Category: Marriage

For those who were not able to attend, here is my four minute speech:

 

I am very grateful to be here addressing an issue of utmost importance to this community, to this nation, and for the good of civilization.

We are standing for righteousness. But righteousness is not rooted in the philosophies of men, nor is it rooted in the concerns of well-meaning politicians: righteousness is rooted in the One who is all-together Righteous, namely God himself. And when I say God, I am not referring to the man upstairs, or to some figment of human imagination, I am speaking of the Who is Three and One—the God of the Bible who is the God of Creation.

When this Triune God declares something to be very good, there is no force, no political legislation, no decree from Washington, no rationale from universities that can reverse this declaration. As a minister of the Gospel, I am here to declare that God has instituted marriage, and declared it very good. His creation was nothing less than magnificent. And not only did the God of Sacred Scriptures declare this relationship between a man and a woman within the sacred walls of marriage to be very good, but He also sealed it with His Divine approval. He said that they are one flesh. Man and woman complement one another. They are the result of this masterful and glorious creation. To quote G.K. Chesterton: “Marriage is a fact.”

The Lord Jesus Christ spoke with absolute authority and echoed the words of creation when he said in Mark 10: “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

God created only two humans, not a group of males and females who could configure as they pleased or switch partners as it suited them, but a man and a woman who would form an indivisible union, revealing completeness and compatibility.

But not only is the marriage between a man and a woman grounded in creation, and not only does Jesus re-affirm that in the Gospels, marriage also functions as a symbol of the Gospel. The marriage of a man and a woman is a symbol of the marriage between Christ and His Bride, the Church. If marriage is threatened or marred, then the Gospel of the Love of Christ for us, sinners, is also marred in our culture. This can never be!

We must stand up for righteousness, but not a righteousness rooted in sophistry, not a righteousness rooted in some random version of God, not a righteousness rooted in what we may think or feel, but a righteousness rooted in the God who made heaven and earth; a God who created man and woman to represent and be examples to the world of what love truly is, and that through that love the love of God is revealed; a love which sacrifices His one and only Son, a love which heals the broken hearted, the poor, and the marginalized; a love which leads to the changing of heart, and a love that is not bound by time, but endures forever. Amen.

In preparing for my speech at the Standing 4 Righteousness Rally, I have been reading some Chesterton. I came across this piece on LifeSiteNews.

 

The Bible is—as we have said before—a marriage story. It is a story of how God showers his bride with love when she is polluted by sin, how he pursues her when she is chasing after other gods, and how ultimately, he will conquer her heart, and love her forever.

–Sermon Excerpt

A marriage which does not constantly crucify its own selfishness and self-sufficiency, which does not “die to itself” that it may point beyond itself, is not a Christian marriage. The real sin of marriage today is not adultery or lack of “adjustment” or “mental cruelty.” It is the idolization of the family itself, the refusal to understand marriage as directed toward the Kingdom of God…It is not the lack of respect for the family, it is the idolization of the family that breaks the modern family so easily, making divorce its almost natural shadow. It is the identification of marriage with happiness and the refusal to accept the cross in it.”

{Schmemann: For the Life of the Word, 90; quoted in forthcoming book}

Eight Years married to my lovely Bride!

The problem with husbandry is that we are called to be humble; and that word tends to condemn us quite often. Abstractly, humility is quite beautiful, but when our wives correct our grammar than the abstractness vanishes. But this is the beauty of husbandry: you lead by example; and leading by example is quite rewarding if you are willing to be corrected here and there for the sake of marital joy.

Used with Permission

My friend Rich Blesdoe always amazes me with his wisdom and insight. The following as an example:

Somewhere, Paul Tournier says this, but it is common experience anyway. Children who experience deep conflict in the home of religious (ie, Christian) parents, have an added burden. Hearing, or seeing, and living with constant conflict on the part of parents who are professing Christians, who are one thing behind closed doors, and something entirely different in church, or in public, does damage in ways that children raised in entirely unbelieving atmosphere’s does not. It is not simple. On the one hand, the child may still find new strength for life because of his or her inherited faith, but there is still the conflict and soul tearing that is experienced because of the known hypocrisies that were seen and experienced behind closed doors. Some children do not recover, and the conflicts become the foundation of apostasy from the faith.

So likewise, perhapsone of the deepest conflicts of the Western World are still “The Wars of Religion.” Of course, it is perfectly true that the real facts are that often religion was a mere facade behind which power hungry princes stood, but no matter. As I read somewhere (and I believe it was John Owen) there is hardly any spectacle in the world anywhere less edifying than men killing each other in the name of Jesus. It is a wound in the soul of the Western World that is still not healed, and still is cause for real fear. No matter that the Enlightenment Settlement that “resolved” the issue by placing religion in the realm of “opinion” as opposed to “knowledge” (where autonomous empirical and rationalistic axioms were placed), was often done by men “looking for an excuse,” it still has power, great power, over men’s souls. And no matter that the great 20th century diasasters were brought about in atheistic regimes, killing many millions times more than “religious” regimes ever did in the past. The wound is still there, and still festers.

Beyond all of this, there is no doubt that the worst fanaticisms are fueled “in the name of God.” Just to observe the unedifying fanaticisms in our circles (who in their right mind would go after Peter Leithart, for example) gives a hint.

What is going to have to be proven again is that we are back to a kind of tribalism in which THE ONLY WAY that people can be brought to peace with one another, is by means of faith. And of course, I mean faith in Christ. We are back to a kind of Benedictine reality with the early tribes of what became Europe. I am also beginning to see that the only way that young people can be brought to sufficient “peace” with one another to have the courage to marry and to make a marriage work, is by means of faith. And I do believe the new emblem of the coming city states is marriage itself.

We are not only the new Benedictines, we are also the new “makers of marriages.”

I have listened to the first of four lectures by Baptist Minister Voddie Baucham on Love and Marriage. His first lecture is a brief exposition of Genesis 2:18-24. Voddie is both humorous and piercing in his application. These lectures are very challenging for the young couple or the mature married couple. Yet these lectures are also excellent for those not yet married and contemplating marriage.

There are three main observations that I drew from the first lecture entitled In the Beginning. First, according to the Scriptures, marriage is God’s idea. God’s very first use of the negative in the Bible refers to the loneliness of man. Thus God found Adam a wife. Voddie adds that since marriage is God’s idea, God is the one who establishes the principles of it.

Secondly, Rev. Baucham gives two Biblical purposes for marriage. The first purpose of marriage is procreation. He spends a considerable amount of time elaborating on this point. He wants to see ” a house full of ballistic missiles fully trained to be launched into this lost, hurting and dying world.” This is rarely the view of the modern church, which treats children as a burden. Voddie views them with Biblical eyes. The second purpose for marriage is illustration. Marriage serves as an illustration of the love of Christ for His bride.

Finally, God makes us desire marriage. He created us for this very purpose. Voddie is careful to make exceptions to this case as Paul does in I Corinthians. However, the norm is for men and women to marry rather than remain single. Voddie strongly warns against speaking negatively of that which God created. When we speak negatively about marriage and bearing children, we are speaking against God’s purposes for His people. Voddie concludes by urging us to grab a hold of the concept that God is deeply interested in using our marriages for his glory and honor.