Focus on the Family Strengthening Marriage Podcast

Dave Stone: Your church comes to you each week to fill their cup. But when the crowd leaves, who's filling yours? That's exactly what I'm here to do with my new podcast from Focus on the Family. It's called Pastor to Pastor with Dave Stone.

I'm so excited to help you navigate the unique challenges that pastors face in their ministry journey, both personally and professionally. So, I invite you to listen and subscribe to Pastor to Pastor wherever you get your podcasts.

John Fuller: The Bible has a lot to say about temptations. There are stories galore in the scriptures about people being tempted, and when it comes to sexual sin, we're told to run from it. We're going to have some ideas about how you can flee a tempting situation.

I'm John Fuller, joined by Dr. Greg Smalley and his wife Erin. They lead the Focus on the Family marriage team, and we're going to kick off today with a conversation from Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.

Jim spoke with Jerry Jenkins, who has written a couple hundred books. One he wrote many years ago has been a go-to for me. It's so good and so practical. It's called Hedges, and here's the conversation about it.

Jim Daly: Jerry, welcome back. It's good to see you again. Going back to last time, we did touch on flirting a little bit, but let's pick it up again today because that can be such an easy area to wiggle through. But you're saying you should have some really hard boundaries on what that is.

Sometimes, Jean will say occasionally to me, "You're a little too nice to that waitress." It's with her there, but I'm trying to be nice to a server, and I'm thinking it's all within normal boundaries. "I hope you're having a great day," whatever it might be. But what she perceives as maybe being too friendly, I have to pay attention to that.

Jerry Jenkins: Right, I think that's important. I mentioned yesterday that I'll flirt with my wife and you flirt with yours. I had this happen in a church when I was a kid. I saw two couples that I admired. Being a young single guy, I was looking up to these two couples, and they hung around a lot together.

The husband of one of the couples and the wife of the other would tease each other in a flirtatious way. They liked to be funny. I like to be funny, so I thought that was humorous. That's maybe an example for me of how to be fun and funny.

But eventually, those two got together. I think it started because of that flirting, even in front of their spouses. It wound up breaking up two marriages, and it was a disaster. It was chaos. So, I think it's crucial to keep your flirting within your own home.

Jim Daly: Yeah, and I guess you just learn the boundaries of that over time and what that means.

Jerry Jenkins: My dad was a career law enforcement officer, and he used to say that flirting is like looking down the barrel of a loaded gun. You might get what you're asking for.

Jim Daly: That's not good. That's not good at all. Share your hedge regarding wedding vows. You mentioned that quickly as we gave the list, but I want to go a little deeper into that. That's something that most of us forget to apply. They were wonderful words. What were those words that I used to say? Talk about the importance of remembering those.

Jerry Jenkins: I think it's important because when we say them, they're in that Old English or Elizabethan English: "Keep thee unto myself for as long as we both shall live," and all that stuff. I would love it if a pastor would simply say, "Now, you realize what you've just said? You've just said you're not going to sleep with anybody else as long as you live, as long as she's alive."

People go, "Oh, that's crass and that's tacky," but that's the vow. When I wrote this book, people would come to me sometimes with their marital issues and want advice. Oftentimes, it was a husband who had strayed and would say, "This new relationship is so beautiful, God has to be in it."

I go, "I'm not going to sit close to you because I'm not fond of lightning. That is really heresy and blasphemy. You need to acknowledge you broke your vow. Remember what you said at your wedding? You said you would not do this, and you've done it. Start there, and we can go from there."

Jim Daly: You also mention in the book—and this is good—some fun and practical ways to incorporate your vows more deeply. What are some ideas?

Jerry Jenkins: Anytime it's a special occasion, a birthday, or even Christmas or Valentine's Day, whatever people celebrate, their anniversary, you look for the right card and you sign, "Love always," etc. Just add your vow. "I'm still keeping you only unto me for as long as we both shall live." Diane just likes that.

Jim Daly: That's good. That's clever. I got into trouble the other day because it was our anniversary. I go and I get flowers, two dozen red roses with baby's breath. First of all, that was a hassle. The woman's looking at me like, "What? Can you put it together? I've got a half hour."

But she did. And you know, the big Mylar balloon, "Happy Anniversary." I go to look for a card. There was not one anniversary card in the aisles of cards. I had to get a really good birthday card and scratch out "Happy Birthday." It was, "Your love means the most to me," and it was the right wording.

It was the wrong header, though. So I just crossed it out and put "Anniversary" in there. Then I told Jean, "Here's the thing, but the card's words were really good." It ended up being funny for her. Very sincere.

I won't tell you about the other card that Trent picked out and Jean read it. I signed it. It was for her birthday from me. I asked Trent to pick it up because I had too many meetings going on that day and I didn't even get a chance to respond to him.

