Welcome to the Mariners Church Life Group Leader podcast. This weekly conversation is designed to equip and resource you to build a healthy life group community that studies God's word, practices spiritual rhythms, and changes the world together. Hello, Life Group leaders. This is John Thomas here with our good friend as always Jeremy Maxfield.
And we are here for week five of our incredible series looking through the book of first Peter. And this week we find ourselves in the middle of a great conversation. I think the title of this upcoming message is Marriage in the Mitzv of Craziness. And there are gonna be just incredible points of conversation for you and your groups this week.
There's also gonna be some moments where this passage presents itself in a beautiful way, but there's also some complexities in that that we're gonna address together here in this podcast to help you navigate this beautiful conversation of how do we outwork God honoring marriages in the middle of difficult times. And so we're excited to have this journey with you this week. And gonna hear now from our good friend Jeremy as we begin to unpack not only the passage, but just also give you guys some great equipping tools to make the most of your life group conversation this week. So why don't we go for it, Jeremy, let's dive straight in.
All right, thanks. Yeah, so this week we wanna help people see that with this hope and hopeless times that healthy marriages and really all of our relationships will see, but marriages in particular can point people to the beauty of a relationship with Christ. And God honoring marriage is a statement of the gospel. And so, but I really wanna encourage people, I know we have all kinds of dynamics represented in our groups, even among our leaders.
And so whether married, divorced, single, whatever life stage you may be in at this point, don't skip over this message. There's great truth, beautiful truth, and hopefully really fruitful conversations for all of us. That's right, and you've probably heard to say a few times on the weekends here at Mariners that we're not skipping of Earth, and our encouragement is to you to not skip a week. And we mean that not only from gathering during the weekends, but also within your life groups, that we want you to dive in to get the most out of this book because we believe that God speaks through every word that no word is wasted.
So whether you find yourself in a married relationship, whether you're single, whatever your status is, there are some great truths, some great principles that can be applicable to all of our relationships. And so, whatever state you find yourself in the encouragement is to dive in. But Jeremy, just right off the bat, there are some difficulties in this passage, if I'm honest, and when we talk about not skipping a verse, I would imagine this would be a week where there might be some verses where it's like, ooh, help me to understand what we mean when the encouragement is to have our wives to submit to their husbands. I mean, there's some languages in here about a week or partner.
I mean, I know that Doug is gonna do it, and did a brilliant job unpacking that for us, but those might be some points that we want to circle back to within our groups. What would you say to some of those kind of words this weekend that could be a little bit of a stumbling block for some of our groups? Yeah, so I would really encourage leaders, because this text is even different from like where Paul talks about marriage. It makes a very clear parallel to the gospel, like in Ephesians 5.
When Peter's talking about marriage here, one thing we want to remember, enter into this very prayerfully as a leader, we pray for the people in your group to kind of hear these words with grace, hear the truth that the Spirit wants to impart to each of us through these conversations. And then remember that these were written in a particular context. And so pay attention to the way things are phrased because we may read some of our own assumptions. Some words may kind of trigger certain people like, I'll submit, like I have this idea of what it means to submit.
Well, 2000 years ago, and consider the context that we're looking at, like pay attention to some of those things. So I mentioned submit already in the very first verse, chapter three, and he says, why submit yourselves to your own husbands? And then he goes on. So one thing to consider there is he talks about to your own husbands.
And so one thing that I think happens a lot with a verse like this is that it gets blown out of proportion that women need to be silent period or submit to men period. But what he's saying is kind of alluding back to what Paul talks about in Ephesians 5, about how the husband-wife relationship is a picture of the gospel and submit like you would to Christ and love, sacrificially like Christ is loved to church. Here he says, wives need to submit to their own husbands. And so while there is kind of this order within the marriage that phrase about own husband, that's a big deal.
He's saying like, why is your job is not to please every man out there, your job is not to let every man out there tell you what to do even within the church, but that within your family, there's an order that's gonna point to the gospel. So pay attention to everything that's being said without getting hung up on a certain word that may offend us based on our own context. Does that make sense? Yeah, that's right.
That's really helpful. That's good for us to know as we navigate this conversation. And you might, as a life group, you might even wanna address some of those things even upfront as you read the passage. And I would put particular emphasis even on verse seven where it says, husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way.
And it goes on to say that you would show them honor as co-ors of the grace of life. Husbands in the same way. So say, hey, everything that I've said in verses one through six, that applies to you as well. That this is about mutual service.
That this is about seeing your relationship as an environment of discipleship for personal growth but also as a blessing for other people. So you're not off the hook here. That this is something that is a mutual relationship of service, of sacrifice and of discipleship. So I love that you're highlighting that for us this week, Jeremy.
