My Friend Is in an Open Marriage: What Should I Do?

My friend is in a so-called open marriage and doesn't see a problem with it.

What should I do? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Hi, this is Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. You can call us right now with your question at 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. You can also post your question on our Facebook or Instagram account, and you can email us at questionsatcorechristianity.com. First up today, we have a question from Dugan in Rappahoe, Nebraska.

Hi, Dugan. Welcome to CORE Christianity. Hi, thank you for taking my call.

Thanks for calling in. What's your question, brother? Well, I've wondered for years because I'm a Christian about the two different Sabbaths, so I wanted to ask, where in the Bible can I find the change of the Sabbath? We serve Jesus, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Where did Jesus change the Sabbath from where God made it in the beginning, Genesis chapter 2, from the seventh day to the first day?

Can you please show me the scripture? Yeah, thank you so much for that question, brother, and here we're thinking about the law of God and the day of worship. Why is it that Christians have worshiped on Sunday, on the first day of the week as opposed to on the last day of the week? Well, I would point first and foremost to the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus rose again on the first day of the week, on Sunday, the Lord's day, and as a commemoration of that, Christians, the body of Christ, have gathered together on that day, on the Lord's day, since the days of the apostles. Now, Jesus ultimately is our Sabbath rest.

You think about a lot of the types and shadows that you had in the Old Testament, whether it was the temple with its sacrifices, or even this idea of Sabbath, eternal rest. Christ is the rest in whom we enter. The author of the Hebrews talks about this, but Jesus himself, Dugan said in Matthew chapter 11, actually one of my most favorite passages in all scripture, Matthew chapter 11, Jesus said, Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Boy, isn't that just a passage of scripture that each of us can say, yeah, I need that, I want that right now. In such a busy society as the one we live in, Jesus says, Come to me and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Ultimately, Christ is our Sabbath rest. We enter into him by faith. The earliest believers, Dugan, began gathering together on Sunday because they recognized that. They had entered into Christ, the Sabbath rest. You see this in various places of the scriptures where it talks about believers gathering together on the first day of the week. I think of Acts chapter 20, for example. Acts chapter 20, beginning in verse 7, we read, On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together, to do what?

To break bread. Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight. In other words, what you have here is preaching. Paul is giving a sermon.

He's going until midnight, and also the breaking of bread, probably a reference to the Lord's Supper. You see this earlier in Acts chapter 2, verse 42. These are the things that the early Christians were committed to. Again, you have gathering together on the first day of the week, referenced at the end of the book of 1 Corinthians, in 1 Corinthians chapter 16. From the very beginning, we see the apostles of our Lord Jesus himself gathering together on Sunday.

Why? Because they've entered by faith in Jesus into that Sabbath rest. On Sunday, we gather together and rest in Christ, in Christ, worshipping together with the people of God. That's what Christians have done for 2,000 years, and that's right there in the text of Scripture. Those are the ones I'd point to. Acts chapter 20, 1 Corinthians 16, and ultimately the idea of Jesus being our Sabbath rest.

Thank you for calling. You know, Adriel, there seems to be a lot of debate about this whole Sabbath issue, and I'm wondering why. It seems like in the last couple of years, there's more and more Christians that are concerned about it.

Any speculation on why that is? Oh boy, I don't know. I do know that from the very beginning, one of the biggest things that the church has wrestled with, the Christian church has wrestled with, is this temptation to go back under the law. That is, back under the regulations of the old covenant, and the way in which those were observed in the Old Testament.

From the very beginning, you have books in the New Testament, like the book of Galatians, the book of Romans. A lot of these things were happening. This is what the apostles were dealing with, and so I think we have this sort of temptation to go back under the law, and that's why it's so important that we understand the grace of God. Amen. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Let's go to Julia calling in from Belleville, Illinois. Julia, welcome to Core Christianity. Hello. First of all, thank you all for the show.

I love the show. Y'all, I learned so much stuff from other questions and everything, but real quick, hey, I've got a question, because I've been in this church I've been in for about 30 years, maybe, but anyway, what is the way my pastor kind of feels about the election? I guess I've learned so much about how they feel about abortion and stuff. Okay, so anyway, I've been going to another church too, which I go in between my church. You know, I go to my church on Sunday, but I visit this one during the week, and I love it. You know, it's real very conservative, and it's real, you know, it really is against a lot of things that, you know, that I've got, but anyway, about the tithing part, this is what I wanted to know. Would it be ungodly if I wanted to take my tithe and split it between both churches, because I'm being sad.

