1:59

So men were allowed to be self expressive in

2:02

sex, but this was often an expression

2:04

of patriarchal domination. The

2:06

leader of the household could sleep with whoever

2:08

he wanted, whenever he wanted. But

2:11

this didn't mean that women were powerless. A

2:13

patriarch's wife often found ways to subvert

2:15

her husband, whether that was sleeping around

2:17

with other men or refusing him sex

2:20

that he demanded. Nearly everyone

2:22

in the ancient world would have thought of singleness as

2:24

a curse, because just like today, a sexless

2:27

life was a curse. Now it's not because

2:29

a sexless life was an unfulfilled life, but

2:31

because having no children meant you'd

2:33

end your life without a legacy and without a

2:35

family line.

2:37

In other words, sex in the ancient world was as

2:39

broken, misguided, abusive, and

2:41

destructive as it is in the modern world,

2:44

though in different ways. So enter

2:46

Paul, who allowed the cross of Jesus

2:48

to rewrite his vision of sex.

2:51

If the Son of God came to earth to lay

2:53

down his life sacrificially in love for

2:55

his bride, he was the anti-patriarch.

2:58

He didn't demand, he didn't take, no,

3:01

Jesus gave and Jesus died. This

3:03

idea of mutuality and self-sacrifice

3:06

shaped Paul's vision of sex. In

3:09

the ideal, he imagines married couples

3:11

giving their bodies to

3:12

one another in love. Let's pick

3:14

up in 1 Corinthians 7, verse 2.

3:17

Each man should have sexual relations with

3:19

his own wife and each woman with her

3:21

own husband. The husband should fulfill

3:23

his marital duty to his wife and likewise

3:26

the wife to her husband. The wife doesn't

3:28

have authority over her own body but yields

3:30

it to her husband.

3:31

In the same way, the husband doesn't have authority

3:34

over his own body but yields it to his

3:36

wife. Do not deprive each other except

3:38

perhaps by mutual consent for a time so

3:41

that you may devote yourselves to prayer.

3:43

Then come together again so that

3:45

Satan will not tempt you because of your lack

3:47

of self-control.

3:48

The real shocker in this verse isn't that

3:50

a wife doesn't have authority over her

3:53

body. Again, in the patriarchal universe

3:55

of Rome, that was a given. The shocker

3:57

is that Paul says a husband doesn't have authority over

3:59

her body. over his own body but

4:02

yield his authority to his wife.

4:05

This is the seabed of sexual consent

4:07

and I think that we all take for granted today. The

4:09

idea that a husband's chief duty is

4:12

giving to his wife, not taking from her.

4:14

That's a clear statement that he and all

4:16

men in a patriarchal society have

4:19

no right to take sex as they please. To the

4:21

contrary, sex is a gift from

4:23

both partners which can only be offered freely

4:26

and received with gratitude. This, again,

4:29

is designed to point us

4:29

to Jesus who laid down his

4:32

life freely for us as a gift

4:34

and which we receive with gratitude.

4:36

Sex isn't about the self. It

4:39

isn't about self-expression or even self-fulfillment.

4:41

Sex is not to be an idol that defines

4:44

you, obsesses you, or satisfies you. Sex

4:46

is a signpost that's supposed to point you

4:49

to Jesus. Sex is about the other,

4:51

about self-giving, about other

4:53

satisfaction. Sex is a picture

4:55

of Jesus' own grace and mercy

4:58

to us,

4:59

which is exactly why sex should only happen

5:01

in the covenant of marriage. Just

5:03

as Jesus gives his most intimate love

5:06

to us covenantally

5:07

in the same way, we only give ourselves sexually

5:10

within a covenantal union. Anything

5:12

less is taking, grasping, stealing from

5:14

the other.

5:15

It's not self-giving. It's self-satisfaction.

