02.22.2023 Ephesians 5.25-32 Biblical Man

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

podcast, bible, man, called, wife, written, day, translations, marriage, church, biblical, influence, speak, christ, god, scripture, word, women, society, feel

SPEAKERS

Daniel Miller

Daniel Miller: 00:23

Welcome. Thank you for joining discipleship conditioning. We're glad that you're here. This is our second episode, we are on a three day format. As mentioned last episode, we will publish every third day. So the first published podcast took place, Sunday, February 19 2023. Today is Wednesday, February 22 2023. The next day will be Saturday, however, as described in the previous show, my family and I observe the Sabbath. And so we will not be recording that day. Three days after that would, I guess, be Tuesday. And so our next episode will be in six days from today, and will continue three days, three days, three days. Unless, of course, it hits another Saturday in which we will take that day off. And we hope you do too. If you have any prayers, prayer requests, we would love to pray, our family would love to pray for you. You can email us at prayer@araratphysiology.com. We've got some exciting things going on at Ararat Physiology, the website is growing, the social media presence is growing, we're starting to do some email automation, this podcast is a big step in adding and including it on our website and getting it published to all the different platforms, it's on about half already. And it'll be on the other half, hopefully in the next couple of days. So we're really excited about the things that we have there, we'll talk about more about the products and things that we have as available here in just a moment as we self sponsor, and we self sponsor, because at this time, we think it's more valuable to the customer, to have a website to be directed to participate in purchasing a product if they feel called, everything we do relates to God's calling. So if they feel called, as opposed to interject advertisements that may or may not be of use to the customer. So we hope that you appreciate that and it's nice to have a podcast you don't have to fast forward through ads. Although perhaps in our self sponsored ad, you might want to fast forward through that. Who knows, but we hope we provide value. And we hope that you support us. We feel called to share the good news, we feel called to love you. If you go to our website, there's a pop up that comes up and it says we love you and that is true, we do. We want to provide as much value to you as possible. It's been said by people more wise than I that people buy why you do it as opposed to what you do. And that isn't our genesis for why we do what we do. We've just been moved by the Holy Spirit and called to live a certain life, and that life is based in service.

Daniel Miller: 03:33

We're going to talk a lot about service today and our topic which is the Biblical man. And next episode, I'm probably going to navigate a little bit towards me on my representation of the Biblical man, and what experiences that I've gone through that could help others. I've again heard it said, by people much wiser than me. You are best conditioned to serve the previous version of yourself. And so the things in my life that I've overcome through the grace of Jesus, I want to share with everyone. And those will come out naturally little by little in the episode. I have no filter I, I've been, once you've been provided the grace, the salvation from Jesus Christ and you've truly been born again. I have no shame, no guilt and mentioning anything that I've done in my past. Now I see it as a testimony. Now I see it as a possibility to help somebody else that's currently in that position. Maybe you know somebody that's in that current position, and through our words, you can help them. That ball doesn't get started rolling unless this is recorded. And this message is put out there. So we're excited to do that. And we're going to talk more about that in the next episode on some of my experiences, it's going to be very raw. If the word pornography is cringe worthy to you, you might want to skip that episode. That is a part of my past and something that I've conquered. And there are a number of other things that I will share. But as raw as it will be, I believe that it will help people. And it also laid the foundation of who's speaking to you through these shows. And I want to be as vulnerable and transparent as possible, I want you to be able to trust me, I never want to be an email or a phone number. That never returns the email or the phone number. No matter how big or small this podcast gets, no matter how much fruit it yields or doesn't yield. I want to be accessible as a brother in Christ to both my brothers and sisters out there. And even more than that, I want to be accessible to all people, people that are maybe not Christian at this point in time, but they have questions. We are all called to discipleship. And we are certainly ready to disciple you, if you choose to walk with us and to learn with us. As we are people just like you.

