Despite the impression you may currently be getting from our culture, marriage is vital to the success of our society. The preservation of the institution of marriage benefits everyone. After all, a marriage between a man and a woman is based on a lifelong commitment that, in principle, challenges selfishness. How would you like to come face-to-face with your own selfishness? Then get married! Would you like to overcome that selfishness? Then surrender to God's help within that marriage! A healthy and God-centered marriage is the unique human relationship that effectively prepares us for how to live in other aspects of community. This is what makes marriage necessary for any culture that wants to thrive. It's the ordering relationship in society.
Obviously, not all people are called to be married (Jesus and Paul are certainly great examples). However, communities and cultures that support healthy marriages will improve statistically in far too many categories to name here. This is a statistical and historical reality. As noted Biblical scholar John Stott has pointed out, marriage is a relationship with five facets:
1. It is between a man and a woman.
2. It is monogamous. Despite accounts of polygamy in some Old Testament situations, monogamy was always God's purpose from the beginning. (Gen. 2:24)
3. When a man leaves his parents to marry, he must "cleave" to his wife, sticking to her like glue. He must be committed to her.
4. Before the "cleaving" of marriage, there should be the "leaving" of parents, and the "leaving" is a public social occasion. Family, friends, and society have a right to know what is happening.
5. The two will become one flesh. Sexual union is so much a constitutive element of marriage that willful nonconsummation is in many societies a ground for its annulment.
Marriage is an incredible gift from God, totally designed for that married couple to be utterly dependent on Him. There is no other human relationship like it.
Obviously, not all people are called to be married (Jesus and Paul are certainly great examples). However, communities and cultures that support healthy marriages will improve statistically in far too many categories to name here. This is a statistical and historical reality. As noted Biblical scholar John Stott has pointed out, marriage is a relationship with five facets:
1. It is between a man and a woman.
2. It is monogamous. Despite accounts of polygamy in some Old Testament situations, monogamy was always God's purpose from the beginning. (Gen. 2:24)
3. When a man leaves his parents to marry, he must "cleave" to his wife, sticking to her like glue. He must be committed to her.
4. Before the "cleaving" of marriage, there should be the "leaving" of parents, and the "leaving" is a public social occasion. Family, friends, and society have a right to know what is happening.
5. The two will become one flesh. Sexual union is so much a constitutive element of marriage that willful nonconsummation is in many societies a ground for its annulment.
Marriage is an incredible gift from God, totally designed for that married couple to be utterly dependent on Him. There is no other human relationship like it.
Thanks for all that you do to support healthy marriages in our community!