Ep 73 The Real Story Behind The Marriage of Priscilla and Aquila - Faith, Mission, and Mutual Growth

How much do you know about Priscilla and Aquila, the biblical power couple whose love for each other was only surpassed by their devotion to God? This week with Pastor David Squyres, we're taking an exciting journey through their lives, highlighting how they served God's mission and used their marriage to mentor others. Their story offers a roadmap for maintaining a strong marriage focused on Christ.

Priscilla and Aquila's faith remained steadfast, even in the face of adversity. Forced from their homeland, they established a business in Corinth and generously hosted Paul, using their home as a ministry hub. They were channels of grace, inviting even a  motivated but unrefined teacher like Apollos for a meal and correcting his understanding of scripture. As we pour over their inspiring actions, we examine the potential of marriages to build others up or inadvertently cause damage. 

As the episode unfolds, we'll tap into Priscilla and Aquila's remarkable commitment to their faith, their community, and each other. Their unwavering devotion, evident throughout the New Testament, offers a lesson in resilience that we all can learn from. We'll also discuss how to choose a life partner who unequivocally shares a commitment to God's mission and the importance of investing in the next generation. Join us on this transformative exploration - it's bound to inspire and challenge your understanding of love, faith, and mission in marriage.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello and welcome to Real Bible Stories.
Join us as we deep dive intothe historic, religious,
cultural, political andemotional context surrounding
the real lives of real people inthe Bible and the stories we've
all grown to love.
Hello and welcome to Real BibleStories.
I am your host, emron Ward, andwe're joined by my wife, selena

(00:28):
, and our teacher for this newseries, pastor David Squires.
Hello, so, pastor, this is nowthe second week of actually, I
have no idea how many weeks thisis about to be A thousand and
two, okay, well, maybe four orfive.
We've got time, and in thattime Jesus will probably come
back.
He could yeah, I know it's likea thousand more of these.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
No, I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
That's a thousand weeks left in my lifetime.
Actually, I don't know how thatworks.
It's 52 weeks a year.
I'm supposed to live to 80something.
I don't know what that worksout to Anyway so he is so easily
sidetracked, isn't?
This fun.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Isn't this fun.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
I was like math.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
I just come in here like how can I throw him?

Speaker 1 (01:08):
off.
Yeah, I'm very now.
I'm like actually doing themath.
Let's get back on track here, sowe're going into this.
Oh, I guess we'll start withthe overall series.
So, this overall series, we'regoing through the story behind
the story.
We are so we're deep divingsome of the kind of biographical
study of some of the characterswithin the Bible or some of the
people in the Bible, because ifyou didn't know, the Bible is

(01:30):
true.
So these people were livinglives around the events that
were just written about in thetext, and so by piecing together
kind of different aspects ofthe text, you can actually get a
really good understanding ofwhat was going on in the life of
that person.
So, with that in mind, we'regoing to be diving into a new
study this week.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
So tonight we're going to be looking at the story
behind a marriage on missionand I want to show you a couple
that are wonderful in the Bible.
Their name is Priscilla andAquila.
Okay, and I think our ideabehind story, behind the story,
is we're used to preaching inpassages where you just take
that block of scripture.
What we're doing are somethings you have to chase the
rabbit through.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, I think man last week was so great because
we were piecing we were piecingtogether the life of John Mark
throughout the New Testament.
Yeah instead of just focusingon just one piece of scripture,
and it's like let's just learnabout the guy and that was
awesome.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Tonight, what we're going to do is look at a passage
, or a set of passages, wherewe're just going to see a couple
that are not only in love witheach other, they're in love with
the Lord, and the Lord hasgiven them a marriage that's
just full of mission.
What you don't know when you'reyoung is that God gives us
marriage, and then a marriagehas to give itself to a cause.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
So that cause Marriage has to give itself to a
cause.
What do you mean by that?

Speaker 2 (02:51):
So we think marriage is going to be okay.
We're going to go on carriagerides and we're going to eat
romantic dinners, which is great, right, that's wonderful, but
it's got to be more than that.
That we're you know, we'regoing to look deeply into each
other's eyes and we're going tofind meaning.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
So I just want to make sure I clarify before I
might under switch to say Godgives you a marriage but you
have to give that marriage acause.
No, god's going to give you the.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
God gives you a cause .
So what couples will say isthey'll say well, our lives just
went different directions, andwhat they mean, you know, she
doesn't mean hey, he's a plumber, I'm a librarian.
We went in different directions.
It means that something aboutthe cause that we were living
for was no longer united.
We were moving differentdirections in the cause that we
just grew apart.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yeah.
You did because you're givingher a lack of effort.
That's how that happens.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Remember when I was first dating Rebecca, our very
first day, we're driving up intothe mountains to go to this
dance and she's just talking andtalking, and talking and
talking.
And I was a young pastor.
And she's talking and she goes.
I just always thought I mightbe a pastor's wife.
I might be a pastor's wife.
That might be what God wants meto do, and at first I thought
that is so forward.
We're on.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
Were you already a pastor by this point?

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah, but we're on date one, and she's already
declared that she's going to bea pastor's wife.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
That's so insane, because Ryan said something like
that too Ryan was like yeah,about his wife that she
basically said.
She went home that night to hermother and called her and said
I think I found my husband, or Ithink I found the man I'm going
to marry.
I think it's what she said.
I think I found the man I'mgoing to marry.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
That is insane.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
How do women have that level of love?
I thought that is so forward.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
We try and they choose.
What I realized is she was notbeing forward.
She was actually expressing herlife calling.
And what I realized the longerwe were together is that we had
a life mission that could gotogether, and so for 25 years we
walked together pastoringchurches, because that's what
God called.
We had a common missiontogether, and it's one of the

(04:46):
things that made our marriagestrong was that we had this
mission that just moved together.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
I do want to be clear for those in the podcast pastor
when he says 25 years, it's notbecause they got divorced, it's
because Rebecca passed away.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
Yeah, we did not decide to quit on it.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
She went to heaven, she finished her mission, she
did?

Speaker 2 (05:03):
She finished her mission.
She finished well.
What we're going to see is thiscouple, priscilla and Aquila.
Is Paul's going to meet them?
In Acts, chapter 18.
Now Paul's on mission.
He's been to Philippi, he'sbeen to Thessalonica, he's been
to Berea, he's been to Greece,he's been to Athens, he's been
all over the place.
We drop in in Athens and itsays in Acts 18, one after this,

(05:26):
paul left Athens and so he'spreached on Maristil, which
sounds cool.
I always wanted to kind of sayhey, I preached on Mars.
You know, it says he leftAthens and he goes to Corinth.
You've heard of Corinth becauseof 1 Corinthians.
Corinth is like this bustlingcity it's 29 palms with a sea

(05:46):
coast.
That's probably a terribledescription of it.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
It's a desert with a coast.
I mean, that's how I imagineEgypt is just a desert with a
coast.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
Maybe it's more like the San Francisco of its time.
You know, it's got markets,it's got temples, it's got a
military fortress.
Everything is going on inCorinth, but then it says this
see this in Selena, in verse two.
This is wonderful.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus
, who had recently come fromItaly with his wife Priscilla.
Because Claudius had orderedall Jews to leave Rome, Paul
went to see them.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
Where specifically was that?

Speaker 3 (06:24):
Um.
This is acts 18, verse two acts18.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
So he meets this Jew named Aquila, and they're
together, aquila and Priscilla.
They're from Italy, thoughNotice it says that in verse two
it says who had recently comefrom Italy.
So that's Rome.
Um, and there's a reason whythey've come from Italy.
They're.
Marriage has taken someunplanned turns, so they imagine
they fell in love in Italy.

(06:50):
They're good Roman people, butat some point something happened
, and actually the clue to whythey have been kicked out of
Rome, why?
Why, if that, uh, it says in 18to, claudius had commanded the
Jews to leave Rome.
There is a famous Romanhistorian named Suetonius who
tells us what happened.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
That a great name.
Yeah, at the.
I can't believe that fell outof style.
It's just an awesome name.
Yeah, it's just so fantastic.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
Just offering names out there If anybody wants to
name one yeah the, the writerSuetonius.
All right, what did Suetoniussay?

Speaker 3 (07:25):
Claudius banished from Rome all the Jews who were
continually making disturbancesat the instigation of one
Christus.
So what is?
What is that?

Speaker 2 (07:37):
There's a.
It says that Claudius threw theJews out because of a guy named
Christus.
A lot of New Testament scholarsthink that's the first mission
mentioned of Jesus and an extrabiblical source.

