Podcast: On Marriage: The Best of ‘The Crossway Podcast’

June 17, 2024 by: Crossway

This article is part of the The Crossway Podcast series.

Marriage on The Crossway Podcast

This is a compilation episode featuring some of the best moments from past interviews on the topic of marriage. Over the years, we’ve had the privilege of speaking with many insightful authors who have shared their wisdom on building strong, Christ-centered marriages that honor the Lord and reflect our Savior’s love and care for his people. Whether you’re newly married, have been married for decades, or are simply looking for biblical insights into relationships, we think you’ll find this episode is packed with valuable advice and encouragement.

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Topics Addressed in This Interview:

Let’s start with this excerpt from an interview with Paul Tripp, author of Marriage: 6 Gospel Commitments Every Couple Needs to Make. In this clip, Paul reflects on the gospel’s foundational role in our marriages, especially when it comes to how we deal with a hard reality of sin, hurt, and forgiveness. Let’s get started.

Marriage

Marriage

Paul David Tripp

A marriage needs something sturdier than romance. Popular author and pastor Paul David Tripp encourages readers to make 6 gospel-centered commitments with the aim of making Jesus Christ the foundation of their marriages.

01:05 - Paul Tripp on the Practical Application of the Gospel in Marriage

Matt Tully
Unpack how it is that the gospel does impact our marriages. I think that sounds really good to all of us, but I think sometimes the question is, How do I actually start to think about that?

Paul Tripp
Let me give you the big picture first. It is clearer and clearer to me that the entire gospel drama is lived out in your marriage. Once you get that, it gives you a whole new way of thinking about how we live together in a marriage of unity, understanding, and love. Let me explain this. Here’s the dark side of the gospel drama: it’s sin, selfishness, and idolatry. If you would ask me why there is trouble in marriage, I would say it’s because we’re sinners. The most dangerous thing in my marriage is not that I’m married to another sinner. I carried it in myself. It’s my sin. And what does sin do to me? Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5 that Jesus came so that those who live would no longer live for themselves. The DNA of sin is selfishness. It’s I want what I want, and I want it now, and I want people to deliver it to me. It’s me in the center of my universe. Listen, I still struggle with that. I still get occasionally irritated in traffic when people have the audacity to be in my way. That’s all of us. Who cannot relate to that? So many of the arguments in marriage, and the disagreements in marriage, are just selfishness. You didn’t respond the way I wanted you to respond. You didn’t give me the thing that I wanted. You weren’t on time when I wanted you to be on time. You don’t think the way that I think. And then the third thing is idolatry. It’s that we’re worshipers, and that means that something always captures my heart, and what captures my heart controls my behavior. In marriage, things rise in levels of importance way beyond their true importance, and then they control my words and responses. Winning an argument becomes too important. Getting my way becomes too important. You thinking that I’m great becomes too important. And so if you get at those three things, you start to get at the heart of why you struggle. Imagine if every husband asked the question, What is too important right now for me in my marriage? What if every wife asked that question? I think couples just asking that single question would get at the heart of much of their struggle. That’s the dark news of the gospel. Here’s the good news: it’s God’s rescuing grace, the identity that we have in Christ, and unending forgiveness. Now, rescuing grace means this: I’m not in this struggle in marriage by myself. God is rescuing me—you’ve got to hear this—from me! That’s what it means when Scripture says Jesus came so that those who live will no longer live for themselves. My greatest danger to me is me. So, I can be excited that there’s help for me in my marriage. It’s not just this mountain of glorious principles. I would look at that and think, I’ll never be able to do those things. God meets me there. Every one of God’s commands is accompanied by his grace, or the commands would just devastate us. It’s my identity in Christ—that I am in him and he is in me. And in him I really do have everything I need for life and godliness. Now, this means I don’t have to look to my wife or my husband for identity. Luella loves me, but she doesn’t wake up in the morning and say, How can I give Paul identity today? Nor did my children, nor does my work, nor do my possessions. None of those things will ever work to give me identity. Once I have my identity settled, then I can love you without being entitled to something from you that distorts the whole relationship. I think much of what we call romance is just self-oriented identity seeking. If you say the right things to me, I feel great and I feel like I can live today. Wow! What a burden for marriage! And then forgiveness—that there’s a constant flow of forgiveness, because you will mess up. You’ll say things you shouldn’t say, you’ll do things that you shouldn’t do; but if there’s forgiveness, then we should not be afraid of the other person saying, That was really not very nice what you just did. We should not be afraid of confession or of loving confrontation. These things can live and allow us to grow and to change. In the dark side of the gospel, I’ve described all the problems that we all face. In the bright side of the gospel, I’ve described all the help that we need. Once you get a hold of that, it sets you on a new trajectory in your marriage that’s really very practical.

