Counseling Series: Marriage and Parenting

I want to bring you back in. I want to ask you one burning question. You're a biologist. I have two biologists here. I have a burning question that has been asked recently. I'm wondering if you can help out with.

I know that this can't be answered by Supreme Court justices. What is a woman?

Oh, you do not want me to go down this road because sex determination and development. I mean, Dr. Jensen is probably more familiar with developmental biology than I am. But that's a really complicated question, especially when you consider the complexities of human biology.

Look, I actually do. I talk in class about sex determination, chromosomal determinants, hormonal determinants, genetic determinants.

What determines sex?

See, there's no short. There is no answer to that question that I could answer in the time that we have tonight.

Really?

It is a really complicated question. It is a really complicated question.

So it's not a question of chromosome X versus Y?

One hundred percent.

No, it's not.

And no. All right.

Ask me the question 12 different ways if you want, but you're going to get the same answer each time.

I don't think it's all that complex. I would answer it very simply. A woman is what God, who created the women, defines it as God. God created or he gets to give the definition. So it's a woman is what God calls a woman.

Apologetics Live and the Rutgers Biology Clip

This is Apologetics Live. To answer your questions, your host, from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport.

We are live, Apologetics Live, here to answer your most challenging questions that you have about God and the Bible. If you think you have a question we just can't possibly answer, or you just have a burning question, you can go to ApologeticsLive .com.

Join us here. Just remember, when you give me some really tough question, just remember that I don't know is a perfectly good answer. You may not find it satisfactory, but it is. I loved that intro that was from a Rutgers biology professor who just threw out centuries of science and even, well, centuries of common sense and decades or hundreds of years of science ever since we knew about an X and Y chromosome.

And we said that was how we determined it. Well, just throw that all out because now we know better. So let me bring in my kind of co-host again is Dan Kraft. How are you, sir?

I don't know. After that intro, if I were not a believer, I would say there is no hope for humanity.

Yeah, it's just amazing. He teaches biology.

Why? You know what my pastor used to say? I think maybe I've said this before, where there's mist in the pulpit, there's fog in the pews. So when you have mist at the lectern, it's no wonder kids are coming out of college not knowing their left hand from their right or their X from their Y.

Yes. Yes.

We should let folks know that Dan has joined the speakers at Striving for Eternity, our newest speaker. What we're doing in this counseling series, we actually started it. I'm glad that Dan's here because we started it because the other two speakers that we have, and many of you are familiar with, Aaron Brewster, and then, well, he's no longer our newest speaker, but Anthony Russo.

Many of you know Anthony Russo if you've been listening to Christian podcast community for long, because you know him from his podcast, Grace and Truth. But so what we, actually it's Grace and Peace, sorry, Grace and Peace radio is his podcast.

So with that, we now have added Dan. So having two of our speakers, Aaron and Anthony, that are both ACBC counselors, we decided to highlight their specialty and do a series for the month of September on counseling issues.

And so Dan is coming in. He's the newest of our speakers. He's the only speaker I know that instead of putting all of the people in the audience to tears, he starts by, you know, his abortion. It was a great, it was a great message, though.

It was a hard message to preach.

And I think it's worth calling out. I am certified in exactly nothing. So I don't know what I'm doing here, but here I am.

I'll tell you, I'm going to tell you, you have some counseling to offer, but we'll get to that. We're going to hold on to that for a moment. So we know that Aaron will come in later after he's done with the class he's teaching.

So let me bring in Mr. Anthony Russo. And you have someone with you.

I do.

And that is your bride, Amy Russo, who is familiar to my audience here because you've been on with me before. We've talked in the past about feminism.

Correct.

And so that was your background.

Before I was saved.

Before you were saved, you were a very, very conservative individual.

Before I was saved? Yeah, not even close. Not even close.

So welcome, Anthony and Amy. Again, keeping with the A's. I so and then I, I'm really excited that the next guests pair of guests have agreed to do this when I first asked, because I'm very privileged and very happy that to have both my pastor and his wife, Pastor Dan and Robin Scogin on.

So and now Pastor Dan and his wife are both ACBC counselors. Amy, you are also an ACBC counselor as well. So it's just Dan and I that are not. What can we say? But I think I think, you know, someone sent this.

