Category Archives: Marriage

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October 4, 2016

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Children, God, Marriage, Sex, The Church

What is Marriage For?

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Here are some Biblical reasons for marriage.  The first five would be true even if man had not sinned. Only the last two are a result of sin in some way, though of course sin affects our ability to fulfill the first five. These are not in any particular order. 

First, God ordained marriage for taking dominion over the earth. Genesis 1:26-28 gives us God’s original plan for man.  Man was given dominion over the earth, he was to fill the earth and subdue it.  Eve was to be Adam’s helper as he subdued the earth (Genesis 2:18). Psalm 8 makes it clear that this dominion still belongs to man even after the sin in the Garden of Eden. Christ redeems us so that we might participate in His taking dominion over the earth.  Of course, a single person can participate in the dominion mandate. But typically we fulfill this command through getting married and having children. 

Second, God ordained marriage to be a witness to Christ and his church. Churches love to talk about evangelism, which is of course a good thing. But marriage is explicitly called a picture of Christ and his church. Ephesians 5:22-33 makes it clear that when a man and woman get married they immediately become a living, breathing painting of Jesus and His Bride. This means our marriages always point to something greater than the marriage itself. A failed or bad Christian marriage is a slander of Jesus Christ.

Third, God ordained marriage for our companionship. It was not good for Adam to be alone.  Over the years we are married there should be an emotional and spiritual intimacy that develops between husband and wife. There is a lot of sentimentality that surrounds marriages. People talk of “soul mates” and such things.  As Christians we should avoid this. But there is a kernel of truth there. God does want us to grow closer to our spouse. Husbands and wives should enjoy each other’s company and companionship more and more over the years.   

Fourth, God ordained marriage for the bearing of children. This is explicitly stated in Genesis 1:28. The Scriptures see children of covenant parents as a great blessing to God and his Kingdom. The Scriptures assume and expect that godly marriages will be fruitful and bear many children (See Deut. 28:4, 11, Psalm 127-128, I Timothy 5:10, 14, Titus 2:4).  A couple that refuses to bear children is violating God’s Word. If a couple cannot have children that does not mean they are not blessed by God. God intends to bless that couple in other ways and for them to honor him in other ways. However, most Christian marriages should result in a having many children and bringing them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Fifth, God ordained marriage for our physical pleasure. Proverbs 5:15-20 and the Song of Solomon make this point. The sexual relationship is not just for the bearing of children or for sexual protection. It is also for the joy and pleasure of the couple. God intended for us to enjoy our spouses physically. Too many Christians find this a bit much, that God would create such a physical high. “Is that really spiritual”, we ask? But God made sex to be thoroughly enjoyed within marriage. It is not an idol to be worshiped. And your goal is not to have the “best orgasm in history” as the world tells us. But the marriage bed is meant to be fun and exciting. Those who tell you otherwise are liars. 

Sixth, God ordained marriage for our sexual protection. Paul makes this clear in I Corinthians 7:2-5. Getting married is one of the ways God keeps us from burning with lust. Long delays in getting married, which are common in our culture, make us more vulnerable to sexual sin including pornography and fornication. Marriage is not an automatic cure for sexual sin, but it does help. 

Seventh, God ordained marriage for our sanctification.  There are few situations like marriage and raising children that can show someone their sinful heart. We get married believing we are great and wonderful, only to find out there are a lot of ungodly thoughts and emotions that we need to repent of. Later we think we matured spiritually then children come along and the process starts all over again. God sanctifies us in other ways. But marriage is  one of the primary ways he helps us grow in the image of Christ.  

