Some couples declare that their marriage would not survive the stress of working together also. We work together in our nonprofit ministry right now and have worked together earlier in our marriage in another career.
We love working together. We like the teamwork that we developed in marriage transferring to the workplace. Most importantly, however, is the teamwork of ministering together in church and in our nonprofit.
During college and early marriage, we wandered from church. In our late 20's, God brought us back. A few months after being involved again and studying God's Word, we started ministering together ..... and we still are. We have worked together in ministry almost continuously for over 30 years.
As we have worked and trained in the marriage ministry area, we began to see many other couples working together in that field and advocating teaching as a team. Although we have usually taught in the same class or seminar, we would take turns on the sessions. Now, we teach most lessons as a team, both of us studying, both of us getting up together speaking back and forth.
For us, the teamwork of teaching as a team is a visual demonstration of what we believe.
We have a great example of a marriage team at work and in ministry with Priscilla and Aquila. They were companions, friends, and work-mates. It takes a mature relationship to be able to work together.
Worked Together
They worked together making tents. Paul first met them as he looked for a place to make tents himself. He ended up living with them, staying in Corinth for 1 ½ years. They became good friends and they heard him teach extensively. [read their story in Acts 18:1-4, 18-20, 24-26]
Grew in the Lord Together
Not only did they live and work together but they suffered exile together. Then they both came to know and love Jesus Christ together. Now they were one in Christ, and His love made a good marriage even better.
Every relationship is strengthened through the oneness of the Spirit. Marriages can move to a new level through that oneness if both people know the Lord on an intimate, personal level.
Think of it, eighteen months of intensive Bible study under the greatest Bible teacher in the early church. How Aquila and Priscilla must have grown!
Sharing the Word together strengthened their love for each other and their spirit of togetherness. Christian marriages will be all be strengthened when husbands and wives read and study the Word together.
Served the Lord Together
When Paul left Corinth for Ephesus, they accompanied him, and he left them there when he embarked for his home church in Antioch.
Aquila and Priscilla may not have been public speakers, but they were students of the Word, and they loved to share it with others. They were willing to invest the time necessary to take one young man, Apollos, under their spiritual care and pour into his life the things of Christ. And as a result of this encounter with Aquila and Priscilla, he became an effective servant of God whom some of the Corinthians later placed on a level with Peter and Paul. [1 Corinthians 1:12]
When Paul left Antioch on his third missionary journey, he traveled through Asia Minor by land and returned to Ephesus, where he remained teaching the Word of God for approximately three years. During that period of time, he wrote his first letter to the Corinthians and said, "The churches in the province of Asia send you greetings. Aquila and Priscilla greet you warmly in the Lord, and so does the church that meets at their house." [1 Corinthians 16:19]
When Paul left Ephesus for Greece, they evidently believed God was directing them back to Rome. Paul wrote his epistle to the Romans from Greece on that third missionary journey, and he said, "Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus. They risked their lives for me. Not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them. Greet also the church that meets at their house." [Romans 16:3-5].
We do not know what happened, but somewhere, somehow, Aquila and Priscilla together risked their own lives to save Paul’s. His two friends were willing to give everything in the service of the Savior, even their lives.
Priscilla and Aquilla stand as an example of one of the great marriages of the Bible. Their names are always used together. They stood together, worked together, ministered together, and sacrificed together.
What an honor to be seen as a couple who glorified the Lord with their marriage!
"A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short."
Andre Maurois
More GOOD, BAD, and UGLY to come.
For other posts in this series:
Part 1 - Introduction
Part 2 - The First Marriage, The Good
Part 3 - Adam and Eve, The Bad
Part 4 - Nabal and Abigail
Part 5 - Mary and Joseph
Part 6 - Priscilla and Aquila
Part 7 - Hosea and Gomer