Actually, I do need to get to I should have done this before I got brought you guys in. We did get a review for the podcast. Someone sent in a review, a five star review. And this was this was just states.

It's from Leatherneck 7476. They're in the United States and they say brilliantly, brilliantly done. God has gifted this group. I think that I think the episode was last week's. So I think. But so congratulations for that, for you guys doing a great job last week because it wasn't me that they're talking about.

But, Dan, you know, I think the way you and I counsel, we don't have the degrees as an ACBC counselor, but someone had sent this last week. And I think I think I need to play this clip because it would help to show that are the way that I think you and I would counsel is far superior to to the way that, you know, any of these other ACBC counselors may may counsel.

Let's see how this goes, shall we? Here's how Dan and I would counsel. Oh, is that coming through?

Yep.

Oh, yeah.

No audio.

That's what I was asking. So it's no audio.

Let me turn it up.

Just going to have to read lips.

No, no, I have that. I should say, well, while I'm doing that, I should say I thought I had that set, but I will check it. The I do have I did the wrong one. I did make it a little bit quicker so that we can get through the six minute clip.

So here we go.

Dr. Switzer.

Yes.

Come in. I'm just just washing my hands. I'm Catherine Bigman. Janet Carlyle referred me.

Yes.

Yes, that's me. Should I lay down? Oh, no, no, no, we don't. We don't do that anymore. Just just have a seat. And let me tell you a bit about our billing. I charge five dollars for the for the first five minutes and then nothing after that.

That sounds great. Too good to be true, as a matter of fact. Well, I can I can almost guarantee you that that our session won't last for the four or five minutes. Now, we don't do any insurance billing, so you would either have to pay in or by check.

Wow. OK, and I don't make change. All right. And go. Tell me about the problem that you wish to address.

Oh, OK.

Well, I have this fear of being buried alive in a box. Thinking about being buried alive and I begin to panic. Has anyone ever ever tried to to bury you alive in a box? No, no. But truly thinking about it does make my life horrible.

I mean, I can't go through tunnels or be in an elevator or in a house. Anything boxing. So what you're saying is you're you're claustrophobic. Yes. Yes, that's it. All right. Well, let's go. Because I'm I'm going to say two words to you right now.

I want you to listen to them very, very carefully. Then I want you to take them out of the office with you and incorporate them in into your.

Life.

So I write them down. Well, if it makes you comfortable, it's just two words. Most we find most people can can remember that.

OK. You ready? Yes. OK.

You're there. S .T .O .P.

New word.

I .T. So what are you saying? You know, it's funny. I say two simple words and I cannot tell you the amount of people who say exactly the same thing you're saying. I mean, you know, this is not Yiddish, Catherine.

This is English. Stop it. So I should just stop it.

There you go.

I mean, you you don't want to go through life being scared of being buried alive in a box,.

Do you?

I mean, that sounds frightening. I can't. I mean, it's been with me since childhood. No, we don't go there. Just just stop. So I should just stop being afraid of being buried alive in a box. You got it.

Well, it's only been it's only been three minutes, so that will be three dollars. I only have a five. So I don't I don't make change. And I guess I'll take the full five minutes. Fine. All right. Well, what other problems would you would you like to address?

I'm bulimic. I stick my fingers down my throat. But I'm compelled to. My mom used to call me. No, no, no. No, we don't go there. No, we don't go there either. But my horoscope did say. We definitely don't go there.

Stop it.

What else?

Well, I have self-destructive relationships with men. Stop it. You want to be with a man, don't you?

Yes.

Well, then stop it. Don't be such a big baby. I wash my hands a lot. That's all right. I wash my hands all the time. There's a lot of germs on there. Yeah, don't don't don't worry about that. I'm afraid to drive.

Well, stop it. How are you going to get around? Get in the car and drive. You you cook. I don't like this. I don't like this therapy at all. You're just telling me to stop it. And you don't you don't like that?

No, I don't. So you think we're we're moving too fast, isn't it? Yes. Yes, I do. All right. And let me let me give you 10 words that I think will clear everything up for you. Do you want to get a pen and a pencil for this one?

