Doubling Down on Intimacy Within Marriage as Ministering to One Another

If you love biblical study from the perspective of God's unchanging character, specifically how we see that thread from OT to NT, you'll love this deep-dive on "minister" and "ministering". THEN we bring it all home in how this functions within covenant marriage, and specifically physical intimacy. *we're digging into original Hebrew and Greek, people! Woo!

Let's go!!!! 

Transcript

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Welcome back to the High Level Wife podcast. I am Chelsea Holm, your hostess, and we do Marriage Godsway here. And today I am doubling down on one of the intimacy episodes that I released last week. So if you haven't listened to that, go back and listen to that. I want to say it was released on Friday or Saturday. But I mentioned that physical intimacy within marriage, and honestly, marriage itself, is ground zero for us to minister to one another. And this concept is part of a revelation that the Lord gave me in how every part of God's word, every part of God's word that tells us how to interact with the body of Christ, as we are all being built into one temple, absolutely and synonymously applies within marriage. And marriage should be that ground zero. The place where we practice with intentionality and diligence what it means to follow Christ, to love God, which is the greatest commandment of all, with all your heart, soul, body, and mind, followed by love your neighbor as yourself, which is the second greatest commandment. And if we if anyone says that my husband is not my brother, or who's who says, My husband is not my neighbor, that is wrong. That is not in alignment with God's word. That is that is a that is a false doctrine. Our marriage is ground zero. We are given instruction that husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church and laid down his life for her, right? Washing her in the word, presenting her as holy and blameless. And wives are to submit to their husbands out of reverence for Christ, to respect him, to stand fully in her function and position as Ezer Kenetgo, which means vital assistance. And not only that, but when we when we dig in, I've got a whole notebook here of I dug into this because I wanted to see what does God's word as a whole say about minister and ministering, right? In the original Hebrew, and we see the examples in the Old Testament, and then in the Greek in the New Testament, of what does it mean to minister, to be a minister, to minister to one another. So whether we're looking at it as a noun, a verb, or um as uh what's the other one I was looking for? I don't know, as an action or a person, right? Verb or a noun. I wanted to see the overall picture of what is ministering according to God's full context of what he has revealed to us already through his word. And so that we don't get into the what's the word I'm looking for? So we don't get into the problems of cherry-picking verses to support what it is that we think, right? And so, in an act of humility, I said, okay, I want the full picture, and so I looked, um, I'm currently reading through numbers right now, and just yesterday I was in numbers three and numbers three through six, and there are other, actually, throughout that whole chapter, there are examples of minister and ministering. And the Hebrew of that is Sherath, and the verb of that is Mesheret. I don't know if I'm saying those right. I am not trained in Hebrew. Um, what it isn't, okay. Let's start with what it is. What it is first is as a submort subordinate or worshiper, it is not a vod, which is a servant or slave. And how does this apply to marriage? Okay, well, first of all, like I'm so excited. I it's so strange to say I'm reading numbers and I'm so excited about it, but I am. Um God is just bringing it to light and to just new, just fresh perspective to me. Um, and it's so exciting because you really see how Jesus fulfilled all of these things and how God has a perfect order for everything, and and how he just makes a way where there isn't a way, and how he uses us, he weaves us into his greater context of his plan that is being carried forward. Um, and how this relates to marriage is so if you look at um if you look at the definitions of, as I just said, as a subordinate or a worshiper, it can also be an under rower. So if you fast forward into the New Testament, Acts 13, 5 is a servant or an assistant. That's the Greek uh huperetes, hooperites, I don't know how you say it. Um, but that means under rower, serving under authority. And so are we starting to see how this translates into marriage, right? Because marriage is the ground zero, as I said, of the roles that God established us for, of everything in God's word is applicable in marriage. It is not this standalone thing, it is ground zero, right? And we are where we are today in in marriage, in the horrible state that marriage among Christians is in, where you have women who and men where divorce isn't an option for them. So what they do is they just submit themselves to a life of drudgery and hate and just roommate status. That is not God's design either. Okay, and so we don't have an understanding of God's design for marriage because we don't have an understanding of God's design of his world, his creation, us, and the functions that we walk in. So Ezra Kenedgo is that vital assistance. That is what Eve, that that is the word used for wife as helper. So this term of under rower that we see in Acts 3.5, this serving under authority, well, that sounds a lot like marriage, doesn't it, right? Because we are a bride as believers. We are Christ's bride, the church. And so in marriage, we see this reflected as well. And so there are different, different forms of this minister ministry. And I wanna I want to fast forward a little bit here to Romans 15, 16 and Hebrews 10, 11. So this word is uh let it letter Gayo, I think. Uh it's formal or public ministry, specifically priestly or sacred capacity, in a priestly or sacred capacity. And isn't that so interesting? Right? Think about the sacred capacity of intimacy within marriage. And so ministering to one another is absolutely a function within marriage. Absolutely. Okay, there's also there's a practical, okay, guys, like this is just layer upon layer. There's a practical active service, which you might be familiar with this term. It's diaconeo, diaconeo, right? That's the action. Diaconos, diaconos is the person, which is servant or minister. And we see this in Luke 10.40 with um Mary and Martha, and how uh Martha was, you know, running around