Speaker 1 (07:48):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
And so it's the the first place that a letter is
written, and it's not in theBible, but it refers to Jesus
outside the Bible.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
Is that what the?
Do you know if that's what theRomans called Jesus or they just
like they?
They were like.
We don't know what his name is.
They keep calling him Christ orChristus.
Yeah, we think they justmisspelled it.

Speaker 2 (08:03):
And so at first scholars go who's Christus?
Then they go wait.
So Jews are getting thrown outof Rome because of this guy,
christus.
It appears that Christus isChrist.
They've been talking aboutChrist, yeah.
But, the Romans don't understandJewish religion, and so they
don't understand who Christ is.
Over there in Rome there's someguy named Christus.
They're worshiping him.
Somehow the Christians in RomeAquila and Priscilla became

(08:27):
Christians in.
You know, jews and andfollowers of, of of of Jesus
probably not in Rome.
Probably they're gonna.
They're gonna meet Paul, butall the Jews get thrown out of
Rome because the Christians arecreating trouble.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, Cause that ties back to what
some of the other I mean either.
We talked about it here, wetalked about it with Ryan, where
the Romans actually looked tothe Jews to say like no, we're
real Jewish, those are thoseChristians.
You cast those out, and it wasactually.
The Jews wrote sorry, theRomans were relying on the Jews
to help them differentiate whothey were actually going to
persecute.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
It appears early on that they couldn't quite figure
out who the trouble makes itwork.
So they're just through the mallout, so they throw out a Jew
named Aquila and Priscilla,along with everybody else.
Yeah, they lose their, and sothey've got this home.
They lose their home.
They lose everything because ofJesus.
You know, can you imagine?
This is this married couple.
They've got a nice home in Rome.

(09:22):
Now they've got to move.
They've been thrown out by theemperor because of Jesus.
The emperor just gets fed upwith Christians.
He's tired of look, don't knockon our doors asking do we know
what would happen if you diedtoday?
Like, stop it, stop.
We don't want to go to yourharvest festival.
We don't like your Christmasprograms.
We don't like church.
We.
We've already got a religion inRome.
It's going pretty good, justget out.
And so he throws all the.

(09:43):
He throws and he doesn't.
He can't figure out who's aChristian, who's not a Christian
.
He just throws everybody out.

Speaker 1 (09:48):
I think sometimes I hear things like like this
happened in the Bible.
I'm like, wow, that's, that'scrazy.
How could that, how could thathave happened?
And then I think back.
It's like it wasn't too longago that America our country put
the Japanese in internmentcamps during the war, just
because we thought they maycause a problem at some point in
the future.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
Imagine for your marriage if suddenly you lost
your home, you lost your yougrew up there, you lost your
homeland, and so where do theygo?
Well, this, this couple,they've got a business.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
And it was for their faith.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
You know it was for their faith.
Yeah, they're, they're Jews.
They're like what do we do?
Well, they end up in Corinthand they're going to meet Paul,
and so Paul is headed that way.
What I know is this that wedon't plan to suffer, but your
marriage is probably gonna takesome turns where there's gonna
be some suffering.
So nobody plans to suffer.
And Paul was never married,right?

(10:39):
No, not that we know of.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
But we get married for love, security, to build a
home, build a nest.
This is what I want all of youto know, including the two of
you sitting here.
Who just has your past?

Speaker 1 (10:52):
our life's gonna throw you some curveballs.
If you didn't know it, I ammarried to the other lovely lady
on this podcast, Selena.

Speaker 2 (10:59):
Who is smiling big right now at him.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
She nodded, like you could see her acknowledgement or
something.

Speaker 3 (11:04):
Well, you introduced me already.
Yeah, you're right, we can sayanything.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
She's blowing him kisses at this very moment.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
Oh, that's so sweet, selena.
Oh, my goodness, she's blinking, her loving affection.

Speaker 3 (11:13):
You can't see.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
I think that was Morris.
Code for SOS.
Get me out of here.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah, exactly.
I don't know if you can see.
But she's drawing a heart to meright now and a note and
slipping it to me.
Nobody gets married, thinkinghey, I hope we get to suffer.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
We get married because we get married for love.
But, I know, for every marriage, life's gonna throw you some
curveballs.
Whether it's some marriages,they lose a child, this family,
they lost, a home they lost, butsomewhere somebody's gonna get
sick.
My wife died.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
Life throws you curveballs, I remember that we
talked in one of your sermonsabout.
If there's no struggles in yourlife, then is your life truly
got centered?
Because if your life is trulygot centered, then the devil's
gonna be coming after you.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Well, that includes your marriage too, right,
Exactly?

Speaker 1 (11:58):
exactly so if your marriage is not being tested,
it's probably because the devildoesn't see anything worth
testing.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
Aquila and Priscilla.
They're in Corinth, they'refleeing from Rome, and who are
they gonna bump into?
This is so God-ordained.
Here comes the apostle Paul andhe just hits it off with.
In fact, it says this in wannaread verse three Selena.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
So it continues.
Paul went to see them and,because he was a tent maker as
they were, he stayed and workedwith them.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
Okay, so he joins their business.
They're all tent makers.
That's how Priscilla and Aquilamake money as they're tent
makers and they just hit it offwith Paul and Paul kind of makes
his center of operations Aquilaand Priscilla's home, and so
everybody is working out of thathome.
And Acts, chapter 18, verse 11,it says he stayed for a year

(12:49):
and a half teaching the word ofGod among them.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
And so this house he's talking about the couple
stayed with Paul for about ayear and a half.
Paul stayed with the couple.

Speaker 2 (12:58):
Oh, Paul stayed with the couple, so they've got the
home in Corinth.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
Oh right, right.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
And so they are.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
They're, this base of operations, so they end up
hosting Paul.
Yeah, that's interesting.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, they host him and let him just use their house
.

Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yeah, what I love-.
Yeah, it's such an amazingthing about all the stuff I see
on the old, a lot of stuff inthe Old Testament, like Jesus
would just stay with people andlike the disciples would just
stay with people and Paul's tostay with people, and it's like
so many people are just makingtheir homes available.

Speaker 3 (13:24):
It's like that just does not happen now.
This couple that was a culturethough to write hospitality,
opening your home to strangers.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
And now it's like- the strangers' teachers is like
man.
That's a whole different.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
A year and a half Like Pastor, if you told me you
needed a place to stay for ayear and a half and you stayed
in my house.
Hey, can I stay at your housefor a year and a half?
Yeah, a year and a half.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
You could be teaching every Sunday, but I'd be like,
what do you do?

Speaker 2 (13:45):
at home.
Well, no, you one day it at atime.
Hey, could I stay on your sofaone more day?

Speaker 1 (13:49):
Oh, my gosh.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
Hey, imagine this from Priscilla and Quilla's
point of view.
They've already lost a home.
What I love is they don't getbitter, they're not hard,
they're not cranky.
They're like ah, we've alreadysuffered enough for that, Jesus,
Like we don't wanna do thatanymore.
And that's people that some ofthem have been hurt in church,
Some people have been woundedand they're like we're done.

Speaker 1 (14:11):
People have probably been killed by this point.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
They're like, hey, we're still in.
They didn't say Jesus.
Jesus has already given usenough trouble.
We just we don't wanna getinvolved.
What I love is not only doPriscilla and Quilla help Paul,
but they then start givingthemselves to the next
generation.
So in Acts 18, corinth Paul'shaving success.

(14:35):
The synagogue ruler gets saved.
Everything's going pretty good.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
In Acts 18, so this is verse 18?
.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
Or sorry, chapter 18?
.
Chapter 18, in fact, verse nine,Jesus has to say to Paul hey,
don't be afraid, Go on speaking,I'm gonna be with you, no one's
gonna attack you, no one'sgonna harm you.
I think God says this.
I've got many people in thiscity.
You don't need to be afraid,Paul, because it's getting.
It's being successful andpeople start getting upset.
Let me show you something socool in your Bible, Paul is

(15:08):
having so much success that theJews get fed up with him winning
everybody to Jesus.
So they take him to court andthis is Roman court so they
march him into the room.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
Oh yeah, it's called Roman citizen.
Can you imagine?

Speaker 2 (15:19):
Well, that's their governing body, and so that's
like marching another churchinto court and saying we don't
like them.
They're taking all our people.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
Yeah, cause Rome is also a what's it called when you
not a theocracy, where you havea religion.
That is a part of thegovernment.
Oh Rome, well, Rome's not quitea theocracy.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
They're run by an emperor, but they give.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
In fact, the emperor decided he was a God.
That's true.
Yeah, the emperor wanted to beworshiped as well.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
Yeah, what you gotta know is when they take Paul to
court.
The leader of the Jews is a guynamed Sassanese, and this is
wonderful, isn't?