Daniel Miller: 06:23

Our mission. The who, what, why, and our answer. The who is our service to men, specifically, who have ever felt persecuted over their God given qualities. We know this to be true. We see it in our lives, we see it in the church. We try to limit how much TV we watch. I'm writing a book on that right now. We try to limit how much TV we watch. But it doesn't take long to watch the TV to see that gender confusion is very prevalent in our society. In fact, I think I will probably do an entire podcast on gender confusion. As I sniffle or a hiccup or I cough or something during the podcast, I want to remind that I do not edit. And I do not edit on purpose. And I've mentioned this before in the previous podcast, but the main reason I don't edit is I don't want to wax the podcast and show you the best version of it. I don't want this to be social media where you only get the pictures from my right side because my right side is better than my left side. I don't want to make this fictitious life that is so extravagant for you to see. I want you to see the rawness of this. And if I sniffle every once in a while, if I cough if I sneeze. God bless me, I want there to be rawness in this and I want you too, to see that. So hopefully, that's something that you appreciate the vulnerability that will be on display every show. And anyways, as we continue.

Daniel Miller: 08:13

So we'll do another podcast on gender confusion because it is it is rampant in our society right now. In the book that I'm writing, I talked briefly about if you took Austin Powers, for those of you that are old enough to remember that show where he was frozen for 20-30 years, or whatever it was. And he comes to be, when he comes to be, he's just in shock of what society looks like. You and I, for the most part are not in shock on what society looks like, because we've gotten used to it little by little by little. But if you think back to at least when I was a kid in the 80s when you think back to that period in time, and you look at the commercials that were on TV then versus what are on now there's a cable channel called Cinemax that, at least when I was younger, was the channel I wasn't allowed to watch as a kid and was known for having a certain type of movie on a late at night. And it's a little bit of a stretch, but not much of a stretch to say those movies are now on commercials on local TV.

Daniel Miller: 09:30

That's how far things have changed. I'm getting off topic, promoting the book a little bit, talking about something I'm passionate about. Let me get back on track. We'll save that for another podcast. So the what is through anecdotal experiences meaning our personal accounts, and the scholastic truth of the Bible. We teach how God's word impacts every facet of our lives because it does. In fact, it's the only truth in existence. This was a very interesting hurdle for me personally, coming from an academic background. I studied mainly kinesiology and my bachelor's and my master's degree. My associate's degree was business. And then the beginnings of my doctoral degree was education, how to become a better educator. I say the beginnings because there's a specialized degree called the educational specialist, which is a two year doctorate instead of a four year doctorate. So it's not a Ph.D., it's not an Ed.D. sort of thing. But that is for future aspirations that will happen one day, there will be a Ph.D. involved, but we'll talk about that when that time arises. As I am academically trained, it is ingrained in me over these roughly five years straight that I'm doing bachelor's and master's about five years, that if it's not scholastically written, if it's not peer reviewed, it's not truth. Well, there's a lot of really good accounts like case for Christ, I can speak to that I've read that. Watched the movie, it's fantastic. And there's others out there that I can't speak to because they're on my book list of to do items. But the Bible is peer reviewed, the Bible is peer reviewed, perhaps more than any other document in history of man. And it is a direct representation from God. I believe that the Bible is absolutely perfect. And I believe that perfection can exist through translations. I personally am an ESV guy, but I believe that it can exist through translations. You may disagree with me on that, that's okay. There's going to be a number of things. if I'm lucky enough to stand at the pearly gates in front of God, there's gonna be a number of things he's going to say, you got this one wrong. And I hope that He provides me the grace to have been able to get that wrong, because my heart is pure in it. So the Bible is the most truth that there is. I don't believe that the Bible is anything less than perfect. I believe that man's interpretation of the Bible is our first fault. And you see that with the denominations, denominations that are battling against each other, over what? More than likely a different interpretation of the same exact verse. And it may be limited to just one verse, it may be more than that, as it often is. But in some instances, there's entire denominations that are separated by a disagreement on one verse. So we'll all find out the truth, one day, I believe it's in. I think it's in Ephesians. Maybe it's not in Ephesians. But every knee will bow, every tongue will confess, regardless of whether you're Christian or not. There will come a time when every knee will bow, every tongue will confess. The why, we are faced with a problem of societal influence outweighing biblical influence, which leads to our succumbing of the evil tactics intended to destroy us. Until Jesus comes the devil is at play. And the devil is in his playground known as the Earth. If you want to understand that a little bit better, I highly suggest you look into C.S. Lewis, and you read The Screwtape Letters, best book I've ever read on the subject, where it flips the script and you start to understand things from the devilish point of view. There's no doubt in my mind that our society is intent on destroying us not because we live in a world with bad people. Because we live in the devil's playground. And the devil is constantly messing with people who are easily influenced. There's a wonderful quote, I'm here in Boise, Idaho, South Boise, not too far away from Boise State University. And there's a road called capital. If you cross capital, you go over the bridge on your left hand side, if you're heading south. There's going to be a rock in there is a quote from Anne Frank on that rock. And it says, despite all things, I believe people are truly good or pure at heart. I'm paraphrasing, but it says something to that effect. And if you know anything about history, if you know anything about World War II, if you know anything about Anne Frank, what a quote! What a quote from such a young individual, given everything that she experienced, everything that she witnessed, to see the absolute cruelty of man, the devil truly at work in that war, and to say that despite that, boy that sure gives me hope in humanity. And so my stance is more along the lines that people are weak, wretched people that are easily influenced. And when we get too far out of whack, and we're not balancing our Biblical time with our worldly time, our influence is easier to disturb. I still don't believe this people are necessarily bad. But I believe that they are highly influenced. And we need to take that teeter totter and we need to have more Bible on the other end, so we at least bounce things out. If we don't, and we have more worldly influence than we do biblical influence. It doesn't take much discussion to see that that's out of whack, and much discussion or analysis, to understand how that's going to begin to fall apart, as sin infiltrates the person in tears at the fabric of their being.

