

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some of the wording I might need to reword a little bit for people to understand.

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So we're still thinking about that. But for right now, it can be King James Version of the Bible

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and as always, I'll talk about them after the verse is read so we can get a good understanding of it.

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Okay. Starting with Proverbs 18 verse 22.

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Who so findeth a wife, findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favor of the Lord.

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So immediately we have this imagery of marriage being an actual theological virtue.

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I think a very popular understanding of marriage and really just any

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sort of being or living with someone that you love nowadays is that it's kind of your own thing.

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I feel like a lot of people, that's their understanding of it.

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If you want to live with someone you love, what's the big deal? You know, you heard this a lot.

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We hear a lot of people say, oh, we're practically married.

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And even some people listen to the podcast right now, you may even be in this very scenario.

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It is a very common thing nowadays.

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The thing people very often forget is the word practically in that sentence.

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You are practically married, you are almost married, you're basically married, but you're not though.

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Marriage is something that's done in a church, done in front of a priest,

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it's a theological virtue where God actually enters your union, wills the good of this union.

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And again, a lot of people will just think of it, oh, what's the big deal?

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You just get this piece of paper from the government.

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Don't get me wrong, I totally see where that comes from.

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It does seem a little silly when you put it that way, but I think people are really missing out

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on that theological virtue of what marriage is.

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It's not just two people just kind of chilling with each other,

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it's not just two people just kind of having a good time.

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It's not just two people just kind of chilling with each other in the same dwelling.

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Again, God actually enters that union, God wills the good of this union that becomes marriage.

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So I just wanted to talk about that.

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Again, like the other podcasts, we're probably going to jump back to this verse, I read the other ones.

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We're going on to the next verse though. I've got 2 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 14.

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Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers?

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For what fellowship hath righteousness and unrighteousness?

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And what communion hath light with darkness?

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Now this was not this exact verse, but the idea it is portraying is something I heard a lot as a kid,

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where if you're going to date someone, maybe the guy, obviously a girl,

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but if you're a girl, obviously looking for a guy.

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Do you want to date someone who is a believer in Christ?

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And that was just something I heard a lot growing up and I just thought it was just common sense.

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It was very shocking as I got into my high school years to find that not everyone,

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actually very few people held this understanding actually. Once again,

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you will hear this a lot in our modern culture.

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People will think, oh what's the big deal if someone doesn't share your beliefs,

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share your value systems, share your political opinion, share, you know,

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who cares? You could be the most polarizing people in the world and what does it matter?

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And there's a little bit of truth there with a lot of misconceptions. There actually is a kernel of

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truth. You obviously don't need to be the same person to get married. That's not even what

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marriage is. It's not the purpose of marriage. You're not joining with someone that is you.

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You are joining with someone that couples to you. You are joining with someone that

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where you benefit each other. You're not marrying yourself if you did need to,

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but any purpose of marriage obviously. You are joined with someone that betters you and where

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you better them. So going back to the verse again, we're talking specifically with theological

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virtues, with belief in Christ, which us Christians believe that that is the most important

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thing that we can believe or hold to. Obviously you have political opinions and hobbies and past

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times whatsoever. Those can obviously have some difference. One person plays tennis and one plays

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baseball. You know, what is that going to affect your marriage for? But belief in Christ, that is,

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again, I always assumed this was common sense. But

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with, again, I think it was a lot of misnomers in the modern age. People just kind of lose sight of

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that. That belief in Christ is our identities. Christians, we're not, you know, we may say we're

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going back to sports, that we're a baseball player, we're a tennis player, we are x, y, z.

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And in those scenarios, I'm not saying you're a bad person for saying you're that in that scenario,

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but remember, ultimately we're Christians. We're children of God, children of Christ.

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And I think it's very easy to lose sight of that in the modern age. And then obviously the topics

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on marriage, sorry, I can't remember, but I think it's very easy to lose sight of that in the modern

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age. Sorry, I kind of went on a tangent there, bringing this back to marriage. If what you are

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is a child of God, child of Christ, Christian, and you are conjoined, sorry, not conjoined,

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isn't the right word, joining with someone, marrying them, this union, this marriage that

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God enters into, and you're not married to someone who believes in God, believes in Christ,

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we call this the Christian, holds any of the virtues of Christianity.

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Someone argued it's not even a marriage. I'm not going to go quite that far. That's a very

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different discussion. But what are you left with in your marriage, truly? Just someone that you

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enjoy hanging out with? Let's even say you love them. Where do you go with that? And especially

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if you bring children in the mix, this gets very, very complicated and very ugly, very fast.

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And I think even we could have done an individual podcast on just the idea of

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is it okay to marry someone who's not a Christian? So if we get some feedback on that,

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if people want me to elaborate, we'll do that. But for now, staying on these three verses,

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topic of marriage, we can move on to this last verse. This was going to ruffle some feathers,

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like I said at the beginning, so bear with me. Again, I'm sorry if I offended anyone here. This

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is not my intention, but I think this is very important for us to talk about. So moving on to

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Mark 10 verses 9, what therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.

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So the reason I believe this verse is going to ruffle some feathers, this has to touch on divorce.

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And there's a very big argument, or I guess not argument, but disagreement discussion

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going on between Christians about if divorce is valid or not. If the, not so much like individual

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people's divorces, but just the idea of divorce, is that a real thing? And Mark 10 verses 9,

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and Mark 10 verses 9 right here would imply no, you can't be divorced, but God has joined this union.

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And what a lot of people like to put out there as a rebuttal to this is there's different verses all

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throughout the gospels, Matthew and Mark, I think even somewhere in Luke, it even gets mentioned that

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marriage is, sorry let me pull up the actual verse real quick, I'm gonna get this right.