All right. Are you ready? Here are the 10 words.

And there we go. So now, Dan, you're going to have to now explain why I.

When I debated Trump. Go!

Yeah, let's stop that.

Fight for the future.

Yeah, I just saw my life flash before my eyes.

Yeah.

So you'll have to explain why we all chuckled once the rest of you saw that. What did you come in here with your name as?

Oh, yeah. So when I when I initially joined the meeting tonight, my my name was stop it or I'll bury you alive in a box.

And me being the only one to know what I was about to do.

Oh, yeah.

What sent that last week saying that that was their counseling? That's how I think Dan and I obviously would counsel. And I think that's.

Amen. That's just gets right to the point. Yeah, that pretty much like a big baby.

That solves all those counseling problems.

That works really well in marriage, too. When you tell your wife, you know, stop being a big baby. Gets right to the heart of the matter.

Yeah.

For those of you watching, thanks for joining us and have a great week.

Can you spot the certified counselors in this meeting? Oh, all right.

Marriage, Counseling, and the Call to Sanctification

Well, let's let's get into discussing topics that no one ever struggles with, ever has an issue with marriage, the process of getting two sinners together and expecting there to be no problems at all.

So, yeah, I mean, this is when we went through and just remind folks that when we when we did this, when we came up with the topics, I let the four ACBC counselors that, you know, Aaron, Anthony, Dan and Robin to to say, what are the topics that come up a lot and kind of we decided which ones to figure out the order.

And so marriage and parenting came up quite a bit. And so I guess, you know, we talk about marriage nowadays. We have to ask the question to start. What is marriage? Unfortunately, Dan, I think you can cover that one, though.

No, that's a really complicated topic. You can ask that question 12 ways to Sunday, but you're always going to get the same answer. We don't have enough time for that. Well, I was asking you, not our record channeling your previous guest.

It's the two becoming one. It's what God, God joining to two people together to become one. Yeah, I mean, that's a biblical definition.

Well, nowadays, though, we have to be more specific, a biological male to a biological female.

Yes.

You know, so we end up having to do that. I mean, this gets into the thing of and I'll ask this of Pastor Dan, what is the you know, what's God's design for marriage?

Well, it's kind of clearly stated there in Genesis that you're to leave your mother and father cleave to your wife and become one flesh. So that would be those three components, leaving, weaving and cleaving.

I love it right there. I love how every pastor has that that rhyming either alliteration or rhyme.

That's right.

Yeah, from Lafayette, Indiana.

Now, so let me let me ask, I mean, I'll put this one to Robin and you guys, if anyone ends up having something that one that they want to answer, I mean, you can just like raise your hand or just put it in the private chat.

But Robin, why why is it do you think that we have so much struggle within our marriages?

Because we're not following the great commandment in Matthew, chapter 22, love God and love your neighbor, your neighbors, your near one. The closest near one you have is your spouse, your family, those in your sphere of influence.

And we don't esteem others over ourself. We try to protect ourselves. We try to unwittingly look for our best interest. And we are the center of our world instead of God.

Yeah.

And so do you think that. I'm trying to think how to word the question, but there seems to be within our family, we are. We often treat our family a little maybe harsher sometimes than we would our coworkers.

Why do you think that would be?

Because we're with them like getting married is like inviting the Holy Spirit 24 -7 to see you. And the strengths like when Dan and I were dating Bible College, I loved this cold Norwegian and I think he loved my hot Italian personality.

And then we got married and love is blind. And those things that actually drew us together and we found as strengths when we were dating, we found irritating and it was a struggle. It actually was such a struggle that it led us to take biblical counseling courses to help our own marriage first and to then help others.

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, it is kind of hard to counsel others on something that we know we're not strong.

In.

But I think people don't see the log in the spec. They come in for counsel and their problems are real and it's heartbreaking, but they look at the other person's sin as greater than their own. And marriage is an opportunity to examine yourself.

Conflict is an opportunity to examine yourself. Acting right when life is hard, it has benefits for ourselves to grow spiritually, for our family's example, for our community, for our church. They're all part of God's plan.