So he picked out a card, and I signed it really quick, licked it, and put it by the flowers. Then Jean read it and went, "This is the best card you've ever gotten me!" Now I had to confess because Trent's at the end of the table. I'm going, "Okay, I'm on the spot. Trent picked it out for you."

Jerry Jenkins: Diane has a great sense of humor. One year she gave me an anniversary card—no, it was a birthday card. It showed a birthday cake and it showed this beautiful blonde. It said, "This is your cake and this is Edith." Inside it said, "You can't have your cake and Edith, too."

John Fuller: I so appreciate Jim's candor and his honesty on that. We had a funny moment just this past wedding anniversary. We hit 41 years, and we were talking about it. My wife looked at me and said, "Well, you said that particular song was in our wedding, but I don't think it was."

I said, "I'm pretty sure it was." She said, "I'm going to watch our wedding again," which means we've got to find the VHS video. And then we've got to—oh wait, I don't have a VHS player anymore. But I digitized that wedding somewhere. It's on a hard drive somewhere. I'll go find it.

Anyway, you've got to have some fun with this along the way. It's a good thing to remember those promises. I remember the vows better than the songs, perhaps. When we look at our spouse and we say, "I'm going to fight for you and I'm going to be yours and only yours," it's good to remember those promises, isn't it?

Greg Smalley: They really are, because those promises that we made really can help us fight temptation. When I look at those wedding vows, it really reminds me who I promised Erin that I would be, how I would show up. This is a great reminder. I think it can also pull me out of a moment.

Temptation often involves a very clear moment. I think thinking about your wedding vows can bring you to the bigger picture of who I want to be, who we want to be, what did we promise God? It pulls in the fact that I stood also up before the Lord and made a covenant and said these words, made these promises.

I tell you, thinking about this question, it kind of created a little bit of guilt because I started thinking, "Okay, what were our vows?" It's been 33 years. So I actually went back and I did—that's funny because we have digitized our wedding vows.

John Fuller: So did you go back and watch?

Greg Smalley: I did. I said that I take Erin to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part.

So it just made me think about what I meant then. How would any of those help around temptation? To have and to hold—that's a vow of exclusivity, that I belong exclusively to you. My brain, my heart, my thoughts.

In just being reminded of that in that moment, like when I went back and watched that, it was just a good reminder going, "I did say that. I said that I'm exclusively yours. You are exclusively mine." There are, I mean you think about pornography, you think about the many temptations and how you're not being faithful to that promise in that moment.

I loved your question because it really caused me to go, "Yeah, okay, I can tell you why I think they matter, but what did I really say and why would that matter now around temptation?"

Erin Smalley: While he was sharing some of that, I was like, "When did you have time to go and watch the video?"

Greg Smalley: I have it on my computer! I was sitting at my office.

Erin Smalley: But at a deeper level, yes, I do like what he's saying because in some ways it's a litmus test of: is our behavior aligning with what we promised? I don't know that any couple when they're standing at the altar has a clue what that even really means because they haven't had to live it out.

Going back and reviewing—this is what I agreed to, and is my behavior aligning to that? Again, we're not looking for perfection; we're looking for growth. Of course, it doesn't mean that we can be unfaithful to our spouse, but what it does mean is: are our little behaviors aligning to faithfulness?

Are we guarding against leading towards making poor decisions? So, it really can be used as a litmus test. It's important to remember what I agreed to and what does it mean today.

Greg Smalley: Erin and I actually did write an article years ago. We'll throw a link here in the show notes around unpacking the typical wedding vows that probably a lot of us said and what do they actually mean.

To her point, most people will say these things—"I take you." What does that mean? "To have, to hold." What does that even have to do with anything? So we unpacked all that. If you're curious about what these phrases really mean, just go to the show notes; you'll see a link there.

John Fuller: Yeah, I appreciate that because the point of this episode is there's something you can do to protect your marriage and to preserve the integrity of the marriage. Nobody's perfect; we all fall short, we sin. But along the way, if you remember that altar moment or whenever you got married, that can really speak volumes into today.

Click the link in the show notes for that article and then get a copy of Jerry Jenkins' great book, Hedges. This is an incredibly helpful book. When I first read it 35 years ago, it was really helpful. It's all the more important today as the world tears apart the fabric of marriages.

Donate today, make a gift of any amount to support this show and this ministry of Focus on the Family, and we'll say thanks by sending a copy of the book Hedges to you. You'll find all the details in the show notes. We'll hear more from Jerry next time. For now, on behalf of Greg and Erin Smalley and the entire team, thanks for joining us for this episode of the Focus on the Family Strengthening Marriage podcast.

Dave Stone: Your church comes to you each week to fill their cup. But when the crowd leaves, who's filling yours? That's exactly what I'm here to do with my new podcast from Focus on the Family. It's called Pastor to Pastor with Dave Stone.

I'm so excited to help you navigate the unique challenges that pastors face in their ministry journey, both personally and professionally. So, I invite you to listen and subscribe to Pastor to Pastor wherever you get your podcasts.