Speaker 3 (15:53):
that a great name Sassanese.

Speaker 2 (15:56):
My.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
God, sounds like a sauce, right Sashwan.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
Well, they take him to court and they, you know the
judge is like, okay, what's thecharge against him?
And they're like he breaks ourlaw, Like Roman law.
No, just our law, Just Jewishlaw.
Your church rules.
Yeah, he breaks our churchrules.
Okay, get out of my courtroom.
And the judge just throws themright out of the courtroom.
At that point, the Jews turn ontheir leader Sassanese and they

(16:19):
just start beating him up inthe middle of the street.
This is in the Bible what theyjust start beating him up.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
Where is this?
What happens?

Speaker 2 (16:26):
And then there are chapter 18, verse 16 of Acts.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
You want to read that Selena chapter chapter 18,
verses 16 and 17.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
Watch what happens at court in in Corinth.

Speaker 3 (16:37):
So he drove them off.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
Sorry, that was, oh my gosh, and he drove them from
the trial, you know so he drovethem off.

Speaker 3 (16:47):
Then the crowd.
They're turned on Sassanese,the synagogue leader, and beat
him in front of the proc-console.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
The proc-console.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
The proc-console.

Speaker 3 (16:57):
That, that incredible .

Speaker 2 (16:58):
So, they turn on him and they just start beating him
up.
What?

Speaker 1 (17:01):
That's hilarious.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
Give another story behind the story.
It's kind of curious becausethere's something unfulfilled.
What happened to Sassanese?

Speaker 1 (17:08):
He goes home, he's beat up, imagine if we did that
to you, that'd be awful yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
There's something really cool that happens when
Paul writes a letter to theCorinthians.
Just just get this.
First Corinthians, chapter one,verse one.
You see it.
This is so wonderful, it'sgoing to sweep you away.
If you've got a Bible out there, you want to actually see the
words.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
All right, so first Corinthians, first.

Speaker 2 (17:33):
Corinthians chapter one and just go to verse one.
This is how.
Paul opens the letter to theCorinthians.

Speaker 1 (17:39):
So this is the English standard version.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
And I'll try to hold my excitement in as you make
this.

Speaker 1 (17:44):
Paul called by the will of God to be an apostle of
Jesus Christ, and our brotherSassanese, oh, my goodness,
that's it.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
So wait, wait, wait, wait.
A moment ago, sassanese wastaking Paul to court.
Then they lost their case, theygot thrown out of court and he
got beat up by his church.
The next time we see Sassanesehe's traveling around with Paul.
This guy converted toChristianity after the Jews beat
him up and he joined forceswith the guy he took to court.

Speaker 1 (18:10):
Nice.
Is that the most exciting thingyou've heard all day?
That's literally what happenedto Paul as well.
Because Paul was persecutingChristians and Jesus knocked him
down.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
Sassanese becomes a Christian.
And he's not just a Christian,he's traveling around with Paul.
So when Paul writes back toCorinth he goes oh, by the way,
I'm with the old synagogue rulerwho got saved with.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
Sassanese.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
That's just so incredibly exciting to me.
Well, eventually you get enoughlawsuits, you get enough people
mad at you.
Paul leaves Corinth and he'sgonna take with him Aquila and
Priscilla.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
So they're still with him this whole time.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
Oh, this all happens while he's in Corinth for that
year and a half For that yearand a half.

Speaker 1 (18:49):
this all takes place.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
It says in chapter 18 , verse 18, paul set sail for
Syria.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
So let me make sure we got the timelines all
straight.
So the couple, priscilla andAquila, are in what is Rome and
Italy and then they get kickedout of there.
They go down to Corinth.
They have another home inCorinth where they're staying at
.
Paul ends up coming into townstaying with them.
He stays for about a year and ahalf.

(19:16):
During that time Paul ispersecuted and gets taken to
court.
He's taken to court and theleader of the synagogue at the
time takes him to court.
That all fails.
Synagogue leader gets beat up.
Later on we see that thesynagogue leader ends up joining
Paul, but Paul is still withPriscilla and Aquila.
During this period they'restarting a church.

Speaker 2 (19:37):
So they're starting a church, they're building a
church, yeah, so this is thechurch plant, this is the church
plant.
They're staying.
He's staying with them whilethey are starting this church.
It's kind of like the churchgot sued, paul got sued by the
Jews and now, apparently, canyou imagine, sassanese is one of
their.
Well, now, paul, it's like it'stime for Paul to leave.
A year is a long time for Paulto stay anywhere.

(19:59):
And so he's gotten the churchstarted.
It's time for him to go on Now.
When he leaves, he's gonna takewith him Aquila and Priscilla
and they're gonna head up toEphesus.
Just watch what happens whenthey go to Ephesus in Acts 18,
18.
It says Paul set sail for Syriaand with him now this couple
from Rome.
He met them in Corinth.
It says Priscilla and Aquilawere with him.

(20:20):
So Paul goes off to Syria.
They're gonna start a churchthere, gets encouragement from
the Ephesians.
He addresses their house.
But then the story is gonnafollow on Paul.
Paul's gonna go off on otherjourneys.
But, verse 24, there's a guynamed Apollos that enters the
story and you see the Seleniumchapter 18, verses 24 to 26.

(20:45):
Check this out.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
Meanwhile, a Jew named Apollos, a name of
Alexandra, came to Ephesus.
He was a learned man with athorough knowledge of the
scriptures.
He had been instructed in theway of the Lord and he spoke
with great fever.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
Fervor, he's like fiery, can you believe?

Speaker 1 (21:05):
fiery preachers and the Amplify Bible says being
spiritually impassioned.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
I like that.
He's been like man.
When he preached this guy couldbring down the house.
That's kind of a difference, Ithink, from the way Paul
preached, because, like whenPaul you know, he's very
analytical.

Speaker 3 (21:19):
Yeah, Paul's analytical?

Speaker 1 (21:21):
I think not not explaining it wasn't preaching
what his thing.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
Yeah, it was Peter's thing and a Paulus thing.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
It's kind of the Paul Paul versus Peter yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
Well, watch what happens.
So it says he spoke ferventlyand taught about Jesus
accurately.

Speaker 3 (21:36):
Though he knew only the baptism of John.
He began to speak boldly in thesynagogue.
When Priscilla and Aquila heardhim, they invited him to their
home and explained to him theway of God more adequately.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
So this new leader comes into the, into the, the
church, into the, the family ofGod.
Their last pastor was Paul.
Now they're in Ephesus.
This guy named this, this guynamed a Paulus, comes in.
He's a great preacher, but youknow it's tough after Paul was
your last pastor.
Yeah, and you're like man.
He's a good preacher.

(22:12):
He mostly gets it right.

Speaker 1 (22:13):
But you know, does he got?
I like how the amplified Bibleputs it says any beyond to speak
boldly and fearlessly in thesynagogue.
But when Priscilla and Aquilaheard him, they took him aside
and explained more accurately tohim the way of God and the full
story Of the life of Christwhat would your first reaction
be?

Speaker 2 (22:29):
so often it's man, this guy's no, paul.
Can you imagine they're sittingin the pew, they hear him
preach and like, do he just saythat about baptism?
What?
Oh my god go to this churchanymore.
This guy, he's trashed.
This is no good.
But instead of trashing him,instead of putting notes up on
Facebook, false teacher comes toEphesus, you know, running
YouTube clips of his, of hissermons, like well that was

(22:51):
wrong and that was wrong.
Yeah, and putting TikTok videosout there, instead of trashing
this young man, what they do isthey say, hey, Want to do lunch,
can we take you out, can we?
And they sit him down and theyjust start explaining the Bible
to him.
Yeah, I think that speaks.
So what?
This is their marriage.
This is persona quillasmarriage.
Wow, because they're alwaysmentioned together.

(23:11):
Yeah, and isn't it beautifulthat, instead of destroying
Apollos, they built this guy up?
Yeah, and this young man is nowbecoming stronger.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
And the Lord, because a couple and all of us can
think of godly couples that justpoured in and they provided for
Paul too, like right allowedhim to stay there for a year and
a half Because he was justteaching and it's like you know
you didn't have a preachersalary back then.

Speaker 2 (23:31):
Yeah, so, yeah, they, they had this goal, I think, in
their marriage to build peopleup.
And I would just encourage you,know your marriage, you can
tear people down, not just eachother down.
You see marriages where peoplework as a couple to tear people
up.
What?