Yeah. Hey, Julia, one, I just love that you are digging into community life in the church. It sounds like you just can't get enough of the body of Christ, and in a day and in an age when I think a lot of people are just sort of abandoning Christian community, we feel like we don't need the church anymore.

It's so refreshing to hear you talk about how you just want more, more community, and I think that that's absolutely wonderful. Now as a pastor, let me just say this, I think it's good to get, you know, as much of that as we can, but it's good to be committed to one local body where we're really investing our time, our talents, our gifts. That's not to say that, you know, you can't have and shouldn't have Christian relationships and friendships in other churches, but I think it's good, you know, the Bible says that the elders of the church are there to care for our souls, that they're looking out for our best interests, and so it's really important, I think, for us to be committed a faithful part of one church while we also have, I think, relationships, friendships in other churches. And so with regard to tithing, though, let me just say, you know, Paul has this wonderful discussion in 2 Corinthians about giving, and he says the point is this, 2 Corinthians chapter 9 verse 6, whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart.

Let me throw that again to you, Julia. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion. In other words, you know, pastors don't twist our arms to give or coerce us, that kind of a thing. No, God loves a cheerful giver, and God is able to make all grace abound to you so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times you may abound in every good work as it is written, he has distributed freely, he has given to the poor, his righteousness endures forever. And so the principle, at least with regard to giving under the new covenant, is that we should give generously.

I know some people use the tithe as a sort of baseline, you know, I want to make sure that I'm at least giving a tithe. I think that that's great, I think that that's a wonderful thing to do, but really each individual sort of purposes in their own heart, and they give generously with joy because the Lord loves a cheerful giver. And so what I would do is I would just encourage you, one, be committed to one local body. Be committed to the people there, to investing in relationships there, to being under the ministry of the word there, continue, it sounds like you're learning a lot, you're growing in your faith, that's wonderful. And I, you know, as a pastor I can say this, in the local church there's enough need in each individual church, we don't need to go to other churches to find, I mean there's just so much need in the local church, so be invested there, but benefit from and be blessed by Christian relationships out of that church that you're a part of, and if you want to give to what they're doing as well, that's totally fine. The Lord loves a cheerful giver, and Julia, God is the most generous of all, we can't ever outgive the Lord, and so I just want to encourage you, I want to encourage you in that generosity, that excitement that you have to love and care for the people of God, and I would just say keep it up, sister, and I don't think there's anything wrong with you if you want to give a gift to this other church as well doing that. Again, Paul said it in 2 Corinthians 9, the Lord loves a cheerful giver. God bless you.

Amen. Julia, thanks so much for your call. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adrian Sanchez.

Our phone lines are open right now, and we would love to talk to you. If you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life, here's the number to call. It's 833-THE-CORE. That's 1-833-843-2673. By the way, some of the radio stations that air this program air it on a delayed basis, so if you'd like to call and talk to Pastor Adrian live, here is the time. You might want to note this down. If you want to call in and ask your question live, you call at 11 30 a.m. Pacific, 12 30 p.m. Mountain, 1 30 Central, or 2 30 Eastern Time.

That's when we actually do our program live. Well, let's go to a voicemail message that came in last week. Hi, my name is Christina, and I am calling because I have a friend who has an open relationship in her marriage, and she's got a boyfriend and a husband, and supposedly they've met and like each other, and I just feel like it's really wrong because I know what the Bible says about marriage.

Now she's pregnant, but she doesn't know if it's her husband's or her boyfriend's, and aside from praying for her, I don't know what else to do because I don't know how she would take it if I tried to tell her how wrong it was. Please answer my question for me, and I will talk to you later. Bye-bye. Hi, Christina. Thank you so much for giving us a call with that message, and I guess the first thing I would want to ask you is, is this friend of yours someone who claims to be a follower of Jesus? Do they say that they're a Christian? And if that's the case, I think for people who claim to be believers, we want to call them to what they've confessed. If you confess faith in Christ, there's a certain way in which we as believers, we as Christians, are called to live, and part of that is purity.

