What Is Marriage

One of the ladies in our church is frustrated.  She is frustrated because there are “couples” in the church whom are not married, living together (in sin) and raising children.  She feels someone should do something about this for the “children’s sake”.

Talk about a loaded situation!  And, yes, I put my foot right in it…

I said we should praise the Lord that these couples are coming to church and that their children are learning a better way of life.  Of course, this brought forth many arguments concerning the poor example of the parents and how the children will naturally follow the example of the parents, rather than what is “right”.  The parents must be married if they are to attend church, period.

Hmmm, where do I find this in my Bible?  If we want to really be sticky on this issue, we as Christians have a real problem.  Our forefathers gave to the State the right over marriage – so something which is God ordained is now a right of State rather than a right of the Church.  Do we say these couples are wrong because they have not submitted to the State for the right to live together as a married couple?  Plus, since when has the Church been a home for only those meeting any standard?  Seeing the problem here?  Heavens!  Should such an idea be implemented!

So, I took the tack of defining what marriage is.  If you use the Bible as your sole source, no where will you find a license from the State, nor an approval from the Church.  We do have a very public acknowledgment of the couple coming together and parental approval.  Given both of these conditions, we have just created a marriage.  (Yes, there are a few more conditions but for sake of the audience we will not get graphic and more politically incorrect!)  Oh boy, more hoots of argument!

Yes, parental approval is just not popular in this culture!  And how could I ever state that the State and Church had no historical say-so in a marriage!  But, there is no other picture as to how a marriage is defined, at least in the Bible.  Now in reality, the Roman Emperor did exercise the right to stop civil marriage and the Bishop in the early Church was sought out to proclaim couples as married.

So, if we wish to be Biblical, have these couples identified themselves as “married” in public?  Guess what they are.  Has there been acceptance on the part of their families?  Guess what they are.  Yeah.

So, should my church talk to these couples to encourage them to stop being a bad example to their children?  Only if we want to have them to leave the Church.  Perhaps culturally they are not doing what is “right”, but I know these couples do meet a basic definition and thank God their kids are learning a “better” way…