and yada yada yada. And then we see this in Luke 8.3, um, which I'm I can't remember exactly. Uh oh, that was uh in the woman, that woman that came and was serving Jesus. Okay, and so so intimacy within marriage is a practical active service as the underrower, as the subordinate worshiper, right? And not in the worshiping, and this is interesting. I actually I find this very interesting because there are so many twists of this, right? Because we have husbands that worship their wives, and we we not as often we more so have wives who worship themselves, right? And so it's very easy. This is why we have to stay rooted and grounded in God's love and in the truth, because it holds us in the preserve, right? It preserves us from turning to the left or turning to the right. And so you also then have women who confuse it with this Avad, which I already mentioned, which is a servant or a slave in the sense of, I own you. You are my property, right? You are paying a debt, which is a twist of wives in marriage, right? That I just never say no to my husband. I always make myself available, but their heart isn't in it and they completely disassociate and check out, right? That's not God's way either. So are you seeing this? Like, are you guys seeing the connections here? Like, this is just blowing my mind. Matthew 20, 28 talks where is where Jesus is talking about humbly meeting human needs, how he came to serve and not to be served. And again, this Acts 6, 1 through 4. This is the early church, the establishment where they were meeting together and they daily meeting practical needs. Okay. So when you think about ministering to one another in marriage, specifically through physical intimacy, this is a spiritual stewardship. Okay, and so the passage that is taken out of context a lot is is the one, um, I can't think of the reference, right? At this moment off the top of my head, but it's the one that's talking about how a husband is does not, his body is not his own, it belongs to his wife, and a wife's body is not her own, she belongs to her husband, right? This is greatly taken out of context. But if you actually rewind a little bit and read before it, it's talking about how our bodies don't belong to us, our bodies belong to Christ. They were paid by his blood, right? So we are not our own. And so then that gives us the heart posture to then be able to function within marriage in this overflow of our body not our own in the first place, right? And now we've entered into this covenant relationship, this promise between each other and under God. And now we're able to overflow that, right? It's a mutual care. Colossians 3.13 talks about that. 1 Thessalonians 4.18. It's also a humility, Philippians 2, 3 through 5. There are so many passages. Like, pause these things and go look these things up, right? Um, 1 Peter 4.10 talks about being good managers managers of the grace of God. Galatians 5.13 is serving in love. Romans 12, 5 through 6 talks about being one body, it's about unity, right? Unity within marriage to become one flesh. Are you seeing this? Are you seeing this connection? And honestly, the the big Mac Daddy is John 13, 34 through 35. That really brings it all together. Understanding that it's it's not it's not all these like big things or like a specific anointing or like a specific going out into the world. Like ground zero within marriage is service, being that servant, and specifically as a wife, a subordinate, as a worshiper, not with husband on the throne, but a worshiper out of reverence and submission, because we first do that to and through Christ. The only way you are able to minister to your husband, the only way that you're able to minister through your to your husband is if you are walking in the spirit. The only way that you are able to grasp fully your role and authority as Ezra Kenedgo, that vital assistance is that that under rower, right? The only way you're able to do that is if you are rooted and grounded in the love of Christ. If you have a right view of God, because you have awe and reverence for him, you have a fear of the Lord, not to make you run away, but to make you understand what is at stake, right? So that then gives you a right view of yourself, that you were dead, and God did everything for you to be made alive, and it's a gift. And that from receiving that gift, we overflow into faith in action. Faith without works is dead. We see that in James, right? And then, because of what God did for you while you were yet dead and still a sinner, you now have a right view of others, including your husband. And when you're walking in the spirit and you're praying in the spirit, you are now aligned with the heart of God, and you are praying for eyes to see your husband as God sees him, his son. You are praying for the power to and the discernment to look for the good, to speak to the king, to have to just understand that that same grace that was given to you, you now overflow into others, right? 1 Peter 14, I already mentioned good managers of the grace of God. Marriage is ground zero for all of this. So physical intimacy, spiritual intimacy, emotional intimacy, these are all ministering to one another within marriage. Physical intimacy, two bodies becoming one flesh. This is unity in real time. This is why we don't walk in the flesh. The enemy has done such a good job at keeping sex in the realm of only the flesh, but it's not at all. Right? It is a physical act, but Jesus met the physical needs many times first, right? Sometimes second. But it's a practical active service to one another out of humility. It's mutual, it's a spiritual stewardship. So ministering to one another, absolutely. This is biblical, this is in line with what it is to do marriage God's way. A hundred percent. And I am someone who, when challenged on these things, I will dig in with humility because I want to know what is God's heart on this, okay? This is, I don't know if this is specifically the way that God knit me, but I've been this way since I was a child. I don't back down, I double down. And when I do that in the flesh, it's not a good thing because I'm doing it from a selfish and own personal understanding. But when I do it in the spirit, it is a mighty, mighty thing by the grace of God, to the praise of his glory, to bring clarity where there is confusion, to take back territory where it's been stolen by the enemy in the world, and to be able to give it back to you so that you understand the capacity and the function that you specifically have within marriage so you can do it God's way. I will see you on the next episode.