“‘I’m a Christian. What do I do if I’m married to a pagan?'”

Steve Brown:
I’m a Christian. What do I do if I’m married to a pagan? The answer to that and other questions on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Welcome to Key Life. Our host and teacher is Steve Brown. He’s nobody’s guru, but he does have honest answers to hard questions about the Bible. God’s grace changes everything. How we love, work, live, lead, marry, parent, evangelize, and worship. Now, here’s Steve and Pete Alwinson from ForgeTruth with street-smart Bible teaching for real life.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hi Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey man. You know, sometimes I think my wife thinks she’s married to a pagan.

Steve Brown:
You know, you and I both have the same problem. And you know, sometimes we act like it and I have to repent.

Pete Alwinson:
Oh man. I know. There it is.

Steve Brown:
Well, aren’t you glad in the moments when the very difficult times come along in marriage, that your wife is not God.

Pete Alwinson:
Amen. Amen. Amen.

Steve Brown:
And I might say that my wife is glad I’m not, too. So, that’s Pete Alwinson. And if you’re not familiar with Forge, you ought to get familiar with it. It’s an amazing men’s ministry that is growing in a tremendous way. Pete has men coming out his ears. They’re everywhere. And it’s called Forge. And you can find out about it by going to ForgeTruth.com. If you live in Central Florida, and maybe one of these days, we’ll look at the other groups that are meeting in other places in the country. We’ll let you know where those are. But go to ForgeTruth.com. Listen up and be blessed, and then tell me that you’re thankful that I told you about it. As you know, Pete comes in and we answer questions together and we honestly love your questions. And we take you and your question seriously. You can always send your question to

Key Life Network
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or to

Key Life Canada
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or you can e-mail your question to [email protected] and then there’s a particularly easy way to ask a question right when you have it. Just pick up the phone and dial 1-800-KEY-LIFE and then follow instructions and your question will be recorded. And sometimes we use your actual voice on the air. But as I said, we love your questions. And those are the places where should the spirit move and you can help us financially, you would know how. Do help us if you can. And be as generous as you can. I promise we’ll be as faithful with your gift as you were in the giving of it. And if you can’t, we understand that, sometimes you’re not led to give to a particular ministry and sometimes you just don’t have the money. We get that. But do sometimes stop and say a prayer for Key Life. I would appreciate that. I’m not saying more than money, but at least as much. Pete, why don’t you lead us in prayer, and we’ll turn to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
All right. All right. You got it. Let’s pray together. Holy Father, we are your children and what a joy it is to be able to come into your presence boldly and quickly, without worrying about who we are. We know we belong to you through faith in Christ. And that you have put us in union with Christ and you hold on to us every day. So, we praise you for holding onto us this week. There’s been some challenges, some pain, some frustrations, some really good things. And Lord, we honor you because you’re in charge of everything. And we give you praise and honor and glory. We pray father for your perspective on so much of our life. And we pray that you would fill us with your Spirit and enable us to trust you with all that we are and all that we have. And this week-end, we do look forward to worship. Lord, we’re going to go in person and we pray that you would be with us and be with our leaders, our pastors, our priests, our teachers, be with all those that stand in your presence. Lord, may your Kingdom spread in our hearts and all around us, even this week-end. We love you, and now we commit this time of Q&A to you. And we pray these things in the strong name of Jesus, our risen Savior, Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Well, it’s our practice to go to our phone lines first. Let’s do that.

Caller 1:
If you marry someone, their chance to become yours because you become one, is that not the truth? And if they don’t repent and you repent, what does that mean?

Steve Brown:
That means you get a divorce or a gun. No, you don’t.

Pete Alwinson:
Good counsel.

Steve Brown:
Well, it’s short. That’s the good thing about it. Short and wrong. You know, that happens, and I’ve known a number of situations where one of the people in the couple, in the marriage became a Christian and the other didn’t. The interesting thing is that generally when one becomes a Christian later, maybe a couple of weeks, or even a couple of years, or even five years later, generally, if they stay together, the other person becomes a Christian, too. I bet you’ve seen that, too.

Pete Alwinson:
I have seen it. Yeah, I know. And this is a challenge because it’s kind of like the generational sins in a sense issue that if a sin is not repented of, it can continue down through family lines. But when you’re married, it is true that we reap the consequences at times of those who were married to for good or for ill.

Steve Brown:
Who were not the Christians.

Pete Alwinson:
And so, sometimes we have to really do our very best and it’s a humbling and a teaching thing for us when we have to bear the consequences.

Steve Brown:
And God is not unaware of that.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right.

Steve Brown:
He’s involved in this.

Pete Alwinson:
He’s just.