Speaker 1 (23:45):
you want to do in your marriage.
The entire new series buildpeople up.
The what I said.
There's entire Netflix seriesis about that.
Right, that's people love thatdrama.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
It is, it is.
But this couple, they go, hey,we want to build them up, but
get this.
In order for them to build upApollos, they themselves had to
be strong in the word yeah, theycouldn't just, you can't just
go.
Okay, we want to build peopleup, but but not themselves have
affirmed foundation.
The reason they were able tobuild up Apollos is because they
themselves knew the word of God.

Speaker 1 (24:12):
You know something I've heard, we've talked in
church about it and I've heardabout, heard it over the years
like, oh, you know you should bewilling to take someone out and
you know, talk to them about,about the Lord, take, you know,
take him out for coffee talkingabout the Lord or or whatever it
is like set up some time andyou know, if you care about them
, you should, you should do that.
I don't.
I've never had heard anyone saylike you should do it with your

(24:32):
spouse, yeah, like you and yourspouse should invite someone
out and like it's like it'sbetter with to you have someone
that kind of To help you kind ofgo through that process of
having those types ofconversations.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
And support you in that mentor couples as a couple.
Yeah or even mentor singles.
If you're a couple, everythingyou're doing is together.
Yeah and so when, as I wasdiscipling a church, my wife was
right beside me, mm-hmm, andyou guys are right beside each
other as you disciple people inthis church, and, in fact, one
of the ways you've grown isthere were people in God's
church that took you guys asideand invested in you.
Yeah, you know, you think ofRyan, who's poured a lot in, or,

(25:05):
and the result then has beenthat you guys have taken people
and you've poured into them outof your marriage, because your
marriage was made stronger.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
Have we?
Did we do that?
I don't think we've doneanything for anyone in the last.
Oh, my goodness, you have sopoured in.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
I Want to say this, I want to give this just people
go.
I don't know how to grow withmy spouse spiritually.
I want to offer an idea.
I think you grow around theword of God and so you grow and.
But people will say we reallystruggle to read the Bible
together.
We don't, we don't.
So if I say to a couple incounseling, hey, are you reading
the Bible together?
I get that kind of hang doglook and she looks mad at him.

(25:43):
Well, we were going to, butsomebody won't read and someone
can't read.
Well, I don't have time yeah,we're busy and what we started
doing this is just me andRebecca's.
I'll carry this out of mymarriage to everybody else.
Yeah, we got what was calledthe marriage Bible and it was
just a Bible with big, widemargins.
I actually think ours was kindof free.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
We have it.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
Yeah, you have actually.
That looks just like the one wehad.

Speaker 1 (26:06):
Yeah, we actually bought.
Was that like a year and a halfago?

Speaker 3 (26:09):
No, when he told us about it two years ago.
I did.

Speaker 1 (26:12):
I told you guys to, and it wasn't that it's late
about it.

Speaker 2 (26:14):
She was just this idea oh, somebody's have a
marriage.
It was our marriage Bible andthen I carried it to you guys.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
Oh man, Once you finish your example, I have a
five something for you what Iwant you guys to do.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
Just if you're married, I want you to get a
marriage Bible, and what you dowith your marriage Bible is you
just write in the margin.
So one person takes themarriage Bible in the morning
and they read it and you justwrite notes to the other person.
As you're reading and it can bespiritual things you draw a
circle to that verse, go, hey,that was cool, what does that
mean?
Or you write another note hey,breakfast was awesome.
Thank you so much for breakfastthis morning.

(26:46):
You're just writing notes toyour spouse.
Then the other person takes theBible and if they've got the
evening shift or the next dayshift, however, you guys are
breaking it up they write notesback.
So you're, they read the Bible.
They thought that was aninteresting verse.
I think this yeah, breakfastwas great, but wait, you know,
dinner was just.
Whatever you guys are writingback and forth sometimes, I
would just start little lists.
I would say great dates and Iwrite what.

(27:07):
I'd write 10 great dates.
I'd write the first great firstfive and then she would write
five more.
No, we would just create littlelist in our Bible and things
that we like saying to eachother, things we love about our
kids, and we would write a list.
And the cool thing was we hadfound that we had lost the art
of Communicating by writing.
We used to write letters, butthen we started texting.
The marriage Bible forced us,around the word of God, to start

(27:31):
talking again by writing.
What was your example?

Speaker 1 (27:35):
Oh, my example is gonna be from when Selena was in
Spain, so, um, so Selena takesa lot of notes on on her Bible
and we have a lot of Biblesaround the house that we just
kind of acquired or purchasedover the years.
And when she was gone, therewere a couple things that I did.
I tried my best to never be athome.

(27:55):
I tried my best to.

Speaker 2 (27:59):
You were at church a lot.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
Yeah, it was a worship night.
We was perfect so I could justlive there.
But I was home for one of thenights and and I was barely
having like this kind of a toughtime kind of with my own like
in my own head and just having alot of doubt and frustration
and all this stuff.
And I was sitting at thecomputer and I noticed that one

(28:23):
of the Bibles in the house wassitting next to me and it was a
little Bit of paper sticking outof it and I just grabbed it and
opened it up, not thinkinganything of it.
But Selena had written a noteon it and it was not a note to
me, it was like her andcommenting on something that was
in the scripture and it'ssomething about faith, and it
basically said something on thelines of like it's all gonna be

(28:45):
okay or something like that.
And she didn't write the noteto me specifically, but she
wrote the note in the Bible asshe was, you know, studying the
Bible and that just I tookcomfort in the blessed you.
Huh, exactly, yeah, I took a lotof comfort in that in that
moment.
And it was also kind of a kindof like a surreal moment too,
because then I realized therewere a lot of Bibles around me,

(29:06):
because it's like I.
Then I took a step back andit's like the marriage Bible was
like on the on the futon in theroom.
We had another Bible like onthe coffee stand that was behind
me In the room and and I was.
It was weird.
I kind of I felt covered.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
Yeah, if that makes sense, yeah but let me, yeah,
say this about the marriageBible, because people come up to
me when I explain this in asermon hey, you and you're
spastic in a marriage Bible.
They're like where do I, where,where, where do we buy the
marriage Bible?
Amazon?
And like no, no, you don'tunderstand, there's not a
marriage Bible.
You're just gonna buy a Bibleyou like and tear it up.
So you're gonna write littlenotes to each other all over and
they're not gonna be deep, it'snot yeah, so the note that I

(29:44):
read wasn't even in the marriageBible.

Speaker 1 (29:46):
Yeah the Bible.

Speaker 2 (29:46):
that was just happened beyond the desk that
she Was using for her, herstudies for Christ's woman's
fellowship, yeah and so you'rejust gonna be talking to each
other, and so it's not for yourkids, it's not for your
grandkids, it's for the two ofyou, it's your marriage Bible.
And so when you say, hey, let'sread the book of Habakkuk,
you're talking to each other asyou read Habakkuk and circling
stuff and going, oh, that's cool, that's cool, you know.
And so there's not, I'm not,I'm not advertising a specific

(30:09):
Bible, the marriage Bible.
Just get a wide margin Bibletear it up.

Speaker 3 (30:12):
Would you guys keep track of, like, where you guys
are at with the little bookmarkor something, or yeah?

Speaker 2 (30:17):
Well, the writing ended, so the underlining and
stuff ended, so you go back towhere you left off and or we
would draw lines and stuff likethat.
Oh nice it was.
It was amazing fun.
Yeah, I'm glad it's kind ofcool to look over and see you
Now with your marriage Bible,because I remember I think we
were on a hill.

Speaker 1 (30:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:35):
I told you guys hey, get a marriage Bible and I see
you with the marriage Bible.
I see writing in it.
Oh yeah, so I take more notesand I got take a lot of my notes
on, like my iPad and stuff, butI got to go writing it some
more kind of makes you wonderhow did it turn out with Apollo?
So they pull him aside.
They explain to him hey,there's a better way.
If you look down at acts 18,verse 27, apollos goes off to

(30:58):
Acacia, and Wanna want to readthat verse 27 18, 20 27, 28.

Speaker 3 (31:07):
When Apollos wanted to go to Acacia, the brothers
and sisters encouraged him andwrote to the disciples there to
welcome him.
When he arrived, he was a greathelp to those who, by grace,
had believed, for he vigorouslyrefuted his Jewish opponents in
public debate, proving from thescriptures that Jesus was the

(31:29):
Messiah.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
This guy who came in and he wasn't even that solid on
baptism at the beginningBecause another couple poured
into them he's able to leavethem.
He's discipled for a while.
He leaves them.
He goes to Acacia and he's ableto refute the Jews.
He's able to take a stand forthe gospel.
He's able to disciple peoplenotice.
It says that he was used the.
The word my Bible says is hepowerfully refuted the Jews in

(31:52):
public.

