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Tag: wife

Covenant and Truth of Christian Marriage

Marriage: It should be so simple. Boy meets girl. Boy marries girl. Husband and wife make a promise “until death do us part.” They make a covenant, with witnesses. Confirm it publicly in a ceremony officiated by someone in authority. They speak vows of love (for better, for worse, etc.). They sign a covenant of marriage. They are pronounced husband and wife and go on their way to much celebration of this permanent union of love.

Simple and so significant.

“And they live happily ever after,” so the romantic story of love and marriage goes.

As Christians committed to one another (as is our focus here), the covenant and truth and the love of God, the love of all other Christians, and their pledged love for each other should be reason enough for them to celebrate anniversary after anniversary as one – anniversary after anniversary as one joined as one to Christ Jesus, our Lord.

… And they live eternally ever after…

So it should be…

Yet even Christian husbands and Christian wives struggle with the truths of marriage and the consequences of sin and divorce, just like anyone else.

So rather than glossing over the Biblical model for marriage (which we will address) and pretending that Christian marriages have it all “for better and for even better” (an unrealistic fairy tale of some ideal Christian preaching), we will address the history of marriage through both the Old Testament and the New and look at some realities in the marriages of Christians through the light of scripture.

Once upon a time, we could address the issues of marriage without having to define it; but in these post-Christian times it is best that we narrow our focus sharply on the Biblical.

Marriage: in the Hebrew, multiple uses: – `ownah – halal – yabam – ba`al – ‘iysh (husband) – ‘ishshah (wife)

I am least of those to define these. There may be more, but study these and their several, related scriptures and you will begin to have an Old Testament understanding of marriage. (Please add your Comment to our site of any insight the Lord gives to you.)

Marriage: in the Greek, the language of the New Testament: gameō – and the root word: gamos.

Again, look at the scriptures and context, which we will examine in more detail next week.

Hebrews 13:4

Let marriage be held in honor among all,

and let the marriage bed be undefiled,

for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.

Christian Marriage: To be continued…

March 15, 2014
Covenant and Truth – 2

Malachi 2

English Standard Version (ESV)

2 If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, says the Lord of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart…

10 Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?

Have you ever said to God: Where is Your justice?

Do you think that the Lord does not see the injustice done to you or the sin committed by you?

Why does the Lord not answer our prayers? (Surely God knows all truth.) Is God not going to seek justice for me?

Indeed God will judge. It is not a court (when books are opened) where you would dare to plead even your own case, let alone come to God as the plaintive about others.

In fact, God in several passages of scripture, pleads His own case to us; indeed, as warning against the same injustices we have committed against Him and against others. This is God’s plea through the Prophet Malachi. Hear the proceedings of our case:

The charges are serious. The consequences are eternal. The call for repentance is immediate.

13 And this second thing you do. You cover the Lord’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand.

14 But you say, “Why does he not?”

Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.

15 Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union?

And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring.

So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.16 “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts.

So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”

The Messenger of the Lord

17 You have wearied the Lord with your words.

But you say, “How have we wearied him?”

By saying, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice?”

And we ask for God to come and bring justice?

What were we thinking, without first bowing down to the will of Christ Jesus, our Redeemer by His Cross and our Judge Advocate?

Read Malachi 3 for further conviction, if need be.

Malachi 3:2 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?

NOT me; not without Christ Jesus as my Lord.

To be continued…

March 11, 2014
And they knew that they were naked

Genesis 3:7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.

SIN – Original Sin. Let’s talk about the relationship of man and woman. Let’s talk about the relationship of a husband and wife to God.

The question is always: Good or Evil?

Righteousness or Lawlessness? Obedience or Disobedience? God or Satan?

We are free to choose in each circumstance of life.

What will it be: Life? Or will we choose sin and death?

Let us look back to the creation of mankind before sin and the consequence beyond.

Genesis 2

English Standard Version (ESV)

The Creation of Man and Woman

7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature (soul).

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

One Commandment. Do not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Why would you want to know that? God will tell you what is good. You have no need to know of evil. (Surely the angel Satan plots evil against God. Satan has already fallen from heaven as far as the earth, though this is yet paradise before sin.) “You will know good from evil, like God. Choose whatever you want. You do not have to obey God.”

18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

It is NOT good that a man should be alone, nor is it good that a woman should be alone. God creates a special intimate relationship. The KJV states: ‘ I will make him an help meet for him.’ That is: one who helps the man.

21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”

24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

The woman is NOT made from the dust of the earth, but from part of the man. She is near to him – part of him. And she is his helper.

Note now that the Bible calls the woman his wife. They were naked and were not ashamed. (It was not evil to be naked.) They were naked before God, in whose image they were made.

Enter Satan and evil (of which Adam and Eve had no knowledge). One commandment from God: Do NOT eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Simple. No other rules. Paradise! Obey God’s one rule and that’s it. The man and his wife had complete blessing from God and they knew nothing else.

Genesis 3

English Standard Version (ESV)

The Fall

3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”

Obedience does not require knowledge, only discernment to obey.

The tempter will always question God. “Did God really say…?” The tempter will always seek your disobedience to God’s will by causing you to question God’s motives.

Thy will be done? Yes but, MY will be done first! The sin of disobedience.

6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

The tree looked to be good for food. The fruit was a delight to the eyes. No, Eve was not blind prior to this, nor was Adam. They beheld the glory and beauty of each other. They beheld the glory of paradise, of all of the garden of God’s creation which they tended as gardeners or caretakers – God’s garden, with man the caretaker. Yet the only commandment of their Lord they willingly disobeyed: original sin.

And now, consequence.

Adam and Eve now know that their disobedience is evil. In fact, they see and know all good and all evil. They were naked and ashamed (perhaps not of the desirable site of each other, but certainly of being looked on by God their Lord and Maker).

They make excuses to God for their sin. (Sound familiar?) Then God pronounces judgment.

16 To the woman he said,

“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
in pain you shall bring forth children.
Your desire

(We are talking ‘sexual desire here.)

shall be for your husband,

(Perfectly natural: a woman for her husband and a man for his wife.)

But now, more than being his ‘help mate,’ the punishment of authority (since she did not accept God’s authority).

and he shall rule over you.”

17 And to Adam he said,

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife

(rather than obeyed the voice of God)

and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you…

This is the first use of cursed in the Bible in relation to man. The very first use was in the condemnation of the serpent. Good and evil; blessing and curse. We must hear much more of these in the Law, now that we have knowledge of good and evil. We must discern what is good to obey God and discern what is evil to avoid further sin.

Adam and Eve knew that they had sinned. Now mankind would learn the consequences of knowing good and knowing evil.

To be continued…

March 6, 2014