Dale Johnson: This week on the podcast, I have with me Ryan Trzeciak. He serves as the pastor of counseling and discipleship at First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, and as the director of First Counseling, the biblical counseling ministry of First Baptist Church in Jacksonville. He’s also an adjunct professor in the online Biblical Counseling program at the Master’s University, and he’s an ACBC certified counselor with a specialization in marriage counseling.
He and his wife, Jen, have been married for over 24 years, and they have five children. Their oldest son just got married a few weeks ago. And Ryan loves serving First Baptist because of the church’s devotion to Christ, its commitment to discipleship, and its passion to obey the two greatest commandments to love God and to love others.
Ryan, I’m looking forward to this. I asked you before we got started, is this going to get you in trouble with your in-laws? So this will be interesting as we’re listening in. These are some of the unspoken things that we all sort of feel, think and know, but we’re a little nervous to talk about. So we’re going to be describing this concept of our in-law relationships. Marriage really does come with extra family, genuinely. So, talk a little bit about this concept of in-law relationships and what we might learn from both experience and the Scriptures.
Ryan Trzeciak: Yeah, this is one of the things that I’m actually very thankful to the Lord in terms of my in-law relationships on both sides, both with my parents and my wife and Jen’s parents and me. We’ve been very blessed with having good relationships with them. My mom actually was one who went over and above to try and make sure that she wasn’t the typical mother-in-law story. So very thankful.
Now, moving into the other direction where we are now the parents-in-law. My son just got married about four or five weeks ago. So it’s a new territory for us as well in that regard. And so, we’re very thankful for what the Lord has blessed us with. But in terms of this relationship, you’re right to say that this is a lot of questions, a lot of turmoil. Even though I’m thankful for what the Lord has done for us, hearing many, many stories.
I know that for our young couples Sunday school class in our church, this is one of the biggest questions that we get is how do we deal with our in-laws? How do we deal with these wonderful relationships of these families that are created because you have two people who have made the choice to want to get together, but they bring together two families that really don’t have a choice of coming together. So, there’s all sorts of conflicts, but there can also be great blessing.
Dale Johnson: I agree. I mean, your story sounds similar to ours, where my wife and I were middle school sweethearts, grew up liking one another through high school and got married my last year in college. And we literally grew up seven minutes apart. And when we got married, we lived dead center in the middle of both parents. So we were not far from either one. And I don’t even know how many months, but they would not come over to our house.
And it was like they were trying to be this opposite of the caricature of, you know, the terror of in-laws that could be. So, that caricature is certainly out there and people deal with it all the time. But we’re not left without a guide. The Scripture talks about these concepts of how we inherit family and even talks about these things as being good and things that are good when they’re misused or misunderstood of what relationships should be like. They can be something that actually turns out really terrible. So, talk a little bit about these in-law relationships and what they look like actually in the Scriptures.
Ryan Trzeciak: Well, the first place that we can go to is Genesis 2:24. What that passage is usually used for is the explanation of God’s design for marriage. But, what you see is that it says one man is going to leave his one father and his one mother and be joined together with his wife. And right there is the creation of in-law relationships.
So, even from the beginning of the Bible, we have this understanding that there will be these in-law relationships, even though the Bible doesn’t call them that. But this wonderful creation of this new dynamic of family relationships, which has a lot of good things to be thankful for, but a lot of like we’ve been talking about a lot of things to be sources of conflict. And so that’s the first place that we can go to. But then we can also look at there’s a number of biblical examples of in-law relationships, both good and bad.
I think probably one of the best ones that we can look at is Peter. He was probably the best son-in-law in the history of humanity who brought Jesus to his mother-in-law to have her healed. So that’s that’s a really good example. You also have Ruth and Naomi is another another good one.
But, you also have some really horrible examples where you have Jacob and Laban and you have Saul and David, where you have a father-in-law who literally gives his daughter to David to be a snare and tries to murder him on a number of occasions, which I’m pretty sure there’s some father-in-laws out there today who might may or may not have that same perspective.
Dale Johnson: Right, so, as you know, I grew up in the South and the whole imagery of, you know, the shotgun on the front porch, right? I mean, there’s a caricature for a reason, right?
So, I think that’s interesting that even in the Scriptures, we see good examples and we see bad examples. And, you know, certainly something that God has given us to be a blessing when it’s misused or misunderstood relationally, what that should look like. The concept of leaving and cleaving, as you mentioned in Genesis 2:24. Those in-law relationships can certainly bring conflict and not just minor things, right? They can bring some immense and intense relational issues.
I have this discussion every year about this time with some of my students and I’ll ask the simple question, is how many of you have been married recently? And they’ll raise their hand and we’ll have a little chat and then I’ll say it’s coming Thanksgiving time and Christmas and what are we doing, right? So and they can feel it rising, like we’ve been putting this decision off because they know like conflict sort of is around the corner. So, talk a little bit about some of the in-law relationships that can bring conflict.
