Marriage: A Christian Perspective

I once met a minister who did not believe in officiating at the weddings of unbelievers.  He thought his position was  biblical. (Marrying a believer to an unbeliever is a different matter (2 Cor. 6:14-18).

His position was sincere but thoughtful Christians must disagree. Why? Because marriage is not exclusively for Christians. It is the gift of a loving God to the human race.  This is clear from the fact that the Bible introduces us to  marriage within the biblical account of creation (Gen. 2).

Chapter one of Genesis gives the general, all-inclusive creation account, which comes to its climax in the formation of mankind as male and female (Gen 1:26,27).

Then chapter two focuses on the story of Adam and Eve.  They were created uniquely for each other, introduced to one another by the Lord God, and granted a natural, intimate and enduring union in what the passage refers to as a “one flesh” relationship.

In fact the account ends with an editorial note the narrator applies to all: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.”

All of this was before man’s fall into sin as reported in Genesis 3.  Therefore we regard marriage as belonging to the order of creation.  Call the story of Adam and Eve the prototype of all marriages as God originally intended.

However, “the fall of man” changed the narrative profoundly, as described in Genesis 3.  The evidence that this is so is seen across the whole of the Scriptures. In Genesis 4, Lamech, the son of murderous Cain, took two wives, and in doing so violated God’s holy design (Gen. 4:19).  Jacob had two wives plus two of his wives’ maids so the 12 patriarchs of Israel were sons of four mothers but one father.  Solomon outdid them all by taking to himself  700 wives and 300 concubines.

These violations of the Lord God’s original provision — and many more like them — are not reported in the Scriptures to suggest God’s approval of or even his indifference to the strange twists fallen man had taken but to report accurately on the consequences of sin and to set forth clearly mankind’s great need for redemption.

In Israel’s history, prophet after prophet prophesied against the Northern and Southern kingdoms’ immorality in violating the institution of marriage.  God’s people went astray in getting rid of wives for frivolous reasons (Mal. 2:14), marrying pagan wives (Ezra 10:18ff.), and becoming involved in adulteries, thus repeatedly violating their pledges of faithfulness (Exodus 20:14; 2 Samuel 11).

But the call to marital love grounded in faithfulness to one spouse never disappears from the Scriptures.  The prophets do a daring thing.  They use marriage as a metaphor for God’s relationship to his people (Isaiah 54:5-8, 10; 62:5).  He chides his people as a violated husband might chide an unfaithful wife but he reaches toward them with steadfast or covenant love (Hosea 14:4).

This becomes — forever for God’s people of all ages — a call to faithfulness and compassion in marriage.  Israel is to be a model to the surrounding peoples in this regard.

The picture is similar in the New Testament.  The pagan world was filled with infidelity, fornication and many sexual irregularities (Rom. 1:21-32; 1 Cor. 6:9-11).  There was great disorder in the domestic life of the city of Corinth which the Apostle Paul had to address in his letter to the  Corinthian church (1 Cor.7).  And even some of the Pharisees had veered sharply from the standards of their Divine Law in following the school of Hillel.  His teaching during the previous century was that divorce was allowable for almost any reason.  For example, a wife who burned the food was in peril of being cast off.

It was this conflict between God’s creational plan regarding marriage, and sin’s corruptions of his design that brought a group of Pharisees into conflict with Jesus (Matt. 19:1-12).  They pressed him to take a side.  Instead, he referred them back to the account of Adam and Eve.  “Haven’t you read,” he asked, “that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female (Gen. 1:26, 27)?  He followed to pronounce marriage as a “one flesh” relationship just as it had been designed to be at the beginning (Gen. 2:24).

I always feel the solemnity of the moment during a wedding when after I have administered the vows I add, “Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man put asunder.”  These are the very words of Jesus given in Matthew 19.  They are his affirmation and command regarding monogamous marriage between a man and a woman, added to his reference to the timeless account of Adam and Eve.

May the words of our Lord be held sacred by his church everywhere in the 21st Century!

Marriage: “It is what it is”

“It is what it is.” This is an increasingly common cliché one is likely to hear among workers in the business world or especially among competing athletes.

The quarterback fumbles the ball and the team loses 20 yards. Is he supposed to doubt and demean himself as he returns to the line? He is supposed to say to himself, “It is what it is.” That is, what has happened can’t be changed. Having said that he is to clear his mind for the next play.

The cliché is used properly when it describes some unalterable reality in life. An apple is an apple. It is what it is. That fact stands; it can’t be an orange even if there are those who would like to call it an orange.