Yeah. I remember I was at actually Karen University, which is not far from us here. And I was having lunch with Lincoln Duncan and we were talking about marriage and he had a profound thing. He said that marriage is the school for sanctification.

He said, you know, and I said, I just turned to him. I said, so I guess kids are college.

Yeah.

So we're going to go to school and college tonight and do it both. You know, Anthony, as we think about marriage, let's start on the positive. What are some things we are good, like what would be helpful for having a good and thrive marriage?

I mean, how do we, we all want to have a good marriage, you know, a healthy marriage. Uh, however, there's a lot of things that seem to get in the way of that. What are, if we're going to walk into it, right?

Like Robin just said, we walk in it and the love is blind. What kind of things should we be looking to do with ourselves when we come into marriage?

Yeah, that's a, that's a great question. And actually, uh, I'm, I'm going to borrow a lot from a lot of other more knowledgeable people. Um, you know, first of all, scripture, right. It says a quarter of three strands is not easily broken.

So ultimately we want to have a marriage where it's, it's each spouse pursuing the Lord. Uh, so ultimately that also means that we get our own heart right with the Lord. Uh, we got to have the Lord in the marriage.

Um, it's, uh, it's pursuing him individually and then together. Also, I would just add that, um, uh, I know we're going to talk about resources later, but to your question, Ernie Baker's book, Marry Wisely, Marry Well, is a great, great book for, for, for preparing one's heart, uh, for the eventuality of marriage.

You know, he makes a really good point in there that once you've fallen in love with someone, you know, you, you meet them and then you, you fall in love. It's almost too late to be able to rationally step back and even evaluate that person, evaluate yourself, evaluate your own readiness to get married.

So that book really helps try to lay that foundation of being not only ready to marry, but also ready to be marriage material, if that makes sense.

All right.

Yeah.

Now, Amy, when, when you guys got married, were you already a Christian?

We were both new Christians. Um, I had gotten saved in 2004. He had gotten saved in 2005. We married in 2007.

Yeah.

And, and it's worth adding that, you know, part of my testimony is I was married for 13 years and had been divorced by then. And after that process is when I got saved.

Uh, and then for me, I mean, I didn't get saved till at that time it was, I was 42. Um, I'd been on my own for a while, but prior to that, I had lived with, um, a man for 12 years. So we came to this marriage, you know, brand new Christians and a whole lot of life.

Yeah.

Having been lived.

So we, we, we did it wrong the first time and had to learn how to do it right.

Yeah. And you guys had, I mean, I think Anthony, at that point you were, you were more conservative in your views. Were you still at that point, very liberal in your views, Amy?

I, yeah, I say that I was probably the most liberal saved person at the time. I was saved, but didn't really understand what that meant. I mean, I work for a public university, so, um, yeah, there was a lot to unlearn and there was a lot I needed to, to figure out through scripture and whatnot.

So that, yeah, that was a whole progressive walk there.

So let me ask you, Amy, I mean, in that progressive walk, there's a lot of tension that, I mean, being new Christians, but also, you know, and someone's asking about advice, um, Fatima's asking, can you please give some advice about being unequally yoked marriages where one spouse is pursuing the Lord and the other is not.

So, you know, what, I mean, in this situation, you're, you're new Christians, you're from a very, you know, very different, uh, viewpoints on life, though, though both looking at Christ now. So how, how should someone that's in a situation like that or, or in an unequally yoked marriage, how, what are some things to do in a situation like that?

Well, I think the communication is, is key. You really have to be open and honest with one another and talk. Um, his communication style was very different from my communication style. We grew up different ways.

You know, we had to learn how to communicate with one another, but the biggest thing that I learned is, is being in the word. And I was even learning how to do that. Um, but yeah, if you're not in scripture and I would say this, even with Fatima, as far as being unequally yoked, um, you just need to be in the word and walk with the Lord closely, be in a good Bible teaching church, and you keep praying for your husband.

Um, that's the only way that I think that you're gonna, I want to say stay sane, but that's probably not the right way to put it.

Yeah. In fact, uh, I saw an article in the, uh, in the news a couple of weeks ago that, uh, a man, I think he was 93 or 90, uh, and he just came to the Lord, uh, and his wife had been praying for him for 67 years.

