In this week's program, host Phil Tower welcomes Bob Lepine, a marriage and family expert and author of a powerful book on marriage: Love Like You Mean It: The Heart of a Marriage that Honors God. Bob Lepine is best known to radio and podcast listeners as the long-time co-host of FamilyLife Today® and as the on-air announcer for Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. Bob is also the Lead Pastor at Redeemer Community Church in Little Rock, Arkansas.He is also the author of Build A Stronger Marriage (2022), and The Four Emotions of Christmas (2022). Bob joined us for the full program to speak about a topic we've never covered: Marriage. Every year, millions of men and women stand before friends and family to pledge their lifelong love to each other. Do they know what they’re getting into? Love Like You Mean It gives husbands and wives a biblical understanding of what real love looks like in marriage by unpacking the ten attributes of genuine love listed in 1 Corinthians 13.
TOPICS DISCUSSED: Marriage, infidelity, dating, marriage counseling, faith in marriage, and divorce.
More About the Book: Love Like You Mean It: The Heart of a Marriage that Honors God.
Buy Bob's Book here.
TOPICS DISCUSSED: Marriage, infidelity, dating, marriage counseling, faith in marriage, and divorce.
More About the Book: Love Like You Mean It: The Heart of a Marriage that Honors God.
Buy Bob's Book here.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
iHeartMedia West Michigan Weekend a public affairsprogram. This is West Michigan Weekend from
iHeartRadio. Thank you so much fortuning in. I'm your host, Phil
Tower. And a programming note,we have a special program today. We're
dedicating the whole program to marriage.Now, Okay, that sounds a little
weird. This is a program ifyou have members of your family who are
(00:24):
married or will be getting married,this is a program for them. And
I'm going to be very honest withyou. This program we've never done before
on this show, West Michigan Weekend. Really we should have done a lot
of these. We're going to talkabout marriage. We're going to do it
from a Christian perspective. And Okay, you don't need to change the dial
or you find something else. We'regoing to do this because this is an
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incredibly important topic. We need totalk about marriages. Marriages in spite of
what we see in the movies andread about them, marriages are something that
are probably the most important asset wehave in this country today and they're not
as easy as they look on TVand on Netflix and everywhere else where you
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see romance and our guest today we'lltalk a lot about that. It is
a real honor and pleasure to welcomeBob Lapene to the program. You probably
know Bob Lapine here in West Michiganas host as the co host of Family
Life Today Radio, which was heardon many stations hundreds of stations across the
United States, Family Life's nationally syndicatedradio program. Bob is still out active.
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He's written a couple of books,The Christian Husband some years ago and
his latest book, which is thesubject of this conversation, because I got
to tell you it is a terrificbook. The latest book is Love like
You mean It the heart of amarriage that honors God. And even if
you are not a person of faith, stay with me on this. Even
if you are not a person offaith, I guarantee you by the end
(01:52):
of this conversation you're going to findsome real, actionable, meaningful things because
there's a lot to unpack in FirstCorinthians chapter thirteen, which is a central
point of this book. First ofall, Bob Lapene, that's the longest
introduction, unnecessarily, so welcome tothe program. Great to be with you.
Thanks, Oh, it's so wonderfulto have you. And thank you
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for taking the time you sat inthe room with Dennis and Barbara Rainey,
the host of Family Life Today.They've gone on to other things after doing
that show for how many years?And we were on the air together for
twenty eight years? My goodness,and yeah it was. It was a
great opportunity for both of us toget to spend that time together to interview
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hundreds of guests over the years aboutmarriage and family related issues. I felt
like I got my PhD in marriageand family just from doing a radio program
every day where that's what we weretalking about. Oh, the material you
had. So after twenty eight years, did you know what? Twenty years
in you had a book in you? How did this all happen? Well,
(03:00):
this book actually came about because,in addition to my work at Family
Life Today, I am the leadpastor at a local church, and so
I had decided I was going topreach a series of sermons on maybe one
of the most familiar passages in theBible. People who aren't familiar with the
Bible have often heard for Corinthians thirteen. It's called the Love Chapter. And
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I say in the book that Iremember the first time I ever read for
Corinthians thirteen. It was in thenineteen sixties and I was in what was
called a head shop. Okay,yeah, I got to stop you right
there because I read that it's awonderful story. You used to stop by
an ice cream place on your wayhome from school. This is this is
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the summer of love for the nextyear was sixties seven or sixties is sixty
eight sixty nine right in there,okay, And I would walk home from
school. Well, there was thisshop that was kind of dark, and
it had just come in and Iwas a curious junior high student, and
I wandered in one day and therewere beads and leather, and there was
incense, and there were black lightseverywhere, and there were lots of little
(04:09):
paraphernalia that I didn't know what youwere to use it for. I remember
there're being cigarette papers there, andI thought, who needs cigarette paper?
Anyway? On the wall, we'reposters, so Jimmy Hendricks. There was
Janis Job all the doors, andthen there was there were a couple side
by side. One was a thingcalled Desderata that says you are a child
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of the universe, no less thanthe trees and the stars, you have
a right to be here, andwe are all going right on manya.
And then next to it was thisposter that said, if I speak with
the tongues of men or angels buthave not love, I'm a noisy gong
and a clanging symbol. And itwas all about love and how important love
is. Love is patient, loveis kind, Love does not end your
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boast, it's not self seeking.It just went on and on, and
it ends by saying that the greatestof these is love. There's faith,
hope, and love, but loveis the greatest. And I mean there
were people who knew nothing about theBible who said, man, I want
that love poster in my bedroom becausethat's I want to be all about love.
Well, so I think that's thefirst time I ever read One Corinthians
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thirteen. Now decades later as achurch pastor, I thought this has been
read at a lot of weddings,A lot of people ever cited this,
But I wonder if we've really takentime to dig in and say, what
is this chapter saying to us aboutlove? Because I think one of the
problems in marriage today, phil isthat a lot of people have a cultural
view of love rather than an exaltedview of love. And I wanted to
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give our people an exalted view oflove that kind of takes them out of
the romance and eroticism and takes themto something that goes much deeper than that.