Daniel Miller: 16:00

The answer, we simply aim to serve our brothers and sisters with authenticity, vulnerability, through our calling in ministry, as teachers, we believe that we're teachers, if you look at Ephesians 4:11, it talks about the five areas of gifts. The last one in nearly all translations is teachers. Sometimes it's combined with pastors, sometimes pastors is listed as shepherds depends on the translation. But there's no doubt about it, my wife and I, we have unique experiences in our lives. And we've overcome some devilish attacks, and we've overcome our share of sin. And we are here to teach. We're teachers. Our sponsor, again is self sponsored. araratphysiology.com. I went through it in more detail last time, and I've had my fun this morning, kind of describing our who, what, why and elaborating and creating some opportunities for future podcasts. So I'm gonna go through the sponsor fairly quickly, please visit the website, please check us out on social media, we would appreciate that. But we don't ever want you to do any of this unless you feel you're called to do this. Okay. So we have a blog style articles. More or less what those are going to be is basically a transcript of the podcast, I'm reading through a transcript right now that I have typed up. Obviously, I'm kind of ad libbing. And I'm paraphrasing some things that I've written apart from Biblical text. That is the most important part, right? It's, I was just mentioning this to my wife, Amanda, earlier this evening. When I was recording the podcast last fall, writing a Biblical text, a specific verse and reading it, that was good, nice job. What was bad was providing the commentary or translation to it. And that's me as a teacher trying to teach through. But I'm never going to be able to say anything better than the way the Bible already portrays it. If I was a preacher, I think I'd say amen. And I'm by myself in my office, so hopefully, you said Amen. But with that, I want to this time around be better at reading what Scripture says and to a degree, leaving it at that. So these blog style articles are going to be the transcripts that I go off of, primarily. There are some others that I've written in the past, strength and conditioning based because that's where most of my academic training is. However, from this point forward, my academic training is the Bible. Nonfiction books, I've written a series of books three, I'm on my third, fear has kept me from publishing and finishing the first two. But I'm determined through God's grace to complete this third one, it's called A Year Without Television, you can check that out, there's a number of other titles that I have is sort of to do list. If you feel so called to do go on to araratphysiology.com. and donate $5 to whichever book you'd like to see published, that $5 is purely a donation to us to help fund the publication and research of that book.

Daniel Miller: 19:31

There's no guarantee of any copy of book or anything like that. It's just a way of supporting us and we've put a nominal amount to $5 to hopefully encourage people to, to donate to the cause and what we're doing. And also submit at the same time, sort of submit your vote on which title you'd like to see work forward. So if you'd like to support the podcast, that's a great way to do it. And at the same time you're voting on which book You want to see created. We then have strength and conditioning programs that have been designing strength and conditioning programs since 2012. We have I believe, 10 of those that are up on the website with more to come. I'm going to be working on a lacrosse program here soon, and a number of others. As people go on the website, there's a form below the programs says something to the effect, if you're looking for a different program, send us a message, let us know what program you'd like to see and we'll design it.

