Dale Partridge - December 05, 2018


Ultimate Marriage #22: Should Christians Include Santa, Christmas Trees, and Presents?


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Length

29 minutes

Words per minute

177.1785

Word count

5,256

Sentence count

182

Harmful content

Hate speech

13

sentences flagged


Summary

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Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 hey guys welcome to ultimate marriage today we are talking about christmas christmas that's
00:00:16.760 santa christmas trees gifts should christians include those things in their celebration so
00:00:23.560 this is i think an important show because a lot of people ask us this question what do you guys do
00:00:28.440 with santa claus what do you guys do about christmas tree like i saw that you guys don't
00:00:31.380 celebrate halloween why do you guys celebrate christmas it's a pagan holiday like all that
00:00:34.940 stuff that that comes out um and i think probably you get stuff from the moms like you know what do
00:00:41.860 you do do you do gifts do you do advent what does it look like yeah um so yeah we're going to talk
00:00:48.160 about that uh before we dive into the show a couple announcements i want to make that just i
00:00:53.320 think we'll help you guys ease into the process. First is we're going to do our next show. We're
00:01:01.200 kind of doing a holiday season stuff right now. So the next show is going to be how to, or how
00:01:07.040 Christians should handle holiday family conflict. And I think this happens with married couples 0.92
00:01:14.120 all the time. Every year. Yeah. And I got to go deal with my in-laws. I got to go deal with my 0.95
00:01:19.640 parents and there's no boundaries and there's whatever so that that episode's coming up next
00:01:24.240 so just you know be excited for that because i think that's it'll help you even if you don't
00:01:28.980 struggle with that i think there's content there that you'll enjoy so you can help other couples
00:01:32.860 yeah i wanted also there's content there that could apply even outside of the holiday season
00:01:37.200 yeah exactly uh on just the boundaries of family um so if you guys haven't left a review um by just
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00:02:16.020 Um, the last thing I want to say before we get started is that we are taking retreat
00:02:20.120 applications for our ultimate marriage retreat coming up this May.
00:02:23.920 The dates are May 30th, uh, 31st and the 1st of June.
00:02:29.400 And, um, so if you're interested, just go to ultimate marriage.com forward slash retreat
00:02:33.960 and you can, um, or just go to ultimate marriage.com and you can just like go to the retreats
00:02:38.700 tab and apply to come, but we have a few more spaces.
00:02:41.960 We'd love to have you guys come.
00:02:43.020 They're super fun.
00:02:44.300 They're very fun.
00:02:45.160 um okay let's talk about christmas um you want to start off yeah so talking about christmas
00:02:53.480 and traditions and things that people do for the holidays i think it's important for us to
00:02:58.320 remember that tradition is a teacher so what we do as a family for traditions is actually teaching
00:03:04.340 your children or is it teaching your child about god or do they compete with god do they compliment
00:03:11.880 or do they compete with it yeah and this happens for a lot of families is that are your traditions
00:03:16.220 especially around christmas conflicting or competing against god's narrative about
00:03:21.640 i guess why we're doing christmas or are they complementing it yeah and that's an important
00:03:27.280 part um and uh yeah so that's just something that we need to to look at yeah and ask yourself that
00:03:35.080 especially obviously we're talking about christmas regarding towards the holidays
00:03:38.380 regarded towards christmas yeah and this is obviously christmas is an extra biblical activity
00:03:43.560 okay so we we're not saying that there's a we're not going to give you a biblical uh mandate
00:03:49.340 doctrine on why you should celebrate or should not celebrate christmas um so i want to just kind of
00:03:54.860 give you guys some context about christmas i think it's important for christians to understand this
00:03:59.100 because it is confusing territory so i'm going to give you just a little bit of history before we
00:04:03.020 dive into some stuff. So how do we get Christmas? Well, it comes from the word Christ Mass. That
