Latest / The Mark Driscoll Show / Pastor Mark Answers the Top Questions of the Week (5/1/2026)

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Pastor Mark Answers the Top Questions of the Week (5/1/2026) · The Mark Driscoll Show

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  All right, is it a sin to get a tattoo?
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  Well, let's first, I wish I had more data.
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  If you get a tattoo of Elton John on your lower back and
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  you're a grown man, for sure, that's that's a sin.
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  I mean that actually, the Bible talks about the unpardonable,
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  the unforgivable sin, the sin that leads to death.
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  That's a strong contender. But no, tattoos are not overtly
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  a sin, so it says in I think. I think the tattoo verse is
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  Leviticus 1928. And I know you are all deeply
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  devoted to Leviticus and have spent a considerable a time in
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  that book of the Bible and done deep research and come to
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  profound conclusions. So not to bore you with the
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  details, it is never mentioned in the New Testament.
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  Tattoos are not in Leviticus. If you look in Leviticus 19,
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  it's in the context of these regulations in the Old Testament
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  pertaining to God's people not participating in paganism.
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  So like immediately adjacent, I think to that verse.
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  It says how short you can cut your hair on the sides of your
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  head. And so I, if you, if you don't,
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  if you don't get a tattoo because you think it's a sin,
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  when you go to the Barber, make sure you don't go below and #2
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  on the side clip. And so number one, there are
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  certain laws in the Old Testament that are fulfilled in
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  Christ. There are others that are still
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  binding on us, but this one is about God's people doing Pagan
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  practices. And so the tattoos were, as is
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  sometimes still the case, They were in reference or devotion to
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  false gods, to idols, to demons. And it was a way of like
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  publicly branding yourself with a group like today, let's say
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  you're in a gang, you get a neck gang tattoo.
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  Well, that would be a sin. Not that the tattoo is, but that
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  the group that you're identifying yourself with
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  publicly and showing your allegiance to.
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  That being said, it seems like Jesus may have a tattoo.
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  It says in Revelation 19 that when he returns, he'll be a
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  white, he'll be a rider on a White Horse, and he'll come to
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  slay the nations. And it says that on his leg is
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  ridden King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
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  And so that kind of gives the indication that when we see him
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  again, it may be tattooed thug Jesus who's coming back to open
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  a can. What are your thoughts on
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  homeschool? Well, so when it goes to
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  educating your child, no matter how you educate your child, you
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  still need to be homeschooling mean, meaning you need to
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  educate your kid at your house. You can't just pawn it off to
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  the school that either way, mom and dad need to be the primary
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  educators, disciplers, evangelizers and and their
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  children with their responsibility.
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  But it starts first and foremost with dad says in Ephesians 6,
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  fathers train your children up in the way of the Lord.
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  So it it puts the first responsibility on dad as head of
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  household to oversee the education of the child.
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  Now you got some options. You've got they call them public
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  schools, but they're government schools.
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  This may shock you. Education in America was
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  exclusively Christian up until Horace Mann, Thomas Dewey,
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  signers of the Humanist Manifesto, and supporters of the
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  Communist Manifesto. Before that, Christian education
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  was pretty much all we knew and it was the churches that were
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  open. If you watch old shows like
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  Little Ass on the Prairie, the school met in the church and the
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  church help the children become literate so they could learn the
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  word of God. And all of that shifted with the
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  Communist Manifesto written by Marx and Engels.
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  And in the Communist Manifesto, it expressly indicates that they
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  realize nobody's stupid enough to believe in Marxism.
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  So what we need to have is government education.
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  That's where it starts. And if we could get the naive
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  minds of young children who believe that adults are
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  trustworthy and tell the truth, then we can convince them that
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  Marxism is not damnable. And that is what happened.
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  And so now what? You've got the two largest
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  teachers unions in America. Literally 100% of all of their
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  political contributions have been to progressives and
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  Democrats, 0 to conservatives. The entire teachers union is
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  unashamedly progressive and liberal and pro Marxist.
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  Well Karl Marx is an atheist and so he is an enemy of our God.
