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Why Bother With Marriage? Isn’t It Obsolete?

Posted in Family and Marriage, tagged Christian marriage, I Corinthians 7, marriage on August 18, 2011| 1 Comment »

I suspect that most of our young people who are still in church think that the only reason to get married is to have sex without sinning. Otherwise, why do you need to bother getting married? It’s just a piece of paper.

Certainly this is the message of the culture we live in. Listen to what the Huffington Post said on July 5, 2011:

Shocking new statistics released recently by the U.S. Census Bureau suggest that Americans may no longer need marriage. For the first time ever, fewer than half of the households in the United States are married couples. In the past decade, the number of unmarried couples increased 25 percent as more people chose to cohabitate. A Pew Research Center study last year put it more succinctly, finding an increasing number of Americans now believes marriage is “becoming obsolete”.

Christians will not win this battle for Christian marriage—even with our own children and grandchildren—unless we teach our children a much more biblical view of why people should marry.I’m not talking about just advantages, but rather God-ordained purposes for marriage, His design for marriage.

Here’s my brief list. You may want to add to it—but if you do, be sure and ground your reason in the Word.

Genesis 2 & 3. People were created to live in pairs. It was not good for people to be alone, so God made spouses. Marriage is a state of completeness that God intends for most people! Yes, there are exceptions—including Jesus himself—but most people were intended to be completed by another, not to be alone.
I Corinthians 7:2-6 People should marry to enjoy sex, which will help them avoid sexual immorality, which includes promiscuity, adultery, pornography—any sexual sin.
I Corinthians 7:2 People who marry should be confident and secure with faithfulness from their spouse.
I Corinthians 7:5 People should marry to support each other’s relationship to God. It’s not good physically to be alone; it is perhaps worse spiritually to be alone.
I Corinthians 7:33,34 People who marry learn to better please each other. They learn to put someone else’s needs above their own.
Ephesians 5:21ff Both husbands and wives learn submission in marriage, a virtue that is essential for pleasing God.
I Timothy 5:14 Marriage is for the purpose of having and raising children.
I Corinthians 7:15 Marriage should provide a haven of peace!
Ephesians 5:22ff Marriage is for enjoying every benefit of love and respect
Deuteronomy 24:5 Marriage should be a place of real happiness.

I’m trembling even as I write this because I can hear so many of you screaming, “That’s not how my marriage is!”

“That’s not a description of anybody’s marriage!”

“Faithfulness, hah! Submission—sure or get hit! Peace? With that mean drunk!

“My marriage is hell!”

The abandonment of God’s purposes for marriage is so widespread that the corruption seems both inherent in the institution and unavoidable! So why get married?

So why follow Jesus at all? Most people don’t, and most of those who do follow Him do so quite imperfectly—many even blatantly hypocritically! Lots of Christians do terrible things. In spite of this, Jesus says, “Follow me” and we believe there is no other way!

I have to argue that the same is true for marriage. In spite of the corrupted marriages all around, marriage as God intended, as He purposed, is still designed to fulfill all of the wonderful purposes listed above.

Yes, marriages can be hell if the will and purposes of God are not foremost! Where God is not present is the very definition of hell. But do you not believe also that where God is, there is heaven! Can marriage be anything but heaven when God is there?

To those in bad marriages: search your heart honestly and repent of your own sinfulness, then pray that God will be present in your marriage, and raise it from the dead. He can do what you can’t even imagine! Ask other Christians to fight for your marriage in prayer!

To those already divorced because of bad marriages and still angry because God did not save your marriage: the consequences of sin in marriage are terrible. If you were sinned against, God still loves you! God allowed even His only Son to be sinned against and to suffer horribly. No one can tell you why you had to endure such pain, but God has not abandoned you. You can be sure of that!

To those in good marriages: remind yourselves of why you are happy! Don’t take credit for it yourselves. Give glory to God! And teach your children and grandchildren why they should marry in the Lord. Teach them not to be afraid of marriage because of the corruption they see around them, but to trust God’s steadfast love.

To those yet unmarried: The only way to happiness is a marriage made in heaven! Be serious about testing both your own heart and the heart of a person you might marry to see if the reasons you want to marry include all of God’s purposes for marriage. Before you step to the altar, make sure you are ready to take vows before God and that you really want God to join you together.

There are no perfect people, so there are no perfect marriages, but both we and our marriages can be perfected. In Ephesians 5, Jesus washes away all blemishes from His Bride, so their marriage will be perfect. The more we lose our marriages in Him, the more perfect our marriages become as well.