Why don't you walk us through just how to make them most of the conversation this week? Yeah, so as you walk through the text this week, pay attention to those things. Remember, again, words like submit, while we have our understanding of what it may mean, like consider this means like to give yourself to, like be committed to one another. Not just, this is not just a word about obedience.
This is, and then he moves into this conversation about jewelry and the way people are to dress. Again, one of the things that happens a lot in conversations about biblical modesty, we talk about modesty in our American context. A lot of times we talk about like, I'm the father of three daughters, right? And they go to school and they've got their like, put your arms down, like your shorts come down far enough, past like fingertips.
And so when we talk about modesty in our culture today, it usually has sexual connotations, or we being like provocative, kind of flaunting our bodies, this and that. Biblically, while there's certainly conversations about like sexual attractiveness and things like that, modesty most of the times when they're talking about it, like here with all the jewelry and it is more about people from all kinds of different socioeconomic backgrounds coming together as the church. So not flaunting your wealth. And so here, again, it's talking about, we're not drawing attention to ourselves and our marriages.
When we gather as the church, we're submitting ourselves one to another, we're treating one another as co-heirs. We're not trying to elevate ourselves in what we wear and how we interact with one another, but in all things, like Christ said, we wanna love God and love others as we would love ourselves. And so constantly I wanna encourage leaders to be drawing attention back to the fact, like what you said, that this is a mutual relationship, that everything we're doing should be considering the other person and how we can bless the other person in a relationship. Right, really good.
And I love the practical tools that you're giving us, not just for this passage, but actually a really helpful tool for how we read all the scripture, that we don't just read it in a vacuum. We don't just read a flat story. We read a scripture that was for a particular audience first. It's also for us.
And so even what is being stated here culturally at the time would have been revolutionary. I mean, are you kidding me? That husbands are instructed to live with honor and grace that in the same way everything that we're asking the wives we're asking you to do, to honor as Christ gave, I mean, this is revolutionary language. And we need to always be reminded of that.
And really what we're getting at here with the thrust of this passage here, it really is, it's all about service. It's all about how do we serve one another in our relationships and how does that showcase the gospel in areas where that is revolutionary, where so often relationships are seen as mechanisms for our own self-interest and our own gain, but actually how do we use our relationships to serve one another in a way that it points to the glory and the goodness of the gospel. And there'll be many of us that have difficult stories with that that will come up in your groups that you'll want to unpack with vulnerability and with honesty. You'll know that this weekend, we have an incredible opportunity for prayer, particularly for those that are at sticking points in their relationships.
We want to be a church that is with you, that prays with you. And then the following weekend on August 14th, for those that are married, we have our next marriage matters. We're dug is gonna be hosting that on campus after the Saturday night service at 5.30. So on the 14th, we want to encourage you as a life group, married life groups come to the 5.30 and say after for a marriage matters with Doug Fields.
We're not a church that just wants to talk about marriage here and there, but this is a major part of who we are because we believe that by doing so, by building strong marriages that we showcase the gospel and not just marriages, but all relationships. John, one thing I want to do, encourage our group leaders, especially if they find that they're kind of getting stuck in the conversation or even if conversation on this text is going really well. So there's in the magazine, which again, I've just loved these magazines that were put together by volunteers, all the artwork and stuff. There's an article on page 102 to 104 where Doug Fields kind of gives us a little devotional thought, but there's some questions at the end that I think can apply to everybody.
And so especially if your group, maybe they apply it to your marriages, absolutely, but I think these are really good questions too. If your group is heavily single, not in a marriage relationship or whatever, listen to these questions that he has at the end of this devotional, is my pace of life really sustainable over a long period of time? That applies to all of us. And then thinking about relationships, do I like the person I'm becoming as a result of my pace?
And then the final question is, in his case, am I giving my wife, Kathy and my family, my best self during this season? So just using that as a guide, like just step back, take inventory of your life, what all you have going on and are those outside pressures, outside expectations about what marriage, about what relationships, about what work should look like? Are those affecting you more than God's word, more than letting the spirit kind of move in through you? And then are you, how is that affecting your relationships, especially those closest family relationships?
So there's just some, again, one more great resource inside this magazine that I wanna remind people of. Now, look at that, thanks for bringing that up. And those things are, they're like dashboard indicators to let us know where we might need to pay attention and be attuned to what the spirit might be drawing us into. So that's really well said.
So great resources for you this weekend, in addition to the hope and hopeless times articles. We have that moment for prayer, a minister this weekend, we've got marriage matters on August 14th. We wanna support you as you lead your groups. And so we're believing again, we're gonna do great things.
And we can't wait to join you with you next week for week six of our series, Hope and hopeless times.