What if biblical marriages were real?
For quite some time the Lord has been working on my heart on the topic of marriage. There was a feeling of uneasiness or a struggle that fueled thoughts that are completely different from what is normally accepted in our society. I was driven to scripture to research marriage and was shocked at what I discovered.
Some 95% of what we believe and teach in Christian churches today on marriages and weddings are not actually found in scripture. We have for hundreds or even thousands of years perpetuated secular and unbiblical traditions. We have cherished them with such passion that the average Christian is unable to differentiate between biblical and secular practices on this topic.
Exploring what the word of God says about a biblical marriage has resulted in some life-changing ramifications. I have come to learn that marriage should be a covenant first and foremost. If we are truly Christian and we believe what the Bible says to us, then marriage has to be an institution created by God and under his authority. It is a spiritual covenant and not a legal contract.
If we truly believe that marriage is spiritual and is of God why do our churches marry non-Christians or persons of other religions? If this is (marriage) truly sacred to us why have our churches abandoned biblical teaching on what marriage is and have taken the authority away from God and given it to the state? I once watched a recording of Dr. Myles Munroe where he asked the question "why do people go before God to get married and then go before the judge to get a divorce"? I ask you where in scripture was the state given the authority to separate marriages?
I see newspapers and other media organizations run various headlines about stories regarding homosexual marriage. As Christians, if we are taking our definition and our understanding of marriage from scripture the very phrase homosexual marriage is an oxymoron. If we define marriage by what God says it is then we cannot enter into a conversation about any one of the same sex entering into a spiritual union. The foundation for this union requires opposite genders biblically speaking.
After looking at what the biblical marriage is not I started to explore with the Bible actually teaches about marriage. Not about the day-to-day life of marriage but about the principle of marriage itself. I started to look into how one enters into such a sacred spiritual covenant. I started to ask the question what makes marriage holy? What makes marriages real? Are we in our desire to be good Christians just accepting what we've been told or are we taking the time to dive into scripture to learn what God's words has to say and to understand the real biblical principle regarding the difficult questions around marriage?