Good reasons for getting married

[mary@Hisfeet_9]

seems like in biblical times, they didn't make such a big deal about 'good enough' reasons for marriage. if two people were attracted and free to marry, they could, or for any other reason ...we make so much more out of it in our modern context just to sooth our consciences perhaps?

 

[captainjonathan]

Yeah, I guess we haven't focused on the one other one.

Because God commanded it:

Be fruitful and multiply
Take on brother's wife
Young widows should marry
Be an example to other's (Hosea)
and other commands to go get married....

 

[JustAGuy]

James 1:27 - "If they're hungry, feed 'em. Cold? Give 'em a coat." Meet the need. Widows (husbandless) and orphans (fatherless) need ... ? A husband and father. Not a bag of groceries from the church pantry!

Totally makes sense! Good call. Thanks so much. But to be fair, James doesn't write this. James' instruction is to ἐπισκέπτομαι widows. What does it mean to ἐπισκέπτομαι a widow? The word is used 11 times in the New Testament per link here and while I'm no Greek scholar, I'm not getting "wedding" out of those verses. But 1 Timothy 5:11,14 does make the point that younger widows are advised to marry again as FollowingHim (and Steve) said at link here. I've totally been missing that verse!! Thanks FollowingHim and Steve!

...if the only reason you can see for marrying, either first or subsequently, is uncontrollable lust, please let us know how that works out.

LOL, it would go poorly! I don't think I used the words "uncontrollable lust" because Paul's clearly not talking about uncontrollable lust in 1 Cor 7:8-9. For Pete's sake, just a few chapters later Paul writes the famous verse, "No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able..." 1 Cor 10:13

Btw, why do you find it so distressing that there are no verses supporting monogamy as the only acceptable choice?

I'm distressed there's so few verses supporting marriage in any form! Since about 60 to 70% of us have been married (and probably higher marriage rates in the church) I'm blown away there's just a few passages proactively recommending it!

 

[JustAGuy]

Everything pre-Abraham is not controversial....

I wish this were so but there's a number of things that were true in the first chapters of Genesis that aren't now like:

• 
  • Animals were described as clean and unclean prior to Abraham in Genesis 7:2-3 but this no longer holds (I Timothy 4:1-5)
  • People made offerings to God prior to Abraham (like Abel made an offering from the first born of his flock in Genesis 4) but Jesus is our final offering and we no longer need to make animal offerings.
  • God commands us to be vegetarians (Genesis 1:30) then undoes the rule allowing us to eat meat too (Genesis 9:3).
  • God creates us naked (Genesis 2:25) but then cloths us (Genesis 3:21). BTW, Genesis 3:21 is one of my favorite verses in the Bible.
  • There's no record of Adam and Eve ever having children (or consummating their union?) till after they were outside the Eden. Does this mean we shouldn't be having sex? Oh dear, really like that part of my marriage!
  • We were to be eating from the tree of life... (So we should try to find the Garden, overpower the angel guarding it so we can keep eating the fruit? God never told us to stop eating it, just made it really hard for us to get it. So the earnest Christian should try and get back to the Tree of Life, right? Sorry, that was terrible.)
  • Resting on 7th day e.g. observing the sabbath...

This just means we can't uniformly take the guidance from the OT (including pre-Abraham) and apply it to us here in a NT world wo/really careful study.

 

[JustAGuy]

...if two people were attracted and free to marry, they could, or for any other reason...

Oh my goodness, totally agree! Doesn't seem like we need to justify anything anymore, right? Didn't Jesus do that on the cross? Didn't Jesus come to make our burdens easy, to give us rest, to make our lives abundant?! We're free! And technically aren't all things are permissible (1 Corinthians 6:12)? And isn't anything (including monogamy!) not done in faith sinful (Romans 14:23)?

This thread isn't for me as much as it is for my friends struggling with PM much like the early Christians struggled w/meat offered to idols.

 

[JustAGuy]

Sorry for slew of posts - was out of town on vacation. Yeah!

 

[JustAGuy]

Summarizing the thread there's 3 specific encouragements in the New Testament for getting married:

1. Marrying your brother's childless widow (Luke 20:27-39, Matthew 22:23-30) (this is referred to as yebamot and there's a interesting write up from the Jewish point-of-view on Wikipedia at the link here.) I digress but the goal of yebamot wasn't only to care for the immediate needs of the widow. It was also to preserve the assets/estate of the deceased brother by passing it on to her children. In other words, the assets of the deceased brother were to be given to the resulting children - not taken by new husband. Application: If I marry a previously-married woman I should probably be careful to preserve her existing assets.

2. Distracting sexual urges such as described in 1 Corinthians 7. These urges are described as πυρόω literally fiery which are difficult to control because of lack of ἐγκρατεύομαι literally physical strength.

3. If you're widowed, and you're under 60 (1 Timothy 5:11,14). Interestingly the reason for the remarriage isn't necessarily to care for the day-to-day needs of the widow but rather to remedy the young widow's καταστρηνιάω literally sexual desire which makes sense - we'd assume she'd have sexual desires because of #2 above.

