Brave Marriage Podcast

A visual aid for today’s episode: Attachment Styles = Landscapes -Secure = Pasture -Avoidant (Dismissive) = Desert-Anxious-Ambivalent (Preoccupied) = Jungle -Disorganized = War ZoneMeet my Doctor of Ministry cohort professors and mentors, Geoff & Cyd Holsclaw. Cyd is a spiritual director and professional certified coach in private practice. Geoff is a professor and worship pastor with a PhD in religious studies. Together, they’ve written two books. Their second book releases August 5th and is available for pre-order now. Passionate about the integration of spiritual formation and trauma-informed practice, they recently launched The Center for Embodied Faith, where they offer “attachment-based, neuroscience-informed, and Jesus-centered tools for discipleship and spiritual formation.”If you like what you hear, you can find more conversations with them and others on the Attaching to God Podcast. Come, listen in, and you’ll get a sense of what it’s like to sit in class with them!Pre-Order Now! Landscapes of the Soul Book

Happy spring (2025), Brave Marriage listeners! Dropping into your podcast feed for a timely interview with Dr. Keith & Sheila Wray Gregoire on their new book, The Marriage You Want. Their matched pair survey revealed: -healthy habits for married couples-the importance of sharing mental load -the effect of entitlement on mindset and marriage Pre-order their book on Amazon or order through Baker Books for a 30% discount!

Hey Brave Marriage Podcast listeners! Dropping in an episode with friend of the show and former podcast guest, Sheila Wray Gregoire. Sheila and her team at Bare Marriage have written a new book for millennial mothers and daughters called She Deserves Better. Their latest book builds upon a lot of the research outcomes they published in The Great Sex Rescue, and answers the question that many are asking the evangelical church which is: “Where do we go from here?”If you’re not familiar with her work, Sheila Wray Gregoire is the face behind the largest single-blogger marriage blog, which was rebranded a few years ago to Bare Marriage. With her witty, no-nonsense approach, Sheila and her team are passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. Sheila is based in Ontario, Canada, where she lives with her husband and has two adult daughters and two grandchildren. Resource Links:Ep. 142 - A Couple’s Guide to Great SexShe Deserves BetterThe Great Sex RescueBare Marriage BlogSelf of the Therapist (Kensi’s Substack)Podcast Editing by: Kensi & Evan DuszynskiMusic by: John Tibbs

Dr. Keith and Sheila Wray Gregoire join us for a healthy conversation about married sex that combines Scripture AND research. If you want to resolve to have better sex this spring, go pre-order their new books (releasing March 15th)! RESOURCE LINKS:The Good Guy’s Guide to Great SexThe Good Girl’s Guide to Great SexThe Great Sex RescueOrgasm & Libido Online Courses Bare Marriage PodcastSheila’s Sex and Marriage BlogPodcast Editing by: Evan DuszynskiMusic by: John Tibbs

Carolyn Custis James talks to us about The Blessed Alliance; the real purpose of the marriage between men and women in light of the mission of God; and the Bible as a foreign text set in the context of patriarchy. It’s a conversation you don’t want to miss!RESOURCE LINKS:carolyncustisjames.comMalestrom: Manhood Swept into the Currents of a Changing WorldHalf the Church: Recapturing God’s Global Vision for WomenWhen Life and Beliefs Collide: How Knowing God Makes a DifferenceThe Gospel of Ruth: Loving God Enough to Break the RulesPodcast Editing by: Evan DuszynskiMusic by: John TibbsRESOURCE LINKS:carolyncustisjames.comMalestrom: Manhood Swept into the Currents of a Changing WorldHalf the Church: Recapturing God’s Global Vision for WomenWhen Life and Beliefs Collide: How Knowing God Makes a DifferenceThe Gospel of Ruth: Loving God Enough to Break the RulesPodcast Editing by: Evan DuszynskiMusic by: John Tibbs

