Thank you for visiting my blog. Continuing our discussion from last week, we recently surveyed a mostly evangelical group of adolescents and millennials on the Instagram account, godsholyscriptures, regarding what the Bible teaches about marriage. There were 321 participants.
The key question in the survey was the main purpose of Christian marriage, demonstrating the relationship between Christ and the church, for which about 40% of participants correctly identified. We also asked about other biblical aspects of marriage applied to Christians. Please see all the fascinating survey results on our website.
Today let’s discover the main biblical points on Christian marriage which are discussed primarily in the in the marvelous passage, Ephesians 5:21-33.
- Prelude V.15-20 – These verses indicate Christians generally should live their lives with the knowledge, mentality and speech of a believer. We should do this in a careful and thoughtful fashion, seeking God prospectively to avoid problems and to live a holy life. This passage could be applied nicely to the marriage passage that follows. From these verses we learn we can prepare ourselves for marriage by:
- Becoming the quality partner that a Christian person would want to marry.
- Seeking yourself a person with these qualities.
- Practicing the Christian life so these principles can be easily applied in your future marital relationship.
- Both husband and wife submit to the word of God and to each other V.21 – This important verse indicates that each marriage partner should love God so much that they will gladly submit to the other person through God’s word. Indeed, from my own experience it is joy for me and my wife to perceive life correctly together from God’s word.
- Wife submits to the husband V.22-24 – This is a key portion of the passage and has at least two important purposes:
- It reflects the church’s submission to Christ to unbelievers and is part of the evangelical purpose of marriage.
- It provides order as both marriage partners also submit to God, allowing the gospel to more easily advance in our culture.
- The husband is responsible overall for the conduct of the marriage before God. I picture biblical submission in marriage much like a CEO directing their company. A good CEO is responsible for the company so helps it succeed by not suppressing their employees and manage all their tasks, but he empowers them and frees them to become the best they can be.
- Husband loves wife as Christ loves the church V.25 – The husband should be totally devoted to a giving selfless (i.e., Gr. agape) love to his wife as Christ loved the church.
- Husband nurtures his wife V.26-27 – He gives his all to his wife to present her holy before Christ, otherwise, to be the best she can be in this life.
- Husband loves himself when he loves his wife V.28-30 – This is an amazing truth. I can affirm from experience that as I love my wife she gives more back to me that I ever could have given to her.
- Leave and cleave V.31 – The husband leaves his mother and cleaves to his wife. The marriage couple is a new family with priorities primarily for God and themselves as a couple. In other words, they should show devotion to themselves and God and not be managed by their extended families or friends, which might cause jealousy or demonstrate a lack of commitment to each other.
- Summary V.32-33 – Marriage reflects the relationship between Christ and the church and demonstrates to the world His love and the results of his marvelous salvation that others might be drawn to Him.
God takes marriage very seriously and when lived according to scripture it should produce much fruit and joy.
Thank you for joining me today. Visit us next time for more about the truth of scripture and the impact on our wellbeing.