So, you know, while they live, we, we have hope, uh, you know, and God can do anything. So that really just comes down to, um, persevering in the faith and praying.

Yeah. I mean, pastor Dan, you and I are, are kind of co-teaching through the book of first Peter together. And, uh, we got to chapter three, lots of, lots of discussion, lots of, uh, questions came up.

Yeah. What would that for someone like in Fatima's case,.

What would that teach us? Well, there's a couple of things that you have to be careful of, and that is you can't, you can't push someone to salvation. You can't guilt someone into salvation. You can't manipulate or any other adjective or modifier you want to put in there.

You can't do it. And all too often one gets saved and gets really excited. And then they just kind of use another cliche, browbeat their spouse. And it just doesn't work that way because it never worked that way.

That's why Peter said that without a word, you may be able to win them over as they notice your example. So the greatest evidence or the greatest, uh, attraction for Christianity is seeing your spouse transform right in front of your eyes.

Uh, they're kinder, they're gentler, their community, their words are changing, their attitudes are changing. I mean, you just see that there's a whole demeanor change because, you know, the Holy spirit is working change from the inside out.

Then they have a greater opportunity to say, you know, you could be a part of this too.

Yeah. I mean, cause I think that as Amy said, and this is why we started the series, right? Communication and anger, because that, I think that's really, we need that before we get into discussing marriage.

Cause so much of it is so often I find it's communication issues that people have. They bring that into the marriage that turns into anger issues and then it's chaos. Um, and, and that's, you know, so let, let me ask, let me ask you for Dan and Robin, um, cause you guys have been counseling the longest.

Uh, you know, what, what is it you often see as the issues within the marriage? You know, what are the, the, I guess what are the.

Main issues that you end up having to counsel on? Well, while Dan's thinking about that, are you saying that we're the oldest? No, I said, you've been doing it the longest.

Just, just check in there. You may not be the oldest, but Anthony, Anthony just started late.

I wanted to add something to the previous comment before we pass it by. I love Gary Thomas's book, sacred marriage. The subtitle is, um, what if marriage, what if God designed marriage to make us Holy more than happy?

And the other thing is marriage. Um, uh, Leslie Vernick, um, how to act right when your spouse acts wrong, the whole book deals with this. But one of the things she talks about too, is who are you looking to fulfill you, your spouse or God?

And no spouse can fulfill you like God can. So all of us need to focus on God and grow. And then what are some.

Of the common problems? Well, as was mentioned earlier, a lot of it is based on bad communication. You know, there could be many frustrations or struggles in the marriages, but one of the first things we have to do is teach them how to communicate to each other, those fears, frustrations, disappointments, whatever, because again, none of us grew up with perfect parents and, uh, it's just makes for a bad situation.

So parenting is, or I'm sorry, uh, communication is the root, uh, uh, contributing to most all problems after that, then it would be, you know, the same ones that, you know, are in the topics, uh, uh, with, uh, mixed marriages, uh, uh, culture issues.

Well, yeah. And the mixed marriages and then just, uh, parenting or step family situations, uh, that's becoming more and more prevalent with, uh, the problems with that. And then a lot of cultural issues, uh, and then as was mentioned earlier, I think with the, uh, with the person who said it, you know, there are oftentimes marriages where both spouses are not passionate for God at the same time.

So seems like one's a little bit ahead, one's behind, and then that gives all kinds of problems. Like, are we going to go to church Sunday or not? Yes, we are. No, we're not. And it's just, and they're, and they're both Christians.

They're just not growing in the same way. Uh, we will talk again about parenting here in a little bit, but parenting is a big one because Robin was brought up in a home that was completely different than the way I was brought up.

So without any biblical parameters, we're in conflict already at the get-go because my mom did it this way and her mom did it that way. So parenting is another big one. Finances, uh, that's a big one now because again, sometimes with step families, uh, finances gets a little complicated and, uh, yeah, there's just a lot of finances.

And then one of them as well as is sex. And I think again, with the prolific sexually saturated society, uh, people have forgotten, you know, God's designed for sex and that gets distorted real well or real quickly also.