Speaker 1 (31:53):
Showing by the scriptures that there's some
people as Jesus you just lookhim ago.

Speaker 2 (31:57):
Who taught you who?
Where did you learn that stuff?
This guy learned his stuff fromAquila and Priscilla.
Wow, they taught and taught andtaught him until it just sank
in.

Speaker 1 (32:07):
I Love that, this couple that's a question that
you should just be askingyourself right now.
Let me more, speaking to thelisteners right who is who is
pouring into you right now?
Who is mentoring you?
Who is teaching about the faithso that you can have these
conversations?

Speaker 2 (32:22):
All right.
And then the question for yourmarriage is who are you pouring
into, yeah, who?
Who is it that you're giving,that you're setting that the
next generation up?
I love that.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
I pastor a church of young people and it's not just
who are you pouring intoIndividually?
So who are you pouring into asa couple?

Speaker 2 (32:36):
Mm-hmm, you know, is it a couple are there, is it a?

Speaker 1 (32:39):
is it a child?
Is it a child's friend?
Is who is who is?
Who are you pouring intoSometimes?

Speaker 2 (32:44):
you meet people as they're getting older.
They're kind of down on thenext generation.
They're kind of like oh man,the next generation there, as
you know what that's not gonnabe us it's not gonna.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
It should never be.
A doesn't make any sense whenyou think about it.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
I am so excited about the next generation coming up
in Christianity.
I'm excited about you guys.
I'm excited about your faith.
To me, you guys are kind oflike apollos, like I've seen you
grow and grow and grow in yourfaith.
You know, you're strong, youcould go out, I think.
I think you could, could givethe heretics a lickin kind of
like, but so often you just runinto man.

(33:18):
The next generation is no good,I'm gonna tell you it's just
speaking for a guy headed toward50.
I am so excited about the nextgeneration of Christianity, and
those of us that are oldershould be pouring into these
people.

Speaker 1 (33:29):
Absolutely so much, dad.
We have the same fights.
Yeah, you all that you all hadas young ins.
It's like it's the same and butnow it's even more public.
Now there's even moredisinformation, is more
inaccuracy out there.
So it's like you're fightingnot just with your friend at
work.
You're fighting with all thedisinformation or information,
whatever it is, that's coming toyou online.

Speaker 2 (33:50):
Here's what's here's what's changing.
For years in in AmericanChristianity it was passed down
generation to generation.
It has now skipped a generationor two and so the people coming
into the church.
There's still kids that wereraised in the church, but there
are also an awful lot of peoplethat are coming into the church
and their generation one.
They got saved because theyfound they needed Jesus and they

(34:11):
weren't raised up in the church.
They came to the church and itis a great opportunity.
They don't actually don't carrysome of the baggage that other
people will carry.
They're walking in, but unlessthe church Purposely disciples
these people and pours into them, they're just gonna walk out
and be lost and confused thesurface level, they're not gonna
have that deep understanding.
We have this great opportunityto disciple the current

(34:33):
generation of Christians thatare phenomenally talented.

Speaker 1 (34:35):
Yeah and it's.
I wouldn't say it's easy, butit isn't a way easy because
You've got the truth in front ofyou, you've got the.
It's like we've got twothousand years of scholars that
have done a good job Organizingall the text and stuff.
That's all you got to do astudy it.
All you gotta do is read it andand and through that, and then
you got so many avenues andvehicles to learn more about
your faith.
And it's.
It's and I've seen that inmyself and over the last two

(34:59):
years like being able to havethose constructive conversations
with, like my co-workers when Ineed to, and Be able to
actually say it's like no, no,what you're doing is wrong, and
I can tell you explicitly why.
It's gonna hurt your marriage inthe long run, and why it's
going to hurt you in the longrun and why you.
This is.
It's like your wife now babymay not be explicitly saying

(35:22):
this is why she's likefrustrated, but because of the
things that you've told mealready, like this is probably
why she's frustrated.
She is because both of you areout of the faith.
You don't really understand it,but go talk to her about this.
I guarantee, yeah, something,I'll guarantee it's this.
Yeah, you know, and so it's.
It's.
It's cool to have, have thecontext of the faith, to be able

(35:44):
to have those Discussions,because if I didn't have that,
then I'm just using what likescience, like that's not.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
I look back and think of just so many people that
mentored me in the church, myfirst church.
I was the pastor, but thosepeople mentored me.
Those old people loved me.
They mentored me in the faith.
They discipled me when I gotmarried.
They discipled my marriage, andI can think of dozens of older
people that poured into me andit.

(36:11):
That should be the attitude ofthe church continually.
Who are we pouring into who?

Speaker 1 (36:14):
and that's all Jesus did, for his entire ministry was
pouring to people.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
Amen, yeah, man.
So a question we should beasking in our marriages is who
are we purposely pouring into?
And it may be that you Kind offind the person.
That's a little I want to hearhow I say this.
They're not as informed inchurches they should be.
They're kind of dumbspiritually there.
They're just not on fire.

Speaker 1 (36:34):
But yeah, they're fired up a direction making fun
of them.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
At lunch you take them aside and say we, just you
find a way to pour into them.
Yeah you know, because thetalent is there, the the God is
using these young people, butthey just need to be discipled.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
There's a.
There's a guy who just recentlystarted coming to palms I think
this is actually the second orthird week, because we've run
into each other each time.
But he drives this like coolblack Mustang and he's very well
dressed but but he's got a bitof a potty mouth, he's got, he's
got a history, he's out ofprison in the last couple years

(37:11):
and but every time I talk to himhe's just excited yeah, be a
part of the church family.
Like he doesn't know about muchabout his faith, but he knows
that there's something here.
He knows that, yeah, theyexactly like there's something
here that he's looking for andhe wants to know more.
And this is like his third weekthat he's that he's coming in

(37:34):
every time he's just like happy.
He's like happy to be here.
I love to see you again,brother.
Right, motorcycles awesome.
This is like you know how this,how my week went x, y, z and I
was like man, I love you, let'ssee, I'll see you inside.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
Is that awesome?
And unless people purposely goand pull him aside to disciple
him, yeah, what happens to you?

Speaker 1 (37:50):
exactly, and that's a .
That's a big thing too.
I something that jumps out tome is when we had the church
Picnic.
Yeah, so basically I wastelling him about the picnic
because obviously didn't knowabout it it was like his first
Sunday and I was like, hey, whydon't you go to the picnic after
church?

Speaker 2 (38:08):
And he said he said really, even a guy like me like
that was what he said, even aguy like me and he's so cool.
Yeah, I was like, yeah, man.

Speaker 1 (38:16):
And he came and he had a good time and it was
awesome, it was good, but I waslike man, this guy, that's
phenomenal.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
Yeah, you, can you think of people that you've
poured into?
People have poured into you,every one of them.
They didn't count out the nextgeneration.
They just said, hey, we want to, we want to give to this and at
least for a policy.
Think of this guy, apollos, whogoes.
He didn't know everything heneeded to know in.
An old couple said hey, comehere, let us just pour into you

(38:44):
a little bit.
The story just kind of pullstogether at a spot that I think
is really Fascinating.
And it's this, this couple,that gave and gave and gave to
Jesus.
The story is not done.
In Acts, chapter 18.
We find that they just keptgiving to Jesus.
They were so generous withtheir resources.

(39:05):
About a year later, the year is80, 57, aquila and Priscilla.
We know that they're back inRome and so they've gone back
home.
You know they're, they're homein Rome.
They can, it's safe, to go back.
Claudius has done throwing hisfit, kicking out all the Romans.
They have lived in Rome,they've gotten kicked out.
They went to Corinth, they wentto Ephesus.
Finally, they've trainedApollos and they're like they go

(39:27):
back to Rome, they go back totheir home.
What do they do, romans?
Chapter 16, verse 3, is soexciting.
You see it, selena, try not tobe overly swept away, as you
read it because this is the beststuff on earth.

Speaker 3 (39:40):
It says great Priscilla and Aquila but it
doesn't say Priscilla.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
What's it say?

Speaker 3 (39:45):
Oh, this one translation.
It does he says Priscilla.

Speaker 2 (39:49):
Oh really, it literally says Prisca, which is
kind of sweet.
It's a sweet way of saying it.

Speaker 3 (39:55):
Oh.
Yeah does your translation sayPrisca?

Speaker 1 (39:59):
No, I think I'm reading the same one as you.

Speaker 3 (40:01):
Okay, my co-workers.
In Christ Jesus.
They risked their lives for me.
Not only I, but all thechurches of the Gentiles are
grateful to them.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
And that was found where.

Speaker 3 (40:15):
Romans, chapter 16.