Date Your Wife

Date Your Wife

Justin Buzzard

Date Your Wife is an intensely practical guide for husbands looking to strengthen, save, or spice up their marriage and pursue their wives from a place of security in the gospel.

05:41 - Justin Buzzard on the Foundational Priority of Intentionality

This next clip is from an interview with Justin Buzzard, author of the book Date Your Wife, a practical guide for husbands looking to encourage their wives and strengthen their marriages. In this excerpt, Justin explains why it’s so crucial for both husbands and wives to hold on to one foundational priority in their marriages—intentionality—even when life gets busy and passions grow cold.

Matt Tully
Your book is called Date Your Wife. And one question that someone might have is, Are you suggesting that if husbands and wives just go out for dinner and a movie more often that their marriages will automatically get better?

Justin Buzzard
Not at all. I’m not making that case at all, but there is wisdom in the simplicity of just something like that even if you just think about it just in terms of a habit. If someone doesn’t have any kind of habit of a date (of a weekly time like that) in their marriage, just making one habit adjustment like that—having a weekly date where you’re together for a few hours—if you’re intentional with that time, that could pay some huge dividends in the marriage. As I use that verb “date,” I use it in a big, comprehensive way. Think about it like “pursuit.” I make the case in the book all from Genesis 2:15. That’s how I define “date”—God’s call to the first man to cultivate and guard the garden. So I use “date“ in that sense—to cultivate, pursue, take great care of, cause flourishing, and bring protection to the wife, to the marriage. So with that, I’m speaking about vision, I’m speaking about a dream for your marriage, I’m talking about a posture of pursuit and intentionality that then, yes, gets down into specifics of having a plan for your marriage, of going on dates, of doing things like that. And that looks different in every marriage. That looks different in seasons of life. Something that was important to us when our three sons were really little (when they were 4, 2, and 0), it was very important to our marriage and very important to my wife that we did have a babysitter come in once a week. I think it was normally on Thursday nights for a few hours. Just getting those three hours together meant the world to my wife and to me and to our marriage. But things are different now that our boys are 12, 10, and 8, and what some of those rhythms and habits look like are pretty different. So in different seasons of life, we shift the specifics of the dream of our marriage.

Matt Tully
You’re a big proponent of actually writing out what you call an “Annual Date Your Wife Plan,” and you describe that as entailing both an air war and a ground war. Can you explain what you mean by that?

Justin Buzzard
You’re mostly right that I’m a big proponent of that. For me it’s not that every year I write out a plan. What I’m saying in the book is I want to get men that have not really ever put pen to paper for their marriage but they’ve done it for their business or for their big trip that’s coming up, I want them to actually do that for their marriage and to have that same intentionality for their wife. So there are years where I do that and there are years where I don’t. And there are years where it looks different. This year I’ve got some goals on paper for myself, for my marriage, for my family, for work; and some of them are goals related to dating my wife. By saying “air war” and “ground war,” what I’m seeking to teach guys to do with that is with “air war” I’m trying to get them to think about their marriage from the high level—from the 30,000-foot level, from the annual level. What’s the rhythm of our year going to look like? What are the big rocks that I need to put into the calendar for taking good care of my wife? So it might look like considering that at the end of spring and the start of summer, that’s when my wife’s going to be really tired because of the school year and what’s been going on with the kids, so that’s when I need to be sure to just send her off on a twenty-four to forty-eight hour retreat by herself just to get some rest. Or I will consider this is when our anniversary is, so I’m going to make that special. I’ll plan for this, or this is when we’re going to do a getaway. So that’s “air war”—the big picture things. And then “ground war” is getting a guy to think in weekly or daily chunks for his marriage. What’s the weekly rhythm going to look like? What’s a spot or two in the week where I could take my wife on a date or I could give her relief or do something that would really bless her? What’s the daily rhythm going to look like? When’s my wife the most tired? When does she need help? What does that look like? So getting a guy to actually systematically think through that rather than just letting life happen, instead of being intentional and happening to life and happening to the marriage and being thoughtful about it.

