Today is our wedding anniversary. So, I wanted to start my post by saying a couple of thank yous. First to my wife, Sarah, it’s a joy to be your husband and I am grateful not just for the 19 years of married life but for the 22 years it has been a privilege to know you. Secondly, a marriage isn’t built in isolation and so we are thankful to many friends who are there for us and have been there for us through the ups and downs, the joys and disappointments most notably bereavement and adoption. I thought, if you will indulge me , that I’d use the opportunity to share some thoughts and reflections on marriage and married life.
First of all, marriage is a gift. It’s a gift because God has given us to each other, given us the circumstances we are in, given all of the joys that come with marriage, all the opportunities and also he has given us the grace needed to face circumstances. This is true of singleness as well. It’s important to remember that neither gift is about magically or mystically becoming suited for it so that all trials and struggles go away. It simply means that if you are married or single, then that is what God has given you and it is a good gift because it is from him.
This also means that marriage is not a cure all. If you go into married life with specific struggles and temptations, then marriage does not fix them. I remember someone commenting that what marriage does is that it highlights all the more where those struggles are, where we are selfish sinners and where we need God to work.
It also means that marriage is not the only gift. It matters, so too does singleness. We also need to remember that it is finite, for this life, until death do us part.
Secondly, marriage is not a sacrament but it is intended to provide an incredible picture of Christ’s relationship to the church. It is an honour, undeserved for any of us to play a part in retelling the story in micro of what God does for us in macro. Marriage has wonderful purpose.
Thirdly, I have reached the conclusion that marriage books are generally not great. I’ve read books that have been fantastic at the theology of marriage but have managed to suck all the joy and romance out of it. I’ve read practical books that talk about how to keep the romance alive but seem to keep Scripture at a distance. There are of course some exceptions to that such as the book by Timothy and Cathy Kellar and if you’ve found a specific book helpful for your situation that’s great. However, my general encouragement is not to go to books but to get advice and encouragement from godly couples who are further along in the journey than you.
Fourth, whilst you can identify my position as complementarian, I fear that those of us un the conservative evangelical part of the church have got too locked onto labels. We want to make sure that our churches are complementarian and our marriages too. Then we have a template we put over to make sure that we meet the standards. And not all of those standards come from Scripture, a good few are cultural as I discovered when writing my MTH dissertation back in 2010. As I observed then, my sense of Ephesians 5 is that we shouldn’t be so worried about the nuts and bolts or labels. Rather, we need to take a step back and look at the whole picture. Is it clear that in our marriage we are “one flesh”, that there is a real and deep unity between us? Does our marriage enable us to obey God’s mandate to us to play our part in the filling and ruling of creation from Genesis 1 and making disciples from Matthew 28? Most importantly does our marriage, however imperfectly help us and others to get a glimpse of Christ’s love for his church and his church for him?
I hope you find these reflections challenging and encouraging. I’d love to hear your own reflections on marriage in the comments below.
Faithroots 