00:04:10.220 like Mass is like, you know, Eucharist Mass, like Catholic Mass, Christ Mass. And I looked up some
00:04:17.160 research. So if you're seeing me, if you're watching the video, I'm looking at some notes
00:04:20.140 as I'm doing this. In the year 221, this guy named Julius Africanus, okay, he identified
00:04:27.920 died um december 25th as the birth of jesus and was actually universally accepted as the birth of
00:04:35.840 jesus again if you look at it now and you do some research it's probably not the right date
00:04:39.500 but at the end of the day there is no way that we're going to ever know jesus's exact birth
00:04:44.120 but that's when the church kind of just universally agreed that hey december 25th
00:04:48.560 uh it happened in as far back as 221 that's the day that people are going to celebrate it yes
00:04:54.780 Exactly. And in Rome, this is some cool history because this is backed up in like Roman historians, Greek historians, Jewish historians and Christian historians.
00:05:08.900 So this is like I would say I feel pretty confident that this is a true story here.
00:05:12.640 In Rome, there was a popular holiday held on December 25th or around that season titled The Day of the Birth of the Unconquered Sun, S-U-N, Sun.
00:05:25.840 And it was this day of celebrating the sun, the sun god, and it had a lot of pagan roots to it. 0.69
00:05:32.080 And Christians, really in an attempt to, I guess, show a better way to, you know, I say superiority of the one true God, started actually having Christmas gatherings at that same season.
00:05:46.500 And there's that kind of pun of the unconquered sun, S-O-N.
00:05:50.620 And so those things were happening at that time.
00:05:52.860 It was really an alternative, especially in the form of an advent, because I believe that Roman holiday was a multi-day kind of winter solstice type thing. 0.63
00:06:01.400 And so Christmas really came as the church's or Christian's attempt to create their own Christ-centered tradition while the Romans were doing something else.
00:06:18.160 And I think it was an evangelistic outreach opportunity on that conversation. 0.64
00:06:21.700 We're putting Christ back in Christmas.
00:06:23.100 Yeah, exactly. 0.66
00:06:24.580 We actually say Merry Jesus-mas.
00:06:26.140 Merry Jesus-mas.
00:06:26.960 And so, you know, then they started doing what's called the Advent, and the Advent means coming in Latin.
00:06:37.000 So that's what that word means.
00:06:38.880 But it's not just talking about his first coming.
00:06:40.720 The way we need to be viewing Advent is it's also—it's really broken down in the church history as three different types of coming.
00:06:49.680 So the first coming is him being born, the incarnation of God as a human.
00:06:55.780 That's the first coming of Jesus.
00:06:57.300 The second one, the way that the church, again, reflects this, is coming into our lives.
00:07:02.940 And so he's coming into our lives, into our hearts.
00:07:05.660 He's living with inside of us the Holy Spirit in that way.
00:07:07.920 And then the third coming is the coming again, the second coming of Christ to bring judgment.
00:07:14.280 And so the Advent season is really intended to not just talk about just his birth, but that he's coming again.
00:07:21.680 And I thought that was an interesting thing that I think a lot of people miss today.
00:07:28.600 Advent goes back all the way to the 500s.
00:07:32.060 And so this has been going on for a long time.
00:07:35.240 Church history, again, is it extra biblical?
00:07:38.480 Yeah.
00:07:39.360 Is it unbiblical?
00:07:40.540 No. 0.99
00:07:41.400 And is it fun?
00:07:42.840 Yeah.
00:07:43.500 And so it's the four Sundays leading up to Christmas Day.
00:07:46.960 That's what Advent is.
00:07:48.220 and so it's celebrating um jesus's birth um you know this thing that we shouldn't do i go again
00:07:56.960 there's well you do easter is that a biblical no is good friday biblical uh no lent no again
00:08:03.800 but these are interesting moments that we have created to help us remember the things that
00:08:09.780 christ did for us can tradition become so powerful that you actually bow down to tradition
00:08:14.780 before you bow down to doctrine yeah because like has it become an idol in your life yeah and for
00:08:20.060 many denominations that has uh i don't think christmas is doing that especially in the
00:08:25.600 protestant church um i don't think that celebrating christmas is sinful especially done if it's done
