The secret to marriage
I’ve heard a lot of the marriage advice that other pastors give over the years. Mostly it amounts to things like: be ready to compromise with each other; make sure you have date nights; make sure you communicate with one another; make sure you keep short accounts and forgive each other regularly. Which are all helpful to an extent – but I believe miss the mark on the central element of marriage – and indeed of God’s purpose for our lives.The common point of all of these pieces of advice is that they presume a marriage relationship where husband and wife are ultimately facing one another. They describe the marriage relationship as though the husband primarily exists for the wife, and the wife for the husband. And so in order to make this relationship work, they have to fire up their love for each other with date nights. They have to keep the channels of communication open, they have to negotiate each other’s wants and needs… and so on.
While they are helpful to an extent, ultimately they miss the mark. And that’s because ultimately husband and wife have not created for each other – they are created for God. And, by design, they can never find their true satisfaction in each other. In fact, for them to try to do so is only to invite disappointment, and encourage idolatry.
It is a scandal that many pastors and Christian ministries have adopted essentially humanist approaches to marriage, which can be seen in the kind of advice that they give. The advice? Look to each other. Work on your relationship with each other – and you can be happy. And I suppose, in contrast to the tendency of the world to look to our careers, or to look to other partners for satisfaction, it does seem like quite good advice! But ultimately it is misleading, and we are false ministers to only offer such advice.
Because we are created to see the glory of God and reflect it in our worship – and our hearts are only truly satisfied when this is what they are doing. And not merely when we are connecting with our spouses on an intimate level.
Today marks ten years of our married life – which is short. But during this time we have discovered two truths. Here is the first one:
When she loves God more, she is more lovely.
A woman who loves God. Who delights in him, who sings about him when there is no one around. Who spends time in prayer with him, and loves to read about him – that woman may not be sexy! but she is intensely lovely.
And here is the corollary:
When he is close to God, she is more secure.
Not, mind you, that he does ministry. Or that he has a great deal of knowledge – but that he is close to God! Because when the husband is close to God, all the important things will flow.
You see: in the end we are not created for each other. And we can never be truly satisfied, gazing across a candle-lit table at each other. We are actually created for God! And as husband and wife grow to see the glory of God – their hearts are satisfied. And out of that true satisfaction, husbands and wives can truly love and forgive one another.
But more than that, as by God’s Holy Spirit husband and wife grow in their love and fear of God, they become the kind of people that God created them to be. This, for instance, is the kind of woman that Peter describes as having true beauty (1 Pet 3). This is what Paul considers true adornment (1 Tim 2)! And by this, husband and wife become truly attractive to each other.
And this is also why Jesus says that there is no marriage in heaven (Mark 12). Because marriage is not the purpose of our life together! Marriage is not the greatest blessing! For all its comforts, marriage is temporary – and will one day be eclipsed by the tremendously greater good, for which we have been truly created…
[ PS: all that stuff on communication is useful - but this is the core of our marriage advice... ]
Categories: Church life
Thanks for this Andrew!. . .i\’ll be forwarding this post to our bible study group as we\’re going to look at marriage soon. . .:)just a q. . .sorry to hi-jack the topic since its a little tangent. . i was looking at Mark 12:25 . . ."When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven". . .could it be said that there will be no NEW marriages at the time of resurrection as opposed to marriage is temporary in the scope of eternity? i.e. the text just says no one will marry or be given in marriage. . .but some people are already and have been given in marriage?
Good question. I suppose in the context, the Sadducees are asking about a hypothetical woman\’s past husbands – not her prospects into the future…
yup yup. . .from a BT point of view. . .was Adam and Eve in some sense never meant to be \’married\’? If there was no Fall, then there is inherently something flawed in them if marriage was only meant to be temporary. . .i guess im wondering how things like marriage and sex fit in if it existed before the Fall, after the Fall, after redemption. . .but then dissappears in Consummation? . . .if eschatology is meant to inform the now. . it almost seems to promote some form of asceticism?
hey Andrew, what a great post!! was just thinking of starting a blog so decided to have a look at yours & came across this great article! I think the one advice given to the groom is: \’remember, the wife is always right\’. Not only is this not true, but it is entirely unbiblical. It is the wife that the Bible tells to submit, not the husband. I think in a world of feminist ideas, we can stand out as Christians when in a public setting such as a wedding, we uphold God\’s value of the wife submitting to the husband, even when it is hard for women to listen to (and do!) And regarding why there\’s no marriage in heaven, i think that marriage is a \’sign\’ on earth of the relationship between Christ & the Church, which is why Paul puts the two together in Eph 5. So just as the sacrificial system was abolished after Jesus\’ death because it was a pointer towards God\’s ultimate plan of redemption, and the temple was no longer needed after Jesus because it was a pointer towards the presence of God. So marriage between man & woman will no longer take place in heaven because it\’s a pointer towards understanding the relationship between Christ & the Church – Christ in us, and us in Him, as the Church continues to grow & prepares for that last day, when the Church will be presented as a \’bride beautifully dressed for her Husband.\’ – the ultimate marriage. I think that John Piper has a good book on the above topic: \’sex and the supremacy of Christ\’