Daniel Miller: 20:34

We also have a tab for courses. These are anatomy and physiology based courses, kind of, I need to change that part of the transcript of the script that I'm reading off of. I also have a translations of the Bible course and how to build a workout program along with some APA formatting. Most of the courses at the end of the day will be anatomy and physiology. But that's not a completely true statement. Faith based podcasts, that's what you're listening to. Discipleship conditioning is where I meet with men and women from all over, hopefully on a weekly basis for 20 minutes at a time, 40 minutes at a time, whatever is needed to provide discipleship to them. Summer Camp is not a reoccurring thing that we do, although it is annual, and it is local to the Boise Idaho area. You can go on araratphysiology.com for further details on our summer camp and what it's going to include where it's going to be, those sorts of things. If through any of that you have questions, please inquire further at hello@araratphysiology.com or simply visit araratphysiology.com.

Daniel Miller: 21:44

Today's versus Ephesians 5:25-32. I guess I should say our verses of the day are Ephesians 5:25-32. “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband” (ESV Bible, 2001, Ephesians 5:25-32). Again, that was Ephesians 5:25-32. I think it's important as a man to describe what it means to be a Biblical man or what it means to be a man Biblically, the only account that matters to my personal opinion. And because I'm not a woman, I can speak on what it is to be a man Biblically, to the best of my ability. There will certainly be more of this to come as we get to know each other through this podcast. But the way I see it, man is called the love woman in the same way Christ loves church. It said that right in Scripture. This contains the highest degree of specificity as it relates to husband and wife in marriage. So in Scripture clearly Ephesians, Paul in Ephesians, is talking about Christ loving the church and there is an analogy of husband and wife. The analogy is succinct in oneness and sacrifice in service in selfless love, etc. Man is called to sacrifice, serve, and provide that selfless love. I believe that sacrifice through willingness to save mother and children is a fruit that a Biblical man will bear. I have placed on my notes here an example is the Titanic. What happened in the Titanic? Right horrible event boats sinking and boats. There weren't enough boats for everyone. So what happened? Children and women first as it should be. The men that loved those women, and the men that loved those children gave up their lives in the frigid water, so that they could go on. And they could go on, the children could grow up, all sorts of things, okay? I have no qualms about that, I have no modern day spin on how that should have taken place. If there is Titanic two it, me and my family are on it and it goes down, you know who's going to be in the boat, and you know who's going to be in the water. And that's the way that it should be. We live in a world where that's not how it is. And there's too much focus in fighting on a quality. I'm going to talk here in a minute about how we can be a team, and we can have distinct talents. Nobody wins when we compete against each other within a marriage. Competing is great in football, it's great in basketball, it's great in MMA. But when we're talking about a marriage, let's leave competition out of our marriage.

Daniel Miller: 26:07

Serve by putting the needs of wife above the needs of husband, I think that one's pretty self explanatory. A Biblical man should think of what his wife needs before he thinks about what he needs. On my way home from work, I'm thinking about how long has it been since I got my wife flowers? What are some things that she may appreciate, she may like? Maybe something she'd like to eat, those sorts of things. And because I've been cleansed of the Holy Spirit, and I've seen the grace of Jesus and been born again, those feelings, thankfully, are natural. They weren't natural before I was a selfish, wretched human being. We'll talk more about that in the third podcast. But I am a new individual. Ask anyone who's known me for longer than about five years. And they will tell you as much.

Daniel Miller: 27:04

Provide selfless love that is unconditional this is this is key. How often do we think in terms of conditions? How often as men do we think well, I'll do this if she does that, right? Most men, myself included, if you look at our love languages, physical touch is near the top. For me, the top is words of affirmation, after that is physical touch. For a lot of women physical touch is not at the top. I perhaps I shouldn't even say that. I'm speaking for women, so you can either, if you're a lady listening, you can either agree or disagree. Perhaps I'll have my wife on here too, to cast her vote. But it's not uncommon for men to value sex and sexual intercourse more than women do. And so a lot of times when that need isn't met, we men start to get pouty about it, we start to condition our love and say, well, I did this, so she should do this, etc, etc. It's obviously wrong. That's not how Christ treats the church. That's not how Christ treats any one of us with His grace. Sometimes I think that when we look at a marriage, and in fact, this applies to a church as well; when we step foot into a church, for me personally, sometimes I'm expecting to see a room full of Jesuses. And I'm always disappointed, because that's never going to happen. I'm going to be in a room full of wretched individuals. And as much as I love my wife, she and I are wretched individuals, we all are. And so we need to do our best to be in Christ and show that unconditional love. Steer away from selfishness. The selfishness is what drives that I did this, so she should do this. We need to stay away from that as Biblical men. And if you're a lady out there looking for a Biblical man, I think these are three things that you should be looking for: sacrifice, service, and selfless love.

