Stop calling marriage “clingy”; the Bible literally says glue

We call for urgent, practical faith—read Scripture daily, pray, and reorder priorities toward eternity—while pressing into the meaning of “cleave” in marriage and the unchanging supremacy of Christ. History, Psalms, Proverbs, and a Medal of Honor story ground courage, character, and culture.

• gratitude and prayer for everyday gifts and first responders
• urgency about time, death and eternal priorities
• marriage as covenantal cleaving, not casual closeness
• Hebrews 1 on Christ’s radiance, authority and immutability
• Psalm 102 for lament and hope, Proverbs 26 against quarrels and rumors
• Arthur O. Beyer’s courage reshaping the battlefield
• founders urging daily Bible reading and Scripture in education
• culture shifts versus God’s steady truth
• practical steps to read, pray and pursue your spouse

If you are looking for a fun, family-friendly middle grade series, I would humbly recommend Countryside. And if you check it out and you enjoy it, if you would leave a review somewhere, I would greatly appreciate that.

Chapters

• 0:00 Gratitude, Prayer, And Purpose
• 2:41 Urgency: Time, Death, And Priorities
• 4:13 Marriage And The Meaning Of “Cleave”
• 5:27 Christ’s Supremacy In Hebrews 1
• 8:01 Lament, Constancy Of God, And Proverbs
• 10:59 Medal Of Honor: Arthur O. Beyer
• 13:16 Founders On Scripture And Education
• 16:25 Churchill’s Warning And Modern Concerns
• 18:26 Book Recommendation And Farewell Blessing