Marriage as Sanctification and Communication

Yeah. And I mean, we were talking, I mean, we played the clip in the beginning, right, of, uh, a university professor who can't figure out what, can't in a quickly define what a woman is, but let's see if we could try to define what a man and a woman is, you know, Anthony, Amy, I'm going to ask you guys, um, cause I'm going to ask you specifically.

So Anthony, if you could give us, help us to know what biblical manhood is in Amy, biblical womanhood. And then specifically, cause I think this will help folks with Amy, you know, your testimony, I'm not saying anything you haven't said publicly cause you've said it on the show before, but you came from a very feminist background.

And, and with that has a lot of idea of, well, you know, a man shouldn't tell me what to do. And then you're married in a Christian relationship to a man who, you know, who's supposed to be leading. And you've talked about this on, on Anthony's podcast as well, which is what I got my ear and where I wanted to talk with you, right.

Where you had to learn to, to submit them. So if you guys could go over, you know, the, the biblical man, men's role, the husband's role, the wife's role, and, and where some of that we bring in, you know, like you guys have talked in the past about where you bring these things into the marriage and how do we deal with that when, when both want to lead, both are from a background where I'm supposed to lead.

So nice, easy one for you, you know? Yeah. Wow. Uh, ladies first.

No, no, no, no. You start this one. I guess I have to lead, right? Yeah. You know, I, I guess really where I would start is I'm looking right now that I've got something in a frame. It's a quote by Robert Murray McShane and it says, what a man is in his prayer closet is what he is.

And so I would say, what is a man, a man, if he's not a man after God's own heart, if he's not a man pursuing Christ, if he's not a man who is seeking to live biblically and pursue the Lord and live all those things and live in holiness to the Lord and, and a life of repentance, both to God and to his wife and family, all of those, those Christian virtues, joy, perseverance in trial, encouragement, you know, all those things that, that, that are the fruit of pursuing a one-on-one relationship with the Lord out of gratitude of being born again by the Spirit.

If he's not those things, then he's not fully who God intended and God designed him to be for himself, for his wife, for his family and for God's glory. So I would say that that's not to put a yoke on, on any man.

It's to, it's to try to encourage and exhort and stir him on. You know, you can't just give a man a laundry list of things and a laundry list of virtues and say, go be all this and then your marriage will be better.

It's got to come from, from like, like a pastor said earlier, you know, only God can change your heart. So it's got to come from that.

And as far as biblical womanhood, to back up, obviously when we were, and I think Ant said this last week in the, in the, this podcast, the fact that when we got, actually it was even before we were engaged, we ended up doing pre-engagement counseling and premarital counseling, which, you know, to anybody that knew how old we were at the time we were, you know, engaged in getting to get married sounds kind of strange, but as he said, we did it wrong the first time we wanted to do it right, you know, the second and last time.

Our pastor who married us was very good at explaining to me because when we were talking about the vows, we came to, you know, I will obey. And I thought, yeah, I'm really having a little bit of a hard time with that.

And then he showed me Ephesians and he read the passage about wives shall submit to their husbands. But then when he pointed out to me was the larger part of the passage of what was required of the husband to love his wife as Christ loved the church.

And he was the one who really started the, me to really looking into scripture and understanding that submitting is not being a doormat. Submitting is working within how God created the relationship to be between husband and wife.

And what people fail to understand and what I failed to understand before I was saved is it is a partnership. We have different roles. God thinks of us the same way. God loves us the same way, but what he's designated for our roles as husband and wife are different.

And it works quite well because that's how God created it. And I'm not just saying that as a, just a pat answer. It's, it works.

I hope so. So, but what are some of the, when we come into marriage, right? What's some of the struggles that we can have is, you know, Pastor Dan mentioned the fact that we were raised differently, right?

And we bring that into, I mean, I often talk with my bride you know, you look at our backgrounds there, you know, we had eight people in my family. She had eight people in her family. The difference being is, you know, she had eight family members in a 400 square foot home.

And we had seven family members and a housekeeper in a, I think it was a 9 ,000 square foot home, eight or 9 ,000 square foot home. Very, very different lifestyles. Right. And that, that affects what we came into marriage with a very, very different view of money and, and spending money.