I think it's fair to add there's a plethora of marriage celebrations in the New Testament and I don't believe any are discouraged but this isn't a specific encouragement to get married, only that when we do, it's worthy of a bash

Am I missing any?

 

[steve]

I'm distressed there's so few verses supporting marriage in any form! Since about 60 to 70% of us have been married (and probably higher marriage rates in the church) I'm blown away there's just a few passages proactively recommending it!

you do realize that breathing isn't mentioned a whole lot either, but I am sure that YHWH considered it to be imperative.

ever consider that you just might be over-thinking the whole concept of marriage a tad bit?

 

[FollowingHim]

Everything pre-Abraham is not controversial....

I wish this were so but there's a number of things that were true in the first chapters of Genesis that aren't now like:

• 
  • Animals were described as clean and unclean prior to Abraham in Genesis 7:2-3 but this no longer holds (I Timothy 4:1-5)
  • People made offerings to God prior to Abraham (like Abel made an offering from the first born of his flock in Genesis 4) but Jesus is our final offering and we no longer need to make animal offerings.
  • God commands us to be vegetarians (Genesis 1:30) then undoes the rule allowing us to eat meat too (Genesis 9:3).
  • God creates us naked (Genesis 2:25) but then cloths us (Genesis 3:21). BTW, Genesis 3:21 is one of my favorite verses in the Bible.
  • There's no record of Adam and Eve ever having children (or consummating their union?) till after they were outside the Eden. Does this mean we shouldn't be having sex? Oh dear, really like that part of my marriage!
  • We were to be eating from the tree of life... (So we should try to find the Garden, overpower the angel guarding it so we can keep eating the fruit? God never told us to stop eating it, just made it really hard for us to get it. So the earnest Christian should try and get back to the Tree of Life, right? Sorry, that was terrible.)
  • Resting on 7th day e.g. observing the sabbath...

This just means we can't uniformly take the guidance from the OT (including pre-Abraham) and apply it to us here in a NT world wo/really careful study.

OK, there are a few issues that can be raised there! However most aren't actually controversial to most Christians, most of us agree we aren't supposed to be naked or vegetarian or trying to find the tree of life. My basic point that Genesis 2 is a fine chapter to use still stands!

 

[Matrika52]

Reasons for getting married - how about totally freaked out

my late Husband only knew me 11 days when He told me He'd had a revelation that He was supposed to join my church (He was already a Christian) and marry me and we were going to do it - to which i said a feeble "what?" and HE SAID IT AGAIN, only added an "okay?" the 2d time

and i agreed - but i admit that at the moment i didn't think it would ever happen

and i have to admit that the Love of my life, at that moment, seemed a wee bit crazy to me

who'd have known that it would turn out in such a way that was, in the end, so simply marvelous. May He rest in peace!

i have no regrets - but that sure was a good way to shake this gal up. And it was a real rocky road until i got to understand the submission idea. But after THAT it was superb!

And Deborah, i don't know you or even your husband's name, but congratulations on your anniversary

more will be revealed and the best is yet to come - or so i hope for you both.
j/L "Granny" Matrika / Rolling Buffalo Woman

 

[JustAGuy]

Thanks so much to everyone who helped out on this thread - it was rather technical and heady and thus took a lot of your time - thanks so much for your generosity.

 

[Crossgeared Viking]

1. Having kids: No, in my opinion this is not a good reason generallly. While kids are indeed a blessing from God and certainly encouraged, it is not what marriage is primarily designed for. Besides, there are already plenty of kids who need parents but have none.

2. Companionship: This is what marriage was primarily dEsigned for in my opinion. Is that not the whole reason God made woman in the first place? Now this need not apply to all individuals, such as myself, but some people need a more immediate and physical relationship than what a walk with the LORD provides. For someone like me, it is not much of an issue since I've lived a rather socially sheltered life compared to other people. I've grown accustomed to and comfortable with more or less operating on my own and hence a relationship with YHWH is all I require on a personal level.

3. Physical attraction: I think I can safely say that America suffers from a bad case of Marriage Upon Infatuation and just as many divorces occur not long afterwards. This should not be an issue in the decision making.

As for my own contributions, I can certainly think of economic reasons to get married. The individual who is married tends to have a better chance of survival, depending on who he/she is married to, given two resource pools to draw from. This is not necessarily marrying for money, just choosing wisely. If you're going tO raise a family, you don't want a bum for a husband or a shopping machine for a wife do you.

An individual might also consider marriage in order to preserve a way of life. If you happen to be one of a dying breed searching for ways to forestall the extinction of your group and you come across "one of your own", it would be beneficial to both to marry and multiply. This of course would be marrying for kids and would be an appropriate application of that reason. This the only reason I can think of myself marrying.

I can think of one other reason that really has no motivation to it, and I can use my own parents as an example. They way they told was that they simply "clicked" when they first met and they instinctively felt "called" to marry. Neither felt particularly motivated to do so for any reasons that I can recall, they just both knew that's what they were meant to do. Some people call it Fate, but I think we can all agree that Fate is nothing less than the Spirit at work, and this certainly is a possible scenario.

That's my two cents.