I Corinthians 12:31 (NIV) “…now I will show you the most excellent way.”

Rethink marriage from a Biblical perspective:

1) God has created us for relationships – A vertical relationship with God, and horizontal relationships with each other. 

 Genesis 1:27; Genesis 2:18, 21-25

2) Marriage can only be what God intended it to be when we allow Him to join us and have control of our lives and marriages. 

Ecclesiastes 4:12 “Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”

“The covenant of marriage is the single most important human bond that holds all of God’s work on the planet together. It is no small wonder that the Lord is passionate about the sanctity of marriage and the stability of the home. This covenant of marriage is based on the covenant God has made with us. It is in the power of His promise to her mankind that our personal covenant of marriage can be kept against the forces that would destroy homes and ruin lives.” 

–Jack Hayford

3) Divorce is not an option. 

Matthew 19:3-9, “Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” “Have you not read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female” and said, ‘for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two will become one flesh”? So they are not longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate. “Why then," they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not his way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.” 

4) Rejoice in the wife of your youth. Be captivated by her love.

Proverbs 5:15-21 “Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well. Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares? Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers. May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer – may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love. Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress? Why embrace the bosom of another man’s wife? For a man’s ways are in full view of the Lord and he examines all his paths.”

5) Marriage is to produce Godly offspring. 

Malachi 2:13-16, “Another thing you do: You flood the Lord’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer pays attention to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask, ‘Why?’ It is because the Lord is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is you partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. Has not the Lord, made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth. ‘I hate divorce,’ says the Lord God of Israel.”

6) God is more interested in our holiness than He is our happiness.

“The New Testament’s emphasis is not upon happiness but upon holiness. God is more concerned with the state of people’s hearts than with the state of their feelings. Undoubtedly the will of God brings final happiness to those who obey, but the most important matter is not how happy we are but how holy.”

-A. W. Tozer 

“I slowly began to understand that the real purpose of marriage may not be happiness as much as it is holiness. Not that God has anything against happiness, or that happiness and holiness are by nature mutually exclusive, but looking at marriage through the lens of holiness began to put it into an entirely new perspective.” 

-Gary Thomas 

7) God’s goal for our marriage is to bring Him honor and glory.

How are we doing?

Rethinking Marriage is about looking at marriage from God’s perspective, not ours.

It is about discovering God’s plan for our marriage and then living it.