Gospel-Shaped Marriage

Gospel-Shaped Marriage

Chad Van Dixhoorn, Emily Van Dixhoorn

In Gospel-Shaped Marriage, Chad and Emily Van Dixhoorn give a concise assessment of the biblical design for marriage while offering practical advice for married life from a grace-filled perspective.

10:46 - Chad and Emily Van Dixhoorn on Handling Disagreements

Next, we have a thoughtful conversation with Chad and Emily Van Dixhoorn, the husband and wife team behind the book Gospel-Shaped Marriage: Grace for Sinners to Love Like Saints. Navigating conflict is inevitable in any relationship, but how we approach and resolve these moments can make a significant difference in the health and strength of our marriages. In this segment, Chad and Emily emphasize the importance of handling disagreements in a way that honors both the other partner and the Lord.

Matt Tully
Emily, what does it look like to argue well in a marriage? There are going to be those times when we disagree. That’s unavoidable, so what does it look like to argue in a way that honors each other and honors God?

Emily Van Dixhoorn
Timing is a big deal. Some things you need to pause so you’re not discussing it in the heat of the moment. Wait until the person is well fed, wait until there’s minimal other factors. If the person has a deadline they’re approaching, that’s not the time to raise a discussion where there’s some controversy. You can ask, Is there a time we can talk about this? Make a respectful appeal to talk about something, and pray that the Lord would help him understand the issue. Pray that we would both understand, that I would understand his perspective. So consider timing. Don’t speak out of passions and the heat of the moment, but speak in a measured way.

Chad Van Dixhoorn
I’d say that Emily works really hard at that.

Emily Van Dixhoorn
I work really hard at that?

Chad Van Dixhoorn
I think so. I think you do a great job with that.

Emily Van Dixhoorn
Well, thank you. The alternative is just horrible, so I find that I have to work that hard. It’s just a fruitless effort and can lead to bigger arguments. So be patient, be prayerful, and then listen to one another. And then also give the person space to understand. His first reaction to what I say may be one where he doesn’t quite understand yet what I’m saying. But that’s okay. I am not going to force immediate understanding. I will be content just to have presented perspective before him, and then over time he may say, Oh, I get it now what you’re saying or I agree with this aspect of what you’re saying. And it just moves forward. So patience and prayer.

Matt Tully
Maybe one final question for both of you. What’s one specific thing that you’ve prayed for your spouse, for the other person, recently? Emily, maybe we can start with you.

Emily Van Dixhoorn
I have different specifics I pray for on different days. Monday, for him as a husband; Tuesday, for him as a father; Wednesday, as a writer and as a worker, anything related to work; Thursday, for his health; Friday, for his friendships; Saturday, for him as a steward of his gifts; and Sunday, as a child of God. So different specifics come up in different areas.

Chad Van Dixhoorn
I’m humbled almost to the point of tears. I can barely speak. I’m so thankful for that. I pray that the Lord will help Emily, as a Christian woman, to love him more. I pray that he’ll help her, as a wife trapped in a difficult marriage, to be patient with her husband. I pray the Lord will give Emily wisdom as we parent children who get three years older every year. I pray that the Lord will help her to love worshiping him, and that he will help her—as someone who’s often given the opportunity to lead prayer meetings, Bible studies, a ladies’ conference or something like that—that she just has a very fertile mind, and I pray the Lord would help her to use that to his glory.

