Marriage and Scriptures

Today the quarterly wanted me to teach my Sunday School class about marriage.

Ok. I have, as far as how many ladies come off and on, about 15 people in my class. Today there were nine. Good crowd. Of those who come, three of us are married, one of which is a second marriage. One lady has never married. One is widowed. The rest are divorced. And I'm going to teach Ephesians 5:22 to them?

I wrote a long, doctrinal lesson. I might post it here soon. I learned a lot about marriage. But on Sunday morning I knew this wasn't going to work (I had inklings all week it wasn't.) So I punted. We had a good discussion, and I hope I didn't offend anyone.

Say marriage to most long-term Christians and the first verse they come up with is "Wives, submit to your husbands." And oh, yes, there's a verse in there about the husbands' loving the wives like Christ does the church. But the section starts with "wives, submit" so that must be the most important part, right? A friend of mine said she would submit to her husband when he loves her like Christ does. Well, that's not the point either.

The point is that teaching about marriage starts in Genesis and goes through Revelation, and one verse is not going to shed much light on the subject in its totality. We need all the passages to light the way through something as thorny as marriage, especially in this culture where marriage is so degraded. Two things are clear:

1. The fall ruined marriage; the Old Testament (and most human history) is about people trying to fix it to make it work; Christ revolutionized it by comparing it to the mystery of his relationship to the church.

2. Marriage is not first for having lots of babies. Marriage is for companionship and fellowship; marriage is to provide boundaries for sex; marriage is to mirror Christ and his bride. Then lots of babies is the natural outcome.

On the way to church the Christian radio announcer read a devotional that said it all. I can't paraphrase it, but the jist was: if I had a close friend who I wanted to spend time with, and enjoy, and be like, but I didn't like his wife, and told him so, I would probably not have much of a relationship with him for long. But supposed Christians do that to Jesus all the time. We want to know Jesus but want nothing to do with the church.

I really think Ephesians 5:22 ff is as much about the church as it is marriage, when you come to think about it.

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