Ryan Trzeciak: Yeah, well, and you’re bringing up some of the things that we can look at in terms of conflict over good things. So you have conflict over things like holidays and how just different families do things different ways, whether that’s this family celebrates Christmas Eve or Christmas morning or if it’s a big thing or if it’s a small thing or different traditions that they do. So that’s just one example of how there are good things that families do. But when you bring two different families together, they’re doing things differently, and that right there is a source of conflict. So that’s a good thing that brings conflict.
But there can also be on the flip side, conflict over sin, because what you have is what I call the multiplication of sinful families that you have. The husband comes from one family and he gets married to a wife to create a new family. But he’s also entered into a third family. So he goes from one family to three and the and the wife the same way.
And each one of those on all sides and all three families are sinners joining together with sinful tendencies, sinful communication, idols that they’re worshiping. All of that creates the context for for conflict over sin. And so, you have both good and bad that are elements of conflict. Which is why, you know, ACBC really high on biblical communication and peacemaking principles from the Peacemaker ministry. So that’s why those kinds of things are really, really practical, really, really helpful in these kinds of things to know how to have conversations, how to navigate conflict.
Dale Johnson: Honestly, I love I love the way you’re categorizing that, that there are good things, and sometimes when there’s conflict, we just we just put that in the category of bad when, you know, a family getting together for Thanksgiving holiday – that’s a great thing. That’s not a bad thing. But we you know, the conflict can be so intense. We sort of categorize it as being something like, oh man, I dread doing this or dread, you know, having to even think about something that should be good, excitable, fun.
Then there are obvious, you know, consequences created. And as you talked about the multiplication of families, when you have a husband and wife coming together, they’re two sinful people living in close proximity. Now you add more sinful people who are going to be in close proximity. And, you know, what you get is conflict and you have to learn how to work through a lot of that. And in that way, it’s very, very helpful.
Other concepts on conflict, or I want to move into what can create some of the conflict. The concept is you talk about this in the right order. So, in-law relationships and making sure they remain in the right order. And this is something I try to deal with in our premarital counseling when I’m dealing with a young couple or even, you know, after they’re newly married. Just talking about, okay, from God’s perspective, how do we help to – never eliminate conflict because we’re sinful human beings – but how do we mitigate some of that conflict and how can we get out in front of some of that conflict? And it is by right ordering of relationships by God’s design. So, talk a little bit about that right ordering.
Ryan Trzeciak: Yeah, the first place we can go to is the passage that everybody’s familiar with, 1 Corinthians 10:31, that whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, do all to the glory of God, which means in-law relationships are within that category of whatever we do.
Dale Johnson: Now, what you just said is really hard for some people to swallow, but it is true, right? When you think about it is even these relationships, the Lord is intended for good and that we can live in relationship to them.
I want to emphasize that point in a means that glorifies the Lord and that’s good for us. I think that’s a, you know, don’t gloss over, right? That’s an important critical point. So, before I really interrupted you, carry on.
Ryan Trzeciak: That’s okay. But no, like in all things, we need to put the Lord first, which means that a couple things stand out when you think about the glory of God. First and foremost, like you said, this is meant for God’s glory and meant for our good.
The second thing that we can think about is that we are in these relationships because God has specifically put us in these relationships and it also is an element of our obedience to Him that there are ways in which the Bible makes it very clear that we are to have interactions with other people and how we are to love our neighbor and to treat them and all of those are true with difficult in-law relationships.
And the last thing when you’re talking about the glory of God and the sovereignty of God is that, often times, there will be things within these relationships that you don’t get, that you, I like to think about it as having these things held with an open hand. So if you’re the parents and you want your kids to come over for Christmas and for whatever reason they aren’t able to come and they’re going to the other family, that’s one of those things where you’re holding that with an open hand and you’re saying, well, apparently God didn’t want that to happen this year, so we’ll be thankful that they’re able to spend time with their family and we’ll look forward to when we can get back together with them on another day. And so, putting God first is very key.
So that’s a primary relationship. The second would be the marriage relationship and this goes both for the children and the parents. That son and daughter who are coming together as husband and wife, they need to know, they need to learn what it means to put their relationship first before their relationship with their parents because that’s one of the big things that is going on is that when somebody gets married, there has been a change in priority. There’s been a change in authority.
And so, they need to make sure that that relationship becomes the priority that there are going to be times where you’re going to need to say no to mom and dad so you can say yes to your spouse.
So that’s the second priority. The third one is the parent-child relationship because again, there’s a change in authority, change in priority. And so not that the parent-child relationship goes away, but it definitely changes the dynamic. No longer are parents parenting in the way that they did before, but there’s a letting go and there’s an understanding that I’m no longer in this position of authority. There comes that point in time where dad is no longer the number one man in the daughter’s life and the mom is no longer the number one woman in the son’s life. And that could be challenging on both sides of that equation, but that is one helpful structure, one helpful thing to think about as we’re moving into marriage.
Dale Johnson: And now we’ve stepped into the deep end, right? Because that’s honestly where the rub lies, right? It’s been a good relationship where parents, especially parents who are wanting to do the right thing, they try to engage their kids and there’s this position of authority. There’s this feeling of responsibility from the parents to really disciple their children, to guide their children and to be that legitimate authority in their life.