Reverend Erin Moniz and Blake Dean talk to us about why mutuality matters for Christian couples, for the church at large, and how it’s impacted their marriages in different stages. If you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to tune in to the Mutuality Matters Podcast, part of the CBE International media network!RESOURCE LINKS:CBE InternationalMutuality Matters PodcastPodcast Editing by: Evan Duszynski, MAMusic by: John Tibbs

When read in light of Aristotle’s household codes, Ephesians 5 means something completely different than what we’ve made it mean today. If Christ is the head and collectively, we are the body and bride of Christ, what does this mean for the way we live out our faith, our family relationships, and our fellowship with the family of God? If you’ve learned something new here and are enjoying this series on “Marriage, Mutuality, and Gender Roles,” please leave a rating & review!Podcasting by: Kensi Duszynski, MA, LMFT, CPCEditing by: Evan Duszynski, MAMusic by: John Tibbs

Brandon and Haley Weaver talk with us about growing up egalitarian, being introduced to complementarianism in college, and what equality in marriage and ministry look like from their perspective! If you enjoy this episode, please take a quick second to tap the stars below to leave a rating and review!Podcast Editing by: Evan Duszynski, MAMusic by: John Tibbs

In the beginning, God was good. He created us for intimacy, co-dominion, and co-stewardship of His creation. Male-female relationships and marriage may have gotten distorted after the Fall, but in the beginning, it was not so. Listen in to hear what Genesis 1-3 has to say about God Himself; God’s original design for humanity; and God’s plan for salvation following the consequences of sin. You might be surprised to learn what’s actually in the creation narratives…and what’s not. If you’ve learned something new here and are enjoying this series on “Marriage, Mutuality, and Gender Roles,” please leave a rating & review!Podcasting by: Kensi Duszynski, MA, LMFT, CPCEditing by: Evan Duszynski, MAMusic by: John TibbsFULL TRANSCRIPT:Welcome back to the Brave Marriage Podcast! Thank you so much for your earnest desire to grow as individuals, do marriage with intention, and live a mutually empowered, purposeful life in Christ. I’m really glad to be working my way through this series with you and really encouraged by some of the conversations I’ve been having lately. In upcoming weeks, we will get into a few interviews where we’ll dive more deeply into marriage and mutuality, but today, we’re covering marriage in the Creation account and after the Fall. I believe last episode, I said I’d cover Ephesians 5 as well, but that was a little ambitious, I found, and so that episode will drop on Monday, November 29th. And the reason I wanted to include these biblical teachings in a series on marriage, mutuality, and gender roles, is because I think for many of us, we’ve heard these passages so much that we often don’t even hear them for what they actually say, or we hear these verses so piece-milled to prove a point, that we don’t even understand their context. So what I’m hoping is that the questions posed in the last episode encouraged you toward your own reading of Scripture, because today, we’ll be diving into it together with fresh eyes and ears. Let’s start by taking a look at the Creation accounts in Genesis 1 and 2: Genesis 1:26-31 says:“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ [So notice, when God says, ‘let us make man in our image, and after our likeness,’ He’s referring to the relationality between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—whom we know as the Triune God. The word man used there is adam in Hebrew, and the them is ha’adam in Hebrew. It’s plural for humanity or mankind. And Scripture says that God made humans to have dominion over the earth and other created creatures—not dominion over each other.]So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. [In other words, from the Hebrew, God created mankind, in the image of God he created mankind; male and female he created mankind.]And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’ And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.”So in the first creation narrative, here in chapter 1, we have the Creator God, who in the Hebrew in chapter one, is referred to as Elohim. Elohim, God, we’re told, created the earth and humanity in His image. And compared to other creation accounts at the time, this God was described quite differently. For one, He was one—3-in-1; secondly, He was a good God; and third, He was a relational God, completely unified within Himself. In chapter 1, we’re zoomed out a bit, seeing how this all-powerful, relational-within-and-between-Himself God created the entire universe. If you can, imagine a movie that begins with a look at earth from outer space. From this aerial vantage point, we see that this God completed His work with the creation of humanity, instructing them to be fruitful, to multiply, to create, to rule, to subdue, and take care of the earth He created. And only after God created male and female—humans in His image—and instructed them to steward the earth for His glory, did this Creator God proclaim His creation “very good.”Here’s how I read that: In contrast to other renderings of the text I’ve heard, woman isn’t the epitome or the icing on the cake of creation, nor is man the “cake” itself, or instructed to bear the weight of the world alone. It wasn’t the man or woman whom God called very good; rather, it was the fullness of His image and His instructions to man and woman to be like Him (relational beings who were to be procreative and co-creative and stewards of His creation) that God called very good.  But even more important than that, in my view, is the point of chapter one, the reason why males and females have meaning and purpose and see themselves in this story at all, and it’s this: in contrast to other beliefs about creation and different deities, the Hebrew people believed in a relational, monotheistic, Triune God who wasn’t afraid or threatened to create humanity in His own image, as other gods are portrayed, who valued human life so as not to engage in human sacrifice, as other religions did, and who created both man and woman with free will, whereas other creation narratives cite the creation of woman as a necessary evil, the gods’ punishment to men for their arrogance. Instead, the God of the Bible is loving toward His creation, values human life, gives humans free will, and instructs both men and women to rule, fill, and subdue the earth. This is a story about an all-powerful deity who created man and woman to be in relationship, to bear the fullness of His image, including, in how we act upon the created earth together. Now, as we take a look at the second creation account in Genesis 2:15-25, I want you to imagine we’re zooming in, moving from a distant view of the earth or an aerial view of the earth, to a zoomed-in, up-close, and personal look at the creation of man and woman. So imagine, revisiting the creation of humanity on the sixth day, and this time, we’ll get to know God not just as Creator and relational-within-Himself, but as the personal God of Israel, who is also very much relational-with-us. Starting with verse 15: “The LORD God [that is, Yahweh Elohim] took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’ Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’ [Why? Because as we saw in chapter 1, God is a relational God and we are created in His image. Verse 19…] “Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them [right, here we get this picture of a personal God who meets the man, who brings things to Adam to see what he will name them. It’s like God is delighting to watch Adam create as God had instructed him to.] And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.”Meaning, he was creating and ruling and stewarding the earth alone, outside of a relationship with someone like him. But remember, in Genesis 1:26-31, God did not call creation completed until male and female were both created and both co-creating.Now in Hebrew, a ‘helper fit’ or a ‘helper suitable’ is translated as ezer kenegdo, meaning “a strength, an aid, or an ally who is like”, not a help who is subpar or who does a husband’s bidding. I was in a book club a few years ago where a woman, a pastor’s wife, shared that back when her husband was pastoring, they attended a marriage conference for pastors and pastors’ wives, where the speaker likened the husband-wife relationship to the relationship between a CEO and his executive assistant. But if the speaker had taken a look at the Hebrew, rather than just putting his own capitalistic cultural spin on the text, he would have discovered that the word helper, or ezer in Hebrew, is used 21 different times in the Old Testament to describe God’s strength and aid to Israel! So I can hardly imagine that what God had in mind when He said, ‘I will make an ezer who is suitable to, and like Adam,’ is a female secretary for Adam. Furthermore, if God Himself is an ezer, and if the Trinity is 3-in-1, equal in power and glory, this has significant implications for the way men and women are to partner to bear the fullness of His image. Let’s keep going, verse 21…“So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman [ishah in Hebrew], because she was taken out of Man [ish in Hebrew].’ Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”As I read this, God delights to see the man respond to the woman He places in front of him. The

What is egalitarianism? How is it different from complementarianism? On this episode, we explore what true equality in Christ means for us all, and how it should lead us to mutuality—in the home, in the church, and in the world. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review the podcast! To work with Kensi Duszynski, MA, LMFT, CPC, visit bravemarriage.com.