15:13 - Paul Tripp on Forgiveness

I want to share another excerpt from Paul Tripp, this time drawn from an interview featuring questions submitted by listeners. In this clip, Paul addresses a challenging issue that many couples face—dealing with a spouse who struggles to let go of past hurts. I found Paul’s advice to be both compassionate and practical when it comes to handling these delicate situations with grace and patience.

Matt Tully
How should a person respond to a spouse who can’t seem to forgive and repeatedly brings up past hurts? Maybe you did do something that was wrong and you have faced up to it and repented of it to God and to this person (your spouse), and yet it feels like your spouse continues to bring that up to you over and over again. How should someone respond to that?

Paul Tripp
The first thing I would say is you can’t allow yourself to be unforgiving about somebody’s unforgiveness. That never works.

Matt Tully
That’s a hard one though.

Paul Tripp
If your response is, Don’t you dare ever bring up anything in the past for me. I’ve had enough of this!, you’re probably not going to be able to get at that dynamic. But if I would approach you and say, I love you. I am so committed to this marriage. I’m willing to love you in moments of weakness and failure. I know that it’s a struggle for you to let go of things, but I would love to be able to work with you to get beyond that so that we’re able to live in the present and not live in the past. One of the verses that I think could be a model for a couple in this situation that was helpful for Luella and me is "Don’t let the sun go down on your anger" (Eph. 4:26). What God understands is we need to have short accounts because the longer I carry a thing, the more drama it tends to take on and the bigger it seems to get. It’s just such a wonderful thing to, before you close out the day, to say, Please forgive me for this. Yes, I forgive you. And you go to bed with a fresh start. What I love, love, love, love, love, love—I can’t say love enough—about the gospel is it’s a message of fresh starts and new beginnings. Think of the story of Jonah. This guy ran away from God. God rescues him and calls him back. One of my favorite passages in all of the Bible is the first verse of chapter three of Jonah: "The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time." God didn’t give up on him. We’ve got to work on settling things so we can start fresh. You can’t approach an unforgiving person self-righteously. It never works. You can’t be unforgiving to unforgiveness, because you won’t solve the problem. You have to come in a forgiving spirit and say, God’s with us. We can do better. We can start fresh everyday!

Matt Tully
What would you say to the person who says, I want to forgive my spouse and I want to let go of that past hurt that I feel, but I just don’t know how to do that. We have talked about it before, and yet every time that we have another argument that is similar to the one before or the pattern of arguments that we’ve had, it feels like my mind just goes there and all of those emotions swell up again and I can’t help but think back to those things?

Paul Tripp
There are two things to say about this. The first thing is there are two stages of forgiveness. The first is judicial forgiveness. That’s between me and God. I give the offense to God. That’s Romans 12:19: "Vengeance is mine; I will repay." And then Paul says something that I think is almost humorous: "Leave room for God’s wrath" (Rom. 12:19). It’s God saying, Step aside. Don’t get in my way. Let me do my job. Vengeance is mine. I will repay. Leave room for me to do my work. So I give the offense to God and I trust that he will do the work necessary. That transaction in my heart then allows me to grant to you relational forgiveness, because I’m trusting that God will take care of it. Relational forgiveness means I will not hold this against you. I will not repeatedly confess your sins in my mind, and I will not bring it up to you again. Now, that relational thing is a process. As you’re saying those things, what will happen? You will remember it again, but you choose not to verbalize it. The more you’re willing to do that, the fewer times you allow your mind to go there and allow your mouth to go there, you are robbing that memory of its power, and eventually it won’t have the power that it once had. You believe God hates evil, and he will deal with it properly. Only he is able to be a judge, and he can do that with mercy and grace. He has the power to transform the other person. I can leave this with him. I want to give room for him to work. And then I don’t hold it against you. I don’t repeat it in my mind, and I don’t speak it to you. I’ll get better at doing that, but I want to make those choices actively.

Authority

Authority

Jonathan Leeman

Through Scripture and engaging stories, Jonathan Leeman shows that godly authority is essential to human flourishing and presents 5 attributes of biblical authority.