Can this reality apply to marriage? I recently heard a politician stumping for votes while defending his pro-marriage stance. His argument was based on the long-accepted definition of marriage: the union of one man and one woman for life. In the flow of his speech he said of marriage: “It is what it is.” His unapologetic statement argued that as far back as human history can be known the view held virtually universally is the view he himself holds.

We regularly speak of the “institution” of marriage. That means that when a man and woman stand before a minister or a justice of the peace to exchange marital vows they are not there to create something new. They are entering into something that already has existed from time immemorial. Couples were married by committing to the same realities long before these two were born. That’s why we call marriage an “institution”. It is what it is.

Marriage is a covenanted relationship between two sexually complementary persons. It is an all-embracing, organic union, conjugal by very nature. There is no other human joining to compare with it. It is a connection intended to be fulfilled by the procreation of children and by the giving to those children the stability and strength of that union. Also, in doing so it is to add its strength to the cohesion and health of society and state. Marriage is what it is.

So, is it not arrogant to argue that this unique human connectedness should be violated by the unraveling of its natural boundaries to accommodate the inclusion of something in essence fundamentally unlike it?

This is not to say that same sex partnerships cannot be formed legally. In a democratic society same-sex couples are permitted to seal their commitments to each other in legal ways. Under these legal arrangements, they may be free to live together and share financial goals, or pursue joint social relationships. But same-sex couples cannot be conjugal nor bring forth children. In claiming to be married they are not redefining marriage; nor are they enlarging its boundaries; they are destroying its historical uniqueness. Marriage is what it is.

The time has come for Christians everywhere to get better hold on these truths and to be prepared to express them as opportunities present themselves. Marriage is under attack from several quarters.

On the one hand, the silence of millions of Christians would be a great aid to the enemies of marriage and to the disordering of marriage itself. On the other, speaking up to say that for the above reasons “marriage is what it is” gives believers a positive voice in the struggle. Only by widespread engagement will the battle now raging be won.

What Happens to Our Prayers?

Any Christian who takes the practice of prayer seriously might be tempted to ask from time to time: Is this really working? Do my daily offerings make any difference? Does God hear?

In the closing book of the Bible – the Revelation of John the revelator — there is an encouraging answer. In Chapter 5:8 we are in the throne room of God and worship is about to begin. The prayers of the saints are to be featured.

A lamb is there who appears to have been slain but is yet fully alive. He stands at the center of the throne. We know who this slain lamb represents – the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ. Around him are four living creatures and 24 elders. Together, some believe, they represent all of creation.

The lamb takes a scroll from the hand of the Majesty who occupies the throne and suddenly the four living creatures and the 24 elders fall down before the lamb. It is time for worship in the heavenly realms.

All have harps in their hands, heavenly instruments of worship. They also hold bowls full of incense. In one of his few interpretive words John tells what these bowls and the incense in them represent: “the prayers of the saints.”

This imagery makes a powerful connection between two spheres of existence: on the one hand, that heavenly realm where our God reigns and harmony and order prevail; on the other hand, our visible world so clouded by conflict and struggle. The connecting link at this point is the collective prayers of God’s people. These prayers of beleaguered saints contribute to the worship life carried on in the throne room of the universe by giving worship the aroma of incense.

It encourages me to learn in this way that our prayers matter to God. However unproductive they sometimes seem to us here in our limited existence. God receives them as a fragrance in his throne room. They must rejoice the heart of the Father. They are apparently more than merely a list of our needs; they pour out all the possibilities of adoration, homage, praise and awe.

It encourages me also to know that without the prayers of the saints — offered under the imagery of incense — the very atmosphere of the throne room would lack something important. Our prayers apparently fill that place with a lovely fragrance, thus enhancing heavenly worship.

This larger view of prayer can send us to our prayer closets with renewed faith and fresh ardor. We will still have petitions to offer and unanswered prayers will still perplex us. But in those moments when we are “lost in wonder, love and praise” and even when we are perplexed or afraid, we will know that in that glorious throne room our prayers are being mingled with the prayers of saints from all regions and of all ages. Let us pray.

More About Homemade Chocolates

Kathleen and me in 1946

Kathleen no longer makes luscious chocolates at our house because they would be too tempting. As someone quipped, we would eat them one day and wear them the next.

But thinking about those chocolates takes us back more than six decades, and we have lived long enough to gather distant memories, enabling us to compare how things were then with how they are now.