The author of the Hebrews talks about this with regard to marriage in Hebrews chapter 13, where he talks about the marriage bed not being undefiled. As believers, we need to be called to live in line with the one that we follow, Jesus. Does our life reflect his goodness, his glory, his law? If this friend isn't a believer, I think it's wonderful that you have this relationship with her, that you guys are able to have these kinds of conversations, and I know that it can be scary to confront someone or to point something out and say, look, I think that this is wrong, but I think that God calls us as Christians to speak the truth in love. That is, you need to speak the truth to this friend, and actually that's one of the ways that you're being a good friend. I think about what Proverbs chapter 27 verse 6 says, faithful are the wounds of a friend, profuse are the kisses of an enemy. In other words, a good friend is sometimes willing to wound us. Maybe you've had someone in your life who has been willing to say, hey, what you're doing is not good. It's not honoring to God. It's not helpful.

It's not healthy. I don't know if you've had anyone like that in your life. I know for myself, when I have friends who are willing to come and speak that kind of truth to me, at first it might sting, but at the end of the day, you know what I feel? I really feel loved. I feel like they care more about me than just sort of having this artificial friendship, artificial relationship where everything is good all the time and we don't speak the truth to each other. Good friends speak the truth to each other, even about sin. So I think that you can do that, and I think you can do that lovingly. It may be that this person says, you know what, I don't want to hear it, and they cut you out of their life.

There's nothing you can do about that. I've had that happen to myself as well with friends in the past, but it could also be that they hear you and they say, wow, thank you for caring enough about me to be honest with me, because it sounds like this friend is already beginning to see and experience the pain and the confusion that comes with this kind of relationship. And so being honest and also not burning the bridge, you know, this person can come to a point perhaps where everything falls apart, where they lose their boyfriend and their marriage altogether, and you want to be someone who's there for them in those moments, who's going to continue to speak the truth, but also extend grace, to be someone who welcomes them, their questions, and ultimately shares not just the truth of God's law, hey, this is wrong, but the truth of the gospel, that there is a God in heaven who is merciful to sinners, who came to seek and save the lost. That's one of the things that I love so much about our Lord Jesus. You just think about his earthly ministry and how he cared for and ministered to the lost. He ate with them. He sat with them. He talked with them.

He spoke the truth to them. And sometimes they didn't like it, but oftentimes I think one of the things that they realized was, man, he cares about us, and he has grace for us, and he has grace for sinners. And so extend that grace to your friend, Christina, and may the Lord bless you and give you wisdom as you continue the conversation with her.

Very challenging situation. And, Christina, we appreciate so much your care for your friend and wanting her to live the life that God has designed for her to have. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. And if you have a question, we'd love to hear from you right now. You can call us and talk to Pastor Adriel about questions about the Bible or the Christian life. The number is 833-THE-CORE.

That's 833-843-2673. By the way, if you are a regular listener to our program, we want to let you know we aren't supported by a particular church or denomination. We depend on people just like you to keep this show on the air. And if you believe in what we do, we'd like to invite you to join what we call our Inner Core. Yeah. The Inner Core is a group of supporters who commit to giving us a monthly gift.

It's $25 or more a month. It's one of the ways that we're able to keep this program going. And there are some pretty neat perks to being a member of the Inner Core. You'll get bonus content every month from Core Christianity, including exclusive videos that we're working on. We're doing some really helpful Bible devotions and sneak peeks to new resources that we're about to release. Another thing that we just recently put together was a video that we made with our founder, Dr. Michael Horton, about how to reach young people who are leaving the church today and what we can do to communicate the gospel in ways that are clear and helpful to them, really to bring them back into the fold.

And so you'll get that. And you'll also get a signed copy of this book, Core Christianity, written by Dr. Michael Horton, helped us start this entire program. Let me just say, I'm actually meeting with a group of newer believers in our church later today to go over chapters two through four of Core Christianity.

It's been really neat to see these people so young in the faith learning about Christianity and growing, growing immensely in their understanding of what God's word teaches, the core truths of the Christian faith. And so become a member of the Inner Core again, as I said, by signing up with the recurring donation of $25 or more. If you'd like to do that, just head over to corechristianity.com forward slash inner core. That's all one word corechristianity.com forward slash inner core to learn more.

Or you can give us a call anytime at 833-THE-CORE, 833-843-2673. Let's go to Wallace who's calling in from Nashville, Tennessee. Wallace, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Yes, Pastor. The question I have is that I have heard and believe in myself that a person could not lose their salvation, but there's a scripture in the Bible that says that if we're asked to use the Holy Spirit, that we will not be forgiven for that sin in this life or the life to come. My question is, if a person that is a Christian happens to commit that sin, would that keep them from being saved?