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What’s So Holy About Marriage?

Posted in Family and Marriage, tagged Christian marriage, divorce, marriage, sacred marriage on August 16, 2011| 1 Comment »

Because God didn’t dictate a particular ritual or ceremony, even Christian weddings today are trending towards being completely secular. Yes, we still do them in church buildings—but it is not an official church service! Ministers still perform the ceremony—but so do fathers, professors, camp counselors, and county judges. Most couples write their own vows rather than use stuffy church words.

One of the reasons the act of marriage is under fire in society is because of our uncertainty about what it is. Is marriage just a piece of paper, a legal status, a social status? Is there anything spiritual about marriage or is it just a cultural convention?

We really don’t even know what it takes to be married, or when marriage occurs! If a couple live together for twenty years are they married? Does it depend completely on the laws of the county or state or country where they reside? Can people just decide to be married? Or are two people married if they have a sexual relationhip—whether they intend to be married or not?

Does God not have anything to say about any of this???

We are so confused about what marriage is, no wonder Christians have so little trouble either ignoring it or abandoning it!

Moses, Jesus, and the Apostle Paul all return to the Beginning to talk about marriage—yes, the very beginning, so I think we should too. In simple words, let’s remind ourselves of God’s description and design from the beginning

From Genesis 1:26-28—The First Creation Account

We are created in the image of God, male and female. As God is “us”, so are we!
The first command is to be fruitful and increase in number. “Fill the earth”! Procreation seems to be high on God’s agenda for men and women.

From Genesis 2:18-25—The Second Creation Account

Creation is incomplete until both Man and Woman are created.
Because both are incomplete without the other, Moses inserts “for this reason” people get married!
His basic description of the marriage ceremony includes three distinct actions:
- First a man decides to leave his birth family to create a new family.
- He bonds himself intentionally to a wife, with the intent of being married
- The two become one flesh through the sexual union.

THEN GOD JOINS THEM TOGETHER! This is the part we forget! We think that the law joins people together, or our vows, or that sex joins people together, but Jesus says, GOD JOINS THEM TOGETHER.

We make the same mistake with marriage that we do with baptism. Sure, we decide to be baptized! Sure, we submit to baptism. Sure, we are immersed in the Name of Jesus–but nothing would happen if God did not do something, if God did not wash away your sins! If God did not give you new life. If God did not add you to those who are being saved! You cannot save yourself—and you cannot join yourself to another without God!

Don’t you think that this understanding elevates marriage from where it currently is in our world? If we were to truly believe that God was joining a man and woman, would this moment not become much more holy!

I do believe that if we want to avoid divorce, we must recognize the divine participation in marriage and the holiness of the union. We need to teach our children what God does at marriage. We need to instruct our engaged that God must do their ceremony. We need to instill in all of us who are married an awareness of being acted upon by God, divine intervention that created this union.

Only when we understand the sacred holiness of marriage can we understand the laws and attitudes of the world have very little to do with our marriages.

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Does God Really Hate Divorce?

Posted in Family and Marriage, tagged Christian divorce, Christian marriage, divorce, marriage on August 12, 2011| 1 Comment »

The terrific pain and trauma surrounding any divorce should be enough to convince everyone that it is not what God wants for anyone! The only proper response when we meet those who are scarred and damaged by divorce is to weep with those who weep! I’m truly sorry for the suffering, also for the anger, for the guilt, and for the deep sense of loss that you may have suffered with as well.

Divorce is not a fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control—these are the fruit of the Spirit of God in us!

Sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, envy, drunkenness…and the like, this sounds more like Divorce, doesn’t it! Paul says that these are acts of our sinful nature. Divorce definitely belongs on that side of the ledger.

No wonder God hates Divorce! Can we agree that if God hates Divorce that we should also hate Divorce? Can we teach our children to hate Divorce? Can we teach our churches to hate Divorce?

Can we show enough love to divorced people that they know they are loved by us and by God even if God and we hate Divorce?

So what should the spouse do who is battered, or abused, or betrayed, or humiliated, who is disrespected? Is divorce an option?

Much I don’t know, but here is what I do know from God’s Word. Let’s look first at Jesus’ words in the Gospels (Matthew 5:31-32; 19:1-12, Mark 10:1-12, Luke 16:18)

When asked about Divorce, Jesus said that the plan from the beginning of time was that what God has joined together, no man should separate!
Jesus acknowledges that God allowed divorce because of the sinfulness of God’s people, even though it was not what He wanted for His people.
Jesus says that to divorce your spouse to marry another is adultery.
Jesus allows divorce in the case of adultery. (Other translations of porneia include unchastity, sexual unfaithfulness, fornication, sexual immorality, even incest.)