Steve Brown:
And his grace is sufficient there too. You know, I had a friend who, and the story was kind of like what I was saying. His name was Richard and he was the biggest pagan I knew. I mean, I’m not even going to list it because he’d be embarrassed. But he, trust me, he did all the bad things and he was not a believer. And he called me when he became a Christian. In fact, he had a flight attendant tell me that Christ is risen, he’s risen indeed. And I was rejoicing, I started crying. I mean, he was my really close friend. But his wife was not. And after he became a Christian, she cussed like a sailor. And he said, I say to her, Hey honey, I know I taught you how to talk that way, but it really does offend me and I would, if you’d cut it back, that’d be a lot better. Let me tell you about her now. It took a year or two, but she’s one of the strongest, most committed, most informed Biblically Christians that I know anywhere.

Pete Alwinson:
Isn’t that something?

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Pete Alwinson:
She saw the change in him and it percolated down and the truth sunk in.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. And that’s Biblical.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
You know, God doesn’t just call one, he has a family covenant.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
And generally, it’s not an absolute promise, but generally God works in families.

Pete Alwinson:
You know, the thought that if that other person is not, does not come to Christ or does not really keep up, or is a Christian, but doesn’t keep up spiritually in a sense, they’re not unequally yoked in Christ, but they’re unequally yoked in maturity. I say there’s, you’ve still got to go to church. You’ve still got to grow.

Steve Brown:
That’s right.

Pete Alwinson:
And even if that other person won’t come along with you, your spouse won’t come, you’ve got to be involved.

Steve Brown:
Man, that’s a hard place to be. Isn’t it?

Pete Alwinson:
It is. It really is.

Steve Brown:
One of the reasons that Paul said that you shouldn’t be married to a non Christian, wasn’t just because non Christian, well, they’re not, it’s just a horrible person and you couldn’t live with somebody like that. That’s nonsense. We’re usually, we’re often worse than the non Christian, but it’s because the central fact of your life is that you belong to Christ.

Pete Alwinson:
Right.

Steve Brown:
And the most important person in your life ought to share that.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. And that’s what binds you together.

Steve Brown:
It really is.

Pete Alwinson:
So, we do understand how hard it can be from a pastoral standpoint and we want to encourage each other.

Steve Brown:
Does, this is an e-mail, does God have a sense of humor? Did you have something else to say on that other question?

Pete Alwinson:
No, no. That was good. That was good.

Steve Brown:
Does God have a sense of humor?

Pete Alwinson:
God, I think so. Elton Trueblood wrote that book years ago, The Humor of Christ.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, that was a good book.

Pete Alwinson:
I do. I think so. I think Jesus was a very winsome person. I think he knew how to hang out with fishermen and carpenters and all kinds of people. And kids loved him. And he radiated openness and joy.

Steve Brown:
And you’ll find throughout Scripture God in heaven laughing.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
By the way, I wrote a book and I’m not above pushing my books.

Pete Alwinson:
Right.

Steve Brown:
It was called Laughter and Lament. And I discovered doing the research on that because I was talking about how we’re created in God’s image. The laughter of God, nature dances together in the Scriptures. God laughs, sometimes in derision, but sometimes freely. He sings over us. So, I think, yes, with Jesus, there’s no explanation if he didn’t have a sense of humor. But with God, that’s true too. After all, he created giraffes, and Pete he created you, and me.

Pete Alwinson:
Oh man, I know.

Steve Brown:
Of course he has a sense of humor.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
What did you mean by your comment that one can make an idol out of religion? I’m not sure what context I spoke that in, but I say that pretty often. You know, there’s some people that are very, very religious and don’t know Jesus. There’s some people who just like the camaraderie of church, but don’t know Jesus. There’s some people who think the church is the be all and the end all as an institution. And that we ought to keep the riffraff out, but don’t know Jesus. There are people on the inside, but are on the inside with a mask and don’t know Jesus. And so, the God becomes not Jesus, but the church. And you’ve got to be careful.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Yeah. Boy, that is an arresting statement. It is shocking to hear that you can make an idol out of religion. You can make an idol out of anything.

Steve Brown:
Anything. You can make an idol out of your family.

Pete Alwinson:
Oh man, we do our marriages and there’s so many situations, as John Calvin said.

Our hearts are idol factories.

We mass produce those things and when you get one under control. Another seems to take its place, how easy that is.

Steve Brown:
And the first commandment is very clear on who we’re to worship.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And the God who is.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. So, be real and make sure what you’re following is Jesus.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. And I’ve said to people, don’t you turn religious on me cause you’re refreshingly honest. And when you turn religious, you get something phony that’s going on. And that drives me nuts too. But with that being said, both Pete and I are ordained religious people, but we’re not entirely against it. Got to go. Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.