And if a person is not saved, commit that sin, would that prevent them from coming to Christ? Because that's my question. Wonderful.

Yeah. Hey, thank you for that question, brother. Let me just say, I know that there are a lot of believers. I don't know if this is you, but I know that there are a lot of Christians, sincere believers, who they read that passage about the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, and they are just gripped with fear because they think, oh, Lord, I don't want to do that sin, whatever that sin is, and they live in terror, frankly, thinking, I don't want to lose the grace of God. You think of all the mercy that the Lord has shown us, his goodness, the grace of the Holy Spirit, and so you read about the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit in places like Mark chapter 3, and you're terrified. Many believers are terrified.

Let me just read the context, because I think the context helps to explain this for us. And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem, this is verse 22 of Mark 3, were saying, he is possessed by Beelzebul, and by the prince of demons he casts out the demons. And he called them to him and said to them in parables, how can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand, and if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand, and if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand but is coming to an end.

But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds a strong man, then indeed he may plunder his house. Truly I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin, for, verse 30, they were saying he has an unclean spirit. Now that tie right there in verse 30 I think is key because it helps to explain what these people were doing who had blasphemed the Holy Spirit. They were essentially rejecting Christ altogether. This wasn't just like, you know, they believed in Jesus, they had embraced the gospel, and then they fell into some very grievous sin, and so they blasphemed the Holy Spirit. No, they reject who Jesus said that he was, they reject the gospel, they reject his blood.

In fact, they call Jesus a demon. Now look, if somebody believes that Jesus is Satan, there is no way for that person to be saved. They have not embraced Christ by faith, and so this is not a sin that believers can can commit.

True Christians who embrace the gospel by faith, who recognize that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, they're born again. They don't commit the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, because essentially what it is, is this hard-hearted faithlessness that identifies Christ and his work with the power of the evil one. That's what the scribes and the Pharisees were doing, and Jesus gave them a very stern warning. He said, look, if you reject me, if you reject my gospel, if you chalk it all up to, oh, you know, those Christians out there are just drinking bathwater, you know, they're possessed by devils, that kind of a thing, be careful, because if you die believing that, if you don't have the truth, if you don't have Jesus, you'll be lost. So Wallace, this isn't a sin that you as a Christian, someone who embraces Jesus, can or will commit.

This is something that those who reject the gospel over and over and over again, who deny Christ and don't want anything to do with him, this is a sin that they essentially do, and speaking more specifically there of the scribes and the Pharisees. And so thank you for your question, brother. Great clarification. Thanks for that, Adriel. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We have time for one more question.

Travis from Omaha, Nebraska. Welcome to the program. Thank you very much, and thank you for taking my call. I was curious, I was trying to read my family through Romans the other night, and in Romans chapter 1, somewhere around verse 18 or so, Paul starts his dissertation, and he starts talking about the ungodliness, unrighteousness of man, and they exchange the natural use of woman for what is against nature, so on and so forth, and I was wondering, is Paul talking about a specific event, a biblical event that happened?

I don't understand what event that is when that happened, and thank you. I'll hang up and listen to your answer. Hey Travis, excellent question, brother. So yes, Romans chapter 1, really the early chapters here of the book of Romans, the apostle Paul is highlighting for us the fact that everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, not just the Gentiles but even the Jews. All of us need the grace of Jesus Christ, that justification that comes through his cross solely by faith, but here early on, he's highlighting the fact that even the Gentiles, in one sense, they know God, and how do they know God? Well, through the created world around us, the invisible attributes of God, what we're told here, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made so that they are without excuse. That is, the whole world is without excuse before God, because we look up at the stars at night, brother, and we realize, each of us have this deep sense of God. We know that there's something greater out there than us, that we're not alone.

This sense of God, right? And Paul is saying, look, the Gentiles have that, but here's what they do with that knowledge. Instead of turning to God, they suppress that sense of God that they have in unrighteousness, and things go from bad to worse as they continue to reject God and engage in all sorts of idolatry and all sorts of sin. And I don't think it's talking about a specific historical thing that took place in the Bible, just a sort of general reality of humanity apart from Christ. We take the light that God gives us, and we suppress it.

We turn from it. And that's why it's so important that we understand how the righteousness of God is revealed. It's revealed solely through the cross of Jesus, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift. That's the hope that we have, Romans 3 23. That's what we look to. It's Jesus and His work. of God's Word together.