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August 14, 2022 8:00 pm
After twenty-two years together, I sometimes wonder how my marriage to Merryn works. I’m a writer, Merryn is a statistician; I work with words, she works with numbers. I want beauty, she wants function. We come from different worlds.
Merryn arrives to appointments early, I’m occasionally late. I try new things on the menu, she orders the same. After twenty minutes at an art gallery I’m just getting started, while Merryn is already in the cafe downstairs wondering how much longer I’ll be. We give each other many opportunities to learn patience!
We do have things in common—a shared sense of humor, a love of travel, and a common faith that helps us pray through options and compromise. With this shared base, our differences even work to our advantage. Merryn has helped me learn to relax, while I’ve helped her grow in discipline. Working with our differences has made us better people.
Paul uses marriage as a metaphor for the church (Ephesians 5:21–33), and with good reason. Like marriage, church brings very different people together, requiring them to develop humility and patience and to “[bear] with one another in love” (4:2). And, as in marriage, a shared base of faith and mutual service helps a church become unified and mature (vv. 11–13).
Differences in relationships can cause great frustration—in the church and in marriage. But managed well, they can work to our advantage, helping us become Christlike.
Hello and welcome to Our Daily Bread insured in Boise and I've titled today's reading the marriage metaphor after 22 years together.
I sometimes wonder how my marriage to Maren works by Marotta Maren is a statistician I work with words she works with numbers I want beauty. She wants function.
We come from different worlds militarized to appointments early on. Occasionally late. I try new things on the menu.
She orders the same after 20 minutes of the knob gallery. I'm just getting started. While Maren is already in the café downstairs, wondering how much longer I'll be.
We give each other many opportunities to learn patience. We do have things in common. A shared sense of humor, love of travel and a common faith that helps us pray through options and compromises needed with this shared base differences even work to our advantage. Maren has helped me learn to relax while I've helped her growing discipline. Working with the differences has made us better people.
Paul uses marriage is a metaphor for the church and with good reason, like marriage church brings very different people together, requiring them to develop humility and patience and to bear with one another in love, and as an marriage shared base of faith and mutual service helps the church become unified and mature differences in relationships can cause great frustration in the church and in marriage, but managed well they can help us become more Christlike. Today's Scripture reading is from Ephesians chapter 4 verses 2 to 13 be completely humble and gentle.
Be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were cold, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all who is overall and through all and in all but to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. This is why it says when he ascended on high, he took many captives and gave gifts to his people.
What does he ascended mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions. He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens in order to fill the whole universe, so Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service to the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Let's pray together bother with words in marriage or in our families, in friendships, or indeed in our churches. We all know that that combination of similarities and differences is just what makes our relationships are rich and also at times so very difficult Lord, would you use the differences between us and our brothers and sisters in Christ to help us grow in humility and patience today so that we become more and more like him. It's in Jesus name we pray this man. Thanks for listening today I'm sure in Boise. In today's encouragement was provided by Our Daily Bread ministries