Yeah, and I really like that. And that is First Corinthians,
chapter thirteen. The first words youspoke were chapters one through three, and
(05:59):
that is such a powerful start.And then, like you said, the
rest of it, love is patient, love is kind, Love does not
boast all of that. The restof it is what is so often used
in weddings, even weddings where theremight be an internet pastor doing the ceremony.
Bob Lapene, God help us allall have officiated these weddings. And
(06:23):
I've read First Corinthians thirteen. Yeah, And the thing is, the two
people standing there have got stars intheir eyes, and they're dreamy, and
they're hearing this in kind of romanticterms, and they're nodding and smiling,
but they're really thinking, can wejust wrap this up? Because we just
want to be together and spend ourlives together and all of that. And
this chapter we read it this way. We read love is patient, love
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is kind, Love does not envyor boast, And I think it was
written as a corrective. I thinkthe apostle Paul, when he wrote this,
said, you guys have love allwrong, prioritizing it the way you
should. And I think if hewas reading it out loud, he would
say, guys, love is patient, love is kind, Love does not
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envy your boast, it's not selfseeking like you. Guys, you got
to get this right. The wayyou're acting doesn't match up with what love
is. And love is at thecenter of it all. And until we
get that right, whether it's inmarriage or in the culture wherever we are,
we don't have much hope for wherewe're headed. And so I had
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preached this at our church, theseseries of sermons, and then I thought,
you know, I worked for anorganization that's all about marriage and family.
I didn't really in my sermons seriesapply these verses to marriage. But
what if I took these same ideasand just made the application. What does
it mean for a husband to bepatient or for a wife to be kind,
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or for a couple not to beenvious or boastful or self seeking.
And so each chapter in this book, you've seen it. Each chapter kind
of takes one of them, thesequalities from one Corinthians thirteen, and we
do a deep dive into what doesit look like to be patient in marriage?
What does it look like to bekind in marriage? So I think
a lot of people go to amarriage book and they're looking for where's the
chapter on communication or kids, orfinances or sex. And this doesn't have
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those chapters in it, although thosethemes are interwoven with the big ideas of
what we're talking about here, thesecharacter qualities that make up true true love.
That's what I'm love true love,right, yeah, Yeah. In
fact, real love takes time,it takes work, there are no shortcuts.
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But in the end, it's onlylove that satisfies. That's one of
your real powerful truths from the book, Love like You mean it the heart
of a marriage that honors God.And I want to ask you this question
because we have people listening to uswho are on their second marriage, their
third marriage. Maybe are are spirituallyvery sound, very grounded. Maybe their
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marriage is or is not, orthey have a history. And if they're
listening to us in West Michigan,this is a very church area. This
is an area full of people offaith. But it is super hard to
live that every day in a marriage, to walk that walk, to talk
that talk every day in a marriage, Bob Lapene, Because innately we are
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selfish people, not just guys.This is two guys having a conversation about
a marriage. A marriage book.Imagine that, and you wrote the book.
How about that? But for ourradio listening audience, this is a
very serious point. This is allabout dying to self. And you talk
about the concept of oneness and withoutthat dying to self, maybe you can
(09:48):
have a successful marriage, Bob Lapine. But I don't know. I don't
know how you get there. Yeah. When when I first got married Bill
my I remember not thinking this consciously, but looking back, I know clearly
that when I met Mary Anne,I thought to myself, I really like
how I feel when I'm with her. I like the way she makes me
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feel. I like how special shethinks I am. There is a lot
I am willing to give for thatfeeling to continue in my life. If
you will just keep making me feelspecial and keep making me feel good,
I'll cut the lawn, you know, I will make sure the oil is
(10:33):
changed in the car. I willdo a whole list of tasks as long
as you'll do your part to makeme feel special. Well, what that
was was it was transactional because itsaid I'm in this as long as this
marriage makes me happy and I feelspecial. And then I came to a
point where I realized, if that'sthe center of your marriage, as long
as I'm happy, I'm in You'rein real trouble because your marriage is going
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to hit challenges and bumps. There'sgoing to be seasons of such foring you
go through. There are going tobe times when you look at each other
and say, you're not making meso very happy right someone else could do
a better job of making me happythan you're doing right now. And if
again, if that's at the center, that's not selfless love we're talking about.
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That's self seeking love, where it'sall about what I want. And
I had to come to a wakeup call where I said, if that's
the center of my marriage, mymarriage is in real trouble. I have
to shift the priorities. And maryAnna and I realized it couldn't even be
okay, am I making you happy? We had to be committed to something
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beyond ourselves and outside of ourselves,not just our own happiness. But we
ultimately had to look at this andsay, is our marriage making God happy?
Is it pleasing to him? Whatwould he delight in? And let's
be committed to that being at thecenter of our marriage, believing that if
that's at the center of our marriage, all that we're looking foreign marriage is
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going to be realized as long aswe're keeping him as our central focus.
Now, you'd expect to hear thatfrom a pastor, but I would say
even to folks who are not churchgoing, folks who are listening to this,
if you don't have something at thecenter of your marriage that is bigger
than the two of you, thenyour marriage is always going to have a
selfish component to it. That's goingto make real oneness a challenge for you.
Yeah, you see, in thebeginning of love like you mean it,
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most of us got married because ofhow our spouse made us feel when
we were together. You're just talkingabout that. We like the feeling,
so we said, I'll move inand wear a ring and share a house
payment have kids with you as longas you keep making me feel that way.