5:18

But what about singleness? Well, because sex

5:21

is not the center of the kingdom of God, a

5:23

sexless life is not a joke. It's

5:25

not unfulfilling. You can give

5:27

yourself in a life without sex

5:29

or with sex, which is why Paul, who by the way

5:32

was single himself, goes on to say that singleness

5:34

is actually superior to marriage.

5:37

That would have been shocking in the ancient world, and

5:39

it would be shocking to our world that thinks you have to have

5:41

sex to be happy. Second Corinthians 7, verse 7.

5:44

"'I

5:44

wish that all of you were as I

5:46

am.'" In other words, single. "'But each of

5:49

you has your own gift from God. "'One has

5:51

this gift, another has that.'" Let's go

5:53

to verse 8. "'Now to the unmarried and

5:55

the widows I say, "'it is good for them to say

5:57

unmarried as I do.'" He continues

5:59

this.

7:53

person

8:01

who cares about what all y'all think. You

8:03

know for the first time I remember when I was

8:05

on the Steve Harvey show Steve used to always say

8:08

do not read comments.

8:10

Don't you read comments and don't you respond to

8:12

people. And so that has been

8:15

like a big thing for me for years. Like

8:18

even if I know something is going viral

8:20

or there's like a lot of action around it I

8:22

wouldn't go watch it.

8:24

Really? I wouldn't watch it. I would

8:26

like

8:26

look I think I halfway remember what I said.

8:28

I said what I said. It is what it is. What you

8:30

say doesn't matter. You know and I just leave it alone.

8:34

But I find myself now like I feel

8:36

so sure and confident

8:39

in

8:40

like your your opinion

8:42

and your projection is yours. I'm not gonna argue

8:44

with you. But I do actually have fun

8:47

replying to people. Like I've

8:50

never felt that way before but it's something

8:52

about that confidence. Just that self-love of

8:54

like

8:55

I used to not sleep at night if someone

8:58

left a bad comment. If someone said something

9:00

like they don't understand. Oh

9:02

yeah. Seven years ago today

9:05

yesterday when some guy

9:07

said in the comment he

9:10

said if you want a partner ask

9:12

your homegirl to start a business

9:15

with you. Just something ignorant. And

9:17

I said do you realize that partnership

9:20

is in the literal definition of marriage? I just

9:23

see him laughing emojis.

9:25

Do you even realize that the word partnership

9:28

is literally a part

9:30

of the definition of marriage?

9:32

You want to have a problem because I used

9:34

partnership. But

9:37

now I can laugh. I just like

9:39

but

9:41

he would have kept me up seven years ago. I'd be like

9:43

no what I'm trying to say is. You know what

9:45

I love about you though too is like you can say like really

9:48

like

9:49

check you things with

9:51

the most beautiful smile on your face. Like

9:54

you can hand somebody their hotel

9:57

with the most beautiful smile and I just want to say

9:59

I love that about you. I'm like, what the?

10:03

That's the show that I'm on on PBS.

10:06

It's called Opportunity Knocks. And I

10:08

go into people's, you know, we go into people's

10:10

homes and help them, you know,

10:11

break down and rebuild their finances. And

10:14

one of the gentlemen, Charles, in Lake Charles,

10:16

Louisiana, I told him

10:18

something and he was like, but

10:22

his wife was right next to me, said, do you always tell

10:24

people off and just keep smiling? I said, I

10:26

do. I do, I

10:28

do. Because I'm saying it with love. Yeah, it's love.

10:31

It's love, it's all love. Okay,

10:33

the last thing I have to

10:34

be able to get to is

10:37

the

10:38

video clip that you sent

10:40

me. And this was after that interview.

10:44

And, you know, there was just all this commotion

10:46

in the comments. And it was about you

10:49

specifically talking about

10:53

like the challenges

10:55

men have with ambitious women and

10:57

why you don't have

11:00

that challenge with your wife, what's a car

11:02

and why you're so proud of who she is.

11:05

Can you just kind of share some of that clip? Sure.