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July 19, 2016

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American Culture, Marriage, Salvation, Sanctification

Reformation Begins Where You Are

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Herman Bavinck states in his book The Christian Family “There has never been a time when the family faced so severe a crisis as the time in which we are now living. Many are not satisfied with remodeling; they want to tear things down to the foundation.” He said this in 1908, which is surprising.  But he saw around him the seeds of the slow destruction of the family from ideaology such as feminism, individualism, statism, socialism, materialism, and evolution. Here is his answer to the dire diagnosis, which comes at the beginning of a chapter on marriage and family and following a chapter on dangers confronting the family

All good, enduring reformation begins with ourselves and takes its starting point in one’s own heart and life. If family life is indeed being threatened from all sides today, then there is nothing better for each person to be doing than immediately to begin reforming within one’s own circle and begin to rebuff with the facts themselves the sharp criticisms that are being registered nowadays against marriage and family. Such a reformation immediately has this in its favor, that it would lose no time and would not need to wait for anything. Anyone seeking deliverance from the state must travel the lengthy route of forming a political party, having meetings, referendums, parliamentary debates, and civil legislation and it is still unknown whether with all that activity he will achieve any success. But reforming from within can be undertaken by each person at every moment, and be advanced without impediment.

What a great point he makes here!  A reformation from the state requires this and that, but a reformation in the home only requires our will and resolve. Bavinck then goes on to say how weak external changes are and how many recommended external changes to law and society fly in the face of reality, that is nature. Continue reading →

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July 15, 2016

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American Culture, Marriage, Pastoral, Sin

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Marriage is Corrupted by Us

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We might think that marriage has become harder in the last few decades. There is some truth to that statement.  Cultural pressures, easy divorce, failure of good fathers to train sons to be good husbands, failure of good mothers to train daughters to be good wives, bad preaching, etc. have decimated marriage, which for most of Western history provided stability to our communities. But marriage itself is not any more difficult than it used to be. Men have always been sinners and so have women. The temptations have not changed since Genesis 3.  Hearts remain the same. Herman Bavinck writes this in his book The Christian Family. 

There are many unhappy marriages, more than we might suppose or know. There are people by the thousands bound to each other for life [you can tell he wrote a long time ago by that phrase. PJ] and who in their marriages are already living a hell on earth. When the best gets corrupted, it becomes the worst; love that wanes becomes hatred, and affection that dissipates gives way to aversion.

Marriages are bad all around us Bavinck said in 1908. And we would say the same. What is the solution? Bavinck says there are two directions we can go. First,

One can attempt to justify those facts and defend them as normal, and then all blame falls on the institution of marriage, and the person, and the person in such a marriage who commits harlotry and adultery goes free, and for his dissolute passion receives a crown on his head. Then divorce, open marriage, and free love are the solution to the problem. Then science and art, lectern and stage, must cooperate in undermining and overthrowing existing marriages.

This is the option America and most of the American church has chosen. Marriage has been destroyed because marriage is the problem. Being confined to one man and one woman is bondage, not freedom. Easy divorce, fornication, adultery, sodomy, and sexual abuse are for the most part winked at in our culture and often promoted as social goods. How many movies portray cheating on your spouse as necessary and good? We believe marriage and its attendant obligations and duties is the problem. So we burn marriage to the ground. Bavinck goes on to note that there is a second way we can address the difficulties of marriage.

But people can also be convinced that this cure, though recommended in the name of reality and science, of beauty and poetry, is worse than the disease. This conviction finds support in the conscience of every person. In the modern era, as the notion of sin is slipping away, the culpability for every misery is being sought outside the person and located in the institutions, in social circumstances, in the organization of the state.

That last sentence sums up the modern man and his view of sin. The problem is always outside of him. He is never the problem. His black heart is not the dangerous thing in the room. His bloody hands are not what stains the walls. We are innocent. Thus if there are problems in marriage, it can’t be me. It must be marriage itself or my spouse or the government or  my parents or my pastor.  Bavinck continues,

All deliverance is expected then from social and political reform. But conscience speaks a different language within every person who seriously examines himself and ventures to confront this moral reality. Such a conscience lays the blame not on the institution of society and the state, but on the person himself; you are the man! That is how the prophets and apostles spoke; this was the teaching and example of Christ; just like the entire moral law, marriage is wise and holy and good, being of divine origin and rich in blessing for the human race, but human beings have invented many schemes.

Later in the chapter Bavinck writes this,

Modern realists view the risks of marriage as the results and fruits of this institution itself, and for that reason they rebel against it and curse marriage. The Christian sees adversities and crosses in marriage, which overcome us on account of sin, and accepts them as a means to exercise one’s faith. No Christian says that the person is corrupted by marriage, but he confesses that marriage is corrupted by the person; the modern realist blames the circumstances, the institutions, the laws and ordinances, ultimately God himself, while the Christian finds within his own heart the source of all impurity.