And Bob, we have a veryskewed and superficial view of what love
is. This throws a lot ofteenagers in love off. After the romantic
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you know, that arrow's passionate stageof love, that all the gooeyness goes
away. Some people think, Okay, I'm not in love with this person
anymore. A lot of people andmarriages because of losing that feeling. You
know. The Righteous Brothers wrote asong about it, you know. So
that's the problem. Most of whatI know about love and marriage short,
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most of what I knew when Iwas getting married, I had learned from
pop songs in the sixties and theseventies, you know. So my whole
marriage education was you made me sovery happy. I'm so glad you came
into my life. Why do birdssuddenly appear every time you're near? Just
like me, they long to beclose to you. You know. I
could go through all of the lyrics, and here's the thing. It's all
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about emotion and passion and how wefeel, and feelings change and emotions fade.
And if that's the foundation on whicha marriage is built, you're you're
going to face some real problems.We had to recognize that love in the
Bible is not about that flutter inyour stomach, or the feeling you get
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in your the bitter pattern of yourheart when you see your beloved love.
I sat down with the couple doingpre marital counseling, first time I ever
did any pre marital counseling. Iasked them to write out their definition of
love for me, and what Igot back from both of them read like
bad Hallmark cards or I don't knowif you remember Rod McEwan, but he
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was a poet in the sixties andhis poet so it just was love is
that warm feeling you get on asummer night when the stars you know,
it's like, okay, this isfine. We put that aside. At
the end of the premarital I gavethem a piece of paper and I said,
I want you to write down yourdefinition of love again. This time
they wrote something very different because Ihad taught them over the time we were
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together. This time they wrote,love is commitment and self sacrifice at the
core when we're talking about what loveis, I'm committed to you and I
will sacrifice for us. And that'sI think what's at the heart of real
love. Two people who make thatpledge to one another. I'm committed to
you, and I will sacrifice.That's why. Again in the Bible,
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Jesus said greater love has no onethan this that he lays down his life
for his friends. And I wouldsay in marriage, no couple has greater
love than when they're laying down theirlives for each other and saying, I'm
committed to you, I will sacrificeyour Your good is my goal, and
that's my commitment in this marriage.Powerful quote in the book. You can
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be, and this might resonate withsome of our listeners. You can be
a responsible, charming, attractive,fun loving, successful, intelligent, respected
individual, admired and esteemed by everyone, maybe everyone at work. You can
be, by all standards, anideal spouse. But if your marriage is
not fueled by a strong and durablecommitment to sacrificially loving your mate, it's
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not a Christian marriage. It's afacade. It really resonated with me when
I read that, and I thinkI've told this to so many friends,
friends who are getting married, gettingremarried. I think a marriage without a
strong spiritual foundation. I'm saying thison Secutar radio because I want people to
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hear this. I think it's easyto overlook this. You think, Okay,
we are two people raised in youknow, church going homes, Christian
holmes. We've got everything down,but marriage is almost It raises that call
to be a christ like individual,a selfless, dying to self. Two
people coming together as one marriage raiseseverything to a level. Most people who
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have never been married have no ideaabout Bob Lapan, wouldn't you say?
I would? In fact, Iwas sitting with a couple yesterday doing pre
marital counseling, our first session together. And this is a young couple in
their early twenties and they've been datingfor I think four years, and I
said to them, here's what youneed to recognize. The cap on the
growth of your marriage, The thingthat will determine whether it grows forever or
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whether it's got a limitter on itis your commitment individually to your own personal
spiritual growth. So if you're notgrowing individually spiritually with one another, that
will be an inhibitor to the successof your marriage. But if both of
you are growing together or growing apartto not growing apart, But if the
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two of you are growing separately,as in your faith, that's going to
fuel a stronger, more committed marriage, So yes, I agree. I
think that's a core component. AndI tell I know people who don't go
to church and have a wonderful marriageand love one another and get along fine.
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And I know people who do goto church and they fight with one
another. But I think it ultimatelycomes down to the question of is their
commitment and is their self sacrifice?And I know for me, I need
the spiritual fuel in my life tobe able to fuel that commitment and self
sacrifice so that in the moments whenI don't feel like it, I still
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do it because I know there's somethingbigger at stake here than just my personal
happiness. I'm so glad you saidthat, because it takes the self to
understand that as you were talking aboutwith that young couple. And furthermore,
it's gonna sound funny, and you'rea teaching pastor your church in Little Rock,
and boy, how fortunate church goersyour church arty to be able to
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hear you. But I don't recallgrowing up, Bob Lapene, my parents
were members, We were members ofthe Church of Christ's first congregational church.
I don't remember churches talking a lot, pastors talking much about marriage growing up
as a young kid, and ateenager, and then a high school kid.
It was very rare that a pastortalked about marriage. Maybe that's happened
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more in the twenty first century orin the last fifteen years or so.
It's kind of odd, isn't itthat churches don't always talk about marriage that
much? Well, it is,and I do think that we need to
recognize that this is the proving groundfor our faith. In fact, it's
interesting. We can be nice andpolite and kind to all kinds of people,
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but then when we get home,we can't do it with one another
in our marriage. This is wherethe rubber meets the road on our faith.
Anything we talk about believing or character, if it's not proven out in
our marriages first, then you haveto wonder how real it is. But
I know, I talked to onepastor who said, yeah, I hate
to preach on marriage, And Isaid why He said, because as soon
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as I do the next six weeks, I'm going to be meeting with couples
who call me after the sermon andsay can we get together and can we
talk? Because you're just unearth alot of hidden stuff. And I do
think churches need to be aware ofthis and need to be. My wife
and I were just talking an hourago about we're probably not aware of all
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of the marriage challenges. When yousee folks on Sunday morning at church,
they all look happy and like theylike each other and everything. You're just
not aware of the frustrations, thedisappointments, the hurts that are going on.
And I think churches need to recognizethat, be proactive to help couples
stay out of the ditch, andthen have a way to help couples who
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are in the ditch get back out. In fact, after I wrote Love
Like You Mean It, I hada publisher come to me and say,
we need a book to help coupleswho are struggling in their marriage. Not
desperate, not you know, atwits end, but just they're frustrated.