00:08:31.340 in a correct heart um i think it's a great opportunity uh the entire country the entire
00:08:38.020 world people who aren't human christians celebrate it are talking about christmas it's a great time
00:08:43.380 to talk about jesus and so if you want to kind of remove yourself from that conversation by saying
00:08:49.280 we're not going to celebrate you can do that um but i'm just saying is that there's an opportunity
00:08:53.500 here christmas carols uh singing these songs that are talking about jesus that even the secular
00:08:59.380 world sings um talking about the need for a savior there's so much there that i just would
00:09:05.040 hate for christians to kind of pull away from because they're trying to be extra holy extra
00:09:09.920 of separate. Again, you know, where scripture is clear, God demands our behavior. But where
00:09:15.940 scripture is obscure, God looks at our hearts. And so on Christmas, that's one of those things.
00:09:20.840 So Veronica's going to share what we do as a family. And then I'm going to talk about Santa
00:09:25.500 Christmas trees and gifts. All right. So we celebrate the Advent. And we try and get the
00:09:31.400 kids excited about the coming of Jesus. What's Christmas about? Jesus's birth. But also about
00:09:38.400 like what dale shared the the second coming of jesus um about his return and so we talk a lot
00:09:43.940 about that in our home um and so we celebrate the advent which includes a few things um we want to
00:09:50.480 teach our children how beautiful christ's birth truly was for the world and not just for the
00:09:54.120 world but for themselves um it's a great time to just again preach the gospel to your own kids
00:09:59.060 yeah and practice preaching the gospel to other people by preaching it to your kids yes um and
00:10:05.040 then kids need reminders that um about the what's so beautiful about the representation of the
00:10:12.780 advent yes and so we'll use things like the advent calendar I know a lot of people have
00:10:17.740 advent calendars and some people put like candy in each day some people put activities um I've
00:10:23.300 seen all different types of things some people just put like little hanging ornaments on there
00:10:28.020 in this advent calendar we have one on our wall it's like 24 days and then in each day there's a
00:10:33.400 little like activity or something to do so um some of the things are fun just just fun little
00:10:39.580 things activities for the kids to do like go make a snowman or um go make daddy breakfast go make
00:10:46.140 dad breakfast and then other things a lot of i would that was my next category babe are things
00:10:51.220 to serve or be generous and so yeah to serve one another so go make dad breakfast or um i think
00:10:57.460 last year we did um wash each other's feet yep um and so then we'll read the story along out of
00:11:03.840 the bible that goes along with those types of activities yeah um there's also one that like
00:11:08.640 get a few gift like five dollar gift cards and go give them to some tired moms or offer to babysit
00:11:14.120 like so it's also a time for us to serve other people as well um and help the children understand
00:11:22.100 that that it's not just all about us yeah and these little calendars are cool they have like
00:11:26.740 pockets that you could like put these little slips in there and like you know tell you what to do for
00:11:30.340 the day and um it is the repetition is important for little kids so they can go oh okay like oh i
00:11:37.620 get it i get it like i don't want them to be confused at all about what about jesus's birth
00:11:42.340 the gospel and it's a great time to just be hammered into their head yeah and we read like
00:11:47.060 a couple of advent books to them every day um you know a lot of times people families will just have
00:11:52.120 like just this one um I've got like two or three of them that I like to read and I'll read a couple
00:11:56.860 and especially because my kids aren't the type of kids that like you'll sit there read them a story
00:12:01.340 and then they're done like they want you to read book after book after book after book and so one
00:12:05.660 of the things that I was going to do this year was have a Christmas uh type advent book for them to
00:12:11.880 read every day and they were going to be able to open a new book every day and we'd read that one
00:12:14.960 book but again they like to read book after book after book and one book is just not I mean they