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  My point is this the public school system, the government
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  school system, is rotten to its core, and it exists not to
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  educate, but to brainwash your child.
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  If they don't understand the Constitution and they're more
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  fixated on genitalia and pronouns, you officially have
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  sent your kid to the wrong school.
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  Maybe there's an exception somewhere where there's a decent
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  public school, but as a general rule, I wouldn't recommend
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  government schools. Now you've got to decide, well,
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  do we do some sort of Christian School, some charter school,
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  some private school if we can afford to pay for it?
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  That's what we did with our kids.
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  You also can do home school where you have a curriculum and
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  maybe you do some sort of collective or you bring
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  different kids together for different classes and
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  activities. And, and there's a hybrid model
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  that a lot of families in our church really like.
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  What we are seeing is that particularly with the age of
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  technology, homeschooling now has a lot of options, a lot of
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  curriculum, a lot of collectives where parents are working
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  together. And the kids that are coming out
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  of decent homeschool environments, they're they're
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  outperforming government school kids and reading and writing and
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  arithmetic. They're not as good at pronouns
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  and perversion, but that's OK. You want your kids to flunk
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  those subjects. So, yeah, I would be a big fan
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  of homeschooling. I tell the parents in our
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  church, you know, you're the parent you pick.
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  You know, God gives us options, make the decision per child per
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  year because each one of your kids is different.
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  And every year the needs of the child in the circumstances of
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  the family, they vary. So yeah, I, I would not be a fan
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  of government schools, charter schools that are conservative,
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  Christian schools that are good, as well as home school and
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  co-ops and hybrids. Yeah, I think those are your
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  best options as a parent. And don't get legalistic, don't
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  get idealistic. You're still the most
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  influential person in your kids life.
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  Make sure that you're teaching them that you're involved, that
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  you're invested and that you are the first educator and that is
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  the most important thing for the raising of your kid.
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  All right, What is the biblical position on the death penalty?
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  God has no problem killing people.
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  Just so you know, God is more of a past the first than a
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  pacifist. If you read the Bible and you
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  actually take it seriously. So there are times that God
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  doesn't even send people to court.
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  He just floods the earth where he sends flaming roads are
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  during the month of June to all the nastiness in Sodom and
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  Gomorrah, which is weird, but he did that.
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  And so sometimes God doesn't even worry about taking people
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  through a process. He just exercises divine
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  judgment on them. God does the same thing in the
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  book of Exodus where the people are worshipping bail in Exodus
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  32 and God tells the Levites, hey, go kill the men who are
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  leading this perversion and insurrection and 3000 men are
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  killed in that day. The Old Testament is quite a
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  bloody book and Romans 13 is really where you want to camp
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  and it talks about that there is God and then there is government
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  and that civil authority wields what is called in Romans 13 a
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  sword given them by God. And it is to encourage people to
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  be law abiding, to discourage people who are lawless, and then
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  to take the life of those who persist in being lawless, which
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  are a threat to law and order. And so capital punishment is in
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  fact something that God decrees. And this includes in the Old
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  Testament, which was at theonomy under the governance of God in
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  Israel. There are capital crimes.
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  There are things if you do, you can be put to death, like
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  blasphemy and adultery. Those are on the list, which
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  today would mean we wouldn't, we wouldn't have so much problem
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  with traffic, there'd be nobody on the road if blasphemy and
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  adultery was still a capital offense.
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  And so ultimately the wage for sin is death and sin against God
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  is treason and all sin ultimately does incur the death
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  penalty that, you know, we sin, we die.
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  And so so yes, what does the Bible say about capital
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  punishment in the death penalty? It says that the government has
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  rightful authority delegated from God, Romans 13, to use the
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  sword to put down evil and to promote public peace and
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  justice. And for those who would have a
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  problem with the death penalty, you need to ask yourself, do you
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  really believe that sinners exist, That Satan and demons are
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  real, and that evil doers will not stop themselves, so they
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  must be stopped? OK, here's the question.
