How to find A Happily Ever After Together

3/28/2020

A friend of mine told me that she was doing a show on her podcast discussing what Christians can learn about God from divorce. That’s certainly a great topic for Christians to think about, and there is a TON of information in the Bible about divorce. There's even an entire book of the Bible devoted to that topic. But I think that the most important thing any Christian can learn about divorce is how to avoid it, and that is found in I Cor 7.

In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul expressed his personal desire for believers to stay single and not get married (7:8). He explained that this was just his personal opinion on the matter and not a command from God (7:6), and he interrupted his opinion by emphasizing the command from God that those who are divorced are not to remarry (7:10-11, Mark 10:11-12). Paul then reemphasized his opinion that Christians should stay single before launching into a description of marriage that I believe gives us the key to avoiding divorce.

Paul contrasted the desire that a married believer has toward pleasing his or her spouse against the desire that an unmarried believer has toward pleasing God.

"He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord: But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife. There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband." (1 Cor. 7:32-34)

In both cases, Paul presented a sort of idyllic situation. He presents singleness as the better of the two because a believer in that situation can focus entirely on pleasing God. As he explained in the next verse, he encouraged singleness so that believers "attend upon the Lord without distraction." (1 Cor. 7:35) But he was quick to point out that there is no sin in getting married (7:36).

The thing that has always struck me about this passage is Paul's description of married believers. Paul described the marriage between two believers as a situation in which the husband lives to please his wife and the wife lives to please her husband so much so that their desire to please each other sometimes distracts them from doing the work of the Lord. Paul saw this as such a hindrance to the work of the Lord that he wished for all believers to be single and avoid marriage altogether, but did you notice that he never once condemned this type of marriage.

Paul argued for singleness by contrasting the best possible single life against the best possible married life and concluding that single life was better. This is a very encouraging argument for those who are single, but I think that it is also a very educational lesson for those who are married. When contrasting the best single life against the best married life, Paul didn't use a married life in which both spouses were completely sold out to God. He used a married life in which both spouses were completely sold out to each other. And that is what I believe is the key to a successful marriage.

My wife and I have been married for almost 15 years, and I like to tell people that its just been one fight after another for the entire 15 years. I keep trying to live to please her, and she keeps trying to live to please me, and we have a GREAT time fighting to out please each other. The funny things is, even though she wins some of those fights and I win others, neither of us has ever lost.

We are living proof that the key to a happy and successful marriage is to live exactly as Paul said. The believing husband should live to please his wife, and the believing wife should live to please her husband. In doing this, both of them please God by presenting the world with a clear picture of the relationship between Christ and the church. Each of them may have accomplished more for God as an individual if they had remained single, but the lack of individual accomplishments for God is more than made up by the testimony of a happy marriage in the midst of this broken world.

UPDATE: A few months after writing this, I had the opportunity to preach on the topic of marriage at my church, and I explored this view in much more detail. You can listen to the message here:

1 Comment

Tony Robinson link

8/15/2020 06:48:00 am

Sound doctrine. It is beyond eschatology, hermeneutics, and so many other areas that theologians like to pontificate upon. Paul used the term "sound doctrine" for applied theology regarding gender distinctions in role, relationship, and reflection (the image that we present).

1. The past few generations have not been taught that marriage is supposed to be a ministry to someone else, not an endeavor towards self gratification. The new, "what's in it for me," mentality, is anti-Christian, not to mention self-centered.

2. Men and women are to be totally interdependent, but not totally interchangeable. It used to be that boys were taught that they could eventually be the providers of a house full of children as the Lord sees fit, and girls were taught that they could become the lifespring and keeper of the home, educating and raising her children. This meant that they were gleaned and expected to put away childish things to serve others in a nuclear family, placing the needs of others ahead of themselves, but doing so along gender-based expectations for men and women that are distinct from each other. But what church teaches this gender-based dichotomy as a general expectation to their children and youth?

3. Biblical spousal roles require maturity. It used to be that expectations allowed young single men to take risks with job, career, and experiences that married men would be shamed if they followed the same path. Young single girls were able to explore many opportunities to enrich their experiences and skills, learning, working, socializing, in a way that would earn her the title of "Bad Mother," if she continued such after she married. The virtually carefree lifestyle of singleness was expected and required to be forsaken when marriage was embraced. However, churches today often encourage self realization of both sexes where young children are pawned off on others in an adulterated pursuit of material wealth, new thrills, and accomplishments that could not have happened had they constrained themselves to old-fashioned roles that were once equated with the role of either being a husband or wife.

3. Examples of toleration have become the norm. A healthy society can absorb the unfortunate scenario of an invalid husband being supported by his wife without it changing society. However, we have passed the tipping point, long ago, where boy men refuse to grow up, seeing women as something to exploit for their own pleasure and leisure, and they do so with little or no shame. Little wonder the general population now sees socialize as desirable: churches have allowed them to act like socialists when it comes to holy matrimony, where male and female roles are to be obliterated in all their forms for the sake of so-called progress and prosperity.

4. Love. It is the fragrance that remains, even when feelings wane, because it is a decision to esteem someone else better and more worthy of honor than ourselves. Biblical love is primarily an action backed by a resolute will, not an emotion backed by hormones.
Love is long suffering, and is kind; love is not resentful of doing without for someone else's sake. Love does not lord its deeds over the other, is not puffed up, does not act against the role in the relationship, is not self centered, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil. Love is grieved by sin, but rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

When a so-called Christian causes a divorce (yes, there can be an innocent party in divorce), saying that there is no love in the relationship, they are telling the truth, but not the way they intended: they lack sound doctrine. Does your church teach sound doctrine, or are genders completely interchangeable, lacking clear gender-based roles to aspire towards from childhood? Or is is somewhere in between, or more accurately, being culturally lukewarm?

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How to find A Happily Ever After Together

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