Marriage should be Different
For the believer in Christ marriage should be different than it is for the non-believer. How is it we can have non-Christians who go before a priest and have a ceremony in the church? They know that they need the church for the ceremony of the wedding and the traditional white gown but they are not bringing biblical principles of marriage into their daily lives
Marriage is not the ceremony
As believers in Christ, Our goal for marriage is more than the wedding marriage is different for us because it is a spiritual union and those who are spiritually dead, in truth cannot be married.
Can the spiritually dead enter into a spiritual union? If scripture teaches us that spiritual life comes from God and we believe this can we truly say that the spiritually dead can enter into a spiritual Covenant?
All of our traditions are secondary to the first principle of marriage which is that it is a covenant between God and man and wife. Christians who live with this belief should not only see marriage differently but should enter into and behave differently Within a marital Covenant.
I am baffled that Believers in Christ and non-believers enter into marriage the same way. Is this true of every religion on the planet? Do Believers and non-believers of that religion have the same practices? Why would an atheist and a Christian enter into marriage the same way if we believe God created marriage?
When we take marriage out of the spiritual context and accept a secular view of marriage, then the state and Civil Authorities can dictate the parameters for marriage. Today most Christians believe that to be married one must follow the laws of the state and the rules and regulations of their Church. Requirements for a marriage license are listed on most government official websites. Church offices are stuffed full with bulletins and handouts for couples looking to Wed and staff are more than happy to provide them to whoever comes looking.
The church this has placed the church in a very unusual position when the government passes laws to redefine marriage. Christians are taught to accept Church traditions as holy but not to seek out biblical foundations for those very traditions. And for this reason, we have come to the point where Christians and atheists go through the same process to become married. We have reached a point where marriage within the body of Christ and marriages of non-believers are virtually indistinguishable.
For the Christian, the believer in Christ. For those who have entered into a spiritual Covenant with God himself the creator of the universe, marriage should be different