00:12:20.500 they would just like more and so i was like you know i'm just gonna put all the books in a christmas
00:12:24.540 basket so we have our christmas advent basket with all of our christmas books in it um and so
00:12:29.900 we'll sit there and read through the different books and so especially the advent ones i'll read
00:12:35.280 like since i have multiple i'll read the you know day four advent um out of the two different books
00:12:41.220 that morning and then i'll read um the other ones in the evening and they just get really
00:12:45.980 a good perspective multiple angles of the christmas story um different conversation
00:12:51.180 starters we ask them questions after we're done reading what does this mean you know you know and
00:12:55.900 just you know what is um you know why did jesus come here you know like just giving them some
00:13:00.460 promptings and um it's fun it's it's again and those obviously change we have little kids so
00:13:04.840 yeah they love it i mean more complex with the older kids they love reading in general but so
00:13:09.560 these are like special books that only come out you know this time of year and so they're really
00:13:14.300 excited about it um but the big question we get all the time is do you tell your children about
00:13:19.660 santa claus do your children believe in santa claus yeah short answer is no yeah no i'm gonna
00:13:25.420 give you guys the how i think christians should at least consider this um here you know here's
00:13:30.980 how we view it so god commands us as humans uh but if we're talking to christians here as christians
00:13:38.440 to not lie. The Ten Commandments specifically say to not bear false witness. Ephesians 4.25
00:13:45.300 says, therefore, laying aside all falsehood, speak truth, each one of you with his neighbor,
00:13:52.360 for we are members of one another. And I mean, that's just one of many scriptures that are
00:13:57.060 talking about speaking the truth. Don't deceive people. Don't mislead people. And, you know,
00:14:04.280 we look at teaching our children that santa exists and you should believe in him as lying 0.55
00:14:11.260 like that's really just what it is it is deceptive it is training your children to believe a lie
00:14:17.180 well it's even in like christmas songs like he sees you when you're sleeping he knows when you're
00:14:22.160 awake he knows if you've been bad or good so be good for goodness sake and i'm always like
00:14:25.260 jesus sees you when you're sleeping so this is god knows when you're awake like it's it's
00:14:31.700 it's in you know intertwined in everything yeah this is actually the culture's uh replacement
00:14:37.620 figure for christ that that's what it is it's the counterfeit option i mean saint nicholas was a
00:14:44.140 historical sure character but we know today that like nobody knows that saint nicholas history and
00:14:49.760 it was again i think a good ploy on the enemy of just kind of getting him in there um but it is
00:14:55.720 it's a distraction um it's the culture's alternative to the true reason for the season
00:15:03.520 and um and there you know that's what that's what's happened so um you know santa replaces
00:15:10.840 the gift of salvation with the entitlement of materialism and so if you see little kids that
00:15:16.480 are excited i remember as a little kid you know we did santa claus and all this kind of stuff and i
00:15:20.640 was really bummed if I didn't get what I wanted. I remember calling my friends and being jealous
00:15:25.700 of what they got and I didn't get. It built up a really negative heart in me. And remembering
00:15:34.840 that when I found out that Santa wasn't real, I remember I used to write letters to him.
00:15:42.300 I did all these things that were a part of that. And lots of people do this. You leave cookies out,
00:15:47.480 right you leave milk out all these different things that would happen and this is with tooth
00:15:51.960 fairy easter bunny again all these kind of deceptions and um you know what you need to
00:15:59.320 realize what's happening is you're telling your children hey there's these characters that you
00:16:04.440 can't see but you should believe in and then you find out that your parents are lying to you and
00:16:11.900 then they come to you and they say well there's this guy jesus who you can't see but you should
00:16:15.200 believe in and you go well why should i believe you about jesus but you lied to me about the tooth
00:16:22.200 fairy the easter bunny and santa claus and so you create yourself a conundrum that you're actually