The point is simple. Do we believe we are the greatest problem in our marriages or do we believe that something or someone outside of us is the problem?  Do we believe the dirtiest hearts are those of our spouse and children or our own hearts? I often tell my teenage sons that biggest danger in the room is them. That is not scare them into inaction. But to encourage them to take responsibility for their actions and to not blame others. Maybe we should stop waiting for the government or society to save marriage and start saving it ourselves by realizing that the biggest obstacle to a godly marriage is the person in the mirror.

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April 20, 2016

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Marriage, Sex

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What About Polygamy?

Big LoveIs polygamy wrong? If it is, why did so many godly men do it in the Old Testament? If it isn’t, why do Christians insist on one man and one woman as the paradigm for marriage?  There are several arguments against polygamy being ideal, but it is also clear in Scripture that polygamy is not equal to other sexual sins, such as homosexuality. When we dig into Scripture here is what we find.

First, the paradigm the Lord set  from the beginning is Adam and Eve, one man and one woman. That is the way the world is supposed to function. Any deviation from that pattern is wrong. Polygamy is a sin because it contradicts Genesis 1-2 on marriage. Jesus’ use of this passage to support his teaching on divorce (Matthew 19:3-9) indicates its priority in setting standards for marriage. Polygamy is not presented in Scripture as the ideal or normative pattern.

While polygamy is not expressly forbidden in the Old Testament, there are a couple of passages that indicate it is not the goal. Deuteronomy 17:17 says that kings should not multiply wives. Malachi 2:14-15 points to one man and one woman as the norm as well.

Second,  Jesus has one wife the Church and he is faithful to her. This is an illustration from typology and backs up the ideal given in Genesis 1-2.  Ephesians 5:22-33 shows that the ideal for humans is one man faithfully married to one woman. I Timothy 3:2, 12, 5:9, and Titus 1:6 also indicate that for leaders in the church and for widows to be on the list they must have had one spouse. Paul’s main point is not polygamy, but those verses do rule out polygamy for leaders in the church.

Third, but a second marriage is a real marriage. The Bible treats second (and third) wives, as wives, not as adulterers. This is clear from how the Lord treated David when he slept with Bathsheba compared to how the Lord described David’s marriages to Abigail, Ahinoam, and his other wives (I Samuel 25:43, II Samuel 3:2-5). We also see this in Exodus 21:10-11 where a man who takes a second wife must still treat his first wife as a wife. He cannot treat her differently. He must still provide for her and sleep with her. His failure to treat her like a wife means she can leave him. Also in Deuteronomy 21:15-17 the first born son of a first wife retains inheritance rights. The husband cannot show preference to the second wife’s son. A second marriage is a real marriage.

Fourth, polygamy is a sin, but it is usually, not always, a low level sin. It is not equal to adultery or fornication because the parties are married. It is not equal to sodomy or bestiality because they are a man and woman. Also it is not equal to divorce because the marriage covenants are still intact. That is why I would not encourage a man with two wives to divorce one of them.  Where does it fall on the “sin scale?” That would depend on the level of knowledge of the persons involved.  A person who knows God’s ideal, one man and one woman, and rejects it would be held more accountable than one who did not.

Fifth, while polygamy is not condemned in Scripture, it does usually cause problems. The first polygamist was Lamech (Genesis 4:23). He is not a man you want to emulate. With Hagar and Sarah, Hannah and Peninnah (I Samuel 1:1-7), Rachel and Leah (though Jacob may not have wanted 2 wives), and Solomon’s many wives there was trouble. Besides this any man with one wife wonders why on earth a man would marry more than one woman. One wife is a such a great responsibility and a good man will spend a lifetime getting to know her.

Finally, does the increased revelation of Jesus Christ and His people in the New Testament make polygamy a greater sin the New Testament era than it was in the Old Testament? That is certainly a possibility. Polygamy, while common among kings in the Old Testament, has been virtually unheard of among Christians since Christ. Some modern cults do allow polygamy, but no Christian church I am aware of has advocated it.

