“The Fine Print”: Marriage Matters

This article is part of a series written by the Rev. Barton Gingerich entitled “The Fine Print”: Common-sense Expectations for Church Membership.

Marriage matters

Christians have one of two vocations in this life: marriage or singleness. Both of these callings offer challenges and opportunities (cf. 1 Corinthians 7:1-16). An unmarried Christian is able to take on work for the Kingdom of God without the responsibilities of a spouse or children. The challenge, of course, is that one can become so solitary as to become isolated and lonely when in fact all Christians are called to bonds of loving fellowship. Similarly, a single person may deal with anxiety about their future. Who will take care of them in their old age? Who will tend to them if they become ill or injured? How does one prudently prepare for such emergencies while also casting all his cares upon the Lord? Has he fostered strong relationships within his family and his church to help mitigate for such issues in the future? Finally, all Christians–single or married–must avoid fornication and all uncleanness of living. The unmarried Christian must forego certain enjoyments that can be had only in the nuptial embrace, and that can be difficult.

By extension, in our day and age, many people aren’t married that probably should be. Cultural winds have shifted in such a way as to make the transition from single to married life very difficult. Careerism, the hook-up culture, and pornography have all kept far too many people from healthy relationships that culminate in the lifelong commitment to holy matrimony. Much in our society can inculcate selfish childishness rather than the self-denying maturity necessary for one to be “marriage material.” We have also lost the script for courtship, which was always an important aspect of shifting from single to married life, particularly in cultures that do not practice arranged marriages. Obviously, single Christians must flee the sinful desires of youth, even though our culture barrages them with temptations to lust and fornication. Hopefully, committed Christians can find each other and pluck up the courage to pursue those that might make a good, godly spouse. And fellow church members should probably think of ways to encourage and support those that wish to be married but aren’t yet. 

Meanwhile, those that are married face their own mission, which is to strive to establish and maintain healthy, virtuous marriages. Wedlock is an honorable estate, and a good marriage takes work from both parties. The Bible is clear: husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies and lay down their very lives for them, even as Christ did for the Church. And wives are to submit to and honor their husbands as the Church does Christ. These teachings are especially explicit in 1 Peter 3:1-7 and Ephesians 5:21-33. Husbands and wives should remember the three causes of holy matrimony as related in the Book of Common Prayer: to bring forth children in the fear and nurture of the Lord (which we shall cover more in depth later), to provide a remedy against sin and to avoid fornication, and to provide for mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity.

Already, as Anglican Christians, we butt up against many popular social conventions that reject  biblical teaching. Our world militates against male headship in the household, having drunk deeply from the wells of egalitarian feminism and outright androgyny, in which sexual differences are minimized or rendered meaningless. Such rejection of biblical truth finds vindication in abuses of the scriptural teaching, whether in passages being watered down or wielded to excuse cruelty or ineptitude. 

Our world has also taken on a contraceptive mentality, where children are to be avoided at all costs unless they are convenient–when there is enough economic stability, when parents have gotten to sufficiently enjoy their season of childlessness, and when perhaps they are looking for greater self-fulfillment in the trials and triumphs of childrearing if they don’t decide to choose the path of the DINKs (“Dual-Income, No Kids”). This recreational logic must be supplanted by a biblical procreational one–a logic of self-gift that brings forth life. It means welcoming children as gifts (and not guaranteed products, as the logic of IVF and surrogacy would have us mistakenly think). And children mean baptizing babies and committing to weighty vows at the font, catechizing them, training them up in the way they should go, and otherwise looking after their maintenance, protection, and education. Saying “yes” to marriage is saying “yes” to these potential burdens from the get-go.

Likewise, husbands and wives must deal virtuously with one another in all aspects of their relationship, not taking their cues from the deeply confused, hedonistic, wrathful, and prideful culture in which we find ourselves. The Lord lays claim to all of what we have and are, including the marriage bed. Sadly, if we bring sin into our marital relationships, it can fester rather than be amended. Likewise, if we conduct ourselves in an isolating manner, we will find ourselves lonely in a marriage. Too many thoughtlessly enter this holy estate with the notion that it will make their problems go away. Instead, the hard work of discipleship, repentance, and holiness remain. However, marriage can (blessedly) force us to confront those problems should they not be addressed before wedlock and to overcome them by the grace of God. But it doesn’t solve issues of sin by itself, and entering a marriage with serious sin brings misery not only on oneself but also one’s spouse, possible in-laws, and potential future children.

Similarly, husbands and wives must stick together until death do them part, through thick and through thin, for better and for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health. It’s a love that commits one to another–to seek that other’s good sacrificially, to give oneself to his wife or to her husband. And this does produce spiritual fruitfulness and can produce biological fruitfulness. This entails a willingness to work through problems, to confess sin and to forgive sin. 

Children that may come along must not edge out the marital relationship. The marriage is what brought the children forth in the first place, and it needs to continue even after they have grown up into adulthood. Husbands and wives must tend to their marriages, taking the time and effort to enjoy one another’s company, communicate, pray together, and otherwise build up a shared life as a team. In all this, they–cleaving together as one flesh–reveal the image of the Triune God. 

Sadly, marriages can face immense challenges, especially when grievous sins of adultery, abuse, or abandonment (particularly due to one spouse being a Christian and another never being a Christian or apostatizing). With these or any other marital problems, church members should not hesitate to reach out to the Church for help. If possible, reach out sooner rather than later–something that will be revisited in this series.