00:16:29.120 dismantling the trust between you and your child and it's it's just unwise just it's just not
00:16:36.540 something to do um and we should be very careful uh not to allow our children's eyes to get
00:16:42.700 diverted uh diverted toward anything but christ in this season again everybody's worrying for
00:16:49.740 these little ones hearts you know and the candy and the food and the and the toys and the things
00:16:54.960 that they get in the celebration it could easily become something that is pagan um that is
00:17:01.880 dangerous especially because it could be a distortion of what this tradition was originally
00:17:08.500 created for so christians need to protect it by saying hey you see this like keep christ in
00:17:13.320 christmas and the real reason for the season you see you hear these things in the church and it's
00:17:17.420 it's important that we really do protect that as the church um if we want to continue to celebrate
00:17:22.500 that um and so that's that's something that our perspective that we need to take on why not telling
00:17:32.480 your kids that santa is real just take that into consideration yeah like i mean just like you said
00:17:37.780 presenting Santa's real is just a reality of possibly breaking the trust between you and your
00:17:42.520 child. Yeah. And that's just something that you want to be careful for. And just remember that
00:17:46.420 it's a commandment, like thou shall not lie. Um, and so it's just something to, to think about.
00:17:53.660 So, um, let's next, let's next, let's talk about Christmas trees and gifts. Um, so we do both in
00:18:04.260 our family. Um, but we have a core teaching that helps our children to place these elements in the
00:18:10.220 correct place in their hearts. Yeah. We're working hard to, you know, make sure that it's not about
00:18:15.620 the Christmas tree. It's not about the gifts. It's, um, and you have to work hard because, um,
00:18:21.020 the culture is not going to help you. You know, they're, they're going to, they're going to have
00:18:23.860 these songs that have nothing to do with Jesus. They're going to have these expectations of
00:18:28.540 gifting that has nothing to do with Jesus there, uh, or even generosity. It turns into materialism.
00:18:33.920 There's going to be all these things that are competing for keeping this opportunity that we have to really spend a 24-day period focusing on Jesus, especially for our families, even for ourselves, to turn it into something that's actually not that valuable at all.
00:18:51.880 All right.
00:18:52.500 So there's a scripture that all these people write me when we put up our Christmas tree, right?
00:18:57.920 And we put up our Christmas tree, and they're like, you know that Christmas trees are pagan.
00:19:02.620 and I go okay okay so you know they give me this verse everybody sends me this verse 0.83
00:19:07.520 same verse this is Jeremiah 10 2 through 4 it says thus says the Lord learn not the way of the
00:19:14.640 nations nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens because the nations are dismayed at them
00:19:19.240 for the customs of the peoples are vanity a tree from the forest is cut down and worked with an axe
00:19:26.320 by the hands of a craftsman they decorate it with silver and gold they fasten it with a hammer
00:19:32.460 and nails so that it cannot move okay if you take a piece of scripture out of context
00:19:40.040 you can make anything mean anything and so this is 2,000 years before Christmas tree idea has
00:19:48.380 ever existed if you catch the whole context of this entire chapter which I have read I actually
00:19:53.740 They just recently wrote an entire paper on Jeremiah chapter 10.
00:19:59.700 This is a command to the nation of Israel,
00:20:05.420 specifically within the Old Covenant, 0.80
00:20:09.760 on not to learn the way of the nations. 0.87
00:20:13.800 This is before the Gentiles had salvation offered to them.
00:20:18.100 And the context of the chapter makes it abundantly clear
00:20:21.900 that Jeremiah is condemning the practice of carving idols to worship,
00:20:27.380 not festively decorating Christmas trees.
00:20:30.500 And the reason is, is that, well, where do you get a wooden idol?
00:20:33.280 Well, it comes from a tree.
00:20:36.100 And so it's talking about, if you read the rest of the section,
00:20:38.980 that you cut down a tree and you carve it into something else.
00:20:41.960 It's not talking about putting a Christmas, a tree.
