Welcome to the Warriors of Grace podcast hosted by Dave Jenkins. Warriors of Grace is about helping men from generation to generation become gospelmen in private, in the home, in the church, and in public through the Word of God. Now for today's episode, let's join our host, Dave Jenkins. Well, welcome back to the Warriors of Grace podcast. My name is Dave and I'm the host for this show. And on today's episode, we're going to continue our series, The Christian Man and the Pursuit of Love in Every Sphere of Life, talking today about biblical love and communication in marriage. Now, The subject of communication in marriage is a difficult one. It's challenging. Perhaps it's even impossible. It involves work. It involves pain. It involves sensitivity. It involves patience. It involves great care. Communicating can even become a very burdensome task. But it is a task that must be accomplished in our marriages, men. And when communication falters, the marriage is in trouble. And when it fails, the marriage is doomed. Communication is, above all, a means of knowing. In marriage, it means simply the knowing of two people. The goal of communication is knowledge, not abstract, theoretical, and personal knowledge, but a personal knowledge, the knowledge of intimacy. In a biblical category, the essence of marriage is expressed in the intimacy of knowing and loving one another. Now when the Old Testament writers describe the sexual act, the usual term is used in the verb of to know. When we read that Adam knew his wife and she conceived, Abraham knew his wife, etc. What is the writer trying to convey? The Bible is not trying to suggest that reproduction takes place by the ability to recognize or distinguish one person from another. When we read that Adam knew his wife, it means more than they just have been formally introduced. Nor is the biblical writer just trying to be polite when he uses the term. It would be out of character for an Old Testament writer to avoid candor in favor of euphemism. No, when the Old Testament speaks of sexual union in terms of knowing, it's because knowing in every sense of the word is at the heart of marriage. To be known and still loved is one of the supreme goals of marriage. Now, many of us think if people really knew us, they wouldn't like us at all, right? Others think that if people knew us well enough to understand us, perhaps they would like us. Most of us probably feel a little bit of both. We would like to be really known, but there still remains the nagging fear that if we are known, we won't be loved or liked. Now, before the fall, Adam and Eve enjoyed their life in Eden, naked and unashamed, Genesis tells us. And after the fall, they became aware of their nakedness and hid themselves in shame. Now in their guilt, they didn't want God to see them, and so they became fugitives from his gaze. And yet, in an act of astonishing grace, God provided clothes for his embarrassed creatures and covered their nakedness. But the desire for the original state of being naked and even unashamed remained with Adam and Eve. They wanted their nakedness and their shame hidden, and yet they yearned for a safe place to be naked. They yearned for a place where they could take off their clothes to be known without fear. God provided that place with an institution of marriage between one man and one woman for life. God gave them a place where they could have intercourse, which, of course, is a synonym for verbal communication. Communication involves a kind of nakedness. In some situations, nakedness can be very embarrassing. At other times, it can be exhilarating. And so, in marriage, it yields unspeakable pleasure. When it fails, the result is two people going back into hiding. To be known by God is the highest goal of human existence. To know that God knows everything about me and yet He loves me is indeed my ultimate consolation. What a comfort to know I cannot pull the wool over God's eyes who sees and knows, and so that means that there's no point in even trying. The human institution of marriage should mirror that consolation. In fact, the more that we're able to reveal ourselves to our spouse, men, to our wives, and still be loved, the more we're able to understand what a relationship with God is even all about. The greatest consolation I have in this world is the knowledge that my wife knows me, that your wife knows you better than any person in this world, and guess what? They love you. Now, few people would disagree with the notion that marriage has fallen on hard times. Although exact figures are hard to come by, an article in Time Magazine in 2018 tells us that the first marriages have about a 40% chance of ending in divorce. The odds are even greater for subsequent marriages. In fact, Almost all of us know at least one marriage that has ended in divorce. In fact, even no-fault divorce laws and a decline in societal institutions that support married life contribute to the epidemic of divorce in our day. And seeing that the phenomenon of divorce, many couples are reluctant to get married. They fear that that will come to a point where they'll be not able to settle conflicts or deal with communication well and that their marriage will just end and wither. Such fears, of course, are not entirely invalid because a husband and a wife are both sinners and conflict inevitably arises in every marriage. Much of this conflict occurs because of the differences between how they communicate subjectively about things. And what we're talking about here is differences of opinion over things themselves that are indifferent. A wife may highly value a new car and think they should spend their extra money on it. Her husband might value a vacation more and even believe their extra funds should pay for it. An argument may then ensue. Neither the car nor the vacation is inherently good or bad, and neither is inherently more valuable than the other. But the argument arises because spouses cannot agree on how the car or the vacation should be valued. The problem is not so much the money, but the lack of empathy. The husband cannot put himself in his wife's shoes and see why she wants the car, and the wife cannot put herself in her husband's shoes and see why he values the vacation. So solving such conflict requires open, honest, transparent communication. So men, we can start to understand the perspective of our spouse. In fact, good communication cannot take place without careful listening. And so to really understand other people in any setting, men, we have to listen to what they say and try not to ascribe things to them they didn't say. But this is particularly important in marriage because of the intimacy of the relationship as we've already talked about. And so, Scripture contains multiple teachings to listen to to be slow to speak, including in Proverbs 19, 20. Careful listening is the only good way to good communication and the wisdom needed to handle conflicts in marriage or in the rest of our lives. Good communication in every area requires good listening. Wise is the person who is slow to speak, but takes the time to hear the other person out. And this is particularly true in our marriages. Many conflicts could be solved or avoided if the husband and even the wife would take time to listen to each other carefully. Well, men, I want to thank you for listening or watching this episode of the Warriors of Grace podcast. Until next time, may the Lord richly bless you and keep you. Thank you for listening to the Warriors of Grace podcast. 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