And so I wrote a just ashort book for those couples to go through
called Build a Stronger Marriage. Andthat's been a book that a lot of
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couples have come back to me andsaid this helped us diagnose and correct what
were the problems in our marriage.Yeah, we're speaking with Bob Lapine.
You perhaps know Bob Lapine best asco host of The Family Life Today,
nationally syndicated radio program, also apodcast. He's author of his latest book,
Love Like You Mean It, TheHeart of a Marriage that Honors God,
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and we are having this conversation onsecular radio here on iHeartRadio's West Michigan
Weekend because it is probably marriage probablyone of the biggest issues in terms of
having an impact on so many people. I mean politicians going through broken marriages,
pastors going through broken marriages. Familiesare torn apart sadly when people are
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having marital difficulties and divorce, andwhen you have a state like Michigan,
Bob Lapen, so many states withno fault divorce. After that feeling,
you know, after you've got theloving feeling is gone, a lot of
people can just say, well,I'm done. I'm going to go find
somebody who's going to make me,you know, get that feeling back again,
and get that specialness back. Andthat's really it's not what it's all
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about. Beyond that, I wantedto ask you about something that a lot
of people don't understand, the differentlevels of love and agape love, which
is a very special kind of love. Many church pastors have perhaps talked about
that you talk about agape love andwhy it's so special, so difficult to
achieve. Can you unpack that abit for our listeners. Yeah, the
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Greeks and the news Sestiment was writtenin Greek, and so the Greeks had
four words to describe love, andthey differentiate the kind of love you're talking
about. So one word was theword eras, which means erotic love.
It means romantic, passionate love,or sexual love. They had the word
storgay, which means the love thatyou have in a family, your love
for your siblings, your parents.They had the word filos. We get
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the term Philadelphia. Philadelphia is thecity of early love. So felos is
that kind of affection that we havefor one another where we're just we're pals,
we're friends, we have things incommon, we like one another,
and we're committed to one another feelos. And then there's this unusual word agape
that shows up in the Greek.Interestingly enough, in my research for the
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book, I found that this wasa word that was not widely used outside
of Christian literature prior to the NewTestament being written. This idea of a
gope was pretty much a New Testamentinvention, because a goape love is a
self sacrificing love, a selfless love. It's a love that says that even
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if it cost me, I willtake care of you. I will put
your interests ahead of my own.There's a verse in the Bible that says,
do nothing from selfishness. And I'velooked at this verse, and the
word nothing in the original language meansnothing, do nothing from selfishness or empty
conceit, but with humility, regardone another as more important than yourself.
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And honestly feel if ninety percent ofthe marriages I talked to they would take
that one and say, we're goingto be committed to doing nothing from selfishness,
but with humility regarding the other person. My spouse is more important than
me. If we would say thatin marriage and try to live that out,
that doesn't take care of ninety percentof the marriage issues couples are dealing
(24:15):
with today. That's agape love thatsays, even if it cost me,
I'm committed to you and I willtake care of you. That whole concept
of dying to self it is soantithetical, Bob Lapine to the world we
live in today. Who is todo that. It is so you mean
what I can't have my regular golftime on Sunday for six hours. I
(24:37):
can't play thirty six holes. Ican't do that. You know. It's
it's I can't get a bigger screenTV because we need to put that into
the kid's college fund. It's sohard, yet so important, and I
would agree with you one hundred percentninety percent. You talk about why people
get divorced. Money is a bigthing. Infidelity, all kinds of issues
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would be covered by that. Okay, you know this time, I'm just
going to not be the selfish personI have been for the majority of my
life. So easy to say,yet so hard to do. Is it
teachable to die to self or isit just something you have to learn through
a lot of difficulty in life andmaybe some real rocky times in a marriage.
(25:22):
Well, I think we can teachthe concept. I mean, we've
been talking about it here and Ithink our listeners can go Okay, now
understand what you're saying. I getthe idea. Now the question is can
we live it? You can learnit, but can you live it?
And the can you live it?I think really depends You've got a certain
amount of can do inside of you, but there are going to be things
(25:45):
you're going to face where I thinkthat can do is going to be depleted.
In fact, at the end ofthe book Phil I talk about the
book ends with this statement in FirstStrengthen thirteen that says love never quits,
never fails, never runs out.And we run out of love. We
only have so much in us togive. So what do we do when
(26:06):
we're out of you know, I'mall out of love a kid, So
what do we do when we getthere? That's where we have to have
a source we can go to outsideof ourselves that can pour the love back
into us that we can then pourout to other people. If you're depending
on your reservoir of love to sustainyour marriage, I think you're going to
(26:29):
find yourself frustrated. But if you'vegot a reservoir you can go to that
is outside of yourself. And thisis where I think the Bible offers us
this great hope that we can goto God, and God loves us and
will pour love into us, hislove into us, and then we can
overflow with the love that we've receivedfrom Him that can spill out to other
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people, including our spouse, andthat's if that's your source, then yes,
you can live out this agappe loveconsistently. I hope that has resonated
with some of our listeners today becauseit's so very important. It's not easy.
We never said in this time togetherit was easy, and the book
(27:11):
clearly points that out. Bob Lapene'sbeen our guest. Love Like You Mean
It is his book and highly recommended. The heart Love Like You Mean It
the heart of a marriage that honorsGod, and you can get it wherever
books are sold. Bob Lapene dotcom is your website, and Bob I
(27:32):
knew it was going to be achallenge to get all of this in in
my allotted time. I must thankyou. I'm so honored and grateful for
your time, your wisdom, yourspirit. It has been a delight speaking
with you, my friend. Greatto be with you. Phil appreciate it.
Yeah, indeed, Bob Lapine,our guest on this segment of West
Michigan Weekend from iHeartRadio again, thebook Love Like You Mean It. If
(27:55):
you don't have it, highly recommendit. Whether you have someone who's engaged
and about to be married, ormaybe you're five years into your marriage and
wondering, Okay, how do wemake this thing last? Highly recommend it.
He's been our guest on this segmentof West Michigan Weekend from iHeartRadio.
