Weddings are so romantic! From the small and simple to the grand and elaborate, everyone seems to think the ceremony and celebrations are the focus. Very few give serious thought to the vows and relationship the two parties are entering as they “get married.” Marriage in the 21st Century is in a really strange place. As Valentine’s Day came and went this year I couldn’t help noticing how it always brings out the “aw, isn’t that romantic?!” soft news stories on local TV channels. There are stories of unusual proposals and folks finding the lost love of their lives after years of being separated by choices and circumstances all designed to elicit warm fuzzy emotions from viewers. But an interesting turn in our local reporting the other day got me stirred up to think about marriage in America. The news anchors shared the interesting and, to me, rather alarming statistics about it. Back in the 1960’s nearly 75% of Americans were married and most married in their early 20’s. By contrast, today only about 50% of Americans are married and most are now waiting until their late 20’s or early 30’s to tie the knot. Reasons for not being married include “not finding the right person” (60%), “waiting to be financially stable” (40%), and 20-30% are “not ready to settle down.”
Committing to one person for the rest of one’s life is a sobering and daunting undertaking and we rightly are nervous about it. But despite the expected “rough spots” married people plow into, it is true that marriage has great benefits for the participants and society at large. Stable marriages develop stable families which contribute dramatically to a stable society. Shared financial efforts and tax breaks are part of the benefit package. Statistically married people have better mental health and live longer, healthier lives. So what is it about the institution of marriage that is becoming so hard, so undesirable and so avoided or abandoned?
I would lay the blame at the foot of the Church and consequently the culture. The two are inextricably linked because “ideas have consequences.” What we believe, especially about God, directs our thinking and actions in every way and that is especially true in our ideas about marriage.
I am convinced that the Church is primarily responsible for the low view our culture has of marriage. Since about the mid-20th Century the theologians and pastors have begun succumbing to the lies about Holy Scripture. Many began to depart from the conviction that the Word of God is authoritative, particularly regarding human sexuality and the relations ships between men and women. Compromise has crept into the Church regarding what is plain in Scripture about sexual purity before marriage and fidelity within it. The efforts of churches to be “seeker-friendly” has become a placation of the lost and self-absorbed by ignoring or changing the awkward words and positions the Scripture contains. Excusing ‘fornication’, ‘adultery’, and ‘homosexuality’ became more important than being willing to obey God’s Word –even in the face of scoffing and derision from the world. As a result of this subtle drift, the cultural tide gathered momentum and now we have rushed into promiscuity, infidelity and all sorts of evil and perversion. God’s boundaries for our behavior have been discarded and flaunted and the result is misery and trouble for individuals and the society in which we live.
As we became more self-absorbed we began to dismiss the value and dignity of our fellow man. We elevated our own “choice” as the standard of right and wrong. As a consequence we justified tossing out marriage vows with the shallow excuse of “I don’t love him/her anymore.” Our selfishness has given us license to kill those we deem inconvenient. One young man I encountered years ago at a Crisis Pregnancy center said he was urging his girlfriend to abort their child because he “didn’t want her to lose her figure during swimsuit season.” He and more than 54 million of us have succumbed to lies about the children we have conceived. “It’s just a blob of tissue.” “It’s my/her body.” “I can’t support a child right now.” “I will have to give up my education/job/home.” “My parents will kill me.” Notice all the focus on “self”? Satan is a liar and deceiver. He has twisted our thinking to focus it around ourselves instead of God and His standards.
So what do all these skewed ideas about sexuality and conception have to do with marriage and our society? As we have embraced immoral sexual choices and devalued the lives of our un-born, we have lost our ability to see the need and worth of a committed, one-man, one-woman lifelong marriage. We have believed the lie that we are just an evolved form of amoeba-life rather than the special creation of God Almighty—image bearers of God Himself. We have dismissed marriage that God instituted in the Garden of Eden as a legal affair that is on par with the agreement to buy a car. We fail to regard it as a mysterious union of two people designed to bring more image bearers into being, to give mutual encouragement in the difficulties of life and to accomplish a joint life-work that would be incomplete or impossible for just one or the other to do alone.
To be sure, we live in a fallen world and there are many who find themselves married to an adulterer or an abuser. Our gracious God has given us guidelines and grace in Scripture to help in these heartbreaking troubles. But for most of us, marriage should be faithful lifelong commitment. We ought to see it through God’s lens and value the purposes for which He instituted it.
God instituted marriage for four main reasons:
For companionship
Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” Genesis 2:18
For procreation
God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth…” Genesis 1:27-28
For service to God and man
…And God said to them, “…fill the earth and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Genesis 1: 28
For a display of the relationship of Christ and His Church.
For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. Ephesians 5: 31-32 (for context see the entire passage: Ephesians 5: 22-33)
Let us embrace the high calling of our marriages as one of the best ways to live out our love to God and man. Let us accept the challenges marriage brings as part of God’s sovereign way of “growing us up” into the likeness of Jesus.
QUESTION: What is your evaluation of marriage? Does it reflect what God says or your own (selfish) ideas, desires and “needs.”?