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But the, while I'm looking for this, let me give you the gist. It basically says that divorce

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and remarriage is a sexual sin unless sexual immorality was in the marriage. And

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a lot of people bring that up as a rebuttal to this, saying that divorce actually is valid if

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per se your spouse cheats on you. Then it's getting divorced and it's okay to get remarried.

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This is actually a translation error. The original Hebrew and

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I think it was Aramaic was the other gospel original,

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language, it doesn't actually mean sexual idolatry or what we would now call cheating or

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in the modern day. It actually has to more touch on the idea of where you weren't actually

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serious in the commitment of the marriage when the marriage happened. And once again,

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this could be his own podcast on this entire idea. So again, if we have some feedback, we want us to

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do his own podcast on this idea of divorce. Give us some feedback and I can elaborate on that.

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Sorry, I kind of lost my train of thought there. But I'm just gonna go ahead and

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read the verse again and kind of spark up this train of thought again. Again, Mark chapter 10

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verses 9, what therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.

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Just going back to that idea of marriage being a theological virtue in itself,

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this union that God actually joins together and wills the good of.

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Just think about that for a moment. God has created this marriage and

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what is just gonna get, this is gonna disappear. That's really what divorce is, what people will

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argue it is. That this was once a good thing, but now it's not. It's not a good thing.

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I truly can't understand how you can wrap your head around that. And once again,

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this is gonna ruffle some feathers. I know people have gotten divorced, people in my family have

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gotten divorced. I know that I'm making it sound a lot more straightforward than it is.

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I know that I'm making it sound a lot more straightforward than it is. I know that I'm

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making it sound a lot more straightforward than it is. I know there can be violence in marriage and

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that people can wonder how can you expect victims of this violence to stay married to this person.

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And once again, I'm not gonna, regardless of feedback, we might just do a podcast on divorce

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because now I'm going to start rambling on this. So I guess stay tuned. Just real quick,

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I don't leave everyone on a cliffhanger. Just want to mention, just like how I'm making it sound much

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more simple than it is, it's obviously not this simple. And the same way that the answer isn't

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just, oh, tough it out. It's a very simple answer. And that's not even the correct answer all the

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time. I'm not going to argue that there's no new ones. I'm not going to even argue that

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if there's violence going on, that is separation, not a permanent separation, but

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a separation for safety, especially if there's kids involved. Again, a lot of these new ones

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going on, that can never be inappropriate. But once again, just coming back to the idea of divorce,

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that is not just a physical thing that happens. Once again, this is a moral, a spiritual,

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a theological thing that God has joined and now is just being ripped apart.

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So I'm going to move on now. Once again, I'll probably just make another podcast.

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Once again, I'm not trying to hurt anyone's feelings here. And I know this is a very

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sensitive issue for a lot of people. But I think it's very important that we do

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reconcile with the idea of the Bible actually not

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condoning marriage, or sorry, not marriage, divorce. Marriage is a very sacred thing in the Bible.

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And I think it's important that we recognize that.

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So once again, with the Mark 10, 9 verse, I didn't only want to touch on divorce, even though that

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would seem to be the primary thing this verse is talking about. I also wanted to touch on the idea

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of just one more misconception that the modern age has about marriage. Once again, I think everyone's

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heard this before, some form or another, but people argue that the marriage is just between

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two people. That's all it is. And like I'd have been mentioning throughout this podcast,

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God is obviously involved in marriage. I think every Christian would

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agree with that. I think a lot of you didn't. Obviously, a priest or pastor is involved.

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They're the one actually ordaining the marriage. But the part I wanted to really talk about was the

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idea of the community. Marriage isn't just between a man and a woman, and then yes, God and the

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pastor, but where they got in the past, sorry, they got God and the pastor is just kind of

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there for the moment. I don't agree with that. I think it's a lot of what I've been saying,

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I don't agree with that. I think it's a lot of what a lot of people will think of with marriage.

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Obviously, God stays in that marriage throughout the end of time, truly.

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It's not like you die and go to heaven and like this is broken apart. You are joined forever.

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A priest or pastor, hopefully when you are married, you're active in your church's community.

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I know that is not always necessarily the case, but I think it's a very good thing if you're

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married to be active in, even if you've moved away, not that church specifically, but in the church,

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active in the community is a good thing. But also your family, going back to the community,

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there's a reason why in marriage or the marriage ceremony,

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you always see people make fun of this in movies, but people will ask if anyone objects to this

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marriage, speak now or hold your peace. Some variation of that is usually said during a

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marriage and people always make fun of it in shows and movies and whatnot, but there's actually

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significance to that. This marriage actually impacts the world. It is not just these two people

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and their religion that is involved in the marriage. Old weddings, especially a lot of

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places in Europe, the entire town would come to this wedding and there would be a celebration

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for days on end of when people would get married. The families would be there. They've come from

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out of town here. Everybody would come to this marriage. It was a very important deal, very

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impactful to the community. Another family is being created of the community and that is a

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beautiful thing and that deserves celebration. I just wanted to mention that real quick because,

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again, I think people misunderstand the idea of marriage and where it's just the two people

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involved. That's not how it works. We're going to wrap up the podcast here. Sorry if I still

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sound sick or my voice is raspy if I'm out of breath. I'm still getting over something. It's

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been a long week too, so I apologize if I sound exhausted. I talked to Joseph, the leader of

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the lithium industries. I think we are going to start putting the email in the description or

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somehow the email is getting out there. If you have feedback for us, once again, we might change

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the version of the Bible we're reading from just so that the wording can be a little more

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straightforward. Any feedback on the podcast, any ideas you would like me to elaborate on or include

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in a podcast, that is greatly appreciated. I think that's all the updates we have for now.

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Once again, feedback is very much appreciated. Have a very blessed day, guys.