But man, with a new marriage comes a different structuring of these things, and this is by God’s good design. And moving now out of that, as you mentioned, it is a difficult thing. Even for the most well-meaning parents, that’s a difficult thing to do. Now, Ryan, you’re not just pulling these concepts, you know, the right ordering, like this is the best way Ryan has thought practically to work these out.
You’re getting these from somewhere in Scripture, right? So, this concept of leaving and cleaving, back to Genesis 2:24 that you mentioned. So talk a little bit about in-law relationships, which actually helped to create this concept of the right order by what God has given us in the Word, by leaving and cleaving. So, talk about the importance there.
Ryan Trzeciak: Yeah, well, it’s mentioned in Genesis 2:24, but you also see Jesus speaks about it to Matthew, Paul brings it up in Ephesians, and the old adage is how many times does God need to say things to make it important? He only needs to say it once, but here we have it three by three different authors in three different contexts.
And so, bringing this up, this idea of leaving and cleaving, particularly when it comes up in Ephesians with Paul, that at the end of chapter five is where he mentions that, and then he goes into chapter six where he starts talking about the parent-child relationship. In a sense, kind of reading that in reverse, you have the parent-child, the parent’s responsibility is to raise their children in the nurtured admonition of the Lord, and the child is to honor and obey their parent. But the ultimate goal of that is that, back to 5:31, is that they would come to the point where the son and the daughter would leave mom and dad and be joined to their spouse.
And so, there’s a sense in which as the parents are doing their job, this is the goal. This is one of the goals of parenting, is that they would raise their children in such a way that they would be ready to be able to leave their house and be joined to their spouse and create another family.
And so, there’s this interesting dynamic when it comes to parenting, is that you are, in a sense, preparing your child to leave, but that also means that you as a parent need to be prepared to be left. So that’s when you think about that transition and that process, and like we’re talking about, that’s a hard transition because it creates the opportunity for letting go of some things that have been key in your life for 20+ years.
Dale Johnson: Yeah, and very, very near and dear to you, right? So, I love the way that you described it. I think it’s really important for us conceptually because biblically what’s happening, if we were to think about a new covenant relationship is beginning, and there’s something significant when we go back to Genesis chapter two and we see that God as Father is bringing the woman to the man.
And the reason we do marriage ceremonies the way that we do them today is that concept in Christian marriages. The father, who was now in authority over her, is bringing the woman to the man, and he’s doing that as symbolic to now they’re instituting a new covenant. This man is now before God responsible for this young woman. And so now just practically we need to start living out our theological positions, which is what you’re describing in the leaving and cleaving.
So, I’ll give you, you know, maybe some final thoughts even practically, you know, you’re talking to that young couple. Maybe they’re wrestling a little bit with, they’re coming up on their first Thanksgiving. They’re coming up on their first Christmas. Maybe they’re having their first child and they’re having these discussions in their room, something that should be exciting. Now it’s causing a little bit of tense communication between them as they’re trying to manage the opposite in-law. What are some basic things you can tell them in terms of encouragement?
Ryan Trzeciak: Well, I would like to say that this was not our experience when my wife and I first got married, but then I’d be lying. Because I was in that, like most young men is needing to make that decision between upsetting mom or upsetting your wife. And I would like to say that I was flawless in that, but I definitely was not. And I can remember back some of the, as you’re talking about those heated conversations, there’s a couple in our church that calls those conversations joyful interactions or joyful conversations. I can’t remember exactly how they talk about it.
Dale Johnson: I call them intense fellowship.
Ryan Trzeciak: Intense fellowship. That’s a good one. But yeah, and so I can speak from personal experience on that in the sense of learning what it means to say no to mom and yes to my wife, having that conversation. And this is where we start to think, particularly if you’re in a good church, and I hope most people that are listening to this are in a good church and they have an understanding of the body of Christ that’s around them, being believers and walking together with somebody in love. This is what makes the “one anothers” of the Scripture very key.
And that’s one of the elements of both parent and child, this new understanding of being adults, being peers, being brothers and sisters in Christ, and trying to think about how to have conversations on that level. So that, yes, you’re still children and parents in terms of the relationship there, but there’s a sense in which as an adult, you are now more peers and having both parents having that understanding and the children having that understanding. And so, moving forward with those types of conversations, that’s a good framework to approach those in.
Dale Johnson: Yeah, very helpful. This has been fun. And as you’re talking, I can’t help but floods of memories of my own personal experiences. And, you know, as you mentioned, learning to be a man, learning how to respond well in both scenarios, right, to both my wife and my parents or as opposite would have it. And those are good conversations.
And I’ll tell you what is amazing is both of our sides. What we see is a sweet, sweetness of fellowship. And it’s something we enjoy. We enjoy being around one another. Her parents now live in close proximity to us. They’ve been so helpful to us. And so, yeah, it’s just wonderful relationship. So it doesn’t have to be something that’s sour. It doesn’t have to be something that you have to avoid. It can be something that’s beautiful, good, and sweet as God intended as the family continues to grow.
Brother, thank you for helping us think about this and challenging us in ways that we know are points of friction, but sometimes we’re afraid to talk about. So, thank you.
Ryan Trzeciak: Glad to be here.
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