Speaker 2 (40:17):
That's Romans 16.
Notice, by the way, it saysPrisca and Aquila.
What did they do?
They risked their necks for mylife.
I think there's some story therelike what we, when we get to
heaven, we have to review thetape and go okay, what happened
with you guys when you riskedyour lives for Paul?
Was that like when he was atcourt?
Was is there?
Because there was a year thatwe don't have much information

(40:39):
on a little bit.
Something happened when Paulwas in trouble and they stuck
their neck out for the ApostlePaul.
Yeah, is it that exciting?
Yeah, that's huge.
Paul says this they riskedtheir life for me, to whom not
only I give thanks, but also andhere's the line, I want you to
get the churches of the Gentilesgive thanks as well.

(41:01):
And then he says Greet also thechurch in their home and you're
supposed to go.
I think we should pause and go.
Whoa, whoa, wait what?
They get back to Rome.
They get back to Italy, andwhat do they do?
They start a church, or thechurch, at least, is meeting in
their home.
Now, from Rome.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:21):
So the church in Rome met in their house.
If you've ever been encouragedby the book of Romans, the, the
letter carrier who dropped offthe book of Romans, knocked on
the door of Aquila and Priscillahey, I've got a letter for your
church.
They met in the house of Aquilaand Priscilla.
Now here's what's interesting.
They had already paid such ahigh price they already got

(41:41):
kicked out of out of Rome oncefor following Jesus.

Speaker 1 (41:45):
They already.

Speaker 2 (41:47):
That's the point, where you go.
Okay, we went on the missiontrip, we did all this stuff.
We gave, we gave, we gave.
We're not gonna risk our houseagain.
Let's just play it safe and getold and retire.
And instead they're like hey,we're back.
Does the church want to meetover here?
You can meet at our house.
Our house is a little bit nicerthan the restaurant you guys
have been meeting in.
We know you've been in thebanquet room, but you're gonna
get kicked out of there.
Come to our house.
You know it's got a pool, it'sgot a lot of had, but they just

(42:10):
keep offering their resources tothe Lord.

Speaker 3 (42:13):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
I've met people like that that, just as a couple,
they can't wait to the next, thenext place.
They're gonna give to the Lord.
They're looking.
Years ago our last church wewanted to build a baptistry.
That this church, this littlechurch, did not have a baptistry
.
And I was sharing with one ofthe women in the church about my
desire to build a baptistry andshe got so excited.
Her husband Walt, her name wasPhyllis, her husband Walt was

(42:35):
off on a business trip.
Phyllis could not wait for Waltto get home so she could share
with him the vision of thatbaptistry, so they could give a
gift so that that baptistrycould get built.
That was that kind of attitudeof I just can't wait to give to
the Lord.
I think Priscilla and AquilaThey've got that same attitude
wait, like wherever we are, ifwe're in Ephesus, we're gonna
give the Lord if we're in Rome.

(42:56):
We're gonna give the Lord.
We can't wait for the nextassignment.
We can't wait for the offeringplate to go by.
We're cutting checks.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
I want to also highlight that you may be
listening to this and be likethat's crazy.
How could they be, how couldthey have such?
Generosity not just generosity,just faith.
It's not just generositybecause, um and and I would
argue that that is theappropriate perspective Like if
you've got a heavenlyperspective, if you're looking
at the world from heavens, fromheavens eyes, to quote a line

(43:24):
from Prince of Egypt, the Disneymovie but If you got that
perspective, then it only makessense that you would give
everything that you can give,even more than you think you can
, because you've given it all toGod and, ultimately, you're
trusting for him to take care ofyou.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
That's right.
Yeah, that's right.
So it's obvious that they woulddo something like this if you
got the appropriate perspectivenotice the order of the names in
Roman 16 3, great, and normallyyou say you in in that culture
you put the man first.
Yeah, greed, a quilla andPriscilla.
What's interesting is thereseveral times in the New

(44:01):
Testament where Priscilla ismentioned before a quilla.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
Yeah, I noticed that I was gonna ask you about that
and in mine it does say Prisca.
By the way is in ESV andAmplified Bible does say Prisca.
It's just a sweet but yeah,several times it says Prisca, it
says Priscila and a quilla orPrisca.
It says it does say it first.
It was like that as well.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
It's interesting that it switches the order and that
they go back and forth.
And I think that it's becauseat various times in their
marriage One was more dominantthan the other, and it's not
saying that a quilla didn't leadhis family, but there are times
that your wife is a littleahead of you or a little, and I
just think that they were alwayspulling each other forward.
And in a marriage you're gonnapull your spouse somewhere.

Speaker 3 (44:38):
Sometimes I think he was pulling her toward the Lord.
Come on.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
Yeah sometimes she was pulling him a quilla, don't
give up, come on, let's go.
And I just think that they wereso co-equal.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
That's me and Selena with our gym life right now.

Speaker 3 (44:50):
It's one of the others, dragon, we get to the
gym.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
But it's usually it's only one of the two of us is in
the mood at the time, and thenit's just you're not carrying
the other person.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
I've never seen a toxic couple that they pull each
other toward bitterness.

Speaker 1 (45:03):
Yes, like you know, dare you be happy get down here.
Well, I'm here with my tears.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
She can be okay, and he just is gonna make, he'll
turn the situation and and makeher think it totally different
than it was, and he justembitters her.
Or she'll do that to him likehe's kind of okay, he's okay
with this, and then she'll belike, oh okay, why are you gonna
let them talk to you that way?
And she's, she'll just stir himup inside.
Yeah and you see, couples,either this this is every
marriage will either pull eachother forward toward the good,

(45:31):
or you will pull each other down.

Speaker 1 (45:33):
That's a broken individual.
It is first.
But I tell you, I see a lot ofmarriages that they're just
pulling each other down.
Yeah the time.
But you got to fix that.
You have to fix yourselfpersonally before you can start
fixing the marriage.
If you're doing things likethat, I'll tell you this is.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
Rebecca.
She always advocated for thechurch, meaning she never made
me.
I've seen pastors wives thatthey're tearing down the church.
My wife always Advocated forthe church in my own heart, so
if I got discouraged.
I felt beat up by the church.
I was cranky with the church.
She never stirred my anger, sothere was a moment there that
she could use it and leverage itfor her good as a wife, she

(46:08):
never.

Speaker 1 (46:09):
Let's just leave 29 bombs.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
That's kind of true right.
Yeah, she didn't do it ever.

Speaker 1 (46:15):
She always advocated for the ministry Don't run your
husband out of 29 bombs or don't.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
Don't run down his command.
Don't make him feel bad aboutthe people he works with.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
I have, um, well, I guess like two my one of one is
one of my bosses and one is oneof my co-workers, where, um,
their, their wife, was basicallylike I Refuse to stay in this
city and I'm going to leave thiscity and go somewhere else, and
so, but the husband can't leave, like, so, my buddy, he can't

(46:47):
leave, he is here, he isstationed here, he has to go to
work every day.
But if his wife was like I, Ican't stay here Because I don't
like this city, and so she isnow.
Now they have a dual rentalMm-hmm, where she's renting out
in Temecula and he has to.
Now he, where they were livingon base I, had to give up their

(47:07):
own base house and now he's inan apartment out in town and
paying for two rents.
And now the kids they have twokids and the kids have to bounce
back and forth.
Yeah, all because and I'm sureit's more complex than that in
between the marriage piece.
But ultimately she was like Iwill not stay in the city, I'm
gonna, and it's worth me.

(47:28):
Just, it wasn't a deployment oranything.
She just was like I don't wantto be in the city.
And now, now they're separatedfor three years people are
always looking for a crazy.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
How do we make our marriage stronger?
I think One of the greatestways you make your marriage
stronger is you do it togetherso you serve God yeah, that's a
number one probably.
You you like.
What do you and Selena do?
Your marriage is stronger todayBecause you serve God in this
church whether it was figuringout how to put sound panels on a
wall.
It was running a tech team.

(47:56):
It was doing a podcast.

Speaker 1 (47:58):
No, and so I'll throw out there that it we did.
We are in couples counselingand we were a very aggressive
couples counseling andindividual counseling at the
beginning of kind of all thestuff that was going on in our
marriage and but at the sametime we didn't stop serving,

(48:18):
like Selena would talk about howshe didn't her, she didn't feel
like her heart was in it but,she knew it was the right thing
to do.
She didn't feel like there weredays where she didn't want to
get up there.
There's right, I didn't want toget up there, days where I
wanted nothing to do with any ofthis, but but it was the right
thing to do, and so we continuedto serve, and that gave us
something to do together.
Yeah and so while we wereserving God together, we were

(48:40):
also Doing counseling and Well,at least for me I'm not gonna
speak for you, selena, but it ithelped me see her in a way that
I didn't know that I didn't seeher right, that makes sense.
Yeah, cuz it's like we've beentogether so long.
But we did like long distancein college and we'd known each

(49:02):
other for all of high school aswell, and I said but I was still
seeing, I didn't realize that Iwas still seeing my wife as my
friend and not as my wife.
First, do you know what you saw?