That's our program for this week.Thank you for being with us. A
(28:17):
whole program dedicated to marriage. Whata concept. We'll catch you again next
week right here on this iHeartRadio station. I'm Phil Tower. Thank you for
listening. iHeartMedia West Michigan Weekend,a public affairs program
iHeartMedia West Michigan Weekend a public affairsprogram. This is West Michigan Weekend from
iHeartRadio. Thank you so much fortuning in. I'm your host, Phil
Tower. And a programming note,we have a special program today. We're
dedicating the whole program to marriage.Now, Okay, that sounds a little
weird. This is a program ifyou have members of your family who are
(00:24):
married or will be getting married,this is a program for them. And
I'm going to be very honest withyou. This program we've never done before
on this show, West Michigan Weekend. Really we should have done a lot
of these. We're going to talkabout marriage. We're going to do it
from a Christian perspective. And Okay, you don't need to change the dial
or you find something else. We'regoing to do this because this is an
(00:46):
incredibly important topic. We need totalk about marriages. Marriages in spite of
what we see in the movies andread about them, marriages are something that
are probably the most important asset wehave in this country today and they're not
as easy as they look on TVand on Netflix and everywhere else where you
(01:07):
see romance and our guest today we'lltalk a lot about that. It is
a real honor and pleasure to welcomeBob Lapene to the program. You probably
know Bob Lapine here in West Michiganas host as the co host of Family
Life Today Radio, which was heardon many stations hundreds of stations across the
United States, Family Life's nationally syndicatedradio program. Bob is still out active.
(01:32):
He's written a couple of books,The Christian Husband some years ago and
his latest book, which is thesubject of this conversation, because I got
to tell you it is a terrificbook. The latest book is Love like
You mean It the heart of amarriage that honors God. And even if
you are not a person of faith, stay with me on this. Even
if you are not a person offaith, I guarantee you by the end
(01:52):
of this conversation you're going to findsome real, actionable, meaningful things because
there's a lot to unpack in FirstCorinthians chapter thirteen, which is a central
point of this book. First ofall, Bob Lapene, that's the longest
introduction, unnecessarily, so welcome tothe program. Great to be with you.
Thanks, Oh, it's so wonderfulto have you. And thank you
(02:14):
for taking the time you sat inthe room with Dennis and Barbara Rainey,
the host of Family Life Today.They've gone on to other things after doing
that show for how many years?And we were on the air together for
twenty eight years? My goodness,and yeah it was. It was a
great opportunity for both of us toget to spend that time together to interview
(02:39):
hundreds of guests over the years aboutmarriage and family related issues. I felt
like I got my PhD in marriageand family just from doing a radio program
every day where that's what we weretalking about. Oh, the material you
had. So after twenty eight years, did you know what? Twenty years
in you had a book in you? How did this all happen? Well,
(03:00):
this book actually came about because,in addition to my work at Family
Life Today, I am the leadpastor at a local church, and so
I had decided I was going topreach a series of sermons on maybe one
of the most familiar passages in theBible. People who aren't familiar with the
Bible have often heard for Corinthians thirteen. It's called the Love Chapter. And
(03:24):
I say in the book that Iremember the first time I ever read for
Corinthians thirteen. It was in thenineteen sixties and I was in what was
called a head shop. Okay,yeah, I got to stop you right
there because I read that it's awonderful story. You used to stop by
an ice cream place on your wayhome from school. This is this is
(03:44):
the summer of love for the nextyear was sixties seven or sixties is sixty
eight sixty nine right in there,okay, And I would walk home from
school. Well, there was thisshop that was kind of dark, and
it had just come in and Iwas a curious junior high student, and
I wandered in one day and therewere beads and leather, and there was
incense, and there were black lightseverywhere, and there were lots of little
(04:09):
paraphernalia that I didn't know what youwere to use it for. I remember
there're being cigarette papers there, andI thought, who needs cigarette paper?
Anyway? On the wall, we'reposters, so Jimmy Hendricks. There was
Janis Job all the doors, andthen there was there were a couple side
by side. One was a thingcalled Desderata that says you are a child
(04:30):
of the universe, no less thanthe trees and the stars, you have
a right to be here, andwe are all going right on manya.
And then next to it was thisposter that said, if I speak with
the tongues of men or angels buthave not love, I'm a noisy gong
and a clanging symbol. And itwas all about love and how important love
is. Love is patient, loveis kind, Love does not end your
(04:51):
boast, it's not self seeking.It just went on and on, and
it ends by saying that the greatestof these is love. There's faith,
hope, and love, but loveis the greatest. And I mean there
were people who knew nothing about theBible who said, man, I want
that love poster in my bedroom becausethat's I want to be all about love.
Well, so I think that's thefirst time I ever read One Corinthians
(05:14):
thirteen. Now decades later as achurch pastor, I thought this has been
read at a lot of weddings,A lot of people ever cited this,
But I wonder if we've really takentime to dig in and say, what
is this chapter saying to us aboutlove? Because I think one of the
problems in marriage today, phil isthat a lot of people have a cultural
view of love rather than an exaltedview of love. And I wanted to
(05:39):
give our people an exalted view oflove that kind of takes them out of
the romance and eroticism and takes themto something that goes much deeper than that.
Yeah, and I really like that. And that is First Corinthians,
chapter thirteen. The first words youspoke were chapters one through three, and
(05:59):
that is such a powerful start.And then, like you said, the
rest of it, love is patient, love is kind, Love does not
boast all of that. The restof it is what is so often used
in weddings, even weddings where theremight be an internet pastor doing the ceremony.
