The story is told of a newly hired cub reporter whose editor gave him the basic, classic instructions that he should always find out the answers to the five important questions for every news story: who, what, when, where, and why. He then added, however, “Almost always. The only newsworthy story for which you never ask ‘Why’ is a wedding.” While that seems to be good advice nowadays, God has given at least four very specific motives, or reasons, for marriage.
First, marriage provides companionship. All that we have seen brings new meaning to the words “an help meet for him” in Genesis 2:18, which many Christians do not really understand. The literal idea is “a helper suitable for him.” Originally, “help meet” was two words; today we consider it one, for the most part. “Help” meant what our word “helper” means, while “meet” literally meant “appropriate to, corresponding to, or approximating at every point.” So then, God made man a helper, a helper who approximates him, a helper who is appropriate and suitable for his needs.
I sure identified with a sign in a wallpaper and paint store that read, “Husbands choosing colors must have note from wives.” How true that is for me! If it’s not blue, then I don’t really care. If it weren’t for my wife’s knowledge, my clothes would never be coordinated. And that’s just one area in which she is a helper who is appropriate and suitable for my needs.
One Christian writer, says it well: “As a result of the creation order, men and women are oriented to one another differently. They need one another, but they need one another differently. The man needs the help; the woman needs to help. Marriage was created by God to provide companionship in the labor of dominion.” That says it perfectly! When we understand that principle, when we are related to our spouse as God has designed us to, we will see our marriages transformed.
Now couple that principle with the term “one flesh,” a term we find in Genesis and further along in Ephesians 5. This term does not refer only to sexual union, though that is involved. One way to think of this is in light of our word “everybody.” When we say, for example, “Everybody went to the church picnic,” we do not refer to literal “bodies,” but rather to everyone, that is, every person. That is what the Hebrew means. For example, when God says He will “destroy all flesh,” He doesn’t mean skin, bones, and so forth. He means that He will destroy every person. So, “one flesh” means one person, a whole person, a complete person. Two become one.
We should see in all this the fact that before marriage each of us was only half a person. As mentioned earlier, there will be those few who God empowers to remain single, but the general rule is marriage, and each individual is actually incomplete before that time. While that idea is violently apposed today—“I don’t need anyone else,” it is argued—such arguments are foolish because that one is incomplete without the other. That principle is at the heart of marriage—each is incomplete without the other; the two become one. The man brings strength and leadership into the “one person,” and the woman brings softness, nurturing, and other such qualities into the “one person.” Each half of the person complements the other half.
How foolish we are when we do not allow the qualities of our life mate to balance us out. Have you ever wondered why God never puts two similar people to together? Because if He did, one of the individuals would be unnecessary. Have you ever looked at your marriage and noticed that one of you likes to get up early while the other likes to sleep late, that one of you likes to stay up late while the other likes to go to bed early, that one of you has a good sense of direction while the other can’t find north with a compass, that one of you is a good bookkeeper while the other one isn’t, that one of you is a neat freak and the other a slob? Why are these and many other contrasts true? Because when you put the two halves together, you get a whole person.
What, then, is the end result? Not only does it make a complete, whole person, which is good for that person, but ultimately it brings glory to God. Mark it down: every Godly, successful marriage is a praise to God; it is a testimony, a proclamation to the world that God’s institution works. We’ll continue this first motive for marriage next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment