The Bible Study Podcast, episode 310. Today, the Bible Study podcast starts a study on marriage.

Welcome to the Bible Study podcast. I'm your host, Chris Christensen. Some time ago, as I mentioned,

I was talked to into a study on marriage, which I have already come to regret. This is probably a

harder study to do than some other ones that I have come across. And the reason for that is,

obviously, I think it's a very important study. I think our marriages are important. And we'll talk

about some of the reasons why I think that's important as the study goes along. And it's also something

that even though I personally have been married for 31 years, I don't feel that I'm an expert on

marriage. And I say that even though I think most of my

friends would tell you that I have a good marriage. Now, obviously, there's two reasons for that.

One is I have a good marriage, and two is they don't know some of the problems that we've gone

through. And the reality is that most marriages have difficult times. And so I don't want to have this talk on marriage be something that is strictly

Hollywood romantic because I think that does a disservice.

I'm also hesitant because I feel that I can't do a study on marriage without some humor,

and I'm not sure how well that's going to go over.

But as I think about things that are very serious like this, one of my natural reactions is to resort to humor.

And so if I happen to mention the institution of marriage and then mention that institution is where you put crazy people, I hope you will understand where that humor is coming from. I am a big

believer in marriage, and so is God. So let's look first at some of the first verses in the Bible that

talk about marriage, and they obviously come, and I think you've heard these before from Genesis and

from Genesis 2, starting in verse 19. Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild

animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them into the man to see what he would name them.

And whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave name to all the

livestock, the birds in the sky, and to all the wild animals. But for Adam, no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God

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