Bob Lapene, God help us allall have officiated these weddings. And
(06:23):
I've read First Corinthians thirteen. Yeah, And the thing is, the two
people standing there have got stars intheir eyes, and they're dreamy, and
they're hearing this in kind of romanticterms, and they're nodding and smiling,
but they're really thinking, can wejust wrap this up? Because we just
want to be together and spend ourlives together and all of that. And
this chapter we read it this way. We read love is patient, love
(06:46):
is kind, Love does not envyor boast, And I think it was
written as a corrective. I thinkthe apostle Paul, when he wrote this,
said, you guys have love allwrong, prioritizing it the way you
should. And I think if hewas reading it out loud, he would
say, guys, love is patient, love is kind, Love does not
(07:09):
envy your boast, it's not selfseeking like you. Guys, you got
to get this right. The wayyou're acting doesn't match up with what love
is. And love is at thecenter of it all. And until we
get that right, whether it's inmarriage or in the culture wherever we are,
we don't have much hope for wherewe're headed. And so I had
(07:30):
preached this at our church, theseseries of sermons, and then I thought,
you know, I worked for anorganization that's all about marriage and family.
I didn't really in my sermons seriesapply these verses to marriage. But
what if I took these same ideasand just made the application. What does
it mean for a husband to bepatient or for a wife to be kind,
(07:51):
or for a couple not to beenvious or boastful or self seeking.
And so each chapter in this book, you've seen it. Each chapter kind
of takes one of them, thesequalities from one Corinthians thirteen, and we
do a deep dive into what doesit look like to be patient in marriage?
What does it look like to bekind in marriage? So I think
a lot of people go to amarriage book and they're looking for where's the
chapter on communication or kids, orfinances or sex. And this doesn't have
(08:16):
those chapters in it, although thosethemes are interwoven with the big ideas of
what we're talking about here, thesecharacter qualities that make up true true love.
That's what I'm love true love,right, yeah, Yeah. In
fact, real love takes time,it takes work, there are no shortcuts.
(08:37):
But in the end, it's onlylove that satisfies. That's one of
your real powerful truths from the book, Love like You mean it the heart
of a marriage that honors God.And I want to ask you this question
because we have people listening to uswho are on their second marriage, their
third marriage. Maybe are are spirituallyvery sound, very grounded. Maybe their
(09:03):
marriage is or is not, orthey have a history. And if they're
listening to us in West Michigan,this is a very church area. This
is an area full of people offaith. But it is super hard to
live that every day in a marriage, to walk that walk, to talk
that talk every day in a marriage, Bob Lapene, Because innately we are
(09:24):
selfish people, not just guys.This is two guys having a conversation about
a marriage. A marriage book.Imagine that, and you wrote the book.
How about that? But for ourradio listening audience, this is a
very serious point. This is allabout dying to self. And you talk
about the concept of oneness and withoutthat dying to self, maybe you can
(09:48):
have a successful marriage, Bob Lapine. But I don't know. I don't
know how you get there. Yeah. When when I first got married Bill
my I remember not thinking this consciously, but looking back, I know clearly
that when I met Mary Anne,I thought to myself, I really like
how I feel when I'm with her. I like the way she makes me
(10:11):
feel. I like how special shethinks I am. There is a lot
I am willing to give for thatfeeling to continue in my life. If
you will just keep making me feelspecial and keep making me feel good,
I'll cut the lawn, you know, I will make sure the oil is
(10:33):
changed in the car. I willdo a whole list of tasks as long
as you'll do your part to makeme feel special. Well, what that
was was it was transactional because itsaid I'm in this as long as this
marriage makes me happy and I feelspecial. And then I came to a
point where I realized, if that'sthe center of your marriage, as long
as I'm happy, I'm in You'rein real trouble because your marriage is going
(10:56):
to hit challenges and bumps. There'sgoing to be seasons of such foring you
go through. There are going tobe times when you look at each other
and say, you're not making meso very happy right someone else could do
a better job of making me happythan you're doing right now. And if
again, if that's at the center, that's not selfless love we're talking about.
(11:18):
That's self seeking love, where it'sall about what I want. And
I had to come to a wakeup call where I said, if that's
the center of my marriage, mymarriage is in real trouble. I have
to shift the priorities. And maryAnna and I realized it couldn't even be
okay, am I making you happy? We had to be committed to something
(11:39):
beyond ourselves and outside of ourselves,not just our own happiness. But we
ultimately had to look at this andsay, is our marriage making God happy?
Is it pleasing to him? Whatwould he delight in? And let's
be committed to that being at thecenter of our marriage, believing that if
that's at the center of our marriage, all that we're looking foreign marriage is
(12:01):
going to be realized as long aswe're keeping him as our central focus.
Now, you'd expect to hear thatfrom a pastor, but I would say
even to folks who are not churchgoing, folks who are listening to this,
if you don't have something at thecenter of your marriage that is bigger
than the two of you, thenyour marriage is always going to have a
selfish component to it. That's goingto make real oneness a challenge for you.
Yeah, you see, in thebeginning of love like you mean it,
(12:24):
most of us got married because ofhow our spouse made us feel when
we were together. You're just talkingabout that. We like the feeling,
so we said, I'll move inand wear a ring and share a house
payment have kids with you as longas you keep making me feel that way.
And Bob, we have a veryskewed and superficial view of what love
is. This throws a lot ofteenagers in love off. After the romantic
(12:48):
you know, that arrow's passionate stageof love, that all the gooeyness goes
away. Some people think, Okay, I'm not in love with this person
anymore. A lot of people andmarriages because of losing that feeling. You
know. The Righteous Brothers wrote asong about it, you know. So
that's the problem. Most of whatI know about love and marriage short,
(13:11):
most of what I knew when Iwas getting married, I had learned from
pop songs in the sixties and theseventies, you know. So my whole
marriage education was you made me sovery happy. I'm so glad you came
into my life. Why do birdssuddenly appear every time you're near? Just
like me, they long to beclose to you. You know. I
could go through all of the lyrics, and here's the thing. It's all
(13:31):
about emotion and passion and how wefeel, and feelings change and emotions fade.
And if that's the foundation on whicha marriage is built, you're you're
going to face some real problems.We had to recognize that love in the
Bible is not about that flutter inyour stomach, or the feeling you get
(13:54):
in your the bitter pattern of yourheart when you see your beloved love.