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Hey folks. This is Jesse Cope, back with another episode of the American Soul Podcast. Hope y'all are doing well, wherever y'all are, whatever part of the day you're in. Sure, do appreciate y'all joining me, giving me a little bit of your time and day. I know you have other things vying for your attention. So I appreciate it. Very, very grateful for you to spend some of it here. For those of y'all who continue to share the podcast and share it with others and tell people about it. Thank you for those of y'all who continue to pray for me after the podcast. Thank you. Very, very grateful for that. Father, thank you for today. Thank you for you, Father, and your son Jesus Christ and your Holy Spirit. Thank you for your love and your mercy, your grace, and your forgiveness of sins through the merit of your son Jesus Christ. Thank you for food to eat, water to drink, clothes to wear, Father. Cars that run, AC, electricity, healthy spouse, healthy children, healthy parents, friends. Be with those who don't have these things, Father. Strengthen our faith. Give us wisdom and courage. Help us to overcome our unbelief. Bring us home to you. Thank you for those who listen to the podcast here across the nation in America and around the world. Please be with them and their families. Be with our police and our law enforcement, our military, who are firefighters, EMS, who go out and to the cold and the darkness, the rain, the snow, the heat. To protect us from evil men and women. From those who seek to do harm, chaos. Keep them safe. Bring them home safe to their families. Keep their families safe. Help us to support them. To encourage them. Be with our pastors and our priests and our political leaders across the nation. Father. Give them wisdom and courage. Help them to rule in fear of you. Give them a strong faith. And God in my word to you, Father, please. In your sons' name we pray. Amen. Have you made time for God today? Have you made time to read His Word? Have you made time to pray, to talk to Him, to listen to Him? And if you're married, have you made time for your spouse, folks? And if you haven't, when are you going to? What are you waiting on? I was reminded again of the Charlie Kirk assassination and the death of one of our national pastors recently, both younger than expected. You probably know people in your life who have passed away or lost loved ones much earlier, much quicker than expected. What if today was your last day, folks? I know that sounds kind of cliche, but do we live that way? I certainly don't often enough. And do we have our priorities in the right frame of mind, in the in in an eternal frame of mind? You know, are we worried about bringing others to Christ? I mean, because that's the ball game, right, folks. That's what we really should be most worried about, far more worried about than a football game, or volleyball, or tennis, or basketball, or baseball, or softball, right? Marriage verse for today, Genesis 2, 24. I think we've read this one recently, but I wanted to read it again to hit on something. Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. If I have talked about it on the last podcast or two, it certainly bears talking about again. We don't give enough credence to that word cleave, folks. That's a powerful word. And it's so often I hear today, I heard growing up, I hear it on social media still today, but I heard it even before we had social media, the term too clingy, right? Oh, that person, they're too clingy. They're too clingy. What does that even mean in regard to marriage, folks? There shouldn't be a too clingy in marriage. If you don't want to be too clingy as far as the world goes, if you don't want to be to the point where everybody else is almost sick of being around you because of how you are around your spouse, then you probably shouldn't get married. Bible verses for today. We're gonna start with Hebrews chapter one verses one through fourteen. Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets, and now in these final days he has spoken to us through his Son. God promised everything to the Son as an inheritance, and through the Son He created the universe. The Son radiates God's own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command. When he had cleansed us from our sins, he sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven. This shows that the Son is far greater than the angels, just as the name God gave him is greater than their names. For God never said to any angel what he said to Jesus. You are my son, today I have become your father. God also said I will be his father, and he will be my son. And when he brought his supreme son into the world, God said, Let all of God's angels worship him. Regarding the angels, he says, He sends his angels like the winds, his servants like the flames of fire. But to the Son, he says, Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever. You rule with a scepter of justice, you love justice and hate evil. Therefore, O God, your God has anointed you, pouring out the oil of joy on you more than on anyone else. He also says to the Son, In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundation of the earth and made the heavens with your hands. They will perish, but you remain forever. They will wear out like old clothing, you will fold them up like a cloak, and discard them like old clothing. But you are always the same, you will live forever. And God never said to any of the angels, Sit in the place of honor at my right hand until I humble your enemies, making them a footstool under your feet. Therefore angels are only servants, spirits sent to care for people who will inherit salvation. Psalm one hundred two verses one through twenty eight A prayer of one overwhelmed with trouble, pouring out problems before the Lord. Lord hear my prayer, listen to my plea. Don't turn away from me in my time of distress, bend down to listen and answer me quickly when I call to you, for my days disappear like smoke and my bones burn like red hot coals. My heart is sick, withered like grass, and I have lost my appetite. Because of my groaning I am reduced to skin and bones. I am like an owl in the desert, like a little owl in a far off wilderness. I lie awake, lonely as a solitary bird on the roof. My enemies taunt me day after day, they mock and curse me. I eat ashes for food, my tears run down into my drink because of your anger and wrath, for you have picked me up and thrown me out. My life passes as swiftly as the evening shadows. I am withering away like grass. But you, O Lord, will sit on your throne forever. Your fame will endure to every generation. You will arise and have mercy on Jerusalem, and now is the time to pity her. Now is the time you promise to help. For your power love, for your people love every stone in her walls, and cherish even the dust in her streets. Then the nations will tremble before the Lord, the kings of the earth will tremble before his glory. For the Lord will rebuild Jerusalem, he will appear in his glory. He will listen to the prayers of the destitute, he will not reject their pleas. Let this be recorded for future generations, so that a people not yet born will praise the Lord. Tell them the Lord looked down from his heavenly sanctuary. He looked down to earth from heaven, to hear