What is complementarianism? Where did it begin? What are the practical effects of its teachings on real life couples and Christian communities? And how do we, as Christian couples and communities, do the most good and the least harm when it comes to how and what we teach? Tune in and stay tuned to engage in this conversation.

What have some of the most popular authors and speakers on Christian marriage had to say over the past 5 decades? We’ll talk what’s good, what’s bad, and what we’ve believed to be true—before questioning our assumptions about what we’ve been taught God wants for our marriage relationships.

Join me in conversation with Steve and Twyla Lee as we talk about their 47 years of marriage experience, plus 30 years of professional experience as Christians who work in the social sciences. As my first marriage and family studies professors, I had the privilege of learning from them personally and professionally as well. Today, they work with premarital couples all over the US at intentionalrelationships.org. 0 Likes

Did you know that the concept of marrying for love is only 200-300 years old? In this episode, we trace the love-based marriage back to its roots in the Enlightenment. Here, we’ll discover the emergence of complementarity as a way for society to promote social order and marriage cohesion in this brave new world, which rocked the five millennia -long foundation of the patriarchal structuring of marriage, family, and society. We’ll also explore the idea that while secular culture abandoned complementarity within gender hierarchy after the 1950s, certain parts of the evangelical church locked it in instead of envisioning a better way forward for Christian couples and families in the 20th-21st centuries. Book list and resource links can be found in the full transcript at bravemarriage.com/podcast.

We’re starting this conversation with a little understanding of history, how the 1950s defined marriage and split-sphere gender roles as we know them today. Together, we’ll consider this question: If Paul tells us in Romans 12:2 not to conform to the patterns of this world, then why does so much of what we’re taught today in the church reflect the culture of marriage in 1950s America rather than mirroring Christ?Book list and resource links can be found in the full transcript at bravemarriage.com/podcast.

Join Kensi Duszynski this fall as she facilitates a conversation around marital health, relational dynamics, and the proper place of gender roles in Christian marriage. Conversations will take place biweekly.To learn more, visit bravemarriage.com.

That’s right, folks. I’m pressing pause on the podcast for the moment. Thank you for sharing a small part of your week with me, and thanks for your understanding after listening to this episode! I’d love to leave you with a gift though…because if last year taught us anything, it’s that life is precious, people are not to be taken for granted, and despite the circumstances that are out of our control, there’s still so much we desire out of life. As such, I’ve created a “Reflection & Life Inventory” guide to help you take stock of last year, the one the lies ahead, and the life you intend to live and look back on with peace, love, and joy. To access that free guide, visit bravemarriage.com/2021To stay in touch while the podcast is on pause, visit bravemarriage.com/quiz

New! Stress Management Series to help you (and me) through the end of the year. Based on a talk given earlier this year, Kensi gives practical tools to practice presence and connect with God and others in the process. To work with Kensi, visit bravemarriage.com. Thanks to John Tibbs for the amazing music each week, Evan Duszynski for podcast editing, & you listener, for tuning each week to make your marriage even better. May God be glorified in you and through your marriage.

New! Stress Management Series to help you (and me) through the end of the year. Based on a talk given earlier this year, Kensi gives practical tools and breathing techniques to manage stress and connect with God in the process. To work with Kensi, visit bravemarriage.com. Thanks to John Tibbs for the amazing music each week, Evan Duszynski for podcast editing, & you listener, for tuning each week to make your marriage even better. May God be glorified in you and through your marriage.

New! Stress Management Series to help all of us through the end of the year. Based on a talk given earlier this year, Kensi gives practical tools to manage stress and connect with God in the process. Sabbath Resources:Breathe, Priscilla ShirerSacred Rhythms, Haley Ruth BartonGarden City, Jon Mark ComerSabbath as Resistance, Walter BruegemannTo work with Kensi, visit bravemarriage.com. Thanks to John Tibbs for the amazing music each week, Evan Duszynski for podcast editing, & you listener, for tuning each week to make your marriage even better. May God be glorified in you and through your marriage.