I sat down with the couple doingpre marital counseling, first time I ever
did any pre marital counseling. Iasked them to write out their definition of
love for me, and what Igot back from both of them read like
bad Hallmark cards or I don't knowif you remember Rod McEwan, but he
(14:16):
was a poet in the sixties andhis poet so it just was love is
that warm feeling you get on asummer night when the stars you know,
it's like, okay, this isfine. We put that aside. At
the end of the premarital I gavethem a piece of paper and I said,
I want you to write down yourdefinition of love again. This time
they wrote something very different because Ihad taught them over the time we were
(14:37):
together. This time they wrote,love is commitment and self sacrifice at the
core when we're talking about what loveis, I'm committed to you and I
will sacrifice for us. And that'sI think what's at the heart of real
love. Two people who make thatpledge to one another. I'm committed to
you, and I will sacrifice.That's why. Again in the Bible,
(15:03):
Jesus said greater love has no onethan this that he lays down his life
for his friends. And I wouldsay in marriage, no couple has greater
love than when they're laying down theirlives for each other and saying, I'm
committed to you, I will sacrificeyour Your good is my goal, and
that's my commitment in this marriage.Powerful quote in the book. You can
(15:26):
be, and this might resonate withsome of our listeners. You can be
a responsible, charming, attractive,fun loving, successful, intelligent, respected
individual, admired and esteemed by everyone, maybe everyone at work. You can
be, by all standards, anideal spouse. But if your marriage is
not fueled by a strong and durablecommitment to sacrificially loving your mate, it's
(15:50):
not a Christian marriage. It's afacade. It really resonated with me when
I read that, and I thinkI've told this to so many friends,
friends who are getting married, gettingremarried. I think a marriage without a
strong spiritual foundation. I'm saying thison Secutar radio because I want people to
(16:11):
hear this. I think it's easyto overlook this. You think, Okay,
we are two people raised in youknow, church going homes, Christian
holmes. We've got everything down,but marriage is almost It raises that call
to be a christ like individual,a selfless, dying to self. Two
people coming together as one marriage raiseseverything to a level. Most people who
(16:34):
have never been married have no ideaabout Bob Lapan, wouldn't you say?
I would? In fact, Iwas sitting with a couple yesterday doing pre
marital counseling, our first session together. And this is a young couple in
their early twenties and they've been datingfor I think four years, and I
said to them, here's what youneed to recognize. The cap on the
growth of your marriage, The thingthat will determine whether it grows forever or
(16:59):
whether it's got a limitter on itis your commitment individually to your own personal
spiritual growth. So if you're notgrowing individually spiritually with one another, that
will be an inhibitor to the successof your marriage. But if both of
you are growing together or growing apartto not growing apart, But if the
(17:22):
two of you are growing separately,as in your faith, that's going to
fuel a stronger, more committed marriage, So yes, I agree. I
think that's a core component. AndI tell I know people who don't go
to church and have a wonderful marriageand love one another and get along fine.
(17:44):
And I know people who do goto church and they fight with one
another. But I think it ultimatelycomes down to the question of is their
commitment and is their self sacrifice?And I know for me, I need
the spiritual fuel in my life tobe able to fuel that commitment and self
sacrifice so that in the moments whenI don't feel like it, I still
(18:06):
do it because I know there's somethingbigger at stake here than just my personal
happiness. I'm so glad you saidthat, because it takes the self to
understand that as you were talking aboutwith that young couple. And furthermore,
it's gonna sound funny, and you'rea teaching pastor your church in Little Rock,
and boy, how fortunate church goersyour church arty to be able to
(18:30):
hear you. But I don't recallgrowing up, Bob Lapene, my parents
were members, We were members ofthe Church of Christ's first congregational church.
I don't remember churches talking a lot, pastors talking much about marriage growing up
as a young kid, and ateenager, and then a high school kid.
It was very rare that a pastortalked about marriage. Maybe that's happened
(18:52):
more in the twenty first century orin the last fifteen years or so.
It's kind of odd, isn't itthat churches don't always talk about marriage that
much? Well, it is,and I do think that we need to
recognize that this is the proving groundfor our faith. In fact, it's
interesting. We can be nice andpolite and kind to all kinds of people,
(19:14):
but then when we get home,we can't do it with one another
in our marriage. This is wherethe rubber meets the road on our faith.
Anything we talk about believing or character, if it's not proven out in
our marriages first, then you haveto wonder how real it is. But
I know, I talked to onepastor who said, yeah, I hate
to preach on marriage, And Isaid why He said, because as soon
(19:37):
as I do the next six weeks, I'm going to be meeting with couples
who call me after the sermon andsay can we get together and can we
talk? Because you're just unearth alot of hidden stuff. And I do
think churches need to be aware ofthis and need to be. My wife
and I were just talking an hourago about we're probably not aware of all
(19:59):
of the marriage challenges. When yousee folks on Sunday morning at church,
they all look happy and like theylike each other and everything. You're just
not aware of the frustrations, thedisappointments, the hurts that are going on.
And I think churches need to recognizethat, be proactive to help couples
stay out of the ditch, andthen have a way to help couples who
(20:21):
are in the ditch get back out. In fact, after I wrote Love
Like You Mean It, I hada publisher come to me and say,
we need a book to help coupleswho are struggling in their marriage. Not
desperate, not you know, atwits end, but just they're frustrated.
And so I wrote a just ashort book for those couples to go through
called Build a Stronger Marriage. Andthat's been a book that a lot of
(20:44):
couples have come back to me andsaid this helped us diagnose and correct what
were the problems in our marriage.Yeah, we're speaking with Bob Lapine.