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  I hope this is a dude. What should I look for in a
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  wife? And how important is physical
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  attraction? So first and foremost, when
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  you're looking for a spouse, you need to be attracted to the
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  whole person. And if you're not attracted to
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  the whole person, that marriage is going to be rough and it's
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  going to be rough for them. So emotionally, you need to want
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  to be friends with your spouse and enjoy being friends with
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  them. My dearest friend in my whole
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  life is my wife Grace. She is my nearest and dearest
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  friend. So emotionally you need to be
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  attracted. Mentally you need to be
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  attracted if if they're as hot as hell and dumb as a box of
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  rocks, you just need to know you're not going to be sleeping
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  with them all the time. Sometime you're going to need to
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  talk to them and if they can't hold an adult conversation or if
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  they find multi syllable words to be real stumbling blocks,
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  then you probably need to find somebody else.
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  Again, My wife, she's she's very bright.
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  She's she's got a high EQ she's smart.
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  We talk about everything. We make all our decisions
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  together. She provides wise counsel.
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  She's more of a problem solver and a fact Finder.
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  And she helps me miss the rather catch things that I would have
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  missed. And so you need to, you need to
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  be emotionally attracted. You need to be mentally
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  attracted. Do you respect this person?
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  If you've ever been around somebody that is just not smart,
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  Not meaning that their brain doesn't work, they just, it's
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  like they're allergic to books and ideas.
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  Being with those people for extended periods of time, it's
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  very frustrating because they don't understand things like
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  maps and money and news and details.
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  So emotionally, yes. Mentally, yes.
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  Spiritually, most important of all, like do they love the Lord?
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  Do they manifest the fruit of the Spirit?
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  Like when you're with them or you like, they love the Lord and
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  I love them. And when I'm with them, we could
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  pray together, we can worship together, We could study the
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  Bible together, which brings us under God's authority.
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  In addition, it it causes to have agreement on marriage and
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  parenting and sexuality and money and all the stuff of life
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  because we're under the authority of God's word and
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  we're following the leadership of God's spirit.
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  If my wife wasn't a mature Christian, our marriage wouldn't
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  have existed because we've been through so many tough seasons.
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  But it's, it's our relationship with God that saves and
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  preserves our relationship. And so spiritually, you surely
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  better be attracted to them. And they need to be at your
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  level of maturity. They need to be committed to
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  their own walk with God. And, and you can't be dragging
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  them along spiritually. They need to be running
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  alongside of you. So yeah, emotionally, mentally,
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  spiritually, and also, yeah, physically, I mean, at some
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  point you're going to sleep together.
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  And if it feels like a trip to the dentist, that is not ideal
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  for either of you. And so, but what we do in our
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  day, because of technology and pornography and dating apps, we
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  overemphasize the physical. It is important, but we under
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  emphasize the mental, the emotional and the spiritual.
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  And at the end of the day, if somebody loves the Lord and has
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  high character and they're insightful and they're wise and
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  they're a really good friend to you, you're going to be more
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  sexually attracted to them. And it's not going to be just
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  the physical desires pulling you toward them.
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  It'll be the whole person, like a gravitational force pulling
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  you toward them. My wife is beautiful and so, you
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  know, but the fact that she loves the Lord, the fact that
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  she serves our family, the fact that she is growing in wisdom,
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  the fact that she's the best, most loyal friend I ever had,
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  that is an incredibly significant gravitational force
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  for the overall attractiveness. And in the same way, you can
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  find somebody who is just attractive physically, but if
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  there's nothing else there, here's what's going to happen.
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  Eventually you're going to despise them and you're not
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  going to want to be with them because you're not drawn to
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  them. And So what should you look for
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  in a spouse? Yeah, mentally, physically,
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  emotionally, spiritually. But I would say in addition,
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  don't just make a list of what you want for a spouse.
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  Make a list of what you want to be for your spouse.
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  Don't just ask, do they meet the job description?
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  The question is, are they getting the best version of me?
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  Am I working on myself mentally, emotionally, spiritually,
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  physically, so that when we enter into this marriage, I'm
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  not just getting what I want, which is very selfish, but I'm
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  becoming who they need because marriage is about serving and
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  consideration of the other. Thank you very much for watching
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  and if you do me a solid, go ahead and subscribe and we'll
• 14:29
  get you lots more Bible teaching content.