11:08

Just any thoughts around that? Okay, great, because I

11:10

don't remember what I said. It's fine. But

11:13

the idea is that I am so

11:15

confident in me that I don't

11:17

have problems being threatened by her energy.

11:20

Her energy is hers. She's

11:23

a whole person, she's a whole individual by herself.

11:26

None of that threatens me.

11:27

Actually, I receive it. I embrace

11:30

it because it brings out certain

11:32

things in me. I use

11:34

Takara as almost

11:36

a way to see what I'm

11:38

not and

11:41

to see what I need as well

11:43

as to see what she needs and what she isn't. Having

11:49

been threatened by someone else's ambition,

11:51

all it says is that you don't have enough. Or

11:55

it says that you feel bad that you

11:57

don't have enough. You feel bad that

11:59

you don't have enough.

11:59

don't fit into their frame.

12:01

And everybody wants to fit into somebody's frame.

12:04

It's unfortunate if you don't. They

12:07

can be whoever they want. All

12:10

I know is that when it comes to the car, she

12:12

could be as big as she likes, she's still mine. Whoo!

12:16

Well. Yes! Well.

12:18

And I'll tell you, because he's so modest with it

12:20

too. Well, that was very bold,

12:22

so no. But I think modest with like just

12:24

who he is as a man, because probably

12:28

since I've hit my 30s, I've

12:32

always made more than the men that I've

12:34

dated. And

12:36

he was the first person I was just like, well listen, I

12:38

ain't making money like that. Like, that's just not me. And

12:42

so he was like, but let me tell you, this is who I am.

12:45

And this is what I'm trying to do,

12:47

and this is. And so he always had a plan. He

12:50

always had a goal and trajectory that he was

12:52

getting to. It was never like, I'm

12:54

gonna kick my heels up. And then you

12:56

make all the good money, I'm gonna just kick my heels up and not do nothing. That's

12:58

never been something he's been comfortable with ever. Even

13:02

if he doesn't provide as much money as I do,

13:04

he's still gonna provide. Yes. And

13:06

that's the thing. His provision is not just financial. It's

13:09

not just financial. And so when we got

13:11

started, like

13:14

basically I asked him to trust me with his words.

13:16

I was like, we're gonna write this book, trust me with your words.

13:19

And so really, he cashed

13:22

out his 401k, handed it to me,

13:24

and was like, all right, cool. I was like, all right, now

13:25

you go write the book. Let me do this over

13:27

here. We had an agreement.

13:30

Like while you build that, as

13:32

far as all the written content and a lot of the stuff

13:35

from our social media and things like that, it's

13:37

really Kenyon. Kenyon is really the

13:39

brainchild behind a lot of the written

13:41

content that we put out in terms of social

13:44

media and stuff. That's really the

13:46

Soltize Detox book. That was Kenyon.

13:49

And so he gave me that money and was like, all

13:52

right, I'm gonna be over here and write. And he

13:54

trusted me

13:55

with his money. Then he

13:57

trusted me with his gift. was

14:00

like, okay, but still, did we go through

14:02

rough patterns? Or he was just like, I don't like

14:04

just writing. Like if I don't have a clock to punch,

14:07

entrepreneurship was not his thing. He's

14:09

like, I don't have a clock to punch. I don't

14:11

really know what to do. And we did, that's

14:13

where he had fights. It wasn't because I'm not making

14:16

enough money and you need to respect me. Because no,

14:18

it was like, I need to know that

14:20

I am contributing to a bigger purpose. And

14:23

so that's how our partnership really formed,

14:25

is that it was like, all right,

14:28

you trust me, and he's coming to me, so I

14:30

had to be transparent. Here's what's going on with the money. Here's

14:32

what's this right here, cool. All

14:34

right, I'm gonna be over, I'm still writing. Get these books out.