You perhaps know Bob Lapine best asco host of The Family Life Today,
nationally syndicated radio program, also apodcast. He's author of his latest book,
Love Like You Mean It, TheHeart of a Marriage that Honors God,
(21:07):
and we are having this conversation onsecular radio here on iHeartRadio's West Michigan
Weekend because it is probably marriage probablyone of the biggest issues in terms of
having an impact on so many people. I mean politicians going through broken marriages,
pastors going through broken marriages. Familiesare torn apart sadly when people are
(21:32):
having marital difficulties and divorce, andwhen you have a state like Michigan,
Bob Lapen, so many states withno fault divorce. After that feeling,
you know, after you've got theloving feeling is gone, a lot of
people can just say, well,I'm done. I'm going to go find
somebody who's going to make me,you know, get that feeling back again,
and get that specialness back. Andthat's really it's not what it's all
(21:56):
about. Beyond that, I wantedto ask you about something that a lot
of people don't understand, the differentlevels of love and agape love, which
is a very special kind of love. Many church pastors have perhaps talked about
that you talk about agape love andwhy it's so special, so difficult to
achieve. Can you unpack that abit for our listeners. Yeah, the
(22:18):
Greeks and the news Sestiment was writtenin Greek, and so the Greeks had
four words to describe love, andthey differentiate the kind of love you're talking
about. So one word was theword eras, which means erotic love.
It means romantic, passionate love,or sexual love. They had the word
storgay, which means the love thatyou have in a family, your love
for your siblings, your parents.They had the word filos. We get
(22:45):
the term Philadelphia. Philadelphia is thecity of early love. So felos is
that kind of affection that we havefor one another where we're just we're pals,
we're friends, we have things incommon, we like one another,
and we're committed to one another feelos. And then there's this unusual word agape
that shows up in the Greek.Interestingly enough, in my research for the
(23:07):
book, I found that this wasa word that was not widely used outside
of Christian literature prior to the NewTestament being written. This idea of a
gope was pretty much a New Testamentinvention, because a goape love is a
self sacrificing love, a selfless love. It's a love that says that even
(23:30):
if it cost me, I willtake care of you. I will put
your interests ahead of my own.There's a verse in the Bible that says,
do nothing from selfishness. And I'velooked at this verse, and the
word nothing in the original language meansnothing, do nothing from selfishness or empty
conceit, but with humility, regardone another as more important than yourself.
(23:55):
And honestly feel if ninety percent ofthe marriages I talked to they would take
that one and say, we're goingto be committed to doing nothing from selfishness,
but with humility regarding the other person. My spouse is more important than
me. If we would say thatin marriage and try to live that out,
that doesn't take care of ninety percentof the marriage issues couples are dealing
(24:15):
with today. That's agape love thatsays, even if it cost me,
I'm committed to you and I willtake care of you. That whole concept
of dying to self it is soantithetical, Bob Lapine to the world we
live in today. Who is todo that. It is so you mean
what I can't have my regular golftime on Sunday for six hours. I
(24:37):
can't play thirty six holes. Ican't do that. You know. It's
it's I can't get a bigger screenTV because we need to put that into
the kid's college fund. It's sohard, yet so important, and I
would agree with you one hundred percentninety percent. You talk about why people
get divorced. Money is a bigthing. Infidelity, all kinds of issues
(24:59):
would be covered by that. Okay, you know this time, I'm just
going to not be the selfish personI have been for the majority of my
life. So easy to say,yet so hard to do. Is it
teachable to die to self or isit just something you have to learn through
a lot of difficulty in life andmaybe some real rocky times in a marriage.
(25:22):
Well, I think we can teachthe concept. I mean, we've
been talking about it here and Ithink our listeners can go Okay, now
understand what you're saying. I getthe idea. Now the question is can
we live it? You can learnit, but can you live it?
And the can you live it?I think really depends You've got a certain
amount of can do inside of you, but there are going to be things
(25:45):
you're going to face where I thinkthat can do is going to be depleted.
In fact, at the end ofthe book Phil I talk about the
book ends with this statement in FirstStrengthen thirteen that says love never quits,
never fails, never runs out.And we run out of love. We
only have so much in us togive. So what do we do when
(26:06):
we're out of you know, I'mall out of love a kid, So
what do we do when we getthere? That's where we have to have
a source we can go to outsideof ourselves that can pour the love back
into us that we can then pourout to other people. If you're depending
on your reservoir of love to sustainyour marriage, I think you're going to
(26:29):
find yourself frustrated. But if you'vegot a reservoir you can go to that
is outside of yourself. And thisis where I think the Bible offers us
this great hope that we can goto God, and God loves us and
will pour love into us, hislove into us, and then we can
overflow with the love that we've receivedfrom Him that can spill out to other
(26:49):
people, including our spouse, andthat's if that's your source, then yes,
you can live out this agappe loveconsistently. I hope that has resonated
with some of our listeners today becauseit's so very important. It's not easy.
We never said in this time togetherit was easy, and the book
(27:11):
clearly points that out. Bob Lapene'sbeen our guest. Love Like You Mean
It is his book and highly recommended. The heart Love Like You Mean It
the heart of a marriage that honorsGod, and you can get it wherever
books are sold. Bob Lapene dotcom is your website, and Bob I
(27:32):
knew it was going to be achallenge to get all of this in in
my allotted time. I must thankyou. I'm so honored and grateful for
your time, your wisdom, yourspirit. It has been a delight speaking
with you, my friend. Greatto be with you. Phil appreciate it.
Yeah, indeed, Bob Lapine,our guest on this segment of West
Michigan Weekend from iHeartRadio again, thebook Love Like You Mean It. If
(27:55):
you don't have it, highly recommendit. Whether you have someone who's engaged
and about to be married, ormaybe you're five years into your marriage and
wondering, Okay, how do wemake this thing last? Highly recommend it.
He's been our guest on this segmentof West Michigan Weekend from iHeartRadio.
That's our program for this week.Thank you for being with us. A
(28:17):
whole program dedicated to marriage. Whata concept. We'll catch you again next
week right here on this iHeartRadio station. I'm Phil Tower. Thank you for
listening. iHeartMedia West Michigan Weekend,a public affairs program
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