Real Reasons to Honor Marriage

I was brought up with standard, Evangelical beliefs on marriage – that it is God’s way, receives his blessing, and is the only safe societal arrangement in which sex can take place. More than any other aspect of life, the Church’s teaching on marriage is delivered and enforced like Hebrew Law – you are either righteous or unrighteous, depending on whether your life fits the broadly accepted pattern. All too often, only people in a married couple are given leadership roles, inflicting great harm on people who deserve better.

Take people in a ‘common law marriage’ arrangement, for example, who are as committed as any formally married couple, but for reasons of their own, don’t wish to go through the legal ceremony. Perhaps they’ve been married before and suffered greatly because of it. Perhaps they want to keep things simple. It’s worth bearing in mind that Biblical marriage involved no legal aspect and didn’t even include vows, so what’s the difference between Biblical marriage and modern-day, common-law marriage?

The church would view such a couple as unmarried and living in sin, no matter how committed their relationship is or how loving and godly they are as individuals and as a partnership. This is a grave oversight, in my view, failing to respect the qualities of love the Bible extols in favour of keeping a rule.

In reaction to the Church’s legalistic excesses, progressive Christians often feel the need to redress the balance through the process of deconstruction, and once you start questioning the inherited assumptions of faith, it can become easy to identify areas of injustice and Law within the Church’s teaching. At our best, Progressives are all about observing principles of love over religious rules, as Jesus did when challenged by the Pharisees for disobeying scriptural rules about the Sabbath. Mark 2:27b,

“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”

Jesus looked for the principles behind the rules to determine how and if they should be followed in any given circumstance, but believers rarely give themselves permission to do the same, preferring to cling to a rigid code. It might be simpler to do so, but it’s also the lazy option – inorganic, unthinking, and harmful.

The dangers of permissiveness.

For the reasons outlined above, those going through deconstruction often discard boxy ideas about marriage, but in doing so, can throw the baby out with the bathwater. The rejection of a religious law can be godly, but only if our understanding of the loving principle behind the law is deepened, along with our commitment to compassion. Permissiveness is not a reason to discard wisdom. 1 Cor 6:12,

All things are permitted for me, but not all things are of benefit. All things are permitted for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.

I once joined a well-known progressive online Christian community that had embraced all manner of harm. One woman wrote:

‘Since deconstructing, I’ve realised I was sexually repressed, so I’ve become a stripper. My husband doesn’t like it but that’s his problem.’

This person was praised by the group, but in truth, she had abandoned love in pursuit of liberty, idolizing boundless permission over the feelings of her husband – a profound betrayal. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8,

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

Both extremes are harmful.

On the one hand, we have the law-keepers and enforcers, who fail to grasp that marriage is made for humankind, not humankind for marriage. They inflict tremendous harm on people who deserve respect and abandon the Gospel of Grace in favour of Law. On the other hand, we have those who grant themselves every permission and cast wisdom aside. In my view, neither group is anywhere close to a healthy expression of love.

The real reasons to honor marriage.

If we put aside the extremes detailed above, there is a simple question to ponder: why does God honor marriage? Let’s not pretend he doesn’t. However convoluted Biblical teaching is on the matter, and even in the light of the most thorough cultural contextualisation, it is clear that marriage was God’s idea, and is one of the key structures of any functioning community. I want to explore some of the precious facets of marriage that give it a spiritual identity, in order to understand why it is something we ought to greatly esteem (without returning to legalism).

Marriage reflects the human/divine relationship.

A healthy marriage can reflect every aspect of God’s love, every feature of true discipleship, and every form of blessing. God loves marriage because he loves commitment, growth, and ever-deepening bonds. He esteems kindness, good communication, and intimacy, and celebrates growth, breakthroughs, and a harvest of peace. God does not abandon us, but nurtures our relationship with him, helping us overcome struggles and releasing us into great blessings. In all these ways, marriage reflects the human/divine relationship and the journey of faith.

Jesus warned against divorce, but not for the sake of imposing a rule – rather to reflect that God laments broken relationships. We serve a God of union, ever-deepening closeness, and the journey of love. He is compassionate towards all those whose relationships are broken – let’s be clear on that, while recognising that the Lord will support any marriage capable of surviving and turn it into the deepest blessing if we let him.

Marriage is a commitment made in faith.