20:35 - Jonathan Leeman on What Authority in Marriage Is and Isn’t

Our last clip today is a really insightful excerpt from an interview with Jonathan Leeman, author of the book Authority: How Godly Rule Protects the Vulnerable, Strengthens Communities, and Promotes Human Flourishing. In this clip, he explores the nuances of authority in different areas of life, emphasizing the distinction between the authority of counsel and the authority of command—a distinction that’s critical when it comes to how we live out our God-given roles within our communities, our churches, our families, and our marriages.

Matt Tully
Broadening out a little bit to this idea of authority in general, a pretty important concept undergirding your approach to this big issue is a distinction between authority of counsel and authority of command. And that colors and applies in the different spheres in which we are under authority or have authority over other people. Explain those two ideas.

Jonathan Leeman
Well, let me first say there’s a temptation to treat authority as just one kind of thing.

Matt Tully
A monolithic thing.

Jonathan Leeman
A monolithic thing. It’s a hierarchy. I have control. You don’t have control. That’s it. I’m the father. I’m the king of this little household. And we treat the king’s authority like a father’s authority when it’s not. When you look at how Romans 13 talks about a king’s authority as “be afraid,” but then you look at how Scripture talks about a father’s authority (“Fathers do not exasperate your children”), it’s different. It’s got a different texture. It’s got a different feel. There’s a different jurisdiction. There’s a different sort of control that you would assert. And so what we need to do is start looking at the Bible and say, What exactly is a king’s authority? How does the government’s authority work? What is its jurisdiction? What about a parent’s authority? What about a father’s authority? What about a husband’s authority? What about the church? So we’ve got to pay special attention to exactly what the Bible says in these different spheres, as you said, of authority. To your question, one of the biggest differences I see the Bible making is between an authority in which you have the ability to exercise discipline, and those in which you don’t. Those in which you have an enforcement mechanism of discipline—the government has a sword, a parent has the rod, a church has the keys—all of these are disciplinary enforcement mechanisms, and those authorities in which you don’t have that enforcement mechanism. So stop and think for a moment. Can you think of any verse in the Bible—scan your mind’s eye through the Bible—is there any place where you see a husband has the right to “discipline” his wife?

Matt Tully
It’s hard to think of an option.

Jonathan Leeman
Let the long silence ensue. Can you think of it? I can’t. Now, does a husband have authority? I think he does. He’s given headship and wives are told to submit, but it’s a different kind of authority. It’s what I would call authority of counsel. What does that mean? Well, it means he has the right to say to his wife, Sweetheart, I think we should do this. And she’s called to submit. And there is an enforcement mechanism. Jesus has it. On the last day he will say to the wife, I told you to submit, and you didn’t. But the husband doesn’t hold that enforcement mechanism. I would say the same thing about pastors/elders. I think the church holds the enforcement mechanism. As a Congregationalist, I don’t think the pastor does. We can debate that later for my Presbyterian and Anglican friends. But leave that one to the side. Why is this distinction between authority of counsel and command important? Because it radically changes the nature of how that authority is exercised. With an authority of command—government, parent of young children, church—I can insist on something right now. I can say to my three year old, It’s time to go to bed. No, you need to go to bed now. A police officer can say, You need to slow down your car now and expect immediate results. Whereas a husband is to live with his wife in an understanding way. A pastor is to teach with all patience. There’s a sense in which husbands and pastors, who I would argue have this authority of counsel, are seeking to woo, to win, to love, to draw people towards, in an evangelistic fashion, oneness, Christ-likeness, and so forth. They don’t insist on now. It’s not for that. You’re seeking to help your wife love you and follow you with the Song of Solomon-like beauty that you’re trying to compel her with. And in the same way, an elder is trying to draw people towards the righteousness of Christ—Follow me as I follow Christ—with the beauty of a Christ-like example. So you’re not threatening with an enforcement mechanism; you’re instead seeking to compel with something beautiful.

Thanks for joining us on this journey through the archives of The Crossway Podcast. We hope these excerpts have been enriching and encouraging for you just as they were for us. If you want to hear more from any of the interviews featured today, we’ve added links to all of them in the show notes below. And if you liked this compilation episode, check out the one we did on the topic of apologetics. Find a link in the show notes to that episode as well.

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