Polygamy is not God’s ideal, not the way he designed the world. Therefore it should be avoided. It is sin. In the rare case where the gospel comes to a culture that allows many wives and a man with more than one wife is converted that man should repent of his sin of entering into second marriage, but keep his wives. He will be restricted from any office in the church.

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April 11, 2016

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Marriage, The Christian Home, Women

Whose Daughters You Are

For in this manner, in former times,the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves, being submissive to their own husbands,  as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror (I Peter 3:5-6).

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Few subjects are so fraught with danger as the teaching that wives should submit to their husbands.  There are numerous reasons for this. First, the church has played the whore with the world on this particular subject. Thus Christian women have been taught that Ephesians 5:22, Colossians 3:18, and I Peter 3:1- 6  are irrelevant to their lives as Christians. Second, too many Christian men treat their wives like dirt in the name of submission. Third, too many Christian wives really don’t want to submit, though they want desperately to look like they are. Thus hypocrisy reigns. Therefore Ephesians 5:22-33 and passages like it are often torn to shreds or ignored. What our Christian fathers took as obvious, has become the subject of scholarly debate, which often means the plain teaching of Scripture is obscured by various academic studies showing that the text does not really mean what it says.  Scholars, and eventually pastors, throw just enough mud in the water so we cannot see what is plainly there. That way we can continue compromising with a clean conscience.

Here are some exhortations on submission I gave to my congregation in a sermon several years ago.

First, here is my definition of submission for a wife. A wife submits when she honors and obeys her husband with a respectful attitude and cheerfulness out of her love for Christ and trust in God. Submission does not mean a wife never speaks up. Submission does not mean a wife allows sin, such as abuse, porn, etc. to go on. Submission does not mean a woman never suggests to her husband a different option than the one he has recommended. But it does mean that a wife have an attitude of following, submitting, and obeying her husband which shows itself in the concrete action of you know, following him. He is her head, her lord (I Peter 3:6).

Your submission is ultimately to Christ and His Word. To submit to your husband is to submit to Christ and trust God. You cannot reject your husband’s leadership and claim to be under Christ. Ladies, Satan loves to drive a wedge between love for Christ and practical obedience.  He tells you that you can love Jesus, but not submit to your husband. He is a liar.  Love for Christ always shows itself in concrete obedience to the Word of God. For a wife part of her obedience to Christ is submission to her husband.

In general, the only time you should not submit to your husband is if he is asking you to do something unbiblical.  Just because he says it rudely, you think he is not loving you enough, you mother or girlfriends think it is a bad idea, or you don’t want to do it does not mean submission is optional (I Peter 3). A submissive heart is proven at those moments where you don’t feel like obeying.

Submission should be willing and cheerful. Grumbling obedience is not obedience. A wife who follows, but with a nagging, complaining attitude is not really submitting.

Submission should be sincere, that is from the heart. There are many women who submit publicly when all are watching, but privately they pull all the right levers to get their way. This is hypocrisy and the Lord hates it.  A husband who is kind to his wife in public, but berates her in private is an abomination. So too, a wife is an abomination who pretends submission, but really functions as the head.

Practice submitting when you don’t have to. When you know you could get your way, don’t. Learn to follow.

Submit when he is not around. What does he want you to do? View yourself as under his authority. When he leaves for work or you are out with your friends you are not free to do as you please.  Can he trust you while he sits in the gates (Proverbs 31:11)?

Ask him for his opinion. Bring him questions. How you are doing with the house, the meals, and the children? Be ready to receive his answer. Be active in your submission, not just responding to his suggestions, but seeking out his input.

Submission is good for you. God knows what is best. Submission is not God’s cruel trick to keep you in your place. Submission is God’s perfect will for you. Do not buy the lie that submission is a grievous burden laid on you by a patriarchal society.

Expect the world to hate you for submitting to your husband. The world loves independent women who don’t need a man. A wife cheerfully submitting to her husband is one of the most mocked characters in our cultural landscape. Even many Christians believe a woman like this is weak. But you are not. Sarah trusted God, obeyed Abraham, and called him lord. She is your mother in the faith. Be a daughter of Sarah by submitting to your husband.