My wife and I married last year. We’d been together for 7 years and would have married a few years earlier if not for the pandemic, but finally tied the knot in August 2022. As I stood there, saying my vows, I knew I could not predict the future. No matter how much I loved my wife in that moment, I knew that in making a lifelong commitment before God, I could only throw myself on his mercy, leading, and provision. Problems would inevitably arise and our relationship would be challenged at times, as all relationships are, perhaps even to breaking point, but by grasping the hand of the Almighty and making that lifelong commitment in faith, we opened the door to his supernatural help. If God blesses marriage, then he will bless our commitment, enabling us to make a success of it.

My wife and I lived together for 6 years before we finally married, raising her son (now my stepson) together and sharing our lives. We were already in a mature, committed relationship, and when we finally said our vows, I didn’t expect anything to change, but it did. There was no sudden infusion of divine capability, but somehow, getting married beautified the background colour of our relationship and deepened the emotional security of our bond. It’s not that I’d felt insecure or unsafe before we married, but something about making that commitment in front of our loved ones sealed the deal in a way that has delighted and surprised me. My wife’s lifelong commitment to me is something I now feel in my bones, and this has significantly deepened my sense of peace about our future. That step of faith opened a parcel of unexpected blessings and has greatly strengthened our relationship.

Receiving the blessing of your community.

The people who came to our wedding bestowed their best blessings on our union. Something that was born that day – a community of wonderful friends who came together to embrace and celebrate our love. Their best wishes towards us and our grateful reception of them forged a bond and dug a well of spiritual strength. I can’t explain this fully – it was as unexpected as it is mystical.

This community blessing reflects the key features of Hebrew marriage throughout the Bible, which was far simpler than common marital practices today. The community celebration was the heart of the event, often lasting for days. There was no legal aspect to the wedding, no vows, no involvement of the state, and no certification – just a giant knees-up followed by blessings, and sex to seal the deal.

Today, Westerners live in societies that are fragmented and distracted, where isolation and independence have taken the place of healthy interdependence, but a wedding is a chance to turn that around and bathe in true community spirit. There is great power in such a blessing, and a healthy marriage becomes a building block of the community in return. Healthy marriages serve as shining examples to young people searching for love and bring a two-person team’s energy and gifts to support their community. In these ways and more, marriage is a fundamental building block of a flourishing society.

A loving marriage is the best environment for bringing up children.

My wife is a psychotherapist and often talks of the benefits of having a ‘secure base’, and the harm suffered by those who grow up without one. That’s not to downplay the importance and beauty of other arrangements – life is rarely smooth, and all parents who love their children are to be honored – but as a society, we must surely esteem the steadiest, most robust form of upbringing for our children. I used to work for a youth charity, and the importance of a secure base was a baseline assumption for all those involved in the care of abused or abandoned children. The evidence that boys who grow up without a father are more likely to get into trouble is undeniable. The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Cobb-Clark, D.A., &Tekin, E. (2014) states:

A study of 109 juvenile offenders indicated that family structure significantly predicts delinquency. Additionally, adolescent boys with absent fathers are more likely to engage in delinquency than those who are present.

Any kind of dive into the available statistics reinforces the importance of a father figure in young boys’ lives, and, in my view, anyone trying to play this down has an agenda that matters more to them than the wellbeing of young people.

I’m a stepfather who loves his stepson, and have nothing but respect for all and any kinds of committed parenting, but whether it’s a convenient fact or not, the nuclear family is the healthiest, most secure structure a child can know. Of course, neglect occurs in nuclear families too, and well-loved children from ‘broken homes’ will be emotionally better off than the children of neglectful parents who are still together. I’m not presenting a black and white analysis, but nonetheless, we must choose a direction of travel for our society and its young people, and set our sails accordingly. The simple truth is, young people growing up in healthy and loving nuclear families have the best overall chance of a happy and satisfying future.

Conserving the good.

As stated in the opening section of the article, marriage should never be imposed on society as a law, or used as a measure of who is and isn’t godly, loving, or to be trusted with leadership. Marriage was made for humankind, not humankind for marriage. That said, a loving, healthy marriage overflows with the blessings of God and serves as the best possible environment for young people to grow up in. When I see believers throw the baby out with the bathwater and indulge in all manner of permissiveness, I feel compelled to write about the true shape of love and the blessings available to us through marriage. Let’s not embrace chaos and confusion when there are boundary lines laid in pleasant places. Instead, let’s honor, protect, and preserve all that God has given us in marriage, and encourage young people to aspire to loving, lifelong relationships.