14:36

And so that's literally how we began to grow

14:39

and build. And as unconventional

14:41

as it was, I

14:44

was making a book of the money to begin with. And

14:46

then as everything, and

14:48

now he's at a place where things are taking over. And

14:51

now part of his resolve now

14:53

was like, all right, I'm about to retire you. So

14:56

now he day trades and does all that too,

14:59

supplement other book sales and stuff.

15:02

And he was just like, I'm about to retire you. Because

15:05

now this is the shift of the partnership. This

15:07

is not now, I'm able to now pay

15:10

you back

15:11

what you did for us in the beginning of all of this.

15:13

And there's never been a tug

15:15

of

15:17

war of power, a

15:20

tug of war of position in

15:22

the home or anything. He's still the leader, he's still the

15:24

head, he's still the man. If you call me today and

15:26

say, can I do this? Let me ask my husband. So

15:29

nothing has ever changed our dynamic. He's

15:32

just always been

15:33

constant in who he is. And it's

15:35

allowed us, I don't think we would have been able

15:37

to build. And I'm sure you can

15:40

attest to this. When you have big dreams of visions

15:43

as a woman, and you have a man who doesn't know who he

15:45

is, he's gonna hold you back. He's

15:46

gonna pull your coat tail, and be like, nope, you

15:48

get back here. Where you think you're going without me as a

15:50

faceless. And for

15:53

him, it was never like that. It's just

15:55

always been like, all right, here's

15:57

the table, how we gonna put it together. Just

15:59

go. I love

16:02

all of that because one of the things that

16:04

came out of the comments from that clip

16:06

with Anthony O'Neill was,

16:09

well, she's looking for someone with all this money. I

16:11

said to someone, who said anything about money? I

16:13

said, he didn't need to have a vision. All

16:16

I said was, you need to have a vision. I didn't

16:18

say anything about money. And as a matter of

16:20

fact, in the episode, Anthony

16:22

asked me if

16:24

they needed to make a certain dollar

16:26

amount. And I was like, no.

16:28

That's not

16:30

it for me. Do you have a

16:31

vision? Do you have something that I can

16:34

get behind and be excited about

16:36

and partner with you on? And

16:39

partner meaning, yes, contribute. You had

16:41

the words, but you had to market it. And

16:45

that's it. That's the partnership because

16:47

you could have words all day. But if we don't get

16:49

it out in the marketplace, you go into

16:51

your grave with those words. Or

16:53

they'd be on Facebook for other people to steal, which was what

16:55

happened. No, or they're on Facebook. Not

16:57

being monetized. She still

16:59

gets on me for that. And that's the thing. But

17:02

that's the beauty.

17:04

That's the beauty of what I would

17:06

like to do with a partner. I'm

17:08

not saying that they need to have

17:11

all this stuff and do all the things. That's

17:13

not it at all. But what matters to me most

17:15

is the safety. Can I trust you?

17:19

Most of them you can't. Insecurity

17:22

will always show itself in criticism. And

17:25

so whatever they think you said or

17:28

whatever they felt you said is

17:30

really their insecurity saying,

17:32

I don't have a chance. You see what I'm

17:35

saying? So it's

17:37

not a money issue. It's just, again, it's always

17:39

a leadership issue. Men

17:41

be leaders. And it doesn't

17:43

mean that you have to. It's not

17:46

dictatorship. It's

17:48

a servant leadership. And

17:51

that's that. But not a lot of people.

17:54

In this world today, not a lot of people

17:56

have come to the

17:58

understanding of what that looks like.

17:59

both men and women. And so

18:02

they keep making the same old choices, which

18:05

makes them the majority, unfortunately. Yeah.

18:09

And I love that you said earlier,

18:11

when you talked about your former spouse,

18:13

you said you looked at some things

18:16

that you said for yourself never again. Yeah.

18:19

And that's- Absolutely. That's where

18:21

I am too. Absolutely. Just remember again, very clear.

18:24

No, not doing that. No,

18:26

yeah. Learn my lesson. Learn my

18:28

lesson. Learn the book.