So Jesus hates Divorce, but allows for it.

The Apostle Paul mentions another exception: if a person becomes a Christian, but the spouse does not , if the unbelieving spouse leaves, the other is not bound. (1 Corinthians 7:15). I know that we have argued about this verse, but usually it is over the question of remarriage, not over divorce. Paul says clearly that the believing spouse is not bound! The divorce here, it should be noted, is instigated by the unbeliever, not the believer. That is important! God hates Divorce!

I need to mention also that God Himself divorced Israel. Read Jeremiah 3 and Isaiah 50. He divorced Israel for adultery (Jeremiah 3:8) and for her sins and transgressions (Isaiah 50:1). In both cases, He longs for reconciliation, but there is no doubt that He has divorced her!

God hates Divorce—but He Himself has been through divorce. No wonder He hates it!

I really didn’t want to start with Divorce. I wanted to start with Marriage, but so many of us Christians are already divorced that I needed to let you know where I was coming from—and that I’m not advocating a return to law. The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath!

I would have much preferred to start with Marriage because Marriage is made for us! The place to stop Divorce is in marriages full of life in the Spirit, in marriages where the Spirit bears fruit.

We will talk about Marriage next.

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What If Divorce Street Were Closed?

Posted in Family and Marriage, tagged Christian divorce, Christian marriage, divorce, marraige on August 10, 2011| 6 Comments »

I was walking this morning in our neighborhood and noticed an unfamiliar car just stopped in the middle of the street. Suddenly it started backing up—quite a distance—until it reached the next intersection. As it turned down the street it backed up to, I wondered what was going on with that driver to make such a risky maneuver—until I turned the corner and saw that one of the main exit streets from our neighborhood was closed due to construction. STREET CLOSED!

What would happen if the road to divorce was just CLOSED? I mean NO OPTION! IMPOSSIBLE! CLOSED! What would happen in our churches if we preached that God hates divorce? What if our view of marriage were so sacred that we believed and practiced “what God has joined together, let no one separate” (Matthew 19:3-12)? I feel the need to stop in the middle of the street and just back up. What if Divorce St. was absolutely closed?

Just this summer two couples from church in our circle of acquaintances have broken up, one after thirty years and the other after about fifteen. Both have been faithful in attendance, active in church programs, teachers, in small groups, generous contributors—I mean, what more could you expect?

In one case the spouse just announces the end of the marriage—to the total shock and surprise of the other! In the other case the two are still talking at least. These are Christians, these are people who have been spiritual leaders. And, sadly, these people are not different from a large number of people in all of our churches. Something is seriously wrong!

In 2008, Barna Group published results of their latest surveys on Marriage and Divorce and came to the following conclusions:

“There no longer seems to be much of a stigma attached to divorce; it is now seen as an unavoidable rite of passage,” the researcher indicated. “Interviews with young adults suggest that they want their initial marriage to last, but are not particularly optimistic about that possibility. There is also evidence that many young people are moving toward embracing the idea of serial marriage, in which a person gets married two or three times, seeking a different partner for each phase of their adult life.”
“Government statistics and a wealth of other research data have shown that co-habitation increases the likelihood of divorce, yet cohabiting is growing in popularity. Studies showing the importance and value of preparing for marriage seem to fall on deaf ears. America has become an experimental, experience-driven culture. Rather than learn from objective information and teaching based on that information, people prefer to follow their instincts and let the chips fall where they may. Given that tendency, we can expect America to retain the highest divorce rate among all developed nations of the world.” http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/15-familykids/42-new-marriage-and-divorce-statistics-released

One out of three marriages ends in divorce. This Barna survey found that there was no statistical difference between “born again/Evangelical” Christians and the general population. One-third of the people at church have been through a divorce—or will! One out of three of your teenagers at church, one out of three of your children or grandchildren! I hate to even write those words!

Here are some of the questions I think we have to address. I’ll ask them today and then try to respond to them in future posts.

Is marriage something we do or is it something God does?
Have we obscured or skewed the purpose of marriage? Does anyone really know what the purpose of marriage is?
What are the values necessary for marriage?
How can these values be transmitted to our children?
What would it take to get to a 0% divorce rate among Christians?

I hope you will jump in the deep end and think with me about these very serious questions. And may our praying and thinking lead to something that renews our commitment to marriage.