Christian Marriage

Basic Definition
  • marriage (n.)

    Meaning "a union of a man and woman for life by marriage" (early 1300s). 
     
God's Word 
Although the Bible doesn't give a dictionary definition for us, it has made the marriage context clear: one man and one woman pledged for life together. 
  • Genesis 2:21 ff.  And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And Adam said:
    “This is now bone of my bones
    And flesh of my flesh;
    She shall be called Woman,
    Because she was taken out of Man.”

    Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.  And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.  
  • Genesis 1:28: Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
  • Ephesians 5:25 ff. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.  “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. 
     


More Notes Toward Definition
  • Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage.
    Marriage, n: the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.  --Ambrose Bierce (The Devil's Dictionary)
     
  • [W]hen two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition until death do them part. --G.B. Shaw, preface to "Getting Married," 1908
  • To keep your marriage brimming, 
    With love in the loving cup, 
    Whenever you're wrong, admit it; 
    Whenever you're right, shut up.
                               -- Ogden Nash
  • My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.
     -- Winston Churchill 
     

  • Like everything which is not the involuntary result of fleeting emotion but the creation of time and will, any marriage, happy or unhappy, is infinitely more interesting than any romance, however passionate.  -- W. H. Auden

  • Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might have found more suitable mates. But the ‘real soul-mate’ is the one you are actually married to. You really do very little choosing: life and circumstance do most of it… In great inevitable love, often love at first sight, we catch a vision, I suppose, of marriage as it should have been in an unfallen world. In this fallen world we have as our only guides, prudence, wisdom (rare in youth, too late in age), a clean heart, and fidelity of will. -- Excerpt from Letter by J.R.R. Tolkien to his Son, Michael
  • Chesterton Gets His Own Section, Of Course:
    • The whole pleasure of marriage is that it is a perpetual crisis. – Chesterton on Dickens, 1911
    • Marriage is a duel to the death which no man of honour should decline. – Manalive
    • The first two facts which a healthy boy or girl feels about sex are these: first that it is beautiful and then that it is dangerous. – Illustrated London News
    • I have little doubt that when St. George had killed the dragon he was heartily afraid of the princess. – The Victorian Age in Literature
Related Ideas

 Gay Marriage
  • Concessions
    • America has been preaching its fornication and adultery for generations...so why do we all-of-a-sudden care to protect what we spent generations mocking?

 Key Thoughts
    • If my neighbor is engaging in something God said was wrong and harmful, I should tell my neighbor.  If he were about to walk off a cliff, I would not keep silent.  
    • We may say different people will define love differently.  True, so our love should have something to measure it by.  As Christians, we measure it by God's word.  
    • Someone can feel something deeply that is still wrong.  Someone may feel hate and wish to murder.  That is wrong.  It may feel right inside.
    • Fornication is a sin.  Pornography is sinful.  Adultery is a sin.  Homosexuality is a sin.  All single teens and single or married adults (except people I haven't met but I assume exist) will be tempted toward one or more of the above.  That's the battle.  The answer is not to avoid calling them sin so that we feel better about giving in to what we feel.  Some things I think and feel are right and good.  Some things I feel are wrong and bad.  Feeling passionately or deeply does not make it better or more true...it just makes it harder for me to look at it objectively and honestly.  
    • Marriage is a real, defined thing, according to the Bible (see scriptures above).
    • Marriage existed long before voting or the American Supreme Court.  If voters or the Supreme Court say that marriage is suddenly also between a man and a man or a woman and whatever, they do so to the detriment of their own sense, glory, and wisdom.  
      • Isaiah 40:6-8 (repeated in I Peter 1:24-25)
        The voice said, “Cry out!”
        And he said, “What shall I cry?”
        “All flesh is grass,
        And all its loveliness is like the flower of the field.
        The grass withers, the flower fades,
        Because the breath of the Lord blows upon it;
        Surely the people are grass.
        The grass withers, the flower fades,
        But the word of our God stands forever.” 



Good Articles and Such on this Topic
  • "Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM)a represent approximately 2% of the United States population, yet are the population most severely affected by HIV. In 2010, young gay and bisexual men (aged 13-24 years) accounted for 72% of new HIV infections among all persons aged 13 to 24, and 30% of new infections among all gay and bisexual men. At the end of 2011, an estimated 500,022 (57%) persons living with an HIV diagnosis in the United States were gay and bisexual men, or gay and bisexual men who also inject drugs" (Centers For Disease Control). 

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