Speaker 2 (49:10):
You saw, when you started serving together, not
just your wife, you saw thedaughter of God.
Yeah, and that that isattractive to us as men.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
When you see the daughter of God, that's more
desirable, I'll say I wasreminded because I remember,
even back in like freshman,sophomore year, I used to call
Selena.
I used to tell her she was wifematerial, and I'll tell her
that and this is me being atrashy teenager.
Yeah, I was like you're too,you're too good for me to date
or for me to be with, oranything like that, and I'm

(49:40):
that's pompous me, I'm assuminglike she even wanted to be with
me.
But I was like you're, it'slike your wife material, I'm not
ready for wife material.

Speaker 2 (49:48):
I'm over here trying to be exactly.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
I was a mess, and so I was like I don't, I don't want
to, I don't want to even tryand pursue you, because you're.

Speaker 2 (49:57):
Your wife, you, from so much wickedness, exactly
depraved.

Speaker 1 (50:02):
Absolutely.
And it's crazy that like I'msaying nonsense like that in
like ninth grade, tenth grade,and then we end up getting
together and yeah senior yearand now, now we're married all
these years later, it's likethat's hilarious to look back on
.
But I noticed that I was likeyou are of a different Cut, you
are a different character thanthe other girls, and I was like

(50:23):
I, even as a Christ follower.
I was like I'm not ready to befollowing Christ like that yet.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
Well, you sometimes meet couples.
They hit a bump in the road andyou guys hit a pretty hard bump
in the road.
Yeah you mean some couples thathit a bump in the road and
they're go.
Okay, we're gonna stop doingchurch, we're gonna stop, we're
just gonna focus on the marriage.
And actually that's the worstthing you can do.
You just dive deeper into eachother, you just annoy each other
more.
Yeah, you don't just need todive into the marriage, you need
to serve the marriage you gottado something again.

(50:50):
It's got to have that mission.

Speaker 3 (50:51):
You gotta yeah, yeah, that's like at that point, like
what, what becomes your God?
And sometimes it could be likeyour own marriage, or your
feelings at that point, when youwere saying like, yeah,
sometimes, like I don't feellike serving, or like I'm in my
depression or my mood orwhatever I may be feeling, but I
can't let that be my God.

Speaker 2 (51:14):
So yeah, it pushes you forward.
And just going back to Aquilaand Priscilla, here's a couple
that could have lost everythingand they just keep giving.
They just keep giving.
You need our house, lord, youcan have our house.
Lord.
You need our money, you canhave our money.
And I think it actually madetheir marriage stronger.
There's one last little scene Iwanna show you guys.
That's just, I think, reallygonna bless you.

(51:36):
This couple is always joiningGod anywhere, is at work.
So if God's like I need yourhouse, you got our house in Rome
, you got wherever, wherever youneed.
About 10 years later.
So we're gonna move forward 10years.
It's about AD 66, 67.
Paul writes his last letter.
It's second Timothy Paul's inprison in Rome and he's pretty

(51:58):
sure he's gonna die, and sureenough he is.
So it's his last letter.
He knows that this is gonna endin his death.
Do you know who's not in Rome?
Now?
It's interesting.
He's gonna write to Timothy.
Timothy's in Ephesus, and whatyou're gonna find is equivalent
in Priscilla are no longer inRome at their house.
They're back out on the missionfield, not in Rome.

(52:21):
They're with Timothy in Ephesus.
Second Timothy, chapter four,verse 19.
I see Selena headed that way inthe marriage Bible.

Speaker 3 (52:30):
Might take a while.
Do you wanna search it?

Speaker 1 (52:33):
up.
No, I was gonna write somethingthat just popped into my head.
So you actually have to saythat one.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
No, we're gonna.
We like watching those realpages turn.

Speaker 1 (52:39):
Yeah, exactly, we just shh, shh, shh, shh.

Speaker 3 (52:42):
Bible knowledge.
Second Timothy, chapter four,verse 19.
Verse 19.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
And so he's writing to Timothy.
Timothy is back, remember theyhad already been to Ephesus.
It's where they met Apollos,it's where they already had a
ministry.
Now Timothy is at Ephesuspastoring the church there.
And guess who's with Timothywhen Paul writes to them?
It says great, priscilla doesyour say Prisca the first one,

(53:10):
huh.

Speaker 3 (53:11):
Yeah, and Aquila and the household of Onesophores,
onesophores, yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:19):
Hey, mind us say Prisca.
By the way, notice also thename order is reversed.
There again, she's first, he issecond, cause they just pull
each other forward.
Here's what's cool, this couple.
They've gotta be getting oldernow.
They're not just retired inRome, they're back out on the
mission field with Timothy nowin Ephesus.

(53:40):
And I don't know how that Idon't know quite how that went
down, but somehow Paul's inprison.
They're out on the missionfield.
Can you imagine Timothy comesthrough Rome and he's talking
about hey, I'm gonna go toEphesus, and that night I'm just
imagining it now.
But that night Aquila says toPriscilla hey, baby, we can't
let that kid go out there alone.
We've been to Ephesus.

(54:01):
It's hard out there.
Let's maybe.
And her eyes kind of light uptoo.
And she goes oh, let's do it.
Aquila, let's go, let's go withhim, let's pack the bags.
And before the night is up,these two are packing their bags
.
And when Timothy gets up thenext morning they're like hey,
son, we can't send you toEphesus alone.
Like it's rough out there.
Every now and then they storeup a riot great, as you know,

(54:23):
artimaeus, god of the Ephesians,they'll try to kill you.
We're gonna come with you.
And what you find with thiscouple is they're always ready
for the next adventure God hasfor them is they're ready to go
out there, they're ready to gowith this kid.
And the next time you see themthey're not in Rome anymore, at
their safe little house, they'reback out on the mission field
in Ephesus giving their livesfor Jesus.

(54:44):
Once again, they never gottired of the mission trip.
They never got tired of pouringinto young men.
They gave to Apollos, they gaveto Timothy.
They just loved and loved andloved the work of Jesus, their
entire marriage you know, and Ilove that.
I love that about them.

Speaker 1 (55:01):
You know, I will tell you.
Pastor, I absolutely love you.
But I didn't hear anything yousaid because I was writing a
very violent note.
But I'm gonna listen to thispodcast several times, so I will
come back and listen to thatpart.

Speaker 2 (55:15):
I love you, tell you guys how to choose a spouse.
Some of you out there, you'resingle.
You're like how do I choose aspouse?
Here's my advice.
I know, how do I know she's theone, he's the one.
My advice is run as hard as youcan toward Jesus.
Just run as hard as you andyou're gonna find there's a
little pack of people around youthat, as you're running toward

(55:35):
Jesus, they're also runningtoward Jesus.
So here's my advice Pick up thepace.
Start running harder and itstarts to thin down the number
of people that are running thathard, and what you do is you run
as hard and as fast as you cantoward Jesus, and those people
that are running toward Jesusalso, those are the people that
could follow Jesus with youanywhere, and that's what you're

(55:58):
looking for is another discipleof Jesus that can go with you.
You don't wanna.

Speaker 1 (56:01):
yeah, we always hear that stereotype of like being a
fixer.
It's like oh, a fixer uppertype of person.
Yeah, but actually in line withthe movie Frozen you don't
wanna fix a rougher, you wannasomeone that's already a
complete and full person and youknow their character and then

(56:22):
you know that character alignswith Jesus Christ and his
mission and his character.
And so you can, if you'reworking to align your character
with God as you go through lifethat's called sanctification and
you meet someone else thatthank you.
And you meet someone else who istrying to align their character
with God through their life,through this process of
sanctification, how much more sowill you be able to accomplish

(56:44):
and do and grow and how muchmore rapidly we'll be able to
grow as an individual if you twoare joined together and are
growing as a couple.
But if you have someone who isoutside of God's character and
is not looking to pursue God'scharacter and actually
subscribes to a differentworldview, I promise you you
will fight at every moralargument that comes up within

(57:04):
your household because you arenot operating under the same
character structure.
Moral argument like whateveryou wanna define it there like
your foundation is not sound.