the groans of the prisoners, to release those condemned to die. And so the Lord's fame will be celebrated in Zion, his praises in Jerusalem. When multitudes gather together and kingdoms come to worship the Lord. He broke my strength in midlife, cutting short my days. But I cried to him, O my God who lives forever, don't take my life while I am so young. Long ago you laid the foundation of the earth and made the heavens with your hands. They will perish, but you remain forever. They will wear out like old clothing, but you will change you will change them like a garment and discard them. But you are always the same. You will live forever. The children of your people will live in security, their children's children will thrive in your presence. Proverbs twenty six verses twenty one through twenty two. A quarrelsome person starts fights as easily as hot embers light charcoal or fire lights wood. Rumors are dainty morsels that sink deep into one's heart. It's a good reason to remember not to tell rumors, right? Because they sink so far into us. And to not be quarrelsome too, to start fights. That whole psalm is probably good, 102 for those of us that feel overwhelmed with trouble, who feel like our life is just in chaos, right? And we can't get a halt of it. There's a lot of good stuff there. One of the things that stuck out, verse 27, but you are always the same, you will live forever. God doesn't change, folks. Just because society does, or society tells us that we ought to change, that doesn't mean we need to try and make God change. It doesn't work out well. Right? That's one of the great lies today that you hear from feminism and the roles of men and women, that they're societal, they're based on the society. Well, society changes, so God's word needs to adjust. Well, if that's true, most of society doesn't believe by their own actions today in the divinity of Christ. So if that was true, then we'd have to throw that out also, right? That doesn't make any sense whatsoever for a Christian. Medal of Honor today, Arthur O. Bayer Bear, Corporal, World War II, Charlie Company, 603rd Tank Destroyer Battalion, U.S. Army, January 15, 1945, near Alincourt, Belgium. He displayed conspicuous gallantry in action. His platoon, in which he was a tank destroyer gunner, was held up by anti-tank machine gun and rifle fire from enemy troops dug in along a ridge about 200 yards to the front. Noting a machine gun position in this defensive line, he fired upon it with his seventy six millimeter gun, killing one man and silencing the weapon. He dismounted from his vehicle and under direct enemy observation crossed open ground to capture the two remaining members of the crew. Another machine gun about two hundred fifty yards to the left continued to fire on him. Through withering fire he advanced on the position. Throwing a grenade into the emplacement, he killed one crew member and again captured the two survivors. He was subjected to concentrated small arms fire, but with great bravery he worked his way a quarter mile along the ridge, attacking hostile soldiers and their foxholes with his car beam and grenades. When he had completed his self-imposed mission against powerful German forces, he had destroyed two machine gun positions, killed eight of the enemy, captured eighteen prisoners, including two bazooka teams. Corporal Byer's intrepid action and unflinching determination to close with and destroy the enemy eliminated the German defense line and enabled his task force to gain its objective. Accredited to Saint Anger, Mitchell County, Iowa, not awarded posthumously, presented august twenty third, nineteen forty five at the White House by President Harry S. Truman, born may twentieth, nineteen oh nine, Rock Township, Mitchell County, Iowa, died february seventeenth, nineteen sixty five near Buffalo, North Dakota. Buried Emmanuel Lutheran Church Cemetery, Saint Angskar, Iowa. I know I'm saying that wrong, folks. I apologize. Arthur Obyer Bear Corporal. History quotes today. John Quincy Adams. Secretary of State, U.S. Senator, U.S. Representative, also called the Hellhound of Abolition, fought against slavery for years and years, seemingly to no result, and then uh and then finally got some traction. We've talked about that story quite a bit. I speak as a man of the world to men of the world, and I say to you, search the scriptures. The Bible is the book of all others, to be read at all ages and in all conditions of human life, not to be read once or twice or thrice through and then laid aside, but to be read in small portions of one or two chapters every day, and never to be intermitted unless by some overruling necessity. Read the Bible every day, folks. Pray every day. One more. This is Elias Budenot. Probably saying that wrong. President of Congress signed the peace treaty to end the American Revolution. First attorney admitted it to the U.S. Supreme Court Bar, Framer of the Bill of Rights, Director of the U.S. Mint. I think this was a letter to his daughter Susan. For nearly half a century I have I anxiously and critically studied that invaluable treasure, the Bible. And I still scarcely ever take it up that I do not find something new, that I do not receive some valuable addition to my stock of knowledge or perceive some instructive fact never observed before. In short, were you to ask me to recommend the most valuable book in the world, I should fix on the Bible as the most instructive both to the wise and ignorant. Were you to ask me for one affording the most rational and pleasing entertainment to the inquiring mind, I should repeat it as the Bible. And should you renew the inquiry for the best philosophy or the most interesting history, I should still urge you to look into your Bible. I would make it, in short, the Alpha and Omega of knowledge. Our founders knew, folks, that the Bible needed to be the center of education of our children. It's one of the most condemning facets of American society over the last 80 years that we have allowed people that obviously are either grossly misguided or grossly ignorant or malevolent to push the Bible out of our schools and to go along with it. We desperately need our scripture. I wanted to read one more thing to you. Well, I actually have two little comments. One, I have gotten in the habit of not recommending this enough, and I need to. Highly recommend all three of those if you don't have hard copies. Wanted to read a Churchill quote. I don't know from what time, but he said, A baboon in a forest is a matter of legitimate speculation. A baboon in a zoo is an object of public curiosity. But a baboon in your wife's bed is a cause of the gravest concern. I think we have a lot of things today, folks, that uh we have really looked at as theoretical, and and they aren't anymore in our society. They're becoming a very grave concern, and they should be. If you are looking for a fun, family-friendly middle grade series, I would humbly recommend Countryside. There's a couple books in the series if you get a chance. And if you check it out and you enjoy it, if you would leave a review somewhere, I would greatly appreciate that. God bless y'all. God bless your families. God bless your marriages. God bless America. God bless your nation, wherever you are around the world. Listening, folks. We'll talk to y'all again real soon. Looking forward to it.