Daniel Miller: 29:19

The awkwardness of the word submission is something I'd like to talk about. But as I continue speaking, I realized that we're running out of time here and so I think I will tag this as a separate podcast. I believe we could fill a half hour on how our society perceives submission. I think that'll be a good one. I can't tell you where it will fall. I will just put a note next to it, along with my other ideas. If there's anything you would like to have spoken to on this podcast, again, you can reach out hello@araratphysiology.com or prayer@araratphysiology.com to let us know what you'd like to talk about or you'd like us to talk about.

Daniel Miller: 30:05

I'll skip that section talk about that further another time and we'll go on to our remaining one flesh and some tips that I think that are important within a relationship within a marriage specifically, I mentioned this before, do not compete against your spouse. Competition is great for sports, not for marriage. We live in a society where I can do anything you can do, and I can do it better. And again, fine, if you want to think of that in terms of sports, but it has infiltrated our marriages. And women are trying to hold the same status jobs that men are having. The men are trying to be stay at home moms, and it'd be just as good, right? There's nothing wrong with a with a woman holding a high ranking position in a business, so long as she's not competing against her CEO husband. And that's the reason for it. Her reason for being in that high position should be God's calling on her life, right? There's nothing wrong with man staying home with children. If there's one thing I was put on this earth to do. I think I mentioned this last podcast that I know for certain, it is to be a father. Secondary to that a teacher, but to be a father. I would love to be home with my daughter all day long. In fact, I've organized my schedule as a professor, to accommodate that. To be there, at home with her or at school with her as much as humanly possible. One day a week I go to her school, and I volunteer, and I'm there all day have lunch with her. It's one of the best days of my week. I'm doing that because I feel called to be a father. I'm not trying to compete with my wife, who was a better stay at home parent than I am. We don't win as a team. We don't win as one flesh if we're competing in that way. So are we hindering our spouse more than if they were called to be single? Paul writes this letter in Ephesians. Paul was, was a single man, he felt called to be single. He talks about that in many of his letters. So if you think of the progression of your spouse, if they were called to be single, their trajectory in their walk with God, are you hindering that? Are you a ball and chain so to speak? Or are you cheerleading that? Are you encouraging that? The answer on what we should be doing is obvious. So how can we support our spouse, propelling them not hindering them, but propelling them further?

Daniel Miller: 32:47

Whenever I have a difficult decision to make, I seek prayer first, I seek scripture second, I seek wise counsel third. I'm not batting 1000. I make mistakes. I don't always follow my own advice, but as soon as I catch myself, I go back to this. I have a note in my phone with this written out to remind myself: prayer, scripture, wise counsel. And I can't tell you how many times I've prayed about something and I felt like the message I received through the Holy Spirit was, what does scripture say?

Daniel Miller: 33:22

Because it's for me, I don't know about you. But for me, it's easier to pray than it is to open up the Bible. Regardless of how easy it is to open up the Bible, it's something I do every single day. It's something that I have to do something that I need to do to make sure that I'm walking along the light of Jesus. In fact, I would challenge you to do something that I've challenged myself to do for about the last six months, and I have taken that six month challenge. Honestly, it was about a 30 day challenge that I've turned into a three month challenge to a six month challenge. And now it's just something that I'm doing all the time, is I have a Bible, in every vehicle we own and numerous rooms of this house: office, living room, bedroom. I have a Bible everywhere I go. And when I leave my car to go into work, guess what I take with me? Bible. If I'm going to take my dang cell phone with me, you best believe I'm taking my Bible with me. Bible refers to the word is the sword, right? So I'm using that. I'm protecting myself. It's my shield. Right? We talked about the, we haven't talked about it, but the Bible talks about and perhaps we will in the future, the armor of God. Hang on to that Bible. And I take it with me and I would challenge you to do the same.

Daniel Miller: 34:42

Let's conclude with the Lord's prayer. “Pray then like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil” (ESV Bible, 2001, Matthew 6:9-13). That's written, that is read from Matthew 6:9-13. Amen and blessings to you all. Love you guys.