We often recall how strapped for funds people seemed to be in 1948. Starting teachers earned $100 a month. Wardrobes were sparse by comparison with today. I remember that during our dating days Kathleen alternated among only four outfits – a brown corduroy jumper, a turquoise blue dress with a lace collar, a store-bought patterned rayon dress, and an attractive suit.

As for me, suits were a part of most men’s wardrobes, if only for Sundays. I had a tan gabardine suit handed down by an older brother, Wilf. His seamstress wife had cut it down a couple of sizes. The pants fit well at the waist but the legs ballooned out like two pillow-cases. No one seemed to notice but I smile now when I run across the pictures. For our house wedding my brother sent a dark suit from his haberdashery store in Saskatchewan.

I remember that when we were married I brought all my earthly possessions (apart from limited clothing) to our apartment in two small cardboard boxes.

We had a 13-year-old 1934 Ford. Its two doors were rusted out at the bottom. The speedometer and windshield wipers did not work, and neither did the gas gauge. Also, whenever it rained, water leaked copiously from the windshield onto the driver’s feet. It even had a bullet hole in the back end which only a previous owner would be able to explain. Kathleen and I painted this car with a black paint applied with powder puffs which succeeded in making it look a bit more respectable.

Other newlyweds, it seemed to me, were at similar levels of scarcity immediately after World War II. Salaries were low and some goods were still hard to find. Even so, we always managed to meet our rent payment and Kathleen diligently stuck to her $7-a-week grocery budget.

It’s through those mental images of scarcity that I view the present state of abundance in society. Now, closets bulge with clothes, some never worn; cars of a quality and excellence available not even to millionaires back then now line our driveways; we have color televisions, computers, and an array of other electronic gadgets — Blackberries, iPads, iPhones, Smartphones, etc., in some cases owned only for pleasure. And eating out has become common.

Yet without all of these extras back then, our happiness was solid. We had each other; we had lifetime goals we were eagerly pursuing; we had our faith in the Lord; and by that faith we weathered the rough times. As time passed, we had children to brighten our lives and anchor us to the earth; back then our pleasures were simpler but deeply satisfying.

But, amidst today’s abundance, we are happy also. We enjoy so much more of the good things of life but we hold these as tangential to what really matters: our faith; each other; a growing family; continuing opportunities to serve — and all these by the grace of God.

Present abundance makes people anxious if they invest too much in the fragile hope that these blessings will always be there. We treat them as a gift from God but we know we will not enjoy them forever.

Homemade chocolates may stand as a metaphor for the things that sweeten life. But we look back across 64 years of marriage and say that during good times and bad, during the greatest challenges and the most searing disappointments, when material things were scarce and when they are abundant, the constant has been the living presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We have served him all too imperfectly but with serious intent, and his presence has nourished and delighted our inner beings as no homemade chocolates ever could.

About Homemade Chocolates

Last week Kathleen spent a large part of two days working at our kitchen table. She had gathered a collection of recipe books of various shapes and sizes and was trying to consolidate favorite recipes into two notebooks as a project in downsizing.

In the midst of this, she brought to my study a little piece of paper she had come across among the recipes. It was weathered from time and slightly tattered. Even its handwriting was faded. On it was the recipe for homemade chocolates she made 63 years earlier, during the first three months of our marriage.

We had to stop and reminisce.

In 1948, we were living in a one-room apartment above a garage across the Queen Elizabeth Highway from Lorne Park College. This was 11 miles west of Toronto, and I was a student and part-time staff there. Having married on a shoestring, as brave souls often did in the post-war years of the last century, this was our first home.

To survive, we had to be resourceful in order to gather together enough money each month to pay our $45 rent and to meet our self-imposed $7-a-week grocery budget.

Once Kathleen produced some home-made chocolates that proved to be a hit with student friends. So we figured that home-made chocolates might be a means of income. She produced batches and we sold them to our contacts for 50 cents a pound. I remember still their coconut, maple, vanilla, and even chocolate nut centers, and all encased in a coat of dark chocolate. It was no run-away commercial venture, but times were hard and every penny counted.

Times are hard for many today but in a different way. For many people, the struggle is not so much for basic survival like it was for us 63 years ago. To us and many others, it now appears to be a nagging anxiety that the affluent lifestyle to which we have become accustomed to may slip away.

When such anxious thoughts press in we find it helpful to remember those homemade chocolates. And to recall that a deep faith in God and the enjoyment of life’s simple pleasures are the keys to contentment and security in this life.

(More next week on homemade chocolates.)