00:20:44.240 No one is laying down and worshiping a tree.
00:20:48.280 They're taking the wood from a tree, carving it into an idol,
00:20:52.100 And he even says in the next verse, like a scarecrow in a cucumber field are they, and they cannot speak. 0.95
00:21:01.320 They must be carried because they cannot walk.
00:21:03.900 Do not fear them, for they can do no harm, nor can they do any good.
00:21:08.780 And so it's, again, it's not talking about trees.
00:21:11.780 It's talking about the wood that starts as a tree and ends up as a idol that people are literally bowing down to and worshiping.
00:21:21.500 so yes if you're worshiping your christmas tree then they are bad you should not be worshiping
00:21:26.900 your tree yeah and check your heart because like is a christmas tree like an absolute necessity
00:21:32.400 every year like we have to have a christmas tree or else it's not christmas like is it becoming an
00:21:37.180 idol in your heart yeah yeah and are they extra biblical yes again as i said but are they unbiblical
00:21:44.280 No.
00:21:45.780 You know, are they a distraction from Christ?
00:21:48.360 They could be.
00:21:50.100 They're not in our house, you know.
00:21:52.540 And let me give you kind of some more history of how the Christmas tree kind of came to be.
00:21:56.500 And so they really started as early as the 13th century.
00:22:00.240 Some people say the 16th century, but there's references to Christmas trees early back.
00:22:04.220 They were always the evergreen tree, which is, again, a type of pine.
00:22:08.240 this idea that all trees, well, not all trees, most trees shed their leaves, and they, you know,
00:22:15.380 die, if you will, in the fall. But the evergreen tree doesn't. The needles stay on the tree,
00:22:20.740 and it was this representation that, like, it never dies. And so they had this part of the
00:22:25.620 Christmas Advent season to be a tree to represent and symbolize that Christ lives on. The other
00:22:33.620 thing is that Jesus is referenced in the scriptures in a variety of different ways is the
00:22:38.520 tree of life. And so inside of your house, you have this, again, Christmas season that Jesus is
00:22:43.760 the tree of life. And so, you know, last night I just taught the kids, look, you know, our Christmas
00:22:48.840 tree is like Jesus is the tree of life. He just keeps on living. And so there's some fun symbolism
00:22:53.480 there. Revelations 22 says, through the middle of the street of the cities, talking about heaven,
00:23:00.440 also on either side of the river the tree of life with its 12 kinds of fruit yielding each fruit
00:23:07.420 each month the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations and so again there's some
00:23:12.700 fun references in the scriptures i just read an article by charles spurgeon about that
00:23:16.260 yeah it's just fun so is it is it sinful i don't think so um it can be but christmas trees are fun
00:23:24.080 if you bring some fun symbolism to teach your children about i mean jesus calls himself you
00:23:29.820 know we're under wings like eagles he calls himself you know the lion is he
00:23:33.940 really a lion no is he really a tree no but they're fun symbolism that we get to
00:23:39.820 use to help explain to our families and even to our own souls the identity of
00:23:45.280 Christ all right there's my teaching moving on next topic is gifts so we do
00:23:53.460 gifts um in our home and we do one gift per child um plus stockings and we try you know stay pretty
00:24:02.820 modest with the amount we spend on the gift veronica crushed it this year i did awesome this
00:24:08.180 year i'm not gonna lie i spent 51 on all three of their gifts yeah all three of them combined
00:24:13.520 not individually so i was pretty proud of myself and they're gonna like them they're gonna love
00:24:18.260 those gifts yeah and so um so yeah we do gifts um but we do not want our children to be more
00:24:23.600 excited about what they receive physically as a material possession than what they are given
00:24:28.760 than what is given to them through christ and so that's all like again it's just a constant reminder
00:24:34.040 in our home what we're talking about the advent season giving back serving one another um all
00:24:40.720 those things are just constant especially throughout the month of december yeah in our home
00:24:45.240 um and so with the gifts we need to remember that material things breeds entitlement yes and
00:24:53.820 entitlement breeds a lack of gratitude yes and which we are if you are a parent you know especially