Speaker 2 (57:15):
God intends for marriage to be a man and a woman
, both as committed discipleswalking toward him.
And all you're doing as you getolder is you keep walking
toward Jesus and one day youwalk into heaven as disciples of
Jesus fully, and that's, Ithink, our eternal relationship
with our spouse in heaven.
We're not married, but we'redisciples of Jesus Wanted to

(57:37):
just maybe, if I can backtrack alittle bit, remind us of the
journey.
Paul goes and he's traveling.
He goes to Corinth.
He meets Aquila in Priscilla.
They create a base ofoperations.
There's a lawsuit, sassaneseconverts to the faith and they
all leave and they go to Ephesus.

(57:57):
Aquila and Priscilla stay inEphesus.
Paul goes on, priscilla andAquila mentor that young man,
apollos, and they go on.
Next time we find them they'rein Rome and they are hosting a
house in Rome, but that's notwhere the story ends.
They then get themselves backout on the mission field and
they're helping young Timothy.
You see that trail of anywhereJesus led them.

(58:19):
And it's not okay.
Aquila you go, I'm gonna stayhome.
These two were up for theadventure everywhere they went.

Speaker 1 (58:26):
They were going together.

Speaker 2 (58:27):
They were having one mind and body.
Just some encouragements.
I hope that those of you outthere, if you're married, have a
marriage time and just let meask you guys this, and you asked
this in your marriage are wejoining God where he's already
at work?
That's what this couple did.
Is they just joined God?
And if God, if you're startinga church, we wanna be part of it
.
If you're mentoring a young man, we wanna be part of it.

(58:49):
I also wanna ask you sincerelyhow generous are you to the work
of Jesus?
Do you tithe and have yououtgrown the tithe?
Aquila and Priscilla didn'tjust tithe, they gave their
house to the Lord.

Speaker 1 (58:59):
They gave their lives to the Lord as a grace abounds,
all the more.
That's right.

Speaker 2 (59:03):
That's right.
So I just hope you're givingdeeply to the work of Jesus and
then I would hope you would justask yourselves this question
are we investing in the nextgeneration, not just are we
invested in our marriage?
You hear a lot about that.
Look, I want you to go on datenights.
I want you to look deeply ineach other's eyes.
I want you to go on carriagerides, but I also want you to do
the bigger, more eternal workof discipling young people in

(59:25):
the faith.
I would also ask are you guysin the word together?
Get that marriage Bible, get inthere, start digging on into
there.
If you're a young Christian, Iwould encourage you find some
older Christians.
You need those old Christians.
I said this Sunday we changedthe entire model we have for

(59:47):
discipleship in our church.
We don't do Sunday school wherewe take all the young people
and put them in one room and allthe other.
We have a women's ministrywhere a whole bunch of Bible
studies all over the place thatare different ages together.
Cause you need those old peoplein your life.
I don't need all the wisdom inone room and all the energy in
the other room, same with theimmense ministry and with the

(01:00:09):
public's ministry as well, sowe've really worked to bring
together a whole church asdiscipleship, instead of
discipling each groupindividually.

Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
I would also argue we probably have a broader young
adults like age range than mostchurches probably have cause.
I think it goes up to 32.
But at the same time it's likenow you get people that are
relatively experienced in theirmarriage.
You might have people that arebeen married five, six, seven,
eight years, and then now you'vegot but you've also got 18 year

(01:00:37):
olds, 19 year olds that arejust joining.
Usually just joining the MarineCorps is what brings them here.

Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
There are people that got married at 17.
You know, and then they walkedup on Baptist, their first
church, out of the youth group,exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:00:49):
And now they get to be mentored by still young
adults.
It's not the oldest folks inthe church, but it's still very
experienced couples and peoplethat can work with them.
Well, we also have a couplesgroup and and the age range and
couples group is awesome too.

Speaker 3 (01:01:05):
And the amount of time they've been married as
well varies.

Speaker 1 (01:01:08):
Absolutely yeah, but I think that that closes out the
teaching portion right, it does.
Okay, so I've got, and I havemy final points.
This is what I was writing down, so I Furiously, yeah,
furiously writing down Cause Irealized that I joked.
So I joked early in the earlierin the podcast about Trisha
Ryan's wife and Rebecca pastorslate wife, about them realizing

(01:01:35):
that like immediately that theyhad met the man that they were
going to marry and they had likekind of brought that up in
conversation to them or at leastor told them later that that
had happened.
But basically I was like, wait aminute.
I think it was revealed to meas well because pretty early on
to our friendship I was callingyou wife material and I had made

(01:01:55):
that judgment in my head,checked that box and filed it
away.
But I'm like, but why was that?
Like cause I've never done thatwith any other person besides
you.
And so it seems like to me nowthat I'm thinking back on all
those years, it's like I met youand I realized then that I had
met the woman that I was goingto marry, or at least the woman

(01:02:17):
that I was going to try to marry, all right, someone that I
believe could be my wife.
But at the same time I was sobroken at that time that I took
that revelation that was givento me and I placed it on a shelf
and I was like all right, Notyet.
I'm going to pursue all of thisother stuff first, and that's
absolutely bonkers to me nowthat I'm thinking about it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
When I need a wife, she's over there.

Speaker 1 (01:02:36):
Exactly.
I'm like all right, well, I metthe woman I'm going to marry,
thank God for that.
And now I'm going to just bestupid for and waste a bunch of
time where I could have justbeen developing that.
So I guess I thank you, god,for not taking her away from me,
because here we are now.
It's awesome.
So that's kind of my closingpoint there that it was also
revealed to me right when we metthat you would be the woman

(01:02:59):
that I would marry one day.
Isn't that crazy?

Speaker 2 (01:03:01):
She's just glowing.
You can't see her, but she'sjust glowing.

Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
Yeah, but that's all I've got Selena, you have
anything?

Speaker 3 (01:03:07):
Yeah, no, I just wanted to thank you, pastor, for
discipling us, since we've beenhere since day one, and thank
you, ryan, for your listeningHopefully you're listening for
just continuing to mentor us,and that's been a huge blessing
on our marriage.

Speaker 2 (01:03:24):
That touches me, to have people that want to be
discipled is a blessing to me,because the Bible describes it
like clay.
You were clay that God could use, and so I know that there was
some breaking.
But I also saw you.
You got committed to counselingand that was healthy.
You got committed to yourchurch, and that was healthy.
And you pushed through.
And it's not been perfect.

(01:03:45):
It wasn't always easy.
You pushed through.
Those days you didn't want toget out of bed and you made
serving.
You made your church better,you served together.
But out of that I just see Godbuilding your marriage so, so
strong.

Speaker 1 (01:03:56):
Yeah, and I also want to say I appreciate kind of
just who you've been as a manand as a father and as a husband
over the time that we've beenhere and over this journey of
your wife getting sick and thenultimately passing away.
It actually reminded me, whileSelena was talking of one of the
ladies in the church after theworship night, was telling me in

(01:04:19):
a couple of other worship nightActually I think it was just me
and maybe Ben, but she wassaying that she had fallen away
from her faith and she hadstopped going to church but
because of what happened in hermarriage and she thought that
she could never love God againbecause of what had happened in

(01:04:39):
her marriage and all that stuff.
And it was actually herwatching you go through
everything that you went throughwith Rebecca over the last
couple of years and then yourjourney and your growth through
that and continuing to pursueGod and love God and teach and
mentor couples and lead thischurch through that.

(01:04:59):
That helped her see that, okay,god's much bigger than what I'm
going through right now and itgave her the right perspective
and now she's serving more inthe church again.

Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
I think one of the blessings that Rebecca gave me
was that we shared together thisministry, and so when life got
hard, I didn't have to suddenlydevelop a relationship with God.
She and I had already beenwalking toward God.
So I had a relationship withGod, I had a ministry, I had a,
and that wasn't my ministry,that was our ministry.
She had poured into it as muchas I had, and so I just kept

(01:05:33):
walking the direction she and Ihad already been going, and it
gave me not just stability inthat season, it gives me
strength to follow the Lord.

Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
I think with that we'll close out here.
This has been an awesomeepisode and we've got a couple
more for you in our story behindthe story series of Pastor
David Squires.
So thank you so much for tuningin to this week's episode of
Real Bible Stories and we'll seeyou next week.

Speaker 3 (01:06:01):
Thank you for tuning in to Real Bible Stories.
If you enjoyed this podcast, besure to leave a review, share
and subscribe to be notifiedeach week when we upload new
episodes.
Real Bible Stories is producedin partnership with Palm's
Church in 29 Palms, california.
If you would like moreinformation or want to check out
archive sermons and Biblestudies, please check out the

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church website atpalmsbaptistchurchcom, or check
them out on Facebook, instagramor YouTube.
Real Bible Stories can be foundwherever podcasts are found.
Thank you again and we will seeyou next week.