True marriage

Christianity offers reform in all areas of life, so how does Christianity reform marriage?

– misconceptions

Along with other major misconceptions of the current church is the idea that the “western” model of marriage is a good one.

Let’s see what the Bible actually says about marriage. Our first encounter is in Genesis where we read that a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. What is the purpose? Simply the continuation of life, the cycle of the family unit. Society, although it often wants to be without God has as its very heart the concept of the trinity.

– a side note on the trinity

Let’s take the trinity idea as an aside. As a specifically Christian term the concept may not be familiar to most. Many people will say many different things, eg. trying to explain it in terms of a triangle or that Christians worship three gods rather than one. What most people don’t understand is that the trinity is one of the characteristics that man shares with God (Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in His own image”) and is therefore a concept that is easy, rather than difficult, to understand. As an explanation, I am a father to my son, I am a son to my father and I am an intimate lover to my wife. I am only one man but my son relates to me as a father, my father relates to me as a son and my wife relates to me as an intimate lover. It doesn’t mean that my son, father and wife are talking to different people though, does it? In the same way we can relate to God the Father and praise Him for life and His creation, we can relate to God the Son and share His pain and sorrow because of our sin and we can relate to God the Intimate lover (Holy Spirit) and share our inner-most thoughts and desires with Him. The difference is that I can relate to God in all three ways but I am limited to relating to my wife, father or son in only one of the ways. As can be seen, our very structure of society is based around a trinitarian view of ourselves.

– deciding on a partner

How do we decide on a marriage partner? Genesis offers no answer but still more than 50% of marriages in the world are arranged. Mutual friendship and attraction are nice but not a prerequisite for marriage, in fact it can make the marriage less successful by giving it a false foundation. It is clear from the New Testament that God gives us two criteria for a marriage. First, the person must be of the opposite sex and second, a Christian should marry a Christian.

– success only requires love

What are the elements of a successful marriage then? The answer is simple, we are commanded to love our spouse as Christ loved the church. Simple to say, not so simple to do.

Let’s have a look at the church. As we discovered in part 2 (reference to be added soon) not all people who go to church are Christians, but the above statement doesn’t say ‘love each other as Christ loves the true Christians in the church’ it says ‘the church’ both good and bad.

So how does Christ love the church. While we were sinners Christ gave His life for us. Christ demonstrated His love on the cross and continues to be the centre and the maintaining power of the church.

What does the church do for Christ? It slanders His name, starts wars in His name, begs for money in His name and would rather put its name behind governments than behind God. Church history is pretty long and horrid with not very much love shown to Christ. Even if the church tried it could not show 1% of Christ’s love back to Him.

Taking that parallel into marriage you love you spouse to the point of giving up your life for them and not because they are good to you and love you back. Even when they are hard to be around, even when they do exactly what they shouldn’t do, even when they walk away from you. This is the philosophy the Bible says a successful marriage is based on.

– the key to continuing

Let’s define Christ’s love a bit better then. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no records of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

This is the key to marriage. Love is active, not passive. You cannot say you love someone and never do anything for them. Love is not defined by passion, attraction, or returning what you receive. Love is about continuing to give even when you don’t want to and proving through action what you confess in words. And when both parties are using action to love, attraction and passion will follow.