00:25:00.820 to toddlers yeah we are in the midst of just training our kids on gratitude it is and it's
00:25:05.160 not natural that's to them you know i mean they have their they have a flesh that loves gifts and
00:25:10.500 loves toys and they so it's it's a constant training and teaching of them and i mean some
00:25:16.440 days they get it some days they don't yeah and it'll be probably several years of doing this
00:25:21.940 you know many years um so christmas is a great opportunity to model generosity again that's why
00:25:28.920 we have the advent calendar um things that we do just to remind us to be generous and serve others
00:25:35.080 But the main point is, is your focus on the gift or on the ultimate gift giver?
00:25:41.700 Yeah. And that's just the core of this conversation.
00:25:45.160 So, yeah, we try to navigate this Christmas season according to what we know about God and scripture.
00:25:53.340 It's fun. It's a great opportunity.
00:25:56.000 Should we hide in a hole during Christmas?
00:25:58.280 And we have friends that have been down this road and they remember that one year they just decided to not celebrate Christmas.
00:26:06.060 And like they were just going to kind of plant their flag in that camp over there.
00:26:10.060 And they said it was like the most depressing day ever.
00:26:14.460 And so, you know, there's just some fun in doing this.
00:26:18.860 Let's go spread the gospel.
00:26:20.460 Let's use this as an opportunity when the whole church and the whole culture is actually admitting that, you know, Christmas exists and that there's a possibility that Jesus did come and they're open to those conversations.
00:26:32.140 And so they're singing these songs already.
00:26:34.460 And so it's just and it also, you know, family and these things are, you know, are still morally common in terms of just we're getting together as a family.
00:26:47.420 The gift thing I wanted to mention is that it's also a great opportunity to teach generosity to your children.
00:26:53.140 So gifting is not all bad.
00:26:58.300 You know, generosity is obviously a very clear command in Scripture to be generous.
00:27:03.860 And you've got to teach your kids how to do that really young.
00:27:05.660 And so getting them to make a gift for mom or make a gift for dad,
00:27:09.260 it's an opportunity to, again, bring more biblical Christ-like principles into young people's hearts.
00:27:16.580 And so that's what we do for the Christmas season.
00:27:22.080 And so our next conversation, again, is going to be how to deal with family conflict in the holiday season,
00:27:29.520 which we get it every year, and it's a hard thing to deal with.
00:27:35.420 And so we're going to bring some Christian biblical principles to bear on that topic.
00:27:41.480 You feel good, babe?
00:27:42.680 Yeah, I think so.
00:27:44.900 I feel like we forgot to do two things.
00:27:48.100 We forgot to bring a question, which is okay.
00:27:50.620 And we forgot to get a memory verse.
00:27:52.600 Well, a memory verse, yeah.
00:27:53.820 You know, and I'm just going to do a Dale fail.
00:27:59.060 That's what that is.
00:28:00.020 That's my cue at this point. 0.94
00:28:02.800 Hey, you guys have Bibles.
00:28:03.580 You can read them.
00:28:04.500 Pick out a verse and memorize it.
00:28:06.400 Yeah, so sorry, guys.
00:28:07.260 We didn't get a memory verse for you guys this week.
00:28:09.140 We got three hours of sleep last night.
00:28:10.720 And so we, yeah, we're just kind of floating by, you know, just the seat of our pants are
00:28:16.240 now just like, oh, okay.
00:28:17.880 So anyways, thanks for joining us today.
00:28:19.980 Again, if you guys would leave a review for the podcast, it'd be a huge help.
00:28:23.820 Those reviews really do help the exposure of the show and more couples can actually
00:28:27.660 hear and see the content available.
00:28:29.780 It changes where iTunes places the show.
00:28:31.980 So thank you guys.
00:28:33.480 And we will see you guys next week.
00:28:37.280 Thank you for joining us on this episode of Ultimate Marriage.
00:28:39.920 If you're homesick for a stronger marriage, visit our website at ultimatemarriage.com and consider enrolling in our one-year online marriage mentor program.
00:28:47.920 Also, if you're interested in learning more about building a better marriage, follow Veronica and I on social media where each week we share tips, tricks, and lessons on building a biblical marriage.
00:29:09.920 We'll be right back.